Source: INCARCERATED IN THE ‘APPLY-APPLY-NO-REPLY SYNDROME’ CELL?
Month: July 2017
INCARCERATED IN THE ‘APPLY-APPLY-NO-REPLY SYNDROME’ CELL?
STILL STUCK TO THE “APPLY, APPLY” PARADIGM?
WARMING UP TOWARDS A MINDSET CHANGE:
I earnestly wish and pray that India is a nearly 100% entrepreneurial nation!
But then I am also aware that such a wish is easier said than seen in action! This is owing to a multiplicity of etiological factors, one no less crucial than the other! Most of our parents have been, if they were not peasants or farmers outright with only some untilled fields and soil to work on for earning the daily bread, either salaried employees in some offices, or bureaucrats at a distance.
Naturally they tend to view salaried positions as more secure, on the right rack to “prosperity” and helpful for getting “properly settled in life”. In my personal observation, I have noticed this obsessive parental tendency to see their children “properly married and well-settled” as “nice young men and women need to…
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INCARCERATED IN THE ‘APPLY-APPLY-NO-REPLY SYNDROME’ CELL?
STILL STUCK TO THE “APPLY, APPLY” PARADIGM?
WARMING UP TOWARDS A MINDSET CHANGE:
I earnestly wish and pray that India is a nearly 100% entrepreneurial nation!
But then I am also aware that such a wish is easier said than seen in action! This is owing to a multiplicity of etiological factors, one no less crucial than the other! Most of our parents have been, if they were not peasants or farmers outright with only some untilled fields and soil to work on for earning the daily bread, either salaried employees in some offices, or bureaucrats at a distance.
Naturally they tend to view salaried positions as more secure, on the right rack to “prosperity” and helpful for getting “properly settled in life”. In my personal observation, I have noticed this obsessive parental tendency to see their children “properly married and well-settled” as “nice young men and women need to do!”
It’s by way of route shortening towards this objective that parents here, no matter how conversant they may be with prevailing legal bans and penalties for dowry extraction, tend to present their adult male offspring as if they were born geniuses, and also to stiffly demand, on that basis, a huge, often unaffordable dowry amount in cash and kind from the prospective DIL’s family, as far as I have been abler to verify!
While the female gender representative in the scenario is instantly reduced to a saleable and rejection worthy commodity and nothing animate at all, the male human specimen in the context is conferred an important out of his real creditworthiness and real worth as a citizen in life.
[Islam , as a faith, has strictly prohibited this practice, vide the hadiths in Quran, but modern Muslims have chosen to deviate from that book, which they use mostly to swear by, issue fatwas on and not really observe in daily life by its real spirit!
On the contrary, the modalities of behavior that were superimposed on that book’s counsel –as can be amply verified from news available in the public domain globally–have been used with impunity to behead human beings, conquer, pillage, enslave, and impose by force and also to be used as a tool to threaten masses into eternal submission!]
THE ORIGIN OF THIS SYNDROME
The “Apply-Apply-No-Reply” syndrome takes its origin from a conventional thinking pattern. Maybe it was the British that fathered it forth in their own commercial and political interest, but that doesn’t mean we must abide by this till the crack of doom!
Why don’t I like it? Well, the first reason is that the habit of working under another person gradually smothers your own creative instinct to start out on your own and prove your mettle in this wide world!
The second objection is that your plans for growth and higher prospects can be determined by the employer’s fancy at all times. You may ask for a pay rise but he or she may not comply. You need to take an off day but the leave application may get rejected. You wish to sleep a bit late of a Sunday morning but you may not be permitted to. Even your sleep patterns may get affected.
Start thinking out of the box and exit your own long-familiar Comfort Zone and you feel that the world is far larger than how you conceived it as earlier, and that the world has more than a million openings and opportunities for you too!
I hail from a micro community mistakenly thought as economically also “Forward” though we are far from being so, and I still recall those days of my boyhood when no young woman in my community even dared think of choosing the nursing or medical profession as a lifeline! Even today our community member’s voluntarily opting for the nursing profession in particular is low.
Way too many Wariyars—this community, having a total population of less than a lakh in a rough calculation, and based partly in Kerala but now scattered in many other places– — were either astrologers or school teachers or physicians of the Ayurveda camp. Our parents and elders always suggested to us to apply for some teacher position in the nearest school! Or to take up astrological studies in all seriousness as if those 9 plants were real and living deities in full control of our insigni9fcatn lives on Earth!
Bah!
Few Wariyars had the courage to knock on unfamiliar doors of corporate firms, go to distances to pursue their education and render service through employment.
My late Dad used to attribute this inner diffidence to the bland food that we lived by, as per our so-called tradition, and he often suggested we switch to a largely non vegetarian, active work workout lifestyle instead for our collective progress forward.
BEING A BOSS ON YOUR OWN!
At home we are of the conviction that it’s a waste of time to keep waiting like Mr.Micawber for an Interview Card from some Mr. X in some Timbuktu township after dispatching many applications to many job givers at the same time; it looks similar to taking a lottery ticket and spending sleepless nights anticipating the announcement that we have won the I Prize! What charms us as a family is never having to depend solely on pension at all for leading a prosperous fully self-contained satisfactory life!
In short I wouldn’t like to see any of my descendants fall victim to the “Apply- Apply-No-Reply syndrome at all, God help me!
Of course, the to-be-parents in this family have a far heavier responsibility on their own shoulders, so as to be capable enough to equip their kids before the deadline to take off on their own fueled by their own caliber or talents or skills.
Both the mother to be and father to be have to sit down, and plan well ahead of the arrival of the new guest in the household and read up adequately before he or she actually comes and peeps open his eyes at them!
Both need to save in anticipation enough funds too to deal decently by his or her need for quality education and schooling!
Those parents among us today, that are still relying on this syndrome I referred to, can breathe easier than we can afford to because they need not plan anything in anticipation at all as the kids are growing up and getting schooled!
Possibly, their investment by way of expenses may also be within their monthly budget, though I have some differences over this inference or presumption!
The way I see it, our parents are overly stupid in both fondling their male kids with gifts before the latter can appreciate the same and also in deprecating and depreciating the girl kids and as a result facing nasty consequences of various kinds too!
To be a boss on your own, dear ones, you need, first of all COURAGE TO BE USEFUL TO THE WORLD AS IT CHANGES FROM MINUTE TO MINUTE!
Or, to borrow these lines from WB Yeats’ Easter 1916,
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.
Secondly, you need both family support at the parental level, not necessarily financial, but morale wise at all times till you feel you have developed wings strong enough to fly out on your own.
THIS is too often lacking in the households of all families with ageing parents, retired from salaried positions and not therefore used to thinking either innovatively or creatively!
Thirdly do make sure that the project you are going to implement is USEFUL in some way to the whole public. It may either be a product like brass taps or pencils or a service like DTP, Video Editing or any other!
If your family finances can get used for funding the project you wish to start—and don’t forget to hold detailed discussions on how useful it’s going to be to the whole community well before hand with your parents and elders—well and good.
But if you possess integrity enough to return the amount a bank may advance to you even better.
I would recommend only this latter course of action since a bank loan gives you total responsibility to generate profit enough to return the amount with interest well before your amount comes into the bank’s eagle eyes as a possible NPA and you also get blacklisted as a potential defaulter!!
I have much more to say on this topic of course!
Bye!
LEST WE INDIANS THINK OTHERWISE!
THE ENGLISH TONGUE AND CHRISTIANITY!
We Indians tend to view from various angles both just and unjust!
Till quite recently and probably even today, North India lives cozily with the fond nationalist belief or rather notion that English is the language of the Outsider, the Alien Colonizer and as such it must be run down and if possible kept off all educational institutions intended for one’s formative years schooling!
All of you are of course familiar with the hackneyed phrase “Angrezi hatao!”
However, come on a visit to South India and you can see thousands mastering this language simply because it is a key to opening up a million opportunities.
That all erstwhile colonies of Britain instinctively associate Britain the nation with English the language most prevalent there is natural but it’s also a historical accident! England is an island with not many resources and so the islanders started colonizing…
View original post 348 more words
LEST WE INDIANS THINK OTHERWISE!
THE ENGLISH TONGUE AND CHRISTIANITY!
We Indians tend to view from various angles both just and unjust!
Till quite recently and probably even today, North India lives cozily with the fond nationalist belief or rather notion that English is the language of the Outsider, the Alien Colonizer and as such it must be run down and if possible kept off all educational institutions intended for one’s formative years schooling!
All of you are of course familiar with the hackneyed phrase “Angrezi hatao!”
However, come on a visit to South India and you can see thousands mastering this language simply because it is a key to opening up a million opportunities.
That all erstwhile colonies of Britain instinctively associate Britain the nation with English the language most prevalent there is natural but it’s also a historical accident! England is an island with not many resources and so the islanders started colonizing and looting from their colonies. India also suffered from this habit of John Bull but that doesn’t mean we must hate that language in any way especially today, when we see Britain getting her ‘reward’ for her evils done earlier!
AND to cap it all, Free India can’t be really free, nationally integrated and capable of seamless communication with one and all in ONE tongue with only Hindi, which jars on the ears of all States south of Hyderabad!
In my eye, the fully eligible lingua franca possible here is English alone!
You may choose to disagree out of blind and deaf nationalism or look at the issue rationally!
English was one of several dialects spoken in England Scotland and Wales. It had some companion communication media earlier-viz. Friesian, Mercian, Welsh, Scottish, etc. It just so happened that English dialect was used for daily use in and around London.
Christianity was what let English develop and spread by far. Look at the three Christ poems in the Junian Manuscript for instance: The Fallen Angels, The Harrowing of Hell and The Temptation.
Of course Genesis, the most interesting of the Junian poems, went along with The Heliand, the OS (Old Saxon) paraphrase of the New Testament.
Ironically enough, it was a German scholar by name Eduard Sievers, that projected in 1875 a theory of Old Saxon interpolation, as illustrated by Genesis A and Genesis B, and in the latter poem here you can get an inkling of the future concept of Satan by Milton too! But the origins of English verse can be detected even as far back as 750 AD in the poem The Exeter Book by Cynewulf.
Caedmon Hymn, the earliest surviving piece of English poetry, was composed by Caedmon, definitely a sacred poet.
If there had been no Christianity to act as fuel for the early poets, English would have remained a mere Bonsai Dialect even today!
Thus BOTH historical developments, and geographical connections exist and are a must for the future inflorescence of any human language!
Have a Great Day!
A MERE “OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD”,EH?NO!
THE “WORKPLACE HARASSMENT” GOOGLY!
WARMING UP
Girl kids that boldly come into the largely male-actor-dominated tinsel world need a Joan of Arc or Lara Crofts spirit!
What they and the public call, rather euphemistically, as an “occupational hazard” of this industry is actually kind of workplace or off-location harassment that is difficult to either connive at or be considerate about!
Mind you the character roles that these spunky young women act out in front of the cameras and arc lights may be good or bad; they may let themselves be put to some extremes of endurance also as part of what they are doing but that doesn’t mean that they can be humiliated as women or taken undue advantage of as prime sex recreation stuff.
However such incidents happen basically because of undeserved mollycoddling and widespread lionizing of the male “mega stars”—like the heroes they played in some film productions…
View original post 731 more words
A MERE “OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD”,EH?NO!
THE “WORKPLACE HARASSMENT” GOOGLY!
WARMING UP
Girl kids that boldly come into the largely male-actor-dominated tinsel world need a Joan of Arc or Lara Crofts spirit!
What they and the public call, rather euphemistically, as an “occupational hazard” of this industry is actually kind of workplace or off-location harassment that is difficult to either connive at or be considerate about!
Mind you the character roles that these spunky young women act out in front of the cameras and arc lights may be good or bad; they may let themselves be put to some extremes of endurance also as part of what they are doing but that doesn’t mean that they can be humiliated as women or taken undue advantage of as prime sex recreation stuff.
However such incidents happen basically because of undeserved mollycoddling and widespread lionizing of the male “mega stars”—like the heroes they played in some film productions for getting their hefty remuneration!
A MOST WRONG GENDER PROJECTION!
Across India almost all our forefathers and our own elders have consistently projected an erroneous, biologically inexcusable, zero-alibi, projection of the male Indian over the female counterpart as if India can live very well with only male yahoos on her soil! One ancient writer of ideal social systems and conventions has been so grossly misconstrued by almost all men here –I mean Manu the writer—and this has been used as a weapon to put the women in her place on the mat!
For one thing, such discrimination goes against human biology too, in case you never thought about it. The XX chromosome gives the Female a level of inner stamina and endurance that the male –XY- can never catch up with.
National Geographic magazine has come out with archival data proving that it was an Eve that evolved first out of the biped monkeys in Faiyum Depression in Egypt—the supposed locality of human origin—and she evolved into a male counterpart too for sheer evolutionary purposes of ensuring a sexual union to continue the human race!
Additionally we have it also that the was so strong physically that she could smother a live leopard with her bare hands and dig out roots and tubers from as deep as 12 inches in the African soil!
These reflections came to me as I was reading about a remarkable versatile cine artiste by name Ms Swara Bhaskar who did justice to her quite unlikeable character—an orchestra singer with convenient morals and a high tendency to flaunt her innate sexuality– in the film titled Anarkali of Arrah.
This character gets assaulted on stage, but she takes it as an insult to her dignity and on her art from a very strong sense of one way track injustice. She feels she has been violated. Of course this act of violence is part of the film theme.
The director Mr Avinash Das, familiar with Arrah in Bihar, wants to take the viewers out of their comfort zones and to see such an act in its most uncomfortable and least sympathetic scenario.
Audiences can be unruly, and the public can be callously insensitive towards the females performing in a masterly manner in a largely male-determined industry despite the lesser pay packets they receive!
Swara’s decided take on this is that most female artists have to live with some quota of workplace or off site harassment, which may range from a simple bantering comment, teasing, heckling or even molestation inside a moving vehicle, as happened to one of our precious young artistes recently.
As I said , one of our own female Mollywood artistes had to undergo this traumatic experience recently on a road near Kochi for no fault of hers at all but out of sheer male spite against her being so courageous in her roles.
I am not prepared to wish this away as mere workplace harassment in another avatar at all! I see the fault lines that such an incident opens up in our psychological tectonic plates hidden deep below our public exteriors!
Almost all female artistes are viewed as accessible to men at any time, if necessary for money—and this is tantamount to calling them as floozies or streetwalkers in a different guise! It’s an insult of such abominable nature that language fails me if I dare comment upon that!
I am not prepared to accept that kind of stereotyping wither.
The irony across India is that we DO have quite stringent laws within the pages of IPC—Indian Penal Code that is- to deal with and effectively prevent a repetition of such acts.
But we Indians have been subjected to a millennia-spanning demoralization process through almost consistent and boringly repetitive colonization and/or conquest attempts that we are not bold enough to implement these laws in a summary manner and without an iota of mercy!
The REAL question here is quite simple if stated for the layman:
To what extent are YOU, the educated or uneducated INDIAN, mentally open to accepting the human rights of all our women to not only live along with us in manifold and multifarious roles, but also to accept unconditionally and without riders that Gender Equality is a non-negotiable issue across the nation 24/7/365, no matter their age, societal and economic status, locality or time!!
Wish you all a GREAT day!
