Tag Observation

TELLY‑VISION OF WAR

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You ever notice how every war comes with its own advertising campaign? They don’t just drop bombs anymore, they drop slogans. Russia and Ukraine? That’s the “freedom and democracy” brand. Israel and Palestine? That’s the “complicated family dispute” brand. Same blood, same rubble, but two completely different commercials.

And the media — oh, the media. These people don’t report the news, they sell it. They package it like laundry detergent: “New and improved conflict in Eastern Europe! Now with 30% more moral clarity!” When Russia invaded Ukraine, the whole news machine snapped into action like a Broadway musical. Somber music, maps with arrows, anchors with serious voices. “This is an attack on freedom itself.” Freedom itself! Sounds big, doesn’t it? Sounds like they’re defending truth, justice, and the American way. Which is funny, because the American way has usually meant bombing the shit out of someone who can’t fight back.

And suddenly, everybody’s a Ukraine expert. People who couldn’t find Kiev on a map if it was tattooed on their ass are posting hashtags, waving little flags, changing their profile pictures. McDonald’s pulls out of Russia. Coca‑Cola makes a statement. Starbucks issues solidarity. You know a war is real when the people who sell sugar water and fries get involved. “You may be starving in a bunker, but at least we stand with you — limited time only!”

Now flip the channel. Israel and Palestine. Oh boy. Whole different script. Same bombs, same dead kids, same smoke in the air, but the coverage? Suddenly it’s like you walked in on a family argument you weren’t invited to. The anchors lean in: “Well, it’s complicated.” You ever notice how “it’s complicated” is just adult code for “We don’t want to lose our advertisers”?

Because here’s the deal: Russia is an easy villain. Putin is the perfect bad guy. He’s got the scowl, the shirtless horseback photos, the whole Bond villain starter kit. Perfect casting. Israel and Palestine? That’s messy. That’s history, religion, politics, money, land, blood, and guilt all tied into one giant ball of “don’t touch that if you want to keep your job.” So instead, the media becomes contortionists: “Both sides… cycle of violence… shades of gray.” Shades of gray? Folks, I don’t need fifty shades of gray. I need you to stop bombing hospitals and schools.

And don’t think for one second the media doesn’t love war. War is their Super Bowl. War is ratings. War gives them the chance to look serious while cashing checks. They’ve got correspondents in flak jackets standing fifty miles from the action just to say, “As you can see behind me…” No, I can’t see behind you. I see a brick wall and some smoke in the distance. You’re safer than I am in my living room, asshole.

Meanwhile, the talking heads sit in their studios with touch screens and charts, pointing at arrows like they’re ESPN analysts: “And if you look here, the Russians have advanced from the east, and if you look here, the Palestinians have advanced their desperation.” It’s not news, it’s a video game. They’re narrating body counts like it’s Monday Night Football. “And that makes 25 civilian deaths today — back to you, Tom!”

And here’s the callback, folks: the Ukraine war got a branding kit. Blue and yellow filters, celebrity fundraisers, heartfelt speeches. It had marketing value. Israel and Palestine? That one doesn’t get the package deal. That one’s “complicated.” You can’t slap a “Stand with Gaza” frappuccino on the Starbucks menu without losing half your customers. You can’t make a “Peace in the Middle East” Happy Meal without getting angry letters from both sides.

Because let’s face it: the only thing that matters to the media, the politicians, and the corporations — is comfort. Who’s comfortable crying for whom? Who’s comfortable buying a T‑shirt, a flag, or a latte? They’ll let you have outrage, sure — but only the kind they can monetize.

So don’t be fooled. All these wars, all these conflicts, it’s the same damn play. Money, land, power, and whose God has the bigger dick. That’s it. Same script, different actors. And the media? They’re the hype men. They don’t care who dies, as long as the ratings live.

And you know what the real punchline is? The war doesn’t end when the bombs stop. The war ends when the advertisers get bored. That’s when they move on to the next tragedy, the next “special report,” the next human suffering package they can sell you in 30‑second intervals between soap and soda commercials.

So remember, folks: when you’re watching the news and you see bombs falling and anchors crying, just ask yourself — what’s the slogan for this war? Because there’s always a slogan. And behind that slogan is a network, a sponsor, and a bunch of executives who are praying — not for peace, but for good ratings

How will history remember us?

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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.

earth during the last ice age 3D Models - CGTrader.com
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

Sowell's Law Blog: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster 30 Years After
Chernobyl radiation spread
File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map.svg - Wikimedia Commons
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.

The puppet show

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Illusion of choice

This blog started out as the episode 2 of my new ‘Over analyzed movies’ series. But once I started structuring the thoughts, it became more of a ‘Song’ review rather than a ‘Movie’ review. A few minutes later, it started evolving into the following….   Now, the song in question is the title track from the movie Rangasthalam. It is a movie about the lives of some people in a village by the name ‘Rangasthalam’. But the word literally means ‘the Stage’. The one used for theater kind, Not the Stage 1, Stage 2 kind. Now the lyrics of the song when translated to English (Translation cannot do justice to any piece of poetry, it can only be truly enjoyed in its original form) go something like…..

In Rangasthalam, we are all puppets of an invisible puppeteer. Then it goes on to describe how people in Rangasthalam are gullible and innocent etc.

The first time I heard this song, before watching the movie. I liked the philosophical side of the song as I Interpreted it as a play of words referring to the world as a stage and god as a puppeteer. But, once I completed watching the movie, I realized that it had a far more literal meaning in the context of the movie. As, every aspect of the people of Rangasthalam is actually controlled by the anti-hero of the movie. He is a landlord who casts his shadow over entire village with a pseudo-god like status.    Now, that was a clever use of words. Ones that have both metaphorical and actual meanings. In fact all great art does. Please mind that I am not referring to the tons of double-meaning-ed pieces of literature out there that replace obscene and vulgar words with the words that infer those things. I am talking about literature like ‘Animal farm’ which captures the idea of communism and social revolutions thought the story of animals in an actual animal farm. I am talking about the movies like I-Robot,  Inception, The true man show. I am talking about smash hits songs like London calling, Like a virgin and Summer of 69. The art which needs a lot of context to understand the true meaning.

If this was to be a movie review, then I have to stop here. But it isn’t. The song in question has always triggered a lot of after thoughts, every time I listened to it. Its is a metaphor that refers to all of us. Aren’t we all puppets? Or do you strongly believe that you are acting on your own free will on all decisions you make?  

Depending on the your financial and social/political might, you might just be a puppet or both a puppet and a puppeteer. There is a clear hierarchy in our society, the people who pull the strings also have their own masters. The logo of “The God Father” and the plot of the book is a perfect analogy of how a city is controlled by a single guy. May be the phrase “Pulling strings” also originates from the puppet show.

We are born into this world with the strings of Gender, Family, Religion & Region. To be more specific the cultural and habitual obligations that come with being born into a gender/family/religion/region. These obligations become a norm for us. The society adds more strings. Moral obligations, the expectations of your kin and society in general. The compulsion of education via schools with a predefined syllabus. The obligations of degrees, jobs, marriage, kids. Which major to pick in college, which domain to choose for a job, whom you marry, when you marry. Everything is either decided or influenced by someone else.

Lately, capitalism has added more strings. What you buy, where you buy, when you buy something is not exactly in your hands anymore. It is decided by tech giants running machine learning algorithms to dangle stuff that you don’t need and financial giants allow you to indulge with money you don’t have through credit cards, loans, EMIs and installments. Businesses try to put you on a leash by offering attractive memberships.

Elections campaign slogans and political manifestos are decided by data mining. The hastags that you add to the posts are not to search trends. Its is to judge the pulse of people from silly to serious things. Text processing engines burn millions of watts of electricity every day going through the non-sense called social media counting for and against count on each topic and then sell this information to companies that think that data doesn’t lie and machines can think better than us. then shove the outputs of these algorithms down our throats. 

Do you still think that you make your own decisions? Or did you start counting the number of puppet masters you have?

The underdog detective

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Over analyzed movie review – Episode 1

I like movies a lot. That is why I don’t watch many. 


Spoiler Alert: The following blog contains spoilers. Please stay away if you haven’t watched the movie.

Well to start with a gist, better get it from IMDB, “Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya is an authentic humorous investigative thriller revolving around the adventures of a detective based out of Nellore.“

Now let me try it in my own words. It is a low budget comedy thriller that has a very good script and screenplay. An ambitious detective who watches loads of English detective films to learn his trade and operates from a shack in the middle of a vegetable market. He gets dragged into a very sophisticated criminal operation. He thinks that he is on the right path, so do we. He ends up being framed for a couple of murders and now has to clear his name while also find the real culprits.

Phew! Those were some long sentences. But to the topic of my interest. Why did it work?
Traditional movie goers in India prefer movies with big name stars to ones with a good script. So, how did this movie do as well as it did? Well a movie, irrespective of language will always do well if it manages to play with the emotions and instincts of the audience. 

In this movie, some of our basic instincts (not Michael Douglas’s) are played with. In any detective movie you expect the lead to solve the mystery. But casting a rookie as the film’s lead trigger’s the underdog effect. Let’s say you are watching a James Bond/Sherlock Holmes/Mission impossible, if the lead were to fall into any peril, you wouldn’t be concerned. How can any harm come to such a powerful character? (Same logic used in reverse to blow your minds again and again in Game of thrones) If you are not concerned or connected with the character, you wouldn’t be blissful when he wins. In this movie, the lead is not very powerful or well built. You wouldn’t expect him to win any fights. So, it makes him the underdog. In a neutral situation, one always roots for the underdog. So there is a connection established with the audience. Its always satisfying to see a deer escaping a tiger than a tiger devouring a deer or a tiger fighting another tiger.

Next, Us being Judgmental. Movies have always generalized bad people. Their appearance,body language, the facial expressions have always been stereotyped. But, How does a bad person look?  Here is a test for you. If you haven’t watched ‘The Usual Suspected’, play along. Look at the image below and find the culprit.


Before you answer, think again, this may or may not be a trick question. Watch the movie to know the answer. I will not reveal it. 
Another test if you are interested. Below is a poster of “Murder on Orient express”.The poster of the better version of 1974 was not very convenient for the task, so I am using the 2017 version. Who among the below is a cold blooded murderer?




Now coming back the topic of discussion. At no juncture in the movie, the audience get any information on who the bad guy(s) is/are. There is no attempt to mislead you either. They genuinely show characters in different situations. Besides appearances, People mistake attitude for character. So, for major part of the movie, our brains keep passing judgments on everyone we see on the screen.

Side note: This topic alone deserves a separate post. On how we assume ourselves to be the judge, jury and executioner for everyone.

Coming back to the movie. A detective movie is only good if the audience cannot figure out the mystery themselves. There are different ways the narrators achieve this. Some make the plot so complicated/illogical that its impossible to find the culprit. Others mislead you on purpose. But only a few master the screenplay of audience coming to their own conclusions and making sure they are wrong conclusions. 

So, this movie plays at 2 habits of ours. One always supporting the underdog and the other, us being judgmental about everything. This is why it hit the right cords.

Collective compass

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Ants

 
Ants are curious organisms. They are always busy. I mean always. Have you ever seen an ant that is not in hurry? Its unfair that bees get the idiom ‘Busy as a bee’ just because they start with same alphabet. I have see plenty of bees that are just sitting idle of a wall or a leaf. Though, I cannot change the existing language, I can add another idiom. ‘As industrious as an Ant’.

Ants have a social hierarchy. The queen is the founder and responsible for laying eggs. Drones are the males responsible for mating with the queen while worker ants are responsible for building and maintaining the nest, protecting the colony from other ants and, most importantly, feeding the colony. The most fascinating aspect of worker ants is the way they carry food. If you observe the below animation closely, you will notice that Ants keep changing places. Its not like they are taking turns at the job or taking frequent breaks from their task. You will also notice that each time a new ant joins the effort, there is a slight alteration in the direction.

Worker ants have a collective goal. They trust each and every one of the ants to work towards the same goal. When ant leaves its position and wanders around, it is actually scouting for the direction they need to travel in and when it comes back and tugs in a different direction, the rest of the group just follow the new direction, without even a slight hesitation.


A compass is a tool that tells you direction. But it does its job only if its working properly. A broken compass will show a wrong direction. Lets look at it as each ant has its own compass, each member of the group, takes turns to check their compass and tell the rest of the group to follow their compass. The rest of the pack ignore the readings in their compasses and just follow the latest information. Also there is no single ant forcing others to follow only its directions. It sounds like a very inefficient plan. But it ants always make their way back to their nest.
 
Now, if we give a group of human beings a compass each. Some working and some broken without telling them who has the proper ones and repeat this experiment of asking them to go from Point A to Point B with no single one having any idea where their destination is, I would bet one of the two things with happen. They will either remain at the same location arguing or end up being influenced by the most dominant member and leave the result to the change of the dominant member’s compass being correct.

All this might seem like a stupid Idea. When would anyone be in this kind of situation. Well, this happens often in life and more often at work. Whenever we embark of a journey to uncharted territories with a group/team of people, almost everyone in the group has an opinion on how to go about it. But they seldom trust each other. They fail to consider that they might have a broken compass.

I don’t mean to say the one must follow everyone’s advice. It would be ridiculous. But one should at least give a benefit of doubt to other ideas. There is a very good quote in the movie “Ratatouille”. It says “Everybody can cook”. It doesn’t mean that each and everyone of us would make an excellent cook. It means that a great cook can come from anywhere.

 

 

 

50 shades of Red

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What’s left of left?


I have stopped watching news. I have deleted all my social media accounts. No, I am not depressed or on a digital fast. I was really sick of the hypocritical trolls out there spewing hatred 24/7.  Religious, regional and political affiliations often bring out the worst in people. Until a few decades ago, these topics were dealt separately. But the information age started making a toxic cocktail of these affiliations. 

I have already spoken about the religious and regional affiliations. Its time to hit the trifecta. 
Almost all political parties in the world classify them selves as the Right, the Left or the moderates. But there are many shades of these ideologies. In US, the Red represents republicans who are right wing. Where as every where else in the world Red represents communism which is far far left. This is the reason I called this post 50 shades of red. These many shades make the whole deal very kinky.

Now what is left and what is right? And why are there wings? Is the government an aircraft or is it a bird? How come it can fly with a single wing?

The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the center that of the middle classes..

Speaking honestly, are any of the political parties working for the non-rich? 


Just like bloodstock horses that are bred to run others races and die earning money for others, the lower and middle classes spend their lives making meager money while the people who employ them reap the actual benefits. 

There is another part of horse racing analogy that applies to politics, politicians make sure that the common folk is not distracted by the realities of the world, So they tie blinds called religious and regional feelings to their eyes. The working class throws common sense out of the window, don’t complain about getting whipped by their jockeys and run until they die.

The true sense of liberal or left philosophy was always a myth. Soviets embraced it to overthrow czars only to surrender to another equally totalitarian leadership. In US, communists are seen as terrorists but lobbying is rampant in both their major parties. The plight of Chinese has been very similar to that of the Russians. Over the last decade, the right wing parties have been gaining momentum in each passing election and pushing even the theoretical left parties to the brink of existence. I say theoretical because, I have never come across a self proclaimed socialist and liberal government truly work to improve the lives of the less privileged. 

From reds of the US to the reds of rest of the world, all political parties do is to fill their pockets with money from the lobbyists and businessmen. The only difference is their choice of rich. If they preach hardcore religious values then they pay the right and if they are less religious, they pay the left. Thus, every citizen is having to pay (a far more costly price).

Well wishers

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Foxes in sheep’s clothing

The Wolf has been one of the most maligned animal in an idiomatic sense. Some one who is cunning and deceives is commonly referred to as a Wolf in sheep’s clothing. But, in reality wolf is a very ethical animal. It never hides its intent. From an evolutionary perspective-it doesn’t need to. It has the physical strength to survive, it always lives in a pack. So, anything that it does to undermine the integrity of the pack will not be tolerated and this fact is genetically embedded. 

On a side note, this idiom has biblical origins. According to new testament this was quoted by none other than Jesus. No, I don’t attend mass. I just googled the idiom and Wikipedia told me this fact. Which means., 1) Wikipedia is wrong or  2) The guys who wrote new testament lied or 3) Jesus didn’t know the nature of wolves (which is highly unlikely coz his dad created everything. Right?)

Coming back to the poor misunderstood wolves, The actual culprit here is another canine. Foxes – They are always deceitful. Their slender size demands that they be cunning. Else, they wouldn’t survive. This is evolution, the survival of the fittest. The word fit here is misleading, it doesn’t just mean physical fitness. It is the fitness demanded by the surroundings and environment. Now that my mini-crusade for Wolves has concluded. I would like to get into the actual context. 

The image and the title might not make a good correlation on first glance. Now read well wishers as the people who wish that they can at least push you into a well or in a best case scenario wish they could push you off the cliff. Now, can you make the connection between the foxes, the well wishers and the stick version of “This is Sparta“?

Since, the gentlemen in the figure are wearing ties,Can I also assume that you made the correlation to an office environment? Okay, you might have missed that. But no worries. 

Lets look at the employees in an office in conjunction with the Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution. 

In nature, all species have developed different tactics to attract mates. 
In offices, the managers become these mates. But eventually most mates ehm…. managers turn into praying mantis (they f*ck their mate and they eat them – wow this my first ever expletive ridden post). In nature the female always prefers a partner which would pass on the best genetic code to its offspring. The particular quality that is preferred depends on the type of species. But in offices, different mates look at different qualities. Some good for the offspring (organization) some just good for them. This is where offices deviate from Darwin. 



Now that we have discussed the metaphorical mating rituals, lets look at the competition. In animal kingdom there are different types of competition among peers (Other than competing for a mate). Social animals fight for control or power over the group. But this mostly results in finding the right leader. But in most organisations the oldest animal becomes the King. These Kings in the organisation do not opt for a long term partners. So, they don’t choose a queen. They instead pick a bitch* from time to time. This would be their most loyal employees. Then there is another position up for grabs. The one of a minister to seek advice. This is where again the there is a deviation from evolution. Here its not the survival of the fittest. The person most capable of doing his job well would be the fittest guy, some Kings do choose their counsel wisely. There by becoming successful even if they are incompetent. But some others choose poorly and ultimately perish.

The poor choice of counsel happens because of not having visibility. This generally happens in large organisations. But in smaller/medium organisations, the foxes come-to-the-fore. Since, they don’t cut the bill, they resort to all sort of tactics to get the competition out of the way. Gossiping, bullying, back stabbing, undermining others, taking credit for others work. They use all the code in their cheat book. Their skill here is to do it subtly. They make every effort not to get exposed. 

So, long story short. The foxes in offices have defied the laws of evolution. If you want to be successful, please be on a look out for foxes. They can be lurking next to you, masquerading as a Sheep, waiting for the right opportunity.

* not trying to insult any dogs here

Many-faced god

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Everyday is Halloween


“Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do 
so that others won’t know we want to do them.”

Today evening I was watching “The Village” by M Night Shyamalan for the second time in my life. I watched it once long long ago and I hated its ending. I wanted to know if my wife would agree with my opinion, so we watched it together. The female protagonist spoke these words, the words I missed when I watched it the first time and it triggered an avalanche of thoughts in my head. After a few minutes, I remembered a quote by Tim Burton.
Both the dialogue and the quote mean the exact same thing, it is just not very apparent. 

The first title I thought of this blog was ‘The masks we wear’ but it would be too obvious and kind of redundant Halloween theme. Many-Face god is someone who is worshiped by a cult of assasins in the HBO series Game of thrones. To celebrate its last season that was recently aired, I chose this title. These assassins don faces they collected from dead people as masks to hide their true appearances. In a way this is a more apt title for this blog. You’ll understand the correlation by the time you finish reading this.

Are you truly the person that others perceive you to be? I would confidently wager that you are not. If you honestly say yes to my previous question, I don’t have any words for you. You are truly a rare breed. 

If you answer the question as No, then think of how many people truly know you?
There is no shame in accepting this. Majority of us behave or try to behave in such a way that is expected of us. School, college, Work, Friends and Family. Each of these situations expect you to behave in a certain way and portray certain set of values and attitude. it is a combination of Peer pressure and Social obligations. 

If one removes all these obligations would you still make the same decisions? I know I wouldn’t. Most of our actions are a result of a thought process “What will people think of me if I don’t/do this?”. This is very good in a way. This may be the main difference between a human and an animal. Animals always do things based on their primal instincts. Humans have mastered the art of suppressing the natural instincts. I say suppress for a reason. These urges are still very much a part and parcel of everyone’s genes. The funniest thing is that humans are also self centered and give a name called ‘Conscience’ to this act.

Even for the sake of argument, I cannot ask you to tell me how you would react when there are no social obligations. Because they are ever present from birth to death. But there are 2 situations in life where one cannot and will not suppress their true nature. One is when they are alone and the other is when they are under tremendous amount of pressure.

Lets look at each of these situations. When you are truly alone and have nothing to do, what runs through your mind? What do you want to do? Is it different than what you would do if your partner/friends/family/co-workers are with you? If you answered yes to my first question and yes to this question, then you are lying to your self. Welcome to the club of ‘Many-faced Gods’. 


Now the other situation, when you are under severe pressure. Here the true self comes out without any effort. Its not in your control. the survival instincts of your brain kick in and all other cognitive functions shut down. In such a situation you do what comes to you naturally, your brain forgets all the training you have given it over all the years distinguishing each and everything as good and bad.

I’m no Saint here.  I’m also a Many-faced god(human). I’m a selfish person. It comes from being the only child or may be there is some of it in my DNA too. I never had to share as a kid so it was difficult to train myself to do that. Not just ‘stuff’, I also never had to share attention so my natural instinct is to crave for it. I’m condescending, which is a derivative tendency of anyone who has had lots of attention as  kid. Like wise I’m egocentric, narcissistic, insensitive. A lot of people who know me (or think that they know me) wouldn’t associate these qualities with me. But honestly I’m all of these. I’m many more but I don’t want to reveal them and upgrade my designation from Sociopath to Psychopath.

The use of ‘I am’ instead of ‘I was’ is intentional. This is because I know what I am and I also know that I will always be that. I use these so called negative personalities in a positive way to deal with the social obligations that these behavioral traits are always in conflict with. But I have found out a way to use the conflict to my advantage. For example if I see someone not following traffic rules and they cause inconvenience to me. It hurts my ego. Instead of reacting to it I call my inner narcissist who appreciates my taking the higher road. That makes me happy and avoids a confrontation. I’m not saying everyone should  follow me and try to turn their negatives to positives.I’m also not saying that I’m the master of my senses. I’m just saying that this is what I do or at least try to as much as possible. 

In Batman begins there is a line that says 

On the contrary, what ever we do we will always be what we are underneath. It is equally important to embrace what we are. You might argue that it is wise to be a Roman when in Rome. I’d say… sure be a roman but just remember but your actually aren’t.

‘Dus’Vidaniya

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The Loops we live in



Do svidaniya means Good Bye in Russian, just like the 2008 Vinay Pathak movie Dasvidaniya, I have attempted a pun at this Russian greeting to mean “10 ways”.

Last week I visited Indonesia. This is the Tenth country I have set my foot in.(not counting Airports used for Transit). In these countries, I have seen a lot of different kinds of people and different cultures, different ways of life and more importantly the different set of rules people abide by.

One of the biggest curiosities of my life is to try understand why people behave the way they do. A HBO series (Westworld) that I recently started watching gave me food for thought in this perspective.



I believe both these sentences are damning critic of humans and human nature. If you strip away the makeup that everyone applies in the name of religion, race, ethnicity and culture, at its core every human is very similar to others. You can google for cultural differences between nations and you will find ample material to muse. I want to talk about similarities human beings that I saw where ever I went.

Every living thing in the world has only one primary objective and purpose. Well , not exactly one but 2 purposes. Survive and Reproduce. This is a loop we live in and are never happy to come out of. I use the word loop because it’s the exact word used to describe the pattern in West world. Some back ground in Westworld before we go further. Its a futuristic sci-fi show where a man creates a theme park kind of a place where there are robots(hosts) that look like humans. Have a little artificial intelligence to react and give improvised responses. Each host believes that they are humans. These hosts are programmed to play a role in a small plot that resembles a wild west country. This is their loop. Humans pay to play a part in this. But as human nature goes, humans go there to just whore around and kill. Now, when the customer/humans are done with their raping and pillaging of hosts, the company that runs the place simply resets the hosts back to the start of their loop.This is a very high level plot.  

Coming back to the real life, The basic human loop consists of Birth – Survival – Reproduction – Taking care of offspring – Inserting the offspring into the same loop as they live in – Die. To make it simpler to understand, the gold standard for an Male human being is to be able to earn enough to survive, ensure the blood like passes on. Now, let me rephrase it in much more simpler terms for you. Good job, beautiful wife, healthy & intelligent children, good insurance for a safety net for family, peaceful retirement and then a calm death. 

The finer details may wary based on which part of the world you are in. Eg: someone born in Somaliya would have more effort in some aspects like survival and someone born in the US may have different order of priorities. But the list is always the same. 

Now the rules might be drastically different. India provides numerous examples when you want to talk about different cultures.The regional and religious differences mash together a bunch of illogical rules that people set for their loops. Hindu’s are not supposed to eat Beef and Muslims are forbidden to eat pork. A person is considered bad if he consumes alcohol or smokes. But for Sikhs, drinking is fine but smoking is a no no. For Muslims drinking is a sin but smoking and whoring are not. 

Eating habits are not very serious thing. Lets take a much more serious matter. A suitable mate. Muslims can marry a cousin from Maternal line but not from paternal line and its vice-versa for the Hindus.If you expand the sample size. In US, it is OK to marry your step sibling. 

This is just the tip of the ice berg. There are so many permutations and combinations that would leave even a mathematics professor scratching his/her head.These restrictions were put in by some tom dick and Harry. Since humans are comfortable doing what they are told to do when in a dilemma, they are more than happy to continue living in their loops and make every effort when there is some situation that threatens to break our life out of this loop.

The Loop Breakers

Now, after this uncomfortable truth that WestWorld has exposed, I saw a very glaring similarity to another HBO series. Game of Thrones.

Just like the periodic table, everything has exceptions. There are lot of people who break away from their loop.In other words, they don’t feel the obligation to live by the rules of the land. I’m not talking about law breakers. This is a level beyond that. 

Now to the other series. The Game of thrones analogy. Game of thrones has had a truck load of characters and several truck loads of interweaving plots that bring these characters together. But the most interesting thing of all is that all the Major surviving characters in the story have one thing in common. They broke their loops. Any person in the story that stuck to their loop is either irrelevant or dead. Talking about all the characters will take a lot of time, so I’ll just mention the loop the characters were supposed to be in and if you know the show, you’ll know how they broke their loop. 

Sansa Stark: A gullible girl with dreams of marrying a prince and becoming a queen, used by different people. Her loop was being innocent, suffering and becoming a tool that others can use for their gain. She broke out of her loop when she killed her sadistic husband.

Thyrion Lannister: Son of the most powerful person in the kingdom, ill fated to be born a dwarf and being hated by Father and Sister. Blamed by them for his mothers death. A person who decided to piss on the world that laughs at him, spending almost his entire life with fucking and drinking. His loop broke when he realised that his sister would goto any length to see him dead.

Arya Stark: Tom boyish daughter of a Lord who got himself killed because of his honour. Thrown into the harsh realities of the world with no one to help her out. She shattered her loop when she realised that she will always be a Stark.

Jon Snow: A bastard Son of a Lord, hated by his step mother decides to join an order of men who gaurd the seven kingdoms. This was his attempt to get away form his identity as a bastard. His loop broke when he was betrayed by his own brothers for doing what was right.

Theon Greyjoy: One of the more complex loops. A boy taken away from his family by the Starks who defeated his father. Raised as a ward. Lives in a perpetual identity crisis on where his loyalties should lie. He tries to prove himself as a worthy son and falls down a rabbit hole of one bad decision after another which leaves him with a broken body and mind, full of guilt. His loop broke when he realises that the only way to loose his guilt is to correct his mistakes and that he can be both a Stark and a GreyJoy.

Jamie Lannister:  The most complex character I have ever come across in any form of literature. If I ever meet JRR Martin, I would ask him to wait a moment, buy a hat and return to give him a Hats off. My favorite character of the show. I cannot describe his loop in a couple of lines. It may take a couple of paragraphs. 

Are you a bad person if you are willing to kill someone to protect the love of your life? Are you a bad person if that someone you try to kill is a child? Are a bad person if that someone you loved is your twin sister? 

Are you an honour less man of you kill the person who wanted to kill your family? Are you an honour less man if that person is the king? Are you an honour less man if that person is someone you vowed to guard and protect?

A hapless man who ended up being in love with someone who he was not supposed to and then ends up doing things he doesn’t like to protect that someone. He to keep enduring the insults, lack of respect and the opinions of everyone around him. His loop would have been to stand by his sister till the end. 
He broke out of it when he saw through his sisters intentions to use him for what she wants. He was able to get out of his loop when he realised that his sister was not someone who truly loved him.

I did not include Cersei and Daenerys on purpose. Because they are still living in their loops.  Cersei is in an obsession of I, Me, Myself. She wants total power at any cost. Daenerys is in a similar loop to become the queen of 7 kingdoms. Her loop is that she is the true heir to the throne and only she can bring peace to the entire world. So based on my assumption, both will die.

Luckily the people in the real world who prefer to live in their loops do not die untimely deaths. They just remain irrelevant. So, my point here is that where ever I went, the majority of the people I saw were the ones who preferred to walk in the direction their life takes them and a handful who actually take their lives in the direction they want to travel.

So even though I have observed people from 10 different nations and had interactions with people from a few others in line of my work, there are only 2 types of people I saw. So its not “Dusvidaniya”, its just “Do Vidaniya” which is 2 ways in Hindi or If I want to be obsessed with word play ‘Dos Visdaniya’ (Dos = 2 in Spanish). The loop dwellers and the loop breakers. So,Which one are you?

No Brainer

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Stop and Think!

Jellyfish. Its a fish that looks, feels like a moving jelly. So naming it a jelly fish is a No Brainer. No, I dont mean that you don’t have to use any grey matter to arrive at this name. I mean it literally. A jelly fish has no Brain. So do a lot of other organisms. But it is a well known and recognised creature, so I’ll stick with it to make my point.

Now Jelly fish has no brain but it survives. It just survives it doesn’t bother about the rest of the world. But we humans do. None of the other 8.7 million species on earth do it. Just us. So, we think that we are superior to them. We think our brains are more advanced than all the other species. This hasn’t yet been scientifically proven but just for the sake of this argument, let’s assume they are. Now are we using this brain? Or May be let me rephrase the question. Are we using our brains correctly?

There are 2 types of humans that I see. Ones who just accept what ever they are told. Ones who don’t. Now, if you just accept what ever is told to you without reasoning, technically you might as well be born as a jelly fish. In other words, you might as well not have a brain. Why carry the weight of 3 pounds that is not needed. Well may be not all of it, just the Grey part. You will still need the white part to remember what is told to you. You just don’t need the part that gives cognitive abilities.

I would like to venture a guess that while reading this blog, especially the previous paragraph, you have categorised yourself as the second kind. The Reasoning Kind. But I’d like to disagree. It might sound a arrogant statement. But I honestly believe that most people do not put their brains to good use and I wholeheartedly wish they did. May be they don’t realise the need to question the status quo. 

Now, I’ll go through a list of few things that I bet you never bothered to think twice about. You learnt them in school, stuffed them in our memory bank and left them there. For Instance, why does one stop at a red light and drive when it is green? Who decided it? Why did they choose those colours? 

But one question always drives me in circles. Well, spheres and ellipses to be honest.
Earth is a sphere and it revolves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit. So, how do we determine the starting point of a sphere or a ellipse?
Well they did do that. In 1850, people from some so called western came together and said, we need to create time zones. This started when railroad connectivity established between Canada and the US. Business men had a tough time with ‘time’. Obviously they did not invite all the countries with people who have melanin in their skin. Then everyone that were invited wanted their country to be taken as a reference point. Now who do you think won in this situation. Take a guess. It was the English. They made England the centre of Earth.
One can argue that there was a very good necessity to draw longitudes. But then they have established the so called East and West. 

Directions are pretty straight forward. The direction that sun rises from is the east. eg: For India Singapore is East. For England, France is East. But its funny that their definition was not relative. Japan is far east, even for Hawaii. And For Korea, US is West. That doesn’t make any sense.

Now lets get back to the concept of time for a moment. A calendar is also a way to keep time. Time will exist even of no one will keep track of it. Now, the best way to make a formula for anything is to find as few exceptions as possible and a unit of time has to fall under same criteria. But they did all kinds of reverse engineering and forward engineering. Its just like the non-metric system in US and UK. Its stupid. An year is defined as time it takes for earth to complete one rotation around the sun. So, where does an orbit start? Why start counting on January 1st. Again you might argue that its a problem with no solution. Some one had to start counting at some point in the orbit. Why not January? Agree.

I’ll use a final example that in completely and utterly illogical. Now. A week has 7 days. There are 5/6 work/week days and 2/1 weekend days respectively (depending on which part of the world you are in). Now why is Sunday a holiday? Why not any other 6 days of the week? This is a stupid thing that was written in bible that no one is supposed to work of Sabbath as its the day of the lord. Now that is fine, but what about the rest of the world. Its not the day of ‘their’ lord. Well except Saudi Arabia, they saw the right through this logic and declared that their holiday would be on Friday. 

You may think that I’m crazy to say that such kind of things are worth thinking about. But I’d argue that these are the exact kind of things that one should ponder about. If we silently follow what we are told, what’s the difference between a sheep(or Jellyfish) and us.