Making sense of the world.
Posts tagged Introspection
21st Century Breakdown
Aug 27th
A recent conversation with an old friend turned to people we’d known during our university days. These are the people who had fought hard and smart for the most coveted positions, for the well-paid, high-profile careers. They are now married, and expecting or attending to their offspring. The women especially are now more than happy to trade notes on teething problems rather than the latest BP crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. It made me think.
Do we really not have to be feminists anymore, because our grandmothers and mothers fought that war for us?
When visiting Italy a while ago, a classmate and close friend confided that although she was as qualified and more experienced than her husband, it would be unheard of for her to choose her work over staying at home and looking after the children. This, in a First World country where even the toilets are automated!
On Saturdays we’d stroll through the morning markets, people-watching. An oddity struck me again and again – over-30 women with babies, toddlers, or pregnant. Rarely did one see a young mother. In contrast, most parents with children under the age of five, in India, would be young grandparents or at least parents of teenagers! It seems that for women to juggle careers and home is becoming more of an impossibility, so many choose to finish their careers by their early-to-mid thirties, and then be wives and mothers. Again, an either-or scenario.
Change Your Stripe
Feb 9th
What do you think? We have PhDs managing the country. We have endless news coverage and talking heads. We have more institutions of learning now than at any other time in history. We have MBAs and MTechs running our businesses and factories. We have achieved unprecedented economic growth, and a place in the limelight. We cry ourselves hoarse about how wonderful we are, and how our ancient culture is overflowing with spirituality and gurus and what nots. And that a glorious future belongs to us, as a glorious past supposedly did.
Time to take a reality check.
We have found water on the moon, but are unable to accurately assess the extent of poverty in the country, or maybe we don’t want to.[i] Too inconvenient and embarrassing.
India spends less than five percent of the annual budget on children.[i] Try spreading that over 447 million people below 18. More than half a century after Independence, the percentage of underweight children under 3 is still high, at 46 per cent. An estimated 50 per cent of our children are malnourished. Recent news indicates that we have managed to push our children to the brink of despair, with 26 juvenile suicides reported in four weeks in Mumbai. All this and much much more, inspite of having good policies and schemes in place. Thing is, these are useless without good people.
Compare that with the military budget of a country that was led to independence by the apostle of ahimsa.
Difficult Conversations
Jan 5th
© Kobra | Dreamstime.com
Have you ever noticed how many of our conversations are “for the most part dialogues of the deaf.” Some conversations drag, like walking on molten tar. A precious few like a walk in the park, leave us understood, delighted and refreshed.
Dr Paul Tournier[i] points out that our tendency is to set forth our own ideas, to justify ourselves, to enhance ourselves and to accuse others. Mostly, we are so busy with our own internal conversation, our self-talk, that we hardly hear, leave alone understand, those talking with us. It seems to be as common in homes and offices, as between friends and nations.
We have been given two ears and one mouth, so I guess we need to listen twice as much as we talk. As one proverb puts it: A wise man has large ears. It would seem that evolution has mostly produced people with tiny ears and inflated egos. Some cosmetic surgery might do good. Here are two interesting links on the subject. Check them out, to help get those ears.
Difficult Conversations article
[i] Marriage Difficulties by Paul Tournier
Urban Fall
Dec 14th
© Yurok Aleksandrovich | Dreamstime.com
The trees have all gone. Cut down ruthlessly in mindless greed. The soothing bird sounds replaced by the intrusive noise of construction machinery. The fresh cool breeze transformed into a soiled, discomforting oily presence leaving a fine layer of dust everywhere. The wide open space now jammed edge to edge with cement and steel. Right before my eyes, a suggestion of Eden has rapidly degraded into a stifling nightmare.
Another block of flats rises inexorably next to ours with no breathing space in between. We will soon be able to climb over our balcony into our future neighbor’s. In some of our rooms we will have to keep the lights on during the day. This is not just happening next to us. It seems to be happening everywhere. A city named for its once abundant banyan trees is busy digging its own grave and doing it with gaurav, pride, one step away from the proverbial fall.
Twilight Street
Dec 8th
Walking along a lonely street in the heart of suburban Mumbai, one can feel the morose air of exhaustion. The wind blowing at a steady pace with nothing but cement structures to carve its way.
The faint smell of sweat and dust reminds of a busy day gone by. The street has seen it all. Happy go lucky toddlers prancing around to the distressed crawls of the down trodden. It was there before any of them first set foot and will probably outlive them all.
Posted by Wordmobi
The Economics of Begging
Oct 22nd
© Francois Etienne Du Plessis | Dreamstime.com
Anyone visiting or even passing through Mumbai city is a potential client. The huge network of the ‘begging’ franchise spreads wide across the world, it may well be the largest commercial chain of entrepreneurs there is.
Beggars, for all they know, provide a much needed service to the cosmopolitan society. Some may disagree but if we tweak the prevailing perspective on this subject just a little, we will realize what the act of ‘giving’ offers to some. It provides vindication and a sense of belonging to the social paradigm. However, this may be a spit & shine solution to a much deeper conundrum.
Giving alms to the poor has been completely redefined in the modern world. It is no longer the occupation of the weak or underprivileged. There may even be a corporate hierarchy in some begging outfits. A team leader to manage the foot soldiers. A manager coordinating multiple teams and even a director of operations overseeing the macro functions of the group.
You Know Jack!
Oct 20th
© Joe Tyson | Dreamstime.com
“Change can be a good thing if you have a plan” says Jack to himself. He is thinking out loud as he always does on Saturday afternoons. He looks outside his window at all the people walking by. He sees the pace, but no purpose. “What is the meaning of all this? Where is everybody going?”
In the heat of the day, he gets up to leave the room and realizes he is forgetting something. It is purpose – once so evident in his eyes but now replaced by longing. A deep longing for a life he only sees in his dreams, far from the real world.
“One fine day” he reassures himself “it’ll all work out.” He steps out under the sun and blames it on the weather. It’s always something. Something that he has but doesn’t need or needs but doesn’t have. ¬He feels quiet remorse for the life he never had – for the choices that were made for him. Not realizing that these choices made him the man he is.
He struggles from within underneath a putrid frustration, one that he is familiar with. There is too much at stake. He can’t afford to lose all this. Everything he has worked so hard to accomplish. Deep down he know these are just hollow shells of glory from an empty past alluding towards a pointless future.
His reason for waking up day after day in this futile existence is hope – that which no man can rob him of. Hope is his muse and his song. It carries him to places he’s never been.
“Change can be a good thing if you have a plan” says Jack to himself. He is thinking out loud as he always does on Saturday afternoons. He looks outside his window at all the people walking by. He sees the pace, but no purpose. “What is the meaning of all this? Where is everybody going?”
In the heat of the day, he gets up to leave the room and realizes he is forgetting something. It is purpose – once so evident in his eyes but now replaced by longing. A deep longing for a life he only sees in his dreams, far from the real world.
“One fine day” he reassures himself “it’ll all work out.” He steps out under the sun and blames it on the weather. It’s always something. Something that he has but doesn’t need or needs but doesn’t have. ¬He feels quiet remorse for the life he never had – for the choices that were made for him. Not realizing that these choices made him the man he is.
He struggles from within underneath a putrid frustration, one that he is familiar with. There is too much at stake. He can’t afford to lose all this. Everything he has worked so hard to accomplish. Deep down he know these are just hollow shells of glory from an empty past alluding towards a pointless future.
His reason for waking up day after day in this futile existence is hope – that which no man can rob him of. Hope is his muse and his song. It carries him to places he’s never been.