Race(ism) against Time

Race (and or Racism) is still in the lead by some distance, although I've been told Time is extremely patient and will probably make a move some time in the future. Who's going to win though? Has someone won already? Depends on where you want to paint the finish line. For now though, Racism is sprinting ahead.

Sanjay Suri's article titled "Brownian Notions" in Outlook India magazine, has this extended tagline

"The prejudice NRIs exhibit is more complex than what they face ..."

. I can't help but agree with that - especially because its an issue I have struggled with internally for sometime. The article is a fascinating read as well.

Indians - especially those living abroad in the "West" - are still grappling (knowingly or unknowingly) with the many prejudices and the many insecurities ingrained in them by virtue of a complex, several thousand year past. Combine that with the misplaced belief that a somewhat superficial "Indian-ness" is still highly superior to other cultures, has only made this internal conflict worse over time and has externally manifested in an attitude embodying disdain for everything and everyone not like "themselves".

Skin color is the most easily available "mechanism for exercising prejudice" that Indians in India or abroad overwhelmingly avail of. That we still judge people using a skin-colored lens is as illuminating as it is tragic.

Illuminating because it makes us think about where it could possibly have come from. The "North-South" divide in India is sometimes held responsible for it. The caste system is another popular culprit. But they cannot be the only reasons. Skin-color based discrimination is also quite prevalent in several countries and cultures in Africa, as well as other South Asian and South-East Asian countries. I guess we could generalize this phenomenon by saying that skin-color prejudice exists in many societies that have various shades of black and brown amongst the people.

Tragic because Indians use that skin-color(ed) lens to make various blanket judgments and generalizations (yes - I'm generalizing here as well - so sue me!) - from a person's race, country or origin, their mother-tongue, caste, perhaps religion to their mannerisms, accents, and even the kind of food they eat, etc. And for decision-support they have traditionally relied on a database of both prejudices, and stereotypes as well as the underlying insecurities behind them that have been passed down over the centuries (millenia perhaps?). Indians living abroad have only expanded that database to include people from a wider set of countries and cultures including their host countries. All this assessment is done before the person in front of us has had the opportunity to even open their mouths to say something. Perhaps culturally, it is the most natural thing to do and can be explained away with a: "So what? Everyone else does it is too. Why shouldn't we?".

Whether we may or may not admit it, the most widely held (and practiced) prejudice and insecurity among Indians is that "Fair is Fair". And, as cheesy as it sounds, that's not really all that fair. It's critical that beyond the inherent racism that is embedded in our "value system" and the debate about whether we are being discriminated on the basis of race and skin abroad, there also needs to be a debate on why we think we need to be treated fairly (pun intended) when we don't do the same ourselves - especially in our own country? I do agree that this contradiction does not in any way diminish the nature of the discrimination that we sometimes face - it is and would be criminal to actually ignore or overlook it in any country. But it is equally criminal to not use this conflict as a means to start holding ourselves to the higher standards we feel entitled to from those around us.

Blast from the past: old DOS games anyone?

a. Revisiting the "Foundation" series by Isaac Asimov.

b. Also, playing an old DOS game that I used to enjoy back in the day. It's called "Megafortress" (circa 1991), a flight sim game. The graphics is pretty bare bones, but flying the Megafortress is not exactly a piece of cake - especially when the missions become more and more difficult.

While the game does run directly on XP - the problem seems to be that it runs a little too fast. Also, the mouse controls don't seem to get configured correctly - the click is too sensitive and becomes a pain at some point. The game also messed up my System Date setting.

After searching for solutions on how to run old DOS games on XP without problems, initially came across one suggested fix: applying/changing settings for the .exe file. ".Exe file"->RightClick->Properties->Program Tab->Advanced->Turn on Setting "Compatible Hardware Timer Emulation".

That fixed the system date problem, i.e. the Megafortress no longer messed with the System date after that. But it still didn't fix the "mouse too fast" problem. So searched a bit more for a better solution and came across a suggestion to give DosBox, an x86 emulator for Windows, a try.

Bingo. "Mouse too fast" problem solved using DosBox. Only issue now though is the small window size when running the game. They didn't have 1024X768 displays then. Changing the display settings to 640X480 could do the trick though and you could play the game Fullscreen. I just haven't given that a try yet.

Above fixes should let you play your old games on WinXP. If you still have them lying around somewhere perhaps you could give them another try.

While old DOS games could help you with your nostalgia fix, they aren't going to be a substitute for the ones that got away though. But then, let's also be realistic here. It's not like they would really want to have anything to do with you now would they?!

And no - you really don't have to finish that big bag of Lays just because you're all depressed now.

"I was a fool - please take me back"

As is the case, when we all start with a ton of ideas and intentions, we almost always end up with not having done anything about most of those.

Naming my personal blog as "The Meltdown Chronicles", overlooking the inherent pretentiousness and the genuine lack of creativity in the title, was meant to provide the blog with some overarching purpose. The purpose being - some way of documenting how crazier I am going to get as the years roll on by even as MPB (Male Pattern Baldness) and CRS (Can't Remember Sh*t - Thanks Venky), among other afflictions, start working their magic on me. As with good intentions that fall by the wayside, (although "chronicling" my descent into what I will come to loosely being known as, i.e. crazy would not necessarily be termed as a "good intention" in any easily conceivable way - there in perhaps providing a decent enough glimpse of that future dementia), I fear I am not doing much justice to it.


If you thought though that the whole purpose of this confession was that I would somehow start spending more time trying to achieve that purpose... you're not in the same room as I am. Perhaps fortunate. Because while I am busy trying to become mental, I am not doing a good job recording it.

Anyways, besides the confession that I'm really bad at following up sometimes with long-term goals, or that I'm really good at making course corrections whenever convenient, whatever, I've also had this realization (yes yes... the useless epiphanies keep sparking up) that it would be easy to read all this one day (ok - it won't necessarily be easy) and discern the madness between the lines camouflaged by the increasingly extraordinarily mediocre writing.

I will try though to be a little bit more regular. It's not that I have to look around real hard for material. I've been fortunate that way - it doesn't take too much to have me go off on a long rant about something.

So please take me back (If I gave myself a rupee or a nickel for every time I said that ... I'd be richer if it were more nickels than rupees - plain old exchange rates you see).