Let The Games Begin

I turn twenty-three tomorrow. You hear that?! Twenty-three! If I was a footballer, I'd be considered mature by now, even old by some, as most of my vital parameters have stabilized - with the body refusing to get any better than it is now. But I'm not a footballer, except on my PC, and I've got none of those things to worry about. I'm still that starry-eyed kid I was when I turned twenty, with most dreams which I harbored back then still remaining unfulfilled.

Despite what I've promised myself time and again, I'm seeing myself metamorphose into that very creature which I once abhorred - a creature with many goals but with no determination to follow-up on them, with many ideas all of which soon turn boring, with a powerful desire to change the world but with no ability to do so. I'm an  effervescent mass of unchannelized energy with a zero-attention span.

A few weeks ago, I convinced myself that quitting Facebook would be the end of my worries, but no. Even quitting the habit didn't change much - what if there is no Facebook? There are other things you can waste your time on! I have developed the insane need of having to check my phone every two and a half minutes and my email every half-hour. I stopped watching Cricket long ago because, let's face it, it goes on and on... but now, I cannot watch a game of Football without simultaneously staying online or chatting on WhatsApp or worse, both. Why, I can't even pen a decent blog-post without a meaningless soap running on the TV in front of me!

While work-life is whatever it promised to be - a high-pressure, hectic, interesting job with emails relentlessly attacking the inbox every fifteen minutes - I always knew it'd not be something which would be ultimately satisfying. And it remains that way. Sadly however, I always assumed that there'd be a magician out there, somewhere, who'd wave his wand and foretell my destiny. But no, I remain as lost as I used to be, with entrepreneurial ideas remaining a phantasmogoria and my trysts with writing inevitably ending in frustration.

Well, it is possible that I am not destined for such greatness and that I will become that normal-next-door uncle who spends his weeknights lounging in front of the Television watching kids falling into manholes on the evening News... yes, that uncle who tries to play Cricket on Sunday afternoons but fails miserably as he cannot bring the bat down nearly soon enough. But then, if I do become that guy, I cannot hope to be as happy as he is... because, as I hear, there is no cure for ambition.

I'm then left with one choice - to achieve. And it shouldn't be that difficult, right? Once I've set a few things straight, I mean. Changes in lifestyle are difficult only when you have a choice. When there is no choice, everything is easy - because you do or you die. That period of life where everything was in 'Take thou what course thou wilt' mode is now at an end. If I have to sleep at eleven and get up at half-past-five, so be it.

There's a whole world out there waiting to be taken. Life is calling and if I continue in the same vein, I figure that, in the great Didier's words, it'd be 'a f*cking disgrace'. Today, I shall make my peace with Football Manager and with late-night chats, tweets and Facebook. There is no need to stay awake until 1 AM wondering why news channels are as useless as they are and why the UPA isn't doing anything worthwhile. There is no point cribbing about the fact that a stupid thing some hot chick said got the attention of hundred and seventy-nine people, and then going on to like one of those things yourself. You're not going to meet anyone more interesting after 10 PM than you do during the day. So sleep, dammit! And wake up to the quiet sunshine... Live life the way it is supposed to be lived.

If there is a problem, don't crib about it - find a solution. If there is nothing you can come up with, shut up. That will be a beginning. Something tells me I will stumble upon something. Some day. Until then, I figure that I'm going to have to cut-off a number of materialistic bonds, get my head down and start working.

Most things we all do today are done to please people we don't really care about and to get their attention. And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you're pleasing yourself in the process. But they'll gradually move away anyway, unless of course, you're of some use to them. Or if you're successful.

So, most of us will move away in the coming years, but the next time you remember me, I hope to God it'll be for the latter reason. I'm really done with this job of being useful to people... But today I promise you this - you will find the need to seek out where I am sometime in the future. Why, you ask me?

Because when I have arrived, you will know.

The Gandhi Consequence

"Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the father of our nation, through his selfless struggle against all odds, single-handedly brought us deliverance from over two hundred years of British oppression. Using only truth and ahimsa as his weapons, he overthrew the mighty colonial power, triggering a series of successful peaceful freedom struggles across the globe."

These were the words that were fed to us by Social Studies textbooks back in our middle-school days. Year after year, History lessons taught us one thing - MK Gandhi was the greatest man that ever lived, and without him we'd still be serving our British sahibs. Those were times when most of us looked up at the man in the white dhoti with awe and veneration; times when we were told stories about how a man who was once kicked out of a train in South Africa for not being white went on to liberate 500 million Indians and Pakistanis.

But since then, times have changed and opinions have changed. We cried foul as we challenged the lies we were being fed slowly and continuously by the Indian Government! Since then we've watched movies about Bhagat Singh and the revolutionary war against the British which drew no sympathy whatsoever from Mohandas Karamchand, leading to the martyrdom of a bunch of young revolutionaries. We've read articles about Nehru-Gandhi conspiracy theories and about how Gandhi's favouritsm for Nehru lost us Pakistan. My Experiments With Truth, which was once seen as a masterpiece still remains one, but one that indicts Gandhi for many of his crimes and kinky indulgences. Basically, much of urban India has formed an anti-Gandhi club and with good reason.

But today's post isn't about Gandhi-bashing which has become all too common these days, but about how Gandhi's actions, however selfish, have helped shaped this country and make it the India we know today. I maintain that our freedom in 1947 was largely due to the political scenario post-World War II and not plainly because a few thousand people showed the other cheek having been slapped once already. I refuse to believe that a person who wants to hit you will stop hitting you and start considering you his role-model once you start accepting his beatings. However, Gandhi was a genius for having realized the power of people in numbers, in an age when people believed that there is no power without weapons.

I am certain that our freedom would have been achieved faster and more effectively had we fought the British with petrol bombs and country pistols, like Bhagat Singh and co believed. But I shudder to imagine what would have happened to a nation as diverse as ours had we won our freedom 'with blood' as so many people believe we should have! We are, after all, what our history has shaped us to be and violence only begets violence.

There would be no place for the Anna Hazares of this country had we bombed our way into independence. It was perhaps the first and most important example of a peaceful non-cooperation movement which ended successfully, without which none of us would have faith in peaceful methods of change. Some of us are saying that the hunger strikes held by Team Anna must be outlawed as it holds the Government to ransom, but imagine if these protests got violent! - We'd end up like Syria with free-peoples' armies fighting the national army and thousands dying in the process. The Syrian revolt itself began as a protest against corruption, after all!

On the other hand, there could arise a situation where the protesters remain peaceful while the Government uses brute force and military tanks to crush the rebellion and kill millions in the process, like in Tiananmen (1989). Both these scenarios are highly unlikely in India because of the large disincentive for the party that takes up the violent route. We, as a people, will not accept unprovoked violence, no matter how just the cause. And that's why I believe we're lucky to have lost Pakistan in 1947. Thank you, MKG and Nehru, for being that selfish.

The important thing we have learnt subconsciously is to fight for our rights and not for revenge. We may have a pathetic Police and an even more abysmal justice system, which keeps the Kasabs of this world alive for decades, but we believe in the system. We will crib and we will demonstrate to bring about change, but Indians don't take the law into their own hands.

And that is why we have never had a civil war in our colourful 65 year history. In a country of 1.2 billion people with half a dozen major religions, two dozen languages and several different ethnic groups, it is truly a miracle that we've come out of a state of absolute chaos without too many scratches. And if the Indian had taken up the gun at the turn of the 19th century, scratches are all that we'd have got!

So, dear MKG, while I do not much appreciate the fact that you slept with a different naked virgin every night for whatever twisted desire of yours, I thank you for having our people drop their weapons and stand for their rights. Without the World War, your methods might not have been so successful, but in hindsight, it all seems right.

Ugly, Black People

"Today's lesson is on self-respect," said Captain Mehta, as he walked into the class with a smile. "Apne aap ko kisi se kam nahin sochna (don't think that you are inferior to anybody)", he told the class and I believed that this lecture would be far more interesting than the previous one we had on 'Communication Skills'.

"No matter who you are and immaterial of what job you do, you must always believe in yourself. Whenever you feel down and low, just say these words to yourself - 'I am also great.' " Makes sense, I thought. He was speaking about the same things which are talked about in spiritual texts, self-help books and personality development courses.

Then, directing his gaze at the frail lad sitting in the first row, he asked him to stand up. He subsequently asked the guy next to him, Rohan, to stand up as well. Rohan stood at about six feet and with dark, curly hair, he had a wheatish complexion. Captain Mehta then asked the frail Marathi lad on the left, "Kunal, tu yeh bata (tell me)... who among you both has a greater personality?" (as if it a quantity you can measure using the sabzi-wala's beam-balance)

Kunal looked at Cpt. Mehta with his bright, dark eyes and he laughed. "Mera hi better hai, sir!" (I have a better personality)

Clearly, Kunal had understood the lesson in Self-respect and I was about to clap as I thought the experiment  was complete. But Cpt. Mehta spoke once more: "Kya hai yeh, Kunal! How can you say you have a better personality... Look at yourself - you're small and black. And look at him - he's well built, muscular, has great complexion and he looks so confident."

Kunal nodded. There was nothing much else he could do. Then Captain Mehta said, "But tumhe aisa sochna hi nahin hai (you mustn't think like this)... So what if you are dark? You must think that you are equal to others... And THAT, Gentlemen, is Self-Respect." He said that last line with great pride.

So that's the lesson we're teaching people these days, eh? It's OKAY if you're dark. It's not your mistake if you're black. Or, as another gentleman phrased it a few days ago, "Bhagwaan ne banaya hum sab ko (God made us all) And sometimes, he wants to put us in our place... Not always can he give us all that we want." And then I thought about what I read on Quora a few days ago, "We're definitely not a racist country. Look at all the values we are brought up with." Values, indeed.

While I thought that this lesson on 'self-respect' was the worst one I had ever been taught, what made my blood boil was the subsequent lecture we had. "Hi, my name is S.K. Sra," said the man who hobbled into class. I forget what the content of his lecture was about because I couldn't get over this one 'example' he talked about:

"When I was in Barnala, Punjab, in my youth, I used to be a teacher in a school... and I got to interact with many little children. But there is this one incident I remember about this little girl," he said. "She was the daughter of a Commanding Officer and he was my friend. She was from Tamil Nadu, and like a lot of people from the south, she was very dark... And to make matters worse, she was surrounded by beautiful girls from Punjab. I observed her for a while and she looked very sad... I knew at once what was the problem..."

I knew where he was heading but I controlled myself. He continued - "I told her that it doesn't matter if she was black... All she had to do was be smart. Be intelligent. And she could have friends... So what if you are dark? You can overcome your difficulties by being smart. Everyone loves smart people and besides, we don't discriminate on the basis of skin colour!"

"You fucking idiot, if this is not discrimination, then what is it? People don't want your pity for being dark - they are as pretty as you are; prettier actually, as their stomachs aren't falling out of their pants like yours." I don't know if people understand this - but if PITY is the emotion you feel for people darker than you, then you are a racist.

Sometimes, I wish I'd been born as dark as coal, just so that I could have heard someone try to be condescending to my face... And then I'd have carved his guts out using a kitchen knife. I'm sure the courts would see the violence as provoked. And it'd be totally worth the Prison time.

All these incidents has one looking at other aspects of this ugly society: cosmetic products which promise to make you white, our abysmal attitude towards African tourists, the fact that most of our 'backward castes' are dark-skinned... The list goes on.

Ultimately, one looks at the ruling class and is left bewildered: there aren't many dark-skinned politicians in a country where a massive portion of the people are dark, and I'm not talking just of South India. Many people from states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal are as dark as people from the South. So, why no dark leaders? (except for Mayawati and a couple of others) Are we really a forward-thinking people? Or do we still think it's below our dignity to be ruled by a man or woman who is darker than us?

On that note, I wonder how many votes Mayawati got from the fairer upper classes of Uttar Pradesh when she won...

Apart from politics, what provides a snapshot of India's zeitgeist better than the media does! I turned to the Television Channels and Bollywood, with only one question in my mind - 'Are we really that racist?' I'll let you answer that question yourself but first I'd like you to name five Bollywood heroes who are darker than the average Indian. Wait, forget that: Name two Bollywood heroes who are as dark as the average Indian. There's no point talking about heroines here as the darkest lady is probably Bipasha Basu, and she covers herself with enough paint so that she can fool the audience.

As a country, we are proud of calling ourselves secular and we boast about our religious tolerance. We say that we are empowering women and alleviating gender inequality. We talk about taking steps to remove caste-ism in the society. But what about racism? We are racists even before we know what caste someone belongs to. Why don't we acknowledge that?

If we weren't: We'd have had a few black news-readers by now. We'd have had a black prime minister. And what the hell, we would have a black Bollywood heroine.