Just as we walked in, Veer spotted the center 4 seats of row E at Naz 8 Cinemas screening Rang De Basanti vacant. For the oblivious lot, there are no row/seat numbers on the tickets and seats are open on a first come first served basis in all American theaters and this ordeal is blazoned to the entire world proclaiming their unbiased take on reservations. The moment we tried to settle down, we heard an elderly lady shrieking back with a heavy south Indian accent “these seats are reserved, my friends will be joining in some time.” That did it. Vivacious Veer immediately called upon the theater manager Salim (whom I knew well thanks to the weekend cricket games) and demanded a refund. He tried to convince us and told me that there is another screening in 30 minutes for which he can reserve our seats due to the inconvenience. We had now come a full circle! We chose not to take the offer and not even fight for our rights considering the lady was elderly. Though it was Fun watching DJ from the first row, the dialogues were drowned occasionally by my disgruntled friend. Now that brings us to the whole façade of seat reservations in colleges, offices and government jobs.
With Arjun Singh’s trip to hell now withstanding, a thought crosses my mind whether we truly are going global? Do we deserve to progress at this rapid rate and still hold hypocritical values when it comes to choosing between merit and anyone on the street?
Yes, we want everything western, our lifestyle American, our accent English and our cars German but we just can’t shed our 5000 year old cultural baggage. The baggage of castism. It’s not that the west does not have flaws. They too have their fair share of handicaps and minorities. They too have people who are financially incapable but they consider it an insult to even ask for help let alone beg. It’s been imbibed in the nature of the under privileged to accept this kind of mercy and most of them shamelessly enjoy this too. What is the difference in today’s India and the India that practiced superior castism before the 19th century? It has turned on it’s head and the then exploited have now become the exploiters.
To add to the misery, the cause is fuelled vigorously by our politicians and their selfish motives and hidden agendas. One thing I have learnt is that in the attempt to choose between two evils, the world always hunts a third one and we are paying the price of the garbage we’ve created. Lalu’s fodder scam is too big to be covered by his recent heroics which the media highlights and the elite folks at IIM appreciate. Unfortunately, the media across the world, thanks to the commercialization have very convenient memory and extremely “TRP” driven agendas.
I know at least a dozen people I’ve met who decided to pursue their careers outside of India, me being one of them thanks to these meaningless reservations. In fact even while selecting my vocation, a wonderful career counselor pointed out that if I took the HSC route, there will be 33% reservations for the backward class versus the diploma route where there are none. That wasn’t 100% mukti by a long shot but I could still live with the reservations of free versus pay seats.
We may self proclaim ourselves to be the world’s largest democracy but in reality we have diminished to a democracy that is limited to states or rather religion. To add to the misery, politicians take absolute advantage of this weakness to push their diabolical agendas.
So what is the solution? The only way we can save our selves of the embarrassment in the global arena is by eliminating the reservations and by rewarding merit with financial aids. That means, don’t have reservations rather have minimal fees for candidates who belong to the backward class and are really underprivileged. Like the adage goes, “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime”. Giving away a seat to undeserving person is like throwing him to the wolves for the rest of his life. You have set him up for failure and merely achieved your vote bank quota on the way. Waking up is one thing. Arising is but a distant dream!
Bhavesh Lakhani
Friday, August 8, 2008
Sara Jahan Se Accha ?
Sounds very fairy tailish. Just give me a break. Nothing can be further from the truth. In the past it might have been, and is very much possible in the near future but surely not now. To seek any improvement, first we have to accept ground conditions, the reality. We prefer to shut eyes and pinch nostrils to avoid seeing and smelling the garbage - we should ban these anthems and irrelevant 'Swach Bharat' campaigns until we have become worthy of them.
Having stayed in 2 countries, I tend to compare - why is US well off in some ways when it comes to the basics of living standards. It’s not that they don't have any shortcomings with their biggest being the cold human and people relationship, their materialistic and capitalistic way of life. This aside, they rarely worry about the streets being dumped with unwanted trash or traffic being stopped due to a semi-political rally. While people in India still die of starvation and thirst and subsist on mango kernels, People in USA go hungry by choice. It is true that the legacy that we got at independence was not a good one. I think we started off all wrong, with 5000 years of useless baggage, to which we still hold on dearly. Keep the useful stuff and throw away the rest. Many times we ridicule the short American history and the (undue) importance paid to it. But still they have a something good going, while we stay mired in misery, and cannot even resolve a temple/mosque or a river issue amicably. What's the use of history if we cannot learn from it ? Isn't the whole point of having history is to learn from our mistakes? Is it not more fortunate not to have it? Clean slate, clean slate!
Personally, I feel the most important problem in India is population density and illiteracy. Most of the problems can be traced to this. It is a well known fact in sociology that over-crowding results in friction…its because of the basic need for survival…at any costs. Over-population results in haphazard growth and chaos…the value of human life is less when there are so many of them. In USA, children are protected such a lot... because they realize the children are the future and because of the small growth rate, a precious group, the future citizens who will be part of the economy…Only because I have a very biased view of America being a heartless capitalist country, I believe they do it because they treat even the children like an investment. That’s why they have so many rules for children. In India, you have so many children, that no one cares. If there's one less, there's more from where they came.
But the population is not going to reduce overnight…it would need investment in increasing literacy and improving the quality of life. And make sure that the children that are born have a high chance of surviving...I read somewhere that people tend to "produce" more children when there's a high child mortality rate- to make up for projected loss. This, I think, is the animal side of humans and civilization is but a thin veneer.
Bhavesh Lakhani
Having stayed in 2 countries, I tend to compare - why is US well off in some ways when it comes to the basics of living standards. It’s not that they don't have any shortcomings with their biggest being the cold human and people relationship, their materialistic and capitalistic way of life. This aside, they rarely worry about the streets being dumped with unwanted trash or traffic being stopped due to a semi-political rally. While people in India still die of starvation and thirst and subsist on mango kernels, People in USA go hungry by choice. It is true that the legacy that we got at independence was not a good one. I think we started off all wrong, with 5000 years of useless baggage, to which we still hold on dearly. Keep the useful stuff and throw away the rest. Many times we ridicule the short American history and the (undue) importance paid to it. But still they have a something good going, while we stay mired in misery, and cannot even resolve a temple/mosque or a river issue amicably. What's the use of history if we cannot learn from it ? Isn't the whole point of having history is to learn from our mistakes? Is it not more fortunate not to have it? Clean slate, clean slate!
Personally, I feel the most important problem in India is population density and illiteracy. Most of the problems can be traced to this. It is a well known fact in sociology that over-crowding results in friction…its because of the basic need for survival…at any costs. Over-population results in haphazard growth and chaos…the value of human life is less when there are so many of them. In USA, children are protected such a lot... because they realize the children are the future and because of the small growth rate, a precious group, the future citizens who will be part of the economy…Only because I have a very biased view of America being a heartless capitalist country, I believe they do it because they treat even the children like an investment. That’s why they have so many rules for children. In India, you have so many children, that no one cares. If there's one less, there's more from where they came.
But the population is not going to reduce overnight…it would need investment in increasing literacy and improving the quality of life. And make sure that the children that are born have a high chance of surviving...I read somewhere that people tend to "produce" more children when there's a high child mortality rate- to make up for projected loss. This, I think, is the animal side of humans and civilization is but a thin veneer.
Bhavesh Lakhani
Maya Americana
Finally people are awakening from the Great American Dream - For more and more Indians this place has now become the official graveyard of broken materialistic hopes, dreams and aspirations. Many came here hoping to somehow settle down, especially the former H1-B brat-brag pack.
This was the only practical get-rich scheme for some Indians which actually worked well: come to USA, make more money than your father ever dreamt of, drive expensive cars and lead a hi-life where you don't have to worry about the basic necessities of life. For a long time the H1 bees were the most sought- after people as cleverly yet sarcastically depicted in Hyderbad Blues. Getting the American Green Card was the highest glory that you can achieve combined with a job at a start-up going IPO with stock options to boot. Heaven couldn’t be closer but alas, all superficial things have to come to an end and end it came to.
The self-proclaimed glory was predictably short-lived. Dot-coms crashed all over the place; good companies which jumped onto the bandwagon found themselves stranded; large inventories were rotting; "Dot-com" became from a sought-after tag to a dirty four-letter word - it didn't take too long to go from dot-com to dot-gone like premature ej&*&*&tion. Like the Sun CEO Scott McNealy says, “Now a days, a dot com is defined as a company whose net corporate value is lesser than the net value of it’s parking lot”. All this was also attributed to the Twenty Second Amendment that led to the Florida controversy over the 25 electoral votes.
The most interesting aspect has the evolving attitude of people - from "its something which happens to others" (like death) to watching their friends getting laid off, to finally accepting the inevitable themselves. Suddenly people found themselves without medical insurance, with liabilities of leased BMWs and credit cards. The flip side of the market economy, of recession in a capitalistic country, not to mention the out of status H1 tag, the pariah of the Indian marriage market.
Still many tend to cling on to the Dream tenaciously, like limpets on sand. Most of those who came here never have/had an intention of going back though they manage to conceal this like a charm. Many can’t reconcile to the fact that without a job its a lost cause here…there are no safety nets for bees in USA…yes, you have to pay your Social Security tax but you are not going to get any support if you lose your job. Still they continue to illegally hold on to the dream as if their return to India will be envisaged as a major failure. Their mere existence and their brand value will crash down the abyss.
Unfortunately, the situation continues and to add to the misery, Osama has given another push on what is now being called the 9-11, the date of the attack and also the emergency police number। With a meager $2.5 Billion a month being spent on the so called war and the continuing and the Anthrax scare, people are jittery, the market is jittery and no one wants to be on a plane. The “Oil’s well that ends well” expression from “Dude Where’s My Country” by Michael Moore is an accurate depiction of this. God Bless America, the land of the free (???)
Bhavesh Lakhani
This was the only practical get-rich scheme for some Indians which actually worked well: come to USA, make more money than your father ever dreamt of, drive expensive cars and lead a hi-life where you don't have to worry about the basic necessities of life. For a long time the H1 bees were the most sought- after people as cleverly yet sarcastically depicted in Hyderbad Blues. Getting the American Green Card was the highest glory that you can achieve combined with a job at a start-up going IPO with stock options to boot. Heaven couldn’t be closer but alas, all superficial things have to come to an end and end it came to.
The self-proclaimed glory was predictably short-lived. Dot-coms crashed all over the place; good companies which jumped onto the bandwagon found themselves stranded; large inventories were rotting; "Dot-com" became from a sought-after tag to a dirty four-letter word - it didn't take too long to go from dot-com to dot-gone like premature ej&*&*&tion. Like the Sun CEO Scott McNealy says, “Now a days, a dot com is defined as a company whose net corporate value is lesser than the net value of it’s parking lot”. All this was also attributed to the Twenty Second Amendment that led to the Florida controversy over the 25 electoral votes.
The most interesting aspect has the evolving attitude of people - from "its something which happens to others" (like death) to watching their friends getting laid off, to finally accepting the inevitable themselves. Suddenly people found themselves without medical insurance, with liabilities of leased BMWs and credit cards. The flip side of the market economy, of recession in a capitalistic country, not to mention the out of status H1 tag, the pariah of the Indian marriage market.
Still many tend to cling on to the Dream tenaciously, like limpets on sand. Most of those who came here never have/had an intention of going back though they manage to conceal this like a charm. Many can’t reconcile to the fact that without a job its a lost cause here…there are no safety nets for bees in USA…yes, you have to pay your Social Security tax but you are not going to get any support if you lose your job. Still they continue to illegally hold on to the dream as if their return to India will be envisaged as a major failure. Their mere existence and their brand value will crash down the abyss.
Unfortunately, the situation continues and to add to the misery, Osama has given another push on what is now being called the 9-11, the date of the attack and also the emergency police number। With a meager $2.5 Billion a month being spent on the so called war and the continuing and the Anthrax scare, people are jittery, the market is jittery and no one wants to be on a plane. The “Oil’s well that ends well” expression from “Dude Where’s My Country” by Michael Moore is an accurate depiction of this. God Bless America, the land of the free (???)
Bhavesh Lakhani
Sunday, August 3, 2008
NRI or RNI?
I believe strongly that life teaches you something new and good everyday. Standing at the Nescafe stall outside the IBM Call Center behind Umang, a thought crossed my mind. After the recent barrages on the NRIs by several blogs and the birth of the new concept of RNI, I couldn’t resist but pen this down. So, here goes IMHO…
Come 2008 and onwards and It’s all curtains for the NRI tribe; long live the RNIs! If you are not familiar with the latter acronym, better get up to speed, because you may be one of them. It stands for Resident Non-Indians, a term manufactured by the now deposed and embittered NRIs to describe those they say are residents of India only in name, but who don’t show the slightest sign of being Indian — which to nostalgia-stricken NRIs means listening to Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar of circa 1980s while driving to work on the Freeway; not the Hip Hop, Bollywood Rap the RNI types are soaking up while stuck in the never ending traffic jams in India.
The tidings about the demise of the NRI cachet and the rise of the RNI legend was transported recently to the US of A, the largest hangout haven for NRIs, by a crestfallen member of the long-hyped tribe. He had just returned from India rather shell-shocked. It’s not just that the dollar had sunk below Rs 40 and the touts at Taj Mahal were using greenbacks to blow their kids’ noses or as paper napkins, he sniffed; it was the way he was treated differently at home this time.
When he sat down for breakfast expecting to be served poha, idlis and daliya, he was fed Post’s Banana Nut Crunch with Soy Milk and NutriGrain bars. Extra Virgin Olive oil had replaced the asli ghee and cottage butter in the making of parathas. When they went out to dinner — Tex-Mex, no less — friends whipped out their wallets faster than Clint Eastwood drew his six-shooter in For a Few Dollars More, and didn’t allow him to pay. His Amex card returned to the US unmolested.
There’s just no respect anymore for NRIs, he moaned. What happened to the good old days when nephews and nieces begged him for Levi’s and Nikes, for Chanel No 1 and Calvin Kleins? Why, as recently as a couple of years ago, snotty little brats were pleading with him for playstations and iPods.
But now all these were available in India, as were the latest laptops and cellphones. Having gone from Non-Returning Indian to a Non-Resident Indian, he had now been demoted to Not Required Indian.
So, here’s the scoop. Apparently, our bharat mahaan is rolling in so much lolly, and such is the attention being lavished on it by the world, that NRIs are being told to take their depreciating dollar and said "dafa ho jao". Dirhams and euros are still okay, but the dollar is definitely in the doghouse. Heck, even the Taj — the hotel, not the monument — is reportedly telling folks they would rather be paid in pesos or liras.
Folks, it’s Pox Americana time, and the American NRI is bearing the brunt.
As a long-suffering itinerant who straddles the world of NRIs, RNIs, IRNs etc, I can attest to the hardship the poor NRI is going through with my two cents of insight, the equivalent of a naya paisa being too un-affordable. It’s a terrible chore these days to shop in the US for the family in India. For one, there is hardly anything that is ‘Made in USA’; and what is available is already outdated in India.
The real moment of truth laughed me in the face when i handed out a nice T-shirt i had bought for a brat cousin of mine only to be thanked with "Chee! It’s Made-in-Bangladesh." The sneakers, it turned out, were made in Thailand, and the baseball cap in Vietnam. The nadir came when the entire gang espied my Palm Treo 650 cellphone which I proudly sported. According to them, this model apparently was discarded in India in the 18th century. Even my latest Levi's 501 Button Fly was looked at primevally as if they've just been transported from a pre-historic era.
So, where does that leave the NRI? Word is that they are pressing for a change in nomenclature. They’d now like to be known as INRs — Indian Non-Residents. Long live India!
Common Man, Where Art Thou ?
As against Superman, A Superman can lift a truck, fly like a bird, be a Hanuman for a country with no mythological heroes and hence has to create them at the rate of dozen a dime...but I digress. A Superman can do all this things, but can he change a country, it's people, its attitudes, its poverty and its illiteracy? No, nope, nada. Not a chance. That requires lots and lots of Ordinary Men. Men with clarity of vision, with single-mindedness, with patience and fortitude and with burning passion to do something about it, and the most important - men who have self actualized, and don't care for money-material wealth.
To begin with, here's a bit about self-actualization - its based on a theory called "Hierarchy of Needs" developed by Maslowe about how humans are "structured". Its a bit like a video or PC game, say Prince of Persia, where you have to finish one level successfully to go to the next level, before you get to kiss the princess, and at each level you have to fight your enemies and clamber over obstacles to reach the final goal.
The first level called the "Physiological Needs". In other words, Roti and Kapda. Until you get these, you cant go to the next level (or die trying). The second is "Safety Needs" - Part of this is a home. After crossing these Rubicons, you come to the third - "Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness". The fourth is "Need for (Self) Esteem", and finally the fifth - Nirvana - "Needs for Self-Actualization".
Here how Maslowe describes Self-Actualization - As a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless. If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization.
In other words, an Ordinary Man. (But is Osama an Ordinary Man by this definition? The answer is no, an Ordinary Man is creative and constructive, not destructive, even though he might claim he was "born to do". That is one hidden assumption here.)
Now, I would like to extend this theory to an organization - a country for example. Call it "The Addendum to Hierarchy of Needs", if no one has gone this way before. At what level is India ? How far is India from getting to kiss the Princess of Nirvana? How far is USA from the same goal? In other words, how far are these countries from self-actualization? Woefully, India yet to cross the first level…still worried about food and clothing and I am not talking about the blessed lot like you and I....The reality is that she still is trying to keep its head above water. USA, I think, is somewhere between second and third…Osama as the evil guard has suddenly popped up and challenged it in the second level.. otherwise it was about to graduate to the third level...where it was to face a lot of trouble…not many countries like USA as such. I am sure some European/Scandinavian countries are at the fourth level.
So how does a country move towards Self-actualization? By the people, individually moving towards it, by realizing their individual potential. And to be able to do that, you need a initial critical mass of Ordinary Men, who can set the road on fire and show the way to others. A lot of these Indian Ordinary Men are in USA, and I am sure, most of them have made pots of money, and wonder, What Next? A critical mass of Ordinary Men going waste.. reminds me of the 1001 wasted Midnights' Children written by Rushdie.
And I am sure there are a lot of them in India too, but Ordinary Man's Kryptonite is his single-ness… as long as lots of Ordinary Men do not band together, nothing will happen. Are there any Ordinary Men in India? Yes, but they themselves may not be aware of their true identity, they might still be looking for a telephone booth to go and change into Ordinary Man wear…and I think I might have found some…unable to group, their energies too are going waste.
PS: The attempt and the intention is to refer to both Ordinary Men and Ordinary Women. Just for the sake of reading fluidity, the former was repeatedly used.
To begin with, here's a bit about self-actualization - its based on a theory called "Hierarchy of Needs" developed by Maslowe about how humans are "structured". Its a bit like a video or PC game, say Prince of Persia, where you have to finish one level successfully to go to the next level, before you get to kiss the princess, and at each level you have to fight your enemies and clamber over obstacles to reach the final goal.
The first level called the "Physiological Needs". In other words, Roti and Kapda. Until you get these, you cant go to the next level (or die trying). The second is "Safety Needs" - Part of this is a home. After crossing these Rubicons, you come to the third - "Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness". The fourth is "Need for (Self) Esteem", and finally the fifth - Nirvana - "Needs for Self-Actualization".
Here how Maslowe describes Self-Actualization - As a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless. If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization.
In other words, an Ordinary Man. (But is Osama an Ordinary Man by this definition? The answer is no, an Ordinary Man is creative and constructive, not destructive, even though he might claim he was "born to do". That is one hidden assumption here.)
Now, I would like to extend this theory to an organization - a country for example. Call it "The Addendum to Hierarchy of Needs", if no one has gone this way before. At what level is India ? How far is India from getting to kiss the Princess of Nirvana? How far is USA from the same goal? In other words, how far are these countries from self-actualization? Woefully, India yet to cross the first level…still worried about food and clothing and I am not talking about the blessed lot like you and I....The reality is that she still is trying to keep its head above water. USA, I think, is somewhere between second and third…Osama as the evil guard has suddenly popped up and challenged it in the second level.. otherwise it was about to graduate to the third level...where it was to face a lot of trouble…not many countries like USA as such. I am sure some European/Scandinavian countries are at the fourth level.
So how does a country move towards Self-actualization? By the people, individually moving towards it, by realizing their individual potential. And to be able to do that, you need a initial critical mass of Ordinary Men, who can set the road on fire and show the way to others. A lot of these Indian Ordinary Men are in USA, and I am sure, most of them have made pots of money, and wonder, What Next? A critical mass of Ordinary Men going waste.. reminds me of the 1001 wasted Midnights' Children written by Rushdie.
And I am sure there are a lot of them in India too, but Ordinary Man's Kryptonite is his single-ness… as long as lots of Ordinary Men do not band together, nothing will happen. Are there any Ordinary Men in India? Yes, but they themselves may not be aware of their true identity, they might still be looking for a telephone booth to go and change into Ordinary Man wear…and I think I might have found some…unable to group, their energies too are going waste.
PS: The attempt and the intention is to refer to both Ordinary Men and Ordinary Women. Just for the sake of reading fluidity, the former was repeatedly used.
Child's Play
In a vague, nebulous way I really miss my childhood. Then, things were simple, clear and straight-forward and there were no complications of adulthood. Studies, Play, and Sleep. And contradictorily, there is no such point in time where I can claim that I stopped feeling like a kid and felt like an adult. I always felt the same. Only the situation and circumstances have changed, which labels me as an "adult". Even today I feel like going out and playing rubber ball, under arm cricket in the alley or go for an all day aimless, endless walk in the National Park/Powai forests. But unfortunately, I like all the rest have to sacrifice myself at the altar of the Daily Grind and participate (sometimes reluctantly) in the Great Rat Race because that’s what I am supposed to do as an "adult". Oh what I can give to give all this up! I am still that self-same kid, grown up in age but the kid remains... and I hope it stays there till the end. I feel this has given me enough clarity to have a desire…Retire at 50, start a primary school, a cricket coaching academy, write a classic story, explore new places and do what I feel like doing…As it goes, Knowing what we want is half the job done. For the remaining half, my quest is on!
What I find is that there are not many who share this point of view. When I act like a kid or explain this stuff to someone, they give me a this-guy-is-immature look. What they don't understand is the difference between child-like and childish... I don’t blame them. Neither do I owe any justifications. It’s just that maybe the kid in them is dead. And still in the so called adults, I see the same kid… people react in the same way that they did as a kid, only the surroundings have changed.
Then one fine day, my friend told me about this novel Ender's Game (by Orson Scott Card), which is about a bunch of kids being trained to defeat alien "buggers" before they reach Earth again. I finished the book in double-quick time and liked it immensely. In the introduction, Card presents a stout, eloquent defense against critics who claim that "kids don't behave like that", meaning kids can't talk and walk in a adult way. Here's what Card has to say: "...Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along- the same person I am today. I never felt that my emotions and desires were somehow less than adult emotions and desires. And in writing Ender's Game, I forced the audience to experience the lives of these children from that perspective- the perspective in which their feelings and decisions are just as real and important as any adult's...Ender's Game asserts the personhood of children, and those who are used to thinking of children in another way...are going to find Ender's Game a very unpleasant place to live. Children are a perpetual, self renewing underclass, helpless to escape from the decisions of adults until they become adults themselves."
I suddenly felt good. I felt I am not the only one who feels like this... and if I want, adulthood can be a release too and I sure can fulfill my "childhood" desires. So watch out everyone... here's a kid in an adult's garb.
Bhavesh Lakhani
What I find is that there are not many who share this point of view. When I act like a kid or explain this stuff to someone, they give me a this-guy-is-immature look. What they don't understand is the difference between child-like and childish... I don’t blame them. Neither do I owe any justifications. It’s just that maybe the kid in them is dead. And still in the so called adults, I see the same kid… people react in the same way that they did as a kid, only the surroundings have changed.
Then one fine day, my friend told me about this novel Ender's Game (by Orson Scott Card), which is about a bunch of kids being trained to defeat alien "buggers" before they reach Earth again. I finished the book in double-quick time and liked it immensely. In the introduction, Card presents a stout, eloquent defense against critics who claim that "kids don't behave like that", meaning kids can't talk and walk in a adult way. Here's what Card has to say: "...Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along- the same person I am today. I never felt that my emotions and desires were somehow less than adult emotions and desires. And in writing Ender's Game, I forced the audience to experience the lives of these children from that perspective- the perspective in which their feelings and decisions are just as real and important as any adult's...Ender's Game asserts the personhood of children, and those who are used to thinking of children in another way...are going to find Ender's Game a very unpleasant place to live. Children are a perpetual, self renewing underclass, helpless to escape from the decisions of adults until they become adults themselves."
I suddenly felt good. I felt I am not the only one who feels like this... and if I want, adulthood can be a release too and I sure can fulfill my "childhood" desires. So watch out everyone... here's a kid in an adult's garb.
Bhavesh Lakhani
Good Apple Bad Apple
When I was in school, we all had a "Moral Science" subject - which was more about idiocy than morals. I acutely remember one story in which a boy falls into "bad company", and his father shows him the "correct way" by giving him the example of how a good apple placed among rotten apples also goes bad.
I realized something immediately on reading it - that this is a very poor and weak analogy.. comparing ourselves to a bunch of apples! Why the hell then do we need brains? Do we as humans have any say or free choice? Are we a bunch of apples who cannot protect ourselves against getting rotten? Surely there's a BIG difference between being human and being an apple... unlike apples, we can choose to do what we want to do or not. Quite a few of my friends/acquaintances smoke and do/did consume alcohol.. but I simply didn't want to go that way, and I didn't.... it is a matter of choice and remains so and it was clear…so much for the so-called "bad company" and me being an apple. Those were my feelings on reading the story.
But much later, until I returned to India and saw an entire generation paralyzed by the curse of the American Call Centers and running bare-footed towards all the worst the West has to offer. It's then when I realized I was wrong...in a manner of speaking - that people generally ARE like a bunch of apples. The same person who performed the Morning Aarti or Faatar ki Naamaz has suddenly turned into Vodka guzzling dame just so that she can blend in with the peers. Even Mike (read Manohar) who’s father still works 14 hours at the yarn factory parties all night just to be a part of the cool-crowd. The general feeling (and I can only guess) must be, If everyone in my (bad?) company is like an (rotten?) apple, I better be too, or else I won't be part of a crowd, and be accepted. That's what frightens a lot of people…the need for social acceptance is an intrinsic part of being human. But that doesn't mean we don't have the power to think, decide and more importantly choose what is in our best interests. Imagine if everyone starts thinking “I choose to do what I want to do. And not just because "everyone" is doing it”. For that, we sure have some way to go because the youth has been pulled right out in the middle of their educational voyage. This generation is in peril of losing it’s own identity and is being led to the middle of nowhere.
Reminds me of one of the beautiful poems by Rabindranath Tagore (Where the Mind is Without Fear) which now merely has taken safe shelter in prose text books. The fear to emulate it is just a distant dream and I can’t just help but pray that “Into that Heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!
Bhavesh Lakhani
I realized something immediately on reading it - that this is a very poor and weak analogy.. comparing ourselves to a bunch of apples! Why the hell then do we need brains? Do we as humans have any say or free choice? Are we a bunch of apples who cannot protect ourselves against getting rotten? Surely there's a BIG difference between being human and being an apple... unlike apples, we can choose to do what we want to do or not. Quite a few of my friends/acquaintances smoke and do/did consume alcohol.. but I simply didn't want to go that way, and I didn't.... it is a matter of choice and remains so and it was clear…so much for the so-called "bad company" and me being an apple. Those were my feelings on reading the story.
But much later, until I returned to India and saw an entire generation paralyzed by the curse of the American Call Centers and running bare-footed towards all the worst the West has to offer. It's then when I realized I was wrong...in a manner of speaking - that people generally ARE like a bunch of apples. The same person who performed the Morning Aarti or Faatar ki Naamaz has suddenly turned into Vodka guzzling dame just so that she can blend in with the peers. Even Mike (read Manohar) who’s father still works 14 hours at the yarn factory parties all night just to be a part of the cool-crowd. The general feeling (and I can only guess) must be, If everyone in my (bad?) company is like an (rotten?) apple, I better be too, or else I won't be part of a crowd, and be accepted. That's what frightens a lot of people…the need for social acceptance is an intrinsic part of being human. But that doesn't mean we don't have the power to think, decide and more importantly choose what is in our best interests. Imagine if everyone starts thinking “I choose to do what I want to do. And not just because "everyone" is doing it”. For that, we sure have some way to go because the youth has been pulled right out in the middle of their educational voyage. This generation is in peril of losing it’s own identity and is being led to the middle of nowhere.
Reminds me of one of the beautiful poems by Rabindranath Tagore (Where the Mind is Without Fear) which now merely has taken safe shelter in prose text books. The fear to emulate it is just a distant dream and I can’t just help but pray that “Into that Heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!
Bhavesh Lakhani
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