Where did all the media frenzies lead us, till now.
Rang De Basanti was a fortuitous flash of inspiration for the ‘new’ media. The story of a youth like ‘us’, who rise up in anger against something old and wrong. And achieve a hero status. That was a story that could easily take hold of millions of young minds. The idea-starved media took a shot at it. And hit pay dirt gold. They fell over themselves in making the reservations a national issue. And ‘we’ played into it by braving water cannons and lighting candles and walking with long strides and fierce eyes. Till we realised that they had turned away. Looking past when we most needed the strength and sense of power they subtly offered us. As moved on to other things.
How many of these ‘this-has-changed-India’ moments have we had. The booming Sensex? We saw it all over. A new, confident, resurgent India. Karan Johar neatly twitching with pride with Richard Gere fawning him over with his brand of India eulogising and China bashing.
More recently they say that we have had enough of terrorism, and that enough was enough, and it looked like they were again fighting for us. Fat chance. Mumbais gun weilders are long past dead. As we realise that the media was sometimes fighting among us , and mostly over us. There are numerous other examples. Many are city specific. A frenzy that helps them comfortably get seated in the psyche of a people. And stay on there with yearly subscriptions making us feel like we cannot do without them. BalThackeray, now Rama Sene, pink chaddis and all. Reminds me of a senior of mine. Who encouraged conflict only because it allowed him to retain the reigns of power. All over again it happens. Pink chaddis won’t last long. Tomorrow they will be SO yesterday’s news.
How much of what Obama said was what you and I believed in. You and me – the gay, blogging, intellectual, dandy type. Our fathers (and mothers) fought hard for the comforts we enjoy. Our world padded with satin cushions and cool white Ipods, we pity the grubby next. Our ideals we make and remake continuously in our head; they are never called to test, they can stay there safe – shielded by the blood and guts of our fathers.
The men and women who toiled and tilled this land. Who spoke out; fought, died, conquered. This is not our victory. It is theirs. We think there may be no need to fight anymore. No cause to lose our lives in. And yes, we are gracious in our privileges, cautious and mindful in our luxury – we give little and hope for the better of all.
That is Obama’s country. As a brilliant counter to W who exhorted his citizenry to shop after a crisis, O exhorted his to toil through one. Here’s a man who rounds the smooth edges. Who says – all can be Free, and Gay. Obama stands up for the promise of his father, and our fathers – and never for a moment may we think it is ours alone to claim.
We stand in the shadows of those before us. And may only hope to do as well.
The media is a dangerous animal. The sooner do we realise this, the better. One of today’s dailies carried a long delayed article on how TV almost led us to war against Pakistan after the Mumbai attack. The crazed hype and ballooning beyond proportion of ‘events’ is far more serious than the mere parodies they are made out to be.
We ARE a people easily led. Our history is evidence enough. We may relish the thought of biting the hand that feeds us, but deep within, we cling to our Gods, our Communities, our Parents, and anything that offers us some collective and overarching direction. The role of the media in such a society cannot be understated. The problem however is that our media is you and me – and as easily led by the nose as any other ordinary Indian mortal.
Determined powers have enough means at their disposal to lead these packs down paths of their choosing. Did the Pakistan Army fuel the war talk in the Indian media? Was it so easy to do? And why did the media rush off like crazed dogs in heat after the poor bitch of Satyam after ‘investors’ in the West started making angry noises?
There are many voices of regret today in the way Satyam went down. A sort of pity that they didn’t see this coming when they were tearing after the company with the sounds from the West ringing in their heads. Raju does not deserve to be condoned. This is not about choosing a one evil over an another. The point is that the media had gone after Satyam not because it took such bad decisions or was mismanaged, but because many powerful people in the West acted agitated seemed to believe that the decisions taken were terrible.
Was there any stopping to question sanely what was really happening? Never mind. Too late now. Own of our biggest prides has gone down, and we can only nibble at our fingers and hope for someone to show us the way again.
Yes Satyam should have been hauled over the coals. But the viciousness of the media was startling. This was a clearly being hugely spun by powers from all over, and instead of giving a group that we had much more knowledge and understanding of a little room, we tore them to bits. Then watched in disbelief as it crumbled.
One can only watch and wait for the next big media screw ups. See a scrap tossed at them and watch them go. Slowly we destroy ourselves, while TRPs rise.
The show of single minded unity that for a rare moment gripped this vast country was only fleeting. The debate forums are back to rehearsed arguments over their easy binary distinctions, the politicians are back to passing the buck around while kicking up enough dust to make it seem like action, the media is flying off on tangents and has all but lost the plot, and the rest of us got back to our everyday selves, feeding our children and our hidden pyres of fear and loathing.
With an incident of this magnitude, widely described as one that would ‘change India forever’ , what is this great inner force that pits us terribly against each other, that relentlessly churns this mass of people around in a sickening cesspool? Why is the story of the Indian frogs in a well so accurate and so damning?
Like most big problems, the answers are mostly within, hidden deeply in our selves and not so much a creation of external forces. The fundamental reason, that causes me to desperately claw out at a fellow Indian who’s views, ideas, attitudes, principles, personality, image, affiliations may be contradictory, or challenging to me is because I identify so strongly with that other person. It is like having a part of my own self that I see acting unlike what I know myself to be. Of going against my very grain – an errant mental strain that is trying to be something else – higher, different, opposite – to what i am. And the frustration I feel at this charade, this complete disregard for my own ‘true’ self is something that causes me to lash out with such violence. It is a violence against myself – of an inability to reconcile parts of myself that refuse to obey me.
We would not get into impassioned debates and absolutely personal arguments and attacks of the kind we are so used to, with a person whom we do not identify with. Our oneness is the biggest cause for our divisiveness. And time and again, history shows this that there is no shortage of willing opportunists that would exploit this to their own benefit. The squabbling meanwhile, continues.
Shivaji statue to be 3 ft taller than Lady Liberty
An imposing equestrian statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji, three-and-a-half feet taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty, will be erected a kilometre off Marine Drive between Marine Lines and Charni Road stations.
A high-powered committee chaired by chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Monday decided to shift the proposed statue from its earlier site near the Gateway of India. The meeting was attended by key officials from various departments, including the army, navy and VSNL. The navy and the Mumbai Port Trust had opposed the earlier site.
The statue will stand 309 feet at its highest point, including a pedestal of 153 feet.
A museum of historical literature and artefacts showcasing the era of the Maratha warrior will also come up at the base of the statue, besides an amphitheatre. A sound-and-light show on the Maratha warrior will be the highlight of the visits to the landmark.
The entire project, which is expected to cost Rs200 crore, will be completed in two years.
After naval officers approved of the site, Deshmukh told officials from the general administration and public works departments that the monument should be of international standards.
“The site should establish its international significance with a half-hour sound-and-light show revolving around the life of Shivaji in Marathi, Hindi, and English,” he said.
The chief minister later visited the site with his deputy RR Patil, chief secretary Johny Joseph and key officials from the Maritime Board, PWD and GAD.
A source from the PWD said the statue would be 1.7km away from Malabar Hill, 1.5km from Girgaum, and 1.8km from Nariman Point. The source said VSNL was initially apprehensive because its high-voltage undersea cables are in the vicinity. But the government assured the company that a minimum distance of 250m from the cables would be ensured.
The monument will come up on 7.5 acres, or 30,000 sq metres, and will have no approach road. Tourists will be taken to the spot in a ferry from a floating jetty at Nariman Point.
Officials said the statue would be cast in bronze and tenders would be invited once the government got all required permissions and conducted a detailed study of rock and soil.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1168149
Do we need this monument? Any ideas on why it should be built? Or why not?
It is easy to be wise in hindsight. When the bubble was blowing up, the amount of positivity that reeked out of people’s pores was nauseating. And their gloom now is equally so. Are we not tired of being led? There may be no conspiracy here, but suppose there was? Suppose it was not such a coincidence that all this happened just when the very administration that was in bed with the creators of this ‘crisis’ was on its way out? Suppose the mad rush for government support just before W is back on his ranch is not so much distress as opportunism? Suppose the ball-squeezing with doomsday scenarios and loss of confidence and fears of bankruptcy were to secure, among others the $700 billion that disappeared ever-so-quickly?
This blog was meant to point a finger at India – at ourselves. It is increasingly pointing fingers elsewhere. Of course we live in a world that is connected, but the impact of the connections are being overstated. Maybe one should stop reading daily news. Like I mentioned earlier. Let our reality not be built by the frenzied drumbeats of Spin, but the soft, mixed, everyday sounds of Truth.
Or the Rise of Asia and a rebalancing of World Powers?
All so last year (or month, or week). One of our fallacies is believing that we have a complete picture of the world, that is within our control, and that we need to set right. It is not from the nature of capitalism, or in the scheming nature of the establishment or the dominant powers that crises are created, fretted over for a while, apparently dealt with, only exacerbating other smaller conditions, often taken advantage of to perpetrate agendas that otherwise might not have been possible to be accepted, and then swiftly forgotten at the appearance of a new crisis. It is ingrained in a world view shared by most of us.
What seems to be changing however, is our fascination with, and almost breathless hunting down of what may be called a crisis. Something that challenges the core of our very existence and threatens ‘life as we would like it to be’ (And strangely seems to give us some sense of purpose). Life is never going to be what we want it to be. There is a world unfathomable, and much larger than our comprehension out there that is too complex to be fully held within political agendas, economic charts, or forms of organisation created by the human mind. Our failure is in believing we have mastered it all, and that we can now train the world along in the direction WE choose. Often the first faltering is at just the word WE.
The real crises will creep on us when we are not looking. The attack on America was a real crisis that no one saw coming, or going. But the created crisis of the War on Terrorism and the Clash of Civilizations took up more legroom. The current economic crisis is not the end of the economy, or capitalism, or the World Order as we know it. It is surely going to be around for a while, but my guess is it will soon move into that part of our consciousness where the Polar Bears on their melting ice cap now reside.
These all ARE real issues, and need real solutions and effort. But we need to be more sparing with our definition of crises. A real crisis would be not knowing where ones next meal is to come from, and how your children may be fed or sheltered. And as the gaily smiling faces around our most deprived regions tell us, they are handling that crisis quite well. Surely we could atleast try as much.
Beneath the many garbled ways in which everyone and their daughter is trying to explain the financial crisis, and with panic spreading at a speed many times that of the spread of euphoria not more than a year ago, there are some fundamental questions that need fundamental answers.
What REALLY runs an economy ? What is the future focus for a REAL economy ?
For countries like India, the answer is simple. It needs to ramp up its standard of living, base upwards, and concentrate on policies that enable mass growth of fundamental sectors – food (agriculture, processing and distribution), infrastructure (irrigation, roads, railway), education (basic through to advanced), and housing.
For developed Europe, it is about pushing the edge on technology and research, to elevate production to the next level of greener, more advanced alternatives. A niche market, versus the mass market of economies like India.
It is when we come to America and China that things get complicated. America runs its economy on a system of consumption without value. The mass-produced Ford over Europe’s custom-made Ferrari. And the provider of that consumption can no longer in today’s globalized world be America herself. America’s deadly sin is helping nimble hands in China shove its consumption – systemically built into the American psyche – down its throat, and its capital out of it wallet.
America has no Plan B. Yet. It may not take too many bubbles before it completely implodes.
What is it about these slim, dark men of African ancestry that seem to tower over us nowadays. Suave, and lovable with unruffled calm and steely nerve. Barack Obama, Lewis Hamilton and Tiger Woods have been sent down upon us to prove a point. I dont know what that may be. But these brothers have something going. The plot thickens.
Chhagan Bhujbal. What a name that is. When we were in school, chhagan was an equivalent of chakka (eunuch). Going through life with the face of a pig and the name of a eunuch. And bhujbal being just an accurate verbal rendition of his jelly-like ugly self. With such resources to draw from, Chhagan is my candidate of choice for Social Mover 2008.
The interesting part of the Chhagan story is just unfolding. After the stamp scam, he was hidden from the public eye. So that he could be forgotten, and dissociated from the ugliness of the scandal. Rumour has it that it was Sharad Pawar who was a huge beneficiary of the stamp paper scam. The Big Boss behind it all. Pawar being Sharad, was untouched. He did the smart thing as he is wont to do, and buried little Chhagan deep into the soil of public anonymity. And probably extracted a promise to keep his little snout firmly to himself.
Today, on his birthday, he has been well rewarded. His smug-mug is everywhere. And though he feigns sadness at being sidelined by his party, he is merely throwing the hounds off their scent. Pawar is well and truly behind his man again. It has been a while. Public memory is predictable. Life goes on.
Posted by indiaonedge 
Posted by indiaonedge 
Posted by indiaonedge 