Indian Pessimist League (IPL)......

The membership in this IPL (Indian Pessimist league) seems to be ever increasing with people who have clarity in thinking and I have been crossing the boundaries of this pessimism forcibly and it takes a great deal of effort and isolation to come back into the DHO (Die hard optimist) zone…

Let’s start with something that’s popularly called as “Earth Hour” few weeks back. I was frustrated at this concept and the popularity it received. I was actually frustrated since I also was part of this foolish group that followed this initiative religiously sitting in darkness for an hour or so. According to me there is nothing more dangerous than giving a symbolic response to the most threatening events in life. You can comfortably ignore the threat and live like a fool which is a much better than pretending to be socially conscious and giving a symbolic response.

The threat to our very existence at the highest degree due to an imbalanced “exploit”ary relationship between nature and human requires a sustained and measured response from us all and not a symbolic knee-jerk reaction. We have to learn how to live in harmony with the nature as the uniqueness of this lonely planet is its nature to sustain life by sacrificing itself and we testing its limits.

The one and only way we can sustain life in this planet and prevent global warming is to “SHRINK”.... yes, shrink our demand & needs. Lets ask these questions to ourselves and if the answer is yes even for one of the question then we are doing our part in the “Save environment” campaign else we are fooling ourselves…

1. Can we sell our existing car and buy a car which is smaller in size and more fuel efficient than the current one?
2. Once a week can we avoid travelling by car and use public transport?
3. Can we switch from taking our cars out for long drives and travel by public transport like trains and busses ever?
4. Can we ensure that we will walk atleast a minimum of 40 kms a week? Dude, this cant be on a motorized tread mill !!...
5. Can we move into a house which is smaller than the current one?
6. Can we shun the usage of disposable non-recyclable products?
7. Can we switch off all appliances for 5 minutes a day on a sustained basis and teach that to our children as a value? This is far better than switching off 1 hour in a year and forgeting about that for the rest of the year.

The sustainability of the life and survivability of the future depends on just 2 things Shrinking and Re-using….when you think about it deep enough and see how difficult it is as a choice for all of us then you would join me in the IPL. For me it’s a clear NO for most of the questions and a hesitant yes for few of them.

This is just one of the issues look at the status of Indian Polity today and you would apply for permanent membership in IPL:

“The best way to repeal a bad law is to implement it strictly”…. Thanks to Mayawati for the NSA on Varun, for he has received undeserved sympathy and many more followers in hate speeches Mr. & MRs. Lalu, Sanjay Dutt, Saamna editor, BJP’s MP candidate in kandamal etc…. If we have to put everyone on NSA and behind bars I think we need a massive jail expansion program in the country. Also the election commission has to run a BPO for complaint management system.

May I ask what has happened to 26/11 follow up with Pakistan…. All put in the back burner very conveniently.

Height of it is the voter turns out in Mumbai yesterday…. We all know what our constitutional rights are, but do we know what our constitutional duties are? It’s for the Mumbai 26/11 attack I drove 300 Kms from chennai to Bangalore just to vote… where are the Mumbai middle class voters?

The rationality of human mind is under question and the 6th sense for most of us is money or financial terms and nothing more and hence I suggest that the only way to change people’s behavior is financial and economic punishments. Let’s capture the PAN number of all people who have not voted and charge them 60% income tax for the next five years. This will increase the voter turn out to be more than 100%...

While every one is talking about Pakistan based attacks I think the news items I read about Naxalite attacks, hijacking a train and attacking security camps are nothing less than acts of Taliban in Pakistan. Surprising that there is much muted news or responses from our polity on this. I believe the situation in parts of India is as bad as or worse than Pakistan. Who is focusing on this?

With all these issues and the current people’s mandate looking to be weak for a strong government, and the prospect of a midterm poll looming large, I think all right minded people who can think of these issues shall be part of the IPL.

The only things that pulling me out of the IPL are the following things and keeping me sane are:

· Actually the DLF IPL and the fact that KKR and RC are fighting for the last 2 spots very vigorously is keeping me sane and happy. The bollywood mentality of glamour and glitz shall do more harm to sports than good. KKR with our “Dildo” is the epitome of how not to build a team. People have to realize the “TEAM” is the product they need to build. The team consists of a strong captain and a set of team members with complimentary skills. If this simple concept is not understood and a coach is given full rights than the captain with multiple captain theory, this team has to lose. I am happy that’s happening. Let’s look at Mumbai or RR or Hyderabad team for what it means to build a team. Never have too many powercenters in the team.... in the same measure i predict more troubles for chennai as there are more stars and they are less of a team!..

· The other thing is one of the best quotes I have read in the recent times, which accepts human limitation of not knowing it fully but at the same time insisting that it is not difficult to achieve what we want:

“What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it”.

- Alexander Graham Bell


Happy reading

Yours pessimistically!