Harish Palaniappan's

What is so interesting about politics? This is a common question that's up every teenagers mind, particularly when they see their elders glued to the News channels on a TV everyday when there's a lot more happ'nng stuff at music channels or movie channels or atleast Discovery/National geographic for god's sake.

Politics is an art of influencing things / people, (and very often an art of making-up things that were done wrong). People understand politics only when they start understanding Life, people, relationships, environment/society they live in, and importantly understanding to influence all these.

And that's time when people start watching news channels more than music or movie channels. There's a lot of happ'nngs here too, and these are real happening stuff.

One might ask... What's the big deal? Why should I bother about understanding politicians, governments they form, the rules they breach? What help is it going to make to my life?

Well, Firstly, politics is not just about governments and rulers. There's politics is in the office, in the college, in the school.. and everywhere. But in these places atleast in the college and school they are not very critical most of the times, and college or school politics are not done for any long term advantages...and that's why people who try taking advantage by influencing others in college or school are not to be considered politicians (or atleast not called so literally).

Secondly, politicians, governments, rules have indirect affects on our lives at every stage... its just that we ignore it at the early stages and take careful note of things in the later days.

How about having elected a bad Minister for education in the government, who in power absorbs a lot of money into his stuff decreasing practically the amount of grant your college receives than what it should have got, and this leads to your college paying less to staff and recruiting not so interesting lecturers... you end up with a boring session everyday, and still worse with bad grades and little knowledge about what was taught.

Politics gets interesting when you learn its effects, its motive, and sometimes when you get to influence somebody or some activity with your capacity as a person.

I had a long time trying to understand politics.. trying to churn some meaning from the newspapers everyday. but not of use. it never got into the head, because i was still not having the know-how about life, people, friends, love, enemity, and a lot of things. After a couple of years after my college and into my first job I started observing people, their lives, my lives, compared findings, and it started happening. the understanding came by, though very slowly.

And mind it, there's nothing called correct or wrong about understanding something.. its only a perception, so what politics you understand could be entirely different from what your friend does.. and still different from what your foe understands.

That's politics!
Its about researching on what happens everyday around us in our environment of people.