Lessons from Dear Zindagi

PC: Google Images

Some films offer a new perspective to life, giving a food for thought. Dear Zindagi is one such film- a breeze of fresh air, giving a new outlook to life!
No matter how ‘cool’ this generation may look, but sometimes somewhere we are totally ‘screwed!’, we want to say ‘Just go to hell’, we are stuck in a maze and can’t find a way out! And then finally we need that ‘dimag ka doctor’ to decode the puzzle. Here are a few lessons from the DD:

1. Patience: It is something that this instant ‘2 minute’ generation desperately requires! No matter how fast your smart phone is, life cannot always run on 4G!

2. The easier path: ‘Easy is difficult’ for the Gen Ys. We have been taught ‘to achieve something worthy we need to resort to a tough route’. Is it always necessary and worthy? Are we prepared? Preliminary preparation is mandatory before embarking on a tough journey. Time to sit back and rethink! 

3. Facing fears: Rather than running away from fears all through life, it’s wise to face it for once and get over them. Some gutty thing yeah? Don’t let your past blackmail your present to ruin your future!

4. “Who are those people?”: We don’t know how many lives have been altered, affected and people have ceased to express or do what they love, for this one thought- ‘What will people say?’. This question has been bogging us down from the time we gained our senses and we have been expected to behave in a particular manner by the society. Really who are these faceless people behind our lives? Do they matter so much that we sacrifice our lives and happiness over them?

5. Expecting the unusual to happen: Those grown on comics and fairy tales have their ever-lasting impact on them. We are programmed so much by the happenings around us and a very strong belief system. We expect miracles to happen, often without extra efforts or with insufficient efforts. But as the great scientist Albert Einstein rightly said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result". So it’s time to do something different or things differently for magic to happen!

6. Genius is about knowing where to stop: This is a tricky one. Once you know something is becoming a habit, you are getting dependent on someone/ something, it’s time to stop and think!

Let’s have a rendezvous with Life! Embrace it and say, ‘Love You Zindagi’….

“Dear Zindagi, I know we haven’t been in touch for long. Just wanted to say ‘Hi!’”

Beware! The Machines are Coming

AI: The biggest threat to mankind?

Robotics, as we remember was a fascinating subject, with robots helping in daily tasks. With the world going ‘automatic’, we deployed robots for warehouse jobs, launching aircrafts and other dangerous tasks. But progress never stops and our machines too are getting smarter. With Apple’s Siri and Google’s driverless cars, we can completely rely on them. The research started long back and today we have Saya robot simulating human expressions of surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness and sadness. Japan- producing a slew  of humanoids- these bots seem a boon as they assist to take care of the elderly, people with special needs, friendly- some more affable than humans!

Well, all’s fine till here, but what when robots start thinking?

Artificial intelligence- all the while humans have been trying to ease their tasks with mechanical assistance. And today we are so dependent on our Android apps to tell us the weather forecast, Google maps to drive us to our destination, Skype to get connected, smart gadgets to regulate blood pressure and diabetes, apps to remind us of our flight timing, important assignments etc.

But what if these assistants wish to out-do humans? Our Sci-fi films like Terminator Series, Robot and Ra-one have already given us a glimpse.

‘Watch Out! The machines are coming!’- Headlines have already started hitting the news space, like a first-hand indication. It reminisces of those ‘2012-‘ doomsday types film extracts- fingers crossed. Recently it was announced that a computer beat a human in the 2500 year old game ‘Go’-a wickedly complex game that supposedly has more possible moves than there are atoms in the universe! (10⁷⁰ – for those who know their Math!) Now this is something crazy. The alarm bells are ringing, it is time to limit giving power to the robots. Just imagine these sci-fi dreadful movie scenarios coming to reality and you are left to save the world! It’s good food for thrilling sci-fi entertainers, but of course no one wishes that to become a reality!

The biggest scientists of the world are getting worried about AI. “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful. I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something foolish”, said Elon Musk, CEO, Space X, Tesla.

After all, it’s rightly said, “Technology should be a tool and not a master!”

Reference: Times NIE edition

Ah! Marriage!

To Be Or Not to Be…

And that 20-something time, you graduate, have a job..Yeh! you are ‘eligible’ to get married! No matter, what you feel about it. People say “Don’t get married at 25, marry when you want”, but for your parents and aunties and uncles! As if your ‘bachelor’ status is not bearable to them!

We all think, at least me, that parents today have become liberal, have changed with time, but when it comes to ‘marriage’, everything turns orthodox! Poor parents, they too are bound with ‘societal pressure’ after all. Attending marriages is like landing in a soup with some random relatives starting making matches with the ideal one. Your mother starts getting palpitations the moment she hears your friend getting married! It is also that time when social networking turns into a nightmare- you open your facebook page to find one of your best buddies posting marriage pictures, the biggest life event, becoming single to married, all in love.. Making you feel more lonely, for your best friend is not all yours, isn’t it? ;) It also becomes the topic of your discussion with friends that you have been trying to avoid from a long time! So, it’s not only adolescence, it’s also that ‘to-be bride/ groom’ transcending phase that needs to be handled carefully! We need help! 

‘Kitna bada ho gaya hai apka beta, iske liye ladki dekhi ya nahi’ and there it starts! Anger boils- you feel like.. but you only go helpless!

Suddenly everybody wants to get you married. People are after your life. When will you say yes? As if that’s the only task left to do on earth! Parents do what they do the best- 'Blackmailing'- "If you do not get married at the right age...." (by now the reasons are by heart..you complete the sentence before your parents :D) Preparing biodatas (with photoshop photos) for marriages, posting on matrimonies, your community portals, the match-fixing agents! Really? All for you didn’t find your life partner yourself! ;D

Your parents’ long conversations on phone, spying through some common link, comparing qualifications, salary packages, eating habits, lifestyle, sneaking facebook profiles, coffee meetings- and of course, how do you know someone in one meeting? How about the ‘shuk- shuk’ formula from Munnabhai, what say? :D

‘Kya kami hai isme?’, they say and ‘umm! hmm!..’ Be ready with your reasons. Didn’t think convincing your own parents was that difficult! And you reject one, there will be some mama-mausi calling for ‘mere chachi ki bhabhi ke mause ke bhanje ka rishta hai’… the stock is never-ending. Girls, all that ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya..’ and chocolate heroes become stark fiction and you suddenly happen to face practicality in life.

One of my friends rightly said, a 25-year old, independent and unmarried girl is ‘not valid’. So hurry up and club her with the Mr. Right, whom they think!

Even more embarrassing is the ‘chai-poha’ traditional programmes, (dressing up for a stranger), putting both the boy and girl in awkward situations. Thank God, we have come out of the ‘choosing without seeing’, ‘walk and show’, ‘sing a song’ rut! Mayhem!

After all this, permutation- combination, rituals, traditions, astrological angles and social practices, they say ‘Jodis are made in heaven’! JJJ

Finding Love- Intro..

Looking lazily out of the window that had rolling drops of the recent drizzle, she wondered where she went wrong, why she went wrong in identifying ‘true love’, that she was so confident of; or whether such thing even existed! Little did she know it was knocking from the back door!

‘Reserve’ for those who ‘Deserve’!

One with x number of marks gets into a good college, and one with x+ doesn't! To any logical mind, this is injustice! Why does our education system not understand this? A piece of an article written by a student today arose the many suppressed but rebellious feelings that I too faced sometime back, just like many unfortunate others. For those who fall on either side, it may not make a difference. But for a student who dreams  to pursue an MBBS doesn't get through a college and his/her counterpart does that with even lesser marks, it isn't a pleasant feeling, friends! Reservations! For those underprivileged- agreed! But for how long, now the sides are getting reversed. It isn't great to be born in the ‘open’ category, or if your family annual earnings come into the ‘creamy layer’ (applicable for some castes), it just means you need to work harder than your ‘reserved category’ counterparts to seek a seat in an educational institute. It’s a mockery when you hear someone saying, ‘I will get through, as I have the caste certificate’!- especially when we talk that religion, caste, creed and sex should in no way influence rights of an individual, as per our ‘secular’ constitution. Even Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted the practice to be in effect only for 10 years. When you want to abide by the laws of the constitution, why not fully?

Are reservations a foolproof solution for the betterment of the underprivileged- the poor? Today, anyone from the upper castes can be poor and those from ‘so called’ categorized lower castes can be richer. Then how do you allot seats? A poor meritorious student may not be able to take up Engineering or any course, considered by society to be ‘opulent’, just because he doesn't fall into one of those categories. How fair is it to waive off lakhs to a student coming from a rich background, just because he/she was born with a ‘reserved caste’ tag. And with jobs it’s another horizon! It’s not just giving opportunities or a seat, it is a question of the career prospects, dreams, aspirations and the most formative and decisive years of an individual!

A solution could be to just provide scholarships or excuse fees for meritorious, deserving students. Then our country will have managers, doctors and officers who actually deserve to be there. When ‘equality’ is a trending word today, isn't it time to re-consider the basics where the future of the country takes its shape?