Segmentation Fault: Core dumped..;-)

Musings and Confessions

Posted : September 14, 2005 at 10:17 pm [America/Los_Angeles]

Sometimes I think I am a man without a country.

- me

Kurt Vonnegut probably used the title of his book in a different context. But somehow it really resonated with me today as I came back home after having a somewhat depressing day at work. As you probably know, I am an Indian by birth who came to the United States with my very own share of American Dreams. One could say India is my janmabhoomi (land where I was born) while America is my karmabhoomi (land where I work). Bottomline, I luv America and care about its future as much as I do for India. And yes there are many times when I swear the people and certain developments in these two countries drive me nuts.

To be honest, for a good part of the last ten years, Computers and Internet and the latest cool tool was everything in my life. It still is. Atleast, to some extent. However, things changed during the US Presidential Elections of 2000. Something was not right. Something changed ever so slightly. But it changed forever. And then 9/11 happened. If things at the end of 2000 felt not ok, 9/11 pretty much made sure that it was not going to be ok for a llloooonnngg time. “Operation Enduring Freedom” followed. And almost out of nowhere, Iraqi WMD and their imminent threat to the security of US citizens pervaded the air-waves and ether-waves. Not surprisingly, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was unleashed. Meanwhile, Mother Nature threw two particularly lethal curveballs - Tsunami (Dec. 2004) and Katrina (Aug. 2005) - as if trying to remind us all in a rather cruel way who the “real” superpower was. In between, the poorly planned escapades of the “other” superpower in Iraq and Afghanistan made sure that we had a steady stream of bad news. And as all these events unfolded, besides worrying about my day job and its fair share of challenges, I would find myself in moods which went from complete optimism some of the time to utter pessimism most of the time. As you can guess, today was one of those bad days. Come to think of it, I can live with bad news. I can even live, although barely, with incompetent leaders. What I cannot stand are these politicians and pundits who spin facts, distort truth and sometimes downright lie in order to influence the opinion of people cause they know they can.

My friends have sometimes wondered why I care. It’s not like I am an American. And what happens in India cannot help or hurt me (atleast not directly) while I continue to live in the US. Moreover, is it really ok for me to be so public about my feelings on US and its policies which some could argue would probably make more enemies than friends in this extremely polarized country. I am not sure I have a very good answer other than to say that in this globalized and flat world of ours, everything happening in this world is everyone’s business. It’s really that simple.

And if anyone cares, for the record, I am not anti-Bush. Heck, I am not anti-anybody. I think a better way to put it would be that I am more Pro-World, Pro-Earth. Frankly, I think President Bush is a good man. He has a good heart. That’s what I think. I really do. Having said that, I don’t think he is competent to be the President of the United States (POTUS) and what irks me the most about him is his “zero” intellectual curiosity and patience to try to learn and comprehend things that are a bit more involved. It’s not good enough to be a good man or even have a good team surrounding you. It really takes more to be the POTUS. A lot more.

- Anand

Category: Personal |