I think people traveling by Mumbai local trains should have destination tags taped to the front of their shirts. Just like at business events, where they name tags. Of course, that arrangement is not prefect either because the name of the person is printed in bigger letters than the name of the organization. So, if you are a journalist who is looking to save business cards and avoid unnecessary small talk, you are left with no choice but to squint at people’s breasts awkwardly until you decide whether its worth your while to introduce yourself.
But returning to the point, people traveling in local trains should wear destination tags. If you are one of the daredevil types that hang from the door, you are exempted. But if you are one who gets on the train at one of the earlier stops and manages bag a seat, it is mandatory. I shall explain why. Standing commuters who want a seat generally crowd around seated commuters, ready to pounce on the first seat that falls vacant. Of course, given Indians love for forming queues, there is a queue which you can’t jump. So the first in the queue usually stands between two rows of facing seats. Now if this person knew that all the seated commuters were getting off at the last stop he wouldn’t be standing there between the seats with an expectant hang-dog expression on his face. He would give up hopes of finding a seat and stand in a more comfortable position. And the seated commuters would be spared the pleasure of having his crotch and butt in their faces. It’s a win-win for all concerned.
Now we wouldn’t have needed this system that badly if the commuter traffic obeyed the laws. Let me explain. There is a law that holds that the 8:58 local to Thane will empty at a station called Ghatkopar and all standees will get a seat. But commuter traffic doesn’t play by the rules always. So once you have passed Ghatkopar and non of the seated guys have got up, you are just standing there looking pathetic and willing those bastards to get up. It is not just that you are tired and at the end of a hard day--It is also a question of dashed hopes and broken rules. You have come to expect something which you are summarily denied.
So the solution to all this is for commuters to wear destination tags. Whats the alternative—surveying the seated commuters to ascertain where they are getting off? That’s so lame. And also think of all the unnecessary conversation that entails. So, in the interests of overall efficiency and commuter satisfaction, I propose that all local train commuters should be made to wear destination tags.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
pass the parcel
Sometimes I wonder whether I am plain unlucky in terms of social situations that I find myself in. I have been characterized as a social retard, social idiot and a sociopath by different people depending on how pissed they were with me after I had a committed yet another faux pas. In my assessment, I am a blessed with a combination of social awkwardness, revulsion for small talk and a monumental disinterest in the day-to-day lives of most of the people I chance to meet in the course of my work—all in equal measure. In a previous post I ahd pointed out the anomaly of my character make-up and the profession of my choice, journalism. So it is to be expected that when my profession and my personality rub shoulders, there are plenty sparks.
My boss was invited for a social do by this uppity foreign bank and since he was definitely not going to fritter away a Saturday night at a PR event of a company whose payrolls he doesn’t figure on, the invite fell in my lap. I find any form of interaction taxing and when it is a ‘social, interaction—bereft of any direct professional objective or gain—I am naturally at my worst. But since I am endowed with an eternal zest for self-improvement, I bit my lip and strode forth to the event which had promised a spoof of Hamlet on the invite.
The moment I stepped into the hall my worst fears were validated. There was not a soul I knew except the CEO of the bank who looked right through me. So I went to men’s room with the intention of taking as much time. I splashed my face with water, took an inordinately long time over my hair but and hung around for as long as I could before the others took me for a freak. If I had been the only inhabitant of the loo, I would have never come out.
On emerging from the john, I scanned the crowd looking for another person with a haversack or any bag. If you are trying to seek out a journalist, a haversack is a dead giveaway. Who else would come to a social evening with a haversack slung over the shoulder except someone who had come straight from work and didn’t have a car to leave his bag in? I finally spotted a youthful chap but it turned out that he was the bartender coming in for his shift. I didn’t know what to make of the gathering. There were kids, spouses, girlfriends and of course they all seemed to know each other. I felt like I had trespassed on to the bank’s “for the spouse, kids and girlfriend/boy friend” party. There were caricature artists, tarot card readers and some other such trade-peddlers scattered around the hall—a up-market fun-fair if ever there was one.
After a frantic consultation with a friend through text-SMS (it also makes u look busy) I caught hold of some of these suit-clad obsequious young men who were ushering guests in. I told them I was a journalist and would appreciate it if they could introduce me to their some of their guests. Poor bastard, I think he didn’t know what to make of me, so he introduced me to the next, suit-clad obsequious usherer he caught sight of. And so began the ridiculous exercise of pass-the-parcel. I was tossed about from on usherer to another, with the turn-over time becoming increasingly short over between each pass until I landed up with a gent who belonged to a property consultant. He quickly introduced me to another gent from his own company and it was become increasingly clear that I had become a pariah, to be dropped like a hot potato. This next gent didn’t bother to introduce me to anyone else, choosing to just bail out on me. At least that put an end to the pass-the parcel game. I sneaked off to the bar and asked the bartender to fix me up a large. My frazzled nerves needed to be steadied and I took up position in a cozy corner of the room and began ‘nursing my drink.
I was fast approaching the agreeable stage of happy-high when the communications head of the bank showed up. My pitiful, lonely state must have rended her heart and she was quite kind. She apologized for forgetting to tell me to get someone along and I brushed aside her apology—I was too buzzed to be affected by such minor problems as not having anyone to talk to. But she bustled off, promising to be back and sure enough, she cam back with a very agreeable senior bloke from the bank. We struck up a conversation and it was already the longest conversation I had had that evening when the communications lady appeared with two other girls—a girl from the PR agency that represents the bank and her friend. Their brief was surely to not let me out of sight in case I killed myself out of the grief of loneliness because they stuck to me doggedly despite my attempts to shake them off. It is not that I didn’t want their company—I was buzzed enough to start a conversation with a chimpanzee—I just didn’t want them to be there against their will.
But when the hall opened for the play and they followed me as I slunk away to the far side of the hall, I decided they were my companions fro the evening.
The ‘spoof’ of Hamlet was an out-and-out stand-up comedy routine obviously inspired by the ‘scary movie’ tri-quels. It was funny in parts but the humour was pedestrian and not clever at all. It had all the trappings of a contemporary—audience interactions, responding to the audience—but overall, it was a very ordinary affair.
The play was bearable but when they decided to reenact the whole play in fast-forward and backwards even the previously appreciative audience became restive. They finally rounded off the play after threatening to reenact it ‘sideways’ but the evening of fun was not over just yet. Every such event has to have a bubbly annoying emcee and this one was no different. She made one of the characters reenact one of the scenes and insisted on playing after him. On another occasion, I would have marveled at her chutzpah but it time was getting on, I was hungry and I had long journey home ahead of me. The event ended after they had made the men in the audience give their women roses and I rushed off to the buffet table. I was eating my meal doubly quick and was just about done with my first round when my two companions materialized out of nowhere. The either found me damn good company or their brief was to stick to me until I exited the premises. We made casual conversation until I withdrew, with the excuse that I had along way to travel.
So, there it is—my first social do made bearable my two large shots of rum, a kindly corporate communications lady and two determined PR girls.
My boss was invited for a social do by this uppity foreign bank and since he was definitely not going to fritter away a Saturday night at a PR event of a company whose payrolls he doesn’t figure on, the invite fell in my lap. I find any form of interaction taxing and when it is a ‘social, interaction—bereft of any direct professional objective or gain—I am naturally at my worst. But since I am endowed with an eternal zest for self-improvement, I bit my lip and strode forth to the event which had promised a spoof of Hamlet on the invite.
The moment I stepped into the hall my worst fears were validated. There was not a soul I knew except the CEO of the bank who looked right through me. So I went to men’s room with the intention of taking as much time. I splashed my face with water, took an inordinately long time over my hair but and hung around for as long as I could before the others took me for a freak. If I had been the only inhabitant of the loo, I would have never come out.
On emerging from the john, I scanned the crowd looking for another person with a haversack or any bag. If you are trying to seek out a journalist, a haversack is a dead giveaway. Who else would come to a social evening with a haversack slung over the shoulder except someone who had come straight from work and didn’t have a car to leave his bag in? I finally spotted a youthful chap but it turned out that he was the bartender coming in for his shift. I didn’t know what to make of the gathering. There were kids, spouses, girlfriends and of course they all seemed to know each other. I felt like I had trespassed on to the bank’s “for the spouse, kids and girlfriend/boy friend” party. There were caricature artists, tarot card readers and some other such trade-peddlers scattered around the hall—a up-market fun-fair if ever there was one.
After a frantic consultation with a friend through text-SMS (it also makes u look busy) I caught hold of some of these suit-clad obsequious young men who were ushering guests in. I told them I was a journalist and would appreciate it if they could introduce me to their some of their guests. Poor bastard, I think he didn’t know what to make of me, so he introduced me to the next, suit-clad obsequious usherer he caught sight of. And so began the ridiculous exercise of pass-the-parcel. I was tossed about from on usherer to another, with the turn-over time becoming increasingly short over between each pass until I landed up with a gent who belonged to a property consultant. He quickly introduced me to another gent from his own company and it was become increasingly clear that I had become a pariah, to be dropped like a hot potato. This next gent didn’t bother to introduce me to anyone else, choosing to just bail out on me. At least that put an end to the pass-the parcel game. I sneaked off to the bar and asked the bartender to fix me up a large. My frazzled nerves needed to be steadied and I took up position in a cozy corner of the room and began ‘nursing my drink.
I was fast approaching the agreeable stage of happy-high when the communications head of the bank showed up. My pitiful, lonely state must have rended her heart and she was quite kind. She apologized for forgetting to tell me to get someone along and I brushed aside her apology—I was too buzzed to be affected by such minor problems as not having anyone to talk to. But she bustled off, promising to be back and sure enough, she cam back with a very agreeable senior bloke from the bank. We struck up a conversation and it was already the longest conversation I had had that evening when the communications lady appeared with two other girls—a girl from the PR agency that represents the bank and her friend. Their brief was surely to not let me out of sight in case I killed myself out of the grief of loneliness because they stuck to me doggedly despite my attempts to shake them off. It is not that I didn’t want their company—I was buzzed enough to start a conversation with a chimpanzee—I just didn’t want them to be there against their will.
But when the hall opened for the play and they followed me as I slunk away to the far side of the hall, I decided they were my companions fro the evening.
The ‘spoof’ of Hamlet was an out-and-out stand-up comedy routine obviously inspired by the ‘scary movie’ tri-quels. It was funny in parts but the humour was pedestrian and not clever at all. It had all the trappings of a contemporary—audience interactions, responding to the audience—but overall, it was a very ordinary affair.
The play was bearable but when they decided to reenact the whole play in fast-forward and backwards even the previously appreciative audience became restive. They finally rounded off the play after threatening to reenact it ‘sideways’ but the evening of fun was not over just yet. Every such event has to have a bubbly annoying emcee and this one was no different. She made one of the characters reenact one of the scenes and insisted on playing after him. On another occasion, I would have marveled at her chutzpah but it time was getting on, I was hungry and I had long journey home ahead of me. The event ended after they had made the men in the audience give their women roses and I rushed off to the buffet table. I was eating my meal doubly quick and was just about done with my first round when my two companions materialized out of nowhere. The either found me damn good company or their brief was to stick to me until I exited the premises. We made casual conversation until I withdrew, with the excuse that I had along way to travel.
So, there it is—my first social do made bearable my two large shots of rum, a kindly corporate communications lady and two determined PR girls.
Meeting people
This happened in Chennai during my journo school days. On a typical oppressively hot Chennai afternoon, a couple of us from ACJ bundled into an auto and headed to a coffee shop. Everyone was on a self-depreciatory trip and was trying to come up with reasons why he or should would never make a good journalist. There wasn’t much to chose between the contenders for the “worst aspiring journalist award until I waded into the contest. “The reason I won’t make a good journalist is because I don’t like people”. I had routed them, left them all speechless. They were forced to concede that my misanthropic proclivities couldn’t be overstated and that I, indeed, had the most unjournalist-like personality.
I have always hated small talk—not because I prefer to talk about heady, intellectual stuff but because I find small talk tiring. I envy people who can banter with a perfect stranger and have him/her eating out of his hands in under five minutes. People might describe me as being a tight ass or having a stiff upper lip depending on how blunt they are but, yes, I am an awkward conversationalist, not the shy, meek type just plain awkward. Now my Dad is all those things and I probably have him to blame for the way I am, but apparently, there is a crucial difference between us. He might not say much but is a good listener, which translates into he doesn’t look bored when people are talking to him, unlike me. It is all I can do to keep from yawning when I am having a perfectly random conversation with a stranger. I am not shy when it comes to going up to strangers—I just cannot be bothered.
Turns out there is hope for people like me even in the world of journalism—in a depressing, stifling place called the news desk. To be fair, I have worked only on one news desk which is also known to be structured differently to the rest. But that single experience ahs filled me with a life-long dread fro the place and sincere empathy for the people who work there.
I managed to free myself form the unforgiving confines of the desk and the struggle has been extensively chronicled on this blog and elsewhere. So, now I am a reporter with a different newspaper and a different city and I am forced to reckon with my misanthropic tendencies.
So what should a young man whose just starting out as a reporter do to enable him to further his prospects in this esteemed profession? Ask the old hands and they will invariably tell you, “Just, go meet people! Talk to people!”. They sound as though the only dilemma in my mind is whether to “ go out and talk to people” or not. Okay but what kind of people should I be meeting and talking to? “Everyone”. Like even the surly lift boy who hates stopping at our floor for some reason? I hate it when people talk about people as though it is a homogenous entity which can only be engaged on the group level.
Since the old hands have forgotten what they did when they were rookies, I am left to my own inferences. I decide that the people to meet at this stage are the corporate communication representatives of the various banks that I shall be tracking. The first bird I call sounds delighted that I am proposing to come and see him. Having been a journalist himself, he is still unused to being sought rather than being the seeker and revels in such small joys. After a tiresome two hours he thanks me profusely for coming and seeing him. I learn my first industry truth as a journalist. Not to expect anything from ex-journo corp comms because they are only in it for the ego trip.
My next interview is better, not least because the guy is a namesake, which instnaly puts us on an amicable terms. But the third and last one for the week is quite different. The guy knows nothing about his company and instead chooses to regale me with stories from his days as a journo. He also manages to smuggle in his views on the political situation in the country before we settle into a discussion about which newspaper is reporter-driven and which is desk-driven. And I am suddenly visited with a question—how is this meeting furthering my prospects as a journo? This guy is a person alright, so technically I am meeting ‘people’ but is anything going to come out of it?
I have always hated small talk—not because I prefer to talk about heady, intellectual stuff but because I find small talk tiring. I envy people who can banter with a perfect stranger and have him/her eating out of his hands in under five minutes. People might describe me as being a tight ass or having a stiff upper lip depending on how blunt they are but, yes, I am an awkward conversationalist, not the shy, meek type just plain awkward. Now my Dad is all those things and I probably have him to blame for the way I am, but apparently, there is a crucial difference between us. He might not say much but is a good listener, which translates into he doesn’t look bored when people are talking to him, unlike me. It is all I can do to keep from yawning when I am having a perfectly random conversation with a stranger. I am not shy when it comes to going up to strangers—I just cannot be bothered.
Turns out there is hope for people like me even in the world of journalism—in a depressing, stifling place called the news desk. To be fair, I have worked only on one news desk which is also known to be structured differently to the rest. But that single experience ahs filled me with a life-long dread fro the place and sincere empathy for the people who work there.
I managed to free myself form the unforgiving confines of the desk and the struggle has been extensively chronicled on this blog and elsewhere. So, now I am a reporter with a different newspaper and a different city and I am forced to reckon with my misanthropic tendencies.
So what should a young man whose just starting out as a reporter do to enable him to further his prospects in this esteemed profession? Ask the old hands and they will invariably tell you, “Just, go meet people! Talk to people!”. They sound as though the only dilemma in my mind is whether to “ go out and talk to people” or not. Okay but what kind of people should I be meeting and talking to? “Everyone”. Like even the surly lift boy who hates stopping at our floor for some reason? I hate it when people talk about people as though it is a homogenous entity which can only be engaged on the group level.
Since the old hands have forgotten what they did when they were rookies, I am left to my own inferences. I decide that the people to meet at this stage are the corporate communication representatives of the various banks that I shall be tracking. The first bird I call sounds delighted that I am proposing to come and see him. Having been a journalist himself, he is still unused to being sought rather than being the seeker and revels in such small joys. After a tiresome two hours he thanks me profusely for coming and seeing him. I learn my first industry truth as a journalist. Not to expect anything from ex-journo corp comms because they are only in it for the ego trip.
My next interview is better, not least because the guy is a namesake, which instnaly puts us on an amicable terms. But the third and last one for the week is quite different. The guy knows nothing about his company and instead chooses to regale me with stories from his days as a journo. He also manages to smuggle in his views on the political situation in the country before we settle into a discussion about which newspaper is reporter-driven and which is desk-driven. And I am suddenly visited with a question—how is this meeting furthering my prospects as a journo? This guy is a person alright, so technically I am meeting ‘people’ but is anything going to come out of it?
Saturday, December 27, 2008
my ruined first-job story
Habits, bad or good, are not easy to kick but I recently managed to shrug off a particularly tiresome one. It was causing me a lot of distress and I had more or less surrendered my life to it. Plus, my near-and-dears were starting to get concerned about my mental well-being. So, all though it was a potential launching pad for a stellar career and the source of a meagre monthly income, I ditched my first job.
I'm aware that twenty years from now, if I were to achieve some modicum of success, I will not be able to tell an inspiring first-job story to youngsters starting out in the profession. I wont be able to speak of humble beginnings but limitless prospects, of a god-father who took me under his/her wing, of that insufferable, demanding boss who "nevertheless helped me become who I am today." Mine will be a story of humble beginnings and humble prospects, of stalwarts who had nothing more to offer me more than their sympathy, of a mentor who branded me as 'lazy' for life, of thwarted chances that were my doing and thwarted hopes that were someone else's doing.
For sure, I did learn quite a few things on the job. Prone to over-confidence, the clerical nature of my work took me down a peg or two. Before starting out I was afraid of ideological differences with the paper's editorial line. On the job, I learned that my superiors wouldn't have given two shits even if i were an undercover Naxalite.
But there were more enduring lessons. I learnt that intelligence is in the eye of the reader, that learning to cover your own tail is a praiseworthy goal, that unquestioned submission to authority is a virtue, and for there to be rockstars in your newsroom you also need sufficiently submisive underlings for them to beat up.
My first-job tale will be singularly unappetizing. But that's just something I will have to live with.
I'm aware that twenty years from now, if I were to achieve some modicum of success, I will not be able to tell an inspiring first-job story to youngsters starting out in the profession. I wont be able to speak of humble beginnings but limitless prospects, of a god-father who took me under his/her wing, of that insufferable, demanding boss who "nevertheless helped me become who I am today." Mine will be a story of humble beginnings and humble prospects, of stalwarts who had nothing more to offer me more than their sympathy, of a mentor who branded me as 'lazy' for life, of thwarted chances that were my doing and thwarted hopes that were someone else's doing.
For sure, I did learn quite a few things on the job. Prone to over-confidence, the clerical nature of my work took me down a peg or two. Before starting out I was afraid of ideological differences with the paper's editorial line. On the job, I learned that my superiors wouldn't have given two shits even if i were an undercover Naxalite.
But there were more enduring lessons. I learnt that intelligence is in the eye of the reader, that learning to cover your own tail is a praiseworthy goal, that unquestioned submission to authority is a virtue, and for there to be rockstars in your newsroom you also need sufficiently submisive underlings for them to beat up.
My first-job tale will be singularly unappetizing. But that's just something I will have to live with.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
yellowing pages
One week into a new city and a new job and you can be excused for feeling a little rudderless. ACJ already seems a distant memory although it has been less than a month since I graduated. And then there are even more distant memories- engineering college and junior college. Further back is school.So how does one continuously reorient oneself in the face of constantly changing circumstances? Is there anything to be gained from pondering over the change in one’s circumstances?
Technology today allows one to visit all these people and memories simultaneously. One is bombarded by recollections from different periods of one’s life. Looking back feels like sifting through an old dusty book in which every chapter is unlike the others. There are sad chapters interspersed with happy chapters and turning the leaf on a happy chapter is always painful. And one is always left wondering whether the last chapter will be the happiest in the book.
A recent happy chapter is visited again and again. Technology allows us to visit not-so-recent chapters frequently as the people who inhabit those pages are just an index finger-press away. But as the pages keep adding to the book revisiting long past chapters becomes more and more laborious. We bookmark some pages and people for quick reference and leave the others to yellow away peacefully. Technology has, in some senses, made human memory irrelevant. There are enough visual, audio aids to aid memory that it seems like one need not remember anything at all. One need just store in a flash drive or as a digital photo. Technology allows us to freeze moments of time for posterity. But, for all its glories, it cannot arrest the motion of relationships. It can freeze memories of a relationship but not the relationship itself. It can remind us of what certain people meant to us but cannot influence what they mean to us now. Relationships are fluid and certain people become less dear to us as time goes by. And it is this I fear. That I can’t freeze all the relationships from a recent happy period of my life. I must watch as people drift away from me, as they become less dear to me and me to them. I’m not worried about the bookmarks, or the main actors in my story. I am worried about the supporting actors who go a long way in defining a period of one’s life. I might think of them and imagine what their life is like right now. But, they will yellow away and every time I revisit them I will realize that they mean less and less to me. At such meetings pleasantries will be exchanged and good memories invoked. But conversation will dry up eventually, soon enough. And there is nothing I can do about it.
Technology today allows one to visit all these people and memories simultaneously. One is bombarded by recollections from different periods of one’s life. Looking back feels like sifting through an old dusty book in which every chapter is unlike the others. There are sad chapters interspersed with happy chapters and turning the leaf on a happy chapter is always painful. And one is always left wondering whether the last chapter will be the happiest in the book.
A recent happy chapter is visited again and again. Technology allows us to visit not-so-recent chapters frequently as the people who inhabit those pages are just an index finger-press away. But as the pages keep adding to the book revisiting long past chapters becomes more and more laborious. We bookmark some pages and people for quick reference and leave the others to yellow away peacefully. Technology has, in some senses, made human memory irrelevant. There are enough visual, audio aids to aid memory that it seems like one need not remember anything at all. One need just store in a flash drive or as a digital photo. Technology allows us to freeze moments of time for posterity. But, for all its glories, it cannot arrest the motion of relationships. It can freeze memories of a relationship but not the relationship itself. It can remind us of what certain people meant to us but cannot influence what they mean to us now. Relationships are fluid and certain people become less dear to us as time goes by. And it is this I fear. That I can’t freeze all the relationships from a recent happy period of my life. I must watch as people drift away from me, as they become less dear to me and me to them. I’m not worried about the bookmarks, or the main actors in my story. I am worried about the supporting actors who go a long way in defining a period of one’s life. I might think of them and imagine what their life is like right now. But, they will yellow away and every time I revisit them I will realize that they mean less and less to me. At such meetings pleasantries will be exchanged and good memories invoked. But conversation will dry up eventually, soon enough. And there is nothing I can do about it.
Monday, April 30, 2007
was introduced to Orkut a few months back. Actually it was more than a year ago and I should have written this piece ages ago when it would have seemed relevant. So let assume for the sake of argument that I have just been introduced to Orkut. For the uninitiated, its an online networking site where you can meet friends, join communities and leave public messages on people’s scrapbook. I chanced upon an ex-community from my school and suddenly I found a lot of people I had lost contact with. The inevitable round of “hi…remember me?”’s followed. It got me all nostalgic and misty-eyed. It had been six years since I had last seen or talked to any of them. The ensuing conversation was invariably along these lines—“ ya of course I rem u..im gud..im doin thisthis course in this this place.what abt u???”. “I’m doing this this course in this this place”. Then the message boards go silent. What do you say to a guy with whom your only shared memory is the chalk fights you used to have between periods(oops!! between lectures.used to call them periods in school). Or how he used to pick on you or vice-versa.( in which case you might still hate him or vice-versa) And suddenly the euphoria ebbs. The “ its so great to meet everyone after sooo long” is replaced by “ Glad to know you are alive. Hope to hear from you again after another six years..if not longer.” Which makes sense. I have kept in touch with school friends with whom I had a deeper relationship than a common loathing for Maths and the Maths teacher. Of course I had a rollicking time with all those people back in school. But I guess friendship needs fuel— common interests, common values some common ground. What works best is common destiny. Destiny often brings people together and we sail along thinking about how merry our company is, how well we get along. And when destiny separates us we are left with the remains of a withered friendship. But it withers so gracefully, so unspectacularly that we barely feel the pain.
People change, so how can friendships be expected not to. The interesting thing about friendship is that its end need not be acknowledged. Infact friendships are not known to end except as a result of a feud or falling out between friends. “We shall always be friends”. We are going our separate ways. Chances are I’m never going to talk to you or think about you. But we shall always be friends. If we ever run into each other in the local we shall make casual conversation. The hand of friendship is easily extended and need not be withdrawn.
Continuing on the topic of ephemeral friendships, I have been on a dozen Himalayan treks almost each with a different set of people. I got along like a house on fire with most of them. But I’m not in touch with a single person. We have never even tried to keep in touch. Friendships that spring up in the confines of a group in the lap of nature, among people determined to have a good time cannot withstand the vagaries of everyday life. These friendships come with an expiry date.
On the other end of the spectrum are my childhood friends — my colony buddies. We are at widely dispersed locations our interests are even more disparate. But whenever we meet up there is never a lull in the conversation. I wonder why? Nothing in common here,right. Maybe because whatever we are today, to each other we are still kids. We remember each other as kids and still see each other as kids. There is the consequent lack of pretence. Common childhood experiences count for something.
My brush with my school friends rekindled some memories, lightened my heart as I thought about those happy days. But it did only that. Some living people cease to be except in our memories.
People change, so how can friendships be expected not to. The interesting thing about friendship is that its end need not be acknowledged. Infact friendships are not known to end except as a result of a feud or falling out between friends. “We shall always be friends”. We are going our separate ways. Chances are I’m never going to talk to you or think about you. But we shall always be friends. If we ever run into each other in the local we shall make casual conversation. The hand of friendship is easily extended and need not be withdrawn.
Continuing on the topic of ephemeral friendships, I have been on a dozen Himalayan treks almost each with a different set of people. I got along like a house on fire with most of them. But I’m not in touch with a single person. We have never even tried to keep in touch. Friendships that spring up in the confines of a group in the lap of nature, among people determined to have a good time cannot withstand the vagaries of everyday life. These friendships come with an expiry date.
On the other end of the spectrum are my childhood friends — my colony buddies. We are at widely dispersed locations our interests are even more disparate. But whenever we meet up there is never a lull in the conversation. I wonder why? Nothing in common here,right. Maybe because whatever we are today, to each other we are still kids. We remember each other as kids and still see each other as kids. There is the consequent lack of pretence. Common childhood experiences count for something.
My brush with my school friends rekindled some memories, lightened my heart as I thought about those happy days. But it did only that. Some living people cease to be except in our memories.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
I just finished reading a book called ‘When corporations rule the world’ by David Korten. It talks about the pernicious influence of corporations on economic, political and social fronts. How corporations play an active role in shaping a nation’s economic, foreign and fiscal policy which is a heavily covered issue in liberal circles. And how competing corporations can make common cause and pool their resources to together to serve mutual interests.
What I found particularly interesting was his analysis of the marketing function of corporations. How the goal is not just to sell products and promote a consumer culture but to create a political culture that equates the corporate interest with the human interest in the public mind. TV with its ability to implant identical images in the minds of millions of people can homogenize knowledge, tastes, desires and most importantly perspectives. If you achieve a certain measure of success in controlling how people think, not just what they think about that’s half the battle. How the natural evolution of a populist culture based on people’s aspirations and their interactions within and without their community has been thwarted and replaced by a global homogenized consumer culture based on a warped sense of reality.
And all the while the people are lead to believe that the ultimate power—that of choice, rests with them. Consumers can always use their dollar-votes to wield influence on the corporations is the argument of most neo-classical economists. The idea that consumer decides and the market responds is a fanciful notion which projects an exceedingly benign image of corporations. Widely dispersed consumers who make their choices independent of each other, are no match for the highly organized giant corporations united in their quest to squeeze consumers dry.
Korten is a vociferous critic of the corporate libertarian school of thought which believes in free markets, open trade and a globalized economy. He is however an avid fan of Adam Smith of the famous Invisible Hand Theory which is seen to be the cornerstone of the capitalist school of thought. Korten seeks to salvage his idol’s reputation from the machinations of neo-classical economists. He says that firstly that the Invisible Hand Theory only holds true under ideal conditions of perfect competition and absence of monopolies, externalities etc. He also takes pains to illustrate that Adam Smith was vigorously against corporations and all twelve mentions of them in The Wealth Of Nations have been unfavourable.
Korten describes himself as neither a fan of big government nor of big business . He believes in the power of the market and imagines a scenario in which almost producers are small and consume a major portion of their produce themselves and no one producer is big enough to influence the price. Something akin to rural American life in the nineteenth century before the food giants moved in. However the pastoral setting he so fondly describes seems far-fetched. And there is no reason not to believe that the present day corporation is the natural progression of the small private enterprises he vouches for.
His analysis of the problem was incisive and thought-provoking. However I found his solutions less engaging, which is why I gave the book up midway.
What I found particularly interesting was his analysis of the marketing function of corporations. How the goal is not just to sell products and promote a consumer culture but to create a political culture that equates the corporate interest with the human interest in the public mind. TV with its ability to implant identical images in the minds of millions of people can homogenize knowledge, tastes, desires and most importantly perspectives. If you achieve a certain measure of success in controlling how people think, not just what they think about that’s half the battle. How the natural evolution of a populist culture based on people’s aspirations and their interactions within and without their community has been thwarted and replaced by a global homogenized consumer culture based on a warped sense of reality.
And all the while the people are lead to believe that the ultimate power—that of choice, rests with them. Consumers can always use their dollar-votes to wield influence on the corporations is the argument of most neo-classical economists. The idea that consumer decides and the market responds is a fanciful notion which projects an exceedingly benign image of corporations. Widely dispersed consumers who make their choices independent of each other, are no match for the highly organized giant corporations united in their quest to squeeze consumers dry.
Korten is a vociferous critic of the corporate libertarian school of thought which believes in free markets, open trade and a globalized economy. He is however an avid fan of Adam Smith of the famous Invisible Hand Theory which is seen to be the cornerstone of the capitalist school of thought. Korten seeks to salvage his idol’s reputation from the machinations of neo-classical economists. He says that firstly that the Invisible Hand Theory only holds true under ideal conditions of perfect competition and absence of monopolies, externalities etc. He also takes pains to illustrate that Adam Smith was vigorously against corporations and all twelve mentions of them in The Wealth Of Nations have been unfavourable.
Korten describes himself as neither a fan of big government nor of big business . He believes in the power of the market and imagines a scenario in which almost producers are small and consume a major portion of their produce themselves and no one producer is big enough to influence the price. Something akin to rural American life in the nineteenth century before the food giants moved in. However the pastoral setting he so fondly describes seems far-fetched. And there is no reason not to believe that the present day corporation is the natural progression of the small private enterprises he vouches for.
His analysis of the problem was incisive and thought-provoking. However I found his solutions less engaging, which is why I gave the book up midway.
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