An i for an I makes the world a better place!

Today, i had forwarded my revised CV to my fiancee for just having a look and praise me a bit on having done a commendable job.
That she did, but had only one problem. Something which many of my editors of stories, articles, blogs, resume have had over the last 6 years.
What happened 6 years ago?

The Times of India published an article previously published in the NYT as 'Me, Myself and I'. I was deeply impressed and started writing the personal pronoun in lowercase as 'i' instead of the usual 'I' ued in English language for past 800 years. Many people have attacked this, over the years. look at this article which references Ayn Rand in defence of the 'I'. Or look at this one in which the blogger is confused over this change in ToI. It has been mocked by others and looked down upon by many readers.

Why did it appeal to me though? I decided to dig around it a bit. there is a story of transition from ich/ik to i to I in the 13th century, but that doesn't interest me much. So, to better explain why i write a lowercase i, i am writing this blog. It will be incomplete, but better to articulate a bit than not at all.

In English, there is this concept called Capitonyms. We regularly invoke it in our daily usage without realising that such an abstract concept exists. What it means is that the meaning of a word with a Capital first letter is different from one in all lowercase. Example: Sun vs sun, Moon vs moon, Earth vs earth. Or the name of months like March vs march, May vs may, August vs august. All have been explained in the article. So, kindly look at the link to understand better. But i is not a Capitonym, we just replaced the i with an I. what does this change signify in today's world?

For me, as an Indian, who deeply believes in the Hindu culture and traditions, it is natural. The self has always been less important to us than our surroundings. Many great works of art, scriptures, hymns, etc. can't be attributed to any one person as there are no records of authorship. More importantly, we have always been an organic society. Everyone adds something, or changes something, discarding unwanted, adding the wanted to the existing; at least this is how ancient Indians seem to have been. There was never a place for an emphasis on the self. It is a recent phenomenon. Even when we know the people, if we look closely at their lives and works, rarely we see self glorification in them. In our theology, while we say Aham Brahmaasmi, we do not enlarge ourselves to be the universe, we make ourselves a part of the infinite and become humble.

When i write I for myself and you, we, he, she, it for everyone else (and god instead of God, where ever needed), this gives rise to a egotism. My egoism, denies me this pleasure. While i look inwards all the time, i do it to actually improve myself. the lowercase i is an humbling exercise. over the years, even while speaking, the i is becoming smaller and smaller for me, which i believe is a good thing. Till i am able to put myself away and the world before me, i will keep exercising and if i ever achieve it, i will be living in a better world where i will not be needed anyway.

What's Wrong With our policies?

The Answer - they are contradictory, even at a micro -level of any single village.

For years, all Indian policies have been pushing people towards a smaller and nuclear family.
First, it was land ceiling act due to which influential big families broke up into smaller households to save lands. Then the poorer families broke up to get more benefits under our social benefit schemes including housing for poor, PDS and everything under the sun where the beneficiary unit is a household.
So, in short, we broke up families and default support systems, leaving us with individuals.
Then, we realised that when people are alone, they are susceptible to exploitation and hence we promoted SHGs, cooperatives. SHG as a unit of financial inclusion was touted as a good option - giving loans to a group against individuals for better recovery, for better outputs, etc.
Today, we are making each group member open their own bank accounts. Today we are making every member of the same household under a single job card open their own bank account. In effect, making finance the domain of the individual rather than the family.

Today, effectively, the developmental policies are breaking down societies --> families --> nuclear families --> individuals. And we expect people to come together and work together for their own development.

We undermine Khap Panchayats for their evil instead of working with them to help them bring out better diktats which will benefit the society.
We misrepresented Ghotul system prevalent in central Indian tribal areas, so much that it was reduced to only the freedom in sexual activity, while it has played a very important role in educating the tribals over the years. We forced these children into Big Ashram schools, 500 seater ones at times, and broke down their entire tribal way of living. We give, on one hand the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan norms expect us to provide schools within one km to each child. On the other, we force these kids to leave home and live in hostels little better than concentration camps miles away from home.

On one hand, we have MGNREGA to provide employment at home to each villager, to prevent migration and help a local area prosper. On the other, we have schemes like Special SGSY in LWE affected areas, now replaced by Roshani under NRLM which are basically - train poor tribals as some machine operators and then migrate them to some industry, where they act as cheap labour in unorganised sector, at a bigger disadvantage as they are first time out of their home and far away. paid at wages comparable or lower than MGNREGA wages, what is the point in this?

On one hand we empower tribals through acts like PESA, give gram sabhas power to decide their development course. on the other, we empty the villages of the youngsters, ensuring that the next generation is not their to prevent western development in these areas.

We can go on, about organic agriculture, renewable energy resources use, and so on.

A country as big as India needs multiple policies. each area has a certain context. may be in naxal affected tribal areas, you might justify encouraging Roshani program to get children out of the hell hole. but the reason these areas are naxal affected is also due to lack of development. the few youth who could, have been brain drained to serve as labourers and we are still left with undeveloped regions.
There seems to be a total lack of systemic, long term, holistic vision in this country. but then again, holistic has hole in it...

Dilemma or Laziness?

i have a blog draft with this title since March 2013 on my dashboard.
remembering, with some difficulty, what it was about - posting blogs, writing about my experiences, thoughts, daily happenings around me.
Why don't i express myself? is it out of laziness or too many questions in the head that need to be cleared up before i sit down and write? being unsure about the facts/ having incomplete information or something like that is as big a cause as not wanting to spend time on articulating the thoughts, researching and writing it all out; especially, on a regular basis.
the fact remains that i am not a blogger and the writer's block that i hit many years ago, persists.

Why is there so much furore over formation of a few more new states?

Considering that most European, Baltic, Sub-Saharan African and Middle-east countries are smaller than average Indian states;
Considering that smaller states like Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Panjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand have generally done well on most fronts (first two are favourites of Dreze-Sen, next two are rich-spoiled brats kinda) and we have only one failure new state - Jharkhand;
Considering that most state boundaries are drawn along the British provincial lines even today (except where there were struggles - i can think of samyukta Mahrashtra Movement);
When there is a movement to reduce the sizes of districts and tehsils for better administration and give local identity a better representation and assist in development (supposedly)
I wonder
Why is there so much furore over formation of a few more new states?
Atleast, none of them wants to be a separate country, they are bound by the same constitution, and same set of basic laws and set-up.

First Report From Narayanpur

Since my last blog post, i have been busy. Busy like never before.
First, it was the pressure of finishing my MTech project and three more projects of my friends. Then, once free of that, i was busy meeting and eating with friends all over Pune. From there, i shifted to TISS, Mumbai for training of PMRDFS. I must write a few posts about my experiences there.  I wanted to, while i was there, but i was tooooooooo busy experiencing all those things.
Then i moved to Raipur and finally to the district of my posting - Narayanpur. And after a week here, now that i am settled and have a free Sunday after ages, here i am, writing a blog again.

I have been posting status updates very frequently this past two weeks on Facebook. So, most of my story is already up there. So, what am i going to write about today? nothing. Really. and to prove that, i am stopping here!

OWLED at last

In these two years at IIT, i had progressively converted from a lark to an owl, in term of sleep patterns. To more about the subject, start here. Till i read this, i too was worried about this shifting pattern and always tried to fight against it. But now, when i started to embrace it, it has played a greater havoc!
in the past one week, i have ended up staying up all night and sleeping till 4 (1640, to be precise, when tiffin starts and i have a sudden hunger which makes me get up, brush and rush).
And, a boy who could never watch a friday evening movie on TV, simply because it started at 2100, just around his bed-time, was now staying awake to read next day's newspaper before going to sleep!
All in all, a perfect Owl. what i do you ask? earlier, i was working on my report, once watching movies, once just chatting with friends, waiting for Maddu mess to open up! Well, you know about Maddu mess? surely you stayed in IITB!!!

PS - two months later, after being a total OWL till 10th August, i have suddenly started to sleep at 2200 and wake up at 0630 ish. more like my old times! I hope this will help improve my health and peace of mind and keep me active throughout the day. but heck! i enjoyed the past few months like anything :) will miss that time. (25th August 2012)

Delayed Monsoon

In my last post, i mentioned that the Monsoon has been delayed by a week. Well, that is not the case if you are sitting in Mumbai, like i am. Here, the delay will not be more than a couple of days. But in the eastern Peninsular India, the delay might really be of a week. This daily updated image from IMD is very helpful in tracking the progress of Monsoon for a naive enthusiast like me. Yes, i can myself give another 4-5 links which will add a lot of details and allow you to make your own predictions, if you know a bit of climatology, but that is not the point here.

Well, a delayed Monsoon can be very bad for our country, with most parts reeling under a drought this summer. The condition will only turn worse. Especially in interior Karnatak and Maharashtra. Somehow, water storage capacity should be increased, so that water will last over 13 months, in case of a delayed monsoon. It rains enough that so much water can be stored. Well, that will need helluva calculation. I will try something in my district of posting...

BTW, monsoon is almost in Mumbai! pre-monsoons showers are gaining strength!