Saturday, March 17, 2007

Is our world flat?

My mind is in a chaos. There are some things which I fail to comprehend and others which I understand partially.
I have been reading "The World is Flat " by Thomas L. Friedman for the past few weeks. It is a highly informative book which fully describes the forces which have shaped the world in the past 10-15 years.
The author has not left any such thing untouched , which in one way or the other affects our lives nowadays.
From , Fall of Berlin Wall to Rise of Asian Tigers;From terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam to global warming and imminent shortage of energy, there is nothing which the author has not described.The book is a source of immense information for all those who want some serious reading. Though it becomes a bit dry and slow in the middle but you will love it by the time you reach its end.
The examples which the author has quoted to substantiate his findings are realistic and interesting for anyone who keeps in touch with the latest happenings around the world.Not only it whets one's appetite to know more about some aspects of globalisation but also inspires one to think about a lot of things.
For me the most interesting parts of the book have been those which talk about the industry I am working in(offshore-onshore model,included) and growth in Asia.
Three to four days back when I had read over two-thirds of the pages,this incident about Nandigram voilence took place.
Suddenly, I felt that whatever I was reading in "The World is Flat " is a farce.
I questioned myself , whether all these big talks about technology and flattening really carry any meaning for people who were killed and injured in nandigram and for farmers who find committing suicide a better option than paying back their debts.
I feel that the disparity is too wide and too painful. The development doesnot encompass every section of our society and as we always hear-The rich keep growing richer and the poor,become poorer.I know it is something we hear often,but it sounds cliched because it is so true.
Every time I sit in a rickshaw something in my mind gets triggered and I start calculating the income of the rickshaw puller and get perturbed by the kind of physical effort they put in and the amount they earn.
Two days back I was amused with a piece of news that I read in TOI. It talked about some kind of a ***** star kennel in Gurgaon, where rich dogs...OOps, I mean dogs kept by rich people are driven in Luxury cars to spend quality time in open spaces.There are some which don't have salad if it is not cut in a particular form and there are others which need a full sized bed to lie upon with people around.Amazing !!!
I also love pets and don't like atrocities on animals. But the point I want to make is about DISPARITY and availabilty of MEANS.

It looks and sounds painful...Is'nt ?

Ps: Thomas .L.Friedman does talk about these issues as well.It is just that when these thoughts arose in my mind I had not read the following pages which talked about obstacles to flattening.

4 comments:

@nkur said...

Disparities have been a part of this world always, while we question about it why? Lets ask ourselves, what have we done to reduce these.

Anurag said...

In Life, no one gets anything just bcos they need it, people get things bcos they deserve it. Its very important not to close one's eye towards the harsh realities of life, just open it...realize the truth and fight for whatever one's need.

Morpheus said...

agree with anurag though I do see your point of harsh differences making everything fake. But for every single rich dog in Gurgaon there is also a smart poor kid with a fire in his belly to do something more and get somewhere else. And more importantly there are 10 more people for every one of the above who are willing to help that poor kid. We have look and plan for the future...but never ever forget. Nothing. Ever.

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