Media Machismo Part #2

Media mania is the fashion of the day ,everyone wants their piece of limelight and exposure towards media. From a person who buys a new Smartphone to the person who has a social media account, its media that gives them immense pleasure while they kill time and even makes them feel acquiring certain status even in the internet world. In the real world people assert others by way of economical conditions and material luxuries ,here in the online kingdom a person is judged by his attributes that he emulates via the internet medium ,the amount of buzz she or he creates with these modern tools of the web(Twitter,Facebook),Although some of them may be popular in the real life and that reflects in their online indulgence but for others its sheer online power they exhibit to their audience through whichever web technology they wield. They might be socially interactive, intelligent individuals depicting their marvel in the social medium or pure extroverts only in the Online world(Like me),Whatever, everyone has their place if they have an access to the internet. Among all the stuffs that the world wide web has to offer social media is the most sought one and the most attractive one, majorly to the young generation who are exposed to it ,even at a very young age.(Internet Prodigies or problem).Everyone is armed with an Smartphone with multimedia features that has abundant access to internet and social media (some of them have built in apps).These Social media had even played centre stage in recent uprisings and revolution in the Arab nation(U.s.a has no influence), major reason for crowd pulling as well as a weapon for exposing ground realities up to date. Some of them acted as a real game changer in the political scenario and some of them fell short as deterrents to their user.

People want to share their experience, organisation are looking to market themselves to their target audience, Government wants to curb freelancers, nah government also wants to reach far-flung areas to promote their causes and issues, there are celebrities ,key intellectuals, Online print media, politicos and other various international organizations makeup today s internet social media. Everything revolve s around them and depicts the order of the day. The social media is a actually a boon to the present internet generation(I belong to the Orkut era ).Well What you know? it also has its darker-side which is not pretty enough(uglier than USA s Gun Laws).

 Face book

The Social media Baby of Mark Zuckerberg,well from a Mash up site to a site capturing the imagination of internet youth all over the world , well I don’t want to put up stats to prove it ,you know it ! Besides we are all part of it ,whoever is not I Envy your privacy that allows you untracked life in this modern world! The face book interface allows all multimedia contents to be shared with ease.

 Social relations and addiction

This prompts the users to share videos, photos and status updates in their day to day routine(part of their real life),people just can’t avoid it ,they have these urge to engage in face book. In this frenzy they kind of loose out their normal life which might be actually socializing as usual in real-time with family and friends (FNF in abroad are ok).They embedded these in their day to day activities as exercising, gardening, cooking or breather their home (Some of these activities might have diminished or they might find it uninteresting).

Well, I don’t do drugs ,Worst I do face book every day every week and every silly hours of my precious real life I invest in these virtual world that I am addicted. Most of them don’t seem to notice their behavioral changes as well as their recent health issues, directly proportional to the usage of Social Media. (Back problems, eye soreness, obesity and ortho problems).Long hours of burning Internet MBs don’t help burning calories around your hip or waistline decrease.

 Free private information

People are outraged that the government is curbing with anti social media laws and adding barriers to internet freedom, what they fail to understand is that they are voluntarily giving up their privacy without thorough knowledge about the idea behind Face book, which has more information than your parents about you (not higher than Google),coz you present your most private scenarios of your life in the internet world. They track your usual places that you visit or visited(Remember the Location option that you give),they have visual identification of yourself from every possible angle that your friend might have captured you smiling for her or his Smartphone(They have your contact list) and uploaded it as mobile photographs. Apart from that you clearly give up your like s and dislikes via status updates ,Like and Share buttons and even apps that you access collect your personal information(Farmland might be reaping big time with your information than crops that you grow online),most importantly these are third party applications created by individuals (your info is even out of FB).

Now what? the number of pages you like ,the kind of shares or the specific likes that you prefer or comments that give is analyzed on a daily basis by the moderators of these pages(I’m one among them).Some of the more premium pages lure you with ads and topics related with their business! Face book actually runs on ad revenues and you build upon that to give more profits to ZuckerBerg.(22 US $ a Share).Who cares ,I like and share my favourite pictures of myself and others for want of killing some time in a daily basis. At the end of the day we end up in some tracking Orgs Database, Third party guys who reap ad money s out of us and ultimately Face book which gets our Data for free and entirely legal manner and sells them to big corporate for huge profits (Imagine a Big chunk of Data analyzed about people all over the world),big advantage to market forecasting to MNCs banking via internet and social media!

 Social Media doesn't reward you.

Next time you login out there ,simply tell your friends that you like chocolate cookies with vanilla ice-cream(make sure MZ doesn't eat his Desserts out of you) Remember even if  you Deactivate your account permanently Face book can retrieve your data from their huge Database servers across continents.

Twitter

The name suggest s as short as sound of a little birdman short haiku and a limited Soliloquy. With 114 characters tweeples rule the world with their fingertips and typing speed. The whole idea behind this is creating views and endorsing views in an interactive atmosphere inside the environment. Its more specific and not wavers as Face book which largely deviates and consumes a lot of memory for various multimedia content. It caters to users both in tailor-made feeds as well as sensitive feeds(which actually allows you to view the dark side),If your evil enough already you will be indulging in only darker personalities like you. If you are not(like me :D)Ying Yang person you might see flip flop opinions that might naturally come to you or you might end up with them. The hash tags depict the order of the day(tweeples create all kinds of Hash)They might vary according to regions and your preference.

  Indian perspective

From the recent uproar against the government to the violence against women has been the most prominent discussions in this micro-blog.

Angels and demons

The right winger s openly abuse people and harass openly even in social media(imagine when  you meet these guys in real life),they come in all forms Lawyers ,TV-Anchors who question the government as though they are supreme enough and pure as angels, Most irritants are those who have large followers but still misuse their popularity with tweeples by abusing people who don’t endorse their views(Some of them highly esteemed professors and educated individuals)They actually mingle their political views with whatever hash tags that might be trending that day to reap more traffic or endorsements from naive followers!

Some of them are Online print media Editors who talk all the rubbish they write in their magazine in the social media also! Mostly western journalist s don’t indulge in bickering or quarreling over their inefficiencies pointed out here in the twitter medium but Indian journalist s pick up one or two issues here and there to keep their vested interests alive and their Channels TRP !

The politicians ,TV Anchors and other intellectuals make it a point that they only respond to questions which shows them in good light ,if someone asks a righteous questions or a neutral question they just ignore or turn the heat on us saying End of Conversation ! (Hello?)

 Freedom of expression 

The so called freedom of expression is only used to abuse and to write foul mouthed words to satisfy their individual lust towards hurting someone mentally. The rest of them tweet about cricket fiasco s and bollywood reviews mixed with good old sarcasm which might sometimes a humiliate a leader of the nation or a celebrity or an specific individual!

There are political parties creating rumors on both sides (ruling as well as opposition parties).There are some who offer ground realities from their region, but mostly it depicts the average Indian Scenario (Forget the Northeast, South and the far North)Mostly it is an reflection of the upper riparian State mindset and none for the rest of them as they don’t exist in the social world as well as the real world according to them! Highly hegemonic and supports outright chauvinism!

  

Pro s of  Social Media

§  The ability to transfer an information right from the streets (via mobile connectivity)

§  Blood banks and other charity related works

§  International welfare organizations awareness programs and other domestic government initiatives

§  Information regarding natural disasters

§  Twitter goes directly to the topic rather than circumventing the issue

§  Interface to get a picture of National internet mood as well as world mood (their perspective)

§  provides direct medium with world leaders and national leaders (you can sometimes question these persons on a issue)

 End of Part 2 Media Machismo...

Media Machismo

Today the world is fast turning into a technologically abundant place ,the urge for reducing time-frames and man s over-dependence on inventions have radicalized and changed the living culture of everyone s life in the last half century towards development and for better living conditions. In a lighter vein you can separate a  human being from another one but you can’t separate a human being from technology ,an invention of the future, a device for daily use ,a medium for expressing one 's will and wish. Scientific advancements and research works have given this wonderful boon to today s Humankind(Einstein might not be happy with weapons culture this world has embraced after WWII).Long ago when cave women and men existed in this world nature and its resources were subjected to their submission as their tool for power and for survival in their primitive environment(Though not polluted).They wielded everything that nature can offer to them from fire to weapons matching the order of that period and that day. Similarly today everyone is armed with technology in their day to day life until their days of life in this planet. Whether they wield it as a weapon or tool for development solely depends on their souls ! 

 

 

Before I go there , Women and Men are equal irrespective of their gender difference ,there s no scientific evidence claiming one gender is inferior to the other or vice versa (even if there s one I don’t give a damn),the point is that this society has stooped to such level that female gender is exploited at every medium of this Society whether She is powerful or powerless they are given the same impure treatment at the behest that it’s an accepted part and parcel of the Society they live. This country has a N number of  Female Goddess across various religion without any life(I am an atheist) which they respect and worship but on the other hand they fail to respect or worship the living Goddess who gave birth to them ,one who ruins her life for them and the one who sacrifices her dreams and passion for this cruel Society! Why do I say this,coz I feel it is my duty to inform you or highlight this misery we have brought upon an fellow human being inside a social structure such as One that we live !

 

 

 I.D.I.O.T BOX

 

If you think a 3 hour commercial movie is influencing you negatively, I pray for your speedy recovery from this Maya ! No wonder they called the television set as an Idiot Box for no reason. Gone are days you can actually relate the programs and broadcast ed contents of a channel ,reason being they kept it simple and appealed for a cause (something not nefarious).Today they roll on like a dice in a Casino ,moving towards only money and profit margins caring less towards audience concerns and sometimes trapping them inside their greedy box. The order of the day for entertainment is Soap opera s and Reality Shows with extra creative directors. Lot of screenplay s revolve around evil men and women plotting evil things against the protagonists of the show, this may involve social violence against women(no caution notes regarding violence) ,drinking male characters with harmful effects of Drugs note all over their chest and waistline(whichever is permissible even after exposing the whole drug act),which then moves on to portray illicit relationships with championing theme and sometimes justifying their actions, with background music blaring with high pitched tone s and high decibel levels (emphasizing threats) will beat even digital Dolby effects on theatres all the above is given at your home in your personal space with much hype and fanfare in less than an hour every single day ,every week right at you ,at your family and kids, but you remain the same naive spectator to all this ,because it brings a whole lot of that crap packaged as family friendly entertainers (you might be watchful for bloody violence or adult contents)you miss the game when they bring you a story like the above which does not involve the commonly loathed subjects rather it circumvents your thought process to a whole new level.(what was that movie again? forget that!)

 

 

Reality Shows:

Nach Baliye

 

Nothing significant here, it’s like you put all the show off s in the town under one big roof, they range from Dance shows ,Quiz shows, Talk shows ,Cooking Shows and some adventure .The grammar for Dance shows goes like ,ruin a good movie song or even a bad movie(even worst)song to unimaginable choreography right under the guidance of top choreographers from the Silver screen, too shiny you think ,no they run the show with their own dance school students and even produce their own shows ,at some point the these dancers are made to beg for your support ,please vote for us ! (more pleasing than our avg politicos) nah they are just asking you to fill the coffers of their sponsors so that they can run their show via Sms by Vote bank politics, same with Singing maestro s they will be praised and diced just for your cause, they pour them all the classical notes and Ragas s which is not your cup of tea(that when they strike you harder for more reality)for non classical songs ! in the end they overdo everything with  some nice flashy theme .

 

I will give you a one liner for the rest of the shows…. 

                                                     

§  Quiz Shows = you Actually have to give bribe s to get your prize money

                                                         

§  Talk Shows = The moderator of the debate is the sole participant and who cares about your opinions

                                                        

§  Cooking Shows= For Every recipe they make ,if you want to make one ,you had to buy groceries from Europe or North America(no problem)

                                                         

§  Adventure Shows = Well what you know, they give dubbing to shows from your own language sometimes with subtitle s

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking News :  Get Flashy and Trashy

 

Talking Point

After all that we move on to the next obstacle , the NEWS segment , the real #Paid -Media , (no not your cable bills or DTH bills ) this is free(Then why do you blabber "Paid Media") but someone pay s over the counter for your service, only for your service ! this involves no external manipulation ! So what do they do ? Let me explain you with some shoddy example s (they might be real coz they’re Paid)

Say If a Tango state is ruled by an Alpha Party and you have Some D disease affects that people and even lot of them dies ,that when (This looks like a job for PM, Nah Paid Media !)these righteous printing freedom guys(NEWS Channels) jump in, they lobby with the Tango state and at the end of the day you get headlines like Ishant Sharma is dropped out of team (feeders and headers of the NEWS) Tickers have separate rate, WOW ,you can have seasonal offers on current affairs ,scams , media rampage on a political party or even malign a guys name and make him retire from International Cricket ! This is democracy ,you have to be secular even in doing business and its purely legal unless they end up in jail (ZZZZ) extorting money from corporate companies! Even though they don’t have any right to probe any legal mediums they do it in the name investigative journalism and add controversy to trivial issues! They cover Military operations against terrorists in live telecast and even when a Women s modesty is questioned they tend to record it all in the name of freedom of press and for the public scrutiny(as if they subscribed for that).Paid Media has no limits or anything called ethical journalism, they stand for their TRP Ratings and fight for the same with repeated telecast of the same subject of News among various NEWS Channel at the same time ,as if the entire country has nothing to report except for that !Every News Channel in the National medium is either owned by politicos or get Kickbacks from Big shots of the corporate world or the political world( What’s the difference, They are all Paid Media).They have some ironical Showstoppers like

 

(Name of their Programs)…..                                       

• The Buck Stops Here (Where Else then? in your Coffers) 

• Devil’s Advocate (Yep no doubts about that either)

•  Left, Right, Centre (We support all political parties while they bundle in Kickbacks)

 

It Doesn't even give you a pleasant view either, when you go for a channel in your TV it looks as if you ended up in some Spamming website  with ad pop ups, Nothing like any NEWS Channels ,for that you definitely need a time machine , if you aint got one ,then Believe it or not You’re in BREAKING NEWS world where you get NEWS for more than what you paid and it aint worth it ! 

 

 

§  End of Part 1 Media Machismo…

 

We : The Girl Snatcher's ?

We wake up to the sound of fighting women down our streets. Usually if we snoozed the alarm or miss the morning buzz of the birds ,this is the only way to wake us up, good old quarrel and rivalry for a pot of water in the public drinking water facility in each streets in the locality(usual stuff in Southern India),unfortunate enough it happened to be right in front of our rented premises. We don’t use public facility for water hence we don’t do street fighting for the sake of water with fellow citizens. We were the only group of bachelors in the residential area in there, hence we can’t literally get every benefits of a regular family. We sort of like skip everything between our college timings and the occasional visits to food chains for our day to day needs. Apart from this we don’t get to mingle with the friendly society down below(we live upstairs).Plus no one cares who we are or what we do (typical metro approach).But there are certain aspects that really makes our neighbor really care for us (in the negative sense),we are looked as crooks ,thief’s and other type of anti-social elements (something’s wrong in their perspective).We never realize from where they get these really weird ideas about us! We actually have to cover nearly 20-30 kms daily for reaching our college by bus ,we can’t engage ourselves in anything apart from some assignments or some minimal study. Food breaks and some entertainment takes away the rest of the time. Besides we bunch of five occasionally head up to the terrace for a breezy walk or have a chat apart from other things. As mentioned earlier the problems starts with the neighbours view point and their perception towards us even in general context. As everyone residing are family (No matter what we are also part of family in a different city) with their kids. Youths are generally viewed as irresponsible human beings with no real liking to problem free environment, They are boozers and smokers who might corrupt the peaceful residential area, damagers of properties, a real pain to control and vicious enough to elope with their grown up daughters. Apart from the other really messy views ,the last one strikes a chord everyone s mind and their action in our street in unison as one or the other had a grown-up college going girls as their daughter(our mistake to reside here?).Not really .But their actions sometimes or most of the times makes us kind of guilty enough for some unknown crime that we have seldom done or even thought about of doing it. But the story goes on from the occasional talks while we walk the street s or stay in the terrace for a chat, When our neighbor pops out of Nowhere and reminds us that this is a residential area and there are family living around here and "You are all ruining it with your loud talk and laughs" Didn’t he know this when he beat his teenage daughter or quarreled with his wife in a drunken state, Oh yes everyone can hear the neighborhood brawl it aint sound proof and fool proofed enough to create sound barriers because its way ahead of their walls and it’s called Women harassment. But this goes one on every month and this guy comes again as a saviour of social justice with the same warning message to us. Thats not the end of the story ,there s another family who thought we might kidnap their daughter someday or the other, they kind of shut their windows or give that  "Oh yes I know you" look and pull their daughter in.(how can you not walk or live in the neighborhood)without even any looks about who walk s the street or who talks (act blind concept).There s another friendly neighborhood women who advices everyone to marry off their daughter s ASAP coz of the threat levels from us ,she gives friendly speech and peppy advice s to their parents on this vulnerable topic but doesn’t care much about the actual real thing issue s like their leaking drainage system pooling the whole street ,creating a very friendly swamp zone in the neighborhood. Once in a month this emerges and there is nothing like turf wars among the neighbours ,forgot the peaceful neighborhood s and lot of women and children in the locality ,everyone joins the zone with the high decibel quarrels. We the framed girl snatchers of the street never have cursed a child or harassed them mentally nor eloped with somebody s daughter(beaten them on suspicion) or created any drunken brawl over any women, But the so called peaceful neighborhood had one of the above as their day to day ingredient in their life. Please change your opinion towards bachelors and their lifestyle, because those negative s things that you expect out of us are not an exclusive trait that we alone carry-forward to every residential area but remember that you are all married to a former  bachelor who might be still holding one of those traits that you fear among us ,like your sons and daughter s we are also some families hope and future bread winners !


Note : As told be by Sasikumar : pondatti melayum ponnu melayum nambikka illathavan thaanda bachelors a paarthu baaypaduvaan (Only a man without faith on his wife and daughter fears about a bachelor) 

Clouds and Gardens

There was darkness everywhere where ever I walked ,though it wasn’t my worst nightmare but no doubt "The Indian power cut" rituals from the state electricity board. Soon my vacation turned out to be a wild mountain chase .That very night I found out that I was not alone in the darkness ,actually I lost my way from my family members far away shopping in the market place. The chase began immediately after I lost my way in the darkness, it wasn’t one or two competitors but the whole canine unit of dozen were ready and where gaining on me every second that I ran. I ran like a bunny afraid from hunting hounds in the darkness with no idea about where I am running towards. But the more I ran the more they gathered in speed ,there was no sign of any human burrow any human at all which could have stopped my living nightmare in darkness. Eventually I won the chase and finally lost sight of my chasers nor heard their losing howls in the darkness, yes victory in darkness now I can  smile and say but definitely not at the very moment. This was decades back in the mountain of Kodaikanal.

here I am sitting in the passenger seat of my friends car waiting for "GOD" to clear traffic after a decade I out maneuvered the "DOG" s in the same mountain. The traffic snarl was caused by the very own "God" they were celebrating Ganesh puja looked as though we took a wrong detour to Karol bagh (New Delhi).Because for me Ganesh puja was already a finished affair back down in my city below the mountains in the far southern part of India.(Ganesh Chaturthi is a one day festivity in South Tamilnadu) I was amused at the possession and their hindutva clan doing the rounds with "GOD”. well that’s that ! We later took a real detour to cross a mere 50 so meters. Including my friends and me ,we where visiting the mountain after a gap of decade, it was altogether a very different "Kodaikanal".With its improved infrastructure and new retail outlets both international as well as local chains. The town resembled a mini metro with its packed vehicle moments and exploited environments. And they said it was off-season we didn’t have to imagine about the most preferred season by the tourists. At every turn we were up against the tourists from our friendly neighboring states which refuses to give river water to ours, we where venting our anger through war of words at every opportunity in the traffic congestion, saying at least give way for us (instead of water)to move on swiftly. Comparatively more shops all over the town and shrinking space for livelihood for the locals heard from one my friend residing there the recent hype by real estate ventures(lot of real estate ads) has sky rocketed prices even beyond the heights of the mountain resulting in huge sale of lands and properties for commercial activities in the name of tourism. Every space out there has been grown into some kind of shop or mountain resorts and private inns. Off course the main income is through tourism but not at the cost of exploiting the very natural wealth that attracts tourism in the first place. Apart from the restaurant s and the regular market shops you can find here, there are many shops lookalike that have landed from the gulf selling multiple merchandise s .they are actually from the neighboring Kerala with their fonts in their regional language as well as middle east(bang on you can spot them),what kind of target audience would they be aiming for? I wonder. I find these developments in a period of a decade as very consumer oriented and less towards a decent spot for recreation and leisure for the tourist community.Moreover the clean environment there has been completely dumped like a lost love. There used to be days you can walk around with mist and the lush green tree s around it. Now the mis(sed)t is substituted by combusted co2 from automobile emissions ,you miss the spot by cough. I don’t know whether they have any control on the vehicle moments ,it was my first visit here via a car! Though some of the inner parts of the mountain are still intact as they were in the past clean and natural. They have an organized Bus terminus which caters the common commuters of the town. Minus the encroaching shops ,there is lot of things that remain the same way as they where a decade ago. you can find better places to stay according to your requirements and affordability. But it still needs a proper plan for commercial establishments in the town. You can find quite lot of everything from the fake Chinese tooth brushes to the anti Chinese Tibetean restaurants with Indian flags on them. The Kodaikanal refurbished as a new established town poses as a liberalized settlement with multi ethnic and multi religious globalised (I am out of words) mountain range for every tourist who climbs the mountain to witness this beauty atop touching clouds and gardens .

Note : Clouds and Gardens is the name of the place I stayed. and watch out for the big Private resort when you enter the mountain at downhill spot.

Forget the hilltops and their cuisine there do please check out the Tibetean Momos (The Royal Tibetean) and Home Made Chocolates near the bus terminus (Farrukh s I think).

And most importantly walk your way through the beautiful mountain areas to get the true feel of the place. And do visit Dolphin Nose.

The Atheist and the Flag Pole

There I was standing in the scorching sun with both my hands tied to the pole ,not any other pole it was the flag pole. I thought I am gonna be hoisted like a flag in the pole along with my friends whom I don’t remember by their name or their faces now! I still don’t remember what was my mistake ,but I was there waiting for the firing squad to bash me along with my co-conspirators. I can’t believe even now ,how I ended up with the pole. Maybe that made me patriotic towards my nation even more! Believe it or not this  happened to me some two decades back when I still don’t know how to talk or write any language in the lower kinder garden at school. I felt like a goat every time I when to school during that time of my life. My parents or my teachers were unable to teach me anything at all ,not their mistake my bad listening skills that I had at that time and my perception towards learning differed with others. I thought everything was drawing and sounds for me not as words or speech coz I valued them equally .no difference I thought. My mother couldn’t make me learn my mother tongue and beyond that I was a born natural leftie at that time, so my writing capacity was very slow ,actually I drew every letter day by day but still I never grasped the idea about speaking. I went to school when I was nearly three years old not a big deal in India. But it was my choice ,I wanted to go to school because every other kids near my home were going ,I had the urge to check what was school like. But soon after getting into the school there was no like or enthusiasm for me. After few months into school I was still at where I’ve started no change or any learning happened for me. Only change I was made to write my letters in the right hand while I stilled played cricket in left hand. Nothing turned out ,within months I was put in a different school. This time on I really hated going to school not cause I couldn’t learn anything or speak anything but because the way the school teachers reasoned out with my mistakes by canes and corporal punishments. Because I couldn’t find a difference between a mirror letters and proper words ,and the realization of "god”. No teacher or god saved me from this tyranny of getting beaten. I don’t even know who god was .or what he was like ,for me I believed what I saw and those who lived along with me nothing else mattered to me. Even now. Looking back there now I wonder is it right for the teachers to trash a kid like that because he couldn’t understand the art of writing in left hand or right hand, he couldn’t differentiate between mirror letter alphabets and proper alphabets and ultimately he didn’t respect god an entity he doesn’t know or identify in that open county where he lived. For me temples were buildings with some drawings and architectural advancements in that rude past and the ticking present now! Because I never prayed to anyone or anything in my life even in distress. I can laugh out loud now about that incident and what made the god believing teachers to tie me up with ropes to the flag pole that sunny afternoon after lunch hours. There I was shouting the famous Hindu chanting you can still hear it now "saamiye aiyappa" not in any temple nearby but in my school toilet along with my two partners in crime, chanting and rising my arm ,circumventing the toilet the way they do in the temple. That was enough for the orthodox school authorities to embrace me with flag pole. Arunprakash LKG anti religious little tyrant they would have thought.Because i dont speak anything,i just stood there  gazing the afternoon sky what was my mistake,why i am i given this flag pole privilage!Here i am after all that cursing the communal environment in this country.Happy that i dont take any decision or weigh people on the basis of their identity in the society.Please dont try to paint your hatred and religious sentiments on kids.With the little ingredient s of do s and donts in their life ,let them be what they are...JUST HUMANS

The little Girl in the balcony

I happened to live in one of the metro s of the country for nearly 2 years lurking around completing my business administration course. I was no stranger to Chennai but somehow I felt strange! Everything has a new beginning and new ends, similarly I finished my higher education and it was time move to on to the next level ,yeah! the job market ! most of my class-friends have done it leaving a few in the class including myself. Wait a minute this is not about my job search or how I toiled  over  interviews and ruined myself preparing for it coz nothing happened like that ! I am that soul of the class which seldom grabbed any given job opportunities nor attempted any interviews! And I don’t regret it a bit for my decision ! I just wanted to be a "Master of administration" not "Master of Business administration". BLAH BLAH BLAH... yeah I decided to pursue my place in the Indian civil service ,so I joined a decent training centre in the city so moved places ..to one of the posh localities of the city A.K.A "Anna Nagar" one of the buzzing locality of the city with lot a of high end consumer interests and improved settlements! I lived in the 12th main road. The whole locality was filled with enemies I tell you ,they were playing with my mind (fellow civil service aspirants),where ever you go inside the 12th main you might meet wannabe civil service guy or gal ,I’m one of them! Believe me  during the rough 3 months I stayed there ,I studied ....yeah they finally screwed me .doing 5 chapters a day in various subjects ! I happened to be a tenant of a old house - 3rd floor ! By this time most of my buddies were working faraway places or outta town jobs so it was hard meeting anyone ! The place was filled with the mixture of apartments, single homes and dorms for students. It had well laid wide roads comfortable for the abundant traffic in the area! for me every day was a challenge coz I have to study everyday and make up for the test properly. soon I got used to this updating myself about the country whatever it might be ! Everything but the house , it was a home build to bake people inside as it had low ventilation and hardly any air available for comfort and with Power cuts "I became literally HOT!"every time inside the house ! So during the evening hours I spent my time in the terrace reading my day to day subjects .Surrounded by Coconut trees  and mango trees the evening time was like oasis without the hot sun ! I spend my break time watching parrots ,crows ,Grey sparrows and squirrels playing along the tree nearby and flying for their place when the sun sunsets. Apart from these temporary changes in the sky and the trees  ,there was something I get to watch every day! The little girl in the balcony. she lived in one of the apartment building near my home. The thoroughly welded grilled balcony appears like a cage from the distant view! She might be barely 5 or 6 years old I think! Though I do not know her! But I know where she might be in a given day ,The balcony. The little girl s favourite past time is colouring books ,she might spend the whole day or half of the day doing something in the balcony. The other day she might be playing with her grandparents. Reading books to her parents or she might be sitting along with her father. Whatever might be her pastime starts and ends in the balcony. I’ve never seen her playing in the compounds of the apartments or the outside with the neighbouring kids outside the apartment. Though there are kids near my home playing in the evening hours after school! There used to be times when kids flock like birds after school playing something that might deviate them from the pressure s of school. There s nothing wrong about her spending quality time with her family inside the home, the thing is how along will they keep their child indoors. For me she reminds me of tweety bird inside a cage although she is happy inside, but there s a silent want of getting outside the balcony when she looks down the balcony at kids playing in her neighbourhood street. Still the little girl in the balcony stays in the balcony and tries to live there her very own playground. I don’t blame her for her situation. People just don’t feel safe anymore nowwa days and the same goes for their kids, their parents try to protect them through every possible way they can do and in the process even isolate their moment in day to day life. Today s Indian metro bring in the perfect  place for a comfortable living, health care facilities, platform for quality education and apt job opportunities. This also brings in the best negative atmosphere elements like robbery ,theft,murder,extortion,kidnappings and kangaroo courts along these lines. These advantages have become attractive for these anti-social elements. The most vulnerable among the society is women and children, among them the children are the most affected due to crimes like child labour, sexual-harassment, human trafficking, forced begging, physical as well as mental harm and kidnapping! It is these nefarious modus operands in the metro s harm the future of kid ,leave alone the little girl in the balcony. These ugly reasons urge the parents to avoid contacts with the society which adds on the with general attitude of distrust among the neighbours. People just don’t trust other people anymore.Social stigma has widened like canyons and continents in these part of the world. Everybody just live their very own island and just don’t give a damn to others. Coz they suspect you ,blame you for their fears and hate you for breaching their privacy, all they need is a nice opaque life. By failing to identify the real threat from the phony threat, they are denying the freedom of their child at an very young-age and fail to keep an eye on the real anti-social elements by avoiding neighbours and the social life in their locality. They are actually trying to emulate a life in a shell  ,which makes them more uneducated about their society they live and they loose an valuable opportunity to refine this society. Meanwhile, after a three month stint I returned to my native place due homesickness and real sickness here I am wondering in my home out there in the "Balcony" about the little girl that whether she had a new colouring book or a wild colourful life out there with the other kids...

Note:In the last three years more than 55,000 children are missing and currently 4.5 crore are into child lab-our in this country !

Angry Birds

The Raven

Well everybody would have had their chances to play the popular game "The Angry Birds" in various platforms like mobile,on line or game consoles. Where the  angry birds kill the pig "Bang" on target ,well I am no exception from this popular game.Actually I am in a sort of in anger mode even after i quit the game(well i couldn't kill the pigs in a certain stage)well that's that! no regrets just a game.Well what about the birds in the real world,well what about them? you might wonder, well even while your playing the game in your mobile killing the pigs in game scenario ,your actually killing the birds in the real world,yes you me and the guy sitting next to you in a public transport who never cares to take a look at you rather than his or her mobile display are all a part and parcel of this crime and it might be happening even while im typing this!Even before everyone realises it might be game over for the real birds with new mobile segments coming up in the market with various features that has nothing to do with communication which is what they are for! Ultimately resulting in the increase in Mobile Towers in every locality which is gonna result in a mass extinction of birds and their natural habitats.Well you don't have to be an Avian Expert to detect these changes, just look up the sky and the tree s(if there's one) near your home for sign of life ,its changing in a very negative way! I can say I am a Bird Watcher,I don't remember any morning without the sweet sound of birds,now their voices are depleting and sometimes stern silence is the answer i got when I searched for their sound!What is more disturbing is the fact that more than 60% of the urban area and the 15% of rural area is covered by mobile towers in India amounting to nearly 3 lakh towers across the nation,imagine the amount of mobile phone users increasing everyday and the number of mobile towers might pop up everywhere!What we have done here is disabled the whole inborn navigation system of birds via these microwave radiation avoiding the magnetic field from the earth(the mode the birds used to navigate).Let me give you an classic example of extinction "The Common Sparrow" is no more to be found where they once lived in abundance! I remember 3 or 4 years back then common sparrows living and visiting the garden in my home and even lived in one of the artificial nest that we've created in our home.Now its a part of extinct history and old news,actually i see their presence in news paper articles and images from the internet not in real life form!

House Sparrow

The year of their disappearance is proportional to the appearance of Three Mobile Phone Towers in our locality each of them in a Triangular position,reminds of mythical killing style ritual symbols! Leave alone that, The Angry Birds I Wanted to emphasize here is about every type of Birds that I watched and classified (even though i cannot name them) their presence here.There are over 5 types of birds that ive tend to bump in any given day near my locality and especially near my home and inside our garden.And i also remember the  strange Thing that i never missed here for the first three to four years of my life in our Newly Built home,Every morning i wake up to Knock on the Window panes from a Avian Visitor "A Raven" yes off course its a black crow.Its actions were quite spontaneous and it wont miss a day in knocking our window panes early morning,initially i thought our home was built in the way of birds flightpath or it was too high as a distraction for birds,but soon other crows followed suit.Half a dozen did the same thing in the same window for the next 3 years to come. Now Nearly 6 whole years of that i find other birds doing the same ritual except in different windows.Joining Angry Bird Brigade are mynas,type of humming Birds,Robin-bird,Grey sparrows and even a Woodpecker the latest to add on to the list of Angry Bird Avian s attacking Our Windows whenever possible. In fact there is no harm done to us nor i am worried about being attacked by them.All I am worried about is how they have fallen prey to the telecommunication Mast in our locality.Similarly other strange behaviour that i find among these birds is the tendency to make nests in two or three places and they don't live there. Even if some live ,they don't lay eggs or there seems to be no harmony among themselves.They are always agitated by something and aggressive.My observation here is about five types of Birds with the same kind of behaviour changes.All i sense here is a lot of Angry Birds who have lost their natural way of living and even extinct as in the cases of Common Sparrow due to radiation emitted by the Mobile Towers.New kind of mobiles can be reproduced by the will of the technology and areas can be penetrated any time for communication abilities to the population,but imagine the irreplaceable natural free flying independent life cannot be "Re Done" or brought back to living form the way they once lived and Ruled the sky.When I look up ,all I want to the see is the white bushy clouds sailing the blue sky with the birds flying like fishes jumping in the sea as ships sail past them.I Don't want to see those tall skyscrapers nor the sky poking communication towers or hear the sound of aircraft engines ..Wish for Just happy flying birds living in their natural environment.

Harmful effects of Mobile Towers :http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/~mwave/GK-cell-tower-rad-report-DOT-Dec2010.pdf