Goddess of English

I just came across this interesting bit. And only now.

A Dalit writer called Chandra Bhan Prasad, along with the dalit community of a village called Banka in UP, has built a temple to worship the Goddess of English!

An excerpt from a write-up on the BBC site:

About two feet tall, the bronze statue of the goddess is modelled after the Statue of Liberty.

"She is the symbol of Dalit renaissance," says Chandra Bhan Prasad, a Dalit writer who came up with the idea of the Goddess of English

"She holds a pen in her right hand which shows she is literate. She is dressed well and sports a huge hat - it's a symbol of defiance that she is rejecting the old traditional dress code.

"In her left hand, she holds a book which is the constitution of India which gave Dalits equal rights. She stands on top of a computer which means we will use English to rise up the ladder and become free for ever."

Incredible!

It's a sort of socio-cultural development but I gather quite a few marketing tips from this event.

If people are stuck up about religion, seed the change in the religion itself, instead of trying to generate an anti-religious sentiment. Am sure it must have been some work convincing at least some of the dogmatic people in the community.

And if God is the greatest and if God's word is the highest command, then make God command the change.

They've also announced that they'll celebrate Oct 25 every year as English Day. Of course, if you have Ram Navmi, Shivratri, Holi and so on, why not English Day for Goddess of English.

Still early days but this should yield interesting and positive results. Great initiative.

You can go through the BBC article here.

Pic courtesy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Economics of bandh

I had to write this. Otherwise, I would've burst.

Anyone, who's studied the very basic economics, knows that the greater the number of sellers in the market, the better it is for the buyers. And if there's only one seller in the market, buyers will have a torrid time.

Let's say 'governance' is a product/service. How many sellers do you have? Based on our general knowledge and general interest in politics, we would say Congress or BJP, or UPA or NDA. It looks like there are two sellers. Think about it, are there two or more sellers?

Two points here:

1) You can say there are two or more sellers only if you have an option of switching.
2) Assuming that competition among sellers benefits buyers, the latter should be able to switch in real quick time.

Sure, there's an option of switching. When? Every 5 years. And after you swtich, when does the benefit accrue? Ha ha ha ha. Your guess is as great as mine.

Whether a dying patient can switch to a better hospital only depends on how many minutes/days of life he's got. If he's got just half an hour of life left, switching might not help.

The structure of governance, or let's put it 'the market for governance services' is ridiculously stacked against the buyers (voters or common people). Top it with the fact that individual allegiance matters very little. You might prefer an independent candidate, but the majority might prefer a Congress candidate or a BJP candidate. And since the two parties have had a chance to govern and channelize monies, every chance for them to lure the impecunious in their fold through momentary pecuniary benefits. Lo, there goes majority.

Coming specifically to the bandh.

Petrol prices were always be destined to rise. Why? Coz everything that we do to produce more and consume more and grow more requires energy. Only the most radically effective or path-breakingly efficient solution can rescue us from the the spiralling prices.

Did the leaders not know that if we grow like any of the western countries we wouldn't have the space to accommodate cars if every family bought one?

Did the leaders not see that Mumbai is has such a staggering number of people that it possibly can't have any more cars on the streets?

If the western countries' type of growth is what we are aiming at now, did the leaders not see the western countries' modes of transportation? Why couldn't the provisions be made 20 years earlier for a good public transportation system? Not just in Mumbai, across the country, in all the growing towns and cities?

But of course, why would they bother to see anything at all. There's no competition for at least 5 years. After 5 years, there's no emancipation. Another bull-shit governance service provider with monopolistic power walks in. And we keep alternating between the bull-shitters.

Imagine the enormous movement it takes across the country to make the monopolistic government concede on even a single point which the masses think might be beneficial.

True democracy can't stand on monopolistic governance structure. Just coz you get a chance to choose once in 5 years doesn't mean it leads to democracy. Just coz there's an institution of 'elected representatives' cannot mean there can't be monopoly. Till the time we can't switch between two or more governance service providers in real quick time, it's going to be a monopoly. And we are going to face the consequences of a monopolistic governance.

I wrote about this earlier as well. Here.

PS: There's another factor 'economies of scale' which has an impact on the market of governance services. Will elaborate on that on another day. If you want to keep a track of these thoughts, please subscribe to the blog and the posts will be delivered to your inbox.

Stand Up Desk

Haven't quite gone into the science of 'how sitting can be detrimental to health', but quite some time back started feeling that sitting for long isn't the right thing for my body. Had asked for a stand-up desk at office but you know the vagaries of uniformity. Since everyone must be treated equally, 'equal treatment' percolated in the sitting infrastructure as well.

Anyhow, I am out of that office. And one of the first things I did once out of office was get myself a Stand-up Desk made.

A senior friend, Rohit Varma, shared a link to the article titled "Confirmed: He Who Sits the Most Dies the Soonest", so I felt I should share these pics:

A slightly closer look below:

 

Doesn't mean I don't sit and work. But it does mean that I give myself the space to alternate between the two modes.

I observe that sitting facilitates paunching. Nice rotund kind of paunches.

Out of the box

It's simple. I feel, it's over-rated.

We are creatures of habit. Break a habit deliberately and you are out of the box. If usually take a certain route to a certain destination, take a different one.

I just visited Ahmedabad over Diwali. Good enough to break the rut I got into staying at the hospital and trying to manage it somehow. I've come back with more thoughts, clearer thoughts and a different resolve.

Boxes are tough to see. So it's tough to be out of the box :). This awareness itself is good enough. Remind yourself time and again that boxes are tough to see. And that habits are boxes. Break those habits; you'll find yourself out of the box.