The true face of 'intolerance' debate

Amir khan, the brand ambassador for Incredible India, an avid social worker and a wise human being recently showed the true face of ‘intolerance’ debate going on and on and on, thanks to the sensational journalism by NDTV mostly.  The statement made by Mr. Khan emphasised specifically that intolerance has increased in last 6-7 months (time when BJP rose to power). And so has censorship.

          It is painful and rather awful that such a wise person would make so immature statement just out of his political views. This whole ‘intolerance’ debate is a political one. I personally want to hit these journalists hard on their head because they mooch out just a statement, not the justification. The journalists should ask “How is India intolerant?” or "did Amir khan faced any trouble personally in last 6-7 months?" Such politically motivated statements are highly indecorous.  

          What happened to India being “INTOLERANT” when M F Hussain left this country during UPA rule? Or when Shiv Sena shut down Mumbai for one whole day and jailed those who protested online? Wasn’t that intolerant? I am flabbergasted to see people igniting this intolerance debate only just now.

          The truth of the matter is, ever since the rise of BJP, first and foremost, many people had to close their shops who were thriving in congress rule. Plus, congress is being increasingly successful in projecting BJP not as pro-hindu but as anti-muslim. So, this whole ‘intolerance’ saga is more about tarnishing the image of BJP especially, PM Modi rather than any meaningful thought or discussion.

          People are entitled to their opinions. We have been gifted with a nice brain as well. Time we use it to distinguish between what is right and what is fabricated. Hear everything but don’t believe everything. 

The intolerant 'intolerance' debate

The abysmal debate fuelled by hungry journalists has reached a new low, with article by Ms. Barkha Dutt articulating her opinions on her recent interview with SRK. Now I am not going into all the details why it was wrong on every level but I am compelled to point out that SRK invited such reactions when he joined this debate in which he had no role to play. But he is an artist, and as such he will. No qualms about that.
Everybody is so gaga about this intolerance debate, some trying to pacify the situation by making the government a scapegoat of all the tension that had arisen in the first place. But the question is, are we really that intolerant as the journalists had told us so? What I think is, journalists are trying to stir up more than what’s in the pot. India’s picture is not as bleak as they have shown it to be. Some isolated incidents like dadri lynching and stuff can’t define the mood of a nation with 1.2 billion people.
But are we really intolerant? YES, we are. We have been born and brought up with a prejudiced mind. We have been trained to see only what we want to see with our limited knowledge and vision. We are intolerant towards gays and bisexuals, towards the poor and most of all towards modern thinking. A simple but quite impressive example was given to me by my neighbours who drove my senior out of this society because his ways of living were immoral. Indulging in activities within four walls of his apartment should have no consequence on the neighbours, right? But people did take an offence in that as well. Which is highly silly and pointless. But this is how we are. Our hypocritical personalities have been inbred in us from time immemorial. Socrates was hanged for his views. And so many other scientists and philosophers. Even galileo was disbarred from the society and placed on house arrest for his radical views that contradicted with views of church at that time.
So intolerance is nothing new. And it’s not a phenomenon restricted to only India. You see at the west, you’ll find Americans intolerant towards Blacks, Europeans intolerant towards migrants, Middle East and Egypt especially, on the verge of boiling. So India still has a far better situation than all these places. And if you want to see some silver lining to this intolerance debate, it’s good to see we’re evolving to more intellectual debates rather than something as mundane as water, electricity and food. This is actually progress. Only developed nations advocate dissent and free speech so openly.
I digress
The Indian version of debate has shifted its epicentre to communal lines. Muslims are like the younger siblings. Pampered and sensitive. So, the elder sibling will always get the scolding because he was elder and could’ve handled the situation. And the parents are always much more sensitive towards the younger sibling. Muslims are treated like that in India. In accordance with their wish or against their wish, their choice doesn’t matter. Living and witnessing their lifestyle with such close proximity, I can confidently say there is no more to the difference between Hindu and Muslim than there is between Jain and a sikh. It’s the political game that has given us a prejudiced mind only on paper I remind you, not anywhere close in real life.
The debate on intolerance in India started with writers returning their awards due to attacks on their community against those who advocated their opinions. But some unscrupulous minds have managed to polarise this debate as well on religious lines. The major question is not WHO is being targeted. The question no one is asking is why did it start all of a sudden now? The answer is it didn’t start all of a sudden. The seeds of the prejudice were already sown in our minds. The polarising politics by congress and BJP alike led to dissent among communities. Hindus felt neglected. When BJP rose into power, it couldn’t have possibly fathom that Hindu extremist would resort to such measures to voice themselves. Like a pressure cooker, the lid on the minds of such people lifted and all they had to give out was poison formed slowly and slowly through all these years. No offence to SRK, but he is just a puppet in the scheme of things. He didn’t have to take anything personally.
The debate is a healthy way of raising one’s concern. But making outrageous remarks aimed to defame and denounce someone’s religion is really extraordinarily insane. But how can we stop such people? Should government do something about this? Or CAN it do something about it? It can’t. People spreading hatred are doing their job. It’s the job of us civilised people to ignore such maniacs and not give them their 2 seconds of glory they don’t deserve. If we stop listening, who will then these anti-social elements talk to?

Hello

Hello world!
I am just writing this to tell you that i am still alive, in case you have forgotten and considering the number of emails dropped by actual people , i think i am going to invite over just the guys at google alerts at whatever moronic thing that needs to be celebrated.
And you wouldn't want to know what my alerts are for :P
So i think i have well established the fact that i am still alive, let me get to the second part which is what have i been doing all this time? NOTHING I tell you! I keep my loudmouth shut during most of the time of the day, so much that my girlfriend almost used to pull her hair to mooch one word out of my mouth, logical or illogical that's for her to judge. And emphasis is on the past tense!
To spice things up in my life, i decided to use more red chilli in my food, believe me that didn't go well either!
I also tried to read some books, but getting a boner on practically every second page made me realised this is not an actual book.

So what i do nowadays is spend as much time as possible in my serene place, you call 'bed' and sleep my way off through most of the problems, though i doubt there are any !

Disheartened by our society

Being 2015, we should have had almost been into the most advanced age. The James bond movies had predicted some serious high end technological advancements. What we have right now is a stupid, big, chunky phone that complicated our daily lives so much that apart from talking on it, we do every other thing a phone is not supposed to do. We should have had countered apocalypse, met aliens, had robots as servants and what not! We were supposed to redefine freedom.

But what we have is not short of hell breaking lose. People have gone from smart to being nuts! How did you think Kejriwal won then? Are Delhiites short of money? I know some of my friends spending close to a thousand bucks on getting a simple haircut. Still their parents want free water, free electricity? Sounds a bit a hypocritical to me. If you talk about the poor residing here, talk to a poor 20 year old. He wants everything but working towards earning it? Oh hell no, everybody wants to make a quick buck! Unruly statements from politicians, judges passing bizarre statements (that gay act), censor board creating a hypocritical environment, i just feel we are drifting back to stone age rather than progressing to a healthier future. We have got big fat ass religious conservationists who mind you are no use to religious sects whatsoever but create a ruckus when anyone tries to voice their opinions that might be against their preachings. Then sex! We are just going all bonkers on that matter. I fail to understand why people are afraid of human body and its nature. Actress sunny Leone is not able to lend a flat in Mumbai all because she had been in porn industry! Wow, you can shelter a terrorist but you find it ridiculous to rent a woman who has bared it on the camera! I find it totally ridiculous that Modi's politically campaign was backed heavily by the fact that he is a single man! That means the US president and The British prime minister are just ludicrous people who aren't able to function properly because they have a family at home, isn't that so?

The activities of stupid bajrang dal, even moral policing reaching its most bizarre levels , i really hope this is just a phase that we're passing by. Because frankly I don't any child to be raised among such freaks and later become the part of such freak show! 

BEING DENTIST

Being a doctor is not easy. Now I realise it and I can relate to the irritation of that orthopaedist I met at a family function a few months back who was bombarded with questions about diseases. He was really pissed off at the end. The same things happen with me all the time though on a less extensive scale because let’s face it what is the maximum number of diseases that you can encounter in your mouth?

As a dentist I am asked the most typical questions at every gathering and each time a sigh with grief at how senseless people can people sometimes act. Here’s a list of questions I am bombarded with mostly-

1)      Which is the best toothpaste for maintaining oral hygiene?

I just can’t seem to get enough of this question.

Any toothpaste that is certified by American Dental Association or ADA like colgate or pepsodent or oral-B is good for your mouth. But the list of questions doesn’t stop here.

2)      But a neem stick or baba ramdev’s ayurvedic toothpaste or Bandar chaap dant manjan does so much better than your ordinary toothpaste

I am sure they do. But the thing is our tooth has an enamel covering. Now the toothpastes that are certified by ADA are tested for use in the oral cavity.  Their side effects are duly studied and  they are actually safe to use. Such things can’t be said about your ayurvedic counterparts which may or may not work in all people. Instead these ayurvedic toothpastes might contain abrasive materials which can corrode your enamel layer over time and not to mention the harm they can potentially cause to the soft tissues inside your mouth.

3)      But some people don’t stop there also. They cite the examples of their grandmother who has all her teeth intact at the age of 80

To these people I just make a scorny face and boy! Would I want to say that your grandma’s teeth are miracles of god withstanding her sugarcane eating habits for 80 long years! But I am a doctor and we doctors  might not know anything else but we do know to be patient and calm in all situations. So I just resort to using the age old phrase “Arre bhai ab pehla wali baat kaha, pehle ke log akhrot tod lete the daanto se, aajkal ke bachche to chocolate pe palte hain” and it settles scores with a big laugh! But let me add here, most of my patients in the hospital are these old people only and you can see 90% of them have dentures and the remaining 10% have missing teeth. And the average life of human tooth is not more than 60 years. Though the tooth might remain intact but it falls down on its own in old age.

4)      Should I use sensodyne? Or is sensodyne better than colgate?

Now this question is really a valid one and you can’t argue that people are being senseless. Actually it is all the fault of sensodyne advertisement which advertised the toothpaste only. This toothpaste ‘sensodyne’ curbs Sensitivity. Sensitivity is itself a disease. Allow me to explain. Your skin has receptors of hotness and coldness. In the same way your mouth does too. You experience something when a hot or a cold thing touches your skin. But you don’t apply any cream or anaesthetic on that, do you? The same thing is with your teeth. If you drink way too cold coca cola or drink too hot tea, your pain receptors in teeth naturally trigger signalling you not to drink that anymore. So why do you want to use sensodyne in such case?

Sensitivity is actually a disease when you feel sharp pain even during routine activities such as brushing or eating. Your teeth feel weak and the softer part of your teeth gets exposed. It is a fairly common disease but not as common. Almost all the people who have asked me this question said they did feel pain when they sipped hot tea but never while brushing or eating. So they were not affected with sensitivity of teeth.  

The sensodyne toothpaste has pain blockers so it is not advisable to use this toothpaste if you do not have sensitive tooth. Feeling pain while drinking something excessively hot or cold is body’s own way of telling you to stop.

5)      Most people are not satisfied with this answer so they enquire for more

And I, already so tired of the long list of their personal oral problems decide to use my final, most embarrassing weapon. I politely reply to them – ‘see folks, I have not become a dentist as yet. I am still studying, so save your questions for later!’ And with this short, cheeky and actually self-harming answer I just scutter away :P

SWACH BHARAT ABHIYAN - a sham?

PM Modi’s pet project which aims at creating a civic sense among the people can be called a groundbreaking movement. Something that is being turned into an all people phenomenon. It is really a commendable task that our prime minister is doing, to educate people about cleanliness. But what has been the impact of this movement? Has there been any apparent change beyond MLAs and MPs picking up broomsticks as a part of their propaganda? Evidently not.  Railway stations are still at their dirtiest, people still piss on roadsides and the inherent spitters still do not feel ashamed of their actions. Mr. Modi’s plan of swach bharat is undoubtedly a great idea to unite people to create awareness. But it is a half hearted measure. Where is the infrastructure? To get a clean city, you basically need proper waste management systems. Sewage treatment plants for instance are just stepping stones to a greener and environment friendly development. Separating biodegradable and non biodegradable wastes and setting up recycling plants are just the textbook measures which focus on proper waste disposal and cleaner environment. If these systems are established then people will automatically use them. Installing a dustbin at a public place won’t help unless you don’t know what to do with the waste inside that dustbin. What we are doing now is just dumping the waste of that smaller dustbin into a larger dustbin . In every city, you can find acres of barren land being used as city dumpyards, where there is no management of waste whatsoever. Heaps of waste keep on piling until that land is unable to withstand anymore. And then what is done? We shift the dumpyard to a new place. Picking the broom to clear the waste ( by people)  is a novel idea. But we first need infrastructures for waste management. Otherwise, what is the use of such drive if you make one place very beautiful and other very dirty? As far as people are concerned, the best they can do is not spit, pee in public and use public dustbins. Apart from this, people in general aren’t really equipped to do anything else. About 5 years back, I became a part of a cleanliness drive at my school which mainly aimed at separating biodegradable and non biodegradable waste. We started it at home and I was really enjoying the idea of having two separate dustbins for plastic waste and organic waste when suddenly I realised that both of these dustbins were emptied in the same MCD waste collecting truck. What’s then the use of separating the waste if it has to go to the same dumpyard? Like most homes, we didn’t have a lawn outside our home to build any compost pits. And recycling process has to be done by civic bodies. So, the point I am trying to make here is, that even if citizens are made aware, you really can’t expect positivie results unless the infrastructure is developed. If there is a process, an infrastructure, people will use it. Like the MCD trucks. People use it because it is there. And then I don’t think people will really be needed to make aware of importance of cleanliness in surroundings. They will themselves resort to proper waste management if they have proper facilities.

Unless the BJP is trying to blame people for keeping cities unclean, that we don’t sweep the streets, I think they should expedite the development of waste treatment plants in the cities and undertake more such waste management projects. Otherwise, we will hear the same old story – You failed because you didn’t clean up ! 

The outburst

A reward for everytime we do hardwork makes me wonder the quintessential difference between humans and dogs. The quotidian drudgery , can it really be acknowledged by a mere reward? The poultice is too small to minimise the acrid suffering we have to endure daily. Nevertheless, a trophy a day keeps the naysayers at bay! South Indians have thrived on this principle. And north Indians, well, they are catching up fast. A recent visit to a friend’s house triggered the bad flashbacks and one or two sleepless nights. Well, I can’t blame it entirely on her, my mom had also come to visit me…. :P 

The trophies. The dreaded pre-competitive anxiety and the post competition jealousy! I haven’t been a competitive person at all from the beginning and liked to do things at my pace. So maybe that’s the reason I wasn’t selected in relay teams at all ! But in other competitions like extempore and essays, I would have been the favourite contender. Teachers would put their money on me and if I lost they looked as scornfully at me as the jealous single person looks at a couple kissing under the shade of a tree! But fortunately I did win some competitions. So, it was enough to get me a happy meal as my reward at home but the reward at school? It never satiated me. Even winning comes with side effects. I have had most horrible tales after winning. This one time, in a fancy dress competition I grabbed the first prize only to be told that I’d make a great post man (I had become a post man! ) . Of course, the headmistress corrected her statement. Besides, who in 2^nd class would understand most of her English jargon? I was busy fiddling with my artificial specs that I was looking so cute while wearing ! Then this another time, I think in 6^th I understood that cash prizes are more revered than lunch boxes, the hard way. This was a gruesome incident, I don’t want to make you people cry ! :P So, I better not divulge the details! ;) Again in 7^th winning the first prize drove me into the sullen state that reeked of my misfortune. It was an extempore completion, the first prize were a trophy and some English educative CDs that were a fad back in those days. The 2^nd was a set of Enid blyton novels and the third was that huge oxford dictionary with illustrations! I desperately wanted that 3^rd prize but I came 1^st! What could be more horrific? I don’t need a golden cup that I will have to keep cleaning for the rest of my life! So I decided, I would exchange my reward with the third runner up. He was more than happy to take a trophy home. I laughed at his knavery in my mind ! As I innocently told my mother about this achievement of mine, that I made such an awesome deal, she placed both her hands on her heads and MAYBE cursed herself at bringing out such a thing from her ! (Well, her sullen face made me wonder this. I hope I am right..but anyway :P)  The trophies were never my favourite. Why would I need a golden cup ? I can’t even drink my bournvita from that! And what would a 10 year old do with a cash prize? It would ultimately go to my mom daah! So unless you are to reward her for being a good mom, I think I would be more than happy to accept your dictionaries and books! Those eraser pens would have done too :P

I longed for a day that these competitions would be over  but they never do. Even now, I see not-so-innocuous competition among the inconsequential people on facebook to get a good picture of themselves in an insipid restaurant. Or a competition to stay above the rest in college and so on. I think the insolent monkeys are better at competing than we humans  -_- So that’s why I don’t like to be reminded that I was a monkey once, when my mother brought with her a trophy from class 8^th I won for having a full attendance! She thought I could use some inspiration from that and start going to college more regularly! Her newfangled and wicked schemes to motivate me add to my misery. Now ,that trophy stares at me from the shelf box, reminding a great hunter past his prime, who he once was and what will never return to him! Her parsimonious acts have really made an impression this time.  And I just retire to my bedroom with only one thought in my mind- “I will get back at you mom! “ :P