Category: Society & Culture

  • Deserving vs Reserving

    In movie halls, flights and trains, restaurants etc, there are those who are fighting for space at the last minute, and there are those who calmly walk in and take their seats… the latter deserve to do so, because they had the foresight to reserve the space .. the point to note here is that both sets of people started out on square one, some before the other, and that made the difference.. and so everything is fair.. now, if someone in the late entry set got in by just knowing the right people, thats perhaps unfair…
    and so, if we apply the same scope for reservations in the educational/ job system,. everything would be fair if everyone started from square one.. but that isnt the case, and so it makes sense to reserve places to level the scales… but what if, over a period of time, the reservations have done their job and further addition would start tipping the scale against those who normally occupied square one.. thats exactly what is happening… and that perhaps is unfair, because the regular folks havent gotten there by unfair means…
    and so perhaps it would be a good time to go back to square one, examine it and define it properly so that reservation is done only for people who are eligible even after multiple filters are put in, and since i am no expert, i can think only of socio-economic conditions as the key parameter… there have been too many changes these past few years for caste to be made a criterion.. a case in example would be that the erstwhile ‘upper castes’ in kerala are in a much poorer condition than the so called ‘lower castes’…
    it is absolutely fair that a person should not miss the chance of an education and a good life just because he doesnt have the finance for it… but in the same breath, it is absolutely unfair that a person should cede his right just because he made the most of his adequate finances and worked hard…there is an argument i made quite sometime back on the subject of meritocracy… if educationis the key to a better life, then, judging people by their intelligence levels is also perhaps unfair.. for only so much of intelligence is self gained, most of it is installed without our having a say in it… and so we are back to the theory of survival of the fittest.
    until next time, who is fit to decide what is ‘fit’ ?

  • Papa Preach!!

    It must be because all of us are around the same age, or maybe its the template way of our existence.. anyways, have recently read at least 3-4 posts that have to do with parents’ retirement.. and again due to the typical way of our existence, its mostly dads who are written about… also interesting are the comments, that in some way identify with the situation…
    while i do agree that retirement in some way creates a void in life thats difficult to replace, i have also begun to think that the above set of dads have achieved more than what we have, or will… and thats perhaps the better way to look at it…
    They have the respect of their sons, daughters.. they have settled themselves well, and even provided for their children.. they may perhaps have never known a career crisis… and they are proud of the work they have accomplished in their career…they havent worked so hard that they never had time for the little joys in life.. they have passed on a value system to their next generation..they can look back and say that they did justice to their parents, in terms of time and attention..
    yes, they might offer you advice that you wouldn’t follow, and bore you with what they did and how, but that, i guess is a nice way of knowing about a way of life that once was…
    until next time, father figures…best

  • Marginal Utility

    I can see all those with a fair knowledge of economics arch their eyebrows upward :).. to confess,i dont know it in depth… all i remember is the ‘orange’ example… and so (for the benefit of those who dont know the theorem) here goes, the satisfaction you gain by eating oranges decreases with each orange that you eat… and orange was only an example (for those who dont like oranges, and those who dont eat more than an orange at a time, i dont think you were considered while formulating the theory)… well, now since everyone is on the same page, the reason for the reference is to do with happiness… does the law of diminishing marginal utility apply to happiness..
    i faintly remember the prof saying that it was only applicable to (thats when i slept off..)….and so, i will humor my thought… even though happiness can come through different sources -listening to good music, an appreciative comment, good food, pay hike, doing a good deed, landing a good job, a good spouse and so on and so forth, could it be that our chances of deriving happiness out of something- anything, could be decreasing.. if not chances, at least the amount of happiness that we derive…
    if we keeping getting all the things that make us happy, maybe we start failing to appreciate them, which is perhaps what is happening to us right now… with so much of currency floating around, EMIs and credit card swipes may have changed the way we look at happiness, and made ‘happiness’ more easy, to the extent that even happiness is commoditised… maybe thats exactly whats wrong…
    until next time, laws are meant to be broken…

  • Breaking news….

    Its not exactly breaking news that the media industry is looking at a phenomenal boom in the next few months.. and thats across the verticals – print, radio, television and so on..which raises the question of how much ‘news’ acually happens in the world on a daily basis.. is it so much that the existing entities are not enough to make sure that all of it reaches the world, and if not, then what justifies the mushrooming of more of their kind? which is, i guess, when we get into creation of news, sting operations and overall sensationalising of trivia.. when a malayala manorama in kerala would carry the ‘news’ that your neighbour’s cow broke its tether and damaged your fence, and NDTV would get its video footage and classify it as ‘Breaking news’.. you would be happy, so would your neighbour, since any publicity is good publicity.. but will i, sitting hundreds of kilometers away and not having any specific interest in bovine revolutionary tactics, be interested in the news? i guess not..
    the argument would be that ‘you dont like it, dont watch it’, but what if all the channels/publications think its worthy news, what option does that leave? nothing, and sadly we have only ourselves to blame, because we are less interested in reading/seeing Chidambaram’s fiscal policy than Nigar Khan’s physical policies…
    but what prompted me to think about this entire trip was manorama’s week long front page coverage of the death of a malayali in afghanistan.. isnt that exactly what the terrorist group would want? extensive media coverage and a sublimal building of fear in the citizens? on a parallel note, a murderer would get much more prominence in coverage than a guy who might have saved a life..
    by creating sensations out of every possible trivia that happens in every remote corner, isn’t the media encouraging a whole lot of wrong things? there is a thin line between right to information and right information, and it takes a lot of maturity to walk the line…and so it aint so strange after all that lives full of trivia would slowly but surely get converted into trivial lives, for who wouldnt want their 15 secondsof fame?

    until next time, what news??

  • Twins

    After putting aside concepts like love and money, perhaps the two most important things in life would be the marriage and the career… and if you put a lil bit of thought to it, there are some striking similarities..
    Both are things that you get to hear about early in life, but get to experience only at a relatively later stage.. and you get to hear about it from anyone who’s remotely elder to you.. there are so many versions… and when its happening to you, everyone has an interest in it and an advice to give on it… and anything ‘different’ from the norm is usually met with a frown…
    in both cases, there are roughly two paths you can take – one that you want to do due to your desire and aspiration, and the other thats financially and socially seen as ‘safe’..in both the cases,the exceptions are also similar… you might want to be a doctor/engineer etc and you get to do exactly that.. and you happen to love a girl/guy who meets all the conditions and succeeds in all the parameters that are set out by those who are supposed to decide your fate – parents, relatives etc, and can therefore marry him/her without a problem.. whether the path has been by choice or forced on one, both perhaps require a certain amount of compromise.. you might end up liking the career you had no specific interest initially, and you might end up liking your arranged spouse..in both the cases, you might realise after a point of time, that it is no longer what you want, and there’s something or someone else that you really want to spend your time and energy on..and yes, getting fired in both cases, is a pain….
    you want to maintain that correct balance between both, and yes, most importantly, you expect both to be some kind of anchor in your life, and to derive some joy out of the experiences..and like everything else, you know that both have to end, at some point of time..
    until next time, identical or non identical??