Will a Mormon be the next President of USA?

I did argue with Nmemosyne, on why she did not endow me with better faculty. But she just smiled.

Long back, I did read about the Mormons. But forgot. Nmemosyne to blame squarely! Had it not been for Mitt Romney, I would never have remembered who Mormons are and what this sect is all about. It is indeed amazing to see, how such sects exist even today. Fidelity and chastity in marriage are founding principles of Mormonism. Also, polygamy is practiced and allowed amongst mormons. To me fidelity and polygamy are mutually exclusive. If they are not, it is hypocrisy. I wonder how such sects exist legally under the constitution of United States.

We need Jobs

I am not a great fan of Apple. All its inventions, human kind could very much live without.

But it is true, Jobs was a high achiever. Had he applied himself to more path breaking discoveries, a person of his creativity and manic perseverance, could well have changed the destiny of human kind for good.

If I were to cull out some of the diachronic contradictions from the life of Jobs, they would be a foster father, his knowledge of the same, and his obsession with the smartness of his father over the years as he grew. It was not that he was no longer attached to him after having learnt he was adopted, nor did he find his dad any less enchanting as he grew to realize that he himself was so gifted and smart. He continued to admire his foster father Paul Job while he excelled in his own new world.

At the cost of repetition, I reiterate, I am not a fan of the inventions of Jobs and believe that man of his drive and talent wasted himself in bringing to the world what he actually did, but I do know and with a certainty that leaves little to doubt, that more and more such people are needed in India, if we as a country must lead in some fields.

We need a Jobs in agriculture, where growth is dreadfully stagnating. We need a Jobs in supply chain which is perhaps the most inefficient in the world. We need a Jobs in power, the quality and condition of which will ensure, we are never a super power.

I live in the so called Millenium city of Gurgaon. In our residential complex we have a 24x7 power backup. Sometimes there is a change over 5 times in 5 minutes. This is ridiculous, and something needs to be done about it. Yes something will be done, the councillors will go to Bangkok or New York to see how their city councils manage their power distribution. That is how our system works.

We need a person who is as tough on others as he is on himself. Who sets himself to kill mediocrity, and would not take no for an answer.

SHADES OF SHELDON

Courtesy Chuck Lorre, I no longer feel that my elder son is weird. He just shows shades of Sheldon. Science and all that is esoteric excites him no end. Jostling with abstractions stimulates him more than anything else.

He also has similar sense of humor, guffaws at the bizarre. He vacillates so simplistically between the most vulnerable and most audacious. Sometimes he connects to instantly, and sometimes his aloofness seems to stifle the most earnest. When I saw the 4 napkin regimen of Sheldon at Dinner table, I was once again reminded of my pressingly persnickety son.

So it seems Sheldon is not a figment of imagination of a sitcom creator, but exists in shades in some people, and then of course there is a creators’ pardon, that can explain the concomitant exaggeration, but clearly it is that very exaggeration that engenders the punch in the prank.

But on one hand, while I quite like the Big Bang Theory, I find Mike and Molly or Two and Half Men, quite intellectually jading. All of them have one thing in common and that is their creator.

Come to think of it, Chuck Lorre, probably a failed guitarist, straddles a wide spectrum in sitcom direction. But notwithstanding, the merit I attribute to others, Big Bang Theory, is clearly to me a culmination of creativity for this director. One post-prandial ritual that makes me laugh. And the actor who plays Sheldon, does that to an emotive perfection.

Can't Diffuse it, Confuse it

We are masters in obfuscating issues. And we do this till the issues succumb to our softer skill of engaging in diversionary tactics.

Today, the age controversy of the serving chief of Army staff is hogging the headlines. The media is giving it an importance that I did not expect that it would. Luckily or unluckily, for the General, there is no bigger news that would eclipse this one for the time being, so he must smart in the public or media gaze, which will deny him and the government the opportunity to cut a clandestine side deal to close this murky issue.

So today, to retire or not to retire in May, that is the issue. While the General seeks subterfuge behind vague yet exalted ideas like honor and dignity, the government too is confusing the issue in bureaucratic fine print – in your letter you had agreed you will not rake up the age issue, you have given this in writing to the Defence Secretary, you had agreed that you will align your ambition to the Military secretaries records and relinquish the post of chief to whom we dole this to next as per your earlier DoB etc etc and etc.

But the main issue as to what is the correct date of birth, and why and how the mistake was made in some records, why over 40 years it should not be corrected and that he should retire as per the correct date of birth, regardless of whether he serves less or more than he was originally supposed to.

Well the matter is at the doorstep of the SC and mostly, its judgments or advisories to the government are comprehensive, aligned with highest standards of jurisprudence even if there is a tint of judicial activism sometimes.

Women in India

The fact is, we are still struggling to fulfill the most basic needs as per the Maslow’s need hierarchy. The lower social strata are struggling for two square meals. The middle class is capering to malls and markets, heaving a sigh of relief from the queues that they saw their parents make for a telephone, scooter, car or even a cooking gas connection. The higher class has it good now just as it had it then. How many times I would have heard, 1 pct of the population of the world has commandeered about 99 pct of its resources. Such is the stark reality, ready to stare you in your face, should you pause and ponder.

Given this, India is quite consumed with itself. There are enough things good and bad in this country that need to be highlighted. There are enough things good and bad in all other countries that need to be highlighted. Take any documentary made by BBC/CNN or any other news agency on India, highlighting an ill or something good, which has been made by an Indian. Such documentaries are always made by foreigners. That being the case, India is seen by the world never through its own eyes but through always the eye of the foreigner.

I saw a program on CNN once, where they were showing how sanitation is addressed in villages. I saw another program, on how maverick the traffic is in the country. I have also seen documentaries highlighting superstition in India. Such a list is unending.

I have never seen an Indian making a documentary on the growing number of peadophiles or rampant superstition in US or the perversion piling in the churches, or the increasing sexual harassment in American work places.

It is not that Indians lack creativity or entrepreneurial aptitude. It is about their being engaged in fulfilling still the basal needs.

Last time when I was in Poland I saw a local Polish channel air a program on the state of women in India. To my mind, in India women are more respected than in the west. Husbands are happy to feed them fat, mothers are taken care of no matter what. People don’t detest women being in positions of power and authority. Look at Sonia, Jaya, Maya, Rabri, Mamta.

In India I have never known a woman loose to a man for her gender. There are umpteen cases, where the woman opts out despite competence in favor of family, but not for gender bias.

Contrarily, Margaret Thatcher was called names. “Ditch the bitch” was a rhyme that echoed when she struggled to keep her second term . "Hilda", pejoratively, as her middle name did reek of her middle class parentage. Would anyone argue, one of the reasons that went against Hillary was her gender. Apparently, in competence she was no less than her president husband. But the stigma on India continues, as none of our tribe is venturing to discover the true west. While the westerner’s quest for the east stays unabaited, there is wool on our eyes with regard to the true west. It is time we got up to participate and even conduct the affairs of the world with confidence and celebration than be merely pranked upon.

Gen VK Singh

Well what triggered my previous blog? Of course it was Gen VK Singh, my namesake. His date of birth is a controversy that is hogging the headlines. And of course I don’t like him, for earlier when you would google for VK Singh, you would get some lines pertaining to me. Today he hogs the first 5 pages of the search, relegating me to anonymity.

He is a good thinker, plain speaker and bold officer. This is enough to make in not so popular. this is also enough to make him un-deserving. Besides, he is smart. He has a swagger about him. He carries himself in a manner befitting a 4 star general. He is not perpetually obsequious toward the political masters.

A son of an army officer, a Rajput by caste, an honors graduate from the Staff College, and Colonel of the Rajput Regiment, as my mother says, करेला और नीम चढ़ा.

So he swaggers. But in India, people are afflicted by what you can call the bechara syndrome. Take the example of our PM. He is very intelligent, very brilliant but looks like a bechara. He will secure one position of influence after the other. Gandhi perhaps would not have been as powerful, if he had the looks of Mountbatten or Gregory Peck. Indians like such bechara looks. They like to support becharas.

So despite the fact, that we have after 20 years maybe, after Gen Sundarji, a smart general, who carries himself well, he does not go down well with the all powerful bureaucracy nor the political pavilion.

So he will lose the case of the date of birth controversy. The media will not support him. They will underplay the episode actually. What a pity.

Hierarchy of Scorn

I have never been able to comprehend, the history and historicity of the scorn and hate relationship between the bureaucracy and brass.

I think the contempt is mutual and perhaps primordial. But today, the bureaucracy particularly the IAS is pretty much unionized. Operates as a bastion not easy to breach. On the other side, the quality of officers in the army has degenerated to such an extent, that they are unable to reciprocate the contempt in any significant measure. They seem to be destined to play the permanent second fiddle, till a revolution that calls for their leadership, rejuvenates their organization. In the battle in which the bureaucracy is gaining ground inch by inch, the brass seems to always lose.

Even in the vice-regal council, there were continuous conflict between the military member and other civilian members. Clearly, since the British were in India because of the army, the military member would usually prevail.

The mind of a typical army officer approaches a situation by attempting to identify patterns and then applying tactical solutions that maps best with the pattern that they see in the solution, minimizing slack, situational discretion, while continuously focusing on not obfuscating the ultimate goal.

The civilian mind world over, more so India, does not work in patterns, in fact it works to break patterns. When I say more so in India, it is because, there is a peculiar situation here. The brown bureaucrat stepped into the shoes of the white bureaucrat, on the midnight of August 15, about 60 years ago. The white one was exploitationist and the brown one inherited that mentality. But he was cast as a public servant. Eventually he morphed into becoming a political servant from public servant. But the politician was accountable to the public. So the bureaucrats job stayed exploitationist, but he was expected to make all irregularities appear completely regular. This makes the whole situation completely hypocritical.

I remember, my father narrating an anecdote to me. Entry without an ID card was not allowed at the IMA. It was no other than the commandant Gen Pandit, in uniform and official car, who had been stopped by the sentry, as he was not carrying the ID Card. The sentry informed the general, he had orders from the Subedar Major to not allow anyone without an ID card. So he wouldn’t. The sentry was rewarded. But that is how an army mind works and must work. But we all know, the civialian mind will never work. The civilian sentry would have found a clause under which he could have allowed entry. And the civilian superior would found a clause under which to fire the sentry for challenging his VIP status. Both minds would have worked to breach patterns.

Also one more reason could be, even though, as individuals, the military personnel may not qualify to be the best, but the systems that they run as a team, are indeed far superior to the civilian systems. More robust, more resilient, more dependable and with lesser leakages. This makes the situation really dichotomous and clearly one that would breed contempt.

Why do we move on??

Just as I was harping in one of my previous blogs, how one news or mishap in India eclipses the previous one. Calcutta fire got eclipsed by Lokpal, and the theatrical manner in which a insincere government skillfully contrived a midnight adjournment. Just before the tale of this gory Calcutta hospital asphyxiation could possibly get etched on public memory, there were about 65 deaths from the Thane Cyclone. Then came the mother of all, the death of 14 children in a bus accident in Ambala. Each story was more sordid than the previous one, and did the work of the making the previous one look small and incidental. And some stupidly eternal optimists call this moving on. The country moves on. Of course it does, as an apathetic people we don’t stop to fret.

There are some people like me, who clamor indefatigably that corruption is not unique to India and go to any extreme to not make their country look so stupid in the eyes of the world, trying also to in some measure banish the already so prevalent fatalism in the people. There are also some like me, who keep drawing from history tales of our past glory and how we are just poised to realize it once again. But each time I read about an accident like the one involving school kids of Ambala, I get too despondent to not eschew my trademark optimism.

It is easy to blame the system, but who makes the system. When we are supposed to elect a city counsellor, his commitment to work and country, his experience are last things that we see in the resume of the person.

As a people, we are so obsessed with authority figures, that we find it extremely difficult to question much less challenge. Did the parents of the children of the Ambala Bus accident not know the type of safety conditions in which there kids were being ferried to and fro from school. If they did not, they are fools and if they did, how many questioned the bus owner or the school. How many wrote to the school about the apparent cavalier manner that killed their loved ones. If in an exceptional case a maverick parent will question, the rest will side with the authority-figure who in this case could well be the driver of the bus or the school transport coordinator.

Making too much fuss about a non-issue, is the usual refrain of the pacifist Indian, but when tragedy befalls, he resorts to chest beating and wailing, but then moves on. He actually moves on another tragedy.

Why is the SP Traffic not suspended? Why is the counsellor and mayor booed out? Why is the principal of the school not arrested? Because the people don’t want it. Why is the resignation of the transport minister not demanded? If they would, they will participate in the process and make this land less hostile to normal living.

Each time there is an accident involving a school bus, the media goes hysterical about the Supreme Court guidelines not being implemented by the school. But what are the Supreme court guidelines? They are not about preventing an accident? They are a hotch potch of lay man thinking.

There is no training school for drivers. Almost anyone can obtain a license sitting at home. Brokers specialize in such service at door step.

I live in the so called millennium city of Gurgaon, where some office buildings are indeed samples architectural excellence, but the roads don’t have names, they are not laned, footpaths don’t exist, the pot holes on the roads emerge no sooner the roads have been completed, red lights don’t work, even big car owning educated people don’t respect even simple traffic rules.

In most countries the obtention of a driving license is so difficult, and one failure results in the date of grant being delayed by 3 months at least.

We are casual but who suffers. Not the children who leave the world. They are our children and we suffer. When would we get serious about our societal obligations, our duties toward our nation, which included demanding good governance? To me this question is best left unanswered by the self serving Indian.