Politics should be defamilized !

Yes, I am trying to coin a new term.  Defamilized !

Businesses run for profit.  The motive is known, side-effects understood. You have an entire family of doctors.  Those days, such families used to run good hospitals with the sole objective of learning.  I remember my parents speaking of one such family in Trichy.  The father and sons would sit around a table, treating patients, poor and sick from morning till midnight, with just breaks for breakfast, lunch and tea.  They run it in the same fashion the last time I went there.  Yes, it looked like what you would call a government hospital.  But let me tell you.  Those doctors were what you would call 'close to God' for many, poor and moneyless.

That was an age when doctors, teachers and politicians got into it for the sheer joy of doing something good.  Doctors have changed, so have teachers.  But go to any hospital, and you would still find quite a few who follow those principles, who take time to smile and reassure you (I met one such yesterday - God Bless Him !).  Same with teachers.  But the place where people of this tribe have ceased to exist is politics. 

You find people who live out of a two room house standing for elections - oh ! wait.  Nothing wrong with that.  They have cutouts put up in various parts of the city with each huge cutout costing anywhere between 75K to 1L.  Ask them who gave them money for this and they will tell you well-wishers.  Now tell me, won't these well-wisher knock the door again for a wish when you win elections.  Another two months, and the person moves into a bungalow, and then he starts owning entire buildings and acres of land, moving around in a Mercedes. 

I am not telling that all politicians are like this.  I had a friend of mine whose mom won a local election by talking straight, assuring people of doing good and telling them politely that she did not have money to dole out for free.  And she won !!!!  That is what democracy is all about, isn't it.  Those are the stories that reassure you that yes, humanity and dignity still exist among the political lot.

And then I read in the paper yesterday 'Someone is ready to take the plunge if people want him to'.  People, which people - maybe people means just family.  In India, with political families, the entire family is into politics in some way or other.  When business fails, or becomes not so profitable, maybe politics looks assuring.  Maybe ! [Again, I am not telling all of them are like that].  But then, after looking at father-child-grandchild dynasties across the country and looking at how easily people connected get seats, and those who are new have to climb the steep ladder the hard way, it is time I think politics is 'Defamilized'.  Maybe, skip a generation atleast.  So that it does not become an occupation, for it is not a job, even like that of a doctor or teacher or engineer.  Politicians are those who fix the fate of a nation, who steer a country and given that our country is one billion, maybe a wide enough representation of families will help in diversity of views, of thought and of action.

Demotivating should be classified as a crime

Demotivation !  The mention of that word is demotivating.  So, you can imagine what happens when someone tries that with you repeatedly. 

It is a strong and cruel tool used by many people whom we see in our day to day life.  And those who have a strong tongue, a superiority complex or is a person in power uses it with so much ease.  They do it in so many ways :  try to talk you out of doing something, try to put you off, try to tell you that you are not good enough or that the task at hand is something that you cannot or do not have the capacity to handle.  And if all this does not work, then they start striking using means and ways that make you wonder how ? 

With young people especially, motivation is a strong force - which when used can bring wonders.  A little bit of the magic potion, and it makes people whom you could have initially thought inept, do amazing things.  They fly, soar and take paths others would have thought twice. 

So then, one can only imagine the destructive power of the opposite.  Just like the power of love to give and take, motivation has the power to build and destroy, looking at it from different sides.

It takes a person of exceptional courage and willpower to resist that force of demotivation.  Today, you talk to any person working in any field, and they find so many people ready to demotivate and so few to motivate.  Why are we becoming so negative, I wonder ?  Why is it that we (parents, teachers, friends, siblings, employers, employees, ............) try to demotivate people when it is so easy to motivate ?  Why is letting of negative energy so alluring ? 

Sometimes I think demotivating should be classified a crime.  Because it is deadly. It is deadlier than killing the body.   It kills the flame, the eagerness, the happiness, the very soul of a person.  It leaves the person in a state of vacuum.

A Potty Story !

I have not blogged in a long, long time. Not because there weren't topics to blog about - to think out aloud, to thrash. Given the goings on around, there was so much to argue, oppose and find a means to think objectively.

However, a conversation I had yesterday gave me a reason to get back. This was what happened :

I called up my sister, who picked up after a long long time. She had just then given a bath for my four and a half year old niece, which is a task by itself. As she spoke to me, she put on a dress for her. Just then, my niece said she wanted to go potty. I asked my sister if that wasn't unusual - didn't she go before her bath.

Given her vacation, madam has changed her schedule to suit her games and her system has gone wary. My niece was insisting that she was on the verge of going and rushing her mother. Asking her why this last moment hurry, she came out with these :

Conversation - 1:

(Family going out, and daughter asked to go potty so that there is no exceptional event inbetween the outing)

Mother : Deeksha, aren't you finished ?

Daughter : Mama, no !!

Mother : Finish up fast - time to go !

Daughter : Mama, potty is not coming !

Mother : Only if you finish can we go !

Daughter : Mama, potty is sleeping. Let it sleep for some more time. We shall go.

Mother : No ! Only if you finish can you come. Else, mama and papa will have to go alone.

Daughter(heard from the other side of the door) : Potty, come out. Mama is calling. If you don't come out now, mama and papa will go out, leaving us alone at home. So, please come out fast !

I burst out laughing, at the same time wondering how a four year old could make up a conversation so effortlessly. Potty sleeping, so let it sleep for some more time !!!! And look at the articulation - not that

she was trying or not trying. It was the potty not making an effort.

Conversation - 2:

For Madam(my niece), nothing can disturb her games. Everything else, comes second. So, susu and potty can be postponed to the very last minute and is always done in such a hurry - in order to not waste a second of playtime.

So once, before she could remove her dress, susu started off and she couldn't do much. As my sister was mopping the floor with dettol, she offered this explanation. 

Daughter : Mama, I came as fast as I could. I told susu to wait a little but susu just didn't listen. I kept telling susu to wait but susu just didn't. What can I do mama. It is not my fault.

As if, she and her susu are part of two separate systems.......... I was amazed and at the same time laughed at her ingenuity and the workings of a little childs mind. It is amazing the stories they make up(even about susu and potty). And at that time, all I wanted to do, was hug her and kiss her for being just her...........