The future and our children

One of the great minds of our time, Professor Stephen Hawkins recently expressed concern over the futuristic development in the field of artificial intelligence, though its current state of the art aids in his writing and speech. His words are:  

“...The efforts to create thinking machine pose a threat to our very existence... Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

But that future is still very far - certainly not realizable in our lifetime.

And it’s not just a single tool of modern science posing dangers.

Genetics – that tinkering with our DNA - may also unleash superbugs that will destroy our future.

And who can undermine the impact of a nuclear warfare, threat of which can’t be ruled out when its arsenal is already there – ready to strike with a press of a button.  

Before it happens, there are external threats to our mother earth - threat of aliens, of asteroids and meteors, of solar volcanoes.

Plus, who can forget the debate of the global warming, the environmental change, that may again lead to the dark ages!

Amid all such threats, we are digging the soil of Mars, yet unable to feed all the hungry souls of this mother earth.

Will we be able to provide the dignity to all our fellow humans? Is it really a collective responsibility?

Or being part of the nature, are we bound to destroy & create, and live among the dichotomies, waiting for the bright and worse at the same time?

In fact, we need not to wait. It’s already happening. Just look at our children. They are the actual sailor or architect of this future...

Are they ready?

For ‘good’ to win against the ‘bad’, they need education as well as values. We have created a huge amount of information in every field and that percolates in the curriculum but what about values – that are equally important if we want to save the destruction.

Perhaps the values come from the religion also. But the organized aggressive conflict in the name of religion, as seen in these times, is not ready to spare even the children. What happened in Pakistan is an extreme unimaginable act. But, in various forms- whether the religion or the greed, it is happening in our country also. Our Nobel winner Mr. Kailash Satyarthi can testify for some of them.

And it’s not just about this side of globe. Many parts of the world are not far behind in abusing their children.

So, with a large chunk of children not keeping pace with the rest would eventually create friction. This will lead to destruction with or without technological advancement.

Nobody can justify the cowardly act of terrorists, but we should also understand how such fanatics are being created at every second all around the world. After all they were also children a few years back and have been raised by somebody.

What are we doing that our children will not imbibe such barbaric behaviour and will ensure that artificial intelligence or nuclear technology would become only a boon, not bane?

Taste the Moon

Memories are like the pages of a good old book. 

Flip them and a character or scene emerges out of the blue. And you try to locate its place and time automatically, mesmerized by the chance discovery.  

Here is something similar I discovered recently.

I am still trying to figure out who has written it and when.

The graphics is of course mine, a part of series called ‘Meditation’ that I made around the same time when - many years ago - I first found this:

“The world is troubled
With a lack of looking 

I sing my songs

The world sleeps 

I see the sky reflected in my teacup

I move the cup

And I tilt the sky 

The flying crane is shadowed

On the mud wall

My shadow touches his

And I ride the bird 

The stars are mirrored in a pool 

Of rain

With my hands I scoop up the water

I have a handful of stars 

I group the branch of a tree

The wind blows

And the tree shakes my hands 

The moon shimmers on my glass of cognac

I drink

And taste the moon 

I climb on a fig tree

And look down

The earth has fallen 

All the world

All the world pours in at my barred window

I lower the my lids

And dam the flood”

On the way to Jaigarh fort and looking towards Jalmahal 

Confession

Yes, I liked SRK in ‘Rab ne bana di jodi’ in which the heroine does not recognize him in the absence of his moustache. - Dumbo! but yes, I liked that and I am not ashamed of it.

And, I have seen many of Govinda movies in a C-class Cinema Hall full of smoke.

Yes, I graduated from a college that nobody recognizes. And, I can’t drive a two-wheeler, not even a bicycle.

Yes, I feel awkward in the parties - maybe because I can't drink the booze. And I never danced, perhaps never can. 

Also, I bought a guitar but could not learn. I also tried synthesizer playing a song by rote, but just that. I forgot it and never could understand the difference between ‘Sa’ and ‘Re’. The melody is an alien for me, yet I can judge the singers of Indian Idol.

Yes, I fear a lot – of darkness, of dogs, of heights, of strangers, of many other things.
And of course, I write what nobody reads.

Yes, I am a loser who wants to be ‘somebody’ – I don’t know what that means actually.

And I am becoming old, perhaps really old that youngsters call me uncle. So, time is running out for me…

Yet, I dream day in and day out…that one day…

 Sunrise at 'Havelock Island'  January 2012

Collateral damage

December 31 to January 01.

One more change of year...with protest being the talk of the town.

Among all the hullaballoo about the safety of the fellow gender and our patriarchal mindset, we may be missing what lies beneath: the lust for more... be it wealth, the comforts, or mere gratification... with never ending appetite...

The cities with increasing slum areas, the villages with almost the have-nots, and everyone vying to become a VIP in a cocoon... where are we actually heading? ...towards shopping Malls, Multiplexes, air-conditioned offices in high-rises, craving for ultra-luxury all the time... creating the dirt on the side-walks as an offshoot!

So, when somebody equates the individual hurt with collateral damage in policing, we cry foul forgetting that it’s always happening around us.

The innocence of children and sensitivity of adults both are becoming extinct with rapid progress of information explosion. The news of a crime doesn’t affect us anymore as it used to be...

Despite such great surge of passion on the streets, the incidences of crime against women or for that matter any crime, are increasing with each passing moment. 

In fact, the gatherings and marches themselves are lucrative opportunities for the eve-teasers and pickpockets. And testimonies of their victims speak of a truth we easily ignore.   

A bleak picture, maybe an exaggeration, but that’s what I feel today as new calendar is replacing the wall…

Wish it would be a better place some day...

Still, the party is on, welcoming the new dawn, with the zeal of ‘braveheart’ intact in the hearts and ready to face the collateral damage…

the childhood dream

I was a child once.
Then, I always looked towards grown-ups with awe, never realizing the preciousness of the childhood.
Often I had big dreams to be a great man. And that greatness was scattered around me...
...My first role model in the initial dreams was "the bus-driver". Perhaps he was a rare entity for me because of our habitat. We lived in Gopeshwar, a remote hill station in Garhwal Himalayas. A road formed a side of our playground and hardly any vehicular traffic passed through it. So, when a few government buses from the faraway places like Nainitial, Haridwar, etc., came in sight during our evening games, all my friends became mesmerised. Some even used to run after the smoke of the bus. Almost all of us liked the smell of that smoke. We had yet to hear the term called 'pollution'. The game could re-start only after a proper discussion about the correct count of the passengers, the route of that bus (mostly inaccurate but then we didn't bother about accuracies.), and the driver, the most important being.
And the fascination grew with each passing day. On many days, there were no buses due to the road-block somewhere at the hilly route. Those days we waited patiently.
I don't know how that waiting turned into an 'emotion-less' state gradually and how that role-model slipped out of my dreams. but the memory lasted till date.

Now, I see my son talking about the driver of his school-van (in Delhi). He is not much bothered about the congested traffic or the driver's skills. It is a routine for him, not a novelty. Rather, he is more influenced from the Cartoon characters of his favourite TV channels like Hungama, Pogo, etc. And he is much more aware of this world as compared to my childhood.
Still, I feel privileged that I had the ignorance in a pristine surrounding, that I had been inhaling the pure fresh air in the evenings. Though I could never drive a bus (neither I have such plan in the future), still I consider it a real great job. And truly befitting to my childhood dream.