Who's side are you on?

Life moves along. There's money to be earned. Food needs to be put on the table. Mouths need to be fed. Babies need to be shushed - and put to bed.

For now, the mother nation (India, for me) mulls recent events. As always, thoughts and discussions have veered towards who supplies the folks within with ammunition/ bomb material to express their sentiments. Sentiments arising perhaps from displeasure at past grievances/crimes. Perhaps from interpretations of whatever it is that they believe in (for e.g. "its time to send society back into the stone age"). There's time for all that. But, more than ever - or once again, it's time to think about actions and consequences.

Sure, when you're competing for resources, its consequences on your side that matter more than reactions from the other side, i.e. those you compete with. So you don't really care about reactions from others then.

But it's time to the take the competition more seriously.

Make no mistake, with people its always "our side" and "their side". For a large section of Indians, partly frustrated by years of competition for resources and brainwashed by people who've smartly learned to play on their frustrations, its mostly Hindus and Muslims on opposing sides. And it's always been a matter of teaching the other side a lesson. (What that lesson really is however escapes me.)

In Gujarat, for the past few years, one side has been practicing a strategy of inculcating respect from the other side largely through fear. A respect that has led to an uneasy peace. Life has had to move along. It's back to bread and butter: earning money, feeding kids, watching cricket and senseless film songs and dances. There's never any choice (especially with those songs).

And then, a weekend came along and someone pissed all over the uneasy pax. Maybe people will start taking the competition more seriously now. But maybe people also need to figure out who and what the competition is. Especially, if the "other side" has already been cowered into a corner after presumably having been taught a lesson.

The whole, insane, "us and them" exercises have gone on for too long. It's time to recalibrate and choose new players to crush.

No... Please... Don't ...

The thing with blogs, for me, is that anyone with a semi-intelligent thought thinks they can and should blog/ write.

And thats a good thing and a bad thing. More often than not - it's a bad thing.

A friend of mine had similar thoughts about blogs and bloggers. She blogs/writes regularly - her blog being one of the few sites that I visit often enough and that I am happy to in the knowledge that I know the person behind the words. (Ok. Ok. Let's not go into what does "know a person" really mean.)

And off late, I've decided that I tend to agree with her. Sure, it's elitist to think that others shouldn't blog. And I hate to think I'm an elitist myself (I have the denial thing down pat, you see).

But I didn't always think that way before. I believed in the therapeutic abilities of writing and writing often. Perhaps still do. If people open up - maybe they can deal with their inner conflicts more rationally. Maybe they can deal with the stress of daily lives a little bit more easily. By writing a blog and letting people read what I've written, maybe it gives me a chance to let others learn something about me, as much as reading their blogs gives me a chance to learn about them.

So what if their blogs sound like the ruminations of a half-wit. So what if its so very painful to read them walk you through their most recent epiphany or self-realization (OK - so they're kinda the same thing - but what the heck!). And by painful - I don't mean in some emotional, "I feel your pain" kind of way - but painful as in "How is it even possible someone to write this crap?" way. And if I don't like what I see, I can choose to not go to their websites and ridicule their writing abilities and their acumen any more. That sounds simple - and fair.

But where's the fun in that? We've all grown up believing that the world is one unfair place - with one put-down after another lined up for us day after day after... Which makes it doubly fun to visit a half-wit's up and running blog and mock it - even if its to yourself. Nothing feels better after a put-down, than picking on someone else. I feel better after feeding the birds once in a while. And I feel better after putting someone down. It doesn't matter how I feel better - as long as I do.

I think it's OK to write. But if its on a blog, then its on there because you want others to read it. The "others" therefore are free to make up their own minds. If I don't like the way you write - I could choose to not visit it and ridicule it and enjoy putting you down to make up for my own insufficiences.

Or you could choose to not put it out there for me to read.


There. I just walked you through my most recent epiphany. That felt good. I feel better already.