They say you die and with you goes your body and bones. Pufff! But your thoughts, how you made people feel, the ideas you helped take root outlive you. Be Kind!
We have long-established that Facebook, that big mammoth of an organization today knows more about us than we do ourselves. The feat has lost its vanity, it isn't cool anymore. It is not a fact that you clap to when a magician or card-reader reveals something about you that you yourself might have overlooked. You submit voluntarily to them, not so much to Facebook. Facebook today stores far greater information about you than the tidbits you provide to it yourself. And it uses that enormous information to decide what you like, what you might be interested in, what kind of deaths will disturb you more, what news you might be interested to read, what videos pick your interest, which political party you might vote to, are you a fence-sitter, essentially it knows you. You might be confused about what you wish to eat for dinner tonight but I bet Facebook if given a chance will tell you exactly what will interest you at the dinner table. That's not all, we have seen it and read how all this information is also used to manipulate us into voting for certain political parties, to influence our votes and in turn the democracy as a whole. In case, this looks alien to you or superfluous or bombastic, you must watch The Great Hack on Netflix. It will shock your bones to learn how far their surveillance machinery has come, how perilous our life and democracies have become from the new tech whose lengths and reaches in our lives remain unknown to the vast majority. People roam the streets, vent their anger, type their views on online platforms, upload pictures of them smiling on web without knowing what these things are being used for, they are unaware that these data-points are traced and visited over and over again to form a picture of them which is then used to inform on you, and eventually used to influence your actions. You think you are reading a certain article out of your free will, you think you are voting a party out of your choice, you think you are buying a product because you wanted it, let me put it out to you, none of your choices today are originating from your free will. Your free will was long sold when you signed up on “free” platforms. We have long written an obituary of that free will.
The perennial excuse of our maid after taking an unannounced holiday which has become ever so often now is that she did come in the morning and rang our doorbell but we did not open the door for her. For long both of us who stay in the house have believed this excuse. Not because she did and we did not. Simply because we thought of letting it pass, giving her the benefit of doubt. There have been days like today when my friend was up since 5 AM due to some exam of his and know for sure that there was no doorbell ringing, but over the months he too has learnt the art of letting it go. “Aunty plays with us” is our constant topic of conversation. And in this game of her, she has been winning all this while. She didn't come today morning too. And naturally, we had our usual “Arey yaar, ye aunty aaj bhi nahi aayi (Oh man, this maid didn't even come today)” conversation and went out to have breakfast. On our way back in the dark parking lot where you have to walk fifty meters to get to the lift someone hurriedly walked behind a pillar we were just about to pass. But we caught the lady and asked, where has she been. “I came a little early today and rang the bell..” My friend had perhaps long prepared for this moment so he jumped and asked, “What time did you ring the bell? I'm up since 5 am today…” After a long chat of I-did-but-you-did-not, she agreed to show up at our house after some minutes. We said alright and walked to the lift. What do you think we would be talking about now? Of course, about her. My friend has had some long conversations with her. He wakes up earlier than myself and while I'm still under my warm sheets, he and she would keep themselves busy in their long conversations. So on our way back to the room while talking about how clever and cunning aunty is, he asked me if I knew that aunty has completed MA (Masters in Arts). I, of course, didn't know. My mind at this moment had blanked out. I went back to my own conversations with her. Traced how I had asked her about her family. Her husband works as security personnel in an IT company. She has two kids. One goes to school and another is little so stays home. In the morning when she goes out for housework (at multiples houses), it is her husband who looks after the little one and also readies another one for school. He goes to work in the latter half and that's the reason why she does not go to any housework in the second half so as to be home to take care of her kid.
The long-awaited, more than twenty years, Ayodhya Judgement is here. Before we dwell on the same, ever wondered why people go to the courts? Why they spend on lawyers, on their travels to court? After all, all they do is present arguments from each side which they could do before a sarpanch in a village or that old man in Khaap panchayat or a mutual friend — just anyone but the judge in a court. Why walk to a court? What is it that you expect from a court that you do not expect from other avenues. Why do we say we have to respect the decisions of the court? After all, the people giving verdicts are people like us too. They go through similar lives as we do. They breathe the same air, drink the same water, eat the same food. Why then do we expect them to deliver judgements on our problems and also respect their pronouncements? Is it because we believe that they are impartial, that they rely on facts and facts alone and not on emotions and beliefs and pressures of the society? That they will listen to all sides and then make their judgements based on all that they have heard? Understanding why we head to courts is very important. There are reasons why we do it. One of that reason is trust, to believe that justice would be done come whatever and whoever. That is why even a person belonging to a minority or lower caste goes to a judge belonging to the majority religion or upper-caste without any inhibition. They all go expecting a just verdict. In that count, the courts should not only provide justice but it should also be seen and felt that justice was being done.
