Great Civil War of the East?

Every nation is like a human being. It starts from humble beginnings, Its inhabitants, at one point, are not united but in time the Union or Federation is eventually formed. The form of Government notwithstanding, this state is usually not rich right from the beginning but slowly and surely rises and eventually (sometimes over a span of a few centuries) the nation becomes a superpower. The problem starts when more than one rich state exists in a given point in time. Eventually, other states realise the necessity of being a superpower and start attempting to attain parity with the developed states. In this race to thwart a global monopoly, the strongest nation invariably feels threatened and then we have a situation where a number of developed nations fight each other in the definitive war which not only brings an end to an empire or two but it seems that it is, in hindsight, necessary to stabilise that part of the world. Take the first half of the 20th Century for example. Western Europe fought itself into ruin and it was only after this that all those States attained some form of permanent parity among each other. Patrick Buchanan in his book called the World War the Civil War of the West.

According to a recent U.S. report, India is now the 3rd most powerful nation in the world. Now, we've never been the sort of people who support war or seek to wage it but in this multipolar world, now that the west has perhaps more or less stabilized, although at the cost of millions of lives and great destruction of the planet, the central and eastern parts of our world are yet to go through that phase. I hope that our nations evolve differently, but I fear that India is yet to see its own Great War. It may come soon, it may come after decades or it may never come at all but unless the we, the Eastern states do not embrace the concept of coexistence, we may well have already embarked on the path of suicide, the Great Civil War of the East.

OH DEUS, Who art Thou?

Disclaimer: The following is not intended to hurt the sentiments of anyone and I sincerely apologise if I even accidentally offend anyone.

Morality and righteousness are, in my opinion, very flexible, fluid concepts. They keep changing and have, over the course of man's history, shuttled from one extreme to another. The best example I can perhaps give is the concept of religion. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely believe in God but I also believe, and I am willing to consider, perhaps wrongfully, that the while the concept of religion is man made, so is the human embodiment of the concept of God  as well. God was represented by symbols of nature when man was a species that communicated in grunts and wore just enough to appear modest.

Much later, the Greeks both feared and worshipped their own sets of Gods which were perhaps widely accepted simply because, at some point in time in man’s history, Greece was the centre of the world. Later came the Roman Gods which again gained widespread recognition and popularity due to the fact that the Earth spins on its axis and Rome became the centre of the world, then came the rise of Christianity and the older man made concepts of God and the variations were forsaken. I am not, for a moment, saying that our modern day interpretation and concept of the Almighty is incorrect, nor do I seek to question the historical roots, evolution and embodiment of the concept but I am simply emphasising that man is at the centre of this all. While this is by no means a religious treatise, the object of the above is to say that man is the creator of this world that we now inhabit with all its complexities and dilemmas, our social mores, our stigmas, our love, our hatred, all of it and so much more, has been spawned by man.  The best illustration of man having completely forsaken his own concepts of Gods as the ‘Ancients’ knew them is a popular game where a Demigod takes down the Gods of Olympus one by one. Again, I loved the game and I intend absolutely no offence by stating what I have above.

I personally believe that religion is a matter between best left between one and God alone and that there is absolutely no necessity to involve others and complicate lives. One’s beliefs may certainly conflict with another but that should be because of his own, personal, individual beliefs and not beliefs that are thrust upon him. Secularism, in this day and age should be so flexible a concept that one should be able, even in this day, say, worship Zeus without risking social ridicule. Scientology would be perhaps the most pertinent example to prove this point. Man can believe that God is whatever he wants him to be.  The key is not how one visualises God but that he fact that one has faith in God, and God can be whatever his imagination can conjure up so long as it brings him peace, tranquillity and inner happiness. 

ENDGAME - No, this is not about a computer game.

All species on this planet were created together, evolved together and shared the planet together. Man, however overtook the rest of the species and has, over the past few millennia, created the concepts of stories, figments of one’s imagination, created a collection of sounds which if arranged rhythmically enough, can be quite pleasing to one, and most recently, even begun writing blogs. We are, in my opinion, in the greatest era of man’s life where our history seems crystal clear as do aspects of our future. The sad truth however lies, in the fact that while man has evolved and emerged the true master of the planet, we have decimated it completely. Man is the only species that has only taken from the Earth without adequately offering anything in return.

It might have occurred to a few of you that I’m just prancing around, ranting about all sorts of stuff above without taking any of you to any logical conclusions. Well, my point is that we’re at the pinnacle of our civilisation and as the old world orders around us are all slowly gathering  to fall and appoint new world superpowers, there may not be much of the world left at this rate. Take a look at the temperatures skyrocketing the way they have over the last two years all over the world. This is indeed, the beginning of the end of life as we know it for if we don’t heed this last chance to save the Earth and even begin to try fixing all the damage we’ve done, we might as well resign ourselves to living in a man made concrete-tech world where we use holograms to project images of the planet as it once was and we may have to seek comfort from the fact that though we’ve destroyed our planet, we at least created the technology to simulate an artificial one.

Ranting, Rambling and Revelations

Book: when I read Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World by Patrick J. Buchanan

What would your first impression be when you come across a book entitled "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain lost its Empire and the West lost the World"? Mine was pure astonishment.

I've been fascinated by WWII and all related aspects ever since I came across it as a part of my curriculum in X Grade. Over the years I've filled my mind with various perspectives, although most of them comprise the common, biased views of the victors of the greatest war of “our” time.

The Nazi State of Adolf Hitler was an abomination, born out of the First World War which was in its own way, “a war to end all wars” in that a war of an old world which was ruled and administered by Monarchs never again took place on this scale. This Nazi State embodied concepts, some of which befitted an old world state and others befitted barbarians, hence ending up, an abomination. Human rights, freedoms of various kinds, even the sanctity of human lives were utterly disregarded in a world, which post 1918, was rapidly evolving to embrace concepts of equality, humanity, peace, or so it was hoped.

The popular histories of both World Wars paint the Germans as the embodiment of evil and the British, Americans, French etc. as the warriors of all things good. The book, the subject of this blog, opened my eyes to many misconceptions I harboured. These misconceptions weren’t ill conceived, but were formed due to the biased writings of the victors, their accounts and their textual desecration of the vanquished, namely Germany.

At the risk of running the length of a thesis, I would highlight the following:

1. Hitler never wanted war with England.

2. Hitler never wanted war with Poland.

3. Hitler only wanted to take back fully, the possessions that Germany lost as a result of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI.

4. Hitler wanted to wage his war solely against the USSR.

5. The German economy rivaled that of Britain before WWI.

6. The German Kaiser did not want war.

7. Winston Churchill dragged Britain into WWI and WWII.

8. Hitler knowingly never built up a Navy to challenge Britain’s.

Many aspects of WWII which left me dumbstruck such as the British Expeditionary Forces’ escape at Dunkirk due to the sudden halt of the German assault have been explained as an intentional act. Hitler didn’t want to destroy the Forces. Hitler’s dream alliance was an Anglo-German one.

I do not, by any means, seek to justify Nazism and the evils that stemmed from it. The system and the horrors it inflicted can by no means be ignored and forgotten. This book essentially reveals how the Germany of pre 1914 was dragged down by the other powers and unjustly stripped of its power and assets after the war and the same led to a cataclysm 21 years later which would mark the end of an old world and usher in a New World, the American Century.

I highly recommend this book to history lovers and anyone who has read other accounts of the Wars and seeks to gain a new perspective. That’s all for now, till we meet again.

Zeros and Ones

Disclaimer: The following is a first hand account authored by yours truly, an A Class Geek. Anyone who anticipates reading the following and thinking of words like “lame”, “geek”, “nerd”, “a@#” etc, is requested to leave right away. As for the fanboys, welcome gentlemen. What I am attempting below, is basically, to name my most favourite games, hoping that it will strike a familiar chord.

The year was 1990 and it was the year that marked the beginning of the great journey. My folks got me the new Nintendo Video Game (NES) console and a cartridge with 128 games in it. It was as though I had been shown the doorway to a new, fabulous, fantasy realm.

Arkanoid, Tennis, Road Racer, Battlefield, Contra, Mario and Luigi, Othello, Lunar Ball, Robocop and of course, our all time favourite, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its various sequels and variants among so many other games, dictated the course of my childhood. Not that I wanted to stay aloof, I rather enjoyed the whole VG thing and embraced it wholeheartedly. My fondest memory is when after finishing Contra, I was adorned with the title, hero of the universe. I truly felt special.

In 1994 I was introduced to smashing fellow called Dave and boy was he dangerous, leaping over danger, shooting at his enemies and although he made the heroes of Contra look rugged and macho, a sort of James Bond (Dan Craig by the way) aura of sorts emanated from him, even if it was only 0’s and 1’s. A friend of mine, the early bird, had a computer with the latest OS, Windows 3.1 on it and on one visit, showed me a game called Prince of Persia. It looked awesome and I was hooked. A few years later, I would manage to track down the exact same game on a cartridge for my VG.

In 1996, my folks got us our first “multimedia computer”, My granny had just returned from the US and my cousin sent us a copy of Encarta and these three games, Age of Empires II, Warcraft II and something called Doom. I’d never really heard of them before. I had no clue as to what I was getting myself into back then and yet, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, my games and I. IDDQD , IDKFA and IDCLIP (I actually still remember these cheats from over 10 years ago) were the saviours against the juggernaut of enemy forces. The war of the Orcs and Humans was memorable and the introductory cut scene background score is still fresh in my mind as was that between the Byzantines and Britons.

I had been given a 256 games’ demo pack along with the computer and the one game which I really can’t forget from the plethora is this neat little game called Terminal Velocity which was a futuristic flight sim of sorts, in fact I went out and picked up one of those early joysticks, the calibration of which would constantly get scrambled and have me tumbling to a rocky demise. Cricket 97 was another one of the games from the time which in time, I would truly suck at. A couple of other early games I tried my hands on but never completed were Myst, In the First Degree (little did I know back then that I’d be a lawyer someday), King’s Quest and this fascinating game called Angel Devoid which I couldn’t finish simply because my newer system later on, wouldn’t support the VGA graphics or something. Angel Devoid is one game which I wished I had finished. Those were games which were made which real people and would fall within a very different genre. Special mention: Carmageddon, Carmageddon 2 (my personal favourite which also introduced me to Iron Maiden) and Carmageddon TDR 2000 (which was a cartoonish version of its predecessors).

A couple of years later a saw a Star Trek game for PC in a shop and on the cover was splashed the words “3D Card required”. It didn’t make any sense to me. Soon enough, I realised what it meant. In 1999, we procured a new system with a faster processor, Intel Pentium something or the other with the Windows 95 OS which we upgraded to the brand new Windows 98 later and onboard 3d graphics. My earliest games on this, my brand new rig, were Cricket 99 and Lara Croft and something about a Revelation. While the revelation thing crashed bang in the middle of the game and quit to desktop (something was wrong with the CD), the Cricket thing seemed easy beyond a point.

Once my bud Avishek hopped onto the PC bandwagon, despite the Y2K craze, games like Recoil, Star Wars Pod Racer, Soldier of Fortune, Star Wars The Phantom Menace, Quake III, Unreal Tournament and of course Need for Speed dominated our lives. (Yeah! We were major geeks back then, still are in fact) and some 5 or so years later, Age of Empires II began to make more sense than it did when I was 11. This WWII themed game called Commandos II was especially fascinating, with the level of details and the missions which were truly, very well crafted.

A year into college and I got my first comp with a 3D card (I’m refuse to name the card) and the comp later went on to be known as the cursed comp, the tenure of which ended with the GeForce 128 MB 6600 GT. This “revolutionary” new system allowed me to play GTA Vice City, Postal, Rise of Nations, Medal of Honour, Call of Duty, United Offensive and after the 6600 GT, Call of Duty 2 as well. Some of the levels from COD, especially breaching the Nazi Reichstag and planting the Soviet flag and the levels where we’re called to defend out positions especially in COD 2 were memorable. My favourites of the time though, were still Age of Empires II and Rise of Nations.

After my graduation, the system was retired and moved where it lies, unused, a memento of a time gone by and ushered in the era of gaming on my laptop, the HP Pavilion dv6000 which isn’t very much more powerful than the PC although I finally laid my hands on GTA San Andreas, Command and Conquer Tiberium Wars, Panzers Phase I, NFS Most Wanted and a few more.

In October 2009, my folks got me my big upgrade and thus came along my PS3®. I’m hooked to the graphics, the gameplay and some of the plots of the games which are the deepest and most involving I’ve ever experienced. I’ve completed Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and am currently, intermittently playing Heavy Rain, Battlefield Bad Company and Batman Arkham Asylum.

Though none of these games can even compare to the games of the 80s and early 90s, one can clearly discern their evolution and I for one, though haven’t played many famous games of the various eras, am still proud to have been (and continue to be) a part of this evolution. While Project Natal and the Playstation Move (which is similar to the Wii concept) will revolutionise gaming , I can’t wait till we slip on a pair of Goggles and slip away into our very own ‘Quest World’.

I have a LAN opponent waiting to crush me in AOE II. That’s enough idle, arbitrary rambling for now, till we meet again.

A Day that will Live in Infamy |26/11

It was like any other day for most of us. I personally was working when my boss came and told me that he was glued to the TV and found it impossible to leave. It was the first I heard of it. I finally reached home at night and my granny  and aunt too were glued to the TV. The horror of the incident sank it and it was overwhelming. 

This was unprecedented and utterly shocking. To add to the horror was my astonishment due to the fact that the various news channels had used the footage they had, added some music to it and splashed some text to emphasise their own message. There was yet another channel where the interviewer 'X' asked 'Y', a lady, as to how she felt knowing that her husband was trapped inside the Taj. I was infuriated and wondered why these people were so insensitive and how they would respond if they were in the same position.

I'm not the impulsive sort, I wish I was, because I had actually, honestly wanted to book a ticket and rush to Mumbai and be there as it happened so that I could 'feel' the pain. The whole country watched those three tumultuous days on the TV but to be there at that point in time was an entirely different thing. Otherwise, I felt this would be like reading any other headline in a paper and forgetting about it. I had also wanted to write an article to a newspaper, which I ultimately didn't, hence this blog. 

The next few days after the attack, reminded me, of a book by William Shirer, who was a war correspondent posted in Berlin before and during the first few years of World War II. He describes painstakingly the atmosphere in the months, weeks, days before WWII began. Part of it had an eery resemblance to conditions at home and the other side of the border. Was this it, I wondered? Endgame? 

Among an early barrage of rebuttals by our neighbour, came an allegation that India herself had been involved in the attack. It reminded me of the Nazi Fall Weiss (Case White) Directive whereby they faked a Polish invasion into Germany to justify their invasion of Poland in 1939. India's Case White apparently. Obviously we all knew that a long, endless game of ping-pong had begun in the subcontinent. In the course of the last few weeks, interesting theories such as Kasab's death, Bangladesh's involvement etc. surfaced and the only direction left for fingers to be pointed, was up.

Obviously the Nations involved know what even a slight slip up could result in, that being said, no real action has been taken and bombs still surface in various cities across the country. Security in majorly populately areas is still in a pathetic condition and there are still opportunities waiting for these terrorists to strike again. When will we learn? Will we ever learn? Diplomacy is necessiated at times but to use it at the wrong time is a tragic blunder. 

Unfortunately, we all know the state of affairs and the light at the end of the tunnel is nowhere in sight, in the end, everyone loses and by the time any action is taken, all those poor souls that lost their lives that day, civilians and heroes would have faded away into obscurity.

-Nikhil

Idle Ramblings

The thing is, its really quite upsetting when it actually sinks in that we as Indians have still not forsaken the 'adjust kar le yaar' attitude. On the contrary, we've embraced it with a death grip and just refuse to let go. We're far more worried about being diplomatic and politically correct to even try and attempt doing the right thing. I don't intend for the above to sound out of  context but just to add some clarity, look around you, what I say will surely ring true. 

We have the world's longest Constitution, a plethora of brilliant laws and a system of governance which we inherited from the English, the greatest administrators of the world, the lifespan of their empire would justify this statement. The problem, however is that at the helm of affairs is 'the Indian'. The corrupt, conniving Indian who after making an illustrious, enthusiastic entry into the 'House of the People' changes drastically. Power corrupts and absolute power does indeed corrupt absolutely. 

Unfortunately, the underlying motive of the English in educating the Indians of the Raj was to employ them in the lower strata of Governance as subservient, obedient civil servants. The mentality of us Indians till date, seems not to have changed and we simply refuse to think out of the box. We still haven't come to terms with the fact that we are our own rulers. Or have we?

A few days back, we celebrated the glorious Indian Republic. Many people, I noticed in the papers and TV seemed to confuse Republic Day with Independence Day. How many of us actually know, to put it in as simple a manner as I possibly can, that our Republic Day is the birthday of the Constitution of India?

Everything in this country seems to still be about issues like caste, religion, linguistic differences. When will we learn? Indians are Indians. By repeating our 'social segregations', little do we realise that we are the ones who are in fact validating our social brackets and making other conscious of it. If you step into any means of public transport, you usually would be unable to look at a person and ascertain his 'social bracket'. Thats simply because we are all Indians. Only when we really forsake these man made distinctions can we truly unite and advance.

What is the purpose of this blog, you might ask yourself? Well, these are just a few of my random thoughts I wanted up on the net. The idle ramblings of an educated Indian. This is not my idea of an ideal debut online but then again, is there any such thing?

And who am I? I am just another Indian who knows a little bit about the law and  who wants to see India in her rightful place.

This is just the beginning and I promise, my future blogs will be more structured.

- Nikhil