The Eyes of Dugga. 

Dugga# is all of fourteen. Young , nubile with a vivacious voice Dugga truly is a rendition of the Goddess herself.
 Her voice echoes all around during their play of kitkit( the Indian version of hop skip and jump with additions which vary regionally, the same thing in principle might be named very differently in another part of the country) in the mango yard. The afternoon had a thicket of clouds rolling in, darkness fell but the game went on.
 Dugga loves kitkit and equates it to being more important than going to school. She reasons , ‘for here I can do something I enjoy while eating an aamra( an Indian plum) while at school all I get is a teacher who gets maddened when I read Engreji.’ ‘Dada I hate Engreji and I don’t get it when you keep laughing to didi while talking in engreji. I want to learn it but I know it’s too difficult, why can’t you just talk in bangla’, she asks amidst short breathes as she hops around during her play.

Seeing her, run about and making play in such a time of uncertainty would make one think. Uncanny, with a way unquite like the others,Dugga didn’t seem fearing the uncertain. She is a veteran I felt , almost like a younger version of Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now. Steely eyed, a chuckle in her voice, a sudden temperament and a joyous smile shows the many side of Dugga. It’s almost like she has seen it all, which for someone this young would be difficult to believe , but hearing her story past is not what I intend to deliver here today. That is a tale for another day. For the many young one’s Dugga di, is the sole promise of someone who didn’t shed a tear with the news of closure. She remained the sole overarching voice which brought the little ones together. Someone who brought back their laughter at Ananda Kendra, all together in a game of kit kit.

 It showed her strength, the resilience and her will to fight. Not in despair but to will for a hope, a hope that good news will come again and Ananda Kendra will be the lively place she knew it to be. ‘The archaic building is well kept clean swept and wiped with the will of cleaning of one’s own house. Dugga is at the helm, not in instruction but leading them. Leading them by doing it, by encouraging them by making them believe … this is home, this is where we belong. And we will be here, this will remain our home. Over the past few days many a family has come , or sent in relatives , many a cry heard, Dugga sees them through, makes them believe that there is hope.

 Finally I had to ask her, if she was scared. She replied.. ‘a little, but dada do you think aren’t we all scared a little. But I feel we will see it through, tomraa aamader saathe je( you are with us all)’. She turned , smiled and ran off to play. A wetness I felt on my cheeks. The clouds rolled aback. The eyes of Dugga I had seen.

Rohit is a second year student of Master of Public Health in Social Epedimiology Program, School of Health Systems Studies at TISS, Mumbai

Lights, camera, SOCIAL ACTION!

Chetna Ojha

With 1.28 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most widely used social networking site across the world. So much is its influence that in some parts of the world the term ‘Facebook’ has become synonymous with social networking. From being a noun, “I have logged into Facebook”, the term has become a verb, “oh, I am Facebooking”. This speaks volumes of the impact that the social media giant has had on its users who are spread across the globe. There must be something that makes this social space so popular and active. Why is it that people want to share their private lives on an open forum? More interestingly, what is it, which is making them share their likes, dislikes, locations and other personal things? What is guiding this mass social action?

Clearly, this furore about sharing everything on Facebook cannot be assumed to be random. This is too simplistic an answer to a much complex issue which, on a deeper look, reveals that what is happening on Facebook is an important sociological phenomenon in its totality, what Max Weber has called ‘social action’. This action is building and shaping relationships every minute in this rapidly changing world.

This essay looks at those relationships in one of the most popular social space, Facebook with reference to Max Weber’s theory of Social Action.

Anybody, from the first minute of logging into his/her Facebook account becomes a part of a carefully laid-out process of interaction with his/her social surroundings. He/she is a part of a complex web of people who, like him/her, are using the facility to connect with others and in the process, all of them are fulfilling what Cohen has noted as the three essential aspects of Weber’s approach to social action in Chapter I of Economy and Society. These are subjective meaning, social relationship and stable content. Every Facebook user is posting status updates, photographs and educational background, not only to make his whereabouts known to those who care, but also to gain attention and make his/her presence felt in the social domain. What comes attached with this constant poking of catching attention is an additional want of getting ‘likes’. The number of ‘likes’ on a certain post has become an implicit indicator of its ‘cool-ness quotient’ or beauty or sensibility, even when most people don’t put conscious efforts into rationalizing before liking anything. Most of the time, when one posts something, there’s an anxiety to keep checking the number of likes or comments. The more of either or both, the better one feels, despite the fact that he/she knows that most of the people who have liked or commented are only his/ her virtual friends whom he/she might not communicate on a regular basis. Yet that upward-moving ‘like’ counter makes everybody happy and to get that satisfaction, people are ready to jazz everything up, and sometimes completely change things from what they really are!

An example of this is, people uploading edited images!

Reducing the blur, red-eye, accentuating a particular colour, styling the picture with a sepia or a black and white effect, you got to name it and everything’s available. The number of image-editing tools is increasing manifold, each with a certain ‘new’ feature to make you or your photo more ‘rocking’ or ‘cool’. What this implicitly means is to make it more socially acceptable and therefore, likeable.

Of late, Facebook has also become a popular forum for campaigning of all sorts - social and commercial. The Arab spring is a blazing example of the impact of Facebook in the social space. It was because of various social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook that the protests in Tunisia captured the attention of the masses across the globe and consequently sparked uprisings against authoritarianism in other parts of the world. For example, nearly 9 out of 10 Egyptians and Tunisians were using Facebook to organize protests or spread awareness about them according to a survey done by The National (UAE). Recently, the India Against Corruption movement, the Assembly elections and the Lok Sabha elections in India saw a massive online participation of people. There were animated discussions, status updates, photo shares, likes and event participation notifications all around.

When people express their opinion about any issue which concerns them and the society at large, it does not happen in isolation. Their opinions are agreed with, disagreed with, countered or shared. Social relationships build up and the action of an individual takes into account the action of others as well. There’s not just one lead actor, but the Facebook forum as a stage has multiple actors playing their part in tandem with each other. Facebook is an active space for commercial advertising as well, which is also the main source of its revenues. Every advertiser is putting up its ad there with an intention of gaining recognition and purchases. Therefore, Facebook is not restricted to personal communications/sharing only. Financial motives are also a crucial part of the social mingling happening on the website.

But Facebook is not equally pleasing to everybody as it is to those who constantly keep updating their profiles. A lot of people who deactivate their account do so because the ironical monotony of skimming through 'new' posts bores them and forces them to find a more productive substitute for the time that they spend on Facebook. A lot of blogs and articles written by people who deactivated their account narrate their stories of how their time has become more productive and their days more relaxed after they deactivated/deleted their account. So despite Facebook being the ‘in’ thing, some people choose to break up with it and this shows that social action is not free of conflicts.

Weber doesn’t talk much about conflicts while sharing his views on social actions unlike Marx, but the deactivation of account is an example of conflict with the general trend of social action of fellow users. Coming back to what Weber had to say about social action, that as a sociologist, it is essential to understand the motivating factors, see how people interpret a social relationship and attribute meaning to a situation.

As mentioned before, recognition is one of the motivating factors to be active on Facebook. Apart from the regular features like profile picture, cover picture etc., adding a life event like graduation, marriage, engagement, etc., are the ways of telling everybody about the ups in one’s life and therefore gain recognition through likes and congratulatory messages. In a way, this is encouraging, but in a lot of other ways, it implicitly builds up pressure on a lot of people to look a certain way, click pictures in certain poses which have become popular with time. As Weber conveys, the interactions have certain patterns or regularities associated with them and therefore meaningful action among different individuals is associated with expected responses from others. These patterns are meaningful actions of individuals, but they may ultimately solidify into customs, laws, institutions, or structures.

This can be observed through a small example on Facebook. There is an increasing want of social acceptability. Certain ‘norms’ of how a profile picture should look and what’s the ‘right’ pose to be struck to attain that have been set and this is most profoundly visible in the profiles of teenagers. The ‘pout’ pose is one example along with shortened words and the strange manner of writing like - ‘I wil b der..w8 4 me’.

Not just this, people are clicking pictures solely for the purpose of uploading them on Facebook and because that is the purpose, the pictures must be either ‘beautiful’ or ‘cool’, the parameters of both of which are very limiting. So, Facebook in this sense is acting as a hindrance for many to express their individuality. The expected response is that of liking a post which mentions something good and thus maintains the stability of the social action as Cohen has observed as an aspect of Weber's theory of social action.

To conclude, social action according to Weber is a meaningful action carried by an individual in tandem with other individuals and while doing so, he/she is not isolated from the society. The society renders a broader meaning and impact to the action and that makes the action of an individual social and results in building up of relationships. There can be many examples of spaces where social actions can be seen like family, friendship, etc. One such space is Facebook, which, in its ten years of existence has shaped up a new paradigm to practice a certain set of social actions, as mentioned above.

Chetna is a first year student of HRM & LR, in TISS Mumbai

Let Peace Prevail

Vijayendra K

The Idea of ‘Conflict’

Conflict is not a new term for Indians. Be it the age long territory issue of Kashmir or the ethnic clash of the North East; the idea of ‘conflict’ has lived with us and continues to interfere with the idea of a ‘nation’, but mostly lying in the unknown corners to many of its fellow citizens like us. For the citizens of our country who do not live or have never visited these conflict areas, the idea about the situation there is more or less shaped by the narratives in our text books, movies (like Roja, Border, Haider, etc.) or by media (which relates news of our Shaheed soldiers on the borders or the atrocities of AFSPA on the locals). The opportunity to interact with the people in the conflict stricken areas is very minimal. But if an opportunity was there, one could have seen the image more clearly.

Do Pehlu Sikke Ke

Sikka Uchaalte Hai,

Toh Intezaar Karte Hai Uske Nateeje Ki...

Harr Sikke Ke Do Pehlu Hotey Hai,

Par Dekhne Waale Ko Dikhaayi De Ek Taraf Ki Sachai...

Doosra Pehlu Jhoot Toh Nahi,

Lekin Jo Dikhai De Woh Sach Bhi Nahi Hai Poori, Par Hai Adhoori...

Iss Adhoori Sachhai Ko Door Karne Ke Liye

Zaroorat Hai Nazariye Ki,

Jo Intezaar Naa Kare Sach Ko Apne Paas Aane Ki,

Balki Koshish Kare Anek Nazariyon Ko Samajhne Kee.....

Nazar Nahi Aati Hamesha Poori Sacchai...

Par Jo Nazar Aaye Woh Sachai Hai Kehlaati...

Multiple Realities

The above lines indicate the two sides of the story, of which we are mostly exposed to only one side and we usually do not try to investigate the other side. We assume that whatever we see is true. Our education should teach us to enquire. If we try to get the real picture, we might see the multiple truths that lie in these conflicts, which are playing against each other. But what is the point of this? This is the question which many of us might have at this point.

Well, there are many victims of these conflicts. The citizens, the soldiers, the youth of the conflict areas, people across the borders and the many individuals who directly or indirectly get involved in these conflicts. The struggle of one cannot undermine the struggle of another. In understanding the issue with multiple perspectives, one gets to know the complexities in these conflicts. We thus understand that the resolution of these conflicts is not an easy task, more so because the issues are political and the politicians have an incentive in declaring it a status quo.

What to Expect

Aman Ki Aasha...

Sarhad Ke Iss Paar Aur Sarhad Ke Uss Paar,

Sarhad Banaaya Kaun, Hum Insaan....

Naa Alag Inki Pehchaan, Mehmaan Inke Liye Bhagwan....

Khele Kuch Log Rajneeti,

Nachaate Logon Ko Ishaaron Pe,

Baantey Logon Ko Mazhab Ke Naam Pe,

Jutaaye Mazhabi Fauz Jhooti Kahaani Se...

Par Kya Lehraate Huwi Hawa Ko Sarhad Rok Paaye,

Yaa Udti Panchi Ko Aane Se Koi Manaa Kar Paaye…

Baad Se Tabaahi Yahaan Bhi Aaye Aur Wahaa Bhi,

Jannat Ke Bantwaare Ke Saude Pe Jung Bhi Hai Ladey Jaate

Par Kabhi Kisi Ne Jannat Me Rehne Waalon Se Poocha  

Aap Apna Ghar Kaha Basaana Chahte Hai…

Ghar Me Rehne Waalon Se Pooche Binaa Ghar Ki Neelami Kee Jaarahi Hai...

Iss Beech Aman Ki Bas Aasha Hai,

Talaash Hai Uss Jannat Ke Dobaare Lautne Ki

Jahaan Goliyon Ki Bauchaar Nahi, Panchiyon Ki Gungunahat Sunaayee De.... Kaash

If the citizens are in a situation to understand the multiple realities that prevail, it may become a force in itself which will put pressure on the stakeholders to try and end these age old conflicts. It may sound impossible in the beginning but then every problem has a solution which can be achieved if there is the right will to do so. Hope is one thing the world survives on. Most of us who understand these multiple realities hope for a better and brighter future for these conflict hit areas, which would ensure a less complex world.

May we witness such a day.

Let Peace Prevail.

Vijayendra K is a 2nd year student of CODP at TISS, Mumbai.

The Vada Pavlov-ian Response

By: Suyash Garg

The swanky office of Bristol-Myers Squibb doesn’t house a cooking facility. This is primarily because of the legal tangle of approvals under India’s myriad labour laws and a strict adherence to them.  There is a sprawling cafeteria, though, where stacks of plates, china bowls and gleaming spoons await the grumbling stomachs.  However breakfast is sourced from a vendor and served at the cafeteria. Being the most important meal of the day, the significance the company attaches to breakfast seems heartening. However the admiration for taking care of the health of employees gradually dries up as a specific item stuck to the morning menu. It is the Vada-Pav. Calorie –rich and nourishment-deficit, Vada-Pav has a permanent presence at the breakfast table.  The company ensures a diversity of dishes on the menu each day but Vada-Pav retains its prized position.

Why would a BioPharma company which champions human health have Vada-Pav, inter alia on its menu?  This question swirls in the air-conditioned office and refuses to settle down.  However a patient reflection leads to startling revelations.

The humility of the Vada-Pav hits one before its taste- A crumby Pav encapsulating a fried, rounded potato cutlet.  The Vada-Pav doesn't hide its ordinariness.  On the contrary, it is precisely the unabashed but not arrogant acceptance of the same which makes it endearing. In an age of pretentious malarkey, it is its simplicity but wholesomeness that draws us to this plebeian food. Much before Mc Donald’s and its assorted ancillaries washed up on our shores, generations had subsisted on this Marathi gastronomic icon.

Interestingly, it needn't be the hungry who had feasted on it.  This culinary treat has been synonymous with the Marathi Manoos. The fibre of sons- of -the-soil has fortified the parochial palate - in more ways than one.  And this is where parochial meets plurality. Though its unassumingness belies its plurality, Vada-Pav is a binary food essentially; an amalgamation of two independent and atomic edible-the oil-rich, deep-fried vada and the humble, crumby Pav; the economy of the bread and the opulence of oil. In the age of singularity, Vada-Pava combines two seemingly disparate worlds which have little in common. Yet, it is this unison which lends the Vada-Pav its orgasmic flavour.

Best prepared in the state of unpreparedness, Vada-Pav still remains a gourmet's delight. .This is why its appeal remains undiminished. So much so that even Mc Donald’s had to kowtow. The McAloo Tikkification of its flagship product was not just a game changer in consumerist adaptation but the ultimate deification of this humble pie. But the Vada-Pav narrative is incomplete without its geographical indications. The modesty of the Vada-Pav may seem at odds with the outrageous extravagance of Mumbai, but much of it is a part of the city's myth.  Vada-Pav punctures this myth, gives it a reality check. It is the stubborn shibboleth of Mumbai's Marathi-ness. The answer of the Great Unwashed to Society: Satiety.

None among Bristol, Myers or Squibb may have tasted a Vada-Pav but the gastronomic delights dished out by this Mumbai item has certainly been lapped up by the employees of its only office in one of the fastest growing markets.

Suyash is a first year student of HRM LR in TISS Mumbai