Skip to main content

Ruminations of the Past Decade

A year and a decade ended yesterday.

As we begin a new year and a fresh decade, let's take a quick look at what we did and what we lost.

Some epoch-defining changes occurred:

The Blahs and Nays:          

  • Social media platforms took over our lives, gave us virtual persona and made us do things that couldn't have been imagined earlier (think eating/brushing/birthing/kissing selfies being posted). 
    • We made many many friends on social media, and not even a fifth in real life.
    • Connecting with family and extended family translated to texts on WhatsApp or Facebook. Phone calls became rare, visits rarer.
    • Likes, comments and virtual pats became our lifeline.
    • Mobiles with front, back, triple, quadruple, 360 degree cameras started replacing actual camera equipment, though the DSLR still has its followers.
  • Mother nature and our home earth have been pushed to the extreme with our overuse of natural resources and large scale urbanization and deforestation. We stand to lose things we took for granted in the last decades, like pure air, clean water, greenery and fossil fuels. Unprecedented natural disasters like floods, forest fires, droughts, earthquakes, landslides, typhoons, cyclones, tsunamis happened, demonstrating the ire of Mother Nature.
  • The term couch potato took over a new meaning altogether, with remotes, mobiles, keyboards pinning us to the sofa or desk. With air and water pollution reaching alarming levels, and our own physical exercise being restricted to occasional gym visits or treadmill runs, lifestyle disorders like blood sugar, blood pressure, heart and lung problems, respiratory disorders, brain strokes, mental diseases became our life partners.
  • Terrorism continued to terrorize us and hold precious humanity at ransom. Political opportunism, selfish hedonism, gap between have and have-nots spiralled and reached new lows of humaneness.
Sorry to paint a bleak picture till now. 

Let's look at the Yays:           

  • Women and child rights were given the importance they deserved. Countries and organizations took gender pay gaps, workplace and sexual discrimination very seriously and acted against these. 
  • Celebrities endorsed real causes like environmental protection, religious and ethnic tolerance, pay parity, ecological balance, minimalism in consumption, and conditions of the migrants and displaced communities. Today we have most celebrities shattering their glass walls of privilege, and speaking up against injustice and misrule.
  • Gender equality, and gay and transgender rights became a reality. A lot many mental barriers against LGBTQs began to melt away, We realize that we have a long way to go....that itself is a beginning. Marginalised communities now have a distinct voice and support.
  • Child and teenage activism increased. The teens and tweens showed world politicians the mirror and voiced out against ecological devastation, rights of displaced people, and over exploitation of the earth's resources. The need to deal with climate change on an emergency level was also driven home effectively.
  • Terrorism was dealt with an iron hand, with world leaders uniting against it. Though we have a long way to go before we can make our world a safe place, at least we have made a start.
So these were the major milestones of the decade, as far as I can remember. If you can point out more, please feel free to comment.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

All We Imagine as Light- Lyricism on Celluloid

When an Indian film makes it the prestigious Cannes film festival, the world sits up and takes notice! And the lovely ladies swinging on the stage is a recent memory that brings a sense of pride. I had the good fortune to catch this film on screen recently. A review of such work is unnecessary, but still am bursting to say a few words. Right from the scintillating background score, to the events that unfold like pages fluttering in an open book, to the effortless performances, it's a masterpiece all right! The first half romances Mumbai- in the rains, at night, in the bazaars, in dingy rooms, in the local trains. Image source: Wikipedia  The second half shows what light truly is, brilliant sunshine, crashing waves and salty air in a small coastal village in Maharashtra. You can feel the taste of salt, the breeze in your hair and the touch of sand under your feet, the cinematography is so real. Payal Kapadia masters the art of holding back, of showing beauty in the mundane. The hosp...

Guru Dutt - Legacy of an Overlooked Genius

"Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaae to Kya Hai:" This heartfelt anguish was literally personified by film maker and actor extraordinaire - Guru Dutt, whose birth centenary happens to be tomorrow (July 9).  Maestro or Failed Genius? All his life, he strove to depict his vision, his dreams on celluloid. Yet, even as he strove for success, for renown, he was a bit of a recluse, a black sheep himself. It was as if he wanted to challenge the language of popular cinema by being within the format, from the inside. His women had brains, taxi drivers and masseurs were philosophers, sex workers pined for spiritual ecstasy, and friendships blossomed between unlikely people. Common people on the street spoke wiser logic than academics or high-nosed editors. The topics of the films may seem dated now, but the eternal truths voiced in them remain relevant.   His films were distinctly different from other popular Hindi films. They had all the commercial elements of song, dance, comedy, romanc...

All Work and No Life - Off Runs the Wife!

The recent ramblings of some elderly gentlemen (one a company founder, another a CEO) on how much we many hours we should be working, are symptomatic of all that is kaput with corporate India. The reason we have so few cases of innovators and path-breakers. The reason why Nadella and Pichai shine overseas. The reason start-ups and entrepreneurial attempts fail faster than you can say 1,2,3. These guys have got all the mathematics wrong!  Machismo and Hot Air I find these announcements to be glaring examples of the inherent tendencies of machismo, bullying, slavery, high-handedness privileged males in our country are used to.  At home, when raja beta works, rest of the family keeps quiet. When he needs food, wifey supplies it. Shhh, raja beta is sleeping, don't make noise. Don't irritate him, get him a cup of hot tea/coffee, quick, he's tired from working all day. You get the drift? The whole ecosystem in the workplace is designed to reward the raja beta slaving away rather ...