May Be British were right...We are simply incapable of managing our own country

So after a good one year gap India is out again on streets for a right cause, up against an ineffective and indifferent government. Recent event in the national capital has hit where it hurts the most....in our collective conscience as an individual first and than as a society. 

Though as a country we are not new to gruesome crimes and specially crime against women, but brutality of recent #DelhiGangrape will remain with us forever. Nothing, we do on streets or write on blogs/twitter/facebook, can Undo, this inhuman crime and save us from sharing collective responsibility.

somewhere i think we all are directly or indirectly responsible for this tragic event and many more...as we have allowed our society to become what it is today. 

If we go by the current outcry and outrage may be this incident becomes a Tipping Point and we are able to mobilize our anger constructively towards building a better society. Utopia may just be an imagination and Indian Society may never become synonyms with Utopia but can we at least try and not be antonyms?

There are lots of suggestions floating in the digital world on how to make India safer for women, right from increased police vigilance to having lady bus conductors on night buses to death penalty for perpetrators of rape. Voice demanding capital punishment for rapes is getting stronger. I think reaction is natural because when human beings are provoked beyond a point violence seems to be the only solution. 

I think A logical mind will never subscribe to "An eye for an eye" argument but an angry mind will. I believe as a society we need to think better and do better. A good reference point is a scene in recent hollywood movie "Ides of March" when US presidential candidate played by Gorge Clooney is asked a question around death penalty. My apprehension is most of these suggestions only attack the symptom and not the disease. A solution without diagnosing the disease will only offer short term relief.

Sadly there is no reliable study/research done on this crucial subject. Its already understood well that rape is not only a Sex crime, it is revenge crime, it is a Power crime, it is also a crime of entertainment for many.
In even a larger context one can  argue that  rape is about "Mindset".

1. Mindset which makes one believe that it is ok to rape a women.
2. Mindset which makes one believe that he can get away with anything.
3. Mindset which further makes one believe that even if he couldn't get away, its Ok, as he has nothing to lose.

For point 1 we as a society should take responsibility. point 2 is indicative of Government's failure to create deterrent in terms of investigative and judicial system. Point 3 is about a society where a major fraction comprises of "people who have nothing to lose". This is a much wider concept and needs elaboration not suitable for this article. 

I am neither an expert in criminology, sociology nor in psychology. I think from a layman's perspective. So in my opinion an expert panel comprising criminologists, psychologists and sociologists will be better placed to study this issue in detail. A good starting point for the panel will be to study the past crimes and their perpetrators, study their educational background, socio-economic background, their moral beliefs, their religious beliefs. I am confident that some very revealing facets will emerge and THAT can become base for solution.

I think it is appropriate to mention as a last note, recent report on "Global Gender Gap 2012" published by World Economic Forum. "Global Gender Gap Index" is a framework for capturing the magnitude and scope of gender based disparities in different countries. India ranks a poor 105 in a study of 135 countries, while our earlier rulers UK from whom we won our so called freedom ranks at 18.
This obviously triggered Subject of my article. While it is premature to link this report with crime against women, but i think it will be interesting to figure out if there is any strong correlation between Ranking on this report and rate of crime against women in a particular country.

Why so much crowd in Ramlila Maidan?

THE PARADOX OF OUR AGE

We have bigger houses but smaller families;
more conveniences, but less time;

We have more degrees, but less sense;

more knowledge, but less judgement;
more experts, but more problems;
more medicines, but less healthiness;

We've been all the way to the moon and back,

but have trouble crossing the street to meet

the new neighbor.

We build more computers to hold more

information to produce more copies then ever,

but have less communication;

We have become long on quantity,

but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods

but slow digestion;

Tall men but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It's a time when there is much in the window,

but nothing in the room.

.......His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama

I couldn't find a better description of current times than the one above by His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama.

Entire nation, The politicians, religious scholars, social workers, intellectuals, are seemingly caught up in a long argument on corruption/Anna Hazare.....But this time around "Common Man" isn't only listening, he is talking (basically arguing)too..... Few years back I read a book by Nobel laureate Dr Amartya Sen "The Argumentative Indian"....I was wondering if it will make an interesting read in current scenario ....perhaps YES...go figure out...I have been reading views of eminent intellectuals on this issue for last couple of days and had opportunity to interact with some....some great articles which come to my mind written by , Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, Shobhaa De, Aseem Chhabra, Pratap Bhanu Mehta etc make an interesting read.  

Looks like common man is spoilt for choice...if you research a bit you will realize choice is not as simple as some people will have you believe that it is .....you are either "Pro Anna" or "Anti Anna"..... here is a quick list of possible camps you may want yourselves to get associated with ----------

1. I believe in Anna Hazare, the cause itself is secondary......

2. I believe in legally elected democratic government and its ways, there is no room for "Satyagraha" in modern India.

3. I believe in the "cause" (read corruption), who leads the crusade is immaterial. (not averse to Anna leading it, his clean image only makes the movement stronger)

4. I believe in the "cause" and "Anna Hazare" but what is he doing with likes of "Swami Agnivesh", "Bhushan Duo", "Baba Ramdev" etc 

5. I believe in the "cause" and "Anna Hazare" but does not believe in "proposed solution i.e. Lokpal Bill".

6.  I believe in the "cause" and "Anna Hazare" and "Lokpal Bill"

7. I believe in the "cause" and solution "Lokpal Bill" only if it promises to leave ME out of this (interesting camp for A Raja, Kalamadi and many more)

7. I am confused, i will go with the crowd

8. Somebody please tell me who is "Anna Hazare" and why so much crowd in "Ramlila Maidan"... isn't there still time for Deshara?

Now which camp do you belong to is completely your prerogative. And i guess there is nothing wrong with any of these camps as long as it is either just "state of mind" or translates into action which is "legal and constitutional". People gathered at Ramlila Maidan obviously make a statement on "lost faith on democratic institutions".  If you perhaps do a nationwide survey then, i will not be surprised if you can easily slice India into such small pieces or may be more......Actually I would love if any one of you could suggest few more possible camps.....

I have another interesting observation. We could also profile ourselves on the basis of the "cause" itself in different personality types --- 

1. I am only a bribe giver. I don't accept bribe. (read my earlier blog "corruption whose problem is it anyway")

2. I am only a bribe taker. I don't give bribe.

3. I do both.

4. I am a bribe giver (Honestly, i never had an opportunity to demand bribe...may be if i was in a position...well you couldn't be sure....power corrupts you see.....)

5. I do NONE.

Now hand on your heart...how many of us can claim to be personality type 5.... or worst, leave aside the past how many of us can at least vow that they would henceforth be type 5....anyways you can be of any one personality type and still be with either of the camps mentioned above....I only wish that at least our leader is type 5.....the kind of guts Anna Hazare has shown against the might of government , his personality type can easily be guessed....but that's for TODAY...sceptics would say who knows the future...ultimately POWER has power to corrupt...........

Bollywood coming of age...Intellectual value vs Entertainment Value

Three recent Bollywood productions got me thinking...what an amazing variety of cinematic experience is on offer from Bollywood....and surprisingly all three did pretty well at the Box office...The three movies i am referring to "Chalo Dilli", "Delhi Belly" and "Singham"....have completely different style of narrative, treatment and creative inputs (read actors/directors)...

while "Chalo Dilli" is a small budget road movie, with no big star cast to boast of and relies primarily on an excellent script and equally excellent acting by lead actors Vinay Pathak and Lara Dutta..."Delhi Belly" on the other hand, set in urban India is a black comedy...and best part is it is situational comedy...its easy to relate with characters in both these movies..."Singham" obviously is in a different league ...characters are larger than life...but it does appeal....Now i could be part of a small section of audience, who enjoyed watching all three...common perception is if you like uber cool "Delhi Belly", you cant like over the top "Singham"....anyways that's not the point i am trying to make...my point is explained below.....

There is always a thin line between being critical and being cynical (see how well they rhyme :) ) ...sometimes that line is breached and we deal with possibility of critics sounding like cynics (with reference to movie reviews).....I often read excellent commentaries on Indian issues by a US based Indian journalist Aseem Chhabra which  gets published every Sunday in MUMBAI MIRROR.....i wouldn't say that i am a fan but i must admit that his commentaries do offer a refreshing outside perspective (may be it has something to do with our fascination for anything foren...be it a suncream lotion or recognition of our art and creative geniuses)...so may be Mr Chabra has that unfair advantage of being a Indian journalist on foreign shore....

So coming back to the point, recently post release of Bollywood blockbuster "Singham", Aseem literally tore apart the movie and genre of Bollywood masala films in his weekly column in Mumbai Mirror....which left me thinking why do critics use different standards for analysing a bollywood movies vs a hollywood flick......i am particularly intrigued by use of different lenses by critics while offering reviews for hollywood/bollywood productions...so what if action is over the top..so what if background score is at your face...we call it bollywood action...one might want to call it bollywood masala which also works fine...after all we dont always want to watch "Intelligent Cinema" ....also at the grassroots of cinema is an artist's desire to entertain and audience desire to get entertained....so i guess as a critic when you write about a movie, first question to be asked is Does it entertain? and yes its a tricky one as entertainment can mean different things to different people....so one should look at target audience....and undoubtedly Box office collection can answer the first question to a large extent...a week after Aseem's postmortem of "Singham"...Indian newspapers were flooded with reports of "Singham making it to TOP FIVE bollywood grossers of all time along with 3 Idiots, Ghajini, Dabang etc.."  so ultimately Rohit Shetty and Ajay Devgan had the last laugh :)

 Doesn't Hollywood has a fair share of such so called "Action Masala" movies....what would you call a "Transformers series" or a "spider man"...not to mention mindless broomstick tricks series "Harry Potter"...which are given "cult movie" status by may be the same critics.These are Hollywood blockbusters and will remain so...because they have managed to strike a chord with a particular set of audience...if spiderman is larger than life so is Bajirao Singham (actually Singham is even better as he doesn't have to rely on borrowed spider web to beat up the bad guys :) ) ...so the message is its not always "Intellectual Value" of a movie a critic should be worried about ...look beyond and ASK is there an "Entertainment Value"...if yes then go ahead and don't be shy in giving stars....for who knows that could prove to be next top grosser of Bollywood...........

Corruption! whose problem is it anyway???

Well..Baba Ramdev finally ended his fast unto death....amidst controversy of course !...for the sake of argument lets just focus on the REAL ISSUE here....and keep Anna Hazare's or Baba Ramdev's aside.
so what are we really dealing with here ...CORRUPTION...and yes it does include grassroot corruption to which all of us are party to...haven't we participated in this great Indian tradition of corruption, in one capacity or the other??...well if you are born and brought up in india...at least i can't imagine anyone not having sweet or sour (depending on the situation :)) memories of either receiving or giving bribe.... a trip down memory lane....sarkari daftars...birth certificates...school admissions (dignified term "donations"), driving license...passport, ration cards, ..and most common if you are living in a city...Trafficwala's....so all those die hard supporters of Anna and Baba (including me) can anyone really claim that they have reached where they are (at times with that candle in their hand as mark of solidarity) without being touched by this modern demon called CORRUPTIONSURA....Oh! yes i know we do have a valid reason and a escape route...SYSTEM...

For the sake of argument lets also ignore this grassroot type of corruption...social activist claim that this will automatically disappear if we are able to successfully uproot corruption amongst powerful...people who are supposed custodians of law/values.....
now some interesting statistics to put things in perspective...i wasn't prompted to write this blog because of hunger strike of Anna Hazare or Baba Ramdev....something else caught my attention...few days back there was a news in leading newpapers quoting Income Tax dept reports suggesting a little over 10000 individuals file tax return of over 1 crore.....in a country of 1.25 Billion people its hard to imagine that only 10000 have annual income of over a crore. ...another contrasting report appeared a week later, India has 1.3 Lacs Dollar millionaire's (people having investible surplus of about 5 crore and more) ...little maths and guesstimation...we may be talking about more than 5 Lac crorepatis...and since data only deals with white measurable wealth so if we extend our maths a bit and include black crorepatis (not as in colour of the skin :) ...color of money..honey) ...then actual number of Crorepatis is anyone's guess..
Any takers for these numbers ???? if anyone of you come across any relevant research on this aspect do share.....
Also my guess is most of these 10000 individuals (unfortunate ones...probably with no escape route) will be poor salarywallas.... (poor not in literal terms ...of course if you earn a salary of over a crore than you aint poor :)    )....now if anyone has some data please share....
and one can be rest assured that not even a single politician (you see with all those allegations of corruptions running into thousands of crores) will be part of this elite but unfortunate club of 10000 people...
Three cheers for India Shining then...............

C'mmon stupid..lets talk

After a lot of procrastination and deliberation (which included creating different Blog IDs on different blog sites :) ) ..i think i am ready to write my first blog....well i guess firstly Google team will be quite happy that my months of research on chosing right blogging platform finally ended with blogger.com (Google platform) being the winner...(a disclaimer first that i am no expert in blogging so not sure if my opinion counts at this stage)...but as a first timer and a amature blogger i believe it to be the best...(of course my primary reason for chosing blogger.com is its ability to sync with my gmail account...
Mumbai just witnessed its first Monsoon showers ....mumbai rains are known to lift your mood and make you do strange things....may be this was the final push i needed to cut loose all inhibitions and start blogging...too much of thinking anyways doesnt take you anywhere its only actions which matter....as a matter of fact it also guarantees that i will at least continue my new found interest (i.e. it) till last shower of monsoon.... sounds little filmy isnt it ....remember gabbar...(jab tek tere pao chalenge...iski saanse chalangi...)....jab tek monsoon chalega mera blog chalega....uske baad kya hoga ??...only time will tell..
So HERE I AM....