A Seeker's Diary

Ageing - the absolute truth !

2022-05-07T15:12:00.002+05:30

Ageing and the body’s final demise is inevitable! It is nature’s very beautiful way of recycling and regeneration! Ageing cannot be reversed. It cannot be wished away. When you are young and bubbling with aspirations and boundless energy, the world is your oyster and ageing seems to be as improbable a possibility as your neighbourhood puppy growing a pair of delicate wings. It initially dawns on you in your early 40s with the first signs of a receding hairline and unrelenting puffiness under your eyes. It brightens up in the horizon in your mid-40s with an incorrigibly expanding waistline, with your facial vegetation showing its first signs of unmistakable greying. It stares tenaciously into your eyes as you start pushing your 50s, with you suddenly waking up, wide-eyed, to the idea of the inevitability, making spirituality a very real alternative to exuberance and flamboyance. As you painstakingly wade towards your 60s, you finally reconcile to the fact that you indeed have aged and that it was always a one-way street!

So what do you do with it – about something that is inevitable and that no human ever had any influence over, whatsoever? Well, the answer is simple – learn to enjoy the process! You are not the first one. Trust me, you will certainly not be the last one! So, why fret over whatever is left in you and what’s gone?  So, go out and enjoy your moments under the sun. Make hay while it shines. Take care of your body, mind and soul. Start ageing gracefully!
I have tried to adopt a simple 7-pronged approach during this cycle of ageing and ultimate regeneration. Let me share the same with all of you, though I am convinced that everyone is incredibly unique and will have to design their own very personalised approach. 

1. Exercise at least 3-4 days a week – walk, jog, run, swim, practice yoga, hit the gym, pump iron, enroll in marshal art classes, learn the latest dance form – pick up any activity of your choice.
2. Make right choices of food. Eat in moderation. Cheat occasionally. Share your food. 
3. Inculcate a hobby – reading, writing, painting, music, gardening, traveling – any hobby.
4. Form new friendships. Go beyond the surface and connect with people and nature at a deeper level. Spread love.
5. Start contributing back to the society in whichever way you can. Help! Help! Help! 
6. Pamper yourself – take an occasional facial treatment or a relaxing massage. Reward yourself for even the most inconspicuous achievements. Try not to be too harsh on yourself for all your goof-ups. Loosen up a bit.
7. LAUGH more often! It takes nothing, yet it’s incredibly rewarding for you and everyone around you. Initially it may need a bit of an effort, with time it will become an inseparable and lingering part of your persona.  

Be kind, forgiving, respectful, graceful and of course, grateful. Protect nature. Let go your regrets. Live your life as it is offered to you, to its fullest! 

Live | Love | Share !!   ... ... Happy Ageing !! 

5 Emerging Trends of Modern Retail

2019-12-14T17:08:00.003+05:30

Emerging technologies and platforms will fundamentally transform the way buyers interact with their preferred merchants and brands. New battle lines are being drawn across various channels of retail and radical shift in buying pattern and preferences will exhibit pronounced shift from traditional standards.

5 trends that will contour retail in the immediate future:

1. Brands will increasingly represent a certain culture or ethos

Shopping, these days, are being increasingly driven by emotions than by sense of utility or the size of the buyer’s wallet. Millennials are gravitating towards brands that either demonstrate character or that seem to represent their personal attitude and preferences. Changing preferences and growing social consciousness has added newer dimensions and challenges to how brands represent and position themselves. More often than not brands are having to re-engineer their internal culture to align with and emanate a certain kind of external identity.

Funnily though brands and their ambassadors are increasingly becoming culture-coders-and-shapers, pushing consumers out of traditional strictures and shopping parameters. The consequences will only emerge with time, but businesses today proactively and decisively absorb and reflect the contemporary cultural buzz across the whole plethora of media – traditional and new age. Ostensibly more brands are influencing and shaping people’s choice, almost setting up wire-frames and stereotypes of a collective external cultural identity that ensures one’s integration with the modern world out there. Yet the brand themselves cannot be absolved of their views and responsibilities towards the emerging world views, values and cultural transformations.

2. Quicker fulfillment & deliveries for online commerce

Most brands that have online presence, with similar product offerings and mixes, have started appearing largely homogeneous and are scampering to demonstrate differentiators. Recent studies indicate growing consumer impatience while waiting for product shipments. They are unwilling to wait more than 4 odd days now, down from nearly from a 6-day wait in 2012. Drones may only add the ‘Wow!’ element. In order to stay sharp and deliver distinct value to their customers, in the increasingly saturating e-commerce ecosystem, e-commerce platforms will have to comprehensively re-work their logistics and supply chain to ensure shorter wait for consumers.

3. Experiential merchandising on the rise

The millennials clearly are wary of the old model of retailing where businesses focused strictly on products getting sold! The millennials are increasingly demonstrating their affinity towards the experience rather than the product itself that they actually purchase, in-store or online. This trend of penchant for engaging and engrossing experiences while shopping is here to stay and grow, and it won’t just be served by re-modelling of stores or web pages. Technology will play a huge role in adding layers and astonishing experiences around tradition retail models. Advent and proliferation of social, mobile, analytics, cloud, virtual reality, IoT and AI will encourage brands to reinvent their merchandising strategies.

4. Subscription … subscription … subscription

Going by a McKinsey report, over 15% of internet shoppers signed up for subscriptions in 2017 and there are no signs of that going down anytime soon in the future. Curated products and assortments, in keeping with one’s past buying pattern and experiences only adds to the experiential retailing paradigm. If a consumer gets extended commercial benefits for signing up, along with assurance of deliveries of preferred merchandise on pre-defined frequencies, he would be more than happy to stay hooked as a loyal shopper, for long. This simmering pattern of curated personalized merchandised, delivered to the consumer’s door on a regular basis has started to look like a trend that has arrived to stay and will continue to gain momentum.

5. Omni-Channel is here to stay

Proving detractors’ doom’s day predictions wrong, brick-and-mortar stores are not going anywhere, anytime soon. Their roles have transformed from just being the last mile point-of-sale counters to being an important cog in the much larger scheme of things as far as merchandising, interest generation, customer experience and branding is concerned. It is no more a dichotomy, rather an emerging truth that businesses will have to adopt, adapt to and grow across multiple channels.

Shoppers belonging to different decades have different shopping patterns, tastes, methods and choices. Whether they’re from the 70s, the 80s or the 90s, or whether they’re the Gen-X, Y, Z or the Millennials or the Baby Boomers – they all have their primary preferences of shopping methods and platforms. It has been observed that individual platforms and shopping experience have a direct and measurable impact on their buying pattern and decisions. The challenge for the retailers lie in being able to be seen and be actively present across platforms. At the same time, they need to create a framework of logistics, empowered by technology, to keep fulfillment streamlined for business across channels. For consumers, they seek a seamless shopping experience across various channels including but not limited to physical stores, kiosks, shop-in-shop, b2c websites, social media, marketplaces, etc.

The evolving retail landscape entails preparedness for brands to be able to charm and capture the buyers’ imagination at one or multiple channels of sale, keeping them engaged throughout the cycle of their decision making and eventually monetising their preference at some point-of-sale, online or brick-and-mortar. Focus on post-sale service, across channels and quick resolution of consumer grievance, if any, are bound to hold retailers in good stead, in the long run. Embracing these emerging trends and the transforming pattern of preferences and leveraging rapidly evolving and fundamentally disruptive retail technology landscape, brands and businesses can keep their nose ahead in the blitzkrieg of upcoming brands and aspirational retail players.

Conflicts are good !

2019-03-05T00:15:00.000+05:30

Conflicts are good!

The world today is not as much worried about the next world war, that could potentially shove humanity towards extinction. It is far more distressed with the fall-outs of the hundreds of geographically dispersed, localised, smaller geo-political and military conflicts and skirmishes. These scuffles are far more complex, heterogeneous, multi-polar and unique where a ‘one-fits-all’ solution doesn’t work. No wonder minds go numb whenever we are informed about the next big conflict that’s brewing in our neighbourhood !

Now then, we are not here today to discuss about global conflict mitigation strategies. Let’s leave that bit for the elected governments, their well-oiled battalions and their astute national security advisors.

What about the conflicts in our daily lives? What about the conflicts that exist within the contour of our homes, our societies, our offices? How bad are they? Do they rob us of our efficiencies? Do the simmering struggles lead to burn-outs? Does the organisation’s productivity remain compromised? Is it a reality that they are inevitable and unavoidable? Is it like that throbbing pile in one’s rectal canal that never really goes away completely – there are just good and bad days? So much so that you eventually accept its presence and learn to live with it?

Although, the word ‘conflict’ itself is considered blasphemous, I always felt there’s more to it than what meets our eyes. When we think of the word ‘conflict’, we usually tend to picture shouting contests, uncontrolled rage, frosty stares or nerve-wracking and stressful hostilities at workplace. Have we not made conflict synonymous with disharmony, discord and hostility? Well, not necessarily. Outcome of conflicts are generally expected to be binary, resulting in a classic winner-looser scenario. But there actually are many more dimensions to this that we often conveniently ignore or simply fail to recognise. Conflicts can be both positive and productive.

No denying the fact that conflicts are never easy, but it can also provide well-deserved ammo to growth and change, which is good. Pain is rarely desirable, yet it is pain that can wake us up, can prepare us for eventualities and stimulate us to react to challenging circumstances. Conflict is almost like tea leaves – you never know how strong they are until they are subjected to boiling water !

I remember one of my much celebrated corporate bosses once insisted that some degree of organisational conflict is actually desirable and may not be completely dysfunctional. It sometimes could be indicative of commitment to organisational goals, as individuals get competitive in trying to come up with the best possible solution. That in turn can encourage challenge, heighten the individual stakeholders’ concern and responsiveness towards the issues, and lead to increase in productive effort. This sort of conflict is essential, in absence of which an organisation tends to lose its zing and eventually stagnates !

In case of an organisational conflict, results vary, largely depending upon how the individuals involved in it choose to approach it. If approached positively, conflicts can be stimulating and can improve quality of decisions. Conflicts and disagreements many a times lead to lateral thinking and contrarian solutions. They may test positions and personal beliefs but they almost always help foster fresh ideas, approaches and alternatives. Lending firmer push towards goals, conflicts can help sprout creativity and imaginativeness of groups and individuals in an organisation. The raw energy of conflicts, if channeled aptly, has the latent potential of amazing organisational metamorphosis.

While dealing with a conflict, competent and healthy individuals tend to seek more information to achieve resolution and not browbeat each other. Strong disagreements can trigger deeper deliberations and examinations. Pragmatic decisions are often made in presence of empirical data, that may not have been available in absence of a conflict. Though some of the emotions associated with conflicts may be negative in nature, yet it also speaks volumes about involvement and participation. A powerful and engaging argument within an organisation is more often than not better than bland apathy. Individuals may either argue to make up later or agree to disagree with each other ! The idea is to be able to disagree without being ‘disagreeable’.

Conflicts are not only about someone winning at the cost of another. It should rather be about how the organisation or a group or even a cause could benefit. Avoidance can rarely be good and at best serve a temporary purpose. Conscious effort to stay guarded in order to avoid conflict can restrain groups from active participation and may result in frustration. On the other hand, conflicts with the intent of undermining the interest of the other, or even aimed at a personal win at all cost is a template for disaster. A purely win-loss model of conflict raises complacency in ‘winners’ with little incentive to improve. While ‘losers’ tend become captives of their resentment. In such cases, instead of resolution, conflicts tend to gather mass and become stronger, often leading to anxiety and re-surfacing of unresolved conflicts. Conflicts however should be managed, before they degenerate into low grade verbal assaults, that can cause irreparable damage to individual egos and sensitivities.

Conflict almost always gets a bad rap on the knuckles. We inevitably assume that conflict leads to collapse of a relationship. Many of us avoid conflict like plague, thinking that if we close our eyes to a potential encounter, it wouldn’t exist. But if managed effectively, organisational conflicts can serve as catalyst, rather than as a deterrent, towards organisational growth. The key is to develop a high level of individual and collective trust within the organisation and not take conflicts and assessments made during such exchanges personally. Then it becomes fairly easy to deal with inflated egos and personality clashes and work collectively towards resolution. It is always good to talk more and not less!

8 Easy Ways To Become A Very Bad Leader

2019-01-31T23:15:00.000+05:30

What happens, when as a leader you think you are the smartest of 'em all?

Well, you simply have managed to discover the brightest recipe for becoming a genuinely bad leader! Congratulations!

Let's unravel 8 well-guarded secrets of becoming an truly bad leader. Follow them and you would secure your place in posterity.

1. Criticise, criticise, criticise some more …

Use criticism as a tool of leadership, always doubt the abilities of the very team that you once handpicked – ensure that you lead a pack of demotivated, uninspired individuals, going through the paces, in an unproductive environment. If anything, it would certainly pump your ego, at the expense of making others feel small. Isn’t it a great incentive to start with?

2. Attention! At ease. Attention! At ease. Attention! At ease. Attention …

To become a bad leader, you must assume that every single member of the unit will react in an identical way to your leadership style. It’s a cardinal mistake for individuals to believe that you’d recognize and adapt to the variety in strengths and expectations. They are all clones; flip-flop switches; you know them all so very well. They don’t need an awesome story to stay collectively committed towards a great vision. They are so wrong and you are so right!

3. Spank them all to glory – their rear belongs to you …

You are a magician, trust me! Don’t believe in those naysayers who celebrate great leaders that swear by talent, competency and empowerment. You rightfully believe flogging can turn the floppiest of donkeys into powerful stallions! You are such a bad leader already and you can become worse by having them convinced over a period of time that they indeed are lucky to have their rear diligently assaulted as a price for their unquestioned faith and servitude. You are relentless in your pursuit of turning the mundane into the precious. You could soon become the first alchemist, that humanity would ever produce.

4. Mistakes are criminal! Kill them with impunity …

A good leader encourages his team to commit mistakes and learn from them – that’s so utterly imprudent! To be a bad leader of substance, you must always ensure that no one ever dares to commit any mistake at all. None whatsoever. You may permit them to be flattered by allowing them fleeting moments of empowerment but decisively deceive them by meticulously shooting down every plan they make and every decision they take, using your rightful power of veto. You are the highness, only you are allowed to fail. For others it must be strictly forbidden.

5. Everyone must believe there’s a plan, no one should question …

If you have to reach the echelons of bad leadership just demolish every alternative idea, annihilate every seeker of truth, decimate every query that you don’t have an answer to. No one should ever dare to question your grand vision. No one is quarter as good as you are, neither should they aspire to be so. You are the holy cow! Are they out of their mind to question the prudence of your prophetic vision? No one should ever dare to call your bluff, even if they know that you are spinning a web of lies, to satisfy your short-term goals. Every brain around you must believe in your infallibility.

6. Never ever get rid of bad people …

Good leaders try and keep the plate clean – how reckless and foolhardy of them. Bias, bias and more bias. That’s how it should be. You need a coterie. You need a team that warms up to your weirdest of bull-crap. A bad leader must have enormous charisma – you must never have to deal with a ‘no’ from anyone around you. Good people will question you more often than not, seek recognition for competency, try to make decisions and base their actions on what they believe is good for the team in the long run. They are bad influence. Chuck them, good riddance! You must invest in bad people.

7. Divide and rule … must make it your gospel truth!

Never ever allow a unit, to its truest philosophy or spirit! The more divided they are, more secure is your leadership. Trust me when I say that you can get away with murder, when you are an inspirational leader of a bunch of shady crabs! If they ever get to see merit in operating as a unit, a genuine team, your heist would come to an end. You must never allow that. Unity is disastrous for you. You have to become an iconic bad leader, the worse of ‘em all, you see. Of course, the secret is to be able to create a closed coterie of drooling suckers who would start salivating at the slightest scent of your irresistibly corrupt ideas. The rest should be taken to the cleaners!

8. Care to become an iconic bad leader? Be a bloody good student of bad leadership first …

Leadership streaks show way before you reach the helm. Never ever think your team achieving their individual goals will add up to your grand vision. Kill every personal dream. Shoot down every aspiration that raises its ugly head. Inspiring others is such a waste of time, just ask people to follow your infallible vision, assuming that you ever had one, other than making some quick personal gains. Never try to become better, you were already so damn good, what’s the point in wasting time? Never try to help people achieve greater competence, better relationships or even liberty of choices. Never give people their due credit, never – you don’t want anyone in your team to get too cocky for your comfort! Belittle their modesty as their weakness, trample their confidence, enslave them till their souls are completely robbed of any trace life or dream! You have then truly achieved what you set out to at the very start –a very bad leader!

10 Steps to Happy Parenting !

2016-02-16T00:23:00.000+05:30

Happy Parenting

When it comes to raising happy, balanced kids, behavioural science has a few proven guidelines to ensure they turn out just fine. From bringing in the fun element to leaving them alone, just at the right time – here are 10 research-backed advises from socio-psychological sciences.

Jokes do the trick …

Ease up! Let go all unwanted emotional baggage. Research papers have claimed over the years that when parents lighten up, pretend to be funny, be playful or crack a joke or two with their kids, it allows the children to think creatively, develop the art of communication and human networking, and above all manage stress better. Parents who do not mind being the clown, often have their children thanking them later in their lives!

Being positive is the way to go …

Well this certainly is a no-brainer! How often have we seen that parents who repeatedly rough up their kids or resort to physical admonishments and outright violence, while handling their children’s failures or mistakes, land up raising overtly aggressive kids and young adults. The bad news is that behavioural belligerence at an early age (sometimes as early as 5-7 years) is a sure sign of uncontrollable aggression later in life, even towards the loved ones. So, it’s like that vicious chain of a ‘violent parents – violent kid – violent teenager – violent parent’, that’s hard to break. So, reassess yourself, as a parent. Modify, if need be. You’ll thank yourself in the long run.

Cultivate a culture of self-compassion …

Self-pity and guilt has been well-recognized to play havoc among parents. Especially, with those who get to spend less time with their kids or those who are not equipped to extend certain social and material privileges to their children. It is very advisable to duck the undercurrents of remorse or self-pity. Self-kindness, empathy towards others, awareness and recognition of personal challenges, without being judgmental or apologetic is an extremely handy life-skill. Getting carried away or bottling up is certainly not the path to take. Children learn the art of self-compassion, humanity, resilience and the right ways to cope with difficulties from their parents. Are you listening?

Know when to let go …

There’s always this inflection point when kids tend to actively seek ‘freedom’, from the relentless scrutiny and control of their parents. However much we may dislike them, research findings clearly suggest, it’s probably the best for parents to know when to let go. Young adults with parents who are control freaks are known to be unusually self-conscious, apprehensive and often closed to new ideas. On the other hand children who are known to be brought up in a more relaxed environment are far likely to be self-assured, open-minded and independent. That’s doesn’t imply a parent needs to be completely hands-off. It simply means that parents do not need to act like drones, hovering perennially above their children’s heads – scanning and controlling their kids’ very existence.

Look after your marriage …

It is never enough to talk about the importance of a relatively happy and stable relationship between partners who intend to give birth to and raise emotionally stable kids. Obviously, it’s easy to preach. It is becoming increasingly challenging for couples to keep their home and relationship completely stress-free. Difficulties springing from modern life are galore and every new issue is weirder than the previous one. Yet, wherever and however partners can put in effort, they must do so. Who would want their child to suffer from sleeping disorders or see their kids grow up emotionally under-prepared to deal with the crests and troughs of life?

Take care of your mental health …

Recognize early signs of depression and tend to your mental health. Glum, negative parents, who do not display enough concern about fixing the problem, do not do any good to their children. Pre-school children, being raised by depressed parents, have thrown up gloomy results of emotional health during researches. Brushing it under the carpet is certainly not what is being prescribed here. Seek help, if you suspect that you are depressed, for the good of yourself and your growing offspring.

Be good to your kids …

A secure, comforting attachment with the child is extremely critical in arresting chances of problematic behavioural patterns at a later stage in life. A warm bond, that allows space for occasional mistakes, is a stable base for emotionally healthy mental expansion of the child. No matter how much importance is assigned to bravado these days, kids still love to look back at their parents as an all-weather, safe and secure haven they can always come back to, if the need ever arises in the outside world. Children who have not been too close to their parents find it difficult to emulate the positive aspects of parent-child relationship during their own adult years. So, cozy up!

Occasional arguments do little harm …

A little autonomy or an occasional debate or two at home is never too bad for your child! Interestingly, it has been found that however exasperating it might be, kids who are sometimes argumentative are somewhat better equipped to deal with peer pressure in the outside world. Hold on, I am not suggesting that kids should be encouraged to be confrontational at all times. But, it is also important that kids learn early to stand up for themselves, in spite of consistent parental support.

Nothing’s ever perfect …

There’s no need to torment your brain by setting ridiculously high standards and then struggling to cope with gaps and failures. Whoever told you that there’s a living animal called ‘the perfect parent’? New parents do not need to be serious enough to follow what the social order expects them to be like. No one’s been perfect, muss less any society. So, why bother? Be yourself; be confident in your intent and abilities. And, this is not a motorized task at hand, which can be ‘executed’ with mechanical precision, aided by a few formulae and global quality standards. Hey, this is the only unadulterated joy – parenting! Love it, enjoy it, succeed, falter, cry, laugh; above all, live the experience. Remember, not all are blessed to be a parent.

Above all, know your kids …

Parenting was never meant to be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ kind of an approach. It has been found that parents who were able to personalize their style, in keeping with the personality type of their child, have enjoyed a successful and pleasurable parenting experience. Depression, angst, nervousness, anxiety are often associated with kids who have had to deal with excesses of rigidity and compliance at home. Even, well-meaning parents, inadvertently land up hurting their child, trying to be forceful and inflexible, at all times. It never hurts to be sensitive enough to look for cues from your child. There’s no harm in extending an extra yard of the rope of help and care, especially for kids who have difficulty in regulating their emotions.

Happy parenting!

How do the parents know that their child needs help?

2016-01-10T00:43:00.000+05:30

Mental health of children has become the biggest conundrum in our modern society. Shrinking families, working parents, stressed family relationships, competition and peer pressure, reduced community activities and decreased focus on rigorous outdoor sports – all adding up, to take a serious toll on the mind of children and adolescents. It is never easy for a parent to decipher the precise moment when their child needs serious professional help.

The first challenge is to recognize the signs of the imminent problems. Going through little or no formal training in parenting psychology and child behaviour, young parents are found wanting when it comes to handling children and adolescent mental health issues. The next challenge lies in the timing of decisive parental intervention. At what point should one step in, and seek professional help? Millions of households around the world are grappling with deteriorating emotional health of children and young adults. Ignorance or failure to act in time can lead to far more serious consequences – deep clinical depression, irreversible trauma or even early end to precious lives.

So, is there a magic prescription for early identification of failing mental health in youngsters? Well, there clearly are many warning signs. Some of the following common warning signs amongst children and adolescents may suggest latent emotional, behavioural or mental health problems:

Sudden but visible decline in academic performance
Loss of interest in things that were previously enjoyable
Increasing amount of restlessness, irritability or complete inability to concentrate
Inexplicably altered sleeping or eating patterns
Isolation – avoidance of friends and/or family members and preference for being alone all the time
Continuous daydreaming, procrastination, inability to complete allotted tasks
Behavioural issues such as being melodramatic, uncharacteristically loud or throwing tantrums
Selective mutism, uncharacteristic shyness, anxiety of socializing and communication

Apart from the above signs, parents should observe keenly and see if their growing child is experience one of more of the following:

Persisting blues – feeling of deep sorrow and helplessness
Worry, nervousness, unfounded concerns, edginess or even anxiety over frivolous issues
Extreme bouts of radically varying emotions - inexplicable fears, anger and crying
Feeling of unwarranted or extreme guilt or worthlessness
Complete loss of concentration, attentiveness and focus, dwindling memory
Inability to get over the pain of personal loss, including death of someone close
Too much concern over physical appearance, cleanliness and personal hygiene
Constant fretting over health problems
Constant fear over losing one’s mind
Obsession, rumination, uncontrollable racing thoughts
Regular nightmare, flashback of unpleasant past events, fear of death and destruction
Suicidal or self-harming thoughts
Continuous worry about inflicting pain on others or on self

Finally, parents should seek professional help immediately if:

they happen to suspect that their ward might be resorting to alcohol or drugs
that their ward is increasingly alienating himself or herself
that he or she is trying harm or inflict pain upon self or others, including animals
uncontrollably gorging on food or purging / limiting food severely / being obsessive about diet and exercise
engaging in risqué behaviors – physically, emotionally or sexually
violating others’ rights / constantly breaking the law / damaging property
threatening or even hurting others from the same age group or younger ones

Please do not postpone your decision to seek advice and assistance from professionally qualified experts whenever the need arises. Early detection of signs of acute emotional or behavioural problems goes a long way in redressal of the issues, saving lives of children and adolescents in need of specialized psychological support. Any delay can lead to a chronic state and many a times become fatal.

Early childhood depression seriously affects brain development in children

2015-12-26T19:43:00.001+05:30

Preschoolers who have suffered clinical depression are more likely to have altered brain development pattern as compared to those unaffected by the disorder, according to new research. Brain tissues, gray matter as we normally know them, transport signals across brain cells and are involved in functions like vision, hearing, memory, intelligence, emotion and logic. Children that have been affected by depression, apparently develops lower volume of gray matter, especially in the cortex region – the part predominantly responsible for dealing with emotions.

Brain images of different children have shown how the brain’s anatomy changes significantly with the onset of depression during early childhood. This is quite contrary to the earlier belief that the brain has a predestined method of development in an individual, which is not much affected by the negative disposition, deprivation, poverty, familial support or parental nurturing, etc. The research findings help in understand why some individuals face difficulty in regulating their moods and emotions, when they grow up.

Gray matter, that develops as the child grows, is essentially a composition of neurons, along with axons extending from brain cells. Interestingly, the decline of gray matter starts happening around puberty, as the neurons develop the requisite efficiency in communicating with each other, to have to have the redundant parts and processes eliminated. The development-and-decline follows an upturned U-curve. The process wherein the gray matter development is arrested, i.e. the outmoded brain cells die off, is known as ‘pruning’. Unfortunately, the U-curve for a child with depressed early years has a steeper drop, with a smaller base. The sharpness of this drop-off, along with the size of the brain, can be correlated with the severity of the depression suffered by the child.

It goes beyond saying that these children are in the high risk zone and are under the threat of having retarded emotional intelligence and overall development of their personality. More and more physiologists, social scientists, brain researchers and educationists are trying to develop methods of identifying early signs of impeded brain development due to early childhood depression. It has been proven, that early identification and timely intervention can alter the trajectory of the hindered grey matter development cycle in individuals.

Parents need to have the kind of inter-personal relationship and create an environment at home, that would ensure positive and wholesome emotional orientation in children and young adults. The lasting positive effects would go a long way in reducing emotional vulnerabilities in individuals when they grow up, resulting in a confident, self-assured personality that is necessary for sustainable and pleasurable long-term success and happiness.

Adoption of a new solution, product or service – the ‘psychology’ behind !

2014-08-01T15:10:00.001+05:30

What led to the purchase of my second smart phone? Funnily, the question reared its ugly head only after I received the bank’s text reminder on my older phone that the expense has been credited to my already dwindling credit card. What was the rationale behind the buy? Should I blame it on my unenviable track-record of binge buying or was there a genuine (unidentified) need?

It’s never been easy to unearth the reason why a logical being would stray from rational economic behaviour. It’s been even more difficult to fathom how an individual’s values influence his choices in the in a given marketplace or under what circumstances an individual or an organization would like to be introduced to a new paradigm, product or service.

Typically, social scientists have drawn our attention to four distinct behavioural aspects that influence such adoptions or even considerations:

Worth: Buyers tend to attach ‘perceived’ value to the alternatives available, rather than the subjective ones, fundamentally associated with the products or services.

Frame of reference: Most buyers invariably resort to benchmarking a new offering against the existing alternatives (no wonder the buying decision becomes such a critical one when a new product is genuinely an ‘original’ concept with little or no comparable offerings. Uniqueness may not always be a ‘virtue’, after all!).

Valuation: More often than not these referential evaluations boil down to a discrete ‘gain-loss’ comparison.

The clincher: It has been found more often than not that the perceived notion of ‘potential losses’ leave far greater impact on consumers’ buying decisions than ‘probable gains’ out of adopting a new alternative.

The above-mentioned aspects merely cement the hypothesis well-established in behavioural economics known as the ‘Endowment Effect’ which says that people essentially assign greater value to things they own vis-à-vis the ones they don’t. Endowment effect in its very definition states that it becomes functional whenever the quantum of consumer’s ‘minimum acceptable benefits’ exceeds the ‘cost of acquisition’ that the consumer is willing to part with. Such decisions are almost always influenced by, in addition to other cognitive considerations, a bias for status quo in a tight coupling with risk aversion.

Some economists assign a value three times greater to people’s regard for what they already have as compared to their perceived value of a new product they intend to invest in. So it’s a no-brainer that to get a prospective customer to buy into a fresh idea, the new product has to establish ‘perceptual’ benefits, many-a-times, over existing alternatives.

In some cases the ‘perceived’ improvements, it has been found, is just one of the many factors influencing the decision. Precise messaging, appropriate conveyance of the ‘value’ of the new product and veracious and credible ‘influencers’ are some of the strongest levers. Early identification of fans of the new concept go a long way in creating and leveraging convinced champions of the cause, in adoption of a new technology, product or service. Understanding and appreciation of the ‘need’ and the ‘behavioural pattern’ of the prospective users is no less important than ‘innovation’ itself, when it comes to predicting or even strategizing the success of the new product.

Well, I am still trying to solve my own case of identifying the psychology behind burning some well-preserved cash in acquiring a fresh piece of the glitzy gadget. Till the time I manage to figure it out, I have decided to refrain from investing in another new smart device or even another ‘trending’ piece of OS or pricey app, at the least.

India's National Food IN-Security

2012-05-18T18:54:00.001+05:30

The country’s GDP is reeling under the pressure of Eurozone and global economic turbulence, the Indian currency is rapidly loosing its sheen, the markets throbbing with negative anticipation and each of the centre’s political allies relentlessly pushing for their pound of flesh! Did Pranab Babu, the Brahmin from Kirnahar and the perpetual second-in-command in successive Congress governments, have a choice but to declare austerity measures and a slow withdrawal of fuel subsidies? Apparently none. But why then the Government, didn’t press the button a little earlier by controlling the expenses on the lame duck President’s insipid foreign visits? Why then the state is contemplating building a 4,500 square feet sprawling bunglow, in Pune Cantonment area, for the President’s post retirement stay, wasting a few more precious crores? This at a time when the State has failed miserably in its duty to ensure food and nutrition for poorest of the poor of this country.

The article 47 of the Indian constitution says, “The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties”. Even the Supreme Court has linked citizens’ right to food to their fundamental rights, hearing PILs and delivering judgements and observations in atleast 65 cases, since 2011, related to hunger, malnutrition, food and social insecurity, etc. But does anyone believe that the Government has paid any heed to the Apex court’s call for accountability and action?

Innumerable Indians die of starvation and malnutrition. The numbers are appalling and scary. The Great Indian Food Paradox is that every year millions of tonnes of food grains are left to rot and are scandalously wasted, in absence of adequate and proper storage space and competent supply chain strategies. Ceaselessly kept on its toe by its political allies the Government continues to be burdened with the weight of the great Indian populist politics, and is obliged to be the largest single buyer of the gross national agricultural produce, in the name of a systemically flawed concept called ‘national food security’ – a misnomer in a country where well over 30% of the population are reeling under intense poverty and are struggling to secure one measly square meal a day.

The Government hardly has an alternative when it comes to buying the agricultural produce to try and protect the farmers from resorting to distress sale of food grains in case of bumper crops. Smarting under the compulsions of coalition politics, the UPA Government keeps on pleasing agricultural lobbies by ensuring basic minimum price of purchase, completely regardless of the demand-supply theory as well as the health of its very own coffer. Every lawmaker in the parliament sings to the same tune and never questions the populist yet chronically inefficient method of the Central food procurement policy.

The fact remains unchanged and is in the public domain, that incredible amounts of food grains are wasted year after year, due to the sheer incompetence of the successive Governments in providing adequate storage or establishing a properly functioning supply chain. Neither the Babus nor the Netas are willing to question the terribly flawed system, resulting in colossal wastage of accumulated stocks, left to rot under the vagaries of merciless weather conditions in open and unprotected spaces. The saddest dilemma is that if the Government sanctions funds for building up a chain of state-owned godowns, its treasury would fall short of the money required to purchase food grains from the farmers, to hoard up the godowns built on public money in the first place. What a damning irony at hand!

Another pertinent question is then why doesn’t the Government just use up the surplus crops and distribute them at subsidised rates through public distribution system? The answer is simple: transportation costs, system inefficiencies, leakages, pilferages, theft and manipulation by local officials and dealers would jack up the cost of distribution quite a few notches above the cost of storing them in open spaces.

So would it help bringing in supply chain specialists, who have the knowledge, experience, moolah and intention with no compulsion other than that of practicality, economy and commerce? Would our quintessential political class, raise themselves above serving their petty political interests, by grabbing onto an opportunity to show that they care? Or would FDI in Retail continue to be the favourite whipping boy for the legislators, especially the ones who are happy to keep a seriously starved nation hanging on its hinges, and sacrificing pure economic logic and larger good on the altar of dumb regional politics?!

Pic courtesy: various news sources

Who needs constitutional puppets anyway?

2012-05-16T11:54:00.002+05:30

The current Indian President’s foreign visits spanning over the last half-a-decade have driven an incredibly large hole, deep into the pockets of the national exchequer, funded by the struggling taxpayers. Her ‘official’ wanderlust, along with her kin, has made the country poorer by a whopping 205 crore, breaking all records with aplomb. The president’s itchy feet achieved the nearly impossible feat, while millions of Indians are left smarting under intense poverty, crippling inflation, endless corruption and dumb Indian politics.

The President, while talking to leading Indian news channels recently, justified her foreign trips claiming that her visits ‘go a long way in boosting India’s image internationally’! She described her 20 plus foreign trips to be ‘very successful’ in promoting India's growing image abroad and strengthen the country's ties with those nations. Beat that!


... is this the great Nehruvian socialist dream we all dreamt of?

From as much as I have followed the ‘ghoongta’ flaunting, coy demeanored lady during her tenure, with little or no demonstrated ‘aura’-tory or oratory skills, I am at my wits end to understand how her visits would ‘enhance’ the image of a modern, rising, new India to the rest of the world! Titular constitutional heads like the President or the Governors, in their current avatars, hardly have any influence on the Indian socio-economic or foreign policies. Some of them even get chosen based on their political affiliation that betrays their personal merit or caliber for the post. After more than half century of trials and tribulations of independent India, do we still need to continue with these useless constitutional posts and continue to drain tax payer money, those could well be used to alleviate deeper socio-economic problems like national ‘food security’?

Main bhi Anna Hazare !

2011-04-08T14:12:00.000+05:30

Anna Sahib enters the fourth day of his fast and declares a “Jail Bharo” movement across the nation on 12^th of April even as the Government hardens its stand on the “jan lokpal bill panel”. The government calls it coercion politics. I am not sure what they meant and if they expected a 72 year old social activist along with millions of other ‘jagrook’ Indians to BEG for a genuine and just demand of the Indian people, which has been swept aside by successive governments and prime ministers, decade after decade, to save their glorified bottoms fed and bred on the taxpayers money. Kapil Sibbal declared today that no politician would be allowed to be a panel member, if a civilian chairs the panel. What audacity and ego of an elected representative, who finds it inappropriate and below dignity for a member of the parliament to perform under the chairmanship of a civilian, who incidentally allowed the politician with an opportunity to represent the civil society in the parliament!! Kapil has rejected the names (Justice G.S. Verma & Lokayukta Santosh Hegde) suggested by the Civil Society. Sibbal wants a leading politician (read one of the thieves) to head the panel, to be entrusted to set-up an anti-corruption body, which would end corruption in India and bring all corrupt organizations, politicians, public service officials and Babus (read the pack of thieves, looters and dacoits) to justice. Can you imagine the fallacy?

Let the Government ignore the signs to it own peril. Let them underestimate the growing solidarity amongst the citizens, cutting across all sections of the society and all parts of the geographical territory at their own risk. Let them wait for the time when a Jantar Mantar is transformed into a Tahrir Square.

As per the Indian constitution these lawmakers selected to various legislative bodies are mere servants of the Indian democracy and Indian people. They are not the masters of the people, certainly not monarchs of the land. They are simply the elected and paid bearers of the wishes of over a billion Indians. And this is no emotional statement of frustrated Indian tax payer … this is a fact as per the Indian constitution, celebrated as the most sacred testament of Indian democracy!

Very few of us are aware of the constitutional name of this great country, as mentioned in the Preamble. But we should be since it’s not just a name, it’s the summary of what our founding fathers wanted us to become post independence. It underscores the rights and values the India society, its people and the nation as a whole is expected to enjoy, receive and deliver – “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic of India”.

Sovereignty:

How it should be – India is supposed be the supreme, independent authority of its territory, has complete and sole rights in deciding, determining and executing all policy matters of national relevance - civil, political, military, economic, territorial integrity, India’s foreign policy, et all. No other country, groups or any foreign and external entity can direct, determine or influence our policies.

How it actually has been – Ask Montek Singh Ahluwalia (America’s primary conduit for influencing Indian policy matters, directly or indirectly related to American and its allies’ interests, globally), and a host of other Indian lawmakers and public service Babus.

Socialism:

How it should be – The principle of socialism says that the State should strike to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of its people which is essential for the purpose of establishing an egalitarian society. The Indian Constitution makers opted for a path involving slow, regulated and planned growth to ensure inclusive socio-economic development of the nation, and with the idea of establishing a welfare state where all policies, regulations and government activities are expected to be designed and directed towards the development and welfare of the masses. Indian constitution emphasizes the need for ownership, control and distribution of national productive wealth for the benefit and use of the community and its components and condemns any system or machinery of misuse of its resources for selfish ends.

How it actually has been – India houses a third of the world’s poor. The Arjun Sengupta Report (from National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector) states that 77% of Indians live on less than 20 rupees a day (about $0.50 per day) while the N.C. Saxena Committee report states that 50% of Indians live below the poverty line. As per World Bank estimates, by 2015 (almost 70 years post independence), an estimated 53 million people will still live in extreme poverty and 23.6% of the population will still live under US$1.25 per day!

We indeed have a very very slow growth pattern but certainly not an inclusive one (consider the Indian socio-economic scenario which is ridden with gross inequalities). A super-power with nearly half of its population reeling under extreme poverty. An egalitarian nation, ranking very high on global corruption index, with black money stashed in foreign banks amounting to multiples of India’s massive GDP. A socialist country with its annual military expenditures amounting to more than thrice that of the money required to allow two square meals a day for a year to nearly 600 million people of this country. Mera Bharat Mahan!!

Secularism:

How it should be – The constitution urges the lawmakers, governments, legislative and administrative bodies to by and large remain indifferent towards religious influences, whilst policy making. The constitution seeks to promote religious pluralism in India where practising his or her religion of choice is a fundamental right of every Indian citizen. Each Indian is also required to abide by his or her fundamental duty of respecting all other religions practiced in India along with the rights of their followers.

How it actually has been – We still get political parties winning elections promising more Mandirs uprooting Masjids. We still have people exercising democratic rights in the name of Jihad!! We still have politicians, public servants, and extremists behind the veil of NGOs and socio-religious groups fanning religious riots and mass murders as a matter of state’s strategy, while successive governments, administration and judiciary turning a blind eye to all such gross violations of basic human rights in India.

Democratic:

How it should be – Of the people, by the people, for the people.

How it actually has been – Do I need to say anything on the wonderful D-word, used, re-used, misused and royally abused, day in and day out in the parliament, legislative assemblies, public forums, political rallies, media, and every other platform made available to our fiery Netas and Netris . The only time I see the politicians and Indian lawmakers talk about, promote and practice democracy are when they are caught in crisis or when they can visualize an impending electoral gain that can be derived from it.

The Indian lawmakers, the executioners, the reformists, the regulators and the champions of democracy are all selected (not elected … remember, we just vote for/make a choice amongst the lot presented to us by political and administrative outfits … that’s hardly a choice), and are accountable to the centralised power centres and political aspirants. Hence the deeply entrenched corruption at all sections and levels.

Our democracy is anything but of the people, by the people, for the people.

Republic:

How it should be – It implies that India is not a monarchy, that it’s an independent territory and not a dominion of any other nation. That its people have the right to self determination, right to select its own representatives to run the country, right to enjoy all the national resources, duty to protect territorial integrity and the dignity and rights of its fellow citizens. That it is the people of this country who are the collective owners of its prosperity and well-being.

How it actually has been – I leave it for my readers to judge on how we have fared as a Republic.

Jai Hind !

Our national motto has been Satyameva Jayate. Time has finally come for truth to reign supreme. Time has come for us to seek justice, seek the truth, seek the correct interpretation and execution of the Indian constitution. Time has come for us to rise and say “Main bhi Anna Hazare”

Pics courtesy: The Times of India

Mahendra Singh Dhoni - an astute leader, a modern day Midus or simply destiny's favourite child?

2011-04-07T00:18:00.000+05:30

What separates champions from good or average sport persons? It is their uncanny ability to choose big occasions to deliver stellar performances. A true champion rarely lets the occasion get to him and hamper his performance. A bigger stage invariably brings out the best in champions. Dhoni is a winner and certainly a champ.

A great leader always sets his sight on the larger goal and is never caught up in mundane issues and events. It was evident during the toss fiasco at Wankhede. No expression of anger, discontent or frustration for not getting the opportunity to bat first in such a crucial game, due to the stupidity of someone else. A close-up of his face would however have shown Dhoni’s already steely resolve hardening up a few notches after the incident. Dhoni certainly didn’t want to start his day at office fretting and fuming over the incident, which was at best a minute blip in his overall plan, and he got himself and his team to quickly shift into the Plan B mode with ease. Yet, someone had to pay and Dhoni’s team ensured poetic justice at the end. I am not sure how someone else in Dhoni’s Shoes would have reacted on the given day and what repercussion it would have on the morale and performance of the team. Great leaders handle various set backs on their path to destiny with élan and a certain amount of calm and sees it an opportunity to push ones self and his pack of men to deeds of greatness.

Gautam Gambhir’s innings in the WC final was that of a fighter’s – an innings of struggle and resilience amidst adversity. But it was actually Dhoni who took the battle firmly to the opposition camp and decisively stamped India’s authority, shutting out Sri Lanka from the contest. I have seen out-of-form captains in the past, pushing themselves down the order and shying away from impending challenges. Lesser leaders, often after a string of failures, seem to start doubting their convictions while believing in their own doubts. But Dhoni is no muck as a leader. Dhoni’s decision to promote himself was a master stroke. Yuvi, by far, was the man for India in the tournament. But when Yuvi took guard against the Pakistanis in the semis, it was evident that the Pakistanis had a plan in place for the graceful south paw. Sri Lanka, without an iota of doubt, would have had plans for Yuvi. Malinga’s super fast, slingy toe crushers would have been quite a handful or even deadly at worse for Yuvi with his high back lift. Another quick wicket at that stage would have put immense pressure on the lower middle order. Also, Yuvi’s record against genuine off spinners like Murli had been less than enviable in the past. Sri Lanka had couple of good offies operating in tandem at that point in time, threatening to further tighten the screws and create a stranglehold over the Indian middle order. Dhoni’s decision to promote himself was an out-of-the-box decision, very few people apprehended or liked. The decision was more to do with upsetting opposition’s plans and winning small turf wars amidst the larger battle. The first killer blow landed even before Dhoni took his guard. The Sri Lankan think thank could never have imagined to see Dhoni, with his terrible averages with the bat in the recent past, walking into the middle at that stage of a World Cup final, promoting himself up the order, ahead of an in-form Yuvi! Another quality of great leaders is their ability to shock their adversaries by doing things least expected by the opposition.

Dhoni with his with his modified bat lift for the occasion, low and crouchy stance and trademark strong bottom hand continued with his mission as opposition shoulders and confidence drooped. As always, Dhoni refused to play up to his opposition’s plans. He took a ‘two-leg guard’ to Murli to counter the vicious top spin and ‘doosra’ and took a stance deep into his crease to upset the length and trajectory of Malinga’s lethal yorkers. The deadly duo clearly did not have an answer to Dhoni’s proactive and brilliant strategy. Dhoni continued winning his small wars, while the opposition kept falling apart. The six off Kulasekara, to get the winning runs was a clear demonstration of what Dhoni could have done earlier, possibly playing into the hands of the opposition. But as always, personal glory and short-lived heroics was never his goal … his sight was set firmly on the real goal and his measured approach was in direct response to the prevailing match situation, worthy of a WC final showdown between two tournament favourites.

The man of the match award could easily have gone to Gauty. But it was Dhoni’s shrewd reading of the match situation and his courage to face and pay back wily Murli and slinger Malinga (cleverly held back by Sangakara, to be unleashed at the very sight of Yuvi and Raina), without exposing the susceptible left hander duo, is what won him the award from the Pundits.

I have never seen a chest thumping Dhoni, his expressions of satisfaction and fulfillment rarely go overboard, as a leader he is always holding up the team with his calm demenour in the most challenging match situations. He is pretty graceful, more often than not, in accepting defeat, but never ready to dwell in records, failures or errors from the past, those couldn’t be corrected, but always focused on the road ahead for himself as a leader and his team. His uncanny resemblance to a skilled surgeon clinically completing the task at hand under critical conditions is striking. Dhoni, with his clutter-free yet shrewd mind has never been over anxious or overtly reactive and has always had excellent measure of his opposition, delivering clinical responses to match situations. I vividly remember a renewed Indian team under Saurav’s great captaincy registering wonderful performances in the 2003 WC and then faltering at the final hurdle. The entire team crumbled after Zaheer was taken to task early during his initial spell, by the formidable Australians. Indians seemed to lack ‘Plan B’ and no one took the bull by the horn. India didn’t manage to mount or even launch a counter attack on the opposition, neither did anyone try to patiently claw back into the game for a counter offensive at a later stage. For me emotions got better of practicable logic and realistic assessment of the match situations on that day for India. I witnessed similar scenes and a terrifying Indian approach during the semi-final match between India and Sri Lanka at our own backyard, the Eden Gardens, during the 1996 World Cup. As a captain, Saurav brought back Indian cricket from the ignonimity of match fixing scandals, decently managed a group of current and future Indian cricketing legends, groomed and oriented budding match winners, resurrected the Indian teams credence in the cricketing world, nurtured an ‘eye-for-eye’ approach for the toughest opponents and most importantly got the team to believe in themselves and in their ability win in alien soils. Dhoni took over the mantle like a fish that takes to water, and along with his perfect foil in Gary Kirsten and his support stuff, managed to instill one quality which has rarely been the hallmark of any Indian team in the past – consistency. He got the team to seek collective, relentless and consistent pursuit of cricketing excellence.

An Indian captain is no less than a senior Indian Diplomat and I have hardly seen him shoot his mouth, pass value judgements or make juvenile comments. I have rarely seen him loose his composure. He always lets his leadership skills talk. Whether it’s the opposition, board president, the opportunistic Indian media or the ‘I-know-all’ TV commentators, Dhoni never seems to be flustered with criticism nor unduly bloated with praise. He just gets his ‘job’ done and he is mighty good at doing so.

While playing, I always carried my emotions on my sleeves. Hence, it was always easy for me to identify with Ganguly’s style of captaincy. Sometimes, when we are deeply influenced by a particular method or a pattern and even start identifying with the style, it becomes mighty difficult to appreciate, recognize or even see any other form, style or personality. I must admit here that at the start of Dhoni’s tenure as a captain, I wasn’t a great fan of his methods or his approach. I was so caught up with Ganguly’s presentation and approach that I almost scornfully wrote off Dhoni’s near stoic demeanor as a ‘less-than-interested’ attitude. I mistook his patience and calm as lack of charisma. My ignorance and scant regard for alternatives beyond Ganguly’s style made me judgmental and myopic.

But the Zen-like champion in Dhoni, waited for the right moment, when his biggest detractors would become his greatest admirers. He hardly used words to stamp his authority within the team or outside. He never demanded loyalty or following, he simply got them. He never tried to hog the limelight after every milestone his team achieved and quietly slipped into the next task at hand. He neither tried to banter an opposition player out of a game nor kicked the hell out of his colleagues who failed to deliver on a given day. Paradoxically, everything that he didn’t want to get forcefully, landed on his lap in due course … success, pride, respect, appreciation, loyalty, following, friends, all of them and more. It is Dhoni who taught me the fact that one can be fiercely competitive without being histrionic. If I look inward and honestly evaluate how we would normally react in euphoric and adverse situations, we are certain to realize what a great ability and almost a super-normal gift this individual has. Restraint is an understatement, when it comes to attributing the most striking aspect of Dhoni’s personality. Each time he scales a new height of as a captain, he seems to get calmer as a leader, allowing us with occasional grins and carefully crafted yet spontaneous and often hard-hitting press statements. No histrionics, no tears, hardly any dressing room tantrum. He is ever ready to soak up all the pressure, stress and failures, own up to most of the mistakes he and his team make on or off field. His emotions and frustrations are certainly not for public consumption. The only thing that he would allow us mere mortals is the spoils of his consistent efforts and the pride of being an Indian cricket follower. With success and fame comes not-so-kind detractors, waiting for opportune moments to pull him down from his hard earned pedestal. Yet, his worst critics become fully aware of the value of Dhoni as a leader of men, when they decide to suspend their skewed judgmental vision and pay heed to their conscience and sense of pure cricketing logic.

Carrying the legacy of a successful predecessor is always a tough job and doing it as an Indian cricket team’s captain is simply mind boggling. Dhoni had to carry forward the legacy of our great Dada. It wasn’t easy by any stretch of imagination (ask the successors of Clive Lyyod, Imran Khan, Steve Waugh to name a few). Some other day we’ll talk about the challenges faced by Mahi and what took him, his coach and the support stuff to blend a set of legends, promising yet underperforming youngsters and a few out-of-control yet immensely talented cricketers into a bunch of consistent and relentless winners. Today let’s celebrate and raise a toast to the team that has taken us to the new heights of cricketing excellence, from where Saurav had earlier left us.

Lot of people label Dhoni as a gambler who has more lady luck than others in every throw of his proverbial dice? Although initially I bought into the arguments (assuming there were any at all), I finally managed to think straight and get sane with my assessment of Dhoni. A fluke can happen once or twice but definitely not again and again. 20-20 World Cup, IPL, Champions Trophy, Asia Cup, World Cup, World’s No.1 Test playing team, World’s second best limited over team … all of them couldn’t surely have happened due to consistent strokes of luck. If one carefully analyses his on and off field decisions, one is sure to find a clear method to the entire madness. For example, his decision to play Nehra in the quarter finals, defying the popular choice in Ashwin. Nehra’s inclusion was based on the pitch and so was Sreeshant’s. Experienced Nehra lived upto this purely cricketing logic and the maverick Sreeshant wasted the beautiful opportunity presented to him. Incidentally, even Ganguly predicted and later supported Sreeshant’s inclusion, while doing the pitch report that afternoon. Neither Nehra’s success nor Sreeshant’s failure made Dhoni a better or a worse captain. He always insists that a leader needs to have a clear and dispassionate view of a situation, should be able to take decisions based on the given situation and choices presented to him and should be ready to stand by the consequences of the choices he makes and back his and his team’s abilities to the hilt, irrespective of the final result. The process has always been Dhoni’s focus, while the results are just the fruits he and his team enjoy today.

Given an opportunity to lead a team, more often than not I would perhaps follow Ganguly’s style, rather than that of Dhoni’s. The reason is simple, not because I prefer Dada’s style over Mahi’s … but because I cannot be a Dhoni even if I try to be. It isn’t easy to be a Mahendra Singh Dhoni, to be able to go bald and yet look absolutely at ease during ones own marriage ceremony or even during a Presidential tea party the day after a World Cup final!

Pics courtesy: Various Sources

Life of misery or death of dignity ... the Aruna Shanbaug Case

2011-03-08T18:45:00.016+05:30

“… right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution does not include the right to die,” the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court said while delivering the verdict on a petition plea to allow an end to the life of Aruna Shanbaug, an ex-nurse with Mumbai’s KEM Hospital. Aruna has been languishing at the same hospital for almost four long decades in a persistently vegetative state. However, the court made way for passive euthanasia, on a case-to-case basis and after the necessary medical and legal due diligence.

Doctors across the nation hailed the verdict, saying the Apex Court legalised a procedure already practised in India for years, on critically ill patients. Many doctors have argued in the past that withdrawing treatment or life support allows dignified conclusion to the life of a terminally ill and terribly suffering individual, while freeing families and friends of unbearable emotional and financial burden.

Active euthanasia, mercy killing, assisted suicide, whatever may be the term used, to me are one and the same – relieving an individual of the never ending misery of a critical illness at its terminal stages and allowing a safe and dignified passage into the inevitable. Religious leaders across India, didn’t seem to be too happy with the verdict, still clinging on to the 16^th century idea of only God has right to take our lives and no one else. My simple submission is then why are more and more religiously instigated people as well as state owned military forces being inspired to end millions of innocent lives across the world?

Interestingly, Santhara, a ritual of fasting unto voluntary death is an option with the Jains, similar to Prayopavesa amongst the Hindus. Apparently, the vow of Santhara is taken only when one consciously realises that one’s life has already served its purpose. Glaring precedence of Santhara being practised is glaring, when two elderly Jain women from Jaipur availed the option, less than a decade ago. If a conscious individual can take decisive call on life’s termination on apparent lack of purpose, why couldn’t one enjoy the right to dignified death over miserable and forced existence? Has time come for us to revisit some of our conformist moralities?

Aruna, a young nurse and fiancée to a medical practitioner at KEM, got brutally raped, tortured and strangulated by a ward boy, passed into a semi comatose state. Even 37 years after the incident, she never recovered from her vegetative state. Aruna’s fiancé moved on to get married and settled in the USA. The ward boy served a term of seven years for attempted murder (he wasn’t convicted of rape, apparently to save Aruna of social ostracism she might have faced, once she recovered and rejoined the mainstream! ... outrageous to say the least!). Incidentally, the ward boy after having served his term, returned to harm Aruna, to avenge his sentence. Batches after batches of trainees at KEM nursed Aruna, under the supervision of senior matrons (who also consider Aruna an iconic representation of their fight against abuse and violence against women staff in hospitals and medical centres) gaining an excellent hands-on training on treating terminally-ill patients. Activists captured head turning headlines filing petitions and giving bytes. The media drove a commercially rewarding frenzy and the controversy loving Indians got another issue to raise storm over their proverbial coffee cups. The only person who seems to have faced the entire ordeal is Aruna herself. Everyone else seems inclined to prove that Aruna still has reasons to breathe. Everyone else seems to have a reason or the other for Aruna to live on, save Aruna Shanbaug herself. Is this irony of fate or a fallacy of life?

I am still beleaguered to accept the fact that this verdict of no one has the right to actively terminate anyone else’s life has been pronounced by the state’s legal system which still upholds capital punishment as a mode of punishment and social retribution. Poetic justice, indeed!!

Pics courtesy: The Times of India

Jyoti Basu’s legacy - decades of appeasing and populist political posturing in Bengal

2010-02-10T20:38:00.006+05:30

Jyoti Basu often mentioned in private, to reporters, that a lot of things needed to be said, whether they were based on sound logic and practicable or not, due to compelling political reasons. How true he was! Decades after decades, elections after elections, governments after governments, the left brigade have thrived on populist socio-religious political posturing, resulting in retarded growth of Bengal and a growing divide and discontentment amongst various religious sections within the State, minority or otherwise. Successive Left Front governments have taken pseudo-secular stance, brainlessly appeasing sections, without giving a damn for the real problems plaguing and hurting the minorities, since independence.

In keeping with the trend, the Buddhadeb government has declared the latest ‘bonanza’ for the minorities. Electoral statistics have been showing consistent erosion in the minority vote bank for the Left Front, especially for the CPM. Two main pillars of the Left Front’s electoral success – its rural and minority support base has been showing clear signs of displaced loyalty. Desperate to woo and win back the minority vote, Buddhadeb declared a 10% reservation for backward Muslims earlier this week, following observations made in the Sachar Committee Report. With the Assembly polls just around the corner, the Left Front government can ill-afford to back-track on its years of the strategic appeasement policy of the minorities, with the current Muslim population amounting to 26% of the State’s electorate. Buddhadeb’s declaration came on the same day on which the Andhra High court gave the verdict that reservation for the minorities is an unsustainable process and hence should be abandoned by the State government. Andhra currently has a stipulated 4% reservation for the minorities. Quite ironical, isn’t it?

Public posturing for the sake of advancement of personal political ambitions has been one of the primary cornerstones of Jyoti Basu’s success. During his many political campaigns, prior to 1977, when Jyoti Basu was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bengal, the CPI(M) launched a relentless and ruthless tirade against the Congress government in power. The CPI(M) leaders promised in various public forums and election meetings that if they came to power, amongst many other luxuries enjoyed by the ‘bourgeois’ Siddhartha Shankar Ray Government, they would destroy the lavish washroom attached to the Chief Ministerial chamber and the helicopter utilized by the ministers and administrators in the government. These according to the CPI(M) and Mr. Basu were symbols of imperialism and capitalism and were against the ideals of revolutionary socialism that the leftists intended to introduce in Bengal.

Reporters reminded Mr. Basu of the promises once he was sworn in and also brought to his notice that the Left Front’s transport minister Amin Saheb has suggested that the government is considering selling off the copter. In his very inimitable style Jyoti Babu stated that he wasn’t aware of any such suggestion from the transport ministry. Amin Saheb was soon to be replaced by Shyamal Chakraborty and the copter continued to grace the left front’s transport ministry, till it got replaced with a more modern version (a French chopper – Dauphin 2, costing about 5 crore), as per suggestion of the transport ministry under Shyamal babu. There are instances of numerous such double standards. It’s a shame that the Chief Minister of an impoverished, economically wanting state, used the helicopter to visit a Student Federation of India meeting at Midnapore, burning gallons of taxpayers’ money. Not to be left behind Shyamal babu had no qualms to make a trip to Malda using the government chopper. It is a pretty known fact that Subhash Chakraborty, who succeeded his brother as the transport minister, virtually converted the government helicopter into a private taxi!

An internal audit report published in the year 1988 revealed that the State copter was used by Mr. Basu for over 5 months that year, purely for CPI(M) party’s need and activities, causing a dent worth 60 Lacs to the State Exchequer!

Ah, I forgot to mention the fate of the washroom, during Mr. Basu’s Chief Ministership. Erstwhile Chief Minister Mr. Ray had spent 80,000 rupees to renovate the washroom, which Jyoti babu found, on his first visit, unusable in its current state. He got it upgraded, fitted with various communication gadgets and other luxurious modifications at a cost of one lac seventy-two thousand rupees!

Jyoti Babu’s tryst with comfort continued well beyond his days in Europe, starting from days of his initiation into Indian leftist politics with his political christening with railway labour and trade unionism in 1944, till the very last moments of his Chief Ministership and beyond.

Whether he managing to bag a first class railway pass during his initial years as a Trade Union leader, to the brand new Audi car he flaunted during those times, that he mentioned he received as a gift from a renowned industrialist, to the Government property (Indira Bhawan) that he occupied for decades at the cost of public money and convenience, to his extensive use of state logistics and machinery to further his party’s interest, provides ample evidence of his liking for the good life and political aspirations.

Jyoti Basu’s greatest quality lay in managing to keep his image almost unscathed during his entire political career, or in managing to keep all potential corners of trouble tight and happy over the decades, inspite of delicately managing one of the largest ever coalition government at the State level, and various political opponents he had to content with in the Central Legislature.

Wonder how he would have fared during current times with this dubious identity of a conspicuously flambuoyant lifestyle on one hand and a communist, socialist, anti-establishment, pro-people political posture on the other, with the press far more free than say three or four decades back and the media a few hundred times more fearless, intrusive and powerful than during his times. Would he have still come out of his 60 years of political career with a kurta and dhoti as clean and spotless as they appeared till his last days?

Pics courtesy: The Telegraph, Kolkata

My Grandpa and the great Telengana predicament ...

2009-12-14T16:58:00.007+05:30

My Grandpa, a fierce freedom fighter and an erstwhile member of the dreaded revolutionary group - the Anushilani Samiti of undivided Bengal, gave up his radical ways after getting influenced by the Gandhian philosophy of earning sovereignty through peaceful means and 'satyagraha'. In fact my Grandpa told me that the process of introspection had started much before. He was an ardent follower of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh and was in fact deeply moved by his renunciation of politics during early years of the 20th century.

The most endearing memories of my Grandpa revolves around his ever readiness to tell stories, those from his life as also from Hindu mythology and contemporary literary classics. I heard stories of the relentless and hazardous fights of the revolutionaries, the exploits, trials and tribulations of the young members of the Samiti. My Grandpa, an avid reader that he was, kept narrating stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as well. My personal favourite ofcourse were those moments when I could see his eyes lit up with passion while his voice registered a distinct spring, whenever he read out to me and my cousins, excerpts from Bankim's 'Ananda Math' and 'Devi Chaudhurani'.

Even as a kid I used to get thoroughly besotted by the fervour that most of those tales exuded, and silently promised myself to uphold the hard earned sovereignty of this country and to fight unto death against any power or entity that tried to take away our freedom or dared to maul our national unity. Strategies were drawn out and plans were discussed with my cousins, mulling over revolutionary tactics against any impending foreign threat, while enjoying home-made freshly puffed rice (muri) and green chillies. Our young indulgent home tutor usually joined us during those fiery rendezvous. He never seemed too eager to sweat it out during an extended power-cut with the ever confusing Algebra and a bunch of thoroughly mischievous and truant set of kids. The yellow light of a meagre lantern added to the suspense and thrill. Hardly did we realise that three decades later the greatest threat to our unity would come not from external forces but from our very own people.

A complete mayhem has been unleashed after Sonia Gandhi assured the TRS Chief of a resolution on a separate Telengana state. Many a push have come to a shove since then and various insurgent groups have renewed their pledge and demand for separate states to be carved out from the existing ones, within the Indian federation, supposedly to uphold and cater to the interests of the ethnic population represented by these ethnic leaders.

Gorkhaland, Harit Pradesh, Purvanchal, Vidarbha, Sourastra, Maru Pradesh, Coorg, Bodoland are only few of the many new states being demanded by the separatists in various parts of the country. And the methods of support to their causes are varied from peaceful hunger strikes to deadly clandestine suicide attacks and damage to peoples' lives and property. So what do you do? Accept the demands and create more states and invariably add to the challenges experienced by the Central Government in handling so many states already, along with the constant inter-state rivalry that hardly promotes the national cause or that of a people (consider the case of Cauvery river water distribution issue)? Or do you thwart every possible separatist attempt on the part of these ethnic groups with sheer administrative and judicial forces, with the risk of keeping the fire of discontentment amongst the ethnic groups shimmering forever? Or do you create more effective and inclusive platforms for dialogues and formulate policies and find solutions, those aim to serve the purposes of the nation, the states and the tiniest but by no means insignificant ethnic groups?

Prior to the Partition, there were myriad numbers of Princely states those were not annexed to the Indian union under the British - those who had complete internal administrative autonomy. But once the British gave up their suzerainty, these states had the choice of merging themselves with either of India or Pakistan, or maintain their independence. The last of such incorporations happened in the year 1975, in the form of Sikkim, following an overwhelming public referendum there. India thus transformed into a complete democratic republic with no role for the Rajas, Nawabs or Nizams of these princely states in public administration.

India, since then have seen disintegration of existing states resulting in formation of new states as well as conversion of Union Territories into full-fledged states, and have been constantly living with the fear and scary possibility of the whole Union falling apart into innumerable smaller states representing the identities and interests of the smallest ethnic groups - cultural, linguistic, religious, economic, etc.!

I know my Grandpa would have questioned the very feasibility of this narrow divisive regional and ethnic politics and the credibility of the leaders propagating them, if he would have been alive and kicking. He always said, this country's greatest strength lied in the fact that in spite of the fabric of this country being a complex composite of a huge number of very different ethnic communities, people always managed to come together, to share dreams and goals, to form and put forward a united front against a common enemy. No doubt, the freedom struggle against our colonial rulers helped him form his opinion and come to this conclusion about our inherent strength as a nation. But he never told us how we could stay united and share common goals, in absence of a common enemy. Or is there in fact an invisible common enemy that we are failing to see or sense upfront?

Pics courtesy: SanAtana Dharma

Obama-Singh Joint Press Conference and an impoverished democracy: National integration and the radical groups - Part II

2009-12-05T16:12:00.003+05:30

The nation waited with bated breath in anticipation of a historic press conference to be addressed by the first officially visiting Constitutional Head of a country during the tenure of President Obama. To the disappointment of many, there wasn’t any apparent expression or demonstration on the part of either of the Statesmen to prove that was any major breakthrough or spectacular understanding, except for the fact that Dr. Singh put it in so many words, during the joint statement session, that he was ‘satisfied’ with the outcome of his discussions with the President of USA, and that Obama termed India a natural ally in the war against terrorism.

Whether Dr. Singh was able to remove the bottlenecks created by the Obama administration to the nuclear deal and hasten up the process was unclear. Neither was it apparent whether President Obama could pressurise India enough to bend to the demands of the developed nations related to the signing of the nuclear NPT or agreeing to the emission standards to prevent climate change. It seemed as if the entire media hype surrounding the summit came a cropper.

But, one statement made by President Obama got me thinking. He mentioned during his address that America has quite a few things to learn from India and took the example of India's story of being a food sufficient nation. Pride is the natural feeling that I should have experienced immediately. On the contrary I was engulfed by a strange feeling of helplessness and sorrow. Can you beat the gaping paradox, staring right at our face, that in a statistically food sufficient country like ours, nearly 400 million is languishing in severe poverty, barely surviving on a meal a day, earning much less than a dollar a day worth income?

We are spending billions on research and developing technologies to try and search for the ever-evasive, yet-to-be-detected ‘life’ on extra-terrestrial locations when we have not being able to protect or improve lives of our own very real people in our own very real, very independent country, right here, right now. I have nothing against lunar missions or nuclear energy. But I am certainly not ok with the pretentious stances taken by our statesmen and myopic politicians, while proclaiming the huge successes of the 5-Year Plans and path-breaking economic measures taken by successive governments, for complete eradication of poverty.

Even after more than 50 years of Independence India still has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country. It’s like the proverbial albatross, the noose around the neck that the world’s largest democracy is doomed to live with, forever. An extremely powerful ex-Prime Minister of this country had once famously admitted that post independence, we have faltered as a nation, in three primary areas – food, healthcare, education. Three decades later, the situation hasn’t changed much. Or has it? This is a no-brainer.

Our equity markets are buzzing with bullish sentiments and activities, more than ever before. FIIs never get tired listening to the India story and keep coming in hoards, even during phases when the rest of the world’s economies were facing crippling credit crisis scenarios.

The world’s pretty much convinced ... India is the next big thing! But are we, in reality? If yes, then at what cost? I would like to understand the true meaning of economic prowess? Is it the ability of few of the large industrial conglomerates to make mind-boggling multi-billion dollar global acquisitions or is it the nation’s ability to provide food, shelter, adequate healthcare, qualitative education, employment, social security and empowerment to all its subjects?

Ensuring national energy sufficiency is important, no doubt. But equally important, if not more so, is eradication of impoverishment plaguing hundreds of millions. Do we want to build our growth story on extremely weak socio-economic foundations?

Going by the projections recently provided by the United Nations, over a billion people are hungry, worldwide. And it’s incredible a fact that India accounts to nearly 40% of that figure. Doesn’t it sound like a farce, when our politicians proclaim India as the next economic superpower or Nobel-winning American President wishes to learn the tricks of being food grain sufficient and independent from the Indian economists and policy makers, while 400 million of our countrymen cannot generate enough income to meet their basic needs of food, shelter, healthcare and education?

Poverty rarely receives any lip service from the self proclaimed socio-political crusaders (aka political leaders and activists), nor do they get any footage in media platforms – ‘poverty’ is hardly a glamorous subject or spectacle for the ‘revolutionary’ Indian media in comparison to say a failed lunar mission, or the news related to the inability of the Indian bureaucrats to drive the nuclear deal through the Obama administration. As a nation we are obsessed with “Breaking News” ... and ‘poverty’ doesn’t qualify!

Pics courtesy: Mangalore Today

The rise and rise of the Maoists: National integration and the radical groups - Part I

2009-11-28T13:48:00.005+05:30

The PMO has branded the Maoists as a social menace and the single biggest threat to national security. The radical left ideologists are opposed by virtually all political parties representing the Indian electorate, concerned with the rapidly growing influence of the groups and its sympathisers across the nation, their activities slowly extending beyond the ‘red corridor’ of initial influence.As a nation we are spending a lot of our time, energy and resources trying to suppress the outbursts, the anger and many manifestations of the pain and frustration from decades of socio-economic disparity and deprivation.

I am definitely not a supporter of these radical groups or sympathiser of their means of protest, purely due to the fact that I am a firm supporter of democracy and do not subscribe to any form of ruthlessness, violence or indiscretion, that in any which way hurts the very foundation and fabric of this nation .

I just have a feeling, as a law abiding, tax-paying citizen of this country, that our establishments have missed a trick or just not inspired or competent enough to decipher the macro picture. We have got entangled in the myriad outbursts and the violent demonstrations and in the processes of enforcing cosmetic damage control mechanisms, rather than analysing the circumstances and drafting solutions to the bigger problem – the ‘causes’ themselves, those trigger such extremism. As long as the real causes of the collective anger of a large section of people remain unaddressed or unconsidered, it will to continue to sprout insurgents and radical groups, those who would chose extremism and violence over peaceful and democratic means, clamouring for rightful attention from the authorities and the of people of this country. The once feeble voices will start gathering greater support and momentum, possibly engulfing larger and more influential sections of the civil society. Involvement and moral support of more and more educated intellectuals from the social mainstream, to the mass struggles and the downtrodden fore-fronting these struggles, happening in many pockets of rural Bengal should be seriously considered as an omen of bigger things to come.

We blame the rebel leaders for instigating violence, for garnering groups to take up arms against the state and its administrators. But if one considers a contrarian viewpoint, if this great country and its citizens are already being administered as per the vision and promise of the founding fathers, if the pillars of its policies and programs are firmly entrenched into, meant for and are being executed for the overall welfare of the Indian people, why and how would a handful of radical leaders be able to turn an entire population against the state and its machineries? Should we believe that the ideologies, philosophies and policies of a few separatist and extremist leaders are far better and stronger than those propagated by innumerable freedom fighters who fought for a free Indian society shining bright with equality and tolerance or for that matter from those championed by hoards of notable social scientists and political ideologists and leaders, produced in the last five decades and even earlier, in this great democracy?

Time is ripe for collective national introspection and debate. The last and the most mindless thing we could afford to do at this point in time is to equate the primarily imported Jihadi separatists with radical leftists sprouting from within this country.

Terrorists, terror itself or something else... which is the real problem ?

2009-11-23T13:36:00.007+05:30

Does terror have a face? Many would say it does. Some would say not one, but many.

It seems our definition of terror or its many faces have very slowly, unconciously yet decisively narrowed down to a very small range of dreadful acts and demonstrations. As if, we almost have build a 'brand' called terror and not all horryfing acts of human indiscretion qualify to be branded 'terror'. As if a certain amount of collective 'colateral damage' is neccessary for an act to be termed as a truly terrorising one. As if terror is proliferated exclusively by organised networks and so called socio-ethinic institutions and cannot be perpetrated at a personal level. Our societies, unfortunately, have been desensitised to the endless acts of terror those affect our daily lives relentlessly.

The Indian central anti-terror investigating agencies are suddenly on a functional overdrive, since 26/11, trying to nail evidences against the perpetrators of institutionalised and often state-sponsored acts of terror. The indian beaurocrats are burning midnight oil - and also gallons of HSD and other jet fuels, crisscrossing continents - to convince the so-called 'allies in the war against terror' to effect extraditions and sanctions and so on and so forth. But, no state agency, institution or action group in this country is found to initiate any strategised and structured action against the growing numbers of cases of domestic violance, of various forms, happenning all over this great democracy, accross all sections of the civic societies. It is apparent that quantity and scale of tangible loss has become the measure for qualification of events as acts of terror. In fact in the last couple of decades or so terror has been glamourised to fault and industries have been build around it - ones those are either for or against it, benefitting a section of the society who are aware of its tremendous commercial potential. Who have the mind, the means, the say, resources and tools, either way - for or against, to use the raw material called 'fright' and process it to churn out the proverbial millions. And that includes nuclear powers, rogue states, jihadi groups, religious intolerants, political parties, unscrupulous industrial houses to local goons, land sharks, political cadres and perpetrators of domestic and social violance.

Cadres of a certain political party vandalising the office of a leading media house in Mumbai, is nothing but a well-strategised act on the part of an organisation, which, along with its politcial ideology, has been steadily slipping into terrains of social and political irrelevance in the last few years, in a compellingly consmolitan and economically progressing state. Ditto with Talibans, who have started turning their weapons against the very establishments those created the dreaded Frankesteins out of them and have suddenly started disowning them. I fail to understand how such acts of terror are different from the continuing waves of tortures, trials and tribulations against millions of women in this part of the world or for that matter the rural population painfully and perenially languishing below the poverty line.

Terror has always been a method, a tool, to establish authority, a regime, an industry within the purview of a social framework - local, regional, national or beyond. What we classify today as 'terror' are mere manifestations and outcome of years of cumulative social degeneration, which we have not put enough efforts to understand and reign in. Acts of consistent domestic and social violations have equally consequential, far-reaching and irreversible ramifications on the very social fabric and demographics, those keep on producing global terrorists, in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Asia, Africa and other places, spreading to the farthest reaches of this globe.

What probably needed for us to realise is that terror and its shoots has penetrated the most private and personal quarters of human lives challenging the very basics of existence. Our appreciation and understanding of the very nature, dimensions and scale of the problem has to chage. Our notions and the presumptuous approaches and methods of finding a solution to the menace of terror needs to be revisited with care and concern.

An act of terror cannot nullify the effects of another, neither can it mend the degenerating roots of our society. Terror in the name of 'war against terror' can only add to the sum total of horror, panic, loss, sufferings, miserability and near mayhem affecting lives of millions and virtually pushing us to the brink of a complete human holocaust.

In fact there isn't "A solution". The process has to start - a process that is sensitive, humane, inclusive, non-hypocritical, unselfish, broad-based and aimed at arresting the poignant social degeneration and not as reactive, stop-gap and short-sighted as 'fighting' terror with an equal amount of guile and terror. It's like fighting the effects and manifestations of a disease, conveniently turning a blind eye to the the disease itself. I have not known a fire that has doused another fire ever. The solution has to be trasforming and not reactive or restricting.

The core of the problem

2009-11-17T16:29:00.012+05:30

A vessel criss-crossing vast expanses of water across continents, carrying people and cargo is known as a 'ship'. A vehicle traversing the terrains of space, reaching out to the farthest corners of the milky way and beyond is called a 'spaceship'. How would you term a capsule that's designed to carry passengers, machinery, tools and nuclear load to the 'core of the earth'? An 'earthship' ... a 'geoship' or something else?

In fact, irrespective of it's nomenclature, it's pretty intriguing a concept, isn't it?

Well, I got to watch a movie on the TV the other day and was immediately pushed to the edge of my imagination, after a long time. It's about a group of American volunteers, from various walks of life, virtually sacrificing their lives, to protech mankind ... as it always happens in those great American sci-fi fantasies, where a bunch of Yankees take it upon themselves to save the world from the clutch of imminent extinction, due to some terrible natural disaster. The movie under consideration is about a set of people, including one representing the NASA, a geo physicist, a post graduate university professor, a nuclear physicist, a space craft engineer, a navigation specialist ... can't remember the exact mix ... seven of them in all ... joining together on a mission, to get inside a capsule, specially designed, almost resembling a screw, with laser projection systems at the fore, to drill through the earth, piercing the crust after reaching the bottom of the ocean, to go through various layers of the earth, facing deadly challenges in each stage with great American gusto, finally reaching the 'core', to bombard it with a pre-calculated loads of nuclear ammo.

All this and more apparently to 'stablise' the core that has been destabilised for some geo-physical reason which has created waves of mammoth and irreversible natural disasters and destructions, around the globe, sounding the bells of "dooms day".

Well, I must admit, the film is worth watching simply for the reasons of ingenuity of the plot, the quality of the performances of the protagonists and of course for the surreal special effects perfectly suited for a high intensity sci-fi. But, my contention is not the quality of production but the subject itself.

Why do film makers, more so in the Western World, make movies those depict onset of natural phenomenon of incredible proportions or disaster upon this earth, for reasons created by man or otherwise, and how human beings fight tooth and nail, assisted by huge advances in technology, with the impending disaster to prevent complete wipe out of humantiy from the face of the earth.

What's the purpose? Is it just stretching the limits of imagination and fear in the minds of the cine going audience to rake in the moolahs? Or is it to put to use the ever evolving movie making techniques and SFX to create the scale and hoopla around emerging trends of entertainment? Or is it simply man's desire to convince himself that he has the willingness, abilities, means and resources to take nature head-on, at any given circumstance, and emerge victorious in protecting its existence against any natural onslaught, caused by his own insensitivities.

Hope we will live another day to find the answers ...

Pics courtesy: travelblat.com

The quest begins ...

2009-11-14T11:24:00.004+05:30

... who cares for just another blog ? I don't. Do you ?

... but then why am I here ? doing what ? looking for who or what ? do I need anything ? or do I have something to offer ... something to share? who do I share with? who needs my thoughts and paraphernalia anyways ?

... Heavens !

... why, who, when, what, where, how ...

God ! ... this is way too confusing ...

... and I thought it was a cakewalk ...

But then, on second thought ... I see a purpose behind all this confusion ... the reason behind this madness ...

... a faint picture appears ... very faint ... worne out by decades of oblivion ... a kid standing spellbound, watching with his large, vulnerable eyes wide open with wonder ... Gouri, one of his few favourite animals reared in the backyard of his house, delivering its first off-spring in one of the chilliest winter mornings of the late 70s. The kid, along with four other cousins, who were all part of a large Brahmin joint family, got mesmerised by what they saw ... the apparent signs of pangs of birth-pain in Gouri, a large, beautiful white cow, the concern on the face of the middle-aged veterinarian and "Jethu", the eldest son of "Borodadu" (the elder amongst the two grandfathers in the family), who were overseeing the delivery and who had allowed the kids, after a lot of pestering, to watch the spectacle ... the plausible relief and joy in the air once the calf was delivered, the pet doctor's post-delivery care, Gouri's anxiousness to shower her care on the newborn, the wet calf's constant effort to stand and stabilise and its inability to do so, its palpable joy and comfort on being licked all over, by its mother ...

... days passed ... watching the antics of the new born became a favourite pastime of the kid .. how the calf got used to drinking away its mother's milk ... how it got used to the presence of kids around it ... how it got used to getting tied down to a post, when its mother got milked for the family's consumption, how it got used to the jute sack that got wrapped around its body during the night to protect it from the chill, how it made itself cosy with the warmth of its mother's body during the nights ...

... the best part for the kid was ofcourse something else ... his first exposure to uncontrolled, no-holds-barred freedom and apparent madness ...

The backyard, the courtyard and the empty space around the house was substantially large ... and the calf made the best use of it ... it spend hours running around, not strong or stable, yet free and energetic ... reaching all possible corners ... randomly altering its path - without any rhyme or reason, deliberately pushing the frontiers of the space available, completely unmindful of any danger whatsoever, often slipping and hitting things unmindfully, everytime getting up on its wobbling legs and re-initiating its run ... as if destinations didn't matter, goals were yet unheard of ... reasoning made way for the sheer pleasure of exploring ... the blinding passion and intoxicating insanity of "seeking" ...

... the kid loved what he saw ... it got etched, permanently, on the canvas of his young mind ... got covered by the dust and dirt of changing time, responsibilities, priorities and sensibilities ... but the form stayed ... the beautiful images stayed ... the urge to be able to become as free and carefree as a newly born calf, on a chilly winter morning stayed ...

... the kid grew up, started making money, became socially responsible, got "focussed" ... "goal-driven". ... but the wish remained ... and probably gathered momentum ...

... the kid's search for freedom continues ...

The Seeker

Pics courtesy: First Baptist Church

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