After the recent blasts in Bangalore and Ahmadabad I was wondering why there haven’t been major terrorist attacks in the USA after the 9/11 bombings, and why here in India we become targets on a routine basis? We have silly, fumbling ministers, but so do the Americans, so what’s the big difference? I think the big difference is the reaction, a bit of tact, continued surveillance, and of course, the scale of population.
Immediately after the 9/11 bombings America mounted a full-fledged attack on Afghanistan, the citadel of the Taliban at that time. It was a natural reaction; the attack originated from Afghanistan, and so Afghanistan had to bear the brunt (no, I’m not justifying it). Iraq met with the same crooked fate, and even Iran knows, no matter how many ululations its leaders throw at the world in general, that it can be attacked any time. All fundamentalist countries know that they are going to be attacked sooner or later due to their support and sympathy for various terrorist organizations. When you know your home can be hit too, you think twice before hitting another’s home. A single attack has turned Osama into a fugitive, about to die like a rat hiding in a hole. No matter how much they love their heavens and no matter how much they lust for the virgins, the jihadis too fear for their lives when they are chased.
Recently someone told me that the Americans are not allowing new Muslims to enter the country; they simply don’t give them visas. They haven’t made this public and don’t pursue this policy openly and in fact officially they deny this fact. I don’t know if it is true. This is unfortunate, but it does make an impact. I’m not saying that an entire community should be targeted, but the problem is when all major terrorist activities effervesce from a single community and when a significant segment of its population condones violence for religion, you cannot blame governments for following such draconian policies. After all every government needs to protect its citizens and property and cannot (shouldn’t) jeopardize its citizens lives’ just to gain some praises from clueless or politically motivated human rights and civil liberty groups.
In India the somnolent law and order machinery wakes up only when there are a few blasts or terrorist attacks, and after every attack things go back to normal and nobody gives a damn who comes and does what. Result: one blast after another.
India has daunting population and it is simply not possible for the police to monitor all the spots and every individual. As citizens we have to put up a united front and be vigilant at all times. This is because it’s we who have to pay when blasts happen. Scores of lives are lost and hundreds are maimed in a single instance. Just imagine yourself having a good time doing shopping or eating out in your favorite market and in a single second a few of your family members are gone forever and you have lost both your legs. Such tragedies can be averted if we are a little more aware of our surroundings.
The party and ideology that he has served for 40 years has expelled Somnath Chatterjee because he does not want to denigrate the position of the Speaker of Lok Sabha. This is a rare phenomenon among Indian politicians who are used to covering in front of their bosses and madams rather than taking a stand, whether they are prime ministers, finance ministers, home ministers or having any other prominent portfolio.
The people of the country shouldn’t feel surprised at the Left’s decision. The communists are nothing but stubborn kids. They never grew up, and they mainly thrive on misery and disorder. They remind me of Lord of the Flies.
And stupid. Sagarika Ghosh seems happier than Manmohan Singh that the UPA government has won the trust vote using all the shady tactics written in the Zen of Slimy Politics. She asks (and she is serious) if Manmohan Singh has emerged as a new alpha male. This event is not a joyous event, but a shameful event. But the bigger shame of course would have been Mayawati becoming the PM with Left’s support.
Sagarika Ghosh
This is scary stuff, because I’ve personally experienced it. It’s becoming really hard to focus on a longer, in-depth article or essay, and reading a book seems so daunting that I keep on postponing the activity for weeks. For instance I was recently hit by a wave of enthusiasm and ordered a few books from my preferred online bookstore; started reading a book called 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; completed 40%; got busy, and after that, I think it’s been 4-5 weeks; I’ve never been able to resume it. Ironically, an important part of this book explains to you how to focus on important things (I consider reading highly important) and how to stick to things that you really want to do.
Recently I was listening to an old, 60s song and was thinking how simple, uncomplicated life they had back then, unencumbered by the travails of the contemporary world. This is a myth actually, because I’d be utterly unemployed/unemployable had I been born in the “good old days”; I can earn my livelihood only due to technology and the advancements in communications. And who would like to live in the middle-Age, or the dark ages. These are by far the best times to be alive.
But yes, technology does dumb you down if you are not careful. Whether we like to admit it or not, the non-Internet generations were a lot smarter; they were perceptive and aware of their surroundings. I remember reading a joke where a teenager laughs at an elderly person, “What boring lives you people lived, you didn’t have cars, you didn’t have cell phones and computers and you didn’t have cool airplanes. What did you guys do all the time?”
“Asshole,” replied the elderly person, “we were inventing and making all these things all the time.”
These days most youngsters are busy creating stupid MySpace, Orkut and FaceBook profiles, or maniacally submitting links to Digg, or sending SMSs to their “friends” and adding and removing contacts from their chat clients. Those who worry about their marks attend 3-4 tuitions everyday and they simply cram without ever understanding a thing. I’ve personally experienced this: some high-scoring school kids are so dumb that it’s unbelievable. When they are not studying they are chatting on their phones, or through social networking websites, or watching TV programs that are not even entertaining. Ask them what book they’re reading these days and most will give you an elated smile and then proudly show you the latest edition of Harry Potter.
Plato in The Republic says young men used to crave to join the elders to exchange views on philosophy, art, science, politics and religion and every evening there used to be one gathering or another where they would eagerly listen to what men of knowledge and experience had to say. Imagine today’s kids doing this.
The article linked above blames most of it to the hundreds of distractions available these days. It’s true, that distractions play an important role in steering our preferences, but the bigger factor is the utter lack of direction in the parent generation. Somehow it missed the chance of making a big civilizational stride by not being there when their children needed answers. Technology, under proper guidance, can turn us into super-performers, both on physical level and mental level; without proper guidance, it creates a chaotic world where things just happen, whether they are good or bad.
Says this article. First I thought it’s the good old nimbu that they’ll be squeezing into the oceans, and was wondering how they were planning to grow so many limes. But then I discovered it’s actually limestone lime they are talking about. Scientists claim that if you add lime to sea water it increases its ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. This solution has been in circulation for many years but the problem is that too much lime is required (obviously) and the process of extracting lime from limestone releases lots of CO2 into the atmosphere.
The new process of obtaining lime from limestone does generate CO2, but once this lime is added to the sea water the sea water will absorb double the amount released, this means the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be brought to the level of pre-industrial age. Australia’s Nullarbor Plain is being considered for the project as it has 10000 cubic kilometers of lime.
But what will happen to the extra carbon the sea absorbs? Maybe then the absorbed carbon will be re-absorbed by the marine plant life releasing oxygen in return. Sounds good.
This article in the Guardian says that one person in every five people suffers from this affliction: due to high-technology they end up wasting time instead of improving their performance with the help of technology. Although this differs from person to person to a large extent I totally agree. Technology, especially the Internet is a big time waster if you are not highly disciplined. Go through a few “interesting” websites and before you know it you have spent two hours. Teenagers are always fiddling with gadgets (irrespective of whether those gadgets belong to them or not) even if it doesn’t solve a purpose.
The problem with technology is these days you cannot do without it. Email, instant messages, Twitter, blogging, online forums, FaceBook, Orkut, etc. are big time wasters, but at the same time they are the best communication and networking tools humans have ever experienced. In fact you cannot blame these tools: for thousands of years we have used tools to both our advantages and disadvantages.
My entire business depends on the Internet; so I have to be very careful while working because sometimes I don’t even realize when I have started browsing websites that have got nothing to do with my work. It not only harms work it also affects your personal and social life because then you are working (there is no escape from work whether you do it now or later) when you’re supposed to be with your friends or your loved ones, or when you are supposed to be taking care of your health. Aside from that you also pay less attention to activities that may help you develop your skills and hobbies. For instance, a couple of hours you just wasted reading a silly article or going through meaningless images and videos could have been spent reading a book.
Technological advances and creativity are not at all directly proportional, although, ideally, they should be. Take for instance word processors; have the word processors given us any writers that can match the pre-word processor era? Great writers like Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and Kalidas wrote when there was no modern papyrus and in the name of writing tools they had handmade quills that had to be dipped into, again, handmade ink, after every few words. And after writing a few words they had to blow the words to dry the ink. Add to that the perpetual, wintry darkness that could only be streaked with a dim candle. And still you have masterpieces like Crime and Punishment and Metamorphoses and The Stranger, and even One Hundred Years of Solitude. All these were written when there were no sophisticated word processors. Similarly, with advancing technologies there are great visuals in the movies, but not much substance, great beats in the songs but no soulful music and lyrics to make them immortal.
This song always reminds me of a tranquil, sleepy summer afternoon with warm but pleasant wind blowing and you can hear leaves colliding with each other, outside.
I got this link from my sister. Nivedita needs to get done a hip arthroplasty operation done and the cost of treatment and rehabilitation is going to be tremendous. You can read all the relevant information on the link specified above. Today by the time I got the mail it was quite late, so I’ll definitely transfer some money to her account tomorrow. Please do your bit. If you cannot help financially, please link to her page so that more and more people can reach out to her and help her.
Nivedita
Kung Fu Panda
I accidentally downloaded the promo of Kung Fu Panda for my three-year-old daughter from YouTube and ever since then it has been a regular part of our staple diet of videos while she is having her food. Eventually we had to get the movie and this is the first movie she ever watches (she watches it whenever she wants to watch something on my laptop) for more than 30 minutes. But she insists that only those parts be played that show the panda. The rest of the movie has to be fast forwarded. Oh yes, today in the morning she also found that scene funny when Tai Lung, the main villain escapes from prison because there is lots of sound and action.
Kung Fu Panda is an out and out Americanised version of a Chinese story and that is why most of its characters are slightly funny, slightly silly and slightly philosophical; this is an existential dilemma most of American animation characters go through: they desperately try to be funny, clumsy, and innocently, fumblingly, callous. But all in all it is an extremely lovable animation film.
Po is the fat, clumsy panda who works in his father’s noodle shop and dreams of becoming a Kung Fu fighter. When he hears that a ceremony is being conducted to choose the Dragon Warrior to save the Valley of Peace, he desperately wants to see the event but something or the other happens and he cannot enter the Palace Square. After lots of tries, he ties scores of firecrackers around himself and somehow lands in front of the master tortoise who declares him the Dragon Warrior. Everybody, including master Shifu (who currently trains everybody) is shocked. Nobody believes that he can become the Dragon Warrior, but the master tortoise. Master Shifu had already been preparing five great Kung Fu warriers: the Tigress, the Monkey, the Snake, the Crane and the Mantis, and he expected one of them being declared the dragon warrior.
Believe in yourself, is the central message of the film.
Before transcending to the heavens the master tortoise convinces master Shifu that he will believe that he can turn Po into the Dragon Warrior. Shifu eventually accomplishes that and then Po defeats Tai Lung.
Dustin Hoffman (Shifu), Angelina Jolie (Tigress), Jack Black (Po) and Jackie Chan (Monkey) are some of the Hollywood stars who have given their voices to the animation characters.
The metamorphosis of Po into the Dragon Warrior is not very convincing and this is the biggest shortfall of the film. The great 5 Kung Fu warriors had been training since they were kids and the Panda surpasses them just as Tai Lung breaks jail and reaches the Valley of Peace. In trying to render an American hue upon the characters the filmmakers have succeeded in making almost all characters look unsure and stupid, even master Shifu who is supposed to have reached the pinnacle of his spiritual consciousness. The scriptwriter certainly hasn’t worked hard on the script otherwise he or she should have devised some way to make things look more convincing. Other than that, for kids it’s a great film. Vasu simply loves the adorable Pandai (she calls him like that).
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