Is technology user-friendly? Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke et al gave us alternative visions of the future in the 60s. Television programs speculated on the shape of things to come. But how has reality really shaped up? I am confronted with an array of gadgets everyday. Without adequate technical support, this bewildering mix just adds further to a world polarised between haves and have-nots.
Harvard Business Review’s Editor-At-Large speculates on the value that technology or IT management provides to a typical organisation. In simple words, management of IT should not put an organisation at a disadvantage. A recession hits North America and Europe impacting all of the world. Shift the centre of gravity to India, China, Brazil and Russia. Big academic treatises speculate on how the world is going to be in this century! Practically, the world hasn’t changed that much!!
My country, India is the backoffice of the world. Yes, we’ve got a lot of expertise in providing backup to the entire world. What a stark contrast in a single country!! Bangalore, a gleaming hub full of technical whizkids provides support to the entire world!! There are states with inadequate electricity and large-scale violence. And then we have editors from the South blatantly criticising initiatives in the North. Why the division in one country? Opinionated pieces written by people with supposed halos around them!! So you are untouched and unaffected by progress in other parts of the country? Or you have to follow your own narrow vested agendas? Inequitable development really pisses me off!!
The maximum talkback on the stories I covered in the technology beat was the open source v/s Microsoft debate.So I have people from Bangalore to the Bay Area vigorously defending open source in general.
Freeze frame!! IEEE Conference, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Why don’t I deviate? Samba, soccer, obrigado!! But seriously, I see Ubuntu and other flavours of Linux being used by tech-savvy youth and some elements of the technical intelligentsia. In India, the technorati and high-minded scientific establishment defend the merits of open source.
We have Ravi Venkatesan, Chief,Microsoft India and Javed Tapia,CEO. Red Hat India selling their own brand of karmic(sorry, I meant technical) nirvana. Is technology truly the opiate of the masses?
The technology anti-trust vote in my opinion is against Microsoft simply because it is the most widely used OS in the world. So Linux appears as the sheep against the big bad wolf!!! But when the proprietary system becomes open source, they are going to sell at a premium and make money off most of the hapless ignorant masses.
The question here then is making technology simpler for the vast majority. So you have good initiatives like the Simputer which in its various avatars makes life easier for people in rural India.
THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX: FLESH, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE
1970s German angst is brought to the screen in an endless orgy of sex and violence.
From start to finish, the Baader-Meinhof Complex is an intriguing ride through ten years of post WWII West German history. Based on the German terrorist group, the Red Army Faction (RAF) that planned bombings, hijacks and kidnappings in the 60s and the 70s, the movie takes a long, hard look at life on the ‘dark side’ of the political divide.
The movie is a dramatic exposé of the life of Ulrike Meinhof, who worked originally as a left-wing journalist and was co-founder of the Red Army Faction(RAF). Although the movie is riveting in parts, it sometimes loses focus and becomes a sleaze fest. Balancing informative storytelling with commercial considerations is a tough ask for any art, but writer and producer Bernd Eichenger, somehow falls short.
A snapshot of the 60s and 70s, the ‘Baader-Meinhof’ complex makes an earnest attempt to capture the spirit of the era. Students in 1967 Berlin get their first lesson in police brutality when protesting against the Shah of Iran. The police are nonchalant and firing after a baton-charge by armed forces leaves a protester dead. This catalyses journalist Meinhof(Martina Gedeck) into action as she inches closer to firebrand leader Andreas Baader, played by Moritz Bleibtreu.
The movie plods on with nude beaches, hippy-chicks sunbathing in the desert and socialist arguments inspired by Mao Tse-Tung. Endless gore and violence tend to put off a discerning viewer. We don’t need a documentary, but more dramatic sequences like the Stammheim court trial in which Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Andreas Baader were tried would have added more zing to an endless montage of risqué visuals.
Salman Rushdie once said, “I hate admitting my enemies have a point.” Growing up in a newly independent India in the 50s and the 60s, Rushdie is very much like the midnight’s children he won the Booker prize for.
Mixing Indian metaphors with global abstraction comes easy to Rushdie. Not easily accessible at first, Rushdie is a writer who captivates the reader with the broad sweep of his imagination and the sheer audacity of challenging the fundamentalist establishment.
The fatwa made him famous. Rajiv Gandhi’s India banned him instantly and the Ayatollah Khomeini made him a pariah in the Islamic world. How did Rushdie live through those traumatic times?
Sir Salman Rushdie said in a Telegraph interview that he plunged into despair when the fatwa was declared and says that it “erased” his personality.
He adds, “The thing about hitting the bottom is then you know where the bottom is…And after that, it cleared things up in my head… One of the things it cleared up was an urge in my mind, which is that everybody should like me.”
STOP BEING A PRISONER
“That was the moment at which I stopped being the prisoner of that thing, because I thought, OK, there are people who are not going to like me and do you know what, I don’t like them.”
Rushdie always reminisces about Bombay post-independence when he thought the city was going through a kind of golden age, an Indian Camelot, where Rushdie was the knight in shining armour.
His imagination stems from Bombay and its multiple identities, a miasma of illusions, the city of Indian dreams, sleaze lightnin’!!!
I began this post a few days back – Even the most insignificant thought does not escape my cerbral cortex. I love generalising as I believe most people are self-infatuated, write only for themselves and do not refrain from advising others. Conformance is a virtue drilled by people whose sole purpose in life is to show a certain degree of authority which they seek to maintain by any means.
Hey this sounds like Mein Kampf, except that I do not agree with Hitler’s misappropriation of a Hindu/Buddhist symbol for a Nordic army. The intellect of the Jew has contributed significantly to humanity, positively and negatively.
History cannot be rewitten – we cannot wish away the fact that a supposedly pacifist Jewish scientist Einstein came up with the ideas used to split up the atom that led to the most destructive force in human history.
Indian intellectuals also love to gloat over Oppenheimer quoting the Vaishnavite magnum opus – “The Bhagavad Gita” when the first nuclear explosion occurred. This is a dual-edged sword – the Gita may be intrepreted by different sources as a religious text, a supreme revalation or a philosophical search.
I blog because I think. Reality seems to trick you, a million eyes staring at you in the dark reality of cyberspace. Mind-boggling and philosophical may be dull adjectives used for self-flagellation or people reading things superficially.
Travelling in a train is the best way to observe people – so I thought. Feb 2005- a local train in Mumbai. Or nearly nine months of the London tube – with an international melange.
Tight writing means a single-minded focus – but I want the freedom to steer off-course. Quoting philosophers is not gravity, but troubling mental images. Nation-states says Krishnamurti are binding ideas- opponents of peace and global integration.
The genius of the Indian intellect is inherently divisive – while the country does have many significant intellectual achievements, communal violence, internal discontent and the war within make the task harder.
Words seem to vindicate a void – a vicarious attempt at self-aggrandisement. What a waste.
This is a partial attempt to document paranoia. Walking through doors -strange days and a rare glimpse into an alternative reality.
Walk through an art museum – people melting and gliding away – a trivial and mundane reality check. European streets are cold and snooty – indistinguishable and sometimes infinitely sad.
Dali – mind of a genius. In-depth analysis of my innermost thoughts. Quoting white men – Indian trait.
Are you with me? If not, attempts are unnecessary. A walk through the tube – Too many ideas – Complication – good. Not what women want.
Mr Ezekiel – Latter Day Psalms. Quoted Dalrymple – reflection is obtuse. History seems to be mean and not lean. Never was probably – ghosts pile up for the next day.
End of another unreal blog. Discard sense and end sensibility. V is not for Vendetta.
(I made a few generalisations – hope you understood)
The way Bombay has changed – is the theme of my blog. Do cities have character? Are they living beings or a vast void attempting to gobble up innocence?
Fifteen years back, as I sat on the steps of my school ground, I was dreaming about a flying saucer. Somebody was playing football, and people were in a mad scramble – to study and clear exams.
Sunil is largely a product of his own environment and a vivid dream – which can now be vocalised. Dreams are telling statements – they speak to you and disappear – a tangible attempt at nothingness – and a desire to explore and tell you a new tale – of an unexplored future.
Is madness close to unhappiness? Are the lives of the insane different from those that are apparently normal? Is it possible to draw a distinction?
London – fifteen years later. I walk next to the Thames.Temporary excitement – to draw closer, understand and explore. Mundane trivia hits you again. The charm has vanished. A year goes by. Life is back on track – or is it?
Paris- close to a grave, I make a detour. A smattering of French leads me close to the cemetery. I walk around – fifteen minutes later, I find no trace of the undead – sorry, I meant rock singers.
“Ride the king’s highway. Weird scenes inside the goldmine. Ride the highway west, baby. Ride the snake, ride the snake. To the lake, the ancient lake.”
Inglorious Basterds. Knives and branding. Decapitated heads – Francis Induvar. Fear and oppression.
London bus – The poor are oppressed. Rich man stinking – or some man thinking. Parralax error. No Hollywood techniques. Bring a blip into the scene. Slice time. Zen Koan.
Walk through Soho. Man stares – at himself. Woman pushes him into a cab. Tarantino’s favourite theatre. Night fall.
Inward Gaze. Dan Tian. Building of Chi. “You got a good exchange rate, mate,” me to me. He He He. Ho Ho Ho.
For a city-dweller like me, Naxalite violence is a reminder of the precarious position of the Indian nation-state. Reading “Red Sun” by Sudeep Chakrabarti made me ponder even deeper on how fragile our country’s real health is.
Education in Macualay’s words was designed to create a wog- westernised oriental gentleman who was more English than Indian. Well, commendable achievement since there are a huge number of those. Democracy- the Indian way has a number of positives and numerous negatives.
Platitudes from leaders – voicing noble sentiments, but India’s hierarchy and anarchy persists. Am I any different? No. Lost in the crowd, same as the silent majority.
Action heroes – a big builder creates a park named after the last slain hero – victim of Terror “what was it” – Friday, Tuesday or Wednesday. All days are listless – they seem to be a replica of the same attack – like a deranged symphony playing itself in reverse.
Words are cheap, they have lost their value. Now is the winter of our discontent – seems intriguing, a high-minded phrase, disused, misused and abused. What did I mean by this? I don’t know, wrote it in the end – of a mail.
Writing is supposedly catharsis and exorcism from demons. To find something to blog about is a relatively hard affair, what with language, nauseating women, opinionated half-wits and a general state – despising the whole wide world.
Polar opposites – good and evil form the basis of any story from time immemorial. When we are confronted with a disruption in the narrative, there is mental disequilibrium. What I just said sounded like gobbledygook – if it does, I don’t forgive you.
I read about attacks from people who merely two hundred years ago were savage, blood-thirsty and lost in internal strife. A “gentleman” complains about the wooly-headed love of people partitioned by a state reputed for its internal parochialism, all-encompassing commercial work-ethic and rabid communalism.
Flying saucers, murders, weird sites – the list can go on and on. Nobody can stifle the voice of the people – and nobody can silence the voice of the individual. We hear about democracy from people who still have not learnt the meaning of being free.
I trawl through a universe of blogs. The latest book was heavy reading. Life seems like a wisp, a shadow, more like tommorow merging into today and all my yesterdays extending towards infinity.
Do I pontificate? Probably. So do a lot of people. Is blogging a release from the narrow confines of reality? Maybe yes, maybe not. Do I vomit what I read? No, definitely not.
Time may be short, perhaps too less. Penetrate, foreskin, cunnilingus, fellacio. Was that a spam comment? You guess?
If you believe, they found water on the moon. R.E.M. Redux.
A strange feeling gripped me right now. I felt like sleeping, but I couldn’t. People’s faces keep flashing in my mind, even though I am wholly inconsequential to them. I realise that life as such is disgusting and morbid. Most people are in a self-imposed jungle, explicit verbal diarrhoea and a dissatisfactory reality.
When they go to sleep, their lives are probably full of what they organised , sold to somebody and thought about on that disgusting day. As years go by, I fail to realise how life has become boring and totally meaningless. People live only for the next day and for the love of God, making a fast buck.
When somebody was younger, probably me, there were not many gadgets and no technology. People apparently talked more to one another, watched less television and there was no internet. There were no vending machines and multiplexes. London a 100 years back was not multi-cultural as it is today. A Victorian gentleman would probably shit in his pants when he saw black men with white women or vice versa.
Not that today’s world is very drastically different. A more rabid form of technology-inspired hatred and virulence is gaining ground. No I do not want to sound pessimistic but in a networked, well-informed world, residual hatred is growing faster. As I stood under a tree doubting the story of Maharashtra’s great saint Tukaram going to heaven three times and coming back, a strange thought hit me.
I love my country as it has a history of free thought and liberalism to experiment. As I meet three brainwashed people from a country to the West of India in a deserted garden close to my university campus brainwashed in the name of ……(no I will not blaspheme), I am prone to philosophise. Why do these people not have the intellectual ability to accept any other thought pattern than something apparently revealed in a flight of fancy to a gentleman who was a dreamer in a distant land.
Long years ago, as I visited the grave of a holy man in Aurangabad, I felt that this person had accumulated some good “karma” when he took the long journey to a country in the Middle East. Where is life today? My few years covering technology made me fancy this word: technology agnosticism. This was used like a sword by many people in countless presentations. I loved covering this beat except for the people I had to meet in office and have to meet till the present day. Today, I saw a man with no feet, he was disgusting and he was from a country which deserved to be crushed. (Hey I’m in London, close to Wembley).
So, after hating relativity and moral science,one of my favourite subjects in school- Holy Family(apart from me nobody was serious enough to listen to that class), I go to sleep. If somebody reads this, I hope it did not make any sense to you. (I want somebody from my school to read this blog or if some other …..reads it, empathise/try to connect with my feelings – I know you have girlfriends, jobs and sniping/b**,jibes to do)
(P.S. The rest of my life I will watch American TV to stay happy – it did keep me happy in my adult lonely life in my own house in India)
This was a long verbose blog which in my strange imagination, I believe a lot of people are reading. Many people did not even understand what I meant. And I am trying to use active words.
Now poking fun at me is totally unacceptable. A few days after the previous incarnation of my previous life, I watched an interesting play. As Rajit Kapur strutted around nonchalantly like the owner of my previous company, who has actually made a lot of money by selling his stake to UTV, a Ronnie Screwvala institution, I was instantly reminded of the gentleman in pink. The people who ever read my blog from my previous company may know who I am talking about.
The character in this play is half Punjabi, half Parsi – says the protagonist- apparently sentimentality met aggression with a great love for history. Where Do I Go
So as life here takes another course, and I need to think of ten different ideas. I really do hate people, as they are stupidity personified. My poetry book was not misogynist, it was only “philosophical”(I’m trying to say this like my super ex-boss). “God bless me and best wishes,” so said a man who must not be named. I attempt to live by these words.
As people apparently are fixated in their own idiocy, and Indians love to use unrefined & refined English expletives to abuse each other, my own life frustrates me. The world’s biggest democracy will now head into another election, my city will witness another uproar, and my vote will not move from one voting list to another.
The world outside(England- North London, Nehru territory) is calm, well shouldn’t it be like that? I guess it should, unless we are shaken up occassionally by global unrest. My own life flashes inside my head, five times out of ten and seven times out of nine. I hope you didn’t mind, since neither did I.
Read my blog, read my blog, read my blog, if I put in some useful information or something worth debating, post interesting comments.
Is technology user-friendly? Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke et al gave us alternative visions of the future in the 60s. Television programs speculated on the shape of things to come. But how has reality really shaped up? I am confronted with an array of gadgets everyday. Without adequate technical support, this bewildering mix just adds further to a world polarised between haves and have-nots.
