Thursday, 25 February 2021

We the Privileged, the Exploiters

 

While we upper class urbans give up plastic covers and use cloth covers, or order milk delivery in a glass bottle, rather than in a packet. And rainwater harvest in their complexes.
... do we also give up cars. And move to crowded public buses ?
... do we wash their own clothes. And chuck the washing machine ?
... do we raise the real bar day by day ?
  • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
    What's the big deal with washing machine? Why don't you use your notebook instead of Mobile? Use your public Telephone instead of Cell phone?
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    • 3y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      I belong to the class I question, and my questions are directed as much to me as to the other.
      We are collectively drowning the earth with our excesses.
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      • 3y
    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      Washing machine is rather a relief for people than luxury. I have personal experience with people who were able to do spend time for themselves when their washing time was taken care by washing machine.
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      • 3y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      That is the logic for each of our excesses!
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      • 3y
    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      It might be an excess for you. It's not universal that your excess should be everyone's.
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      • 3y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      It is possible to assess the carrying power of the earth, and work out a fair distribution.
      All gadgets, cell phones, washing machines will go out of the window.
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      • 3y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      We shed crocodile tears for tribals displaced by dams and mining projects - and yet claim our birthright to all these products of dams and mines.
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      • 3y
    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      World would been a beautiful and best fit place, if it doesn't evolves, unfortunately it's not our choice to not to evolve. As simple as that. If we are talking about birth right, nothing is.
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      • 2y
    • T.R. Shashwath
      Actually, modern washing machines can save water compared to hand-washing...
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      • 2y
    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      But modern washing machines take power, which is generated by replacing Aadhivaashi tribes to build dams.
      Right Aparna ? Villages should have no electricity as villages are abode of Virtue and consist only of pure aatmas....
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      • 2y
    • T.R. Shashwath
      Lakshman Lakshminarayana
       There are of course other ways of generating electricity - including hooking up a generator to a stationary cycle and pedalling away... 😉
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      • 2y
  • Dipankar Khasnabish
    Are this daily diatribe changing anything?
    As we evolve, we should focus more on ourselves than what others are doing? But then one needs to be at peace with oneself.
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    • 2y
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      The personal had to go with the collective for any real change. Peace comes when one tries to walk the talk. Thanks.
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      • 2y
    • Dipankar Khasnabish
      Who is defining what is the talk, and who has walked that?
      Our struggle is first changing ourselves, and be it peace. Making ourselves at the center of the universe, and hoping all will be a clone is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      Please refer to Gandhi.
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      • 2y
    • Dipankar Khasnabish
      Gandhi was at peace with himself. It was not a sense of angst, but a sense of purpose. That is why he could mobilize a country - and could take everybody.
      He has never spoken ill about the rich, in fact, he said they are best equipped to handle the money and will be custodians of the society for the same.
      Let's think how we can make people make a difference. And point holes in others will not serve that purpose.
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      "He sharply criticized the use of English, the filth that was allowed to gather around India’s temples, the civic sense of railway travellers, and admonished the maharajas present for the jewels they were wearing. He accused them of stealing wealth fro… 
      See More
      Gandhi's entry
      PAALAGUTTAPALLE.BLOGSPOT.COM
      Gandhi's entry
      Gandhi's entry
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      And i accuse my class of stealing wealth from the poor farmers.
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      • 2y
    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      Romanticising poor and hating the middle/upper class will do a very little help. Criticising is different from slandering
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      We are theives. We may see that as slander or as looking into the mirror.
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      • 2y
    • Dipankar Khasnabish
      You may go deeper than statements and look at Gandhi's relationships with the industrialists. How he shaped the capitalism in India. What are his conflicts, including the ones with Netaji who had different views on the way country should be shaped in this regard?
      In any case, the moot question is back.
      Gandhi was at peace with himself. He did not start or end his day with diatribes. He allowed his work to speak, and never projected his life superior to others. If he did, he would not have been Gandhi.
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      None of us is superior ! While we have far more than the hungering people of this land, each of us is indicted. Deeply.
      The question of projecting superiority is hardly there - unless it strikes at a prior chord of guilt in the mind of the hearer.
      The question of peace is to do with harmony of thought, word and deed. To the extent we fail in that it is good if we are not at peace. To the extent that we party when the farmer starves it is good if we are not at peace.
      I really have nothing more to add. Thanks.
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    • Dipankar Khasnabish
      Life is measured by impact. Not advises.
      And the impact is created when we are at peace with ourselves, rather than what is wrong with others (unless they are violators of the law).
      In any case, right and wrong is mostly an assessment, except for some absolutes.
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      1. DK, Our peace is earned by our integrity. We are all a long way from that integrity. Each of us will do well to not wrongly 'be at peace'. To face the mirror, and to show it, is part of the process of collective correction. If someone dislikes that mirror, one can unsubscribe to that newspaper, or to that FB wall. Anyway few enough spaces today where the issue of facing ones own excesses is being brought up, and so easy to sidestep. Gandhiji is our of fashion these days.
      2. LL, there is no question of 'hating upper class'. It is simply facing the mirror, and showing the mirror. Hating needs more energy than I intend to summon !
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      • 2y
    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      It's not showing the mirror, it's showing an image of slander and claiming it is mirror. I'm not defending anyone here, however I disagree with the questioning of choices and portraying it as a loot. If you think City, English, Gadgets are tools to degrade humans and only because of those the poor are being looted, there's nothing much to put forth.
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      • 2y
    • Dipankar Khasnabish
      Aparna Krishnan looks you want to create an echo chamber. Fair enough - personal choice.
      Just want to share an analogy.
      Millions of Indians have left the country for better life.
      And millions stayed back even if they had the opportunity.
      Think about this - if every day the millions start talking about the ones who left, and express a sense of moral superiority ("one needs to walk the talk" when ones talk Desh Prem), what will happen?
      Same applies to who left their village, or city or state and moved to another part of India (40% of Indians are migrants).
      Choices people make has to be accepted by them - there no point (at least to me) in propagating one's own choice, and stating that the others who did not make that are not "walking the talk". That in mind is an expression of an unmet need for recognition, which shows one is not at peace with oneself.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      LL, the very electricity we use comes from tribals lands taken away from dams. Or thermal plants which lay waste the farms around. the metal we use from mines which also have devastation in their wake.
      To the extent we use all this we are indicted. We can choose to call it slander. Or to face our role, and try to address it. Thanks.
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    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      I agree with the displacement atrocities in the name of Development and I can't speak a word justifying it. However, what's the way forward ? Taking the displaced with us or slandering the ones who use the Electricity for their living?
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      @DK
      There is no Other. We are all not walking the talk. And are indicted.
      Anyway I think the tone of the discussion in deteriorating with as homeniems and suggestions that one is seeking recognition. Thanks, and good day.
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      • 2y
    • Dipankar Khasnabish
      Homeniems, if any, can be collective and individual. Neither is better. As either way it affects.
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      • 2y
  • Amarendra Srivastava
    Lovely debate. It need not be about who is right or wrong to mathematical precision. It is OUR CHOICE to take Aparna Di's posts as slander OR a take it as challenge to push ourselves (if we have even an iota or compassion and integrity) to come up with and act upon possible solutions. If her statements land on us as slander then it's we who are disturbed while she might be in perfect harmony 🙂 My Gratitude to Aparna Di for throwing the challenge continuously 🙂 🙂 Aparna Di please remain unstoppable in your fearlessly uninhibited self expression 🙂 🙂 And, of course, my Gratitude to all debaters to pull me out from my comfort to express all this 🙂 🙂 😉
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Amarendra
     it takes a combination of both total humility and paradoxically a deep inner faith in oneself to face ourselves in the mirror. That needs the grace of god.
    We are deeply flawed beings, each of us in our class. I see my own flaws in stark outline each day. I have lived with people far greater than me. Who demand so little from earth, and who having so little, give that away so fearlessly to those in need. And whom, we with our excesses, consuming far more than our share of the earths resources, stamp out.
    I have been accused of many things when I share this learning, the commonest being that I try to evoke guilt. I have never understood that complaint, because we are so guilty anyway. By our vast consumption in a country of vast malnourishment, to begin with !
    And still I share the learnings. Because I have learnt much from so many who have shared their honest thinkings and efforts, and from people who live a life of such simplicity in such innocent humility. That it begs to be passed on.. if even one person hears its worth the time spent. If no one hears also, it is OK.
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    I wonder why talk of our role as exploiter in a country vastly divided as exploited and exploiter creates such strong responses, and anger.🤔




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