Enough with the pointing. It's time to look at the mirror.

I've been waiting to make this post since 26/11 but I didn't 'coz I didn't want to jump to conclusions. I wanted to hear, read and see the reaction of people on TV, on the web and wherever the heck else before I posted what follows. 26/11 was a disaster, no doubt about it. The NSG and the likes did a great job, although they arrived late, real late. But that's not the point here. The point here, for me, is the finger pointing and what-the-fuck else not. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is blaming either the government, or the intelligence services or our neighbours to the west. I say, blame yourself.
India has 54 Million PAN card holders and 31.5 Million tax payers (as per July 2007). India has a population of over a Billion people, of which about 400 Million are below the poverty line. What about the ones that aren't? Well, a whole lot are above the poverty line but don't make enough money to feed themselves, much less to pay taxes. That's the big picture. Come down to ground level and look at the reality and how it effects everything. All around you, I assure you, are people who evade taxes, show false cash outflows and inflows, just to pay lesser taxes. And this constitutes a large amount of their black money. From what I've observed, every shopkeeper, from the kirana store guy to the designer store lady, have a Kabootar, or fake, bill book. Bills are cut on that book because they don't report it and hence, don't have to pay taxes on the sales made on those bills. The immediate benefit is to the seller and his/her supplier as both successfully evade taxes. It has to match up somewhere, but it doesn't. That's problem number 1 at the micro level. Number 2 is piracy. The best of us download and buy pirated music, movies, softwares and videos. What do you think that adds to the economy? NOTHING! The pirated copies are made by whoeverthefuck but what matters is that the sale of a movie, album or software adds certain value to the economy as it is a) legitimate and b) Tax paid. So, this amount that the government gets from each sale, it doesn't. This essentially is a useless activity for the government as its getting nothing out of the millions of tracks, videos and software's that are downloaded in the country every hour. Had they been bought legally, the government would have been happy because they'd get money on every purchase. The same stands true for other commodities as well, and you don't need a whole lot of imagination to figure out what all (btw the computer you're using right now, did u buy it off the grey market? The OS maybe?).
So for personal gains, we're screwing up the economy, and we're expecting India to shine because your God will do something for you? ehh NO! The government uses tax revenue to fund the building of our roads, training of our defence forces, and every other public service. When we don't do our bit and pay our taxes like we're supposed to, we take the life out of the economy, paisa by paisa.
Sure the government also has its shortfalls, corruption and tax rates to name a few. If people started paying taxes, the government will start getting more money and would ideally reduce the tax rates by some percentage since more money will come in anyway as the aggregate revenue will be divided among a larger number of people. Look around you, especially people in bigger cities, and see what all the government has done with the money it receives from the 31.5 Million tax payers and the state and central taxes. The only reason that the government charges VAT, property tax and what else not is because there just isn't enough money coming in through the direct tax route to fund its public services! You and I may evade taxes because the road outside our houses is broken or because fuel prices went up by Rs. 2. Whatever our reasons may be, they don't justify what we've been doing for so, so long. And you know, it is our fault. We've turned into what we are because of numerous reasons, but it doesn't justify us not changing now. It simply says that you don't give a flying sparrows feather about your country.
Imagine if everyone did everything legitimately, the government would have more revenue to buy better equipment for the army, build more roads, pay for public services and what not. Sure corruption will still be there, just like it is in the best of countries. But the point is that the effects of simply paying your god damn taxes honestly would make a huge impact simply because if more funds are allocated to public services and defence services, we WILL get better results, and we WILL be moving faster. How long can they keep fudging their books and not show results? They WILL have to allocate them somewhere and the results will bloody well be visible all around us.
If we all start contributing more toward the economy and less towards grey market economics and black money market, we can make a difference. If we pay our taxes, If we buy our commodities legitimately, If we just do this much, we CAN make a difference. Because if we do this bit, the government can spend more money on defence services, more money on intelligence services and provide better training and equipment to public servants. With all that, we can perhaps avoid another 26/11. If not, well, keep dreaming, and as far as India shining goes, not today, tomorrow, or even 2020.

The Blame Game

More often than not, you will find people all around you blaming others and situations for bad things that happen to them, backed by perfectly logical reasons to support their argument. Well, maybe not. The thing is that blaming people and/or situations for your misery is the easiest way to convince yourself of being correct. Fact is that you are only correct in your head because you convince yourself to such a high degree that there is really no looking back. That only happens because you believe yourself more than any other person on the planet, even if you don't believe in yourself. What actually happens is that one side of your personality that feels bad about the misery that you go through gets consoled by another side of your personality, which holds you responsible for nothing. And since anyway you believe only what you want to, you accept the misconception that it's not your fault, and that it's someone else’s. However, the sad sad sad bitter truth is simple – Almost everything that happens to you, happens because of you.
Allow me to elaborate this. Let’s take some live examples. Say you get bad marks in an exam because you got late for it. Now you’ll start by telling yourself that it was partly your fault because you probably didn’t get up on time. Then you’ll think for less than half a second and come up with an ‘analysis’ which prove it wasn’t your fault – like there was traffic on the road. And then, the icing on the cake, you’ll very conveniently blame the teacher or invigilator for not giving you extra time for the paper or waiting for you. All of it makes sense right? And justify that it wasn’t your fault? Uh, No! You waking up late is totally your fault, not your moms, not your room mates. You judging the density of the traffic incorrectly is your ignorance. It's an exam for god’s sake. And, this is my favourite, blaming the teacher/invigilator for not giving you extra time is the most absurd, idiotic and asinine thing that you can possibly do – since you’re clearly not the king/queen of the world – because everyone else made it on time, you didn’t and that’s all your fault. So basically, it was all your fault, barring of course the miniscule number of environmental factors that you couldn’t predict.

Let’s look at another situation. Say you get a ticket for something while driving. First thing you do is go ahead and blame the cop and try to prove that you were, in fact, not speeding. Then you try and bribe the cop to get out of paying the entire amount. And finally, you abuse (In your head of course) the cop for first accusing you of breaking the law and then taking a bribe from you. Makes sense? Hell no! You got a ticket because you weren’t wearing a seatbelt or speeding and hence, breaking the law. It's simple! You do the crime, you do the time. You bear the fruits (or weeds) of your idiocracies. The better part here, however, is that we all blame cops for being corrupt, unjust and whatever the heck not. Well they are. But only because we’ve made them like that. Because we’ve made the ‘system’ like that. And we’re all a part of the problem of course. Had people put their foot down on bribing cops, they would have eventually got out of the habit of expecting bribes and hence, getting bribes. And in turn, they would have eventually stopped charging you with crimes that you did not commit. So it's essentially your fault, not fully the cops. It's you, all you.
So what should you get out of this? Learn to accept responsibility for your actions (idiocricies included). The sooner you do, the better it is for you and the people around you. Overlooking facts and not accepting your own mistakes. No one wins the blame game. In fact, you lose because you end up blaming everyone else for everything bad that happens to you, and continue to do so without ever as much as considering doing something about it. You become lazy and a pain in the ass for people around you. So think about things that happen to you, or have happened to you, and try to critically analyze your own contribution to each one of them. You’ll discover that the answer is clear – You’re the culprit, not the world.
(And by the way, there are still situations where it's not completely your fault, but more often than not, it is.)

©Anish Arora, 2008

Can I Drive? Please?

No, this post isn’t about driving (In its typical sense at least). It's about multiple personalities that are innate to us. Note that I’m not talking about a disorder. Every single one of us has a number of personalities that exist within. Now these personalities may be very active, or completely dormant. But they do exist, and play a vital role in one’s holistic personality. Now one type of personality becomes more active than the other based on the environmental variables at a given point of time. I see these personalities as passengers in a car, one of which is the driver. The car here would be one’s personality as a whole. The guy (or personality) that drives the car has the most prominent effect on the direction the car goes and hence, influences one’s actions the most. The one’s sitting at the back scream out loud for attention, most are heard and the rest are not – these are the voices in your head. Essentially what I’m trying to say is that each one of us has a sadistic fellow, an emotional being, a low down dirty scoundrel, a weasel, an alpha male (or feminist), a thief, a dumbass, a sexist, a psycho, an opportunist, a wannabe rock star, a pansy et al sitting in the car at any given point of time. The one that drives the car is the one that is the most dominant at that particular point of time. Let me try and explain. Say you get stuck in a situation where you get a plethora of benefits at the expense of another fellow. Depending on the intensity of the sadist and emo in your car, you decide to take actions. Now ideally, you’d try and extract as many benefits as you can without actually hurting anyone. But that’s not always the case. Somewhere down the line, you have to make a choice.
The choice you make depends on the guy who is, at that moment, driving the car. Your overly powerful emotions will, more often than not, make you do what keeps your conscience clear. But the sadist in you will, without a shadow of a doubt, force you to think solely about your benefits and not the hurting that you possibly impart to the other guy. What you decide to do is a function of the intensity of the guys sitting in the car and the profit (or pleasure) you derive from that very action.
Now what differentiates one’s actions from another is the degree of control that one has on these guys in the car. It's a complex process which we define ourselves as and when things happen. And not to forget, it's a continual one. What happens is that one’s brain, sub-consciously, evaluates various outcomes that are possible from an action taken at that very moment. The one that seems the most appropriate to the guy driving the car is the one we choose to take. This is precisely why, very often, we look back at our actions and wonder why we did what we did. The answer is simple. It seemed right at that point of time. What you think about that afterward is a completely different story altogether. So why is it that one needs to understand the passengers of his/her car? It's because we need to control our actions, as much as we can. We need to know when to put the emotional fool in the back seat and when to hand over the wheel to him. We need to know when to knock the lights out of the sadist and take control back from him. And the list goes on. Although one can never be fully in control of the seat shifting simply because, well, none of us are, what most refer to as, god. But developing control over these guys and their respective intensities to whatever degree possible is essential to at least have a clear conscience and a hold on your own self. This can only be done through continual critical evaluation of not just one’s own actions, but also those of other around us. This is exactly why learning from your own mistakes and from that of others is uber important. So next time you do something that you’re not very sure of, or fully understand, listen to the guys in the car.
©Anish Arora