Month November 2018

Dystopian destiny

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Civilization or C-Evil-ization?



What is common between the movies in the above collage? Take a guess. May be the title will give a clue! Not the movie title, I’m talking about the title of blog.

Before I tell you what I meant, lets look at some more movies. Have you seen “You’ve got mail?”, a nice romantic movie, very popular no doubt, you wouldn’t bat an eye lid on the plot. Its very genuine. But it wasn’t when the movie was made. Movies main plot is something that you would call Online dating today. It was completely unheard of in 1998.

So, this movie predicted something that we see today. It predicted future. Now let me rush through a list of movies that spoke of concepts that were total fiction when they were made.
Jim carrey’s The cable guy talks about Online gaming and Smart TVs. Air plane part II shows full body scanners in air ports, Minority report shows personalized advertising, Total recall shows TV’s on public transport & self driving cars/ Back to the future features flat screen TVs, Video conferencing and wearable technology. War games introduced us to cyber war fare. Blade runner said digital bill boards are possible. The true man show is about reality television (the writers can sue the Kardashian’s for copy wright infringement). The running man is about a reality show where contestants had to do dangerous tasks. 2001 A space oddessy gave us the first glimpse of virtual assistants. Smart phones, Virtual reality, Robots, Digital snooping, Identity theft, Smart homes, Face transplants, Nuclear meltdowns were all part of movies even before we had a name for such a thing.

You might write it off saying its all about technology and technological advances were bound to happen. You can also strike me down that there is a whole bunch of stuff that did not become a reality. But that’s exactly what a prediction means. It may happen. It’s not a guess. A prediction is an educated guess. Sort of the one you make at half time of a game. 

Now getting back to the photo collage at the top.At the heart of every plot is the message, Human species is on path to self-destruct. They are not the dystopian dreams of a writer, they are the the result of a prediction that some people made looking at where the human race is heading. The central theme of every movie is problems that arise out of over population of Humans.


Also, there has been an increasing trend where the villain is a guy meaning good. He takes the decision that the only way to save earth is by eliminating significant amount of human beings. So, he is actually trying to be the hero for future generations but we brand him as a bad guy just because we don’t like his modus operandi.

Look at V for vendetta, its based on a book, it is about futuristic Britain. A politician uses fear mongering and comes into power, then systematically establishes an authoritarian regime. Then there is a revolution to over throw him. I think we are seeing the first phases of this movie plot already in action. 

Before humans walked the earth, the only way there could be destruction was through Nature. Humans call them natural disasters. But there is an important thing to note here. They are not disasters to nature. They are occurrences in nature that prove disastrous to Humans. Well, Flora and Fauna also perish. But what ever happened in Nature was for the greater good. You might call it suffering short time loss for a long term gain. Even when a global scale extinction events like the an asteroid struck to wipe out the dinosaurs or an ice age or magnetic reversal of poles occurred, Earth and Nature have always found a way to restore balance and make Earth a hospitable place. But this took a lot of time. I mean a lots & lots of time. 



But since Humans have become so called ‘Civilized’, the magnitude of destruction we have caused is unreal. Its even more unsettling that majority was done in the last 100 years. Earth is been in a non-molten state since at least 3.8 billion years. At least that is oldest rock ever found till date. Fossil records state that life has been on earth for at least 3.5 billion years. Humans have existed for about 200,000 years. The first vaccine was invented in 1796 and now we are in 2018. Humans couldn’t disturb the harmony of the eco system for 199778 years that is until we found a way to cheat Nature’s fix for everything. Nature always balances the scale by allowing only the strongest to survive, even the population strongest of the species was controlled using disease. Once humans found a way to bypass this, the population exploded. 



Now, in any eco-system if the population of a particular species explodes, then the species in the lower level get decimated, then this over populated species starves to death. This way in some time, the natural order is restored. No Humans are different, we don’t just feed on what is available, we grow our own food. Including the live stock used for meat consumption. We not only just eat when required, we store for future needs. This means the rate at which we consume natural resources is faster than at the rate they are replenished. For eg: it takes more millions of years for nature to create crude oil, we now process in days and consume it in minutes. If you look at the relative time taken to produce and consume hydrocarbons, the model we follow is not at all sustainable. So is the carbon foot print we add to earth.

Just at some of the statistics below on deforestation and CO2 emissions 



All this data points to only one result. There are more movie predictions that are about to come true. We may not be alive to see it, but I’m sure someone in future will look at movies like 2012 & Day after tomorrow and think. Man, they said that this would happen decades ago. Wish someone cared.




Les Misérables

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The Perennially Pained

Les Misérables is one of the greatest work of literature in 19th century. I’m not going to argure, review or critique Victor Hugo here. Nor will I attempt to comment on the performance of Russel Crowe, High Jackman and Anne Hathaway in the Tom Hooper’s adaptation of this master piece. Though its worth mentioning that I was stunned by the theater skills of the actors once cast as a Gladiator, a Wolverine and a princess. Man they can act. Well lets keep it aside for another day.

What I wanted to convey with the title is my observation of majority of the human population in 21st century. Internet was invented in late 20th century. It made the world a small place, it brought people together. But another thing that was the by product of Internet has started pulling people apart. Internet brought information/misinformation to peoples finger tips. Social media then took both this information and misinformation to every tom dick and harry. 

The result of this is very evident. Not every one can separate music from noise. Not everyone can think and process information objectively. Not every one can accept that it is alright if some people have an alternate view on things. This results is anger and frustration. Which inevitably results in misery. 

Seeing someone post a picture of themselves on a nice holiday or with a brand new sports car will result you in liking, up-voting, commenting or further sharing the post. It depends on which social media platform you prefer, your relationship with that someone and most importantly your mood at that point of time.

Now, Can seeing someone doing things that you cannot do (what ever the reason for it may be) make you jealous? Can it make you regret your past decisions? Can it make you feel that life has dealt you a bad hand? Can it make you feel that your life is inferior? Well it can, you may not realize it, but it can mess up a lot of things in your head – sub consciously. 

You may not agree with it, that is OK. It is a very personal thing on how you feel about others success. So, lets make it less personal.

Suppose you are an animal lover and you see a post in your feed depicting animal cruelty. Would that piss you off? Would that make you feel like screaming on top of your lungs? 

Well, now reacting to anything and everything that you see or hear is just self inflicting misery. This is the primary reason that you see so much hatred and anger everywhere. That’s the only reason that has driven me to make my blog unavailable in search results. I don’t want to be the target of some random persons illogical hate.

This anger and hatred has always been there but it was localized. You would whine and complain about stuff to your barber, friends or family. Once you have vented out your frustration, you are done and you go back to your life. Most people also did not publicly express such feelings as they were afraid of repercussions. But Internet has now provided a perfect platform of anonymity and that combined with continuous flow of information from the websites (that are design to show the content related to or similar to the content you have preferred to read/watch) gives your mind no time to get distract itself from anything you dislike. This will result in adding fuel to fire.

It is human nature to look at information that you do not like with equal interest as the content that you like. Using this nature, lot of people are making money out of your misery.

Why a person does something or says something is a very complex thing to deduce. We are not Sigmund Freud s, so it would be next to impossible to psycho analyse someone and then react.  I can list out a 5 point formula on how to stay happy but that would be of zero help to anyone.

Instead it would be rather helpful to understand the reason for the hatred first. If you are exposed to some information or content that you disagree with or do not like, first try to understand why it happened. If you research for 5 minutes you will understand that the situation is a result of mistakes by numerous people over a very long period of time. There is very little you can do about it and no matter what you feel about it, there are a lot of things in the world that cannot be undone.


When ever I’m exposed to things that I do not like, I just ask myself a question – “Would it help?”. This is a line I heard in the movie Bridge of spies and I was amazed how useful it is to everyone. This question if answered honestly will 99.99% of the times result in the same answer – “NO”. So, you are getting all riled up for no reason apparently. There are a lot of things wrong with the world and there is hardly anything you can do about it. Accept it and focus an things that really matter. Be happy.

Wrong packaging

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Expected vs Actual


Ever seen a wrongly packaged item? At least one of the toy in the below image is wrongly packaged. Right? What if the package was opaque? You wouldn’t know the mistake until you go home an unpack. What if you ordered online?

My wife once ordered a shampoo online, they sent conditioner. I requested an exchange citing wrong product. There was a guy to collect the old item and 2 days later, got a new package. Again a conditioner. Now I was really pissed, I called customer care and gave them an ear full (we all know that the customer care executive doesn’t give a rats ass about our problem and is just going to read out pre-scripted responses, but venting out anger is very satisfying). After a lot of apologies and another exchange request. I finally for a new package the next day… Voila… another Conditioner. I was laughing because I didn’t know what else to do. My wife said let it be and I accepted the delivery. It then turned from funny to hysterical. Next day, i even got an email asking me to review the product.  

Now here I was not happy because we sort of had a contract when I made the purchase.I agreed to buy a specific item. Actual item was different from the expected item.
  1. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
  2. Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
  3. Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
These are the official names of North Korea, Sri Lanka and Nepal respectively. Now, the official names carry a lot of prefixes. I know you wouldn’t mind calling Sri Lanka a democratic country or Nepal a federal republic. But I know its ironic to call a dictatorship in North Korea a democracy. This is wrong packaging. Right? I mean the name on the package is different from the product that is inside. 

Now, let me get to my country. India. India is just referred to as India. But it’s a also called Republic of India. So that’s setting low expectations than the above countries. But there is a catch here. 
Here is the preamble of Indian Constitution:

 WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens
 JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
 LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
 EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all
 FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
 IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this  26th day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

In the preamble of the constitution, India is called  
a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
Yes, that’s all the words from your civics book. I mean literally all the words that can be put in front of a country name and that sets the bar very high. I can kind of understand the folks who wrote these words. They wanted India to be the good boy of the class. But these are not just words, these are the principles on which they wanted India to run. 

So have been able to uphold these principles we set for ourselves?

I’m not going to list the dictionary definitions of each of these words. I’m just going to use layman’s language to do a fact check.

Theoretically India became a Sovereign on 15th August 1947. The British left for good and that meant that we were our own bosses. But have the governments acted with authority of their own? Every government for the fear of loosing votes and also due to greed gets influenced by not just internal forces but also to multi national conglomerates. So, that’s principle flushed down the drain.

Now, do all the citizens get an equal share of resources in India. No, so we are not socialist.
Then is India secular? India has been melting pot of world religions. In a true secular country Government doesn’t interfere with religion and Religion doesn’t interfere with governance. Now we all know that it’s not the case in India.

In a democracy, government gets elected by the people and all people have equal say in the election. But if you look at it in simple words, this also directly means that if a 100 people vote and at least 51 people want a thing, the rest of the 49 should suck it up and shut the fuck up till the next election. Looking at the number of protests, PIL’s, law suits and agitations – It is any thing but a democracy in India. 

So what are we left with now? Yes, Is India a republic? For this I do have to go back to a Wikipedia definition. Its easier that way.
A republic (Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which the country is considered a “public matter”, not the private concern or property of the rulers. The primary positions of power within a republic are not inherited. It is a form of government under which the head of state is not a monarch.

Now, In India rulers behave like the country is their private property. Most positions of power are definitely inherited. Politics in India are a family business and finally, though our head of state is not a monarch. There has been more than one Monarch like figure who was directly head of the state or worse, held no position of power but made all the decisions. So, I’m going to flush that down the drain too.

Just like my wife gave up on the shampoo and adjusted with the conditioner. Indians have turned a blind eye to what we aspired to be and what we turned out to be.

Well, its good that we do not call our selves SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of India or SSSDRI.  It sounds silly,awkward, ironic and would be lying through our teeth. Lets continue calling our country just India. But for the sake of sanity, lets amend the preamble to the below text.

 WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN* SOCIALIST* SECULAR* DEMOCRATIC* REPUBLIC* and to secure to all its citizens
 JUSTICE*, social, economic and political;
 LIBERTY* of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
 EQUALITY* of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all
 FRATERNITY* assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
 IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this  26th day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

*SUBJECT TO CHANGES