Censorship.

What is freedom according to you? Whatever will be your answer to this, it’s be vastly different from your Chinese and American counterpart.

The Chinese would define freedom as what their government decided to let them know. Freedom in China is regulated by the government. As a result the top internet companies do not exist in China. They are all banned.

Chinese regulators can even ban some terms from public use. For eg. They can’t use the term “I oppose” or “I question” because these terms can be used to question the government. So the govt banned these terms. Easy.

After reading the Chinese story, you must be thinking that we are lucky Indians. So much of freedom we have.

Before you get to thankful for being an Indian, you need to listen to the American story. In America president Trump is regularly questioned on his measures and sometimes even jokingly mocked in media. Indian media can’t even think of doing that without being called things like Anti-national. Americans are much more free to hold their own opinion. In India people are forcing each other to believe what they believe to be right.

So India clearly has a long way to go when it comes to freedom of press and even the freedom of speech of an individual.

Definitely, we should be glad to not be born in China but also noone should feel bad about not being in America.

Let’s together take a step towards freedom of speech and opinion and let people have their personal opinions. The key word being PERSONAL. When it’s personal, it’s none of your or government’s business to change anything in that.

Democracy accommodates different views and opinions and we are the largest democracy of the world. Let’s operate responsibly.

-ChoubeySahab

Morality.

We think we are all people with good moral values. That we function as per ethical code of conduct. But in reality this is not how we operate.

A good example of this would be “The trolley problem” :

You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up people lying on the tracks. You are standing next to a lever that controls a switch. If you pull the lever, the trolley will be redirected onto a side track, and the five people on the main track will be saved. However, there is a single person lying on the side track.

You have two options:

1. Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.

2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

Which is the more ethical option? What would you do?

If you think logically then lives of 5 people is more valuable than life of one. So morally speaking, it should be obvious to pull the lever and move the trolley to the side track. But psychologists argue that most would choose to not do anything and let the trolley run over 5.

Why? Because when 5 people get killed, you won’t directly be responsible for it, they would have died if you were not there at all. But if you pulled the lever, you would directly feel responsible for the death of one.

You see how to avoid being held responsible, we choose inaction over saving lives. This is also observable when a fight is happening in a public area and most onlookers choose to stay away, because they fear getting slapped in the process of stopping the fight.

It can also be observed why many ignore an injured person on road instead of taking him to the hospital because they fear that maybe this person did something wrong or is drunk or is not in a stable mental state.

We justify not doing anything in the face of what would have been morally correct to do. We claim to have ethics and all but all we seek and do is what is best in our own self interest.

A bit of inconvenience and doubt in our head and we choose to ignore and not get involved.

It is unfortunate that morality in human behavior is a disappearing trait and all we are driven by is the interest of self.

If you still think you are different and do act morally whenever possible, I can bet you won’t pull the lever in the trolley experiment either. Inaction is what you’ll choose. If you do somehow pull the lever then you’d feel the guilt for it, not so much if the trolley had run over 5.

How would we feel (guilty or otherwise) is all we care about.

We are selfish beings and in being so morality loses out.

-ChoubeySahab

Some deserve hate.

When it comes to hate. There are many who are very quick to say that hate is bad. But you know, it isn’t as simple as this.

Things aren’t always black and white. I agree love is good, but hatred (though considered bad by most) has a role to play in our society. Hatred is what some people deserve, indifference or forgiving would mean wrong, not just to you but the whole societal structure.

If you don’t hate terrorism then you are, even unwantedly, playing a part in promoting terrorism. Terrorism deserves hatred.

This applies to other parts of life as well. Everyone has a set of values which one can’t and shouldn’t compromise on like self respect. If someone infringes with that you got to take a stand because if you don’t then there’s a high probability that someone else will pop up tomorrow and do the same to you.

If you can’t tolerate people who don’t know how to value trust. You got to throw them out of your life.

I know I’m using heavy words here but that’s the point I’m trying to make here. You can’t always take it light. There comes a point where you got to stand for yourself and take a rigid stand.

If taking a stand involves hatred, so be it.

Some deserve hate, and if you don’t give them that you are doing a disservice to them and the society.

-ChoubeySahab

Social media is a myth.

The good/bad thing about social media is that you’ve full control over it. You can choose what part of your life others need to know and what part they should not know about.

Almost all prefer to show the good parts of it. This makes one feel that everyone else’s life is good and mine is not good enough. So what do they do, they start sharing the good parts of their lives.

This makes many feel bad about the lives they are leading. But in reality, we don’t know what’s going wrong in their lives. Maybe if you knew all about what’s going on in one’s life, you’d feel better about your own.

But it’s not possible to know everything about someone else’s life. Then what do we do? Feel happy for them when they achieve something. Don’t try to compare it with what you are doing.

Your life is good enough. Don’t compare it with anyone.

-ChoubeySahab

What actually needs to be done?

India lost some 42 braveheart soldiers in the cowardly attack that happened at Pulwama. The citizens of this country are outraged about this and rightly so.

But yesterday when I was in a metro, it really hit me where we are collectively going wrong about this. I entered the metro and stood because there was no seat. Then on the next stop an old man entered and one fauji gave his seat to the old man.

I know that he was a fauji from his Army uniform. This fauji then kept standing for the next half an hour until his stop arrived. Isn’t this funny? That a country so outraged by the attack can’t even show basic respect by offering a fauji their seat.

Are you angry just because Pakistan has been successful in hitting on India or because the lives we have lost? From that metro scene, I believe it’s the former.

For the past 24 hours I’ve seen a lot of anger posts and everything but the need of the hour is respect. I’ve seen WhatsApp videos of other countries where people stand up in unison when army personnel walk through.

The point I’m trying to make here is respect soldiers while they are here, doing candle match after they are gone is all good but doesn’t really help anyone.

If you genuinely want to do good, next time offer your funckin seat to that man in bus, metro or anywhere. Make him feel like he is doing something special. Wish him well whenever you see an armyman. Just that respect would go a long way in ensuring peace to those who laid down their lives.

Learn to respect them first, then talk of avenging their loss.

-ChoubeySahab

Forgiving is cowardice.

You say hate is bad and it should not be pursued. But I believe hate has an important role to play in demoting bad behavior in society.

There is no wrong in hating on the grounds of something being terribly wrong with a person or organization.

I’ve always had problem with forgiving people. People who broke my trust, people who lied, people who betrayed. Forgiving would just mean that I can tolerate all that shit and instead of demoting such behavior, by forgiving I may end up encouraging the person to do the same with someone else because then again the person will expect to be forgiven.

Multiply what I just said a billion times and that’s what is presently the state of this nation. There is anger, hate and what not. You dare not tell me that hate isn’t the answer. You dare not tell me that dialogue will solve things.

Terrorism has a language of it’s own and it understands none other. If I put it in hindi, “laton k bhoot, baton se nahin mante”.

It is shameful of this nation that terror of such an extent can go undetected. There are a big number of questions waiting to be answered. But an even bigger number of raging Indian hearts waiting for a just answer to this one.

Forgiving is cowardice. Hit back and soon!

-ChoubeySahab

Is inherence good.

Is it right that someone is born with a golden spoon while some are born poor and in distress. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening with each passing generation. Should we blame inheritance, wherein a person’s wealth is given to his son even if he hasn’t worked for it.

The father doesn’t just pass on the wealth but valuable knowledge of how to manage wealth. This is why you see the young Ambanis working at high positions in reliance from the beginning. It’s because their father wants them to learn how to run this huge empire.

If it continues in this fashion for the next generations as well then Ambani family would continually get richer while the poor and working class would remain hand to mouth.

But is this the way society should run? Where one gets previliges for being born in a wealthy family while another is deprived of enough food because his parents can’t manage that even.

We seek equality in everything, from gender to caste to religion but what about wealth. Why this disparity is wealth distribution.

The very removal of this inheritance policy can cause a lot of good to the society. All would get a basic amount of money from the government which in turn would ensure basic nutrition and education for all.

Which would ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to be the next Ambani. Wealth should not be concentrated and mantained in a few hands. Equality at the opportunity to amass wealth is what we need to collectively seek.

-ChoubeySahab

Effectiveness is better than efficiency.

Effectiveness is when you get something done and efficiency is when you get it done applying least possible resources. Then how can effectiveness be better than efficiency.

It is because when we start chasing efficiency, we start thinking too much about everything. This consumes time and so many times infringes with effectiveness i.e. completing a task on time.

Getting something done is more important that getting it done in the best possible way.

Efficiency is no doubt good and there is no bad in seeking it but not at the expense of effectiveness. Not doing something fearing inefficiency is dumb.

A lot of tasks we do everyday are inefficient. Even our sleep is inefficient, still we get it done every night.

Similarly, everything important needs to be done even if you are not efficient enough. If you want to write a piece about a topic you deeply care about, them take a pen and paper and write it, don’t think that you are a terrible writer.

Not trying it would only lead to one result that is the task not getting done at all, while, on the other hand, if you try you might succeed at writing a good enough piece to share with your friends.

Efficiency is good but effectiveness (completing the task) is more important.

Here by writing this blog, I’m being effective (wrote one blog for this day) but whether I’m efficient (if the blog is good or bad) will be determined by you.

-ChoubeySahab

I have a topic today.

Just kidding! I don’t. Today again I don’t have a topic to write on. What do we write on today now? Nothing.

Ok let’s talk about nothing then. There is something interesting about nothing. When you ask someone, whatsup and they say “nothing”, you know that they just don’t want to share it because something must be up.

Then there are times when one starts feeling nothing. This one is for real. People go numb to their surroundings and everything when having a low time. I don’t like this nothingness because it doesn’t feel like one is alive.

Then there is my favorite kind of nothing, it’s when I do nothing and sleep. Nothing is better than doing nothing. Idleness and rest are the best forms of nothing.

Another kind of nothing is when someone is about to say something but they stop after a second and when you ask them to continue, they say “it’s nothing”. This one irritates me the most. I’m sure it would be the same with you.

Are there more types of nothing? Um I can’t think of anymore. Can you?

-ChoubeySahab

What do I write about?

This question comes to haunt me every now and then and today is one such day. I can’t really think of a topic to write on. So I’ll write on this question itself. Cool no?

This is how the process goes for these blogs, I wake up, think of a good topic to write, once I get the topic, I write, proofread, hit publish (at choubeysahab.com).

But on days like today, I could not think of a topic convincing enough to write a whole blog on. Then what do I do? I go to different websites and read multiple articles on different issues. Mostly after doing this, I get my topic. But today, as you can see , I didn’t.

Now what do we do, either I can go on reading random stuff on the internet until I get the topic or just write on some silly topic and get done with it. Mostly I go the former way of reading until I find a good topic but today, for a change, I took the other way.

People ask me every now and then that what’s the biggest issue I face for writing one blog a day because a writer’s block does come to every writer. But in my case, the biggest issue is finding good interesting topics to write on.

So here you are reading on a topic you never asked for. But that’s why I love my readers. This stick by me on my bad days, the days when the blog isn’t good enough or the topic is just way too silly. Thank you for reading! I owe you better topics and blogs. Do suggest me if you have some in your mind.

-ChoubeySahab