The House Sparrow

Today I saw a house sparrow. And it struck me. I can not recollect the last time I saw a house sparrow. It has perhaps been years. I ran for my camera, but in vain. It was long gone.Many years back a house sparrow was the most common thing we would see-on our balconies and front porches, inside little bushy gardens and the ubiquitous sparrow nests. They were such an integral part of our childhood that they found place in our games(remember chidiya uddh?), in school rhymes and Bollywood songs. And today they are a rare sight.The sad part is we don't even realise or seem to care that they are no longer a part of our lives.

The house sparrow never invoked academic interest in us ,nor was it a part of our early academic discourse. Probably because it was so common and non intrusive, that we stopped noticing it altogether. And hence we never noticed its disappearance. It turns out that the house sparrow is not in IUCN's 'endangered' category. In fact,it is in its 'least concern' category. But in India they are slowly facing extinction. The sparrows evolved with humans for almost 10,000 years. But now, it finds it nearly impossible to co exist with us. In our quest for mindless development, we have cut off every means of survival for the unassuming sparrow. Our gardens are laden with insecticides potentially fatal for them, our specially designed windows to install air conditioners do not have the little space for sparrow nests it once had, our upscale lifestyles no longer accommodates practices which were essential for its survival. They are long gone-from our rhymes, from our movie songs ,from our games and from our lives. Meanwhile, we have developed. We have developed colossal indifference towards our nature that gives us life, we have developed the art of ingnoring dwindled presence of once ever present living beings around us, we have developed our ability to convince our conscience that these are necessary prices we have to pay.

The next time I see a house sparrow, I hope I can get a picture clicked.

He just spoke his mind

I have always believed there are two kinds of people. One who can read between the lines and others who pretend they can read between the lines. I am sure I am not the former . But I did come across a write up from someone who I believe is the latter. In my sociology classes, I was taught about one sided accentuation of realities. And in his zeal to 'critique' Bhupendra Chaubey's tweets, that is precisely what the critic did. Now I must confess I am no fan of Mr Chaubey, but just like the critic I found him to be a neutral journalist. But unlike the critic, I did not change my opinion on the basis  of tweets which did not seem to conform to my opinions. For instance this is what Bhupendra Chaubey had to say on Yogi Adityanath's speech in the parliament which I not only found uncivilised but also blunt worthless rant.

Which brings me to what neutrality is. Is it going hammer and tongs at everyone, criticising anything and everything. Or is it being appreciative of everything, defending all and gaining everyone's acceptance. As Max Weber  observed, it is impossible to remain completely immune from your biases. So who is neutral then. If everyone is a prisoner of his biases, then no one can be neutral.Only those who are intentionally biased are the ones who are not neutral. For me, anyone who speaks his mind irrespective of whether he'll be considered biased, irrespective of what his positions in the past would have been, irrespective of what kind of people he has been associated with and most of all irrespective of whether he conforms to my views , is neutral. And that is what I think Bhupendra Chaubey has been.Atleast till now. He just spoke his mind. I hope he continues to do so..

The AIB apology and its aftermath

The social media went berserk today. There's nothing new about that. It goes berserk every alternate day. But today is a bit different. While in most or all cases the issue pertains to demanding an apology for an act, a statement, a thought ,a tweet, a post, and what not,  today charges were framed for tendering an apology. Yes, AIB was hounded for saying 'sorry'.  Led by enthusiastic, self proclaimed  free speech advocates, AIB was mocked for coming down on its knees , bowing to pressure,being 'sickulars' for apologising only to Christians and betraying all those who 'virtually' stood behind them in their apparent hour of crisis. And their crime? In a society where everyone seeks to out do the other, where one's acceptance is inextricably linked to another's embarrassment, where even humour has ideological leanings and where troll and abuse are the norm rather than the exception, AIB dared to say 'sorry'.
Is sorry always a unilateral admission of guilt. A sorry can mean a lot many things. In a world so full of contradictions, many a rights inevitably end up hurting others. So what does the righteous do. Does he get around and say, I have the right to use my right to offend you and I will keep using it to hurt you(eg: Charlie Hebdo). Or does he choose to keep manoeuvring around his rights and keep offending others(Eg: communalists and pseudo secularists). Or else, does he turn around and say that even though I am well within my rights, I feel sorry for having offended you which was not my intention. I would prefer the last option and I believe so would the larger civil common public. Just like AIB, a certain political leader chose to say sorry for something he considered right but which offended the public. It was not an admission of guilt and even as I write this people are rewarding  him in unprecedented ways. A sorry doesn't belittle you, a sorry doesn't make you guilty, a sorry doesn't make you any less right. It just makes you a person sensitive to your fellow social beings emotions. And probably that's what AIB is-sensitive. Probably....

PS: I am a catholic Christian and AIB has one less person to apologise to.

AIB Knock Out:I Accuse Us

I am all for free speech.I am also for the right to get offended. And I don't seek to curtail either. 

So what is my problem. Is it that a bunch of stand up comedians collaborated with another bunch of A-listers(that's what they like to call themselves) to come with a bunch a crass jokes. That's an unfair argument. Simply because the so called bunch of stand up comedians have quite a following, the bunch of A -listers are no less that role models and the bunch of crass jokes managed to raise ₹40 lakhs in just under 2 hours. Obviously, people bought what they sold.So let's just stop being hypocritical about some abstract values and accept that a large number of us liked it. 

Then what is my problem. Is it that the roast was offensive. But hey, in all fairness there were enough and more warnings that what would follow would be offensive. If one still persisted on with watching the whole of it, then it was completely believing in one's own highly offence-immune capabilities. Why blame others, If you can't live up to your own standards.

So then what is my problem. Is it that a completely different bunch of enlightened souls took exception to what was said during the roast and they have assumed the mantle of delivering us, the lesser beings from the horror of listening to what they were subjected to(by their own free will,mind you). I don't need to be patronised by you sirs. And I for sure don't need lessons from you on what our values are. The world is an open school and I learn my own lessons. So did the ones who went about lowering the bar of humour and so did you sirs-sole protectors of the ancient mystic Indian value system. 

So what then is my problem.I stand to accuse us. I accuse us of exploitation, all of us-stand up comedians, A-listers value preservers, the offender and the offended. I accuse us of exploiting our right to freedom to offend others. I accuse us of exploiting our right to get offended to oppress everything that we do not like. I accuse us of exploiting society's tolerance to stretch it to its limits. I accuse us of exploiting people's discomfort with explicit humour to further our made up value systems. There are no Abel's in the story. There are no victims. We all stand accused. Stop exploiting freedom. Or else, someday freedom shall rebel, it shall withdraw itself . And then, perhaps we will think. If only we were a bit more human to our freedom, if only we did not exploit it so much...