Did you vote??

                So it’s the big day today! The general elections for the 15^th Lok Sabha start today. Only once every five years do we get this chance. Only once every five years do we get to exercise this right. Only once every five years are we called forth to complete this duty. So, have you voted yet? If you have, congratulations. 

If you haven’t, well you still have the whole day left in front of you but maybe you should not wait that long should you? After all, if you shun away from this duty, you lose the right to complain for the next five years. For the next five years, you have no right to complain about the apathy of the government to your problems. For the next five years, you have no right to call yourself a part of the Indian Democracy just because you did not take part in the most important part of this Democracy and failed to cast your vote. For the next five years, you are a guest in the Indian Democracy and you may have just overstayed your welcome. You might want to reconsider your decision while there's still some time left.

The Election Commission of India finally got something right!!!! Think about it. With this minor change in the procedure this year, you stand getting the Finger for the next five years if you fail to cast your vote today. . . .

Reality Shows. How real are they?

Ok so my dear Laksh, here goes your essay! Reality TV serials. Well the first thing that we remember when we talk about reality TV shows is the question as to how real they are. What started off as a sincere attempt to include real characters in the shows has been marred by rising demands for more TRP, increasingly flaring tempers and contestants challenging the very format of the shows. We have also witnessed a dramatic shift in the way these shows are handled. The base line is, one wonders what’s so real about reality shows these days!! Be it the idiosyncrasies on Big Brother or the constant bickering on Splitsvilla. Be it the contestants challenging the judges’ decisions on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa or the worthless quality of Indian Idol. Where is the reality?

                There’s one good thing in it for the movie producers though! The gargantuan number of reality shows being aired means there is no dearth of an episode in which the stars of a new movie cannot become guest judges and rather than judging the contestants, go on chattering about the movie and create free publicity about the film. Interestingly though, such movies hardly tend to make a mark on the box office!!

                Another uniting factor in these reality shows is how soon they divert from the main topic. A dance show, for example, will take only a couple of episodes to start showing the way the dancers rehearse and how they take the rehearsals seriously and what not. Do they really think that we will fall for that? And why is every show always about the trials and tribulations of the contestants? Why can’t there be happy times for them as well? How come they express their ugliest emotions only when they are on camera? How come the cameramen always manage to get the perfect shot each and every time? How does he manage to get so many different types of shots of the same precise moment so that you get zoom in, zoom out, right pan, left pan, sepia tones, black & white effects and God knows how many effects in those same moments? Are these effects stage managed?

                It really baffles me when the judges start fighting amongst themselves. This is one aspect of reality shows that I have never really been able to grasp. Why is there a consistent difference of opinion among the judges regarding the performances? Why is it that these differences are always shown on TV? I fail to understand why they are not edited out. Has TRP become so dependant on controversies? Why don’t you people try to get some quality in the shows just for a change? Why don’t you get rid of the controversies just for a change? Why don’t you try to make just one clean, pure episode just for the sake of the brains of the viewers?

                One more thing. What is this affinity that you have for viewer votes? Don’t you have confidence on your own judges? If that’s the case, why don’t you change them? Don’t you have confidence on your own choice of judges and participants? Why do you run a show where you yourself are confused? Just to get people involved, you introduce such rotten concepts. It’s your show isn’t it? Introducing such polls gives the participants a golden chance to purchase dozens of SIM cards themselves and put in thousands of votes for themselves! What’s the use of keeping the polls in that case? The number of votes as such does not represent the number of viewers and you know that. Why are you kidding yourselves? Why do you think that shouting the fallacy at the top of your voices has the potential to make it a reality?

                All this puts a question mark on the credibility of these shows. You say they are reality shows. Ask yourself this one question: Are you sure? Are you certain that these shows are real? Are you certain that’s the level of your creativity? If yes, do you really think you are in the right place? Frankly speaking, I am not so sure. That may be one of the many reasons why I don’t care for any of these reality shows. You check your own premises.

Cricket meets Terrorism.

Don’t we have enough problems to deal with already??? That was my reaction at 11AM today when I turned on the news channels and got the news that the Sri Lankan team had been attacked. The fact that the Indian team was supposed to be there originally and the Sri Lankan team was a last minute replacement is enough to chill the bones. The team bus of Sri Lanka which was taking the team to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore was ambushed by 12 terrorists who fired nearly 40-50 bullets at the bus injuring 6 players. They also attacked the Umpires’ car injuring one of the umpires. The reply: all 12 managed to escape unhurt. Though 6-8 policemen laid down their life, not even a single terrorist could be apprehended, let alone shot down. They came, they shot, they conquered and they moved on. All the Lahore police top brass could manage was to praise the Lahore police for preventing any player from being killed. Well sirs that was not your efficiency!! That was the inefficiency of the terrorists who forgot to pull the pin of the grenade they threw under the bus. Had they succeeded, the whole bus would have been blasted to smithereens. The terrorists have again showed that nothing is impossible for them and their actions are only subject to their own whims and fancies alone. An intelligence report prompted a change of route taken by the cavalcade from the hotel to the stadium but even that failed to deter the terrorists. This just goes on to indicate how deep their information sources are placed and how fast they can alter their plans for a successful strike. As far as this match was concerned, the terrorists clean bowled the Lahore police. To put it in other words, on the basis of the intelligence report, the Lahore police tried a Googly but the terrorists hit them for a six! (Ironically, exactly 6 Lankan players were injured).

It now remains to be seen what action is taken in this regard. ICC is already mulling the possibility of blacklisting Pakistan. It is obvious that there may not be any further tours by any team to that country. What remains to be seen is what action is taken against the terrorists. Are they left alone like their countless brothers or are they going to be hunted down? What can India do in this regard? For quite some time now, the attitude of Pakistan in the Mumbai terror has come under severe criticism. Now, do we continue to deride them for their statements or do we finally take matters into our own hands? Do we wait for the “very efficient” Pakistan to counter the threat or do we step up ourselves and eliminate them once and for all? Do we still wait for US to take on the Big Brother role once again or do we take up that role ourselves? Pakistan acts as a buffer for us against the Afghans they say. I say, why doesn’t the international community eliminate them as well? Why don’t we finally have peace in the region that has been plagiarized for decades by the same old problem? Why do we still want to allow weeds to grow in our garden? Please, for God’s sake, wake up to the reality. Diplomacy got us this far. Give direct action a chance now. Its now or never…

There come the elections

Frankly Speaking… This blog has been my anger venting point from the day I started this. For the last few posts, this blog has taken a sharp anti-terror turn and has not touched any new subject. This entry is an attempt to broaden the base of this blog and also to focus on some of the other important and relevant topics at the moment.

Elections; the one thing that has been incorporated into our democracy which is still, by far, under our control. What we think, what we hope, what we detest, all our feelings find only one vent and that is in the form of elections because what we do in that enclosed box is only our own prerogative. Time and again, Indians have proved to the politicians that they are not to take anything for granted. Its that time again my friends! In April this year, we get to give out our verdict on the government. Our mandate. It is important now to realize what exactly we are going to do. It is after five years that we get to exercise this right and it is upto us where we take our nation. It is upto us to individually judge all the relevant aspects before we vote. But having said that, perhaps the most important thing is not for WHOM we vote but DO we vote. The voting percentages in our general elections have been so agonizingly low in the past elections that the politicians have started taking the public for granted. Let us not make the same mistake this time. Let us exercise this fundamental duty that the constitution entrusts us. We can enjoy the fundamental rights fully only when we learn to do our fundamental duties. Whichever party or coalition emerges out as the winner, let it be the voice of full India. Let it not be just the mandate of a part of India. Its decision time. Make no mistakes now. Hard times are ahead us. We need to do whatever we can. All the political parties have started their campaigning. We need to start our brains. It’s the only way we can have a voice in the way the country is run. Let us not forget the reality. We don’t get to do this daily. We get to do this only twice in a DECADE. Miss out on this and you forfeit the right to complain against the government because the moment you complain about the government, someone’s going to ask you if you voted. That someone is not a great man just because he voted. He remains the ordinary. YOU then become the sub-ordinary. This time, let us take up the voting percentage to 100%. Let’s give out our verdict fully. Let’s nor be bogged down by anything, and I mean ANYTHING at all. For once, let us take control. Let us vote.

A Wednesday

                59 hours of terror. A prime city and all prime locations. 10 guys have the guts to hold a whole city hostage and all we can do is respond. Is this an intelligence failure? How did all these weapons cross into Mumbai with all the security in place? How were they able to bring in AK rifles, hand grenades, RDX and a huge stock of dry fruits to carry out such an attack at such an unprecedented scale? Have we become too weak as a country? Why is it that this year has seen such a surge in terror attacks all over the country? First the serial blasts occurring in successive cities and now this. One month of the year still remains. It sends a shudder down the spine to think what the next target might be. A person leaving his home in the morning is not sure whether he will return home that day alive. As for this time, the wounds may heal but the scars will remain.

Now that the attacks are supposedly over, what are we going to do? Will we just savor the moment of triumph or will we ensure that there is no encore? Will we just wait for the terrorists to make a move or will we draw blood this time? One terror attack on the USA and it overthrew a country’s government. Why does it think that it has all the rights and other countries must rely on the decisions of the USA? The very heart of our democracy was attacked right when it was beating and our only response was condemning the attacks. Why is it that we fail to make a strong statement every time terror strikes? Is it the dearth of opportunities? Well we have had plenty of them this year. Why is the leadership so afraid to take a harsh, concrete step? Even when it became clear that the terrorists were Pakistani nationals, the Pak PM has the guts to say that they will aid India in all possible ways. He might as well have said that Pakistan will aid every terrorist in India in all possible ways!! Why don’t we allow the military to take charge and give a befitting reply to this proxy war? When will we realize that we are in fact in a state of war with the terrorists? Why do we always think that we are safe the moment one terror strike is neutralized? Why do we just keep on cutting the stems rather than uprooting the entire tree? The terrorists have drawn first blood all these days. Its high time we draw blood too and finish this once and for all.

And the saga continues without any hindrance.....

Yet another blast in the capital. And this time it was perhaps the most daring approach adopted by the terrorists with the time span between planting the bomb and detonating it being less than a minute. And despite such scenes becoming common now-a-days, our Home Minister, who is supposed to be responsible for the security in the nation finds it fit to say that “The terrorists are our Misguided Brothers”. Fine Mr. Patil. If that’s the stance you want to take, then when such a Brother points a gun at your head at point-blank range, tell him that “My Brother, you are misguided. Do not shoot me down. It is a sin.” And he will reply that “Yes sir, you are right. I am misguided. I will not shoot. Gandhiji Zindabad” and all of us will live on happily ever after.

Do we really expect such replies from the terrorists? With the nation facing such sensitive times, the statements made by the home minister are supposed to inspire a feeling of safety among the people but the statements made by the current person inspire a feeling of disgust. The statements made by Mr. Narendra Modi that “Terrorists should not be given any message. They must be executed. Strict laws are the need of the day” is absolutely justified. The fact that the intelligence information provided by him to the central government was cast aside just goes on to show that the government has not yet realized the extent of the threat that the nation faces and it still thinks that the information is in some way meant to topple off the government. Why doesn’t the government realize that it is high time you take national security seriously?

Anyway what CAN be expected of the present politicians? The mastermind behind the attack that threatened their OWN lives is alive and that too on the expense of the Indian taxpayer. When you are not strong enough to execute the man that planned to and came fatally close to killing you, certainly we expect nothing else from you let alone expecting anything more. I fail to understand what good will it do to let Afzal Guru live? What good is he capable of doing to our country? Is there a dearth of manpower in the nation that you have to keep such a person alive and hope that he can be reformed? The execution of Afzal Guru was expected to send shockwaves in the terrorists and inspire a feeling in them that they themselves can meet such a fate but the fact that such a long time span has gone by after he was sentenced to death as also the uncertainty over his ultimate fate reinforces the faith of the terrorists in the Indian Government as well as the Indian Judiciary. I guess that’s what makes them bold enough to carry on with their plans without the slightest concern for us. Who knows? Tomorrow they may hijack a flight and demand the release of Afzal Guru and all the hard work done by countless individuals will go down the drain. The policy that even if a hundred criminals are freed, one innocent person should not be harmed has taken quite a toll till date and by the time the alarm bells ring in the deaf ears of our so-called leaders, the saga will continue…

And we have yet another one…

What has our country come to? Why has it become so easy to bomb any city that comes to anyone’s mind? Why is it that we are seeing serial bombings in so many cities within such a short time span? Hardly are we seeing a fortnight without any major incident. Have we become so weak and vulnerable that we cannot prevent an attack of such a scale? Are the terrorists so sure of our apathy to action that they can attack New Delhi just weeks after the large scale bombing attempt at Ahmedabad failed? Is it the case that the next city is chosen at random after one city suffers the brunt or is it the case that this is all a part of a mega bombing plan and even if the bombing of one city fails, the network remains unaffected and the rest of the plan can be executed to near perfection? Why are these terrorists not afraid of the law anymore? Why do they take us for granted so easily? Is it their hard-heartedness or have we become too soft? Time and again, the need for stringent terror laws has been felt and time and again such laws have bitten the dust because the government is too scared to implement such laws and risk the loss of their vote bank. Time and again the non-existence of the concept of a national crime (or a federal offence in US terminology) has prevented the law enforcers from nabbing the guilty. When will we realize that unless we do something more than cursing the terrorists, the problem will remain the same or grow worse which is the more likely of the two.

                Do we still believe that the principles of truth and non-violence will be effective against cold blooded terrorists and that doing nothing and waiting for them to realize their mistakes will be sufficient to curb the menace? We find the mother of one of the suspects and she publicly asks her son to surrender. My question is: Did it work? Did he surrender? Merely days after that we saw the shootout taking the life of a very prodigal son of the nation. Is the intelligence system so ineffective that they cannot see the signs or is the government not ready to deal with them? We blame the terrorists. We even blame Pakistan. But what after that? After the blame game is over, what concrete steps do we take to ensure that such things do not happen again? India has witnessed a series of serial blasts and every time the terrorists have targeted another city before the shock of the previous city had worn down. Every time we get statements that everything possible is being done and that those behind these atrocities will be nabbed and every time the authorities get a tight slap in the face when the terrorists carry out the bombing in yet another city. TADA has not worked. POTA is not in effect. Are the anti-terror laws doomed to remain just some famous short forms or are they ever going to be implemented? The government says that in the absence of the laws that we currently have, the situation might have been worse but sir, the situation at present is not good either! It is good that the citizens are finally realizing that it boils down to then to be more vigilant and try to do what the government has so far failed miserably to do but the people too need support and the absence of action from the government is not helping! Wake up Indian Government!! Please wake up to this alarm or you may not be alive to hear the next because in this case, trespassers will not be prosecuted. They will be executed...

Nobody moved your cheese

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in China, do as the Chinese do. When in America, do as the Americans do. But when in Maharashtra, do whatever you want to do and if someone opposes, tell them to shut up and not to interfere. Is this what people want? Is this what they expect from the Maharashtrians? The Marathi community is by and large a tolerant mass and anyway the tolerance level is perhaps higher than any other state in India but is this to be taken for granted by anyone and everyone? Tolerance is born out of respect and respect is to be earned; not demanded. It would be a capital mistake to interpret the high tolerance levels for weakness and in case someone does so then that person should not make a hue and cry when the tolerance gives way to anger and tempers flare up.

What would be Jaya Bachchan if not for Mumbai and Maharashtra? What would be the Big B if not for Mumbai and Maharashtra? For decades, Mumbai has been the reason why the stars of Bollywood have ruled the minds of countless fans and after all this; you disregard the very city and its core essence? Try the same thing you did in Maharashtra anywhere else in the country and see the response you evoke. Just because Maharashtrians don’t say anything does not enable you to do whatever you please and escape unhurt. Anything beyond limit is dangerous and should be done away with. A few parts of the Marathi community had realized this long ago and had started to retaliate against the oppression they had to undergo in their own cities and slowly now, the entire community is starting to realize it. The comments by Jaya Bachchan in this regard are a reflection of bad taste. Of course the fact that Mr. Bachchan publicly apologized reflects the maturity that is demanded out of people who are trendsetters for a huge number of followers and it is highly commendable that instead of a private apology to the leaders or through the blog world, the Big B went public. Still, it would be better if actions speak for themselves and such bad scenes are not created. Others need to emulate the example and make it a point that while nurturing their own tastes in areas which are not yours, you must have a high regard for the community, customs and traditions of the original residents of the place and never should you take them for granted. The fact that they allow you to follow your customs in their places is to be taken as a privilege granted by them and not as an obligation that they have to fulfill. For years now, the Marathi people have been twisted and used as deemed fit for the personal interests and sometimes even without any personal interests. If after all this, the Marathi masses retaliate, they should not be asked to apologize for their retaliation but thanked for bringing others to their sense. The question as to how they can retaliate and how can they not respect others in this particular case is very similar to the question: “Who moved my cheese?” Well nobody moved your cheese gentlemen! It’s just that you ate it up all.

Think about this

The Statement: "Don't let him disturb you. You know, money is the root of all evil-and he's the typical product of money."

The Reply: "So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what the root of money is? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Neither an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor, your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions-and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made-before it can be looted or mooched made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery-that you must offer them values, not wounds-that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods.

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade-with reason, not force, as their final arbiter-it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality-the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choke of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Only the man who does not need it is fit to inherit wealth-the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him.

But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money-and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another- their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich-will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt- and of his life, as he deserves.

Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard-the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money-the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law-men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims-then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion-when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing-when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors-when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you-when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice-you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper.

This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to "produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are.

You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed and deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves-slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers-as industrialists.

To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money-and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being-the self made man-the American industrialist.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose-because it contains all the others-the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity-to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt.

The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-as, I think, he will.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns-or dollars. Take your choice-there is no other-and your time is running out."

- Francisco D’Anconio

From: “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand

Technophobia

I and my pal Makarand are complete book worms in case we get hold of a good book. It so happened that it had been a very long time since we got a good one and his dad suggested that he should visit the Government Library and get its membership. Very glad to get such a suggestion, he went to the library and was very happy to see the huge collection and was patting his own back. But that happy mood was perhaps destined to last only for a jiffy because the first question he asked was where to search for the books and the reply came in the form of a wave of a hand towards a sprawling cabinet filled with the book cards (commonly seen in libraries) and he was told to search for the book's card and then they'll get it. Well even this was alright until he realized that there was no fixed pattern of arrangement of the cards and it was as random as it could be. So it remains to this day that he has not been able to find even a single book from the huge facility and curses his luck all the time.

This incident, though not a singular one, highlights one important point. Such a huge book list, if dumped in a computer, would prove to be an able ally rather than a formidable foe wouldn't it? Isn't it a very practical solution to the problem of finding a pin in a haystack? All it would take would be to put the title in a search box and the status of the book would almost instantly pop up on the screen. Easy to handle, easy to manage but still it has one disadvantage. It calls for an improvement in the existing technology and THAT, friends, is perhaps the biggest problems as far as making progress goes. Change, no matter where and no matter in what form is hardly ever accepted gleefully and particularly in government run organizations. Astonishing amount of space is still reserved for records of everything that can be recorded in an era where we can easily carry all the records in our pockets in an electronic storage device. Nearly 400 million tons of paper is wasted everyday in the world and yet we refuse to adapt to the latest trends that promise to change the scenario drastically.

How many times have we faced such problems in our day-to-day lives when we face any government office? How many times have we thrown up our hands in exasperation at the utter disregard of the technological advances that these offices reject on a daily basis? How many times have we prayed that the form filling procedures be made computerized and online to save the public from the long, tiresome and highly irritating queues? And how many times have we got an answer that this is how it has been done for many years and there is no need to change it? Why is it necessary that the age old and more importantly, outdated practices be still followed inspite of better alternatives being available? Why can't the procedures get simplified over the ages instead of getting more and more complicated and taxing on the time and energy of the general masses?

The fact is that change is feared more than advancement. We find that instead of accepting the mall culture and adapting or rather improving to its level, we see protests from the affected people. Any kind of development that has to be done must be done by replacing something that has been outdated and it is utterly impossible to do it if people remain adamant that they will not let go of it. When will people stop worrying about short term losses when a long term benefit is clearly visible? What is it about change that we are so afraid to accept it? In a universe where the only constant thing is change, we tend to reject that same fundamental principle and turn a blind eye to the progress being made.

History says it all, they say. There was a time that was being termed as the Golden period of science and it was proclaimed that everything that could be discovered or invented had been done and there was no more future scope. There was a time when everyone KNEW that 80kmph was the maximum speed for any motorized vehicle. There was a time when trying to think of finding ways to fly was to interfere with nature's laws. Are we moving in the same direction with only the circumstances being modified a little? Yes, the youth are surely moving forward but is the so-called "system" still holding us back? We make intercontinental conversations at negligible prices thanks to the chat applications. We design AI. We plan to send man on Mars. We sacrifice goats to make rain appear. We oppose even the slightest widening of roads. We oppose moves to improve the power situation of the country and at the same time, we lament that the government is doing nothing to tackle the solution. Perhaps the most educated person in the Lok Sabha remains silent while others shout at the top of their voices opposing the decisions taken by him. Technophobia rules everywhere. Government employees asked to acquire basic computer knowledge go on a strike protesting such a decision. When are we going to get rid of this self-induced phobia? When will we finally understand that technology is the magic of the present day and that there is no way we can turn our backs to it? When will we do away with the old and rotten systems? They say Old is Gold. I agree. Old is certainly Gold but not all of it. What is not Gold has to be done away with and replaced.