Capitalism as parasitism...

I just finished "Confessions of an economic Hitman" by John Perkins, & Im indebted to Mufaazaa for gifting me the amazing book! While I cannot make up my mind whether it is fact or fiction, the book does cover the most widely debated topic today: American imperialism.

The author claims to be an Economic Hitman (EHM) for a private company(that was sold off to another company subsequently). His sole aim is to create lucrative economic projections about third world countries, justify world bank / IMF investments into them, and then gain contracts worth billions of dollars for his own company. The larger aim is to make the country so indebted in the long run that it defaults its payments & accedes to US power by allowing military bases on its soil, opening its natural resources & workforce to US companies & voting as per US instructions in the UN. Thus US gains a slave without spending a dollar, since all the money is funnelled back to the States by its companies.

The author denies this being a conspiracy; rather its just a set of minds that methodically go about getting richer by sucking dry the resources of other countries. Perkins claims to have worked in Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Indonesia, etc. He also puts forward another way of supremacy for countries that are cash rich: the middle eastern nation-states. Here the US asks the countries to buy US bonds and use the interest to finance infrastructure development in their countries.

The greatest ease for US is that the dollar is a universal currency & it isnt backed by a gold standard. Hence, it can print any amount as long as the world is confident of the American economy. The book is written just before the depression set in & has important lessons to teach.

Perkins also talks about American dollars funnelled to terrorist organizations & CIA assassinations of top global leaders, not for political motives, but purely for greed. He also points out that most of American bureaucrats & politicians are, in fact, on the payroll of large American Corporations. To sum it all he has coined the word: "Corporatocracy". It think its says a lot.

I read Chomsky some time earlier, & coudlnt convince myself about what he wrote. He seemed leftist to me. Perkins, however, is a capitalist who has grown to despise the system which gains its riches by killing & starving others.

For the first time in my life, even if momentarily (until i do further research), I am glad that India has not bowed to American pressure in that last 50 years & opened up its economy only in the 90s, a time when American power is either declining or concentrated in numerous wars elsewhere. 

Perkins also points out that America is the only country (other than Iraq) to have invaded other countries in name of justice / democracy (Vietnam, Korea, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan) while the sole aim was economic greed. It is, the modern East India trading company. Instead of being one company, its an informal consortium of the largest corporations in the US.

I will write more posts on this topic as i reflect & research more, I hope to start a dialogue with the readers... & we thought our politicians are corrupt!!!!

Na...aah....No...oh!!!!!

There's this big moral battle & im unable to take sides! I just keep wondering & arguing with myself: to be or not to be!

Im talking about Ms Nano by the Tatas. While tech-geeks are hailing a great Indian invention (almost), the transport planners are up in arms against the probable exponential increase in congestion that she will create.

The geeks have retorted that Nano pollutes less than a two-wheeler, and will make travel more orderly, as the great two-wheeler riders are responsible for rash driving most of the time. The transport planners agree with the latter, but cannot reconcile to the former...

So where am I? I agree there will be increase in congestion, and increase in cars. So less people will use public transport & since we cannot come to terms with congestion taxes as a nation, we will create endless traffic jams.

But there is another side: the sheer willpower and simplicity in invention! The Tatas have succeeded in creating a car that is technologically at par with the best luxury cars, while being sold at a pittance. They have created a complete car at the cost of an auto-rickshaw! & the most accomplishe heavy-weights have contributed to its advanced engineering. 

My inspiration is in the fact that if we can create a low cost- hi end car, why are we still using archaic techniques / technologies in other parts of our lives? Why do we have manned signals, buses that look like a walking dumpyard, camel carts, polluting two-wheelers or cars, & so much more? 

If each of us aims to create one such great technology, we would all be much better off, be it transport planners or tech-geeks. Forget the argument guys, LEARN FROM IT!!! & now that Nano has already arrived, think of how to live with her....

In sanity.... A million little pieces

I recently read A MILLION LITTLE PIECES by James Frey (borrowed from Pranav). I was initially quite skeptical of reading the book, since the back cover said it was a story of a drug addict's rehab time. Frankly, i thought he would banter about the difficulties of rehab & ways of doing it, blah blah. Interestingly the book is controvertial: the author has listed it as non-fiction but changed a some incidents to suit the story. The publisher has written a note to the same effect, as the fact came up after publishing the first print.

Frey describes his journey through rehab almost like a fiction story, the whole drama is continous & catchy. Starting with his beaten up image to his time through rehab & his disbelief in the entire program, the pace is quite comfortable. While accurately describing most of the symptoms & rehab programs, Frey manages to weave together a small romance, some drama & a lot of retrospection into the story.

I was caught by his self-talks around halfway through the story where he starts wondering why AA (alcoholics anonymous) works or doesnt work, why the success rate of de-addiction is so low as less than 15% , and who is responsible for the larger ill prevailing in the society. 

While Frey takes complete moral responsibility for his own drug addiction and state of mind, he hates the support programs which try to channel his addiction towards belief in god, social support, confessions, etc. His musings over belief in god being just another addiction to run away from responsibility & life are quite thought-provoking. Also, he talks about how some doctors are trying to prove that addiction may be a genetic disease & why he wants to reject the possibility (even though his grandfather was an alcoholic), and take moral responsibility.

However, the climax about the start of his addiction - the reason he runs away from life, hates his parents (even though he knows they love him & support him all the time) and hates society / wants to die takes away the prize. It comes at the end of the story, and is quite unexpected as it does not affect the story from point of its continuity, but makes an important point all the same.

One should read the book to understand the perils of addiction, the feeling when addicted, to know about addicts & their thought process in general & the state of society & the world that leads people to drug abuse & addiction. 

I felt that the story was most part fiction, and the romance (which takes up quite a lot of the story) could have been completely avoided to make the story crisp & precise. But its a good read nonetheless.

(h)our earth....

Saturday was earth hour & i religiously switched off my electricity for an hour, eating by candle-light... Looking out of my house, though, i was aghast... the rest of the world was lit as usual..

Inspite of our media taking up the issue with great fervour, i could see it had little impact. So what went wrong? Why were all those people completely insensitive to the earth hour? I haven't seen much of the media campaign other than excerpts from last year's sydney earth hour. I believe they completely missed (though i cant confirm this, as i couldnt have seen tv all the time) the concept of earth hour. If we are trying to save some CO2 pollution by switching our lights, then was the whole idea even conveyed?

Also, i was hardly a willing partner to the whole idea. My skepticism arises from the fact that there may be better ways to reduce CO2 consumption on a regular basis, rather than such rare mass-movements. Our government does try hard to advertise use of CFLs over incandescent bulbs, switching off engines at traffic lights, switching off electronic items on standby and the likes. I believe the campaign is true at heart, but for some weird reason, nobody (in the media) wants to take it up voluntarily. Maybe, it has no "scoop" value. Anything that is regular becomes too ordinary to discuss & unfortunately our media thrives on new scoops.

So, how about an earth year? How about we decide that for the next 365 days we will:

1. switch off our electricity for half hour (one hour is too much, & those with power cuts are exempted)

2. switch off our engines at intersections

3. switch off all electronic items that have standby mode, and move our bums to start them only when we need them, rather than use the remote (aka tv, audio systems, laptops, etc etc)

4. remove chargers from sockets when not in use & switch off the plugs

5. drive at optimal speeds (upto 60km/h i believe) & not accelerate too fast & brake too hard

6. use the stairs atleast once daily instead of using the elevator (even downstairs helps!)

7. switch off our computers when not in use / atleast switch off screens when leaving the desk (even laptops have buttons to switch off screens)

8. promote (& use if possible) solar heating & lighting

9. close doors / windows when using air conditioners (ensure place is almost air-tight) & draw curtains to reduce heat load on the room (those with glass walled offices may demand partitions / dark +thick curtains)

10. reduce daylighting by using / creating ventilators in the room to allow ambient sunlight

These are things that hardly need an effort & yet can save enormous amounts of electricity & subsequently reduce CO2 pollution. For those of you who are really concerned, please go ahead & try these out! One radical point that i missed out : "Bicycle your way to the office / use public transport!!"

Dont look at me, i'm not the one who wants to save the world! Dont expect me to do this for the next 365 days! Besides, advice is always free! :P

A drunk society #2

This is in response to Jun's comment to my Drunk Society on: http://flippidy-flip-jun.blogspot.com/2009/03/response-to-sandys-drunken-society.html

I've been quite waiting for some response on this one! i quite agree point 3 is downright rude! Responses are numbered to Jun's points:

1-a) I repeatedly pointed out prohibition did NOT restrict access to alcohol, it only made it unacceptable in public places

1-b) The question of a parallel underground power structure is an interesting one. Albeit, the idea that it can exist only in presence of prohibition like Al Capone's gangs is wrong. Even when alcohol is legally available, there are standards guiding what alcohol is, for safety. In small rural breweries, alcohol is made directly from chemicals - it is essentially ethanol. A little mistake in that chemical process leads to the deaths of many unknowing persons. Hence, the government tries to control such unlicensed brewers. This results in the rise of another mafia - the cheap liquor mafia / the counterfeit liquor mafia, & so on. My point of the above ranting is that we cannot avoid a parallel power structure like mafia. It is a product of the society, & shall exist irrespective of prohibition.

1-c) morality & stigma ARE ineffective! thats why we need the law!

1-d) yes, prohibition is unacceptable to all, including you & me! all the same, its necessary for a saner society!

2) The very idea that treatment may  not be available to cure drug / alcohol related problems is one of the largest reasons of self-control in use of such items! Treatments are available to addicts, if only they are willing to accept the social consequences! There is enough research in drug related disease programs to cure most of them. Why they dont go? Its a social stigma to accept the fact!

3) this point is quite invalid. Its only because of prohibition that we dont find drugs being sold on every street corner, like we have pouches of gutkha. Nobody needs a lesson in diseases (aka cancer) arising from intake of any of the above. Very simply, WHY should the society tolerate those who willingly hurt themselves? only to turn back to the society for support when they are full with their stupidity??

Prescription drugs may give us a high, but not many of us are willing to try that. Only the desperate do it! Liquor has been given the status of a social status symbol / necessity against wordly problems. It is this label that i am completely against, & prohibition is a tool for that! There is no way we can control anything completely! Not atleast in our great Indian democracy!

4) The problem of liquor is very different from that of smoking. We are not just talking of the urbanites here, but the other 50% - rural folk. Liquor available in urban areas & to middle class (+ above) has high standards - meaning it does not give much of a high! But local brewed chemical based liquor available in rural areas (our potli!) is quite a thing! Its no less than a synthetic drug. It can give a high like no other & even kill the user! When taken in, the person is hardly in control of oneself. When you turned up drunk that day, you had a commercially available brand! The best you could have done is taken your pants off! But had you tried true-to-its-name potli, you would have ended up pulling everybody's pants down! Believe me, you just need to go to rural areas to see what brews there! They put in anything that works - from chemicals to dung to animal fat / meat to rotten flesh, anything!!!!

5) I dont believe gujarat is the safest place exclusively because of liquor. My point however was that it is quite an assuring thought to not have drunk people running around the place! & i will stress again, its hardly a problem in urban areas - im talking about rural areas. The  reason why we dont hear enough of it is because media is urban-centric. The rural news come in only when hordes of people die due to consumption. No brawls / riots / drunken stupors are reported in mainstream newspapers! 

Regarding my view of drunk people, im sure you can make out the difference by now - its in the liquor buddy! The things urbanites use regularly are hardly stupefying!

Your historic perspectives are quite catching! I had no idea of the same. Gives me all the more reason to talk about prohibition! The examples are apt too, as a society level structure of drinking versus a personal riot. A social drinking ceremony leads to further ills, a personal bout is also less harmful.

To quote myself again, prohibition is a good social practice. While people may enjoy liquor personally in their homes, it is quite risky for the state to publicly allow liquor consumption & face the consequences.  I too believe that any kind of prohibition should not be regulated by the state, but we live in a society that is hardly self-regulatory!

The Story of Isaac by Leonard Cohen

The door it opened slowly,

My father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
His blue eyes they were shining,
And his voice was very cold.
He said, I’ve had a vision
And you know I’m strong and holy,
I must do what I’ve been told.
So we started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
And his axe was made of gold.

Well, the trees they got much smaller,
The lake a lady’s mirror,
We stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over,
Broke a minute later,
And he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
But it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
He looked once behind his shoulder,
He knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now,
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision,
And you never have been tempted,
By a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before.
When I lay upon a mountain,
And my fathers hand was trembling
With the beauty of the Word.

And if you call me brother now,
Forgive me if I inquire,
Just according to whose plan? 
When it all comes down to dust,
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust,
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
Have mercy on our uniform,
Man of peace or man of war,
The peacock spreads his fan.

A drunk society...

The Times of India Ahmedabad has a reader's debate on whether we should allow drinking legally in Gujarat. Most readers have voiced that it should be allowed because it leads to additional revenues!!!

Are you out of your mind!!!???

First of all, in theory, i would disagree with the government deciding who should drink or not. But we are not a society blessed with a good enforcement agency. Hence we cannot control the drinking problem. So, for this imperfect location, a draconian law prohibiting liquor consumption is necessary.

I am aware that liquor is freely available, as & when required in whatever quantities. The only disadvantage is that the state does not earn anything from such transactions. So, why should the state earn trying to kill its people? By enacting prohibition, the state has the following advantages:

1. Nobody comes out drunk on the streets (except rare instances). This leads to a high level of public security, making Gujarat one of the safest places to live. 

2. Offenders can be booked for more than just drunk driving or public harassment. They can be booked for long & fines taken from them.

3. The state can officially deny free medical benefits to diseases arising from drinking & thus save itself a lot of mess. If there was no prohibition, the state was bound to admit those with drinking problems / diseases & create an enormous infrastructure for them. That will take away more than the earned revenues.

4. The state does provide loopholes like licenses for drinking to foreigners, NRIs, "health problems" etc. Its a safe way of earning, controlling drunk behavior & having a list of all those who drink officially.

5. It is legal to have parties with drinks for corporates who can take permanent or temporary licenses. Hence, the state does not suffer the problem of hospitality to outsiders.

6. Social drinking is as common as elsewhere, but only under wraps; and nobody walks on the roads after drinking, which is better! Also, because one has to pay a high price for the liquor, drinking is restricted. In addition, local liquor dens can be kept under control, and death due to drinking improper liquor among poor people is reduced (if not prevented completely)

7. Why the hell should the state allow for an activity that is harmful to oneself & others? If smoking & drugs are banned, why should liquor be allowed freely?

8. I would agree that we miss the famed pubs here. But the drunken brawls seen at pubs all over are a happy avoidance here, at the risk of sitting idle on weekends! UAE has a law where one cant be found drunk outside a pub! If we had such governance & enforcement, we would have happily opened pubs everywhere! But, with our system, prohibition (& then secret drinking) works better!

what a night!

i went along with my own kidnapping (not kid, but oldie now...) they took me to rajwadu (traditional gujju food), fed me till i was on the verge of blasting! & then they took me on top a flyover....

what a perfect way: bakra halal karne ka!

& lo it was 12... a few gave hugs, rest handshakes.. but all applauded!

& yet... how can one not have a rebel in the group..it was sandy.. not me, the other one...

so he greeted me with an egg on my head just as i was to cut the cake... well i took two down with me...spoiling the dresses of the two ladies!! thanks to sandy...

well. whats more to say...they painted me brown, white & yellow (ughh the yolk).. & yet it was one of the most memorable nights ever!

thank you all for coming together, however randomly, and making my night a dream!!

best wishes to all & eggs to sandy ! ;) :P

Bureau-cut

I have been grappling with the political system for a couple months now. A few weeks back, i came up with a random proposal for personalized democracy. While i was right in choosing the words, the content was mis-directed. I have been reading Toffler's Third Wave among other things.

Toffler talks of a version of personalized democracy that didn't cross my mind:
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

Our most visible NGOs, discussion forums on the web, groups  on yahoo / orkut / facebook, etc are all a visible version of a special interest group. Toffler describes how we will increasing resort to special interest groups (SIGs henceforth) in order to channel our voice / frustration / complaints, etc. It is the simplest form of a gathering, and yet so powerful. My projection of a personalized democracy shall run as follows:

- instead of having a large bureaucracy filled with babus, we are already using ngos & regulators (an official SIG, so to say) in order to smoothen our daily administration. The power of the political system is diminishing before the strength & voice of such gatherings / SIGs. This will only be magnified in the future, leading to regulators for every large & small thing / service / idea, etc. The marked change will be that instead of being appointed by politicians, these systems will be largely self-reliant. Regulators will be chosen by the general vote of special interest groups and so on.

- the second phenomenon that is increasingly becoming general is self-reliance. We resort to self-help more than ever, instead of calling in the expert. We have idiots guides to everything now. So, instead of electing one representative to solve all our problems, who will in turn appoint competent persons to do the work while he supervises them on behalf of the voters, we will remove the representative himself! We will, each one of us, become regulators, appointing competent persons in each field for each issue, and monitoring the problem on a real time basis. Our collective voice / participation shall lead to a direct interest & responsibility to each issue. 

But, in a life busier by the day, how can this be envisaged? Busier is a relative term. We are busy with what we are concerned with. And yet, we have time to fix our own cars / phones / computers, etc. These smaller tinkerings take up all our time. Now imagine a person beginning to tinker with his neighbourhood issues....

Not convinced? Take the times of india Teach India / Lead India campaign, Clean Ahmedabad (or your city) campaign, etc. Instead of complaining as usual, people are participating to make a difference.

I completely agree when anyone points out to me that these things have existed since decades / centuries. Yes, but the scale of these events is now so large, thanks to the technology & lesser work times (please get a perspective with worktimes of peasants / industrial workers to those in service sectors). We have more time to be involved in things other than those which directly earn us our daily bread. The government / bureaucracy is being replaced, piece by piece, by a series of SIGs. 

I believe the direction is right, but no rules of the game exist for now. We are in a stage where mass democracy is being phased out, but a personalized one is not yet implemented / envisioned. It is this phase that will be the hardest, and today, we are directly in its path...

Jai ho?

jai ho, err Slumdog Millionaire has been facing 2 kinds of responses for its 8 or so oscar wins. The first group is ecstatic at the Oscar loot. The second is dismissing it & saying: "Would we have got an oscar if an Indian film maker had made the movie?"

My position is quite comic. I am unhappy for the oscars since I think the movie is not quite deserving. But to the second group i express disdain, & that i shall elaborate below succinctly:

1. Oscars or Academy awards are given by the American Academy of Actors for American / british cinema (please read English if you skipped it). regional movies have a separate category for nomination where Taare didnt make it.

2. yes, bollywood has thousands of movies better than Slumdog, but none made by an American / British filmmaker. Have you ever thought that of the zillions of award functions that Bollywood hosts, how many even acknowledge world cinema, forget bestowing awards on them! We can't be complaining of injustice when we don't even reach a similar platform.

3. Maybe the movie is crap, but it dint win a filmfare or such award? so why complain? Those are not awards, and hence, not ours to comment on. The american audience votes for them. We can vote down Slumdog in filmfares if we wish.

4. my most important reaction is that a lot of Indians won the oscars today. Our best music composers & mixers won the award. Is that not good enough? They made an English film & won it? its better than making a hindi film, which they are used to, and still wining! get a perspective guys!!!

The monkey metaphor

Last night i saw Bollywood regaining its lost maturity. We have seen many movies & tele-series in the 7os & 80s that had hidden puns & metaphors on public life. Rakesh O Mehra revives the glory of Nukkad, Mungerilal, Jaane bhi Do Yaaro & the likes. It would be unjust NOT to compare Delhi-6 with scripts that were brimming with social meaning. 

I went into the movie expecting good songs & a messy story. However I came back amazed at the depth of the script, although it was quite messy. In addition R. Mehra was quite up to his act with a vivid portrayal of each character. 

What caught my attention throughout the movie was that each character had a strong sense of purpose & definition in the movie. Screen time was not a criteria for etching out the depth of meaning each character was imbibed with. A local moneylender, the neighbourhood idiot, a helpful halwai: all were woven into the script, and still stood their own ground as a performance. I was wondering if this was a theatre act & not a movie. It would have still done excellently!

The script was shoddy in terms of its sequence. One thing did not lead to another and the jumps were hard to comprehend. But one must give a standing ovation to the scriptwriter who took the effort to take up a normal Bollywood story of the homecoming of an NRI & weaving it with an urban legend. The very portrayal of the story around this central theme is catchy!

The art direction is par excellence! Using Ramayana as a narrative to the ethics of the story, a reverred local tree and the likes add life to the storyline. Rahman's music is also commendable & runs well with the speed of the movie. What's more interesting is that most of the songs are not shown in complete length. Rather, they are inserts into the movie's moods.

The two points are still about the movie's script & direction. However its the story that took my mind by storm. The depth of the script lies in the urban legend of the kala bandar, a monkey-man who took the imagination of Delhi-ites by storm. The script aptly presents each character's version of the imaginary monkey as a statement on the person's life / state of mind. It then goes on to bring out the mass hysteria that results. I am not sure if it should have touched the communal line, since I am not quite aware of the original monkey story that happened in Delhi. It may have carried the story too far, but it does succeed in capturing the meaning. The demon that lies within us is the true root of all our ramblings. The moral of the story is not effectively brought out since it jumps around too much, but the sequence to the same is commendable.

Atul Kulkarni gives yet another mind-boggling performance as the local fool who plays along the tunes of the neighbourhood in order to feel one with them. His dialogue delivery at the climax is truly breathtaking!

The same should be said of Vijay Raaz as the typical Delhi policeman. His acting actually makes us despise him and laugh at him in the same breath!

The central character of Abhishek Bachchan is not too strong in the movie. But that is expected when stalwarts of cinema & theatre are given their due in small but well framed roles of the community people. Every one of them presents a classy performance!

Addendum (personalized democracy)

Call it instant gratification! I wrote my previous post just as i was finishing Future Shock (Toffler). I decided to start his second book: The Third Wave right away. The book starts with a dissection of current political systems! I will reproduce an analogy presented by Toffler:

Political systems, when viewed from an engineer's viewpoint, provide us with unprecendented understanding of the elites (representatives in power). In engineering there are 2 kinds of processes: Batch flow & continuous flow

In a batch flow process the machine works intermittently. Once a batch is produced, it waits idle till raw material for the next batch is provided. Whereas, in a continuous flow process the machine works without any break, as raw material is feeded continuously, and hence the results are also produced continuously. 

Using this analogy, Toffler says that Democracy (the process of electing representatives) is like a batch process. It takes place at given intervals of time, between which the voters are unable to influence the power mechanism. However, influence groups are a continuous process. They work with those in power on a daily basis, thus modifying the results for their benefits. Also, this means that the power system is closer & more accessible to an influence group (being in close & daily contact), than to the democratic electorate.

Personalized democracy...a few thoughts

I have been trying to understand politics since some time: not just Indian politics, but politics in general. I have read some excerpts of Marx, a book by Chomsky, another by Diamond and so on...

I have not yet arrived at any clear understanding of the same. What I have gathered is that democracy has a very personal definition. It can mean one thing to me & another to you. There is NO established framework of democracy.

We understand communism & its failures, but democracy, as a concept, evades us in general (not just me). That is exactly the reason why each democratic nation has its own version.

What unnerves me is that a person is chosen by the voters, and assumes power to perform acts on behalf of the voters for a said period of time. This gives rise to 2 problems:
1. assumes power
2. said period of time
(the very basics of the system)

1. when the representative assumes power, he or she ceases to consult the voters again. Not literally, but it is largely seen that power can silence the public word. This means that the representative is generally free to do what he or she chooses, as long as it can be controlled by the power vested in the person (whether it is right or wrong is immaterial). Also, power-groups, interest-groups and similar informal / underground institutions come together to bribe / chide / influence the representative to swing the course of action. Here, it should be noted that its easier to influence one person than the whole population. So we are actually narrowing our power instead of distributing it (as should be done in a democracy), and allowing it to be manipulated.

2. Since the representative is in power only for a brief period of time: very simply put- power corrupts, and the outlook is quite myopic. Long term goals go for a toss, and the Beta syndrome hits the representative. He or she promises to do better NEXT time (meaning they want to be voted next time). Short term goals rule, and hence some interest groups are favoured over others. More importantly, the representative is always busy performing acts that aid his or her success in the next election cycle.

So, as i see it, we are:
1. narrowing our power & concentrating it
2. cutting it into parts over time & in effect, losing out on our long term goals

The latest advertisement by IDEA cellular set me thinking. The representative asks the people via SMS everytime there is a decision to be made. That is ofcourse a utopian idea, but somewhere it clicks by giving power to everyone. However, our political systems are expert in crippling that idea through brainwashing & mob-theories, for which i need not give any examples - the recent newspapers will do.

So, what could be a way out of this? Since democracy has a personal definition, how about a personalized democracy? The constitution grants us several basic rights. Beyond that, its just a mess of laws, acts & amendments gathered since the British era. What if we are given a chance to chuck all that away, and be able to follow a pattern which suits us?

At first thought it is absurd, immensely complicated (for legal / political systems), impossible, downright stupid and maybe insane!

But a deeper look may provide us with glimpses of answers that we may be looking for. Maybe, its not the right thing to do. However, what if it is atleast the right direction to follow? Would that not matter? So here it is....

If each one of us is allowed to form our own set of rules, I think a perfect analogy would be the Hindu religion. It is so personal that no one person can claim to own / direct / prescribe it. Those who try to manipulate it stand out easily (self-proclaimed Hindutva activists), while those who want to follow can do so without any pressure. It is a loose composition of crores of believers living in perfect symphony with each other, respecting each other & yet each one having a unique set of guiding systems!

I am only able to provide an analogy through Hinduism, since I am not qualified to provide answers to political turmoil. However, if a religion can be compiled in such a manner, I believe it is comparatively easier to compile a political system!

It is like each one of us having ipods or computers from a different vendor. The basic rules are the same, but the tweaks are varied. It provides freedom of belief, freedom of movement from one sub-system to another & more importantly, it is impossible to influence it single handedly!!!

Those who want to be led & not be disturbed with the politics can choose one system, those who want to be active participants can choose another system, and so on...

This is just the tip of my discussion; there are many ideas that are bubbling away, but are yet hard to frame into mere words. I would welcome a discussion on the above aspect to shape future posts.

Future-TENSE

Two things are on my mind right now: Alvin Toffler's Future Shock & an interview with an eminent city planner. 

Toffler talks about the need to perceive the future and be ready for it. He rightly talks about our education being backword looking in a world that is headed towards the future. He also talks of innovations happening in the world, and how they have affected the society. The planner whom I interviewed also talked about the need to see the future & build cities for the same.

I believe that the future can be predicted only by understanding the past. Rote learning is not the point, but understanding & dissecting events of the past can provide us with crucial insights into the future. Hence, I started with a list of inventions / discoveries that have changed the course of human society today morning. This is the rough list (incomplete):

Mechanization:

Division of labour factory (Ford) - part mechanized factory - automated factory (CNC systems)

Manual labour - supervision of machines - creation of supervisory machines & networks (Computers)

Communication:

Telegraph - telephone - internet (written communication - spoken communication - communication & illustration)

Telegraph - radio - cellular phone networks (recorded communication - one way live communication - interactive two / multi way communication) - satellite networks (non-importance of physical location)

Painting - Symbolics - writing - coding (binary)

Transportation:

Personal transport (cars) - public transport (planes, trains) - personalized public transport (rent-a-car, chartered jets)

Biology:

Darwin's theory of evolution - Discovery of DNA - cloning (human controlled evolution)

Organ Transplants - test tube babies - cloning

Philosophy:

Marx & Lenin - Ayn Rand & Ford - Chomsky 

(this sequence may be highly erratic as it is based on the limits / extents of my reading)

Construction & Habitat:

Structural grids - non-grid structures - self-evolving structures

Centenary structures - decadal structures - transient / temporary structures

Skyscrapers / ghettos - urbanization - urban + sub-urban

land cities - water cities - space colonies

The above is a mapping of the developments till now. Then, I proceeded to shortlist technologies that will affect the future: - 

Mechanization: shape memorizing materials (AI) & nanoscale robots (AI+scale / energy reduction)

Communication: telepathy (meaning mind to mind conversation here)

Transport: teleportation

Biology: artificial culture of body parts, regrowth / healing controllers in brain

Philosophy: True democracy (like the IDEA ad we see, ultimate participation / control) or personalized democracy (choice of one's own set of rules from a given set)

Construction & Habitat: non-cities

That is where i stopped. The word non-cities hit me & the pattern in my own set of choices for the future hit me. If we are able to achieve teleportation, the need to live together / nearby would cease to exist. Infrastructure would change dramatically. If teleportation becomes possible, we could teleport our needs to our home & send back the wastes to a recycling facility. We would not need ANY PHYSICAL CONNECTIONS!!!!

As planners how far into the future are we looking? 10 - 20 - 50 years? Most of our urban projects take about 20 years to accomplish. But within that time, the original calculations have gone wrong. & yet that is just a short-sighted example. At the macro level, the government is investing some hundred thousand crores of rupees in developing india wide highway / railway network, urban transport systems, airports, etc. All of these will take atleast 10-15 years to materialize. 

Imagine if, within that timeframe, say Tata is able to create a Nanoplane: a personal aircraft that runs 20 kms a litre (with partly air powered, partly solar powered) engine & that can also take off from rooftops. Imagine the lack of manpower in Air traffic control that would face us! & we are preventing aerospace use for SECURITY REASONS. One has to only imagine if aerospace is exploited for public use (not limited to chartered / public flights), one can form a 3 dimensional network of highways in the air without any substantial investment! The only large scale investment would be in form of ATC manpower! Any person desirous of using a car provides for the garage himself. The same will apply for landing facilities & maybe area / building wise ATC personnel. Even this would make our investments in highways & railways a joke! Because super-efficient engines are not too far away! (skeptics may use google to enlighten themselves) & I am still talking on a present scenario basis.

Now, imagine if teleportation is established in next 50 years! (Cellphones were established in 20 years. Teleportation of electricity within 1metre is possibly as of today) The immense investments that we made in next 20 years would be obsolete in just 30 more years! Not to say what a waste of land would be found, when physical transit would die off! 

In my earlier post I mentioned that we provide about 20-25% of our urban spaces to streets & connecting infrastructure. All that space in cities & the space between cities would be now utilized for better purposes! & I have still not reached the climax!!!

What cities???? Once everything is teleported, why should i live next door to my office, or to anyone for that matter? I can reach anywhere i want in a matter of seconds via teleportation! Ditto for material needs!!! If we are using communication to talk to people in space on a live basis, why is it so hard to imagine we can even go there in future on a live basis??? That, is the ultimate death of urbanization! People are capable of building spaces better than cities to congregate. Our stadia, our theatres, our plazas could be in more exotic locations; and yet just a jiffy or few jiffies away! (hey, in case you forgot congestion, your current call drop rate could bring you back to earth!!!)

So, as planners: provided with the responsibility of developing human environments for the future, are we even thinking of the future? or are we just reflecting on the present & trying to mend things, rather than evolving with them??? While I completely agreed with the talk of the planner i interviewed, I am unable to understand why, inspite of having studied so much history, we are still not into the business of future anticipation (not prediction) based on current pace of growth (be it technological, political, philosophical,etc etc) If we are unable to provide visions into the future as planners, and guide public opinion towards the same, I believe we fail somewhere as professionals.

PS: I'm just an amateur thinker & a blog is definitely a product of the BETA world. Hence, it contains a collection of my random & almost live stream of thoughts. More importantly, I may have (with my limitations of exposure / understanding) got the chronology of past developments & connected future perceptions wrong. But, I DEFINITELY HAVE NOT got the point wrong. We ARE too SHORTSIGHTED to see what's going to hit us in the next few decades. If a much-publicized (thanks to Star Trek) technological research is beyond our vision of the future, how can we claim to be the directors of future growth patterns? We don't even try to understand what these patterns will be based on!!! One has to only imagine the combined effect of many such technologies, and lament the futility of our so-called PLANNING.

An encounter with a thinker

It is not everyday that one gets to meet a prominent thinker. I got a chance to meet one such personality when I was asked to interview him for a magazine. I was obviously excited, as I wanted to know what he thought, & more importantly HOW he thought.

The person in question is one of the leading architect-planners of the country, having received awards from national & international spheres. The interview was for a landscape journal, which wanted a planner's viewpoint on the fast-spreading fad of township development & instant city creation.

It was comforting to know that the person being interviewed was a lateral thinker too. I was hardly a party to the discussion, owing to my lack of experience at conducting interviews or any discussion at higher level for that matter. So, I was listening to him while he reflected on a set of questions given to direct the session.

Instead of answering those directly, he laid down the history of the planning profession, and the country in general. He also outlined the history of urbanization. Only after he had created such ground, did he proceed to answer the questions presented to him. In that light, the discussion reached a different level, and holistic solutions were discussed.

i have been doing a lot of lateral studies, trying to obtain answers for my field of work by reading politics, sociology, technology & other such things. I was quickly fascinated by the discussion. I also had a chance to transcribe the recording of the interview, allowing me to absorb more of the subject.

While I am hardly discussing the subject, it is immaterial. The very fact that lateral thinking does lead to holistic and better solutions is a conclusion, although premature for me, that I wish to adhere to.

Circle of Innovation - Tom Peters

I read this book a few weeks ago. I was attracted to it by its innovative writing style - no nonsense adjectives put together & sentences done with altogether where not needed!

The book is a quick read (despite its apparent size) due to the above reason. Also, it helps that a quick read keeps one engaged, without losing track. I did find it repetitive in a lot of places. Also, since the author used a quick-writing style, the repetition did not reinforce the subject, it only made it boring!

The jist of the book is about Innovation (& hence his innovation in writing!) 

Peters says 

- Any person / business / corporation must keep innovating continuously or die! 

- The best way to change things is not to restructure, but to destroy them!

- Innovation is the key to growth!

- In a fast paced society, if you are not growing / innovating, you are slipping / dying / decaying.

- Skillsets need to change fast: not in years, but weeks, as per consumer demand.

- Each employee / person is a business head by himself / herself & should contribute directly to consumer satisfaction

- If an employee cannot answer how he /she directly satisfies the consumer, he / she should be done away with!

- One should not be afraid of failures. It adds to the experience!

- Its the death of bureaucracy. Companies having internal departments, that are not directly connected to the consumer, will die early!

- Innovation should be long term, the individual / company should think of future innovation capabilities instead of planning for the present.

- Innovation should be inclusive & exhaustive: from products to internal management systems, to mechanization to employee efficiency, everything about the company should be innovative!

To sum it all, its a fast paced book about a fast paced corporate world! I would gladly recommend it for everyone. Be prepared to NOT listen /agree to everything presented, but absorb the gist & the book opens our eyes to a lot of prevalent non-sense!

Dev-D (a dissection)

I hadn't the slightest clue that the movie was a remake of Devdas! I only realized that halfway through the movie! 

The movie follows a pattern of few western movies like Romeo & Juliet  and Macbeth (the new versions set in the modern world). I found both the above to be quite palatable.

I would first commend the director for making this movie, just to show what the audiences can also expect from THE SAME OLD STORY! The story of Devdas, although quite an interesting piece of literature, would have worked great in the 90s, when showed in the same manner. But this is the 21st century & we would like some creativity in the movie.

At the risk of being thrashed by a dear friend of mine, who is an ardent Madhuri fan, i have to say that her & Shahrukh's Devdas bored me to death! I found the whole portrayal so stupid, i couldn't have found a worse way to spend my time! The performances in the movie were excellent (except for Shahrukh, who is capable of doing much better work), but the script, the art direction & the locations were absolutely wasted for this era of films! SL Bhansali must understand that even theatre needs creativity, lets not be monkeys!

To come back to DevD, the movie was absolutely stunning from the point where i realized it was a remake of Devdas. Till then, I was lost, trying to understand why this movie was even made.

Abhay Deol gives yet another great performance with his no-nonsense no-emotion acting. The non-Indian actress also gives a good performance, while Mahi Gill leaves a lot to be desired, including her wardrobe choice.

The movie moves very fast (thankfully), brashly trashing unwanted parts of the original story & adapting itself to the current society. Most of all, the director tries to give it an enormous amount of accountability (by connecting it to current events) & making it interesting, but reflecting on the society through a historic story! That part is what i liked best! That also forms the premise of the remake, and the freshness endowed with such directorial angles makes the movie lively & bewitching!

Bewitching, because although we hate some characters, although we hate some parts of the movie, it keeps us glued! As if, he director intended to bring out hate in us for some parts! That, I think is a class work of art!

Another aspect of the movie which i wanted to discuss is the way viewers are kept sub-consciously confused and drawn into the movie. The art director uses a lot of high paced, loud sequences, which keep changing the environment in a jiffy. Although it creates a shock, it does not make the viewer lose interest at any point. The repetition of a few words, characters' names, incidents from current society; all of these mixed with trance music & dazzling colours & carefully choreographed scenery create an effect of a high!

This, i think is the most important part of Devdas's story! The whole story is about a man in a trance, due to whatever reasons in life. Dev-D does justice to that aspect & hence portrays the story more realistically & in a more classy fashion than Bhansali's true-to-the-book version!

Ghajini - a belated review

I tried to avoid writing a review for Ghajini because:

1. i love Aamir Khan's work, in general & in the movie

2. i hated the movie because i was expecting a remake of Memento

However, i got a chance to watch it again. The first time i watched it, i was bored to death, waiting for the love story to move on & the real movie to keep continuing. I was really expecting a remake of Memento & desperately wanted the movie to proceed in the same manner, for whatever reasons.

We were a large group of friends who went to see the movie. After the movie, we were divided into 2 parts: those who had seen Memento were bored & disappointed, those who hadn't had enjoyed the movie thoroughly.

But, this time when i saw the movie, I actually liked it! & not because its an Amir Khan starrer, but because the movie does form a good plot / script, with acceptable performances & great photography! 

The movie was well (re) written, addressing the Indian viewers. The story begins at a point towards the end (& not AT the end), and a flashback is smoothly inserted halfway into the movie!

Although a large part of actors suffer from bad acting, especially the irritating & downright stupid Jiah Khan (i wanted to kick her at times!) and also the police inspector who seems to have an agenda of his own, coupled with tasteless & immature acting. 

The roles played by Asin, Amir & the villian ( i dont know his name) were quite passable (though not great), but it wove together a story that was very radical & quite watchable for general viewers. I remember we went for a paid preview & the cinema was half empty. But the next day onwards, the tickets were selling in black (i heard that word after quite a few years!)!!!

Although this movie is nowhere near RDB or TZP, its a choice work from a dedicated actor. I wouldn't know if the director was capable enough to handle such a movie, or whether the scriptwriter got confused while translating the Tamil version to the Bollywood one, but a lot of the movie still played to South Indian movie style tunes, something that doesnt work at all in Bollywood. 

Some action sequences were stupid & some actors equally dead-faced!

I think the only thing that holds the movie is : THE STORY!

For humans or machines?

In a country where caste is a basis for assigning quotas, I wish to present a caste / life war that is, as yet, unaddressed. I do not support the caste system, but since we are still living with it, I would like to bring to everyone's attention, a new quota system that needs to be in place.

I am a landscape planner by profession. We work on many road sytems / urban streets / public transit systems. I have been enlightened by the company of many leading professionals in India, and my friends who have been living the cause of urban spaces.

We are allocating increasing amounts of space to cars & road systems, while the amount allocated to pedestrian activities is on the decrease. We like to take out our vehicles for distances that we would have happily walked a few years ago. In the foosteps of the USA, we are becoming an automobile society.

Some statistics are so shocking, that it is insane to think how ignorant we are. A city is usually designed based on a masterplan. The plan allocates about 25-40% space for public activities from the total land pool (depending on the political / social preferences). 20% of the total land pool (minimum) is used to road systems & access! That is almost 50-80% of the public spaces!

If we have a road with a width of about 40 meters, we allocate a measly 4 metres width to pedestrians (both sides of the road included!) Talk about human rights! We are not allowed to walk. We are promoting policies that are pro-car & anti-pedestrian. Every driver believes it is his / her birthright to be able to have unhindered access to roads, where crossing pedestrians are unnecessary & should be done away with!

Recently, Ahmedabad Corporation did a one-of-its-kind experiment by closing down a part of its largest shopping district for one sunday. The place: C G Road, is a prime commercial area with heavy traffic & congestion during peak hours & weekends. When the road was closed for pedestrian activities, people started walking all over the road! The entire 24-30 meters of road width was available for pedestrian use. One could see people walking freely in groups (& not in a single line), children racing about or skating, older persons sitting & chatting with ease & so much more! All this without the noise & hindrance of vehicles. Whats more, all shops recorded 2-3 times more footfalls that day! This is because people had already left their vehicles and were walking by leisurely, finding more time for window shopping and hence stepping in more often!

The corporation had been sane enough to club this occasion with performances by schools, NGOs, traffic sense presentations, etc. The whole space became one vibrant public space. It was that day i realized that if a small 250 metres long stretch of road could hold hundreds of people with ease, who were enjoying themselves, imagine how much space we actually waste, by handing it over to the vehicles!

This brings me to an important question: are the vehicles for us, or we for the vehicles? Why should we allocate increasing space for those monsters, when we can easily do away with them, endeavor to create better public transport in the same manner as we endeavor to build better roads / flyovers. How wonderful it would be if we can leave our parking & traffic worries, enjoying the trip as well as destination!

culture shock / future shock

For starters, I am back at writing after a few weeks' break...

An online acquaitance wrote very strongly about the decay of moral values with regards to the incident of Ram Sene attacking girls in Mangalore pub. I have been trying to find answers to the same. I'm reading Alvin Toffler, starting with Future Shock. I intend to read The third wave & Powershift after this one.

Alvin Toffler talks about the culture shock that America experienced in 60s / 70s due to accelerating rate of technological change, which resulted in drastic change in culture & society. One of his statements is: "Evidence strongly suggests that overstimulation leads to bizarre & anti-adaptive behavior." He explains the situation of soldier's during world war 2. They were so overwhelmed that some of them used to fall asleep during battles, a way of shutting oneself down. Others used to become hyper-sensitive, over-reacting to every small movement & noise, imagining it to be the enemy. 

Most of us will have seen Vietnam war movies, where soldiers are found to be guilty of unthinkable atrocities on locals. Such events are also increasing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Somalia, Congo, etc.

This, for my understanding, also explains the root of terror. Most of us take technological revolution & change casually. But for many people, who are not in sync with the current pace of the world: things are moving TOO fast. The world is non-comprehensible for them.

For them, there are 2 ways of dealing with it: shut-off, or go on an offensive. The second reason is, I believe, the core of the problem why such activities as those of Ram Sene are increasing all over the country. The perpetrators' agendas are misunderstood or misinterpreted by themselves. They seem to be angry at changes happening, where they are either not included, or they do not want to be included.

These people do not try to push back the wheel to its original position. The results of the same are beyond even their control in the large run. The victims of change become the reason for change itself!

I remember this dialogue from the movie Main Hoon Naa  (hero to villian) : " Tum itni nafrat karne ke aadi ho gaye ho ki tumhe amaan se dar lagta he. Nafrat ki aag mein tum wohi hevan ban gaye, jis ke saamne tum jung ladne nikle the!" (this is not the exact dialogue, but something to that effect).