Open Letter to the Aam Aadmi Party (or any other political party that might want to take action)

Prithvi Reddy - It was a pleasure meeting you again on Republic Day and I really admire you and your views not only as a political spokesperson but also as a person. I really see you amongst the few people in politics that I can actually look up to even though we have had very limited interactions and I do believe you are the kind of person who would at least consider our opinions. In retrospect, I would like to state my opinion regarding the rally your party is conducting to try to annul Section 8 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules. Please do not misunderstand my intentions. I, for one, would stand tall for the rights of the people of my country: whether the discussions involve the elite, or, as in this case, the auto drivers. While I do appreciate the fact that AAP is conducting rallies for the commoners, especially the auto drivers, some may argue that there are more critical issues that require your undivided attention. And since you believe auto drivers are the aggrieved citizens I would stick to discussing auto drivers here over other issues.

As far as the rule is concerned, which requires a person to at least pass standard 8th, it is something I do not concur with either and as you rightly pointed out that there are politicians with lesser qualifications so why should there be any limitations on someone who is driving an auto. But I strongly believe that being in the public space, they form a larger impression on our society than most of us who sit behind our desks. While there are some very honest and noble auto drivers, a majority of them are amongst the people who bring the most disgrace to our society. If you and your party could spot the issues in Section 8 and bring it to the limelight it is hard to comprehend why none of the parties come out in public against some of the atrocious behaviours of the people in question that are so ubiquitous that they seem to have become acceptable to the society. As a matter of fact, I was trying to look up some of the issues people face with regards to auto drivers but I noticed that most of the online communities have now become dormant and the posts dated back to at least 2 or 3 years. It's not that the issues have reduced but simply that people have lost faith in the systems in place. These might seem as an anomaly, but I do believe that if the auto drivers were to be taxed at source on the income that they actually earn, they would be paying more taxes than me, which could justify my position.

I am aware of the role auto drivers played in helping your party win the recent elections in Delhi and you may do just as well by building on that strategy here in a city like Bangalore. But your party, AAP, was built on some strong principles, principles which made us believe that your party is not a party of appeasements and would speak out against some core issues. In my humble opinion, conducting rallies to try to get rid of Section 8, as noble as the intentions might be, would appear to be more of an appeasement tactic to build a foundation here for your party. You did paraphrase Gandhi to me by saying, "To a man with an empty stomach, food is God, and their education qualification should not come in the way of earning their living". But I have come across many people who drive autos and are more qualified than I am. If they can get better jobs outside then why would they still be driving autos? There must be some business sense to it. While I wouldn't deny that there are some people who are driven by necessity, a lot of them look at it as a means to earn more money than they could from an honest profession. And as a matter of fact, I stayed in a flat during my college days, and the entire building was owned by an auto driver. I cannot afford to own such a place myself and I am beginning to wonder if I should quit my job to be an auto driver instead. If not anything, I will know for a fact that I will always have every major political party always supporting me and looking out for my best interests.

Getting Arvind Kejrival to Bangalore to rally for the auto drivers during the coming weekend proves just that. Given the positive steps the Aam Aadmi party has taken in Delhi to encourage people to use more of public transport, and given that your party recognises the stand that a developed country isn't one where the poor drive cars but one where even the rich take public transport, it would only help if you take steps to encourage people to take autos as well. When all political parties seem to be going out of their way to support auto drivers and their unions it only adds fuel to their belief that they can charge as much as they like from the public and behave rudely with people knowing that they have the backing of the political parties.

With respect to the rally, thank you for inviting me to it, and I would be amongst the first in any of your rallies including this one as long as you also speak up against the atrocities of the auto drivers amongst other things. I am one of those people who have to take an auto everyday to work and I don't remember a day when I haven't got into an argument with an auto driver because I not only refuse to give in to their demands but also question them on their methods. As a matter of fact, my experiences in the last couple of days since we last met was compelling enough to at least write something about it. While revoking this rule may be right what is really more important is that there is a more effective system in place to ensure that they do not even think of charging beyond the meter or refuse to take us to our destination let alone harassing people. I urge, in addition to your intentions regarding section 8, you develop a basic code of conduct and ensure adequate measures are taken to implement the same. Education need not be a prerequisite but basic courtesy must be one. And I would also hope that you send out a stern message to the auto drivers and their unions before or during the rally.

Like Martin Luther once said "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends". We look at you and your party as our friends and I can only hope that you don't remain silent on the issues mentioned herein and beyond.

Ants, ISIS and Human Pheromones

Of late i've been spending a lot of time analyzing ants. Yes, Ants. They have inundated my home and i've been trying to figure them out as i look for ways to get rid of them.

Have you ever wondered how these tiny ants communicate with each other so efficiently without even making a sound that we could hear? How they come out of nowhere and the next thing you know is that there’s a whole army? A single ant may hardly be able to do anything but when they get together they can literally create a mountain. If you observe them enough, you will notice that they are quite disciplined in their own way and extremely hardworking. Well, as many of you might know, ants are known to emit a chemical trail known as pheromones through which they communicate with each other. They leave a scent (pheromones) in patterns and the proportion of the scent determines whether or not the ant scouts were successful in finding food and the rest of the ants simply follow the path with the strongest scent.

Another group that has caught my curiosity off late is ISIS. Before i begin to talk about them let me clearly state that ISIS and the Al-Qaeda are a problem that must be dealt with, and i condemn their actions in totality. But what i am really concerned about is how did ISIS manage to grow as big as it has without having been noticed by any intelligence groups or their spies all over the world? Or was it noticed and allowed to grow this big? Or do they possess some pheromone-esque compounds that enable them to grow undetected? And from where do they get their funding and weapons? Yes, they may be a fragmented element of the Al-Qaeda, but it is difficult to understand how did they manage to get the resources as they have with such apparent ease? Are they effectively serving a larger purpose that we may not be aware of? Or are their followers simply being blinded by the so called dollar scholars who mislead everyone and make money for themselves in the process?

Groups like ISIS and Al- Qaeda do not exist in a vacuum and neither is their reaction as a resistance effort to what they regard as an unjust occupation justified. And if they do have some form of human pheromones or have been able to navigate their means successfully then we must find out how they do so and perhaps use the same technique against them to stop them. But do we use violence against them in the same way as they have been doing? Do we effectively become them by doing so? As big a fan i am of Pope Francis, i was appalled by his endorsement of the war against ISIS. Not that i have anything good to say about groups like ISIS which are apparently trying to revive a failed system of the caliphate by all the wrong means (cannot tolerate such ideologies myself), i would have expected a better solution from the Pope. But then again, we all seem to want our priests and leaders to be the kind of people we do not ourselves have the discipline to be. And so the question, how else do we stop hard-line groups like these?

Ants are known to have a conspicuously large head and a butt just as large. Groups like ISIS similarly have ‘heads’ while there is no question of ‘if’s-and-butts’ among the other members of the group. They simply follow orders without any questions. And if you ever try and flick an ant away it will always try and come back to the same spot again. It just does not give up. They always remind me of this Paul Newman film, called Cool Hand Luke, which is amongst my all time favorites. It is about the indomitability of the human spirit in the face of oppression, something that ISIS might seem to project as well. And as it did with Paul Newman in the film, this spirit and determination might help mislead people towards them and in support of them. The anti-hero often gets celebrated while all his flaws are ignored.

When you kill certain ants and insects, they emit strong scents, which attract even more of their species towards them. Killing members of the ISIS similarly may not be a solution as you can kill a person but not an ideology. Or perhaps, as a wise man once said, only when you have a couple of ants in your pants, crawling around your testicles, will you realize that violence is not an option.

I have been watching a lot of debates and a lot of people identify ISIS as a Muslim problem. It is unjust to paint the entire Muslim community with the same brush and label them as a part of ISIS or similar groups. As Obama had rightly said, ISIS does not belong to any religion and what they do is not what any religion preaches. I hope you are able to see through the rhetoric that we are fed, and not mistake my thoughts to be facile generalizations or surrogate advertising or propaganda in favor of any group.

If one has to get rid of ants, then perhaps the best way is to understand pheromones, and manipulate their path by using scents similar to pheromones against them. If you succeed, you will never have an issue with them and you won't have to go to the extent of killing them either. Planting mint in your house can destroy their sense of smell as well and that would make it less likely that the ants would enter your house. And similarly, if we need to solve the problems created by ISIS we must understand them correctly and the right form of knowledge and education might help to defeat their purpose. They may seem to be complicated or difficult solutions to the problems but do let me know if you have better ones. But when we can understand something as complicated as Pheromones and make it work the way we'd like to then i'm sure we can do better with our own species.

The Master

Bates was a funny young man. Intellectual, but pedantic and preachy at times, no wonder people called him ‘Master’. Our friend was just returning from a trip he had been to with his office mates. They had hired a mini-bus for their trip to Kerala and were having the time of their lives.

As usual Master Bates was at his idiotic best, mocking everyone and everything that came to his mind. The women in Kerala, who would swim while being completely draped with clothes from head to toe, the fat friend, who fell in love and ‘broke’ it, the ubiquitous old guy, who somehow survived the great floods even though he wasn’t on Noah’s ark. One of Bates’ lame and worn out jokes with the old man would always be – if you ever need a boat, I No-ah guy. Not to mention the girl who needed make up to ‘make-up’ her mind.

All the fun and frolic came to an abrupt end while they were returning to Bangalore, and were around Mysore, which is approximately 3 hours away. It was around 2 A.M and the long drive had taken its toll on the driver, which, combined with the fog, was in itself an equation for danger.

The inevitable disaster happened and left everyone in a quandary. Those asleep woke up to realize the bus had hit a pole and the front window had shattered. They all got down from the bus and everyone seemed fine except for Bates who was left unconscious after a few glass pieces had passed through his body. Bates was rushed to the nearest hospital while the rest waited as the driver had taken the bus to get the windows fixed.

The rest of the trip continued after a long halt and had a rather eerie feeling to it. All the noise was replaced by an uncanny silence. Bates himself was sitting all by himself, quite like never before, just hoping to reach home safely.

They got back to Bangalore with just about enough time to freshen up and go right back to office as they worked in the UK shift timings and they had to login at the office by 12.00 PM IST. The mood at the office seemed extremely gloomy. Everybody looked serious, heavy eyed and in a dejected state. Apart from everything else, Bates was also worrying about his finances. He thought to himself that the trip had left him so broke that he couldn’t even pay attention.

Then came the e-mail that had changed everything. It said –

“We regret to inform you that one of our beloved colleagues – Bates, had died in an unfortunate accident while on a trip from Kerala. Please join us for a minute of silence at 4.00 PM as we remember him and pray for his family and loved ones”

Bates was horrified. He didn’t know what was going on. It hit him hard, really hard. He was unable to speak to anyone.10 minutes later, there was an announcement over the microphone. It was 4 PM and a sullen voice broke the same news. Everybody stood up and a minute of silence followed, ironically, for the person who was never silent.

Bates was a funny young man. Intellectual, but pedantic and preachy at times, but life and death were funnier with him. He didn’t know who was his 'Master'.

P.S – This is partly inspired by real life events. We did go for the trip as a team and also met with an accident near Mysore in which fortunately or unfortunately I happened to be the only person who was injured. 

Macroeconomics - Doggy style

Well, firstly to all my friends who might be thinking I've invented some new kinky and exotic sexual position or any other thing of that sort for that matter, let me not give you any more hopes as i might really disappoint you this time. Had I invented something like that, i would have rather become some sort of a tantric or guru, preaching and practicing it than to be sitting up past midnight and writing an article about it. 

I’ve been staying all by myself in this new house that i moved into from the past few months. I must mention that it does tend to get a little too lonely at times. I get reminded of my days in the North and the huge differences in cultures. People around are all too busy with their own lives and nobody really has the time to even know who the neighbour is, unlike in ‘smaller’ towns where everybody knows each other. However, the social instinct in me hasn’t yet died out completely and i've ended up making 3 new friends in the neighbourhood.

Well, these three new friends of mine happen to be all dogs. I am literally living the expression that man is after all a ‘social animal’. And before you start wondering again, this isn’t about them trying out kinky stuff that i might seem to have become obsessed with either. In fact, this is about these three really smart and intellectual dogs who have become my gurus of late. I seek to get answers to everything using them as prisms. Yes, times have really changed so much that dogs are the real masters. I am in fact trying to get some answers on government policies from them.

I have named these three dogs as well, ironically, after people i'm not particularly fond of, but that’s another story in itself and i'll save it for some other time.

Macroeconomics has really been one subject that has fascinated me quite a bit. They really have graphs and all sorts of figures for literally everything. At times, i fear if you ask an economist her/his name, she/he might show you a graph for that as well. But now that i finally begin to understand certain macro-economic factors (in the true sense and unlike mentioned above), i can comprehend, to a certain extent, the recent developments in the government policies and some of the other economic variables. And perhaps being the pedantic person i am, and having already established that the neighbourhood would not bother to listen to my theories, i run to my new friends, the doggies (whose names i’m not revealing, as you might be one of them), and try and preach to them, just to show them that how ‘smart’ i might have become and how good or bad our country might be doing.

I then began my really ‘intellectual’ conversation with the dogs. At first i was a little condescending with them, bragging that i have a good finance related job and don't just loiter around like them. I asked them – “do you even understand finance?”

“WUFF” came the unanimous response with a very stern look.

Considering the ‘smart’ person that i have become, it didn't take me any time to interpret what they were really trying to say to me – "We Understand Finance Fu***er"(W.U.F.F.).

Their looks started becoming even grimmer and i knew for a fact that they really meant business, and that i should not mess around with them. At that moment, i could not help but remember the video of the recent track by Swedish House Mafia called “Save the World” in which dogs try and save the world for us. And so i continued my really ‘intellectual’ conversation with the dogs.

I went in great depth’s describing about the declining GDP, the falling value of the rupee as against the dollar, the impact of the Greek Crisis, about how the Reserve Bank had left the Repo Rates and the CRR unchanged at 8%  and 4.75% respectively, even though everybody expected a reduction in these rates by the RBI, etc. The dogs were listening to me with the kind of devotion that i had never managed to show towards my teachers or books and it felt like even they knew that the RBI and the government have not been doing enough to prevent any further damages.

And so, I continued the ‘discussion’ if i could say so, and criticized a lot of the other policies and some factors in general relating to the society in large. The rising LPG and fuel prices, the climbing inflation and CPI indexes, the list is just endless. But the one noteworthy thing is that despite the high rise in prices and the decline in the value of the rupee, the Planning commission,  recently in March this year, released a report stating that anyone with a daily consumption expenditure of Rs 28.35 and Rs 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively is to be considered above the poverty line and therefore, not considered to be poor.

I could now sense a certain degree of smugness amongst the dogs, as even they must have realized that we actually do spend more money on them, and therefore, if they were humans, they would be considered above the poverty line.

The only way this report actually helped the government was by showing a decline in the number of people below the poverty line by 7.3%. After facing a very high degree of criticism, the Planning Commission, had said in its affidavit before the Supreme Court that the “ poverty line as per the June 2011 price level can be placed provisionally at Rs 965 (Rs 32 per day) per capita per month in urban areas and Rs 781 (26 per day) in rural areas”.

I am no economist. I am no smart intellect. All I really have is the conscience of a little child, clear as it can be. It is this conscience that is enough to distinguish what it right form what is wrong. And i know something is definitely wrong when an individual is expected to be above poverty line and therefore not poor if he / she earns more than the upper band of 965 a month. The benchmark that we use seems wrong in itself, as it does not account for expenses relating to healthcare and education. Ask yourself how much do you spend on feeding your dog, let alone veterinary or other ‘fancy’ expenditures and whether that amount is more than rupees 965? How can a person who barely survives on rupees 966 a month be considered not poor? If you have the answers, please do enlighten me.

This ‘discussion’ had clearly made even the dogs wonder as to where our destiny was headed as i could see them staring in disbelief. I could almost sense their sympathy for us as was evident from their gloomy faces. At the end of it, they all walked away without saying a word. It really made me wonder as to whether i was so boring or had the government’s policies become so insensitive. One thing was for sure, that either i should make myself more interesting or either the government should seem to be more concerned and make better decisions so that at least the dogs won't have to look down upon us or sympathize with us.

’Faisal Mohd’s gag, following Planning Commission’s decision to lower poverty line’

Dennis the Menace

 http://www.mediafire.com/view/?4uzacwkgj6pp03p

To love or not to love – Philosophy for a donkey

I have a considerably good mind, often donkeys consult me. But it’s been ages since even a donkey has sought advice from me; so here I am, trying to keep myself happy by giving some advice to myself. I must add however, this has become somewhat ad nauseam of late, but that won’t deter me, at least for now.

I have enjoyed being in relationships; I have been somewhat lucky with them as well. I might not be constant in love, but I end up being constantly in love. If they work out, I am happy, if not, I end up being some sort of a philosopher. Either ways, things work out for my good.

However happy-go-lucky types I might seem to be, I do have a serious side as well after-all. And I must point out that laughing faces doesn’t mean that there is an absence of sorrow, it means that they have the ability to deal with them.

I think the key to remain happy is probably not to take anything too seriously, and that includes relationships. At least not until you’re married.

I believe in the school of thought that says women fall in love by what they hear. Men fall in love by what they see. That's why most women wear makeup and most men lie. 

Most people invariably have a proclivity towards some sort of an emotional consistency. I might seem to espouse Sigmund Freud's philosophies that the primary motivation for all things in life is sex, but like Bob Dylan puts it - "Love is just a four letter word". And in the words of Chris Rock - "A man is only as faithful as the choices he has."

A lot of people who get into relationships often ignore everything else, including their best friends and family, accentuating the cliché that love is blind. And things get worse when a relationship fails. To me a break up is like a broken mirror. It is better to leave it broken than hurt yourself to fix it. If you can’t save a relationship, at least save your pride.

However cynical I might sound, I must admit that people are bound to have broken hearts, simply because the ideologies of people have changed of late. Things are to be used and people are to be loved, but the problem now is that people are used and things are loved. Try breaking a cell phone for instance of the one you love, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

When we meet someone for the first time, they are at their affable best. What this results in is that people generally form a good impression about the other person because of the way he or she presents himself. Later when people get to know each other better, things might not seem quite the same. Often fights follow as well. What I generally do in this case is to rate people as 0 on a scale of 0 – 10 and when you get to know the person better you can enhance the rating accordingly. That way you will not get hurt if the person disappoints you later as you already do not consider them worth the bonding. This I learned from a friend, (Prithvi) and I continue to follow it. Also when I meet someone initially, I tend to portray a negative image of myself and then build on it for good. This helps as the person is aware of your bad aspects before your positive side (please don’t do the same during interviews and other formal engagements though).

 I read somewhere that no man or woman is worth your tears & the one who is, won’t make you cry. This might at least help in making better choices for the ones who can’t live without the emotional consistency.

Having expressed myself, you may abide by what I said and follow suit, but if you do not agree with me, you should know what I meant when I said initially that often donkey’s consult me.

P.S. - This was written for a friend of mine who in depression due to some relationship issues. I've borrowed a lot of phrases from here and there, but at the time of writing, my only intention was to try and bring a sense of calm in her mindset.

                                                                                          

At the Movies – Flashback 2011

In case you have missed out on any of the movies of the year gone by, here’s a quick guide to some of the movies released during 2011 that you’ve got to watch before the Mayans get the better of you.

To me 2011 was probably the best year at the movies after 1994 when we had movies like Shawshank Redemption, Leon: The Professional, Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, etc to name a few.
The year was even more significant to me as the Harry Potter series finally came to an end and the Twilight series is just one step away (still scratching my head trying to figure out why people watch stuff like that). I personally am more enthralled by realistic cinema.

Having said that, I’d like to begin with my personal favorite of the year - A Seperation, an Iranian movie, which deals with the dilemma a married couple is faced with, to either move to another country and live a “better” life or to stay and take care of an ailing parent who has Alzheimer’s disease and who can barely recognize them. It doesn’t end there; the wife wants a divorce if the husband chooses his ailing father over her and their child’s “brighter” future. The movie has a lot of sub plots and touches on a lot of key issues. It came as no surprise when it won the Oscar for the best foreign language film and I personally would like to believe that had the movie been made in English or had it been a silent film like The Artist, it would have swept all the major awards.

Another movie that really got me wanting for more was Warrior. I fail to understand why this movie was so under rated and only managed one Oscar nomination for Nick Nolte. To me the movie was more like Rocky, but only with much better acting and a better script.

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo was another flick that I loved and am eagerly looking forward to the complete trilogy.  David Fincher never really ceases to disappoint and Rooney Mara definitely deserved the best actress award for her staggeringly raw performance in the film, but wasn’t too surprised that the jury preferred to chose Meryl Streep again.

The Artist and Drive sums up my list of top 5 movies of the year. It was a really brave decision to make a silent film and in black and white in this age and expect people to watch it. People who have watched The Artist would agree that the dog (Uggie) deserved an award as well. The movie is a gem of a nostalgic trip.

Many said the year belonged to George, be it George Clooney for The Descendants and the Ides of March or Jean Dujardin who played the role of George Valentine in The Artist. But to me, this was Ryan Gosling’s year. He definitely deserved better for not one but three brilliant films, namely, Drive, The Ides of March and Crazy, Stupid, Love. Drive was simply the coolest and the quintessential guy movie of the year.

Some other movies that stood out during the year included 50-50, Moneyball, Bridesmaids and Horrible Bosses. Yet to watch Hugo, so can’t really comment on that. I’d really want to watch it not because of the number of Oscars it won, but simply because it is a Martin Scorsese film. I also need to catch up on Woody Allen’s – Midnight in Paris after having read so many good reviews about it.

Here’s hoping for more such stuff or even better in the years to come. Until then, do make sure you watch all of the movies mentioned above.

                                                                                          Dennis George.
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