Devil's advocate

Problem statement:
Suppose you are driving through a narrow tunnel and a worker falls onto the road in front of you. There is not enough time for you to stop. If you keep straight, you will hit the worker and kill him, but if you swerve left into oncoming traffic, you will collide with the school b and kill at least five children. You hit the worker. 

You are dead somehow and these four people are deciding whether you be sent to hell – an opportunistic businessman, a sociopathic serial murderer, an unscrupulous politician and an aam aadmi.
Here is my story:

A moral side 

Murderer: This man should sent to hell as he murdered a innocent worker and didn’t even think once before doing such cruel, brutal thing.

Businessman: No! No! I beg to differ from you sir, but you are not considering that he didn’t have enough time to think at that moment. He just put the simple logic of ‘one over five’. We are discussing about his fate so it is not right to take such a judgemental decision. Even in the business, we think first about the side where loss would be less, don’t we? So I think this man is not guilty as you are accusing him.

Politician: Gentlemen, I didn’t like that you are discussing about what choices he had. Simple thing is- he had murdered one of the citizens from my constituency and he deserves to rot in hell. If you are not with my opinion and going to allow him in heaven then I will arrange a protest march in front of god’s home. (After all I should speak like I do really care about my citizens.)

Aam admi: Before you proceed respected juries, I would like to hear his side as you are giving opinion without giving him chance to explain.

Me: Thank you sir. As you know that I was driving in a tunnel and suddenly a worker falls on the road. I had only two choices- go straight and kill worker or kill five children. I am not going to tell you that I choose ‘one over five’ as said by one of you juries. I am not going to put a price-tag on a person’s life as it is not my right. Here I am giving a situation and just want to know that what you would have done in that situation. Shall I continue my lords?

Murderer: No! Absolutely no! All my fellow juries, I m surprised by his courage. He has murdered someone and without giving justification he is asking us question. This is ridiculous. He has chosen a working condition man over five children who were not benefiting the society. They are just burden. He killed a man who was working for welfare of all.

Businessman: I would like to hear about his strategy to deal with that situation, similar to removing employees in time of recession. So my vote is ‘yes’.

Politician: I am a leader and leader always stands on the shoulder of voters. So I want to give him a chance. My vote is ‘yes’.

Aam admi: As Voltaire said,”Even if I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.” So my vote is ‘yes’.

Businessman: Gentlemen, here are three votes in his favour. So young man, continue what were you saying-

Me: Thank you so much, my lords. Here is my situation- Imagine you are a doctor. You have five patients waiting whose treatment you have done earlier. All of them are in serious condition and needs one organ in order to survive. First one needs heart, second one needs liver, third one needs brain, forth needs kidney, fifth one needs pancreas. You are expert in organ transplanting. Now a very young and healthy man comes to your hospital to routine check-up. So my question is- what will you do in this situation? You are having two options. Either you check that man and see those five men living miserable life where they are counting their days to hug the deathbed or else you have another option- you could give injection to man to lose his senses and remove all those five organs from him and transplant them to those five men. So I repeat what will your decision in this case?

Murderer: You can fool these people with your evil logic but I am not going to change my decision.

Businessman: I am going to answer this question. I will choose second option as I am giving life to five people instead of one. I stated my ‘one over five’ logic earlier. It is also according to ‘cost-benefit analysis’ theory.

Politician: I am not going to answer this question as it involves murder by me. I have very clean image among people and am not going to malign that for some silly, stupid question. You are sounding like Arnab Goswami. My simple answer is “No comments”. (Why should answer if I have not any benefit, neither politically nor monetarily.)

Aam admi: Young man, you are very smart. You have put us in exact same condition as you were in. I think it is about ‘karma’. In this situation, the healthy person has nothing to do with whether other five persons were going to live or not. If I was a doctor, I would have only check that man as it is my duty as a doctor. I am a doctor not God Vishnu to operate the world.

Me: Now my lords, there is a tie. Two of you answered my question and two of you don’t. So how can I believe that you are able to decide my fate when you are not able to answer my simple question? So my lords, please answer my question and after that whatever decision you would give that will abide to me.

Murderer: I am going for first option but I am not going to explain my side. (Anyway, I choose this because it involves death of five people or even slow death. These people never gonna know that..haha)

Politician: (vote share is greater in first side so why should I waste my vote…After all I am a politician.) With due respect to all juries, I am with first choice but don’t ask me for explanation as media is going to make hype of this issue.

Aam admi: (After discussing with all juries) so now the decision is taken. 1st option has 3 votes and second option has 1 vote. After discussion, we come to the solution that, “Life is matter of choices. Destiny has put you in the situation where there are very few choices available in front of you. You had chosen the best according to your self-conscious. So we are sending you to heaven. Enjoy.”

Me: (Eyes full of tears) thank you juries. Even if I haven’t believed in judiciary system on Earth, but you guys failed me. My faith in judiciary system is restored now. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for your kind decision.”

~Digvijay Sanjay Patil

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Child trafficking and prostitution #Vote4children

Children security:

Today, I have had participated in the journalism based competition 'The Mighty Pen' in our Cultural festival-Spring Fest.(IIT-Kharagpur). The topic was child labour. The more and more I researched about this topic, I had discovered the more and more ugly and cruel nature of human beings. The conditions we have seen in the movie Slumdog Millionaire that has pointed out some of the things like child trafficking, child beggars and child prostitutes controlled by organised mafia gangs. But the actual conditions are even worse.

These trafficked children are often starved so that they will look gaunt and cry and thereby eliciting more sympathy and donations from tourists. And since disable child beggars get more money than healthier ones, criminal groups often increase their profit by cutting out a child’s eye, scaring his face with acids and amputating a limb for a begging mafia at $200 a pop. To prevent the children from running away, traffickers often keep kids addicted to drugs. When trafficked children get too old to beg effectively they often graduate into forced prostitution, the black organ trade or other gruesome facts.

In India, children’s’ vulnerability and exposure to violations of their protection rights remains spread and multiple in nature. Existing studies shows that 40% of women sex workers enter into prostitution before the age of 18. I India, there is social issue going on that no one is really talking about. The media sweeps this issue under the table because of it’s offensive nature and most people do not want to deal with the feelings and ugly nature that this topic provokes .I am speaking about child prostitution. Parents who are uneducated and poor are selling their children into the child pornography industry, just so they can keep the roof over the heads.

Then question arises- "Why children"? Why children are needed in prostitution and pornography industry ?
There is the myth that a man can get rid himself of sexually transmitted diseases if he sleeps with a virgin, hence the fear of HIV/AIDS has increased the demand for virgin and children.


Our society has not only turned a blind eye to minor girls being enticed into prostitution but also is directly responsible for continues growth of child prostitution. First the demand for child prostitutes by failing to provide adequate facilities to orphan and destitute children.

I have discussed 2 issues but there are number of children who are working in hazardous industries like Beedi and cigarette, diamond, firecracker industries. What about their security?


We have accepted the world where children from all ages from 5 year to 15 year are forced to take up the labour in order to survive. We have accepted and allowed ourselves to have created the condition which forces children to place themselves in harmful working conditions just to see another day. Isn't that shameful for the country which claim to be world's largest democracy? Isn't that shameful for us-the urban educated people who dream to live in foreign countries?

Thinkk.. ~Digvijay Sanjay Patil

This post is a part of the #Vote4Children Blog-a-thon on Youth Ki Awaaz. Find out more at: http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/vote4children

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Rivaldo... you have catched our pulse!!

Today there was a comedy show of Nitin Gupta(Rivaldo)- one of the India's best stand-up comedian and founder of Entertainment engineers, at IIT -Kharagpur. As many of you don't know about him much, so I am writing this blog. So lets start from his past;

How he choose to became a stand-up comedian?
While in final year of his chemical engineering at IIT -Bombay, he never wanted to get the daily routine job and to make his talent to certain bounds, still he took a job only to show his parents that he can get one if he want to. As most of the parents send their child in IITs to get them a better job and a better life, a secure future -the common middle class dream. He even taught for some time in coaching institute and write some scripts for daily soaps which were all flops before starting his our company.

In September 2009 while enjoying in Rendezvous, the cultural festival of IIT Delhi, Rivaldo made a performance of 20 minutes in the interval between the plays. Audience liked it and in October 2009,Engineers Entertainment was formalized. He made his first appearance in IITKgp with the help of his friend and played Love in December. Second show was in MNIT Jaipur and they did the same play. Gradually he presented the audience with a mixture of Love in December and stand-ups and in the first year he managed to get 13-14 shows. It was the play that got him popularity but soon he established himself as a stand-up comedian in the college circles.

In September 2009 while enjoying in Rendezvous, the cultural festival of IIT Delhi, Rivaldo made a performance of 20 minutes in the interval between the plays. Audience liked it and in October 2009,Engineers Entertainment was formalized.

EE was born with the vision of making Stand Up Comedy respectable in India. We believe one way to do it is when you talk ideas in your Stand Up. Comedy without ideas is like Fast Food. It’s tasty but lacking in Nutrition (food for thought) The problem with comedy is that it’s so easy to carried away by laughs. But that’s where the catch comes. The overall impact of the performance is not just a function of your laugh density. It’s also a function of how much people remember after a performance. Because people like to talk after a show. In my experience people tend to remember things which touch them at some level. Like with all the memories. You are more likely to remember a conversation you had with a girl you were in love with viz a viz a conversation with very interesting person from college. Getting laughs is the easier part. Capturing that emotionality in the humor is the difficult part, he said.

He always says, in college the motivation behind humor is girls, after graduation it was survival. We did a play called Love in December. Which was famous in college campuses. Had a student from IIT Kharagpur who was interested in doing plays there. We became friends, used to discuss scripts. It was him who helped organize a show in IIT Kharagpur on Oct 31, 2009 as a part of their Spring Fest. That was our first show outside our home campus IIT Bombay.

Enough about his past.

His videos  2G CWG and Soniaji, IAS durga, Coal Mates, Ted talk have been hugely appreciated by audience. now the question remains, even after so much success, why his audience is not that much as he deserve to be? The simple reason is- to understand his jokes and punches, you have to need certain level of knowledge. Most of the situations in our day to day life, he relates to science theories.

Best part about his show is- "courage". Courage to speak on the issues which everyone of us felt at some point, but due to social taboos, we could not speak  them in public. I really appreciate his courage to speak the topics like Gandhis', Hindu mythology, sex on a national platform. Why I am telling about courage is because we are living in so much sensitive country that we got offended by small small things.

His comedy has it's main focus on anomalies in our day-to-day life, political scenario, AD commercials, cricket, racism. Many things we do daily that we could not able to give reasons to them if asked. And that's where his comedy born.

I had watched all of his shows and videos, but what I surprisingly found is none the jokes in his previous performances has been repeated. and that's the beauty of his performance. You never get bored for a single minute in whole performance. Another good quality about him is his memory. In one joke, he was telling about how falsely we say that I proud to be Indian and told nonstop 30-40 foreign brands we use in our day to day life. He put it in such a way that, it was raining of claps before he even finishes the joke.

Another good think is- he made us to think about the issues with humor. Today's show was the best comedy show many of us has ever seen. Watch his show to laugh , to increase your blood circulation(as you will be clapping all the time), to increase our intellect, to get completely out of the world feeling for 2 hours and at last - to think about the things he wanted to convey.
Peace.
Subscribe his you-tube channel if u like.- TheHumorBeings
Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/humorbeings?fref=ts

Referances:
http://www.humorbeings.in/
http://www.uthtime.in/entertain-me/nitin-gupta-rivaldo/attachment/iim-bangalore
http://yourstory.com/2011/05/y-so-serious-a-humour-filled-conversation-over-coffee-with-nitin-gupta-rivaldo-founder-of-entertainment-engineers/

~Digvijay Sanjay Patil

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