In 2008 when the United states elected their first non-white president, most of the world saw it as a welcome change for a country whose past is drenched with the blood of colored people, but what these folk ignored was how much it would irk the red part of the country. Their response has been so extreme that the entire world will have to face the repercussions for at least the next decade and the country may have to deal with it for next several decades. The country that was Obama nation, has become an abomination is less than 4 years.
One useful thing that happened here was that they showed what they really are. I initially drafted this post on 1st of October, well before the 1st vote for the 2020 US elections was cast. I was under the impression that the country was in for 4 more years of misery and we were in for 4 more years of laughter at their expense. Well, I turned out to be both right and wrong. 74 million Americans negated the 70 million Americans who wanted 4 more years of Trump. Even if you disregard his pre-political life, what he has said and done in the last 4 years should have convinced any sane person to not vote for him again.
It would be the equivalent of Indians electing a guy who lives like Vijay Malya and talks like Kamal R Khan, becoming the laughimg stock of the world and then again deciding to re-elect the same person.
This number 70 million. The largest ever vote for a loosing candidate in an US election is therefore a much more important number than the 74 million that Joe Biden got to win the election. There is an old Indian saying “यथा राजा तथा प्रजा” which roughly translates to ‘As is the king, so are the subjects’. It still relevant in today’s age where democracies have replaced monarchies in most of the countries. Trump’s subjects were mostly psychopaths or his partners in past crimes. But the word subject has also a new meaning with respect to the changes in the way leaders function. The modern day subjects are instead the citizens of the country. Thus the saying has to be turned on its head to be relevant now.
यथा प्रजा तथा राजा. As are the citizens, so is there elected representative. Trump not only showed us what he is but he has also what America really is. It’s a place where people from other countries go to make money and for this money, they tolerate the bigotry they are subjected to. Most of the world thinks that last four years are an aberration and come next year the status quo that existed till 2016 will return. But reality might be far from that. In 2017, this blog started with a prediction of what America would look like under Trump. Now I’m going to make another prediction of what the next few decades will look like.
I predict that Democrats will retain presidency for a long time and the civil unrest in America will keep worsening. Here is how it is going to play out…. Assuming that Trump doesn’t pull off a coup and stays in power.
Come January 2021, democrats are going to fall one seat short of senate majority, meaning they will not be able to do anything significant they planned to do once in office. Trump will keep hammering away on Twitter like a psychotic reality show judge humiliating its contestants. Rupublican law makers, who are now accepting the reality that Trumpism is here to stay with America will keep supporting Trump for the fear of not getting votes from the Trump base. Now that he has lost the immunity of being the president, there will be a flurry of law suits and investigations against his businesses. He will get convicted for a few minor things but will not have to do any jail time because the Republicans and the judges he appointed will see to it that most of the sentences are in fines and settlements. Trump will run again in 2024 and lose. He will continue to cry fowl and play victim. He will lose by a greater margin then now because some of the Americans who voted for him this time will come to terms with who he actually is. But the majority of the under educated white American voters will stick with trump.
One variable in this prediction is Vladimir Putin staying healthy and in power. If he doesn’t and someone else takes over and decides to humiliate America furthur by releasing evidence of all the allegations of interference, It may pave a way for more Americans reevaluating their allegiances.
Why do I make such bold and gloomy predictions? Data suggests that an average trump voter is non college educated and white. In other words ignorant. It will take generations and great effort in terms of educating them and their offspring of the realities of the world. The current political setup makes it extremely difficult to do it. After all this is a country that still refuses to accept metric system.
These people still live in their bubbles of outdated principles and are resist any reality checks. Most of the world has moved beyond race superiority, mainly because of the globalization. There is no turning the dials back. The anger and frustration of having to live through the precidency of a black person for 8 years made these gullible Americans make a deal with the Devil. Now there is no way they can break this deal. All of us have to now endure this new reality. The non white people in the US have no other choice but to make a deal with democrats. Because democrats say that they represent so many types of people with such varied priorities, they will not be able to cater the any of the needs. People in America will keep pulling their hair out, trolling each other and screaming at each other and the rest of the world will sit back and enjoy the show.
In early 2015, Russel Peters did a show in the city I lived in. I immediately booked tickets and because I knew what to expect, I got the tickets for the last row. I was not sure if I could laugh at myself if a stranger made fun off me and if I couldn’t, I did not want the camera to put my wry smile or an upset face on permanent record of the video recording. I guess that would be the same for a lot of people. We are often comfortable when our friends make fun of us but not when others do. But this is a little different for public personalities. Their lives are an open for everyone. Not just the media or comedians, people form every walk of life have the liberty to make fun of them. Well that’s more or less accurate. More in a few countries with a real freedom of speech and less in countries with restrictions on what you can say in public.
For example, India has a something called a Right to freedom which includes freedom of speech but it comes with a big asterisk. The State can impose reasonable restrictions in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offense. Which more or less means shut your trap. This indirectly kills the art of Satire and Parody. Unlike America where it is routine for comedians, talk show hosts to mock public figures, India can be a dangerous place to exercise such freedoms, especially against politicians in power. Even the Russel Peters was a heavily toned down version of his usual self when he toured India.
Yesterday, the office of a movie director was attacked because of his political parody on a actor turned politician. These are the same bunch of people who were giggling at the the two movies that the same director made but were about other politicians. So, laughing at others is good but you cannot laugh at yourself? Not just this instance, this taking an offense thing has gone so far that the judicial courts have asked the film makers to add disclaimers to their movies to protect their artistic freedom.
The very first instance of such an incident (that I can recollect) was when the release of Da Vinci Code was postponed in 2003 due to a protest by some Christian missions in India. It was a weird thing that a movie made in a predominantly Christian country and I don’t remember any protests or law suits in US about this movie. There has been a gradual increase in the frequency of such incidents and that indicates that people have grown more sensitive. Right? But here lies the paradox that the same people have grown highly insensitive to the other things such as anything that might offend others. So, what do we call someone who thinks everything is about them? Egocentric? Conceited?, Self-centered? Self-absorbed? Self-obsessed? Self-serving? Self-interested?
You can call them any of these or all of these. India is a country of 1.3 billion people. Whatever you say or do, there is a very high probability of more than a few people getting offended. Is the only way to keep everyone happy is for everyone to remain silent? Like in the movie A quiet place. Or may be silence will also offend some people.
I don’t mean that everyone has to be think skinned or that every opinion is valid. There is a time for everything and now a days, everyone seems to get outraged for every petty little thing. May be forgot that it is okay Laugh at your self once in a while. The idiosyncrasies are a big part of what we are and it is okay to be made fun of and if someone makes fun of someone you adore or idiolize, that’s OK too. Nobody is perfect.
More often than not, the anger comes from a fact that the satirist is at least partially correct and you don’t like the fact that it is being pointed out or in some cases being exaggerated. It is the embarrassment you feel that triggers these reactions.
A picture is worth a 1000 words. So, let me put it to you this way. If you laugh at any one of these pictures, you should be able to laugh at all of these.
Coco is a 2017 Pixar animation film about a boy who accidentally enters the world of the dead. An interesting premise, right? The movie is his race to get back to the living world by dawn, so that he doesn’t remain there permanently or in other words – DIE. In this movie, there is a very profound scene where the boy witnesses a dead man die. The confused boy asks his companion, Hector what just happened and Hector responds saying that when a person is forgotten, that’s when the ‘Real death’ happens. These forgotten souls don’t have a place, even in the land of the dead. That made a lot of sense. Once no one knows you ever existed, you never existed (at least philosophically).
This got me thinking. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that there is a land of dead and there are lots of souls there living just like we do in the living world. They exist as long as someone remembers them. Because being remembered is the most important thing in that world, lets assume the power and stature in that world is directly proportional to the the number of people who remember you. But there is a catch here, this isn’t a fair logic. I am pretty sure that Chengiz khan and Hitler will stay longer in the memory of the World when compared to Nelson Mandela or MK Gandhi. I say this because, our brains are hard wired to remember threats. Its a means of survival. So, its not fair that bad guys get better stature in this world, so lets assume good memories are a credit and bad ones are a debit. That evens it out to a pretty fair world. Its a fictional one, so it can be fair.
I haven’t invented this concept, it’s the same concept of a good vs bad ledger that most religions of the world preach. The more good credit you accumulate, the better is your after life or next life. I guess, our ancestors believed that this was the only way to keep the us in check.
One thing common between Chengiz khan, Hitler, Mandela and Gandhi? There are all historical figures. These are the guys who fill the pages of history text books of children across the world. No one else would be remembered for more than 4 generations. My history text books mentioned a lot of important events that occurred in the past. So good, mostly bad. If my memory serves me correctly, we are living in the first ever event that effected the entire world since the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. That’s 65 million years ago. I am not counting the last ice age which ended about 11,700 years ago because it did not effect the southern hemisphere.
Model of the last ice age.
The corona-virus pandemic has hit the world hard. It was in a way Nature putting us in our place, but most of us don’t seem seem to realize this. We are so very eager to get back to out ‘Normal’ or sometimes simply stupid that we are continuously throwing caution to wind and add fuel to the fire of this epidemic. It has reached every nook and corner of the earth. From the tribes in the Andaman to the indigenous people of the Amazon, no one is being spared. This is what it must have felt for people in eastern Europe when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded. The country that was responsible for alerting the world did every thing possible to cover up until there was no where to hide and by the time the world know what was going on, it was too late. Covid-19 makes the incident Chernobyl look like a fire in a dumpster
Chernobyl radiation spread
Covid-19 outbreak world map
I know I haven’t done anything worthwhile in my life to be inducted in to the history books hall of fame or ‘infame’. But I do believe our entire generation will be held responsible for what we are doing now and will have a special place in the history, may be even a separate chapter for us. The worst part is that we don’t know if and when this will end. If it does end, how far is the next Zoo-tonic virus pandemic? According the National Geographic, 16% of all humans can be attributed to Zoo-tonic diseases and they also make up 75% of the emerging infectious diseases. AIDS, Mad cow, SARS, Ebola, MERS, Swine flu and now a new strain of SARS. If we continue going against the laws of nature and keep exploiting it in every possible way, the next deadly disease will be right around the corner waiting to pounce on us.
There is still time, Our actions over the period of coming months will determine how our future generations will remember us or if there will be a future. History is always written by the victors, at this moment of time I am not sure if there will be any.
Mississippi Burning is a 1988 movie based on a true incident. In June 1964, 3 civil rights workers disappeared and the vehicle they were traveling was found burnt. After 2 months of federal investigation their bodies were found buried. They were all shot. Their crime? Trying to get voting rights to black people. 9 were arrested including a cop and a pastor. The maximum sentence given out was for 10 years and no-one served for more than 6 years. Oh yeah, and the jury said pastor was not guilty because they couldn’t convict a… ‘Pastor’. The all white jury was later found to have some former KKK members.
56 years later, May 2020, Minneapolis – the capitol of Minnesota was burning. Reason, a black man died (technically murdered) in police custody, in broad day light, on the street. So, has anything changed? Did it get worse? What’s wrong with America? What’s wrong with Americans? What’s wrong with white people of America?
It’s been just more than 3 years since I have started writing this blog. My first ever blog (in my opinion) was my best work. That’s because I had pondered over those thoughts for years before I started typing them down. In hindsight I was kind of prophetic. Watching these protests unfold across the United states and later across the world, I wanted answers. I was 13,022 km away, but had a unique vantage point. Unlike popular opinion, I don’t think the white supremacists hate colored people, I think they are shit scared of them and they are paranoid. For that matter, Not just I think a lot of people are scared of black people. Not just black people, in a lot of countries, the race which is majority is paranoid about a race that is minority. Except in India I don’t understand the rationale behind it.
India which has always been predominantly Hindu, was ruled by Islamic invaders for 600 years and then was handed over to the Christian invaders who ruled it for a neat 190 years. It was under the rule of a minority that never pandered to the needs of their citizens. So, I do understand that the Majority of India doesn’t trust their minorities. Well, not all minorities, the Christians do not directly represent the British. Indians are not paranoid about Buddhists or Jains, not even Parsis who are as their name suggests Persians who sought refuge in India when their country was invaded. But Muslims have long reminded Indian people of atrocities that the Mughals committed and I do understand the psyche behind the distrust.
But in Europe and Americas, where black people were enslaved and forcefully brought in and exploited for generations. Even today, most of them do not have the social or economic means to displace the Majority. So, what do they fear? Are they afraid of revenge?
Side note: Why are only black people called African Americans in the US? Why are people from countries north of Sahara desert like Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt or Algeria called Middle east people? If doesn’t make any sense.
– A random thought
I have theory of relativity (not as complex as Einstein’s). The amount of fear or paranoia between 2 races is directly proportional to the relative difference of skin color. Fairer races believe that they are superior to darker races. I believe this is the subtle conditioning of brains using a tool called language.
Language plays a large part in how we perceive the world and we multiple languages have repeatedly hammered the idea that White is good and Black is bad. Which list would you prefer to be on? Black list or a White list? Would you be happy being the black sheep of the family? Don’t you think that such phrases cause a Unconscious bias in your head?
Now coming back to America, though banning gun ownership can drastically reduce the race related murders to just verbal or physical assaults and save lives, lobbying of fire arm manufacturers and the 2nd amendment of their constitution make it impossible to stop Americans from owning Guns. Argument of pro-gun folk in America is that it is necessary for their safety. Any civilian saying that they need a gun to protect themselves reeks of cowardice. This adding to the paranoid nature of Americans is what is causing so many problems. Why else would someone chase and hunt down a person jogging/running through a neighborhood?
So, the logical choice would be to educate people that being darker doesn’t infer character. We can get rid of this cowardice in future generations by having more diverse schools and exposing children to more cultures. As for the adults, I think they need to develop a new vantage point to see the world. Unless this happens now and happens fast, some 60 years from now another city/state will be burning and a some other confused soul will be writing a blog (or what ever this thing will be called then) about how nothing has changed since June 2020.
In my native tongue, there is a saying that translates to there will be 7 people in the world who have striking resemblance. Though it doesn’t say what this resemblance is in, this urban myth has left me pondering over last few weeks. There are tons of theories doing rounds on the internet about weird coincidences. Once example of such physical resemblance is Enzo Ferrari – the founder of Ferrari and Mesut Ozil a German footballer with Turkish origins. Well unrelated people from different generations having striking resemblance is intriguing but having had about 108,760,543,791 humans born till date, the probability of 2 people looking alike can still be explained mathematically, if not with just paranormal reasons.
I have known these fun facts for years now, but what compelled me to write about it is that I have started pondering this with another concept called Parallel life. There is a book on this subject comparing how some famous people share a parallel life with another famous person and there was even a Korean movie made on this subject almost a decade ago. Now why can’t we apply similar logic to people in news now?
According to most main stream western media, sees India’s prime minister Narendr Modi as an equivalent of Trump. Since Modi has become the prime minister of India, the self proclaimed liberal media such as BBC and CNN always refer to him as a ‘Nationalist’, ‘Conservative’ and a ‘far’ Right person. Both have used the same slogan “India/America first”, both have been pro-majority. Trump has even used Modi’s catch-phrase for his campaign to entice Indian Americans. I do understand their misunderstanding. I dont want to dive deep into it as it needs a lot of explanation and deserves a separate post. Lets just say India is like an exception here and the fact that Modi panders to other world leaders despite them being authoritarian is just business. He just wants more foreign investment. So, According to me they are not at all similar. In fact, if you compare their lives, both are polar opposites in each and every criteria.
Since March 2020, all that anyone can talk or think about is the CoronaVirus and if you follow the News you will also wonder how the Government of the United States has managed to hit a new low in the management of this epidemic. If you had compare the life of the current American President to an Indian politician, I would choose the current chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Both Have had zero experience in governance before taking up their current jobs, they are what they are now only because of their fathers, both have a strong support base in bible wielding folk and the only achievements on their resume are either failed businesses or white collar crime law suits. As a matter of fact, they both down played the dangers of Covid=19 early on(one of them still continues to). One could even argue that they sort of had Parallel lives. But the resemblance ends there.
When if comes to handling the epidemic once they got past the phase of just denying it, the was passed on to the Chief Minister of Telangana. The more I think about it, the more I feel that the Indian Politician who first came to my mind when thinking of the American President was in fact not the correct match. Their circumstances of their rise to power might be similar but both are vastly different people. Now lets see how the POTUS went about his work of saving people.
First he said it was just a normal flu just like the Indian counter part who said that it would go away with one dose of Paracetamol. Then he and his administration kept heaping self-praise on how well they have been handling the situation and how everything is under control (they are doing it till date). Then they have said that the hospitals have enough beds, the doctors have more than enough medical supplies to deal with any number of patients while the ground reality was completely opposite. They tried to not to test dead bodies for Coronovirus just to keep the numbers low. Their explanation for increase in cases was that the testing has increased. Last but not least, they both blamed the spread of pandemic on others.
There is also a stark similarity in the way these both came to power. They did not have an agenda of sorts, it was fear mongering. The notion that outsiders are coming to steal our jobs. The state with highest Covid-19 infections in India is also a governed by the people with same ideology. They have been for years spreading the idea that every outsider is either a criminal or here to steal jobs. If you don’t have an agenda or intention to govern and only know to be divisive they remain in a bubble that the hatred for others among you base of supporters is sufficient to elect you, no matter what you do or more importantly ‘Not do’.
Crisis is the litmus test for leadership, it separates sheep from goats. Larger the crisis, more bigger and better are the leaders required to tackle them. Most of the actual leaders you must have come across in your life must have been ‘non’ leaders by their designations and positions. Leaders are those who other’s interests and welfare above theirs and are not afraid to take hard decisions. Leaders are those who do not keep their folk in dark and Leaders are those who admit when they make mistakes. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging its existence and these self centered ideological twins across the world are fighting to the best of their ability to turn a blind eye.
The problem here is either in your office or in your city/state/country, there is no test a person has to go through to become a leader. Though the corporate world wants you to believe that reading books and taking soft skills trainings can make anyone a leader, its absolute bullshit. About 4 years ago, there was a psychological evaluation done on each and every one of our team, which also included an anonymous 360 feedback/ I loved that training as it gave me insights into what people thought liked and disliked. This helped me become a better co-worker. I also later came to know that our management team had the same training before us and the results we pretty shocking to them and in a way very obvious to me. None of the our leadership team had any quality required for their role. I wish they did this analysis before they were given these jobs. I wish there is a psychological evaluation of every Managerial or Lead position. Because most of these people coast through their lives without having to deal with crisis, either because they are lucky or because someone below them saves their hide. But when a full blown epidemic like this hits the shores, there is no where to hide.
I have often used writing as a means to rant about my pet peeves, but the real joy in writing is to do it about something you like. Also, the social distancing and self isolation (due to Covid-19) has insulated me from a lot of frustrations. So, even though there are 8 other blogs in draft, I have decided to pour my heart out on a relatively recently discovered joy of mine.I say relatively because this recent thing first happened in 2014.
My taste of movies and music has been evolving with time (exponentially in the last 5 years) . Would you believe that I hated music as a kid? I would change the channel when ever there was a song on the television. Then, I was introduced to my uncle’s collection of old Hindi songs, the mix tapes that people used to get custom made instead of buying the entire cassette. This was the first music I ever liked. Fast forward to 2020, The analysis of my Apple music library for last 5 years looks like this….
17.5% of my plays come from 7 artists who make up just 0.56% of the total artists I listen to. What is more interesting is that 7 of the top 10 songs that I played the most featured as background scores in movies. Today I am going to try and explain how my taste in music has been shaped by movies. Heck, I took an Apple music subscription just because I was not finding enough sources to download or stream my specific tastes in music. So how did a music hating kid end up becoming obsessed with certain types of songs/genres? How did I evolve from Mukesh and Burman to Led Zeppelin and The Doors?
If you count the most listened music on the basis of total amount of time, the winner would be a song whose length is 10 mins and 29 seconds and was introduced to me by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill Volume 1.
In 2014, I watched the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. It kind of shattered the way I watched movies. Before I dive into what profound realization I had when I watched this movie, let me set the tone with a few examples. First watch the below trailer for the upcoming 3rd installment of the Kingsman franchise.
Now, watch it again – after I break it down for you. The trailer starts with a dialogue describing an upcoming war. Then, right when the the logo of the studio appears, a piano starts playing… Its the tune for the song ‘War pigs’ by Black Sabbath. Once Ralph Fiennes has introduced the logo of Kingsman on the shop front, the actual song kicks in. From then on, each and every cut in the video is synced with the instruments playing in the song. Every punch thrown, every fist thump, every explosion, everything. It doesn’t just stop there. Look at the lyrics of the song..
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death’s construction
War pigs by Black Sabbath – 1970
The visuals in the trailer are exactly what the lyrics say. It feels like the song was written and composed explicitly for this trailer. Right?
Wrong!
The song was first released in 1970, some 50 years before Matthew Vaughn made this movie. You must be thinking that the film makers are getting too lazy to compose music. Again, Wrong! It is much easier to compose own music than find one existing song that suits all your needs among a gazillion songs available out there. If you look back at the trailers of the first and second installments of the movie, you see that the first one features Five to One by The Doors, a 1968 song that is neither in sync in terms of lyrics nor the tune, then the second one features remixed version of My Generation by The Who. Now the second movie trailer is cut in sync with the music but the lyrics only vaguely match the plot. So, what changed? Why was Mr. Vaughn so specific in choosing music this time? Was it just a coincidence that he found this song? Is there a new phenomenon that is catching up? Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this?
Now watch the trailer of another upcoming movie Wonder Woman 1984. Like Kingsman 3, this is also a prequel and the song that plays in the background is Blue Monday, by ‘New Order’. It establishes the time line (the song was released in 1983), it is in sync with the cuts and…. the trailer talks about a ‘New Era’ which basically is synonymous with New Order. This is becoming more and more common with Mission Impossible Fallout trailer featuring Friction by Imagine Dragons. The entire pace of editing is based on the rhythm of the song. Watch when the beat holds off for a moment to show Henry Cavill flexing his muscles before matching each punch and kick.
Now that you have seen enough examples of how non – diegetic sound enhances the viewing experience, you are ready to hear the amazing things in the movie Guardians of the galaxy. Well, only if you know what diegetic and non diegetic sounds are. To put it simply, each movie scene contains a lot of sounds. Any sounds the characters in the scene can hear are called diegetic sounds (e.g. foot steps, car honking, baby crying etc. ) and all the sounds that only audience can hear (background score) are called non-diegetic sounds.
Now that you got an idea, lets test your knowledge. Watch the below video and classify the kind of sound in the video….
Sorry, that was a trick question. The director makes you believe that the sound is non-diegetic only to reveal at the end that it is in fact diegetic.
Before we look at the more complex diegetic music, lets look at an example of the other form. Hans Zimmer has been the master of non-diegetic music for major part of his carer that spans for 44 years. Everyone is very familiar with the German’s work, but many don’t know him. Are you familiar with the theme music of ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’? What about the songs from ‘The Lion King’ that bring out the child in you , every time you watch it? But for me his best work was in Dunkirk, where he manages to keep the sense of impending doom for about 2 hours continuously closely followed by the final scene of Dark Knight. The music gives me goose bumps every time I watch it.
Though composing great music needs a lot of talent and creativity, finding existing music for reuse also needs imagination. It requires one to be an encyclopedia of music.
Now coming back to Guardians of the galaxy, the male lead carries an old walkman with a mix tape of songs called ‘Awesome mix’ (Hit songs of the 70’s). It is really awesome. The songs here are diegetic sound because the character in the movie always listens to it. I hadn’t paid it much attention when I saw the movie for the first time, but because I liked the songs so much, I went to tunefind.com, searched for each and every song and added them to my library. The words in one song made me think and made me watch the movie again, this time focusing only on the music in each scene. It was just amazing, each song made perfect sense to the visuals. The song that caused this Eureka moment was in fact an ultimate analogy to the male lead’s life.
My father married a pure Cherokee My mother’s people were ashamed of me The Indians said that I was white by law The white man always called me “Indian squaw”
Half-breed, that’s all I ever heard Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word Half-breed, she’s no good, they warned Both sides were against me since the day I was born
Half-breed by Blue swede – 1974
In 1988, following his mother’s death, a young Peter Quill is abducted from Earth by a group of alien thieves and smugglers. The movie starts twenty-six years later on an abandoned planet, where Quill steals a mysterious orb. He is a space pirate now, leading the life of a cast away.
The analogy between the story in the song and Peter Quill is not very obvious. One was an out cast because of being born to a mixed race couple, the other one is an out cast because of being born to once species and then being raised by another species. I would say, it’s a perfect analogy. How many hours of research went into finding the song? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to write a new song?
Side Note: Mad max fury road has an awesome score, but hanging a guitar player from the truck to make the sound diegetic felt a little underwhelming for such an innovative movie
Another example of excellent use of diegetic sound is in the Netflix series Stranger things. The story is set in the 80’s and the series is filled with awesome ways to incorporate music into a scene. Weather it is the scene where a handsome hunk arrives in his muscle car to the high school with music blazing on the car stereo or the song playing on the street when a girl runs away from home after a fight with her father (figure) or material girl playing in the mall when the girls go shopping……. The list is endless.
Such sound is sometimes used to do more than conveying an emotion or complementing a scene. In the opening scene of the Amazon prime series – Jack Ryan, 2 kids in Middle East are dancing to ‘Safety Dance’ when the American planes bomb the area and one of the sibling is killed. The surviving kid grows up to become a terrorist in the present time.
Now, the scene could have started with the text Lebanon, 1982. But the same was conveyed with a song released in that year. Of course you would need the information that the US was taking part in the Lebanon war during that year. It also helps portray an image that the Lebanese were more liberal folk during that time period and embraced the music and culture from the west unlike the general portrayal of them as a conservative bunch. It also gives a sense of justification for a kid to become a terrorist.
Quentin Tarantino is the master of both kinds of music. He is director and not a composer. He hasn’t written any music, he cannot play a single instrument. Yet in 8 of the 9 movies he made, he did not hire a music composer. He just reuses the existing songs. His knowledge of music is amazing, his head is like a library of old and new music and movies. Right from the use of music by a scarcely known (in the west) Japanese artist for one of the most important scenes in his film ( introduction of the villain), to a bad guy dancing to a song ‘Stuck in the middle with you’ before chopping off the ear of a person, when they are literally stuck in a warehouse hiding from cops, he understands the impact of music as a medium of expression. He actually starts writing his screenplay only after he has decided the music that would go with it.
Referring to the audio quality of songs like “The braying mule” in Django Unchained
I have saved best for the last. It is relatively easy to find music to suit a 3-4 minute trailer. May be that is why more and more film makers are doing it. One cannot make a feature length film which just features existing music with only industry or the finances to hire a large team to work for you, It needs passion. Tons of it. For a long time Quentin Tarantino had been my gold standard for music in films, but in 2017, Edgar wright blew the entire concept out of water with his movie ‘Baby Driver’. The 46 year old Englishman had just 5 films under his belt when he made this epic musical master piece. Though he had co-written screenplay for a couple of household movies like Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin and Marvel’s Ant-man, his best work till then has been the cult classic comedy Hot-Fuzz. The trailer and the movie do give you glimpses of Mr Wright’s understanding music ( In simpler words, you know that he knows his shit). But Baby Driver is a movie that changed the definition of background score for me.
It is the story of a young man who is dragged into the life of crime due to a mistake he did in his teens, who suffers from Tinntus, a condition that causes him to hear a continuous buzzing or ringing sound even when there is no external noise. To, drown it out we always listens to music (and we hear it). Such a nice premise to give the freedom to add diegetic music where ever the director wants. Below is the first scene in the movie that in sets the tone for whats to come later… This time focus on how music is used to create a unique visual experience.
I am not sure if you have observed, but every cut in the scene and every character movement is in sync with the music. The guy chewing gum, opening the car trunk, closing the trunk, people walking into the bank, car drifts and the scene length. Then comes the second scene in the movie….
This time the director does a one up. A simple task of getting coffee… shot with the words in the song written on walls with graffiti, the way music volume reduces when the character takes out on ear phone to order coffee, the way the guy scatters across the road when he sees a cop and the song says ‘Hitch, Hitchhike baby, across the floor’. Every time I watch this movie, I notice something new.
Watching movies so intently, has introduced me to tons of music from 70’s and 80’s. It has gradually changed the way I watch movies and also increased my appetite for old music. Listening to these songs makes me relive the wonderful cinematic moments. My driving time gets significantly reduced if my phone shuffle picks The Chase Begins or Brothers in Arms (If you know what I mean) .But Focusing on the lyrics made me distinguish art made with passion from art made for money. So people like Tarantino and Wright have spoilt me with their excellent tastes in music and turned me into a guy who is put off my the latest music trends.
Why is world full with hatred? At what point does someone start hating someone? We are all born with a clean slate. There is no prejudice passed on to us through genetic memory. Or is it?
There have been tons of movies that are themed around the second world war and Fascism. Particularly, Hitler has been an object of fascination for many film makers. Not just the film makers, Hitler has been a subject for a lot of artists, authors. Many people see him as an incarnation of the devil himself, some people idolize him.
For centuries Jews were persecuted in Europe by Christians. By 19th century, in Europe, religious discrimination has made way to racial discrimination just like else there in the world. The Colonialism, slavery and other forms of racial discrimination have been prevailant for quite some time. Hitler was not the first antisemitic, he was the first one to show his hate on such a scale. In a way he was more passionate about his ideas.
From days of Europeans enslaving most of the non-European world, to then Americanized Europeans enslaving Africans, to the present days of discrimination against various communities such as African Americans in the US, Shia discrimination in Pakistan and Rohingya discrimination in Myanmar. Hatred has been very consistently prevalent. Any one who is different is hated. Any differences in the language spoken, accent, appearance, culture are at least frowned upon or made fun of if not hated outright. But I believe that people who say that its not hate because they are not harming them or hurting them by making jokes of them are just lying to me or lying to themselves. It’s also a class of hatred, but not as passionate as Hitler’s. The problem starts with classifying others as being different and then it worsens when you start feeling your self being superior to others. Not just the person, the false pretenses that ones language or culture or food habits are superior to others.
Jojo Rabbit masterfully captures these origins of hatred. It is the story of a boy in preteens in Nazi occupied Austria during the days of the second world war , who has an imaginary friend (none other that the Führer himself). The boy is hell bent on joining the Hitler youth. A comedy of errors results in him hurting his leg and deforming his face and then having to stay at home while his mother went out for work. He then discovers a Jewish girl hiding in their home in her dead sister’s room and the subsequent events in his life.
This is an adaptation of a fictional novel by Christine Leunens’s book Caging Skies. The most profound scene in the movie for me was a boy who when tasked with killing a rabbit as part of an initiation to the Hitler youth camp plots to kill a person in learning that she is a jew. May be, It boils down to a basic instinct that is embedded in every living thing. Fear of the new? From Humans to Animals, the survival instincts are encoded in our DNA. The fight or flight action that every living thing takes when it feels threatened is essential. Animals are to an extent justified in fearing the unknown, given their relatively less developed cognitive abilities. The alienation of the runt of the litter or an albino is very common in the animal world. Yet, this treating everything different as a threat continues to be one of the biggest problems Humans have. Now is this how every human feels? or is there some outside help? Are some people taking advantage of this? How come a 9 year old boy end up valuing a rabbits life more than a human’s?
His dad is away fighting the war, his mom is very anti-Nazi. Where does he get this animosity towards Jews from? His peers and the society. The society as a whole wrongly stereotypes people. When a significant number of people start repeating lies, then it becomes the truth. This is what the Nazi’s did. This is what the British did to India. This is what a lot of left leaning so called literary icons like Wendy Doniger are still doing. We also do this is a small scale everyday. We may not realize it.
Since it is the Corona virus season, some examples in that context may be more effective.The people who are criticizing the food habits of the Chinese ignore the horros of Mao’s rule, the starvation it caused and the subsequent evolution of their food habits. The Indian’s who are discriminating against people from North east India because of being similar in appearance to Mongoloids. The people who are alienating all Muslims because of the role of few who were part of the Tabligi Jamat congregation in New Delhi which accounts to more than 50% of the active Covid-19 cases in India. Before being branded a ‘Libtard’, let me get to the other-side. I do not plan to spare anyone here. The Tabligi Jamat members who igonred the advice of doctors and their head who broadcasted a message that people should continue visiting mosques and praying as ‘their’ god is powerful than doctors. The pastors who are ignoring social distancing rules in the US to continue holding masts preaching that the blood of Jesus will save them. All of these ignore any information or advice from others, this is because they inherently believe themselves to be superior is every important aspect.
Let’s revisit the facts in the case of the unfortunate events that lead to the outbreak of Covid-19 in the southern states of India. Instead of just looking at what different groups of people did, lets also try to look at the series of historical events that lead to this. Firstly, even-though the entire world was panicking about a new fast spreading deadly virus that doesn’t have a cure, people inside the Tabligi headquarters were together because they have been conditioned to believe that God can cure the disease and they are immune from it because they believed in a certain god. They are not alone in this. The feeling of superiority due to their faith drives them to believe that they are immune to the corona-virus. This is what has lead to at least 2000 people to remain together in dormitories when the world was screaming them to social distance. Finally, once they were evacuated and the information came to light that there were several thousand others who has left to their hometowns days prior to the evacuation, there was a call from the government for the participants to come forward voluntarily. But only a minor percentage of them came forward, once identified and when authorities tried to move them to isolation centers, the health officials were greeted with stone pelting and other attacks. This is a result of the fear that has been planted in their minds decades ago and carefully watered & nurtured by certain political and social groups for their profits. Now when the rest of the country saw these events, they reacted according to their own prejudices by generalizing them as trouble makers and doomsday seekers. Some even quoted that this is another form of Jihaad. The hate here is mutual. The number of terrorist attacks that happened in India, to the general disgust at being forcefully ruled by the Delhi sultanate that resulted in the majority of the country enduring personal, financial and cultural damages. This has been deeply rooted in the psyche of many Indians. The recipe is primed for a toxic, explosive cocktail. It has been been brewing for ages, it just exploded now.
From the guy in your office who makes fun of the accent or culture of another colleague to the Indians who refer to North east Indians as Chinkis. From the proud Marathas who want to drive all migrants out of their state to the separation movement of Telangana. All of them are deeply rooted in a person or a group of persons trying to gain advantage from deeply rooted hatred in people. The only difference between these people and the Nazi’s is that Nazi’s hate was more direct and passionate.
Today, I came across an article by Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic. She writes about how the new corona-virus has blown America’s false notions of superiority out of water. America has traditionally believed itself to be superior to every one else. They believe themselves not just to be better than the rest of the world but the best. So, when the information about Covid-19 epidemic broke out, the entire far-west (if China, Japan and South east Asia are far-east to the US, then they are far-west to us. Right?) was first very critical about the food habits of the Chinese, then far more critical about the way the communist regime failed in controlling the spread of the virus. The initial denial of a contagion, threatening doctors who tried to speak out and finally the lock down of an entire province. Each and every move by China was criticized by the western media. The New York times used the title ‘Made in China’ for an article on this new disease.
Now let us see how the US responded when the disease breached their borders. Was the government transparent about the situation? Did the government take the situation seriously? Did the government make sure that people have enough testing and treatment facilities? Did the US government allow private non-profit laboratories who volunteered for free testing? Why use the past tense? Lets ask, Is the US government doing enough today? The true and ironic answer for all the above questions would be an big NO. They stand 8th in the world with 5213 cases, with the case count rising rapidly everyday, they might be ‘the best’ here too. But how did a country like the US end up in such a situation? As Ms Applebaum reasons, just like the Japan in 1853, the US has been in a state of deep slumber of false pride for a long time now. Its failure to update its ways with a illogical argument of them being ‘American ways’ is now coming back to bite them. Do you know the number of countries in the world that officially use a non-metric system? 3 (Liberia, Myanmar and the US).
My mind has this incurable condition called the Butterfly effect condition. Don’t try to google it, I coined the name for it. The butterfly effect in lay-mans terms equates to saying a butterfly fluttering its wings can cause a cyclone. It may not make sense when put this way. In another way, if you have enough data, you can connect a large event to a in-obvious trigger. My brain is like that, anything I see or read can trigger a topic that is not very obvious. So, it you talk about butterflies, I may end up thinking about cyclones. This article in Atlantic was one such trigger. If you notice, most of my blogs start with a point and end up in a very different zone. Now back to the topic or in other words, back to all the stuff that came up to my mind when I read the article on the United states and Coronavirus.
The failure to adapt or update has caused many kingdoms and countries to fall/fail. A very good example of this is India. Just like Japan, India has always been a different place. The culture, the languages, the religion were all unique. So was the war fare. Indian kings used elephants in war for centuries, battles were also fought only from dawn to dusk. This meant that Moguls has repeatedly tried and failed to invade India for an extended period of time. So, when Moguls updated their war tactics and changed the rules, by using trumets & drums to scare the elephants and then attacked in the night, India fell into the hands of Moguls and remained there for 800 years. Then came the British with their muskets and cannons. Moguls lost because they literally took knives to a gun fight. So, not updating to the latest techniques in warfare has ultimately led to the demise of moguls and eventually the downfall of India as an economic power.
Economic history of the world
We have see the falling giant and the fallen giants, what about the tiny? What about people with humble beginnings in lower or middle class families? From wealth to personal preferences to habits, people need to keep updating themselves. The successful need it to sustain and others need it to be successful. Going back to America for a moment, when the country was formed using pounds for weight and Fahrenheit was OK. But when there were better alternatives, they chose not to adopt them. When you are born in a remote village and do not know any thing about the world, it was acceptable a decade ago. But when you have a smart phone with a 4G connection and still choosing to remain in your well, then you will quickly become stale and irrelevant. Updating doesn’t mean moving from Orkut to Facebook to Instagram to tiktok. It means upgrading your intellectual coefficient and expanding your knowledge.
An Italian building stating that it was constructed in A.D. MDCCCLXXXVIII (1888 A.D). Imagine modern Italy still using their old numerals.
Now a days, everyone is familiar with updates and upgrades. Either your phone or computer would prompt for an update at least once a month. This is because the threats keep on updating themselves, so these devices need to continuously improve to stay safe. Similarly, the challenges and demands of life are changing everyday. You have you adopt and adapt, else you perish.
This is the longest I have refrained from putting an idea into words. Technically I did do it. I first wrote a version of this on LinkedIn and shared the draft with a dear friend and colleague. He asked me not to publish it because of the flack I might receive as it challenges each and every practice of my own profession. In my head, The first ever version of this blog was purely about the sport I have developed an unexplainable devotion over the last 16 years. This was in 2017. It completely transformed into a different topic when the transfer of Matthijs de Ligt to Juventus was announced in August 2019.
I have never seen a professional football match before 2004. When I moved from my hometown to pursue higher education, my dad bought me my first computer. Being an avid fan of computer games and someone who was utterly starved by the available range of them in my small town, I was very eager to play every game I could get my hands on. Earlier, the only place I could access a computer was in my school lab and I had to beg our teacher for some time after school to play on it. Now, back to 2004. A classmate lent me his bootlegged copy of FIFA 2004. I installed it and started playing the only way I knew. Get the ball, run with it and try to score goals. This is what everyone in my school did and our physical education teacher never told us otherwise. But it didn’t work out. The computer kept beating me. So, I told my classmate that it was an impossible game to play. He disagreed and gave me an advice. Till date, I buy the latest FIFA release every year and it is the only game I play. My most visited website is http://www.espnfc.com. Most of my screen time goes to either watching football or reading about it.
Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.
– Bill Shankly
What he told me that day was to watch professional football to understand the game. So, I started watching the English premier league in a 14 inch black and white television. It was the only football telecast in my country at that point of time. Now, I had to pick a team right? I picked the first team in the list of available ones in FIFA 2004. Arsenal. Its was just a coincidence that they were not only the first team when sorted alphabetically but were also reigning champions. Gradually, my interest grew and I started watching every game possible and then started doing what’s love. Analyse. Over the years, I found more teams that I like. Barcelona, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, The list keeps changing every year. Because my loyalty now, is for the game, not any particular team. I am mostly going to talk about Ajax FC, Amsterdam’s most prominent football club. Because If I talking about football in general, this blog will end up being really long. On that note, I ran a word count on this and its already 482 words without really getting into the business.
The dutch football is ranked 12th in Europe by UEFA, the football administration body of the continent. In terms of TV and other revenues, there is a huge chasm between the Dutch league and the likes of English premier league, Spanish La liga, German bundesliga and the Italian Sirie A. So, naturally, Ajax is run on a relatively shoestring budget. If a rich club comes to poach their players, they simply cannot refuse. But they still have a glorious history of European dominance. So, how is this possible?
Jong Ajax – Produce, don’t procure. Since they don’t have the financial might of clubs from other countries to hire players who are a finished product, so they have developed one of the most efficient scouting network to identify young talent and them train them. Their youth academy called Jong Ajax (Young Ajax) takes care of both education and football training. Another advantage this brings is that every player is trained to play the ‘Ajax way’ which is total football.
Total Football – Johan Cruyff, the architect of modern Ajax and the person how took them to their pinnacle both as a player and coach embraced the ideas of Jack Reynolds, Jimmy Hogan and Gusztav Sebes. The idea that challenged the age old notion that each player in a football team can only be trained to do one thing. There are no defenders or Midfielders or offensive players in an Ajax team. From childhood each player is monitored to identify the strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, they are trained for a specific position. This is what all the other clubs do too. The famed La Masia of FC Barcelona and Ballspielverein Borussia of Borussia Dortmund also have excellent scouting network and academies. But Ajax goes one step further, they then teach every player to play in every position. This makes the team extremely flexible and unpredictable on the field, it helps them deal with injuries, suspensions and finally helps them cope when one or more layer leave.
Birds leaving nest – As a club that finds and nurtures talent, Ajax has always faced the problem of their players being poached by richer clubs by offering huge salaries, something that Ajax cannot afford. But they don’t mind it. Because the revenues from player sales help them fund their academy and for every super star sold, they can create 10 more super stars. They never come in the way of their players growth. Its like a family. When a child comes of age and announces that he wants to leave the house, parents don’t get upset, on the contrary they feel proud and happy. This is one reason most of the club administration and coaching staff comprises of their ex-players. Once the players have see the world and quenched their thirst for fame and success, instead of retiring and enjoying their earnings, they always return to help the club out with the next generations.
Leadership ~ Experience? Finally, the most intriguing thing that Ajax does. The only qualification for becoming the captain of the team is to have true leadership qualities. This is where Matthijs de ligt’s story is an example. He became the club captain at the age of 18 years, after having played just 37 games for the senior team and zero games for the national team. That too in a team that consisted the likes of Klaas Huntelaar who was 34 and Daley Blind who was 29 (and the son Danny bling who was an ex Ajax and Netherlands player and coach in addition to being the board member of Ajax). “Age is just a number” is a quote used by many to justify things they do in their old age. But can use the same quote to justify leadership qualities. A person cannot be trained to be a leader. One doesn’t become a leader with experience. A person is born a leader, anyone who pretends otherwise is just play acting.
The reason my friend asked me to refrain from posting the ideas in this blog on LinkedIn was because so called Managers of the corporate world. The ones who hold expensive degrees and certifications in Management will not be able to digest this and will lash out against me. They will see it as something that undermines them. This is where the exact problem lies. Managers are there to serve the organization, not themselves and their egos. Again, we can take a leaf out of the football world here. The salary and net worth of a player follows a bell curve. Mind that almost every football manager out there is a retired player. Now, their salary reaches the highest point when they are in their prime playing days and goes down once they become managers. Yes, in football managers are paid less salaries than most of the players. Yes, the people who do the work are paid more than the people who supervise the work. This happens only in sporting world. This is because the value someone adds to a football team is visible to everyone in plain sight. This visibility ensures that everyone gets the fair compensation.
Now that we have seen some innovative ideas Ajax has brought to their club and football world in general, don’t you think the same principles can be applied to every organization in the world?
Sharks can sense a single drop of blood in an Olympic sized pool. Hyenas by the virtue of the lion king and their unfortunate appearance are one of the most hated animals. Leeches are worms that survive by sucking the blood of animals. They are different species, they live in different habitats. But, Guess what’s common between them? Yes they are all carnivores. What else? Something less obvious. All three of them do not kill their prey. They feed on them when their prey is still alive.
Why God did made the snake before lawyers? To exercise.
A popular but illogical joke. I’ll tell you why.
When it comes to comparing professions with a animals, lawyers are compared to snakes. But snakes bite and kill their prey or at least paralyze them before eating them. But an attorney doesn’t do that. Attorneys are leeches, they have to keep their food alive in order to sustain. What more, just like a leech sucking on a buffalo, they have the ability to numb the prey, so that the client doesn’t realize the blood sucking part. Now a days some other professionals are also taking a cue from leeches. For example, doctors in India have been employing different scare mongering tactics to squeeze as much as possible from every patient. So is education industry.
There are some professional scammers out there who are always stalking the group of prey to identify the weakest link. From email to sms to phone calls, these people try to bait people and try to make money of them by offering free treasures to millions in inheritance. Hyenas follow the same rule, identify the weakling and gang up on it.
Recently, i have been seeing a lot of sharks around. Both physical and virtual. The physical ones, set shops in our office building as soon as the salary day comes. The virtual ones have discount sales and offers when ever there is some major/minor calendar event or some times just for the sake of it. These sharks are attracted to our office building by the smell of salary being deposited in our bank accounts.
But there is an another class of predator out there, that I am still struggling to correlate with any thing in the animal kingdom. I guess even Darwin would struggle to classify this species. Perhaps they are a mutation of capitalism. They call themselves Marketing executives. They hound, harass and invade the privacy of everyone. What’s more infuriating is that they do it with a smile on their face.
Just like some types of predators, these people set traps and then they stalk and track their prey. In this digital age this has become a very easy thing to do. It’s now even automated. There are plug and solutions available that can do this for anyone. This is not a new idea, its just an exaggerated implementation of an existing idea. In a street market, have you ever faced a situation where a hawker would leave you alone once you have inquired about his product? For him its expression of interest. Digitization of this concept is the reason why we are in a state where majority of the notifications, emails and SMS we get on our phones are advertisements or other promotions. John Oliver explains to the ridiculous lengths these people go in the name of notifications. The tracking is done through hidden scripts of websites. The website that hosts this blog as 2 such trackers. The company I work for, it’s website has 11 trackers. They do analytics, user data collection and prepare stats for businesses on potential customers and their potential preferences. In the earlier example of the street vendors, the digital equivalent would be that you look at something in a store and the sales guys gets behind you for eternity. I say eternity because unlike the street vendor who leaves when you buy the product or strongly refuse, the internet will never leave you. If you don’t like product A, they have gazillion other things to offer. Also, they share their customers generously with others. I can give you an analogy and its not going to be pretty. Imagine writing your phone number on the photo of a beautiful girl and sticking it in the notice board of your apartment. Almost every guy who sees it will call you. The paper boy, the guy who delivers milk, the security guard, the delivery guy, his friends, friends of his friends.
This is how what every telemarketer imagines when he sees your phone number
Now imagine writing your number on a billboard. This is what you did when you gave your phone number to anyone. Weather it be your email provider asking it for extra security, the guy at a billing counter offering redeemable points or the guy who hands you out free lottery draw for exchange of phone numbers or accept to terms and conditions on a app or a website or sign any document when you take a service. In the pretense of selling you something, they want to sell you to the world.
“I laugh at the irony of people screaming out against privacy invasion by governments on twitter and Facebook. The platforms that offered them a chance to look at some memes, videos and probably what their friends had for dinner in exchange for their private information”
– Me
Today I got a call from a person representing my bank. I have a car loan and they were offering me a “top-up” loan on it for the umpteenth time. This was at 12:25 PM. I was so pissed off that I told them that I don’t have a car or an account with them and this was a wrong number. I was just tired of saying no. The most amazing fact about these telemarketers is that the same person never calls you twice, they tell you that they will update their database that you are not interested and then another one will call an hour later. Then exactly at 12:27 PM, I got a phone call from the credit card department offering me an enhanced credit limit. Then I blew my fuse. It then took me 47 minutes to revoke subscriptions from all promotional calls.
Percentage of total calls that were either spam or for marketing in US
Above is an info graphic on the raise in marketing calls in the United States. So, why have we come to a situation where you cannot even live one day of your life without faceless people bothering you?
For example, India has a great many number of prospective customers for all types of businesses. But what they lack is purchasing power. Now, how does one increase the purchasing power? Ideal way is to improve the quality of life, increased wages, better social security, better insurance etc.. there by increasing disposable income and willingness to spend. But, it takes a long time and effort. More importantly willing and efficient governments. Another way is to let people accumulate wealth and then spend it. Lets say you want to buy a car. You can save money for a few years (depending on the car you would like to buy) and then buy it. But some times these few years may become few more years because things like inflation, or unexpected expenses or emergencies. Well, it is good to have some money for the rainy day. Right? But that would mean you buying a car is still an ‘IF’ for the business. So, the bank will give you the loan to buy the car now and then repay it over the same ‘few’ years. That makes you paying them an obligation, not an option. They don’t care for your emergencies, for all they care, if you are already short of money for buying a non-necessary thing, then you will be forced into another loan when you need money. That’s a double win for them.
This is why people in India get so many calls like personal loan inquiries, real estate offers. Types of sales, where you can be put on a leash for a long long time. A common man would be scared of defaulting any loans. Most defaulters are actually people who are inherently wealthy, for them cost of a law suit is much less than the cost of repaying the loan. It is vice-versa for a middle class person. These ‘marketing folk’ are like a mutation in the natural food chain, they create their own prey rather than hunting them. Also, the hunter you see is not he actual predator, like in the case of Ants where the entire colony works for a queen and even hunts and gathers food for the queen. The people who call you or email you get only a miserly bit of the flesh.
May be Jerry Sienfeld foresaw this in 1992. That is why he made the below joke in his show. With all the greedy people out there, the situation will only become worse. We are not in the age of personalized marketing as shown in the minority report. But we are getting there fast.
Random thoughts of a confused primate 