Thursday, January 31, 2013

Of Religion, Intolerance and Sensitization


I have not watched the movie. I do not know if it has enough material to cause any kind of communal problems. However, the movie has released everywhere else, is my understanding, and the country is yet to see anything communal because of it. More importantly, in my understanding, it is only by letting people watch movies or read books or any other form of exposure to intelligently and aesthetically made material, will we ever be able to sensitize people about the real issues and slowly try and reduce this deeply brewing intolerance against anything and everything "religious".

If politics and judiciary are going to take up the job of screening all kinds of matters that touch upon religion, isn't that extremely counterproductive, in the manner that people will be less and less exposed to things, and will hence get less and less tolerant, which will make them increasingly reactive and explosive towards ANY chance encounters to such material.

If religion and everything considered "sensitive" is actually discussed and debated openly (just like the necessity of sex education), if it is all around us, the sensitivity and hence the reactions these cause will only die down. But if the public is going to be screened and protected from the slightest of mentions, then we as a society are going to be so unused to hearing/seeing anything related, so sensitive and intolerant of any kind of the tiniest implications in the religious directions, that very soon there will begin random bursts of riots and fights and communal warfare in big and small scale all over the country because of totally innocent and no-harm-implied statements unnecessarily construed as "hurting religious sentiments". 

Sensitize the public. Increase the tolerance. Make religion a complete Non-issue. Simply a private, personal belief that it should be. THAT is the need of the hour. 

Not, protecting it (or us against it), making it some kind of a BIG, Sensational thing, a thing that is to be defended, dividing and ruling the country based on it, until finally the whole thing blows out of proportion and explodes into something totally uncontrollable and horrendous. 
As for Vishwaroopam, at least after seeing that the movie caused absolutely no issues in the rest of the (obviously more tolerant) world, isn't it about time, you know... But well, can't comment on it as the matter is  in court. :|

More importantly, next time on, unless things look really really ugly and communal, release the bloody book or movie, wait for the reactions and if you see trouble, then only ban, pull it back, if necessary make relevant people apologize and placate the public. But at least give the public the benefit of the doubt first. We may not all be as bad as you think. For all you know it is just one dirty, ugly, communal mind in that panel of decision  makers who felt this can cause issues, while the rest of the world may not sense any kind of intended insult. Give us that chance, man!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Hari Sadu Again

I may have said all of this before but utter frustration and repeated stupidity of the Asshole has me writing this all over again. This is not so much for the readers as much as it is to soothe my raging mind. So, apologies if it doesn't make sense.
  1. Creating a New process today and then calling me back in under one second to  inform that the new process is applicable immediately and needs to be put into  practice from today itself doesn't make you come out as efficient and productive, just bossy and idiotic.
  2. Replying to every single mail sent your way for approval/decision with barely relevant questions that you know are almost impossible to answer and not at all important to the initial decision (but you do it anyways cos you are the boss) so that you can put off responding, doesn't make you very smart or fun, just a zero productive, useless asshole AND a coward who cant take ownership for a decision.
  3. When you ask someone "how long will this take" and they honestly reply with "two weeks", you responding with a shocked "two weeks??!!! But I thought this won't even take a day", when you and I both know that it'l actually take more than the two weeks, doesn't make you some efficiently awesome project manager.  It makes you come off as a complete moron who knows nothing about projects.
  4. Bull dozing everyone else's opinions and decisions with your own ideas and refusing to budge and then feeling very victorious that now everyone is "saying" what you want to say doesn't  help anyone's interest except your inflated ego. Eventually people will still do what they believe and your words can do their victory dance for all anyone cares.
  5. And after a  few incidents of 4. above, people will  soon see that you are all about lots of noise and rattle but have no consequence, you will stop getting the chances of  making these noises at all.  Consider yourself an audience then.
  6. Arguing and shouting at your subordinates who report conversations/incidents that they know shouldn't happen, and teaching them how wrong it is and holding them responsible somehow, while EVERYONE knows by now that you don't have the balls to talk directly to the wrong doers, doesn't make you come off as a honest,  righteous boss. Just a gutless coward who wants to save his own job by making the right noises, sending the right mails and uselessly  "documenting" your own opinion about the incident without being of any actual use to your seniors or juniors.  AND, people can see through this facade,  dude. 
  7. After all the drama you put on, your excess upset at small delays or your excessive congratulations for small achievements that happened in their due course, both stop effecting others. Stop making a fool of yourself, for Heavens sake.
  8. Sarcasm is very smart and impressive. Leave it for twitter or your friends who might appreciate it. Non-intelligent, slap-on-your-face sarcasm towards your subordinates especially cos you know they wont retort, doesn't  make you impressive, boss, just a totally disrespected asshole.
  9. Finally, after NOT responding to all of the above mentioned important stuff like an intelligent person, actually responding to all the stupidest, irrelevant updates of documents (only meant for information) with remarks like "please follow xyz processes always" (which is anyways being followed) well, it just shows your true colors.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Nothing New to Add...

Enough has been said and written about the gruesome rape that took place in Delhi. Many opinions, many discussions, many demands and one of the biggest protests. And I have nothing new to add to all those emotions because I feel every bit of it as intensely as each person out there - as intensely as every girl who has traveled in a public transport in this country, who has walked along any street crowded or not (both have their advantages/disadvantages depending on whose aside you look from), who has been around strange (and also familiar) men.

I don't intend to discuss any of my own emotions or feelings about this. What I do intend to do is to try and make sense of the one thing that matters now. What can really be done. People talk about clothes, self defense,  not being out at certain times, maryada, bhaiyya and lakshman rekha, protests demanding hanging and castration that might act as deterrents. Enough has been debated about each of these items as well.

I just want to put my head around various scraps of sense I was trying to make in the last few weeks about what seems like the only practicality really keeping all hopes of ideal situations apart..

Crimes will happen. Rape, murder, even female foeticide, dowry killings, honor killings, fraud, and all the way up to terrorism. They will keep happening. Some of these we can try and fight with education, awareness and opportunities. But, to expect a situation of zero crime or to expect any government or political  party in any part of the world to provide a crime-free-state guarantee is stupidity. Protest and outrage all you want. We can only ask for two things, justice for the victim and most importantly deterrents. There really is NO 100% prevention. Let us all first accept that. What there is is deterrents.

So what can be the deterrent for these criminals? You say the fear of death or castration? Really?

I don't believe the extent of punishment is a deterrent to anyone. I don't think a would-be criminal actually says "oh! This is just 5 yr imprisonment, not life term/hanging. So let me commit this one instead". No. Every crime is committed because the criminal is stupidly confident that he will get away. Less "stupidly" in our country, but still. Hence, I repeat, it's not a new law (that also may or may not get implemented) that is the need of the hour. It is proper, efficient and quick administration of existing ones. So that tomorrow the only possible deterrent will exist. The possibility of the criminal wondering "will I manage to get away cos this is what happened to all the others." 

And like all really good things I don't think there is any shortcut to this one.

An Afterthought:

You may blame everything else that seems like the cause of a crime. For me it's a choice some people made to act a certain way. Most  men we meet might have been in similar situations right? Being with or around  women wearing "skimpy" clothes, late hours, maybe a little drunk,  having a good time in a pub etc.? They didn't make a choice to rape that woman cos of these things. These 5 men did. And no matter how justified their "provocation  " might seem to some of the "greater" men of our society, they made that choice and committed that crime and need to be punished. You can harp on about whatever provocation.


Also, by saying that the provocation was there so the crime happened, in my eyes you are kind of admitting that if you had been in that situation you would have made that same choice as well. You would have raped her too. Because there was "enough justified provocation". No?

So be very careful of what you are admitting to oh learned gentlemen.