DARK IS BEAUTIFUL?

Growing in an Indian society with a darker shade is worse than you could imagine. But one could never deny the changes that the  21st century has made in the mindsets of the people. Indian society with diverse culture and communities is well known to celebrate the ethnicity and tradition. After the colonial rule, the traditions and practices were moulded  to the convenience of the modern era. Everyone discussing about issues of being dark in India never fails to relate it to the british impact of  racism which implicitly seeded the idea of fair being superior which finally made bollywood praise fair actors.

But this socio-cultural problem is multi fold in this modern era where education has reached masses and success hardly depends on the looks. If we dig in the history of our traditional country, the skin colour ranged from light brown to dark brown\ black and every classic tales depicted woman to be dark and beautiful before getting to know about the existence of fair skin tone. Draupadi , Krishna ,Ram were all described to be dark in complexion which proves that this complexion was the only known superior shade and was celebrated in the literature.

The strange observation one could make out of this existing setup is that people are obsessed about a woman being fair but not man. This was rarely analysed or discussed because we have an implicit assumption that beauty belongs to only woman and fairness is associated with beauty which makes us to believe in the illusioned fact that woman needs to be fair and beautiful. This social element was taken to the advantage of numerous marketing products like fairness cream and lotions. Fairness obsessed people (mostly woman) became the consumers,after few decades the commercial business also forced men to believe that being fair is the trend.

Eventually the ideological development of feminism along with right education changed the mentality of at least city dwellers to some extent. Women from highly educated and successful background started campaigning under the banner of “being dark , being beautiful” , “proud of my colour” etc. Initially being a dark girl myself who faced many hardships of being dark in my childhood, I was elated about such campaigns. But then realized this is just a cycle of evolution. Just one eccentric question that tickles my brain, why would you campaign or emphasize something explicitly when you teach beauty is not skin deep. It should logically apply for everyone irrespective of their complexion. It doesn’t make sense to have feministic idea with a shallow concept. women were treated equal to God before the medieval period witnessed woman slavery, now feminist groups fight for equality which is precisely not what our traditional society did. But the idea loses its lust if feminism propagates the idea of female being better than male ,which is exactly what the the “dark skin color” campaigns are doing.

I have a skin colour which is looked down by many, I do face discrimination and lose many opportunities because of my complexion. Showing the world how proud I am with my dark complexion is not going to give a solution for this misconception rather it would make us get into the cycle again, equality inculcates in modernism will remain a dream. Everyone irrespective of their complexion or gender is beautiful, just rethink about why should any particular complexion  be beautiful when we perceive everyone is beautiful.

P.S. Being the victim of the society that praises fairness doesn’t mean the victim thinks she is superior.

LIQUOR FREE STATE? Tamil nadu?

With Tamil Nadu state election on board people from the traditional land are getting to witness myriad of promises by the political leaders along with the heat wave of the summer. The “Dravidian” state  has seen only fragmented dravidian parties in the throne for running the government. The history behind  the division of the huge unified dravidians dates back when the actor AIADMK founder Dr. M.G.Ramachandran had disputes with his colleagues. These major two parties shortcoming led way to the mushrooming of new teams under the banner of “dravidian” but has different motives in their agenda.

This time election has been quite unpredictable as to who is going to win the maximum polls. For most of them it seems to be a battle between ‘Amma’ who has been charged with corruption  and 93-year-old veteran ‘Kalaignar’ who is unable to talk for more than few minutes in the campaign. But in reality there are few other parties which act as a spoiler in a subtle way and almost the whole state wanting a new leader. The new party “people’s welfare front” headed by former actor Mr.Vijaykanth (DMDK) has a twisted path of approaching this election field. Sketching so many strategies and  discussing over the right agenda to communicate to the public representing the party which will make them win was the main work of almost all the parties for past few months.

One noticeable point in all the manifesto is the promise made by the candidate to make Tamil Nadu a liquor free state. Simply put, they all dream and commit to prohibit alcohol in the boundary. The question of whether alcohol should be banned or not is away from the discussion because public has a mixed opinion about it and the genuine reason for the same has not been spelled out by a single party. The manifesto of both twin-leaf and rising sun has been tricky,when the DMK leader vividly said that he will sign the prohibition order right after his victory which made ADMK realize the importance of the promise doesn’t matter if it’s happening in future or it’s just going to be trashed onto the list of unfulfilled promises.

Third party and other minor groups have mentioned about the ban, the real question comes when we hypothetically assume even if the elimination of alcohol is going to improve the rural drunkard household but how exactly the ban is about to get implemented still remains an unanswered. Things seems to be getting weaker from ADMK side when the present chief minister says she will ban the alcohol step by step, probably to resettle her best friend Sasikala who owns a liquor company which makes her manifesto an illusion.

There are few concealed facts about TASMAC (Tamil nadu State Marketing Corporation) which is popularly the state-run wine shops that was introduced by the founder of ADMK M.G. Ramachandran. The motive behind the introduction was to give better quality alcohol so that the rural folks don’t get addicted to illicit arrack and desi liquor, but now it looks like the mission has failed to serve its purpose and forced them to include the prohibition in the manifesto to gain women voters who are usually considered the victims of alcohol.

Again coming back to the important question of how the to be elected chief minister is going to tackle the financial and economic intricacies behind this ban. The  TASMAC alone has 28,000 crore as net income, what will happen to the state of good GDP if it freezes high revenue without any financial backup. Apart from this the manifesto is popular for the freebies which technically scratches the require funds from such revenue, this evidentlyproves there are no income generation program as such to compensate the loss if we believe in their promise. The question is not about if alcohol is good or bad, it more converges to the fact what is the strategic blueprint of the procedure the government is going to follow if elected which is lacking. Democracy is not just having the right to vote, it acts when a common man could question the elected MLA if he has a problem.

Love? Why should we move on?

Every language’s literature has a strong chapter on love. It is a topic which is being celebrated by us for ages but the cultural evolution always finds a room to dilute the real essence of it. We all fall in love, there are so many discussions, debates and opinions on this sweet yet dynamic topic but what to do after falling in love has been moulded by the social environment. We always have this tendency to do what our peers do, in the similar lines dating,relationships and love which is a part of our typical lifestyle has some impressions of replicating what others do.

Before getting into the discussion of what to do when you are in love it’s important to know what love is.  It is simply a feeling, everyone has their own meaning of love but falling in love with the opposite gender is always highlighted. There are usually three stages of love the first one being “lust”, this is a basic attraction which both men and women get when they see the attractive gender. Second stage is attraction, the symptoms are very common heart starts pumping and we start sweating this will make butterflies fly in our stomach when you meet the person. If you had these symptoms before does not mean you are in love it just means you are highly attracted to the person but might think twice before sleeping with him or her. When you go through both these stages you finally end up with “attachment” which is the final stage according to science. Oxytocin is the hormone responsible for this long-term attachment, both men and women release this chemical when they have orgasm.

Though I couldn’t precisely answer what love is but all I could conclude is that love is a “feeling” or to put in a formal way it is a chemical reaction happening inside our brain. All of us are  animals who  crave for sex at the end of the day but what makes human beings special is this idea of love we add before having a physical relationship. How we understand this complicated meaning of love differs from person to person but we all make decisions because of those chemicals playing inside us.

Love being such a favorite part of our life is never nice to us in the beginning, we eventually base our opinions on what the mainstream does. If we can agree to the fact that love is a feeling which is a natural process there is absolutely no need to forget the feeling or the person just because it won’t work. Thinking beyond the system of marriage, commitment and family is there a valid reason to mask the feeling which is apparently a natural thing happening in our brain. To simplify, if I am thirsty and have the urge to drink water that feeling activates my nervous system and certain reactions happen in my brain and I go looking for water. This natural feeling cannot be deleted or disguised into something else just because our external environment is not equipped enough to get me water. Same way why should the natural feeling of love on someone should be forgotten or “moving on” action plans are on the way.

We designed this society with a system of lifestyle that is witnessing changes over a period of time yet  in a cross-sectional view no one likes to change. We are fantasiczed with the thought that “getting over someone” is being strong emotionally but don’t you think  we actually struggled with the natural component and masked the feeling just to prove the world that we are emotionally strong. Retaining the so-called love feeling for someone doesn’t mean I sit alone depressed with a smoke and fail in my career. Why is it not possible to succeed and live happy without erasing the beautiful feelings for someone. Don’t you think all of us would be joyous if we forget about the system, peer pressure and future family.

It was just a question which tingled when I was trying to move on(as my friends call it). Why should I move on? why not just treasure it? let me keep the reaction undisturbed.

GDP..DOES IT REALLY MATTER?

The question ” why should we be proud to be an Indian?” in my previous blog had the psychological analysis of what we are right now. Going ahead with different types of questions flashing in my mind, I wish to express my thoughts on the subjects the fascinates me. Congress government was well-known for its corruption during its reign in center, there was one more economic trend which was frequently announced by them and that made the former prime minister prove that he was a scholar in Economics. “GDP, during our period was the highest” is the common statement made by the every member of the party right from the ministers to the counsellors in a state. People watching news showing the interview of RBI governor Mr. Rajan explicitly reporting the expected growth of GDP this quarter will cross 7%, are quite clueless as to what exactly does it imply. We tend to presume that higher GDP indicates better performance of the economy.

But what exactly does this economists favorite word mean. I remember my thin economics book in 9th standard CBSE board had a precise yet unclear definition for GDP.  Gross Domestic Product and it is considered to be the thermometer of any economy since it measures the growth and performance of an economy. The growth of the total production of goods and services in our country in a particular period without any value deduction of the machinery. So,  we all think it’s absolutely a good news if we have higher GDP expected this year no matter if you have to pay more taxes or the crime rate in your town.

There is one side where IMF head Christine Lagarde and economist Joseph Stiglitz argue there should be a change in the way we measure the growth of an economy. The recent annual meeting in Davos witnessed such ideas and inputs of great economists. But does it really matter to a retired army person or a student struggling to clear his papers from the previous semester. The answer could be multifold, percentage change in the GDP is not going to affect directly today, but the macroeconomic impact of this short-tempered man cannot be denied. Today’s growth in industrial , agriculture and tertiary sector decides what will be your budget tomorrow.

This must be complicated to comprehend in reality, GDP is  important but there something more to it. Recently I came across Esterlin paradox, Richard Esterlin is the economist working on the relationship between the country’s GDP and the happiness. Now we get a loop to relate this economic term with “happiness index”. It makes a lot of sense to think if there is high rates of rape, increased rate of criminals and low quality of education but the GDP is pretty high touching 11% , and expect people to be happy  because there is growth in the economy.

In a transition economy like India welfare and real development is more important than the hike in numbers. Simple economics concept of “trade-off” explains why every decision taken by the P.M might benefit one sector at the cost of another sector.This improvement in the growth can be because the country produces industrial products and raw materials for the purpose of exporting by cutting down the trees and occupying the agricultural land. In this scenario we have growth in terms of number but at the cost of farmers. The complexity of GDP makes it a more unreliable tool to measure or rather for measuring  a real development in an economy. Do we need something which takes into consideration the sustainability of environment, safety of the citizens, how secured they feel to stay in the country etc.

The paradox stated by Richard Esterlin proves that the rise in income of the people in a country increases the happiness in the short run. But in long run the increase in income has almost no effect on the level of satisfaction. Applying similar logic in the aggregated world, the income of the country hardly has effect on the happiness of the citizens. For example, Denmark is one of the happiest country in the world but it has shown negative GDP growth.

To converge the idea of the post, GDP may or may not be the good indicator but the we should better think twice when politicians talk about the growth and try to understand the other dimension of growth. It might not be as good as we think.

PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN?

Being an Indian we do a lot things by default no matter we like it or hate it, being traditional and wearing those heavy silk sarees on ethnic days, crib about India’s cleanliness in the town and drawing a comparison with foreign are few things which has become an unexceptional part of ritual in this land of diversity. Folks here are diversified to an extent    where it is so hard to remember all the languages spoken here and understanding every culture within a community is going to be one hectic job to do. There is one more thing which every Indian says, “I AM PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN”. With such wide variety of people from Delhi in north to Kumari  in south, everyone has this charismatic attitude towards expressing their love for the nation. Being brought up in an average middle class family and  studying in a school where teachers taught us to be proud of our country along with the regular subject, I never had this chain of thought to question the concept of patriotism. Dumped with the ideas of patriotism as a positive thinking never let most of the youth retrospect about it and in fact made them more fiery and proud Indians even if they crib about their country and dirty politics.

Contemplating few ideologies interacting and brainstorming with people over a coffee gave a clarity to my unanswered question. Nationalism in this contemporary world has become a best friend of anarchism, but a true nationalism was always interpreted in different ways. Rabindranath Tagore who lived so many decades ago held an eccentric view on Nationalism which was not acknowledged by many back then. He described Nationalism to be “ambivalence”, Indians idealizing God and humanity need not imitate nationalism identity which was viral in East was his essential point. Ironically Tagore wrote the national anthem for three countries after disproving the idea of nationalism.

But an important dimension to direct our thoughts in this century about patriotism and nationalism is  to question our society,” why should we be patriotic?”

After triggering such questions in mind, I decided to talk to people about patriotism and their thoughts about it. I was not really surprised to see my acquaintances and mates stammering to answer what patriotism is just the way I did when I questioned myself. Everyone has their own opinions and definition for patriotism, but the reason to be proud is still not justified when we think about it in a narrow line.Being born in this country is not my choice, being raised by my parents who follow one particular religion is not my choice, everything happens to be an accident I would describe it as “Nature’s magic”. I don’t see a point in being proud of my family , religion or my name. When my identity has nothing to do with my pride , my complexion or figure has nothing to with my success in similar lines  living in one geographical boundary and grouped under one name for identity has nothing to do with patriotism or pride. The process of evolution has distinctly grouped us based on the landforms and climatic phenomena which ended up making me an India.

Does it really matter if am patriotic to my country when there is no world peace, or is this concept of patriotism which is creating obstacles to attain world peace. Every man born belongs to Earth and has to equally take responsibility for everything that happens around. In this era of technological progress the objective of everyone should be developed humanity and propagate world peace, in such a scenario being proud of some identity for the namesake of makes little sense.

Questions popping in now and then about the world, system, philosophical thoughts are something which moves us forward with higher intellectual power. In this defined society humanity and values should be prioritized before taking up pride for something, kids should be taught success is when we attain the common objective and they should be protected from restricting their idea of patriotism only in supporting a cricket match.

Being a Nationalist creates a lot of tremors in a political ambience, but the real meaning of Nationalism and patriotism was never answered and it was rarely questioned because of the positivity it created in the minds of the people. It is still hard to accept such delusional concept and my question still remains unanswered..

 

 

 

Hello world!

This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.

Happy blogging!