Arrogance is the new intelligence

A few days ago we took the kids to a party and they pretty much shocked the pants off everyone with their Good evening Uncle, Good evening Aunty, Thank you for having us, except for the Bean saying her goodbyes and ending with, ‘Thank you for coming’! Yes, she’s four and easily confused but very particular about manners.

The hosts laughed their butts off and then proceeded to lecture us on ‘making’ the kids wish other adults the time of day and say please, thank you etc. This is something I’ve always found rather strange. Why is it that people don’t think manners are an unimportant lesson? Or that there is such a thing as teaching your kids manners too early? No, it doesn’t come naturally to kids to say Please, Thank you and May I, so if you don’t teach them, who will?

Oh he won’t say hello unless he likes you, says one smiling father. Another mother shrugs proudly – He’ll hit first and ask questions later. Eh? What am I missing? And parents are okay with this? Others believe it’s a part of modern parenting philosophy and throw words at you like  - space, privacy, choice, development. He has only one childhood and we don’t like to tell him to do this or do that… says another, fondly watching her son throw stones at a stray dog. And what do our kids have – nine lives? “The books I’ve read and the school philosophy is to let the children find their own feet and decide what they think is right or wrong… ‘ she says, as her son pushes my daughter off her cycle roughly. I break the conversation and go running to save her since she’s about half his size.  Clearly her son thinks there is nothing wrong with raising a hand on a little girl who is half his size. I hope all that psychology is useful as he grows up aggressive.

I understand some kids are shy and some are aggressive – but I am horrified when I don’t even see parents make a token effort. A simple reminder – say Good evening/Hello/Namaste to Aunty. Never mind if the kid doesn’t say it – you’ve begun something that he will slowly absorb and someday even surprise you by saying without prompting.

But (Yes, I am aware that you shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘but’) no one seems to care, by their own admission. All the kids go to new age schools where they are encouraged to explore their surroundings and find themselves. Where there is no discipline. No enforcement. I agree with that in theory. My kids go to a similar school. But are we throwing away decency and manners in this whole new way of parenting?

If your kid has looked deep within and only found arrogance or bad behaviour, how about you find some manners for him? Another kid stalks off from the skating class because he is punching a younger kid in the face and I stop him. I’m nobody of any relevance according to him. I’m not his mother and I’m not the skating coach, so what business is it of mine? I glare at him mencingly and firmly tell him that he MUST STOP HITTING. Or else, his eyes challenge me? Or else… I drift away. Or else nothing. I can do nothing. I am positive I won’t find any support in his parents. If they cared, he wouldn’t be as much of a bully as he is.

For instance, I recently saw this advertisement on TV and it horrified me. I’d skin my kids alive if they slid a coin across a counter so rudely to a shopkeeper, specially an elderly person. But advertisers clearly have been doing enough market surveys to know that arrogance is the new intelligence. When we were kids the advertisements enticed you with promises of growing to be like Kapil Dev or the smarter kid. But no, we no longer aspire to be hardworking or tall.  We aim to be cocky. We want to be arrogant.

Because in some twisted way parents believe that being arrogant shows that we’re smart. We’re witty, we’re intelligent, we’re irreverent. That it makes their kids brave and intrepid. They don’t demand instant obedience. I get that. I don’t want zombies for kids either. But surely having your own mind and being well mannered are not mutually exclusive. And humility isn’t really an old fashioned virtue. I’m out of options now – I think I’m taking the next ticket to Mars.

I leave you with a piece by Samina Mishra. A senior from college, a sometimes colleague and a woman I admire tremendously for what she does with her life and the way she thinks. Enjoy.

 

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

I got this link via BEV. This is Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg delivering the keynote at Barnard College’s 119th Commencement ceremony. I watched it a couple of times and figured I’d share the transcript in case you are interested. Am going to italicise and number the portions that I want to talk about.

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Thank you, President Spar. Members of the board of trustees, esteemed members of the faculty, proud parents, squirming siblings, devoted friends: congratulations to all of you. But especially, congratulations to the magnificent Barnard Class of 2011.

Looking at you all here fills me with great joy, in part because my college roommate, a member of your faculty, Caroline Weber, is here. Carrie, it means so much to me to be at your school, and in part because I work in Silicon Valley, let’s just say I’m not usually in a room with this many women. For the wonderful men who are here today, if you feel a little uncomfortable, we’re really glad you’re here, and no line for the men’s room. It’s worth it.

I graduated from college exactly 20 years ago. And as I am reminded every single day where I work, that makes me really old. Mark Zuckerberg, our founder and my boss, said to me the other day, “Sheryl, when do midlife crises happen? When you’re 30?” Not a good day at the office. But I am old enough to know that most of our lives are filled with days we do not remember. Today is not one of them. You may not remember one word I say. You may not even remember who your graduation speaker is, although for the record, Sheryl with an S. You won’t remember that it was raining and we had to move inside. But you will remember what matters, which is how you feel as you sit here, as you walk across the stage, as you start the next phase of your life.

Today is a day of celebration, a day to celebrate all the hard work that got you to this place where you can sit, kind of sweltering in that gown. Today is a day of thanks, a day to thank all the people that helped you get here, the people who nurtured you and taught you, who held your hand, who dried your tears. Today is a day of reflection.

As you leave Barnard today, you leave not just with an education, but you take your place amongst the fortunate. Some of you came here from families where education was expected and emphasized. Others of you had to overcome far more obstacles to get here, and today you become the very first member of your family to graduate from college. What an amazing accomplishment. But no matter where you started, as of today you are all privileged. You are privileged in the most important sense of the word, which is that you have almost boundless opportunity in front of you. So, the question is, what are you going to do with it? What will you do with this education you worked so hard to achieve? What in the world needs to change, and what part do you plan on playing in changing it? (1)

Pulitzer Prize winners Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof visited this campus last year and they spoke about their critically important book, Half the Sky. In that book, they assert that the fundamental moral challenge of the 19th century was slavery; of the 20th century, it was totalitarianism; and for our century, it is oppression of girls and women around the world. Their book is a call to arms, to give women all over the world, women who are exactly like us except for the circumstances into which they were born, basic human rights.

Compared to these women, we are lucky. In America, as in the entire developed world, we are equals under the law. But the promise of equality is not equality. As we sit here looking at this magnificent blue-robed class, we have to admit something that’s sad but true: men run the world. Of 190 heads of state, nine are women. Of all the parliaments around the world, 13% of those seats are held by women. Corporate America top jobs, 15% are women; numbers which have not moved at all in the past nine years. Nine years. Of full professors around the United States, only 24% are women.

I recognize that this is a vast improvement from generations in the past. When my mother took her turn to sit in a gown at her graduation, she thought she only had two career options: nursing and teaching. She raised me and my sister to believe that we could do anything, and we believed her. But what is so sad–it doesn’t just make me feel old, it makes me truly sad–is that it’s very clear that my generation is not going to change this problem. Women became 50% of the college graduates in this country in 1981, 30 years ago. Thirty years is plenty of time for those graduates to have gotten to the top of their industries, but we are nowhere close to 50% of the jobs at the top. (2) That means that when the big decisions are made, the decisions that affect all of our worlds, we do not have an equal voice at that table.

So today, we turn to you. You are the promise for a more equal world. You are our hope. I truly believe that only when we get real equality in our governments, in our businesses, in our companies and our universities, will we start to solve this generation’s central moral problem, which is gender equality. We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.

So my hope for all of you here, for every single one of you, is that you’re going to walk across the stage and get your diploma. You’re going to go out tonight or maybe all summer and celebrate. You deserve it. And then you’re going to lean way into your career. You’re going to find something you love doing, and you’re going to do it with gusto. You’re going to pick your field and you’re going to ride it all the way to the top.

So, what advice can I give you to help you achieve this goal? The first thing is I encourage you to think big. Studies show very clearly that in our country, in the college-educated part of the population, men are more ambitious than women. They’re more ambitious the day they graduate from college; they remain more ambitious every step along their career path. We will never close the achievement gap until we close the ambition gap. (3) But if all young women start to lean in, we can close the ambition gap right here, right now, if every single one of you leans in. Leadership belongs to those who take it. Leadership starts with you.

The next step is you’re going to have to believe in yourself potentially more than you do today. Studies also show that compared to men, women underestimate their performance. If you ask men and women questions about completely objective criteria such as GPAs or sales goals, men get it wrong slightly high; women get it wrong slightly low. More importantly, if you ask men why they succeeded, men attribute that success to themselves; and women, they attribute it to other factors like working harder, help from others. (4) Ask a woman why she did well on something, and she’ll say, “I got lucky. All of these great people helped me. I worked really hard.” Ask a man and he’ll say or think, “What a dumb question. I’m awesome.” So women need to take a page from men and own their own success.

That’s much easier to say than to do. I know this from my own experience. All along the way, I’ve had all of those moments, not just some of the time; I would say most of the time, where I haven’t felt that I owned my success. I got into college and thought about how much my parents helped me on my essays. I went to the Treasury Department because I was lucky to take the right professor’s class who took me to Treasury. Google, I boarded a rocket ship that took me up with everyone else.

Even to this day, I have those moments. I have those moments all the time, probably far more than you can imagine I would. I know I need to make the adjustments. I know I need to believe in myself and raise my hand, because I’m sitting next to some guy and he thinks he’s awesome. So, to all of you, if you remember nothing else today, remember this: You are awesome. I’m not suggesting you be boastful. No one likes that in men or women. But I am suggesting that believing in yourself is the first necessary step to coming even close to achieving your potential.

You should also know that there are external forces out there that are holding you back from really owning your success. Studies have shown–and yes, I kind of like studies–that success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. This means that as men get more successful and powerful, both men and women like them better. As women get more powerful and successful, everyone, including women, likes them less.(5)

I’ve experienced this firsthand. When I first joined Facebook, there was a well-read blog out in the Valley that devoted some incredibly serious pixels to trashing me. Anonymous sources called me a liar, two-faced, about to ruin Facebook forever. I cried some when I was alone, I lost a bunch of sleep. Then I told myself it didn’t matter. Then everyone else told me it didn’t matter, which just reminded me of one thing: they were reading it too. I fantasized about all kinds of rejoinders, but in the end, my best and only response was just to do my job and do it well. When Facebook’s performance improved, the trash talk went away.

Do I believe I was judged more harshly because of my double-Xs? Yes.(6) Do I think this will happen to me again in my career? Sure. I told myself that next time I’m not going to let it bother me, I won’t cry. I’m not sure that’s true. But I know I’ll get through it. I know that the truth comes out in the end, and I know how to keep my head down and just keep working.

If you think big, if you own your own success, if you lead, it won’t just have external costs, but it may cause you some personal sacrifice. Men make far fewer compromises than women to balance professional success and personal fulfillment. That’s because the majority of housework and childcare still falls to women. If a heterosexual couple work full time, the man will do–the woman, sorry–the woman will do two times the amount of housework and three times the amount of childcare that her husband will do.(7) From my mother’s generation to mine, we have made far more progress making the workforce even than we have making the home even, and the latter is hurting the former very dramatically. So it’s a bit counterintuitive, but the most important career decision you’re going to make is whether or not you have a life partner and who that partner is. If you pick someone who’s willing to share the burdens and the joys of your personal life, you’re going to go further. A world where men ran half our homes and women ran half our institutions would be just a much better world.

I have a six-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. I want more choices for both of them. I want my son to have the choice to be a full partner not just at work, but at home; and I want my daughter to have a choice to do either. But if she chooses work, to be well-liked for what she accomplishes. We can’t wait for the term “work/life balance” to be something that’s not just discussed at women’s conferences.

Of course not everyone wants to jump into the workforce and rise to the top. Life is going to bring many twists and turns, and each of us, each of you, have to forge your own path. I have deep respect for my friends who make different choices than I do, who choose the really hard job of raising children full time, who choose to go part time, or who choose to pursue more nontraditional goals. These are choices that you may make some day, and these are fine choices.

But until that day, do everything you can to make sure that when that day comes, you even have a choice to make. Because what I have seen most clearly in my 20 years in the workforce is this: Women almost never make one decision to leave the workforce. It doesn’t happen that way. They make small little decisions along the way that eventually lead them there. Maybe it’s the last year of med school when they say, I’ll take a slightly less interesting specialty because I’m going to want more balance one day. Maybe it’s the fifth year in a law firm when they say, I’m not even sure I should go for partner, because I know I’m going to want kids eventually.

These women don’t even have relationships, and already they’re finding balance, balance for responsibilities they don’t yet have. And from that moment, they start quietly leaning back. The problem is, often they don’t even realize it. (8) Everyone I know who has voluntarily left a child at home and come back to the workforce–and let’s face it, it’s not an option for most people. But for people in this audience, many of you are going to have this choice. Everyone who makes that choice will tell you the exact same thing: You’re only going to do it if your job is compelling.

If several years ago you stopped challenging yourself, you’re going to be bored. If you work for some guy who you used to sit next to, and really, he should be working for you, you’re going to feel undervalued, and you won’t come back. So, my heartfelt message to all of you is, and start thinking about this now, do not leave before you leave. Do not lean back; lean in. Put your foot on that gas pedal and keep it there until the day you have to make a decision, and then make a decision. That’s the only way, when that day comes, you’ll even have a decision to make.

What about the rat race in the first place? Is it worthwhile? Or are you just buying into someone else’s definition of success? Only you can decide that, and you’ll have to decide it over and over and over. But if you think it’s a rat race, before you drop out, take a deep breath. Maybe you picked the wrong job. Try again. And then try again. Try until you find something that stirs your passion, a job that matters to you and matters to others. It is the ultimate luxury to combine passion and contribution. It’s also a very clear path to happiness.(9)

At Facebook we have a very broad mission. We don’t just want you to post all your pictures of tonight up there and use Facebook to keep in touch, even though we want that, so do a lot of that. We want to connect the whole world. We want to make the whole world more open and more transparent. The one thing I’ve learned working with great entrepreneurs–Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google–that if you want to make a difference, you better think big and dream big, right from day one.

We try at Facebook to keep all of our employees thinking big all day. We have these posters in red we put around the walls. One says, “Fortune favors the bold.” Another says, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” That question echoes Barnard alum Anna Quindlen, who said that she majored in unafraid. Don’t let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face–and there will be barriers–be external, not internal. Fortune does favor the bold, and I promise that you will never know what you’re capable of unless you try. (10)

You’re going to walk off this stage today and you’re going to start your adult life. Start out by aiming high. Like everyone here, I have great hopes for the members of this graduating class. I hope you find true meaning, contentment and passion in your life. I hope that you navigate the hard times and you come out with greater strength and resolve. I hope that whatever balance you seek, you find it with your eyes wide open. And I hope that you–yes, you–each and every one of you have the ambition to run the world, because this world needs you to run it. Women all around the world are counting on you. I’m counting on you.

I know that’s a big challenge and responsibility, a really daunting task, but you can do it. You can do it if you lean in. So go home tonight and ask yourselves, “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?” And then go do it. Congratulations, 2011.

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So… ladies and gentlemen. Let us discuss. 40 marks for theory and 60 marks on the practicals :p

1. What will you do with your education and how will you change your world? I find this one a rather loaded question. How do you define change and how do you define world? I do agree Facebook has changed the world but the more I look around the more I see most of us plodding on in meaningless jobs and wait – they are meaningless not to me, but to those who hold them. Always whining about how they hate the job but must do it. Are you truly using your education and changing the world? Think about it.

2. We’ve heard this one often enough. We already know the reason. Yes, 50% of women should have the top jobs and there is a glass ceiling that most women don’t have the strength to take on. Mostly because at any given time there is so much else to do that men aren’t handling – missing maids, in-laws, sick children, husbands who don’t pull their share of weight at home. Nothing is impossible – but at some point juggling all those balls in the face of so much opposition gets too much.

3. Very true. Only two days ago a rather slim girl I was talking to, said something to the effect of – I only need to stay slim till I get married. I was shocked. This was the height of her ambition. No job, not even a personal desire to stay fit. Why do we expect so little of ourselves. I often have people telling me that I try to fit too much into a day. And I guess this is my personal ambition. To do everything. Maybe not be the best at one particular thing because then you have to focus on it. But to die, knowing that I have tried everything I wanted and fitted it all into my life. Choose your ambition, I’d say. And don’t let anyone else define it for you. Not even Sheryl Sandberg. If you studied literature because it interested you and not because you wanted to be a professor or writer, that is fine. But if you do want to be that professor, don’t let anyone get in the way. Not even yourself.

4. True this, too. The moment people compliment me on a well kept house or slow tracking my career for the kids or something, I instinctively get uncomfortable with the praise and start dragging the OA in for his share saying – Oh, I’d never have done it without his support or some such shit. I should just grin and say  Thank you. And I will, starting today. Similarly, read an interview with any of the biggest names in the corporate world and they will all tell you how their inlaws helped raise the kids, their husband stayed home when they were travelling etc. How many men will tell you who attended the PTA meeting while they were jet setting? And last of all, the SAHMs too. Compliment them on their choice and they will promptly smile and say they can afford to it because their husband is earning enough. The truth is, there is never enough. These women would have made the same choice even if their husband were earning more or less (as would I) because this is the person they are. But we are still too reluctant to stand up, accept our due, and be proud of our choices, our strength and our achievements.

5 & 6. This one never fails to bother me. Why are powerful women less liked? Is it because traditionally women are not meant to be in positions of power? What about people like the Rani of Jhansi or Razia Sultana? Were they hated too? Is it because strong women aren’t feminine? Is it because women are meant to be feminine as opposed to strong and masterful? Are feminine and strong mutually exclusive? What is feminine? Are we still defining it? Why do even men, let M&Bs define roles for them?

7. Much though I love the OA I must confess he didn’t do half the housework I did when I was working and we were in Delhi. On the other hand, I’d already taken a flexible job and sort of set myself up to be the one point person for everything anyway. So I blame myself. I should have gone to work and let the house fall around our ears, let him come home to no meals, piles of laundry, inches of dirt and more. But I think a lot of this is to do with the fact that homes are still defined by women. He grew up in a tiny 2 bhk that was functional at best. I grew up in a house spread across acres, with brass and silver shining and wooden floors that a man spent a day polishing, with napkins and butlers and a head cook and two gardeners. Even if the OA made his peace with the filth I allowed to build up, I couldn’t have dealt with it. To say nothing of the fact that my kids would be growing up in that mess and dirt. It might have been easier before we had kids. We’ve worked ourselves into a corner and now we need to push out. But with the way work hours are in India its not easy. The OA is rarely home before 8.30 and living in Gurgaon has just made it impossible to have any semblance of work and life balance. If I go to fulltime work our kids will be raised solely by hired help and our home will go to rack and ruin. Which brings us back to the first question – what really is my ambition?

8. So true this one. The first time I quit my job to move with the OA it was because he earned more than me. But I should never have let that be the definer. A job and a career is what it is, and who earns more should never be the question. But I reminded myself that I wanted kids, that I wanted out of Bombay’s rains and small homes so that my kids could have a lawn to play in and if that meant quitting, I’d do it. As she said, I leaned back when I should have been leaning in. We had the Brat a year later – but I am no longer sure what I should have done. I know kids are raised in all parts of the world but I stepped back thinking already, not of myself even, but the fact that my children should grow up with wide open spaces to run about in.

9. Find something that combines passion and contribution. Now again – contribution is hard to define. Are you contributing to society by raising your kids well? I think you are. If you feel you are the best suited for it and no maid or daycare, more power to you. Are you passionate about it? Great. Do you think you will excel at your job? Go right ahead and excel – but find one that you are passionate about.

10. Never let fear overwhelm desire. You hear this often but how often do you identify fear for what it is. We find excuses for a lot of our choices, we justify, but we refuse to accept that we were unwilling to take that one brave step into the unknown. A good friend still tells me she let go of the man she loved because she was scared he wouldn’t earn enough. At that point (when she was making the choice and I was urging her to follow her heart) she kept on about the importance of keeping your family happy, tradition, keeping culture alive blah blah. And married a man her parents chose. They’re okay today. Like all couples married ten years they know each other well, are good human beings so make the effort to keep their marriage going and have kids they focus on. But we have long chats over coffee and things pop up – fear that she would have nowhere to go if things didn’t work out, fear that her parents would hate her, fear that he wouldn’t earn enough to support her in the style she is accustomed to – mostly though, she hadn’t been taught to trust herself. She didn’t trust herself with such a big choice. Isn’t that sad? In the midst of all this I want to remember to teach my kids to trust their choices and their instincts.

I love the last line and I ask all of you – What would you do if you weren’t afraid? Give me an honest answer.

Mar gaya re Osama

So it’s too big a piece of news to not talk/blog about. Let’s start with – what were you doing today when you heard the news? I was working. Most boring.

But I want to know more. What interesting pieces have you read on this today? What conspiracy theories? Is he really dead? What do you think of the timing? Tell me everything. Give me links you’ve read. This is big.

Bye bye Bata

The other day I went to Bata shoes to pick up summer sandals for the Bean. You know, good old Bata. We all grew up wearing their Bubblegummers and blue and white rubber chappals. All I got was a bunch of pink (why? why? why?) sandals that were delicate and girly with crocheted strawberries hanging off them. Very nice for a girly tea party but they did nothing for my little hurricane of a daughter who romps around in the dust with the best of them.

And oh that isn’t the end, the other lot of available sandals had heels. This is no biggie. I’ve seen sandals for 3-4 year olds with heels before. But not in Bata. I was horrified. Where is the average parent supposed to go for affordable open sandals in summer? Are we stuck with crocs for life? Smelly, plastic crocs that need to be washed every second day? Gah.

Thankfully I am not alone in this thinking. Here’s another piece by this gentleman on the CNN site. I’m so done with only finding trashy wear for little girls. Why exactly are we tarting them up in high heels and sparkly outfits?

My solution is to dress the Bean in tee shirts and shorts. And the poor girl does often want to wear dresses but I rarely find anything that I find suitable for her. And no, don’t direct me to Mothercare. It’s not economical and I don’t want my daughter dressed in shades of pink, looking just like the girl next door who also shops there. So we’re down to getting little smocked summer dresses and rummaging around Sarojini Nagar for the nicer clothes.

Nibor Dooh: The Bane of India

Someone mailed me saying that they feel the reason why my post on cricket faced so many trolls was because I said I didn’t watch cricket. And so people dismissed the valid points it made because they thought it was personal and merely a justification. That if I’d made the same points saying I love cricket, it might have been received differently. The truth is, I see no reason to pretend that I like something just to make people take the post more objectively. If they cannot read beyond my personal disinterest and see the post objectively, that is their loss.

And then I got this forward in my inbox and hey, someone else agreed, and he happens to love cricket. I don’t want to get into debates again because we’ve all said what we had to – some more rudely than others (!) before marching out self-righteously. So I’m closing comments because I have a busy day and no time to get into pointless arguments on something I didn’t write.  Read or ignore, as you wish.

Nibor Dooh: The Bane of India

Saibal Mitra

As any Indian, who loves cricket, I rejoiced when India won the IIC World Cup after almost three decades. Living abroad, I got up at 3 am in the morning, drove twenty miles with a child and dog in tow to my friend’s house so that I could watch the action live. My cry of anguish was heard by all in that room when Gambhir lost his head at 97 and hoops of joy filled the room when Dhoni hit that winning sixer. It’s all stuff of history, no doubt.

I knew that the players would also hit a well-deserved financial jackpot. Endorsement deals, prize money would flow. What I was not prepared for the Nibor Doohs of India -our politicians – would raid the state treasury to transfer wealth from the poor (the Indian taxpayers) to these rich, pampered players. For starters, the state of Uttarakhand has announced that it will give a plot of land or a house to Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Not to be outdone, the Chief Minister of Karnataka has promised a residential plot in Bangalore for each team member. Maharashtra’s Chief Minister has announced that the state government will honor players from Maharashtra Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan with a cash prize of Rs one crore and a citation while two members of the team’s support staff  will be honored with Rs 50 lakhs each. Most state governments have offered their home-town players cash gifts of between 10 million and 20 million rupees.

As the legend goes, Robin Hood robbed the rich and gave the loot to the poor. It was his way of fighting against social injustice. Nibor Dooh, dear reader, is Robin Hood spelled in reverse. The Nibor Doohs of India raid the state treasury, money that belongs to the people of the state, generally poor and barely living above subsistence level, and then give it to the rich and powerful. The Nibor Doohs of India have been bleeding the country for quite a while – consider all the scams. They take what is not theirs and line their own pockets. What is more scary than this open corruption, is that the Nibor Doohs have directly assaulted the viability of Indian institutions. The police, the courts all have been affected. I am hard pressed to think of a single Indian institution that has not been untouched by scandals and scams. So it is indeed a small step for our Nibor Doohs to raid the larder and grab what is not theirs and give it away to those who are nowhere close to the poverty line. It does not even jiggle their conscience. They have, indeed, become, the bane of India.

This raises some very broad questions. Is this how the government spends money? Essentially by fiat. Are there are no checks and balances? What about the press? Isn’t part of their role is to ask hard questions? What about the citizens themselves? Are they so blind that they neither see nor understand that they are being taken for a ride?

When I read these news reports, I cannot but presume that all potholes in Karnataka are fixed, all children in Uttarakand are being educated, that hospitals around the country are clean, safe and people have access to them, and that drinking water is safe and so on. That would be the India of my dreams and I keep dreaming.

So where does one go from here? The only way to stop this abuse is to sue the state governments and the Nibor Doohs (perhaps personally) and ask the courts to intervene. It is time that the corrupt heard the voice of the people. This would take time, money and, above all, commitment. I know there are plenty of people out there who are as frustrated as I am. They just need to step forward.

Congratulations Team India! To the team members I say, I wish you luck. Make all the money in the world. But let it all be private money. And if you have the heart, the will, and the character then please, when offered, very politely refuse to accept public money which should be for public use. Please don’t take what is not yours – that would truly make you world champions.

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And via a reader I got this piece in my email. Shall copy and paste it here in case it goes offline. Am so tempted to open up comments and tell the trolls what I think of them, but have my hands full after a hectic weekend so will have to leave this as it is

Our farmers are dying, to hell with the World Cup

NARENDRA SHEKHAWAT

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Yes, you read it right; to hell with the World Cup; to hell with the celebrations; to hell with all the free land and money being showered by different governments on the players. How can I jump, scream, have gallons of beer and cheer for the nation when a few kilometres away the farmers and feeders of my country are taking their own lives in hordes?

Do you know that, on average, 47 farmers have been committing suicide every single day in the past 16 years in our shining India — the next economic power, progressive with nine per cent growth?

Last month, on March 5, Friday evening, when Bangalore’s watering holes were getting filled up, when all the DJs were blaring out deafening music, when we were busy discussing India’s chances at the World Cup, sitting in CCDs and Baristas — just 100 km away from Bangalore, Swamy Gowda and Vasanthamma, a young farmer couple, hanged themselves, leaving their three very young children to fend for themselves or, most likely, die of malnutrition.

Why did they do it? Were they fighting? No. Were they drunkards? No. Did they have incurable diseases? No! Then WHY? Because they were unable to repay a loan of Rs 80,000 (a working IT couple’s one month salary? 2-3 months EMI?) for years, which had gradually increased to Rs. 1.2 lakh. Because they knew that now they would never be able to pay it back. Because they were hurt. Hurt by our government which announced a huge reduction in import duty for silk in this year’s budget (from 30 per cent to 5 per cent).They were struggling silk farmers and instead of help from the government, they get this! Decrease in import duty means the markets will now be flooded with cheap Chinese silk (as everything else!) and our own farmers will be left in the lurch.

On average, 17,000 farmers have been committing suicide every year, for the past 15 years on the trot. Can you believe it? Most of us wouldn’t know this fact. Why? Because, our great Indian media, the world’s biggest media, are not interested in reporting this! Why? Because they are more interested in covering fashion week extravaganzas. They are more interested in ‘why team India was not practising when Pakistanis were sweating it out in stadium on the eve of the match?’ They are more interested in Poonam Pandey.

The media are supposed to be the third eye of democracy and also called the fourth estate, but now they have become real estate. Pure business.

So any attention from the media is out of the question. Who is left then? The government? But we all know how it works. The other day, I was passing by Vidhan Soudha in Bangalore and happened to read the slogan written at the entrance, “Government work is god’s work”. Now I know why our government has left all its work to god!

Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa announced plots for all the players. But land? In Bangalore? You must be kidding, Mr. C.M.. So he retracts and now wants to give money. But where will it come from? Taxes, yours and mine. Don’t the poor farmers need the land or money more than those players who are already earning in crores?

A government-owned bank will give you loan at six per cent interest rate if you are buying a Mercedes but if a poor farmer wants to buy a tractor, do you know how much it is charging him? Fifteen per cent! Look at the depths of inequality. Water is Rs. 15 a litre and a SIM card is for free! For how long can we bite the hand that is feeding us? The recent onion price fiasco was just a trailer. Pictureabhi baaki hai doston!

In 2008, Lakme India fashion show venue was in a Mumbai five-star hotel and was covered by 500 journalists and the theme was ‘Cotton’. A few hours drive from there, cotton farmers were committing suicide, 4 or 5, everyday! How many TV journalists covered this? Zero!

Sixty-seventy per cent of India’s population is living on less than Rs. 20 a day. A bottle of Diet coke for us? The electricity used in a day-night match could help a farmer irrigate his fields for more than a few weeks! Do you know that loadshedding is also class dependent? Two hours in metros, 4 in towns and 8 in villages. Now, who needs electricity more? A farmer to look after his crop day and night, irrigate, pump water and use machines or a few bored, young professionals with disposable incomes, to log on to Facebook and watch IPL?

How can we splurge thousands on our birthday parties and zoom past in our AC vehicles and sit in cushy chairs in our AC offices and plan a weekend trip to Coorg when on the way, in those small villages, just a few minutes’ walk from the roads, someone might be consuming pesticide or hanging himself from a tree for just Rs.10, 000? How can we?

There was much panic when there was swine flu. Every single death in the country was reported second by second, minute by minute. Why? Because it directly affected our salaried, ambitious, tech-savvy, middle-class. So there were masks, special relief centres, enquiry centres set up by government to please this section. On the other hand, 47 people are dying, every single day for the past 15 years. Anybody cared to do anything?

It has been observed that within months of a farmer taking his life, his wife follows, either by poisoning the kids first or leaving them on their own. In Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, a distressed woman farmer went to the government seed shop, bought a bottle of pesticide, on credit, went home and drank it. She was under debt for most of her life and now — even her death was on credit!

Centuries ago, there was a Roman emperor, called Nero. He was a strong ruler and also very fond of parties, art, poetry, drinking and a life full of pleasures. Once he decided to organise a grand party and invited all poets, writers, dancers, painters, artists, intellectuals and thinkers of society. Everybody was having a great time eating, drinking, laughing, and socialising. The party was at its peak when it started getting dark. Nero wanted the party to go on. So he ordered and got all the arrested criminals, who were in his jails, around the garden and put them on fire! Burnt them alive, so that there was enough light for the guests to keep on enjoying! The guests had a gala time though they knew the cost of their enjoyment. Now, what kind of conscience those guests had?

Nero’s guests

What is happening in our country is not different from Nero’s party. We, the middle-class-young-well-earning-mall-hopping-IPL-watching and celebrating-junta are Nero’s guests enjoying at the cost of our farmers. Every budget favours the already rich. More exemptions are being given to them at the cost of grabbing the land of our farmers in the name of SEZs, decrease in import duties in the name of neo-liberal policies, increase in the loan interest rates if the product is not worth lakhs and crores. Yes, that’s what we are, Nero’s guests!

I’m not against celebrations. I’m not against cricket. I’m not against World Cup. I would be the first person to scream, celebrate and feel proud of any of India’s achievements but, only if all fellow countrymen, farmers, villagers also stand with me and cheer; only if they do not take their own lives ruthlessly, only if there is no difference between interest rates for a Mercedes and a tractor. That would be the day I also zoom past on a bike, post-Indian win, with an Indian Flag in hand and screaming Bharat Mata Ki Jai. But no, not today. Not at the cost of my feeders. Until then, this is what I say. To hell with your malls. To hell with your IPL. To hell with your World Cup. And to hell with your celebrations.

(The writer’s email is: naren.singh.shekhawat@ gmail.com)

On average, 47 farmers have been committing suicide every single day in the past 16 years in our shining India