अच्छाई की बुराई पर जीत की शुभकामनाएं

नशे में धुत्त होकर हर रात, बीवी बच्चों को करता प्रताड़ित बाप है,

निर्बल को पुरुषत्व दिखाता, मूक बधिर समाज का ये श्राप है,

स्वाभाविक सी ही अब लगती, इस मार पीट की शुभकामनाएं,
अच्छाई की बुराई पर जीत की शुभकामनाएं |

बाबू साहेब के गाड़ी - बंगले, हाथ अंगूठी - ब्रेसलेट,
रामू काका का छप्पर भी फूटा, ना चूल्हा ना घासलेट,

ए सी में कम्बल ओढ़ने वालो को, खून जमाने वाली शीत की शुभकामनाएं

अच्छाई की बुराई पर जीत की शुभकामनाएं |

सवार जिन कंधों पर होकर, आए नेता जी मंत्रालय के द्वार तक,

लड़ा कर उन को ही आपस में, करते वे पार्टी सुबह चार तक,

संवेदनशून्य ऐसे नेतृत्व को, मॉडर्न राजनीत की शुभकामनाएं,

अच्छाई की बुराई पर जीत की शुभकामनाएं |

"नाम में क्या रक्खा है", बोलने के कुछ बाद, "वैसे पूरा क्या लिखते हो ?" वे कहते,
और कांच की पात्रता वाले को स्टील के पात्र में पानी देना वे कतई न सहते,

मनुष्य को मनुष्य से भिन्न बतलाती ऐसी रीत की शुभकामनाएं,

अच्छाई की बुराई पर जीत की शुभकामनाएं |

"ये नहीं पहनना","वहां नहीं जाना", बेटियों को डर के रहना खूब सिखाते हैं,

पर उन वहशियों पर अंकुश न लगा सके, जो राक्षसों को भी देवतुल्य दिखाते हैं,

पितृसत्तावाद से ग्रसित, धृतराष्ट्रों को पुत्र-प्रीत की शुभकामनाएं,

अच्छाई की बुराई पर जीत की शुभकामनाएं |

- कुलदीप

It is more than just a World Cup Final

 To an average follower of the sport from around the world, it is another world cup final match. It takes place every four year, one team out of the many, winning and keeping the trophy with them for the next four years. But, for a few, or shall I write for 1.4 billion souls or more, it is so much more than just a world cup final.

It matters for the Australians too, but not as much as it does for the other stakeholders. And there are reasons why. For an Ozzie, it can be another colourfull feather in their hat. Maybe the most colourful one, stopping the Juggernaut of another superpower of the sport, in their home country, in a final match, in THE final match, it certainly is special, but the Aussies have done that before. The absolute final boss of cricket has done it so many times that this would just be one more of it. But for India, it is just not the same.

Yes we have won the world cup before, one as recently as 12 years back but lets look at the reasons, as to whom it means so much more and why.

The elephant in the room, the 90s and 80s born. That is, a major chunk of the population of the country, were seeing the rise of India as a cricketing power for the first time. They dint see Kapil Dev and Gavaskar in their glory years, but only heard their tales. They witnessed the nerve wrecking bowling greats of Pakistan, The haughty Englishmen, The fatal west indians, and beyond that they saw the invincible Australians. Never did they imagine their home country to rise up, face such opponents, and not come out dusted in the end. Not until some iconic once in a lifetime matches like the Desert Storm in Sharjah.

Such matches, once in a while, just kept us hooked to the sport with hope, that one day, we will arrive. Persevering through losses, bad cricketing bureaucracy, and even clutches of crime syndicates and match fixing, this generation kept their hopes against hope, sometimes putting it all in just one player, so much hope, that it was greater than their belief in god. Evolving through it all, a team was build that looked so strong, that they were finally expecting the men in blue, to do the extraordinary, and announce after 20 years, that a new cricketing power has taken birth. Studded with Stars we reached the final of the world tournament, facing the final boss, The Yellow Jerseys. All their hopes and dreams cumulating since childhood, were shattered ball after ball by attacks of the Australian Batting line up. We had lost to them before, in the same tournament and even before that several times, but never so badly, that it got etched forever in our memories. It was traumatic. So much trauma for those teenagers and kids of 2003, that since that moment, whenever we faced the australians, we got PTSD from that final match.

Life went on, as we grew up, our cricketing stars, started to fade once again, some getting injured, some into bad form, some simply emptied, our faith started to dip from its all time high and hit rock bottom in 4 years span. Until the Mahi era began, winning the first T20 world cup in '07, This generation who had been yearning for a worldcup win got some relief, but not much as it was just not the same as the dominant format of the game. This was not it. But Mahi was there for more magic. He transformed the Indian Cricket Team's scene with a mindset of a military general, and in 4 years we were ready to conquer the world, and we did. The worldcup was set in India, We faced the Aussies in the quarter finals. Sweaty palms fans of the most demanding generation prayed, to let them witness victory over the aussies in atleast one ICC Knockout match, the prayers were answered and How. There was no stopping for team India, and history was made. Mahi's Warriors lifted and gifted the world cup. We had arrived. The India of modern cricket was finally a superpower. But something was still missing. That PTSD had not been over with. Ignoring that we soared to new heights with Mahi and company, with the Champion's trophy in our cabinet 2 years later. And 2 years after that, We were on the unforgiving turfs of Australia and New Zealand, to retain, our hard earned, dearest posession.

Arrived the semi-final. We were set up against the Aussies in an ICC Knockout once again, this time in their home. The team that seemed invincible a while ago, got hit with a margin of 5 shy of a century. The ghost of Yellow Jersey was their to haunt us again, for as long as now.

Today, there is no Mahi, no Sachin. The team is in the hands of the players, who grew up with this generation, who still doubt themselves when they stand against the mighty kangaroos. The last of the players whom this generation can relate to. With them retiring, the flame of aggression, that relevance, that passion of these fans will retire too. This is the final dance of this generation of cricket fans. The men in blue face their worst nightmare, The Australians, on the biggest stage one more time after two decades. Hope we get the better of them.

How To रावण

विजयदशमी की शुभकामनाएं | विजयदशमी वैसे तो पूर्व में हो चुकी घटना की स्मृति फिर ताज़ा करने के लिए मानते हैं, तो इसमें कामना करने का ज़्यादा स्कोप है नहीं, पर चलो फिर भी कामना करते हैं कि जलते रावण से कोई पटाखा निकल के आपके सर पर न आ गिरे | Influencer economy (इन्फ्लुएंसर इकोनॉमी) का ज़माना है, कुछ लोग पूछ सकते हैं किन fluencer के ज़माने की बात कर रहा हूँ | मेरे ऐसे मित्रो को बताता चलूं की जो लोग Internet (इंटरनेट) पर आ कर आपको जीने के तौर तरीको पर ज्ञान देते हैं उनको Influencer कहते हैं | अब जिसके मन में सवाल आया हो कि किन-टरनेट पर आने की बात कर रहा हूँ ? तो उनको में आगे का ना पढ़ के समय बचाने की शुभकामना देता हूँ |

रावण के बारे में विभिन्न स्त्रोतों से जाना जाए, (मणिरत्नम कि फ़िल्म को स्त्रोत न मानते हुए), तो हम दृढ़ता से विश्रवा-पुत्र रावण को Influencer शीर्ष की उपाधि प्रदान कर सकते हैं | जहां पश्चिम में लोगो ने अब जाकर खुद को कुत्ते-बिल्ली आदि से Identify करना शुरू किया है, रावण ने युगों पूर्व खुद को एक मृग से identify कर इस प्रथा की शुरुवात कर दी थी |  पश्चिमी influencers को रावण ने और भी गहरे रूप से प्रभावित किया है | ग़ौरतलब है, कि पिछले कुछ सालों में first world country से लोग डिजिटल नोमेड बनने के नाम पर किसी सुंदर सी third world country में आके बस जाते हैं, और  purchasing power parity (आय डॉलर में, खर्च कोड़ियों में) के गणित के कारण राजा की ज़िन्दगी बिताते हैं, इस प्रथा को भी जन्म देने वाला रावण को माना जा सकता है, जिसने अपने जन्मभूमि delhi ncr की अति प्रतियोगी जीवनशैली को छोड़ पास के प्राकृतिक सौंदर्य से पूर्ण island nation (द्वीप देश) में राजा की तरह जीवन व्यतीत करने की समझदारी दिखाई |

रावण सिर्फ पश्चिम को ही नही, स्वदेशी युवाओं को भी बखूबी influence करता रहा है | जहां रावण नें अपनी "सोने की लंका" स्थापित की थी, उस ही तर्ज पर चलते हुए हमारे engineering के छात्रों ने रात रात भर TV सीरीज देखने, और US clients के लिए काम करने वाले MNC के कर्मियों ने night shift कर अपनी-अपनी "सोने की लंका" लगा दी | पिछले कुछ वर्षों ने हिंदी Rap म्यूजिक का उद्भव देखा है, पर अगर हम भारत में लिखे सर्वप्रथम और सर्वश्रेष्ट lyrics को देखें तो "शिव तांडव स्त्रोतम" बेमिसाल है, और उसका रचयिता ? बिल्कुल ठीक पहचान, influencer शिरोमणी रावण | कह सकते हैं कि यह रावण का ही प्रभाव है, जिस कारण सही का साथ देने के बावजूद विभीषण को इसलिए समाज में इज़्ज़त नही मिलती क्योंकि उसने "Bro Code" का पालन नहीं किया |

सिर्फ influencer ही नहीं रावण को trendsetter (ट्रेंड सेटर) भी कहा जा सकता है, वैसे हैं दोनो पर्यायवाची ही | जहां लोगो ने अब जाकर अपने बच्चों का नाम फिल्मी हीरो-हीरोइनों के नाम पर रखना शुरू किया है, दूरदर्शी रावण ने, सदियों पहले अपने पुत्र का नाम अक्षय कुमार रखा हुआ था | गहन विचार करने पर लगता है, मनोरंजन और खाने पीने की जगह में per person के बजाय per head के हिसाब से दर की शुरुआत भी कहीं न कहीं रावण के कारण ही हुई होगी | रावण की मृत्यु भले ही बाण लगने से हुई हो, पर पुतला जलाने का trend कैसे सेट हो गया, पता नही | पर देखने वाली बात ये है, कि रावण तो रावण, रावण का पुतला भी इतना बड़ा trendsetter (ट्रेंड सेटर) निकला, कि उसने पुतले जलाने का trend शुरू करा दिया | अब अगर फलाना व्यक्ति को ढिकाना व्यक्ति की कोई बात पसंद नहीं आती, तो वह फलाना को रावण की संज्ञा देके, अपने समर्थकों के साथ, उसके नाम का पुतला फूंक सकता है |

इस स्तर का influencer आज तक शायद ही कोई रहा हो कि उसका पुतला भी influencer हो | शायद रावण अगर आज सोशल मीडिया पर होता, तो अच्छे खासे तादाद में फॉलोवर्स (चेले) ज़रूर होते|इस whataboutery (अर्थात "पर उस पर क्यों नही बोला")  के ज़माने में, सीता माता के हरण को भी शायद उसके फॉलोवर्स यह कहके defend कर लेते की पहले रावण की बहन की नाक लक्ष्मण जी ने काटी, तब किसी ने विरोध क्यों नही किया |खैर यूँ होता तो क्या होता का तो कोई जवाब नही है, और इस फेर में पड़ना भी नही चाहिए, क्योंकि जैसा बताया, ज़माना whataboutery का है |

वैसे रावण से influence होने के लिए एक अच्छा गुण भी है, वो है कि रावण "consent" ( स्वीकृति ) का समर्थक था | सीता माता को हर लेने के बाद भी वह खुद को उन के द्वारा स्वीकृत किये जाने की कोशिशें करता रहा, पर कोई सीमा नहीं लाँघि | इस मामले में आज के लोग रावण से  influence हो जाएँ तो कोई बुराई न होगी |

बहरहाल, रावण के influence potential (प्रभाव करने की क्षमता) पर जितना लिखा जाए कम है | उसका अंदाज़ा इस ही बात से लगाया जा सकता है की साल में एक अतिरिक्त छुट्टी ही उसके कारण मिल जाती है | कोई अपने पुरखों को याद करे ना करे, पर रावण को तो एक बार याद कर ही लेता है | रावण अपने आप में दशहरे के रूप में एक अर्थ-व्यवस्था बन के उभरा है, जो आतिशबाजों को, रामलीला मंचन करने वाले कलाकारों को, बड़े बड़े उद्योगों के विज्ञापन विभागों को, व मुझ जैसे स्वघोषित लेखकों को, कुछ काम दे ही जाता है | उम्मीद है कि रावण का influence (प्रभाव) बना रहेगा, हालांकि दुख भी यही है |

- कुलदीप

The heavens take their voice back.

'Didi' as she was lovingly called by one and all, Lata Mangeshkar's professional career spanned across 8 decades. There are not many people alive who have lived in a world without her voice, and surely, there wont be more people adding to that list. Some people start as a professional, be so good at it that initially they influence everyone related to that particular field of work, then it ripples and ultimately reach everyone, and then they create that field of work around themselves and then it becomes hard to imagine a world without their presence. Such people, turn from a professional to an influence to a phenomenm and then to an emotion. Their stature so majestic and their legacy so grand that words like Master, Legend, and all that look so punny. Such a person was Lata Mangeshkar.

As a young kid, I and I think if we as a generation can recall, Ae mere watan ke logon, Ae malik tere bande hum, Vande Matram and many such songs which made even our intolerable school sound system so melodious. With her infinite number of songs, she became a part of our lives. Whatever be our mood, Happy, Sad, In love, Out of love, quirky or thoughtful, is there even something, she did not sing for. Absolutely Negative. We have all read story of the Golden touch of King Midas, I think Lata Mangeshkar's voice is the closest, I have experienced in real life. Every song, she graced with her voice, was sure to get embedded in history.

Recently, she expressed her strong disapproval of badly recreating old songs by Music industry mafias for monetary benefits. She spoke for a strong cause before falling ill for the last time, and that is, to let the rights of music in hands of the creators, the musicians, and not the corporate producers, whose only objective is making profits. In her last days, she spoke for arts, she spoke for artists.The fact that she gave us, everything she has to offer, and took retirement a few years before leaving this world in her physical form, makes it somewhat bearable, that she got us used to live in a world where we wont look forward to more of her gifts, but I have a dream that using technology and AI, we would be able to soon make songs with her voice, and new songs, just hope that the music mafias do not exploit it.

She will live forever among us in form of her voice, her story, her ideals and I can sense that as long as there are languages she sang in, and as long as there are species with acoustic senses, she will keep on living. Nonetheless, it's as sad day for everyone of us, who got touched by her presence in form of her voice. Just as the sun set on this Vasant Panchmi, the shadow of goddess Saraswati walked away from us. Rest in glory. Lata Mangeshkar (1929-Forever)

"Tujhse Naraz nahi zindagi, hairaan hun main."

The Dichotomy of Everything

 Yet another mytho-religio-philosophical blog on yet another auspicious day.

It is no coincidence that the blogs here are posted mostly on religiously significant days. Days as such fascinate me, to dig deeper, into the significance of these events, the tales, and mythologies behind them, how it differs from our perception of it today, how it has shaped us, and such a huge part of our lives that is religion. I find myself on a meta-bipolarity when it comes to religion. The first being, with agnostic on one pole and on another a bipolarity of my religiosity. But, there is a sort of realization, that it is the theological and mythological aspect of religion and its development, as well as the anthropological aspect associated with it that makes this all so interesting to me.

So, with no further ado, as the title says, Dichotomies revolve all around us. For every Good we have a Bad, for every Yin, a Yang, for every On, there is an Off, and for every zero there is a One. I am here to write about my interpretation of the Dichotomy there is responsible for the existence of everything. Scientific hypotheses have various claims about the pre-Big Bang period. Some claim there to be the existence of an infinite material stretched everywhere through time and space which got distorted, broken and reshaped through the big bang and the universe came into being. While some claim that since time-space came into existence only after the big bang, there is no question of existence in terms of space and time before the big bang and hence it can be said that there was nothing before the big bang.

Cutting it short for interpretation of the simple mind as ours (or mine at least), there was infinity or there was nothing, which then, had a "tryst with energy of unimaginable magnitude" and everything there ever is or was came into existence. Now we are talking, right? No? Ok, at least we are closer to our root. Let me repeat.

Everything came into existence when Infinity or Zero (Or both at the same time) collided with Energy. The birth of the cosmos, the universe. Now coming to Mythology, taking the balanced amount of Shaivism and Shaktism and the mixed mythology of popular Hinduism today, the creation of the universe is credited to Shiva & Shakti. Shiva - who represents the co-existing Nothingness and Infinity, and Shakti - The primordial cosmic energy. The universe came into being with their union.

Another point of view to see the dichotomy is through the gender lens, with Shiva being the Male deity and Shakti being the Female deity. Their union need not be perceived as crisp as seen in popular images, it can be a male extreme slowly and gradually blending to a female extreme. In Brihadaranyak Upnishad - Atma (Soul) exists in the form of the Androgynous (Both male and female in one ambiguously) cosmic being, which splits itself into two parts male and female, copulates and produces all life. Also in Shvetashvatar Upnishad, declares Rudra (pre-existing Shiva) as the root of Purush (the male principle) and Prakriti (the female principle). The concept of Purush and Prakriti is quite similar to what found in Abrahamic religions as Adam and Eve, but not much coincidence, in my opinion, perhaps it is because both streams, Dharmic and Abrahamic do agree, that life is given birth with a male and a female.

Let's have a look at the Dichotomy of Shiva and Shakti, through our Philosophical glasses. While Shiva is often the state of Consciousness, Shakti is synonymous with Energy. A balance between the two results in everything there is. Consciousness and Energy, Knowledge and Action, Awareness and Behaviour, it can be expressed and interpreted in various terms and tones. Whatever there is today, is a result of decisions made at every stage, every moment of mankind, or even before, since the inception of life. A decision made by some microscopic creature, at some point in time, is responsible for the World Wars. Crazy enough to think, yet it is true. We are living in a chain reaction of decisions. Where our consciousness and our energies are constantly coordinating with each other and shaping the next moments and compounding into the next hours, days, years, and centuries of the universe. For life to sustain or universe in general to sustain, the co-existence of both consciousness and energy is necessary, hence it is often preached that the "ardha-nari-eshvara (Androgynous form of Shiva Shakti)" shall be seen as one, inseparable, and interchangeable being. Interchangeable, as in, Consciousness can transcend into Energy, and Energy can, into Consciousness as well. This interchangeability is something really interesting as it corresponds to one similar interchangeable scientific dichotomy, i.e. of Matter and Energy, Einstein OP.

Well, that was all the brainstorming there was. STORYTIME. (TL;DR - Daksha Yajna.)

Much later in the mythological period after the creation of the universe and in a mythological space, there exists the trinity of Lord Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, quite possibly eons after the Param-Brahm "Supreme Being" has embodied the Shiva part into Shiva the Yogi and the Shakti part is yet to be personified.

Lord Brahma - in his role as the creator - had created 16 sons and 1 daughter -all, only from his mind. One of the sons was Daksh. Daksh who is described as an able King and Prajapati, prays to Adi-shakti (Energy form of Param Brahm) to be born as his daughter. The Goddess grants his wish on the condition that if she is not mistreated as his daughter, she will abandon that body.

Daksh fathers somewhere between 16-60 daughters from his two wives. The Youngest and the most ideal of them is the re-incarnation of Adi-Shakti, born, Sati. Sati all through her growing up is fascinated with the tales of Shiva, and when she comes of age, the idea to marry anyone of her father's wish seems impossible to her. Daksh being a father, trying to provide the best for his children and having married his other daughters to wealthy deities and kings, does not want his most lovingly brought up daughter to marry an ascetic Shiv.

But Sati was the other half of the Param-Brahm as Shiva and was destined to unite with him, in this reincarnation. To fulfill her destiny, she went to meditate and appease the hermit Shiva in the Himalayas. Pleased with Sati's devotion, Shiva agreed to marry Sati at once. Daksh detested Shiva and reluctantly married off Sati to Shiva. Shiva and Sati's wedding was blessed by the presence of all gods, sages, deities, and divine beings. Hence this makes Maha Shivratri an auspicious occasion. Shiva and Sati start leading a happy married life, at their abode in Mount Kailash. But even after the wedding, Daksh could not accept the fact that his daughter is married to a hermit. To avenge his hurt pride, Daksh conducts a sacrifice or Yajna (pronounced Yagya) where he invites all the Gods, deities, and divine beings, except Shiva.

When Sati comes to know about the Yajna and the intended insult towards her husband, she decides to confront her father. Shiva tries to stop her, knowing that, Daksh would not be happy upon her arrival. When she arrives at Daksh, he receives her coldly and insults and mocks Shiv in front of her.

Enraged with her father's behavior, and as her condition, while granting the wish to Daksh in form of Adi Shakti, she invokes a sacrificial fire and self-immolates her body. Upon receiving the news of the death of his beloved wife, Shiva gets furious and performs the Tandav. During which he plucks a lock of his hair, from which Veerbhadra and Bhadrakali take birth. They are destructive avatars of Shiva and Shakti. They slay everyone at the Sacrificial place, including Daksh.

Watching the mayhem, Lord Brahma pleads Shiva for mercy and forgiveness for his son. After calming down, the all-forgiving Shiva forgives Daksha, and replaces his slain head with that of a Goat. Another account tells that devastated Shiva carries Shakti's destroyed body on his shoulder, on his way to abandoning the universe. Seeing a threat to the universal balance, gods plead Lord Vishnu to stop Shiva from doing so. As a response, Vishnu uses his Sudarshan Chakra, which cuts Shakti's body into 52 parts that fall in various places on earth, which came to be known as the 52 shakti peeths. This incident gave birth to two major sects of Hinduism, viz. Shaivism, and Shaktism.

Lord Shiva returns to mount Kailash to mourn Sati's demise through meditation. Later, Adi Shakti will again reincarnate as Parvati and marry Shiv, living in Kailash forever.

There is no separation of Shiva and Shakti, even though they exist in Dichotomy. And it is their co-existence, everything survives on.

Om Namah Shivay.

एक विजय यह भी

 

(Picture courtesy: Google Images)

विजयदशमी है ज्ञात हो,

सत्य की असत्य पर, अच्छाई की बुराई पर,

जीत का उत्सव पर्व अनूप यह,

राम जी के द्वन्द का, लंका की चढ़ाई पर |

इससे अलग द्वन्द एक और भी था चल रहा,

चर्चा उसकी की कम जाती है,

क्या हो जब शत्रु कोई दानव-दैत्य न हो,

और समय की गति भी थम जाती है |

एक ओर प्रभु अपने कर्तव्य पथ पर

चलते हुए, अपने भक्तों को तार रहे थे,

 भैया लक्ष्मण संग, वानर सेना,

कर उनके जय जयकार रहे थे |

हर दिन मिलती कुछ नयी सूचना,

नित नित रणनीति बनाते थे,

जब भी विश्वास मन का होता डगमग,

" जय श्री राम " के उद्घोष हिम्मत बंधाते थे |

पर युद्ध जो था दूसरा चल रहा,

उस में न संभावनाएं न ही कोई उन्माद था,

विजय की अभिलाषा से होता उदय सूर्य,

पर रात्रि में पराजय का ही स्वाद था |

शत्रु भी था, सर्वशक्तिमान,

अदृश्य, अनादि-अनंत था,

कालचक्र था नाम उसका,

समग्र सृष्टि का महंत था |

और ये एक बेचारी सी अबला स्त्री,

एक फूल सरीखी राजकुमारी,

ना शस्त्र-अस्त्र, ना साथ कोई सेना,

एक एक दिन पड़ता था भारी |

मन था व्याकुल, और था भय भी,

ना साथ कोई शक्ति का स्त्रोत,

ना कोई रणनीतिज्ञ ना कोई मित्र,

बस प्रभु मिलाप की अखंड ज्योत |

कैसे हे माता तुमने क्षण क्षण निकाला,

अपने प्रभु की आस में,

कैसे संभाले रखा स्वयं को तुमने,

इस जीवन रुपी त्रास में |

युद्ध कठिन वह नहीं है,

जिसमे विजय की आशंका क्षीण हों,

युद्ध कठिन तो वह है बल्कि जिस में,

निर्णय शत्रु के अधीन हो |

जब स्थिति पर नियंत्रण तुम्हारा ना हो,

आशा ही एक मात्र सामर्थ्य हो,

शील तुम्हारा बने ढाल अभेद्य,

उत्कंठा का हर वार व्यर्थ हो |

हे माता यह युद्ध आपका,

राम और रावण युद्ध की परछाई होगा,

अच्छाई - बुराई, सत्य- असत्य से परे,

धैर्य भी विजयदशमी का पर्याय होगा |

संयम के इन आभूषणों को सीते करो धारण,

समय के विर्रुद्ध शस्त्र ये बन जाएंगे,

विजय तिलक कराने, मस्तक ले अपना,

प्रभु श्री राम अवश्य आएँगे ||

|| जय श्री राम ||

- कुलदीप

Social Media : Where are we heading to ?

Today, our lives are entirely different from the ones we had a decade ago. Well, that happens every decade, that's called growth, evolution, change, generational shift, xyz, right ?. Well, wrong.

Our lives have gone through a paradigm shift in the way we interact with the society.

If I told you 10 years ago to have an argument with a person you have never seen, or known, over something as silly as which software or website is better, you probably would have doubted my sanity. How has it all changed and why?

Social media, how it was known, was created to put the internet to better use, to use the internet so that people may engage in life-like interaction, show emotions, maintain groups, have discussions, in a way transpose an image of their real life social network. Well, pretty harmless. People who have been on orkut, gtalk, yahoo messenger, myspace have seen the first generation social media. Those people can testify to the fact that social media was not what we are seeing today.

What went wrong ?

Money. Money got involved.

Social media rose above being just a website or a little windows application. It started evolving into money making platform. That is when the aim of such websites, rather than providing the user a more close to real life experience, started developing into platforms that can keep you hooked as long as possible. The role of a psychologist in the online industry became bigger than ever. User engagement - the key to success of these websites. If a person not turned the "public" feature off. Anyone can comment on what they say. How they look. How they feel about something. One gets liable to get a response to what they post. Public is a default feature, remember. The tendency of humans to reciprocate the majority, to express the better version of themselves in public, the reward mechanism (likes and shares) all woven together, changed the users in such a way, that we shifted from the time we avoided posting any personal information online to times when we have instagram, where we share pictures of every little thing we do. Hardware technology was transforming hand in hand to make this easier. Camera phones were not so easily accessible. Neither high speed internet, nor the one touch apps. But the thing you got to understand is that it's not the technology which gave birth to how social media is today, rather it is the opposite of that. But something to ponder upon, were we sharing information or opinions on our social media with the whole world too ? Did we use to do it in our offline lives ? Sharing how we feel about something in an open space, or blasting our opinion over a megaphone ? No, it would have been ridiculous, right. Yes, right. We could have discussed politics, sports, entertainment, etc. in our closed circles. And we would have been open to get criticized for, or commended for the same from the limited set of people, who know us. But from there it transformed into something where our psyche pushes us to voice our opinion about anything and everything. As soon as we hear a news, we feel an urge to express our opinion over it on social media. This was not our behaviour. We have been manipulated to be a subject of a bigger reward, recognition and punishment cycle. We post something, we wait for people (known and unknown) to react to it, we want to get rewarded with likes and shares and that becomes our dopamine stimulant. And this does not happen overnight, it may take days, months or years, depending on your usage. It just has to be progressive.

You stay hooked to your social media, and they keep making money, To keep you hooked, they will fill your feed based on your interest, people you like to interact with based on your history, relevant topics etc. Well, arguably not a bad business model. I would like to throw light on where I feel it goes wrong.

Let's finally, address the elephant in the room. Social media spaces have become arenas for cyberbullying. Harmless names such as trolling, roasting, etc. have been given to cyberbullying paired with adjectives like savage, lit, etc. said in a positive light to legitimize that. Such acts of cyberbullying bring on user engagement, followers, increasing your "Digital Valuation" or "Influence quotient". This quite naturally inspires others to do the same, and go a step further, because this is what they believe will bring them success, there is no line to it. The "Roasting" in its authentic version is a dialogue, where the participants make fun of each other for acts, lives, behaviour, they did, with mutual consent. It is not shaming, it is not demeaning, it is not abusive (abusive does not mean usage of profanity). Calling cyberbullying roasting, is like sucker-punching someone and calling it boxing. A similar version of it is trolling on social media, twitter specially. A swarm of such trollers, mostly anonymous, bully the user as per their convenience. Some star trollers or tweelebs may even have following in millions. Their reward system is getting boosted by their toxic habit. At the same time their audience is getting inspired to do the same, in order to achieve success.

Twitter recently took a positive step in this regard and has allowed the user to chose who may comment on their posts and who can not but that alone does not curb the one way cyber-bullying served as roasting.

The whole ecosystem that validates someone as successful, has the foundation of monetary benefits. Anyone can exploit your sentiments, build a following, become famous, become "successful" (validations like the verified profile, meeting celebrities, having meet and greet, getting invited to talk shows , get paid promtions, etc. ) in the digital world. And all of it without being creative or adding any value anywhere. Simply by spreading hatred or abuse or bullying. It has become that easy. The more toxic side to this is that such characters inspire millions of their followers to do the same.

Negativity spreads very easily, you can create a hate video on anything, a section of society, a country, a policy, a leader even an app, without any specific matter but just abusing it, and still get views in thousands, because negative sentiment goes far and is more persistent than a positive one.

I would like to bring the focus to one such digital celebrity, all he did was sit in his car, record a video with a selfie camera, exploits the already exploited patriotic sentiments, begins with a jai hind, to validate himself as a good person, and what follows is a series of venomous hatred and slurs for people he disagree with. 10 years ago if someone said Jai Hind followed by Ma ki C*** , that person would have been called out everywhere and asked to apologise. What we see today, is glorification of such acts, invitation to a national tv reality show, because the TV guys know how get audience, awards and rewards. No content created, just abuses and hatred. But he rises to "success" in the digital world.

Ask such a creator to make something original of his own, and he has nothing to give you. Because in the game of likes and shares and subscribes, such content is an easy ladder. Now if you go to youtube you will find a generation of "Roasters, People hating, threat issuing youtubers", all just striving to make a little money and be successful and they are unaware of any kind of ethics, because their heroes are too. Again, Roasting is done consensually, without demeaning or bullying.

Another side of social media changing the way we are, is it peer pressuring many aspiring to be social media stars into being something they are not. Showcasing glittery life like the ones of "who have made it". The pursuit of success has become so ruling that in the US young kids are under debt to showcase their cars, jewelleries, sneakers and what not. Instagram influencers, are not able to make it without showing their skin and being sexually appealing. A talented artist or sportswomen might have followers in some thousand, even though she is providing good entertainment value, but a fake page posting just breasts and bottoms of women with faces cropped out might have followers in millions, and mind you that account is not even a real person. And we as a society then have the guts to say, we should not objectity women.

According to a survey conducted by a lingerie brand between 1992 and 2013, the average bra size in the U.S. has increased from a 34B to a 34DD, and now just seven years later, the average has shot up to a DDD — that’s the largest compared to any of the other countries studied. Where are we heading ?

Sure sex sells, thats one way of marketing when you run out of ideas, but marketing sexually your self, is seriously a big issue.

After that I would like to re-adress how this whole online social media world is impacting our behaviour. The social media platforms did their job by keeping you hooked by easing out your feed, but now what you make of it is up to you. People are induldging in arguments with strangers, those not indulging are spending hours reading others arguments. Then people with more time argue over the internet with a similar stranger who has a difference in opinion with them. People with lesser time will indulge in debates with their acquaintances who disagree with them. Either way, we become more negative, more hateful, more intolerant and hostile toward disagreement. Arguments among friends for causes as silly as whose app preference is better, has become a common spectacle.

The human tendency to say something in person vs through a medium varies by a huge margin. When the person we are addressing is in front of our eyes, we tend to value them more, quite similar to paying in cash or paying online/card, when we don't see the money we tend to value it lesser. Similarly when we are arguing with someone in person, we tend to be more human, more sympathetic, more tolerant towards them. We judge how much we value them, is it ok to let the debate win and lose the person. If it is a stranger we wont argue with them because it is ridiculous and simply not worth our time, also it is not very civil of us to argue with a stranger. But as soon as we limit our debates to our phones and laptops, we turn more hostile, because we are not able to clearly judge the value of the person we are arguing with in our mind and we continue on our journey to become a more toxic person online. We do not give a damn about how sensitive the one on the the other end might be. What has forged their thoughts that there is a disagreement between you two. Is it a self interest or a personal trauma. We never care for all this. We don't have time for all that, We just want to impose our say, thats the whole point of internet arguments. We have become ideological warriors and that is the mother of extreme ideologies. We become harsher everyday.

Blame it all on our human minds, whatever we are becoming, the heroes we have chosen, how we fall into the trap of negativity more easily, how we learn to hate more easily than to love, how we let our sentiments be exploited, How we tend to click on a picture with a sexually appealing model than to someone doing something that requires talent. We can blame it all on our human minds and continue these people manipulate us further, exploit us further, spoil us further for their monetary benefits.

Or

We can chose to realise that we are at a very important juncture of human evolution where we set precedent for how the future generations are going to be in their nature, whom will they idiolize, what will they aspire to become and what society will they make up.

Our thoughts today shape our actions of tomorrow. We live in a society where an african  american man needs to be displayed getting brutally killed on video for making people say Black Lives Matter. We live in a society where a person has to committ suicide to make people realise that mental health is a serious issue, and they love their friends and they are available for them.

 Hope of being more human remains to be more sympathetic, more caring and more affectionate.