Fame or Facade?

With the recent allegations of misconduct and corruption against the very famous Chanda Kochhar, former CEO & MD of ICICI bank, shook the very foundations of the word ‘inspiration’ or ‘motivation’. A quick Google Search of “inspiration from chanda kochhar” gives the following results —


Search results for “inspiration from chanda kochhar”
Guess how many number of times the word ‘woman’ or ‘women’ is mentioned in the search results for “inspiration from chanda kochhar” ?
A quick ⌘+F showed me 12 times on the first page itself.

Now, guess how many number of times the word ‘woman’ or ‘women’ is mentioned when you search “allegations against chanda kochhar”?
A quick ⌘+F showed me 0 times on the first page.

First woman President in the history of India? Pratibha Patil was famous for using hard-earned public funds to take foreign trips with her family. The first opinionated result after a search for “Pratibha Patil” finds https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Pratibha-Patil-widely-hated-and-disrespected-despite-having-held-the-prestigious-office-of-the-president-of-India-Is-she-Indias-worst-president-ever-What-are-the-reasons-contributing-to-this

We have a tendency to link ourselves to the famous and cut all ties with the infamous. When we link ourselves with the famous, we have the tendency to fan-worship, to think of our idols as utmost bodily incarnation of perfection, to think they can never do wrong, to defend their wrongs as overall-rights, to over-praise their struggle, to ignore their shortcomings, to not be objective and ‘factful’ in our opinions, to think of them as some superman or superwoman — forgetting in the process that they’re only humans like us. It is us who have taken them to a pedestal too high. We are not connected to them closely in real but we feel connected to their perceived self in our mind. In our hero-worshipping mind, we forget to worship the work and worship the person instead. At some point, we even forget why we initially started worshipping a particular person. We should focus on the work and not the person or any particular outside trait of a person which cannot be changed by the person. As the nondiscriminatory policy say —

“Do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.”
We should take a person for whom they are and what they have accomplished. If I ever win, let’s say, the Best Employee Award, I would not want to be congratulated on being female or 23 years old or dressing up good because none of these contributed to my winning the award. There are many other females 23 years old with good dressing sense who didn’t win the award. I would want to be congratulated for working hard and having a good understanding of concept. I would want suggestions to improve my speed, if I think thats something I should improve on. I would not want to be taken on a pedestal of ‘being awesome’ because I do not know how to handle it humbly. Whenever somebody used to tease me for my good grade in college, saying “dude, why do you even need to study, your grades are anyway amazing” — I want to stay away from that fan-worshipping. I want to be around people who care for me honestly and tell me “Good job there but still a long way to go”. It would make me humble and feel confident — not over-confident to think that I can misuse my excellence.

IF the allegations against Chanda Kochhar are true, she have definitely had a lot of admirers but maybe she had lacked someone to say — “Hey, what you have achieved is no doubt amazing, but to be humble and not misuse your power is what makes anyone amazing. What is the point of throwing away the glory build over years for huge amount of money when you have all luxury you need to last on this planet”. (A BIG ‘IF’ there because the allegations have not yet been proven or disproven yet).

When the Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan received so many emails from fellow Indians, he seemingly wished the people congratulating him would at-least understand his work a little bit. He did not want to be congratulated to be born Indian which he never thought as a very integral part of him. There are a billion Indians out there, not everybody wins an Nobel award. There is more to him that being Indian. I urge you to read https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/A-little-less-nationalistic-hero-worship-please/articleshow/5129529.cms

The best way to take pleasure in someone’s achievement is to take an interest in their work and feel motivated to learn more about science. I remember reading about Gellman’s work as an undergraduate in Baroda, and, when he won the Nobel prize, rushing upstairs to tell my parents. It did not matter to me whether he was Indian or not. In my case, I am lucky to have had a combination of education, opportunities and a great team of co-workers to have made a contribution to an important problem. I am not personally that important. If I hadn’t existed, this work would still have been done. It is the work that is important, and that should be what excites people.

Blind fan-following leads to people being obsessed with what Modi eats, what is the size of his chest, what is the first thing Shah Rukh Khan does every morning and what Kim Jong-un’s wife think about him. And demand is generally always met with supply. People demand it due to blind fan-following and news channel supply it for TRP and money. If only we understood that all these things are irrelevant. BS demand will ensure BS supply. (BS == Bullshit).

I have always been taught to respect adults but I generally respect anyone of any age unless I am convinced otherwise. Respect is not a factor of age. Age is external. I have seen 18 year old mature people and 50 year old immature people and vice-versa too. People say respect women but again, respect is not a factor of gender. Gender is again external. One can sympathise with someone of their own nationality, gender, cast, creed because they may have emerged a winner out of a dire struggle despite of their situation but what makes them a winner is their internal traits like humility, confidence, kindness, hard work, calmness, decisiveness etc. Chanda Kochhar should have been worshipped for her finance knowledge , consistency and people worshipping her for it should try to understand finance to understand how great she is. The character of marvellous Mrs. Maisel was a woman in stand-up when no women were in stand-up, but I respect her for her wit, humour, confidence and an ability to fight — come what may. I have respected a lot of people I know for a lot of amazing qualities — the same people have some not-that-amazing qualities too. I am not going to ask them what flavour of lays is their favourite but try to adopt there amazing qualities. I have loved J.K Rowling for her amazing imagination and an ability to pen her thoughts — not because she was a woman. I have loved George Carlin for his amazing stand-up material which used to be deep on a philosophical level and his delivery — not because he was a very old man in stand-up.

I have seen so many amazing people in my college do amazing things. If I worship them, I may end up feeling bad about not achieving what they have achieved, after having equal opportunities as them. Instead, I respect Person A for not over-stressing on syllabus but getting concepts right, while managing their personal lives and scoring good. I respect Person B for their simplicity and unflinching ability to stay calm in dire situations. I respect a lot of people for what they did and how they did what they did and wish to adopt their best practices.

In conclusion,
Criticism is crucial. There is a person behind every category (male, female, old, young, Indian, non-Indian) — appreciate the person and their deeds rather than them. Appreciate the effort. Appreciate the work. Try to adopt their good qualities in yourself. Help them improve. Do not herd-follow. A thought-out “I have always admired you for your conceptual knowledge and ability to explain anything in the most simplistic manner. I wish I imbibe that in myself someday” is better than a hundred “Congratulations for being first woman to achieve the feat!”. Fame is short-lived, so is public memory. Don’t make people idols. Make the lessons they teach you your idols and carry forward these important lessons all your life.

The Desire to Start Over

6th February 2019

I know I had this blog since time infinite (given I started in 2011 and it is 2019 now) and I had non-zero posts. I could have continued with this blog and not tried to start a lot many different wordpress(es). But I guess I was trying to start something more cool and amazing and wanted to wipe my slate. We all look for a fresh beginning - a new start. A start which we can blend according to our rules. It's funny we never realise that not the layout, not the website - we suck. We are who we are. No matter how many fresh starts we try, we cannot be THAT person who we want to be. I saw a wordpress by a friend and got immediately attracted towards it, wanting to start over and be just have a space like his. I never realised until now that its not my space which sucks, its me. I mean, I don't suck - suck. But I realise that a new wordpress like his won't make me write in regular intervals like him. And if I do write in regular intervals like him - if I muster enough motivation to make my writing public in timely manner, none of my blog (be it Wordpress or Blogger) would suck. With a productive habit like blogging/writing, it's all the game of consistency and improving over time. Sometimes, I feel I became worse over time when I go back to my first post. Guess the key to change that is be consistent and publish. Doesn't matter if I am writing here or there - if I am publishing here or there. It's more about content than presentation still. I know my views here got modified a little after being in industry for more than a year - presentation matters a lot. But deep down I am still a content person. So, no matter how well you dress, if you don't make sense, I can't respect you. The view still holds. The shit can be coated with gold and remain shit, while gold can be coated with shit and remain gold.  There is of-course nothing better than gold coated with gold though. Industry has thought me to respect 0.5 gold + 0.5 shit mixture coated with 100% gold more than 100% gold coated with >50% shit. Presentation matters to a good extent until you're completely shit inside. Ok, I guess too much gold-shit mathematics. The fresh start is more about the mind than body. It doesn't matter if you are starting fresh with old slate and not buy a new one (Medium too enticed me like anything), all that matters is if you are doing what you want to do on old slate. It's like buying new books to study. Kids are excited about new books more than what would be taught to them - Science. About time I grow up and accept that my old books are as good as new because that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

See you soon.

Hopefully.

P.S. written at work with my MacBook in quick 20. :)

Edit 1 : There I changed the theme and I lost my old cover picture which had my tape-written name along with a few books. I guess it's about time I stop flaunting J.D. Lee which I never read. I guess its time to flaunt my Kindle with a pen and tree :P  

Hi Again? :)

8 June, 2015

Visibly, its been ages since I wrote something and been double ages since I published/posted something. The last poem I wrote was in Feb 2013, I think. Its freaking June 2015. :O  I feel old and disconnected now. Even without ripening, I have shed. Even without reaching the maxima, I have declined to a minima. No worries, I am going to get back on track now. Rising up and getting to my Global Maxima and forgetting about local Maximas and Minimas is the new plan. Local maximas and minimas do come in way of Global maximas and minimas. Too much Calculus. :P  Lets get start working. So, from now, I am maintaining this page as a source of random bullshitting once in a while. Now why, you ask, is a blog required to random bullshit and not a personal diary? Well, diary I have been maintaining once in a while but its like Subconscious Gibberish, I will try and make sense here, (Sense to the people reading, otherwise, I always make sense to myself :P) So, the plan is to make sense here, though I feel I already stopped doing that somewhere in the past few lines but anyway,

Why did I not write in past some months? Did I not get time enough? Well, time is never a problem for anyone. Nobody is ever busy. Its all about priorities and how inclusive these priorities of yours are of people. 24 hours. Thats pretty much enough time for anyone's need to fulfill all priorities properly but not enough time to fulfill anyone's greed (Yeah, the Gandhi reference). One can be loving, successful, aalas around, maintain a connect with people, get a decent cgpa :P, pursue hobbies, enjoy at the same time but only by eliminating unwanted stuff and unwanted whatsapping (Not being on whatsapp for past 6 months has given me so much peace. Not able to socialise so much or be connected is a small price to pay for this peace. Opportunity cost here ), facebooking, socialising, hangouts. Eliminate things you know doesn't make you that happy. Avoid clicking many selfies and posting on facebook every once in a while because then all your time goes into finding more opportunities to get clicked and post- leading you into the vicious cycle of unwanted socializing, hanging out and friendshipping just to post a few photos which indicates that you are having a fun time when you know you are not. (Tamed time waste is good until peer pressure appears to waste money and hangout too much) Oh God, enough of my blabber here. So, I have been jumping between priorities and getting them right. Writing was always a leisure act for me, but hey, leisure is more important than random hanging out, wasting money. Anyway, I am going to take this writing business seriously now and get on it.

So what am I gonna write about?

My progress with the things I love doing. It will keep a good check on me to not be lazy and do things I have been wanting. So, I will start with things I love doing-
                              >Physics (Studies)
                              >Playing and being fit. Taking care of body and health.
                              >Public speaking and debating
                              >Dancing
                              >Learning
                              >Coding, learning different Softwares, web development
                              >Writing
                              >Teaching
I will try and focus my energy everyday doing some of this and maintain a record of my progress here, atleast for some days till I attain a very very developed flow and dont require to consciously keep a self check. Otherwise, days go unproductive thinking "kal se" and time passes in a blur and nothingness. Specially by sitting in AC in SKF Pune with free internet and no work. (Like I am doing now :P)
Anyway, this was a short Hello Post and lets get rolling now! Will get back again on this post and blog in sometime after some progress is made by my side, will edit it if required be.
Energy. Enthu. Zeal (Duh I hate AC. It acts like a sedative and makes me sleep -_-)

Read this line on quora right now in the other tab - If you take a genuine interest and engage, you will become an expert quickly. I have genuine interest in some things (I mean ob something or other i need to find which things) and now all i need to do is Engage. :)
                              

Because that’s beyond stupid

June 2, 2012

*This is a short total random post.

Too many times I have been there when adults discuss stuff  like “In baccho ko toh koi bhi festivals, get togethers, pooja, mandir--blah blah-- ka shauk nahi” And everytime I hear them say that, I feel like writing. Its no use to argue with adults, because it ultimately ends up with a slight note of  “Kyuki mai bada/badi hu”

Like every Indian, I grew up listening to the stories of Ram, Lakshmana, Mahabharata, etc etc. But I don’t know what’s so great about hmm lets say Ram? If you go to 14 year vanvaas (exile to forest) just because your father promised it to someone blankly is sheer stupidity, NOT greatness. Why was the whole battle of Ramayana fought? For Sita, right? And in the end when Ram got Sita, what did he do? Just because he listened to some local countrymen talk about how she was impure, he left her. I mean, dafuq was that? I personally believe that Ravan was better person than that. We celebrate Dussehra every year by blowing hundreds of Ravan’s head all over the country and shouting “Buraai pe acchai ki jeet” Bullshit buraai. What makes Ravan bad? Just the fact that he liked Sita and he wanted revenge for his sister? Try and place yourself at his position. What he did was normal human behavior and it happens. But what was the whole point of battling for a person when in the end, leave her just because of some random people talking bullshit behind his back? That makes no sense and you don’t need to be some incarnation of God to see that. And Mahabharata? All I can say about it is ,Make love, not war :P. Pointless wars were the only thing in Mahabharata (Totally my opinion). And have you heard that story? The one where Arjun WON Draupadi and when returned with “Look what we got” their mother Kunti asked her son to share whatever it is with his brothers(Unintentionally) and they all “shared” her. Now, first thing, Winning a woman? This shows that we have always regarded women as trophy for brave men. A freaking material to play with. Ever heard of a woman winning a man in a dance competition or something? Such practices play a great role in pushing the society towards male dominance, not to mention hundreds of consequences like Sati, dowry etc etc.  And sharing a woman for utterly the reason to obey mother’s command blindly is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Today also, many people do the jobs/work/study just to fulfill their parents dream. Either I am really idiotic or each of them is, because I just don’t buy it. 

And Krishna? Our parents celebrate his raasleelas over and over with millions of gopiyas, but mai karu toh saala character dhilla?

P.S. This was an incomplete entry. Just needed to write it down. Will complete it soon.  

HYPOCRISY

“What we hear is fairly different from what we see

And how we react is actually who are we” –Me

19 march, 2012

We hear a lot of things. We read a lot. We are educated and somewhat know what’s going around us. But, unfortunately, not many of us stop a while to notice that whatever we talk is immensely different from what we do. We are rationalists but we do not practice rationalism in real manner, we are secular and educated on the outside but fail to see the casteism we show. No, we do not support racism at all but in the inside we are racists. We have been taught always to stand up for truth but that’s rarely what we do. Okay, you might not agree, but consider the following-

Most the advertisements we see, claim they make you look fair and lovely. And that’s what sells. No one will consider buying anything with a product with a fat black girl on the cover. Of course all of us want to look fair and lovely, not fat and ugly. I don’t know but I have got a weird feel about it. It pisses me off that how come a so-called-ugly person never get to play a lead role in a movie. Movies and advertisement show a world of our desires, our aspirations and all us desire and aspire to be “fair and lovely” only.

Some days back, I read the matrimonial page with TOI. I never took notice of it before. That page shocked me. Every fucking single marriage advertisement was with the headline “looking for smart, fair, tall blah blah”. No one in the world wants anything less than a fair, beautiful, tall soul-mate. Funnily, soul has nothing to do with all this. Ask yourself that will you be able to love a person not hot (as they say it)? Isn’t that your dream that your prince charming or your dream girl is like 6-foot tall Kareena or Ranbir Kapoor or someone. We all have our this kind of imagination.

Indian marriages are always able to shock me. But the greatest of shocks came to me when recently there was a ‘boy-finding’ thing for someone in my family. I never knew that we still practice only intra-caste marriages. I thought that the world grew up but apparently not. Even the educated family makes a special effort to find a groom in their own caste. That’s more than ridiculous! I have pity for these never-really educated people.

Another incidence. “I dont know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it”.

-Gregory David Roberts

I feel strongly about this line. So some days back, I decided to not blend in with a thing at school. I decided to do something about it. Even though 95% of my classmates agreed with me consciously, they never let go of their fear. But I stood up. I think I took some kind of panga with the teachers for it. But it felt unfathomably awesome. Mine is a government school and teachers are always favored. Of course I caught some bad limelight about it and surely enough I got many “B”s and sad project assignments marks( Believe me, I always used to get A’s :P). But whatever it took, the feeling was worth it. The feeling of speaking the truth in the face rather bitch about it in the back. What I’m trying to highlight is that people never stand for truth although that’s what we have been taught. That’s what is the basis of our education.

So, I needed to write this stuff down. I strongly feel that no matter how strong we are on the outside, no matter how rational, secular, equality-loving are we; there is always a part in us that is not. All we need to do is not let that part dominate.J

Why do people marry?

Okay, I always had this great curiosity that why do people marry other people in an arranged marriage. Basically what they do is make a decision to remain in the same house with a person who is not even known to them… maybe some find it an adventure ride with scope of lot many discoveries about their partners, but what would you do if sometimes you don’t like what you find. And hey, its india, divorcing in 1 year is not an option. You are taught bachpan se to believe that its gonna change, you can change behavior of  your partner, give it some “sayyam” i.e patience. Yeah, right, patience. Fuck patience. Kaika patience?  Once I watched that serial with Aamir Khan when he took up the cause of domestic violence. And the most weird thing I thought about it was, more than 90% of domestic violence victim women(even the most educated ones) either thought that “change ho jayega, this will change, my fairy tale will be true some day, if I try to vow him” or thought that “i deserved the beating to some level maybe”. NOOO!!sayyam?  What bullshit. The person who can hit you one day, wouldn’t shy away from putting some kerosene the other day.

Okay that was just some random arrange marriage shit. There are much more things attached to it. Har din ki ladai, har din ka jhagda, har din ke taane. If not physical violence, there is a higher level of mental violence each and every single fucking day in most of the marriages. I have rarely seen a married couple who have celebrated more than 2 anniversaries with happiness. Initially do saal ka naya naya pyaar hota hain, phir har din ki tu-tu main-main.

And marriage, as they do in my family, is weird in itself. Let me tell you about the last two marriages I attended. There was this one marriage of a neighborhood girl. A car was parked inside the marriage hall just side by side of the stage. Since it was weird, I asked my mom about why it was there. She told me that it had been given to the boy’s family by the girl’s. I went like “wtf this is dowry, why don’t they report it to police”. And then she introduced me to a world unknown. She told me that the boy’s family also gives loads of things ranging from jewelry to cosmetics in return. And in order to start a life, they need stuff :P. Alright, my mind exploded then and there. And I went like “Dowry lete dete hain, phir iska pradarshan karte hain” as if they won a gold medal in olympics and now they are displaying. Yeah buddy, I got a swift, what did you get. Me? Innova. But it appeared crystal clear that both ladki wale as well as the ladke wale were happy about everything, even the dowry and things. It shook all my beliefs for a moment there.

So I have also shared my “no-marriage” views with some people(which includes immediate family members) and the only point they constantly made which I could not cut was security. I was told that once you grow old and have no one for yourself, you’ll realize how important it is to marry. If you meet with some accident or something like that, atleast someone is there to take care. And all I have been thinking  since then is- “Is this security reason worth living your live in dismay?” NO SIR, I would rather go for LIC. 

Just a bus ride!

So the other day I was riding in a public bus, and I realized something that I cannot keep inside me, just need to blurt out. As usual, the bus was over-flooded, mostly with around-19-year-old-looking-people-with bag on shoulder and headphones in ear (I just cannot stop wondering what one does when headphone just falls? I mean its not like you have space to move your hand or head :P) So anyway, after halfway standing, I managed to jump on a seat. Just after 2 minutes, a handicapped (I don’t know if using that term is offensive, sorry if it is) person stepped in and was standing. I offered him my seat, which he took, and I went on to join the standing crowd again. Just where I was standing, I suddenly saw something. It was written “Viklaag” above a seat right in front of my eye and a 19-yr-something-with-headphones was sitting right there in the fucking seat, texting simultaneously. By just the nature of me, I was suddenly agitated. What the hell was that seat meant for? For a moment I was tempted to tap his shoulder and say “Haan aapko jyada zarurat hai ‘viklaang’ seat ki”. But then I thought, wasn’t the handicapped person himself willing to stand rather than ask him to stand up? Who will care when one cannot help oneself? For the whole bus ride, I was thinking. This is some shit, some are too ignorant to see that they should fucking vacate the viklaang seat when a viklaang person is standing right there. Some are too naïve to ask for their own right and others just do not care.