doesn't freedom reveal the true random nature of life?
doesnt both- the best of talents and the worst of mundane lives- prosper given complete independence in choosing one's own way of life?
isn't it obvious that bondage not only destroys lives but also entire nations?
simply put, why is US, US; and why is India, India?
questions like these flashed across my mind as i was watching "A Beautiful Mind" with JILU and VIJAY at his place 2 weeks back. the movie is splendidly made and the screen play and the performance by Russel Crowe simply stupefied me. i come back home after a nights stay at thiruvanmiyur, have a bath and sit down in front of the computer to do the routine chking of mails to see if there is any news from the univs i apped. my mom comes and stands next to me, "you jus came home... wat are u doing?"
"chking if i got funding from any university"
"why dont u jus stay here and do MBA like ur friends?"
this is probably the 100000000000000th time she asked me that question. ofcourse, i love my mom more than anyone else on this planet , but then i must admit that even she is a part of the system which sees idealism in monotonicity- a system which i have begun to hate.
given that life is an awgn ( http://gskg.bravejournal.com/entry/15811 ), which we may also interpret as "life is unfair", implies that not everyone is given equal oppurtunity by birth(some ppl are born rich, some ppl are not etc. ) but people strive toward that 'equalness' -the d/dt of life is made positive with effort. that is the nature of life is 'capitalist' but we strive for socialism.
the indian society, over its course of evolution, has found a unique way of realizing this- a very bad way at that. it has started fighting this gaussian nature by creating self centered money making machines out of its own people. the terrible results of this war on nature is right in front of us...
since its commission in 1901, US has been generating about 2-3 Nobel Laureates ( in sciences ) A YEAR, while 2-3 nobels prizes is what india got in all... why?
US tops almost EVERY SINGLE olympic medals tally in the history of the games, while we can count the number of medals india has ever bagged... why?
by being random, life bestows varied skills and capabilities among men and women. and it is upto them to identify the same and pursue their destiny. but our society tries to bring everyone under the roof of a single means of living- one which seems to have market value at that time. unlike common perception, money seems to have bigger say in india than US... we have come out to being better capitalists than them after all!
soon after independence, the middle class in india cultivated a craze for government jobs since they assured security in a nascent and fragile economy. soon after, studying law became the lingua franca. then came B.Com and the jobs in bank. with the IT boom in 90s, the whole educated population got dumped in the consultancy companies. now MBA... the only common opinion which has persisted all through these generations is that anyone who diverges away from this mainstream is considered a fool, an out caste, not only by the society but also his own family.
parents discourage their kids if they want to be some one like a sachin tendulkar, an irfan patan, a kamala malleshwari and yes, even an abdul kalam. the sole reason abdul kalam is popular among masses today is that his name is used by parents to tempt their kids to study while they are in school... ONLY while they are in school. once out of it, they are pushed into the 'best' stream of engineering no matter what college, after four years, they are asked to join 'best' company, and then, if possible shift jobs or do a course on management to get the 'best' salary, do the 'best' job of signing papers all day whether u like it or not, marry, save money for family, have kids, tell them about Abdul Kalam, make them study, then make them take the 'best' stream of engineering...
immaterial of what americans do out of their country, they stick to their consititutional resolution of sustaining absolute freedom inside. each and everyone is allowed to do whatever shit out of their lives as they want. and it is here where we get to see talents shining. me and SEEKU (the math geek of the class) were discussing about the same on msnger the other day and i was saying, "99.9999999% of the people in US seem to be dumb da, it is the remaining 0.0000001% who are unusually successful in life and who dictate terms for the rest of the world".
SEEKU: "thats not the way to look at it da... it is because the very few truly inspired ppl who like to do challenging work like physics etc have the freedom to do wat they want in US, they get so successful"
meaning... if we try to plot the whole population against their level of motivation we would get a gaussian curve with very less spread. that is very highly motivated people with great potential would constitute a very narrow region ... the rest, vast majority (the region near the mean of the curve) would be contend with normal life and get into the main stream . while in US, this curve is atleast maintained so if not flattened by filtering out the gems, it is made sharper in india, by demotivating the motivated and pushing more and more people into the mean. true, there are very few people who are really capable, but that minority seems to be sufficient to build a whole nation like US.
when people love their job, it infuses dignity into the profession as a whole. why is then professionalism so rampant in US whether it is management, business, research or even politics, while its scarce in india? the study of management was born in the classrooms of Harvard with the aim of producing professionals who could create wealth. iim graduates in india on the other hand accumulate wealth rather than creating it. professors in the US keep striving hard to prove themselves time to time (ofcourse that has created problems of plagiarism there but thats a different story ) while those in india wait for the bell to ring so that they can go home.
last week when MOKSHAM, the radical and essentially the mokkai god of the class, came over to my place, our usual mokkai gave way to this discussion and he observed that "only thing the people in US have to fight is themselves, but in india, people have to fight the society in addition". but being a strong supporter of the indian way of life, he said, "the system in US though good for 'good' people is very bad for the others... people there ruin their lives in drugs and sex becoz they are give freedom". true, and that is where the true nature of life is revealed. educating the ill effects of bad habits such as these is what a society can and must do. the rest is up to the individual to accept it or not. are there no drug addicts in india? infact repression fosters more defiance than otherwise. sex... well, we claim to be a very purist society where people never speak about sex in public. but rather, we are obsessed with it 24x7. while a simple "no" stops a man from making any further attempts over a woman in US, eve-teasing is the favorite pass time for many in india.
when given a choice between wats easy and wats right... it is basic human tendency to accept the former... and thats wat most ppl do. the society would do good by encouraging those who venture into choosing the latter. unfortunately india is the land of, by and for stereotypes. John Nash was lucky in that he had only schizophrenia to deal with... had he been born in india, he would have been put in a mental asylum the day he told his parents he gonna study BSc Math after school!
The ten commandments of 'ideal life' in India:
1. Thou shall study that which, given current circumstances, yield maximum income.
2. Thou shall not pursue sports more than just a hobby
3. Thou shall join that company which ensures maximum job security
4. Thou shall not venture into start-ups
5. Thou shall not go into research or any such profession for which the "income/hours-at-work" ratio is poor.
6. Thou shall work with the sole reason of sustaining and keeping your family happy
7. Thou shall not spend more time, than that considered necessary by the authority concerned, at work
8. Thou shall extract maximum money out of minimum work
9. When the situation demands, thou shall bend, and may be even break rules to incur monetary or non monetary benefits for you and your family.
10. Thou shall, to the maximum extent possible, leave problems at work for others to solve
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6 comments:
>>when given a choice between wats >>easy and wats right... it is basic >>human tendency to accept the >>former... and thats wat most ppl do.
i was chatting with a friend about our lack of originality in many things and i said something similar... (this time about indians alone)
given mediocrity and corruption, we are used to selecting the former... but put in a position where mediocrity can't be accepted, we tend to go for corruption.. that's my theory.
Everything is right! ideally this is what is taking place in India and US respectively. But I feel that you are against the Indian people way of life, primarily because you are an Indian. I have seen many people not accepting, what they belong to, as best. I heard many foreigners saying that the Indian way of life may best suit them.
Well, in some way I accept that there are many faults in the Indian way of life. But there also many advantages. You have written this blog from the freedom perspective.
1. Why dont you find a fault in the life after marriage of an ordinary US citized?
2. Have you considered the number of people in US becoming poor just by paying to their previous wives?
3. Have you compared the number of durg addicts or people indulging in sex between US and India? Well in US it may go unnoticed but not in India.
Well this list can go on....
But atlast I completely agree on what have you written in one perspective but I also respect some of the things happening in India compared to US!
passionate blog da... actually started to comment on it. but too many ideas have come sprouting out that i've decided to write a blog on a similar topic myself.
hi
There is a bit of the "grass is greener on the other side..." in this essay.
India has gone through several years of invasions, oppressions and now population explosion. Given those factors it is quite understandable why people tend to favor the easy or well-trodden paths to attain economic and social norms. One could quote from Maslow's Theory where Indian society as a whole is still involved in fulfulling Safety needs before higher level needs can be encouraged.
But India is forging along with rapid developments. In fact one could say that leaving India for other pastures (USA) can also be seen as taking the easy way out and forging a different kind of stereotype.
Things are not so rosy in the USA in other areas. The number of lonely seniors in retirement homes is increasing day-by-day. Divorce rates of 50%, increasing numbers of children from single homes, and a spiritual vacuum could be prices societies may have to pay for that "individualism".
These are things to ponder.
A thought provoking article.
The fact that Indian society prefers to choose financially secure means of living, which are usually stereotypes like an MBA etc might be true to certain extent and this is acting against our progress.
But, the point you are missing here is that each one of those americans might not have had a wonderful childhood with loving parents as you had.
There is no dearth of passionate people in India. Beyond a certain age you are the master of your life. The only constraint in Our society is money, which leads to corruption and hence the results. Watever be the case if you are passionte about something, there is no stopping..
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