On this Labour day I take the
opportunity to highlight the small positives we as humankind have achieved. a
few may find this post harsh but I tell you it comes from a critique’s point of
view so as to make us understand our follies and learn from it. Be kind, please,
like how I have left the Ugly out on purpose. Here’s an intense read in this foreseen
extension of lock down. Do keep your head on your shoulders, coz as per
sayings, it would darkest before the dawn.
I am trying to get it documented, how
some things are good while other bad, and yet other things which will need
discussions. For e.g., LCDs and plasma screens were ok but now we all know LEDs
are the best. Yet research for foldable glass screens are on. Do we really need
foldable screens?
Leaving aside material things I am
basing this essay on the Labour laws which upholds employees rights (and feelings), and defend them from being
taken for a ride by their employer. We can compare these laws to seafarer laws
where every life is deemed precious. So much so that even if a ship has just left
for sea from a port and a singular person complains about chest pain the entire
ship will head back to port.
Unlike some of the companies using
the cost-cutting word to outsource employees. Today we can see the gains of the
Labour laws which has defended the wage cuts during this non-working period,
whereas the outsourced have lost their wages.
What about finance company employees,
what about their salary? White-collar professionals like doctors, etc, have
their principles set. Unions help the Labour class. But what about the commerce
grads? A=L+E is an equation which even the commerce students who dropped out
after their first year would know, but the most scholarly of science students
wouldn’t know that this stands for Assets = Liabilities + Equity. Tis cause
this profit-loss table is never taught outside of the commerce class.
Then again why do doctors, etc. need this equation? Are they missing anything? Maybe
this is how the financial society has styled itself against downfall- they will
use the equation to balance everything out. A point for debate.
And then there are the Art
graduates, what about their income? The average non-commerce grads think that
words like finance, assets, profit, sum, are all synonyms and see no difference
among these words. Their artists ideology could be roughly put as, “We
know you can do it, but will you do it? We did it, buy it from us”. Though, the artist inside us has been brought out in this tat -at-home. It has helped us keep our mind about us, by the
creativity outflow where we see many of us try to hone a hobby this quarantine. So are the artistic a deprived lot?
Do we need to be extra kind? Were the
Labour laws born out of kindness? No, war brought about this mechanism. And
right now we are in a war against an unseen enemy, so as we stay at home let us
improve ourselves for when we come out of our cocoons. The first thing is to be
kind; the angry Amitabh Bachchan union strikes are too filmy anyway.
Too many changes can cause mayhem,
so an auditing scheme is required. Let’s take for example the stricter cops who use
the upper hand coming down on those who are not following the voluntary lock
down proceedings, and few would argue in support of violence. So how much is too
much? This is the question that needs to be discussed.
To bring in NRC as topic, Firstly,
do we need a line to be drawn? Secondly, where do we draw the line? Let me
answer the latter question first. The line is drawn at 1968, (e.g.), post that
do we throw everyone else out? So a cop arrests a person to be thrown out, but
what if he is the only pet shop owner in that area, isn’t he better than my
good-for-nothing cousin who sits all day at the crossroad junction staring at
the fish tanks in the pet shop. Hence requirement of an auditing system. But I’m
still leaving the first point open for debate, whether a line is required, or not.
Some questions to contemplate upon; Aren’t
we an accepting lot? When did we become so unkind? So to draw the line, we
decide to get ourselves marked (via Aadhaar for e.g., which both the ruling and
opposition parties are in for). It would also be easy from a logistic point of
view, but wouldn’t we each be losing our individuality. For e.g. you come across
an accident, a government entity tracks you (via Aadhaar) and then you get your
share of insurance coverage on the spot (maybe an airlift ambulance, which
saves your life.) Conversely you enter a bar, which is not a shady thing to do.
Yet you do not want the world to know where you are, because it’s 09:00 a.m. So is your boss (or wife) allowedto track
you down? They would just have to say that my employee/husband did not turn up
for work, please track him, maybe he’s come across an accident. Debatable!
A point to note would be that, during
this outbreak we saw that borders helped us segregate the hot spots ward-wise.
Btw, Doctors without borders are in it for a good cause. Médecins Sans
Frontières is the actual name of this org.
Support them.
Trying to learn from these small
atypical mistakes, I have started reading ‘Introduction to Financial
management’- first chapter done, and the secret is that, the amount on either
side of the equal-to sign in the about equation is self manipulated, so that
the output balances itself – no sweat, rt commerce grads? See my knowledge. Ashamedly,
750 pages more to go. But in my defense I would like to say I am working from
home as well.
Techies have made a niche in to all of
the above basic trades and are holding on for dear life. Industries will crash,
like the airplane industry is nearly crashing. We sympathize about how the
staff would go on. Sorry to say, airplanes are things of the past. The future is
drones, two-storey tall ones and smaller ones for local and private use. We need
to rebuild this infrastructure. And you guessed it right, we can employ the unemployed
people to do it.
Driver-less vehicles are too
futuristic, heck for that matter bus conductors are required too. Who do you
think is handling the BEST buses plying the roads for essential support
nowadays? Get into a bus today and it’s the conductor – not the driver or a
robot – who scrutinizes you, with kindness.
How do we apply Labour laws to all?
When work is done by the Labour class it can be measured with work done is
equal to force into displacement. Whereas for many other trades this is not the
criterion. In fact, I’m currently just pushing a button on my keyboard for the
cursor to move forward. And many will poke fun by saying this is not my job.
Kindness is key, followed by respect.
Then followed by a code to live by. Then again how strict should the principles
be? I haven’t even come to the point of different
language which causes a hindrance. There are answers yet to be found. So let’s
start basing ourselves on a universal standard law, which points to a simple principle
of being kind. Let us come out of this virus outbreak by defeating it without a
vaccine. Let it die and remain in the form of a DNA diagram in a science museum
somewhere to be studied by future generations and that how we as a humankind came
out on top.
— THE END —
Please feel free to debate in the comments section below.
