Identity Crisis

Recently under the garb of progress Indian government announced the citizen identity program. The program is supposed to bring benefits to common man - if there is such a thing! When everybody has an unique id then how common that would be? We are not even talking about civil liberties (if there is such a thing!).
The registered identity is a funny concept to boot. In order to get one you have to have some government approved id first. Not sure how this works for the millions of people who have more survival problems than thinking about identity. For example my mother with few decades of life still does not has government "Approved" id. She never needed one. Apart from honorable mention on rationing card, she has no record with the government. Of course there are voter lists but they keep changing on the whims of issuing officer. Born in colonial days and having lived through struggle for freedom, she is perplexed about the concept. The idea that somebody would give her a number to prove her identity is foreign to her - and so to many like her. It has uncanny resemblance to the dark past in India's history.
On a lighter note this program would be last nail on abundant freedom my generation has grown up with. I had always teased my friends in western societies about their passive submission to state machinery tracking their every movement with a number, something that our government couldn't and would'nt do. Alas, that would be thing of past now.
Everybody will have a number to go by and can be identified. Think about it. You are engaged in some casual sex with a babe on a remote sea beach in India, while hauling ship load of illicit drugs and POW - in comes the police saying,"well well Mr 00784, what would your wife say if she knew about this girl, eh?"
How are you going to explain to them that they missed the last digit and are confusing you for somebody else? Talk about identity crisis in a country where proving your identity is such a difficult task.

I am not afraid, I am married!

I read the quote in the daily news paper, a man saying that he is not afraid of terrorism, he has been married for 12 years. Sounded close enough.

I wonder when did the natural process of male and female of species getting together to produce next generation turned out to be such a bounding agreement that everybody started getting afraid of it. Of course homo sapien being more "brainy" started quoting about it, but is it really that painful? Well come to think of it, you don't get male swans getting together and complaining about their long time au pair (it is observed that swans make pairs for life time), but get in any average bar or human male gathering place, the most discussed thing is long drawn marriages and problems therein.

Marriage was meant to be a simple agreement to stay together for producing off-springs and assurance of taking care of them for considerable future. With wide spread usage of contraceptives and ever growing population of humans, producing off-springs is not such a priority (in purely evolutionary terms sex is actually an incentive for producing off-springs). Thus marriage became an instrument of describing love or binding for your life - based on your perspective. It was thought to be a sacred bond. Different cultures created a context around this bond to ensure people actually stick around for longer. In medieval times breaking marriage was considered sacrilegious (effects being worse for women than men).

I am sure somewhere in the progress of civilization the entire society found out this binding for life process was artificial. So we went through cycle of self discovery. In trbial times of hunting and gathering, marriage was not binding, then we have had our modernization where we made it binding and now we are back on curve where we don't think it has to be binding any more. In fact more and more people are opting for old ways of "living together" rather than marriage. Clearly people who still have old contracts can not break them free yet, but there is hope for next generation.

In some ways marriage is fun (free housekeeping, somebody to tell you when to take pills, etc.), but is it worth the life time of bondage? I don't know. My grandfather was very brave, he had four wives. I always wondered how he managed. I have sure inherited the bravery part, I got married to the first (well technically seventh but who counts?) girl I came across and promised life time of slavery.

While discussing a loan proposal my friend casually asked me if I was afraid of taking such a risk given the large sum and limited earning potential I have. I told him I am not risk averse, I am married.