Why I read

I spend about half my waking time reading.

What I read varies. I subscribe to two magazines and regularly read - The Economist and The New Yorker. I used to read India Today regularly, but of late, I only dip into it occasionally. In the morning, there is a superficial glance at The Times of India, The Economic Times and Mint

During the tumultuous Trump years, I ended up subscribing to the New York Times and Washington Post to keep up with the high drama of US Politics. The subscription continues as I find the long-form journalism in which the two papers invest pretty compelling.

But the bulk of my time is taken up by books. And unlike many avid readers, I have moved on from hard copy and now read primarily in the electronic mode and, over the past few years, increasingly as audiobooks.

A list of books I have completed reading in the last few months and also the list of books on my Kindle and Books apps and on my nightstand illustrates the range of my reading:

Books completed in the last three months:

• Lessons: A Novel by Ian McEwan
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• The Free World: Art and Thought in The Cold War by Louis Menand
• Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller
• The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes by Donald Hoffman
• Checkout 19 by Claire-Louis Bennet
• The Passenger by Cormac Mccarthy

Books I am currently reading:

• Victory City by Salman Rushdie
• Nirmala by Munshi Premchand
• Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
• Quantum Computing by Chris Bernhardt
• Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder
• Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising by Judith Williamson
• Semiotics the Basics by Daniel Chandler

Besides the above, there is a score of books that I have dipped into but hope to read sometime in the future actively. And dozens more sit on my devices or shelf that I have yet to crack.

For avid readers, the lists above may seem like a not-so-humble-brag. But many others might think it is a recipe for madness.

The question to them would be why a seemingly sane and functional guy reads so much and so widely.

More simply, the question is, why do I read?

I read because to read is to be all I can be - to let the multitudes in me breathe, think and dream. To read is to time-travel into the past and the future. To read is to live in many countries. To experience untold wealth and biting poverty. To read is to be a philosopher, a scientist, a poet, an astronaut and a vagabond.

Take just the books I have read recently or am currently reading.

I spent a week being a writer, living a life damaged by exploitation as a teenager, and finding redemption in forgiveness.

I spent a month experiencing the poetry of tennis and the depth of addiction.

I negated material reality and saw the faint outlines of an emergent physics that could marry the philosophical concepts of "Maya" and "Atma" to hard-nosed science.

I was a Gen Z prodigy with an argot that portends where 21st-century literature is going.

I experienced that the most profound form of grief is its own redemption. 

I struggle with the maths at the core of the next computing revolution.

I discover frontiers that can open up new vistas in my decades-old professional practice.

Therefore, the question is not why read but how can you not?

TV, movies, social media and the like are the shallows. They won't free you from being all that you can be. Instead, they bind you to somebody else's viewpoint. 

But then you may ask, doesn't reading hook you to the writer's viewpoint? No, I say. The very act of reading is to allow yourself to go beyond the written word to synthesize a new immersive reality that is partly your creation, like walking into a street that has been around for centuries but whose experience is all your own.

The medium is the message. So what gives the written word its magic? I don't know. Is it because it's the oldest form of preserved human expression? Has the millennia of use engendered an evolution in the human psyche that gives the written word its potency? 

Perhaps, a book or two out there ponder the above question. If so, those books will join my list soon enough.

In conclusion, let me answer a nagging question in the minds of some of you. If I read so much, when do I work and earn a living? 

Luckily I have chosen a profession where I get better at my work the more I read. However, it's a pity that the timekeepers do not recognize my reading as billable hours. And alas, neither does the taxman allow the fortune I spend on books as a write-off.

Wanted: A New Idea of India

 I am aware that hundreds, if not thousands, of my betters - philosophers, public intellectuals and general blowhards - have said volumes on "The Idea of India". However, as an ordinary Indian, in this 75th year of our independence, I feel encouraged to add my two bit. 

Imagination and ideas are central to human society. Humanity has progressed from being bands of powerless apes in the animal world to unchallenged rulers of all that survey mainly because of its unique ability to co-operate flexibly as groups of thousands, millions and even hundreds of millions.

This ability of humans to launch and sustain world-changing projects stems from a core human functionality - the ability to imagine an entity - an idea - that is little to do with physical reality and nurture and strengthen it as an integral part of the collective consciousness.

In this realm of core ideas that drive human civilization are the notions of God, Religion, Nation and Money.

At the subsequent level, every nation is bound together by an idea. 

The US, for example, achieved greatness based on its self-image of rugged individualism and meritocracy framed in a federal democracy. An idea that attracted the best worldwide, priming a virtuous cycle.

However, over the last decade or two, this idea of the US has begun to fade, resulting in a decline from being the world's hyper-economic, military and cultural power. 

The US needs to reinvent itself, and at the core of this reinvention will be forming a new idea that redefines its self-image.

Thus the defining idea, while being the engine that drives its society and its place in the world, cannot be static - it has to evolve with time.

Currently, politics mire the debate on the idea of India. At one end of the spectrum is the idea of India forged in the Independence struggle, Gandhian ideals and the trauma of the partition. An idea of India as a unique society that values pacifism and eschews materialism and consumerism. A simple living and high thinking paradigm contrast the West's power-seeking "greed is good" paradigm.

The idea of India as an ancient civilization is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Once a superpower that went through a passing phase of subjugation. Now beginning the reemerge as a powerful and rightful leader of the world.

To my mind, both the above ideas are anachronistic in that both are rooted in the past. Because, to young India, in a world of rapid change, even the past decade, let alone the past century or past millenniums are irrelevant.

India as a society needs to evolve and nurture an idea of itself that can power its future. 

This idea needs to be rooted in its potential, not its past. 

At the same time, this idea needs to be rooted in reality and not just a rhetorical shift from extolling a glorious future instead of a glorious past.

Furthermore, this idea should position India uniquely and not just as a me-too in the polity of nations. 

A nation of 1.3 billion people - nearly 18% of the world population- cannot but have an idea of its future without evoking world leadership in some area of human endeavour. We cannot be a nation perennially looking to catch up with others, 

India is a young country with a median age of 28.43 in 2020. However, the media age is growing at an annual rate of 2.15%; thus, by 2040, the median age will be above 40. 

It is today's young who should define the new idea of India. Therefore, this new idea of India has to be aspirational - an aspiration of leading the world in a focused set of essential areas.

Given the structure of the modern world, this shortlist of essential areas must come from the domains of science & technology or public welfare (health, education and social justice).

To my mind, global leadership in a chosen set of critical science & technology fields can yield the resources that, if appropriately husbanded, can impact public welfare.

However, a Government committee or even a set of bigwigs will not choose this new idea for India.

The new idea of India will need to bubble up from the grassroots and percolate through Indian society before it takes hold. But, for that to happen, the nature of public discourse and debate must change.

Today's public discourse in India is both toxic and petty. The politicians bicker, and the media megaphones the bickering. 

I believe that a handful of charismatic and articulate young Indians aided by a set of powerful mass and digital media can seed a new idea that galvanizes India. But unfortunately, these seeders cannot come from the political class though they would readily find the media platforms. That well is too poisoned. Political voices today start from a heavy trust deficit and are guaranteed vocal opposition from the get-go.

Perhaps somebody needs to "seed" the seeders, a "Star Chamber" of well-resourced well-wishers who will carefully identify them and give them the media platforms. 

To sum up, a debate around the idea of India cannot assume that it is an idée fixe. 

An idea of India should be the roadmap to the future and not just a relic of the past. 

A bunch of public intellectuals (let alone politicians) cannot decide on the idea of India. Instead, it is a powerful, evolving emanation from the grassroots that animates the entire society.

Moreover, such an animating idea of India is not just a nice thing to have but instead a critical ingredient for a vibrant, on-the-move nation. And the only role for the elite and the powerful is to provide the ecosystem to empower such emergence and get out of the way.

Conscience and Consciousness

 Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 's definition of Conscience:

1) the part of your mind that tells you whether your actions are right or wrong 

• To have a clear/guilty Conscience (= to feel that you have done right/wrong)
• This is a matter of individual Conscience (= everyone must make their own judgment about it)
• He won't let it trouble his Conscience.

2) a guilty feeling about something you have done or failed to do

• She was seized by a sudden pang of Conscience.
• I have a terrible Conscience about it.

3) the fact of behaving in a way that you feel is right even though this may cause problems

• freedom of Conscience (= the freedom to do what you believe to be right)
• Emilia is the voice of Conscience in the play.

OED's definition of Consciousness

1) the state of being able to use your senses and mental powers to understand what is happening

• I can't remember anymore—I must have lost Consciousness.
• She did not regain Consciousness and died the next day.

2) the state of being aware of something

• Synonym awareness
• his Consciousness of the challenge facing him
• class-consciousness (= Consciousness of different classes in society)

3) the ideas and opinions of a person or group

• her newly developed political Consciousness
• issues affecting the popular Consciousness of the time

While OED does its lexigraphic job well, to my mind, the difference between the two words - Conscience and Consciousness - goes much deeper. 

Conscience is the result of the inventions of God, sin, heaven and hell.

Philosophers of the Kantian school elevated Conscience beyond the myth/s of God/s to the plane of ethics and evolution. Thus, in the realm of philosophy, Conscience is the touchstone that enables us, humans, to strive to be good and evolve.

On the other hand, Consciousness transcends the realm of concepts, an undeniable part of reality that today is at the frontiers of modern philosophy and science.

It is undeniable that a baby is born with Consciousness but does it have a conscience? Is Conscience a result of nurture leading thus to the conclusion that good and evil are relative concepts and not absolutes? 

The major religions of the book - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - strive to develop in their followers a conscience structured around a monotheistic God and concepts of good and evil, sin, heaven and hell.

In contrast, the so-called pagan religions - from the early Roman, Greek and Nordic civilizations -built around elaborate myths of a pantheon of Godly beings engaged in a larger-than-life never-ending play of Consciousness. As a result, Conscience and its commandments on good or evil, sin and the admission rules to heaven and hell were absent. 

As practised today by hundreds of millions, Hinduism also has a rich panoply of divine beings. The difference is that the pagan religions of the early Roman, Greek and Nordic civilizations have faded away, while Hinduism still stands as one of the world's major religions. It is so because Hinduism is probably unique in having two distinct but connected modes. Quite aside from the colourful pageantry of the three million or so Gods stands the magnificence of the Vedas. At their essence, in their Shruti stream, the Vedas elevate every individual Consciousness to Godhead: a canonical assertion that consists of revelation and unquestionable, unchanging truth. On the other hand, with its notion of good and evil and social mores, Conscience is presented in its Smriti stream as supplemental and changeable with the times. 

It seems to be an inversion of what the texts of other major religions do. 

The holy grail that many socio-political commentators pursue is to pin down the idea of modern India. Instead, I think they would do well to examine the duality that allows Indians to practice personal spirituality that hankers after eternal truths while living in a social and public space that teems with self-serving strife and endless chaos. 

India is a two-sided coin - its Consciousness on one side forever separate from the other - its Conscience. The difference is that in other great civilizations, the coin has melted, and the two sides have leached into one other.

A Letter from Mother Earth

Dear Humans,

Nature is both generous and cruel.

I should know. 

I have endured a fiery birth and aeons of barren solitude.

I have had fecund periods when my lands and seas have teemed with the joy of life. 

I have a deep attachment to the life I nurture, but I know that I will outlive all the species that are born to me.

Better-equipped ones will supplant some. Others will go extinct as catastrophe strikes. I had a particular attachment to the dinosaurs but could only watch mutely as the meteor hit.

I am deeply attached to you too. I love your ingenuity and your boundless imagination.

You have invented civilization, language, art, science and even God! Your possibilities are immense. You dream of being immortal as a race even as you steadily increase the span of each individual life.

However, going by experience, I would be sceptical of your species achieving immortality as long as I am your only home. Sooner or later, disaster will strike, and this home will no longer be yours. So your only shot at immortality is if you become a space-faring race and make multiple planets across the galaxy your home. And if you exist long enough here, you have the potential to do so.

I write to you to express dismay at what you have done over the past 150 years or so. I have had countless species come and go, but none have committed suicide. But to my dismay, you are pretty close to doing so. 

In polluting my air, soil and water at a reckless pace, you are not harming me but yourselves. I measure time in terms of epochs, and the change you have wrought on my body is but a passing sickness. But, on the other hand, you measure time in decades and centuries, and if you don't wake up soon, your time with me is measured.

You have realized the danger, but you are yet to wake up to it as a species. As a result, for all your intelligence, or perhaps because of it, you have a remarkable capacity to delude yourself.

Your scientists have built careers theorizing about climate change. Your engineers have come up with solutions in the realm of fantasy. Your politicians regularly hold talkfests.

But life goes on as usual. For all the talk about mitigation and adoption, little has changed. You act as if you are the only species to inhabit me.No thought for the countless others who do you no harm. No consideration even for your future generations. Your species still consumes like there is no tomorrow. And soon enough, if you continue to do so, there will be none.

You do not have the time to develop remarkable new technologies to ward off the impending disaster. You have no time to become a space-faring species.

You can do all that in the future if you act now with what you have in hand. Starting now, your lifestyles and the organization of your societies will need a paradigmatic change. The more developed a nation and culture, the greater the change and deeper the pain it will experience. That goes against the grain of the realpolitik of your civilization, but you have no choice.

I write to you because I love you and see the potential in you to be the enduring symbol of my fecundity and my ambassadors to the universe at large. If you will yourself to extinction, I will be very disappointed. However, my disappointment will fade as my world goes on, and you become only a distant memory. However, I would rather that I become a distant memory with your species than your species become a distant memory with me. You can do that. You need only to give yourself enough time.

Love

Mother Earth.

The 3 Types of 4K Lives

Through ten years of being a blogger searching for an audience, I have discovered that if the objective is to get significant readers on platforms like Medium, what works are listicles as clickbait and not my usual attempts. Attempts that are prone to be classified as stabs at reflective writing that usually turns, in the words of a wise friend, "somewhat digressive".

To my mind, however, when it comes to worthwhile writing that creates a body of durable work, listicles might as well rhyme with "pesticles" - a portmanteau of a word signifying a pair of phantom testicles with a pesky itch that never quits.

But then the consumer is king, and I have decided, for just this once, to give it a go, and so here is my attempt at what may be called a listicle.

Everyone wants a 4K TV but do they realize that they, most likely, already have a 4K life? The issue is that they may have a different class of 4K life than the boss in the corner office. A difference akin to that between a 4k cheap, Chinese-branded dumb 4K TV to an Android-driven, shiny new, no-bezel, smart 4K Sony (which, by the way, is also China made but certainly not cheap).

After some research (mainly asking myself probing questions while scratching my "pesticles"), I uncovered 3 types of 4K lives in India. There are many more, of course: some global and some specific to a particular society. I look forward to them being discovered by the countless many who this post will undoubtedly inspire.

Unlike Ekta Kapoor, who misused the letter K for little rhyme or reason, you will discover that my use of the letter, in the subsequent paragraph, is more than justified. Arre bhai, I am writing about 4K lives, am I not? 

So here goes.

The Kitsch Klass: Klout, Korruption and Kink

These are the maharajas of excess and bad taste. Their hunting grounds are mainly the worlds of politics and business. They live in expensive monstrosities that can floor you with their ugliness. They gild their interiors and exteriors to hide the rot beneath. And their inferiority complex runs deep, and as it percolates upwards, it becomes a strut of crass behaviour and kooky escapades.

The Khattering Klass: Kocktails, Klub and Kulture

These are representatives of the timeless epithet coined by Spirow Agnew, the much-maligned VP of the equally maligned Richard Nixon: "the nattering nabobs of negativity." In India, while they live off the fat of the land, they let no opportunity to reveal immense dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. They are the self-appointed custodians of the idea of India but ask them to pray, define the concept into words, and all they can do is mumble into their whiskey. A worthy from the current ruling class, who shall remain unidentified, identified them with the venerable watering-hole in Delhi - the Khan Market. That, sir, is a naturally occurring "K" - quite satisfying, I must say. Will the psychosis that this Klass currently suffer be coming to an end once the current dispensation bites, which sooner or later it must, the dust (in other words, mere desh ki mitti.)? Unlikely I would say. They would just go back to cribbing about the heat and, yes, the dust.

The Kommon Klass: Krumpled, Konked and Konfused

What can one say about this class? It is challenging to be flippant about them. They are by far the majority and live lives of deprivations. While the strong arm of the state-controlled by the other classes keeps them in check, they also carry part of the blame for perpetuating the status quo. Many confuse karmic law as a call to inaction and acceptance of fate, while in essence, it is the very opposite. Others fall prey form cultural and religious tribalism, fuelled by vested interests, that blame their conditions on the "other" - the other religion, the other caste, the other nationality, the other kind of skin. It is hard to be flippant about them because they put on no airs. They are a force of nature made prisoner by the pretensions of the more affluent, more powerful classes.

So there! My first attempt at a clickbait! Let's see how many bite.

I do realize though that I did regress back to the mean in the last paragraph. Just like the dog's tail, straight under constraint but finally bent and wagging!