Wikileaks! Bring it on baby!

Wikileaks is going to drop some bombshells upon us.

The fact that the US State Department is going far enough to warn us about the impending leaks means that it is guaranteed to embarrass us, the USA, and is guaranteed to damage our relationship with them.  I couldn't wait!  I could not wait for our worshippers of white skin to be told in no uncertain terms that the USA's decision makers think of us as scumbags!  I could not wait indeed for the clandestine bastards in the US State and other departments to tell us what we should always have known but have avoided thinking about - The USA's foreign policy has always been based on opportunity, never on principle.

All this Obama's rushing to India to lick some of our economic ass notwithstanding, India and the USA differ in one fundamental way.  India takes a long time to give up its principles, collectively, in the international arena.  The USA has none, except on paper.  Does that make me proud as an Indian?  Most certainly not!  Simply because the USA is not my fucking gold standard!  No country is.  My conscience should suffice and I have never seen my country live up to the standards my conscience has let me set.

Now, Wikileaks is causing serious worry on many fronts.  The Pakistanis are worried, New Delhi is making fussy noises about what might come out, going on record stating we would like to "work this out" with the USA since we value that freaking relationship!  How the fuck can we value this relationship if it clearly cannot be built on mutual trust?  We can if we are honest.  For example, if Manmohan Singh were to say to Obama, "Barack, you're a good guy and I like you, but you filthy bastards in Washington have always treated us like shit, never took us seriously, and continue to fund Pakistan while they train their arms against us.  So, we're going to wait and watch, for we'd really like to see how you behave when China calls in your enormous debt to them.  Till then, let me focus on building MY country please".

It would even work if Obama were to see beyond his eloquent prose and say, "Please don't put me in with the whores in Washington.  I really mean to do some good work here, okay?  Please give me a chance to look good!"  That would be fair enough.

Our leaders are not beyond cutting shady deals with US companies.  All that is going to come out in these leaks, one hopes.  Clearly we will see some high handed attitude from US officials, that will show us truly what they think of our leaders.  We have some cheap bastards in politics, and the US communications will make no bones about treating them as such. We have to know who can be bought and at what price.  It is the way effective lobbying is carried out.   It is the way countries move to positions of strength, even before negotiations begin on any front.

American politicians are also equally capable of corruption, cronyism, and outright thievery.  But we do not make the efforts to know them that well.  It won't take much to find out things about US politicians.  But our politicians are probably too overwhelmed by the thought of spying on white people running a powerful country.  Our slave mentality will come to the fore through this expose.  I cannot wait.

This is going to be super embarrassing most for the USA, because their hypocrisy is bound to come out brilliantly.  If they are already making noises about how these "leaks" can hurt their relationships with countries, it means their ally building exercises are all mired in lies.  It means to the simplest of minds that the USA is not capable of true friendship, and to the complex minds, it means that the USA does not mind taking others for a ride if the circumstances justify that sort of game.  The USA does not give a shit!  But now, it is being forced to eat its own shit.

As always, the people who have the most to hide will look the ugliest when the shit hits the fan.  This is fun!  Let the games begin!

 www.wikileaks.org

- BSK.

Less Indian More Human.

This is in response to a message I received, pointing out a major problem with India: criminals in politics:

I have long since moved beyond the concepts of "nation state" and "country" in my heart, mind and spirit.  To me, we are a species on this planet, and that's it.  Every equation we have with every other member of this species in my view, therefore, should not be tainted by our perceptions of identity based on invisible or visible lines drawn to separate us into various collectives.  Even more fundamentally, I tend to question the need for a sense of ownership, entitlement, and belonging.  And when did any of us agree to belong to any of these collectives?

I do take note however, that some of these collectives have flourished while others have failed, and I recognize that this collective called "India" is an idea just like the others. Some of us may have an exaggerated sense of belonging with this idea, and some of us may not.  I, personally, look upon it as an accident that I am "Indian", and hence, for reasons I have no interest in fighting against, I accept that fact.  It should suffice that I am a human with a name to boot, and apparently fingerprints and DNA that can identify me incredibly well, but for some reason, I am loaded with all these other definitions.  Whatever.

We have been conditioned to imagine that it is somehow important that we care for this country, or any country.  I simply ask "why"?  I mean, what in the essence of a human being makes us care for one country more than say, another one?  Why this divide amongst us?  Why this unquestioning signing up to belong to just ONE country?  Why do we need borders and divisions that no other species seems to need, and then argue for "open" borders that augment more co-operation between countries?  That sounds crazy to me.

In fact, by agreeing mutely to this bizarre alienation, and the ensuing sense of competition, we have all but forgotten everything about confluence and coexistence, and now, we have a direct interest in other countries being less well off than ours!  How much in tune can this possibly be with the journey of the human soul and our most natural existence as humans within humanity?  We are out of tune, and the enemy is patriotism which really is another word for separatism.  To hell with all the other 194 countries, I will wave ONLY my flag!

The result is that on many occasions, we have under the influence of an imagined need to belong to some country, and even worse, under the heady umbrella of patriotism, sworn to be proud of even what should be questioned, condemned, punished and put to shame for millions of reasons.  The problem with these fractionalized collectives is that our standards of performance, excellence and indeed development are limited by the best that we can do "within" this collective.  However, our perceptions need not be.

I don't think it is natural for us to care about an artificial concept.  "Country" is most definitely an artificial concept, brought upon by fear, the need to control, and the need to intimidate and deceive.  The time for all this may soon pass.  There are things we care about instinctively as human beings, and we genuinely care about the welfare of our species, so that we may survive within it and help proliferate it.  We can be in love with anyone, and would rush to help another human in distress regardless of what nationality that person is.  That is the essential nature of being a human.  This essential nature deserves a canvas much much bigger in scope than what a nation possibly can provide.

So, what does this "nation" provide?  If something threatens our survival, we will naturally defend ourselves.  But for the nation, we have the armed forces.  But within this artificially imposed border called India, we have no natural, instinctive, honest response to the decay of this collective from any other perspective.  We do not have to feel ashamed of this.  In the true sense, we are all the more human for not caring up until the point where our survival may be threatened.

This is where I see the biggest dichotomy.  Some human beings, namely, our ancestors, "chose" to define what is now called "India".  But many of us that are Indians today did not choose to be Indians.  So, why would we automatically want to belong to this club and work for its well being?  From a culture that has been around for thousands of years, somewhere, perhaps in our infinite wisdom, we choose not to take this artificial collective so seriously!  We have God to protect us from all the ills of the "world", which in many cases are the ills of just this very country!  But why is it suddenly God's job, when we proudly proclaim on the Vidhana Soudha, that "Government Work is God's Work!"?  So, it must be God doing a really bad job!

Jokes apart, our crisis within this collective is right now, is not one of having too few people to do good - we have millions of them, but one of having next to nobody to question and strongly fight all that is wrong.  Because when it comes to fighting wrong, our survival might be in jeopardy.  Evil has a way of hitting back in unpleasant ways when threatened!  We believe nonsense like "Satyameva Jayate" even when truth doesn't win!  But believing in it completely absolves us of the responsibility of having to fight against evil.

We are bombarded with lies, day in and day out.  But we accept some of these lies, purely because it takes too much effort to yell back, "Hey, that's a bunch of sh**!".  Evolution is essentially a search for truth, and all the truth that I have so far found is that we, as Indians, are all running from it all the time, sometimes just to stay sane!  The greatness of any society as I see it, is the ability of its members to live closest to the truths that guide them.  To this end, I dare say, we in India collectively live the most unspiritual, cowardly, selfish lives, and we have every justification for doing so, no doubt.  How else could we ruin so much in a mere 63 years?

We have also been fed this nonsense that we are a great country, but if only we stopped to understand that a great country doesn't automatically translate to a great nation, we would not have all these murderers and rapists and crooks and other shenanigans in Parliament!  Above them all still stands a meticulously maintained engraving screaming "Satyameva Jayate" isn't there?  What could be a bigger insult to our collective?  And for those of us who care - what are we going to do about it?  Can we atleast now, in all honesty, agree to change that to "Jhootameva Jayate" or whatever stands for "Untruth alone triumphs"?

I don't fall for any of the jingoistic feel good nonsense that people spew out on a daily basis either.  Like - "We stand in solidarity with the victims of this terrorist attack!".  What exactly does that mean?  The next time, we will jump in the line of fire and take the bullets?  Why're we so afraid to really say what goes on in our minds, like "Thank God that wasn't me!"?  This "feel good" nonsense is actually up to "no good".  This is not grace under pressure, it is lying under pressure to say something good, even if it is not true.  Our patriotism and the need to belong to this imagined collective force us to ugly places like this.

By subscribing to this incomplete and flawed idea of Country, we may also have voluntarily surrendered to this escapist notion that we in India live in a "beautiful chaos" that miraculously survives as a country, ably aided by the power of God.  This is the romantic notion that is pushed upon us, and many of us, including the dubious "Bollywood" film industry help promote it.  We're actually proud of this.

And then, despite having a government working under the Indian flag, consisting mostly of crooks with nothing but looting and pillaging on their minds, look at the number of flag waving ads. shamelessly promoting something as stupid as motorcycle sales!  Dhak Dhak Go!  India Go!  Go where?  To #143 on the Human Development Index?  That's where we are, and there aren't 10,000 countries on that list either.

I do not have hope in this idea called India.  I have some optimism for some elements of what constitutes India, but that is miniscule.  The search for reasons, and the blame game only serves to exacerbate the pain of existing on this land mass defined by the boundaries we have in our mind for this "nation" and "notion" called India.

Each time we invest ourselves in this idea called India or just about any other "nation", we limit ourselves and we limit the power of our potential.

However, I think some of us can apply ourselves to the uplifting of humanity as a whole, and hopefully, no nation will be left out.

I personally simply don't have to be less human to be more Indian.

BSK

Goodwill Monkeys.

DO NOT DRINK COLD WATER AFTER A MEAL - YOU COULD DIE OF CANCER!

This was the message of an e mail I got earlier today, for the second time in six months or so.  Apparently "A Cardiologist" concurs with this pearl of wisdom, too.  Indeed, he wouldn't be courageous enough to reveal his name, for he would be soundly thrashed in the realms of reality and truth.

I am inclined to believe the internet has now reached millions of people with too much time on their hands, and many of them simply want to reach out.  If they wrote to us that they were bored and just wanted to say hello, it might be hard to get this kind of mileage, so they come up with some utter crap, cloaked as a gem of knowledge, that can "save lives"!  Notice how many of these messages do not have the author owning up to it!?

There are some genuine gems out there, for sure, but those are few and far between.  I wonder why a lot of people fall for this kind of pop culture "good will" that needs to for some reason be shared now, but wasn't worth our time before we got our broadband connections.  It's because the internet doesn't spew back.  It doesn't ask us the questions normal humans would ask, usually starting with "And who the *^@k are you?".  If you are a fat slob sending out an e mail on how to stay healthy by drinking tea with a spot of yak urine, nobody really gets super annoyed, but if you showed up in real life, that would be a hoot, wouldn't it?  You freaking wouldn't dare.

A couple of months ago I got this stupid message extolling the virtues of letting one's hair down, eating that tasty piece of chocolate, ignoring an extra round of flab, not exercising, and sleeping longer.  How much guilt should you carry before you need to justify any of this to yourself?  What a pathetic pop culture parasite must have come up with this nonsense!  And what mindless broadcasting of this shit is carried out by millions of "good" people who want to spread the goodwill and score brownie points with their friends.  Sorry fools, it irks some of us.

I don't want to hear how nice it is to finally be lazy, sloppy and uncaring.  It doesn't apply to me so I don't want to read this.  But it arrived in my inbox from a trusted friend, so now I am forced to.  Seconly, I don't know you, the bloody original author of this shit, so I don't give a shit what makes you feel nice either.  That's not to say I wish you bad.  Clearly you are fully capable of doing that to yourself with your love of slob.  But I just don't give a shit about ANY lazy slob.  You eat your freaking ice cream, don't shower, sleep, fart, booze, that's all your freaking business, not mine.  That's all there is to it.

Now, what about the fools who spread this shit?  What makes them do it?  If something brought a smile to your face, you want to share it - THIS I get.  But would every single person on your mailing list get the same smile reading the same shit?  Some of us get frowns, duh!

I have lived long enough and travelled far enough to know there is no magic pill that can keep us healthy and happy.  We need to invest in being healthy and happy, and then we can reap the benefits of that investment.  Eating properly, getting exercise, learning stuff, being productive - these are things we should do and do every day.  None of this is a luxury, and some of us have to work harder than others, since we're not created equal, no matter what you hear to the contrary.  If you think everybody is equal, why the fuck are you not able to run as fast as Usain Bolt?  Even if the whole world had EQUAL opportunity, EQUAL motivation, EQUAL everything, there would still be only ONE fastest runner.  That's just the way it is.

The internet, unfortunately provides a mirage of equality.  I can spew as much as anybody else.  Fools can show up as much as intelligent people, liars as much as truth seekers, quacks as much as doctors, and saints cannot be any holier than pedophiles in this whacky space.  We're all freaking "equal" somehow.  While some of us have had normal lives and know our places, the internet is to some of our monkeys, the ONLY space where they can be fully expressive, scratch their asses in full public view, and get really creative!

To a monkey, anything that can kill boredom is creative.  Sending out these freaking "goodwill" messages makes the lazy feel like they are doing something good, the empty ones probably feel like their lives are actually worth something, and the dumb ones even have a chance of feeling intelligent by getting appreciation for messages they had nothing to do with in the first place.

So, all you goodwill monkeys out there, do the rest of us a big favour.  The next time you get one of these freaking "good" saving the world messages, ask yourselves if you would print out the message, put that in an envelope and stick a stamp and mail it to a dear friend.  If you wouldn't do that, the message is either not important, or you wouldn't take the pains for your friend.  THAT is the measure of your character and your judgment.  Please don't hit "forward".  If you would indeed do all this for a friend, great!  Connect that printer and get to work.  It would be nice to get some real mail too.  Heck, it might even get read!

BSK.