Indian Obamas

Have been seeing quite a list of articles on when will India have her Obama. Yes, if I want to take a cynical perspective on Indian politics or tech sector, the one thing that pops up immediately is that we, Indians are good at mimicking ! No wonder, I am seeing articles like this in the main stream media after Mr. Obama's recent win. Looks like Mr. Obama's win does have some effect on not just MSM but on Indian politicans as well. So much that, our foreign read forever incubated forever shielded representative of "Young India" (Oh I am sure he will represent young India even for my grand kids), yes, yes I am talking about Mr. Rahul Gandhi, started to follow some tactics of the Chicago politician. Not sure whether it is to rejuvenate India or to rejuvenate his sagging political career, if at all there exists one in the first place ! And that, is a different topic which I am going to leave it for some other day.
Somehow, the idea of having an African- American minority as the president of US, made the main stream Indian media start talking about a Muslim prime minister for India or christian prime minister for India. However, I cannot really see a comparison between US and India on this issue. In fact the parliamentary democracy of India makes it more workable for us to elect a minority prime minister than for US to elect one. In plain speaking language, if Ms. Sonia Gandhi wanted she could get a minority prime minister (In fact Dr. Manmohan Singh is a minority prime minister, and I do not really understand why for the Indian media its always the Muslims who are the minority and all others in fact do not even exist), she could get a woman president, and it does not really matter who the people elected or wanted. Yes, yes, we are proud to be the worlds' largest "democracy". BTW, thinking about the bashing Ms. Palin got from media, it would have been more fun to watch Ms. Prathibha Patil as VP for Mr. McCain. If you are going to ask me Ms. Prathibha who....yea she is the Indian president.
So, back to the topic electing an minority prime minister for India is not really as daunting a task when compared to electing an African American for US presidency. However, if at all I have to define an equivalent daunting task for India, it would be electing a prime minister or to be more precise selecting a prime minister who did not achieve his political victory using muscle power or gunda power, who does not belong to any religious or fundamentalist cult group or who does not believe in money power and is corruption free. If India can elect such a prime minister, I would call him Obama of India. Thinking about it, Dr. Manmohan Singh does fall under this category, but we all know who the puppet is who the key holder is !!!

Conservative liberal ?

The other day, in the middle of a conversation, someone branded me a centrist. It went even a step beyond that, he/she said I am more a conservative than I was earlier. Interesting..!! I always thought I am more of a left winged (according to the bloggers...latte drinking liberal)...but then I couldn't just brush of this comment just like I always do when people call me names..! Am I really this guy who mixes religion with governance and science with belief...? the answer I want to say is no...but then..I didnt..!

There is always this age old statistics based statement that as man grew older he tend to become more conservative... of course...statisticians....you don't generally believe them do you...? I always thought statisticians are a subset of lawyers who write their publications in such a way that, they make you believe in something which when is right, they take complete credit for becoming this great seer, but then when it is wrong takes no responsibility for that but rather blame it on our brain for believing it in the first place !! (statisticians...no offense..but you guys can take it as a complement...its either you are smart or we are dumb).

Now getting back to the problem, so is age the factor for my change in positions ? As adolescents or as a grown up young men/women we always try to go against what's the general rules of the society. Although there are major differences between cultures around the world, the underlying fact is that people in the age group of 18-30 are always up for drastic changes in the societal rules. Infact we dont like rules. There is a sense of pride that we take in by branding ourselves as mavericks. But then what happens after our quarter life crisis...is something which is interesting ! Dont we then tend to slowly adhere to the rules of society ...? How much ever we argue, religion is always a belief.... ! Its a unproven set of guidelines/rules that we take in, follow and believe just based on said "words". As a maverick we tend to oppose it, but then we later adhere to it. May be it is a sense of fear towards life..? May be we need more security ? What makes the transformation within us, that stops us from questioning further the basic conservative rules ? Are we getting more insecure about ourselves that we are afraid about the society at large? or as wisdom really dawned upon us here.. ? (The question here is made with a genuine heart felt surprise...no sarcasm meant) or are we becoming more pessimistic about how much we can change and we slowly resign to the fact that its individualism thats going to help us survive from now on ? Am I going to become this guy who is going to "cling" to religion and find a refuge in there and isolate my soul from the rest of the society ? ... or may be to put it dryly....I am trying to act pricey !! my factor of safety has increased...! I am not sure. The nature essentially enacts a play where, humans are born, they grow, adapt, find partners, reproduce, act as parents, safeguard their kids, let them out of their lives, and live the remaining till they die. And in this life long journey, he/she is socially and politically maverick at first, adapt to the norms, turn conservative, continue to follow guidelines till he/she thinks societal security blanket is required (eg. till the kids are out of their lives), slowly releases himself or herself out of the add on conservative guidelines, turns more into a liberal. However the liberal in his/her last stage of life is not exactly the blood rushing maverick that he/she was once upon a time. But rather he/she looks at the society with a heart of a liberal but through the eye glasses of a conservative person. May be thats when we figure out what exactly we could do and are capable off !! I am not sure about you...but for me that is too late ...!