Its raining crap

The rape of this nation began much before the rape of its citizens. Didn't you see this coming? Trapped within our selfish community, religious and political moorings, we were mute spectators when the nation was crying hoarse with the unbearable pain of getting split wide. We refused to see the blood and the tired hustle of a nation trying to stand up as one. What we felt was only the throbbing libdio led by our self interests - be it reservations, corruption, religious one-upmanship, community pogroms, conversions and political brinkmanship.  Even when the soul sighed, your voice was muffled by your own communal and political insinuations. Each time the nation choked with the abuse, you joined the throng and pointed fingers. Even when it bore the mucky ink of the vote that was cast.  Stop soiling your social media wall with self-righteousness and borrowed sympathy shoved down by propaganda. Your selective social media outrage is as fake as the one you accuse your...

Home Truths In the land I come from, in Kerala, half-informed debates on public policies, regulations and laws were common place across any congregation above 2 people. During my younger days, matters of faith used to be a private matter. Personally too, I have always felt uncomfortable discussing attributes of one religion versus the other.  I have also been led to believe that religious tolerance and acceptance in the state of Kerala was much higher than the national average. As much as I can remember, the fiercest rioting and arson in Kerala have happened on political agendas rather than anything overtly religious. Here again, it was the Communist parties with their militant trade union ideologies that always used to find itself at either ends in these clashes. However, unlike in many other parts of India it used to be the youth cadres of the Communist parties and RSS (and not BJP) which used to engage in these political battles especially in the northern belt ...

Tales of late self realisation to a naive political observer   Not sure what's running though the minds of people who have been following the Maharashtra Civic Polls 2017. I was quaintly surprised at the emergence of BJP as a front runner in this. What have people voted for? - The candidates, their ideology, their past performance, or the expectations of a better future? Or is there something more latent - like hope, ambition, aspirations, or negative emotions like discontent, feeling of oppression, dejection etc.? To unravel this, I do not have access to the statistics that the  psepologists refer to, nor have I been a keen observer of past trends. But I've been able to put together some basic data and understand BJP's performance in various elections since they won legislative elections in 2014. In more or less every election involving a civil body or a legislative bye-election, held in India since 2014, BJP has improved its vote share if not...

As a Marketing Communications professional, I have found 'religion' to be a well oiled marketing machinery that has built some of the most powerful brands in the history of mankind. It involves all elements of Marketing communications; for example: very strong brands with clear brand messages, icons (or idols), rituals, brand ambassadors, activation programs, ambient advertising, merchandising et al. With changing times, they have also embraced online and digital communications. Binding faith or brand loyalty is the hallmark of the brands that are active in this industry - with the 'marketers' and brands literally taking to fight wars for market dominance. However I have not been a great endorser of the expositions conducted by many these brands. Over time, most of these 'marketers' have moved  beyond their raison-d'etre and as a Hindu loyalist, I could not help but cast my critical eye on some of the activties by my own faith. While most of the religio...

 I have realised that the concept of India thrives best in our minds and not in reality. India survives in each of our conscience as a concept loosely strung together by our virtues or by the lack of it. And it is not uniform. As an identity, it can be best described as an unfinished dream trying to complete its play before reality ends its climax. I might be chastised for blasphemy and sedition, but I don’t think that the real concept of India is going to play out very soon. And my interpretation is as follows: The constitution was framed in the midst of a reality defying orgasm called freedom. The drafters of the "World's longest constitution" were learned-no doubt, but were obviously feeling high and self righteous about framing policies that sought in all good faith-to reshape the mindset of a faction rid nation into believing in the power of 'one' India. In drafting this, they gave absolute freedom to everybody to follow everything they wanted- faith, re...

Thanks to the new job, my visits to Europe has doubled since I was born. That makes it two. Many of my friends were surprised that I didnt post pictures of yours truly saying 'prost!', but dint tell them that "I wannabe, but was cannab'd". However I would have loved to tell them about a new zing that opened somewhere close to my hypothalamus the first time I set foot in Bavaria. It should have been the near absence of fault. Or it should be the civic sense of the inhabitants, it could be the cleanliness or it could be absence of noise and people. But I could not tell them out of fear of being dubbed as the new globe trotter on the block and be subjected to other user experiences. Guess I overcame that fear today. Of late, I've been wondering how long it will take us to have atleast one of the cities like there. The infrastructure was not all. The citizens there seemed to be driven by a completely different set of values which made visitors follow them too and...

A year has passed since we started questioning faith; pointed fingers at others while burning our hands in candle light vigils. For sensationalists that marks another day among the many other martyr days they celebrate. This one is the most recent…and definitely not the last. Wonder how many got amused at their emotional outpour one year back and the complete lack of worthlessness a year later. I wonder how many swore at ‘them’ with the support of the stranger standing alongside. One year later I’m not sure they recognize each other. We blamed everyone, our neighbors across the border and our people inside, the state that governs and the media that reports-everyone. We left ourselves out of the equation. The collective outrage fuelled by the over emotive residents of a city is slowly burning out to a selfish reality- a fear of surrendering hope. Amidst crass commercialization, a recession hit, inflation prone, powerless, weather beaten, misgoverned, corrupt, maoist infected, te...

Year after year it seems like there is a meteorological reality-show to see how wrong they can get with their predictions on the advent of the monsoon. Infact, psepologists (esp the kind that appears on news channels), astrologers and and our meteorology dept should send atleast one team (I am sure they will have many) to the now drab ‘Great Indian laughter challenge’. I remember reading reports that it was going to be an early monsoon. And the real story started only a week after even the usual dates. And when it indeed starts raining, their expectations of 'heavy showers for the next 24 hours' almost repeats everytime it rains. And as if the rain can sense this building expectation it decides not to rain for 4 days consecutively. And when you almost start forgetting your umbrella, there it comes! Like every other season in India, people tend to greet the monsoon and hate them as well. And usually it is an exercise in unison. They greet it when it appears and starts ha...

What is so great about South Africa, that makes it in-vulnerable to an election? Or what is so bad in India that makes it vulnerable to IPL? South Africa had their general elections on 22 nd April. The day when Deccan Chargers won their 2 nd match   thanks to Adam Gilchrist & Rohit Sharma’s exploits. ( Click for match info ) While elections   - and the fear of a security lapse were the main concerns to shift the IPL to SA, how come it could be managed so well in SA. This debate would have already suffered the fate of a once fearsome cobra ending up as a soup in a street side ‘thela’ in Cape Town; but guess the after-taste is keeping the cobra from a peaceful digestion. Agreed that the magnitude of elections, the size of the electorate, the cultural diversity, civic apathy etc are insurmountable walls of difference between the two countries.   Just statistic is enough to kill the debate on similarity of the two nations - India is twenty times larger (over 1 billion peopl...

There’s no originality in the title. I agree. As words form sentences hereafter, it becomes more hazy as why am I doing this than doing anything else. In the course I am also presenting my set of reasons to find a place in virtuality.  The sense of “am I doing something great?” has always crossed my mind. Bereft of any pursuable vocations and most of the time in a crude primordial seizure of multi-tasking, (“One thing at a time” is a non-existent figment of an anonymous writer’s fable) the vocation of publishing a commentary never was a serious thought. Recording my personal memoirs or “Diary writing” was a risky proposition… I was too scared of being honest…and was extremely prone to violent shivers and trembles as I visualized my closest friends guffawing over my flights of fantasy. I could not surmount the barrier of self-publishing. My fantasy was still about giving sound bytes to earnest journalists who surround me while they jostle and heckle each other to capture ...