Thursday, March 20, 2014

Bangalore South, who should I vote for?

[Pic Courtesy: http://www.electionsinindia.com/karnataka/bangaloresouth/electiondata.aspx]
I have stayed most of the time in this constituency of Bangalore since I started working here. I have made it a point that I will be voting this time and to the rightmost candidate from THIS CONSTITUENCY. Voting should be done for the representatives and not for the leaders.

So who should I vote for? It is a difficult question as the candidates looking to contest from this place have pristine credentials. But do credentials matter with us, hypocrite Indians? Yes, they do. We will always fall for the bigger player irrespective of the vices he/she might have committed. That is why the marketing agencies are thriving and making big bucks. Nevertheless, coming back to my point of voting in my constituency.

I went to this website of Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka and looked up for the candidates from this area.

They are Ananth Kumar from BJP and Umadevi M from Socialist Unity Center of India (Communist). If you kept track of news, you'll know that Nandan Nilekani from Congress and Nina P Nayak from AAP would also be contesting from this constituency. They are yet to file their nomination though.

As I earlier said, that being a responsible citizen, I would like to choose a responsible representative and I am least bothered about the leader who this representative would be talking to. A right representative would always fight for his own people. Hence, I have thought of doing a catharsis of this portfolio of the candidates from this constituency based on the details available on-line. I am no political expert to give judgement but this is only my personal opinion.

Ananth Kumar is a veteran in politics and supposedly an honest politician. He is son of the soil and a well-qualified person. I am really not sure of how many good things he might have executed in this area in his last five outings in the Parliament but I know that he is a down to earth person who is always ready to help out people. His wikipedia page shows that he was alleged with involvement in misusing funds in 2005.

Umadevi M of SUCI doesn't have enough online presence but I found an article on Hindu which says it all. Coincidently, she is also an activist which shows the nature of the election 2014.

Nandan Nilekani is a well-known face globally and he has proved his worth in the corporate sector. Mr. Nilekani surely has an impressive resume of management which is unquestionable. He is also one of the architects of India's IT dominance. But.. If anybody has worked in the corporate sector as any kind of employee, he/she knows about the corporate politics and what it takes to rise to the top. He seems well suited for the kind of politics India has seen over the years as he comes from a similar background. Corporate and politics are almost similar with the difference that corporate has everything done in professional way. He seems a progressive candidate but the irony is he is sitting in the wrong boat destined to drown.

Nina P Nayak is the candidate of Aam Aadmi Party. If you google about her, you will find that she has been working as an activist for child welfare for over 30 years. She seems a person who is more connected with the dilapidated women and children of society. I am not sure how she is going to represent this constituency. Bangalore South is predominantly a mash-up of small villages and posh layouts. She might have done a lot for the state but how is she going to value add to this constituency is uncertain.

My view? I reserve my right to choose the right candidate until I reach the polling booth. I will weigh all the aspects which might benefit the people of the constituency and the country in the long run.

P.S.: If you like writing and have a blog or similar thing, just do write about the candidates in your constituency. It might help people make a right decision for their constituency and for the country.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Hypocrite Indians


We are so proud to call ourselves a part of civilization which has spanned thousands of years. Back then, we were so progressive. Our minds were free and we were focused on achieving the best for our people and simplifying their lives with proper amenities. With time and influence, our administrators lost the focus and moved from a people-centric agenda to a self-centric agenda. This trait in the human behavior of we Indians became a common thing and we kept moving towards the direction of mental and behavioral evolution.

So why am I saying that we are so typically hypocrite? I know it is an avarice to call a society as hypocrite in general but I am taking the liberty to do so. But why? You will find the answers in the following paragraphs.

Let’s take the contemporary India we are living in. Heading to a granular level, lets head to a society in some second tier city in India. Inspect the area carefully. A no-parking board somewhere on the road and a slew of two-wheelers parked beside it. When you ask anyone why aren't they bothered about the ‘no-parking’ boards, they will be very vocal about the inefficiency and incapability of the local police. In the same area, you can find loads of garbage dumped below some electricity pole or near a culvert. In the same area, you can find clean water tankers supplying water and there will be people spilling it for no good reason. The tankers themselves would be defective and water would be leaking all the way. The irony is that the people who blame the administration about the problems in the society are the architects of their problems.

I think I started from a small society, where as I should have focused on the families. As I said earlier, we are the architects of our society and lifestyle.

There was a time when people were India were very skeptic and offensive about Love Marriage. Falling in love was considered a sin and many a couples have been forced to die when they committed such a sin. We live in a country where we pray Krishna and Radha who were lovers and they never married. Such is the height of hypocrisy in our system that we hate love but we are ready to pray lovers.
Long back we were a matriarchal society, but with time we moved to become a patriarchal society. Male dominance in families made the weaker sex even more weak. They lost their rightful place and the reason was the female gender herself. Today every now and then we see women agitation and most of these women would hardly know the relevance of their lives in grooming their society. Most of them have their vested interests or they are just part of the herd ignorant of the real goal. We crib about gender equality but we never try to solve the problems of women at its roots.

Indians have always been miserly. They have always worked hard to meet their daily needs so we understand the value of money. Do we? When we construct an apartment for renting out, we will make it a point that we give the ‘value for money’ amenities in the apartment so that we save the most and earn the most. When something goes bad in the apartment, we will always replace it with lower quality stuff as we ourselves are not living in the apartment. When the tenant buys an apartment for renting out in the future, he does the same thing and this cycle continues. Needless to say, is this hypocrisy or not? Saving money is one thing and ensuring good life is another. We are ready to spend millions on our loved ones if we have it, but we are not ready to spend a single rupee on some people who are indirectly dependent on us.

We are ready to become sycophants at workplace but we will try and maintain our authority at home. We say endless amount of nonsense and justify it at motley places like betel shops, tea shops, parties and similar outings but we want people to talk sense when they talk about us. We will talk about different places and people in the world and how our country has lagged behind them and try to pinpoint the negatives in the system. Alas! We never point fingers at ourselves.

We will criticize the religious leaders who have been convicted in heinous crimes. We are the ones who have given them the status and stature they have in the society. In spite of all the bally hoo, we will still keep the posters of these impostors on the walls of our homes and justify them. We’ll say that we don’t have money but we are ready to give donations for every religious occasion. We will fall for rumors every now and then and later pledge that we’ll never fall for such rumors again.

The story of hypocrisy of Indians can’t be described just in a single blog post. There are in-numerous examples of things we do on a day to day basis. We keep blaming the system but we never take the onus of choosing to vote and choose the right candidate from our area. We keep doing things which are hypocrite and never realize that we are doing something which is the basis of the growth of our future generations. As I always say, if a nation has to grow progressively, the mentality of the people should be progressive. As an optimist, I would quote the famous lines, ‘history repeats itself’. It will repeat itself for our beloved country.

Anand Bora