This year has been quite eventful. This year started off in Singapore and is ending off in Mumbai. Started off as a Grad Research Candidate in Singaporean University in the Liberal Arts to now as a consultant with a prominent engineering services major. From Social Research Methods to Contaminant Remediation, the spectrum has been eclectic lah!  Well, i moonlight my days as a writer and a social sector contributor in my very small way too. Writing and expressing myself in the written word has been a passion since my teenage years. Contributing to the public discourse as an aaam admi is vital and web 2.0 has made it even easier.

Serangoon for the uninitiated is an area in Singapore and an interchange on the purple and yellow lines of the MRT. Quite a major locus of the public transportation hub in the tiny red dot. Saki Naka is a major intersection in the suburbs in Mumbai. Busy is a gross understatement. Serangoon is a metaphor for a quite residential HDB Town with a brand new expanded MRT with a new shopping mall next door. It stands for renewal in a way. Saki Naka on the contrary symbolises the raw energy and dynamism of an urban megapolis in the developing world with upcoming office blocks of glass capturing the uneasy globalization with thesis office blocks emerging out of former slum housing. The dialectics of growth and progress. Stands for hope on one side of the coin but sacrifice on the other. This year has quite been in that vain. Sacrifices of a past life have laid the pathway for the future. Dropping out of my second grad program was not easy but the opportunity to enter ‘real world’ was equally tempting, so hence took the plunge in to the deep end of the pool. From a life of planned surety of Serangoon to the dynamic chaos of Saki Naka, this year has been one hell of a journey, for the better professionally atleast.

I still yearn for the serenity of Serangoon but the traffic of Saki Naka teaches me a lot more everyday. And I am thankful for my Blessings and have learnt to treat Chapati and Noodles with equal wattage. Though I love Teh more 😉

I notice a lot of chatter on social media platforms regarding civic activism on twitter and facebook regarding the recent rape in Delhi, the un necessary chatter about Foreign Direct Investment in Organised Retail and the o fcourse the latest flavor of the season whether its cricket or Bollywood  keep on shifting. One thing is constant, that the online space has provided which the mainstream does not. What option does a working professional have in expressing his interest in public life apart from shouting on social media? 

The mainstream political entities are incredibly dynastical in character, getting an electoral ticket from my assembly seat would be almost as hard for a middle class guy such as me as reaching the moon. And i am not kidding, the extent of money power, muscle and connections matter in Indian political life, make it the profession or a calling with the highest entry barrier. 

The young, educated and concerned citizen is relegated to a silent spectators on the stands of a Democratic Gladiatorial Theater. Well, the fortunate few join Think Tanks in Delhi like CPR, Observer, Vivekanada Foundation can still play a part in shaping the national conversation. Academia is another way, but again restrictive in nature. Media is a way, but the influence is again only at the high table. Political Parties are simply incapable of attracting the best professional talent for political activism in the current scenario. The Civic Society oriented Kejriwal led AAP is a beacon of hope, but its efficacy is still to be evaluated. Still, this is a positive development in an Island of Gloom.

I most certainly feel disenfranchised in the world’s so called largest democracy which at best a dynastocracy with divisive and parochial agendas which the ideology of the significant players. Can the Middle Class which sleeps, finally have a voice?

This post has been inspired by a friend’s post on this very topic of Secularism. This is not a retort but a ideologically heterodox individual’s perspective that the issues of today are beyond narrow ideological construct of the Left and the Right. There is something right regarding the left and vice versa as per the period of history that one is treading through cautiously. The Word Secular has been abused to the extent that its original essence of a plural and inclusive polity has been bastardized beyond recognition. The term ‘Communal’ is used to tarnish anyone who is proud of a Hindu Heritage. Its usually utilized liberally by the folks of the liberal elite. 

Secularism’s definition is broken- all that the notion stands for today is vote bank politics of caste and parochial identities. Its idea needs to be restored to its original essence of the 1976 amendment to the preamble. The Idea of a plural and inclusive polity depends upon the edifice of secularism. 

A drastic requirement is there of this very hour to save Indian Politics from a static rhetorical rut, a bankruptcy of intellectual energies which is leading us to a paralysis in our discourse. We simply cannot think beyond the binary structures of Left and Right;  ‘Sickular’ and Communal.

There needs to be a realization that folks do vote for the Right as well as vote for the communists in this nation. The Secular Politicians from Maharashtra do travel to Pandharpur very year and so too the Right Wing Politicians who pay homage to their respective shrines. Very Few are Manishankar Iyer who worship at the altar of Secularism and pay respects to 10 Janpath. Well, that’s Idol Worship of a kind too.

Once a person has read social theory in Grad School, a person simply cannot avoid analyzing a piece of art through a simplistic layman’s prism. His vision towards life is ‘informed’ of social facts and realities which the sociologically ill informed cannot see. As it is an Intellectual Burden, or so I was taught in School.  I do not agree with this elitist perspective (most sociologists are leftist thinkers, hence the paradox). But social theory does certainly present us a theoretical grounding to detect where the meta narrative’s wagon wheel is heading towards.

I am a huge fan of the Bond Franchise; as I have grown up with the Nuclear Terror of ‘Golden Eye’ , The Media shaping Global Politics in ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ , a very Rupert Murdoch esque character, which meant that Bond had moved in to the post Cold War era. ‘The World is Not Enough’ and ‘Die Another Day’ had themes of Renewable Energy and Oil Pipeline Politics (The World is Not Enough), where Sophie Marceau killed it as the potential Oil Baroness (Stunning Diva too). Eclectic Themes, i must admit.

The Daniel Craig Films of ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘ The Quantum of Solace’ dealt with the themes of International Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. Very contemporary in the post 9/11 regime, with terrorist incidents effecting capital markets, hostile takeovers and intertwining with terror from ‘Non State Actors’. Quite Relevant.

Skyfall is a Bond Film with a difference. Must lengthier, much slower in pace. Sam Mendes has made an effort to capture the finer elements of characters with dry British Humor and a dash of detail, usually absent in this particular genre of Cinema.  An intelligence sector based drama, taking the spy business’s home and re-evaluating the necessity of the craft in today’s networked world where, a single IT programmer can disrupt transportation networks as in the case of the London Tube. Or Rig an Election, terminate a target in hostile territory as Mr. Silver (Javier Bardem), as a rouge ex MI6 Agent attempts to do and succeeds to a large extent. The target here is not the British State, but his ex boss ‘M’ played with class by Dame Judi Dench. The film captures the vulnerability of our times, in overly connected world, we are robust yet incredibly fragile.

The film starts off in the Bazaars of Istanbul, quite a sight reaffirming after Ek Tha Tiger (a Bollywood Spy Thriller starring Salman Khan) that Turkey as a soft power is growing in currency. Well Erdogan with AKP is not doing badly with an extrovert Foreign Minister.  Istanbul is on my itenary to visit next certainly. The film gravitates from Turkey to London back to the East with breath taking views of the Shanghai skyline and Macau exotica.

The attention of the film is on Britishness and London. Its the best infomercial for the capital that i feel is better than the Olympic Games in my opinion. And Bond is the Best British Cultural Export since the Beatles. ‘M’ in the Parliamentary inquiry spoke about the relevance of ‘fighting the shadows’ in a extremely decentralized enemy. The ‘Q’ in Film quipped about doing more damage in pajamas over a cup of earl grey in the morning than what a field agent can do in a year. The Element of Scottish Independence is recognized in the film, with the Scottish Spirit alive in the film. A very British, but Glocal Film.

There are various intellectual strands woven together in a thrilling narrative in the film but the few lines of poetry that ‘M’ orated in the Parliamentary Inquiry encapsulates the essence of the film :

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson

When a society reaches a point in its trajectory in which it cannot trust any ideology or an institution to solve its ailments. There are usually two outcomes which are associated in this sort of dead end. Either Independent ‘Outlier’ emerges as a virus to disrupt the existing status quo. This outlier is very much, a product of the system who is a change agent turned revolutionary. Social Media with its transforrmational prowess to channelize passion and creativity, has been able to lead the surge in Independent digital activism. Wael Ghonem, a Google Executive turned activist catalyzed the Tahrir Square protests, which overturned the Mubarak Regime. We have our own Tahrir Square at Jantar Mantar, with Arvind Kejriwal turning into a whistle blower with an impact. Well how well he does at the ballot box is no consequence as long as the existing system is being shaken not stirred.

Julian Assange exemplifies the embodiment of an activist with seismic presence. One man can shake up the world of Global Intelligence like no other. Similar Modus Operandi of Kejriwal is yielding early fruits. Things can get toxic, but the impact matters. Every person who has a perspective, has a passion for change with a twitter account or a blog is an activist in his own right. Whether one has ten followers or a million, activism is a marathon and not a 100 m dash.

Independent Activists matter for one reason, they do not play by rules of the game and are not afraid of the power of special interest groups. Although there is power in numbers, often a single soul can rally a million towards cause de resistance to see an event happen that might trigger a chain reaction where other ‘free radicals’ might join the movement of reform whatever the agenda of the day is. Ideas have consequences, well independent activists are often citizens spreading the valid word.

Remember Mandela, Gandhi and to a lesser extent Arafat. Change is here, if we can see it happen.