When we fear...

They say age is just a number.

As I get to the big four O, I both agree and disagree.

I don't feel forty but I'm not as fearless as I was. 

It's all in the mind they say. But is the mind weary or are you willing to celebrate the glass half full?

The decade that just passed has been tumultuous. As someone who follows politics, regional and otherwise, I've been getting sicker.

Modi with his unique brand of statesmanship has done a fair enough sleight of hand tricks to retain the voting majority. 

We have morphed into a nation where freedom of speech has become a precious nonrenewable resource.
Like slow-cooked frogs, we neither have the muscle to rise up nor the money to keep our fight focused. 

As politicians openly campaign for violence against those who don't share their political enthusiasm, I lament.

I've stayed quiet for the better part of the past decade fearing frivolous lawsuits and death threats from people who don't believe in the basic tenets that made up our great country. 

Politicians will beat their chests with fervent patriotism and claim India has never invaded another country in history, but why invade when we can implode from within. 

To be fair, I like Modi's style of brute force statesmanship. 

I like how he is the hugging saint of politicians. 

I like how he has got people talking about India. 

I like how he can rally his troops just by using words. 

I like how he has the political will to get what he wants.

I like how he has the political majority to do what he wills.

I like how he is fiercely loyal to Gujarat.

I like how he is conscious of his image, political and otherwise.

I admire the Chanakya in him. 

But that's about it.

I don't like how he has dismantled our society, which was delicately held together by common complaints and joys of daily living. 

I don't like how he destroys his political opponents.

But that's not all...

I intensely hate how he can allow people to die. Yes, I have a strange sense of deja vu knowing how Modi feasted with Trump when barely a few km away, the city was burning. 

I am aghast at how he could allow people to kill each other and be silent about it. 

I am appalled at how he could allow politicians within his party to openly call for genocide and not flinch. 

I am surprised we haven't removed politicians who feed us with hate, while we arrest citizens who call them out.

As the country burns in pockets and patches of violence, our Premier is busy getting ready to win the next election, preparing for the next luncheon meeting with a foreign leader, or trying to schmooze another billionaire.

As Modi grooms his successor and India looks like it is doomed unless we rise in a way we haven't in 70 years, I am overcome with a sense of dread. 

The silver lining in the cloud is - Modi isn't the worst. We've got Shah coming in next. 

We've got golden girl Pragya Thakur.

We've got stud muffin Yogi Adityanath.

Can India survive the onslaught?

The irony in closing:

I am amused Modi had to build a wall to cover up slums from the sacrosanct gaze of the Don. After all, we were always told tall tales of his Gujarat model of progress. 

Well, atleast Don got his wall.

And I step into 40 with a sense of pending doom. With the way things are going, I may soon become the religious minority that our PM is trying to prosecute shield. 

“Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
where knowledge is free.
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection.
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it's way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.
Where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever-widening thought and action.
In to that heaven of freedom, my father,
LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!”

Dented and Painted [362/365]

Source: Shovonc's blog

Abhijit Mukherjee, his only claim to fame was that he is Pranab's son. Today, by virtue of a typical bout of 'verbal diarrhea' that affects Indian politicians, he is trending on social media.

While I agree to his description of protesters in Delhi and elsewhere, he crossed the fine-line of what not to say when he termed the women - 'highly dented and painted'.

More than a year ago when Team Anna took India by storm, millions joined his ragtag team of 'freedom fighters' and civil society champions, thousands lampooned the movement and laughed at the audacity of his vision.

We became intoxicated at the prospect of global recognition by hoping to imitate the Arab Spring.

One of the major reasons why I believe Anna failed is because he failed to make us feel the pinch that we had long become insensitive to. Unlike the times when Gandhi fought, we are living in a comfortable bubble. We don't want to be hounded and hunted for wanting to change.

When the 23 year old paramedic was brutally raped and left for dead by a deserted road, I wonder how many of us would have passed her by without helping.
The news of the brutal rape barely got any coverage in a leading newspaper down south on the 16th December. 
While the protests prove that we are not insensitive to the brutality that we read (yet), the fact that we allowed such a crime happen is evidence that we have cultivated men to rape and women to blame the victims for 'exposing' themselves to the crime.

We might hold candle light vigils and destroy government property but we are still Ugly Indians who will not hesitate to judge women.

Abhijit quickly tendered an unconditional apology that was 'not meant to hurt any particular section or any particular sentiment...'. Where do we get such contrite statements from?
Why do we tolerate such politicians any more?
If we expect our celebrities to behave in a way that befits our society, isn't it time we expect our elected representatives to be held responsible and accountable for what they say and do?

For a country that known as Bharat Mata, we sure have a sordid reputation with women.

Our trigger happy cousins [243/365]

Cultural references are funny and incredibly predictable.
Every time I speak to an American, one of the few things they confess is how much they loved 'Slumdog Millionaire'. They quickly followup with 'So is it like that in real-life too?'
But as cultural references go, the Americans are choc-o-bloc with some colorful past-times. If cross-continental car chases were in vogue, the past decade has been one of mass shootings. 

Igniting the debate on gun control was the midnight shooting of theater goers at the latest Batman sequel in July, the Gurudwara shooting earlier this month, the suited gunman who killed his former co-worker and now, the shoot-out at Texas A&M University.

Source: Gold is Money

Interestingly, gun control proponents like to point out that there is gun related violence even in states with tough gun control laws, I think the crisis is more endemic.

It could be a coincidence that there has been a spate of gun related massacres in the last couple of months and years, and the way I look at it, it is the result of a trigger-happy government that is unwilling to rein in their weapons manufacturers. The citizens of a nation emulate their leaders. When a country allows its guilty to amass obscene amounts of money and refuses to punish them when proved guilty, then the citizens of that nation will have no moral compulsions bribing and being bribed. When a country follows a global policy of bullying while selling arms and ammunition in the name of policing, then its citizens are brought to believe that guns are as American as apple pie.

In a twisted way, we are not very different from the Yankees. Both of our politicians are weak kneed and lily-livered puppets in the hands of powerful businesses and political handlers.
Touche`

The Pirates of Malabar [52/365]

Kollam, a sleepy town in the southern State of Kerala, is a town where her people are street smart yet naive. Like any other district in Kerala her people wouldn't mind traveling 5 hours a days if that means working in a dead end government job with lots of 'benefits'. A town where you can still live a fantastic life with Rs 5000 (approx $100).
I've seen this sleepy fishing hamlet metamorphose into a town and then a city while struggling to retain it's roots.
While Kollam has managed to gain notoriety for a lot a reasons in the past couple of years, the morning of 15th february was going to bring the limelight back to herself.

Unnatural death sells news. Always.
In this case, we have an Italian super-tanker passing through international waters mistaking a motorized fishing boat and its unarmed crew to be armed pirates, firing and killing two fishermen (Read the headline-making news here). 

While we can safely predict that this will soon become a Malayalam super hit movie in a few years, possibly starring aging Mollywood's Arnold Schwarzenegger - Suresh Gopi, we need to sit back, lay down that newspaper, close our eyes and think.

We have a weakened Italy, that has been battered, bruised and begging for Euros fighting India on technicalities.
Ofcourse, India is no saint herself but most Indians are too stiff lipped to admit that we need to be graceful in dealing with these killer Marines.
But again, that's not the point either.
I am amused at how swift the government, the judiciary and the executive has been in apprehending and bringing the visibly disturbed killers to justice. While we ignore the pleas and the suffering of the millions who are either killed by civic apathy, prosecuted by archaic rules, or those who are simply homeless because the government is too big an entity to bother about every single individual, I wonder why all the haste with this incident.
Surely, the Italians have erred greatly and are repentant for what can be termed as a hit and run, but in an uncanny way, the Indians are enjoying their role of being morally correct.

While the Indians can argue about their right to prosecute and rightly so, I fail to see how any of this will be good for us in the global theater of diplomacy. Prosecuting the hapless Italians could forever be the speck in the diplomatic eye of both the nations. Ofcourse, Kerala has lost two of her most talented tuna fishermen (pun intended) but don't we have enough Malayalis working as slaves in the Middle East to care about? I've seen and heard of thousands of Keralites who sell all their belongings, savings and everything in between just so that they can go to the Gulf and work as bonded laborers. Nearly all of these get to visit their homes only every five years, that is if they are not already imprisoned and still have their passports with them. But ofcourse, our great big benefactor - the motherland of India - does not need to know how her slaves live as long as the billions come rolling in.

So what really matters is money. Lots of them.
While the two fishermen lost their life for the culinary delight of their countrymen, their families have wisely decided to milk the cow while it's still standing. Each of the victim's families have filed a petition seeking damages of about Rs 1 crore (About $200,000)!
Those fishermen were worth more dead than alive
Couple of questions came to my mind:
I wonder who gave the families the idea of asking for 1 crore? How did they calculate the maturity amount so accurately?
I wonder how many ways that money is going to be split, if they get so lucky as to get it.
Does it really take Rs 1 crore to raise a child? I am pretty sure I didn't cost a crore to be raised.
And finally, I wonder if I will be worth that much when I am dead.

While the two governments and the Catholics are still squabbling over the Oopsie, I am quite sure the money is already getting spend.
Ka Ching!

Recommended Reading:

Wiki!

God's List [15/365]

When non Christians ask me; of all the things that the Bible teaches you, what is it that God wants humans to do.
I tell them; Love. Not the romantic love. Not the phoney love you have for that latest gadget from the fruit based computer company, but the love that God has for you.

In Leviticus 19:11-18, we see how God instructs his people similarly. He gives us the ten commandments.
Now, to most Christians, the ten commandments begins and ends with confirmation and the first holy communion. It is then repeated only seldom when asked. Not applied, mind you. Just repeated.

Without going into details, I can confidently say that any human being who follows the ten commandments is eligible for the infinite grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and our holy Father. That being said, this does not guarantee a VIP entry and special seating at the time of judgement. For Jesus has clearly told us that no one enters the kingdom of Heaven unless through Him (Read John 14:6).

While traditionally Christian countries in the west have been systematically wiping out all references to the Lord, in an effort to appear secular and popular, we have countries like India who have been making huge strides in Christian evangelism. I also see this as that phase of our life in this world where we as believers need to hold the Word closer to ourselves than ever before.

The ten commandments. It isn't a huge list. Ignoring it, however is a grave deed. 
Obeying it gets you into the line. But Jesus is your only turnstile, buddy.