Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Want some hope?

Casino Royale with all its glitz and glamour dragged us in to 2007. Daniel Craig being christened as the best bond after so and so. Discussions about all the new gadgets,guns,gases,lasses and all those sun glasses. Bond is a fancy show piece; he has always struggled between his suaveness and his credulous amorousness. He made us (or at least me) think, that almost all girls are vulnerable. All you need is to dress up well and talk a bit squarish. I stopped watching movies for their action, style and its slickness. For all that matter James Bond doesn't bother me anymore. All he did in the late eighties were to run behind a Caucasian; who always wanted to torpedo some philanthropic activity By United States. I did gobble a lot of that shite but eventually i am out of it. I know that though he might run a long way more and might seduce a 100 more girls. He is not worth watching. For he is immoral or rather those stories don't hold any kind of scruples to relate to. Bond never saved us; neither will he do in the future.
When Bond hatched his plans to bust another bearded terrorist holding a glass of shaken Martini (In a Noida Multiplex) ; we had mothers of 40 children crying outside a paedophiles house. A gulp of martini and fell down a drop of tear. There is neither bond nor the local superman- The police, to address their problems. Well, in the same city with beefed up security and the compound walls reminding alcazars sat Naresh Gupta’s 3 year old son nibbling some pop-corn watching James Bond' swashbuckling stunts. The bitter truth to confront is that; he was also missing for some days but was back in a week or so, probably a lump-sum amount was paid. Media was there scouting for him; It turned out to be a bloody mark on the investment scenario in India. I don't remember though; the stock market would have plummeted some marks on that day for sure. For the mothers of 40 children who were brutally murdered did not have the nifty points to plummet and all their missing children was pushed in to a septic tank. The chief Minister did not visit the area because he believed in a superstition. These issues never bother the bulldozing stock market or the investment scenario. Amar singh the pumpkin headed realtor of Mulayam would have been busy attending a sassy party thrown by some obscure socialite and was probably having a stirred martini.
Rang De Basanti Thronged the Indian Silver screen with a thud. A masala cleverly weaved out of the historical struggles and the present scenario did some serious blood boiling for the multiplex going crowd. Then came the reservation ruckus; the Indian audience who were catered with the usual boy-girl love affair and the complexities involved in it; were easily gullible and RDB clearly exploited it. A RDB inspired crowd expecting to conjure a valid struggle against reservations thronged the streets of Delhi and other parts of the nation. Emails poured in; asking for help and support for this struggle for equality. Effigies of Arjun Singh was burned all around the nation; ludicrous comments like "making the boundary short for a reservation candidate" started spreading around. The up market, illusion-ed new rich in India rarely understood the nuances of this issue. Mere selfishness and inspiration gathered from a movie made them protesters.They claimed, no one in India is persecuted anymore in the name of caste, People who availed reservation in education stood galaxies away in their quality and what not. The ruckus was brought to an end with some stringent measures by the government.
Barely 6 months after this fiasco a Dalit family in khairlanji was butchered in the name of caste. Where were all the equality champions? Nobody protested nor talked about equality excepts Dalits who torched the Deccan queen Express. A drunken coot ran over some construction workers sleeping on the pavements of Mumbai; an old man who got injured was lying in front of a Govt hospital as it did not have enough space to accommodate him. He was shown on the T.V; don't know if anyone came to help him out. Champions of equality seemed to be uncannily busy. No effigies, no road blocks but just some visuals on T.V. Then came the battle in red bastion; the battle of singur. A struggle mired in mystery; A struggle by the peasants for their land in a state ruled by the communist party of India. People who believed in opportunistic politics did not wait long; they joined the bandwagon. For sure anything detrimental for agriculture will effect the nation , According to Boucher, 22 percent of India's gross domestic product comes from agriculture, but two-thirds of the population work in agriculture . Fast developing nations are always strangled with these kind of problems; after a decade or more of land grabbing the Chinese government has brought out policies to refurbish their agriculture sector. Mass discontent over the land grabbing and increased number of protests against these policies forced them to reverse the tide. We tend to realise bitter facts in a slower pace than rest of the world. Considerable increase in the contributions by Service sector and Manufacturing sector is not forgotten. Mass migration from the hinterlands towards burgeoning cities is not a new trend but this has happened on a large scale in the last decade due to our sloppy concern for this sector.
India; essentially a conglomerate of states, rolls over because of a constitution and a democracy which most of us decry about. But this electoral system has been the thin line that has moved this country ahead; if it was not in place, a country like India which incorporates so many languages ands cultures could not have succeeded. Progress and growth has been slow but a decently transparent system which ineffectively/effectively works helped this country to stay together than disintegrating. But regional jingoism has never been on the low in this nation. Increasing disparities and living conditions has forced many of this issues a bloody ending. Professionals migrating to different parts of the country in search of jobs has been a trend for long; Many a places have choked out of this influx and many despise this incoming crowd. The irony involved in this issue is; we only restrict our views to the migration of the middle class; to square it up - The migration of a doctor or an engineer or may be in lesser terms; a Professional . What goes unnoticed is a barrage of crowd that crosses their village boundaries in not so plush state transport buses and on their foot to the nearest burgeoning metro. Bangalore; a city rife with discontent about this influx has so many construction workers from all over India and i suspect their numbers to be more than that of any professionals and dogs that loiter in this city. Travelling to the outskirts of Bangalore in State run buses will reveal this fact. The decline in the rewards offered by agriculture has pushed many a lives to toil in the construction sites under rugged conditions.
Came 2007 and came articles on glossy pages about the lingering hope. Hope about a booming market, justice to everyone, no discrimination or torturing in the name of caste and creed, about a million healthy babies being born, more and more cell phones and what not. We had 2 bombings, some communal rives; an ayodhya shoot out, An-Afsal to be hanged and very few number of farmers around the country suiciding (Lets not forget, in Maharastra the government has prescribed "art of living" courses for these "suiciding farmers"). For sure there has been growth in some sectors and this has been beneficial for some who are not exactly the part of majority- Including me. Hope is quintessential for life, for, without it, life will be seemingly abrupt but glorifying the glimmer of hope and extrapolating it in a unreal way is not the answer . Nor is articulating about it in a way that it does not touch any issues on the periphery. I went through so many magazines that came out with their year ending issues and none of them differed in the contents they carried; It was all about hope and the hopeless confined to small columns as snippets. Are we evading the truth?
Read the magazines.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

agree with chunds. there is a common unrest in the minds of people.
point to note: in the annual issue of outlook they hav covered the food specialities of the rural not-so-popular places of india. well covered! the year highlights was just covered in the last few pages amidst helluva advts. jessica lall, andra farmers, gujarat and Fanaa, aamir and NBA, medha patkar and Afsal, roy and...blah blah...!!!
maybe, the media really does not want to fight!!


great read that it was, but please PLEASE PLEASE CHECK THE TYPOS AND SPELLOS!!! :) u r a goddamn writer now, not a stereotype mould engineer!

- yours truly, the other half!

Tricksand said...

HOPE ????
Lets atleast hope...
Coz...even v r leaning more towards the flashier side of life...

LeftyHenry said...

Casino Royale was terrible and puts Sean Connery and even the last guy who was also kinda bad to shame.

Frank Partisan said...

James Bond is imperialism's wet dream.

kvmurali32 said...

Bond is cinema.
I liked casino royale by the way:)
though I've watched only three bond movies.

Its true that we have a long way to go in terms of economic and social development.

But stock markets and financial institutions are important. Its not only glamour.
I mean everyone can not be farmers.
Also agriculture is especially difficult industry because it depends on unpredictable climatic factors. Besides the pain in agriculture you are mostly screwed in both under and over production scenarios because it is ethically difficult to charge beyond a maximum when supply is low and practically useless to produce more because of perishable nature of products.
These are only loose facts I've read from different sources. but they seemed sensible to me.

Even so, its perhaps difficult to estimate the right balance.

In the end, I think the nice thing about India is that all sorts of news: cheerful and bitter does get around to quite a lot of people.
Also, more and more people are trying to work around these problems.

Anonymous said...

Other than continuously cribbing abt what people "don't do" and persistenly blaming them for all the troubles of india, what is your contribution. It does not take balls to sit back comfortably and blog/criticise the activities going on around you. Kindly give a thought to "doing" something to solve this situation too.

clash said...

Thanks for all the constructive and destructive opinions!

@ Anony : For criticizing; you need not be anonymous. I am happy that, i atleast have an eye open to see all these so called filth around; I know on larger scale i am helpless in doing something constructive about this. It makes me content,rather than being in that band wagon; who hinge their life on that faithless "hope"

Anonymous said...

Nicely topped off the last year with a dash of martini.....

however I did feel a bit of despondency in your tone.....u brought out the facets that need to be accomplished but along with it we do have some things working out in our favour albeit a bit slow, which helps us have hope that the issues you addressed will slowly but surely be eradicated. May be u cannot do something about the issues addressed but a lot of issues and causes do need people like you.

:)

Finny Forever said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Firstly, nobody is "helpless". If every drop feels the same, then they wouldnt join together to form the ocean :-) (yeah kind of cliche!)

Secondly, by not being on the bandwagon, you foster false notions that nothing is happenning, and that there is false hope. If you are content off the wagon, then I would suggest keeping your eyes shut to them too, as you'd be more content that way! As "they" say Ignorance i bliss.... (yeah cliche again!)

clash said...

Thanks for all the comments!!

I am being pragmatic and true to myself and my beliefs.

"False notions" - That is relative!

"I would suggest keeping your eyes shut to them too, as you'd be more content that way!" - That aint my way! My beliefs are my way!

Jubin George said...

No disagreements. The problem is true. And it's portrayed honesly. End? :)

kvmurali32 said...

@ 'anonymous',
well, it is important to ponder over the situation around you. and it is important to criticize(and crib) about some of them as well!
It may be only a start; but it IS a Start. Its just important to try and stay unbiased and reasonable.

anyways, your posts do not suggest any matter or course for argument. You're reacting as if someone stuck out a finger pointing at you :)

Anonymous said...

I should say that some of your posts send me thinking in all different directions. Being away from India for a few months now, I too have been thinkin of some of these matters. But do you seriously think we need a reservation system all through ones career? At some point the person has to be competitive. I know that all through life some people would be looked down upon. Dont you think what we need is something more stable than a reservation system. At least something that will take over from a reservtion system in future. As a viale democracy we need such an option. Something that is other than education (which itself is so pathetic).

clash said...

@ Nuage: Reservation is a contentious issue; i agree. I am not speaking about OBC's here; i am talking about Dalits. They are way below the Indian Middle class order, Agree some of them have made a substantial leap forward, but the majority lags behind. When the reservation row sprouted, there were people around who claimed; there are no attrocities unleashed against dalits across "shining India". I was trying to catch the very irony in this post. We have never devised a plan for those are below the usual order. Almost every one was secure during the license raj times; not much of market bullying or competition happened. Still it did not help the down tordden, so I am just trying to tell, There is a chance that more numbers will get added up to this because of the ferverent competition. If not reservation; there should be something like proper and free education. It will take another couple of decades to devise something new and replace reservation.

Anonymous said...

I agree that only way to go is good education for everyone. And that competition would bring more people below the least respectable lifestyle. But how many people can u bring up by reservation? We see it around us. Who is reaping all the good? Dalits have been exploited for so many centuries that for some its a way of life to deride them. So i don't think reservation would help. Quality education for everyone should be the motto. Good schools with good teachers. As Pirsig was asked teachers should hear the question "Are you are teaching quality?" I understand what you are telling in your post. What we have here is not a population that is free to come up given a chance. And its not just the past thats keeping them down. Its the whole society. And that includes you and me some way or other. And giving a free chance to someone is more degrading than elevating. I think so.

Anonymous said...

I know i am contradicting the stuff on education. but now with all the hype that i read on web on india (thats the only way i get to know things around here) i feel its a safer bet. meybe education would help. enough sense too see the world as it is. thats all people need and sadly thats all thats lacking. i guess i am wasting your time.

clash said...

Reservation, by means is not a free opportunity doled out.

Though this might sound ludicrous to many, i have banked upon this feeling that - South India, which stands far ahead in so many facets of Human Development, when compared to North India (No personal vendetta!!) , did have an advantage of including so many down trodden sects of the society in a collective way of development. Tamil Nadu had a reservation "rural quota" which infact uplifted many a people from the hinterlands which was never allowed to be part of the mainstream development. Poor oriented policies implemented there also did help a lot of people. Though, simply squaring the development of south to reservations will be silly, but i am sure it did help a lot. May be it is time to reform the criterion on which reservation is doeld out, but there should be a solid policy to integrate the mass from the so called development happening. Otherwise we will remain as a country which will go on boasting "we have a growth rate around 9% and we have only 260 million below poverty line".