“I have my back…. “

I am standing at a bus-stop. The bus is late. I pull out a book, my friend in need and deed, and immerse myself in it. The wait is that much more tolerable. And all of a sudden, I feel slight warmth at the back of my neck. A hair raising moment (literally), my ears tingle (vaguely), and I feel my knees buckle. I look left and then right and then ever so gently turn my gaze to 180 degrees and spot the stimulus. A young man, early college perhaps, backpacked, grinning and giving me the elevator look. A few seconds later, I check again and see that gaze transfixed. I try to go back to my book. The focus is lost and my attention is now on questions that swim in the form of living beings. What is he looking at? My back? My butt? My attire? The ‘on the face’ questions now spark off a fear and I board the first bus that rolls in. I decide to take a time-consuming route to get to my destination.

This incident is not that uncommon. Most women experience it and talk about it with other women. This episode could perhaps have aggravated to assault, rape, homicide and we would all be talking about what needs to be done for the safety of women. We would beat to death the lack of relevant education in schools and colleges around self-protection; debate on whether it is truly a women’s issue or that of sensitizing men. Not to forget moments when we digress and make it a discussion point on attire, life style and modernization / westernization (call it what we may) that has invaded our very ‘tolerant culture’. The tolerance is moot; nevertheless, we chug on relentless.  None of them are relevant. All of them are relevant…. the deliberations continue.

We need to only look at the statistics of the nature and structure of these conversations and we realize that the focus is on what happens or happened post the ‘hair raising’, ‘ears tingling’ and ‘knees buckling’ moment. I want to pause right THERE at that very moment – the moment that is governed by instinct, an instant that is followed completely and totally independent of reason, a tick that gets the survivor instinct in me going and  an entrepreneurial flash that makes me naturally decisive. It’s that precise moment when something counselled me to look around and I paid heed to it. 

It comes to me naturally. I am born with it…. It’s a gift that we women are born with. It is something that takes us through life and helps us deal with danger and protect our family. We just ‘know’ it, and ‘feel’ strongly what’s best for us and our loved ones – a feeling that has often been questioned by the rational and the pragmatic. It’s a sentiment that has been repeatedly labelled ‘girlish’ and relegated to the background. It’s an emotion that has ever so often been disregarded and sacrificed to the higher good offered by logic and strategy and planning.

And so, today, when I am called upon to talk about “Developing the Women Talent Pipeline”, I wonder what to offer as a conversation. If guarded by fear, I could speak on training and push upon the government and organisations to speed up affirmative action. If guarded by frustration, I could unleash my anger on the prevalence of a boy’s club and the biases that throng their day to day decisions and impact our lives. And if guarded by anxiety, I could perhaps (as an aside) thank the close minded, pull back imaginative parents and siblings who pushed me to be the rebel. Irrespective, I am guarded by something or someone and that sense of ‘guardianship’, by its very definition, secures a frontier. The borders take charge and I pull out my guns.

Days and years go by working alongside men.  We garb their attire, don their language, spell their semantics and in the bargain, the giraffe today has smaller necks. I can’t reach out to the leaves atop the tall trees anymore.  In all honesty, I don’t need to reach out to them anymore. Someone somewhere will pluck them and hand it over to me…. And if that doesn’t happen, I can blame it all on the proverbial glass ceiling. 

‘I have my back’ in more ways than one.

I am a woman – a minority

I am a woman – the weaker of the sex

I am a woman – I need affirmative action

I am a woman – Please have a good fortress

I am a woman – The boy’s club doesn’t grant me entry

Need I go on?????

Even a worm tries to rebel against the foot that tries to crush it.  And as women, we haven’t as yet rebelled against the slow and fading death of our inherent talent – our instinct.  I saved myself that day at the bus stop. Now can I save the instinct that saved me?  It makes me who I am and defines the very nature of my existence.

I opt for the gift that makes me be myself – my inherent intuition – a wisdom formed by feeling and gut. It’s a flair I have of knowing without reasoning. It’s my belief and a hope that nourishes my fire in the belly. It’s the sensation that tells me who to love and not, who to be with and not. When I love a man, I don’t measure his limbs; I just go out on a limb and do it. It gives me success in everything that I do, sometimes not. Nonetheless, both are mine – my successes and failures.  It is a strength that takes me away from being projected as a minority to that of being an individual. It is my affirmative action that secures my physical, mental, emotional and intellectual self.

Ignoring my gut is a decision, acknowledging it is instinct and by doing so I concede to its complexity and its purpose. I have my theme for the talk....

My instinct says that brickbats await me tomorrow. Nonetheless, shall play my cards that I have been dealt with…..

Political Ideology held captive!

It’s hardly a buyer’s market.  I walk into a super market to buy a shampoo and walk to the section marked ‘Cosmetics’. I want to buy the best – the one that will be accepted by all in the family AND economically viable AND makes me look pretty and feel sexy!!!  I see an array of branded shampoos, colorful bottles in different shapes and sizes, with appealing colors, and all priced differently. I attempt to understand its components. It hardly makes sense to me. I pick a handful of the well-known brands, check out their MRP and finally decide on the most economical, eye catching, and aroma appeasing of them all. I don’t know if it's good for me. I am not sure if I will develop an allergy and am completely unaware of its acceptance by the Gen Y at home. Nonetheless, I make my purchase and trudge along to the next section…. picking yet another product in pretty much the same fashion.  

It’s definitely not a seller’s market. The industry invests tons of money in local and global research & development; which in turn creates a range of products that qualifies for a hair splitting exercise. All products must be good (quality) AND high priced, AND fast selling … and last but not the least ensure a huge market share!!!!! So, we now have shampoos for dry hair, hair with split ends, oily tresses, damaged hair, and chemically treated hair, naturally curly hair… and so on. And all this is done for a majority of the population, which in all probability is completely oblivious and perhaps couldn’t even care of its hair texture. So, with limited knowledge of the consumer’s psyche we have tons of money spent on manufacturing of products that produce lather. Pretty much a bubbled dream ….

It is the death of purpose, the culmination of commitment to a cause…. Moreso, the end of Ideology – a situation prevalent in today’s less industrial and more knowledge based society; a condition that grips the psyche of the ordinary citizen, a status quo that signifies the death of change, a state of affairs that depicts the degeneration of humankind,….What’s deafening is the constant reference to its alleged existence; especially, with boisterous hypocrisy. One can watch it unfold, center-stage, spelling out the Brechtian mantra

“It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk”

 In political parlance, there is no longer at play a thought or a belief; however abstract or symbolic, attempting to explain the social, economic, or political realities at play. It is more a web of notions, cast(e) and recast(e), distorted for immediate gains, contrary to any reality that an ordinary citizen can relate to, and last but definitely not the least subject to false consciousness. 

A notion is now an ideology!!!!!!

The ordinary citizens tell themselves that welfare is important, governance primary, and development much needed. This is merely borrowed language, temporary at best, and hardly empirical. What is truly happening is a veiling of visceral and primal attitudes. Feel that primal pulse; define its origin, and what we see is fundamental faith leveraged and distorted by a certainty of power.

Campaign in poetry and govern in prose

The lyrics of CHANGE soon take shape to assorted and plagiarized text. How else can one explain the frivolity of Modi’s responses in the Times Of India?

Our Prime Ministerial candidate first takes Political ideology as hostage …

 “The use of the term Naxalism is outdated and incorrect. Maoism would be a more correct description”.  One cannot ignore the fact that it ‘Naxalism’ originated in India as a rebellion against lack of development and poverty at the local level; especially in Eastern India. It derives its name from that of a village ‘naxalbari’ in W Bengal where the movement originated and then spread to states like Chattisgarh, AP and Kerala. Maoism is a form of communist theory that is widely applied to political and military guiding ideology. It establishes a classless society and rebels against imperialism. Referring to Naxalism as Maoism is a slur on the fundamental ideology of the movement (as it originated). How else can one explain the symbiotic relationship between the naxals in interior Andhra and the government owned steel plants that provide employment to the locals? Is Mr Modi displaying his inability to understand history and its inherent significance or is he attempting to MODIfy it altogether by making it inherently insignificant?

The hostage is now held to ransom ….

“It goes without saying that pragmatic foreign policy has to be guided by an understanding of the ground realities. However, I think the people in Pakistan increasingly want to strengthen the democratic institutions in Pakistan”.  A country’s foreign policy consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals…. The operative word being IT’S! Hence, Mr Modi, the ground realities to be considered are that of India and not that of Pakistan!!! Are we vying for the position of the ‘leader of the world’ so that we can play arbiter to other 3^rd world nations?

The hijack is now justified and hence hardly any need for discussion.

“Everybody has a right to form opinions and to express them. However, where there is a difference of opinion on facts and matters of law; it is in everybody’s interest to let there be a finality of opinion with the judicial system”. This is perhaps his way of chartering the hijacked flight via Godra! Sir, by definition there cannot be a difference of opinion on FACTS. There can be interpretations of events, issues, incidents and definitely so on statistics. Please understand that facts are stubborn, statistics pliable.

The capture complete…

And so it goes on…. Be it comments on Agriculture, creating employment, defense spending, or the role of the RSS!  And amidst his well attired and bizarrely articulated political agenda, we hear him and the opposition play the caste card. The ordinary citizen applauds to both.  The captor jubilant, the captive secure!  It doesn’t really matter who is right. The enslaved is caught in the moral matrix of a cage and attempts to seek confirmation of the grand narrative everywhere. 

Just as I do….. I go looking for people who bought the very same shampoo as I did, people who agree with me that it is the best viable branded option in the market. They tell me that the shampoo gives me my hair a bounce and I smile! I feel complete. My identity (as a consumer or political) is not a series of choices I make, but a genetic mutation that is reflective of a Darwinian contest. I pick a product or a political identity to assert sophistication or perhaps to reflect that I am able to articulate a coherent worldview. I am, in reality, asserting a pre-determined conditioned cleverness and articulating a world view not my own. 

True, maybe Naxalism is Maoism! Perhaps Foreign Policy is for the ‘other’ and that there can be versions of facts. The nuances of these inaccuracies (or not) is lost in the flood of vocabulary and its threatening semantics.  Errors muffled, the captive rewrites history unaware of the shifting changes of a figurative line of control – created, devised, manipulated and implemented by the shifting sands of someone's political agenda!

Harass-me(a)nt is now a hyphenated word!!!

An Inference is an educated guess and I am going to indulge in that. Approximately, 54% of the population in India are farmers, close to 50% are women, and approx. 15% would constitute people employed in the Indian Railways, Air India, cab/ auto drivers, bus drivers, and government owned transport services. Now include the unemployed (by choice or not) and home makers and the aggregate would be close to 70% (give or take). We are denoting a mass that believes the nation and its country to be its ‘place of work’ and expects its leaders to deliver a safe, secure and hostile free working environment.... Fair?! 

I guess, yet again, that this is an unfair expectation. Given that we are unable to deal with terrorist attacks and belligerent neighbors, to resolve issues around murder, theft and scams and to keep our head afloat in a sinking economy; the assurance, to a farmer who tills the land to feed its people, of making available a workplace that is free of any banter is downright bizarre and far-fetched. All of the above-mentioned, like me, made the choice of living in a country that we refer to as our karma-bhoomi and day on day, in broad daylight are subjected to behavior that is unacceptable, inappropriate and unequivocally qualifies for harassment and sexual banter. In trying times, sacrifices need to be made and thus we will expense harassment at the altar of bigger evils.

April 2013 was the day when The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) ACT was passed. It was not a joyous moment for anyone; rather of relief. Every woman in India, can now dauntlessly voice her protest and it is a legal obligation for her employer to address it, either through the Internal or the Local Complaints Committee. The law protects me from any inappropriate comment and / or behavior from a colleague, a co-worker, a friend… and dare I say a stranger too. When someone known makes a comment that causes distress, it’s a breach of trust. When a stranger makes such a comment, he / she is making a private assessment of me, or for that matter of anyone, in public, it’s a breach of security. It makes me feel unguarded and unprotected – a sentiment that is perhaps experienced by the majority – the 70% who look at India as their work-place, their Karma Bhoomi! One wonders if there is any fundamental (mis)understanding of the issue at hand. Did we, as a nation, indulge in an ACT as a ‘means’ to turnaround the ‘polls at hand’? One wonders!!

The election campaign supported by a very active and raucous media has relegated decency to absurdity qualifying for a ‘mere discussion’!  It’s perfectly ok to refer to the President of a political party as an ‘alien’, it is presumably entertaining when a senior politician ponders on the marital status of his female colleague, and yet again a ‘point to ponder’ on why ‘the’ lady should don a sari specifically for election campaigning! The nation has been shredded by a ‘mother-son’ duo, a state is governed by an ‘arrogant butcher’, a ‘Patiala peg’ will decide how ‘Punjabi’ a person is, and certain people can very well be asked to relocate to Pakistan! Comments on individuals’ personal lives, their marital status, and their personal relationships are prerequisite fillers; make for interesting coffee conversations, and indispensable prime time debates. Observations come in plenty and are made with caustic verbiage. I guess, it shouldn't really matter, considering all and sundry are at it. Seemingly, that makes it right…. or maybe just OK!   Guess, it’s all part of the grand ACT!  

Today, the substantial 70% is casting its vote to elect a party, check that, an individual. This individual has blatantly and successfully played his / her part in creating a hostile work environment for the very same group that is going to elect him / her to the highest office in the world’s biggest democracy.  There is very little one can do about this because work places are boxed out images, are territorial spaces. They do not take into account geographies! The look of this 70% is mapped with bewildered unhappiness over a system that brazenly swamps its political arrogance over the presumed ignorant.

I moan my past: If I had just known as a child that no human being deserves to be belittled, perhaps, I would have fought back and reported harassment to my school principal, my basketball coach, or my parents too. It’s possible that I would have gathered courage to push back the bully on my own. But at that time, all I knew was that if I avoided eye-contact, ignored the behavior and displayed self-restraint; it would be a lot easier to get through the day.  

I critique my present: Very little has changed as of date. I am equipped with the understanding that my intellect is not just a form of damage control and that ignoring harassment is not seeking acceptance. I know that the law is allegedly on my side. Even so, I avoid eye-contact, ignore the banter, change the channel, turn to page 3, and thereby display the vanquished power of self-restraint.

I condition my future: I am the ‘presumed ignorant’ casting my vote with averted eyes…. My body, soul and intellect reflecting my situation. I have abandoned the most fundamental of my rights - Right to Dignity - for a life of hypocritical forbearance.

All this for the reason that I am protected, at home, at work, in a building (hospital, school, college etc)…..and on the street! By Inference, I am protected as long as the area is well defined in and confined to the ACT!

My nation, my country, my karma bhoomi is out of bounds…. !!!!!

BONDed Learning – All Shaken and Stirred!!!

I have watched and listened, with horrified silence, to innumerable conversations on the motives for learning (in the traditional sense of the term). And on every occasion that a request comes in to facilitate a training program, the motives shared have escalated in their ability to baffle one and all! India Inc. has transformed the learning function into a well-oiled, attention catching machine. Be it for rolling out a policy or a procedure, send out a tough message, to keep people occupied and last but not the least to keep employees away from their desks at “crucial times”  –  and the learning function has most often than not been able to rise up to the occasion. It’s a routine exercise! The customization of the program is primarily dependent NOT on the learner needs but on the client needs; and in this case, the organizational need. Hence, the knowledge acquired is precast, sensitized and censored and all this in a world where knowledge is freely available at the click of the internet button! OR IS IT????

It wasn't much of a surprise to me when a similar request came in today morning. Entertaining the muscle men from India INC has become pretty much a prefrontal cortex game. No surprises there! What started initially as a horrific revelation that we are swimming in a sea of contradictions has now graduated to a quiet and doddering acceptance of abandoning the mind, MY mind! Now, after all, aren't we surrounded by a plethora of such events? 

Guess what?! Learning is now an EVENT and we are all EVENT MANAGERS and I am a Learning Event Manager who hasn’t been able to convince this blockhead I have been speaking with (for the last couple of hours) that the 15 countries that constitute the Gulf is NOT the Middle East for India, but for the Western mind. Bring out the map and attempt to prove it to the logical mind and lo and behold, he reverts to the “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”! Happy Birthday Mr William Shakespeare... I am rewriting my own version of ‘Comedy or Errors’ where I paint myself as a character from Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 1) contemplating ‘to be or not to be’!

No, he doesn't have extended family working in Kuwait or Muscat! No, he doesn't enjoy the Dubai Shopping festival. No, he doesn't refer to any of the malls in or outside India as “Suk”! He is just the average Indian working in a MNC and has been told of the presence of his organisation in APAC (Asia Pacific), Americas, and EMEA (Europe, MIDDLE EAST and Africa). Aha, therein lies MY learning… Not etched on a map, not reflecting in commonsense but in the Induction manual and the site map of an organization.

‘Ok’… I said and decided to move on.

“You disagree?” pat came the reply. He looks at me with absolute bewilderment and a faint look of dismay that is more often than not best captured by our very histrionic Arnab Goswami. Our friend had replicated that look. His look seemed to suggest that I had committed a grievous sin. 

My faint attempt to shoot down our disagreement over the Middle East (just its name and not its existence) was a failure. I had to get out of this situation. There were far more important things to discuss! I was suffering a queer moment of utter ludicrous distress; a Pickwick flash– a moment when a person is panting, lying, sighing, crying, dying all at the same time; and amidst all this, with the fervent hope of displaying the characteristic of an educated mind (ahem) that entertains a thought without accepting it, I quipped “I need to process this bit of Information.”

Clearly, I was on the wrong side of the gun, yet again! “Process?! Whatever for? It says so right here in our manual. Check out the internet. Google refers to it as the Middle East” bellowed our very own version of Arnab. It was a bellow I will never forget. The last I heard it was when I laughed while driving through a fairly long tunnel. I had stopped laughing for a while after. Today I listened to the same sound pitched at a much higher decibel. I won’t laugh again for some time.  I watched his disbelief and listened to him spew the www and the http:// mantra.  He had been poured into his learning clothes and had forgotten to say when.  It was a downpour of education and he had forgotten to say stop either. I needed my escape hatch.

I smiled, batted my eyelids, relaxed my posture, bent ahead, and with all the calm that I could possibly gather went for the one final guillotine! “I so agree. We human beings need to know enough to open our mouth just to eat; but certainly no more. For the rest, I will leave it to Google.” The "I" did the trick. He smiled and relaxed for a moment tasting his sweet victory. 

Having addressed (or not) the issue at hand, we moved on to discussing the more important things in life, his life rather, like the designing of a learning ‘event’ on ‘Innovation at the workplace’… Yes …Innovation!!!!

He spoke, I heard. He interrogated, I responded. He smiled, I grimaced. He leaned back, I leaned in (not the Sheryl Sandberg lean in). He rested, I rusted. He different, me indifferent.  He crossed his arms ….. and I let go!

I am reminded of Wodehouse in Love among the Chickens: “I am not always good and noble. I am the hero(ine) of this story, but I have my off moments” 

“Ripped, Waned and Wrinkled Die-Nasty…."

There is a bizarre semblance detected in the Indian masses, our social media and the character of the fabled Rip Wan Winkle. They all rave, rant and do brouhaha when the water is pretty much under the bridge!!!!

Things are scarcely going good for the Congress Party. The grand old party started off with absolutely no plan or man (ahem woman too, considering it believes in their empowerment), no strategy, and no goal. At best, the bits and pieces of extrapolating their strategy is basis what one can gather from several interviews, headlines and articles staged by a decidedly idiosyncratic and belligerent social media with its own axe to grind. 

The stark absence of senior Congress leaders (the old guard), the deafening silence from the likes of Chidambaram, AK Antony, and Mani Shanker Aiyer, the visible faces of less influential and inexperienced leaders like Shashi Tharoor and Jairam Ramesh, the shelving of Pranab Mukherjee, the making of the president, the back door lip-serviced alliance with AAP, the release of “The Accidental PM”, the campaigning of Priyanka Gandhi in Amethi and Rae Bareli, the ho-hum interviews of and with RG, the matte finished lip service rallies .... the list goes on!  There is hardly any effort being made by the party to augment alliances and / or strengthen itself basis any of its past laurels. Last but not the least, the shocking comment from Amarinder Singh of giving ‘a clean chit to Jagdish Tytler is perhaps the last nail that the party needs to assemble its 2014 coffin!  He makes a comment on a televised interview on a Saturday and the distraught masses wake up late Monday morning to protest outside the AICC office which has kept mum since them.  Clearly, feelings like distress, a sense of being thwarted, and resentment take a back seat over the weekend and the weakened!  Am not sure if the Congress party buoyed by the media is arguing its way to prevail by doing the exact opposite of what the BJP expects it to do.

There is a pattern detected here – an insuperable aversion to any kind of rewarding labor that will aid them stay on in power. It doesn't take too long to logically deduce that the efforts put in are insufficient to win a national election. And thus the intriguing speculation – is this a plan good enough with the goal to win a defeat? This conjecture rings true than that of any other.   It’s best to scheme a loss while pretending to be in the game; than to make any efforts to win the 2014 elections!  It is a well couched victory solely spelled as a defeat?

The defeat of Rahul Gandhi at Amethi, and / or of Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli will perhaps be the signature of a well-orchestrated self-inflicted beating.  

So, what does the party have to gain with this victorious defeat? 

For one, it sews up its role as the key opposition in Parliament – albeit, a weak, slighted and feeble voiced opposition that the BJP and 24 of its disparate allies will have to deal with.  A parliament is a monolithic and (hopefully) homogeneous institution. The role of the opposition is primarily to offer political alternatives, and to articulate & promote interests of the voters. The congress party, in its present shape and structure lacks the IQ to effectively play this role. This inability could only further bolster the ruling party’s forte – its audacious high-brow aptitude!  One can only hope that this aptitude comes with some remnants of a sense of latitude, accommodation and common-sense when debating and deciding on the nation’s most complex and sensitive issues.  

With the BJP leading a NDA government, the country hopes for good governance in the area of Infrastructure, Finance, and perhaps Defense too. There is immense speculation and anxiety on Foreign Policy and Home. It’s best to stay tight-lipped on HRD and education. In a world governed by International Laws, the nation and the opposition will witness duelogues between the largest and the biggest democracies. The BJP’s opinion of our neighbors, its commitment (within the manifesto) to construct the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and the heavy-duty  influence of the RSS on its governance are all pretty much indicative of round 2 of an accidental PM; albeit in saffron.  ALL this is fodder for the Opposition!!!! The only tool that the opposition will need is a tart temper, a sharp tongue and an edged media – all of which it has aplenty.

The congress party now has a 5 year period to groom its Gen-Y.  The 10 years that Rahul Gandhi spent on learning instead of developing a vision and leading the party towards a victory will now be replaced by a 5-year period of learning for his sibling. It’s time for her to enter the fray.

The Hindustan Times predicted that the 2014 election stands poised to deliver big surprise and observed that the defeat of India's oldest political party and dynasty is a real moment of reckoning. Guess, the prediction and the comment is not true anymore. There will indeed be surprises; however, none of them big. A victory of India’s most feared (for fanatically propagating a Hindutva ideology) and insular party seems to be an absolute. The defeat of India’s oldest political party and dynasty is a given and NOT a moment of reckoning. The aftermath of the defeat is what is reckoning. It remains to be seen if this much speculated Plan B of the Congress party, that suffers from a lack of IQ and the old guard, will be successful. We can only wait and watch. What can guarantee a victory of Plan B is the ruling party’s (BJP's) complete and unmitigated lack of EQ. Narendra Modi’s ability to move the public is not sustainable.  Not every meeting will be a rally and not every decision secluded to the state of Gujarat.

…. Feel Free to Walk A(way)

It’s been over a day since I  witnessed a conversation on the most dialogued theme on Indian TV – POLITICS and India Election 2014; and amidst all the scramble that my brain tried to harness, there was this one bit that got me to shift my focus (literally and figuratively) to a moment from the past. I knew that the conversation reminded me of someone – an individual who I have so loved to hate. I grudgingly pulled out the volume to reread one of my favorite parts from Atlas Shrugged. It’s the scene where Ragnar Danneskjold (a modern day pirate) meets Hank Rearden on a road at night and hands him a bar of gold, returning some of the money that the government has stolen from Rearden over the years.  Ragnar proceeds to explain that he’s not there to ask for money but to return it. The following excerpt pairs nicely with the conversation I witnessed on TV yesterday and to a reference of Mr Modi’s quick exit (3 min 32 secs!!!) from being interviewed by Karan Thapar.

 “I thought that I had seen everything one could see and that there was nothing I could not stand seeing. But when they took Rearden Metal away from you, it was too much, even for me. I know that you don’t need this gold at present. What you need is the justice which it represents, and the knowledge that there are men who care for justice.”

Struggling not to give in to an emotion which he felt rising through his bewilderment, past all his doubts, Rearden tried to study the man’s face, searching for some clue to help him understand. But the face had no expression; it had not changed once while speaking; it looked as if the man had lost the capacity to feel long ago, and what remained of him were only features that seemed implacable and dead. With a shudder of astonishment, Rearden found himself thinking that it was not the face of a man, but of an avenging angel.

“Why did you care?” asked Rearden. “What do I mean to you?”

“Much more than you have reason to suspect….

“Did you say that you’ve spent a long time collecting this money for me?”

“I have collected much more than this.” He pointed at the gold. “I am holding it in your name and I will turn it over to you when the time comes. This is only a sample, as proof that it does exist. And if you reach the day when you find yourself robbed of the last of your fortune, I want you to remember that you have a large bank account waiting for you.”….

 “How did you collect it? Where did this gold come from?”…

 “Who are you?”

“Ragnar Danneskjold.”

Rearden looked at him for a long, still moment, then let the gold fall out of his hands.

Danneskjold’s eyes did not follow it to the ground, but remained fixed on Rearden with no change of expression. “Would you rather I were a law-abiding citizen, Mr. Rearden? If so, which law should I abide by?..

“Ragnar Danneskjold…” said Rearden, as if he were seeing the whole of the past decade, as if he were looking at the enormity of a crime spread through ten years and held within two words.

“Look more carefully, Mr. Rearden. There are only two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either.”

“You chose to live by means of force, like the rest of them.”

“Yes—openly. Honestly, if you will. I do not rob men who are tied and gagged, I do not demand that my victims help me, I do not tell them that I am acting for their own good. I stake my life in every encounter with men, and they have a chance to match their guns and their brains against mine in fair battle. Fair? It’s I against the organized strength, the guns, the planes, the battleships of five continents. If it’s a moral judgment that you wish to pronounce, Mr. Rearden, then who is the man of higher morality: I or Wesley Mouch?”

“I have no answer to give you,” said Rearden, his voice low.

“Why should you be shocked, Mr. Rearden? I am merely complying with the system which my fellow men have established. If they believe that force is the proper means to deal with one another, I am giving them what they ask for. If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property—let them come and get it.”

The world we live in today is not free in any sense of the term. We are born, we live and we die and amidst this cycle are spent countless moments defending and/or championing our stance / view point / opinions to all and sundry.  The only way to deal with an unfree world is perhaps to become so absolutely free that my very existence is reflective of an act of rebellion. Mr Modi’s decision to walk out of that interview was an act of rebellion.

I hate Mr Modi’s authoritarianism, feel repulsed by the fact that he has not taken responsibility for Godra, and cringe at his hate speeches. Nonetheless, I have paused (albeit for a second) to wonder if he is trying to make a statement?! And if he is, guess therein – in that very statement –is exemplified the definition of definitive and decisive politics.

I have taken utmost pride in the fact that we, as a nation, are foremost a Republic and then a democracy. We choose our leader and earnestly hope that he/ she will display wisdom. For that wisdom to be at play in its purest and most sincere form is the prerequisite of freedom of thought for that one man/ woman. Mr Modi, like Ragnar Danneskjold, perhaps in his own abhorrent way was saying to the likes of Karan Thapar.. “If they believe that my mind is their property – let them come and get it”!

Sigh… Shrug… Shrug…… !!!!

(Now)here Nirvana!!!

I guess I finally have an answer to the question that has been so often asked ...."A PhD in the area of Science Fiction? Really? Whatever for?!” Some questions have no tangible answers and this to me has always been one of them. I thought I had exhausted them all till today!!! From ‘PKD being my favorite Sci-Fi writer’ to ‘I have been stuck in a time warp of my own’, have given them all! Today is my day of enlightenment….

I am an alien from Pluto and thus my obsession with Sci Fi!!! I have been told (at least from the book titles) that Men are from Mars and Women from Venus. Well, let me break the news to you today… I am from Pluto – the planet whose orbit ostensibly is so extended that it crosses the orbit of another planet. Now presumably that is something you are not allowed to do; especially if you want to call yourself a planet (sic). There is something so offensive about that!!!!!!! I have crossed the line, jumped orbits and guess that also explains the wander lust in me.

So, it all begins with my journey to work today. Have you ever tried to make sense of how people cross the road in India? Well, it’s like nowhere else. The temptation is always to look the other way of the oncoming traffic. The intent is to turn away from disaster! So we have women charging across the road (you can’t growl at their butt) with children on toe with the single minded determination of getting to school on time (you can’t display anger at innocent indifference). Young couples, hand in hand, eye in eye, sailing on the tide of time (your heart bleeds to disturb two people so much in love). Old men and women who strongly believe that the zebra crossing should move with them (senior citizens I guess is the word for them)… and last but not the least the young college student who believe that diagonal is the rule of the land (why why Gen Y?). None of the above mentioned look AT you! I read somewhere that the pessimist is the one who looks both ways (even on a one way street) when crossing the street and the optimist is the one who looks the “other” way when crossing a one way street. We are a land full of optimists. We survive issues, problems, disasters, catastrophes …. We look the other way and do it with absolute confidence and trust in the almighty.

Navigating through the numerous optimists, I walk in to work with the almost quixotic passion that grips me most of the time only to see that someone was “mildly agitated” at a comment I made at a women’s leadership forum. The thought of what agitated her was not as intriguing as the reference to her state of mind. How can one be ‘mildly’ agitated? The law of the binary continues to befuddle me. The thought that disturbed her was my remark that we do not reside in a ‘male dominated society’!  “The notion that a successful woman doesn’t view the society as being male dominated is disconcerting”… or so she quips.  Since she was so sure that my views were contrary to reality, am confused on why she equated my gender and /or my successful career to a notion!!!!

I like pink, fancy expensive underclothes, love diamonds and babies, curious about pornography, do not care if I am objectified, love men, thrive on their attention, like sex and am not career focused. So, yes, I am not a feminist. I do not believe in this tension that so grips most women – the pressure to simulate the “idea of the right essential woman” who is struggling to survive in a so-called male dominated society!

I strongly believe that we (men and women alike) are struggling towards our own definition of self-actualization and in this pursuit tend to give birth to half-truths that have a way of authenticating themselves. Perhaps the world is dominated (at best, statistically speaking) by men. However, that doesn’t make them controlling in its entirety.  And again in this pursuit to prove this half-truth, many women seem to inadvertently become the men they want to marry thereby snowballing the notion of domination. 

We are like the people who I bumped into this morning – crossing the road by looking the other way.  We just need a higher and different perspective to cross over by looking at the oncoming traffic in its eye!