Demonize Demonetize

Nov 2016 to Dec 2016 demonetization seemed to be a buzz word. So much so that there were many elements who tried to demonize 'demonetization' and yet Modi stood victorious in most elections that followed demonetization. He promised 50 days to bring in normalcy and come Dec 30 we did see huge decline in ATM lines. So now I see the new target is the term 'Cashless'. And the same elements are trying to demonize cashlessness.

Here is my take on it.

Did you know that about 1.6 crore paid tax in the year 2012-13? That means just 1% of the nation is bearing the financial weight of the entire nation. Doesn't this ring any bell? With so many rich people around, does it make sense that only 1% of the nation's population bear the burden of the whole nation?

How do we know how much money people have? Unless we enforce cashless transactions, it would be very difficult to monitor who is hiding how much wealth? Unless of course the myth of the super powers of Rs 2000 currency are true. Every single digital transaction can be recorded.

So whether it's Paytm,  Jio Money or any mobile wallet transaction  or any Credit Card transaction,  every transaction can be recorded and accounted for. With this level of transparency, there is a good chance that people would pay the due tax.

And when so much of money comes in banking, it helps in generating good amount of credit. This in turn helps the economy. In layman terms, when banks get more money, they get more power to give more loans. Thus the supply of loans increases. This will benefit people who need loan. This will help entrepreneurs, people buying houses, cars etc.

There is an argument floating that the govt has taken this step to favor certain big industrialists. And gullibles are easily falling in that trap.

Cashless economy is a service. Credit Cards offer you a credit of 45 days. Who would pay for that? Huge expenditure is needed to maintain security of the digital transactions made, who should pay for that convenience? Nothing comes for free. Where there is a service there has to be a fee attached to it. They primarily charge the vendor and the banks. Certain vendors pass on the charge to the end user while others succumb to competition and wave off that charge. As end user you can take an informed choice of whether or not that trade off works for you.

Yes this policy of govt is going to help certain industries. But then that is true for every government policy. Should we be restricting every government decision just because it specifically favors certain industry? I think it is important for us to look into the larger picture. 

New Age Nursery Rhymes

Baba black sheep why do you drool?

I just got bribery 3 bags full.
1 for my master 1 for myself,
1 for the rowdy boys, to buy voters down the lane.

Pussy cat Pussy cat where had you been?
I had been to 10 janpath to look at the queen.
Pussy cat, Pussy cat, what did you there?
I saw a frightened minister under the chair.


Twinkle twinkle gold bars,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the reach so high.
Soothing the black market, in the sky.

Humpty dumpty sat on a stock
Humpty dumpty had a great fall.
And all the Queen's politics and the corruption fame
Couldn't put Humpty dumpty together again.

Sonia had an old lamb, old lamb an old lamb,
Sonia had an old lamb
His integrity was white as snow.
And whatever Sonia said, Sonia said, Sonia said and whatever Sonia said
The lamb was sure to follow.

Om Shanti Shanti

I hear people give up on religious beliefs in the interest of preventing terrorism. It seems they take the lines by Colonial Cousins 'Religion is the reason, the world is breaking up into pieces ' too seriously. But honestly, the world will anyway break into pieces. If not religion there will be something else to take care of that aspect of human evolution. We need a paradigm shift in our understanding of terrorism.

Paradoxically, hatred is an emotion that people love to nurture. Add to that our daily encounters of fear, anger and jealousy that creates a pool of sewage where we sink our tender hearts . Then eventually comes one intellectual with amazing oratory skills and mind blowing convincing power, that points finger to a section of community while belonging to another particular section of community thus channelizing this sewage into that direction. So whether it's religion or something else depends upon the 'leader', and his/her oration. Hitler channelized this hatred against Jews, Osama Bin Laden channelized this against Americans, Hafiz Saeed channelized this against Hindus while L. K. Advani channelized this against Muslims, Rahul Gandhi used this against the saffron clad sadhus, Digvijay Singh against the anti-corruption lobby, Maoists against the capitalist government, KCR against non telangana brethren and Raj Thackeray did the same against north Indians giving equal opportunity to Sanjay Nirupam against Marathi people. What we need to understand here is what is at the core? Is it religion or is it a philosophy? If you look deeper you will understand that it's human emotion given a shape of philosophy that eventually vents into religion, caste, nationality, community et al . And the opportunity for such philosophies to crop up is plenty because the breeding ground of anger, jealousy and fear eventually leading to hatred is bountiful with our minute to minute encounters.

Our leaders have a hobby of collecting such pieces of hatred and then channelize them with their convincing power. "You see that fellow is going ahead of you killing your opportunity to progress" thus blossoming jealousy into hatred. "You see the way so and so religion is growing? They will soon eat up our space on this planet" thus allowing fear to rise into hatred. "You know why you were late for the interview? Because chaps from the unwanted community have occupied all of our public transport leaving no space for you to travel and breathe", sculpting anger into hatred. All these "leaders" need is; to nurture hatred in us which coincidentally turns out to be our favorite hobby. The argument they make to convince us seem plausible, since it is something we can relate to and is served to us in oration at its best.

Try to look little deeper, in their arguments; it's not the solution of the problem, but but it is our emotion of hatred that gets pumped up. And what is missing in all of the scenarios mentioned above is understanding of human values.

There is a very valuable quote from H. H. Sri Sri Ravishankar that says "Fanaticism flourishes when religious concepts are kept before human values." And there lies the solution to our problems. Understanding the depths of human values is what can help us get rid of these emotions.

I am not in denial of the problems people face. With increasing population and limited resources to live on, our socio-economic fabric is bound to go through the acid test. But we tend to find out solutions in philosophies that promote hatred, and probably because that's an easier way out. When it is hatred that we need to get rid of, we struggle to get rid of a particular community or religion. Who imbibes this hatred within us? Is it religion? No, it is a philosophy without the background of human values. It is religion without the spiritual essence.

Sri Sri has the perfect metaphor in this context, "Religion is the outer banana skin, while spirituality is real banana. People stuck on religion chew on the skin while throwing out the banana." What really is this word spirituality? Sri Sri puts it up simply, "Spirituality is nothing but caring & sharing ; offering oneself in service." When we are in service, we end up taking a voluntary responsibility, thus committing ourselves to be the social change agents, attempting to build an ideal society through love and compassion.

So changing our religious beliefs will not help since the trend says that our "leaders " always have some agenda to make sure we nurture hatred for the sake of their power in our society. Society changes, ideologies change, philosophies change, beliefs change, what remains the same is the "leader " with a pointed finger, with new ideology, new belief, new agenda to nurture hatred so that s/he can securely fasten the seatbelt of power and enjoy the ride while we juggle the tower of our principles and religious beliefs on the tune of those new philosophies. Whether it's the way Muslims say Aamin, Christians attend mass prayers or Sikhs sing Ek Onkar every religion in its every prayer harbors peace and happiness in our hearts. Observe the way Jews greet, Buddhist meditate, Jains live their lives and the Hindus end their sessions.

Loka samastha sukhino bhavantu,
Om Shanti Shanti Shaaantihi

(Let there be happiness everywhere.
Om peace peace peace)

SaaRe GaaNaa

The music industry has been claiming ,
Sangeet ko na roke deewar
Sangeet jaye sarhad ke paar.
(Nothing can stop music. It travels beyond borders ).
This line proves itself every time we rock our head to the tunes of Strings or sway our hands to Bryan Adam's Here I am. The jury at Oscars that commemorated Rahman or the Afgan in Kabul admiring Kishoreda's melodies would nod their heads on the translation of these lines.

But did you ever contemplate that music creates boundaries at a very subtle level? Instruments like Violins, trumpets etc rarely see the light in a poor man's shop. A college fest cannot host a cultural event without a guitar and a drum. Pandit Ravishankar and his daughter Anoushka are heroes amongst the elite while we need specialized singers for the Bhojpuri audience. The August crowd takes it as a matter of "taste" to get charmed by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi while we make provision of Vithal Umap for our folk people.

Generally and rather thankfully people are open to different types of music. But imagine if these subtle boundaries becomes rigid. Imagine if the flavor of nationalism pours itself into the tender brains of music lovers. Music being a matter of passion has the potential to breed the patriotism type flavor.

My theory is that human brain doesn't take effort in raising doubts. Mind somehow loves the taste of negativity and uses this drug as the prescription of life. Just today I happened to meet someone who was keen on 2012 disaster since according to him it would liberate him off these daily life's problems - clear indications of a mind bred in negativity and hatred. We love to hate someone and eventually live to hate the same entity. So if the nations are at peace, imagine (I know hypothetical but still imagine ) that India and Pakistan suddenly become chaddi buddies. Obama is revered across all Muslim countries. There is no reason for the world now to hate each other. An unaware mind might scout for other reasons to breed hatred. Imagine the Heavy Metal youth forming cult underground societies across the globe to take over from the elite Classicals. The folk music people fighting for their rights to capture the center stage. Imagine the Classical Fraternity of India (CFI) forms a coalition govt with the Jazz Club of India with someone to the likes of Zakir Hussain is leading the pack as Prime Minister . Evidently the tabla lobby being strong within CFI they are currently pushing the bill to make tabla mandatory till school level. There is a strong opposition from the pianist who are always under represented in the house. To revolt against this oppression and the lack of freedom of choice the underground Guns&Dozes is planning a revolutionary attack over the kurta pajama chaps.

Thankfully there is little or no space for the above scenario to be true ever. We all know we have reservations over certain type of music branded by certain type of instrument. These are very subtle and invisible boundaries. I have simply aggravated these subtle boundaries in the picture painted above.

Hatred can be cured by acceptance. Recently in one of the satsangs of Art of Living that I attend, I realized that instrument, music, genre etc is no emotion's monopoly. Why can't a devotional song be a rock song where guitar and drums play an instrumental role? The fusion band Indian Ocean is doing fabulous job in creating a symphony of tabla, guitar, sitar, drums etc. Cultures that create a sense of belonging and a will of acceptance bring a great deal of relief to an otherwise hypocrite society. Thanks to such instrumental efforts that today music today has become a tool to bridge gaps, a tool to appreciate each other & a tool to connect hearts.

posted from Bloggeroid

Zeitgeist - The Spirit of the Times

"So what do you do for living?" is generally the one of our FAQs when we get introduced to someone for the first time. Well ponder a bit at the object of the preposition - "living". It is a concept accepted by the world that we do something for our living and then we do something for our liking. Which means that the activity that we do for our living needn't necessarily be same as the one we pursue as our hobby. Imagine a world where you just pursue your hobby where all of your living needs are being taken care of by technology. Imagine living in a world where technology is the driving force and you are greasing the wheels of human progress by just doing what you like to do.

What would you like to do say entertainment - love to act? So pursue it until you get bored of it. Who will pay you for that? No one. Sounds weird right? If no one is going to pay me, how the hell do you expect that I would be feeding myself? Well, the answer lies in technology. Just like you are passionate about stage performance, there are a bunch of geeks who are passionate about lab performance. They would be the ones inventing robots and machines and automating the world that would help you make your own food. So right from purchasing goods - well wait a minute, lets hit the backspace key; so right from procuring goods to processing them and then finally serving a delicious dish on your table, everything will be done by technology.

"Buddy, robots working for me? I don't have that kind of money." Again, why did we hit backspace? Because in the Lotus Project of the Zeitgeist movement, no one pays for anything. They intend to remove the concept of money from our system. So you do not pay for robots and the scientist working in the lab doesn't pay for your stage performance. Sounds like a barter system isn't it? Well it does to me to. So let us dive ourselves a little deeper into this concept.

"Why is air free and water so cheap?" asks the video documentary of the project. Well we all know the answer that it is available in abundance. No one would really be spending a rupee or a cent for a cubic meter of air, because it is available for free and in abundance. Now air is not available in water asking divers pay for the oxygen cylinders. So what do we do to make sure that the food we talked about short while ago, comes to my table for free? Well, that's right, you know the answer - make it available in abundance. How to do that? The scientists of the lotus project believe that technology has answers to all these questions. And honestly, this doesn't seem impossible from my perspective too.

Again, little difficult to digest right? Let us consider wikipedia's example. Remember the times when we used to spend thousands on the stack of world books occupying an entire wall of our living room! Wikipedia was kneering on you and it said "Ha!". Today we have the best of the knowledge about our world available on internet and that too free. How was it made possible? Well, technology did it, didnt it? Well I would like to rephrase the sentence, 'Effective use of technology did it.' People who are passionate about their own subjects scribble on this online forum where information is validated by people themselves. Who pays all these goons? No one. And yet they do it because they love doing it. There are millions of programmers publishing their codes online. Why do they make it all available for free? Because they love that work. So today, coding is not really a rocket science, because most of it is available online. Then programmers build something over this free code and erect another beauty on it. Together we create marvels in the computing world and device something like Java, Linux or Android. Zeitgeist movement's 'The Lotus Project' is basically transitioning these already achieved benefits in the online world onto the real life. And 'yes' they say, it is possible.

Now consider a nice house on the sea-shore where you can lay on a rocking chair reading your favorite book in the verandah while the sound of sea waves soothe your senses. Who would not like to live that life? So there are tens of thousands of people who would like to own that place. You cannot make such places available in abundance, can you? This is a place where demand will always succeed the supply and then you hit a barrier of economics where you need money to decide a price on the property. "Well I agree", explained Eric - an active member of 'The Lotus Project'. "I agree that our system is not foolproof. All we are saying that this is an initiative and there are good chances that we can come across a good way of living if all of us work in this direction. There are certain loopholes that we would want to plug. But we believe that technology has answers to all of these questions." So that means that the egg is still incubating. We cannot hatch it now.

"I want to cite another example. Talent is rare. You cannot have that in abundance. Everyone plays cricket, but Sachin Tendulkar comes once in a lifetime. Everyone works in science, but Einstein is born once in centuries. How do you encourage the talent if there are going to be no incentives? Today Sachin, a guy brought up from a middle class family would aspire to own a Ferrari and rightfully desire to have a plush bungalow in one of the most expensive places in Mumbai. How can you give him an incentive to play?"

"Well we think that talent doesn't need incentive. We believe that people would pour out their devotion towards their field without any of these incentives." Eric answered although not entirely convincing me. Even the zeitgeist videos about religion and the conspiracy theories are nothing but a mere entertainment they do not convince me.

But looking at the broader picture, I think its worthwhile to keep a tab on this movement so that the next time we meet, I can just ask "So, What do you do" - removing the "living" part from it.


(Image courtesy: BP.blogspot)

Free Your Thoughts

[A Disclaimer and a confession: I am not too good in remembering names, so i might have goofed up with them in this blog of mine. Anyway, this time I would like to believe Shakespere 'What's in the name?' ]



“You know Eknath right?”
“What?” I was stumped.
Red mistook it to be a reaction that I didn’t know Eknath and continued, “Well I can understand India is a huge country, this person Eknath was very well known in the western part of India,”


“Well of course Red, I know Eknath in fact I come from western region of India.”
“That’s right” Carl suddenly came into picture, with a cup of coffee in his hand that clouted the Starbucks logo on it. “He is from Maharashtra, which is below Gujarat.”
“Oh! You know well about India.” I was really keen to see Filipinos know a lot about India beyond “Jai Ho!”
“Cool so you know Eknath. Then you must know his translations of Upanishads and Bhagavad Geeta.”
Had I decided to call up Preshit, Nilay or anyone from my old school days and begin a conversation about Ekanth. I am pretty sure that they’d say with watery mouths, “What lovely samosas he used to make!” referring to the canteen owner of our school. And here I was amongst some 20 odd Filipinos, discussing about Eknath and his lovely translations about Bhagavad Geeta, with a boy who was an atheist himself.
“We have people like Red in our group” Frank like a spokesperson, was explaining me the uniqueness of his group. “They have tried all religions and then decided to be atheist. There are agonistics, there are people from various religions and there are people like me who believe in Christianity.”
“Well I can see the cross as your locket. Wait a minute that is not a cross that is a ‘T’. What is that?”
“The crucification of Christ is a mystery in itself. Few say that He was crucified on a cross; few said that He was on a ‘T’ shaped structure when He died while others say that He died on a tree log while his hands were clutched together above His head.”
“Then why do we see the cross in churches?”
“Well this is one of the Pagan symbols. It was adopted by Christianity during medieval times so that the Pagans would find it easier to adopt Christianity.”
I nodded acknowledging reading something like this in Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code”.
I felt it was such a good decision to come within this bunch of Filipilno Freethinkers.


When Frank told me about this Free Thinking concept, I wondered why would citizens of a country where 85% population belongs to one particular religion talk about religious tolerance. My curiosity led me to Starbucks café at the Shangrilla Mall. Well it was my house warming day and I was little late (again, I am not making any excuses, I was late due to genuine reasons).
“We call it knon-Indian.”, chuckled John. “When you decide to meet at a time and then you don’t show up on that time, we have a word for that in Tagalou.”
“Although I wonder why would anyone relate ‘no-show’ to Indians? Are they always late?” seemed to be an honest question from Wella.
“Maybe we mean Red Indians.” Frank was I guess covering up for my community.
“Well!” I offered an explanation “maybe it is because India is 2 and half hours behind. So if you are 2 and half hours late, you are right time as per the Indian Standard Time.”
And everyone laughed, ‘Joke well received’ I thought.
When I reached little late, the group had already begun with their topic for the week.
“The situation is like, to be a recognized political party herein Philippines, you need to get an approval from the election commission. Here was a party GLP (Gay and Lesbian Party) whose application got rejected and we believe there is a role of church in this.”
I nodded, now understanding the need of such groups in a place where 85% are Christians.
“The panel is discussing as what can be done so that this imposition of church can be prevented.”
“Guys, there is a rally organized.” I heard Red addressing the rest of the gang. “If you support the GLP, come to the rally, wear colorful clothes. Make banners saying ‘Gays are OK.’”
“Yeah but write a disclaimer ‘I am not Gay’ “giggled John.
“Also, there are so many people yet in their closet, and we would like them to come out and declare their individuality.”
“Well, wait a minute; we don’t want people who are yet in their closet.” Paused Regg.
“Yeah, but people who are on fence, we can encourage to come out in open. Can’t we?” queried Frank .
“Yeah we can, but again that’s not the theme of the rally. The theme of the rally is to give us gays a right to have our own place in politics.” Regg clarified.
Sooner the gang moved their eyes on me. How are homosexuals received in your country? Is homosexuality approved in your religion? What are your own views on homo sexuality?
I answered their questions to the best of my knowledge. And soon the topic swayed from homosexuality to India in general.
“Why are Indians associated with computers everywhere? Is it that they are better in computers than us?” asked Red.

“Well yes I agree, Indians are really good in computers. But that’s mainly because there are just too many of them. They have many more computer geeks than we do here. And India is a big competition to Philippines.” answered Frank. I felt like thanking all the forefathers who never considered family planning as a way of life, thereby giving birth to computer geeks in such a large number.
I remembered JP’s presentation in our office town-hall meet where he compared our company rates to the Indian counterparts indicating that my Filipino company was indeed doing better than IT firms on my homeland. But this corporate competition is nowhere seen in the warmth of the Filipinos that I meet. In this group itself they declared, “We are cool with Indians. None of our communities have any issues with Indians.” I can vouch for that.
And amongst that warmth, this rendezvous with this bunch of people whose thinking I could very much relate to was indeed a tonic for my knowledge thirsty brain.

PS: TO Know more about 'Filipino Free Thinkers' click here

VOTE INDIA

Whom do you think should be blamed for your taps running dry? Your building secretary? Or the local corporator for not policing or rather encouraging the water theft? Whom do you think should be punished for the potholes on your roads? The daily increasing traffic or the corrupt ministers at pwd who aim at filling their pocket at the tax-payer's expese? Who is ultimately responsible for the load-shedding that you and me have to bear for hours? Is it the lack of resources? Lack of funds? or is the existence of few dumb-heads heading our country with no vision in mind aout the nation and its power needs?

We travel in crowded busses, fall off the crowded trains, fall sick during some epidimic, face inflation, settle down to the mediocre education, fight in riots, feel insecured to travel in nights, live a terrorized life like there may not be tomorrow.
And we face all of this with a "Chalta-hai" kind of attitude.

We, the people of India have developed a sickening mentality of adjusting to the mercy of few power thirsty people.
Where there is a seat for at most three people, we push ourselves to discomfort to accomodate the fourth or even the fifth person. While appreciating the nice brotherhood feeling, we ultimately eclipse the flaws of the government and their sincere lack of planning in terms of calculating the influx and maintaining a proper infrastructure for the same.

But what is government? it is a set of people whom we give the power to govern us. in that case they are nothing but a set of people arisen from us. Then where do we lack in choosing the right? The main issue is here is that we, the people have forgotten to excercise our moral right to vote.

(Image Courtesy Vivek Thakkar's blog)

"What shall happen if and when we decide to vote? I love tackling the potholes." Nice point. Potholes may not be a problem for you per se, but they put the unborn babies at high risks. Potholes create problems with your neck and spine in long run. In such situations how can we live with the "Chalta-Hai" attitude? It is not just our right, but our duty to voice an opinion against this unjust approach. The constitution of India, world's biggest democracy has give you the ultimate power to voice your opinion by excercising your right to vote.

Dear India,

Give up the "Chalta - hai " approach.
Ensure that the power goes in the right hands.
And realise that this kind of power is there in your hands.

Vote India.