Cambridge Analytica: The Great Indian Fiasco

Cambridge Analytica, the British political consultation firm is in a soup nowadays. It seems they use the personal details of Facebook users in winning elections for their clients. They are facing criminal charges for this in the USA.

When the news came in, Indian political scene also became muddled (as is the norm nowadays). BJP cited an old article which claims INC used the help of Cambridge Analytica in election campaigns. Rahul Gandhi in turn accused BJP of using their services.

A whistle blower claims that INC is one of the major customers of the firm. Now latest news breaks confirm that INC's campaign poster is framed in the office of the ex CEO of Cambridge Analytica. This remembers me of the infamous scene penis enlarger scene in Austin Power movie. (Check YouTube.)

My doubt is very simple. If you're going by the electoral performance of Congress party in recent years, it is evident that Cambridge Analytica is a huge failure as a political consultancy. And their method of collecting Facebook user identities is not working at all. It even seems to have an adverse effect.

BJP probably should be thankful to this firm, which may be one of the reasons they are in power in majority of India. They are supposed to keep quiet and let the drama continue...

61 Hours: Less on Thrills

61 Hours is the 14th Jack Reacher novel written by Lee Child. I've read some 6 or 7 of his works and always felt Jack Reacher books provide adequate thrills and entertainment- nothing more, nothing less. The basic premise is always similar. Jack Reacher, the perpetual traveller, reaches a corner of USA and gets involved, mostly against his wishes, in some trouble and settles it by the end using his brain and brawn.

61 Hours uses the same formula. This time Reacher is a traveller in a bus carrying some senior citizens, while it breaks down and is forced to stay in Bolton, a prison town. He has to endure snow fall and heavily fallen temperatures while solving a mystery involving murders of crime witnesses, lawless bikers, a mysterious structure concealing hidden secrets from Cold War era and a powerful drug baron from Mexico.

I loved the overall plot. Its really thick and carries suspense adequately. Compared to other Reacher adventures, this one is more mellowed and introspective. And thrills come far in between. But it never hampers the pacing. I loved the detailed description of landscapes that Lee Child etches in his novels. That differentiate the otherwise similarly plotted from each other and provides each with a unique signature.

The title doesn't have any significance to the story. I felt it as just a gimmick and doesn't contribute anything to the plot. The countdown in every chapter appears to be added in later drafts of the novel. I feel it is included just to invoke a false urgency to the proceedings. 

Likewise I felt that some of the suspenseful passages are too drawn out and lessens the impact of the story. You wait eternally, with bated breath, along with the characters, when entire passages are dedicated to every leaf turning and every snowflake falling, only to find that ultimately nothing happens. This event has a significance that is revealed later on but at the cost of some frustration to the reader.

But it really was a welcome change, reading a Jack Reacher book that is not just a collection of one frantic action set piece after other. The ending also was very different from usual fare. The ambiguous ending was unexpected, but gave more gravity to the story. And makes me want to grab the next book in the series... 

Why ain't I'm blogging no more..?

I stopped writing anything in this blog from around a year. Last day somebody asked me why did I stop doing it. I asked that person, did he ever read what I wrote. He replied that he did read it, not regularly, but once in a while. I asked him how did he feel about that. He replied that he found it interesting to read my views and that many times I brought some interesting perspective to the topic about which I was writing about.

Then I asked him something important. I told him that we are good acquaintances from some time. But it's news to me that he read my blog. I asked him, why is it that I never ever knew he reads it and like my work, atleast sometimes. I told him that's why I stopped writing down my thoughts. If he and atleast a few others like him had made it known to the world that this blog has a voice that they liked, I would have continued with it.

I don't know if it's 3 people who read it, if it's 30 or 300 or 3000. I don't have any idea. As far as I never get feedbacks and a general idea of the reach that my posts have, for me it's the same if my readership is 3 or 3 million. I don't know what's the worth of my writing because I don't get a tangible knowledge of its reach. For me, I'm writing for a reader who is a total introvert and not interested in communication. And being the person that I am, I always conclude that it's my writing that's at fault.

Yes, there are 5 persons whom I know, who regularly reads and feedback to me through social media or comments. And that's it. Other than that there are many who compliments me when we meet somewhere randomly, like my friend whom I introduced in the beginning. And I'm not interested to manipulate people into giving my blog a social reach.

So that's it. I'm totally bored with blogging scene. And with the way life's going now, I may not take it up in near future. Because blogging had become boring, monotonous and there are lot more better fun activities going on in life.. 

Genesis and everything after that..

Thus whispered the copper maiden,
Seated on a worn out swing,
"Our story's tied to this ring,
And you know what, it's just beginning... "

And then, out of nowhere, they appeared at the center of cosmos. That statement isn't entirely correct. It was when they, the copper maiden and her man, appeared, seated on a huge copper ring, the cosmos reoriented itself with them as the center.

Nothing of that kind had ever happened before. Did you see what happened now? Just like the appearance provided cosmos a sense of direction, it also got a sense of time..! Now, it was possible to track the events more precisely. Any incident could be charted as either happened before the appearance or after.

So armed with a sense of time and space, cosmos evolved. And it would have been the most fascinating sight, but alas there was none to witness it. As you can imagine, sight was a phenomenon that was yet to be evolved. Also same was the case with the other four senses.

Most sensible out of you may now question the above statement. If senses weren't developed yet, how could the Copper Maiden whisper to her man..! And that my friend is the issue with recording of history. It fictionalise the facts to some extent, or rather to an extreme extent. It romanticise situations and make them palatable to the laymen.

Now talking about the evolution of cosmos, with the maiden and her man at its center, it won't be wrong to say that it was an extremely boring process. It took 9 succeeded by 100 million zero years. Of course, year was a concept that originated at first just before 10 million years back, and cascaded in every nook and corner of cosmos with great efficiency.

And all that time the ring, the maiden and her man hung there on the same spot, whispering indecipherable love poems in each other's ears. Right, I am getting carried away here. Their whisperings are indecipherable, so who knows if it is love poems or nagging complaints or a news bulletin!

... Will be continued
... May be continued
... Can be continued 

Book Review: Open-eyed Meditations

Meditation is an essential tool for introspection. It helps you to look deep into your self and come up with fresh insights that is inherent within you. According to Indian thought, every knowledge that a man needs to live in the world is already provided to him. It is coded inside his subconscious. To uncover this knowledge, it only requires a patient quest into oneself. This quest itself is termed  introspection. Meditation is one practical way to do introspection. It is done by concentrating hard on only a single aspect and avoiding every other distractions, caused by self as well as the world.

Most of the ancient knowledge from India developed after undergoing a thorough polishing through meditation. All the vedopanishads, sciences and epics of India are fruits of countless hours of meditational thought undergone by several saints and teachers. That is the reason why all these works contain timeless spiritual as well as practical- real world wisdom in equal measures. For the benefit of common men, who were tied up with the living, conscious world, saints embedded the knowledge gained through meditation into tales with which they can relate easily.

The intention behind the writing of Indian epics was not just the entertainment of the masses, but their upliftment in life. The intention was to cause an awakening of sorts after understanding the principles of thoughts generated through meditation retold as relatable stories. Mahabharatha and Ramayana were stories depicting conflicts between kings. But these were conflicts that happen universally in human minds. These were tough choices and dilemmas that men faced and still faces every moment in his life. These were about how to deal with a merciless world effectively without compromising on one's innate goodness and sense of justice.

Open-eyed Meditations is a book written by Shubha Vilas that aspires to interpret some of the wisdom emanated through our epics and find out how it can be beneficial to modern living. I had read some parts of his series Ramayana- The game of life, which concentrated on retelling Ramayana in a way that would be helpful to practically use it in our everyday life. This book also has a similar approach, but instead of a structured retelling, it consists of simple essays that deals with individual issues that we face daily and remedial measures that can be adopted from classics. This is more like a self help reference guide, that can be consulted easily by using the content section which, I find more practical and effective.

The book consists of sixty four short essays about topics as varied as professional choices, mental health and marital relations. Each chapter has a clear example from either Ramayana or Mahabharatha from which we can learn how they tackled similar issues and how we too can take a similar approach in our life. Each chapter has a crisp summary in its end which is really helpful for future reading and referencing.

The topics covered in the book is pretty exhaustive, so I would have loved if the chapters were clubbed into sections dedicated to a particular aspect of life- like profession, relationships, family, society etc. It could made it more user friendly.

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