Showing posts with label A lil rebellious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A lil rebellious. Show all posts

Monday, December 8, 2008

The Modern Surrender of Woman

In this post, when I write “I”, I mean the group of woman out there somewhere in this world, who agree with whatever I have written. I agree that it could be a minority probably, but it will be the popular minority.


I understand that men and women are different. Men tend to be physically bigger and stronger. They can lift heavy things, push open lodged doors and bottles, not be tired after long journeys, and… and.. that’s it??!!! Well, it seems pretty much it! Oh yes, all the things like this. I used to argue that to balance the see saw , woman are emotionally stronger, can think straight, logically and sensitively in crisis, can show much compassion when it is called for, so on and so forth. There used to be and still are, much debates and disagreements from the side of men against this capabilities of woman. Or rather, these capabilities of woman were ignored in light of the irrelevance of such capabilities in this world. All that mattered is- men are stronger. In the context of the modern surrender of woman, yes I agree to the men folks. All these centuries of arguments, I was wrong. At the wake of the 21st century, I finally see your argument and realize the irrelevance of the capabilities of woman in the ‘emotionally strong’ context. In this age of outsourcing, you can get someone else to do all those things for you. You can depend on a psychologist or a counselor for your emotional pressures and call EMRI\911 for an emergency and get the help of disaster management teams in crisis.
I agree with you (men) when you say that woman tend to gossip about other women mostly because they are jealous. Though men don’t generally gossip about other men; they just bitch about women, it cannot be attributed to jealousy at all. Because why would a man be jealous of a woman!! It sounds so logically incorrect and inconsistent! And a man never loses sleep on the promotion his colleague received or on the new car of the neighbor. The bitching that men tend to do about women are just affirmative statements where they have seen the women crossing limits-either morality or general codes of conduct. Discussing politics or social issues is the way men show concern about what happens around them, men have real good suggestions on how things should be run in the world. These are not time wasting gimmicks but while having such serious matters in head, you really cannot afford to learn about micro level issues like how to run a kitchen. On the other hand, I absolutely agree with you when you say about a woman who would have given an input to your world changing discussions that she is talking in her ignorance and should rather concentrate in running the kitchen rather than the government. After all, how can a woman talk about something other than her cosmetics!!
It is also true that women bosses are so ignorant, stupid and unrealistic. And this is not a stereotyping statement at all. The word stereotyping itself could be a woman invented word as that does not convey anything meaningful. And from what is written, it is evident, there are no bad bosses among men. I know all the men love their men bosses and since men don’t ‘gossip’, in the history of human race, not a bad word has been spoken about any of the men bosses, if it has been spoken, it is the imagination of the women lot.
And, as I said after all these centauries of disagreeing with these kind of things that men keeps telling me, finally now I have decided to unconditionally agree with you on all of the above and more not because men ‘just doesn’t get the point’ and no point in arguing with men, but because I agree with these concepts!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

On Communism, Social Welfare and the People of my state

ഭാരതം എന്ന് കേട്ടാല്‍ അഭിമാന പൂരിതമാവണം അന്തരന്ഗം!!!!
കേരളം എന്ന് കേട്ടാലോ തിളക്കണം ചോര നമ്മുക്ക് ഞരമ്പുകളില്‍!!!!!
This post is due. Rather than writing about my nostalgias or weird fantasies, finally I am penning down something which I owe and quite a few others who make misinformed cynical comments deserve.
This is about that little state down south called Kerala which is often being talked about as a beautiful place sadly ruined by power of communism and a group of bad attitude people. Well, for a change, let me tell you something. Communism is not a bad word. It is a philosophy just like Capitalism or Libertarianism. Like all other philosophy, this too has its good and bad sides. Any philosophy at its extreme might prove detrimental to the freedom and welfare of the stakeholders. Just like extreme Capitalism will lead to higher disparity between the rich and the poor, extreme communism may lead to human right violations. But adopting such a great philosophy as a way of living by a large part of the community or having a political party following this philosophy run the government does not make Kerala a loser state!
Kerala is the first state in the world with a democratically elected Communist government. That happened in 1956 when the state in its present form was just born. Thereafter, this communist government has been voted in to power (and many times voted out too!!) by the people of the state, and not by military coupe or rebellion as you might fantasize. Rather than being an extreme institute of power and dictatorship, the Communist government has been focusing on rightful distribution of living conditions! I am not giving the credit only to the communist government. I am sure that each government that ruled the state has had its role to play in bringing Kerala to be the state with highest Standard of living index score. We have one of the highest literacy rates, lower infant mortality rate and low growth rates. And we have a higher woman to man ratio which is in par with the most developed countries in the world. True that we don’t have the kind of yearly GDP on par with other states. But at the same time, we also don’t have large number of beggars peeping into the car window at every signal like what happens in the big metropolitan cities. In spite of low domestic product and under developed Industrial sector, we don’t have a large BPL population. Recently I came across something called a Physical Quality of Life Index where our little state of Kerala stands only next to Japan even in the late 80’s in the whole of Asia.
We have learned in our basic economic classes:
Economic development = Economic Growth+ Social Welfare
Those states with the huge metros of the country (I live in one of them) might have a drastically higher growth in GDP, Consumption and Infrastructure. They could brag of the achievements they have made in IT, Industry, Agriculture- of their contribution to the national wealth. While not intending to suggest any of them are small achievements, I still wonder if any of them can demand their place at the top in case of social welfare. Yesterday, a misinformed friend of mine was suggesting that this achievement in terms of welfare of masses was achieved because of the low population. I have news for you my dear friend; we are talking about a state with a population density of 800 plus per square km, which stands 3rd in the most densely populated states in the country.
We might not have great industrial production to boast about; we do not have sufficient land and the unskilled laborers for these industries will have to come from the neighboring states (we have a population of highly educate people who would simply be over qualified for those work). But at the same time, we are already a dream destination for tourists. We are also slowly placing our foot in the IT and ITES sector with scores of technology parks coming up and investor friendly policies of the government (u heard it right!! The Investor friendly attitude of the left government!!!)
And what is so wrong with the people and their attitude? There are quite a lot of people who mock the large population of expatriates of the state. When opportunities were less in the country we had a large chunk of qualified people who exploited such opportunities available elsewhere. They are responsible for the steady flow of foreign income to the country. They form a major part of the NRI community which have played a major role in creating and building the economy. Moreover, they were the first brand ambassadors for the nation who propagated indirectly to the outside world that here is a country with a huge population of quality and skill whom you could rely on. And this belief is the basis of all outsourcing that has come to the country so far.
Those who criticize the strikes and demonstrations in Kerala against the government and authorities also should realize that this is part of a culture that has formed from questioning the unjust. We are a group of people who will raise our voices against injustice. Like many others in the other part of the country, we do not consider justice, welfare and social development as a gift; we believe that it is our right. Unlike the money making machineries that walk the earth in other parts of the country, we are aware of and concerned about the happenings around us, it is our nature to form opinion, respond and protest when things go wrong. Still, as per the latest India today survey, we stand first in maintain law and order in the country. This is achieved in a diverse population where one half is Hindu; Christian and Muslim a quarter each; which is a recipe for chronic communal warfare in the rest of India.
It is true that malayalies have a sense of humor that is self deprecating. We make criticizing yet funny jokes on ourselves. And their criticizing culture makes them discuss loudly about what we have not achieved rather than what we have. But that in no way should give others misinformed ideas that we are losers!!!!