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A reality show contestant from Big Boss gets an offer to star in a porn movie. Link

And here’s the comment:

i maratha and i speak marathi. why i no understand this story. wht it say? why they no talk about marathi people. marathi actors. we are also good. handsome, good talker, good dancer. but media no do it. why? ask yourself. so you tell the media to suport us. mind it

A good start to kick this off eh? :D

1. India was the greatest power in the world for thousands of years
2. Muslim invaders came and destroyed Indian culture
3. Indian knowledge was far ahead of its time and was the envy of the world
4. India had the greatest philosophers
5. India had the wisest kings
6. India had the best warriors
7. The British stole India’s Kohinoor! etc etc.

You get the idea..

They are made with the utmost passion and are usually followed by a tirade of how India has fallen from greatness, has embraced “western imperialism” and needs to get back to its roots. Modern society is degenerating, homosexuals are roaming freely, and women are “losing their modesty”. Honestly, I’m astounded at how often I hear such nonsense.

Beware the Evil Muslim Hordes!

Let’s assume it’s all true. Obviously there’s a good amount of idealization, glorification and whitewashing, but I’m going to ignore it for now. Pretend that India was the greatest jewel on the planet for thousands of years, that all the rulers were paragons of virtue, justice and wisdom. Give in to the belief that evil Muslims came and destroyed everything great about this paradise hundreds of years ago and imposed their barbaric rule, culture and laws upon it.

I may be asking for too much I know, but bear with me. Now that we’ve descended into self delusion and absorbed this nauseatingly glorified past, I have just one question.

So…bloody…what??

Indians living today share nothing but a few bits of DNA with our long dead ancestors. We didn’t know them. They certainly didn’t know us. We have no connection to them. But still we want to somehow claim greatness based on their (supposedly) lofty stature in the past. In effect, we want to bask in undeserved glory. The reality is that the deeds of those before don’t confer superiority on us today. Those who lived and died hundreds of years ago are strangers to us.

It means nothing. We have no business to feel proud.

I’ll tell you the kind of people who look to the past to find glory and feel better about themselves. Those who have no achievements of their own. People who think themselves so worthless and without anything to brag about that they have to dig up old glories of India – imagined or not – to elevate themselves and compensate for their current failings.

The atrocities committed hundreds or thousands of years ago have no bearing today. Those responsible have long since died and crumbled to dust, beyond the reach of our laws. Even those who suffered have been extinguished. The past is past. Let bygones by bygones.

Advocates of the past justify bringing up these old non-wounds by saying we must “learn from history” and trot out that famous saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This might have been valid if there was a danger today of Muslim hordes overrunning India today. If there was a risk of barbarians on horses frothing at the mouth waiting to convert every Hindu into a Muslim.

But there are no such barbarians today. There is no threat. We have far bigger problems than Islamic terrorism threatening us. Perhaps we’re afraid of tackling them and so find an easy target to blame everything on. It’s the evil Sonia Gandhi and her Christian pals in Rome! It’s the minority appeasing Congress that wants to convert every Hindu into a Muslim and impose Sharia law!

If only things were that simple and the enemy was so clearly outlined. But they’re not. Nothing is simple. We have far deeper and real systemic problems which we need to address. Finding an enemy to swing a sword at is just childish. We desperately need to grow up.

Can you Blindly Obey?

But would I give up my life for it? After some thought, I’ve decided the answer is…No.

A “nation” is too vague an idea for me sacrifice something so precious. I can imagine giving my life to protect someone close to me – someone, or some people I love. Such as a family for instance if the threat is serious enough. But I can’t imagine dying to protect man made borders to which I have no real close connection.

In short, I would make a poor soldier.

It’s because I’m unable to blindly follow anything. I can never fully submerge myself in a larger entity, a larger cause, and will myself to shut my eyes to everything else. My core individualism simply doesn’t allow that to happen. I’m glad there are some people who can do that – put their lives at risk in unquestioning obedience to their superior officers. But there shouldn’t be too many. After all, that’s what fanatics are made of.

Just Following Orders?

I view my life as too precious a gift to squander away without a tangible benefit. I get one shot at living and will dissolve into nothingness when I die. It’s so brief a spark after all. We’re all born alone, essentially die alone – and that’s the end.

Sometimes tactical sacrifices are needed in war. Maybe a contingent to delay the enemy for a while. They’re expected to fail. And often, only the superior officers know the expected outcome. Only they know the overall strategy. The rest of the soldiers are pawns. Pawns who don’t question why they’re asked to do whatever they’re asked to do. I could never be that pawn. To relinquish my grip on life just to serve a higher cause under someone else for purposes I don’t fully understand…not for me.

What does this mean as an Indian? I know it’s patriotic to say that you’ll give your life for your country. I know there’s no law saying that you must want to give up your life. And that’s one of the reasons why I love India. But how much is it expected informally? Are Indians expected to lay down their lives to protect their borders?

How many people are like me? Would you give up your life for your country in the manner outlined above?

Facebook Breakup - who to blame for a suicide?

But isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with this? Recently we’ve seen more and more cases of people being charged with the crime of “abetment to suicide” in situations just like this. The most famous case of course is the Rathore-Ruchika case where she killed herself due to extreme provocation and harassment.

Now all cases are not the same. There are indeed extreme situations like the Rathore one, but at what point do we stop blaming other people for someone else’s suicide? Shouldn’t we all take responsibility for what we do? In the recent case, a guy dumping his girlfriend on Facebook neither wanted her to commit suicide, nor did he help her to. Sure, he behaved like an asshole and a jerk. For that he should be ridiculed…but charged with a crime? If being impolite and insensitive is a criminal offence then we’d all be in the dock at sometime or the other. We’re just lucky that no one killed themselves because of it!

This trend of blaming someone else for a person’s actions is pretty common in India. A guy rapes a woman and claims that he was “provoked” by her dress, mannerisms etc. A mob goes on a riot, burning buses and killing people and claims they were “provoked” by the actions of another – not their fault after all. A painter’s exhibits are vandalized and the thugs claim that they were “provoked” by something they’ve probably only heard about.

Now the law has to draw a line somewhere. No one likes being dumped publicly. But most people don’t kill themselves over it. We’ve all had our hearts broken at some time in life. I know I have. I didn’t end my life. I have nothing against the poor girl who did kill herself, but I object to her ex boyfriend taking the rap for her suicide.

Often, we just have to learn to be responsible for our actions without blaming someone else for them. That’s what it means to be an adult.

Indians Boarding Flights - A lack of trust is our problem

But I disagree that it’s because we can’t or don’t want to follow instructions. Indians behave just fine when abroad. When boarding a flight which has non Indians or westerners on it, they stick to the rules as scrupulously as anyone else. When on foreign soil and amongst foreigners, they don’t jump queues or disregard rules. They do it only when they’re surrounded by other Indians. And many Indians are relieved when they come abroad that people follow the traffic laws and that order is maintained in general. So it’s not that Indians don’t like regulations. They love it when everyone else is following them and they don’t mind doing the same.

And here’s the crux. The real reason why Indians don’t follow rules in the presence of other Indians is that we don’t trust our countrymen to follow them! Following rules is good only when everyone around you is doing the same. It’s nice to stand in a line knowing that your turn will come only as long as you have faith that others won’t jump the queue. It’s the same with traffic rules. If you’re the only guy on the road scrupulously driving within the lanes and following every rule to the “T,” you’re at a massive disadvantage. When you don’t trust others to behave properly, there’s no incentive for you to do so.

This is the secret of the Indian’s refusal to follow rules and behave in a dignified way. Which is why the same person when abroad will behave in one way, but when they return to their homeland, they adopt a different behavior. We have a very low opinion of other Indians and when we’re in a group, we sink to the lowest common denominator in our own minds.

This is quite sad really because it’s a self reinforcing mindset. Say you have a set of Indians who all would like to follow rules, not jump queues, and board flights in a dignified manner. If they don’t trust each other to behave properly, they will all break the rules at the same time since the last one to behave properly loses. Then they come away satisfied that their analysis of their countrymen was correct.

If my analysis is correct, it’s time to stop beating on Indians for being inherently uncivilized, rude, or disregardful of rules. We’d like to not be like that. And when we’re in a society where we know others behave properly, we do the same, reap the benefits, and thank our luck for being amongst such nice people. But when we don’t trust the people around us, we turn into the kind of obnoxious jerks we all like to think Indians really are.

So it comes down to how we view ourselves. As long as we think in terms of “Indians are like this” or “Indians are like that,” it will become a self enforcing idea. When sufficient people change and start having a better view of our fellow men, then things will improve. But it’s not easy. Someone has to take the first step after all and be punished for it. I guess we just need to give it time. A lot of time.

Discussing Death is Taboo

This incident got me thinking – why are we so touchy about the subject of death in general? Anupa assures me that the hesitancy is pretty widespread and that I’m the anomaly for not minding. Perhaps it has something to do with both my parents being doctors. We discuss death all the time at home. Just the other day, my mother and I were discussing the best way to commit suicide without pain and expense in case my parents get so old and pain ridden than life is just not worth living anymore. In fact, whenever my mother used to go on a trip somewhere, she would pull us aside before leaving and tell us where the important keys and documents were kept just in case she never came back. I have a file in my Google docs which has all these important details so that we don’t have to go into a flap in case someone in the family dies.

So as a person who’s quite comfortable talking about death, I find the tendency to avoid the topic in Indian society pretty puzzling. I mean sure, no one wants a loved one to die. But talking about it won’t cause it to happen. Keeping quiet about it won’t prevent it either. Unless of course it’s a superstition, in which case I understand. We’re all superstitious about something or the other I guess. But if it’s not superstitious, what is it?

Strangely, I find that it’s Indians who dislike talk of death more than people here in the US for example. It’s strange because Hinduism is arguably a very chill religion when it comes to the final end. Other religions postulate that there’s a final judgement which is pretty scary if you ask me. Hinduism on the other hand simply treats death as shedding your clothes. The soul finds a new body and things go on as usual. Krishna told Arjun not to grieve for loved ones because they’re not really dead.

If anything, it should be the Atheists who hate discussing death because everything literally ends for them. No rebirth, no heaven…nothing. But I’ve met quite a few Atheists who don’t mind discussing their death or the death of others in public. But I don’t know whether it’s a religious thing, or a cultural thing here. Perhaps the problem is philosophical and people feel that since death is a horrible and bad thing, then talking about it is in poor taste.

It’s like the elephant in the room. Every knows it’s there but no one wants to acknowledge it. We all know we’re going to die and everyone we love is going to die and yet we don’t talk about it. This despite that fact that talking about death can be very interesting since it presents concepts such as the soul, mortality, God, the value of life etc. One of the most important distinctions between humans and animals is that we seem to be the only creature who is aware of our own mortality.

Could someone who is more clued into this help me understand this recalcitrance?

For those who don’t watch the video, it’s all about Sanjay Dutt ranting over how Indian men are too “effeminate.” The evidence is that they’re spending time in the kitchen (gosh!), counting calories (the sissies), taking care of babies (which father does that?), growing their hair (shocking) and not wearing “manly” colors like black and blue. All this for a man whose photograph on his Wikipedia page portrays him as the epitome of manhood:D .

Avoiding the obvious question of how the hell what other people do concerns him in the first place, my personal opinion is that his own manhood feels threatened. After all, he’s always been the macho guy with machine guns and muscles – who’s gonna look up to him if men in India ditch that ultra macho crap?

In the meanwhile, here’s a primer for women to “woman up.” They need to:

1. Sit quietly in the kitchen which is their rightful place
2. Move out of the offices and have babies
3. Stop wearing jeans
4. Stop having these “bob cuts.”
5. Stop smoking, drinking, enjoying sex, talking loudly etc etc.

I don’t know this crazy guy’s motivations here, but the fact that he thinks he has a target audience who will listen to him is itself disturbing. Let’s hope he’s wrong and everyone just keeps laughing at him.

It’s easy to laugh it off and say that some people are really dumb, but that’s not true. I believe most people around us are more or less of the same intelligence and if we take the trouble, we can briefly step into their shoes and see the world from their eyes and understand their psychology. I’ve done this and I’ve come up with four reasons why people take the Armageddon scenarios so seriously.

Armageddon - why people want it to happen

People want their generation to be “The One”

Most people who’ve made predictions about the ending of the world have prophesied that it would come about in their lifetime. Which is a bit too coincidental if you ask me. The earth has stood for 4.3 billion years and when we have to make an objective prediction about when it will end, it just happens to be in the 70-100 year interval in which you personally live – almost every single time?

People desperately want their lives and era to mean something. To be more than just another generation of humans who came and went. They would dearly love to be there when humanity is “saved” and justice is finally meted out. It’s difficult to explain, but it may have to do with a hidden terror of death. After all, if god comes and takes them up they never have to die at all and face the uncertainty of being wrong.

As an example, the latest May 21st prophecy was made by Harold Camping who is 89 years of age is in very close to death himself. He made a similar prediction that the “rapture” would take place in 1994 which obviously never happened. Perhaps he’s terrified of dying and suspects that his life just might be meaningless and desperately wants validation before he goes. Which brings us to the next point.

Meaninglessness of life

I’ve stated before that the realization of the meaninglessness of life is crushing. I think this is the single most important reason why people believe in religion in the first place. Without this crushing desire for meaning, we would have thrown religion overboard generations ago. Instead, in this age of science when we can fly through the air and send our machines to other planets, we still cling to outdated fairy stories about a man in the sky.

It’s easy to say “Just live in the present” or “Life is what you make of it.” All true of course, but they’re not very soothing balms for most of us. I dearly wish I could believe in a god, but my intelligence just won’t let me. An Armageddon would paradoxically give our life great meaning by destroying it! For a while we can get jolted out of our complacent existence and say “We’re gonna die – aaaaa!”

Want it all to just end – Justice will be done

The world is a tough place to live in. There’s really very little justice. The corrupt go free, a handful of wealthy people dictate the world economy, manipulative people often get the better of us, ass kissers get undue rewards and criminals don’t burn in hell like we’d like them to.

Lots of people just want all this to end. They believe that their particular era is the most corrupt that ever existed. Hindus believe we live in the Kali Yuga. Christians feel we live in the times predicted by the revelations.

The final payoff comes when god descends to earth, ending this evil world and punishing the wicked. At the same time, he’ll take all the “good guys” to heaven in eternal bliss. In heaven, we can finally get rid of this evil world and live in a place where things are as they should be.

Boring life

Life is too boring. Nice to panic about the Armageddon and have something real to get worked up about. Otherwise it’s just go to work, come home, save money, blah blah blah.

In conclusion, these reasons provide people with the motivation to seriously believe in Armageddon scenarios. And there’s no point in feeling too smug about it. We ourselves are capable of feeling the same way once the right buttons are pushed.

But there are a few cases that trouble me greatly as a liberal and I’m not very sure what is right/wrong. I was reminded of this when I was debating a complex topic on Sanjeev’s blog. These are cases which my liberal attitude says one thing, but my common sense tells me another. This confirms my belief that no “system” can ever blindly dictate complex issues such as governance. Each case is unique and though we can use ideology to guide our decision, the truth is never a simple matter.

So here are two cases which befuddle the liberal in me:

Should we allow people to have sex in public?

Public decency laws have always been in place no matter how progressive a country is. And the standards of public decency keep changing. In the 1900s for example, Annette Kellerman was arrested in Massachusetts just for wearing a swimsuit! Couples in India are regularly harassed for petty things like holding hands, though the Delhi High court held that kissing is an expression of love and arresting a couple for kissing was overstepping the boundary of what should be prohibited. Some people no doubt find kissing in public highly objectionable, but they need not look if they don’t want to right?

Do we allow this in public?

While I strongly feel that people should be able to do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm anyone else, how far do we take this? By this logic, a couple should be allowed to have sex in public as long as they don’t get in anyone’s way. People need not look if they don’t want to!

Now the bare principles of liberalism tell me that sexual acts in public should be legal. But my common sense tells me that we can’t legalize it. I’m not fully able to articulate why since logic tells me that there should be no problem.

After all, if we can allow a couple to hold hands and kiss in public, why not allow full fledged sex too?

That’s the first problem.

Should dangerous drugs be legalized?

As a liberal, I firmly hold that I have the right to harm myself if I want. It’s ridiculous that suicide is termed as an illegal act. What’s the punishment? Death? :D

The liberal in me says that it should be perfectly fine for a person to manufacture a murderously addictive drug such as methamphetamine in their home. After all, it’s their life and their body. In fact, selling the drug should be legal too – so long as it’s not sold to minors and the purchaser is fully aware of the risks. After all, we already have such a system in place for alcohol don’t we?

Again, though my liberal leanings tell me that crystal meth should be legal, my common sense tells me otherwise. Sure it’s dangerous, but a person should be allowed to drug themselves to death if they wish. Their body. And make the penalty for selling to children so high that professional dealers are discouraged and have effective law enforcement. Problem solved!

And yet it doesn’t sound right to me. Problem number two.

None of this means that liberalism isn’t probably the best we have so far – certainly more conducive to human growth and mental health than other ideologies. What it really means is that you can’t simply take a set of principles and blindly apply them like a mathematical theorem to determine what is the right thing to do. It means that reality is far more complex for its problems to be solved that easily.

Every situation requires an examination on its own merits. So though we can use ideologies such as liberalism as a useful guide, we have to be smart about it. We can’t worship any “system” that promises an instant and accurate resolution of complicated problems. If only life was that simple. It’s not. And our thinking shouldn’t be either.

Brings to mind Samuel Butler’s words in his awesome book “The way of all flesh:”

Extremes are alone logical, and they are always absurd, the mean is alone practicable and it is always illogical…. They say all roads lead to Rome, and all philosophies that I have ever seen lead ultimately either to some gross absurdity, or else to the conclusion already more than once insisted on in these pages …that sensible people will get through life by rule of thumb as they may interpret it most conveniently without asking too many questions for conscience sake.  Take any fact, and reason upon it to the bitter end, and it will ere long lead to this as the only refuge from some palpable folly.