Musings

People, in general, are uncomfortable with sudden changes. An established habit is hard to overcome. We sometimes get used to the comfort zone so much that it makes us revolt against the agents of change. No marks for guessing the author's garrulousness about change is about ongoing farmers' protest on recently enacted farm bills.   Please stay on then because the author does not intend to bore the reader by explaining what APMC is or why MSP must be withdrawn gradually by the government. These are already well explained in detail by countless articles, since the enaction of farm bills. The discussion here is about the disjunct between progress and reforms. Who does not like to see our country developed? With one of the youngest populations in the world, we seem impatient for change. We want to see poverty eradicated and our population educated. We aspire for a $5 trillion economy and expect our farmers' income to double. Why is it that when there are reforms, protests erup...

When India was 'Shining' at the beginning of this century, many of us wondered, how would India be in 2020.  We think that we are  no more a  poor country. We have also become aspirational. So how has India fared since independence? Has there been any improvement in the standards of living? What is the condition of minorities and vulnerable people in our country? It is very difficult to give a simplistic, yes - or - no binary answers to these questions. Our nation is not younger anymore. Seventy-four years is a period good enough to assess the performance of our country.  What have we achieved then? The list is long but some achievements deserve to be highlighted.  First, the Government has been mostly stable and representative since our independence.  Among the 12 Asian countries that gained independence soon after World War II and drafted Constitutions, only three Constitutions have survived—India, Taiwan, and South Korea. (T he Constitution of Japan was ...

I have long wanted to write about this, since the time I read this fantastic imaginary Documentary -  Liking What you see: A Documentary  by  Ted Chiang.  Lookism, like casteism, is a form of discrimination, based on looks or attractiveness. But unlike casteism, which is an imagined reality, lookism is a subjective reality. A Lookist may not even know that being a lookist is wrong. Even progressive thinkers might be lookists, unbeknownst to them. This makes lookism even more dangerous than casteism or sexism. Lookism is ever pervasive in our society. Yet we fail to acknowledge its presence. For instance, once my friend came to me and pointed towards a girl. He described how 'good looking' was she and how he yearned to garner her attention. I, being a lookist (even now), was bemused and asked him, whether he was pointing to a girl, who was not so attractive (to me). He immediately recoiled back and told me that he was referring to someone else nearby to her. Yo...

If there is one quality that all of us adore, it is humility. Over time it has become one of the highly overrated virtues. Egotism, on the other hand, is constantly vilified. We scorn egotists and look at the concept of egotism contemptuously. We never really understood why do we show this bias towards humility over egotism, and this behavioural trait has been shoved upon us for ages by society. For instance, let us have a short detour and enter into mythology. The story goes like this - The Trinity of Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva decided to test themselves to assert who was the greatest among them. Brahma claimed that he was the greatest because he had created the universe and that we perceive beauty, ugliness, happiness, sadness, humanity, nature and whatnot in his universe. Lord Shiva manifested himself as Analstamba (Pillar of fire) between them. Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu were very surprised to see the fire pillar, which was so enormous that it reached the sky and penetrate...