Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Vichaar Shoonya + 2

On the profound truth which is a hybrid of reality and mythology, There's no one truth & On telling stories ;

What Have We Done to Democracy? - by Arundhati Roy

Does the Internet spread democracy? - by Evgeny Morozov

India’s Maoist dilemma: the case of Lalgarh by Aaradhana Jhunjhunwala

A Former Street Kid Sizes Up 'Slumdog Millionaire'

Rashmi Bansal's Talk at IIT-Kgp covered by a blogger.

Thought of the Day:
“You see with your eyes, you hear with the sense of your hearing, you feel with your sense of touch, and all these senses are nothing but functions of your mind which is nothing but a thought which in turn is just an idea… so if you close your eyes and go to sleep the world ceases to exist and when you wake up it comes back in different shapes and forms to every living being on the earth. – Arthur Schopenhauer (The World As Will and Idea)

Thursday, October 8, 2009

The great Indian PORN show

Porn is entertaining for few of us. But, the question here arises that can entertainment be served as porn ?

Reality Shows:

"A participant performs the ultimate act of pornography as he disrobes himself in full public view of all that he considers most intimate, stripping himself of not only dignity and self-respect but dismantling in the process, the trust he evokes from those he loves most. We watch in voyeuristic disbelief, with a combination of fascination, horror, guilt and smug superiority at someone's else's misery. It is a spectacle only when participants disclose something scandalous." Santosh Desai (Source)

Society has been constructed in the manner in which relationships are not based on absolute honesty. In fact they are based on insulation of an individuals real feelings from all. A little privacy is given to each of us so that intimacy can be hidden for the greater good. If a person needs to confess to his beloved ones, he / she should tell them in private, not because money involved in it. And I have written about it long back ago.

Television:

Showing interest in the personal lives or lifestyle of celebrities are favourite prime time of our television. TV shows end up ultimately with sex,vulgar,gossips and this idiotic things which are not done for only money to few well elite's greed of money. These have already lost any interest for family or social values. In the name of freedom and choice they want to put the voyeuristic interest to others.

We have in effect created a market for preying on someone else's personal misery. Pimps and prostitutes are jumping on the Television for their greed of quick money and we sit numb and turned into something worse than eunuchs. We behave as self-indulgent audience of consumers who wanted to be entertained no matter what the cost to characters.

Television by virtue of lacking depth and being located in real time allows for no introspection. It does not allow you to interact and alter the content. We represent just a vote or 'a sms' to them. We flick from channel to channel and rest our eyes on whatever stimulates us. We are swept away by its combined force while retaining the illusion that we are in control. We keep talking about how we should change the channel if we don't like what we see without acknowledging how the channel is changing us.

Media:

"What the media basically does is, it just strips everybody and makes money out it. The only difference between a strip-teaser and the media is that a strip-teaser bares herself so that others can enjoy her and give money, and the media strips others so that some others can enjoy and give them the money." - RGV (Source)

Porn business is in full flow and stripping each value what our society believes in. For the sake of adventure and quick fame, people are turning towards fake family shows, reality shows and entertaining news channels...

News channels have huge ability to make something out of nothing, make your emotion rush. It’s the height of manipulation. Few video clips from youtube, images from google search, music from here and there with a non sense story is the prime time coverage of news channel.The word 'Exclusive' and 'Breaking news' have lost their significance due to constant repeatable use at every hour. Even Images, ads and videos are created and seen more from the point of view of consumerism than as an expression of ideas. The media in India loves to speculate because they are constantly in need of stories. The manipulation of your emotions with back script music, melodrama and biasing makes you not a viewer but a potential consumer. The pre conceived notion of entertainment is gone. TV channels are not in our hands, we are in theirs..

Honesty is important, but not at the cost of entertainment. There's a fine line between portraying reality and stereotyping. The problems of our nation like poverty, hunger, illiteracy, naxalism, unemployment, corruption and natural disaster. We readily import the nuisance but always shrug off to import cleanliness, honesty, patriotism, sacrifice etc. because these need to come out the closet of A/C rooms of these people and need very hard work which these people are not used to.

It’s the manipulation and unreliability of methods media use to determine what people want and label as TRP ratings. What media should fix is error in the systems, not the society. Media is trying to reconfigure society by exposing the hypocrisy of others. But media itself has little understanding or control over its own actions. You will be labeled as dictator or censor on talking about self regulation. What a pity..

West:
The West is entranced by India's poverty and filth- that's the USP of India for them. Slumdog Millionaire represents the 'poverty porn' (word first coined by Times reviewer only). They don't want to show us just who we 'really' are or positive achievements but show how our lives are growing materialistic and controversial. And our our elites are clones of the modernized west.

Conclusion:
TV shows or media is not interested in the truth but specifically seeks that truth which will cause damage to the individual's self esteem and poison relationships. Children are treated as Mini adults if they are potential consumers or just neglected completely. Our society has taken voyeuristic path and children turning on to the habits of adults. People love to see other's in pain. People want to breathe a live of luxury and flamboyancy with the route of credit also. The luxury industries is doing what it takes to cater to the whims & fancies of rising class. The aspirational lifestyle doesn't limited to material objects but it has evolved into unique and personal experiences. Really rich exploit the proletariat in much the same way as the men exploit animals.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

A scene of the flood

Krishna river flowing over red alert
People caught amid flood situation near Wadi
Railway Tracks

All Photoes are taken by my sister who reached to Hyderabad from Bangalore in 60 hours through Rajdhani express and returned to Bangalore in 60 minutes through airways.

Andhra and Karnataka are facing worst flood in 100 years. Reaching Bangalore or Hyderabad was never so difficult. Both the bus and train services are affected. In this season of problems, suddenly air fares rocketed thrice the normal rate. Not more than 0.1 % of people of India travel through air route, still this opportunism shown by airlines prove that air fare needs to be regulated for making air services to the reach of more people.

In economics, collective bargaining, psychology, and political science, "free riders" are those who consume more than their fair share of a public resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its production. Free riding is usually considered to be an economic "problem" only when it leads to the non-production or under-production of a public good (and thus to Pareto inefficiency) , or when it leads to the excessive use of a common property resource. People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less — they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. To be 'living luxurious lifestyle' and 'free rider' on national income is the worst crime in my eyes. World needs more proportionate than equal distribution of wealth among its citizens.