Thanks and No, Thanks Media

"Julia Roberts is spotted in a village in Haryana" was the hot news in a national TV news channel today. I was able to quickly recollect a couple of other FlashNews of the past - "Sanjay Dutt goes to VaishnoDevi, his girlfriend accompanies him" and "Aishwarya Rai falls ill"; and then hot debates on "Is the T20 victory bigger than the 1983 world cup victory" and "Is Sharukh a bigger star than Amitabh". The funniest part of these debates is the SMS question. I'm sure this will be the SMS question on some channel tomorrow - "Do you think India can make it to the semis in the Champions Trophy?"

I attended a talk by the CEO of redbus.in who was grateful to the media which made the company popular in matter of just a few weeks. He felt that the biggest reason for that is the huge number of news channels who need "some" news. Yes, that way the news channels are helping even in their "irrationale". But the rest of the times, they waste so much of the viewer's time that I personally feel could be dealt better.

I'm sorry, I made the media unethical last week and I'm making it irrational this week, but I've a huge respect for the media. I owe a big chunk of what I know today to the media and the country owes a special thanks to the media for its efforts to bring injustice and malpractice to the floor apart from doing its routine job of spreading the news wonderfully well. The very reason for me to still continue watching these channels is the quality of information discoursed.

But I feel a little more thought away from capitalistic ideologies can shape the country and its people in a big positive way. May be the media is already doing it, perhaps people look to media mostly for entertainment or I might just be watching at the wrong time. But if Jack Welsh says "shareholder value is the dumbest idea in this world", I think it's time for us to think more about stakeholders than just about shareholders.

Small things, Big efforts

If you let me to do so, I would call this the cross-section of a single-floored house. You can say 20% of your house is complete with the foundation, 50% with the roof, 80% with the plastering work and 100% with the woodwork. Extrapolate if you have more than one floor. My house's right now at the ground floor's lintel stage, so I had to freeze the floor's door, window, sunshade and loft positions.

Here is one simple example that testified how small things can require a lot of effort. Initial plan was to not have any loft opening out into the modular kitchen. But parents showed dissent, for they're used to seeing lofts on at least two sides of any room they've used. Multiple phone calls with the architect and friends, visits to modular kitchen showrooms, consulting with interior designers - finally we decided to keep the loft on one side of the kitchen that is not visible from other rooms in the house. Now everyone's happy!

Every week there's a new topic and every day there's a new concern. To build the house according to the wishes of the contractor is a little easy, to build it according to the imaginations of the architect is a little difficult, to build it to your requirements is even more difficult, but to build it to the satisfaction of everyone is really difficult.

I'm surely starting to learn the art of "striking the balance", I hope this helps me in things beyond the house too. This learning experience is definitely more wonderful than the humbling experience of getting bankrupt. But the most wonderful of all is the realization that there're million others doing the same thing and I'm not doing anything unique. Well, this's true about most things in life, isn't it?

Was Buddha selfish?

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live" - an interesting Orkut fortune and I thought I'll make it a little boring.

On one hand if you think Buddha preached renunciation, on the other hand you can argue that Buddha himself wanted people to not have wants. Charles Darwin could tell that adaptation is the cause of the origin of new species, but Bernard Shaw would say that all progress depends on the unreasonable man who adapts the world to him and not on the reasonable man who adapts himself to the world.

Here is my take. I can surely say that the worst of my growths have happened when I egotistically convinced myself that I was right and that the best of my growths have happened when I listened to people who told me I was wrong. An unemotional example would be the way I walk. In school, I used to have a funny stoop in my gait until people pointed it out to me; It took me two years to correct it. I no longer walk the same way, so am I no longer the same person? I would say "No, I'm still the same person who walks better."

Was Buddha selfish? I don't think so!

Put on your own mask before you assist others

I happily used to neglect my health till sometime back. I would know that I roamed too much in the sun only when I got fever the next day. I would notice that I worked for too long in the night only when my back started paining. I would agree that I walked too far in the cold only when I started coughing. As I was beginning to know that I was ignoring myself, a friend yelled at me - "Do you think you're God?"

Till that moment I was fairly convinced that taking care of oneself was a selfish act. I had just restarted my gym then and I realized that my year-old back pain was slowly subsiding, both because I was working out and because I was not online late nights. Yes, it took me this long to understand that you need to set your foot strong before you lend your hand.

I'm losing track of what's right and what's not

With exploding number of media channels, news ought to be blown out of proportions. But I sometimes feel moral limits are being crossed. I can cite a dozen examples, but what pains me the most is the denigration this explosion has brought to affected middle class homes. One small mistake by a petty officer in an entrusted job or a slip in the otherwise cautious life of a family person, the media just tears apart. But what happens to the families that can't bear this shame?

Bribery is the easiest example I can think of. Yes, I did write about why I feel corruption is a shame to our country, but then I should admit that I also have a soft corner for the middle class officers who are after bribe. I was happy to know that some of you also share similar views. One of you very rightly even pointed out that their pathetic salary levels is probably the biggest reason, how true!

Let us get back to the morally irresponsible media. Even today, the news channels are ripping apart the Chief Justice of Karnataka for his "alleged" involvement in corruption. Every half hour there're different pictures of him from all possible angles. Yes, I agree it is a shameful offence, but then how would the people at his home face the world tomorrow? I am not trying to justify, but let us list down possible levels of corruption:

• pocketing money for going beyond the routine
• pocketing money for doing the routine
• pocketing money at the cost of the routine
  

Now let us draw some funny equivalents at our own workplace:

• taking a one-hour coffee break after completing work
  
• taking a one-hour coffee break during work
• taking a one-hour coffee break at the cost of work

We don't get a break, so we take it whenever we can. Some don't get money, so they earn it however they can. Well, I just realized I do all the latter three, so I will just shut up right now and hope that the media doesn't become responsible for increasing the suicide rate in the country.

The captain was acquitted

I don't know whether this is real, but I was told so. I found it interesting as I recalled this while I was thinking about the earlier post on "relative perfectionism".

The captain of a ship was investigated in the naval court for a wreck that he was charged for. Apparently he was able to save the wreck from becoming a major disaster, however he was not able to avert the wreck itself. The court appointed a three-member committee to give a report on the case. The committee came back after six months and listed three salvage options that the captain could have tried to prevent the wreck.

The judge asked the captain "Do you have anything to reply?" The captain said "I know my mistake and I am not going to plead innocence. I appreciate the committee for producing a flawless report, I agree that all the three alternatives would have saved the ship. But I have one thing to say. The committee had six months to come up with three solutions. I had just six seconds."

The captain was acquitted.

Let us grow together

A friend asked me "I wonder how your love letter would be!" I laughed and said "Well, that depends on how I decide to propose, but I would like to tell her a few things after I propose, for both of us to practice:

• We were independent individuals taking care of ourselves before we knew each other. Let us not expense our time and energy with workaday updates, unless required. Instead we can focus on other great stuff that we've been destined to take care of.
  
• If we choose to give more attention to someone else at some instant, let us not doubt if our love has reduced. Let our love be selfless.
• Let us keep emotions away and practice detachment while making rational decisions.
  
• When there's a conflict of opinions, let us respect our individual freedom of thoughts.
• Overindulgence does not do good to either of us in the long run and so does worrying over things we can't control or influence.
• Let us not blindly support or oppose each other with extreme prejudice. We will help each other understand both our strengths and weaknesses and try to complement them.
• Last but not the least, let us be honest in both admitting our mistakes and accepting our incapabilities. No one is perfect, it's the other's responsibility to adapt and forgive.
  

But even while we practice (or don't practice) all of these, let us not think we're the best (or the worst) couple in this world. That is an extremely biased statement filled with contempt for others (and ridicule for ourselves). For all we know, we might actually not be (or be) the ideal match. Let us just learn and grow together."

Seeing my friend yawning, I stopped here :)

Where's the chopper anyway?

Chandraayan sends images of Apollo 15 landing, finally a non-American article vouching for the moon-conquest of the US astronauts. I can't talk about the veracity of this article, but I was happy to see it. I once wrote about why people at the top should only be aggressive and not be arrogant. But there's something that I feel about people not at the top too.

I think all of us are taught to push ourselves up and not to pull others down if we've to succeed. But our non-adherence to that learning starts from school - "Ma'am, how can you award more marks to him when he has written the same answer as I've?" As we grow up, we can't see one team always win tournaments, one company always succeed, one country always be at the top; the list goes on.

We say the Western world practices racism, but are we not racists too? We have been practicing a deep-rooted racism called casteism, then an absolutely reasonless racism called regionalism, and then the popular insider-outsider racism. If a Tamil holds racist feelings against a Malayalee, I am 100% sure that an Indian will hold a racist feeling against an American. I don't want to list examples here, but let us be honest to ourselves and accept the fact that we're racists who try to pull down people at the top, ridicule people at the bottom, and both pull down and ridicule those who we think don't belong to our race.

It's really wonderful that we've traced the Apollo landing done many decades back, but let us now trace our own chopper!