Tag Archives: Thoughts

the wired generation

15 Tuesday Sep 2009

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so as Sahil observed this morning, the generation next is truly a wired generation. if we are able to finish a task in seconds, when earlier it would take hours, that should automatically make our lives much simpler, easier and give us more free time, right? Wrong. We pack more into a day, multi-tasking faster and often remain connected outside work, just because we can. That means our mind is constantly switched on and churning data. Instead of making our lives simpler and easier, technology has obviously made our lives more complicated. Can’t live with, can’t live without?

generation gap

13 Sunday Sep 2009

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So in conversation at lunch today, I discovered that it’s very easy to map a sociological downturn to a more materialistic and individualistic state that we are in today (obviously generalising):

1. Independence Generation: All they wanted was self-respect and freedom to be themselves. Their desire extends to the entire nation and community. There is no sense of Self and a deeply ingrained sense of values and responsibility towards a greater good.

2. Post-independence Generation: It was all about the simple things in life: roti, kapda aur makaan. There is a greater thought towards family and society, with a continuance of the value-system of the past. There is a negative qualification for those who are willing to drop this value-system to move forward into a materialistic route.

3. Industrial Generation: It was a time to sow the seeds to prosperity – work hard, save really hard, dream of that one vacation of a lifetime and a good retirement. It was an itch towards a comfortable life. Their desire is just for a better life for their family, with a great deal of dependence on the extended family, social groups and other social circles of influence. Values remain, but they are beginning to get diluted by the pressure of responsibility to provide for those around.

4. The Wealth-creator Generation: They thought about true wealth generation for the future generations. They also worked hard, but began to indulge – in the little luxuries that they had so far not been privy to. They are the last pure-breed example of stoic ‘follow-in-the-footsteps-of-your-father’ generation. Their circle of influence extends to the extended family and friends, with the beginnings of the Self philosophy. Values have begun to lose meaning in business and they are kept merely for personal life: where virtuosity is still in demand.

5. The Wealthy Generation: They are born into a comfortable life. They are the ones who studied abroad and began to realise the fact that they have career choices. They are the go-getters. Those that are not born into comfort, choose it as a career option with pvt sector jobs that give them more money than their grandfathers had in a lifetime. More choices and the drive to succeed very quickly create more anxiety and stress. There are two kinds of people here – the people who live off the forefathers’ sucesses and those who take different career options to create/build the next big thing. They work hard, party hard and look for a perfect work-personal life balance. For them it is about the self, immediate family and close friends. The extended family and society are not of particular consequence. Values are also a matter of choice and convenience.

6. Generation Next: This is a very exacting generation. It is a generation that spends money faster than it can be made, and looks for shortcuts to success. They have seen great wealth, and are familar with deep materialism. Everything can be quanitfied in terms of money or social markers and values are not of great/any consequence. It is a generation that expects instant gratification, without having to work hard for it. It is all about the Self and there is no sense of apology. There is no desire to think or consider anyone else. There is complete loss of value-systems and there is no desire to put up a front to prove anything.

writer’s blog

12 Saturday Sep 2009

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I mean writer’s block – can’t you see? what can be worse than having a deadline and having writer’s block at the same time? Try as I might I can’t make it sound any better than it does right now, and right now it’s shitty. It isn’t what I intended, it isn’t what I wanted and it isn’t worth reading. And someone else could’ve done it better. It’s a fix I can;t get out of, it’s a place I am in, and it’s a situation that just gets succeddingly worse. And it;s in my head. The question is, how does one get it onto paper?

stuck in a plague

27 Monday Jul 2009

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monotony is a plague – of the mind, of the senses and of human talent. even the most exciting places, jobs or people get monotonous after a point of time and it becomes impossible to grow within that self. to shrug a way of life that has become familiar and dependable takes guts – but it is the only way to steer clear of a rut. i believe that we have something extraordinary that lies within us – something that must be tapped into, explored and when given free rein to, becomes something that revolutionises, if not the world, then at least our own selves. it is painful to see greatness die – as it dies every single day within the minds and talent that remains untapped and unexplored. we are unfortunately happy being ordinary. that choice defines who we are. being ordinary is a state of mind, not a circumstance of birth. lets break free to do something that defines us, that explores who we can be, rather than what we settle to become.

the convenience of love or love in a LV bag

21 Sunday Jun 2009

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if you really think about it, love marriages can be as much of a compromise as an arranged marriage. if you marry for love, then, unless you are really lucky, everything else is a compromise.

if you marry for material satisfaction, then unless you are very lucky, love is a compromise.

the bottom line, life is a compromise. the only difference being, you choose your compromises.

in fact, life has come a full cycle. If you go back in time you would realise that marriages were arranged – for the best possible choice, with often no choice in the matter. Soon after, the next generation adopted the concept of love marriages – where love mattered more than the options it came with (or at least we hope so, it is indeed massive generalisation). And now, we see an era of mad love taking place in the younglings (a mere few years younger than us): they are experiencing true love in the louis vuitton.

marriage is now once again a convenience – it is an arrangement of convenient love that comes in the shape, size and price of a (or many a) designer handbag. the mantra: “he does love me so, he always buys me the best!” if we need a brand to define who we are, then we do indeed suffer from distastrously low self-esteem.

Who we are is and shall not be determined by who or what we wear, carry or hang out with – it should be something that emanates from us – a greater sense of being, a whole person. if you were to be remembered, how do you think people would describe you? With or without your handbag?

time warped time

20 Saturday Jun 2009

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watching Star Trek made me realise that preordained destiny is not restricted to a niche belief. as much as humans are divided into two schools of thought: one that hates feeling that life is a product of destiny and out of our control; and the second that can’t accept that there is no meaning and sense to life – do we all drift in a sea of abstract chaos? Star Trek talks (albiet vaguely) about two ideas: that the future is preordained in our own time conundrum; and that an alternate universe exists where life can potentially be mirroring that of our own – and time is just a construct, but one that has a supreme significance to our life and future. Time in that sense is a part of fate or destiny.

So in our meaningless/ful existential world, are we merely biding time until our future plays itself out for us? Apparently not – even in preodained-ness, there is a sense of control – a fighting spirit to either fix, change or correct the chain of events that brings us to the most acceptable future – and like any other rom-com or hindi flick, live happily ever after. But that is not real life. Real life exists in a complex fragmentation of self-doubts, misgivings, trials and minor triumphs – the latter giving one the will to move on. Ironically, without the ability to see into the future, one really doesn’t know what it is that we are moving on towards. Are we running away from our selves, or towards finding our selves? And even if it is either – that still brings us to the biggest problem facing humanity right now – the importance of the self.

If we take a movie like star trek to understand that we are but miniscule and largely insignificant players in the bigger picture – think how small each of us would look when viewed from another planet or galaxy – we begin to question the importance we give to our self. Every task we do, every decision we make in life, can eventually be traced right back to ourselves. Even if we do something for others – it is to make ourselves feel better. It’s like what Pheobe tried to do in an episode in Friends – and failed miserably – in finding the one unselfish act that would not amount to being self-serving. If we let ourselves become bigger – in our eyes – than the great populace, than say the planet or the human race; it can and will lead to no good. If we mean nothing, and are nothing by ourselves — and we exist based on the strength of the entire race, then maybe its time to start thinking about the bigger picture.

Tomorrow, if we had to make a decision to save ourselves or tons of other people – what would we choose? Captain Kirk (and his kind) are merely poster children of an extinct species.

the highs of the lows

01 Monday Jun 2009

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The stock market, the art market, the luxury goods market – all have been hit. I read a good article by Ben Lewis in The Times (UK) which thoroughly summarizes exactly what has been going on. Quoted from his article: “The prices were so high that they obliterated the meanings of the works, reducing them to symbols of excess and obscenity. I suspected that these prices were a sign that something was going dangerously wrong in the world economy and the human imagination.”

And this reflects across all the recessionary markets which faced inflated prices. At the end of the day, the behaviour of buyers is highly idiotic – they buy at a premium and sell to stay afloat at a low market. That is also what my father-in-law talks about, especially in his recent book that highlights the irrational behaviour of the buyers in the stock market.

It is not very different with art or luxury goods – it is also a severe case of herd mentality, when people buy because everyone else is buying, to make that quick buck bec they believe they will be left out, bec they are afraid of looking ‘uncool’ or ‘stupid’, or bec they just have a lot of money lying around. The worst is when people borrow to buy into goods at inflated prices, planning to cash in and make the big moolah. These people tend to slink away in misery when the markets are low, waiting for the markets to do well again, before investing! It makes no sense. The smart investor would buy when no one is buying and when the deals are available, right?

The other deal with inflated prices is that those aiming for statements of wealth are willing to part with more money, simply to appear ‘cooler’ – to have been able to afford a painting at an over-inflated price – a price that may never come around again until the next sucker turns up. These are people who are bound to be let down. This ability or willingness to part with a premium for something that may never be worth that much, denotes serious irrationality; and is one of the reasons that markets spiral out of control.

The question remains – how far is one willing to go to make that statement of wealth? to show that you have ‘arrived’ – how low are you willing to go, and how high a price are you willing to pay?

the secret of the secret

04 Monday May 2009

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a while ago, everyone was talking about ‘the secret’ – the book that changed the lives of many people. apparently, if you desire something and you put it out there, the universe conspires to make it happen for you.

i was skeptical for quite a while. but my husband lived the secret. literally whatever he wanted, he could get, just by wishing it. so i knew it worked for him.

it was only recently that i realised – it does not respond to a hankering desire or need, or a sense of quiet desperation…. it responds merely to a quiet desire/ uttering – a statement you may have made in passing, which will suddenly come true or work for you. you say it/ wish it – unconsciously and then forget it. it isnt linked to thinking deeply about it with your heart and soul, just realising a desire. and it comes to you. it may take time, or happen immediately, but it works.

and that, according to me, is the secret of the secret. you only realise it when it happens to you.

when a system doesn’t exist

30 Thursday Apr 2009

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Everyone’s been encouraged to vote. keeping aside the fact that we don’t even have the right candidates to vote for, we don’t even have the right system in place to actually vote. mismanaged centers, long lines, incorrect and not updated electoral rolls, inefficient staff and voting machines that don’t work… the list is endless. Today, there were regular voters 60+ years of age, whose names were mixed up on the electoral rolls. The wrong picture was against the wrong name, with a third voting number. many regular voters had suddenly been bumped off the electoral roll. there was no methodical system in place. the people checking looked lost and didnt know how to handle the problems. the machines appeared like they were registering the vote, but one could never be sure.

And yet, I feel amazed and happy to see the elderly – people over 80+ years of age find their way to the polling stations to vote. The young, the old, the sick the healthy, the rich the poor, were all there. can’t something change to live up to their expectations?

60+ years of democracy, of voting, of advancement, of IT professionals, of outsourcing and this is what we have? Zero systems. I read an India Today survey that listed the fortunes of most politicians to be in the hundreds of crores. I don’t mean to sound skeptical, but really, they never possessed that kind of money when they started out. When will it stop? Should we outsource our ‘democracy’ to a dictatorship so that our peace of mind is once again held hostage? How does one change a system so rotten to the core that it infects anyone who comes near it? Politics is a disease in this country and we are all plagued by our own choices.

power docs and waiting lists

28 Tuesday Apr 2009

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i really dont get it, why doctors make you wait endless amounts of time, simply to make or break your day. its like a sense of power that they wield – ‘i have the ability to heal, so i also have the power to make u wait endlessly!’ i get the part where they have to rush around making better and healing the lot, but the fact that appointments are given to multiple people for one time slot, and then everyone waits in nervous anticipation that turns to vigourous impatience and finally severe exhaustion leads to more illnesses at a clinic/ hospital than getting better! You see sick people waiting around and you feel sick even if you are not – drained and numb. Dr’s visits should be like a shot – get in and get out; and cheery places. Definitely painted daffodil yellow and lime green, with a dash of aqua. Seeing it should make you feel better and like going on a vacation. As far away from the dr as possible!