A disconnect called Social Media

Raju Korti
As the shutters pulled down on 2016 and the new year ushered in with predictable and clique-ridden wishes, I was wracking my depleted grey cells hard to choose what to write about. The nickel dropped during my caffeinated stupor when people around were ventilating their bluster full pitch just to let you know that the new year was tantalisingly close. There is, of course, nothing tantalising about any year for someone who spends most of his time digging his pockets deep to find out what I already know about my perennially shrinking finances. But more about that some other time.
I wrote two posts, both inter-linked and triggers to utterly reckonable reception. One mildly referred to the "guilt" I could sense in Modi's pompous speech in the wake of the tumult called demonetization and the sharp divisions in the ranks of his admirers and haters, both legion. But this is not about pro or anti Modi. It is about people who seldom keep their swords in their sheath while debating or arguing about any issue. The fact that harangues are shot like lose cannons makes these debates at once exciting and depressing. The contradiction obtains because it happens on a forum where one is supposed to make only "friends".The term Social Media has an inherent contradiction. Having stalked enough of this forum, I can safely vouch that sociability and friendship, if any, is confined to philosophical and motivational posts and feel-good photos that fool no one. Beyond this genuine or made-up bonhomie is Politics where daggers-drawn "friends" take wild swipes at each other  -- consumed by so much hatred and malice that Pandavas and Kauravas make for better brotherhood in comparison. What amazes me no end is people are more jealously possessive about a political party or a leader than the latter are of themselves. As I had remarked in jest once: More loyal than the King, more Catholic than the Pope, more Hindu than the Shankaracharya and more Muslim than the Imam. All myopic slaves to ideologies that are not perfect and nor ever will be. Having dilly dallied with all political parties and their self-styled leaders in my three-plus decades of profession, I can bet my last buck they spill their intestines laughing at the way people espouse their cause. On a countless occasions, I have seen leaders taking potshots at each other publicly but privately helping each other's cause. Politics gets free brand ambassadors.
Champions of free opinion lead the brigade by running others down. If everyone has a right to opinion, where is the question of dissent? You just concede the other view and get on with life but for the mental eczema we all suffer from.
I am prepared to concede that we are a pluralistic and diverse society (I used those words because they are so fashionable) but as far as Social Media is concerned, I feel Zuckerberg got some of his labels wrong. So here I go with suggestions which are factual but unrealistic.
There should be an option "......wants to be enemies with you." At least it will know who you are dealing with. No mortification of being saddled with motormouth venomous spleens.
The software can be suitably altered to give a "dislike and discard" option. Na rahe baans, na baje baansuri. Friendship requests should come with an undertaking. Those who add you on their own and later delete you --whatever the provocation -- should be  highlighted with a warning "Think twice before you add this person." At least intimate that a "friend" has unfriended you. It will save the embarrassment and fury of watching the same people as "People you may know." And how does one further know someone who is already known as a bad joke?
Thanks to technology, we have multiple social outlets to be stalked, bullied and harassed. There are some who say if Social Media is too much for you to handle, quit Twitter or Facebook. I try to strike a balance by being myself. Writing on the walls of "friends" can be injurious to health.
Social Media no longer performs the envisaged function of creating a positive communication link among friends, family and professionals. It has become a veritable battleground where insults fly from the human quiver, damaging lives, destroying self-esteem and a person's sense of self-worth.
Here is my unsolicited advice. Don't live your life seeking validation from people on Social Media.

Social Media did you say?

Romancing the Aadhar Card

Raju Korti
Humour is the most significant activity of the brain. It stood me in good humour when I was physically laid low after a life-threatening surgery and ominous clouds of depression hovering. It was a potential antidote in my debilitated condition.
In one such forced humorous moment, I had suggested in a post on Facebook that our honourable parliamentarians bring in a law that all valid documents like Passport, Aadhar card and PAN card be accompanied by a selfie with a pout and that pout should be associated with a unique Pout Identity Number. Of course, no one in the establishment took cognisance but the youngsters, especially my students upheld the idea by "thoko-ing" a record-break "likes". That seed seems to have germinated now. If what I have read in a news portal is true, the airlines have approached the government to make Aadhar-verified contact details compulsory for booking air tickets. The Aadhar card has already brought in your hard-earned money -- black and white -- under government scrutiny. Demonetisation has already turned the taxman into a voyeur. But wait, the Aadhar card seems to be in for a more searching role to the extent of being your death wish.

As an extension and riposte to the story I read, I wrote today that the day is not far when the guy manning the Sulabh Shouchalaya (public latrines) will ask you to produce your Aadhar card before you get set to relieve yourself. Else you have the uphill task of holding on to your bursting bladder or piddly bum until you return home.
While the people are getting to be "cardiologists" of sorts -- Voters card, Aadhar card, Pan card et al, I am looking at a possible scenario where nothing will move without the Aadhar card or the PAN card. Here are some of them. Mind you, that is not mindless humour. It should be taken with a pinch of reality.
A pregnant woman will not be allowed to deliver unless she produces her Aadhar card. The gynaecologist will want her to give a xerox. Her maternity will be linked to Aadhar card.
Likewise, a dead person will not be cremated or buried unless his relatives produce his Aadhar card.
It will be mandatory for school, college admissions and while applying for jobs. Students will be required to carry their Aadhar card instead of the hall ticket. This will eliminate chances of impersonation. In short, your academic career will be linked with Nandan Nilekani's brainchild.
Your housing society will not allow you to enter the premises unless you show them any of the valid photo documents. The security guard at the gate will have the right to shoo you away.
The chaiwala (not the one in Delhi) will ask you for your Aadhar card before serving his concoction and because you will be required to pay him through a crossed cheque, you may also have to quote your PAN number. Remember cashless economy.
Marriages will not be solemnised until the spouses to-be produce their Aadhar card. A photocopy will have to be accompanied with the wedding card. Tail of two cards! Divorce, maintenance and alimony will obviously not be granted without the Aadhar card or PAN card,
Wives will not allow family members anywhere near the dining table, less so, serve food without the Aadhar card. Your appetite will be linked with it.
Opening accounts in the social media and email will also need an Aadhar card. Every post/status should mention your Aadhar and or PAN number. It will be compulsory for you to use the same photo as your profile photo. Your correspondence with people will be linked to Aadhar card and if you don't quote the PAN number before logging in, access will be denied.
You will be required to validate one photo id proof with another photo id.
The government will name in its official gazette all those whose transactions are found to be in order.
These cards will not be compulsory for political leaders and their parties but they shall use political, religious and caste cards as and when they please.
So friends scurry to the nearest centre to get them if you don't have them, and once you receive them, cling on to them for dear life. But just one exception: You will be spared from looking at any of these cards if you value your looks.
Silly jokes like calling an Aadhar card as Udhaar card will be a punishable offence under the Official Cards Act.
A matter of life and death you see.

An Amma heroine if there was one

Raju Korti

J Jayalalitha (File photo)

I had the first dekko of Jayalalitha in late December 1987, much before she became "Amma" to the populous multitudes in her home state of Tamil Nadu. The circumstances in which I bumped into her had a peculiar twist to them.
M G Ramchandran, who held an unchallenged sway over the masses as an actor and politician, had just passed away. The talking point then was, was there anyone with enough charisma to succeed MGR. Speculations were rife, and not without reason, that his protege was the potential inheritor to the chief ministerial throne in a state where hero-worshipping has been an unbreakable tradition. But things weren't as simple as they looked. The pitch was queered by the presence of MGR's wife V N Janaki who seemed to be riding the sympathy wave and was considered a strong contender. There were cold vibes between the two for obvious reasons but as it finally turned out, President's rule was clamped in the state with people going hysteric and berserk after MGR's death.
I saw Jayalalitha completely shattered by the death of her mentor but she was composed enough to speak to the Press and it was here that her body language said a lot about her political ambitions.
Her confident demeanour reflected on her glowing face but it was her articulation and impeccable English that came so resonatingly from her magnetic personality. The film industry, however, liked her more for a qualification which the south is notoriously famous for, if you excuse the oxymoron. She was a great hit with her buxom figure so much so that she also acted in a 1966 Hindi film Izzat with Dharmendra as her lead co-star. Jayalalitha played second fiddle to Tanuja but her song in the film "Jaagi badan me jwala saiyan tune kya kar dala was" as a runaway hit.
The star student did better than her mentor and saw through five terms as the state's CM.
That she had the blessings of MGR was obvious. When she joined MGR's AIADMK, her political rise was meteoric. So it was not entirely unexpected when Jayalalitha withstood and countered the faction headed by Janaki and proclaimed herself as the sole political heir. She was feisty enough to emerge from the shadows of her charismatic idol. She didn't prove the people wrong. When Karunanidhi became the chief minister in 1989, she gave him a tough time as an opposition leader and the old DMK patriarch was no political pushover.
To a gathering of journalists, Jayalalitha made no bones about her angling for the state's highest office. Though a lot of people had written her off as a temporary phenomenon who was just trying to cash in on her celluloid appeal, somehow it appeared to me that here was a woman who meant business. She had guts. When she was convicted in a disproportionate assets case, she bounced back by winning the case in the high court to return as the chief minister again.
Her political tenure was eventful but actually nothing much to rave about. She hobnobbed with the Congress and BJP when it suited her party but she stuck a phenomenal equation with the masses, portraying herself as the messiah of the poor. To some extent, she outdid MGR.
I still recall her as a very fair looking and determined woman who knew how to juggle her cinema and politics. I have seen her totally undeterred when she was rightly or wrongly referred to as the desi version of Imelda Marcos. Jayalalitha was made of sterner stuff and had the audacity to take on her political rivals. As a political lreader, she was not the one to cede and never ever hesitated to take a confrontationist approach if she was convinced that it was in the interests of her state, and by extension, for her own political good.
To me she epitomised the idiom "Hell hath no fury like the woman scorned." Here's to the fiery and spunky Jayalalitha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WDk6_YMq8w