A simple way of destroying your own lungs

 

The ones who stay in a village may have a notion about relatively cleaner air than the cities. But things are changing very fast even in the villages. In the villages also the disposable plastic per household is on the increase. The farmers keep dung heaps, not too far from their houses, which they use as farm manure at the beginning of a new crop season. In order to avoid the plastic from going into the fields they keep burning the little heaps over the weeks. A very simplistic solution to turn the plastic rubbish invisible in the air instead of seeing it in physical form in the fields. So I can smell poisonous plastic burning multiple times a day. Little do they realize that the very same plastic now goes into their lungs in another form. The day is not far when the hypothetical solace of breathing better air in a village will lose its relevance. The villages will turn as polluted as the cities unless we find a better way to dispose our plastic. It could be as simple as collecting your plastic garbage in a sack and dump it at the dumpsite outside the village near the nearest town. But who will take that much trouble. We need quick solutions for everything these days.                                           

To kill a mocking sparrow

 

The recent trends in Indian politics are very disturbing. The present government says their goal is Congress-free India. Now can you visualize a democracy without opposition? A political system without effective opposition is as good as autocracy. Let’s try to understand it through a true story about Chinese premier Mao Zedong. The all-powerful leader ordered his subjects to kill sparrows so that they won’t eat grains in the fields and thus there would be more grains for human consumption. The people treated him as a God and on his instructions the entire Chinese human population turned enemies of poor little sparrows. So the sparrows vanished from the Chinese skies. A sparrow-free China it became. But they had forgotten that sparrows don’t eat just grains they eat pests and harmful insects as well. So with the predators gone, the pests and insects reigned supreme and chucked out entire croplands. It resulted in a terrible famine that lasted for three years. Similarly, if opposition, that is Congress, is chucked out of the system, the pests and bugs of predatory tendency to misuse and manipulate power will chuck out our democracy. A healthy opposition is a predator for the bugs and pests of autocracy. The government has to understand that Congress doesn’t merely eat their parliamentary seats, it eats the pests of autocracy as well. The government is legitimate in its efforts to come to power again in 2024 but why shout Congress-muqt Bharat. Say we will defeat Congress. If you openly declare that you want to finish the opposition, it only means you want to run this country as an autocrat.

Patriarchal fangs biting the women's sports!

 

We still have pretty solid patriarchal roots in our social soil depriving women of their well justified position in various spheres of life. Take the case of football for example. Despite best of facilities, fat pay cheques, world-class infrastructure, promotional tours, global level support staffs, the Indian men’s football team is ranked 107 in global ranking. Now consider the Indian women’s football team. Nobody talks about them because they hardly get any priority in the gaming scheme. In comparison to the men’s football team they get may be just 5% attention, resources and focus. Still they are ranked far higher than the men’s team. The Indian women’s team is ranked 60 in the world. They have been twice runners up in Asian championship. The men’s ISL league matches are played under glaring floodlights, while women footballers struggle in their league under merciless hot sun as their matches would start at 8:30 AM and 4 in the afternoon. Who would spend extra money by lighting floodlights for women’s football game? Let them play under the sun. It hardly matters.

Recently Kerala Blasters men’s football team walked off the field during a match. The club was heavily fined for this breach of sports’ ethics. Who suffered the consequences? Will you be able to believe it? To offset their financial loss the club suspended their women’s team. The women pay for the men’s folly and unwarranted conduct! Isn’t it hilarious. Patriarchy is so deeply entrenched in our system that directly indirectly women and girls have to pay when their interests clash with the males.

Take the ongoing wrestling saga where the champion daughters are fighting for justice. They are pitted against a powerful man. There are allegation of sexual harassment and severe breach of professional conduct on his part. But the system seems to be protecting him. In fact, there are thousands who are questioning the girl wrestlers themselves, asking for the proofs of molestation. As if a girl is always walking with a spy camera to present in the court as evidence. Very sad and disappointing.  

The hallmark of a true democracy

 The hallmark of a true democracy is the reach of law and ethical principles followed by the leadership that enable either the law or a leader's conscience to step down in case of infringement of duties or any other inappropriate behaviour. A lockdown-time little private party cost Boris Johnson primeministership. Can you imagine anything like this in India? Here grossest transgressions of duties and misuse of power by the politicians are treated as routine affairs. When there is no fear of the card castle falling apart in case of the slighted mischief with cards, those in power will take their positions for granted. There a lockdown time party can see a prime minister bowing out, here even serious allegations of sexual harassment won't budge a parliamentarian from his powerful seat. We have a lot of work to accomplish to be a real, strong democracy. Yes, we are a constitutional democracy on paper in every sense of the term. But in practice we are missing a lot from the great principles in our brilliant constitution. It will take some time to get a leadership that follows ethical principles and listens to conscience, and institutions and authorities independent enough to penalise even the strongest. I would say we are a work in progress as a democracy which is a good thing and far better than autocracies and pseudo democracies like Pakistan where there is a shadowy deep state pulling the strings. I firmly believe that there will be a day when we will be world's strongest democracy as well, not just the largest. The strongest democracy is the benchmark where the most powerful is under the same chance of penalisation as the weakest in case of falling off the lawful limits.

You are a winner

 Why should winning be just defined by finishing the line ahead of others? Finishing the line with your best, even if it means coming last in the list, is also a win. And beyond finishing, the will to touch the line, even if you fall on the way, is a win. And even the will to participate is a win. And if you don't participate at all and do something else that also is winning. Why talk of defeats? It's winning-winning all the way, in one form or another. Because to be alive itself is a win. Life is a winsome game in totality. Count all your disasters, tragedies and pains. Add them. However high the sum is, it will still fall short of nullifying the big positive number, life. You all are winners I tell you.