Howdy World and Some Interesting Insights

               Have a great weekend! Have a great night! Have a wonderful day ahead! Have sumptuous food! Have a gala time! Have a great married life!  These are some of the well wishes we hear on a daily basis to people around us or to our own selves. All the people wish everyone else to have plenty of these in abundance. The world will be a great place if everyone, in fact, has everything required in plenty. But the same world will become sad when the people turn from ‘Haves’ to ‘Have Nots’. It is really important to operate by ‘having’ rather than not. The same people who wish you have everything will come to question – ‘How are you doing’, 'How is your health’, ‘How are you keeping’, ‘How are you working’, ‘How are you running’ and so many questions. The problems with ‘Having’ lie on one side and the problems which arise out of ‘not having’ come on the other side. As we are seeing the past few years, the individuals and the world they are comprised of, is tilting towards the ‘Have Not’ syndrome which highlights the significance of ‘Having’.  When this element at the individual level is breached by multitudes, it reverberates in the outer world in some form of an effect. Turning from the side of ‘How’ to the side of ‘Have’ is not just a pre-emptive but a prerogative to everyone in this world dealing with the ‘Have not’ problems. When this is neglected, you will see issues arising out of this weak foundation. When the Prime Minister of India visited the U.S. last time, an event was organized under the name ‘Howdy Modi’. Now, we might have to say something like ‘Howdy World’ by emphasizing more on ‘How’ and the way the world operates.

              The ‘Have Nots’ are not just poor in not having essentials, they are also generally financially poor. The term ‘Have Nots’ is attributed to economically weaker sections. When you turn economically weak, you turn bankrupt; when a society turns economically weak, a country goes bankrupt. This is what has happened in Sri Lanka, which led to numerous protests over the past few months after the government went bankrupt. How did the Island nation went bankrupt? The government blamed covid pandemic but the economic mismanagement is the biggest reason for the recent crisis. The result - People have been struggling with daily power cuts and shortages of basics such as fuel, food and medicines. Inflation is running at more than 50%. The country doesn't have enough fuel for essential services like buses, trains and medical vehicles, and officials say it doesn't have enough foreign currency to import more. This lack of fuel has caused petrol and diesel prices to rise dramatically. Essentially, the country ran out of money. Sri Lanka is unable to buy the goods it needs from abroad. And in May it failed to make an interest payment on its foreign debt for the first time in its history. Protests started in the capital, Colombo, in April and spread across the country. Protesters ransacked the homes of President; other government officials and a state of unrest has spread across the island nation. The nation can be rich and still become poor in day-to-day operations, plunging to the present-day crisis. Lacking the access to cash, lacking the financial health at the macro level and lacking the economic prudence can turn the nations upside down by defeating the existing systems and status-quo. While it is not a situation to be in, all the other nations led by neighboring India should bail Sri Lanka out of its economic crisis.

              While a macro fallout of the micro ‘Have Nots’ has occurred in Sri Lanka, another one occurred in its European cousin – England. By looking at the ways and means of government at helm, more than 50 government officials, including 5 cabinet ministers have resigned suddenly, leading to the collapse of the ruling government. The government did not do too badly or has a heavy reason for the mass resignation either. It lacks the formation for a stable government, it lacks the ingredients for a good leadership at the top and it lacks the honest, sage and scandal-less government. When you have such bizarre functioning, the bizarre response will follow one day or the other. These two grotesque downfalls of the governments happened in two similar nations of two continents. Sri Lanka in the sub-continent looks like the England of Europe – alone, aloof and cast away from the rest; more so with the Brexit and independent sovereignty of these nations. The two similar island nations can now shake hands and embrace each other for the plight arising from a similar root-cause. After all, mistakes done in a day or two can be purged easily but mistakes done for years together will result in enormous outcomes.

          Moving on, life becomes uninteresting on some occasions. Humor comes to the aid in those times, and I add a bit of a satire in my posts to make it more interesting. These days, I become extremely pained thinking about the problem in challenging situations and everything appears completely off the radar, but humor brings me back into the radar and continues the march ahead. Humor is a very difficult emotion to evoke in others at the most needed times – but thinking about few individuals brings a smile to the face. Once upon a time, there was a great comedian in Tollywood, who used to be my favorite. He retired sometime back and since the last few years, I have hung onto a person who became active after retirement. He is none other than the former President of the U.S. Everything about him and around him can become a real-life subject of humor. I don’t know if he serves by being serious in his duties, but he serves the tickling senses of millions by being humorous, which is like a therapy in these testing, trying times. Humor sometimes makes us cool and solves the mind-numbing problem. Here I put down the humorous side of a few stories and how thinking about it makes anyone laugh.

-Well, it is a known fact that the former President is a liar at any given opportunity. Right from the campaign trail, I used to follow news and fact-checks which generally contradicted many statements. So when I arrived in the U.S. in January 2017, I went for a walk and opened my phone, read an article where the President is having a routine clash with news outlets for misrepresenting the inaugural ceremony attendance. After a hard walk in the middle of the road, I had a split at the serious story. The President claims 1.5 million people or better than that of Obama attended his inaugural ceremony where in reality less than 6 lakh people attended it. He says the news TV showed empty fields and got into a fight with them. Does it suit the President to argue about the attendance of a crowd after watching T.V. and getting disappointed? I remember it is my first outburst after coming to Trump’s U.S.

-Trump always wanted to build a big wall between the U.S. and Mexico but unfortunately not a brick was put in place. In his frustration on the growing drug menace across the border, the president asked if the U.S. military could shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs. After it was objected to, he suggested “we could just shoot some patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly. We pretend it wasn’t us and no one would know it.” The defense secretary nearly thought it was a joke if not for staring at the President's face. He understood as he worked along, that is the way the functioning will be – by pushing nonsense as serious business. Probably, you can fire patriot missiles across the Atlantic Ocean on Great Britain in the month of Independence day and pretend you didn’t. Part of fireworks to the master from a slave.

-There is an investigation going on in the U.S. under the name - ‘January 6th hearings’, like it is some important day to remember. I came to recollect that it is the day the U.S. capitol insurrection took place under the influence from then President Trump. The entire episode is so bizarre to look at in the first place and investigating this insignificant act brings a lot of significance to it. Firstly, why does any person refuse to accept defeat and to make the case worse, the person is U.S. President. I had long seen this kind of behavior from my childhood when few of the kids refuse to give up batting after they got out in a cricket match. A full-blown adult President refusing to accept defeat is a next level comic sans any decency, dignity of the office. The mentality is very childish, calling the voting a fraud and turning to his own vice president to overturn the election results. The President is silly, the mob influenced is silly, the insurrection is silly, and the committee formed to investigate this silly act as the most important thing is – I don’t know what to say.

-As mentioned earlier, there are quite a few judges who are appointed by President Trump to the supreme court, or they are known as conservative justices. I was blown away by three rulings of the Supreme Court of the U.S. two weeks back – 1. The court overturned the New York gun law, making it easier to publicly carry guns. 2. The court restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's power to regulate carbon emissions that cause climate change. 3. The court overturned the right to abortion which is upheld for decades or overturned the famous Roe v. Wade. I cannot but laugh at these judgements at which even President Trump will be ashamed of. I came to know that a court as high as supreme court can be so silly and the judgements acted like republican mouthpiece and ideology who oppose gun laws, climate change and abortion. A third world nation – India has a much better Supreme court which pronounces sagacious, sane and acceptable judgements most of the time. As is the President, so are the judges.

-Trump has certified that his counterpart Boris is the ‘Britain Trump’ sometime back, after his election. The two are similar, look similar, act very similar and are ousted similarly. The jokes on Boris also go round online for his disdain for the decency of high office and embracing the serious humor on display. The two stocky blonde men are all bluster and buffoonery. The commonality also lies in the fact that everyone made a mistake by not taking Trump and Boris seriously until it was too late. As per experts, by the time they are ousted the damage has been done. Trump would go on and rate as one of the worst Presidents of the U.S. and uniquely got impeached twice. Any comparison would result in similar fate. The resignation saga in the final days of Boris is no different either. As many as 50 officials resigned and as a minister suggested Boris should resign, he was fired from the job instead. The British people enjoyed the resignation saga with prime-time pop-corn replete with humor and not an iota of remorse for Britain Trump.

-There are three very old heads of the state I have lived under in recent times. One is PM of India, and the two others are the Presidents of U.S. I don’t know what makes these people who are deep in their retirement ages to come out and take these extraordinary positions. I really like the conviction and sense of service from two other men except the third one. After getting impeached twice, the former President of the U.S. has also declared he is considering running in the 2024 Presidential elections. I once again thought it as a joke on a grand stage and maybe more humor, action, suspense awaits 2024.

I would come up with some more of these countless moments any other time.

Disclaimer: The above is meant for the purpose of few gags in uninteresting times and never to hurt the seriousness or offend half of the nation. Living should never be about life and death. Appreciating the little nuances and generating these little nuances is very much needed in these difficult, dreadful times. Thanking the men who are the masters of this art.