A novel stress buster: a need-based one
Please see, it is easy for anyone to say, yes, I want it. There are not many who can say; no, I don’t want it, or no, I don’t want it now. It is always good to be not having. So say ‘no’ to that you don’t want to or are unable to have.
Stress is the order of the day. Most of us are in an all out effort to make our both ends meet exceptionally luxuriously, and in this process we naturally get stressed. Still different people have different types and intensity of stresses. Some are just stresses for its name’s sake. Some stresses are worth a little headache. Some go for a couple of days’ sleeplessness too.
Some stresses are so severe that the sufferer may lose a few hairs on a daily basis or lose their colour the same way. Among all these, there is one thing common. All the stressed are unhappy. There is no moderate unhappiness, and extreme unhappiness or minimum unhappiness.
Unhappiness does not have degrees and dimensions. If you are unhappy, you become sad. When you are sad, you are depressed. Depression leads to serious physical and personality disorders. We may then have to pay dearly for it. So stress needs to be busted, and there needs to be a universally acceptable and easy to follow stress buster.
Obviously, its need is felt much more today than ever before not because the days we live by are highly stressed, but because the ways we follow to make our both end meet are against our needs. The problem lies in our attitude to our needs and their corresponding deeds. So these are the two words that need to be addressed in order for us to bust our stresses. They are ‘needs’ and ‘deeds’. There is virtually no stress that does not emanate from these two because our needs are dictated by our hedonistic greed and our corresponding deeds are perfectly in line with the magnitude of our greed.
Now you know what gives you stress. Now you know who makes you stressed. And now you know how to de-stress you. If you do not know it by now, there is a little room for stress again; stress generated from your being unable to see what is ‘needed’ and what is not so needed.
Please see, it is easy for anyone to say, yes I want it. There are not many who can say; no, I don’t want it, or no, I don’t want it now. If you could let your inner self take a decision when you are pitted against an ‘yes or no’ proposition, you are distressing yourself. It is always good to be not having. So say ‘no’ to that you don’t want to have.
It is simply this ability to distinguish between what you need and what you do not, and thereby decide what deeds are needed for meeting your daily needs, that makes you either stressed or not stressed.
So, all the stressed of the world, here is your stress-buster. It is for your grab. And be careful while grabbing it. Only grab what you actually need. Too much of it will give you stress again. Take it enough to meet your both ends meet. When you feel that you have got enough of it, feel free to give the rest of it to others. Giving something to others has always been a stress-buster.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
KSEB reduces a family of four into three
KSEB reduces a family of four into three
Kerala State Electricity Board officials have again proved their criminal callousness and dereliction of duty the other day by killing a school boy, Vishnu (14 years) at Kuttanad, Aleppey, district.
The tragic incident occurred when this unfortunate boy happened to get in contact with a snapped, but live, electric line while he, along with his friend, was having some fun fishing. It was providence that his friend Appu got saved.
The incident of a fallen electric post and cables was reported to the nearest KSEB office in the morning itself and, the locals say, these reckless officers did not have the common sense or a little sense of responsibility to switch off the link to that area. It took the life of boy to make them understand that electricity kills people.
The local residents say that they had appealed to the KSEB a hundred times to remove the old and dilapidated electric grid that had been posing a life and death situation to the people for long. But these officers get into action only when someone gets killed by a snapped wire. This is not the first time they kill people.
The incident created a commotion in the area, and when the KSEB officials came to the scene, the angry mob went berserk, and finally the law and order machinery was put into action to restore normalcy.
KSEB has killed hundreds of people so far, and every time an incident like this happens there will be a little hue and cry and the situation goes back to former stage when the near and dear ones of the victims come to teams with their misfortune and misery. And at times the Electricity board distributes an ex-gratia of a few hundred thousands. It is interesting to note that so far no officer of this mammoth board has had the bitter experience of getting jailed or punished for their gross deification of duty. The maximum they get is a few months’ suspension, and after that these officers will come back to their chairs to kill the innocents again.
The officers who are responsible for the death of this school boy need to be immediately booked and trialed for homicide. This is nothing short of that, and winding up a case of this nature by paying compensation needs to be made unconstitutional. The guilty must be brought before the court, trialed and punished. We just can’t allow a few officers to kill people. It is a democracy.
This white elephant, KSEB, needs to be privatized and these trade union hooligans should be made accountable to all their activities while on duty. Just see the plight of that small family of four! They are three now. Does the Electricity Minister Mr. A.K. Balan have got something to say?
Kerala State Electricity Board officials have again proved their criminal callousness and dereliction of duty the other day by killing a school boy, Vishnu (14 years) at Kuttanad, Aleppey, district.
The tragic incident occurred when this unfortunate boy happened to get in contact with a snapped, but live, electric line while he, along with his friend, was having some fun fishing. It was providence that his friend Appu got saved.
The incident of a fallen electric post and cables was reported to the nearest KSEB office in the morning itself and, the locals say, these reckless officers did not have the common sense or a little sense of responsibility to switch off the link to that area. It took the life of boy to make them understand that electricity kills people.
The local residents say that they had appealed to the KSEB a hundred times to remove the old and dilapidated electric grid that had been posing a life and death situation to the people for long. But these officers get into action only when someone gets killed by a snapped wire. This is not the first time they kill people.
The incident created a commotion in the area, and when the KSEB officials came to the scene, the angry mob went berserk, and finally the law and order machinery was put into action to restore normalcy.
KSEB has killed hundreds of people so far, and every time an incident like this happens there will be a little hue and cry and the situation goes back to former stage when the near and dear ones of the victims come to teams with their misfortune and misery. And at times the Electricity board distributes an ex-gratia of a few hundred thousands. It is interesting to note that so far no officer of this mammoth board has had the bitter experience of getting jailed or punished for their gross deification of duty. The maximum they get is a few months’ suspension, and after that these officers will come back to their chairs to kill the innocents again.
The officers who are responsible for the death of this school boy need to be immediately booked and trialed for homicide. This is nothing short of that, and winding up a case of this nature by paying compensation needs to be made unconstitutional. The guilty must be brought before the court, trialed and punished. We just can’t allow a few officers to kill people. It is a democracy.
This white elephant, KSEB, needs to be privatized and these trade union hooligans should be made accountable to all their activities while on duty. Just see the plight of that small family of four! They are three now. Does the Electricity Minister Mr. A.K. Balan have got something to say?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Onam is no more an occasion for oneness
Onam is no more an occasion for oneness
Malayalis around the world are in a festive mood as Onam is fast approaching. It is celebration all the way in the form of shopping, visiting friends and relatives, doing floral decorations for ten preceding days of Onan, and making the homes look good, neat and tidy, becoming kind and generous to all fellow beings and so goes the list of the dimensions of Onam, the commemoration day of our Monarch Maveli, or Mahabali who is believed to have ruled this god’s own land in the most democratic way. And Mahabali is said to be the most benevolent democratic monarch of all times. It is this side of his rule that gets reflected or celebrated during every Onan Season.
During his times, there was no inequality, corruption, communal appeasement and prevalence of social evils of any kind. Everyone was equal and everyone was happy and every one was contended and free from all fears. That was a time when people of Kerala had had the real taste of governance. Over the ages, people of Kerala have made it a point that Onam is a celebration for all people regardless of their faiths. Onan is synonymous with equality and harmony. People from all religions and faints took part in this festive season and the same mood passes off every year leaving behind enough encouragement and harmonious community spirit to keep the whole state in good stead till the next season.
Things have changed. Now the same Kerala holds a different picture. But Onam comes and goes in the same vein. Everything we attach to Onan is commercialized and people from all walks of life take this season as an opportunity to make money. Many values and virtues we attach with this season is being sold out whole sale and retail. And now the season looks like a marketing hungama where everybody is prepared to spare a lot of time and energy not to foster the Onam spirit but to make Onam in their favour Let us leave the discussion here and take a different look at Onam.
I would like to give Onan a different definition. It is not merely a festival of harvest and opulence. Rather it is a festival of senses. This season satisfies all our senses and it makes our senses celebrate. Our taste, smell, sight, feel and sound get to enjoy their respective dishes in plenty, and these are enjoyed evenly by people of all age groups.
Flowers and fruits, exotic dishes and delicacies, music and merriment, hugs and handshakes, visits and sights: everything is there in plenty. But there is no religion, community, caste, colour, creed or any other distinction that we normally associate with other ordinary festivals.
Now I am sadly reminded of an incident. Last week a few boys from my neighbourhood approached me when I went home last week. These boys have been celebrating Onam by conducting cultural events, competitions for kids, and staging traditional art forms and showcasing crafts and artifacts. They raise funds for this from the community and people of all faiths have cooperated with them so far. I give them some 50 or 100 rupees every Onam.
This time these boys came to me with huge demand that I should give them minimum 500. When it raised my doubts about the need for such a big money, they shocked me with an eerie revelation. I am really sorry to write about it here because I for one have celebrated some 40 memorable Onams in my life and I have never had this experience before, that too from a few boys half my age.
They said, this Onam, we are raising funds from the Hindus only.
What? I asked back shocked.
Yes, we have been instructed by our elders to spare other communities from this fund raising exercise.
So, this Onan is for Hindus? Do you say so?
They did not reply. But they just left a vile smile which did not have the feel of a smile at all. How can faces of such vile smiles make a celebration!!!
Enough damage has been done. I thought. Younger bloods are awash with parochial thoughts and their dirty designs.
I promised them my due with a periodic appreciation, say some 25%. They left the scene, leaving behind a huge question in my mind.
When these boys grow up into men, and start to man the society, how will this festival of senses look like? It sends tremors down my spine. A celebration is not spared. This is too much.
It disturbs me even now. I understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with our society, and this is a ploy of the old order “divide and rule”. It does not augur well for a community which claims to be living in God’s own country.
Now our age-old Onan has started taking up community dimensions and it is not too far before we come to have community Onams: like Nair Onam, Ezhava Onam, Menon Onam, Iyer Onam, Brahmin Onam because they are Hindus. One should not get surprised if there is an Onam called SNDP Onam for the Ezhavas, and NSS Onam for the Nairs.
And finally I feel that we need to induct a special Onam for our Monarch Maveli himself because he does not have a religion or community to belong to and thus get a chance to participate in this annual ritual. We must do this for him.
The sings of such a change are seen in the minds of our kids and teenagers. Sure, these boys are not going to take Onam to any new dimension in the coming days. Onam has ceased to be an occasion for a feeling of oneness. Rather it is an occasion for satisfying the individual intentions of every other one.
Malayalis around the world are in a festive mood as Onam is fast approaching. It is celebration all the way in the form of shopping, visiting friends and relatives, doing floral decorations for ten preceding days of Onan, and making the homes look good, neat and tidy, becoming kind and generous to all fellow beings and so goes the list of the dimensions of Onam, the commemoration day of our Monarch Maveli, or Mahabali who is believed to have ruled this god’s own land in the most democratic way. And Mahabali is said to be the most benevolent democratic monarch of all times. It is this side of his rule that gets reflected or celebrated during every Onan Season.
During his times, there was no inequality, corruption, communal appeasement and prevalence of social evils of any kind. Everyone was equal and everyone was happy and every one was contended and free from all fears. That was a time when people of Kerala had had the real taste of governance. Over the ages, people of Kerala have made it a point that Onam is a celebration for all people regardless of their faiths. Onan is synonymous with equality and harmony. People from all religions and faints took part in this festive season and the same mood passes off every year leaving behind enough encouragement and harmonious community spirit to keep the whole state in good stead till the next season.
Things have changed. Now the same Kerala holds a different picture. But Onam comes and goes in the same vein. Everything we attach to Onan is commercialized and people from all walks of life take this season as an opportunity to make money. Many values and virtues we attach with this season is being sold out whole sale and retail. And now the season looks like a marketing hungama where everybody is prepared to spare a lot of time and energy not to foster the Onam spirit but to make Onam in their favour Let us leave the discussion here and take a different look at Onam.
I would like to give Onan a different definition. It is not merely a festival of harvest and opulence. Rather it is a festival of senses. This season satisfies all our senses and it makes our senses celebrate. Our taste, smell, sight, feel and sound get to enjoy their respective dishes in plenty, and these are enjoyed evenly by people of all age groups.
Flowers and fruits, exotic dishes and delicacies, music and merriment, hugs and handshakes, visits and sights: everything is there in plenty. But there is no religion, community, caste, colour, creed or any other distinction that we normally associate with other ordinary festivals.
Now I am sadly reminded of an incident. Last week a few boys from my neighbourhood approached me when I went home last week. These boys have been celebrating Onam by conducting cultural events, competitions for kids, and staging traditional art forms and showcasing crafts and artifacts. They raise funds for this from the community and people of all faiths have cooperated with them so far. I give them some 50 or 100 rupees every Onam.
This time these boys came to me with huge demand that I should give them minimum 500. When it raised my doubts about the need for such a big money, they shocked me with an eerie revelation. I am really sorry to write about it here because I for one have celebrated some 40 memorable Onams in my life and I have never had this experience before, that too from a few boys half my age.
They said, this Onam, we are raising funds from the Hindus only.
What? I asked back shocked.
Yes, we have been instructed by our elders to spare other communities from this fund raising exercise.
So, this Onan is for Hindus? Do you say so?
They did not reply. But they just left a vile smile which did not have the feel of a smile at all. How can faces of such vile smiles make a celebration!!!
Enough damage has been done. I thought. Younger bloods are awash with parochial thoughts and their dirty designs.
I promised them my due with a periodic appreciation, say some 25%. They left the scene, leaving behind a huge question in my mind.
When these boys grow up into men, and start to man the society, how will this festival of senses look like? It sends tremors down my spine. A celebration is not spared. This is too much.
It disturbs me even now. I understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with our society, and this is a ploy of the old order “divide and rule”. It does not augur well for a community which claims to be living in God’s own country.
Now our age-old Onan has started taking up community dimensions and it is not too far before we come to have community Onams: like Nair Onam, Ezhava Onam, Menon Onam, Iyer Onam, Brahmin Onam because they are Hindus. One should not get surprised if there is an Onam called SNDP Onam for the Ezhavas, and NSS Onam for the Nairs.
And finally I feel that we need to induct a special Onam for our Monarch Maveli himself because he does not have a religion or community to belong to and thus get a chance to participate in this annual ritual. We must do this for him.
The sings of such a change are seen in the minds of our kids and teenagers. Sure, these boys are not going to take Onam to any new dimension in the coming days. Onam has ceased to be an occasion for a feeling of oneness. Rather it is an occasion for satisfying the individual intentions of every other one.
Monday, August 25, 2008
this world is not for daughters
This world is not for daughters!
Women are considered weak. But time and again she has proved herself otherwise. Still a girl child is considered a bane. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence. This world is not for daughters.
IT IS for boys. Girls are not supposed to be playing such games. Girls don’t use such expressions! They have to be refined in their words. Come home dear before it gets dark. You cannot be out in the street after sundown. Wake up my dear and help me in the kitchen. Girls should not sleep for long. There is a heap of clothes, just make sure you wash. Let them finish with it. We will sit later dear, are you hungry now? You are not. Make all the beds first and do some dishwashing when you finish with it.
Getting big degrees is not meant for girls. They need to get married fast and start a new family.
It has been six months since you got married! When are you going to give us that great ‘news’? We are so anxious to become grandparents. It is great to be a mom, dear. I gave birth to five children. It was not simple and is not for all.
Be careful dear, you are carrying a baby. You cannot walk and move so briskly. The baby may get hurt.
Is it going to be a baby girl or boy, dear?
A baby girl!
But, I want a baby boy! What do you say?
It’s a girl.
How do you know that? Mother’s can tell.
Are you sure or maybe you are confused.
No, I am not confused, but the baby in me seems to be in a dilemma.
I am sure it is a baby girl.
No, it is a baby boy.
Please stop it.
What if we go for a sex determination check?
What for?
We could have options dear.
What do you mean by options?
You can take it or leave it, dear, I mean, if you want a baby boy and you happen to have a baby girl in, you can opt it out, and go for a second innings. It may turn out to be a baby boy. Agreed?
How dare you say that to me?
Aren’t your parents anxious now?
They want a boy. We will try again if the test goes negative.
I am not convinced. What if it is not going to be up to your wish the second time too?
No problem, we can try again.
Again! I get a premonition that I am going to give birth to a baby girl for sure.
No way. Why not?
“My dilemma is whether I should bring her to this world or cede her right there.
It is a daughter’s dilemma, and only daughters understand it, because it is very difficult to be living a daughter’s life.”
Did you say something dear?
No honey!
But I am thinking of…er…. Of what?
Tell me. What if we go for a sex determination test? Are you serious? Yes, I am.
“That is the best thing I could do for my daughter. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence anymore.
This world is not for daughters.
It is for sons,
brothers,
brothers-in-law,
husbands,
fathers and grandfathers.”
When are we meeting the doctor? Right-way?
“Make it fast. It is getting late. I have to save my daughter from this world at any cost.”
Women are considered weak. But time and again she has proved herself otherwise. Still a girl child is considered a bane. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence. This world is not for daughters.
IT IS for boys. Girls are not supposed to be playing such games. Girls don’t use such expressions! They have to be refined in their words. Come home dear before it gets dark. You cannot be out in the street after sundown. Wake up my dear and help me in the kitchen. Girls should not sleep for long. There is a heap of clothes, just make sure you wash. Let them finish with it. We will sit later dear, are you hungry now? You are not. Make all the beds first and do some dishwashing when you finish with it.
Getting big degrees is not meant for girls. They need to get married fast and start a new family.
It has been six months since you got married! When are you going to give us that great ‘news’? We are so anxious to become grandparents. It is great to be a mom, dear. I gave birth to five children. It was not simple and is not for all.
Be careful dear, you are carrying a baby. You cannot walk and move so briskly. The baby may get hurt.
Is it going to be a baby girl or boy, dear?
A baby girl!
But, I want a baby boy! What do you say?
It’s a girl.
How do you know that? Mother’s can tell.
Are you sure or maybe you are confused.
No, I am not confused, but the baby in me seems to be in a dilemma.
I am sure it is a baby girl.
No, it is a baby boy.
Please stop it.
What if we go for a sex determination check?
What for?
We could have options dear.
What do you mean by options?
You can take it or leave it, dear, I mean, if you want a baby boy and you happen to have a baby girl in, you can opt it out, and go for a second innings. It may turn out to be a baby boy. Agreed?
How dare you say that to me?
Aren’t your parents anxious now?
They want a boy. We will try again if the test goes negative.
I am not convinced. What if it is not going to be up to your wish the second time too?
No problem, we can try again.
Again! I get a premonition that I am going to give birth to a baby girl for sure.
No way. Why not?
“My dilemma is whether I should bring her to this world or cede her right there.
It is a daughter’s dilemma, and only daughters understand it, because it is very difficult to be living a daughter’s life.”
Did you say something dear?
No honey!
But I am thinking of…er…. Of what?
Tell me. What if we go for a sex determination test? Are you serious? Yes, I am.
“That is the best thing I could do for my daughter. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence anymore.
This world is not for daughters.
It is for sons,
brothers,
brothers-in-law,
husbands,
fathers and grandfathers.”
When are we meeting the doctor? Right-way?
“Make it fast. It is getting late. I have to save my daughter from this world at any cost.”
Dirty politics and faith of the nation
Dirty politics and faith of the nation
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of an ll-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Incompatible they are, faith of the nation and politics, for sure. Faith is something that gets formed out of resolve, respect and reliability. Our Indian politics is the antithesis of these three. This state of affairs is not something that got shaped the other day. We have been part of this dirty system for the last six decades, and we all have had our shares to make what it actually is today. As we all have a rare faculty of staying aloof and cut ourselves into Daniels of judgement, we have kept our personal shells off any meddles, and we continue the same. So long as the problem remains to be somebody else’s we are contented. Then think of a situation in which the problem involves a whole nation! It is natural for every one of us to be criticizing the political system, and if possible we would take time off to make judgements too.
However, not many of us are able to judge ourselves and see that there is nothing called politics, no matter it is dirty and decent, unless there is you and me. We have failed to or we have feigned unable to identify ourselves with the problem, but we come to our ubiquitous conclusion that politics is dirty, particularly Indian politics. Again we forget that an honest and disinterested population can never suffer from a dirty political system. What I would like to emphasize is that we get what we deserve. And we have got what we have over the years come to deserve. How has it come about by the way?
It is very simple. Politics is a matter of power and fear. Both the ruling and the ruled are afraid of both. The ruling are afraid of losing power, and ruled is afraid of not having someone to vest the responsibilities on. The public has a rare ingenuity to be protecting itself from such fears by leaving the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders and counting the latter responsible for everything. When you get your things done by others, you cannot expect others to be doing things the way you like. Rather we have to put up with the way it is done. And we do not show the guts to demand for better professionalism, because we are scared of allegiance to our own calling. I personally feel that this is the primary reason for our nation’s loss of faith in its politics.
For us, elections are excursions through which we enjoy the great pleasure of exercising our franchise periodically, and as if we pay out an equal monthly installment, (EMI), we cut down on our responsibilities election after election, and we expect our service providers, our elected representatives, to be patrons of our causes and concerns: let it be supplying nuclear electricity non-stop or ensuring supply of essentials at affordable prices or laying roads or keeping the democratic fabric intact or whatever.
So, ultimately, where are we with regard to dirty politics and faith of the nation? They are nowhere near each other. They are not going to be near in the immediate future either. The stakes of the nation is huge so are the stakes of is politics. Since both the parties are afraid of power and fear, politics will not induce faith and nation will never feel like trusting politics.
There are solutions for this stalemate. We can make the nation trust its politics, or the other way round by taking a few steps:
· Education department should be severed and kept under the purview of the president, the governor and the vice chancellor.
· We have to adopt proportional and gender based representation in all legislative and elected bodies.
· There should be a call back facility, and no go-back facility once called back.
· Media need to be made accountable and be brought under judicial observance.
· Politicians should retire, and the retired ones should be phased out of electioneering.
· Defection has to be made a permanent disqualification.
· Bureaucracy, including police, needs to be governed by ombudsman.
· There should be pay parity in accordance with the changing times.
These things are not going to happen for sure for, we have come to such a difficult pass that makes us all feel that this is what it actually is or should be. We do not know of a different order. This has been rut decade after decade.
Even if we fail to do the above things, we can help politics stay free from its dirty clout by taking some individual resolutions. We have to individually ask ourselves a few questions. When it comes to an issue of some personal significance, how many of us are ready to think inclusively, say, it is a social cause and I am only party to it, so I should not be going off the track to get my things done, or I should not expect the rest of my fellowmen suffer for my personal gain or happiness. How many of us think inclusively. Very few! We all think in isolation. This is my cause, and I have to get it done some how. Or it is one of my dear ones’ cause, so I should forgo the established norms and see that it is done, no matter at whose expense I get it done. Do we not do it on a daily basis in our life? Yes, you do, I do and everyone does. The very same I, you and everyone take up the cudgel and cry foul when we see something dirty in the political system. Is it not true? We come down to our earth if it is a matter that involves our selves.
So, we are immune to the system, at the same time we are in the system. This will not work because there are only two ways to serve a system: one way is to be an integral part of it and the other is to be completely away from it. Can we be both? It is the ‘I’ and ‘ME’ and ‘OUR’ factors that make us dirty and our politics and politicians dirtier. The faith of the nation will falter in such a milieu. Still all is not lost. What is there not to be overcome?
I feel, if we will, within some twenty years’ time we can expect our political system be free from this ignominy and distrust if today’s kids are given a milieu, which thinks and takes everything inclusively. The making of this milieu has to start from immediate parents to guardians to elders to teachers to think tanks to spiritual heads.
Everyone close to a growing child should inculcate inclusive thinking in them, and their curriculum needs to be a product of this inclusive attitude and incorporate lessons and exercises designed to reinforce the principles of leading a life accommodating everything new and good in their purview. This will be possible only if the new generation parents sacrifice a little and shed a few of their inherited ills of ‘I’ ‘ME’ and ‘OUR” factors.
They need to understand that a holistic society needs all types of people; form politicians to policemen. Only engineers and doctors and IT gurus would not make a nation fair well. And school is the right place to identify the inherent skills and talents, strengths and weaknesses of a child. We can identify who could be a politician of inclusive thinking, who could be a scientist, a doctor, an engineer or whatever. This is possible if every parent wills so. This is possible. To what all extent our patents go to meet the demands of their dream children!!! Therefore, this is the best thing they could do for their kids and the latter’s future nation. Let them pick up all-inclusive thinking habits from their homes.
Parents should take a resolve that: ‘I will not allow my children to be influenced by those evil forces that have made our society this hopeless. They have to have a new world order in which they are to be their decision makers, and they are to decide their destiny. So we have to provide them the right milieu”. Let’s all do it. Let all good things begin from our homes inclusively.
I think it is worth the wait. It is imperative that a nation of modern times must have faith in its political system and its men. So is the case with politics itself. It has to shed its age-old filth and scales of ignominy from its face and come clean. Thinking of the long road ahead, I feel that it is worth sparing a couple of decades so that we can have a new national political order footed not on any dirty politicking but on the pillars of indomitable faith.
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of the all-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation. jaypeesarefine@gmail.com
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of an ll-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Incompatible they are, faith of the nation and politics, for sure. Faith is something that gets formed out of resolve, respect and reliability. Our Indian politics is the antithesis of these three. This state of affairs is not something that got shaped the other day. We have been part of this dirty system for the last six decades, and we all have had our shares to make what it actually is today. As we all have a rare faculty of staying aloof and cut ourselves into Daniels of judgement, we have kept our personal shells off any meddles, and we continue the same. So long as the problem remains to be somebody else’s we are contented. Then think of a situation in which the problem involves a whole nation! It is natural for every one of us to be criticizing the political system, and if possible we would take time off to make judgements too.
However, not many of us are able to judge ourselves and see that there is nothing called politics, no matter it is dirty and decent, unless there is you and me. We have failed to or we have feigned unable to identify ourselves with the problem, but we come to our ubiquitous conclusion that politics is dirty, particularly Indian politics. Again we forget that an honest and disinterested population can never suffer from a dirty political system. What I would like to emphasize is that we get what we deserve. And we have got what we have over the years come to deserve. How has it come about by the way?
It is very simple. Politics is a matter of power and fear. Both the ruling and the ruled are afraid of both. The ruling are afraid of losing power, and ruled is afraid of not having someone to vest the responsibilities on. The public has a rare ingenuity to be protecting itself from such fears by leaving the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders and counting the latter responsible for everything. When you get your things done by others, you cannot expect others to be doing things the way you like. Rather we have to put up with the way it is done. And we do not show the guts to demand for better professionalism, because we are scared of allegiance to our own calling. I personally feel that this is the primary reason for our nation’s loss of faith in its politics.
For us, elections are excursions through which we enjoy the great pleasure of exercising our franchise periodically, and as if we pay out an equal monthly installment, (EMI), we cut down on our responsibilities election after election, and we expect our service providers, our elected representatives, to be patrons of our causes and concerns: let it be supplying nuclear electricity non-stop or ensuring supply of essentials at affordable prices or laying roads or keeping the democratic fabric intact or whatever.
So, ultimately, where are we with regard to dirty politics and faith of the nation? They are nowhere near each other. They are not going to be near in the immediate future either. The stakes of the nation is huge so are the stakes of is politics. Since both the parties are afraid of power and fear, politics will not induce faith and nation will never feel like trusting politics.
There are solutions for this stalemate. We can make the nation trust its politics, or the other way round by taking a few steps:
· Education department should be severed and kept under the purview of the president, the governor and the vice chancellor.
· We have to adopt proportional and gender based representation in all legislative and elected bodies.
· There should be a call back facility, and no go-back facility once called back.
· Media need to be made accountable and be brought under judicial observance.
· Politicians should retire, and the retired ones should be phased out of electioneering.
· Defection has to be made a permanent disqualification.
· Bureaucracy, including police, needs to be governed by ombudsman.
· There should be pay parity in accordance with the changing times.
These things are not going to happen for sure for, we have come to such a difficult pass that makes us all feel that this is what it actually is or should be. We do not know of a different order. This has been rut decade after decade.
Even if we fail to do the above things, we can help politics stay free from its dirty clout by taking some individual resolutions. We have to individually ask ourselves a few questions. When it comes to an issue of some personal significance, how many of us are ready to think inclusively, say, it is a social cause and I am only party to it, so I should not be going off the track to get my things done, or I should not expect the rest of my fellowmen suffer for my personal gain or happiness. How many of us think inclusively. Very few! We all think in isolation. This is my cause, and I have to get it done some how. Or it is one of my dear ones’ cause, so I should forgo the established norms and see that it is done, no matter at whose expense I get it done. Do we not do it on a daily basis in our life? Yes, you do, I do and everyone does. The very same I, you and everyone take up the cudgel and cry foul when we see something dirty in the political system. Is it not true? We come down to our earth if it is a matter that involves our selves.
So, we are immune to the system, at the same time we are in the system. This will not work because there are only two ways to serve a system: one way is to be an integral part of it and the other is to be completely away from it. Can we be both? It is the ‘I’ and ‘ME’ and ‘OUR’ factors that make us dirty and our politics and politicians dirtier. The faith of the nation will falter in such a milieu. Still all is not lost. What is there not to be overcome?
I feel, if we will, within some twenty years’ time we can expect our political system be free from this ignominy and distrust if today’s kids are given a milieu, which thinks and takes everything inclusively. The making of this milieu has to start from immediate parents to guardians to elders to teachers to think tanks to spiritual heads.
Everyone close to a growing child should inculcate inclusive thinking in them, and their curriculum needs to be a product of this inclusive attitude and incorporate lessons and exercises designed to reinforce the principles of leading a life accommodating everything new and good in their purview. This will be possible only if the new generation parents sacrifice a little and shed a few of their inherited ills of ‘I’ ‘ME’ and ‘OUR” factors.
They need to understand that a holistic society needs all types of people; form politicians to policemen. Only engineers and doctors and IT gurus would not make a nation fair well. And school is the right place to identify the inherent skills and talents, strengths and weaknesses of a child. We can identify who could be a politician of inclusive thinking, who could be a scientist, a doctor, an engineer or whatever. This is possible if every parent wills so. This is possible. To what all extent our patents go to meet the demands of their dream children!!! Therefore, this is the best thing they could do for their kids and the latter’s future nation. Let them pick up all-inclusive thinking habits from their homes.
Parents should take a resolve that: ‘I will not allow my children to be influenced by those evil forces that have made our society this hopeless. They have to have a new world order in which they are to be their decision makers, and they are to decide their destiny. So we have to provide them the right milieu”. Let’s all do it. Let all good things begin from our homes inclusively.
I think it is worth the wait. It is imperative that a nation of modern times must have faith in its political system and its men. So is the case with politics itself. It has to shed its age-old filth and scales of ignominy from its face and come clean. Thinking of the long road ahead, I feel that it is worth sparing a couple of decades so that we can have a new national political order footed not on any dirty politicking but on the pillars of indomitable faith.
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of the all-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation. jaypeesarefine@gmail.com
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Indian healthcare: The need for three A’s
Indian healthcare: The need for three A’s
I think it wouldn’t be an exaggeration that, if India could become a medical super power on the three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much-hyped nuclear or military power.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Our prayers, faiths and worships proclaim: “It is not for nothing we all perform them, but, not to be living in any illness or pain”.Living in pain is no better than mere living.
Where does the onus come to lie, if one happens to live his/her life in pain out of reasons many; like one’s inability to afford adequate medical care due to his poor social status or ignorance on where to access it from or being not ready to take up some medical helps out of fear or social stigma? Does it come to lie in the medical fraternity, or in the whole medical care system of the state?
It is worth pondering over it because a Supreme Court bench has recently given some deliberations on the legality of letting people in excruciating pains and irrecoverable illnesses die assisted death. In this backdrop, we need to look at the medical care system existing in our state.
The scenario
Various streams of medical sciences have grown by leaps and bounds and, medically speaking, today’s world is a much better place to be in than it was a couple of years ago or a few months ago. That is the speed with which innovations that take place in the medical sphere, and the same is reason enough to believe that the sustenance of humans in this planet is much more assured for many more years than what is usually deemed to be in terms of longevity indices.
It is all fine and encouraging to know of and make use of this growth as and when there is a medial intervention in one’s life. Frankly speaking, people dread ill heath much more than anything else. Death is fine if it is painless. If an illness is going to give you traumatic days and finally lands you in the hands of death, you would prefer the latter much before the former comes to haunt you. For us all, including all other living beings, it is important to be free from illnesses.
This preoccupation with our well-being is what makes it imperative that people of all categories need medical care of their choices. This raises a few small questions: How many of us are aware of the medical innovations available around us? How many of us are able to afford such conveniences? And finally how many of us find these medial practices acceptable to us? These three things are very important in any medical regime.
When it comes to healthcare system of any country, the first few things that need to come to one’s mind are Accessibility, Affordability and Acceptability. They are popularly known in medical parlance as three ‘A’s. A detailed look into these three will give an exact picture of the state of affairs existing in any healthcare system of any state. Whether it is so poor a nation or a super power, the primary requirement of a medical care system needs to be accessibility.
Accessibility
The word itself is explanatory enough. All the medical innovations notwithstanding, if the populace, regardless of their social, financial and /or community statuses, is not able to access them according to their convenience, it is as good as not having such innovations at all.
This primary medical requirement is met basically by a couple of factors: demographic distribution of doctors and their support staff – i.e. medical personnel-population ratio – the number of government sponsored medical facilities like PHCs and similar medical centers, their infrastructure, working hours and related services are a few of them.
Coupled with these is the medical conveniences showcased by private healthcare industry. How much they offer, how many are able to access it, how costly or cheap it is etc. are other contributory factors that decide what we call the accessibility side of a medical care system.
In the Indian context, it is sorry to say that the lion’s share of the population is bound to queue up at the corridors of private medicare industry for quality medical care. There are government facilities like medical colleges, district medical centers, Taluk hospitals and primary health centers. The facilities, the number of patients these facilities are able to handle and finally the people-friendliness of such locations are always at loggerheads.
Either it is the shortage of qualified doctors, or it is poor supply of medicine or the non-availability or the malfunctioning of available medical devices. This is not going to change in the near future because, the super-speciality medical facilities have become a huge industry and they are going to stay here, claiming their due market shares. Their services are accessible to a limited few considering the size of the bill they generate, the huge population and the nature of diseases this population comes to experience every passing day. This leads to the next medical issue called affordability.
Affordability
‘God visits the hungry in the form of bread’. So goes the saying. HE cannot afford to be in any other form. So, if the medical innovations are unaffordable to the majority of the population, it is better than not having any innovations at all. A patient who is dying for want of lifesaving medicine will have no regard for any lifesaving medical innovations. For him, saving his life is primary and everything else is secondary. The hungry needs food, neither God, nor faith.
Counting the rising cost of medical care in our state, how many men on the street are able to afford the bills for the treatment of a small illness! Why is it so unaffordable? Medical personnel and representatives of national and multinational pharmaceutical giants maintain an unholy nexus in our state, and they unilaterally decide what medicine is to be used by who and at what cost and when. This is unethical and anti-people. No wonder our medical care system remains unaffordable to millions of people.
And there are reports that the clandestine understanding between a part of our medical fraternity and pharmaceutical giants makes our people of guinea pigs for clinical trials. The positive results of such unethical trials are increasingly exaggerated and the negative ones are either swept under the carpet or simply ignored. And finally they decide the prices of such medicines.
The very patients who had been test-labs for these medicines may not be able to afford the same medicine; it is more so when it is a lifesaving medicine. Naturally, people go for alternative medical practices, and the number of those who go for free samples and self-medication is not getting small either. This is the state of affairs that exists in the affordability side of our medical care system. And how many of our modern medical boasts are acceptable to us? Here comes acceptability.
Acceptability
This is relatively the least serious factor in any medical system. It takes a little sensitivity in our state because of our socio-economic and religious-cultural peculiarities. This diversity is seen in all parts of our state and, when it comes to modern medical practices, many of us are not ready to wholeheartedly digest certain procedures prescribed by our medical fraternity. Some indigenous faiths, religious undertones, social stigmas do not allow some people to buy anything that the medical fraternity offers.
Different people have their own different apprehensions on the feasibility of certain medicinal and diagnostic procedures. These confusions primarily get generated due to the lack of medical awareness among the people. Secondly, it is contributed by the high pedestal position of our medical personnel. Thirdly, their incomprehensible medical jargons, poor patient-friendliness of the places they sit in; why should we say more, even their gestures and looks make people apprehensive of the feasibility and outcome of a medical procedure. Unfortunately, many medical prescriptions scribbled out by our doctors are eyed more with suspicion than with confidence. This medical myopia is able to deprive a patient of his/her rightful share of medical care.
Therefore, it is right to add that all medical innovations that periodically come to our healthcare need to be brought to the notice of the public. The language and platform used for the same should be people-friendly and free from what we normally associate with the prescriptions of our doctors; ‘incomprehensible’. Even the highly educated stumble at them, not to speak of the man on the street. Such awareness exercises should include particulars like the medical or life value of the new development, its cost, effects and side effects, availability and the like. This will make great shifts in the people’s attitude towards the acceptability side of our medical system.
A nation with inaccessible, unaffordable or unacceptable medical system and practices can never succeed in its march to progress. The general physical well-being of the population needs to be the primary concern of any state. In exercising this responsibility, the state medical fraternity has to have a people-friendly mindset so that a larger poor section of the community will feel the confidence and freedom to approach them upon a medical eventuality. However, in these times of medical revolution, it is really agonizing and unnerving to witness hundreds of thousands of people die for want of proper medical accessibility, affordability and acceptability.
I think, if India could become a medical power on the above three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much hyped nuclear power. All nations need to be medical powers. It’s better than being a military or nuclear power. Everything else will fall in place.
I think it wouldn’t be an exaggeration that, if India could become a medical super power on the three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much-hyped nuclear or military power.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Our prayers, faiths and worships proclaim: “It is not for nothing we all perform them, but, not to be living in any illness or pain”.Living in pain is no better than mere living.
Where does the onus come to lie, if one happens to live his/her life in pain out of reasons many; like one’s inability to afford adequate medical care due to his poor social status or ignorance on where to access it from or being not ready to take up some medical helps out of fear or social stigma? Does it come to lie in the medical fraternity, or in the whole medical care system of the state?
It is worth pondering over it because a Supreme Court bench has recently given some deliberations on the legality of letting people in excruciating pains and irrecoverable illnesses die assisted death. In this backdrop, we need to look at the medical care system existing in our state.
The scenario
Various streams of medical sciences have grown by leaps and bounds and, medically speaking, today’s world is a much better place to be in than it was a couple of years ago or a few months ago. That is the speed with which innovations that take place in the medical sphere, and the same is reason enough to believe that the sustenance of humans in this planet is much more assured for many more years than what is usually deemed to be in terms of longevity indices.
It is all fine and encouraging to know of and make use of this growth as and when there is a medial intervention in one’s life. Frankly speaking, people dread ill heath much more than anything else. Death is fine if it is painless. If an illness is going to give you traumatic days and finally lands you in the hands of death, you would prefer the latter much before the former comes to haunt you. For us all, including all other living beings, it is important to be free from illnesses.
This preoccupation with our well-being is what makes it imperative that people of all categories need medical care of their choices. This raises a few small questions: How many of us are aware of the medical innovations available around us? How many of us are able to afford such conveniences? And finally how many of us find these medial practices acceptable to us? These three things are very important in any medical regime.
When it comes to healthcare system of any country, the first few things that need to come to one’s mind are Accessibility, Affordability and Acceptability. They are popularly known in medical parlance as three ‘A’s. A detailed look into these three will give an exact picture of the state of affairs existing in any healthcare system of any state. Whether it is so poor a nation or a super power, the primary requirement of a medical care system needs to be accessibility.
Accessibility
The word itself is explanatory enough. All the medical innovations notwithstanding, if the populace, regardless of their social, financial and /or community statuses, is not able to access them according to their convenience, it is as good as not having such innovations at all.
This primary medical requirement is met basically by a couple of factors: demographic distribution of doctors and their support staff – i.e. medical personnel-population ratio – the number of government sponsored medical facilities like PHCs and similar medical centers, their infrastructure, working hours and related services are a few of them.
Coupled with these is the medical conveniences showcased by private healthcare industry. How much they offer, how many are able to access it, how costly or cheap it is etc. are other contributory factors that decide what we call the accessibility side of a medical care system.
In the Indian context, it is sorry to say that the lion’s share of the population is bound to queue up at the corridors of private medicare industry for quality medical care. There are government facilities like medical colleges, district medical centers, Taluk hospitals and primary health centers. The facilities, the number of patients these facilities are able to handle and finally the people-friendliness of such locations are always at loggerheads.
Either it is the shortage of qualified doctors, or it is poor supply of medicine or the non-availability or the malfunctioning of available medical devices. This is not going to change in the near future because, the super-speciality medical facilities have become a huge industry and they are going to stay here, claiming their due market shares. Their services are accessible to a limited few considering the size of the bill they generate, the huge population and the nature of diseases this population comes to experience every passing day. This leads to the next medical issue called affordability.
Affordability
‘God visits the hungry in the form of bread’. So goes the saying. HE cannot afford to be in any other form. So, if the medical innovations are unaffordable to the majority of the population, it is better than not having any innovations at all. A patient who is dying for want of lifesaving medicine will have no regard for any lifesaving medical innovations. For him, saving his life is primary and everything else is secondary. The hungry needs food, neither God, nor faith.
Counting the rising cost of medical care in our state, how many men on the street are able to afford the bills for the treatment of a small illness! Why is it so unaffordable? Medical personnel and representatives of national and multinational pharmaceutical giants maintain an unholy nexus in our state, and they unilaterally decide what medicine is to be used by who and at what cost and when. This is unethical and anti-people. No wonder our medical care system remains unaffordable to millions of people.
And there are reports that the clandestine understanding between a part of our medical fraternity and pharmaceutical giants makes our people of guinea pigs for clinical trials. The positive results of such unethical trials are increasingly exaggerated and the negative ones are either swept under the carpet or simply ignored. And finally they decide the prices of such medicines.
The very patients who had been test-labs for these medicines may not be able to afford the same medicine; it is more so when it is a lifesaving medicine. Naturally, people go for alternative medical practices, and the number of those who go for free samples and self-medication is not getting small either. This is the state of affairs that exists in the affordability side of our medical care system. And how many of our modern medical boasts are acceptable to us? Here comes acceptability.
Acceptability
This is relatively the least serious factor in any medical system. It takes a little sensitivity in our state because of our socio-economic and religious-cultural peculiarities. This diversity is seen in all parts of our state and, when it comes to modern medical practices, many of us are not ready to wholeheartedly digest certain procedures prescribed by our medical fraternity. Some indigenous faiths, religious undertones, social stigmas do not allow some people to buy anything that the medical fraternity offers.
Different people have their own different apprehensions on the feasibility of certain medicinal and diagnostic procedures. These confusions primarily get generated due to the lack of medical awareness among the people. Secondly, it is contributed by the high pedestal position of our medical personnel. Thirdly, their incomprehensible medical jargons, poor patient-friendliness of the places they sit in; why should we say more, even their gestures and looks make people apprehensive of the feasibility and outcome of a medical procedure. Unfortunately, many medical prescriptions scribbled out by our doctors are eyed more with suspicion than with confidence. This medical myopia is able to deprive a patient of his/her rightful share of medical care.
Therefore, it is right to add that all medical innovations that periodically come to our healthcare need to be brought to the notice of the public. The language and platform used for the same should be people-friendly and free from what we normally associate with the prescriptions of our doctors; ‘incomprehensible’. Even the highly educated stumble at them, not to speak of the man on the street. Such awareness exercises should include particulars like the medical or life value of the new development, its cost, effects and side effects, availability and the like. This will make great shifts in the people’s attitude towards the acceptability side of our medical system.
A nation with inaccessible, unaffordable or unacceptable medical system and practices can never succeed in its march to progress. The general physical well-being of the population needs to be the primary concern of any state. In exercising this responsibility, the state medical fraternity has to have a people-friendly mindset so that a larger poor section of the community will feel the confidence and freedom to approach them upon a medical eventuality. However, in these times of medical revolution, it is really agonizing and unnerving to witness hundreds of thousands of people die for want of proper medical accessibility, affordability and acceptability.
I think, if India could become a medical power on the above three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much hyped nuclear power. All nations need to be medical powers. It’s better than being a military or nuclear power. Everything else will fall in place.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Nuclear Confidence: it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin
Nuclear Confidence: it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he has the right to cry out: ‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’. This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin.
An emerging economy like India cannot afford to be going without meeting its surging energy demands. And as days go by, the need for finding energy sources is mounting to alarming proportions. It is a fact that we cannot do without energy of some kind. Else, how are we going to feed the population, how are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling, how are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least? Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch? Can a power hungry nation ever be people-and-progress friendly? An emphatic no is the answer to the last question.
Yes, it all sounds reasonable to an ordinary voter. But there are millions of voters in the subcontinent who are not ready to buy such a chain of questions. They are a thinking lot who feel that the much hyped nuclear deal with the US is nothing short of outright sell off. For, this nation needs sustainable and affordable power, in the sense that we cannot offer to sell Hamburgers to a populace that is vying hard to afford a sandwich made of bread and butter.
It is reported that a unit of nuclear electricity would cost Rs. 15/- or so, and by the time this deal comes to produce energy, the price per unit is bound to appreciate and go far beyond the reach of any industry or individual. Then, we cannot say that it is so costly and we are unable to afford it. This situation would raise the same questions that we had found in the beginning of this article.
· How are we going to feed the population in the long run?
· How are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling?
· How are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least?
· Can we afford ourselves to be called a developing nation all the ages to come?
· Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch that keeps the gears of the economy grinding to halts as and when monsoon fails to last long enough or summer lasts a little longer than usual?
· Can a power-hungry nation ever be people-and-progress-friendly?
And if our Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh (some people have started calling him Moneymohan Singh after his successful annexing of a few MPs to his stable during the last round of nuclear sell off deal that went in our very Lok Sabha a couple of weeks ago) has a little qualms about the concerns raised by a sizeable number of the population, it is his responsibility to prove that he was dealing with the US solely for the greater interest of the nation. And the fears and concerns, which his own MPs and those horse-traded ones had been raising for nearly a couple of years or so, are unfounded.
The bales of currency, which got involved in the process of the confidence motion prior to the last leg of the Indo-US nuclear deal, can be called a pittance or negligibly small sum compared to the Dollars involved in it in the long run. It is said that the deal involves $400,000/- crores.
There are inputs from reliable sources that the nuclear representatives who had been shuttling between New Delhi and Washington and Vienna and Geneva included more corporate nuclear dealers than people who deal with uranium and nuclear energy. They were finding a lucrative market in India with inexhaustible potential and the same is going to be squeezed out of the last vein of the nation within minimum 15 years from the date of the commissioning of this deal.
Who is listening to these concerns? There were many who could have done great service to the future of the nation on the basis of this deal. Dilly-dallying of the Leftist supporters had given Manmohan-sonia nexus enough leeway and time to seal deals with MPs not to vote against or to abstain from voting. It happened. And it has done the most heinous damage to the nation. A minority represented (in a multi-party system, democracy most of the time is the rule of the minority) government has defeated the majority. It the irony is it is a constitutional defeat.
To avert this democracy demolition, Mr. Karat and company should have pulled itself out of the UPA some one-year ago and sent the latter and the US running for support. Instead, what these Karats and group did is the opposite. I would call it one of the biggest opposition blunders these parties have ever done in their course of service (or disservice) to the nation.
Let us see how this deal fares for India
· Australia is the world’s biggest Producer of Uranium. But this nation does not have a nuclear reactor connected to its power grid because of its unaffordable cost of production.
· Such a power source is going to be inducted in a nation where the people are unable to afford power costing anything more than five rupees.
· A hugely populated nation like India is going to face catastrophic consequences with huge loss of life and ever-lasting radioactivity in the event of a single nuclear reactor failure.
· Is the US going to keep any insurance cover or risk allowance for this? Does the UPA have that much money to offer minimum five hundred thousands each to every would-be dead and dying?
· Let us all remember that the US is shipping in its kitchen and toilet wastes to the Indian shores on a regular basis. Such an unfeeling cluster of imperialists cannot be doing any favour to our nation if this deal gives them an open cheque.
· Through this deal they will ship to us everything from dead old reactors to the most deadly and crippling terms and conditions in the future.
· The hold of the NSG members, the IAEA, the so-called safe guards/conditionalities in the Hyde Act (which hides much more than it reveals), India’s nuclear independence and foreign policy, nuclear power for peaceful purposes and the like rhetoric do not hold much water when it is a matter of nation’s ability to afford nuclear energy, and shoulder its catastrophic consequences. Both are purely India-centric- not IAEA, US, NSG or Hyde Act centric.
· At present our nation harnesses only 3% nuclear energy. It is going to attach more than ten times that figure to its power grid in the coming decade. Can a nation like India afford such a power pressure? Today what we are short of is power. We are going to be chronically powerless to afford the available power in the immediate future. This is a fix. No doubt.
How does it do when it comes to our neighbouring Pakistan?
· There are reports that our neighbouring Pakistan has started demanding for a similar nuclear deal, and these NSG and IAEA officials, along with their American corporate business associates, are bound to sit with Pakistan too in the immediate future. What does such a similar agreement amount to be?
· Naturally, our counterpart too would be given a tailor-made nuclear deal in the long run and from then on we both would keep our muscles flexed and our military egos clashing whenever there is an altercation across the border. What else is left for the US to convert this peaceful region into a confrontationist one? Is not there enough scope for some weapons retail? There is ample.
· To cap it all, Pakistan has recently hinted that it is no problem if the US brokers a deal for Kashmir issue provided a neighbour-friendly nuclear deal is sealed for (it) Pakistan too.
So what is up for us all to know? If coalition politics is this nation-bashing and devastating, think of a single party majority in the House or of a brutal majority. Though no election in independent India is expected to effect a House with brutal majority, the possibility for a narrow margin single party House cannot be ruled out, say some ten years later. Deals of this kind will surface in future too. Therefore, when we vote next time, we all need to be cautious. Democracy seems to be a threat to nations like India.
However, if MPs could be bargained for and bought out, if a nation’s integrity can be kept out for auction, dissection and compromises, if money could keep the very existence of a populace at ransom, if a small minority is able to keep the huge majority at their mercy, in these times of huge turbulences and emergencies, a few stray noises that we find on platforms like these ones would not be able to echo enough decibels as to make changes of any kind. Still, it is worth sounding the alarm.
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he does have the right to cry out:
‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’.
This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin, or Sonia?
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he has the right to cry out: ‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’. This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin.
An emerging economy like India cannot afford to be going without meeting its surging energy demands. And as days go by, the need for finding energy sources is mounting to alarming proportions. It is a fact that we cannot do without energy of some kind. Else, how are we going to feed the population, how are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling, how are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least? Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch? Can a power hungry nation ever be people-and-progress friendly? An emphatic no is the answer to the last question.
Yes, it all sounds reasonable to an ordinary voter. But there are millions of voters in the subcontinent who are not ready to buy such a chain of questions. They are a thinking lot who feel that the much hyped nuclear deal with the US is nothing short of outright sell off. For, this nation needs sustainable and affordable power, in the sense that we cannot offer to sell Hamburgers to a populace that is vying hard to afford a sandwich made of bread and butter.
It is reported that a unit of nuclear electricity would cost Rs. 15/- or so, and by the time this deal comes to produce energy, the price per unit is bound to appreciate and go far beyond the reach of any industry or individual. Then, we cannot say that it is so costly and we are unable to afford it. This situation would raise the same questions that we had found in the beginning of this article.
· How are we going to feed the population in the long run?
· How are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling?
· How are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least?
· Can we afford ourselves to be called a developing nation all the ages to come?
· Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch that keeps the gears of the economy grinding to halts as and when monsoon fails to last long enough or summer lasts a little longer than usual?
· Can a power-hungry nation ever be people-and-progress-friendly?
And if our Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh (some people have started calling him Moneymohan Singh after his successful annexing of a few MPs to his stable during the last round of nuclear sell off deal that went in our very Lok Sabha a couple of weeks ago) has a little qualms about the concerns raised by a sizeable number of the population, it is his responsibility to prove that he was dealing with the US solely for the greater interest of the nation. And the fears and concerns, which his own MPs and those horse-traded ones had been raising for nearly a couple of years or so, are unfounded.
The bales of currency, which got involved in the process of the confidence motion prior to the last leg of the Indo-US nuclear deal, can be called a pittance or negligibly small sum compared to the Dollars involved in it in the long run. It is said that the deal involves $400,000/- crores.
There are inputs from reliable sources that the nuclear representatives who had been shuttling between New Delhi and Washington and Vienna and Geneva included more corporate nuclear dealers than people who deal with uranium and nuclear energy. They were finding a lucrative market in India with inexhaustible potential and the same is going to be squeezed out of the last vein of the nation within minimum 15 years from the date of the commissioning of this deal.
Who is listening to these concerns? There were many who could have done great service to the future of the nation on the basis of this deal. Dilly-dallying of the Leftist supporters had given Manmohan-sonia nexus enough leeway and time to seal deals with MPs not to vote against or to abstain from voting. It happened. And it has done the most heinous damage to the nation. A minority represented (in a multi-party system, democracy most of the time is the rule of the minority) government has defeated the majority. It the irony is it is a constitutional defeat.
To avert this democracy demolition, Mr. Karat and company should have pulled itself out of the UPA some one-year ago and sent the latter and the US running for support. Instead, what these Karats and group did is the opposite. I would call it one of the biggest opposition blunders these parties have ever done in their course of service (or disservice) to the nation.
Let us see how this deal fares for India
· Australia is the world’s biggest Producer of Uranium. But this nation does not have a nuclear reactor connected to its power grid because of its unaffordable cost of production.
· Such a power source is going to be inducted in a nation where the people are unable to afford power costing anything more than five rupees.
· A hugely populated nation like India is going to face catastrophic consequences with huge loss of life and ever-lasting radioactivity in the event of a single nuclear reactor failure.
· Is the US going to keep any insurance cover or risk allowance for this? Does the UPA have that much money to offer minimum five hundred thousands each to every would-be dead and dying?
· Let us all remember that the US is shipping in its kitchen and toilet wastes to the Indian shores on a regular basis. Such an unfeeling cluster of imperialists cannot be doing any favour to our nation if this deal gives them an open cheque.
· Through this deal they will ship to us everything from dead old reactors to the most deadly and crippling terms and conditions in the future.
· The hold of the NSG members, the IAEA, the so-called safe guards/conditionalities in the Hyde Act (which hides much more than it reveals), India’s nuclear independence and foreign policy, nuclear power for peaceful purposes and the like rhetoric do not hold much water when it is a matter of nation’s ability to afford nuclear energy, and shoulder its catastrophic consequences. Both are purely India-centric- not IAEA, US, NSG or Hyde Act centric.
· At present our nation harnesses only 3% nuclear energy. It is going to attach more than ten times that figure to its power grid in the coming decade. Can a nation like India afford such a power pressure? Today what we are short of is power. We are going to be chronically powerless to afford the available power in the immediate future. This is a fix. No doubt.
How does it do when it comes to our neighbouring Pakistan?
· There are reports that our neighbouring Pakistan has started demanding for a similar nuclear deal, and these NSG and IAEA officials, along with their American corporate business associates, are bound to sit with Pakistan too in the immediate future. What does such a similar agreement amount to be?
· Naturally, our counterpart too would be given a tailor-made nuclear deal in the long run and from then on we both would keep our muscles flexed and our military egos clashing whenever there is an altercation across the border. What else is left for the US to convert this peaceful region into a confrontationist one? Is not there enough scope for some weapons retail? There is ample.
· To cap it all, Pakistan has recently hinted that it is no problem if the US brokers a deal for Kashmir issue provided a neighbour-friendly nuclear deal is sealed for (it) Pakistan too.
So what is up for us all to know? If coalition politics is this nation-bashing and devastating, think of a single party majority in the House or of a brutal majority. Though no election in independent India is expected to effect a House with brutal majority, the possibility for a narrow margin single party House cannot be ruled out, say some ten years later. Deals of this kind will surface in future too. Therefore, when we vote next time, we all need to be cautious. Democracy seems to be a threat to nations like India.
However, if MPs could be bargained for and bought out, if a nation’s integrity can be kept out for auction, dissection and compromises, if money could keep the very existence of a populace at ransom, if a small minority is able to keep the huge majority at their mercy, in these times of huge turbulences and emergencies, a few stray noises that we find on platforms like these ones would not be able to echo enough decibels as to make changes of any kind. Still, it is worth sounding the alarm.
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he does have the right to cry out:
‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’.
This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin, or Sonia?
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Politics is not dirty, but politicians are
Those ones who are in the helm of our national politics had once been away from the purview of this definition. But times have changed and all of them are now in the stable of the scoundrels, and they all represent only one clan which does not have a noun to be given, but an adjective to be attached: It is ‘politypical’. If it is a party, it is politypical party; if it is a person, he or she is a ‘politypical’ leader or follower. This clan of scoundrels deserves no name at all, for they have been able to cut themselves to be so undeserving by carrying out activities nefarious, asocial and apolitical enough to call them with no name at all. They stand poised to enjoy certain privileges and principles. These are:
· Horse-trading is fine. Political power is the sign of this horse
· Defecting is incorporated. It comes first with defeating the other party, and next with snubbing the very voters and their trust
· Accepting kick-backs is part of the deal
· Killing, criminalising, character assassination, cornering and political exiling are tricks of the ‘national’ trade
· Second-fiddling are survival characteristics
· Wheeling and dealing are like political breathing
· Money is the political oxygen, and Mammon is the political deity
· Ideologies are idiocies; they are found in all the ideologues
· Allegiance to the party is a kind of allegation and an insult
· There is no constant allegiance to any one. Party or public
· Being in politics is like a windfall. You need not do anything. Just stay on the course to be of some dimension in the long run
· Education or any type of qualification is a disqualification. Forget about character and culture, moral values and decency
· A politician does not need to work or earn. He is fed by the system or he feeds on the system.
· Having a conscience or being conscientious is passé in politics
· All politicians are equal before low esteem, poor respect and scant regard
· Be in jail and run for offices, come out and attend confidence or no confidence motions. It is all in the game
· Once you are in it, it is hard to be out of it. The nation won’t let you be out. The political clutches are so full of tentacles that they won’t let one breathe free from the above politypical implications
So what is dirty, politics or politicians? The mass impression is that politicians of all hues are dirty beings that pry on common man’s pie. They are the most heinous of human forms. Politics has become a slum of such filth and what it generates election after elections is but filths of the worst order capable of eating away the very system it thrives on. It is an arena of scavengers and parasites, peddlers and pushers whose ultimate religion is remorselessness. There in no one worth the political salt to be an exception to GB Shaw’s definition. ‘Politician’ in the real sense of the term is an extinct species. And politics is a dead stream of the state.
It is really hard for any scoundrel of some ordinary order to be a politician. But, today, a politician of any order, colour or combination could easily be related other way round.
They are increasingly becoming a fast breeding organism capable of inflicting untold miseries and abominable precedents in the system. They are a menace, a virus, a cancer and a canker. The nation stands hopelessly succumbed.
Disclaimer: If a politician of some genuine order happens to read this article and comes to have some reservations on the observations made in it, he or she is kindly urged to understand that they are the last remains of an about to be extinct political species, and these words do not have the power to hurt them any way because they are going to be culled from the system and bred in captivity so that the posterity would have a sigh of relief seeing them displayed at heritage museums and galleries. The writer.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
India needs a new constitution: very badly
India needs a new constitution: very badly
Which civilized republican constitution in the world allows criminals of all orders, illiterates, separatists and anti-social elements to hold political offices like ministers’? Only our Indian constitution does it, and it’s this malady that this mammoth democracy faces down the ages. We need a new constitution.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
The architect of our constitution had lofty ideals and great visions in their minds when they culled and incorporated articles and principles from other constitutions like Britain’s, and gave shape to what we Indians greatly honour and astutely follow as the most important literature of our nation.
Our constitution, ever since the nation became a republic, has been misinterpreted, amended and added upon much more frequently and it has long ago become a document of ridicule. This is being substantiated again by the way the advocates of our constitution, our elected representatives and our so-called secular schools of thought, and of course by every Indian, who periodically becomes instrumental to the most ridiculous democratic exercise, the election process.
The lofty ideals and principles are there in our constitution, and the ones being raked up and dissected threadbare on the wake of amendments and resolutions have no bearing on the pressing needs of our current nation. All these ploys are politically, religiously, communally and even regionally and linguistically motivated, and this politicking of the constitution is being carried out so take-it-for-grantedly that it has become a private script of those who rule and misrule the nation. Let’s see how our present constitution fares.
· Elected representatives do not sound elected at all once they are voted in. They sound rather parallel-governors.
· Political ideologies are just spring boards to power and power sharing. The different heights are marked by different offers and terms.
· Elections are mere humbugs. Most of the elected representatives represent the minority, and the majority vote is scavenged out by petty parties.
· The voters are all powerful to elect. But they have no right to recall an irresponsible representative. The former is at the mercy of the latter. Our constitution hasn’t done anything in this direction so far.
· The numbers of rich and poor are always on the increase. Advocates of our constitution do not find anything strange in it.
· Money is key player in all democratic processes. It’s legal to be buying and selling votes or votaries.
· Corruption rules the roost all over the nation. It is the order of the day: from defense purchase to public distribution systems.
· When voting is a right, votes are sold out or bought no matter it is a citizen’s vote or an MP’s vote.
· Proportional representation is a mirage. Equal rights for men and women, or at least 33 % representation for women in elected offices is a distant dream.
· Uniform civil code that is mandatory for all democracies is a threat to the nation. Country gets shaken when it is discussed in a constitutional point of view.
· A great percent of judges are found to be too corrupt to be remaining in their positions. Their verdicts are signs of injustice.
· Number of MLAs and MPs are corrupt and criminals of the first and finest order. Many serve much more of their tenure in jails than in the isles of the House they are supposed to be in.
· Anti-defection bill introduced during Rajiv Gandhi’s time, aiming at ensuring some kind of political accountability among our political horse-traders, has been proved time and again that it is constitutional to be defecting and anti-defection is unconstitutional. Our constitution does not have the teeth to counter such a hijacking of a bill. Do we need such a book any more?
· Ministerial portfolios are generated periodically not to meet the increasing governance demands of the nation but to satisfy the petty political interests. Our constitution makes the voters bear all this dirty brunt.
· Our constitution does not have any provision to impose age ceiling to our old political men. If it did, we could periodically clean up the political system so that our old men in the political sea would stay off the way of the nation’s forward move.
· There are instance to show individuals and institutions call the shots and political parties and their henchmen take the people at ransom. Arson, homicide and communal riots are politically managed.
· Judiciary is for the rich, so is justice in most of the cases. All are equal before law is a farce. Many verdicts echo the Orvelean principle, ‘all are equal, but ‘some are more equal’.
· Security to one’s life and property does not sound constitutional any longer. This constitution claims to be providing the same. But it does not.
· Inequality of all types is rampant throughout the nation. Your rights and privileges are decided not by constitutional safeguards but by what you actually are; economically, socially, politically and religiously.
· Constitutional safeguards like right to deserving education, freedom of expression, right to information, right to question etc. are for a privileged few.
· The rule of law is the law of the ruling. Many laws of the land applies only to the landless.
· And India as a Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic has ceased to be sovereign, socialist and democratic.
· What we have is a nation under the clutches of imperial forces and internal squabbles. We have a social order that is not at all socialistic, and a democratic process which every time is a ridiculous routine.
· What is remaining is its being a Republic on the basis of a constitution. What a constitution in such a Republic can claim to safeguard? The most misinterpreted and mismanaged and the least understood and appreciated document of the nation is our constitution and it is for the pick of any Political tam, Dick and Harry.
And in order to be a Republic of some order in this time and age, a nation has to have a constitution which is relevant to the needs of the times, recognizing the realities and above all it should sound reasonable and be understandable to the last voter of the nation, no matter that voter is an MP or an MLA or a common man.
Tailpiece: The constitutionality of the Indo-US nuclear agreement, the no-confidence motion it brought to the fore, and the trading of MPs involving crores and core political posts, the conventional Indian political horse-trading that have been alleged prior to the no-confidence motion and the eventual political uncertainty that nation suffered could have been avoided to a great extent if we had a constitution of the times.
This present document is to be scrapped with immediate effect. The rising nation needs fresh bloods and young brains. For such a change of guard, we need a new constitution. Or I would say, it is this constitution, or the parochial and vested politically motivated interpretations it comes to suffer from every now and then, are the stumbling blocks that stand on the way of the nation’s march to a new true Indian order and a modern Indian constitution itself. Jai Hind.
Which civilized republican constitution in the world allows criminals of all orders, illiterates, separatists and anti-social elements to hold political offices like ministers’? Only our Indian constitution does it, and it’s this malady that this mammoth democracy faces down the ages. We need a new constitution.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
The architect of our constitution had lofty ideals and great visions in their minds when they culled and incorporated articles and principles from other constitutions like Britain’s, and gave shape to what we Indians greatly honour and astutely follow as the most important literature of our nation.
Our constitution, ever since the nation became a republic, has been misinterpreted, amended and added upon much more frequently and it has long ago become a document of ridicule. This is being substantiated again by the way the advocates of our constitution, our elected representatives and our so-called secular schools of thought, and of course by every Indian, who periodically becomes instrumental to the most ridiculous democratic exercise, the election process.
The lofty ideals and principles are there in our constitution, and the ones being raked up and dissected threadbare on the wake of amendments and resolutions have no bearing on the pressing needs of our current nation. All these ploys are politically, religiously, communally and even regionally and linguistically motivated, and this politicking of the constitution is being carried out so take-it-for-grantedly that it has become a private script of those who rule and misrule the nation. Let’s see how our present constitution fares.
· Elected representatives do not sound elected at all once they are voted in. They sound rather parallel-governors.
· Political ideologies are just spring boards to power and power sharing. The different heights are marked by different offers and terms.
· Elections are mere humbugs. Most of the elected representatives represent the minority, and the majority vote is scavenged out by petty parties.
· The voters are all powerful to elect. But they have no right to recall an irresponsible representative. The former is at the mercy of the latter. Our constitution hasn’t done anything in this direction so far.
· The numbers of rich and poor are always on the increase. Advocates of our constitution do not find anything strange in it.
· Money is key player in all democratic processes. It’s legal to be buying and selling votes or votaries.
· Corruption rules the roost all over the nation. It is the order of the day: from defense purchase to public distribution systems.
· When voting is a right, votes are sold out or bought no matter it is a citizen’s vote or an MP’s vote.
· Proportional representation is a mirage. Equal rights for men and women, or at least 33 % representation for women in elected offices is a distant dream.
· Uniform civil code that is mandatory for all democracies is a threat to the nation. Country gets shaken when it is discussed in a constitutional point of view.
· A great percent of judges are found to be too corrupt to be remaining in their positions. Their verdicts are signs of injustice.
· Number of MLAs and MPs are corrupt and criminals of the first and finest order. Many serve much more of their tenure in jails than in the isles of the House they are supposed to be in.
· Anti-defection bill introduced during Rajiv Gandhi’s time, aiming at ensuring some kind of political accountability among our political horse-traders, has been proved time and again that it is constitutional to be defecting and anti-defection is unconstitutional. Our constitution does not have the teeth to counter such a hijacking of a bill. Do we need such a book any more?
· Ministerial portfolios are generated periodically not to meet the increasing governance demands of the nation but to satisfy the petty political interests. Our constitution makes the voters bear all this dirty brunt.
· Our constitution does not have any provision to impose age ceiling to our old political men. If it did, we could periodically clean up the political system so that our old men in the political sea would stay off the way of the nation’s forward move.
· There are instance to show individuals and institutions call the shots and political parties and their henchmen take the people at ransom. Arson, homicide and communal riots are politically managed.
· Judiciary is for the rich, so is justice in most of the cases. All are equal before law is a farce. Many verdicts echo the Orvelean principle, ‘all are equal, but ‘some are more equal’.
· Security to one’s life and property does not sound constitutional any longer. This constitution claims to be providing the same. But it does not.
· Inequality of all types is rampant throughout the nation. Your rights and privileges are decided not by constitutional safeguards but by what you actually are; economically, socially, politically and religiously.
· Constitutional safeguards like right to deserving education, freedom of expression, right to information, right to question etc. are for a privileged few.
· The rule of law is the law of the ruling. Many laws of the land applies only to the landless.
· And India as a Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic has ceased to be sovereign, socialist and democratic.
· What we have is a nation under the clutches of imperial forces and internal squabbles. We have a social order that is not at all socialistic, and a democratic process which every time is a ridiculous routine.
· What is remaining is its being a Republic on the basis of a constitution. What a constitution in such a Republic can claim to safeguard? The most misinterpreted and mismanaged and the least understood and appreciated document of the nation is our constitution and it is for the pick of any Political tam, Dick and Harry.
And in order to be a Republic of some order in this time and age, a nation has to have a constitution which is relevant to the needs of the times, recognizing the realities and above all it should sound reasonable and be understandable to the last voter of the nation, no matter that voter is an MP or an MLA or a common man.
Tailpiece: The constitutionality of the Indo-US nuclear agreement, the no-confidence motion it brought to the fore, and the trading of MPs involving crores and core political posts, the conventional Indian political horse-trading that have been alleged prior to the no-confidence motion and the eventual political uncertainty that nation suffered could have been avoided to a great extent if we had a constitution of the times.
This present document is to be scrapped with immediate effect. The rising nation needs fresh bloods and young brains. For such a change of guard, we need a new constitution. Or I would say, it is this constitution, or the parochial and vested politically motivated interpretations it comes to suffer from every now and then, are the stumbling blocks that stand on the way of the nation’s march to a new true Indian order and a modern Indian constitution itself. Jai Hind.
India needs a new constitution: very badly
India needs a new constitution: very badly
Which civilized republican constitution in the world allows criminals of all orders, illiterates, separatists and anti-social elements to hold political offices like ministers’? Only our Indian constitution does it, and it’s this malady that this mammoth democracy faces down the ages. We need a new constitution.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
The architect of our constitution had lofty ideals and great visions in their minds when they culled and incorporated articles and principles from other constitutions like Britain’s, and gave shape to what we Indians greatly honour and astutely follow as the most important literature of our nation.
Our constitution, ever since the nation became a republic, has been misinterpreted, amended and added upon much more frequently and it has long ago become a document of ridicule. This is being substantiated again by the way the advocates of our constitution, our elected representatives and our so-called secular schools of thought, and of course by every Indian, who periodically becomes instrumental to the most ridiculous democratic exercise, the election process.
The lofty ideals and principles are there in our constitution, and the ones being raked up and dissected threadbare on the wake of amendments and resolutions have no bearing on the pressing needs of our current nation. All these ploys are politically, religiously, communally and even regionally and linguistically motivated, and this politicking of the constitution is being carried out so take-it-for-grantedly that it has become a private script of those who rule and misrule the nation. Let’s see how our present constitution fares.
· Elected representatives do not sound elected at all once they are voted in. They sound rather parallel-governors.
· Political ideologies are just spring boards to power and power sharing. The different heights are marked by different offers and terms.
· Elections are mere humbugs. Most of the elected representatives represent the minority, and the majority vote is scavenged out by petty parties.
· The voters are all powerful to elect. But they have no right to recall an irresponsible representative. The former is at the mercy of the latter. Our constitution hasn’t done anything in this direction so far.
· The numbers of rich and poor are always on the increase. Advocates of our constitution do not find anything strange in it.
· Money is key player in all democratic processes. It’s legal to be buying and selling votes or votaries.
· Corruption rules the roost all over the nation. It is the order of the day: from defense purchase to public distribution systems.
· When voting is a right, votes are sold out or bought no matter it is a citizen’s vote or an MP’s vote.
· Proportional representation is a mirage. Equal rights for men and women, or at least 33 % representation for women in elected offices is a distant dream.
· Uniform civil code that is mandatory for all democracies is a threat to the nation. Country gets shaken when it is discussed in a constitutional point of view.
· A great percent of judges are found to be too corrupt to be remaining in their positions. Their verdicts are signs of injustice.
· Number of MLAs and MPs are corrupt and criminals of the first and finest order. Many serve much more of their tenure in jails than in the isles of the House they are supposed to be in.
· Anti-defection bill introduced during Rajiv Gandhi’s time, aiming at ensuring some kind of political accountability among our political horse-traders, has been proved time and again that it is constitutional to be defecting and anti-defection is unconstitutional. Our constitution does not have the teeth to counter such a hijacking of a bill. Do we need such a book any more?
· Ministerial portfolios are generated periodically not to meet the increasing governance demands of the nation but to satisfy the petty political interests. Our constitution makes the voters bear all this dirty brunt.
· Our constitution does not have any provision to impose age ceiling to our old political men. If it did, we could periodically clean up the political system so that our old men in the political sea would stay off the way of the nation’s forward move.
· There are instance to show individuals and institutions call the shots and political parties and their henchmen take the people at ransom. Arson, homicide and communal riots are politically managed.
· Judiciary is for the rich, so is justice in most of the cases. All are equal before law is a farce. Many verdicts echo the Orvelean principle, ‘all are equal, but ‘some are more equal’.
· Security to one’s life and property does not sound constitutional any longer. This constitution claims to be providing the same. But it does not.
· Inequality of all types is rampant throughout the nation. Your rights and privileges are decided not by constitutional safeguards but by what you actually are; economically, socially, politically and religiously.
· Constitutional safeguards like right to deserving education, freedom of expression, right to information, right to question etc. are for a privileged few.
· The rule of law is the law of the ruling. Many laws of the land applies only to the landless.
· And India as a Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic has ceased to be sovereign, socialist and democratic.
· What we have is a nation under the clutches of imperial forces and internal squabbles. We have a social order that is not at all socialistic, and a democratic process which every time is a ridiculous routine.
· What is remaining is its being a Republic on the basis of a constitution. What a constitution in such a Republic can claim to safeguard? The most misinterpreted and mismanaged and the least understood and appreciated document of the nation is our constitution and it is for the pick of any Political tam, Dick and Harry.
And in order to be a Republic of some order in this time and age, a nation has to have a constitution which is relevant to the needs of the times, recognizing the realities and above all it should sound reasonable and be understandable to the last voter of the nation, no matter that voter is an MP or an MLA or a common man.
Tailpiece: The constitutionality of the Indo-US nuclear agreement, the no-confidence motion it brought to the fore, and the trading of MPs involving crores and core political posts, the conventional Indian political horse-trading that have been alleged prior to the no-confidence motion and the eventual political uncertainty that nation suffered could have been avoided to a great extent if we had a constitution of the times.
This present document is to be scrapped with immediate effect. The rising nation needs fresh bloods and young brains. For such a change of guard, we need a new constitution. Or I would say, it is this constitution, or the parochial and vested politically motivated interpretations it comes to suffer from every now and then, are the stumbling blocks that stand on the way of the nation’s march to a new true Indian order and a modern Indian constitution itself. Jai Hind.
Which civilized republican constitution in the world allows criminals of all orders, illiterates, separatists and anti-social elements to hold political offices like ministers’? Only our Indian constitution does it, and it’s this malady that this mammoth democracy faces down the ages. We need a new constitution.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
The architect of our constitution had lofty ideals and great visions in their minds when they culled and incorporated articles and principles from other constitutions like Britain’s, and gave shape to what we Indians greatly honour and astutely follow as the most important literature of our nation.
Our constitution, ever since the nation became a republic, has been misinterpreted, amended and added upon much more frequently and it has long ago become a document of ridicule. This is being substantiated again by the way the advocates of our constitution, our elected representatives and our so-called secular schools of thought, and of course by every Indian, who periodically becomes instrumental to the most ridiculous democratic exercise, the election process.
The lofty ideals and principles are there in our constitution, and the ones being raked up and dissected threadbare on the wake of amendments and resolutions have no bearing on the pressing needs of our current nation. All these ploys are politically, religiously, communally and even regionally and linguistically motivated, and this politicking of the constitution is being carried out so take-it-for-grantedly that it has become a private script of those who rule and misrule the nation. Let’s see how our present constitution fares.
· Elected representatives do not sound elected at all once they are voted in. They sound rather parallel-governors.
· Political ideologies are just spring boards to power and power sharing. The different heights are marked by different offers and terms.
· Elections are mere humbugs. Most of the elected representatives represent the minority, and the majority vote is scavenged out by petty parties.
· The voters are all powerful to elect. But they have no right to recall an irresponsible representative. The former is at the mercy of the latter. Our constitution hasn’t done anything in this direction so far.
· The numbers of rich and poor are always on the increase. Advocates of our constitution do not find anything strange in it.
· Money is key player in all democratic processes. It’s legal to be buying and selling votes or votaries.
· Corruption rules the roost all over the nation. It is the order of the day: from defense purchase to public distribution systems.
· When voting is a right, votes are sold out or bought no matter it is a citizen’s vote or an MP’s vote.
· Proportional representation is a mirage. Equal rights for men and women, or at least 33 % representation for women in elected offices is a distant dream.
· Uniform civil code that is mandatory for all democracies is a threat to the nation. Country gets shaken when it is discussed in a constitutional point of view.
· A great percent of judges are found to be too corrupt to be remaining in their positions. Their verdicts are signs of injustice.
· Number of MLAs and MPs are corrupt and criminals of the first and finest order. Many serve much more of their tenure in jails than in the isles of the House they are supposed to be in.
· Anti-defection bill introduced during Rajiv Gandhi’s time, aiming at ensuring some kind of political accountability among our political horse-traders, has been proved time and again that it is constitutional to be defecting and anti-defection is unconstitutional. Our constitution does not have the teeth to counter such a hijacking of a bill. Do we need such a book any more?
· Ministerial portfolios are generated periodically not to meet the increasing governance demands of the nation but to satisfy the petty political interests. Our constitution makes the voters bear all this dirty brunt.
· Our constitution does not have any provision to impose age ceiling to our old political men. If it did, we could periodically clean up the political system so that our old men in the political sea would stay off the way of the nation’s forward move.
· There are instance to show individuals and institutions call the shots and political parties and their henchmen take the people at ransom. Arson, homicide and communal riots are politically managed.
· Judiciary is for the rich, so is justice in most of the cases. All are equal before law is a farce. Many verdicts echo the Orvelean principle, ‘all are equal, but ‘some are more equal’.
· Security to one’s life and property does not sound constitutional any longer. This constitution claims to be providing the same. But it does not.
· Inequality of all types is rampant throughout the nation. Your rights and privileges are decided not by constitutional safeguards but by what you actually are; economically, socially, politically and religiously.
· Constitutional safeguards like right to deserving education, freedom of expression, right to information, right to question etc. are for a privileged few.
· The rule of law is the law of the ruling. Many laws of the land applies only to the landless.
· And India as a Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic has ceased to be sovereign, socialist and democratic.
· What we have is a nation under the clutches of imperial forces and internal squabbles. We have a social order that is not at all socialistic, and a democratic process which every time is a ridiculous routine.
· What is remaining is its being a Republic on the basis of a constitution. What a constitution in such a Republic can claim to safeguard? The most misinterpreted and mismanaged and the least understood and appreciated document of the nation is our constitution and it is for the pick of any Political tam, Dick and Harry.
And in order to be a Republic of some order in this time and age, a nation has to have a constitution which is relevant to the needs of the times, recognizing the realities and above all it should sound reasonable and be understandable to the last voter of the nation, no matter that voter is an MP or an MLA or a common man.
Tailpiece: The constitutionality of the Indo-US nuclear agreement, the no-confidence motion it brought to the fore, and the trading of MPs involving crores and core political posts, the conventional Indian political horse-trading that have been alleged prior to the no-confidence motion and the eventual political uncertainty that nation suffered could have been avoided to a great extent if we had a constitution of the times.
This present document is to be scrapped with immediate effect. The rising nation needs fresh bloods and young brains. For such a change of guard, we need a new constitution. Or I would say, it is this constitution, or the parochial and vested politically motivated interpretations it comes to suffer from every now and then, are the stumbling blocks that stand on the way of the nation’s march to a new true Indian order and a modern Indian constitution itself. Jai Hind.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Interpretations
Love thy neighbour as thyself:
It is not to love thy neighbour
HE was telling us all.
But to lead our lives fairly better
As to win the love of thy neighbour.
It is a proposition powerful enough,
Like love itself, to make this sphere
An Eden of equally binding abodes.
Where in all would find lasting peace.
Thy faith would save you
Faith! Hold onto it, it will save you.
Not that you have faith in ME.
Not that you have faith in my Master.
But to have Peter-like faith in YOU.
The burglar who is out in the dark
Keeps great faith him, not to be caught.
Isn’t this faith that saves him in the dark?
Or does God connive with him when he loots?
Do unto others what you want others to do unto you
Easier it is said than it is done.
Give due respect to the dictates of your self
When you expect your God to be around
Or you do unto others what God would do unto them.
It takes a transformation to be so kind
And it is in such ones He takes his dictates to.
When it dictates to you to ‘do unto others’,
Just out you go doing it, and be one of His.
Oh Father! they know not……. forgive them
Let’s all reiterate our faith in Him again
That the day is fast approaching.
Yes, He comes to take another innings
And get tortured and nailed to the cross.
Betrayed by the dear ones around,
Stoned at by the ‘not sinned’ and sinned,
Fallen and bled both by the faithless
And the faithful; let Him plead again:
Oh Father!
Not that they know not what they do.
Still forgive them,
For, you are all merciful.
It is not to love thy neighbour
HE was telling us all.
But to lead our lives fairly better
As to win the love of thy neighbour.
It is a proposition powerful enough,
Like love itself, to make this sphere
An Eden of equally binding abodes.
Where in all would find lasting peace.
Thy faith would save you
Faith! Hold onto it, it will save you.
Not that you have faith in ME.
Not that you have faith in my Master.
But to have Peter-like faith in YOU.
The burglar who is out in the dark
Keeps great faith him, not to be caught.
Isn’t this faith that saves him in the dark?
Or does God connive with him when he loots?
Do unto others what you want others to do unto you
Easier it is said than it is done.
Give due respect to the dictates of your self
When you expect your God to be around
Or you do unto others what God would do unto them.
It takes a transformation to be so kind
And it is in such ones He takes his dictates to.
When it dictates to you to ‘do unto others’,
Just out you go doing it, and be one of His.
Oh Father! they know not……. forgive them
Let’s all reiterate our faith in Him again
That the day is fast approaching.
Yes, He comes to take another innings
And get tortured and nailed to the cross.
Betrayed by the dear ones around,
Stoned at by the ‘not sinned’ and sinned,
Fallen and bled both by the faithless
And the faithful; let Him plead again:
Oh Father!
Not that they know not what they do.
Still forgive them,
For, you are all merciful.
Interpretations
Love thy neighbour as thyself:
It is not to love thy neighbour
HE was telling us all.
But to lead our lives fairly better
As to win the love of thy neighbour.
It is a proposition powerful enough,
Like love itself, to make this sphere
An Eden of equally binding abodes.
Where in all would find lasting peace.
Thy faith would save you
Faith! Hold onto it, it will save you.
Not that you have faith in ME.
Not that you have faith in my Master.
But to have Peter-like faith in YOU.
The burglar who is out in the dark
Keeps great faith him, not to be caught.
Isn’t this faith that saves him in the dark?
Or does God connive with him when he loots?
Do unto others what you want others to do unto you
Easier it is said than it is done.
Give due respect to the dictates of your self
When you expect your God to be around
Or you do unto others what God would do unto them.
It takes a transformation to be so kind
And it is in such ones He takes his dictates to.
When it dictates to you to ‘do unto others’,
Just out you go doing it, and be one of His.
Oh Father! they know not……. forgive them
Let’s all reiterate our faith in Him again
That the day is fast approaching.
Yes, He comes to take another innings
And get tortured and nailed to the cross.
Betrayed by the dear ones around,
Stoned at by the ‘not sinned’ and sinned,
Fallen and bled both by the faithless
And the faithful; let Him plead again:
Oh Father!
Not that they know not what they do.
Still forgive them,
For, you are all merciful.
It is not to love thy neighbour
HE was telling us all.
But to lead our lives fairly better
As to win the love of thy neighbour.
It is a proposition powerful enough,
Like love itself, to make this sphere
An Eden of equally binding abodes.
Where in all would find lasting peace.
Thy faith would save you
Faith! Hold onto it, it will save you.
Not that you have faith in ME.
Not that you have faith in my Master.
But to have Peter-like faith in YOU.
The burglar who is out in the dark
Keeps great faith him, not to be caught.
Isn’t this faith that saves him in the dark?
Or does God connive with him when he loots?
Do unto others what you want others to do unto you
Easier it is said than it is done.
Give due respect to the dictates of your self
When you expect your God to be around
Or you do unto others what God would do unto them.
It takes a transformation to be so kind
And it is in such ones He takes his dictates to.
When it dictates to you to ‘do unto others’,
Just out you go doing it, and be one of His.
Oh Father! they know not……. forgive them
Let’s all reiterate our faith in Him again
That the day is fast approaching.
Yes, He comes to take another innings
And get tortured and nailed to the cross.
Betrayed by the dear ones around,
Stoned at by the ‘not sinned’ and sinned,
Fallen and bled both by the faithless
And the faithful; let Him plead again:
Oh Father!
Not that they know not what they do.
Still forgive them,
For, you are all merciful.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
What is Bush good for?
What is Bush good for?
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
addthis_url = location.href;
addthis_title = document.title;
addthis_pub = 'greenpeace';
For all the deeds of Bush, the world community would record in their respective histories that there was an American president who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.
THOUGH THE world is not worried much about its continued existence, thanks to the interference of an ordinary mortal like George Bush, it is a good idea to ask an individual question to each one of us – what is Bush good for? The question may sound simple enough, but answering the question may demand a little sense of humour and a tinge of cynicism.
The former requirement, sense of humour, is what the world comes to experience as and when Bush makes a statement on international affairs, and the second requirement, cynicism, is what goes into the making of such comments. See some of his comments and suggestions on international affairs.
“The US would help the oil giant Saudi Arabia to protect its oil reserves.” What does the world understand when it listens to such a comment? A comment is made by whom? And what is he commenting on? When was he making the comment? Where does price of oil per barrel stand in the international market?
“We are happy to assist Saudi Arabia to generate nuclear energy.” What does Saudi Arabia need more than this? Are not the Arabs powerful enough now to dictate oil terms with the rest of the world? They are. Still as Bush needs to be good for the world, he is offering a little help to the ’king’.
When it is of Palestine, Bush cannot resist making a comment that ’independent statehood is what is needed to keep peace in this part of the world’. Since the rest of the world is left with lasting peace, thanks to Bush incorporated, and as Iran is staying in where it has always been, now it is time and the same is ripe for Palestine and then Egypt. Again Bush is becoming of some good to the world order.
Closely following the comment that it is Indian middle-class that is eating away the due food shares of the rest of the world, he had come up with yet another comment on Kashmir the other day. “It is time India and Pakistan found a solution to Kashmir issue.” Are we not going to respond to that comment? A brokerage from America would work wonders in bringing peace in the borders.
His West Asian regional tour focussing on peace comes to close this week, he would have made himself good to a lot of communities around the world, and by the time he leaves office not very soon, the world community would, including those bereaved families of thousands of American marines who got killed around the world, record in their respective histories that there was a president in America who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.
And this President had had the rarest reputation of bringing disrepute not only to the US but to the rest of the world too. What, an ordinary mortal like Bush, is good for after all? Good for not a good thing!
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
addthis_url = location.href;
addthis_title = document.title;
addthis_pub = 'greenpeace';
For all the deeds of Bush, the world community would record in their respective histories that there was an American president who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.
THOUGH THE world is not worried much about its continued existence, thanks to the interference of an ordinary mortal like George Bush, it is a good idea to ask an individual question to each one of us – what is Bush good for? The question may sound simple enough, but answering the question may demand a little sense of humour and a tinge of cynicism.
The former requirement, sense of humour, is what the world comes to experience as and when Bush makes a statement on international affairs, and the second requirement, cynicism, is what goes into the making of such comments. See some of his comments and suggestions on international affairs.
“The US would help the oil giant Saudi Arabia to protect its oil reserves.” What does the world understand when it listens to such a comment? A comment is made by whom? And what is he commenting on? When was he making the comment? Where does price of oil per barrel stand in the international market?
“We are happy to assist Saudi Arabia to generate nuclear energy.” What does Saudi Arabia need more than this? Are not the Arabs powerful enough now to dictate oil terms with the rest of the world? They are. Still as Bush needs to be good for the world, he is offering a little help to the ’king’.
When it is of Palestine, Bush cannot resist making a comment that ’independent statehood is what is needed to keep peace in this part of the world’. Since the rest of the world is left with lasting peace, thanks to Bush incorporated, and as Iran is staying in where it has always been, now it is time and the same is ripe for Palestine and then Egypt. Again Bush is becoming of some good to the world order.
Closely following the comment that it is Indian middle-class that is eating away the due food shares of the rest of the world, he had come up with yet another comment on Kashmir the other day. “It is time India and Pakistan found a solution to Kashmir issue.” Are we not going to respond to that comment? A brokerage from America would work wonders in bringing peace in the borders.
His West Asian regional tour focussing on peace comes to close this week, he would have made himself good to a lot of communities around the world, and by the time he leaves office not very soon, the world community would, including those bereaved families of thousands of American marines who got killed around the world, record in their respective histories that there was a president in America who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.
And this President had had the rarest reputation of bringing disrepute not only to the US but to the rest of the world too. What, an ordinary mortal like Bush, is good for after all? Good for not a good thing!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Kerala SSLC: Above ninety per cent success is pestering!
FROM AN ordinary student’s point of view, clearing an examination is the most important thing, no matter with a distinction, first division, second class or with a just pass percentage for that matter. It is all good to be winning. But what happens to a community of more than 90 per cent students who leave the Secondary School Leaving Certification (SSLC) process with flying colours? No doubt, it leads to many social and academic anomalies in the long run.
From the present government’s point of view, this success marathon is part of their party’s policy that it stands for the poor, no matter if he is a poor voter, a farmer, a worker or a school leaving student. Most of these students who pass out, of course, out of mercy of the party’s policy, would end up jobless and aimless and will be spending rest of their life sticking a party’s posters, crying out Inquilab Zindabad, writing graffiti and participating in marches and dharnas and finally, getting beaten by police of successive governments.
When party is above people, there needs to be people to promote the party, and in order to have them, the party has to promote them. That is what is happening in Kerala. The party is willfully promoting more than 90 per cent of school leaving students with various grades. These innocents are not going to be go for higher education, nor are they going to make any constructive contribution to their families.
It is all going to be hoary for a small section of the society. The privately managed higher education’s makeshift arrangements are poised to have a field day in the coming academic ‘seasons’. After two years, all these passed out ones will pass out the same way their intermediate exams. Once they finish plus two exams, hundreds and thousands of parents will throng around the private management arenas for admissions. The bargain is going to be in the tunes of hundred thousands and ten hundred thousands.
If this is the case with domestic academic vultures, just imagine how it is in neighbouring states where higher and professional education institutes are ravenously awaiting their preys with lucrative offers and enticing options. They have appointed their agents in strategic academic destinations in this state. The net is cast and the catches are in plenty. The cost is clear and everything is in place. What is missing are a few strikes and lockouts in our higher education institutions and technical training centres at the time of admissions. This will leave a conducive atmosphere for the most ambitious of all parents in the world, parents of the school leaving students of Kerala, to pack up and go to Bangalore or Mangalore and invest in those institutions of ill-repute.
After some four to five years, these poor chaps would come back home as qualified, searching for jobs in their state where the government is unable to provide higher education opportunities to all the promoted students. In such a state, can these ‘externally qualified’ boys and girls expect the government to provide them with jobs? Are the private sector organizations, mostly MNCs, pleased and benevolent enough to absorb these sub-standard academic left-outs in their corporate cubicles? No way.
The private sector organisations mean business and what they mean by business is probably this: Make rupees 50,000 for us and take 20-25,000 as salary. In such a profit driven employment landscape, these candidates are bound to end up nowhere, but in streets, to be mauled and exploited by political parties, fundamentalists, party-fringe organisations, rackets and organised criminal nexuses.
All is not going to be well for them. They may be studying two more years in some schools (either government or private). But they are destined to be ill-formed in the most sensitive and transition period of their life; their future is bleak and finally, the generation next is, unfortunately, going to be a disappointed lot, unable to sustain themselves and powerless to contribute anything to the nation.
Ultimately, our dream to become a developed nation is getting more and more distant and the present government’s decision to offer pass out grades to more than 90 per cent pupils, is one of the most hideous administrative reforms, this state has ever seen.
I feel sorry for these fellows who are given a false impression that they are out for a better catch in future. Actually, they are the catches of a ruthless and criminal academic lobby, working in and out of the state, clandestinely patronised by political parties. These kids are pawns and their parents are to parading them in front of these higher education conglomerates. The money they have to shell out to these organisations is bound to be from bank loans, mortgages and outright sell off of those little patches of lands and grains of gold they own.
From the present government’s point of view, this success marathon is part of their party’s policy that it stands for the poor, no matter if he is a poor voter, a farmer, a worker or a school leaving student. Most of these students who pass out, of course, out of mercy of the party’s policy, would end up jobless and aimless and will be spending rest of their life sticking a party’s posters, crying out Inquilab Zindabad, writing graffiti and participating in marches and dharnas and finally, getting beaten by police of successive governments.
When party is above people, there needs to be people to promote the party, and in order to have them, the party has to promote them. That is what is happening in Kerala. The party is willfully promoting more than 90 per cent of school leaving students with various grades. These innocents are not going to be go for higher education, nor are they going to make any constructive contribution to their families.
It is all going to be hoary for a small section of the society. The privately managed higher education’s makeshift arrangements are poised to have a field day in the coming academic ‘seasons’. After two years, all these passed out ones will pass out the same way their intermediate exams. Once they finish plus two exams, hundreds and thousands of parents will throng around the private management arenas for admissions. The bargain is going to be in the tunes of hundred thousands and ten hundred thousands.
If this is the case with domestic academic vultures, just imagine how it is in neighbouring states where higher and professional education institutes are ravenously awaiting their preys with lucrative offers and enticing options. They have appointed their agents in strategic academic destinations in this state. The net is cast and the catches are in plenty. The cost is clear and everything is in place. What is missing are a few strikes and lockouts in our higher education institutions and technical training centres at the time of admissions. This will leave a conducive atmosphere for the most ambitious of all parents in the world, parents of the school leaving students of Kerala, to pack up and go to Bangalore or Mangalore and invest in those institutions of ill-repute.
After some four to five years, these poor chaps would come back home as qualified, searching for jobs in their state where the government is unable to provide higher education opportunities to all the promoted students. In such a state, can these ‘externally qualified’ boys and girls expect the government to provide them with jobs? Are the private sector organizations, mostly MNCs, pleased and benevolent enough to absorb these sub-standard academic left-outs in their corporate cubicles? No way.
The private sector organisations mean business and what they mean by business is probably this: Make rupees 50,000 for us and take 20-25,000 as salary. In such a profit driven employment landscape, these candidates are bound to end up nowhere, but in streets, to be mauled and exploited by political parties, fundamentalists, party-fringe organisations, rackets and organised criminal nexuses.
All is not going to be well for them. They may be studying two more years in some schools (either government or private). But they are destined to be ill-formed in the most sensitive and transition period of their life; their future is bleak and finally, the generation next is, unfortunately, going to be a disappointed lot, unable to sustain themselves and powerless to contribute anything to the nation.
Ultimately, our dream to become a developed nation is getting more and more distant and the present government’s decision to offer pass out grades to more than 90 per cent pupils, is one of the most hideous administrative reforms, this state has ever seen.
I feel sorry for these fellows who are given a false impression that they are out for a better catch in future. Actually, they are the catches of a ruthless and criminal academic lobby, working in and out of the state, clandestinely patronised by political parties. These kids are pawns and their parents are to parading them in front of these higher education conglomerates. The money they have to shell out to these organisations is bound to be from bank loans, mortgages and outright sell off of those little patches of lands and grains of gold they own.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
TV anchors: Other side of their dress codes
IT IS really atrocious and unbecoming to find today’s TV anchors in dress codes that are not only alien to our native culture, but also detrimental to our very sartorial tradition. Since the time we have been living, we have a tendency of calculating everything in terms of money. TV channels, producers and programme generators are very much aware that air time is the costliest of times, and if failed to invite maximum attention in such times of extreme market value, their very profession would be devoured by competing channels that go to any extent to win a few points in the viewership index they manipulate to hoodwink their clientele.
It is this monetary mentality that goes into the making of these anti-social dress codes, obscene body languages and disgusting language affectations. Sorry to say, we do not have a native language, we do not a have a dress code and we do not have a set of socially accepted facial expressions. We take pride in the mixes: Mixes of dresses, languages and mannerisms.
Think of a popular TV anchor. A pair of low-waist trousers, precariously adorned with the help of a belt that is much longer than the waist-circumference, and a couple of the most comfortable fingers thrust into its front pockets. And not to forget a made up face, and top it all - a language that is sufficient enough to shake any listener’s normal thinking process. This is the appearance of an ordinary TV anchor, who hosts a programme or a talk show. The funniest thing is that the above dress code could be attached to a male or a female anchor. A few differences you may find are - where and how the fingers are thrust in and which fingers s/he finds most comfortable for making this style statement. Yes, it is called style statement! To cap it all, if you find a male anchor sporting a blouse-like shirt, or a girl leaving a belt of her skin in between the trousers and the top, don’t raise your eyebrows. They are here to stay, and you may expect much more attractions in these presenters themselves than what they are going to present in the shows and programmes.
Some female anchors look as if they have just been pulled out of their bathrooms. You cannot predict whether they were dressing up in there or undressing when this most heinous act took place. Some female anchors are found hosting in dresses that depict a different story altogether. Slits and sloppy side-shows happen to appear unpredictably from anywhere of their dress-scrapes, and the viewers are left with all their faculties of imagination and fancy.
The flip side: A cable TV operator charges you Rs 150 or 200 for a month, and he funnels in your interiors some 100 plus channels. Most of these work 24/7, all day long. That is five to seven rupees a day for 100 channels; five to seven paise per channel. With all the attractions and varieties of the programmes these channels offer, a cable TV subscriber is kept satisfied with visual treats of dress, body and its language of anchors of all denominations. What do you want more? Nothing? Then just sit glued to your TV and watch these signs of shining India! In the meantime, try to go to the nearest supermarket and buy the products these programmes promote during commercial breaks. Eat them sumptuously sitting in front of the TV itself, and again watch and go to hell or hospital.
Don’t we actually need a dress and a decency code for our anchors? Are they not able to influence people in a 24/7 grid? How can we protect our families from these atrocious sartorial insanities? Snap the cable or unsubscribe the connection? Or, let’s understand the obvious fact that our life had been much better, calmer and more comfortable (before the advent of these aerial entertainment extravaganzas) than it is today? The last proposition may help you make amends in the way you approach cable TV. You may find that “Yes, my family and I can do without it”. Just do without it. The sooner, the better.
Tail piece: I am very much conscious of the fact that this article blindly criticises all cable channels and programmes. I am aware that there are many informative, educative and entertaining channels aired from in-country and abroad as well, and these all have excellent media culture, which could be simply emulated. And if we could distinguish between what is good and what is bad for us, all these channels could be tapped through our cable network. But how many of our youngsters want such channels and programmes? How many of us are able to spare time for quality information and entertainment? We go for what we like, or what is made to be liked. So there is no room for such discussions. If you belong to the second category of people who are able to distinguish between what is good and bad, you may please excuse my one-sided writing.
It is this monetary mentality that goes into the making of these anti-social dress codes, obscene body languages and disgusting language affectations. Sorry to say, we do not have a native language, we do not a have a dress code and we do not have a set of socially accepted facial expressions. We take pride in the mixes: Mixes of dresses, languages and mannerisms.
Think of a popular TV anchor. A pair of low-waist trousers, precariously adorned with the help of a belt that is much longer than the waist-circumference, and a couple of the most comfortable fingers thrust into its front pockets. And not to forget a made up face, and top it all - a language that is sufficient enough to shake any listener’s normal thinking process. This is the appearance of an ordinary TV anchor, who hosts a programme or a talk show. The funniest thing is that the above dress code could be attached to a male or a female anchor. A few differences you may find are - where and how the fingers are thrust in and which fingers s/he finds most comfortable for making this style statement. Yes, it is called style statement! To cap it all, if you find a male anchor sporting a blouse-like shirt, or a girl leaving a belt of her skin in between the trousers and the top, don’t raise your eyebrows. They are here to stay, and you may expect much more attractions in these presenters themselves than what they are going to present in the shows and programmes.
Some female anchors look as if they have just been pulled out of their bathrooms. You cannot predict whether they were dressing up in there or undressing when this most heinous act took place. Some female anchors are found hosting in dresses that depict a different story altogether. Slits and sloppy side-shows happen to appear unpredictably from anywhere of their dress-scrapes, and the viewers are left with all their faculties of imagination and fancy.
The flip side: A cable TV operator charges you Rs 150 or 200 for a month, and he funnels in your interiors some 100 plus channels. Most of these work 24/7, all day long. That is five to seven rupees a day for 100 channels; five to seven paise per channel. With all the attractions and varieties of the programmes these channels offer, a cable TV subscriber is kept satisfied with visual treats of dress, body and its language of anchors of all denominations. What do you want more? Nothing? Then just sit glued to your TV and watch these signs of shining India! In the meantime, try to go to the nearest supermarket and buy the products these programmes promote during commercial breaks. Eat them sumptuously sitting in front of the TV itself, and again watch and go to hell or hospital.
Don’t we actually need a dress and a decency code for our anchors? Are they not able to influence people in a 24/7 grid? How can we protect our families from these atrocious sartorial insanities? Snap the cable or unsubscribe the connection? Or, let’s understand the obvious fact that our life had been much better, calmer and more comfortable (before the advent of these aerial entertainment extravaganzas) than it is today? The last proposition may help you make amends in the way you approach cable TV. You may find that “Yes, my family and I can do without it”. Just do without it. The sooner, the better.
Tail piece: I am very much conscious of the fact that this article blindly criticises all cable channels and programmes. I am aware that there are many informative, educative and entertaining channels aired from in-country and abroad as well, and these all have excellent media culture, which could be simply emulated. And if we could distinguish between what is good and what is bad for us, all these channels could be tapped through our cable network. But how many of our youngsters want such channels and programmes? How many of us are able to spare time for quality information and entertainment? We go for what we like, or what is made to be liked. So there is no room for such discussions. If you belong to the second category of people who are able to distinguish between what is good and bad, you may please excuse my one-sided writing.
To be wanting is the thing...
The door opened to the face of an aged woman in rags. She was so worn and old that the words she lipped out sounded like an empty stomach. She was there not to go back unless she was treated the way she expected us to.
What can’t it be?
THE RINGING of the calling bell was knelling our pleasures out when we were glued to our senses on a Friday afternoon, after having had a sumptuous meal.
The bell has been there all these days, and it has never had our displeasure for having invited our attention to the fact that there was someone outside our world who needed something.
It was really annoying. The door opened to the face of an aged woman in rags. She was so worn and old that the words she lipped out sounded like an empty stomach.
She was there not to go back unless she was treated the way she expected us to. I didn’t know what was in her disposition. Anyway, she wanted to get something to ease her hunger.
We are undecided whether to give her something or to leave her in the lurch so that we could go on with our idle pleasures of the moment. Indecision on a little food!
Upon second look we found her taking out a few cans and small containers thinking that we had gone into take something for her, for it was mealtime, Friday, and above all there was a feeble and convincing request for food itself.
We had no other way. I even went to the extent of leaving the door closed so that she would go back.
She is taking some dishes and containers out.
‘What shall I do’, my girl asked.
Give her a few changes and let her go.
She wants something to eat.
Poor, she looks.
How can we say ‘no’ when someone asks for some food?
A pestering question it was.
When asked, give. It is a good philosophy.
We gave her a little food that had happened to remain, for we were unable to take it, a few ‘appams’ and a little pasty curry.
She took the same and went out of the way of our house.
We followed her to see whether she was taking it for someone back home or she was true to the words she had told us that she hadn’t had anything since that morning.
She kept the food and her belongings near the water tap and washed her hands and face, and sat down under the shade of that teakwood grove and started taking the ‘manna’.
In a few minutes she was done with the ‘devouring’ process, and again washed her hand, drank a few draughts of water and tidied up herself.
We had been watching. Surprisingly, before leaving us, she came back and thanked us for that ‘helping of food’ by drooping her head and cupping up her frail, cracked bands as if she was standing in worship in front of powerful deity.
That was the unkindest of all expressions.
“To the hungry food is god” I had read somewhere.
“Never hesitate to help others, when help is but food.”
“God is better of when he is food in the hands of the starving.”
And many such things flashed through my mind, and that lady left the scene like an apparition and disappearance.
She ached me. It pained me a little. Not that I was sorry to see her in such a despicable plight. But that she was giving me tremors of introspection. I did not show it. The more I kept it in the worse it came upon my very existence and me.
Oh, I am not going to see her anymore.
Nobody is going to know that I had a little hesitation in offering someone some food when asked for the same in beseeching terms.
Who is there in this little sphere to take statements and pass judgments on petty transgressions like these?
Many such foolish explanations and lame excuses kept on coming for long. I had no peace that day till I checked my luck out in the ‘gospel chest’, a set of ‘biblicals’ randomly placed in a matchbox like chest. I do check my luck everyday and on that particular traumatic day, I decided to check my luck in the afternoon too. I took the chest, closed my eyes, shuffled the gospel contents by skipping them through and stopped at one and took it out to read.
To my dismay, it read like this, “Never show the least reluctance to help the needy”
I have never been reluctant to help the needy, if the help needed was up to my frame and reach. Then why is this now? Then how come I hesitated for a while when this old woman stood begging, that too, for a loaf of bread? Why didn’t I take her in and treat her like a guest? Why did I give her the rest of the food, not the food of the time: meals? Why was that lady coming back and bowing her whole self in front of me? Was she telling me that it is human to be wanting?
I stopped at that last proposition. It kept on coming back for long. Is it not human to be wanting? Yes, it is human to be wanting. This time it was food, a simple enough thing.
Next time it could be a little more than…what not?
What can’t it be? Who can’t it be? Where can’t it be? It’s the next time that is going to decide what, who and where.
It isn’t what is going to be wanting. But “to be wanting” is the thing.
No matter, “you see, I had been helping the needy all my life, and this was the first time I went ignoring the cry of a needy.”
If one has to be going without wanting, I was made to think, one has to be giving without hesitating, forever and ever. Because, want is but… what not?
Something is wanting in me when I hesitate. I understand. This woman did not hesitate to thank us because she did not seem wanting anything in her, but a little food.
Now, I pray, may god help her and me alike when we both want something somewhere someday. Now it’s a refrain in me. Not that what is going to be wanting, but “To be wanting” is the thing.
What can’t it be?
THE RINGING of the calling bell was knelling our pleasures out when we were glued to our senses on a Friday afternoon, after having had a sumptuous meal.
The bell has been there all these days, and it has never had our displeasure for having invited our attention to the fact that there was someone outside our world who needed something.
It was really annoying. The door opened to the face of an aged woman in rags. She was so worn and old that the words she lipped out sounded like an empty stomach.
She was there not to go back unless she was treated the way she expected us to. I didn’t know what was in her disposition. Anyway, she wanted to get something to ease her hunger.
We are undecided whether to give her something or to leave her in the lurch so that we could go on with our idle pleasures of the moment. Indecision on a little food!
Upon second look we found her taking out a few cans and small containers thinking that we had gone into take something for her, for it was mealtime, Friday, and above all there was a feeble and convincing request for food itself.
We had no other way. I even went to the extent of leaving the door closed so that she would go back.
She is taking some dishes and containers out.
‘What shall I do’, my girl asked.
Give her a few changes and let her go.
She wants something to eat.
Poor, she looks.
How can we say ‘no’ when someone asks for some food?
A pestering question it was.
When asked, give. It is a good philosophy.
We gave her a little food that had happened to remain, for we were unable to take it, a few ‘appams’ and a little pasty curry.
She took the same and went out of the way of our house.
We followed her to see whether she was taking it for someone back home or she was true to the words she had told us that she hadn’t had anything since that morning.
She kept the food and her belongings near the water tap and washed her hands and face, and sat down under the shade of that teakwood grove and started taking the ‘manna’.
In a few minutes she was done with the ‘devouring’ process, and again washed her hand, drank a few draughts of water and tidied up herself.
We had been watching. Surprisingly, before leaving us, she came back and thanked us for that ‘helping of food’ by drooping her head and cupping up her frail, cracked bands as if she was standing in worship in front of powerful deity.
That was the unkindest of all expressions.
“To the hungry food is god” I had read somewhere.
“Never hesitate to help others, when help is but food.”
“God is better of when he is food in the hands of the starving.”
And many such things flashed through my mind, and that lady left the scene like an apparition and disappearance.
She ached me. It pained me a little. Not that I was sorry to see her in such a despicable plight. But that she was giving me tremors of introspection. I did not show it. The more I kept it in the worse it came upon my very existence and me.
Oh, I am not going to see her anymore.
Nobody is going to know that I had a little hesitation in offering someone some food when asked for the same in beseeching terms.
Who is there in this little sphere to take statements and pass judgments on petty transgressions like these?
Many such foolish explanations and lame excuses kept on coming for long. I had no peace that day till I checked my luck out in the ‘gospel chest’, a set of ‘biblicals’ randomly placed in a matchbox like chest. I do check my luck everyday and on that particular traumatic day, I decided to check my luck in the afternoon too. I took the chest, closed my eyes, shuffled the gospel contents by skipping them through and stopped at one and took it out to read.
To my dismay, it read like this, “Never show the least reluctance to help the needy”
I have never been reluctant to help the needy, if the help needed was up to my frame and reach. Then why is this now? Then how come I hesitated for a while when this old woman stood begging, that too, for a loaf of bread? Why didn’t I take her in and treat her like a guest? Why did I give her the rest of the food, not the food of the time: meals? Why was that lady coming back and bowing her whole self in front of me? Was she telling me that it is human to be wanting?
I stopped at that last proposition. It kept on coming back for long. Is it not human to be wanting? Yes, it is human to be wanting. This time it was food, a simple enough thing.
Next time it could be a little more than…what not?
What can’t it be? Who can’t it be? Where can’t it be? It’s the next time that is going to decide what, who and where.
It isn’t what is going to be wanting. But “to be wanting” is the thing.
No matter, “you see, I had been helping the needy all my life, and this was the first time I went ignoring the cry of a needy.”
If one has to be going without wanting, I was made to think, one has to be giving without hesitating, forever and ever. Because, want is but… what not?
Something is wanting in me when I hesitate. I understand. This woman did not hesitate to thank us because she did not seem wanting anything in her, but a little food.
Now, I pray, may god help her and me alike when we both want something somewhere someday. Now it’s a refrain in me. Not that what is going to be wanting, but “To be wanting” is the thing.
Our dining tables, duties and responsibilities
FOOD AND FAMILY life go together in all cultures. Down the ages, communities have evolved themselves more out of their own food cultures than out of anything else.
Lately, there has developed a great attitudinal shift in this connection, and present generation has evolved a new food culture. This new attitude has started costing our social and family values dearly, and the most visible impacts of this crazy consumption psychosis is not just the medical uncertainty we find at our five star hospitals, but it is the abysmal character and behavioural disorders we find in our new generation.
Our dining times of lore have silently given way to eating sprees at food courts and junk joints. We carry home alien dishes, hangout and savour sandwiches, French fries, McDonalds’ burgers, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s (KFC) vegetarian and non-vegetarian stuff, pizzas and those aerated cokes and colas coupled with our 24/7 working environment leave precious little to be expected of our new generation.
Since our society is not so generous to accommodate a junk culture for long, it is time we looked at the finer side of this change in food habits and its impact on our character and behaviour. How we prepare our food, the way we eat that food, the times we eat it and who we eat that food with etc have got much more to offer us by way of behaviour and character. This is a very rare process through which individuals groom themselves to the expectations of the family and society they belong to. See how that grooming exercise works:
A full-fledged kitchen is the laboratory that records and maintains the health indices of a given family.
All the ingredients that go into the making of a traditional dish are components of a course of medicine.
The hands, along with the mind and its mood, that prepare the dish leave a rare taste in it, and it is unique for every kitchen and the family it belongs to.
It is not the quantity that matters when we eat at our family dinner, rather it is the quality along with a tinge of love that matters.
Father, mother, sister, brother, some elders like grandparents or relatives, together with a few occasional guests would make every dining an exclusive experience.
When we eat food like this three times a day fairly unfailingly for quite sometime, we not only follow a balanced diet, but also we imbibe in our children a great sense of belonging, sharing, understanding, and above all a deeper sense of character and behaviour, peculiar to our family and the culture it belongs to.
It is this sense or the sensibility that we lose out when we go for an alien food culture. Besides the medical calamities our new generation comes to suffer from eventually, we lose out on our own ‘foodholds’, which took centuries to evolve. One day it would go extinct, and the coming generation would have to depend solely on a foreign food culture. Naturally, the new generation will come to have a character and behaviour alien to our native culture and family values, contrary to our duties and responsibilities.
If ever we could identify a single human activity that has caused abysmal fall in social, family, personal duties and responsibilities, it is this: Our fast disappearing family dining experience.
Therefore, there is urgent need for reinventing our ethnic food culture so as to inculcate in our new generation better signs of behaviour and character and respect for values that are indigenous to our culture and society.
Lately, there has developed a great attitudinal shift in this connection, and present generation has evolved a new food culture. This new attitude has started costing our social and family values dearly, and the most visible impacts of this crazy consumption psychosis is not just the medical uncertainty we find at our five star hospitals, but it is the abysmal character and behavioural disorders we find in our new generation.
Our dining times of lore have silently given way to eating sprees at food courts and junk joints. We carry home alien dishes, hangout and savour sandwiches, French fries, McDonalds’ burgers, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s (KFC) vegetarian and non-vegetarian stuff, pizzas and those aerated cokes and colas coupled with our 24/7 working environment leave precious little to be expected of our new generation.
Since our society is not so generous to accommodate a junk culture for long, it is time we looked at the finer side of this change in food habits and its impact on our character and behaviour. How we prepare our food, the way we eat that food, the times we eat it and who we eat that food with etc have got much more to offer us by way of behaviour and character. This is a very rare process through which individuals groom themselves to the expectations of the family and society they belong to. See how that grooming exercise works:
A full-fledged kitchen is the laboratory that records and maintains the health indices of a given family.
All the ingredients that go into the making of a traditional dish are components of a course of medicine.
The hands, along with the mind and its mood, that prepare the dish leave a rare taste in it, and it is unique for every kitchen and the family it belongs to.
It is not the quantity that matters when we eat at our family dinner, rather it is the quality along with a tinge of love that matters.
Father, mother, sister, brother, some elders like grandparents or relatives, together with a few occasional guests would make every dining an exclusive experience.
When we eat food like this three times a day fairly unfailingly for quite sometime, we not only follow a balanced diet, but also we imbibe in our children a great sense of belonging, sharing, understanding, and above all a deeper sense of character and behaviour, peculiar to our family and the culture it belongs to.
It is this sense or the sensibility that we lose out when we go for an alien food culture. Besides the medical calamities our new generation comes to suffer from eventually, we lose out on our own ‘foodholds’, which took centuries to evolve. One day it would go extinct, and the coming generation would have to depend solely on a foreign food culture. Naturally, the new generation will come to have a character and behaviour alien to our native culture and family values, contrary to our duties and responsibilities.
If ever we could identify a single human activity that has caused abysmal fall in social, family, personal duties and responsibilities, it is this: Our fast disappearing family dining experience.
Therefore, there is urgent need for reinventing our ethnic food culture so as to inculcate in our new generation better signs of behaviour and character and respect for values that are indigenous to our culture and society.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Salwars and Churidars at Kerala schools
FINALLY WISDOM prevailed over parochial sartorial insensitivities meted out against school teachers at schools in Kerala. The Kerala government has brought out a new order making churidars or salwar khamis, as acceptable dresses for female teachers. The dress code for female teachers has been a bone of contention for long, with many principals and headmistresses insisting on female teachers to be in sarees only. There have been many culture vultures that found it intimidating to see teachers in churidars, and they even dictated dress codes to teachers. They claimed that teachers command some respect and the saree they put on are synonymous with respect.
In this country, many females in excellent dresses, in all age groups and professions get molested in broad day light, the great number of them are being aggressed upon when they are on move in buses and trains and similar public transport. In such a scenario one’s dress code and the comfort he/she derives from it need to be in accordance with one’s profession and nature of work they do every day.
The leers and ogles females suffer from when they go out in sarees are sheer aggressions on their very modesty. So teachers need to have the freedom to be in dresses they find themselves comfortable in. Now teachers can heave a sigh of relief. This new freedom of dress leaves female teachers with a lot of conveniences, especially for those expectant mothers and for those who commute long distances on a daily basis. Being in a saree during monsoon is very uncomfortable.
The trauma women suffer when boarding, alighting and running after buses and trains cannot be empathised by men. They enjoy a kind of sartorial dictatorship no matter what profession they are in. We need a common dress code governed by convenience, not by culture police.
This new dress code is going to make student-teacher relation a little closer and the many school children would feel at home to see their teachers in churidars, salwars and khamis. When it comes to personal contacts, influences and confidence building, dress code has role to play. Now students, especially, female students can feel comfortable to find majority of teachers in churidars. Since the saree is given a universal acceptance, those so obsessed with the same can be in the same dress. But we cannot impose a dress code on teachers.
However, we may adopt an acceptable-to-all look and finish to the churidars and salwars. They need to be so decently slit and beautifully tailored that they will become models for their female wards too. In the long run our new generation would come to look decent in their dresses, and this decency would lead to better male-female relation, the basics of which are learnt from schools and campuses.
Teachers are so lucky that local self-government institutions are not given permission to look into the appropriateness of their new dress the same way they meddle with the school administration these days.
In this country, many females in excellent dresses, in all age groups and professions get molested in broad day light, the great number of them are being aggressed upon when they are on move in buses and trains and similar public transport. In such a scenario one’s dress code and the comfort he/she derives from it need to be in accordance with one’s profession and nature of work they do every day.
The leers and ogles females suffer from when they go out in sarees are sheer aggressions on their very modesty. So teachers need to have the freedom to be in dresses they find themselves comfortable in. Now teachers can heave a sigh of relief. This new freedom of dress leaves female teachers with a lot of conveniences, especially for those expectant mothers and for those who commute long distances on a daily basis. Being in a saree during monsoon is very uncomfortable.
The trauma women suffer when boarding, alighting and running after buses and trains cannot be empathised by men. They enjoy a kind of sartorial dictatorship no matter what profession they are in. We need a common dress code governed by convenience, not by culture police.
This new dress code is going to make student-teacher relation a little closer and the many school children would feel at home to see their teachers in churidars, salwars and khamis. When it comes to personal contacts, influences and confidence building, dress code has role to play. Now students, especially, female students can feel comfortable to find majority of teachers in churidars. Since the saree is given a universal acceptance, those so obsessed with the same can be in the same dress. But we cannot impose a dress code on teachers.
However, we may adopt an acceptable-to-all look and finish to the churidars and salwars. They need to be so decently slit and beautifully tailored that they will become models for their female wards too. In the long run our new generation would come to look decent in their dresses, and this decency would lead to better male-female relation, the basics of which are learnt from schools and campuses.
Teachers are so lucky that local self-government institutions are not given permission to look into the appropriateness of their new dress the same way they meddle with the school administration these days.
Female-friendly families urgently needed in India
IT IS, I repeat, it is the ‘weaker sex’ attitude our Indian parents keep towards their female children that makes our females weak throughout their life and when they need to be strong and defending, they simply fail and get carried away by the spoon-fed attitude in them that they are weak. It is idiotic to say that as per our culture, women are supposed to be this and that, and men are supposed to be enjoying certain privileges, and they can go to any lengths to get their things done. It is good if things are taking shape according to the need to the times.
See how a female child grows up in an Indian family. From the very day of the birth itself, the female child is looked down upon. Though not evidently, there is a feeling in all parents that the newborn is going to be a liability. Imagine that a baby boy follows after a couple of years. The shift of attitude the parents themselves towards their female child is enough to leave that child vulnerable to aggression, exploitation and deprivation. And the boy, who grows up with extra privileges, happens to develop asocial tendencies that make him feel that it is all right to keep girls and their modesty undermined.
However, the girls grow up with the constant feeding from their parents that girls are to be confined to certain limits and they have to be very careful when they are out, and they are so easily cheated and exploited, so it is better for them to be subservient as to be protected by their male counterparts. This psychological warfare is constantly carried out by their own parents, makes the female kids scared and subservient, and turns them into easy prey. And when a society gets filled with such boys and girls of two different makes and their parents, what we can expect is nothing less than what we get through our media on a daily basis: molestation, rape, eve teasing and otherwise undermining of the modesty of girls and even school kids as young as five year-old. This is deterioration and total collapse of conscience.
Where is the way out? It is in our homes. Today’s nuclear parents must take a different look at their female kids. They have to understand that it is their attitude towards their female kids that is going to make some changes in their lives. It is the parents’ vision, attitude and sensitivity towards their kids’ that determines whether their female kids are going to be accepted or aggressed. If parents could inculcate in their kids a kind of gender parity from the very day of birth itself, there will be changes in the long run.
Naturally, the kids come to hold a confidence that they are what they are and their position and value in the society are going to be determined by their own conscience. The very same conscience will be powerful to keep them in good stead. In such a scenario, we can expect our upcoming society to be a level-playing platform, shared for the mutual and harmonious coexistence of both the sexes, where there won’t be any rapes and molestations, aggressions and exploitations.
Is it too much to ask of our parents to be true to and respect each other and inculcate the respect in their kids too? Is it not the best of all those attributes that we normally associate with all parents? Unfortunately, our domestic ambience itself is a microcosm of a hostile society, where females get sidelined and discriminated against. Therefore, first let us do whatever we can to keep our homes female-friendly. Such families alone can expect a society to be so. Every society gets what it deserves. The same way, every female member of the family gets what the family thinks she should deserve.
It is all easier said than done. In order to facilitate this domestic overhaul, we need to do a few more things.
Firstly, we all should learn to live without cable TV. These channels are the worst media that educate, inform and entertain our kids in the most threatening ways. This ‘mediacation’ is constant and cancerous. Kids soak in whatever they watch on these channels and it becomes a part of their eventual mental disposition.
Secondly, it’s about sex - our villain. It is not a taboo. If parents do not know how to educate their kids about it and who in the world would do it for them? The father should educate his son/s and mother should take care of her daughter/s. Sex is a private affair. But sex education need not be so. It should not be something confidential.
Thirdly, dress code and physical appearance are to be considered. These should respect and compliment each other. Fashion is fine, but it is not to fuse the safer distance that exists between boys and girls. Delight comes from a distance. If the mother expects the world to ask her, “Which college are you studying in,” we cannot expect her daughter to be philosophical with her appearance.
Do we need to let our kids watch the vulgarities and disgusting perversions choreographed by our so-called chocolate heroes and bikini heroines in our commercial films? There are other films worth taking our children to. It will work wonders in the female-male relations.
Make your family meet, mingle, share and understand on a daily basis. Let there be a feeling that family is a friendly place, where alone better human relations flourish. So, there is urgent need for fe/male-friendly families.
See how a female child grows up in an Indian family. From the very day of the birth itself, the female child is looked down upon. Though not evidently, there is a feeling in all parents that the newborn is going to be a liability. Imagine that a baby boy follows after a couple of years. The shift of attitude the parents themselves towards their female child is enough to leave that child vulnerable to aggression, exploitation and deprivation. And the boy, who grows up with extra privileges, happens to develop asocial tendencies that make him feel that it is all right to keep girls and their modesty undermined.
However, the girls grow up with the constant feeding from their parents that girls are to be confined to certain limits and they have to be very careful when they are out, and they are so easily cheated and exploited, so it is better for them to be subservient as to be protected by their male counterparts. This psychological warfare is constantly carried out by their own parents, makes the female kids scared and subservient, and turns them into easy prey. And when a society gets filled with such boys and girls of two different makes and their parents, what we can expect is nothing less than what we get through our media on a daily basis: molestation, rape, eve teasing and otherwise undermining of the modesty of girls and even school kids as young as five year-old. This is deterioration and total collapse of conscience.
Where is the way out? It is in our homes. Today’s nuclear parents must take a different look at their female kids. They have to understand that it is their attitude towards their female kids that is going to make some changes in their lives. It is the parents’ vision, attitude and sensitivity towards their kids’ that determines whether their female kids are going to be accepted or aggressed. If parents could inculcate in their kids a kind of gender parity from the very day of birth itself, there will be changes in the long run.
Naturally, the kids come to hold a confidence that they are what they are and their position and value in the society are going to be determined by their own conscience. The very same conscience will be powerful to keep them in good stead. In such a scenario, we can expect our upcoming society to be a level-playing platform, shared for the mutual and harmonious coexistence of both the sexes, where there won’t be any rapes and molestations, aggressions and exploitations.
Is it too much to ask of our parents to be true to and respect each other and inculcate the respect in their kids too? Is it not the best of all those attributes that we normally associate with all parents? Unfortunately, our domestic ambience itself is a microcosm of a hostile society, where females get sidelined and discriminated against. Therefore, first let us do whatever we can to keep our homes female-friendly. Such families alone can expect a society to be so. Every society gets what it deserves. The same way, every female member of the family gets what the family thinks she should deserve.
It is all easier said than done. In order to facilitate this domestic overhaul, we need to do a few more things.
Firstly, we all should learn to live without cable TV. These channels are the worst media that educate, inform and entertain our kids in the most threatening ways. This ‘mediacation’ is constant and cancerous. Kids soak in whatever they watch on these channels and it becomes a part of their eventual mental disposition.
Secondly, it’s about sex - our villain. It is not a taboo. If parents do not know how to educate their kids about it and who in the world would do it for them? The father should educate his son/s and mother should take care of her daughter/s. Sex is a private affair. But sex education need not be so. It should not be something confidential.
Thirdly, dress code and physical appearance are to be considered. These should respect and compliment each other. Fashion is fine, but it is not to fuse the safer distance that exists between boys and girls. Delight comes from a distance. If the mother expects the world to ask her, “Which college are you studying in,” we cannot expect her daughter to be philosophical with her appearance.
Do we need to let our kids watch the vulgarities and disgusting perversions choreographed by our so-called chocolate heroes and bikini heroines in our commercial films? There are other films worth taking our children to. It will work wonders in the female-male relations.
Make your family meet, mingle, share and understand on a daily basis. Let there be a feeling that family is a friendly place, where alone better human relations flourish. So, there is urgent need for fe/male-friendly families.
A Daughter’s Dilemma!
IT IS for boys. Girls are not supposed to be playing such games. Girls don’t use such expressions! They have to be refined in their words. Come home dear before it gets dark. You cannot be out in the street after sundown. Wake up my dear and help me in the kitchen. Girls should not sleep for long. There is a heap of clothes, just make sure you wash. Let them finish with it. We will sit later dear, are you hungry now? You are not. Make all the beds first and do some dishwashing when you finish with it.
Getting big degrees is not meant for girls. They need to get married fast and start a new family. It has been six months since you got married! When are you going to give us that great ‘news’? We are so anxious to become grandparents. It is great to be a mom, dear. I gave birth to five children. It was not simple and is not for all.
Be careful dear, you are carrying a baby. You cannot walk and move so briskly. The baby may get hurt. Is it going to be a baby girl or boy, dear? A baby girl! But, I want a baby boy! What do you say? It’s a girl. How do you know that? Mother’s can tell. Are you sure or maybe you are confused. No, I am not confused, but the baby in me seems to be in a dilemma. I am sure it is a baby girl. No, it is a baby boy. Please stop it.
What if we go for a sex determination check? What for? We could have options dear. What do you mean by options? You can take it or leave it, dear, I mean, if you want a baby boy and you happen to have a baby girl in, you can opt it out, and go for a second innings. It may turn out to be a baby boy. Agreed? How dare you say that to me? Aren’t your parents anxious now? They want a boy. We will try again if the test goes negative.
I am not convinced. What if it is not going to be up to your wish the second time too? No problem, we can try again. Again! I get a premonition that I am going to give birth to a baby girl for sure. No way. Why not?
“My dilemma is whether I should bring her to this world or cede her right there. It is a daughter’s dilemma, and only daughters understand it, because it is very difficult to be living a daughter’s life.”
Did you say something dear? No honey! But I am thinking of…er…. Of what? Tell me. What if we go for a sex determination test? Are you serious? Yes, I am.
“That is the best thing I could do for my daughter. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence anymore. This world is not for daughters. It is for sons, brothers, brothers-in-law, husbands, fathers and grandfathers.”
When are we meeting the doctor? Right-way?
“Make it fast. It is getting late. I have to save my daughter from this world at any cost.”
Getting big degrees is not meant for girls. They need to get married fast and start a new family. It has been six months since you got married! When are you going to give us that great ‘news’? We are so anxious to become grandparents. It is great to be a mom, dear. I gave birth to five children. It was not simple and is not for all.
Be careful dear, you are carrying a baby. You cannot walk and move so briskly. The baby may get hurt. Is it going to be a baby girl or boy, dear? A baby girl! But, I want a baby boy! What do you say? It’s a girl. How do you know that? Mother’s can tell. Are you sure or maybe you are confused. No, I am not confused, but the baby in me seems to be in a dilemma. I am sure it is a baby girl. No, it is a baby boy. Please stop it.
What if we go for a sex determination check? What for? We could have options dear. What do you mean by options? You can take it or leave it, dear, I mean, if you want a baby boy and you happen to have a baby girl in, you can opt it out, and go for a second innings. It may turn out to be a baby boy. Agreed? How dare you say that to me? Aren’t your parents anxious now? They want a boy. We will try again if the test goes negative.
I am not convinced. What if it is not going to be up to your wish the second time too? No problem, we can try again. Again! I get a premonition that I am going to give birth to a baby girl for sure. No way. Why not?
“My dilemma is whether I should bring her to this world or cede her right there. It is a daughter’s dilemma, and only daughters understand it, because it is very difficult to be living a daughter’s life.”
Did you say something dear? No honey! But I am thinking of…er…. Of what? Tell me. What if we go for a sex determination test? Are you serious? Yes, I am.
“That is the best thing I could do for my daughter. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence anymore. This world is not for daughters. It is for sons, brothers, brothers-in-law, husbands, fathers and grandfathers.”
When are we meeting the doctor? Right-way?
“Make it fast. It is getting late. I have to save my daughter from this world at any cost.”
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