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Last week, my eight year old daughter brought home a book to read from her school library. A comic book illustrating—you will not guess this—French Revolution! And it was fascinating as I read it from cover to cover. I mean I have learnt about the French revolution as part of my high-school history academic curriculum. But not like this.

And just from these graphic images—for the first time really—I realized how the fabric of their society, and eventually, their living conditions eroded to such an extent that life and existence for peasants, and ordinary people became indistinguishable from the animals they domesticated. So heavily burdened, and trodden by their King, and by their Government that revolt was a natural reaction. The rest, of course as you know, is history.

But France is one-fifth the size of India, and much too small—population wise. So a nation-wide revolt like it happened in France, or that happening in Thailand today just does not scale the geographic dimensions of this vast country.¹

A growing number of sporadic incidences are keeping the pulse of a revolt alive—and only growing stronger with the Administration’s drag. Different causes, similar anger and distrust—as the fabric of our civic society erodes rapidly in time.

• The divisive politics—using religion, cast, state, and God knows new things to come at this rate.
• The red tape, and corruption.
• Failing infrastructure, and serious lack of civic amenities.
• A general failure of civic bodies—Police, dysfunctional hospitals, Corrupt municipalities, Super-slow judiciary, all breeding mistrust amongst the citizen they’ve vowed to help and protect.
• The ever growing intolerance to anything unconventional—arts, media, ideas, and philosphies.
• The ever growing difference between the rich and the poor.
• The loss of morality and mistrust amongst and between its citizen.

Not to be done with, we now constantly face terrorism, natural disasters, and this year — the economic crisis. And we still continue to stand. That’s resilience.

On top of of that the blabbering media—spewing out anything that it comes across as news, without a sense of responsibility. The media ought to be a vital thread that connects us, and keep us abreast of our Country’s health; keep its system in check by informing its citizens to act. Throughout the Indian freedom struggle, the newspaper has held its head high. Never in history have I noticed so much of pimping news, hogging the light just to get some ratings up—as I have seen in recent times. Utter puke quality journalism on TV. But that’s a small part of the entire rotting system.

You can’t take them all. You need to go at it one by one, inch by inch, day after day, and year after year. In a country whose large population lives hand to mouth, struggles to survive everyday, I don’t know how this will happen. But whoever said uprooting an oak and replanting it so it grows again was easy?

The best place to start this process, in my opinion, is our neighborhood. I believe that unless you fix your own problems first, you can never be able to take on others’.

Find out what’s ailing the system. What’s hurting you and your neighbors the most. Take it from there. It is probably the drinking water problem, improper sanitation, civic amenities, filthy neighborhood, or security in the area—just to throw some ideas.

Have a plan of action, and get the neighborhood involved in social service on rotation with assigned duties.

Every weekend, instead of watching television, meet-up and discuss problems, and throw your ideas to others. Keep in mind that no ideas are considered foolish, or stupid. Anyone even remotely saying it should be severely shunned. Respect for people at all costs is the only way to win trust. (I know it’s hard; I am a poor example myself. But I’ve seen it work. And when it works, it works like a magic potion—rejuvenating people to do more.)

Young people with better education and special skills can help the society and system in a multitude of ways (Just a few ideas that come to mind.)

• If you’re a doctor, be kind to your neighbors; don’t refuse treatment to the poor just because they cannot afford it.
• If you’re an engineer, help your neighbors with good suggestions on problems they seek.
• If you’re a lawyer, help your neighbors with legal stuff.
• If you’re good in IT, help your post office, your local library, even your ailing municipality become efficient, and help them setup a quick response system. Help them setup online services—particularly in small towns and cities. Help people learn how to use online services and save time.

I’m sure the initial help—you provide to your community—will help you back in the long run.

Any skills that we collectively have can have a great impact on small groups of people around us. Not only will you earn trust and friends, you will gain respect. Isn’t that the greatest currency in this world?

It is not hard to find like-minded people within our street, our apartment buildings, and our societies. If you’re savvy enough, you can even just meet virtually. Say every Saturday 11:00pm over Google Talk, Yahoo! Mail, IRC Chat or whatever. And keep those new ideas rolling in.

God, I wish we had internet back then. There are phenomenal number of tools today that allow you to rebuild and strengthen your fabric of society. There’s so much to do. All you need is the will do good. And when we begin to take care of ourselves, we can also lend a hand to people on the other side of the street. Other city. Other state. And eventually, we would have good responsible, uncorrupted leaders—who would have demonstrated extraordinary social service skills. They’d become our natural leaders. Not just talking politicians.

It is 2:00AM in the morning as I type this. And I am sure when you read this, you will spill your coffee in all likelihood at the gross simplification of it all. Not to mention thinking that I’ve completely gone off my rocker. Nevertheless think about it. And see if it makes it beyond just a hearty laugh.

1. Even the most determined revolution of 1857 didn’t go according to plan. [←]

Appalling journalism. Absolute blasphemy! As I watch the news from home, I am dumbfounded to see Barkha Dutt of NDTV break every rule of ethical journalism in reporting the Mumbai mayhem. Take a couple of instances for example:

• In one instance she asks a husband about his wife being stuck, or held as a hostage. The poor guy adds in the end about where she was last hiding. Aired! My dear friends with AK-47s, our national news is helping you. Go get those still in. And be sure to thank NDTV for not censoring this bit of information.
• In another instance, a General sort of suggests that there were no hostages in Oberoi Trident. (Clever.) Then, our herione of revelations calls the head of Oberoi, and the idiot confirms a possibility of 100 or more people still in the building. Hello! Guys with guns, you’ve got more goats to slay. But before you do, you’ve got to love NDTV and more precisely Ms. Dutt. She’s your official intelligence from Ground zero.

You do not need to be a journalist to understand the basic premise of ethics, which starts with protecting victims first; and that is done by avoiding key information from being aired publicly—such as but not limited to revealing the number of possible people still in, the hideouts of hostages and people stuck in buildings.

Imagine you’re one of those sorry souls holed-up in one of those bathrooms, or kitchens. A journalist pulls your kin outside and asks about your last contact on national television, and other prying details. In a bout of emotion, if they happen to reveal more details, you are sure going to hell. Remember these are hotels, where in all likelihood, every room has a television. All a terrorist needs to do is listen to Ms. Barkha Dutt’s latest achievement of extracting information from your relative, based on your last phone-call or SMS. And you’re shafted—courtesy NDTV.¹

If the terrorists don’t manage to shove you in to your private hell, the journalists on national television will certainly help you get there. One of the criticisms about Barkha Dutt on Wikipedia reads thus:

During the Kargil conflict, Indian Army sources repeatedly complained to her channel that she was giving away locations in her broadcasts, thus causing Indian casualties.

Looks like the idiot journalist has not learnt anything since then. I join a number of bloggers pleading her to shut the f⋅⋅⋅ up.

Update: In fact, I am willing to believe that Hemant Karkare died because these channels showed him prepare (wear helmet, wear bullet-proof vest.) in excruciating detail live on television. And they in turn targeted him where he was unprotected. The brave officer succumbed to bullets in the neck.

Update 2 [28.Nov.2300hrs]: Better sense appears to have prevailed in the latter half of today—either willfully, or by Government coercion², and Live broadcasts are now being limited to non-action zones. Telecast of action troops and strategy is now not being aired live. Thank goodness for that.

Update 3 [30.Nov.1900hrs]: DNA India reports about a UK couple ask media to report carefully:

The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on TV.

— Lynne Shaw in an interview.

1. Oh, they have a lame excuse pronouncing that the television connections in the hotel has been cut, and therefore it is okay to broadcast. Like hell! [←]
2. I’m thinking coercion, since Government has just denied renewing CNN’s rights to air video today; must’ve have surely worked as a rude warning to the Indian domestic channels. [←]

It’s early this year. For the last couple of nights we have been experiencing a hail ice pebbles. It finally happened this afternoon.

Like they say, in order to recognize the bad, you must experience the good. And people like me—who have stayed with Windows for so long—are only now realizing what a horrible ride it has been.

It has never been a case of incremental improvement with Windows—over the years and across versions. It has always been a mindless gag & stitch of UI here, a thoughtless change of functionality there, and a total disregard for the user in general. This saga sadly continues with every new manifestation—Windows Vista and Windows 7 are no exceptions. Take for instance the simple example of a home folder path (or home directory).

Whereas Unix has been around since the early 70s. And for an oldest operating system such as this, its consistency is truly remarkable. Fundamentals right up there in-place. Not to be satisfied, the cyberpunks who designed it also assigned shortcuts to the home folder. the tilde (~). How awesome.

In the case of Windows, all I can say is — how mindlessly irritating. I cannot count the number of problems this stupid Windows folderpath has created throughout my professional career. Lost backups, broken network connections, broken folder links, lost in transfer, the list goes on. I continue to put up with this shit at work. So, it is hardly a surprise that new types of lawsuits are now rearing their heads—just to highlight a case in point.