First things first, if you are not in a mood for serious intellectual exercise this might put you off a little so come back to this article later. Ahem, now for those that have not seen the famous Hollywood movie... Imagine that tomorrow you wake up and look around ... Only to find that the world you had been living in was mere fiction! Your entire life has been a myth, an electronically modulated dream that was simply loaded into your mind, and the reality is a world that does not have any McDonalds or Baristas...No Taj, no Imax, no shopping malls, no nothing!

Everything was simply loaded into your brain cells. The real world is one of rubbles and ruins sprayed with electricity and controlled by machines of absolute artificial intelligence that were built by man himself. The ‘matrix’ was loaded into man by the machines because they needed humans for electromagnetic energy which would run them. Men are being farmed to provide energy and all...Pretty far fetched...Well I think so too, yet a persistent question lingers on in my mind...

What is the matrix?

It is the entire environment that we exist in. It is the picture of whatever was, is and will be. The villains, the heroes, the winners, the losers...everyone comprises the matrix. Our matrix tells us who is a villain or a hero and why he is that! It gives us reasons and we accept it. It is the history that we know of, the today that exists, and the tomorrow that is evolved everyday. Upon this I am compelled to think that even I do have a matrix loaded into my mind. All of us are living in a matrix.

Maybe our matrix is not symbolic of the gross falsities that the machines provided in the movie but certainly we have also not verified everything that we believe in. For all we know a lot may be false. ‘Conspiracy theories’ of various incidents might be a reality that we simply refuse to accept. Maybe, and I don’t believe in it myself, George Bush did after all orchestrate the September 11 attacks on the WTC!

‘Winner takes all’ a famous phrase as I recall, I must add winner takes even the history. I was once told by my friend John Cherian who happens to be a Christian by faith that Jesus had three other people who were equally talented as his compatriots. In fact he played some dirty politics to make himself the sole ‘son of god’. Quite ironical that he may symbolize virtues of honesty and fraternity and command one of the world’s largest religions. This may be false... but most importantly it may also not be false!

Our matrix is loaded by the media. Our world is told to us by the media. Who is bad and good, everything. If we are told of something we keep accepting it. If we hear about Osama Bin Laden’s responsibility for 9/11, well we accept it. Ever wondered that the Bush administration might just have cooked it all up. Our matrix is loaded by the historians. They present a perspective and the most famous author’s perspective becomes ‘factual history’. “Every narration of every incident is merely the perspective of the narrator”... Oh no! I could not have said this, Mr. Albert Einstein remarked this and he added, “Every different narrator would have a different perspective”.

So although Shah Jahan’s great symbol of love is the Taj Mahal, yet for various reasons the Taj Mahal also symbolizes heights of tyranny and torture...quite opposed to love. Why? Because the hands of all the makers of the historic monument were chopped off by the Mughal Emperor so that another Taj could not be made!

Coming back to the media then. Yes, the media also shows us one perspective. This need not necessarily be the real truth. For example 99% of the entertainment industry people like movie stars, have media consultants who tell them exactly how they should behave in public. Most of what we see of them including astronomical charity records are more often than not mere publicity stunts. The reality is that even great singers like Nadeem-Shravan only got around paying ‘Supari’ to get Gulshan Kumar killed. And even this what the media told us which might again be untrue itself.

Maybe there was some other bigger player who just framed Nadeem-Shravan!

Another example, government controlled media like Doordarshan cannot show anti-government news. They must propagate government policies etc etc. Yet at the same time there might be a private news channel badly attacking the same policy which is being advertised by DD. People who see only DD will appreciate the policy while the people who see both may be inclined to criticize the policy. Of course it all depends on the application of a logical mind and accepting the more logical argument. That and only that, is exactly what this article is intended to demand from young turks like you!

Whatever news you are shown ... understand that anything judgmental is merely a perspective, apply your mind and logic. Then one can create his own perspective ... Create his own matrix.

All said and done it is indeed very difficult to verify all the facts. Some things we must accept because we just cannot go out seeking the truth on our own. This is where we need the media to be as responsible as possible. This is where we need that yellow journalism and easy journalism must certainly give way to genuine journalism. This way we can be surer of what we hear and see, surer of the matrix we live in.

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