Topical

My column 17-12-2023

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A few random thoughts for the day

Nothing much seems to have changed since I wrote my last column.

Israel-Hamas, Ukrain-Russia wars are still on. All countries in the world are making appropriate noise without actually doing anything. While asking them to stop, fresh arms are being supplied, making arms manufacturers richer by the day.

BJP swept the state elections. An indication of things to come. Inspite of a pep talk by the PM, opposition has not learned its lesson. Still continues to block the parliament from functioning. Do they not realise that they are losing people's sympathy?

Congress MP tweets about coruption one year back. Today, 350 crores of unaccounted cash is found in his house. Congress writes him off. MP says it is his family money. What does it mean?

Stock markets are scaling new highs everyday, making the rich, richer. But who is complaining?

To be fair, Indian economy is doing well on all fronts, thanks to right government policies, though Mr. Chidambaram will not agree with this. But again, who cares?

I think old pension scheme is correct. After all, it is the money that belongs to the employees. The government was only the safe keeper. That the governments did not manage the money over the years is no fault of the employees. It is like taking a loan and not repaying.

The speaker of the Maharashtra assembly is trying his best to delay the verdict on defection. Will he succeed is the question.

The maratha reservation issue keeps boiling and will keep boiling. There is no obvious solution to this. Logical thing would be to do away with the reservation completely or give reservation based on economic criteria. But at the end of the day, politics matters most.

These days, culture has become synonymous with wearing sarees in social and religious functions.

My uncle used to tell a story. In a joint family, the housemaker used to cut the fish into two pieces before putting it into the refrigertor. When asked about the reason, she said that my mother-in-law used to do it like that. I am just following the tradition. When her mother-in-law was asked about it, she also said that I was also following a tradition. Fortunately, her mother-in-law was alive and she was asked the same question. She said that she used to cut the fish into two because their refrigerator was not big enough to accmmodate the whole fish. But, today, the refrigerators are big enough to accommodate the whole fish but still, tradition is followed. That, in a nutshell, is tradition. Most of the time, no one knows why traditions are followed. They are followed just because they are traditions.

I am sure many of you have read The Sepians, book by Yuval Noah Harari. He suggests that as brains of humans became bigger, their skulls became heavier. Since humans are bipedal, this puts lot of pressure on their backbones and spine. As a result, most of the humans are facing issues with their spines. It would be a good challenge for future genetic engineers to strengthen human spine by genetic engineering.

Let me end this on a cheerful note. Next week is Christmas. A merry Christmas to all my readers. Enjoy your holidays and festivities and of course, traditions.