Sambar death!!

I cannot fathom the torture the boy would have gone through while he was in the hot "Sambar Kadhai"...Yes, You read it right. A boy was killed when he fell into a sambhar vessel. Though some might find it really funny that a death occurred due to Sambar...and there would be some wise asses who would call this a tasty death, I find it really unfortunate and also inconvenient to come to believe that we are staying in the same society as these poor children, who have to live under hazardous conditions even to get their right to education. 

After having a look at the above state of affairs in the Bangalore university examinations...i wonder if the boy jumped into the sambar to show his protest against our pathetic system???

 

 

The rhetorical cracker story

As the skies are getting illuminated by the bright sparks from the innumerable number of Firecrackers being lit by kids and adults alike, i began to ponder over the topics which gain popularity each year during the Diwali season and that is "Ban Crackers because it leads to child labor". Each year scores of hours of discussions and talk shows happen in air conditioned rooms where intellectuals discuss over the evils of crackers and talk about how they blow a dent in our environment. Then there are environmentalists who boldly come to the studio's in their 4 and 6 cylinder cars to tell you that the pollution level rises by 40% during Deepavali. 

What started with the color matches and the mudpot based "Diya" better known as the "Bhakthapu" is today an whole industry, which has been plagued perhaps since its very inception by child labor. However, while we try to point fingers at this industry, we some how fail to see that the whole town of Sivakasi or lets say the best part of Sivakasi, Tamilnadu feeds off firecrackers. A complete ban on fireworks would as well mean stealing the livelihood of this town. Further to this what most of might not be aware of, thanks to our media which promotes what is juicy, is that there is a big racket of crackers being produces illegally without proper licenses or safety measures taken into consideration. This is where you would find most of the child labor, since that would bring bigger profits to the cracker-mafia (Funny that we have mafia in India for everything). Instead of every season playing a blame game and by having some dumb jokers come on the television to tell us about the ill effects of Crackers and how it promotes child labor, why cannot we treat this an opportunity. Why cannot the industry be better controlled by avoiding child labor, enforcing strict quality control on the manufacture of crackers and promote innovation in this area. A google search tells me that the Indian fireworks industry once locked horns with the Chinese Firework giants only to ground down to dust. The reason is not only that our varieties of crackers is scarce, but also that like many or of our other products, they are considered sub standard, unsafe and mostly unpredictable. Anybody who has burst a couple of bombs during Diwali would tell you this. It is a saddening fact that each one of knows most of these things and we still try to solve the wrong problem. 

Yes, crackers pollute....but so do our cars, bikes industries. However, no one protests then!!. We tends to love or hate something based on how it is portrayed. Why cannot open spaces be organized where all the residents can come together in burst their crackers? That way the pollution is to some extent localized. The changes are necessary, but not at the cost of someone's livelihood. One would prefer to live 40 years and die with respiratory problems than dying in the next 1 year due to hunger. It makes sense to gradually reduce our habit our crackers, giving sufficient time for the industry to look for newer options. Or how would it be, if we start concentrating more on creating crackers for the export market? Atleast the pollution is not ours anymore? Or how about creating low polluting crackers? Norms in the automotive industry have given us cars that promise to pollute less, why not norms for crackers?

Something for the MBA's and decision makers to brood over???

 

 

 

Has the Internet...netted us?

Out of my class today my classmate asks me ..."Why do you blog?". It got me thinking, why i blog or better why people blog, tweet use more of the so called social networking sites? Is is that we are not able to express ourselves well enough in our physical forms by talking to people, by interacting with them ? or is it because we live a dual life were we are what we want to be, in our internet self and are what are expected to be, in flesh and blood?

At the outset of internet, there was a huge rush of people who found it as a wonderful way to express their ideas and let their creative juices flow all over the electronic media. People used it to connect to people who were earlier only available via the telephone. Soon the internet manifested itself into a space where people not just ventured to express their creativity, but also to express their views over topics which otherwise were out of their bounds. It also became a playground for demonstrating ones wit and wisdom. Mud slinging via internet is no more new. Attention grabbing via controversial statements on social networking sites has become a modern day fad. Sashi Tharoor being the baton bearer for the Indian youth by making statements about  "Cattle class" and sorts. 

What was initially designed to just transfer information between a group of computers has gone to become so huge that it has a personality of its own. It is almost like the internet is something that has its own life and we all have made this a part of our life. I for one cannot imagine a life without internet, because for every bit of information that i need, i just google it. This shows how much i am dependent i have grown to this beast. I call it a beast because when it is good it is great and when internet turns bad it can be worse then your darkest nightmares. There have been umpteen number of cases where Internet has played a lifesaver. At the same time with malicious worms, viruses and hackers on the prowl it is almost as scary as a walk in the darkest streets of Pennsylvania in a cold winter night. 

Online gaming, chat sites and public forums give us a new perspective of life. We can be what we want, who we want and do what we like to do . However, we have got so much involved in this that we have started to be more of what we are online and in reality we are trying to lead a life which suits the demands of the polished society that we try to impress all the time. It makes me wonder if there has been more that the necessary amount of intrusion into our lives by the so called " Social Networking". 

Food for thought, ain't it?