Riches be crazy

Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world. A few days ago it was Jeff Bezos. A few years ago, it was Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet and so on. As one may notice, they all are still in the top 10 or so richest people in the world. And they have been there for a long time.

Elon Musk (as he is quite active on Twitter) showed amusement after the news broke about him dethroning Bezos. He commented that this was interesting. And within a few seconds, ‘Back to work’. Basically, unfazed.

It is only us, 99% of the population which discusses and shows amazement about who’s in the top 1%. Those who are actually being the richest have to keep working to stay on the top.

Nobody’s Perfect

To be without a king is better than having an arrogant king.

Kautilya

One of the most brilliant inventions of the human mind is Democracy. It gives satisfaction to people that their own representatives govern them back. At least in theory. In India, democracy is something we all cherish and be proud of. It took us an enormous amount of time for establishing Democracy and with a lot of sacrifices. We love the fact that about 800 million people get to decide the fate of our country for 5 years. 800 million is such a huge number that even managing them to cast their votes is as difficult as reaching Mars.

Democracy is like playing a biased sport. The rules of the biased sport are known in advance though. Sometimes the ideals of democracy go for a toss as well. The rules on which we based our biased sports, get bent. That ensues newsworthy scenes. Some countries have Black days, some have White days.

This happens because Democracy is not the equilibrium state. Chaos/high entropy/anarchy and the survival of the fittest is natural. Democracy is actually the opposite of natural. All the other ways of governing have overtime proved to be difficult or have failed. We all know that Democracy needs patience. It is certainly not ideal and all forms of Democracies have tradeoffs. There is no 1-way Democracy has worked. It evolves, twists and turns, and churns out a new form from time to time.

Only in a Democracy, a Tea Seller, or a Reality Show Star can become the head of the state. We can always vote them out too. Often, we take our Democracy to be granted. It is far from being perfect but the best of what we have. Cherish it!

Photo by Aditya Joshi on Unsplash


Not that highly but still a recommended reading:

Finding Common Ground

It is a tricky thing to achieve when nobody is willing to budge. Right Wing and Left Wing Supporters lock horns all the time. Government and the Opposition are always at loggerheads. Countries sharing borders are always in an argument about which side owns that particular amount of land. Unless the land is ‘Bir Tawil’. Coke and Pepsi can never come to the same table in a restaurant. Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan can never join the same party. Covishield and Covaxin, despite have Co in their names, are finding it difficult to co-operate against Covid.

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What’s the deadline for accepting Happy New Year Wishes?

If there’s something more cliche than gifting and receiving Soanpapdi on Diwali, it is the Happy New Year wishes. Saying Happy New Year to each and everyone with a smiling face is prevalent universally. The only day one would smile and greet others with the same intensity is the day when one is throwing a reception for the wedding. The smile gets inverted after that anyway. But the question looming over our heads is this: What’s the date by which you are going to accept Happy New Year’s wishes? Is it the first week of January? Or Mid-January? Or if you are meeting someone for the first time in late January? Is it really required to video call or just a ‘Same to you’ on Whatsapp would suffice?

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Start of the decade is here

Janus, the Greek God behind the name of January, has 2 heads. One head looking backward, and another towards the future. Probably, that was the reason for adapting January as the 1st month of the Julian Calendar Year. Many countries like India and China still maintain their own Lunar Calendars but January is the first month officially nevertheless. And this January, in particular, brings the start of a new Decade. I like to think that the new decade starts now. 2020 was a Trial or the Zeroth Year for calculations and shaking everyone by the throat just to wake them up.

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A bit about Crying

It was the wedding of my cousin in 2014. In fact, it the time of farewell when the bride was about to leave with the husband to her new home. It was the time when everyone was teary eyed. Partly because in India family profusely cries when their daughter is about to leave. And partly because everyone is tired of the mammoth of the event a North Indian wedding is, as it draws curtains. So, as my cousin was about to sign off from the scene with her newly added friends and family, my whole family started to cry, while saying bye, as per the tradition (and heartfelt too, of course).

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