Honnasiri's Catch

Time, despite the inevitable changes, needs a few constants otherwise we lose ourselves, like manners i.e. civility, grace, respect - that age-old value that can seem really old school sometimes. The manners that maketh the man, they say. They also mark the man apart by miles from those people with lesser or, worse, none of this standard. This golden role can be offered no excuse, none at all. The problem, however, arises with the ongoing intense political age where person and politics know no boundaries. Intentional politicking usually involves supporting one side in total, including its bad parts, to avoid the fallouts of the other side(s) in total to achieve the best world possible yet. Depending on how desperate you are for that world, reason starts to fade, irrationality takes its place and you can't make out the difference between the two.  That's when you lose the manners that maketh you. Name-calling, condescending, patronizing and other collectively influenced adverse

Sometimes it takes what seems like the wrong punch to get the right effect by an expected person - like the recent backlash by many Muslim countries about Nupur Sharma's statements on Prophet Mohammed. Just a disclaimer though: their response is not a complete defense of what many Indian Muslims go through in a stated secular country like India - whether it is by the 1976 assertion of "secular" in the Preamble or the claim that Hinduism is anyway secular making the former unnecessary. The international response is on an equal level to how many Muslims are made to face struggles at home in India. The mirror just flipped. It's all show and no substance, just with a different name.  The countries, which registered their opposition, practice a somewhat equal intolerance of beliefs other than theirs, as does the Hindutva brigade that has been on the rise in the past few months, whose words these very countries have raised an issue with. They, both, have the same cultura

 India is rife with cultural-socio-moral uncles and aunties who allege that Indian culture is being "threatened" with the cool crowd joining their gang lately. Their list of grievances ranges from Hindu temples being lost or neglected to the mass switch to choosing western food over Indian food. While they may have a case, let's take a deeper look at this threat that they perceive. It has four main stages: the emotional, the delusions, the justification, and the damage. The Emotional We know that sensitivity runs high in India. It's deep in our blood. We're, after all, an emotional bunch. What we're particularly sensitive about status quo. It defines who we are basis our relationship with somebody else. It's like always defining India via the idea of Pakistan, and not what India is inherently without Pakistan. It's our norm which becomes our comfort & soon enough our identity - and then all we know and love (however toxic the idea). The Delusions

The way we play politics tends to be magnetic, just like we are inclined to only choose leaders who display a 'magnetic' personality. When we pick either side, we stick to it wearing loyalty on our sleeves until death (or so it would seem). The only sin you can commit is changing sides, just as much you as you can never go wrong by sticking with your side, regardless of what it makes you believe or defend.  You've got to be a team player, or you're no player at all - even if you don't see sense in the strategy. Sometimes, that includes randomly taking one for the team, ironically. This results in diametric opposites in views - boxised versions of how best one's country must be run: capitalism vs. socialism/communism, welfare vs. earned privileges, affirmative action (reservation) vs. society benevolence, and the topic of this article: equality vs. equability . The whole context to this war over ideology is, on one side, the belief that the happiest world is one

When information overwhelms us, oversimplification is the order of the day - or that is the modern state that we have evolved to (if you'd like to call that modern). We are not capable of the patience of taking in, and keeping every detail, while we build a story that's truly worthy of all of them. That is the unfortunate case with how we react when we most need to, like the Nice killing.  Let's look at the information and calculate the oversimplification. We can, then, get a clearer picture and choose an adequate response.  The Information :  The adherents of extremist belief have decided that their belief ranks above humanity, enough to consider another human worthless (and worthy of death) just because they celebrate other values. One set of sacred values directly, and oppositely, clashed with another like they were sworn enemies to begin with - except that they were not.  It's just the wrong place for both to exist together. They're at natural loggerheads with e

The Sushant Singh Rajput - Rhea Chakraborty media fiasco is like the nth lesson in a multitude of social behavior patterns that we refuse to take as a learning opportunity. It's giving us the opportunity not to do what is our most tribal response and rise above it to seek better horizons with better instincts.  Let's do a top assessment of its latest developments, without going into the details. An actor is dead. His girlfriend is suspected. His family and his girlfriend's family start a cycle of tit-for-tat: you speak, I oppose, and is currently in the nth Inception style sub story of that cycle. A state police started the investigation. They didn't move on it. Now with public pressure and a media trial, it went to the CBI. But the frenzy hasn't stopped. The only defense of ot is that all people want is #justice for..  some for Sushant and some for Rhea. They swear by the details that he said this and she said that. The strength in the details, they beg, is in thei