What is Wrong With the World

Srinivas, just 30 years old, five years younger than me, was shot dead by an American in Kansas. Before shooting, the American yelled, ‘Get out of my country’. The irony is that it is a country that is made up of immigrants who almost wiped out the locals.

A Muslim women was attacked and bitten by a man in Vienna for wearing hijab. How could a Muslim wear more cloths than a Christian?

 A Tanzanian man was beaten up brutally in Delhi because he had more melanin than Indians. Aren't we the most racist country?

And then there is Syria.

What is wrong with the world?

To understand the problems of modern day let us take a look at the past.

In all the glamour and extravaganza of being at the top of the food chain we forgot a simple truth, we are just animals. We are coded to survive, not just as individuals, but as species. There are two ways of doing that. Spread your genes, and/or stop your competitors from spreading theirs.

50,000 years ago our species was slowly rising to the top of the food chain. There were less people and thus less meeting with strangers. Those rare occasions when two different tribes met, there was bloodshed. Life, however, was dangerous. Mortality rate was high. The only way the tribe could survive was reproduce in numbers that outdid the deaths. And, quite convincingly, the favoured deity of the time was the fertility mother goddess.

"In the beginning there was no consciousness. With consciousness was born fear and hope. From those two primordial ingredients - fear of extinction and the hope of survival- god was created.

Hope is a very strong emotion, especially hope about the distant future that does not exist. It comes out of intelligence, a gift of evolution that allows our species to project information into the future. It helps us plan ahead. It is a weapon of mass destruction. It is a weapon that allowed us to defeat much stronger enemies and climb right at the top of the food chain.

10,000 years ago human beings settled down into agricultural societies. The settlements mostly happened around the fertile rivers, like Yellow River, Nile River and Indus River. As population grew, fights between different settlements became common. People had no connection to their land, but were proud of their tribes. However, now they had a bigger enemy. Fertility was no more the biggest issue. The biggest danger now came from natural calamities. Individual settlements were not strong enough to fight the mighty rivers that flooded unpredictably. Again, quite conveniently, new gods were created. These gods were the gods of nature like wind, river, fire, lightening, etc.
Fighting with each other was not helping the ultimate goal of our species - survival. Spreading one’s genes was more important that stopping the spread of the genes of one’s competitors. Human intelligence thus helped programme a new formula to fulfil the goal – collaboration. The smaller tribes collaborated to form civilisations. Together they could tame the nature. Stronger houses helped them weather the storm, while canals controlled the floods. Chinese civilisation, Egyptian civilisation and Indus Valley civilisation sprang up. An idea of community was established and a common culture evolved. The less the group moved, the more they got attached to the land where they settled.

Civilisation looked very stable, but they were doomed to fail in the long run. As population kept growing the different civilisations came in conflict with one another. And bloody battles followed. It was quite predictable. It was human nature. That is how they are programmed – stop the spreading of the genes of the competitors. The problem of survival was not coming from nature anymore.

"Big civilisations also required loyalty to one Supreme Being. This new world needed new gods, and it got one. Monotheism was born. There was one god, who was all powerful and omnipresent, but could not be seen.

The clash of civilisations could not last forever. Intelligence came up with a formula once more– bigger collaboration. Thus was born empires, big empires - Persian Empire, Greek Empire, Chinese Empire, Mayurian Empire, Mughal Empires and the British Empire.

1000 years ago the big civilisations were fighting with each other. There were crusades, wars and a lot of violence around the globe. Stability did come, but not before few more sacrifices. The ultimate sacrifice came during the World Wars. Once more a new formula was made – even bigger collaboration… Nationalism. Boundaries were drawn and nations were created. Boundaries worked fine and world became more peaceful than it ever was. Instead of cultures or states or tribes, people’s ownership changed to artificially drawn borders. Nationalism worked.

"For the first time in the history of the world, more people died of suicide than killed by others. The number of armed conflicts has reduced significantly in the past few decades. Believe it or not, no matter what the media likes you to believe, we are living in a very peaceful world. 

It has been proven statistically by Steven Pinker. Since the advent of civilisation, the world was never this peaceful.

Modern world brought new challenges. Human population grew exponentially and filled up the surface of the earth. In palaeontology there is a term called index fossils. These are species that had wide geographic extent but existed for a very short duration. Their fossils, thus, act as time markers. The presence of these fossils helps us identify the age of the rocks that contain them. Our species have already fulfilled the first criteria of index fossils- wide geographic extent. The challenge we have now is to stop ourselves from fulfil the second criteria. Thus, a new formula was created – The biggest collaboration of all … Globalisation.

"Science and technology brought the world closer. The rising world economy created more hope than fear. The relevance of god was reduced. Nationalism started to fade…but not for long.

The economic bubble did burst in early 21^st century. Globalisation works when economy rises and there is enough hope to fuel it. When economy declines, people loose job. Fear gets the better of hope, and god returns alongside terrorism. So does nationalism. That’s when we stop looking at the future and try to hold on to the past. Let’s bring back the great Islamic Empire, let’s make America great again, let’s kill those who eat beef! That is what is wrong with the world. Actually there is nothing wrong. We are just being humans. Remember the goal – spread your genes as fast as you can, and/or reduce that of your competitors.

There was a time when your ownership to your family was more important than your community. There was a time when you ownership to your king, region, regional god was more important than a non-existent nation.  Now we live in an era where we think those who say that their state is bigger than the nation is a fool. We claim that those who think their religion is more important than their nation are wrong and misled. Nation comes first, and those who say anything different must be punished. Our perception of what’s right change with time. Where will we be in the future? Is there a solution?

Future has to be different from the present, it always has been. Our biggest problems today are global – global warming, global economic slowdown, robots, technologies and AI taking over jobs globally. The question is no more about the survival of a country, but it is about our survival as a species. Nationalism is not going to help us. We need global citizens.

Gurmehar Kaur made a statement, ‘Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him’. The statement is irrelevant in today’s world. Nationalism still plays a big part in our lives. It is irrelevant as long as people from Pakistan kills people on this side of the border, and vice versa.  However, if majority of people from both sides of the border says the same thing, then suddenly the statement starts making sense. Then it becomes a powerful tool to stop the war. Her statement is irrelevant in today’s context, but not a wrong statement by any means that people can ridicule. Pakistan is just a piece of land that contains our pride heritage sites of Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Taxila. Pakistan is just a piece of land that contains the birth place of Guru Nanak. Pakistan is a piece of land where few Pakistanis made sure that the minority Hindus could celebrate Mahashivratri in peace. Pakistan did not kill her dad. It is the war fought by few Pakistanis, and instigated by few more, that killed her father. Her statement is not wrong. But it is irrelevant as long as we don’t have enough global citizens on either side of the border to make the borders irrelevant.

If we do to take the next step in our cultural progress and manage to find a way to make borders irrelevant, then just imagine - all the huge sums of money wasted globally to protect the artificial boundaries we call nation, or in building walls, could be used instead for the betterment of humanity. We could save ourselves long enough to find a new planet to consume. And maybe, just maybe, we won’t end up as time markers for a future species.

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Right and Left!

Obama says that it is not cool to not know what you are talking about. Now I know where he is coming from. Cool is a verb that means ‘make less hot’. The ‘not-so-racist (?)’ Ben Garrison’s cartoon on first lady clearly shows that Trump’s speeches has not made Melania Trump a fraction of degree less hotter. Which proves that his speeches are definitely not cool. Since Trump’s ‘un-cool’ [read ‘not knowing what he is talking about’] speeches have made him popular, I am going to make this post ‘un-cool’. Being ‘un-cool’ is a sure road to success. If you don’t believe me, listen to any speech given by the Royal Bengal Didi and think about today's results.

With Right coming to power in a not so right democracy of India, and Trump’s increasing popularity in the self-proclaimed idol of democracy, the debate between Right and Left has heated up. I see many of my friends in social media post long ‘un-cool’ messages on why the other side is not right. Since some are shouting ‘Right’ while others shouting ‘Left’, the debate is confused about the direction it should head. So I thought of writing a post on the ideologies of ‘Left’ and ’Right’, especially because I do not know what I am going to write about. Which is going to make this post ‘un-cool’ and thus popular. Well, I wrote an entire book without knowing what I was writing about, and this is just a mere post. Below is the out-of-place, shameless and self-promoting advertisement of my book.

BUY HERE

The word ‘right’ itself is so cool because it sounds so ‘right’! So people who think they are right, and has the right to make everything right, by doing whatever righteous acts they can, belong to ‘Right’ ideology. The word ‘left’ on the other hand sounds so un-cool. It sounds like ‘left-overs’, ‘left-out’…etc. So people who think they are Left has left-out the old ideologies and are trying to make a new one with whatever is left of their world.

REF# Spot the diff

The terms ‘Right’ and ‘Left’ were born pretty much accidentally. It has nothing to do with ideologies, and everything to do with the order in which few French rested their bum, way back in 1789! During the French Revolution the members of National Assembly was divided into two groups. Those that supported the king and the established order sat on the right, and the revolutionaries who wanted to get rid of the king sat on the left. That’s how the two ideologies got its name.

The Left has created an interesting problem for the Right. Left is against established order and wants rapid change that will give power to ordinary people like farmers and labors. That is bad for both businessmen and religious bodies. Though religion is business for priests and business in religion for businessmen, the two does not go hand in hand. Ideologically business is materialism and religion is salvation. Business requires science, technology, and people taking risk instead of believing in destiny. However, the problem of Left has created an unlikely ally as both of them support the Right. Established order also includes culture, history, political border, flags, national anthems, and thus nationalism. The aggressive nationalists thus tend to be Right. So when they want to chop off heads of persons who won’t say ‘Bharat mata ki jai’, they are ‘Right’. When they kill because someone was suspected of eating beef, they are ‘Right’.

The Left, on the other hand, is against the monopoly of industries or temples/churches.  They want everybody to be equal, even if it means everyone is equally poor. They are atheists who claim to fight for human equality, liberty, socialism, and of-course ‘aazadi’. To Left, all the problems in the society are because of the people with money and power, as long as those people are not leaders of left. Social equality takes precedence over economic growth. The ‘haves’ are taxed to give subsidy to the ‘have nots’. So when they want to kill judges who punished terrorists, in the name of equality, they are Left. When they want freedom from who-ever is ruling, they are Left. When they want oppression by anyone, other than fascists’, to end they are Left.

Now most people are not extreme, they fall somewhere in-between. One can classify them like below:

or 

REF

Ideal Right wants to hold on to the past- past is good, change is bad. They will fight and kill to protect the golden past, the traditions and culture. Ideal Left wants to break free of the past- past is bad and oppressive, and change is good. They will fight and kill to destroy the rotten past. So, when someone call themselves Left or Right, they basically are people who follow rules and don't use their brains. Once someone starts thinking he or she would realize that ideologies change with situations and through time. Thinkers are a risk to political ideologies and thus politicians. Coming to think of it, the terms Right and Left are misnomers. They should be called ‘Heads’ and ‘Tails’ instead, because they are two sides of the same coin. But then again...I don't know what I am talking about.

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Ban on Eating or Selling Samosa

All food items mentioned in the post are real and resemblance to any food eaten or left is purely intentional.

In today’s breaking news Department of Food Misadministration of Maharashtra (DFMM) has banned samosa. When asked by our reporter DFMM head gave the following justification.

“Jab tak rahega samose mein aloo, tab tak rahega Bihar mein Laloo” [Till there will be potato inside samosa, there will be Laloo in Bihar]. Laloo is long gone, but the samosa survives. It exposes the fake power of samosa, a food promoted bluntly by the pseudo-secular chefs of India. Petpujaram Swami once said 'Defalsification of Indian cuisine history is the first step for our gastronomic renaissance.' It is time to revise our textbooks that glorifies western foods.  In this falsified history, it is made out that samosas have originated in India. If one reads our ancient holy cookbooks, one realizes that the word samosa has never been mentioned even a single time. However the first recorded history of this weird food is found in 10^th century text from Middle-East. It was a food that was brought to India by Muslim invaders. The foreign food has been imposed and forcefully pushed down the throat of poor Indians until they began to think that it is their own. Promoting samosa is like promoting the invaders; it is like reminding us of our days of slavery.

The head then went on to add:

Aloo inside samosa was a modification that happened in India. But one must not forget that aloo is a product that has been brought to India by the imperialistic Europeans. Aloo was a Latin American vegetable that was introduced in India by the Portuguese, and samosa as we know it, is a result of that. Samosa is a bad western influence that spoils our tradition.

Petpujaram Swami hailed the move by the DFMM as a brave one. According to him:

Generations of Indians have been brainwashed by the pseudo-secular chiefs making the once foreign food the most popular food in India. This preferential treatment given to a foreign food would mean that in the future generation it will replace all other indigenous foods and a day will come when Indian food like dal-chawal will become a minority. I have come to know from reliable sources that foreign restaurant are funding Bollywood movies to make dirty item songs to purposefully spoil our culture. “Jab tak rahega samoshe mein aalu…Chipki rahegi tujhse ye shalu”. Is this the kind of songs we want our kids to listen? Is this the kind of food we want our future generations to eat?

Jitender, a dal-chawal seller from Haryana believes that Haryana too should ban samosa. According to Jitender, "To my understanding, consumption of fast food contributes to rape. Samosa leads to hormonal imbalance evoking an urge to indulge in such acts". His helper promptly added "You also know the impact of samosa, which is a spicy food, on our body. Hence, our elders also advised to consume light and nutritious food".

Maharashtra ‘High Cuisines’ has however questioned the move. HC has asked DFMM “While Aloo is used in so many cuisines, why only ban samosa?” DFMM has strongly replied that “Samosa ban in just the beginning and soon other recipes like Vada Pav and aloo-dum will also be banned."

 For the time being eating or selling samosa is a non-bailable offence that can attract jail-term of upto 10 years, depending the size of the samosa. 

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This is a work of fiction resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

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"This is a work of fiction. All politicians appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental."

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THE HYPOCRITE

– Written by an unrepentant oil geologist

He wore his favourite dress, sprayed his favourite perfume, today was a good day. The candle light dinner he had last night with the girl of his dream was still lingering in his mind. But that can wait, today he have to focus on the seminar he was about to give. He knew that it was the golden opportunity he was waiting for. It was time to bring his life back on track.

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