I should have become a lawyer… I like debating and playing devil’s advocate to gather more depth of understanding… And also probably there is the thrill to see if I can pull off divergent opinions…
It was one of the evening’s with a very good couple friend of ours in Singapore with whom I like to bounce ideas off… For they too have quite interesting and intelligent viewpoints… And so I began…
Why should an economic enterprise be forced to bear the cost of a woman’s pregnancy in terms of salaries during maternity break? Is it fair on the male staff? Will not the ever increasing liberal policies for maternity lead to an increase in silent and covert aversion to hire of women – the same gender whom the policies intend to benefit?
The arguments that came back were – it is a social responsibility… economic organisations do not function in isolation… They are part of an ecosystem – which can thrive if there are inclusive and supportive policies for all genders…
I argued back… Why not then the cost be paid by the government… Like medical cover or social security or any other mass welfare scheme… Let the government bear the cost… And accrue the revenues to support it by levying a social tax on the entire society… Irrespective of whether they employ women or not… I agree it is a social cause and hence best suited for a socially oriented unit like the government… Why force the wrong unit with a different goal to push in a divergent direction… It is bound to cause conflict and be half hearted at best and frustrating the cause at worse…
The discussions never ended… But got me thinking… Objectives and tasks need to be aligned to the core purpose… Else they defeat the very benefit that is pursued… Emotions get in the way and so does short sightedness….
Raising kids for example – helicopter parents, pampering parents, kiasu / competitive parents… All have the right intention… But the approach is faltered due to excessives of emotional actions… The objective is to raise a successful kid – success definition being subjective… but the relationship of parents and the kids is more than that – they are emotionally attached and the ability to ignite or influence each others feelings of pains, joys, wishes – muddles the objective pursuit…
Hence the purpose of training for success is best left with teachers with no prior relationship with the kids… The old age Indian system of taking kids away to a Tapovan or an ashram at childhood and training them till adolescence… Like what Dr. Asthana said in Munnabhai MBBS movie – a doctor cannot be friends with the patient, he cannot treat his own daughter with a steady hand…
The wisdom of old age India keeps coming in so many varied ways (or rather can be interpreted)…
There is a mythological story about Kakudmi (father of Revathy, wife of Balarama) going to visit Brahma in brahma lok to ask his opinion on his shortlisted suitors for his daughter and waiting for few minutes for Brahma to get free… When he gets to speak to Brahma, Brahma laughs and mentions, that whilst he waited for a few minutes in brahma lok, eons (27 chatur yug i.e. 116.64 million earth years) have passed and all he chose are dead… As if time had stopped still in brahma lok compared to earth…
And so the link of Indian mythology to modern quantum physics… From singularity concept to the full philosophy of brahm… To that of indications of black hole in above tale… For this is what happens at the event horizon of a black hole… Where nothing escapes post it, not even light… And time slows down infitimesly…
From Einstein to Stephen Hawking, there is so much research on black hole and yet we can only know about it from observations from far far away, from outside just by studying its observed effects… Like that of figuring out the complex mechanics of a watch just by listening to the sounds of its various hands from a very far distance…
But are black holes the end of universe as we know it? Born from deaths of stars or large nebula of gases collapsing in its gravity, sucking in everything that it crosses… From which nothing can ever escape… So end of universe as we know it…
Or are black holes the very engines of creating our universe… Since all galaxies have black hole at its centre… As if the black holes breathe out the galaxies and breathe them in… Like brahma, breathing out and causing creation and shiva breathing in and causing the end…
Or that black holes are in essence worm holes, throwing things out in a different spacetime / universe on the other side after transforming and merging them completely whilst things pass through it… Like shiv as an agent of transformation…
Or that we are ourselves in a black hole and all that we observe in our universe is being sucked into it…
My mind gets dizzy with such thoughts… I silently dread (since I was 10 years old or so) at the end of sun, earth, solar system or the universe… Weirdly worried beyond my death, with the paralyzing fear that life in general will just not go on and have no chance of coming back… And that we are just passing time towards a preordained end… Like what newton called a great machine…
And I question – are hence all this philosophies of god, after life, soul, etc created to provide a facade of false hope to the masses so that they will not fathom or realize the depressing reality of our existence…
On philosophy… I was watching sacred games 2nd season… And the Guruji speaks with so much sense using rational deductions and analysis of human and the world around us… And yet somehow he comes across as a destructive agent who has given up on the current world and is making an extremist interpretation of philosophy… Logical and yet not helpful…
What was wonderful to hear was a simple non-fancy character in one of the last episodes pointing out the flaw… that external destruction would mean no transformation or creation unless internally the people of the world have changed… And hence the actions suggested by Guruji are stupid…
It is amusing though… We can say that each small change has a meaning… One person at a time… Every small step counts… But in reality, unless ones desired change can be advertised for mass acceptance and emulation, there is no impact… Every small step counts if and only if it is followed by a lot many more small steps… One person at a time – continuously not just stopping at one…
I as a Gandhi’s namesake and someone born into Jain religion can preach non violence all I like… But unless I live that way with an intent to lead by example… The operative word being lead… i.e. for others to follow… I will die a frustrating death… Just because I don’t eat the lion, doesn’t mean the lion will not eat me… And unless the lion becomes vegetarian, I can’t expect to live in its harmony preaching non violence…
Its feels so hypocritical or fake at times… When one has to live in a way so that others can follow our observe… Just goes beyond my ethos of being myself just for myself… Living by my own rules… But guess what, if I want to live in the society, I live by its rules or with my power or politics change its rules to my liking… Politics – the art of the impossible, or persuasion and influence without being too obvious… Is ingrained in society… And marketing is the vehicle of politics…
About politics… One of the thing is gender equality…
It was an interesting discussion with my wife… She is a hard core feminist in the sense of believing in equality of genders… And to such an extent that she takes offence to even slightest remark that could be remotely offensive to women… And she snaps back hard…
In the recent past there were a couple of instances where she gave it back for instances which generally people would have found as not required… And so I told her that she needs to choose which battles to fight… Being snarky on smallest of instances and not letting some things go will only make people poke her for fun or avoid her for being too uptight… For people who mean it ain’t going to change just because she snaps back… And people who don’t mean it are just innocent and don’t deserve the ruthlessness…
To which she had a point… Silence to injustice is also a crime… And anti women remarks was not a crime she could take… Also if she snapped back, people would realize their mistake or at the very least think twice before saying anything about women faintly derogatory in front of her…
Guess it is her choosing… Some people stand for something for which they are willing to risk it all… And this was her choosing… Taking birth and growing up in the repressive and unequal upbringing in conservative India, propelled thereafter like a released spring via global exposure… This is one of the cause that has appealed to her… And nothing great was ever achieved by keeping balance… All great leaders have been extremists in their cause…
But then whilst all visionaries and leaders are single minded to their cause… Not every single minded person ends up as a leader… Many turn up isolated and are called lunatics… There is a thin line between genius and crazy… Revolutionary and an extremist… And that line is measured by the outcome of the endeavour… success and acceptance making leaders, failures making lonely extremists…
Hence I think… Vivek… Concetious judgement Is important… To not miss the woods for the trees… To not lose the war for a battle… And to not lose a person or a relationship for a small error…
Thoughts go on… But more later…
Inside VG... 