The backstory It was yet another tiring weekday. I have had my rough day already and was seeking some peace for myself. The disease was known and the symptoms were clear, and I also decided to apply the same old medicine for it. Chat up with old friends. Today, however the term old meant something different. I had caught up with Namrata and Hricha the previous weekend - online. So I pinged Nammu trying to break a meaningful conversation. Which I did, in a while. An hour into our conversation we added Aditya into the chat, and soon Ramana, and soon we said "we should meet, guys!"
Then someone used the word "reunion" - an irony sort of since Namrata was never in my section and we never had a union while in school. We decided to give it a shot and honestly we have got very nice responses from everybody. Chakri - we loved that email of yours despite its taste. ;)
Over 100 emails, tens of group chats and many phone calls later - the D-day - 27th March arrived.
The D-day
I was 10 minutes late, along with Nammu at our pre-decided meeting spot "the school ground". There wasn't anybody around but soon Shravan came in to join us. We already knew, it was kind of going to be a slow start. An hour later nearly everybody was there with us and we stormed into the school gate - we had written permission from principal - it was only symbolic that the first picture we clicked of was that of me and Shravan kneeling down in front of principal's office. Epic! (pic below)
Within minutes we all became so close as if we have been meeting daily at school over the past 20 yrs. We went down to some classrooms of 6th-8th, and from there down to the assembly area, where we held a mock assembly - and made a mockery of it (pic below). Totally. Me, Ramana and Raghavendra soon took over our role in handling the A&V system - again, only there wasn't any. Some (read many) pics were clicked here, and many subgroups formed and disintegrated - a classic case of a dynamic network behavior. Okay, Rahul - shut up now.
Then we went over to the primary section to meet nobody. But slowly, wryly, I was being reminded of all the tickling events of my life at the time. For instance, in the 5th grade I was punished along with a bunch of others for getting into the scientist hostel behind the school and playing in the pool of water there naked - well almost. We were only swimming. :D
And from the 4th grade, I distinctly remember Rabya Khan madam slapping my test note book on my face. Of course, there after, nothing changed in particular.
In the 3rd grade, I was reminded of very sweet memories of Mini trying her best to make me write my notes and neatly. I did neither of the two.
Two scenes from 2nd class stand apart for me. One was of Mini and Nisha dancing in class in Rama Menon madam's SUPW class. Second was that of Nida. Nida and I were benchmates those days, but I was the lesser benchmate you see. She used to be first to arrive in class and always occupied the bench to the fullest giving me a few centimeters to sit (that allowance, if she wished to be generous!), and again I wasn't supposed to touch her. You see those days, it was a sin, no? (Me and Nida went over to see if our bench by the window still stands - it isn't there anymore sadly.)
I wish there were an easy way to explain the day to you guys who couldn't make it. I wish I had the powers to articulate what I felt today. I wish even deeper we had all guys turned in just so the fun could have replicated.
But for a bubbly angel in the form of Hricha who kept us enthused all along, and but for Shravan's PJs in the latter half of the day (which were not poor at all!) the day wouldn't have maintained its flair.
I wish there was a way in which I (on behalf of all of us) could thank Ramana for taking care in arranging the luncheon. It was special for many reasons including but not limited to: Sowmya's singing talent, SL Aditya's story about the class leaders' punishment, and in many doses the revelation of Ashu-Adi relationship. Okay, not really (pic below). Thanks to Ashu for volunteering for the fun, and Aditya for involuntarily generating much fun. Raghav for the occasional one-liners, Nida for being candid about the sweet corn soup (\m/), Harini and Narayani for those careful stares that reminded me of class 9 and 10. I'm sure at many occasions they had a story to tell and didn't. Waiting for next meet, perhaps? Naresh at his witty best didn't let the flow drift away, Namrata presiding over the proceedings was silently observing and throwing away an occasional tongue-in-cheek one-liner that accounted for her powers of observation and silence.
There was one complaint though, Sreelekha was silent for most part of the day. Most, because, she wasn't silent when we were driving from school to the lunch venue. No, I'm not telling you what she spoke of. It was a secret between her, Namrata and me. :P
Now after all this if don't tell you what I was doing it would be cheating. I was reminiscing good old days at each moment spent with those around me, and those who couldn't come. And whom am I kidding? I was also occasionally stealing a few glances at the ladies who grew up from being young kids over more than a decade.
In the rest of the pics (in that order) the rest of the story would be summed up. The last one really completes it - the billion dollar smile. :)
Quoting noted activist and politician Jayprakash Narayan's words:
భాష కి అందని భావము గుండెను పిండేస్తుంటే మనకి మామూలు మాటలు చాలవు ...
Literally meaning: When words fail to represent emotions and squeezes our heart - normal words won't be enough.
Many thanks to everybody for making it memorable to the extant that words fail me in writing this post.
And like I have said before "Brought back many memories. And new ones were made." :-)
PS: Despite the hype (read motivation) given by Hricha - I couldn't articulate this post well. I'm posting this in order to make it timely.
PS2: This happens to be one of the poorly written post I wrote in recent times. Where my words fail I hope the adorning pics will complete the true story. :)
PS3: It was fantastic to speak on phone with Mini, Nikita and Sriram Reddy while we were in school.
My dear mom, dearest sister, very special aunt, lovely cousin, two of my best friends, and all you sweet fille.
My dear ladies: I didn't greet you on Women's day because I think of you in my own special way every day and there could be no special day for which I could wait.
Women's day is an idea - that demands more of a quest than a celebration. The idea is to be able to afford 'not needing a day to celebrate'. I am living to see a period in time when nobody hears about Women's day anymore. Because, there would be no need, because we would be gender equal among male, female and homophile. While I patiently wait to see that day, dear ladies, I want you to know, that I love you each day with the same fervor and respect.
Still, if me just saying "Happy Women's day" makes a difference to you, I just said it.
Okay, so some of you are gearing up for making a special Valentine's day? You see those roses, the chocolates, a card and hopefully lot of love; such emblematic stuff. And some of you -- I know a lot of you -- are quetching for not having a date for this Valentine's day.
Why do you guys forget that this was supposed to be a day for Valentines and not you - who, it appears, are clearly not one.
How difficult is it?
I never see people kicking for not being able to celebrate Mother's day or Father's day? There is no anticipation for those; they just come and they just go. Yeah you do wish your parents and show your love and stuff but you don't exactly want to become a mother or father, do you? Then why this craving for being a Valentine or wanting one? The question being - not so much the why, but why today?
Let me tell you guys - this is a conspiracy. A global one. You are being dealt into believing that you have to have a Valentine to be a worthwhile citizen. No you don't. It is nice if you have one, but you don't have to pass through this phase of shallowness and maniac dumbness this year if you don't have a valentine.
The roots of the solution to this problem stem from the grand solution to all the social problems. And that solution depends heavily not on an answer but a question: "How do you define happiness?"
If your definition of happiness is defined around you - that is alright and close to perfect. But if you have it defined in contrast with others - your life is a total mess. And that is the problem with Valentine's day. We are being led into believing that everybody around you has something special this day, while you don't. Somehow inferior. So you must have a Valentine by next year and feel better perhaps. Right? preposterous.
On giving further thought - I might come to a conclusion that says "the reason for too many break-ups these days is these Valentine's syndrome".
Like mothers' day is for mothers, or as fathers' day is for fathers, the same is for valentine's day - it is for valentines. In each case, as much as you want it to be, it is not for the to-be's.
Now some quirky notes from my twitter folks with a bottomline: Valentines' day is overrated.
Like @Krishashok famously said: "Valentine's day is for people who aren't creative enough to express love on the remaining 364 days". I'd only add, 'Leap years make them only worse; beware 2012 is around'.
Or the world famous (according to @krishashok :P) @Lavsmohan said: "If you're single today, don't be miserable. Remember that you're going to be single tomorrow, too. And maybe forever. That's a lot of miserable."
And she adds "Dear me, Happy Valentines Day. I love you."
Now go ahead and bitch about me already, or go give your love to those friends who have valentines. Celebrate their valentine's day.
Have a fun-filled Valentine's day, and really, every other day too!
All of you, each one of you whom I am addressing in this post are different, very different, and yet have something in common. There is something common to all of us, and it is not our education or our career. We are all people, and despite all our differences in appearances, thoughts and imaginations, we have a belief in common. By virtue of experience I believe that all readers of this piece are ~25 yrs old. A 5 here or there is fine, because you’d still believe in what I’m going to say. That belief is this: “Half our active life has been done with, so let’s play the second innings a little better.” Disagree?
Truth be told: I have felt it ever since I have been a 20 year old, and I presume each one of you did, but since that isn’t the central idea behind this post I’d defer the discussion to our personal chat, shall I?
So we all are a bunch of 25 somethings—to sound being inclusive let me say 20 somethings – that are all very different from each other and have spent half our life, supposedly purposelessly and are working towards a better life in the second innings. The journey of a human being is defined by his relationships with various people in his life; how he deals with his friend, parents, spouse, daughter etc. Quite nerve-wrenchingly we agree –with a reasonable discomfort– that at times we have had messed up some of our relationships. I give you three very short stories that you can relate to (either directly or indirectly) and those that connect together to put forward the message I want to convey.
You have had a friend, a rather nice friend, someone whom you have harbored for many years, and who returned the same cozy environment to you. But this was before you were forced to break out of that beautiful relationship you shared. I cannot stress the importance of how well you enjoyed in their company, how beautifully you treasure each of the particle of their shady character. On a beautiful Saturday evening, however, in a momentary (and perhaps momentous) fit of anger, you discarded the possibility of having a greater & much deeper (meaningful) friendship.
Then there was a friend – of opposite sex – and she was as nice to you as nice could mean; you studied, gabbled, played pranks on others, laughed and cried, everything together. You had begun liking her a lot, and there was an incessant dream of sharing the rest of the life with her – which suddenly looked possible. You told her your feelings; she retaliated and resisted your advances. It looked like a ton of contradictions, and life seemed miser than ever before. Now at this point you probably decided to live on as a great friend with her, but perhaps, she has other ideas – she wants to move out of this volatile relationship you both were having.You both have never dealt with this before – and she chose the wrong way to end it – and she ends the relationship abruptly, calling you guilty of treachery & betrayal. Feeling disgusted at what just happened, you riposted in authority – claiming innocence. The irony – you feel cheated, betrayed and see yourself on the other side of the treason. You snub off the person from your life, and vowed to never communicate with the person again.
You were talking to your dad; discussing, debating, and fencing each other well. During the activity came an awkward situation which you thought wasn’t appropriate, a very awkward conversation it was turning to be. Soon the discussion would result in a debate, you continue. But, out of the blue, the debate would result in a wasted confrontation. It was a petty issue, nevertheless. If not, then like the countless other lowly issues, this issue had a wide-eyed solution that could be accepted. If only, yes, if only, instead of confronting your dad, you were willing to confront the petty issue. You hated your dad since that evening, and that had conjured itself & nurtured for the rest of your life.
So what do we have here?
A great friendship that went too shallow.
A great friendship that was lost in confusion.
A steady relationship that succumbed to confrontation.
In each of the above cases, the much clichéd idea of apologizing could sort the problem out. But, on the face of it, there seems to be a problem with apologizing. Apologizing might imply that you were wrong in first place; truth is: nobody likes to lose a battle, even with the loved ones. Apologizing would make sense If, and only if, at least one of the two parties were willing to move on with the idea that 'losing a battle with the loved one' being equivalent to 'losing the battle for the loved one'. The idea behind this post isn’t just to re-ignite the pleasures of those greener pastures, those most cherished moments of your life, the importance of the most pricy people of your life; I always had a greater purpose, for I want to understand what an apology means. Imagine how simple life would be if you were not required to apologize. Yes, what if none of the two parties had to apologize – because maybe none of them was ever wrong. It is important to realize that there could be something beyond apologizing and forgiving; which is to do neither of the two. Yes the good old English proverb “Ignorance is bliss” is the message we all know but hardly implement at the right time. Let us get the second innings right –and win this life in peace. :)
Before I start my first ever movie review I’d like to make the rules of the review clear.
I’m not a movie freak, and not a fan to any actor/actress.
I’m not even a controlled movie freak, and still not a fan to any actor/actress.
I’m always trying not to hate (especially since I’m known to hate Lakshmi Manchu for producing Jummandhi Naadham and trying to rave about it on twitter streams).
Now that the three not’s have dilated the rules/assumptions, I’d get to the theme of this plot.
Yamla Pagla Deewana
Totally unexpected that I would run into this movie because I have always thought that Bobby Deol sucks; and completely thankful to those who suggested this movie to me. When I asked a colleague to come watch the movie with us, she said “Koi Pagla hi aaye us movie ko dekhne”; I smiled and now reluctantly agreed. Given their reputation who expects a decent movie from Sunny Deol these days? Now don’t get me started on Bobby Deol because that pawn doesn’t even trot.
The Deol trio had got together, marking the comeback of Dharmendra, and perhaps what should be the final attempt to revive the career – that never took off – of Bobby Deol. Though Dharmendra must be lauded for his performance at that age, and considering his comeback after a long time, he must understand that his son Bobby isn’t worth the time. Sunny Deol gave the audience what was expected of him: Masculinity and masculine dialogues. The chirping comedy that traversed throughout the movie was missing the essential timing in some cases, but overall was a great success, and generated the guffaws expected of this film. Oh, and did I mention the amazing comic timing of Anupam Kher? Nothing new, and everybody is bound to be on a laughter riot when the village politics scene is portrayed; which also turns out to be a tolerant mockery of our political system. And of course, the simple & beautiful Kulraj Randhwa did justice to her clichéd role.
Now another point worth mentioning is that the first 30 minutes were a total shocker, it nearly gave me nausea. In creating the rather lousy characters of Dharam paaji (Dharmendra) & Gajodhar (Bobby Deol), they created a mess that was totally outlandish, however at the end of the movie you won’t remember the vile beginnings the movie made. This was also the first time (for me) two item songs were played in the same film, and these were also played nearly back-to-back & were part of the first half hour, thankfully.
As soon as I came back from the movie I gave it a rating 3.0, and soon saw this conversation my Brother had with his roomies.
As soon as I saw that I realized two things:
My brother was talking about me (or my tweet on this movie).
His friend was right.
So now I reevaluated my scripts and the final rating for the movie is 2.75, without any regrets. So, if you are looking for a movie with just the entertainment quotient high – go for it, you won’t regret.
Anaganaga O Dheerudu (AOD)
As soon as I came back from the movie I tweeted this:
There are average movies. And there is "Anaganaga O Dheerudu" which is below that line. Yes. Below Average. Not recommended. #MovieRating 2.0
Not friendly at all, I understand. But I’d like to explain why I gave that.
Plot
A fantasy must have – at the least –a closely-knit gripping storyline, strong central characters, and a great villain. AOD has been promising all three of these ever since they started promoting it. AOD clearly lacked the first, tried to create the second (& failed at the borderline), and was very close to making it at the third requirement. Let us be clear about it, getting fantasy right is very difficult and very important; there must have been, after all, some reason why nobody tried such a fantasy-adventure in Tollywood too often. And
Now since everybody has been comparing AOD with Magadheera (MD) even before AOD released it would be fair for me where there are differences and where it shouldn’t be compared at all.
First of all, let us get the difference right: AOD is a fantasy-adventure, while MD comes in an Action/Drama package. Now the similarities for me end at the usage of graphics/visual effects. While people have been saying that this will redefine the way movie making is done in tollywood, I’d like to disagree: on an average Tollywood movie you can’t use the sort of visuals that Disney provided for AOD. MD had a tight storyline, and had great connections with the central theme and characters from two incarnations, while AOD failed at creating any sort of mystique. Other comparisons are juxtaposed with AOD’s individual characters’ characterizations.
Tanikala Bharani was totally underutilized, and Ali’s Lachimi getup has become bland by now.
Actors
Siddharth: Siddharth Looked naïve for his character. He was supposed to be a Yodha, and to be entirely honest there were only one or two moments when I felt so. Except, of course, when he was called by his name in the movie – which of course was Yodha. The only reason (I reckon) for such a name to the character is that Sid couldn’t symbolize/carry such a strong character by himself. Which is piss poor because (in media and the ballyhoo) Yodha has been continually been compared to Kala Bhairava portrayed by Ram Charan Teja, which is wrong at so many levels. Firstly, the characterization of Yodha didn’t sound strong at all, or it couldn’t be reflected on screen. Within minutes of introducing Kala Bhairava, we were mesmerized into believing that he could fight scores of men all alone, while Yodha always looked like an underdog, and his blindfolded character wasn’t strengthened enough visually. This is an important differentiating aspect in the climax fight of the two movies. In MD the climax fight was inspiring, whereas in AOD it was just a formality. Secondly, though Siddharth is a better actor when compared to Ram Charan Teja, his performance is much lower than his caliber when compared to what Ram Charan raised.
Shruti: Shruti Hassan, marking her tollywood debut, carried herself beautifully in the character of Priya. Some scenes that were supposedly romantic were jinxed by the apparent lack of chemistry with Sid. Individually, however, she outscored what was expected by her as a debutant. She was a fresh face, and came with a sensual touch to her character right from the beginning. Her face has the charm to keep both men and women equally interested, and she is the best find of this movie for Tollywood.
Lakshmi: Lakshmi Manchu marked her Tollywood debut with a negative role of Irendri in AOD. Just for taking such a leap of faith, she must be commended; however, she wasn’t up to the mark and looked totally out of place. Especially, given the hoopla she created over her twitter stream each day that everybody is applauding her work. She doesn’t have a great amount of expression required for such a class negative role – which also happens to be the best developed character of the movie. Most of the negative role was played by the make-up and graphics, both of which have nothing to do with her. I’m also certain, her director faced a lot of trouble in getting her act right. If you see carefully, she cannot use her lower body at all, almost as if paralyzed down the waist. This is clearly visible in the solo song she was gifted with – and the song has been wasted. Even in other scenes where she was supposed to deliver strong negativity, her expressions underperformed in comparison to her voice, which wasn’t compatible either. To be clear: she should have got someone else to dub her voice as well; Lakshmi’s voice isn’t mature enough to take on this role. Overall, adding some points for her courage to take on such a role: she just crossed the line of average.
Harshita: Harshita as Moksha, did what she could, but again like I mentioned, she wasn’t given enough power in her role to do something special, though she was supposed to be one of the pillars of the movie. Moksha’s role missed the aura & mystique that should have accompanied the characterization. The only aura that Moksha is granted is her butterflies. Sorry, when I watched the movie even kids in the hall didn’t like it.
Response
I overheard (actually heard) kids shouting “Lets go back mom, this is boring.” So painful to hear such things because they were supposed to be most impressed with the visuals. By interval, one kid deciphered “Magadheera was much better than this one”. I felt genuinely sorry for the filmmakers and these kids, equally.
Wikileaks -- The theory, the practice and the hindsight.
"In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win." Or will it? (adapted from Rupert Murdoch, 1958)
The first question I asked myself was “At the personal level Julian Assange received death threats, assassination calls, hints at attempt of extradition and at an organizational level Wikileaks suffered withdrawal of DNS services, Amazon’s server space, and followed up by Paypal, Mastercard & Visa’s withdrawal of their online payment gateways for Wikileaks. Europe calls him a rapist for over a week, while Sweden rather leisurely confirms that the charges aren’t for a Rape but for something called ‘Sex by Surprise’, which not just the world is unaware of, but rest of the Europe declared to have not understood properly. (We’d later see that even Swedish law doesn’t make it very clear!) What drives someone to pursue something like Wikileaks, so passionately, and unnervingly despite all the negativity that shrouds him?
There are two threads to this story
1.Julian Assange
2.Wikileaks
I’d like to run parallel paths from here, first describing what each entity means to the world as it stands today, and then the conspiracy behind them. It would be a nice attempt by me if I’d have successfully tingled myself (or the reader) by drawing the right connections by the end of this prose.
First a brief account of both Assange and Wikileaks, as described on the Wikipedia page of Julian Assange (accessed on 12th December 2010, 3 AM IST), and also mildly edited to add other relevant content from credible sources.
Julian Paul Assange (born 3 July 1971) is an Australian journalist, publisher, and Internet activist. He is best known as the spokesperson and editor in chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Before working with the website, he was a computer programmer and hacker.He has lived in several countries, and has made occasional public appearances to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism.
Assange founded the WikiLeaks website in 2006 and serves on its advisory board. He has been involved in publishing material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya, for which he won the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award. He has also published material about toxic waste dumping in Africa, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, and banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer. In 2010, he published classified details about United States involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then, on 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing secret U.S. diplomatic cables. The White House calls Assange's actions reckless and dangerous.
For his work with WikiLeaks, Assange received the 2008 Economist Freedom of Expression Award and the 2010 Sam Adams Award. Utne Reader named him as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World". In 2010, New Statesman ranked Assange number 23 among the "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures".
On 30 November 2010, at the request of the International Public Prosecution Office in Gothenburg, Sweden, Interpol placed Assange on its red notice list of wanted persons; he was wanted for questioning about alleged sexual offenses, and voluntarily submitted to the London Metropolitan Police Service on 7 December 2010. Assange denies the accusations made against him.
Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for "sex crimes". Everyone assumed it was for rape. But it turns out it was for violating an obscure Swedish law against having sex without a condom. In the past, Assange has dismissed the allegations, stating on Twitter: "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing." Last week Stephens [Assange’s Lawyer] added: "This appears to be a persecution and a prosecution. It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue [an Interpol] red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor's questions."
Admirably clear, and something everybody already knows perhaps.
The idea behind Wikileaks has been primarily conceived by Julian Assange himself, evidenced by him registering a domain named leaks.org, as early as in 1999. Often termed ‘the whistleblower’ website, Wikileaks, was formed in 2006 in an attempt to disclose all the secretive diplomatic cables the team had already instituted in their investigations. That year, Assange set out the philosophy behind WikiLeaks: "To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not."
The informed reader might have observed that his definition of a conspiracy is also somewhat different. It is not used in the usual sense of people sitting in a room and plotting a crime or deception. In assange’s view, a conspiracy is possible in which no person in the conspiracy was aware that they were part of the conspiracy. If you still find it complicated you must read the below references.
In his 2006 article on ‘Conspiracy vs Governance’, he wrote:
“Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.”
This phenomenon can be clearly illustrated with a recent example.Suppose that the leader of an Arab country wants the United States to take strong action against Iran.If the Arab leader’s people knew he took such a radical position there would be strongly vetted political blowback and resistance (and possible political risk for him), hence he conducts his discussions with the United States in secret.Almost unknowingly, he has become part of a conspiracy.
Assange’s actual ideas are so theoretically sound & profound (starting from first principles), that they are not within an average readers’ reach. I consider myself an average reader, and it took me three days of reading and re-reading a lot of articles (roughly over 100) written either by Assange or media or philosophers around the world to reach to my current state. [As I write this, I haven’t slept for more than 3 hrs in the last 30 hrs.]
So I’d advise you to skip his original work. But if you can understand, or are further curious after reading the above quoted paragraph and the following explanation, do continue to read his original article still available on the web.
The next obvious question is “Why are such conspiracies harmful?”
The real harm is seen when the conspiracy become extremely powerful, because whatever the intentions of the individuals within the network, the network itself is optimized for its own success, and not for the benefit of those outside of the network.Again, this is not by design, it is just an emergent property of such systems that they function in this way. Someone who has been involved in graphical models or network theory can readily vouch of this, and I do.I’d take a further step and try to explain it in terms of Page rank like algorithm of google, which a much larger audience might be aware of. [Meaning: those who understood this part, can skip to next paragraph.] Let us say we all have webpages, and say we are all interconnected in some form on our social graph, say similar to our Facebook social graph. But our webpages, are a little different, to rank them high on google, if just one credible source, say an eminent blogger or an academic mentions my website on his page, while none of yours has such priviledge, my page would be ranked higher. In hindsight, if I have linked say fellow blogger Sundeep Kota’s webpage in the Bloggers’ section, and then linked Praveen Bysani’s webpage in colleagues’ link he would also draw some weightage from me which probably came from some higher authority. Now the point of concern here is, I also worked a lot with Vijay Bharat and him not being connected in this network doesn’t do him any good for he lost the leverage. I never intended any harm or benefit to anybody, it just happened that it benefitted Sundeep & Praveen while it went against Vijay. [For clarity, my webpage currently does not have links to any of Sundeep, Praveen or Vijay.]
In another 2006 manuscript titled ‘State and Terrorist Conspiracies’ Assange says “How can we reduce the ability of a conspiracy to act?…We can split the conspiracy, reduce or eliminating important communication between a few high weight links or many low weight links.”
Which means even if the network survives it may be forced to split into parts, in which case the network becomes powerless. Though it still exists and is still a valid conspiracy, it now reduces to a weaker conspiracy.
On his blogpost titled ‘The Nonlinear Effects of Leaks on Unjust Systems of Governance’ dated December 21, 2006 he wrote “The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption.”
And added “Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.”
In simpler terms, leaks make it harder for the conspiracy to deal its very business and that is all to the good.
Now the major media banter we have seen in the last week. Just to add perspective.
First, the highlights, to all those who have no idea what Wikileaks exposed so far.
I’d recommend everybody to go through this 2.5 minute Video, to be informed of the leaks by Wikileaks on a lighter [comic] tone.
And those who believe in the written word must read this.
Now the story of what happened during last week, and how it unfolded.
Apparently, the US believes it can catch hold of Julian Assange under espionage act, that is, on charges of spying. Fortunately, they probably didn’t realize that Assange is not an US national and the espionage act doesn’t apply to him. Even worse,“the due process clause rules out prosecuting WikiLeaks' founder – a non-US citizen – for extraterritorial offences”.
Some sources consider Julian Assange to be the most dangerous person alive on earth; ironically that tone resembles what Agent Smith tells Neo about Morpheus in “The Matrix”. There is an increasing following of Julian Assange on the open web, and the recent supported provided by the online hacker community Anonymous is a telling tale. Perhaps, it is also worth mentioning that Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer, both wearing their philosopher’s hat signed an open letter to the Prime Minister of Australia urging the government to condemn calls for Australian citizen and Wikileaks founder to be assassinated.
For the unaware junta, Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher and Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, who is most well known for his involvement in the creation of the animal rights movement. Noam Chomsky, who has authored more than 150 books on political theory, linguistics, and philosophy, is a Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"The materials—we should understand—and the Pentagon Papers is another case in point—that one of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population," Chomsky said in an interview with the Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. "In the Pentagon Papers, for example, there was one volume, the negotiations volume, which might have had bearing on ongoing activities, and Dan Ellsberg withheld that. That came out a little bit later."
The Pentagon Papers were a collection of top-secret Department of Defense documents on the history of the United States' involvement in Vietnam that were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg.
"But if you look at the Papers themselves, there are things that Americans should have known that the government didn’t want them to know," he continued. "And as far as I can tell, from what I’ve seen here, pretty much the same is true. In fact, the current leaks are—what I’ve seen, at least—primarily interesting because of what they tell us about how the diplomatic service works."
Few hours before his arrest in UK, over the supposed unknown/unlabled sex charges (which is another story of course), The Australian released Julian Assange’s message to the world aptly titled “Don’t shoot the messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths”
Some excerpts
In 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.
…
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.
Finally, come to think of it what is it for wikileaks? A win or a loss, or just another day?
Time’s had an excellent piece, excerpted here and a link to the source follows.
When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's voluntary surrender to the British authorities might have put an end to the crisis created by the Internet provocateur's dissemination of tens of thousands of state secrets. But in the upside-down world of transnational crowdsourcing unleashed by WikiLeaks, in which thousands of activists around the globe can be rallied to defend and extend its work, Assange's arrest is a win, not a loss, for his organization.
The asymmetrical info war initiated by the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables is all about spectacle — the more Assange is set up by world powers, the more powerful his own movement becomes. "The field of battle is WikiLeaks," wrote John Perry Barlow, a former Grateful Dead lyricist and founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the First Amendment advocacy group, in a message to his followers. "You are the troops." WikiLeaks admiringly forwarded the post to 300,000 of its own followers. As the U.S. and other governments attempted to close down WikiLeaks over the past week, those "troops" have fought back. And so far, it doesn't look like much of a contest.
Meanwhile, if people are wondering would Wikileaks be suppressed and all the leaked (and unleaked) information taken into custody. This is 2010, and it is nearly impossible to do so. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan makes a nice attempt to inform why technically the suppression is not possible, in his article here. http://searchengineland.com/why-wikileaks-will-never-be-closed-58226
A better more theoretically sound argument can be seen here: http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article931445.ece
Now, before you complain, I also have here a sample cable here attached. Enjoy it, for not just the political mystery but for the poetic delight it tried to generate.
1. (S/NF) Summary: We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I. A full commitment's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from any other guy.I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand.
2. (C/NF) Chorus:Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.
3. (S/NF) We've known each other for so long Your heart's been aching but You're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on We know the game and we're gonna play it
And if you ask me how I'm feeling Don't tell me you're too blind to see
4. (C/NF) Chorus: Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.
There are too many interesting articles, cables, editorials and speeches that I’m tempted to dump here, but I’d restrain myself from doing so for the sake of brevity. The only aspect of Julian Assange I have not discussed in this post is his apparent sexual encounters with those two Swedish women and the reported ‘sexual crimes’ that they charge on him. I explicitly tried to avoid that part of the story because I find that very funny and do not want to spoil the mood of this article which is on a rather serious and factual tone. I’d reserve the sex charges for another post, maybe.
If I give so much positive response to wikileaks I’d be called biased and I can’t live with such a connotation. I do have my apprehensions about some things wikileaks’ leaks. A couple of points here:
On a theoretical note, is it necessarily the case that the conspiracy can’t act to the benefit of others?Arab leaders are conspiring with the United States to defeat Iran’s nuclear program, but isn’t this a good thing?No, I don’t have an answer to it.
To what extent is Wikileaks itself a conspiracy? To this end, are there good conspiracies and bad conspiracies?Should we distinguish between conspiracies of the powerful and conspiracies of those who seek to level the playing field?At what point would a network like Wikileaks become too powerful?
These ideas of course aren’t just mine, and have been well thought over during preceding weeks. In the end, of course, the idea of this post was not to give a positive dossier about Assanage or Wikileaks, it was supposed to be just an enlightenment or food for thought to all those who argued on facebook, twitter and chats, without ever reading any single decent article on what exactly is going on.
You are in the information age folks, wake up! And wake up to the inconvenient truth!
PS: I respect intelligent debates (by anybody) in comments, but intelligent is the 'keyword'. Please give respect, and take it from the rest.
