The Death of Memory!

Two years to the dawn of a new century that witnessed the anxiety of being able to boot up your home PC at the turn of the century, also saw among other things the extinction of the wisdom of many a grandmas across households, the extinction of the reference sections in libraries, the extinction of Mr. / Ms. Know it all’s in the class rooms, in short the extinction of the beautiful world of memory.

It also marked the birth of the high bandwidth know it all’s, the virtual gurus, the tell- me-all friend,and the dump-your-memory friend.

Overnight one was enlightened about the what’s, why’s, when’s, which’s, how’s of the happenings around us. We were the so called empowered society when a toddler all of 2 hand held us to the world of information overload at the turn of the century and at a click.

A generation that grew up being told that Knowledge was Power was elbowed out by a generation that claimed Information is Power as long as the electrical power and connectivity existed. There is a world of difference between knowledge and information.  Sadly the speed at which information was disseminated was more important than the quality of the information that was being spread. The advancements in hardware kept pace and ensured they facilitated uninterrupted dissemination of ‘uncontrolled’ information.

All this happened because one Sergey a Russian and Larry an American decided that they would bid adieu to the cold war, their countries were at and give democracy a new twist and empower mankind with information.  Democracy sadly gave freedom to everything except the right to uncontrolled information.  Uncontrolled information sounded nice but when the source of uncontrolled information passed its early life entered adolescence and crossed over to the teens, now out of the teens realized uncontrolled information was irresponsible information too.

As we suffer from various health hazards associated with poor lifestyle and eating habits as a result of our consumption patterns we also suffer from an acute information obesity / disorder due to the consumption of junk, so called intellect influencing steroids like misinformation, disinformation and mal-information that are so beautifully camouflaged under empowerment or right to information.

The facilitator of all this, turns twenty today, and hope they leave the teeny tantrums behind and focus on a more responsible dissemination of information. The brand became a verb before they reached the responsible 20’s and hope they remain a responsible mental verb.

The need of the hour is a mature and responsible GOOGLE. We need exponential efforts in 100’s as the name suggests, to help foster a responsible society.

 

Many Happy returns of the day Google… thank you for returning all our queries till date.

India Running!

The legend of Philippedes has it that he ran from Marathon to Athens to declare the victory over the Persians. This happened in 490 BC.  Last week a population of 1 plus billion people from an even older civilization produced a gold medal winner at the 400 M world junior athletic event for the first time and the whole country went into frenzy.

However the followers of Philippedes are a plenty in India and it has become more of a fad than a sport. As one might be aware, barring one sport nothing else is revered as a sport in India. Almost every city in India has more than a couple of branded Marathon events all the year around. I happened to ‘witness’ (A recent survey says we are the largest sporting event ‘viewers’ in the world) one this week which started and finished close to my house in Chennai.

Went there to check on a friend who claimed to be a marathoner and me being the doubting Thomas wanted to go by the seeing is believing principle and I had my reasons for that, knowing him for long now, his closest association with the word RUN during college days was with a Hotel by the name RUNS in Adyar. Was amazed at the size and splendor of the event. Close to 5000 odd people sweating it out, some sprinting, some gracefully cantering and some even ‘selfieing’ their way in, while a few others limped to the finish to be greeted to the sounds of ‘chenda melam’ and egged on by a handful of lazy onlookers like yours truly and proud family members of the descendants of Philippedes armed with the latest Phone cameras and DSLR’s to capture their moment of glory. What further amazed me was the accessories that the runners where adorned with apart from good running shoes some were strapped with the latest fitbit and the likes monitoring their vitals as they made through this gruesome endurance challenge. Some ran barefoot too. Some hydrated themselves with water from PET bottles while some sipped from long pipes hanging over their shoulders. I was later informed by a well-informed runner friend that particular gadget was called a camelback. A water pouch that one can carry on his or her back with a sipper to keep hydrated.

Mercedes Benz as one of the lead sponsors had displayed large Digital Timers on the roof of their cars at the finish lines so that the runners could see their timing and also kindle that urge in you to own the coveted brand, for which, you need to run a different race though.

Marathon for sure is not for the weak hearted and calls for skills that revolve around endurance, focus and monk like concentration; this has now opened up an entire tribe of life coaches / Management gurus drawing parallels with marathons and emphasizing that these very skills will take you to the top at your workplaces. Sadly none of these Management gurus give you gyan on how to make it big, taking up running itself as a profession.

It’s an irony that in India many take to Marathons once they are secure and successful in life unlike the Ethiopians or the Kenyans or the Mo Farahs who went on to make it big for themselves and their country running for a livelihood.

Marathons are run every second day across the country for various causes which is certainly good, however wish one could be run to promote the spirit of sport as a profession and not only as a fitness fad and thereby help in producing at least one marathoner or an athlete from India who could make it big on the world stage.

Horses for courses!

A state that is home to the so called Silicon Valley of India has been witness to the dance of democracy the last 48 hours. The dance has been all but graceful, plunging the constitutional pundits into a huddle.  Though this is something we Indians have got used to irrespective of who is in power, sadly highlights the grey areas of democracy in a diverse and populous country like India.

We thump our chests with pride when we are referred to as the largest working democracy, largest yes, but working I am unsure. We sure are diverse and thanks to our colonial teachings on leveraging the multiple  cast / tribe / regional and religious divides, it makes the working of democracy all the more difficult. That is why a fragmented mandate turns the dance of democracy into a bacchanalia.

As a citizen of the largest democracy I have heard this term Horse Trading from the time I was old enough to read a Newspaper and follow politics. The origin of the word goes thus - courtesy the wiki.

Horse trading, in its literal sense, refers to the buying and selling of horses, also called "horse dealing.” Due to the difficulties in evaluating the merits of a horse offered for sale, the sale of horses offered great opportunities for dishonesty, leading to use of the term horse trading (or horse-trading) to refer to complex bargaining or other transactions, such as political vote trading.

We the people are the protagonist in the theatre called democracy and it is we the people who should choreograph the dance of democracy, but sadly with our numerous differences we are unable to evaluate the merits and elect our representative who later turns a horse to be traded. They end up being traded at exorbitant sum which is always proportional to the complexity of the fragmented mandate. The masters who trade them are extolled for their political acumen and compared to Chanakya sadly this comparison maligns Chanakya’s famed political dexterity.  

Democracy is all about people and not about horses. Thorough bred horses fetch a fortune and let’s not compare the illiterate opportunistic elected representatives to those lovely creatures of pedigree.  Let’s ensure when we exercise our franchise next, to house the political stables with horses for courses and not horses to be traded.

It’s all about the jeans!

Air travel in the past was a mode of travel confined to the rich and famous, and if at all one managed to afford it, they would make sure that they were donned in their Sunday best as they walked into an airport or boarded a flight.  Though the world has come a long way since, the skies are now as crowded as the gullies of an Indian metropolis, the old school patrons like yours truly still take travelling by air a little seriously when it comes to looking your best. So, during a recent trip to Europe I slipped into my relatively new & favorite pair of jeans.

Walking through the plane’s aisle I ended up tearing my jean at the thigh. As soon as I realized it, I was absolutely horrified at the possibility of having to walk through two international airports wearing a pair of torn jeans. There were days one used to rush back home from school or office when a part of your attire had given up at the seams.

As I got off the plane I walked coquettishly trying to hide the damaged portion of the jean. A quick glance around the airport made me realize that almost every second person passing through the airport had encountered an even worse mishap with their jeans. The denims were all ripped in different shapes and forms, and the so called rich and famous were flaunting their ripped jeans with pride. I developed a complex again when I realized mine was an accident and was confined to only one thigh; the others sported a more symmetric damage which actually made them look good.

Growing up in the 80’s I have worn different kinds of denims, stone wash, acid wash and even one with the complete lyrics of a Deep Purple song hand written on it, and yes some were torn at the knees but that was caused by natural wear & tear. We never bought a branded torn jean then, so when my daughter wanted one I was aghast at the possibility of having to actually pay for a torn jean. Its then I was given a crash course on the denim jargons I am supposed to use.

I was told it’s not torn… It was called ripped and the more expensive and the more torn it was it had to be addressed as distressed. In fact I have a better name for a recent distressed version that is doing the rounds on social media valued at 168$. It could be called STRANDS…there are a couple of strands left of what, was once a denim.

The irony is that the celebrities today who wear a distressed pair of jeans paying a fortune for it are all depressed while we were quiet happy growing up wearing hand-me-down jeans that were torn at the knees not as a fashion statement but as a result of over wearing.