Why I support Jay Leno but not America - part 1

I have divided this post into two parts as it promises to be a lengthy one.Let us start with Jay Leno. I love the guy's show. He is irreverent towards one and all. When he showed the Golden Temple as part of a parody on one of the presidential hopefuls it raised the hackles of some Sikhs and our politicians/bureaucrats. The US government has come to his defence defending his freedom of expression. Why are we as a race so thin-skinned? We pride ourselves on being a democracy but I time and again feel we are extremely hypocritical. Any time there seems to be even a hint of anything but respect towards a religion we start shouting. This is not a case of our gods being portrayed on underwear, it is not a case of a scripture being banned in a country. These were causes worth fighting for. But Leno's "transgression" is not. 

Don't we parody our own gods? Frequently don't we find our gods portrayed in cartoons which comment on our social, political and economic happenings (especially around Ganesh Chaturthi)? Do we ban all these cartoonists? Where is the famous Punjabi sense of humour? Take Salman Rushdie's example also. Granted the guy seems to have written an extremely provocative and probably avoidable book (which I admit I have not read). However do we banish this guy from our country for this mistake(?)? He was not allowed to come to the Jaipur literary festival. He was not even allowed to address it via video conference! Why? Some Muslim groups raised a stink. The Congress governments at the centre and state (Rajasthan) do not want to give any ammunition to their political rivals in Uttar Pradesh where elections are due to happen shortly. 

Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state is ruled by a party which heartily embraces Buddhism and Ambedkar. I will take a side track briefly. Now Ambedkar was a victim of our (sadly distorted) caste system and I believe this was the strongest reason why he converted to Buddhism. He must have had his justification, but first of all was this right? Gautama Buddha seems to be more of an agnostic than an atheist (the reader can to refer to this article for a more detailed reading). This means Ambedkar embraced a religion which did not denounce God. Thus he gave up one God for another. Did the "Hindu Gods" fail him or did Hindus fail him? This is a debatable issue.

Now coming back, I will narrate a story related to the Buddha (or was it Ramakrishna Paramahamsa?). I might be paraphrasing but the gist remains the same. One day the Buddha was begging and he reached a particular house. The man or woman of the house abused him profoundly for begging. The Buddha did not say anything and simply walked away. When another person asked him if he was not perturbed, he replied that the man had spouted a lot of rubbish. As the Buddha refused to accept it the rubbish was still with the person who had abused him. We rever Gandhi as a Mahatma and as the Father of the Nation. Did he not advise one to show the other cheek when slapped on one? Where is this spirit of tolerance today? 

Indian self-congratulation about freedom of expression and democracy brings to my mind a joke I once read. Once a citizen of Soviet Russia and another from the US met and started boasting about their respective countries. The US citizen said, "Do you know how much freedom we have in our country? I can go in front of the White House and call our President an idiot!". The Soviet citizen replied, "I too have a lot of freedom in my country. I can happily go up to the Kremlin and shout that the American President is an idiot!". When will we come out of this mentality?

Whether it is a Salman Rushdie, an MF Hussain or anyone else, we should learn to look beyond whatever "transgressions" they have committed. We can censure them if we believe they are wrong, but who are we to take away their freedom and dignity?

The concept of competition

Why am I writing about, of all things, competition. The idea for this article arose when I was reading a Wikipedia (I am a big fan of this site and can spend hours on it) entry on India's Chandrayaan mission. Obama's reaction to the launch - "We are reminded just how urgently we must revitalise our space program, if we are to remain the undisputed leader in space, science, and technology". He has been regularly pointing to India and China to frighten the Americans into wirking harder and increasing their talents. Are the days gone when people talked about collaboration? Is competition and the need to be on top the all-consuming desires of the day?

It'll be a cliche to say that we live in a competitive, dog-eat-dog world. No doubt, that is true. But the question is what kind of competition have we given rise to? Take the Indian education system for instance. Suicides are a regular feature after any entrace exam. People who write graduate entrance tests commit suicides, students in school commit suicide. All of this is because of the premium we put on academic excellence (reservation is another bogeyman for the students).

There have been proposals to remove marking systems and introduce grading systems in our schools. I confess I do not know where this proposal stands as on date. This competition extends into all spheres of life. Take my life till date for instance.

My admission into my first school was because of my mother's connections (I think). So I was lucky at that stage. I think my entry into the second school was based on my performance. My third school admitted me in spite of my less-than-required scores in one entrance paper because of my father (as told to me by my mother when I joined). In my defense, I did perform well in all three schools and was always present in the top 5 (maybe all the time).

Now the struggle starts. First came my tenth boards. Then came the Intermediate (11th and 12th classes in the Andhra Pradesh board). Then the graduate entrances (EAMCET, IITJEE, AIEEE, NDA, IIIT-Kolkata and maybe two others). I got into BIT Mesra where owing to my summer internship and PPO I did not have to sit for the placements (or rather was not allowed to). Then I worked for two years and all this time was writing PG entrances (CAT thrice, never with any respectable preparation, GRE, IIFT once successfully and a few others). I got into IIFT. Then there was competition to get a summer internship and come December 2009 competition again for placements (I am literally praying for the situation to improve). From what I have observed placements time is akin to war time. I have heard tales about friends not behaving like friends (ahem, is a friend supposed to sacrifice his potential job position so that you can get it?) and such tales. This is inevitable. God only knows what my future holds for me.

However, I also want to talk about competition in a larger sense of the word. I confess that one of the very, very few things I envy others for are their higher marks! Why? Is this because of my upbringing in a society which places a premium on good academic performance? I honestly cannot say. There is this small whatever-you-wish-to-call-it which says that a person was happy that he had no footwear till he saw a person who had no legs. I say this is still not a great thing to do - comparing yourself to a less-privileged person. There is the danger of complacency. Satisfaction is good, not complacency. Gautama Buddha asked us not to compare ourselves with others and said that this is a path to misery. There was a swamiji (maybe Chinna Jeeyar Swamy) who mentioned the concept of atma-spartha. Atma means (with) self and spartha means competition. I liked this concept a lot. Don't compare yourself with another person for the sake of competition. Set your own benchmarks and constantly strive to exceed them. Compete with yourself. This is a nice concept, I don't know how many people can actually implement this successfully. Coming back to Obama, I want someone to tell him to please motivate his countrymen, frightening them might work but why choose that way?