Limmericks - In the Style of Ogden Nash

The first one is about stocks and market turmoil

"I put money in your stocks
And now my a** is in the docks"
Said the investor with a shudder
To the petulant Lehman Brother.

This one kind of gets my frustration out with Delhi traffic

Oh Dilli wala why do you hurry ?
You turn the roads to chicken curry !
One day when your car runs into a wall,
I'll open the door and kick your ba** !

Who can ever forget her ?

Mamta Banerjee sat in Singur,
Behaving like a stupid boor ...
While corporate CEOs take a call,
And stop investing in Bengal.

Traffic Signals are for the feint hearted !!

Our traffic signal has no flaw
Except for the errant autorikshaw.
He will go whatever the light
Always ready to pick a fight.
One day we'll beat him till he's raw,
Until he understands the law.

The Fear Within

So what is a festival about really ?

I am lucky to be in India - the land of festivals. There are a million of them here and at all times of the year. And each one has its own essence - a special context. Every community participates in all these festivals, their involvement varying with the perceived congruence of the particular festival with the religion, customs and traditions of the community.

So to come back to the question - what is a festival about ? Various answers come to mind. Celebration of a historical or mythical event. A traditional gathering of people with a common purpose. A place to sell your wares maybe ...

But behind all the stated objectives of the festival - is the one important and subliminally understood objective. And that is to let go of the daily drudgery and enjoy the company of like minded and happy people. To elevate ourselves from the constructs of our daily routine and give vent to our primal need to feel joy.

And so it was during Durga puja. At least till the last year. But before I go ahead with my story - let me explain a little about Goddess Durga and her mythical essence.

Once upon a time the Asuras ( read the diabolical beings ) became so strong that even the gods were unable to overcome them. So they approached Lord Shiva for a solution. Lord Shiva in all his glory opened his third eye and conceived of a female being of immense power. She was Durga. And she overcame the strongest of the Asuras - Mahisasur. Thus the gods were able to regain control over heaven and earth.

Goddess Durga symbolizes shakti, the raw unimaginable power of goodness which can overcome the greatest of vices.

But sadly the message was totally lost on our population during this years Durga puja. Coming at the end of a series of bomb blasts and terror attacks - this years puja was a celebration of fear and not of the forces that overcome fear. Yes there was the usual shamiana with the huge idol of Durga. There were also a multitude of stalls selling food of all kinds. There was music and people danced on makeshift stages. However, among all this there was another very incongruous entity.

The gun toting law enforcement people. And they walked proudly among the revelers with their three foot guns, glaring at everyone that came in their path. And with them came gloom. More than the terrorists, the sight of commandos with their Ak-47s struck fear into the heart of every reveler.

Some said it was necessary - that the safety of the revelers was most important. Some said that it was a bit too much. But all agreed that the revelry had almost but disappeared. And all that was left was the drudgery of our common lives. It was the same policeman breathing down everyone's neck. It was the same standing in line to get frisked. It was the same shutting down everything by the midnight hour. And most importantly it was the same fear that we felt for the past many weeks.

As the puja ended - it left a queer feeling in my mind. Suddenly it seemed that we can never go back to enjoying our festivals like we did before. As if all our senses had been over powered by the fear emanating from within us. A fear that cannot be cured by twenty policemen or one hundred commandos. The overwhelming fear of knowing that death awaits us whenever and wherever we get together in large numbers to celebrate.

The festival season has almost come to an end this year. But the festival has ended a long time ago. We are now like shadows of our joyous selves. Treading with cautious steps, awaiting our end in the form of that mysterious packet of explosives left in the midst of us. And the gun-toting policemen just keep reminding us of this fear within.

Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy ...

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." -Will Durant

I had heard this in the movie Apocalypto - an awesome movie if you ask me !

The news of Lehman brothers filing for bankruptcy makes me remember that little sentence again. The nature of a great corporation today is so similar to the "great civilizations" of long ago. They have their work cultures, they have their own hierarchies, and they have their dedicated ground staff defending the institution.

The fall of companies like Lehman brothers is an eye opener for us. We have trusted the system of massively incorporated companies and banks to produce productive sustenance to the people employed as well as for the population in general. We believe that these companies with their immense work force, hierarchy and accountancy departments cannot go wrong in evaluating their self-worth and can in fact change the course of money to make the ends meet. But how wrong we are - and more often than not.

In a structured multi layered corporation it is quite impossible for every employee to have personal knowledge or interest in what the corporation is all about. They, like little ants fulfill their little tasks - all the while trusting their work-masters to have all the answers.

But that is so far from the truth in the present times. In these times when we have quantified our resources into an abstract concept called money. Hence we often get deluded into making these "billion dollar deals". We believe that the coming together of a lot of money means a lot of nodding heads. So wrong, so very wrong. Its like believing that "The Blair Witch Project" is about some real footage - just because the video is as shoddy as from a hand held videocam.

How can we avoid an impasse like this ? This questions begs asking - as we boldly march into the age of Corporations. Well the answer is neither simple to comprehend or to implement. First of all its imperative that the corporation has an ideologue - could be a loose one - but should atleast exists. It should be obvious to an outsider as to what this company will do and what it will not do - in effect the ideologue. Secondly every employee should be made aware of the "ideologue" and asked to acquiesce or leave. (In this case there will be arm-twisting with money and lollipops - but at the least the employee will be aware of the circumstances he made his decision in). Thirdly anyone who contracts/deals with the corporation should also be asked to have these practices in place.

These three simple steps might one day prevent such disasters. To quote Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve - “Let’s recognize that this is a once in a half-century, probably once in a century type of event.” He continued by saying that it was the worst “by far” he has seen in his career.

We are at a very real crossroad now. This is not a Rambo movie where "with grit and brutal determination" the "good" in the end overcomes the "evil". There is no clear enemy here - the devil they say lies in the details. We have put our money behind these corporations for a long time now. Its time we examine the authenticity of these institutions and question the malpractice which is evidently inside most private corporations. Money and its accumulation in one place - can no longer be the best yardstick for the "free economy".

In the present context we should now start a new "economy of choice" - a place where the participants are aware of their personal as well "corporational" responsibilities. That would be a truer testament to the will of the masses. In fact it may lead to some good social evolution.

Bad governance and public apathy ...

    What is it with India and its people ? Why are we so full of nonchalance ? Why are we so utterly short-sighted in our estimation of what we will need in the future ?
    Let us see an example of what I am talking about. It is something every one knows about and yet would like not to think about. Its called traffic and its one huge phenomenon in India. Traffic in India is probably like no other. Its a unique mix of humans and cattle. The occasional dog spices up the scenery further. But its not the traffic that peeves me often. Its the way its managed. And the central theme of traffic management(or mis-management) is zero-accountability. It starts with the police. They think its their birthright to break the red-light. We can understand if they are on a hot chase (unlikely but still possible). But even when there is no hurry they will ..

1. drive on the wrong side of the road
2. break the red-lights
3. approach a traffic island in the wrong direction
4. drive over the speed limit
5. stop in the middle of the road and yap on the radio

    The next abomination on the road is the government licensed public transport buses. The drivers of these buses are one of a kind. The few pre-conditions for being a bus driver are ...

1. you should like to drive faster than a sports vehicle
2. you should be able to drive in the middle of the road and leave enough space on both sides for the two-wheelers
3. you should break as many red-lights as you can
4. you should have at the least, run over one person
5. you should have gone to jail and be out on bail most of the time
6. you should have a license which has either expired or has been issued in a far-off village
7. you should smoke "bidi"
8. you should be able to take a sharp turn without turning on the blinker
9. you should like to play "chicken" with other big buses
10. you should have no qualms about stopping in the middle of the road to pick up the next abomination on this list.

    Well as you might have guessed already the, the next abomination is the pedestrian. Of all the things that causes our traffic to be so unmanageable the pedestrians have to be the most unmanaged and most unaccountable. If you are a pedestrian you have certain rights in India. Here are a few important ones ...

1. you can walk anywhere on the road
2. while you are waiting for a bus you can eagerly occupy all the road
3. if you get hit by anything while you are doing the above the law will ask the "culprit" to pay up
4. you can sleep on the road if you are poor (in fact being poor gives you the license of doing almost anything on the road)
5. you can hold your hand up boldly at approaching cars so that they will stop, while you gallantly cross the highway
6. you can cross traffic intersections diagonally at rush hour traffic
7. you can speak on the mobile phone while doing the above
8. you can plead the buses to stop for you anywhere you wish to
9. you can jump of a moving bus (in the middle lane) onto the bonnet of the car on the left
10. you can hurl an abuse at the car after you have finished doing the above

    Those were just a few of the things you can do as a pedestrian. For the full list you can observe the "next" guy. You can do whatever he does. Infact depending on what you do, the next category of idiots on the road will follow suit. This category is populated by rickshaws, autorickshaws and "thelas". This is the bad ass category. They like to live life "their way". The laws are for the educated fools. They revel in their illiteracy. I would like to think - they celebrate it. They will do all the things attributed to the other categories. And more. They will make your life a living hell and shout at you while the alcohol vapors emanate from their bellies.
    In between all this is you. And you will wish you weren't there in the first place. Some times you see cops flagging someone down for speeding. Or breaking a light maybe. But they are not serious. They are just trying to "make up" the daily quota of fines. The same cops will turn a blind eye at other times to the same crimes. They are the human equivalent of chameleons. Changing color everyday ... maybe every minute.
    And now some questions for all of us "Indians". Why don't we have the right to question a cop when he breaks the law ? Why cant a pedestrian be held accountable for his crimes ? Do we really care about how its going to look like on the road a few years from now ? Can you predict the escalation of lawlessness that his about to take place ?
    Sometimes they catch a rich fool for driving over some bum on the road. It might be his fault ( and in a drunk-an-crazy place like Delhi its highly probable). But do we examine everyones fault. Do we check if the traffic light was working. Do we check if the pedestrian was walking on the middle of the road. Do we understand that everyone has a right - and not just the underdog.
    Given the trend we will soon have a deluge of vehicles on the road. And sadly the people sitting and making the "future plans" are the bottom of the pile students who joined the civil services for the lack of any other job (not all but well, mostly ...) . And we ... well we don't really care. Even if we did ... we are afflicted by a paralyzing fear. The fear of the powerful politician. The fear of the corrupt police. The fear of stepping outside the "status quo". As a country we symbolize that word. We like things as they are - forever. But it will not be this way always , unfortunately ... it will only get worse.

Void Human

What if we were a product made by a superior intelligence ... and there was a void human test ... something like the void comp test in blade runner ... to determine the humans from among the more endowed ...

Can we beat the test knowing its purpose ... what is the limit of our "mind" ?

What is the limit of intelligence ... of the highest order ?

Can a machine be someday more intelligent than us ? Do we become secondary then ...

Can we bear the fact that we might be looked after one day as relics of "intelligent beings" - like well-fed monkeys in their cage ....

Can we presume all the above will never happen ? Can we be sure that the evolution of intelligence will always be routed through biology ?

Learning to use Python today ... oh no , I am no snake charmer ... python happens to be a programming language.

Was reading a book ... Bill Bryson's " A Short History of Nearly Everything " ...

There's a part in it about geology and the cataclysms that shook earth .... and I was trying to imagine what would happen on ground zero today ... not the hollywood ground zero ... it looks too contrived ... the brave people running and saving lives ... the sermons by the President ... the all faithful military putting up a valiant front in the face of extreme adversity ... well as I said it sounds contrived.

But let me imagine the ground zero today ... let us for the sake of self-comfort assume that a chunk of asteroid the size of a mountain is headed for the north pole ( the location gives me comfort - its reasonably far from any populated place and its quite cool in there to sort of temper the heat - a very childish assumption indeed) ... let us also assume that after all our valiant efforts ( with and without n-bombs ) , we were unable to stop it in due time ... and the last couple of days are spent in anxious anticipation of the inevitable ...

I will skip the part about the cults and pop/urban reaction and the usual variety of emotions shown in movies depicting these events .... none of those movie makers saw such events ... neither does our history justify that we will be able to send something like a bunch of lunatics (headed buy our mighty Bruce Willis ) to dig a hole on an asteroid ... no ... none of that will possibly happen ...

So on the last day ... as the population on earth notices the first clear unaided image of a black dot in the sky ... the reality sinks in ... the first crisis i presume will be of faith ... almost everyone among us has faith in "something that nurtures life" ... given various names and incarnated as various gods ... we also have faith in knowing that nothing like "this" is ever going to happen in "my" lifetime ...

We all watch as the dot grows larger ... the reality sinks in ... we could do nothing ... our governments have failed us ... our famous bombs failed us ... the fabled secret weapons failed us ... the alien technology failed us .... "how cruel can god be" ... "why would he want to build all this and destroy it in a flash "... there is no end to this paranoia ... and paranoia coupled with a crisis of faith is a heady cocktail.

However intelligence i believe is more powerful than the atoms that make it ... once all hope is lost ... we become gods ourselves ... we relieve ourselves of our burden of existence ... some choose death ahead of the event ... others feel free and unfettered .... as if the ropes that bind us to be "ourselves" are suddenly gone ... some of the depressed start feeling happy ... they suddenly don't feel unjustified ... some with extraordinary faith will never loose it ... knowing that dead or alive doesn't matter as long they are happy ...

There will some of us who will head for the liquor store ( especially in Delhi ) ... and some of us will head for our near ones ... some will hide in deep bunkers with timers in their hands ... continuously checking the dials to make sure the life support systems are all working ... TV crews will have various levels of coverage .. Barkha Dutt will probably fly close to the action on a chopper ... she always "has it in her to do that kind of thing" ... Charu Sharma will put a brave smile and take it in his stride ( i mean really !! .. the guy can take his dads demise , bad performance of his "team" as well as getting kicked out of his post at IPL all in a months time ) ... anyway he will blabber away at the studio all the while wishing he was with his wife ... a very painful scenario of bone-headedness i might add ...

To continue .... now its visible to everyone ... some of the people will start singing together ... the "common intelligence" taking over the individual "mind" ... the religious will pray and wish for miracles .... the drug addicts will get "high" .... the boozers will get their "buzz" ... celebs will take barbiturates ... Britney Spears (in dowdy midriff revealing sweatshirts) will break car windows with umbrellas and other assorted items - as a mark of her individuality ....

The first world countries will have the biggest crisis of faith ... its almost like they are so dependent on the "government" to solve all their miseries ... like noisy but faithful kindergarten kids ... checking their blackberries nervously ... others will load their best guns with the best bullets ... or fire up their favorite Mozart piece (depending on which side of the Atlantic) ... a great majority will "wager" ...

"In other Asian countries people have started looting stuff from the big shops ..." - kind of summaries the evergreen images of the Asian outback ... well in reality people here will handle it much better .... they are more used to such failures of the government ....

Well ... the thing hits the ground .... the streak of light across the sky ends over the horizon for most ... we were "told" that the shock wave is to be expected at "x" time in our area ... and we wait ... in absolute awe ... the first pics of the impact will come in soon ( an interesting question would be - will the tv images reach us before the shock wave or vice versa ? ) ... a brilliant flash in the distance .... people doing "aahhhs" and "ohhhs" in the background of the tv feed .... the iconic mushroom cloud but this time larger than anything ever before .... the immense waves traveling at breath taking speeds on faraway shores ... the shudder as buildings are toppling one by one ... people becoming hysterical ... the lonely musician playing a guitar on the sea-shore ... enjoying the music as he waits for the "wall of water" ...

The shock will soon reach the mantle and then the liquid outer core .... and then their will be fireworks .... as the magnetic field running this planet changes orientation in seconds .... small changes in magnitude but immense in effect ... the pent-up pressure under various tectonic plates will start releasing ... dormant volcanoes open up like dragons spewing mile high streams of rushing super hot magma ... the surface shock will crumble most high rises for many thousands of miles around the zone of impact ...

Then there will be the "black cloud" ... the Queen's men will not rue the weather ... theres normally very little sunlight they see anyway .... the Mediterranean shores will see the most drastic changes ... from good sunny blue sky to dark thunderstorm like scenario in a few hours ...

Well i fear to imagine what comes next ... other than a whole lot of death among the mighty humans ... there might be survivors till a few years later ... but most of us are going to perish in the first day itself ... as a flicker of hope some of us may get free of our mother Earth and head to space in ramshackle rockets ... knowing all too well that only some alien can save us .... our technology being totally incompetent at preserving life outside earth for prolonged periods ...

Some of us will send movie cds and other data in satellites so that some other "intelligent being" will get to know about us ... someday ... maybe billions of years later .... when they get to load our USB drives ..

In the parlance of cosmic space, this event would be called a firecracker going off next to an assortment of exploding nuclear bombs ...

Well thats how fragile we are .... and yet how sure we are that nothing like "that" is going to happen in "my" lifetime .... and we go through the grind of our daily routines ... with a nonchalance of diabolical proportions.

*************

Note : Please feel free to add other effects you can imagine in the comments below... taking care to leave out the usual stuff that has been shown in detail in hollywood movies. It would be very nice if you can give me some humorous instances of our celebs going nuts. Like Rajni's reaction ..."if Rajnikant then nobody can ...."

Later, we may discuss how a bollywood "end of the world" movie will look like ....