We shall now announce that the Emperor is naked !

Yes! The emperor is naked. She can see she is walking without clothes. But she is too dumb to act. Or is just that she is too powerless to take action? Whatever the situation be. That’s not a botheration (or is it?).

There were times when she used to be over-flooded with pride. There were times when her clothes were adorned by people the world over. There were times when her clothes were considered equivalent to heaven! What else could she have asked for? But no. She could not escape treachery. She was made a fool of. If there were an entry in the Guiness Book of Records for the nation that has been fooled the largest number of times by another, without doubt India will be unbeatable. Thanks to Nehruvian diplomacy, which believes that because India is a greater and more tolerant nation than Pakistan, India should 'give first and more', the Kashmir issue has remained unsolved for the past 61 years. The final bouquet went to the 'Iron Lady of India', the 'only man in the Cabinet' who threw away all her cards in Simla in July 1972 for an unwritten secret agreement with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

This is brings us to a lot of details. Frankly and very honestly, these details are dissolved in the blood of one and all. Just that we don’t like talking about it too often. Consequently, what we should be doing is going back to the same old story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”…I hope that does ring a bell. I feel like talking about the scoundrels. I completely agree that it is a very sensitive issue but my sensibility is simply not restrained by the sensitivity of the situation. Pakistan finds solace in denial. It keeps on denying not because it is innocent but it knows very well that the accuser is very weak.

Today Pakistan is in an enviable position. It is both a culprit and a victim. It clearly knows that being a culprit and at the same time being a victim is more suitable than being culprit alone. You can eternally deny any charges against you sighting that you are a victim yourself. You pretend to fight terrorism in the west and practice the opposite in the east. Pakistan is good at fooling others. Within Pakistan its leaders are even better at fooling their own citizens. So there is a sequence to it. People of Pakistan fool themselves; their leaders fool their people, and then the country as a whole fools everyone around. And so has Pakistan fooled India time and again. It has greatly succeeded in making us believe that we are the eternal proud possessors of Kashmir while gradually taking it away from us day by day. But we cannot leave the parade midway. We have to finish off the parade. Now come on. The entire world is watching and clapping at how efficiently (really?) we have managed to keep our clothes on. We can’t publicly accept that we are stupid and incompetent – even if it is at the cost of displaying our nakedness on the world stage.

But hey! I suddenly feel like changing the metaphor. How about this – let the scoundrels be terrorist, the emperor remains the same but the clothes change. Our security system? I guess it’ll fit into the story just too well. And you know what I’m talking about. Mumbai! One terrorist attack is more than enough to expose all our body organs and inform other people that they can now attack on us, make fun of us and fool us again and again and again.
However, we are not the only fools. There is yet another larger emperor who needs to be talked about in a little greater detail. Find it out yourself…

Habit, if not resisted soon becomes a necessity. We are so used to succumbing to the easy way out ; so used to submit ourselves to an authority (which we consider to be higher) that we have come to a stage where all of us, I do repeat, all of us, call her the EMPEROR. I have decided. I have decided to be the child, the innocent, oblivious child and announce that the ‘Emperor is naked’.

To start with, the basic question I want to ask is, why do we consider her to be the emperor ?
Well, if you don’t know the answer, I shall help. It’s because we like being among the mob and receive gold coins whenever she is out on charity. We like making no efforts towards overpowering this dictatorship and put in place a democracy – we don’t want power in our hands. We are weak, we are timid, and we are powerless. We are too incapable to control. We like to be controlled. We like to get caught and eaten – we like baits. Baits, which ‘divide’ all of us. We are madly in love with and too scared of our fisherman – Divided Baits of America…oops! Correction – The United States of America.

Habits. Kindly allow me the liberty to talk on it. Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. They are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry. All of us have got habituated to take baits offered to us by the United States. We are habituated to live a life given to us as a mercy. We are habituated to not see that the oxygen we are breathing is actually their carbon dioxide. We are habituated to see her as an ugly, naked emperor every day, yet not dare to open our mouths in the fear of persecution.
We are just too dependent on her for our imports and exports. We cannot even think about directing a movie without aiming for an Oscar. A signature of the USA is indispensible for our energy needs. Her support is too attractive to do without while fighting any country for our own rights. If our students do not study in America, their education is a farce. If we do not know English, we are forbidden to speak.

First we form habits, then they form us. We have to conquer our habits before they eventually conquer us.
Actually, truth often passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted. This process occurs when a new truth is revealed that contradicts current superstition. It’s time that we tell ‘our’ emperor about her nakedness. It’s time that we join the shout of the little child who shouts out “The emperor is naked!”.
Yes, violence and oppression exist all over the world, and the United States is not the only country that has done wrong and made mistakes. But, it is the only one imperialistic empire that has been so deeply linked to so many dictatorships, oppressive regimes and corporate exploitations. What is most astonishing is the fact that the emperor is completely unaware (or chooses not to believe so) that she is naked! She is completely unaware of the many atrocities she has committed and has been committing! The policy makers are just too good as scoundrels. Appreciation cannot be denied.

Unfathomable death tolls are the only facet that will be unearthed once we start the process of excavation. At this point of time, I implore you to imagine. I plead you to imagine stadiums filled with Korean children dying from napalm before your eyes. Visualize the mothers of Iraq digging up corpses of their children. Picture children in Vietnam who were born without legs or arms because of residual effects of Agent Orange. Envision tens of thousands of Japanese civilians being wiped out by atomic bombs before they even knew what hit them. Think about children in Nicarcagua crying on the street, seeking their mothers, not knowing they had been killed by US – created contras. See the atrocities through the eyes of the countless loving parents in El Salvador who were forced to watch their infant children beat to death against rocks.

Why go so far? Why not plunge into the so called very prestigious, honoured and glorified finance ministry of the Emperor? Why should we forget and forgive those US regulators; those top class managers of Harvard and Yale; those economists who devastated the balance of economics of the entire world! Those scoundrels who fooled the emperor who subsequently fooled us all. Why should they be forgiven? Yes, am talking about regulators whom the entire world trusted and praised blindly; regulators who designed newer and newer clothes for the emperor – clothes of various brands and styles using golden threads of securitization, CDO’s, credit default swaps, hedge funds – which the emperor displayed pompously in the parade, which were supposed to be looked at by us, the mob and praised without reason.
All of us are dolls. We are impotent nincompoops who stood there in the parade and clapped at the grandeur of the fake finance boom, glory of the invisible economic bubble specially designed for the emperor, knowing that it wasn’t actually there. None of us were courageous and brave enough to face dire consequences by blurting out the truth ! None of us, not even a single one. On the contrary, we were all full of praises for something we knew never existed…

Like they say in Matsya nyaya (Mahabaratha) big fish eats small fish. And even though our emperor here has no clothes, she is just another princess born to our Mother Earth, the real queen. It is ironic that while in the "The Emperor’s new clothes ", the coveted gold threaded clothes were actually invisible, The earth's invisible clothes are coveted. Yes, this is with regard to our Ozone layer. Depletion of ozone layer is surely hazardous to environment. But to what extent? Imagine God was a physicist. While calculating area covered by water on the earth, if there was an error of 2% extra, millions of life will be lost. Yet we choose to ignore the menacing "antarctic hole" which melts the ice caps or the carcinogenic UV rays, which could in any possible angle only be perilous. And the abrasive part is, we know CFCs, etc are responsible. We are educated sufficiently at schools and colleges on preventive measures, and the result? Vomit the details in examinations and with absolutely no regret open your refrigerator. Ever so complacent, ever so ignorant, it pains me to see these vanilla men and women who in reality are mentally blind. If our only glimmer of hope is that UV-B radiations alter our DNA and mutate us into environmental friendly and scientifically and morally superior creatures, I stand vindicated.
And since our emperor is naked, the pleasant earthlings have decided to clothe her. Only with even more special clothes. At a severe loss for words, and great remorse, this joke ends with the answer, "greenhouse gases". Global warming is obviously a crisis .Everyone knows about greenhouse gases and their effects. Enough research has been done on how to prevent them. So why can’t we appeal to our conscience and resolve these issues of global threat.

The answer brings us to our final interpretation of this rather eye opening topic. This essay's writers are in every way hypocritic. We don’t practice what we preach. Thousands of articles and hundreds of hours of discussion and still no results simply because, we refuse to be drawn into doing the dirty work. Contributing a few hours of hard work towards environment does not provide any materialistic benefits to us or so we believe. The bigger picture? The pack of lays on your table is a better proposition right now.

The concept of ethics is now a 'concept'. It is imperative to understand this. "ETHICAL VALUES" is a course offered by several institutions of very high regard. And they teach you to say "thank you". SOMETHING THAT IS TO BE ASSUMED LIKE BEING KIND AND POLITE, ETC IS BEING TAUGHT? A wise man once said, “When someone loses someone gains.” Unfortunately, people have misunderstood the chronological order. A great man has claimed that we have the resources the science technology and the man power to overcome global warming. However it is the attitude of people that is hindering development. A long process like this provides no instant fruit and thus, the insecurities of narrow minded earthlings are evident. His claim though is that if we muster enough will and courage to solve the green house issues, we will be ready to take on any problem in the future.

There are two ways in which we can solve these issues. One is by totally scientific where we must hope to overcome our restricted mental state with high grade technology. The other is a mixture of attitude development and science. If the first is a long process, the second is even longer. Patience is of great essence here. So like the story goes, it was a small straight forward kid who without any complexities announced the emperor naked. In a very similar manner, it is important that each one of us open our hearts and appeal to our conscience and make the most straight forward decision. If it still means a selfish attitude, then God save the queen.

Uncertainly Certain

Explosion of memories in the mind

The heart is summoned, it comes to find

Glimpses of past flash across the eyes

Paradise I see, perhaps, abyss in disguise ??

The mind feels like travelling a long distance

Wants to celebrate some future occurrence

Time cannot stop demanding I cannot pay the rent

Oh why can’t I live the future, in my present ??

As always I have been, I am uncertain

On the stage of providence, I feel like drawing the curtain

I feel vanquished all attempts in vain

Can’t I not get any room for a little bargain ?

On the canvas of love its been an inelegant stroke

The paint of blood my brush has failed to soak

Her love is expensive my heart ain’t wealthy

It can mortgage no more ; it can afford no more rivalry

Togetherness seems a distant vision, distance makes the vision blurred

Distance is what my steps can’t cover, my only vehicle is my word

It travels day and night it asks for no fuel

Always astray, it never reaches destination…oh ! intentions so cruel

Dissolve into oblivion my words in their own fumes

Helplessly I stand, my belief all consumed.

We are "The Stimulators"

The Stimulators...this is what we came up with when we were asked to give a name to our team. So far so good, the real task was yet to come.

Next day we were on our bicycles (borrowed of course) to Jherli. Never heard before ? Empathy...it's a small village near our college campus - this is exactly the place which gives birth to all those old women who come outside our mess everyday to collect old newspapers which they later sell for a mere rupee per kilo.

So Jherli was just like the impoverished village we see when we go to our multiplexes. Nevertheless, no matter in what condition the place was (rather is), we had to do what we had come for...

After discussing and sharing their problems, we taught them the techniques of newspaper bag making. It's easy to guess now. We were thinking of a start up...

As of now, we have the support and cooperation of all the women who believe in our vision of women empowerment. But, it's not as easy as it sounds.
This was an initiative which we basically had taken as a requirement of a project in our curriculum wanting to see us as change makers for a day. However, we have developed our own passion for its completion anyway.

I have uploaded these pics for you to better visualize this campaign. Do post your comments and if you're interested in our cause, don't hesitate. It'll be our pleasure...

There's a video of our mini campaign uploaded on http://vimeo.com/4311658 . Check that out as well.