Saturday, September 11, 2010


Keep worrying about the night ..
And we miss the sunshine..

Keep worrying about the bouquet ..
And we will miss the wild flowers..
Keep worrying about the fire ..
And we will miss the snow...

Keep worrying about the rains..
And we will miss the clouds...
Keep worrying about the clock..
And we will miss the moment..

Life throws you its packets..
Some heavy and some light..
Some things get better with a lil bit of talk
Some reek of a fight..



There are lots of things to worry about..
And Life does hand a lot on its platter..
Lots of things go bad..
But doesnt a wee little also gets better

Saturday, September 4, 2010

The smartass of the world


One very conscending argument that one hears about Indians from Indians is this "but u must admit we are a very intelligent race"..And to cover up the case they will bring out examples of "making lassi using washing machine"..or everyday "smartness" that a normal Indian must get to to go through normal life (starting from smartly calculation of the bus timings to bargaining with the sandwich maker ) . And to end it all they will challenge any foreigner to go through the "complicated" Indian life if they considered themselves so "superior"...

Everytime I hear this argument I feel like laughing and crying at the same time. Laughing because of the sheer hollowness of the argument and crying because of the amount of self delusion my countrymen are so proud of...

I frankly dont consider ourselves to particularly smart because of the following reasons:

1. We have somehow made such a complex set of rules for ourselves(dont eat that , dont touch that, start on this foot , jump on that day, say hi to so and so every half an hour etc etc) that these rules have taken precedence over actual living. I would say that these rules are logically correct and quite great on paper (infact they are the best rules in the world) but translated to ground they have not managed to keep up with advances in knowledge.

Instead of simplifying those rules what Indians have done is to complicate them further with a tacit understanding that if you are rich and powerful then there exists a loophole. So while on one side the ordinary person(read middle class) is always in a moral dilems his richer counterpart does not posess any such quandry.

The logic of actions that flows down is that "rules are subjectively proportional to the lightness of your wallet". This is not a logic thats natural but a logic that has emerged from the clash of complex rules with a desire for fetterless living.

This lack of a smooth and ethic based practicality with that of ideological theory is the greatest reminder of the utter stupidity of Indians.


2. Lack of Basics- As a race forever enamoured with "showbaazi" somewhere there is a severe tendency to forget or just ignore groundlevel reality. The decision makers have always had an enormous capacity to delude themselves and hence never solve grassroot level problems.

So while in ancient times the Brahmin practised high class mathematics , the general public so much never had a basic sence of numbers and measurement. There was a disconnect between ordinary living and the ivory tower.
This is very evident today if you take a closer look at the industrial base of India.

While every economy first stabilises bottom up, ie starting with a self sufficiency in infrastructure and then moving on to luxury..India has always started with satellites first without building enough safety pin industries. To push the analogy further while food processing has grown in spurts , agriculture has yet to see the light of the day.
This disconnect is even seen in daily life . While we have students carrying out advance research into civil engineering, mass housing and roads are shabby , both functionally as well as structurally.

This disconnect is not due to lack of resources but due to a inherent snob value which somehow makes an "academic" a member of higher pantheon of Gods and he is defiled by his foray into solving day to day problems.

With the result that we have mechanical engineers who are scared of opening up a bicyle. If one cant call it stupidity then wat do u call it?

Temptation of an argument

The other day I was having a heated argument with a freind of mine. Very heated ..so much heated that we didnt notice that the poor waiter at the tandoori restaurant was waiting for us to pay our bills for a good 7-9 mins. Both of us got up and walked to my car . The argument was about the essential ressistance of Indians to change..even the good ones and the lack of discipline. My freind took the line that essentially we are nice guys with a bit of rough edge...I took the line that we are basically rough guys with a glimpse of nice ness that sometimes mistakenly oozes out.
The issue of argument were not only this..the argument turned towards the fact that was I patriotic enough? I mean ,my freind thought that with my constant criticism of Indians I was displaying lack of patriotism. I countered with the line that honesty is the best form of patriotism and me being honest about our short comings is more patriotic than covering it all up...

The argument went on for a good two hours and reminded me of a spanish freind Diego who once caught a bunch of us Indians in a german dormitory kitchen at 12 o clock midnight arguing about politics in India. Diego in mock anger shouted from his room " I kno u A@@@$% are from the largest democracy..doesnt mean that u fuckin argue about every fuking Pizza flavor"...and we shouted back.."down with european imperalism"...And next day Diego made it up by feeding us a homemade Tortilla Omellette..And we fucked his happiness by making him a spicy Chicken Curry(he got addicted to chicken curry later and then we had to suffer by having to buy spices for him everytime we went to the Indians Store...


Bottomline is that I cant avoid a good fight...I am trying to . But the temptation is too much ...