Lock Down Part II : Stories that inspire and issues with privilege

The languid pace of life these days is helping in spacing out engagement optimally, having worked for long in 24 X 7 environments this has been a welcome change.  Over last few years as I started giving up multitasking, with some rigor the pace was already slackening and now the lockdown has put it on an exponential curve (These days words you should know to have a civilized conversation is exponential, on Log, linear, asymptotic). So, is this here to stay? Perhaps too early to say. Time will tell whether we will have this or worse in future.

I would like to thank all of you who reached out and sought update on next post. In colloquial Hindi (please no debates here about origin) we say, तहे दिल से शुक्रिया (In English it would be “from the bottom of my heart”, kind of non-rhyming and does not convey the depth).

We are now in midst of 2^nd Lock down and a sense of acquaintance with it is now in place. With a sense of acquaintance comes familiarity with it and as mostly as is the case, familiarity breeds contempt.  If in past we had contempt about 24 X 7 life, the pendulum will swing to extreme and verbosity will increase in favor of a life style globally despaired but now wanted back pronto. Pressure will mount on the Govt, across the world to abandon the lockdown and get back to opening up the businesses and eventually everything. How the Govt’s react to this pressure, would say more about the societies they represent then about the individuals who have been anointed (mark this word as this will become central to discussion in chatter class soon) as leaders. I would look to see how leaders convince their people about the course of action they will take. Hopefully these will be layered decision where what is said is smartly aided with what is required to be done for good of society. Onward of this weekend be prepared for very aggressive assault on your senses about opening up fast and how it will help everyone.

Meanwhile worldwide folks who never had voice are able to garner eyeballs and come out with their version of future. Tracks as varied as global finance, health services, agriculture supply chains and sexual behavior post Covid. Zoom conferencing software has made this possible on a mass scale, at least 2 conference where I am a member the organizer had to ditch other competing software and go for Zoom to handle scale. At the same time the noise about the security issues in Zoom refuses to die. More on this sometime in next few post.

I would suggest that one drops the nth Netflix movie about to be viewed and join these discussion, some of the young people are really scoring a ton days with their breadth of vision and the defense of it. This would also do some good to Whats App university graduate who are back to screaming doomsday (possibly will get Phd for it) about India, if we have any difference of opinion.

On other note few things continue to give me confidence on why our country will continue to improve (its common citizens) and at same time show  how the privileged have no concern for a larger section of us.

Take the example of Jena who drove (sorry rode) a bicycle for 1700 KMS from Sangli in Maharashtra to his village in Jaipur district in Orrisa. He took 7 days to cover this distance (avg 242 Km a day) across the most desolate and beautiful parts of India. Only in India would a poor person do this and only in India would a complete stranger provide food, correct directions and repair the punctures for him (https://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Home/ShareArticle?OrgId=f25c2d6b&imageview=0). And only in India would the bicycle model would be same as the one our grandfathers rode to their work or possibly their grand fathers rode to work (if that concept existed for privileged then). The basic model available in India (the one Jena rode) is still the same with minor here and there to reduce cost And not improve quality & experience of the rider. Reminds me of a reprimand my colleague got from a bank CEO ( we were doing a proposal defense for core banking project) for saying that why his poor customer needs new banking technology. Needless to say, we lost the bid from there on. But this was an exception, largely entitled class is busy with its PIZZA culture (I use this quite often in my discussions) and not worried about how poor eke out a living or live in our country.

While some of us will pass this as story of human endeavor and wash out any guilt about it, I would say we have let down the poor once again in this crisis and have no right to ask them adhere to our standards of sophistry & dedication to cause célèbre which we keep tagging on to in passing fancy. So, every time one sprouts the wisdom at NO cost to himself or his family IGNORE him. NO skin in the game for them.

Poor continue to walk across the country to reach their home or wait for food in lines. Here are few linkshttps://www.youtube.com/watchv=XO4MPOgSrAk ,  https://twitter.com/suhasiniraj/status/1252461623777701888 , https://twitter.com/scroll_in/status/1251524032911949826

Meanwhile our privileged representatives continue to bend the system to get their dear one home. One MP’s wife took a flight to Kolkatta and one had his child driven from Kota to Bihar with a special permit, one had his son married off with low key gathering (Hey how low-key is low key for these folks one can see from photographs of the ceremony). The party they belong to does not matter as the behavior is exhibited across party lines with few notable exceptions. While I don’t agree with some of these exceptional characters but I respect them for the stand they have taken. My wishes for them.

Reading continue to improve for me (only activity where I multi task by reading 3 at a time sometimes). Finished re-reading “The RSS by Nilanjan Mukhopadhay”, a good introduction to foundation of RSS and its pantheon of leaders, the chapter on Advani while is short in the book but captures the career & downfall of a stalwart with smart details. Started “Aghora -III The Law of Karma by Robert  Svoboda”. This one is dear to me as this is closest to my belief as Aghori. Will write more about this one in next month. For now, I know image one conjures of an Aghori is of one in Shamshan, yes right but then that’s a small part of being Aghori

Also In midst of reading about German genius by Peter Watson.

I will be back next week Friday evening. Namaskar.