Nerve Endings Firing Away

Lately I am getting tons of tips via email for political stories thanks to the ever-alive Desicritics mailing list. No offense to Aaman, Desicritics publisher (bless his soul for trying to herd a bunch of unruly desis) but it is often funny to see him end every political squabble on the list with “This will make an excellent post, Mr. XYZ please transfom the content of this email into a post on Desicritics“. That is enough to kill the mood and everyone runs helter-skelter not taking the matter further.

I am not sure if it is a preventive measure used to terminate all arguments that get out of hand (Hindu-Muslim Secular animosity is a sure-shot way to get people frothing at their mouth as they then proceed to shoot it off) but it is working like a charm. Having said that, I’ll now proceed to use one of his tips to craft a short political post rant of my own here. I could probably cross-post it on Desicritics as well but I am trying to remain faithful to my original intent of blogging about urban and desi issues (and of course the book & music reviews); better still if it contains all elements I mention. In a 2001 Space Odeyssey-esque shift of time and context, I present to you the story of two siblings:

You can punish some kids and expect that they will behave in the future but some kids are simply incorrigible. For example, there is a kid whom we know has been acting pretty bad persistently in spite of everyone smiling and hoping he will improve, especially with his elder brother. He behaves like an unruly kid throwing a tantrum each time the elder kid gets a candy for standing first in his class. The younger kid screams and bellows demanding a candy for his often disastrous showing at the recently-concluded semester examinations.

Incidentally both kids attend the same school and the younger kid cannot digest the fact that the elder one is “shining” and expects everyone else to consider him “shining” as well regardless of the fact that he is not and all the ‘good news’ are courtesy the indulgences of the parents who cannot abandon their kid regardless of his errant behavior and also because it will keep him out of mischief. When everything else fails and no one is paying attention to the temper tantrums, he throws out an emotional ultimatum. He threatens that by giving the older kid candy you are somehow tilting the balance in his favor and disturbing the sibling camaraderie that had started developing between the two brothers. Of course, at the next given opportunity, he wouldn’t fail to tattle on his otherwise genteel brother on a rather innocuous deed or worse, stab him in its back by attacking when he is sleeping. The older brother forgives him and continues talking to him.

As time passes, the parents figure out what’s going on and get smart and they know that the younger sibling has unbashedly committed unforgivable deeds in the past and definitely can repeat them in the future; no amount of pampering or consoling is going to change the basic intent. Of course, we can hope the kid improves in the future but after all the fear of evil twin syndrome persists.

PS. No ‘real’ kids were harmed in this introspection.