16 May 2008

Believe It or Not

Posted by Oblivion in General | 8:23pm

A bottle of beer may cost half a billion dollars; by next week it could be a billion. Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe reached a terrifying 355,000% in March, with prices doubling roughly once a week. It is probably much higher now. In a vain attempt to keep up, the country has just issued a Z$500m banknote, which is worth some $2 (or less by the time you reach the end of this sentence). The billion-dollar note is surely on its way. After a decade of recession Zimbabwe is reaching all sorts of extremes: it has the fastest-contracting peacetime economy; its people are fleeing both repression and chronic hunger; life-expectancy is plummeting to the mid-20s. Despite all this, Robert Mugabe, the incumbent, expects to win a run-off presidential election on June 27th.

- Source: The Economist

Just the other day, I read how North Koreans (the poor ones, though), on the brink of a severe famine due to food crisis, have started trying tree-bark and grass for food. Although the inaction on the part of the government is understandable - due to its rigid foreign policies and cold international relations - yet it confounded me that situations test humans to the limit. All that superfluous gibberish about "collapse of barriers" notwithstanding, the world is still a definitely divided, apathetically disconnected place.

There certainly are quite a few "believe it or not" things happening in the big, insane, and horrible world out there! Only, they are rather chilling than exciting!

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13 May 2008

Looking for BoB

Posted by Oblivion in General | 9:32pm

The race for the Best of the Booker is into the final lap. Of the 41, the following survived.

Pat Barker's The Ghost Road
Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda
JM Coetzee's Disgrace
JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur
Nadine Gordimer's The Conversationalist
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

I'd have doubted the literary sensibilities of the jury if Disgrace hadn't made it to the shortlist. Having won the Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children is a strong contender. Rushdie has an advantage in that he has a stronger presence in media and is more famous among the circle of average readers for other reasons too. Now that the voting is open to the public to decide the winner, one has more reasons to believe Rushdie will win. For, most Indians will vote for him, driven by the obsession to flaunt the success of an 'Indian'.

However, I put my money on Disgrace. This masterpiece should win by a mile.

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8 Apr 2008

The Final Act

Posted by Oblivion in General | 10:22pm

The drizzle wouldn't stop and the evening turned gloomy. The sky darkened and it seemed a black curtain is enveloping the world and closing all the doors of escape. The odds for survival tended to nought. Sid, impelled to be engrossed in introspection, opened a random page in the notebook and wrote:

I feel odd. It's a coalition of disillusionment, disgust, guilt, angst, hatred, wrath, vulnerability, and utter misery. I don't know if there's any point in going through this. I fail to see where it all went wrong. Life gives me that sly smile, proud that His conspiracy went quite unnoticed by me. I stand still and admit I'm an invalid. I see no trace of hope and seek no compassion. Put me to the wall and shoot me in the head. My mere existence has become the cause of suffering for the ones I love.

Sid stopped writing. Briefly. His beloved little sister hadn't called him up in the last ten days - the longest time ever he hadn't heard from her. He found himself on the verge of a violent breakdown. He wanted to hold her hands and plead forgiveness. He wanted to tell her that he did nothing wrong, that he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But he knew she loves him so much that she would never demand or expect an explanation. 

He felt he wanted to write a few more lines.

In the last few weeks, even my best moves proved wrong. I will something and destiny wills otherwise. I feel awkward to admit, but there seems to be something called fate, after all. In such a case, then, do I still stand a chance to be the subject of my sister's love? Can the world - with all its wily and ruthless ways - fail to convince her that I am a brother who deserves to be kicked, dumped and forgotten? It would rather not.

So, disgraceful brother, off with you!

Can't I stop her? There are hundreds of them - cops, lawyers, neighbours, uncles, aunts - who would have stories to abase me, and I - alone, lost, and beaten - would have just tears. The world loves the spectacle of crucifixion, and it spares no chance. It matters not who is true; all that matters is whom she believes, at that deciding moment, is true - me or those respectable bastards. Am I destined to lose?

Suddenly, writing became a tiresome deed. Words dried up and hand refused to obey. Dysfunctional consciousness, he termed that state of mind. He doubted if he has the tendency to force himself into messy situations. He often sought an answer for the question - "Who is more powerful - an individual or a situation?" It occurred to him again, but the answer remained as vague. He turned to the diary.

As to the answer, it depends, to my mind, if chance is with you or not. It's so very easy to be convinced that one is the master of his fate when it's all going for you. If that is indeed true, what are the odds that every one of the six million Jews had failed to exploit their mastery to evade giving in to that insane despot? Or, closer to home, would millions let the State to have absolute control over their fates? For decades and decades.

Digression. The sign of a wavering mind. Pointless rambling. Gossip with the self. The onset of insanity. He didn't care much and continued writing. The last few lines.

It sucks. Life sucks. Whether one thing is right or another, whether I win or lose, whether I survive or get eliminated, it's all pointless. But life itself is. And so, too, is death.

Sid looked at the pistol for a few seconds. Perhaps to be sure if he indeed wanted to do it. He felt indifferent, as if he was inebriated and shooting someone else. No trace of crippling fear or fleeting sympathy or uncontrollable rage. Holding the pistol in a firm grip, he felt the metal against his skin, just above the corner of the right eye, closed his eyes and did it.

Bang. Blood.

Dead. 

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14 Mar 2008

Life, Outsourced

Posted by Oblivion in General | 1:35pm

"I want to outsource my life. Any takers? Call me on ----------" read the ad. Sid wondered, as he perused with care, if anyone would be up for the cranky deal. Being quite sure that his decision to give this ad will prove futile, he, at the same time, entertained a faint hope that some young man, driven by oppressive ennui or thrill for adventure, will bother to call him up. He waited. Rescue acts demand patience. Ruthlessly, at that.

With every fleeting minute, his hope dwindled.

The phone rang. The young man - the saviour! - was keen. The initial exchange of words over, and the chap put the most important question. "What's in it for me? What's the deal?"

"A loving family, comfortable lifestyle, a few brothers and sisters who adore you, some great buddies, a huge collection of books and music, 100% of my financial assets and 70% of my earnings hence, a few old flames, twenty-odd crooked, vile, scheming relations", Sid allowed a pause, and then added, "and a hopelessly screwed-up situation".

"Not bad", the young man sounded firm. "What's with the situation? How risky?"

"Let's just say you can be eliminated. But don't worry. I will take over at that point. I'm rather outsourcing only the intervening time. Between the moment you sign up the deal and that when life prepares for the final kick on your butt".

"If I have nothing to lose, I shouldn't be worrying too much. Doesn't sound bad, after all, for me being you for a few months or years. Who knows, I might handle the situation with a smarter approach and not let it turn worse. Or I might make it more messy, but you will take the bullet anyways when it comes to that", the young man analysed.

"What's in it for you?" he asked curiously.

Sid pondered. "I don't think I know. I'm perhaps tired or done with life. I just want to be off, sit back and watch someone live my life till that fateful moment. That's all I care at this point".

"Fine. I am in. Keep the agreement ready".

Sid could not believe that deliverance has beckoned him so soon. Delight possessed him.

A thunderous roar echoed in the confines of the room. The power came back and the idiot box yelled without haste. Sid woke up with a start, and the beloved dream, swift in foot as ever, fled without a word. The unforgiving monster - Life - stared him in the eye and held him by the neck. "Not just yet, boy!" His glance suggested.

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29 Jan 2008

The Quest

Posted by Oblivion in General | 9:48pm

"Everything is inconsequential", the master said, his senile face radiating youthful aplomb.

The young disciple responded with a smile. "Thank you", he uttered softly and walked out.

The teaching was complete.

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24 Jan 2008

The State and We

Posted by Oblivion in General | 7:45pm

Every account of the origins of the state starts from the premise that "we"—not we the readers but some generic we so wide as to exclude no one—participate in its coming into being. But the fact is that the only "we" we know—ourselves and the people close to us—are born into the state; and our forebears too were born into the state as far back as we can trace. The state is always there before we are.

(How far back can we trace? In African thought, the consensus is that after the seventh generation we can no longer distinguish between history and myth.)

If, despite the evidence of our senses, we accept the premise that we or our forebears created the state, then we must also accept its entailment: that we or our forebears could have created the state in some other form, if we had chosen; perhaps, too, that we could change it if we collectively so decided. But the fact is that, even collectively, those who are "under" the state, who "belong to" the state, will find it very hard indeed to change its form; they—we—are certainly powerless to abolish it.

It is hardly in our power to change the form of the state and impossible to abolish it because, vis-à-vis the state, we are, precisely, powerless. In the myth of the founding of the state as set down by Thomas Hobbes, our descent into powerlessness was voluntary: in order to escape the violence of internecine warfare without end (reprisal upon reprisal, vengeance upon vengeance, the vendetta), we individually and severally yielded up to the state the right to use physical force (right is might, might is right), thereby entering the realm (the protection) of the law. Those who chose and choose to stay outside the compact become outlaw."

- Excerpt from Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year

The reader in me will be heartbroken and shattered when this man stops writing. If sanity is one's priority, he must read Coetzee. 

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31 Dec 2007

AD 2008

Posted by Oblivion in General | 9:17am

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20 Nov 2007

Septalogue

Posted by Oblivion in General | 7:32pm

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26 Oct 2007

Precisely

Posted by Oblivion in General | 10:38pm

Politics: 'Poli', a Latin word meaning 'many'; and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.

- Robin Williams

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13 Oct 2007

Barefoot

Posted by Oblivion in General | 6:44pm

The lonely poet wondered,
"Life is drifting nowhere
Or, am I?"
Nobody heard his words
No answer came forth
 
The evening was sombre
And the sky murky
The bird refused to fly
The lute would not play
And his heart knew no quiet

He walked out barefoot
To the waters of the sea
The sand beneath danced;
With a flutter of its wings
The bird took to the skies

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3 Oct 2007

The Shrink

Posted by Oblivion in General | 1:53am

The knock on the door is firm and loud. Steve, tucked in the comfort of the couch and inattentively watching a talk show, gets up with a start. Holding the remote tight, he hurriedly rushes to open the door. The familiar knock repeats. "Coming", Steve says, even as he pulls the bolt. On the other side of the door, standing with an air of nonchalance is a young man - must be in his late-twenties - with a firm look, unkempt hair, and a faint smile. "Hey, Sid!" Steve reaches out to embrace. The big smile on Steve's face suggests he is quite happy to receive the visitor. "Long time, Mr Buddha! What sermon kept you busy?" Steve asks in jest. "A long, aimless wandering, Mr Freud", Sid replies with a quick smile. A good laugh and they walk in.

They walk past the spacious hall and into Steve's room. Elaborately furnished, neatly maintained, the room is more than adequately ventilated. Sid settles on the couch. Steve reduces the volume of the TV set, throws the remote to Sid, and takes the chair beside. "Ecstacy! The scent of books!" Sid says with a deep sigh. "Keeps me going", Steve is pleased. Pointing toward right, he says, "There... a new addition to the treasure. First editions of all Booker winners". Sid looks with admiration at the bookshelf that Steve proudly refers to as "Nirvana". 

Steve is curious. "How is yours coming along? The Exile? It has already been three months since they sought the proposal and..."

Sid doesn't let Steve finish. "Ah! The lazy bums don't cooperate. I'm off to Ladakh next Saturday. For six months. 180 days. Will do it there. Hopefully."

"Ladakh? 180 days! What's the matter?" Steve arranges the ash-tray for Sid. "What about the job? Quitting? And mom? Doesn't she think it's a crazy idea?"

"As if she doesn't know I'm not made for anything better!" Sid laughs. "I'm a misfit from the minute I was born."

"Will you fit in Ladakh?" Steve mocks.

Sid is composed. "The job... damn it. It was always just an exercise to earn a living. Just. Slog the ass off, endure the fakes and lies, talk some shit, pay the bills... It met the expenses, and it worked well. Having some bucks in the bank feels nice, but it's not much when life weighs heavily on you." Neither his demeanour nor his tone suggests he is cynical; it's just the indifferent anguish of a person who feels the run of life is destitute of all meaning. "I need a break, Steve! Want to go to some place where I'm a stranger, and everyone minds his own business..." Brief scenes of an office bash flash before his eyes - loud, indulgent and deliberated events where camaraderie is thrust upon one. He remembers those with discomfort and if asked to describe, he would say, "exchange of fake gestures: the nadir of civility".

Sid looks at Steve who is intently listening. "No mobile phone, no internet, no identity cards, no passwords, no security checks... I want to be in a place that doesn't make me feel claustrophobic... a place where suspicion is not the default feeling, where they are not obsessed with identities and gossip."

After graduating in economics and doing masters in management, Sid took up a lucrative offer. He doesn't hold success or qualifications in high esteem. He finds motivation sessions boring, partying pointless, and detests the idea of reducing an individual to a collection of attributes - grades, passwords and numbers. He doesn't buy any management talk. Start briefing the secrets of success and he would say, "absolute bunkum". Any flattering references to "will power" or statements like "nothing is impossible" irritate him. To his mind, they are, along with the idea of freedom, just myths sold in democracies to sustain free-market economies, international relations, and the systems themselves. He doesn't quite enjoy life in cities. It's like "living in a laboratory environment, monitored by every group you belong to - family, company, state", he wrote in his last month's essay for a newspaper. "Every damn thing you do is tracked!" he mentions often. "I feel I am living in a gas chamber, condemned to a slow death and compelled to believe this is the best one can have!" So, he doesn't find it queer when he so earnestly wishes to go to a place that is far removed from anything that is a city.   

Steve is amused. "Is everything OK?" A brief pause. "Take a craft and go to some other planet. Here, no escape, my dear! You are homesick for a non-existent home."

Sid looks at the meticulously framed photograph of Freud's, decked on the writing-table. "What does your guru say?" He chuckles. "I'm the subject on the couch now. Effect of a repressed libido? Acute social anxiety disorder? Withdrawal symptoms because of a strained relationship with Dad when I was a kid? Plain aversion that is a displacement of the fear engendered due to..."

"Enough!", Steve cannot contain his laughter. "There's more to that man than just the keywords that superficial readers refer to - sexual repression, childhood experiences, Oedipus complex, etc. And, yeah! they all know he was a psychoanalyst! But nothing beyond that, do they?"

Sid looks at the photograph again. "He looks like a loner."

"He was", Steve assures.

"With all due respects. The idea of analysis puts me off. Interesting exercise, but takes one nowhere. Three or four sessions, and you crack the cause, tell the chap... but he remains as fucked up. Right? Now he has the additional load of remembering the cause, and there's no guarantee that it's correct!" Sid wonders.

Steve is focused. "It fixes their guilt. Most people are happy living with justifications and rationalizations. So, there! Anyone who is more intelligent than that doesn't need a shrink. He becomes a Freud himself. But then, such souls are rare. Right?"

"I envy you shrinks. You make a living out of knowing people's most intimate secrets." Sid sports a sly smile.

Steve is quick to rebuke, "that's what your Intelligence fellows and Googles do. Covertly, at that! They collect; we just drain."

"Point!" Sid agrees.

Sid and Steve have been friends for decades. They grew up, studied, traveled, tried booze together. They disagree on many issues, but discussions move easy between them. Neither believes in the power of argument, though. "A useless intellectual exercise. Nothing more", they opine, for their experience has convinced them that "talking to an adult is like talking to a wall".

Imagination beckons Sid. "Think of it. A place like Lisbon. Bright morning, lazy day, a long stroll in desolate but beautiful streets, enjoy a drink, dance with a dame, listen to the mesmerising Fado, and hit the sack! I'm sure there are a few places where I can feel at home."

"May you find one!" Steve gets two glasses of drink and hands one to Sid. "How did mom react when you told her about your plan?"

"Cheers!" a soft clang of two glasses.

Sid gulps a sip. "Not easy to convince her. Quitting a nice job and going to Ladakh for six months... without a purpose... no job... she thinks it's a crazy move. Probably it is, but I must go." Steve nods to say, "if that's what you want". Sid continues, "It could be tough, for I have never been away from mom for more than a week... but six months should be over in a flash. I got a reluctant 'yes' from her finally". Sid looks at the drink, now looks at Steve. "I'm sure she'll grill you when you meet her next, to find the reason for my decision." His smile widens. "Very best!"

"Will take that", Steve is confident. Both are thinking, but it's an easy calm that prevails. The TV set is vying for attention, but in vain.

"Can't live without her; can't live with her either! I now appreciate better your explanation of ambivalent feelings", Sid confesses.

"Nothing wrong. It's a fallout of living in compartments. She in hers, you in yours. Different priorities, different preferences... Enforcement, resistance... A few moments of togetherness, and then things go wrong. The story in every home. Most people put up with..." Steve appears to make Sid feel better.

Surprisingly for a professional psychoanalyst, Steve is amiable, patient, and courteous. He doesn't think high of erudition or have many ambitions - the traits that he shares with Sid. He had been living alone ever since he lost his parents to an accident two years ago. He dated a few women, but never thought of getting married. He deplores that an institution that mistakes copulation for love has so thrived. "Not for me a relationship that comes with cops and lawyers in the backyard", he tells Sid's mom - who fondly refers to him as her elder son - whenever she discusses marriage.

Sid leans backward into better comfort. Steve pours more drink into his glass. A butterfly flies undecidedly and its shadow grazes across Freud's face for a fleeting moment.    

**************

Sid puts the unfinished cigarette on the ash-tray. A faint whiff of smoke rises, spreads and dissolves into the tranquil space inside the room. Not a word has been exchanged in some time. The strong odour of burnt tobacco overpowers the soothing scent of books. "Geeta doesn't care if I go", Sid says, not particularly bothered if Steve is listening to or not. He doesn't care if Geeta is for or against the decision himself, but he thought he'd let Steve know all the same.

"Geeta!" Steve is taken by surprise. "I thought it was over with her! You e-mailed her?"

"I told her when we met last evening", Sid clarifies.

"You met her? Last evening!" Steve is overcome with disbelief. "What did you try? One of those hallucinogens?" Steve, suggesting he's amused, asks.

"What do you mean?" Sid is dismissive.

"How do you explain it, else? You just said that last evening you had met someone who doesn't live here!" Steve elucidates.

Sid is not amused, though. "Last evening. 7PM. Blue Fox." He insists.

Steve leans forward in his chair. "Just the other day she told me she's having a great time in Ireland and that it'll be another three months before she returns. And you tell me she spent last evening with you!" Steve's face reflects confidence and incredulousness.

"She was with me last evening", Sid reaffirms.

"DELUSION!" Steve replies. Strongly. "You are deluded."

"Who is not?"

"That's a different point, Sid. You haven't finished with Geeta. You still think of her, don't you?" Steve is emphatic. "I met ..."

Sid cuts in. "You must believe me, Steve. I was with her at Blue Fox..."

Steve doesn't pay heed. He continues, "I met Agastya last evening. Of all people, he should know best if Geeta is in town. He's her brother and she adores him. HE told me she's coming back only after three months."

"Well, I can't refute", Sid admits. At the same time, he is not giving up. "But I can be sure of my experience. I wasn't fucken drunk!" he attempts to explain. "And you know I never tried drugs".

"Psychological drugs. Obsession is a very strong psychological drug. Idee fixe!"

"Come on, I was never obsessed with Geeta. Most definitely not after the break-up", Sid reflects. "Yes, we had a great time. She was as talented with moves on the bed as she was with words when penning critiques".

Steve can't help smiling.

"I liked her... we had a great time... my essay on consumerism irked her. She thought it was regressive, categorized it as immature rubbish, realized she doesn't like me anymore... and she walked away", Sid elaborates. A quick reference occurs, for no apparent reason, to him: 'like-lice-lick-luck-fuck'.

Sid believes consumerism is a dictatorial regime and that Geeta is a product of consumerist culture. In the essay, he dismissed, among other things, green consumerism as a fad and condemned it as a capitalist movement driven by political interests. Geeta didn't quite like the outright condemnation of the concept that she had been, for years, actively promoting.

Steve adds, "Yes, and she left all the way for Ireland. And, last evening, my dear, she was still in Dublin. Perhaps downing a drink in one of those 2000 pubs, in conversation with a James Joyce Jr!" Both find the idea fascinating, if only for a moment. "Let's come back... the point is - she was NOT with you last evening." Steve notices that Sid finds this incredible. "You may not like her anymore, but you still think of her... maybe it's those moves on the bed", Steve winks and laughs. "She's gone, Sid, she's gone". A quick reference occurs to Steve too: 'like-line-lone-gone'. For no apparent reason.     

Sid feels cornered. "So you tell me that my experience is false? Just a dream? A waking dream?"

"You experience is not fasle. Its content is. The projection of the subconscious replaces what reality presents you with. Perception is distorted and you then live your dream."

"Not for hours together! Even your theories say so!" Sid is dismissive.

"Indeed! But that's because of the lack of enough case studies. Absence of evidence is not same as evidence of absence. On the other hand, delusions can last for a lifetime, but those belong to a different realm altogether".

The quote sounds familiar. "Taleb? The Black Swan?" Sid is quick to note.

"Yeah, yeah! That's some memory!" Steve appreciates. He doesn't allow digression, though. "Hallucinations can last longer than it has been believed".

"I still find it ridiculous to doubt my experience for its veracity. I remember it so damn clearly!" Sid insists. Hesitantly, he adds, "assuming it was a delusion, what must've caused it? I never had a fixation for her".

"Pathology is not so easy to crack. Lots of things need be considered. Carefully. That you remember an experience clearly doesn't prove that its content is true. For the chap who lives the experience, it could be very real. Yet, its content could merely be his own projection", Steve explains further. "If you want to see God, you will. No big deal."

Sid is beginning to follow Steve.

"Maybe you want to tell her, 'OK, I am off. Get me if you can'? Or, you may just want to meet her and have a nice evening... enjoy a drink, finish a delicious dinner, and make love", Steve is curious. "And as you don't e-mail her, and there's no other way to let her know, fancy is the only way. You project the subconscious hint, and the experience strengthens the subconscious further".

Steve is a cautious self when unraveling. His thinking and talking become slower and gestures become more expressive. "After all, she left you without a tear or word. She took a strong exception to your essay, penned an unforgiving review, and that was that. So, maybe you see a point to settle with her".

Sid is now bothered by doubt. He is trying to recollect everything that happened last evening. Importantly, he wants to know where he was and with whom.

Steve leans more forward. "It isn't necessary that reasons need be obvious. They could be most bizarre. Besides, it may be..."

A loud sound disturbs the intentisy of the conversation and the stillness of thought. It's a knock on the door.

**************

The knock on the door is loud but feeble. Steve, cursing the unexpected visitor, gets up with a start. Holding the fists tight, he hurriedly rushes to open the door. The unfamiliar knock repeats. "Coming", Steve says, even as he pulls the bolt. On the other side of the door, standing with an air of impatience is an old man - must be in his early-fifties - with a bespectacled face, gray hair, and a courteous smile. "Postman", the visitor identifies himself. "Hello!" Steve greets him. "This one for you", the postman hands Steve a letter. Steve takes it, looks at the postman and says, "Thanks!" The visitor leaves, but not before saying "Good day!" with a smile.

Steve locks the door, and walks through the hall while ascertaining the address on the letter. He turns the letter back and notices, written in a neat hand, "From: Siddharth, Ladakh". He notices the date stamp. "Yesterday", he confirms to himself.

Steve halts in his walk. He tears open the letter. It reads:

Steve

Doing good? Just a note to tell you that Randomhouse has accepted the proposal for publishing 'The Exile'. Will be done with the draft in two months. Doesn't feel it had been four months since I arrived here. I must tell you, "Yes, I fit in Ladakh!"

Love to mom. Shall see you soon. Keep the welcome drink ready!

Cheers
Sid

Steve stands nonplussed. His heart is beating wild.

Holding the letter open, Steve walks toward his room. As he slows his tread at the door, a stark silence envelops the space. He walks in ever so slowly. A music video is playing on the TV set, with its volume muted. The black of the empty couch is stained by the silver of the remote. The ash-tray is lying untouched beside the frame adorning Freud's photograph. There's no trace of a whiff of smoke spreading the odour of burnt tobacco. The soothing scent of books remains the only companion to the chilling quiet in the air.

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23 Aug 2007

The Defining 70

Posted by Oblivion in General | 11:36pm

JWT announced, in December '06, 70 “in” products, services and trends that would help to define 2007. As the year approaches the end, it's interesting to see that the agency got most of those correct.

1. Skype/VoIP
2. Wii and the next-generation gaming systems
3. The business of social networking
4. Pop-up stores, restaurants and bars … installation style
5. Shrinky Dink technology (TVs are flat and hidden, iPods are down to half an ounce, speakers are smaller and less visible, and so on)
6. The rise of nanotechnology
7. Sustainable construction/green buildings
8. Hydrogen fuel cell technology
9. Veggie-bus: school buses running on biodiesel fuel
10. Trans-fat fallout
11. Reality show talent searches
12. Ohio State’s freshman basketball phenom, Greg Oden
13. Fear of agri-terrorism
14. Halal foods
15. Participatory advertising (user-generated advertising and music video competitions)
16. Premium-drink bars
17. Organic fabrics
18. Stem cell research
19. Iceland
20. Hybrid dogs
21. Locally sourced produce
22. Churchonomics: religion as big business
23. Reunions of donor insemination siblings
24. Hitting the off button: demanding downtime
25. Indian cross-over actress Aishwarya Rai
26. Home-schooling
27. Natural building materials such as stone and wood
28. Binge chilling
29. Personalized diets
30. Brand sluts
31. Modernized tradition
32. Chindia
33. Alpha moms
34. Internet TV
35. Citizen journalism
36. RSS feeds
37. Fresh Direct
38. Google domination (Google as acquirer, and Microsoft as Google follower)
39. Mobile video
40. Rachael Ray
41. Inconspicuous consumption
42. X-Factor’s Leona Lewis
43. Dreamgirls’ Jennifer Hudson
44. Environmental causes
45. Companies going green
46. Barack Obama
47. Soft, natural hair
48. Microgeneration (generating one’s own energy)
49. Party planning for teens
50. Paying for user-generated content
51. Higher-waisted pants
52. iPhone
53. Co-branding (think Nike plus Apple)
54. Britain’s Amy Winehouse
55. The rebirth of raves
56. Energy-saving lightbulbs
57. Sacha Baron Cohen
58. Mash-ups (music, Web sites, everything)
59. Japanese apparel chain Uniqlo
60. Promoting “Brand Me”
61. Ensemble TV casts (Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, Criminal Minds)
62. Multilingual cinema
63. “Kidults”
64. Transformers (the movie)
65. Web-based microfinancing
66. Generosity
67. Al Gore, the environmentalist
68. Unstrategic alliances (Paris and Britney, Tom and Brooke, Bush Sr. and Clinton)
69. Europeans getting fatter
70. Age shuffling (40 is the new 20, for example)

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17 Aug 2007

15 Seconds of Power

Posted by Oblivion in General | 11:50pm

As I reached the junction, I noticed a speeding Ambassador. A melodious number played on the stereo and I hummed along. Traffic was absolutely still on all sides. After an hour-long dreary drive among insanely chaotic city traffic, this moment looked like a blessing. A moment, I thought, that I should either seize without ado or miss for eternity. Without a blink of thought, I pushed the accelerator down and manoeuvred the car to follow the Ambassador.

The car in front seemed to be driven by Narain Karthikeyan, and the road was unusually empty, but I was too elated by the moment to discern the oddity. Still humming the tune as the car accelerated, I looked at the rear-view mirror and saw a few Ambassador cars following at as much speed. A second or two later, it occurred - with a stratling fit of coming-to-terms-with-reality - there was something distinctly different about the drive. The aural faculty diminished in strength, the tune now moved into the background; the visual faculty turned more alert and I looked intently for signs. The revelation pushed me to the limits of alertness - I mistook the Ambassador for an idle speeding vehicle and hastily drove into a minister's convoy.

I heard the tune no more. My imminent mission was to get out of it. Caught between cars moving at great speed, it was no mean task. One wrong move and it would get only worse.

But before I could decide the method for accomplishing the mission, two police vans came racing past the cars as if to thwart a terror attack that has been designed to raze the city. The next second, one of the vans was right beside my car. The second van was behind it. "Gosh! Best of luck!", I told myself. The chap in uniform looked at me and said, "What are you up to?" He must've meant, "What the fuck are you doing, asshole?" After all, driving into a convoy was an intolerable infringement! Servant intruding master's space! The question, or doubt, "Who is the servant and who is the master?" does not belong to politics anymore; it is now strictly limited to the domain of metaphysics.

All the same, I looked at the chap who had just looked at me and asked, "What are you up to?" Nice cop: a sample of a minority race. I raised my hand and said, "I am sorry!" The cop was smart too - he instantly realized, "Ah! this guy can't be a threat. A dud!" With an assuring, quick smile, he said, "Move out!" Lucky day and a nice cop: a rare combination. "Thank you!", so saying, I pulled out.

A few seconds later, I was out of the convoy. Liberation. My 15 seconds of tryst with power ended. I stopped the car.

It took a minute before thousands of fellow servants, ordered to stop, started moving again.

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16 Aug 2007

From the Master

Posted by Oblivion in General | 11:24am

In the days of kings, the subject was told: You used to be the subject of King A, now King A is dead and behold, you are the subject of King B. Then democracy arrived, and the subject was for the first time presented with a choice: Do you (collectively) want to be ruled by Citizen A or Citizen B?

Always the subject is presented with the accomplished fact: in the first case with the fact of his subjecthood, in the second with the fact of the choice. The form of the choice is not open to discussion. The ballot paper does not say: Do you want A or B or neither? It certainly never says: Do you want A or B or no one at all? The citizen who expresses his unhappiness with the form of choice on offer by the only means open to him—not voting, or else spoiling his ballot paper—is simply not counted, that is to say, is discounted, ignored.

"Spreading democracy," as is now being done by the United States in the Middle East, means spreading the rules of democracy. It means telling people that whereas formerly they had no choice, now they have a choice. Formerly they had A and nothing but A; now they have a choice between A and B. "Spreading freedom" means creating the conditions for people to choose freely between A and B. The spreading of freedom and the spreading of democracy go hand in hand. The people engaged in spreading freedom and democracy see no irony in the description of the process just given.

...Michel de Montaigne's young friend Étienne de La Boétie, writing in 1549, saw the passivity of populations vis-à-vis their rulers as first an acquired and then later an inherited vice, an obstinate "will to be ruled" that becomes so deep-rooted "that even the love of liberty comes to seem not quite as natural."

...for every democratic Australia there are two Belaruses or Chads or Fijis or Colombias that likewise subscribe to the formula of the ballot count.

- Excerpt from Coetzee's forthcoming book, Diary of  a Bad Year, to be released in December 2007. Courtesy, The New York Review of Books

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12 Aug 2007

Deja Vu and That Uncomfortable Feeling...

Posted by Oblivion in General | 8:27pm

The 60th I-Day is just a few days away, and the hype has already started. It'll be a task to endure the euphemisms, that shallow emotion of patriotism, the loud, pointless talkshows, the giggling pretty faces with tricolor painted across, and the absolutely faked speeches of those fucken goons (read politicians). It'll be everywhere - newspapers, idiot box, newsmagazines, radio, blogs (ironical that I mention!), billboards, websites. While patriots revel and media exploit, it'll be a compulsive viewing of the circus for chaps whose attitude is that of non-solidarity toward fellow compatriots.

Some things never change! One hears the same lines every year. Same issues, same tasks, same problems, same stupid questions, same trite answers, same plans. They sell me the same idea every goddamn year - "today is grand, tomorrow will be grander". Nothing beats it for an exercise to make one a stoic.

Among the many opinion polls, democracy has again been voted the "greatest national pride". Just because we have an elected government, they keep telling me it's a democracy! To hell with having an elected government! The more important attributes for a democracy are accountability and responsiveness of the government. How accountable and responsive a government do we have?

Yes, RTI sounds fine and one can get some things done by voicing a concern (which goes by the grand phrase, "freedom of speech"), but this works only if the opposition is on your side. Let the concern be something that corners the opposition as well, and you will be eliminated. The din against quota works, the "non-violent protests" (glamorous exercises these days, thanks to Mr Gandhi) demanding justice for a certain Ms Lal work, the demand for better roads works, but expose the criminal deeds of the bastards among the ruling party and opposition as well, and nothing happens - even if you have video footage to boot. Just because some of us can write inconsequential pieces - against the system - in magazines and blogs and survive, it doesn't imply we enjoy "freedom of speech". For every lucky few who survive, there are thousands who don't. The powerless are fucked day in and day out. This has been the story for decades. Nothing has changed.

And, by the way, how fair an "elected" goverment it is? They bribe for votes, they rig, they use power, they manipulate, and they win. Barely 60% people turn out to vote, out of which votes are distributed among a dozen candidates. Chap X gets the maximum number of votes and he becomes the representative. If 70% (of the 60% that turn out) votes go for 11 candidates and 30% go for chap X, he wins by virtue of numbers. If you actually map it to the population, only 18 (considering it is a "fair" election) out of every 100 approve of him. Being unable to force the 40% who opt out of exercising franchise to do otherwise, the government equates "majority" with "maximum number" of votes. Democracy has more flaws - not as regards a concept, but as regards implementation - than just this. The concept sounds great on paper, no doubt. But then, even those of monarchy and dictatorship sound just as great. Democracy is, by many means, certainly the better one, but it needs a lot of basics to be in place. India is far from that.

To my mind, heritage is India's greatest pride. Its philosophy should come as close, too. One has to, however, ask brilliant chaps like Siddhartha in Pratidwandi to get correct answers. He would not mention democracy even among his top ten. 

Majority opt the easy way, for it's practicable. They keep referring to the "positive thinking" mantra - be blind to the foibles, focus on the achievements. The glitz of the effects of economic growth are thus passed on as justifications to feel proud and entertain "hope" for a "better" tomorrow - a day that never comes. Illusion always makes for a better companion than reality. Ideal is always a preferred beloved to status quo. Idiotic references also come in handy - "Come on dude, with all its flaws, we are better off than most countries. Look at the brighter side! Chill!"

Comparisons are good in academia, and they better be left there. One can write bestsellers with their focus on comparison, but it's ridiculous to derive fake emotions from it to beat the harsh facts of reality. How sensible is it to console oneself that a chap in, say, country XYZ is exploited worse than he is? How does it matter if citizens in other countries are worse or better off? We live in this country, we elect some chaps and we expect it to go well. If there is a problem, the solution is within, not without. That we live in a "connected" world matters at economic level, not as regards the relation between the rulers and the ruled.

The powerless have no voice, corruption is rampant, exploitation is rife, and the system is rotten. Unless these things change, it's a sham that we take pride in democracy. As the 60th I-Day beckons and the world looks up to us as an emerging superpower, we are still ruled by goons! And we don't seem to be doing anything to correct this!

A tad cynical perhaps, but I will rather down a glass of wine hoping we get rid of goonocracy than join the dance of the patriots to celebrate democracy. Cheers!

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