Join the new world

This was supposed to be an introductory article with which to say hello to India, but we're living in dynamic times so I think something else is more appropriate.

I'll just say that I'm a veteran of the game who left it a few months ago, but decided to come back and pay a personal debt to one of the nicest and most deserving players/persons in the game -- Ashwamedh. India is very much fortunate to have such a national treasure. Anyway the point was not to stroke his ego but before I go on I'll just add that as a foreigner I will not engage in any government or political activity in India. Simple reason is that I believe that it is up to Indians to decide the fate of their own country be it in agreement or not with my views at any given time.

I've made the choice to come here so I'll defer the decision making to those for whom this is their home. This of course doesn't mean I may not express an opinion, but it will be that at the end an opinion.


I do not wish to get embroiled in the current spitting contest that is being so eloquently carried out in the press and dig deep for yet another set of guilty persons/Martians/feries....instead I'll talk about stories and their impact on us, hopefully you'll like it.

Even though hard to believe, my name was not an accident I picked it because I watched the movie (which in itself is notting exceptional) life of Pi and liked the story very much. Not for the actual story but the cerebral rape of our degenerating brains in this postmodern world. It is rare nowadays to see anyone present anything for consumption, be it a movie, book or song, which takes more then 5 seconds to understand the simple "for dummies" message in it. This is why this story captivated me.

The actual story is really of little interest and can be summarized simply as an outlandish and "fictious" recollection of the ordeal of Pi vs the gruesome reality of what one may need to do in order to survive. Of course the author does not tell us wich story is the truth but offers a hint to what choice some of the protagonists make when having to consider both as mutually exclusive.

This is where the interesting part comes and of course the spirituality of human beings. Though the first story is in all aspects ludicrously fantastic and by all means every single one would know to be imposible it is still preferable to the gruesome reality of the second story.

The simple reason for that is, that it allows to rationalise better and come to terms with the deeds that have been contrived. In essance it puts us less at odds with our own values and morals, absolving us of the guilt we feel. We still feel that guilt though we may know we did not have any other choice because it goes against the fundamental values we hold -- not to kill and so on.

This of course is only one posible way of transforming responsibility and bypassing morals to allow one to contrive acts that he normally would be incapable of. Vilification is another form often used and together with the representation of your foe as something different then human has been the main avenue to do this through history. In some way that is shown in the book, as the people are represented as animals and while we may feel sadness for them we can rationalize their death in the context of the situation.

So in essence we have the justa-positioning of two posible accounts of the same story however one requires fate and allows us to reconcile with our deeds and the other represents the unabashed acception of responsibility. Well it is not surprising that most is not all of us would choose the wondrous recollection infront of the gruesome.

The same ultimate choice each has when coming to terms with loyalty and honour. In general there is the conviction that both go hand and hand are unendingly positive traits, however that is not always the case.

Loyalty in it's essence means fate as well, because you do without questioning (or follow as the case might be). So one has ultimate faith in those he places his loyalties in to act in a manner consistent with his own beliefs, values and morals so as not to put him in the situation to choose a story.

So as long as that does not happen to be loyal is honorable and to upkeep your honour you have to be loyal.

Still there is different types of loyalties each and everyone of us has. Mainly they can be divided into two aspects, the loyalty one has to friends, family, allies and so on and the loyalty one has to his own convictions, values and morals. While we're not used to regard the second as a "show of loyalty" in essence it is just that as it requires the same blind fate into them.

For the most part we go through life without the two coming into direct confrontation, still at times they do. This is where the choice of the story comes into play as we're faced with the choice of which story to write. Keeping to ones principle or keeping to your blind loyalty.

In real life we often come to such dilemas, but rarely of such importance where it is a question of life and death and so the resolution of the contradiction is generally easy.

In a game like this though the importance of actions becomes at the same place less important and more important, so the choice whether to stay by your friend when he's doing the wrong thing comes up much more frequently and with much higher intensity. So the question becomes which loyalty we want to observe, the one to our friends or the one to our convictions.

So is the situation with India right now and though it is with higher "cost" that one chooses the gruesome story and accept the responsibility of it to keep his convictions albeit knowing that he will be vilified for it I'm one of the few that prefer that story and thus think that I can find my place in a country that has made the same choice, be it virtual as it may.

In a game where you cannot lose your home, nor your life, nor your family staying by ones convictions and beliefs is easy to do without having to invent a pondicherry tiger to do so.....