Tag Politics

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

An Elephant and a goldfish

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Long time no blog…

Its been 758 days since I published a blog. I have since drafted 40 blogs but never finished even one of them. Now I completely understand the concept of ‘Writer’s block’. There were a lot of reasons such as 2 international relocations and busy work schedule, but above all, it was just the lack of enough interest and motivation to rant (write) about something. I always peeved about George R.R. Martin not completing Winds of winter or not even giving a tentative release date for it. Now I get it. If you are stuck, you are stuck. If I cannot drag myself to write a couple of hundred words on a generic topic, who am I to judge someone who has the grueling task of completing an epic series of books. But looking at Mr. Martin shifting his focus to making some easy money for HBO by helping them make shitty spin offs of his work, my worst fear is that ‘Game of Thrones’ will end up being the Sagrada Familia of books.

May be the ending of the TV Series was the actual ending he planned. The last 2 seasons were bad. In fact, calling them bad is an understatement. Especially compared the rest of his work. I totally agree that that was the only logical ending possible. I am a little proud that I predicted the fate of most of the characters. Its was just the pace and screenplay that ruined everything. The outcry and disappointment of fans may have caused him to reconsider another/alternate course to the story line and may be he is stuck.

Now that I have beat around the bush infront of my house and also all the bushes around the neighborhood, lets get back to the point. Elephants and Goldfish are on the opposite ends of a very particular spectrum – ‘Memory retention’. At least that’s what people have you believe it. Researching for this blog led me to a fact that it is actually ‘Bees’ that have the shortest memory and Goldfish have been unfairly maligned about their mental abilities. Renaming this blog to ‘An elephant and a bee’ would have been easy enough but I did not want to burn the few remaining credits on DALL·E to create another image for this blog. It also reinforces the point I am trying to make here.

What we now about the world is driven by the narrative set around it and there are only a few but very influential ‘entities’ in the world that do this. For every Rupert Murdoch there is a George Soros. For every Fox News, there is a CNN. For every BBC there is a Al jazeera. All these ‘entities’ want you to see the world in Black and White. The world we live is too complicated to be put into 2 buckets. If you read between the lines, you will see that everyone has an agenda.

What’s the first headline you see in any major publication since the last one month? Its the Israel and Palestine conflict. Who created the problem in the first place? Yes, the Jews were driven out of the middle east but it was centuries before the colonization by the British. The jews were allowed to migrate back to the region by the British and then after the 2nd world war, United nations passed a resolution to carve Israel out of Palestine. If you care about Jews so much and wanted a safe place for them, why not carve our the just now defeated Germany or some other part of Europe? If the US, who had so much influence in the UN was so moved my the Zionist persecution, why didn’t they make a 51st state for them? California or Texas would be climatically Ideal. US already has so many places names after European towns and cities. Who stopped from creating a new Jerusalem? Wouldn’t creating a Jewish state in the middle of Arab world be the most dangerous thing to do given the history of hate between the Abrahamic religions and track record of the would be neighbours?

You may say that it was to correct the historical wrongs and the . But some things are beyond salvage. If they did want to truly correct the wrongs of the past, most of Europe should have given back all the wealth looted from its colonies. The self proclaimed ideal nation – the United states should have vacated America and given it back to the Natives. None of them happened. It will never happen too.

If the reason was to give Jews back Jerusalem and their ‘Holy’ land, they should have set the example, they should have destroyed Mount Rushmore and given back the natives their holy lands. The British in India should have given back Ayodhya and Mathura back to Hindus. The Australians should have given back the occupied sacred spaces to the Aborigines. The Spanish and Portuguese should have given back the Incan gold and don’t even get me started on Africa.

Pardon my french but Who the fuck divides a country that way? Let alone a country, who the fuck does divide anything this way?

If you think about it, it doesn’t surprise me at all. It looks to have been done on purpose. It was the perfect way to permanently destabilize a region and ensure that there can never be peace. It was after all a model that worked perfectly well only a few months before November 1947. India was partitioned. It ended up with East Pakistan and West Pakistan bordering India on both sides. What about the Hongkong situation? There is a clear pattern. The United states politicians still do this till date to their own country. Its called Gerrymandering. Its done to ensure that the black and hispanic voters do not have a majority in any district or county. Its not even subtle.

You can live life as a Goldfish – Forget what happened in the past and live life as it come or an Elephant – Never forget anything that happened to you. But the problem is that they want you to be an Elephant about all the wrongs done by you and a Goldfish about all the wrongs done by them. They want you to be a Goldfish and tell you that Goldfish has a very short memory even if that’s absolute bullshit.

Its a pattern that has been and is being repeated across the world. They will keep doing it. They do not want anyone else to prosper or live in peace. They do not care about any faith other than theirs. The do not care about any race other than theirs. It happened to middle east, it happened to Americas, it happened to Africa, it happened to Oceania. It happened in parts of Europe.

Americans and rest of Europe were greedy but the British have always been petulant. If they cannot have it, no-one can.

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?

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).

United Knobheads

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What goes around….Comes around…



The British people have been called many things. They are stereotyped to be tea drinkers, football fanatics, sophisticated, overly polite etc. But recently they showed what they actually are.. STUPID. Yes, It’s offensive to call an entire country stupid. But I’m not calling all of them stupid. 17410742 of them are. That’s roughly 37% of the electorate. Not sure if the numbers quantify me calling them stupid. If you are wondering where I got that number, It is the number of people who voted Yes for BREXIT in 2016. 

Well, you can argue that in everyone is wise in hindsight. But voting for something without knowing the complete ramifications is in one way stupid. The April 2019 deadline for BREXIT is approaching fast and it is getting more and more amusing to watch the circus unfolding in the English parliament. This is what happens if you over estimate yourself. The architects of this chaos were basically some selfish politicians looking for some mileage. 




There was a very popular propaganda by a guy called Boris Johnson. He tried to take growing nationalism in the world to his advantage and the jury is still out on whether he succeded in his plans. Below if a photograph of the bus he used for the campaign. 


This Mr Boris Johnson curiously shares a lot of things with one Mr Donald J Trump. I’m not talking of physical similarities.(Though they look like brothers to be honest) I’m referring to how they came into political power. Just like how Trump used scare mongering among white Americans that their jobs are bring taken by migrants, Migrants rape and kill white people, world is being unfair with their trades with US. Boris also used a cooked up figure that UK was paying 350 million pounds a week to EU and this can be freed up for the betterment of the country rather than helping our poor countries in EU. Both their empires have been built on Lies. 

Then, when they did get into power, just like Trump’s promise to build a wall in the US southern border to keep out the dangerous Mexicans, promises of Boris fell flat. Trump first promised that Mexico will pay for the wall. That did not happen. Then when the house was with Republicans, they did not grant funding. Then, after mid-terms when the house went to democrats, he began saying that Democrats were blocking the wall. Mr Boris went an extra mile. When he was supposed to be helping out draft the BREXIT agreement with EU, he resigned from his position and returned to being a back bench MP. Basically both of them know how to disrupt the economy and government. Both of them don’t know how to take responsibility. 

Now that UK is heading for a potentially No-Deal BREXIT which leaves the country in economic doldrums, I’m feeling very happy. You might say that I’m deriving schadenfreude.(I have been wanting to use this word for months now, and I finally got to use it. YAY!). You are right. After what they did to the world in the name of colonization, they had to suffer. A country whose crown jewel (literally the Jewel in the crown of their queen) is stolen from a colony, A country whose meteoric rise was built on the blood and bones of the people that they colonized deserves to suffer.
Well, it is not happening in the scale of suffering they inflicted on the world but it is happening on some scale. It reminds of a saying “what goes around comes around“.

There is a popular saying during the imperialist days of the world. The sun never sets on the British empire. I hope that April 12th, 2019 will be the day it happens.

Wrong packaging

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Expected vs Actual


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*SUBJECT TO CHANGES

Crafty crooked corrupts

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With great power comes great opportunity 

Voltaire is credited to be the first one to quote “With great power comes great responsibility”. Many others like Churchill have used it in a slightly altered version. Even Uncle Ben (Peter Parker’s Uncle) used it. Unfortunately if you google the words, Spider-man takes the lime light over Voltaire. Voltaire was talking about politics, kings, rulers. Just like the google results, in real world, this philosophy has been in use only by fictional characters. 

You see this being used in another way by the self proclaimed 1st world countries. They use it as “Power falling into wrong hands”. This is what US said to the world when they destroyed Iraq in the name of chemical weapons falling into wrong hands. This is what US has been trying to do with Syria and Iran for several years now.

Side note: Talking of things falling into wrong hands. Its so ironic that in US even a high school kid, convicted felon or mentally unstable people can buy assault rifles. 

Coming back… Some interpret Voltaire as “The ones with power should protect the powerless”. This is a socialistic view. 

Another side note: the communist view of this would be either no one should have power or all should have equal power. You have to agree that this is  funny (if you are not both a hypocrite and a communist of-course) 

Now that I have mentioned Socialists and Communists, I should also mention capitalists. They wouldn’t agree with Monsieur Voltaire. They would say that it isn’t the fault of the powerful person that others are powerless.

Coming back to the topic, In my insignificant opinion what Voltaire meant to say is that – Those in power should use it responsibly. In other words, one should not misuse their position of privilege. This is again idealistic view. 

In real world this same quote is quite smartly adapted by bureaucrats. They made it “With great power comes great opportunity”. Irrespective of the Country, Colour and Creed, people in power have for decades, centuries and may be even beyond the documented history, powerful people have always found ingenious ways to abuse this power. If you extrapolate the same theory and add some general observation to it, you will find that every life form in the world, generally uses its position of privilege to complete advantage.

May this is what separates humans from super humans. For someone to be a super hero, one does’t need super human abilities. 
(On a side thought, why is that the powers of most super hero’s are related to general ability of animals? And more importantly why do we call them super humans and these super powers? Logically wouldn’t these super humans be less human, I mean part human, part animal?)
All that one needs to be a super hero is to be able to follow Voltaire’s quote and be responsible with their position. That restraint in my opinion is the biggest super power.

The correct prepositions

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The grammar of governments for governance


In the final school exam, English was everyone’s dread. This was because, we did not have a defined book from which the questions came. We had 4 sections, reading for 35 marks, writing for 35, literature for 15 and grammar for 15. Obviously 15 marks in grammar were the only section where one could score 100%, so my father decided that I need grammar classes. The instructor followed a simple technique that I never understood then. He used to get photo copies of ‘fill in the blank’ questions. Everyone in the class got some 10 mins to answer them and then we were asked to take turns to read out the answer for each question. One had to explain why he/she chose the answer if it was correct. If it was incorrect it would be next guys turn to tell the correct answer. If everyone failed he used to give an explanation. Also, he wouldn’t tell us if the answer was correct or not if we couldn’t explain it. 

I’m a condescending person by birth. This default urge to correct people gets me on the wrong side of people frequently and the grammar classes in school have only exaggerated my condescending nature. Whenever I hear or read something, I check if its grammatically correct. Of all the parts of grammar, I believe prepositions are very important. In certain occasions there are more than one preposition that can be used. Each one gives the sentence a different meaning. The best examples for these are our constitutions. Yes, the founding fathers of every country were pretty smart about how they framed the sentences in constitutions. Let’s look at Indian constitution,
Art. 19 of the constitution now provides six freedoms, namely :
  1. right to freedom of speech and expression,
  2. right to assemble peaceably and without arms,
  3. right to form associations or unions,
  4. right to move freely throughout the territory of India,
  5. right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India,
  6. right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation trade or business.
Art 25 adds freedom of religion.

There are some restrictions too
Firstly, the state may impose restrictions on the exercise of the right to freedom of speech and expression on eight grounds. These are:
  1. defamation,
  2. contempt of court,
  3. decency or morality,
  4. security of the state,
  5. friendly relations with other states,
  6. incitement of offence and,
  7. sovereignty and
  8. integrity of India.
2 of the 7 freedoms are very interesting to me.
1) Freedom of speech and expression

It means that you have the freedom to express yourself. This is one of the biggest lie in our Constitution. Anything you say can be categorised into one of the restrictions and you can be held guilty. Now a days, going by the News. India’s soft power is trolling.See what happened to Maria Sharapova when she said, she doesn’t know who Sachin tendulkar is? I think if you really put your heart into it you can find fault with even a simple ‘Good morning’. Now Freedom of speech will never work until people are mature enough, and it ain’t gonna happen. So, what we should have is Freedom from speech. In other words a kind of shield or protection from idiots. Our governments cannot guarantee freedom from speech, so I guess for now you have to learn to do it yourself. See a simple preposition change effectively changes the meaning. The next fundamental right gets even more interesting with the same change of preposition.

2) Freedom of religion

Constitution of India assures its citizens that they can practise any religion as long as it doesn’t violate the above mentioned restrictions. But this is again a very clever phrasing of a fundamental right. A religion by its nature is defaming to other religions.It defines a morality that defies common sense. It effects friendly relations with other states. Effects the security of state. So, it more or less qualifies under every restriction mentioned above. What we actually need is freedom from religion. Religion should not allow people to dictate how others live their lives. But its exactly what it does. So, we need freedom from it, not just of it. 

Rest of them though might be grammatically more accurate are also a sham.

  1. right to assemble peaceably and without arms – Are we allowed to really assemble in peace? Only when your government wont mind it. 
  2. right to form associations or unions – Again only if the political persons in power think it does not endanger their ambitions in any way
  3. right to move freely throughout the territory of India, – Big joke again, J&K is off limits. So are various parts of India(conditionally). An Andhra guy is not welcome in Telangana and vice-versa. A non-Tamil is not welcome in Tamil Nadu. Well Bihari’s not welcome anywhere. Well there are some Marathis that fume at the site of certain language speaking Autowallahs. I can go on but you get the point. Right?
  4. right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India – Explaining this would be just repetition of previous sentences. 
So. in practice the Constitution of a country is in place to control it’s citizens not to protect them. It is a rule book using which political parties in the mask of governance can enforce and indoctrinate their ideologies and agendas.

If you find any grammatical errors in the post, please let me know. You must have had a better teacher than me. 

Imagi-Nation

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Mine is better than yours!


An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. Well this is the dictionary definition of a ‘Belief’. 


Last month, I visited Kolkata. It was my first time there and I went with a couple of my friends/colleagues. 

We had just visited Rabindranath Tagore’s home and were on the way back to the hotel. Everything was fine till, one of the friend I was travelling with opened his twitter feed and read out a trolling tweet about the then National debate of ‘Standing during a national Anthem in Theatres’. I should have fake laughed and kept quiet. But me being me I did not, which resulted in a conversation (argument) in which he tried to explain why India was a great country and one ought to respect it, not standing during the rendition of Indian national anthem is ‘disrespecting’ the country. What he was walking was just an opinion, a feeling at best. There was no fact to support his conclusion. 

I like living India and I try my best to be a good citizen. That is it. I’m not patriotic. According to me patriotism is an outdated concept, not valid in the age of global citizenship. How can I be proud of or respect something just because of geographical coincidence? One can only be proud of a thing that they achieve. I’m an Indian because I was born in India and my parents were born here. Nothing to be proud of these facts. Patriotism on the other hand is just a bag of emotions and is a kind of an obsession, its the easy option one can take. Where as being a good citizen is much more difficult. I try to cause no or minimum inconvenience to my fellow human beings. I follow the rules of the land, pay taxes and do not commit any crime. This is my definition of a good citizen or more importantly good human being.
I like living in India because my brain and body have been conditioned to live here. The brain is conditioned to language and culture. The body is used to the climatic conditions. So, I find living here more convenient than anywhere else. For that matter, leaving my current city and moving to another place in India would itself be an extremely uncomfortable thing to do for me. Does that mean my country or my city is superior? Absolutely no. Imagining things is fine but asking others to do the same is unfair. I’m sure if I wrote this on any social media forum, I’d be trolled, insulted, threatened and any other verb that the ‘civilised’ human can think of.
Speaking of forcing opinion? If someone else does that he is a bully, if a organisation does it its radical, if a leader does it he is a dictator. But if you are being a dick, then…. well in this case you are patriotic. I may have crossed the line of decency here but the only ones who would have been offended by last few sentences or my ideas as whole. And the reason I was more aggressive in my wording was to show how it feels like to be insulted just for not agreeing on something. 
I believe this ‘Mine better than yours’ is a primal instinct, a way to lie to oneself that they are in a better position than others. 

USA – Unlimited Supply of Arrogance.

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No country for coloured men


United states of America, the self proclaimed leader of the world. In last couple of months 5 Indians were killed and a few more injured in race related violence. There is an uproar in liberal, Indian and foreign media. In 2016 there was a ‘Black lives matter’ movement on police brutality in African Americans. Some are attributing this to the rise of the right wing or in other words Donald Trump. But it has always been the home for racial crimes. The country was built on racial violence and genocide. What else did you expect? 


USA is in some ways the Iran of the west. In other ways Americans and Nazi’s did some pretty similar things in their past. In-fact, they did far more bad things than what Arabs did to Iran and what Nazi’s did to Jews. Arabs had a clarity of thought, convert to Islam or die. So did Nazi’s. They hated Jews and they wanted them dead. They made no fact of hiding this. Germans do not celebrate the day Jews were killed by exchanging presents. Ayatollah doesn’t say his ideology is based on Iran first, Iranians first.

Got my point? No? Pilgrims and Natives. Does that ring any bell? 
Thanksgiving day, an american holiday that Sitcoms show as a day when all its characters have dinner together and exchange gifts. Normal Americans celebrate (if you can call it celebration) it by creating stampedes in shopping malls in the name of Black Friday. Indians are very familiar with this holiday. This is when their cousins buy Iphones and other electronics for them. But what are its origins?

“In 1621 the myth of thanksgiving was born. The colonists invited Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, to their first feast as a follow up to their recent land deal. Massasoit in turn invited 90 of his men, much to the chagrin of the colonists. Two years later the English invited a number of tribes to a feast “symbolizing eternal friendship.” The English offered food and drink, and two hundred Indians dropped dead from unknown poison.” 

Americans wiped out more than 90% of native Americans, but the history calls it just acts of genocide. Not genocide. Oh yeah. Apparently they are different.”How many ‘acts of genocide’ make up a ‘genocide’?”

On this count Present day Germany is leagues apart. Be it Stolpersteine project or the memorial day. The new German’s are constantly reminded of their ‘Actual’ history.
Brass plaques laid in the street to remember Holocaust victims
So where were we? A European was sent to find India(Thank all gods he did not find India), Found America, named them Red Indians (which was not at all racist), Other followed, killed the indigenous population which is now celebrated every year with friends and family. Is that it? No I was just warming up.

I didn’t even mention gold rush, slavery, bible belt, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, red necks, white supremacists, Klu klux klan, gun culture, Cuba, Mexico, Cold war, Nuclear race, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Capitalism. If you can’t relate these terms to America. Then I cannot help you, seriously!

When I said Iran is better than America. I meant it too. Iran’s transformation from Persia to present-day Iran also had its share of bloodshed. The local culture, language, religion were systematically erased. But not its people. 

As an Indian I’ve seen my fair share of Racism(Even before I ever set my foot outside the country). Indians are devoted to Caucasian tourists. Crowds flock to take selfies with them. Even authorities give them respect. But if there is a African tourist, they look at him the same way Ivanka Trump would look at an African American in back alley of a shady pub in downtown Brooklyn. I’ve had well educated, so called forward thinking friends look down upon Africans. Lets not go that far. I’m a south Indian, but have a couple of tones fairer skin that an average south Indian. I’ve had many experiences where people mistook me for a north Indian and when corrected told me that you ‘don’t look like’ a south Indian. 
Let me make it tad more personal. For years my maternal grand mother didn’t  allow the maid into kitchen and used to sprinkle some water on all the things that maid touched to ‘Purify’ it. Racism is a part and parcel of life in India too. Persecution is still there but violence is rare. 

Lets fast forward to American election 2016. It felt like Democrats and Republicans had a wager on who an field the worst possible presidential candidate. Republicans not only won the election but also the Wager. The notion that Americans are being unfairly treated in their own country is befuddling. If White Americans are not getting a good deal in America then who is?

It is a country of immigrants who are paranoid about the new immigrants. They did all the bad stuff enough for their beloved Santa to put them on ‘Beyond Naughty’ list with a permanent marker, now they want to maintain the status quo. Present day America was given birth by a an orgy between racist, greedy, arrogant, capitalist and hypocrite Europeans. 

Make America great again – the caption of Trump’s campaign had a hidden message (an open secret if you have some common sense) on his agenda. Now America is becoming great again. Great at racism, great at capitalism, great at war spending, great at meddling with other country affairs, Great at arrogance.

America hasn’t changed. Americans did not change. Americans are just getting back to doing what they are best at. They should simply hang a sign called ‘Enter at your own risk’ on Statue of liberty.