Science behind a stride!!!

                  

I always wonder what makes people, including me, IMAGINE. We have this beautiful world in front of our eyes which is beyond any IMAGINATION. A walk down the road can give you infinite experiences to think, to talk and to share if you are attentive enough. As an experiment, just remember the last two minute walk you took down the road. For women, that would be called SHOPPING!! Now it is India, so there would be ‘much and more’ people. I know grammatically it should be ‘many’ people but I don’t like to measure the number of people in India. For something that cannot be counted we use much and more (Pun intended). The first thing people do is talk and in the event of India it is referred to as stalking, staring, spitting and even fighting. The most random acts you would not expect to find on the road are the ones which your eyes will have the pleasure or horror to watch. And again, it happens only in India. When I try to contemplate on why people do such things; what makes them do what they do; what makes them so haphazardly linear. Sometimes I IMAGINE that Chaos Theory was made for India. For those who don’t know The Chaos theory is the study of non linear dynamics, in which seemingly random events are actually predictable from simple deterministic equations.

And you will experience all of this in a two minute and a hundred metre walk. Now IMAGINE what you will encounter if you start walking to nearby places and shed those motorised monsters. For a start, a sure shot a circle of people circumventing an event. This event could be a combat between two gentlemen over a gentle push; a road accident getting zero-tolerance attitude from spectators; a roadside magic-cum-play-cum-dance-cum-drama show; or interestingly an advertisement campaign on a packed road. Another thing you will definitely find on the way is the developing India co-existing with traditional Bharat. Among the new light emitting diodes or showrooms, you will find some incandescent bulbs or temples. Both have the same function of buying and selling, either of goods or faith. One has regular sales and other has regular congregations. You bow your head to the temple but also gaze a look in respect to these shops. A craze to shop is similar to craving for a prayer. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, anything that can happen will happen (MURPHY’s LAW) on a Indian road.

Now what was the aim of this Doordarshan? This is the part where you actually should have to IMAGINE. You have a world around you which you are missing sitting in your vehicles which you do not have to IMAGINE. All the chaos should now sense. It can be captivating or repulsive but it is certainly exciting. Walk as much as you can as another drop of water in the ocean of people will not raise the water level.  

Scroll Eating!!

                                                

Remember two years back when you were sitting all alone, getting cosy in your room, and you wanted little kebabs to put together a scrumptious evening. The food that would make you sing ‘cloud number nine’, by Bryan Adams. Yes, you do!! What would be the first step to the kingdom of heaven? First, you would take a long stride towards the fridge or probably the cupboard where you would find The Folder. It would contain all the precious pamphlets who have found the way into the presentation. The folder helped you to get a job, so that you could enjoy the delicacies of a wonderful life. The documents represented you. The interviewer would judge you on the basis of how you scored in your matrix examination. The questions would be raised doubting the authenticity of the information given to the chair in valid proofs. But now the roles have reversed!!

You would first select a candidate among the various applications that have been able to reach your door. Also note, some of the good and able candidates failed to reach your door because of external circumstances. They did not believe in advertising and just wanted to make the tummies of their customers happy. Or, they were not lucky enough to reach your footsteps. Second, you would deselect the ones who are either above or below your budget. Then after minutes of discussion with your brain and stomach of what you want to eat and how much you want to eat, you will reach to the final two or three prospects. Next is the most difficult part of the planning- Decision making. You do not want something that would ruin your night and along with that makes you proud of the decision you made. Then after spending almost hour of the bantering and asking yourself stupid questions like what I would like to eat if it were my last meal, you would decide to go to kitchen and boil yourself a two minute maggi noodles.

Now get out of the bubble you had created above you!! The future is here. Thanks to Zomato and similar apps, at least my life is a little better. Women go out for window shopping and I have invented a similar new hobby SCROLL EATING. I would scroll down thousands of restaurants and visit each and every one of them virtually. Looking at the photos shared, I would make future plans of visiting all the places one by one. I have literally thousands of restaurants bookmarked. Life was never this easy and comfortable. Oh, for the food delivery part, it’s the same. I end up eating the two minute maggi noodles. Now the options have increased and dishes are innumerous. Things have changed from informational shortage to informational overload. But I do think about all the food I would eat whilst standing next to stove!!!

BUREAUCRACY OF RELIGION

                

We are living in a India which dwells more on the past and creates an image painting a better future. A future in which God himself will descend from the heaven and take away all the sufferings of human kind. And in the present, there is huge organisation similar to bureaucracy, working for the God.

They are marked by the same traits that our present state of administration represents. Let’s take them one by one.

·         Status-quo – They like the things exactly the way they are. There is no need for innovations and to fulfil the traditions of the past should be the summum bonum of life.

·         Nepotism – Only those who have blessings of God will be able to experience him. Apparently everyone can try to be his favourite but only few will be selected.

·         Redtape – The process is very demanding and time consuming. The file has to be passed from the lowest branch in the house to the highest in hills of Himalayas.

·         Buck-passing – Every administrator tries to pass the responsibility from one institution to another. There is no grievance redressal system and asking everything comes under the Official secrets act. So, there is no need to expect any transparency and accountability.

On the flip side of the coin, stakeholders of the religion ‘us’ also exhibit similar behaviour. We are ignorant to the meaning of the organisation. We just need to get our rituals done on time. And we will even bribe to get ahead in the darshan line.

Then the nexus of two has created bigger problems. Both are engaged in rent seeking activities and classes/castes have captured the decision making power. They make rules and regulations for the masses. And with the inter-mixing of religion and state, every religion has been carving out space for itself.

There were philosophers like Kabir and Guru Nanak who in chronology are medieval but act as link between past and present. Their simple and unequivocal views about religion have made them seminal.

It’s not that attempts were not made for bringing transparency and accountability (T&A). The number of temples has increased to give people the choice. Temples have started giving donation slips to increase T&A. The debates and discussions between scholars of different religions are organised to compare and validate the best religion.

Ironically those fortunate enough to reach the end of the line realise what this bureaucracy had been saying was true all along – God exists among us. The problem is not only the vices of the institution of the religion but also the blind trust of people that there exists something beyond the present. The false hope crushes all the individual ambitions. The group is more important than the individual. But we always get mixed up with the real intentions behind the idea. It is like USA targeting Afghanistan for the greater good of the world.

HOW BJP IS SIMILAR TO TEMPLE RUN?

 

Our political parties are insanely similar to games we play in our smart phones. Imagine Mamata Banerjee as an angry bird. She is always angry and shouting at the centre, no matter who is in power. And Communist party of India as balancing balls. They have agendas and interactive opposition but do not know where they fit in Indian Democracy. Then there is Congress and Candy Crush. Once in a while, every member of Gandhi family will get an invitation to become Prime Minister of India.

Let’s talk about the political party in power – BJP. There is a very famous game called Temple Run. BJP is very much alike to it.

In the beginning, you increase your coin value from 2X to 50X. Similarly, BJP increased its voting share from 7% in 8^Th Lok Sabha General Elections to 31% in 16^th lok Sabha General Elections. Just like you cannot increase your coin value in one run, BJP also stumbled its way to the top.

Now comes the power ups, one gets in the game. My most favourite is Coin Magnet. PM Modi has got this magnet whereby he has attracted the attention of the whole world. He has appeared on the cover page of Times magazine. And apparently everyone wants to invest in Shining India, China with 50 billion dollars and Japan with 35 billion dollars. The money is also pouring from MNCs also. Sometimes to attract attention of people of India, his government has even angered governments of neighbouring country like in case of Myanmar.

Along the run, there are certain Mega Coins which gives you extra coins for catching them. BJP also caught some of the Mega coins like Rajasthan, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Maharashtra. The most valuable are Haryana and J&K because BJP has spread its wings from almost zero presence to forming government in the states. Not to mention, but BJP also slipped past the Delhi Mega Coin!!

There is another speed boost power. This must be the favourite one for BJP. Modi’s oratory and marketing skills have been throwing headlines for news channels one after the other. This has been boosting the confidence of his party members time to time. Most famous ones are Sabka Hath, Sabka Vikas and Ab ki baar Modi Sarkar. And somehow he has some infatuation with abbreviations- NITI, B2B, KISAN, SETU, HIT, JAM etc. The numerous phrases and quotes themselves require a separate Wikipedia page.  

Next power is the invisibility cloak. All the Hindu fundamentalist parties have taken shelter under the cloak. They think they are immune to Law and Order. The examples are Dadri mob killing, Muzzafarpur riots, Kalburgi murder, Perumal Murugan’s withdrawl, inking Kulkarni’s face and most important issue of banning things. Ironically, the same group which gives economic and social reason for not killing cows are against ban of crackers on diwali because it is against the hindu tradition. How is environment less suited candidate for protection for economic and social reasons than cows? BJP leadership, seriously, not only needs to separate it from such groups but also take strict action against them uniformly and impartially.

 Once the character dies, he even has the power to resurrect infinitely if he has enough coins. BJP should remember that it is not a game they are playing and resurrection will only be possible if they are able to satisfy the millions of people who voted for them in the name of change and development.