Forbidden mockery,a new weapon in the arsenal

Aseem Trivedi

Did you know that sometimes IIT’ians do care about their country.Trust me they do love their country.The reason why many of them (including me) aspire to work outside their country is purely because of two reasons:

(a) Poor Girl:Boy ratio at IIT’s which makes them think that they can find chicks(girls) in shores of foreign nature

(b) Futile systems that have ridiculously complex rules beyond comprehension

The first point might be an exaggerated fact because IIT guys do find good chicks in the campus,if not through the year, atleast during the Moodi fest.The second point is about how immature the systems in place are.Of course the creator of the system is not to blame because when the system was created it was created to the best of the creator’s knowledge and times and it catered to most of the problems known to have existed.The reason why great systems fail and crumble because the guardians of the systems who succeed the system administration fail to realise the importance of one crucial thing that rules every natural systems across the universe. EVOLUTION or rather CHANGE.

The guardians of the system try to protect the system in it’s original form and resist change which is why systems fail to address new problems that arise with changing times.Hence, disruption happens and the old system is destroyed and a new order is created.The new system in place runs without problems for a while and then when times change , problems change and hence the system starts to irk the people.Most of the people stay quite and silently watch the fall without realising that they are also in the sinking ship.But some people raise voice against the system and a new order is created.Like this, the cycle of creation and destruction continues.

Assem Trivedi seems to be one of those who does realise that the ship is sinking and has dared to raise his voice.But he had to gone to the extent of insulting the nation by insulting the emblem(because silent prayers and humble requests doesn’t seem to be working anymore), but his intentions were purely to cleanse the dirty corruption; I do not know if going to forbidden limits will be a new norm in revolutionary’s and activist’s arsenal ; if that is so, a new world is waiting for all of us, but , before that we have to face the destruction of the current world order. Let’s get ready for the ride !!!

If CHANGE is difficult to incorporate in the making of a durable and  sustainable system atleast try to mimic the systems made by nature which have failed-to-fail even after million years of existence.

Following was one of the facebook stati of mine during my curriculum project during which I realised a fundamental difference between the way GOD and GAME DESIGN COMPANIES design their games(worlds/systems)

“God(atheists read god as  nature) created amazingly-complex world with stunningly-simple rules, but , we humans fail to beat God in creating worlds because we tend to create stupidly-simple worlds with ridiculously-complex rules”

Independence Day , what it means to kids

When I was a kid,I used to watch the only television channel then Doordarshan which on 15th August had the following line-up of programs.

• Patriotic Manoj Kumar Songs
• Prime-Minister’s unfathomable speeches by Prime-Minister of India from Red-Fort
• A Regular movie ‘Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi’ which Doordarshan used to telecast on following days Aug15,Oct 2,Jan 26 and Jan 30

Me being the kid who grew up in the 90’s the above set of programs were enough to instill patriotic feelings atleast for the day.The last episode of patriotism that came in my life was in 1997 the 50th year of Independence when I saw the “Independence 50” sticker in cars,handpulled ricksaws,trams ,metro trains (I was in Calcutta that time),autos and many places wherever stickers can be pasted.The song that captivated the nation during that time was ‘Vande Matram’ by A.R.Rahman.I don’t know how much impact it made on other people but as a teenager I was deeply impacted by that song.

Unfortunately that was the last episode of deep patriotism in me as I was introduced to the concepts of ‘Internationlism’ and about various cultures across the world by my History teacher.Before that the only cultured nation I knew was INDIA.The definition of CULTURED was very clear and simple in mind then, it’s rather more vague and in a state of chaos right now !!

After I moved to college and got a job in an MNC , the concepts of patriotism faded into my childhood memories.Today I feel the concepts of NATIONALISM and PATRIOTISM are just phases in the human history .I believe the international borders will fade away to give give way for a new world order called HUMANITY, the seeds of which are already taking shoots in the form of Human Rights , Globalism , Internet etc etc

Today Morning I woke up and as usual I started checking my tweet stream , blog statistics , mail and some technology news.After a while I came out for getting some fresh air and I saw something infront of my appartments which reminded me of my childhood activities which I did every Aug 15 and sometimes on Aug 26 as well.

After watching the flag-hoisting at school by our school principal and having sweets and ladoos distributed by the school prefects,I used to make paper-flags and hoist it on my table.The quality of flags underwent the following enhancements each year.

• Hand-made Tricolor in paper with one side blank,hoisted on a single-wick of broomstick
• Hand-made Tricolor in paper with color on both the sides
• Hand-made Tricolor in paper with color on both sides and the pole of the flag(broomstick) painted in white
• Hand-made Tricolor in paper with color on both sides and the pole pasted with white paper and an intricate mechanism for hoisting it.(pull the rope at the bottom and the flag goes up)

I never made a flag with cloth because I grew up by then and patriotism had faded away.On one Independence day , I even made a British flag and burnt it infront of the Indian flag hoisted on my table.(this was probably the flag version of the silly GI-JOE toy games I used to play)

Today after so many years,I saw similar thing by the kids from our appartments was really nice to see.A paper flag hoisted on a giant pole by a group of small kids from age 3 to 7.I didn’t have the usual 8 megapixel DIGICAM nor my 2 megapixel camera mobile to capture the snap.I have to borrow my dad’s mobile and take the snap.

Really nice to see such Hand-Made Paper Flags even today.