Search Your Soul

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2009-05-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

Teacher Absenteeism in Indian Schools

A democracy thrives best when its citizens have the ability to make the right choices for themselves and for their societies. With 35% of its population illiterate(1), and an even higher percentage lacking in functional literacy, the efficacy of democracy in India stands seriously undermined. The 2007 Annual Status of Education Report(2) (Rural) has found that “it takes the middle of class VII for 80% children to be able to read a class II text”. One of the most important causes of bad quality of education in rural India is the high rate of teacher absenteeism. The Kremer et al (2004) study(3), reported that one in four teachers were absent from school, and among those present, only about half were teaching, during the unannounced visits on a nationally representative sample of government primary schools in India. The Paul Glewwe(4) et al (2008) study finds that in developing countries including India, teachers face weak incentives to put effort into their teaching. The study also finds that dismissals of teachers for repeated absenteeism are only 0.03% in public schools, and 6% in private schools, clearly implying that accountability structures are simply nonexistent. However, the National Knowledge Commission Recommendations(5) on School Education is surprisingly silent about the problem of teacher absenteeism.

The problem of teacher absenteeism in India should be tackled by adopting a two pronged approach: First, at micro management level, incentives not limited to financial benefits, must be provided for teachers to come to work; Second, at policy management level, workable mechanisms of empowered structures to ensure accountability of teachers and schools must be institutionalised and sustained.

Paul Glewwe et al (2008) report that absenteeism in more in schools which are away from paved roads, and less in schools which has better infrastructure. The teachers posted to rural schools have no proper housing facilities, and many take up houses in nearby towns. The DISE statistics on School Indicators(6) states that 44.22% of all schools in rural India are located at distances more than 10Kms from the nearest block HQs. But the public transport systems are very frugal and teachers find it difficult to commute to rural schools from towns. The government must provide housing and pooled transport to help teachers perform their duties. Basic necessities such as toilets must be provided in schools. Teachers posted in rural areas must be also compensated with a special hard duty allowance. Teachers must be allotted a pool with equal distribution of schools from all categories of degree of difficulty, and rotated on posting to schools only within their pool. This will give teachers the ownership to the development of their schools especially once they know that they would be back to the same school again in future, and provide strong emotional incentives to remain accountable to the local community.

In rural India, teachers are the opinion makers. Teachers also perform the crucial election duties. Therefore, the political class is unwilling to estrange teachers. Further, the local community is not powerful enough to demand accountability. In the year 2000, the Uttar Pradesh government initiated Village Education Committees(7) (VEC) to monitor school performance and promote demand for accountability at community levels. But studies(8) revealed that 92 percent of households surveyed did not even know that a VEC existed. In such scenarios, any demand for accountability from inside the system is not likely to be met.

There is definitely a need to create empowered structures from the outside, to monitor school performance and demand accountability from teachers. The central government must institute a multi stake holder, independent Schools Monitoring Agency(9) on the models of investment rating agencies. The agency must monitor the quality of delivery of education services, teacher attendance and performance, school outputs etc, and continuously assign ratings to school systems in states. Corporate India must be encouraged to consider the ratings of this agency before investing in a state, because industry is one of the major end users of human resources. It is in the longer interests of the businesses to demand accountability from schools and teachers as majority of the labour force employed by businesses are the very product of these schools. Education is a state subject. The policy directions must be fine tuned as per requirements of each State, but individual states must implement reforms wholeheartedly. The central government could give tax concessions for businesses investing in states that have higher school performance ratings. This will provide incentives for the states to improve their school systems in order to attract higher investments.

Technology solutions must be explored to institutionalise effective systems to monitor teacher presence in schools. An experiment(10) by Duflo, Hanna, and Ryan (2007) in Non Formal Education Centres in Rajastan, using tamper proof cameras to monitor teacher attendance reported 50% decline in absenteeism rates, and improved student performance. Similar methods can be co-opted into the existing mobile communication infrastructure in rural areas. For example, a tamper proof camera enabled mobile phone can be used to send an MMS message with a photo of the teacher along with the children in classroom, to the teacher monitoring body, on demand.

As with solving any other public management problem, a committed leadership is essential to solve the problem of teacher absenteeism in India. The strong teacher unions, and the teacher politician nexus, are stumbling blocks for demand for accountability of teachers. It will take years to reach the desirable end state of improving quality of education, but it will be an effort worth made, because good education is fundamental for good citizenship, and good democracy.

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Works Cited:

(1)Premi, Mahendra K, (2002) India’s Literacy Panorama, http://www.educationforallinindia.com/page172.html#_ftn1

(2)Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2007
http://www.pratham.org/aser07/ASER07.pdf

(3)Kremer, Michael; Chaudhury, Nazmul; Rogers, F Halsey; Muralidharan, Karthik and Hammer, Jeffrey (2005), “Teacher Absence in India: A Snapshot” http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/files/TeacherabsenceinIndia_Nov04.pdf

(4) Glewwe, Paul; Holla, Alaka; Kremer, Michael (2008), “ Teacher Incentives in the Developing World” http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/files/KntchinV9_080915.pdf

(5) National Knowledge Commission Recommendations on School Education in India (2008)

http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/documents/nkc_se.pdf

(6) DISE Statistics on School Indicators (2006-07),
http://www.dise.in/Downloads/Rural 2006-07/School Related Indicators.pdf

(7) Glewwe, Paul; Holla, Alaka; Kremer, Michael (2008), “ Teacher Incentives in the Developing World” http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/files/KntchinV9_080915.pdf

(8) Abhijit Banerjee, and others, “Can Informational Campaigns Spark Local Participation and Improve Outcomes: A Study of Primary Education in Uttar Pradesh, India,” World Bank Policy Working Paper 3967 (The World Bank, 2006).

(9) The National Knowledge Commission, in a letter to the Prime Minister of India, has proposed setting up of a National evaluation body for monitoring quality. However, no details about composition or functioning have been elaborated. Para 9, p7, http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/documents/nkc_se.pdf

(10) Duflo, Esther; Hanna,Rema; Ryan, Stephen ; (2007): “Monitoring Works: Getting Teachers to Come to School” http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/2405

Put on Your Thinking Cap

2009-05-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

Consumerism

“Pink se panga nahi lene ka” orders Preethy Zinta, and so sells everything pink – from Scooty to Mobile phones. “Yeh Dil Mange more!” proclaims Shah Rukh, and we get that moral sanction to indulge in hedonistic ways of life. Money can’t buy happiness -- but it can buy you a big yacht so you can pull right up next to it. Irrespective which ever god we believe in, we all practise the religion of consumerism. For Tara, shopping is a feel good factor! In plain words, she suffers from compulsive shopping disorder. Tara wants to buy that wine red Saree because she feels that looking good would improve her marriage! Her husband Rahul is a tightwad. He secretly wishes for the new iphone but keeps quiet because he knows that he would have buy Tara a diamond stud, if he buys a iphone for himself. If Diamonds are best friends of girls, then whatever happened to Tara’s old buddy who has stood by her all these years? He wonders! In today’s world, it is not “cool” to express feelings and share deep emotions by mere words. Presenting gifts is a mandatory requirement of expression of love. That is what Consumerists do.

Short attention span in everything we do, demands that all things fashion should be "renewed" every six months. Since long, we have stopped growing old with our valued possessions. When did you last purchase an item that you will still treasure holding it for years? Vintage has become history. Consumerism has led us into purchasing almost exclusively disposable goods. Doesn’t work? Throw it! Buy another one! Even before we debate whether to repair our old stuff, we are enticed with a plethora of new goods ready to burn our pockets! And then, it is a treat to watch how cleverly people invent ingenious reasons to buy new items. Whom are we trying to fool?

Stressed out? Just go out and Shop! - Such crass consumerism gives us an instant sense of self gratification. We associate our identities with the phones we carry, the brand we wear, and the restaurants we hang out. We buy things because our neighbour has one. We splurge, we flaunt, but we hardly consume what we buy. Celebrities endorse every product from Navrathan Tel to expensive cars, highlighting our insecurities and stupefying our sensibilities into buying things that we would never need. Do you seriously think you can delay ageing by using a Rs 500 cream? Do you think you can control obesity by drinking Diet Pepsi and munching zero trans fat potato chips? Do you really need to buy the fuel guzzler SUV when all you need is some means of transportation? Think again.

Consumption is not bad. There is no harm in satisfying one’s needs. In fact consumption is essential to keep the economy going. But the problem comes when one tends to create an imaginary need to satisfy his/her other surrogate senses! You buy a mobile phone and you think you have satisfied your need? Wrong! Soon, you are introduced to GPRS mobile net surfing, and you are just not happy surfing the net through a small screen. How about a Blackberry? After all you get 100 emails a day. Who cares if all of them are forwards mails! There you go. Within months, you “upgrade” – a nice term for indulgence. Soon, a blackberry seems not enough. You can’t watch those important video attachments which you receive in your forward mails, and your ignorance about latest fun stuffs is a sore thumb among your friends circle. One among your friends flaunts his new 12’’ Sony VIAO. Will you stop from buying one for yourself? Unlikely! You have come a long way – from owning a simple mobile phone to spending 50 grand on a laptop, all for something that had zero importance in your life. That is consumerism.

Take a little time out to do some soul searching. How much of your consumerist attitude has permeated your life? If you realise that you can change the life of someone among millions of poor in this world who live under one dollar a day, with that one buck you save by internalising reduce-reuse-recycle practices, would it give you any incentive to do so? I leave it to you. You are the best judge.

Dreaming on the Toilet Seat

2008-04-26T03:42:00.000-07:00

I say to life; Bring it on.

How often do you discuss your dreams with others? How often have you been told to achieve first and then declare later? How often you have been hammered with the thought that to openly speak about your vision in life and your methods to achieve them is to showcase your arrogant mind? I have this peculiar habit of thinking aloud, however trivial the thoughts may be – from how did I find that damsel who crossed the street to what I wish to achieve in life and how do I intend to achieve them, and discuss my idea with anyone whom I find interesting – friends, colleagues, complete strangers like autorickshaw drivers to street bums. When I tell the seemingly impossible dreams I dream and my grand plans to achieve them, with a passion that radiates from every cell of my body, I find a large majority of people simply getting defensive. Some advice me that I must be more humble while a few others hint that I must concentrate on achieving rather than on only speaking about achieving. Some look at me with reverence and say that so far they haven’t met someone who is so confident in life and yet there are a few who simply laugh, awaiting the vicarious pleasure of watching me bite the dust.

I have one answer for all of them. The mere possibility of a failure can never prevent me from dreaming. Discussing my dreams with my friends and strangers alike provides me the much needed vibrancy in thought process. It also helps me to remain focused. If a time comes when I am on the crossroads where I have to decide to be or not to be, to do or not to do, to reach out and excel or go back and get cosy, the fact that I have discussed my dreams with so many people propels me to live up to the reputation I have created for myself, making me walk that extra mile. My life history tells me that often that extra mile has decided my success or failure in my endeavours, for it is not said without wisdom that a man who survives a gladiator fight is the one who remained courageous five minutes longer than the other.

If, after all this, at the end of the day, I fail, or get trounced, or get flattened by the road roller called life, I will simply get up, brush aside my dirt, shrug away the pain, and start walking again. I will not get intimidated. I won’t ever stop trying. I say to life; Bring it on.

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2008-04-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

Either Or?

Professional Success or Personal Happiness?
Good Looking Girl or An Intelligent Girl ?
Idealism or Happiness?

I threw these question choices to many of my friends. Each of my friends chose one or the other choice. Not even one, posed the counter question – Why does the choice have to be an either or, and not both? It is simply because, subconsciously, most of us believe that Idealism and Happiness cannot coexist and that they are mutually exclusive. Let us look at this way: Most of the things which a human being considers to be a provider of happiness is a taboo, whereas that which gives him satisfaction of being ideal, arguably calls for stricter controls and therefore a tougher life – hence unhappy. Simply put, being happy is being NOT ideal and being Ideal is tantamount to being NOT happy. I wonder, why the things that are considered ideal, does not give happiness and as a corollary, why things that give happiness are not essentially ideal? Let me illustrate with an example; Mr Happy, who drinks and smokes - habits that are considered bad and therefore not ideal, is happy enjoying the “high state“ of pleasures of drinking and the nicotine peaks of his cigarette. Nevertheless, the values of this society have been so internalised that such pleasures are termed as unholy and sinful, that which causes disease and that, in some religion, is against god’s mandate. So, forever, Mr Happy is living in guilt, the price he pays for his pursuit of happiness. Let us take this man to the next level of our Idealism vs Happiness battle. Say, Mr Happy got married to Ms Practical, who despises habits such as drinking and smoking. Mr Happy is madly in love with her and he knows for sure that Ms Practical cannot accept the fact that he is a drunkard and a smoker and that she is so prejudiced that she will turn a blind eye to every other good quality of his, when she comes to know about his so called bad habits. So, even when idealism demands that he say the truth to her, yet he chooses to lie, to be happy and to keep Ms Practical happy. So, being NOT ideal, that is to say that Mr Happy conceals the material facts about his habits from his wife, is in turn keeping both of them happy.

Is this only how we can make idealism and happiness meet? Can the two, Idealism and Happiness, ever meet? Ideally speaking, Idealism and Happiness must meet happily, but they do not. Where is the concept of mutual coexistence of the so called good and bad, lost? Why can’t we be relieved of the guilt of choosing one over the other? If tolerance is one of the virtues of an Ideal human being, then why is an idealist not tolerant about non ideals? If an idealist, in fact, is tolerant and does not react to mundane manifestations of everyday life non-idealisms – aka Howard Roark of The Fountainhead, where should the not so bestowed like me, draw a line separating Mr Ideal’s tolerance and indifference? Last but not the least, can an ideal man afford to be indifferent to his surroundings, abdicating his responsibility to make this world “ideal” if he considers the world as he sees it “not so ideal” ?

Practically speaking, in this globalised world, where the very institutions of ethics and morality that defined the established precepts of morality and virtues in the first place, are becoming decrepit and losing significance, what we term as idealism is losing its relevance or atleast there is a wide perception that its losing one. Being ideal is not so “cool”. Being Ideal is not about anywhere close to being practical. Such is the divide. Has practicality won over idealism? Or is idealism indifferent to the conflict? Can a world ideally survive this either or battle? Lots of interesting questions but my introspections are only leading to disquieting answers. This does validate my idealism vs happiness battle theory.

Put on Your Thinking Cap

2008-03-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

Who are you to cast the first stone?

“Why are you doing this?” She was visibly pained.

“Does it matter?” Paisanomous replied with remarkable equanimity. He didn’t move. His face was bright and calm, like a full moon on a spring night.

“Does anything matter at all in life?” She asked.

“If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have asked the question.” He said.

“Why do you hide behind a façade? Why cant you be yourself?”

Paisanomous looked at her, eye to eye. His eyes were so sharp as if it were piercing her forehead, reading her mind. He replied softly “I don’t hide. I just reveal less to cause to form an opinion.”

She lifted her eyebrows, uncertain about every thing that she felt certain about him ever. “And what would be that opinion you wish to be formed in your audience?”

“Opinions are matter of perceptions. It is their prerogative to form one, in whatever form they wish to give shape to their prejudices. What is life, if not a sum of experiences? What is an experience, if not the product of perceptions resulting from the interaction of random events more randomized by entropy? And what are perceptions if not the sum of prejudices internalized in the mind?”

“Why would they want to give shape to their prejudices?”

“To get moral sanction of possessing one, from others who in turn give shape to theirs and draw moral sanction from their neighbors. To assume the effect as right they set out to prove right in the first place, so that they don’t end up disproving its existence. To find congruent minds because incongruent thought process scares them.”

“Why do you think an incongruent thought process scare them?” She wasn’t sure if she allowed herself to be excluded from those she referred to as them.

Paisanomous rose. It was well lit room with glass curtains hanging down like a waterfall. He moved to the window and looked at the city streets through the glass pane. He saw a salesman trying to sell his product, a worthless bum begging at the streets, a shining Bentley limousine that spoke of royalty, waiting for the green signal and a woman crossing the street holding a young child’s hand. The street wasn’t crowded and it was a perfect slow start to the long week ahead. He smiled, thinking to himself the spectrum of various people – the rich, poor, the able, young, the guided, the guiding presented before him in the panoramic canvas called life and a spark of thought flitted across his mind as to where all their trajectories are taking them to. He wondered whether they realized that each of them had a unique trajectory and that they had the power to keep it unique.

He turned to her and replied “Because they have abdicated their power of reason and succumbed to mediocrity called conformance and congruence. Because they have handed over the responsibility of forming opinions to what merely meets the eye and not what lies beneath and their ability to think and analyse. They seek moral sanction of all their mediocre actions by forcing others to be mediocre, conform to ones own standards, never excel, never think, fritter away the unique human reasoning ability for a song. For every man who desires to excel, who wishes to reach the ideal, who treads on a virgin path to make new roads often armed only hope and vision, there are a million who will pull him down, who will say that it has not been done before, who will put thorns on his path by way of forcing him back to the cocoon of inertia which they have so comfortably learned to live with.”

“So, what do you intend by all your changing costumes and skins? Why the frivolous guy image, when you are good and when you know that you are good? Aren’t you bothered about your reputation? What will people think of you?” Her stomach was churning. It was a strange numb feeling of dispersed pain, forced to disperse by the super conscience that would not allow such a pain to surface, for such a pain will validate all its contradictions.

He was glad to see her pain. Her very pain had titled the balance on his side. He continued “ To discover that one in the million, who has the perspicacity to suspect the opposite when a million others who refuse to use their power of reasoning, who form opinions coloured with their prejudices, who are mentally blind to see that which doesn’t meet the eye. "

“Argh!…..you mentioned reputation. That’s a dangerous word. Reputation is what others think you are. What are reputations, if not functions of time? They change. A supremely secure man doesn’t bother about reputations. He doesn’t hand over the right to hurt him or destroy him, to others. He is so powerful that he desires the best and he desires to be the best. He is the powerhouse of this world. “

“ But you caused to form an opinion by your actions? Didn’t you?” Her indignation was palpable.

“ Yes I did. But not before revealing enough to challenge their ability to use their mind, to see things which otherwise is not visible to a mediocre mind.”

“ So you mean to say that character is the real thing? And that it what is one actually is? And that one must really care for?” She asked.

He smiled, as if he was waiting for this question and said “No. Just like reputation which is what others think you are, Character is what you think you are. It is also coloured, but with your own prejudices. And the most ridiculous part is that one doesn’t even realize that one is prejudiced. One is simply ignorant. Most often one is guilty of not only ignorance, but also ignorance of the fact that one is ignorant. This form of ignorance is the cause of mental inertia and is the most preposterous crime that has befallen humanity and precluded its enlightenment.”

“But what right do you have to cast the first stone?” She fired.

“By the same right you threw this question to me.” Paisanomous left the room.

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2008-03-26T04:40:00.000-07:00

I am Back

I was away for quite sometime and my proffessional responsibilities kept me away from the blogging world. However, my creativity was always on fire and I kept writing. I read a lot during this period of last six months, more than what I had read in the last few years. Life is exciting and there seems no better time to live life than now. In the meanwhile, I created a new character called Paisanomous. He will feature in my writings from now on. His eyes will be the lense through which I will see the world. He is a protagonist of practical idealism. I know it sounds like an oxymoron. But I have decided to embark on this course. I wish to validate my ideas and test my beliefs. Therefore I have presented Paisanomous to this world. Murder him with all the weapons that you have in your arsenal. Don't let him survive. Trample his ego and make it untenable for him to live. And if inspite of all your efforts, Paisanomous survives and comes out of the murder board like a gleaming bar of gold, I shall have validated my ideas.

Learning Curve

2007-10-05T02:32:00.000-07:00

Boobalan.......Tussi Great Ho Yaar!!!

I couldn’t wait to narrate this experience of mine. I landed at Chennai Central Railway Station at 10pm to board my train to Bangalore. I generally travel light and I carry only that much baggage which I can lift myself. I have never employed the services of porter ever, but today was a different story. As soon as I alighted from the autorickshaw, one physically handicapped, frail young man, one of the thinnest six footers I have seen, came limping towards me. He had visibly suffered from a polio attack and both his legs were handicapped. But, I was surprised when he asked me if he could lift my baggage if I paid him Rs 20 ( Half an US Dollar)!! His spirit humbled me and I accepted his offer. I handed over the lightest luggage I had. He lifted it, alas, he could not walk more than 10mts or I was too moved to see the way he went about carrying my suitcase. I immediately unloaded the briefcase from his head, and paid him Rs 20. Even though he had not completed his contract, I appreciated his will to work and earn, rather than resorting to begging in streets (which many physically handicapped people resort to).

The story did not end there. The guy had another friend who also seemed handicapped and who came limping to me and said that he will carry the suitcase, which his friend couldn’t carry. I was a little disinclined to this offer, but when he told me that he wouldn’t charge me anything as I have already paid his buddy, I had no option but to give him the opportunity to earn his own bread, when I would pay him once more for his good intentions. So went the story and the second guy, who called himself Boopalan, and who was partially handicapped, started walking towards platform no 3, carrying my suitcase. A few more meters and I could see that Boopalan was sweating and panting. I suggested to him that I will pay him there and will take back the suitcase. He was unimpressed by my offer and considering it as an insult to his self respect, Boopalan walked even faster. It was absolutely heartrending to see him do the job inspite of so many physical handicaps. He was so thin that it appeared as if it had been months since he has eaten.

I asked him how much does he make in a day for his living. He replied that he makes around Rs 50 (a little more than an US Dollar) and even in that frugal earning, he has to pay Rs 5 or 10 to the local policemen as bribe. At this juncture, I couldn’t control my emotions and my eyes moistened. I pitied the state of law and order in our country, where there is bribery and extortion from policemen even from such hapless souls who are willing to work and earn rather than do illegal activities. Boopalan was walking in front of me and I was closely following him, feeling completely overwhelmed by his gumption and energy. But the mother of all acts of kindness was yet to come.

A few steps ahead of us in the platform, a blind man was walking with the help of his walking stick, swinging it all around him to probe for way. As we crossed this blind man, Boopalan, who was carrying my suitcase in his head holding it with right hand, suddenly took hold of the blind man's walking stick and asked him where would he want to go. The blind man replied that he wished to go to S3 coach. Without second thoughts, Boopalan smilingly said that he would hold his stick and asked the blind man to follow him by holding the other end of the stick. I was flabbergasted. Scores of people were in the platform and most of them did not bother even to give way for the blind man. But here is one guy, physically handicapped himself, vehemently refusing to take money without doing work when I offered, carrying my suitcase on his head and walking with great difficulty, but having a heart bigger than the biggest and helping another blind man to find his way through the crowd. I admired this man. I was humbled. I was on my knees. I saw a Hercules in Boopalan. He seemed to me as a man of extraordinary moral values and resilience par excellence.

It was a revelation, a sight to watch, a lesson which a thousand classrooms won't teach what I learnt in those five minutes from Boopalan. I learnt that how ever much difficulty I am in, I must always work and earn honestly and ethically and how ever much physically incapacitated I become, whenever possible I must treat, guide and help people who are less privileged than me. This is what Boopalan taught me in 5 minutes and he showed that it is possible to be like that. I promised myself that Boopalan would join my list of inspirational leaders who have shaped my life and my soul. As a token of respect, I emptied my purse and gave all the money I could find in it. It was a two months pay incentive for him for his good work and a good heart!! He possibly had never seen so much money at one time and his hands were trembling when he recieved it. I wished I had more cash to give him. As he left me, there was a lump in my throat and heart.

Boopalan…… Tussi great ho yaar!!!

Put on Your Thinking Cap

2007-10-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

My advice to to-be HAPPILY married girls - A Satire :P

1. Look for a Guy who is in US or Who has the potential to go to US. Some amount of greenbacks in life feels good especially when you multiply it by 40.

2. A guy working in a big company with a big name has a brand equity. After all, you need to answer 100 people a day where your husband is working. Infosys or TATA sounds much much better than Tirupati software & co (firm)!!

3. Love will keep you alive but a meal for two in Le Meridien is always tasty and the ambience is de-stressing. So, please find a guy who has VISA power.

4. Maanggadu Mariamman Temple is beautiful tourist destination, but what ever said and done, a trip to Rome is an exclusive holiday, . So, yet again go with a guy who has VISA power, this time both the money and the stamp!!

5. Look for a handsome guy. It wont hurt to see your baby daughter look like a johnson baby cutie pie (for that even you also need to look good).

6. A bicycle ride to office is very tiresome. So, please try to ensure that you can get atleast a Toyota for yourself as your first valentines day gift. On that occassion of him gifting you one, Your special kiss to your hubby is priceless. For everything else there is MASTERCARD.

7. DONT marry a guy with sisters(especially elder, younger and twin) even if he comes for free. You are buying trouble and pain.

8. Insist on a seperate home right from day one. Maamiyar thollai(in-laws Harassment) is not worth it. Come on....lets face it......no one can be considered and treated equal as your parents and what are these old age homes for????.

9. Finally, remember...self worth of a guy is good to talk about. But when it comes to choosing your partner, please go by what the world does. Afterall, a million others cant be fools. There is NO NEED to think differently and try to be more happier.At the end of the day, no one is more happier than the other. Its all one and the same. Atleast in my advice, you can be comfortable, even if your marraige breaks.

The Saga of Indian Marraiges Continue.:)

Put on your Thinking Cap

2007-10-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

My Advice to To-Be HAPPILY married guys - A Satire :D

1. Look for a beautiful girl. Inner Beauty arguments are a big cover up act and it is the greatest myth that beautiful girls have no inner beauty. This defies all logic. After all you have to put atleast your engagement snap in your orkut album to show off and inner beauty cannot obviously be shown!!

2. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder is again a big myth. If an object is green, it appears green to everyone. It’s the same case with beauty. If your eyes are finding Ms Gandhimathi or Mrs (late) Phoolan Devi beautiful, then please go and get your eyes checked before you proceed.

3. Whats in a name? Everything flows from the name. you have to call that name for next 30yrs. Preethi, Priya, Vandana, pooja etc are in. Mythili, Mahalaksmi, annapoorani are out. There is enough research to prove that girl's personalities are shaped by their names.

4. If Her Past Matters to You : A girl will never confess about her past, or any fling, or bad habits to a prospective groom unless she is fairly sure that the interaction is leading to some logical conclusion. This means, she is likely to take atleast a month to a lifetime, before she openly speaks out. This is unlike men, who generally start off highlighting how much they smoke or how many relationships they have had. So if these "confessions" matter in your decision making, then before deciding give yourself atleast 2-3 months time. If not given enough time, then bid for it.

5. Please avoid girls with unmarried sisters, unless you wish to spend your savings on her sister's marriage. It’s a money spent with no returns. Imagine how many times you can take your secretary out for a movie with that money!!

6. If you are going for the ponnu parkal (First Date with Her Family) ceremony, the first thing you must assess is the girl's mother. As her mother, so shall be the girl. If she has a more beautiful elligible unmarried sister, then try to bid for her. Otherwise, reject the girl unless you want to spend a life time repenting why did u start early, oogling at her more beautiful sister!!!

7. Don’t get married to extremely talented girls, if you yourself are highly accomplished. Ore Urai la Rendu Kathi Irukave Pidathu!!! Two Swords must not be there inside a single scabbard. Maintain the balance. Peace in the family is a must.

8. Avoid all sportswomen, athletes, swimmers (even if they are school team levels) in case you have a ponch (which most of us do). In the fight to the finish where performance matters, it hurts to be seen huffing and puffing with no output.

9. Nymphomania is the only (dis)order acceptable. Reject even mild headache cases. It could be brain tumour in the making and your savings is likely to go to Apollo Medical Foundations.

10. Last but not the least, please look for a Girl with a great sense of humour,

(a) Who looks like Asin or Trisha or Katrina.

(b) Who will cook and look after you like a mother.

(d) Who is caring, understanding, romantic, vivacious etc.

(e) Who is sweetness personified.

The Saga of Great Indian Marraiges Continues.:)

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2007-08-22T02:44:00.000-07:00

My Idea for a New Object Searcher Device : Find-Alarm v1.1.1

How often were you searching for something urgent like your car keys when you are leaving for the evening show movie at 6pm or that insulin shot you needed to administer to your diabetic mother on an emergency or the file you needed for the conference about to begin in your department and were not able to find it until it was too late? How many times you wished that there exist something like Google that can help us find our objects instantly? Today, Google is the first destination if one is looking for something on the net. Google has crawled into out desktops too. But isn’t it time to invent something to search physical objects in our house or office?

I was searching for my swiss knife for hours until when it struck me as to why cant we have an object searcher device that is seamlessly integrated with laptop or mobile phone and directly points to what we are searching for? I thought about it and if I were to design one, I would do it like this.

(a) There is something called RF (radio frequency) IDs tags available in the market, which acts as a tracker for objects they are tagged on. It continuously emits unique radio frequency that is tracked by the receivers. If a RF receiver tag that can sound an alarm on reception of a unique frequency RF signal, could be sufficiently miniaturized to some sticker form and manufactured in abundance, then each and every object say a swiss knife or music CD can be embedded with these tags with unique identification number and reception frequency.

(b) And then we have a transmitter that is connected to a computer and a software program that indexes each of the tags with a name and unique reception frequency of the tag that is embedded on the object. All one would need to do is to type the object name in the object searcher software, and double click on the particular object thrown up by the search results. This would send a command to the transmitter to emit a RF signal in the same frequency of the receiver of the tag embedded on the object being searched, which when received by the object RF tag, triggers the sound alarm making it easier to locate it.

(c) To avoid bandwidth problems this device can be designed to work in blue tooth frequency (unlicensed) ranges above 2.4GHz with limited transcieving ranges of 10 to 30mts so that the RF tags of same frequency can be used by millions of users 10 to 30mts apart without interference.

Will I get a venture capitalist to set up an R&D team and roll out the Find-Alarm v1.1.1 by Jan 2008? Or is a device like this is already on the drawing boards soon to be launched in the market? How to patent this idea? Or will some one atleast copy this idea of mine after reading this blog and make a device like this and ease our lives?

Travel Diary

2007-07-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

Straight Leku, Left Beku, Akku nimisha, hosur roadu!!

After a lovely holiday trip to mysore, myself, Ganesh and Rishi were returning to Bangalore in our car. The journey was very pleasant, slicing through the cool winds on a relatively traffic less mysore-bangalore road. As we were getting closer to the Bangalore city, suddenly Ganesh got a wonderful idea to reach back to our home at JP Nagar through a new bypass road to Hosur road and hit some meenakshi temple very near to Bannegata road. All our advice that when short on time, one must follow the shortest known route, even if it happens to be the longest route, fell on deaf ears and finally Ganesh had his way. So we left the highway and reached our last known own position and from there went straight inside a road which was still under construction.

And then the roller coaster ride began. We found ourselves in the middle of a dirt road under construction. We drove for a few meters and met a pedestrian and asked for direction. Ganesh suddenly realized that he was the Deve Gowda among us and rolled out his excellent kannada skills. All we could make out was just one word "chesthu" which he used frequently. Then the pedestrian gave us his direction " Straight Leku, Left Beku, Akku nimisha, hosur roadu". Armed with this invaluable piece of direction, we set out straight (since he had said straight leku) but could not find any road on our left to do the "left beku"!!

So we asked one more guy. The answer was same . " Straight Leku, Left Beku, Akku nimisha, hosur roadu"!! But only that he showed the exactly opposite direction of what the previous guy had told. So the path finders (me and rishi) decided that the first guy looked more educated and hence decided to follow his advice and took a left turn ( "left beku") and drove through what it seemed as Greenfield road. And every few hundred metres Ganesh would give out his Gowda build up and ask in his pure kannada chesthu chesthu and the only direction we got was " Straight Leku, Left Beku, man roadu, " Straight Leku, Left Beku, man roadu, " Straight Leku, Left Beku, Akku nimisha, hosur roadu". I said to Ganesh " Dae…I can hear the word Beku three times….so ….iva ellaram namma moonu perayum "neenga straight a poi left thirumbina …..you are a Beku"…nu solra da"!!

Finally one guy spoke hindi and gave us the most valuable advice. He showed us a tipper going in front and told us to follow it as it will take us to hosur road. We geared up for the chase and drove through mud and dirt to catch up with the tipper. The tipper driver saw a car following him and drove even faster. But finally we prevailed and reached the tipper and kept following him until he stopped to ask about us. We said we are following him to reach the hosur road for which he replied that he was going to the river bed to fetch construction sand!!! And then we realized that we were actually near a stream bed!! So we asked him for directions. Yet again the same reply.. " Straight Leku, Left Beku, Akku nimisha, hosur roadu"

I was cursing myself that "Ada paavigala…ippadi akku nimisha akku nimisha solli solliye one hour ayiduthu……innum hosur road kidaikala engaluku" . But finally we got out of that jungle (that time it did seem so) at 10pm to Bomanhalli, much to our relief. Thanks to ganesh, he took us to a good restaurant where we had sumptuous dinner and I hogged one Poli also. All is well that ends well. But I would never forget this line " Straight Leku, Left Beku, Akku nimisha, hosur roadu" ever in my life!!

Travel Diary

2007-07-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

A Trip to Mysore

Its Me!!

Cauvery at Srirengapatnam

Colonel Bailey's Dungeon

Tippu's Memorial

Eagle on the Hunt

Listening for the Train

Down the Memory Lane

2007-07-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

Photo Finish

Down the memory lane.....Jan 1978.....Did you notice that handtowel under my chin?? The photographer was a stunning hot babe....Drooling ever since :P

Kovalam Beach......sometime in early 81

Mottai Boss aka Sivaji??

How about this sweet mottai boss??

I Love Life....I LIVE Life!! :)

Think of the Devil and i will be there.....can you spot the car no 666-3...the devil's number......I m still searching for the agent for who got me this number for last two yrs!!!:)

Taking the bull by its horn :)

............and little did i realise that.......

......i was wearing a bright red Tshirt and the bull was drunk.......and zoom i went flying.......

My Stunt Photographer

Amma Madi.........heaven on Earth.
This is a theme photo.
Behind all my success and endeavour to be a good human being, She stands silently behind the scenes, always blessing me, always loving me unconditionaly and always protecting me. She is the invisible force behind whatever I am today.
She is my inspiration in life.:)

Put On Your Thinking Cap

2007-06-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

Piggy Back

I found this frog pair in my backyard. I really dont know if they are mating or they are mother frog/father frog-son frog/daughter frog pair carrying piggy back. But I decided to test my macro photo skills with my pet canon camera!!! I think, I have taken a decent shot!!

For a moment, I was wondering, if I could touch this frog, only to release the princess of neverland and then we could marry and live happily ever after!! Poor me........the desperation of search for a partner has got me to this level of looking at frogs for hidden princess, because in the matrimonial market, all good girls seems taken!!!

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2007-06-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Bye Bye Hyderabad

Like all good things must come to an end, I have left Hyderabad after completion of my work. When I came to this city, I had no idea of what good times I am going to have ahead. Hyderabad simply rocks. All my prejudices were shattered to smithereens the day I landed here. I found the people very warm and accommodative. Hyderabad was declared a metro and rightly so, very recently. The traffic is very manageable. Hussain Saagar lake and Necklace road were my favourite places to spend a few quite hours. I met with loads of my old and new friends. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay and I would someday come back to this place for a longer stay. Thanks Hyderabad. I have no words to pay gratitude to you. Simply put, I wish you all the best for becoming India’s best city!!! You have it in you.

Put On Your Thinking Cap

2007-06-06T02:27:00.001-07:00

Happiness Crystal

On the other day I was talking to my friend CVR and we were comparing the pay structures of various professions. He was of the opinion that money and material wealth is not important for happiness and one should not be looking at a happiness index measured by wealth. It all started when I said, driving a Toyota Prado gives me happiness. He retorted that when I would actually get to drive a Prado, I would still be unhappy because then I would be looking at a Maybach!! Then I asked him what one must look for when we say happiness. He replied that often unquantifiable things like writing poetry, working hard or composing music give happiness and its better to pursue them instead of having materialistic aims.

I thought over it for a moment. I shared his view 100% and infact, I had even written about it here a couple of yrs of ago. But, to my mind there appeared to more that what it meets the eye. Three questions come to my mind here :-

1. Can happiness be a product one just one factor alone? To amplify, can any one factor be the single contributor to happiness of a person?

2. Is having a materialistic aim like wanting to own a bigger car, a crime, a road that leads away from happiness?

3. Are the two aspects of materialistic view and spiritualistic or artistic view of roads leading to happiness mutually exclusive?

Well, I look at it this way. Happiness comes from every sphere of life. I have the power to derive happiness from the most mundane things in this world to the most audacious ambitions I nurture and persevere to achieve, however materialistic they are. To tie down the source of happiness from just one aspect is unrealistic and foolish. We must take a holistic view of happiness index. Materialism and Spiritualism can and does coexist. They are the different faces of the same crystal.

I will try to illustrate this with an example. Today, I am an amateur blogger who writes occasionally but I would someday want to write a best selling fiction novel. Among other things, writing gives me a lot of happiness. Driving my present car, a B segment Ford, gives me a lot of happiness. Aspiring to drive a maybach one day also makes me happy. And dreaming to become an author of a best selling fiction also makes me very happy. Now, these are just a few faces of my happiness crystal. I may, after reaching my destination that I have set for today, aim for further more. So does that mean that after reaching there, I will still be unhappy?? No. Not if I include the journey of myself from a amateur writer to a professional author, as one face of the happiness crystal. And include the journey from a driving my poor ford to cruising in my luxury maybach as another face of the happiness crystal, I shall ensure happiness all along my journey. In life, we arrive at a destination only to commence a new journey and if this journey itself gives us happiness, then we can be happy for most part of our lifetime. And they say, success is a journey and not a destination!!

So, here I am, a one time occasional writer scribbling my random thoughts, graduating to become a full time writer, working hard enough to pen down a fiction that would get me the professional satisfaction and in turn would make me richer, would permit me to go for that dream maybach!!! Its all about synergy. The faces of the crystal synergise to produce a combined mental positive state of happiness, satisfaction and peace of mind. Not one face of the happiness crystal alone claim all the honour, but just one face alone can rescue when all others fail to radiate. That’s the story of my kaleidoscope where my happiness crystal is rotating fast. I cant make out which of its face is radiating and which is not. But the myriad picture called Life that I am seeing everyday is very colourful!! At the end of the day, it is all that matters.

Mind Gym

2007-05-03T04:24:00.000-07:00

What do we own?

Recently, my friend RamG visited me at Hyderabad and we had quite a lot of intellectual exchange of ideas and a conversation that cut across communist economic policies to special relativity to puzzling to hindu mythology till the wee hours of the morning. During that exciting discussion, he mentioned that if we plot, the cumulative population on X axis, and cumulative wealth on the Y axis, then in an ideal situation, where the wealth will be equally distributed, it will be a 45 degree line as ilustrated by the red line in the graph below. And where one man owns all the wealth, it will be a straight vertical line as illustrated by the blueline. For a moment, i was wondering what if all of us own everything or none of us own nothing as illustrated by the pink line ??

For example, between ram and me, we both own the same house equally in all respects which may tantamount to the inference that at the same time we both didn’t own nothing. A complex scenario, but shouldn’t the world be this way? Is there anything called ownership? Can we in absolute sense claim ownership to anything at all in this world? Even our soul doesn’t seem to ours. Or is the Us inseperable from soul and hence we don’t even own ourselves?

Arrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh..............I better leave it there. The city is rocking with the delicious eyecandy and am on my way. Life is calling me. Wanna join in??

Put On Your Thinking Cap

2007-03-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

Do We need a Moral Right to Question Others???

Often in discussions and arguments, one most interesting piece of defence that people use is to question the moral right of the person questioning them. I will illustrate this with a simple example. Ram is a college student who was found using unfair means in is semester exam. His friend Chandran confronted him after the exam and asks him as to why he did that. Ram’s counter question is almost instantaneous. He asks, “Chandru, what right do you have to question me? You also used the same means last semester to pass!!.”

I have come across this form of defence in many other areas. In politics, Congress party says BJP has no moral authority to charge Congress with corruption as they themselves are corrupt. At home, often younger siblings cite incidents of some nature to question the moral authority of parents/elders to enforce discipline, like if the father is a smoker, the son believes that the father has no right to question his own smoking habits. Alternatively, parents retort when pointed out mistakes by their young children, with a typical answer “You are a kid born yesterday. And you are questioning me???”

To cut the long story short, I would simply put it like this.

Mahatma Gandhi says Don’t Cheat.

A convicted thief says Don’t Cheat.

Is the value of the statement Don’t Cheat, a function of the person saying it? Does the same statement when said by Gandhi, more valuable than the other? I don’t think so. The value of the statement Don’t Cheat is indestructible. Its relevance, importance and significance remain the same regardless of who is saying it. Often, when confronted with situations and arguments which highlight our own incompetence and inadequacies, we tend to take refuge in the fact that the other person has no moral authority to question us and infact, take that as green signal to continue with our vices.

If it requires a person of complete character to question any one’s vices, then I don’t think any one of us can point out mistakes or provide guidance in any one else. We all are imperfect in some form or the other, at different points of time in life. It will do us more good to look at WHAT is being said, rather than WHO is saying it. Even if the greatest of advices are coming from the hardest of the criminals, it is worth absolutely the same as Krishna’s BhagavadGita to Arjun.

But yes, it would do us, others and the situation better, if we lead by personal example and then start dishing out advices. People unconsciously tend to blindly listen to so called good people, in the belief that all that they are saying is good. It makes me laugh though. Perceptions!! Oh, didn’t I tell you that we are all a part of an Imperfect World?

Mind Gym

2007-03-09T04:58:00.000-08:00

Patience and Faith : A Simple but Powerful Exercise

Place : Marina Beech, Madras
Time : 10 pm

I love beaches. I love the sea and I love to stand and watch the waves that come and go, touch and wet, the receding sand underneath the feet making you feel as if you are being pulled into the enormity of the sea and the exhilarating feeling of standing still and firm defying the mightiness.

Like all days, I reached my favourite spot around 9pm. I wish to be alone. Just the sea and me. Away from the maddening crowd. Sometimes even the old lady feeding her son in the moon also seems to invade my privacy. I watched the waves. So many of them. Some big and some small, some soft and some ferocious, some rising and some falling, some coming and some receding, but all of them were bringing a certain amount of randomness with them. It was simply breath taking. The waves I thought would reach me, never did. And those I never thought it would, swept my feet. My mind was filled with joy every time my feet got wet. And then, since I was standing at a distance, not all waves managed to reach me. Soon enough, I was falling into the trap of impatience of waiting for the waves to wet my feet than enjoying the moment, the scenery, the rising moon and the soothing music that was playing in my ipod.

The Experience and The Experiment.

Suddenly I had a spark in my brain. Why could I not use this set up to device a simple exercise to develop patience and faith. I feel that they are two extremely important qualities to last the race of life. They say, the winner is almost always the one who lasts just a little longer than others. It means, perseverance ably supported by patience and faith. Here I was finding it difficult to wait for a few moments for the one wave that would wet my feet. But this difficulty was presenting me an opportunity, to learn, experiment and improve.

I stood with my feet apart in a relaxed position. I played some of my favorite songs in my ipod. I closed my eyes and started humming aloud with the music that was playing and I decided I wouldn’t watch the waves and wouldn’t open my eyes until the first wave swept my feet. Initially, it was difficult. Darkness, the fear of unkown and anticipation was making me restless. But slowly, I learned to enjoy the present, the soothing music, the breeze that was gracing my cheeks, the rising moon lit night, gushing sound of the waves. Some 300 full seconds passed before the first wave wet my feet. Now, I had partially learned to control my mind and learned to enjoy the present for five full minutes. For those of us who have tried really doing so, five minutes is a decent time to start the experiment with.

Now, I decided to stretch the time. I stepped back one mtr. Then I repeated the experiment. Standing still. Eyes closed. Living in the present. The exercise was more satisfying this time, and I was able to stand for almost 10 minutes. Two full songs played in my ipod. Actually, I almost forgot I was waiting for a wave. It was a wonderful experience and my mind was filled with such pleasure. The 30mins of this experience had detoxified and destressed what no amount of wordly pleasures would have managed to do so.

How often we do certain things like writing an exam and cant wait to know the result. Or watch a weekly TV show and cant wait to watch the next episode. Or wrote a love mail and cant wait to see her reply. Or stand in front of a lift where already 10 people are waiting and yet pressing the lift button 5 times for the lift to come sooner. How often do we lose out steam before we are just there, or run out of interest and waver from an aim or think that things aren’t going our way and change course short of destination?

I feel that even the most simple conception has to pass through five stages.

Dream a concept------->convert them into workable Ideas---------->Start Acting on those Ideas---------->Persevere through difficulties--------->Finally taste success.

At every stage, someone of us gives up and we attribute our responsibility of our failure to external factors, mostly on imponderables like fate and destiny.

I feel that if one could develop patience and faith, the experience will be more rewarding. And, these two qualities go a long way in achieving equanimity of mind, the most essential ingredient of happiness. I have just shared one method which I found to be very useful for me. One can always innovate and use such powerful day to day experience for the path of self improvement. For egs, one can simulate the same experiment standing at suitable distance from a flying window curtain with fan switched on, waiting for the curtain cloth to touch the face.

Hope it inspires you as it did to me.

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2007-02-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

This a tamil poem I wrote yesterday while I was sitting on the banks of Bercha. The thoughts were so spontaneous and I just couldnt resist penning it down. I must thank my friend CVR for waking up the poet in me!!

நான் தேடிய சீதை

பக்கத்தில் அவள் இருந்தாள்.
கடிகாரத்தின் முள் மின் விசிறியானது.
பக்கத்தில் அவள் அமர்ந்தாள்
முள் படுக்கை பூவானது.

இதழ் துடைத்து அவள் மறந்த
கைக்குட்டை என் பஞ்சணை ஆனது.

சீவிப் படர்ந்த அவள் கூந்தல்
என் இரவானது.
சீப்பினில் சிக்கும் ஒவ்வொரு முடியும்
என் இதயத்தை கோர்க்கும் நூலானது.

எனைப் பார்த்து இமைக்கும்
அவள் புன்னகை என் விடியலானது

நான் தேடிய சீதை!!

மா பலா வாழை
அவள் சொற்கள் கவிச்சோலை.
அதிகாலைப் பனி, வென் துளிர் மேகம்
நெஞ்சமெல்லாம் அவள் மோகம்.

மரம் அவள், செடி அவள்
கொடி அவள், இலை அவள்,
மலை அவள், மலைச்சாரல் அவள்,
பாறை நடு அசையும் இளம் புல் அவள்.

நாற்றவள், கீற்றவள்,
செழிக்கும் நெல் அவள், உண்ணும் உணவவள்
உவற்க்கும் உப்பவள், இனிக்கும் தேனவள்.
நீறும் அவள், நெறுப்பும் அவள்

இசை அவள், லயம் அவள்,
ராகம் அவள், தாளம் அவள்,
வீணையும் அவள், மீட்டும் விரலும் அவள்.

அமுதம் அவள், நஞ்சும் அவள்,
பாற்கடலும் அவள், அதை கடக்கும் படகும் அவள்.
அலையும் அவள், அதில் மிதக்கும் நுறையும் அவள்,
குமுதம் அவள், கலங்கரை விளக்கம் அவள்.

கட்டிலும் அவள், மெத்தையும் அவள்,
இன்பமும் அவள், ஊடலும் அவள்.
விழியில் அவள், செவியில் அவள்,
தொட்டால் அவள், உணர்ந்தால் அவள்.

கண் விழித்து பார்த்தேன்
கனவா இது? பகற்கனவா இது?

எங்கே அவள்? எங்கே அவள்?
நான் தேடீய சீதை!!

நிலவினில் தேடினேன், விண்வெளியில் கூவினேன்
காற்றினை தூதனுப்பினேன்.
பூஞ்சோலையை கேட்டேன்,
பட்டாம்பூச்சியிடம் சொல்லிவைத்தேன்.
கறுப்புக் கண்ணாடியனிந்து சூரியனிலும் தேடினேன்.

இம்மன்னில் அவள் இல்லையென்று
மதிகெட்டு நம்பினேன்.

தக், தக், தக்.

கொஞ்சம் இருங்கள், கதவு தட்டும் ஓசை
திறந்தேன், மனக்கதவைத் திறந்தேன்.
எதிரெ அவள், எதிரெ அவள்.

வியந்தேன் நான்
நீயா அவள்? நீயா அவள்?

புன்னகைத்தாள். எனது இரவு விடிந்தது.
கண்ணிமைத்தாள். ஒரு யுகம் கணமானது.

ஆனந்தத்தில் பாடினேன்
இவளே அவள்! இவளே அவள்!

இத்தனை நாள் எங்கிருந்தாயென
பொய் கோபம் காட்டினேன்.

கோவில் மனியோசை போல் சிரித்தாள்.
பதில் அளித்தாள்...

உன்னருகே இருந்தேன், உன்னில் இருந்தேன்
உன் இமைக்குள் இருந்தேன்.

கண் திறந்து தேடினாய்
அதனால் எனை காணவில்லை.

இன்று மனம் திறந்து நோக்கினாய்
நொடியில் எனை கண்டாய்.

நீ தேடிய சீதை!!

For all those who cannot view the tamil fonts, here is the JPEG image of the poem. I hope this solves the problem for firefox users.

Workshop

2006-12-27T03:21:00.000-08:00

A Wall Paper I Designed

I just designed a wall paper for myself. Its for 1200x800 pxl screen

for those who use a blank desktop like me.

I recieved this kid's photo in a fwd email though:)

This is my two cents to the www!!

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2006-12-27T03:08:00.000-08:00

Lage Raho India! Lage Raho JP!!

This is the story of Mr JP Singh. He is a simple autorickshaw driver. But the man has real big dreams. About two years ago, I was traveling in his auto in delhi somewhere I don’t exactly remember now. I have the habit of engaging in conversations with auto drivers whenever I travel on one. They are the best indicators of public sentiments and they actually allow you to get a feel of the real India. JP was one such man. When I started talking to him, he narrated his grand plans. He apparently has three sons and he has planned in detail of their future. He wanted his eldest son to finish his physics honours which he was doing at that time. His second son was a chemistry student. And his youngest son was in his class XI that time. The elder sons were to teach and tutor his third son so that he can get into some good college and prepare for IAS (civil services) exams. He dreamt of making him a diplomat. Typical Dad he was. Big dreams. What amazed me was that the way he narrated his entire plan which was more accurate and detailed than some of the biggest military operational plans. His meticulousness was manifest in the way he narrated even the time plan for the week for his children. He was nuturing the future of India. I really appreciated his dedication and wished him good luck. And he didn’t overcharge me as most auto drivers do. But the only thing I was worried that if his plans go wrong, how much devastated he would be!! He was actually living out his dream during the thirty minutes drive.

I thought the story ended there. But as we all know, this world is a small place and I met JP again in a CNG pump when he came to fill fuel for his vehicle after two full years. I recognized him instantly and asked how he was doing and what about his sons? He replied happily that his first son has got into IIT Delhi for Masters in Physics, the second one has completed chemistry graduation and the third has joined Maths honours. With all the three, he along with his sons has decided to open a private coaching institute that would fetch more money than his one of his son joining the civil services and the others working elsewhere. Infact they are running one now at a small scale. He was so happy to say this and his excitement was palpable.

Now, what does it mean? For me, it simply meant that he did not see civil services as an opportunity to earn corrupt money whose copiousness can never be matched by any private tuition centre. He would be happier to run a tuition center and earn honestly (more than an honest civil servant). And then his flexibility. He seemed so engrossed in his plans that he actually did give me an impression that he could be more stubborn. But when I heard how he had rerouted his thinking and the course of his sons as per changing dynamics of life as it unfolded in front of him, he demonstrated that he was flexible and quick to grab fleeting opportunities. And the third thing which was staring at me was the synergy. Each of his sons was to get their masters in physics and chemistry and maths, but when they synergize they produce more than their sum total. They produce an entire coaching institute. And JP was an average Indian middle class person. What more, he earns a daily living by driving an auto rickshaw. With his limited knowledge, if he can think so much, what would happen if he is trained formally in a management institute and would run an organization? What a wasted talent!!

In information ops, there is a terminology called the OODA. It stands for Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action. It is said the second O is the most important of them all. So, people like JP give me a lot of confidence in our people. In this madness of resurgent India, there seems to be a method. It may take another generation to translate into concrete results, but then our direction seems right. Lage Raho India. Lage Raho JP!!!!

Put on Your Thinking Cap

2006-12-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

Moments of Inertia

Scene 1

Ammaaaa!!

Whaaaat?

Can u please put on the fan? (Amma comes from kitchen and switches on the fan, and the switch board is just six feet away from me)

Scene 2

A manic Monday morning. I get up and go to the toilet and find that there is no shaving cream. I scream at my helper asking where is the shaving cream? He replies, that he just threw that empty tube out while cleaning. How can I blame him? I was squeezing the hell out of that tube for the last one week. It should have been thrown out ten days before itself, but I was getting every drop of cream out of that and I was actually planning to cut the tube today, wipe off whatever is available, throw it away. My helper just preempted my plans.

Scene 3

My Study room. (These two words speak in itself an entire story of what I would be just giving as the connecting thread.)

Scene 4

My Bookshelf. A small blue book called the Bhagavad Gita. I am thinking of reading this for a long time and still haven’t found the gumption.

The list can go on endlessly. The common thread connecting all the four scenes is the “moment” of inertia. Newton says every body continues to be in a state of rest or in motion unless otherwise an external force acts upon it to change its state. How true? Simply put, it’s the inertia of mind leading to inertia of body resulting in the greatest crime I am committing with impunity day in and day out. Procrastination. Right from the start of the day when my bed tea gets cold because the “moment” of inertia to change my state from cozy sleep to sluggish yawn, overstretched itself to fifteen minutes, to that missed evening jog because something more important (afternoon siesta!!) overstretched yet again, to that book which I bought so fondly to read but which hasn’t seen the light of my table lamp, to my car which hasn’t been taken to servicing even after its scheduled service date expired three weeks ago, its procrastination that is ruling the roost today in my life.

And did I mention about this article for the blog which I had written long time back but didn’t “find” time to do ctrl C & V from msword to blogger? Moments of Inertia!!

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2006-11-28T04:41:00.000-08:00

Remigius : The Lizard of the Oz

This is the story of Remigius,the lizard. When I came to my new home and set it up so fondly, I discovered that there is only one place where I could place my study table which will house my laptop for most of the time, my music system and the TV comfortable because of the ease of juggling between all the three whenever I wish to. And I placed a fluorescent light right on the window pelmet and arranged my table under. The idea was that whenever I get bored of studying and needed some air, all I need to do was to just open the window. Heights of laziness, nevertheless it was a good setup. So far so good. But a couple of days later, I discovered that I am not alone in my home and I have a co occupant. He was Remigius (as later I would name him), the Lizard. He lived inside the pelmet of the window on top my study table and he preyed on the small insects which occasionally fly around the florescent light. I didn’t like him in the first place. For the simple reason he used to drop shit on my laptop. Everyday. Day after day. I was more than annoyed. I tasked my helper to kill him or atleast drive him away. Efforts were in vain. A week passed and I was getting more and more disgusted. Finally, a friend of mine suggested that placing empty egg shells would drive away lizards. I tried but the empty egg shells brought in smell and ants. So the shell didn’t work. I actually googled out some more ideas to drive lizards away but nothing was workable. My helper suggested to me to get an airgun and kill the lizard. It was an insult to my capabilities and people who know me would surely understand. And all these days Remigius was religiously dropping shit on my laptop. I used to come back from office and the first thing I used to do is to clean Remigius’s shit. What a destiny!!

As days passed, I was getting helpless and I suddenly I realized that I have actually stopped trying to drive him away. And moreover, I was looking forward to meet Remiguis everyday. All in the hope that he would understand my friendly nature and go away himself. But why will he go now that I am not even trying to drive him away?!! Sometimes, when I am thinking aloud, I used to talk to Remiguis. If he is around, I said bye to him when I left home. If I was angry I shouted at him. And for every action of mine, the only response I received was two drops of shit on my table, once or twice a day. Suddenly Remigius started playing a cute role in my home. As soon as I walked in from office, I used to shout for Remigius and look at the pelmet. One fine day, when I came back, I didn’t find Remigius. He was gone. Probably dead. Probably a prey for someone else. But then the fact was, I had got emotionally attached to Remigius to some extent. He was a nuisance but even then his absence made my throat dry.

It wasn’t the first time it is happening with me. When I was in East Africa, I had a Russian colleague Andre who used to feed three cats. He called them the Pirates. Individually they were called the Jack, Queen and King. I didn’t like them initially and used to keep complaining to him to keep them out of the office dining hall atleast. But as days passed, my animosity reduced greatly and a day came when Andre went back to Russia, I just couldn’t eat before feeding the Pirates. It was totally baffling to me how I could be so emotional towards them when all along I never liked them. Then onwards, I never had lunch before I ensured that the Pirates had something. Am out of there now and someone is feeding the pirates.

This world is a small place and its wonderful to realize that if only we can strike chords of harmony with each other, this place can be really heaven. However different we are from each other, I feel we can really connect, if only we wish to.

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2006-10-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

Gandhigiri

I watched "Lago Raho...." and this dialogue hit me hard and it summed up in two lines what I would have taken a monologue to vent out.

"1947 mein apunko swantrata mila. Desh toh apun ka ho gaya. Magar log paraye ho gaye"
......In 1947, we got independence. The nation became ours. But people turned strangers.......

Such an hypocrite I am, the first thing I went and did on introspection, was to dig out a photo I had got clicked long back, standing next to the Mahatma's Statue.

I wonder....Is this all my two cents worth of Gandhigiri?........only time will tell!:(

Put on Your Thinking Cap

2006-10-17T02:54:00.000-07:00

I was watching these kids play a couple of days ago. The truth was staring right at my face. Yes. I had forgotten to play. To play just for the pleasure of playing. I long for the youthful insouciance that was so palpable in my school days. I suddenly wish to just exist and go nowhere. Reach nowhere. Just walk and keep walking. No destinations. Just journeys.Where is the child in me?

Travel Diary

2006-10-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

Trip to the Misty Kodai Hills

Photo Finish

2006-10-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Nature's Wonders

Off the Records

2006-10-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

Look at the Result of my EQ Test

I just took this test and I couldn't believe the results.

But neither could Dr Phil.......

Your EQ is 153

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick!

51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese.

71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely.

91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that.

111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt.

131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin.

150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

What's" Your EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient)?

Travel Diary

2006-10-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

Kashmir to Kanyakumari

I was recently traveling from Bhopal to Chennai in an AC compartment of TamilNadu Express. Soon after boarding the train, I greeted my co passengers and arranged my luggage in its place. I intently looked at each of my fellow passengers and exchanged eye contacts and customary greetings. Among them was a distinctly Mongolian origin fellow who was reading a day old Times of India and every now and then opened his small palmtop to refer to something I could hardly make out at that point of time. To my left was an old lady, seemingly from the upper class of our society, with her son who was in his early twenties and later I would discover that her whole family is traveling in the same compartment in different seats. After a few minutes, a young man, smart looking with a crew cut, returned from the toilet and occupied his seat. Another young couple, were traveling in the side left seats. This completed the list of passengers in our coupe.

Few minutes passed as I was slowly getting engrossed in my book and suddenly the old lady chose to break the ice. And how! She introduced the Mongolian looking man to me as Kim, from Korea, who doesn’t know English. A nice way to start, I guessed. She explained to me how the man referred to his dictionary and language assistant books to even converse with her. She then made the most audacious remark I thought one can ever make. She said “ We Indians are much better off. Look at this guy(pointing towards Kim), he doesn’t even know English. You know I have ensured that both my children were put in English medium schools as I wanted them to be educated!!

Kim was smiling. Obviously, he didn’t understand her compliment.

What she said didn’t strike me immediately in its entirety. But then, a few moments of regurgitation, shocked me when I realized how much English education in India has been synonimised (Is it a new word I am coining? Where are the oxford guys……)with education in the real sense. And as a corollary, a deep malaise has percolated in the mindset of our parents that whosoever can’t speak English is in fact illiterate and uneducated. A preposterous assumption and it explains the mushrooming of English medium schools. Even Macaulay wouldn’t have envisioned such a stupendous success to his policies!

I tried to explain that it is not always necessary to know English in this world to be called educated and I quoted examples of my the multinational team which I headed while on deputation with UN, where there was no common language and some of the most erudite personalities were from non English speaking nations.

A few more minutes passed. Now it was the turn of her English medium school educated son Ramesh. He said he is doing a post graduation in some IT field. He started his intelligent conversations with the smart young man, who introduced himself to be Captain Ravikant Hegde. The conversation went on like this….

Ramesh : So what are you doing?

Capt Ravikant : I am a captain in the Indian Army.

Ramesh : Army!! Nice. You are in the civil side or the military side??

Hearing this, I chuckled and Capt Ravikant was startled.

Capt Ravikant : What do you mean? Army means Army. How can I explain! There is no civil side in the army.

Ramesh: No. No. You misunderstood. (A vacuous allegation!) I was meaning that army has several wings like airforce and navy. So which one do you belong?

Capt Ravikant was genuinely confused and for the first time he probably realized that he is making a mistake of guarding a nation of real armchair patriots who don’t even take pains to know what does a simple term like army means. He was mature and promptly changed the topic.

I thought the comedy show was over but then we were soon joined by the lady’s English medium school educated daughter Renuka. By this time, the couple on my left, the Selvanayagams, were also taking part in some discussion of historic importance (so characteristic of all train journeys. I always wonder why Indo Pak Dialogue cant take place on a train journey. Here the solutions seem to emerge soon.) Mr Selvanayagam said that he is working in Manipur in an Anti AIDS NGO. Ms Renuka promptly gave a know all reply “ Oh Manipur!! Capital of Assam. A great place I have heard.!! ”

I consoled myself that probably this factual ignorance doesn’t matter much as long as these so called educated young people remained good citizens. But that illusion was not allowed to remain for long. It was soon lunch time. The whole family gathered for lunch in our coupe. Much to our discomfort, we accommodated them. Packets after packets of food items were opened, but not one offered to share. I knew it was too much to expect from strangers. But then weren’t educated people supposed to be courteous? A few minutes passed. Someone cracked a joke and rest burst into laughter. One thing led to another and finally the entire plastic cover containing sambhar (a liquid delicacy from South India) spilled on the floor and soon a river of sambhar was finding its way into all our luggage space, spreading all over.

What followed soon was unbelievable. The entire family walked out blaming each other. Not one attempted to clean the mess. We were left to fend for ourselves. And now, expecting them to clean up the mess they were responsible for, wasn’t too much to expect from strangers! Or is it? What use of costly English medium schools and self laudatory and illusory perceptions of being educated, if one doesn’t even have common sense and more so, the public sense? Is our education system producing good fellow citizens who are sensitive to other’s sentiments and needs? Is speaking good impeccable English alone a sign of educated person in India? One can digest ignorance of facts like meaning of army or capital of Assam but can we pardon lack of public sense from these so called educated citizens of our country?

I have said previously too and I wish to reiterate the same again here. There is a quality of life which comes from having better infrastructure, roads, hitech gadgets, phones and convergance. And then, there is a quality of life which comes with having good and responsible fellow citizens, who understand and appreciate the value of being one. The latter is the real sign of any advanced society and a true indicator of development. Somewhere down the line, we have turned apathetic towards our own kith and kin and as a result, lost direction. We as Indians, must at once change course, lest we shall be lost forever!

Touring Talkies

2006-09-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

Death: Brought to you Live by.....

It took someoneÂs death to jolt me out of my slumber and I could not resist publishing my long pending Ânext articleÂ here. This is about the recent death by suicide of one Mr Abdul Rahim, in Karimnagar District of Andrapradesh. The link and the innocent looking newspaper clippidoesn'tesnÂt attract much attention. What does not meet the eye was that, this death telecastcast live on TV. Way to go reality TV!! It was a horror show live. I caught the melodrama in STAR News and for two hrs the agony and anticipation was keeping the audience on the edge of the seat like no thriller. But at the end of it all, there was no hero to save this poor soul from ending his life. Abdul was sitting on top of a three storey building and suddenly the unimaginable happened. He jumped, pierced through a false roof sunshade and landed on the road into the jaws of death which showed no delay in swallowing him up. The climax was over. Though this time around the police and the fire brigade was well before time but for reasons beyond my comprehension, they proved to be nincompoops, yet again. And what do you think the crowd was doing? Just standing there and watching the fun. Not a single man showed any signs of proactivity. All I ask was, why did we not do anything to save that life? Was our inaction due to lack of equipment? Or lack of will? Or was it pure apathy? Or was it that no one believed that they were about to witness a live conscious attempt to die? Where have we reached? Let me tell you one thing. It takes guts to jump from a third floor. I have taken countless jumps from 10m boards on to the gleaming blue carpet of water in Olympic size pools. The sight from top dries you out. And if that is the case with sporting jumps into water, then how about a painful death starring at you from bottom? It rightfully took a lot of time for that soul to decide and when he did, it was painful to watch.

Reality TV at its best. Death brought to you live at your fingertips. Did I see only death? I did see something more. This is the same crowd, which sees all those masala movies where heroes jump from one building to another and outwitting the rest. This is the same crowd that pays to watch stunts and here it was watching a free show. Not one soul, not even one, showed some ingenuity and courage to stop the inevitable. And donÂt even talk about the police or the fire brigade.

The hard hitting reality isÂÂÂ.there is no value for life. People would rather watch someone die and channels would telecast even death live to improve their TRPs. But not one soul would be that Indian hero painted in movies after movies after movies. Not in the watching crowd, neither the jumping man!

Back from Exile

2006-09-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

The Souldoctor is now the Candyman

Its been a long time since I looked towards this side. Last three months or so was really an interesting period in my life on more than many counts. It was a period of intense proffessional learning on one side, followed by a lot of self realisations and reality checks on the personal front. Amidst all this, I was left with little time and more so little inclination to write. I am back and I hope to reignite my penchant for publishing some more of my soul searching. And a trivia for the uninitiated.......I am now known as the candyman in the net circle. The Kids loved it and it caught on. I find it a little more appealing and hence I chose to keep it that ways.

Put on Your Thinking Cap

2006-06-22T02:31:00.000-07:00

Ten Monkeys

I read about this experiment on behavioral patterns, a very long time ago and I always wanted to share this with others. It was an eye opener for me in many respects. I am sure you will enjoy reading this.

Its about a group of ten monkeys and a hanging banana. This group of ten monkeys are put inside a glass room. In the middle of the room, a single banana is left hanging, just within the reach of the monkey’s jump. The glass room has numerous inlets fitted with water jets. As soon as the monkeys are put inside the room, all of them see the banana hanging in the middle. Now, every time a monkey tries to jump from the floor and reach for the banana, the scientists open up high powered water jets through the inlet holes and splash them on all the monkeys. This happens every time one among those monkeys go for the banana. Over a period of days, each of the ten monkeys tries its hand on reaching for the banana, only to be welcomed by instantaneous water jets being splashed on all the monkeys, causing deep pain and anguish. After a couple of days, what the scientist observed was that, none of the monkeys went for the banana. Occasionally, one of them, tempted, would go for the banana, but then all other monkeys would jump on this monkey, beat it black and blue and stop it from reaching the banana, fearing the impending water jets, even when no water jets were being splashed on them. The scientist had successfully internalized the fear and the cause and effect system of monkey going for banana - triggering a water jet - leading to pain and anguish.

This went on for while and then the scientist replaced one old monkey with a new monkey from outside. This new monkey, as soon as it entered, saw the other monkeys and a banana hanging in the centre and to its surprise no monkey was trying to go and get it. Having thought for a while, unable for figure out the reason, it instinctively went for the banana, only to be pounded by the other monkeys, beaten and thrashed to the ground. The new monkey wondered why other old monkeys would do that, because after all it was going for a hanging banana, something a monkey always does naturally. It waits for sometime, and then tries again, and again, only to be faced with the same reaction from other monkeys. Finally, it too sits quiet under the banana, like others. And the point to be noted here was that the fear factor was internalized in the new monkey, without having been subjected to any water jet treatment.

Like this, the scientists replaced one monkey after another until all the ten old monkeys, who had faced the water jets were replaced by a completely new set of monkeys. The banana still hung in the centre. Every time, a new monkey entered the room, it instinctively tried to go for the banana, only to be beaten black and blue by the others, until its natural instinct to jump for a banana was overcome and suppressed, atleast as long as it remained in the glassroom.

It was a simple experiment, but the results are a big revelation. The glassroom depicts a society and each new monkey, a new generation of life on this earth. The set of principles and situations at a particular point of time and for a particular set of people, are not the same over a period of time, but people’s reaction to such situations gets internalized and templated that others blindly follow or forced to blindly follow the rut, killing the natural human instincts of seeking knowledge and reasoning it by logic. Most of the superstitions and to great extent, religion as such in today's world, are a simple reflection of this process of forced internalization over thousands of years of human existence. Afterall, a phenomenon could also be a foolishness embraced by millions. If only we could apply our minds, we can atleast leave this world a better place to live for our children!!

Photo Finish

2006-06-14T02:17:00.000-07:00

Message in a Bus?

Last Journey?

My Learning Curve

2006-06-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

On a Rainy Day

It was a quiet saturday evening, dark clouds covering the sky and my heart was warmly awaiting the midsummer showers. The greenery was inviting and becoming more lush with every passing rain. I was sitting in a gazebo in the middle of my lawn and enjoying the serenity of the surroundings. The unique and pleasant about to rain fragrance was bringing in refreshing memories of many a kind. I was having a cup of hot tea and crispy just out of the frying pan pakodas. As expected, it started raining and it went on for quite sometime. I finished with my pakodas which had greased my fingertips with a film of oil and I wanted to wash my hands badly so that I could pick up a book to read. But the rains wouldnt stop and I just could not go the watertap located at the end of the lawn. I waited and waited for the rains to stop so that I could go to the tap. After a while I suddenly realised, that I was just sitting inside a waterfall and how. The gazebo had a conical roof and the rains waters gushed down all around from the roof, making a clean cyllindrical curtain of water!! And here I was, waiting for the rains to stop so that I could reach the tap and wash my hands.

This was a small incident but brought out profound lessons for me. It dawned on me that often our preconcieved notions and closed minds, blinds us to the bigger realities that lie right in front of our eyes. Sometimes, these realities are so huge that it escapes the attention of our eyes due to its sheer enormity of size which is wide than our field of view. We search, pursue, struggle, and many times succumb without experiencing that the truth we sought for was right in front of us. A small experience, but a big lesson for me on a rainy day. I washed my hands gleefully in the water gushing down from the roof and as happy as child having learnt a new rhyme in his nursery. Hope I will be able to remember this lesson when the exams come!!

Pass the Current

2006-04-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Murder the Murderer?

In this imperfect world, condemned are those who cannot defend themselves. The soul is one such entity.

- The Soul Doctor

What could be more cruel than extracting a life consciously? If nothing else could be more cruel, then extracting another life consciously with state support for whatever justification is barbaric. Capital Punishment embodies the human vice for revenge and vengeance. Death penalty signifies prejudice of emotion over reason.

Among other things, deterrence is cited as a major reason for having capital punishment. Honestly speaking, I wonder if there is there any deterrence value by having capital punishments. If statistics are anything to go by, then crime rates are increasing day by day and alternatively, crime rates have dropped in some western European Scandinavian countries where there is no capital punishment. It only goes to prove that the deterrence value of the capital punishment is just a myth.

The appeal system that has been designed to ensure that only the guilty are actually punished is so lengthy that it results in the accused having to wait for years in anticipation of his possible execution. Anticipation of death is more painful than death itself. I feel it is absolutely inhuman to kill a man day after day, leaving him rehearse his death second after second, until he is finally executed.

Let us look at the alternatives for capital punishment. The first and only alternative is life imprisonment without parole. This means that a criminal, who has committed a ruthless crime, is fed by the tax payer’s money in jail, where he just lives without being of any productive help to the society. Why must the tax payer’s money be used for feeding hardcore criminals? It is a logical question. My only answer is that possibilities must be explored to reform jails, make them productive and economically self sustaining. The best example is the Tihar Jail in Delhi, where inmates produce and sell goods. This is one good way to motivate the jail inmates, give them a sense of belonging and reform them. After all, no one is a born criminal.

If we take a look at those people who are sentenced to capital punishments the world over, it dawns on us that most often it is the poor people, first time criminals and those who commit crimes unplanned. The shrewd, professional criminals who commit crimes and get crimes committed, do so with thorough planning and execute with certain amount of professionalism. They ensure that no evidences are left behind and no trails are pointing to them. Even if caught, they have the money power to hire top notch professional lawyers who try to show a murder as culpable homicide, a term which changes the entire connotation of the case being tried. If proved, one can never be sentenced to death for committing a culpable homicide. The arguments range from establishing temporary insanity of the accused during the crime to proving that the act was in self defence of a possible murder assault. The rich can afford the bail, bid time to obfuscate the evidences and try any and every method to get away or mitigate the punishment that could be awarded.

What if the accused is poor? How many common men can afford professional lawyers? Doesn’t it seriously affect his capabilities to defend himself well? Also, Death sentences most often are dealt out in cases where the murder was totally unplanned. Most often, the planned murders escape the legal network using all the loopholes simply for the fact that it was planned in the first place. Even at the cost of insinuation, I wish to state that there is an inherent unfairness that exists in the legal system of any country. How much ever one tries to be ideal, the legal system has its own limitations and loopholes. None of us may openly admit the same, but neither can we completely deny the same in our naked honesty.

The principle of justice flows from the ideology that a hundred criminals may go free but not one innocent must be punished. If that be so, and keeping in mind the inherent loopholes of legal system as such, then is it ethical and fair to sentence someone to death for how much ever grievous crime he is supposed to have committed? Do we have the right to take away what we never gave or what we can never give eventually?

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2006-03-18T06:52:00.002-08:00

Opinions : Why do we hold them at all?

Just why do we have an opinion on anything at all? What good of is our opinion? What is going to change because we hold an opinion? Are we going to change ourselves? Is anyone hearing us? We read so many blogs which has opinions of so many people on so many subjects. How does it affect us? Do we change our opinions ever on what already we have? In what way this opinion of mine on opinions influencing you? And how much easier is to make someone accept your opinion if you are renowned person, than to make people accept your opinions, even if better and more logical, if you are just another guy from town? And why? What changes if I hold an opinion that Americans are attacking Iraq to promote democracy or if I think that they are fighting there for economic motives? What changes on ground? I feel nothing, not atleast in my sphere of influence.<br>

But a little soul searching reveals to me that something does matter somewhere. For example, I held an opinion that we Indians are rushing and honking too much while driving on roads. I tried driving for a week without using horns. And, I could actually do it, contrary to all those misconceptions I had that if I honked, I could make way and reach faster or I could just avoid that motorcyclist from banging in my car. I actually reached wherever I wanted to reach in almost the same timeframe and less tensions, even when I didn’t honk on the roads. So, holding an opinion and thinking about it, did make a small change in me for good. Not only was I able to change my opinion, but also I was able to demonstrate to three others in my car that it is possible to drive safely, peacefully and almost as fast, without honking in Indian roads. Now, that influenced them to try it out. So, not only did I change myself by choosing to act upon my opinion, but also influenced to change some other’s opinion by demonstration and example. What does all this mean?

Holding opinions is essential.Somewhere down the line, when we wish to stand up and be counted, we have to have an opinion. Opinions about issues falling closer to you, matters in the real sense more that those far away. And I feel that changing things as per our opinion is possible only within our sphere of action, where we as an individual can act. As the sphere of action enlarges as one grows in life to a position of power and political influence, one’s opinion on macro issues may start to get counted. Finally, I am very near to concluding that if there is atleast one person who can be changed or influenced by my opinions, then it is me, myself, karthik. What is your opinion on this?

On a Rat Race

2006-03-10T06:14:00.000-08:00

Time Nahin Hai.......

Once in New Delhi, I was standing in a crowded grocer shop when a man suddenly entered barging his way through. He said to the shopkeeper " Bhaisahab, jaldi karna, time nahi hai." (Brother, make it fast, I have no time). The shopkeeper was perplexed and replied "Kya chahiye aapko, woh toh batao pehle" (what do you want, tell me that first!). The man replied "Two packets Wills navy cut" and then continued audaciously " batah diya na...ab to jaldi karo!!" (I have told you, now make it fast)!!

I looked around. Something glared at me right on my face. An India that is running fast. Dont know where. But moving fast. An impatient India. There can be no better example than a scene in a traffic signal, to understand the level of this impatience. If you make the mistake of leaving a gap of more than one foot between the neighbouring car while waiting in the signal, you will have a motor cyclist trying to make his way through ahead, between the two of you. If you park your car, right before line marking the zebra crossing so that the pedestrians can cross, you would have only allowed that same impatient motorcyclist to crawl through the gaps between the cars to get ahead and park right in front of you, on top of the zebra. When the red light turns amber, the horns start blowing for you to move. And everyone blows the horn!!

Its a great sight to watch ourselves waiting in a queue in a public telephone booth (now the mobile phones have spared us this agony) or railway ticket counter for example. Many among us would be squirming with impatience. Some would change queues only to find their original ones are moving faster. And then some would come, stand right next to you, would try to look the other way around and get inside the line sheepishly, only to be pushed back one by one till the last! And there would be some who would ask you with all decency if they could stand in front you because they have to go for an important meeting!! As if everyone else has nothing better to do other than standing in the queue.

If you want to get inside the train or the city bus during office hours, all one has to do is stand in the right place before the door. Rest is done by the crowd. You will be pushed in with clinical precision.

India is running at a hectic pace. Especially the last decade of sustained 8% growth has fuelled this mad race and this mad race in turn fuels the growth. But it very admirable to see how people are coping up with new pressures of developing economy. But are We running to catch up with life ? Or a mirage called life?

Oh my god, it is already 5pm. I have to go for an important meeting with friends. Time Nahin Hai............!!

Dreaming on a Toilet Seat

2006-03-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Indians : What do we lack?

Attitude. It is pure and simple. We lack a winning attitude towards life. We want to be rich and call ourselves a developed nation, but we do not want to work hard for it! If tomorrow, say a $ 100 billion is poured into our system, will the standard of living increase in India? I would rather say a skeptical no. I think, definitely there is a quality of living, which comes with increased infrastructure, better communication, faster cars and wider roads etc. Sure, these can be bought by money. And with the economy growing at 8%, I am sure the day is not far off, when we would have world-class facilities even in smaller towns. And then there is a quality of living which comes with having better citizens, who knows the value of being a law abiding citizen fulfilling his duties towards the society and the state, who appreciates his fellow citizens being a good Samaritan and encourages everyone else around to do their duty. Now, that is what is lacking in our country. We Indians neither understand the value of being a good citizen nor appreciate or encourage fellow citizens trying to be law abiding and duty bound. I am not saying that we are criminals killing and looting around. But surely we lack the ethics that must be the building block of any developed society. Want to get a job done? Blame the red tape, pay the bribe and move on. Got late for office? No problem. Run over the traffic light. Of course, when most of us running over the traffic lights, there is a 50% chance that the cop wont stop you this time. There is a shortcut for everything in India. As long as we do not have a majority of us who respects and abides by the rule of law in their day to day life, no amount of FIIs, sensex boom or 8% GDP growth will be able to improve the quality of living in India.

And we have a million audience for our drama, who couldnt care less. They would say, " Sab Chalta Hai!" and continue to sip their tea. This "chalta hai" attitude (couldnt care less) is destroying the very fabric of our development. This is the same attitude that is making people turn a blind eye towards all the evils and corruption that has permeated through the Indian society. Its not the wealth neither the lack of oil resources nor the years under colonial rule that is plaguing India, but it is this couldnt care less attitude among us. In a democracy, bad governance and corruption is the price we pay for this attitude. And the worst part is, Indians become one of the most sincere and law abiding citizens when we leave our shores. An article in Chennai Pages, illustrates better what I am talking about.

When are we going to learn to become law abiding and good citizens? And what can YOU do about it? May be start for office a little early, huh? May be.

Behind the Curtains

2006-02-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

Petrodollars : Is it the real reason for Iraq War?

It is more than two years since the first shots were fired in Iraq, by the coalition forces led by US in its war against terrorism. Not a single WMD has been found till date, which was the reason for which the war was fought in the first place. Was it the race to control the world’s dwindling oil resources that triggered this war? Or was it the way oil is being traded in the world economy? Strategic experts all over the world believe that there is more to this than what meets the eye. Many argue convincingly that this war is all about the fight between Dollar and Euro, and which currency the rest of the world uses to buy oil. For starters, there are some basic terms which I would like to bring to the attention for better assimilation. It is common knowledge that USA has trade deficit with each of its trading partners running to trillions of dollars. In simple terms, it means USA does not sell enough goods as much as it buys goods and services from other nations. It also means that the dollars it is paying for the goods and services it buys, are merely printed fiat dollars without any backing. This dollar is used by nations to buy oil and thus the value infused dollar called the petrodollar is reinvested in the American markets and US financial instruments by these oil exporters, mainly Saudi Arabia. This petrodollar cycle is made possible by two important factors. Firstly, the dollar is the reserve currency for most of the world nations. The 1944 Bretton woods agreement that created the World Bank and IMF, it was made mandatory for all loans to be denominated in dollars. Hence, all repayments are also in dollars, making it necessary for nations to keep enough dollar reserves to service their debts. Secondly, dollar is the only currency accepted by OPEC and Non OPEC nations for oil trade as on date. This loyalty towards was ensured by several secret agreements between Saudi Arabia and Nixon regime in 1974 after walking out of gold standards, in exchange for protection of the kingdom by the US military might. Headed by Saudi Arabia, all other OPEC nations kindly obliged.This ensured that all nations (notably the industrial nations) needed dollars to buy oil to fuel their economy.

With this background, it is clear how US is having an economic free lunch where all it needs to do to be an economic superpower is to keep up this dollar hegemony by having friendly regimes in oil exporting states that continues to denominate oil trade in dollars. As long as oil could be bought using only dollars, all nations however big or small, would need dollars which only USA can print. Beyond all the façade of the strong economic credentials and higher GDP growth, US economy primarily depends upon how long and how well this petrodollar cycle is maintained. Any threat to this cycle would lead to devaluation of dollar and the collapse of the US economy and economies of countries like Japan, holding a huge reserve currency in dollars owing to its enormous trade surplus. All went well, until the sick man of world economy, Europe, woke up and created Euro. The Europeans lead by France and Germany, wanted a fair share of this economic free lunch which the US was enjoying solely all these years. With an ageing population and increasing labour costs that saw bulk of manufacturing and services shifting to China and India, Europe is finding increasingly difficult to service it welfare state economic model with high pension and social security obligations. Euro was floated primarily to rival dollar as the world’s reserve currency and efforts were on to make it possible for oil exporting countries to use petroeuros.

Amongst these developments, there was Mr Saddam Hussain, defeated militarily, crippled economically with a plethora of sanctions, waiting patiently for an opportunity to strike back at the empire where it would hurt them the most. And allowing Euros for trading oil was Saddam’s response to US’s unilateral foreign policies. In Nov 2000, Saddam’s Iraq became the first oil producing nation to denominate Euro as the currency standards for oil exports. Euro appreciated in value compared to dollars and as a result, Iraq’s kitty with the UN food for oil program swelled to more than 26 billion Euros from $ 10 billion. Things started taking more unpleasant turns for US with more oil exporting countries like Malaysia and Iran openly talking about a shift to Euro. North Korea, in a desperate attempt to increase its bargaining chip, restarted its nuclear program and also became the officially converted all its currency reserves to Euros. Thus it became a part of the Axis of Evil as termed by the US. Iran was to follow suit very soon, with open discussion to trade oil in Euros. From June 2003, all oil exports from Iran to Europeon and Asian countries were required to denominated in Euros, and experts believe that Iran also actually converted 40% of its currency reserves to Euros. And, no wonder it became the third nation to be a part of the Axis of Evil. Here is a chart as to how the major events in the oil trade, lead to the fluctuation of Euros.

Another country, which circumvented this oil trade in dollars in its own way, was Venezuela. Venezuelan President Chavez worked out a barter deal with 12 latin American countries and Cuba, cutting out this petrodollar cycle, directly buying goods and services in exchange for oil. Not surprisingly, CIA engineered a coup in April 2002, to throw away a democratically elected Govt to institute a friendly regime which would serve American interests. The coup failed and when the traitors were exposed, all hands pointed to US. Interestingly, the Bush administration did not deny the allegations. So much so, for the promotion of democracy rhetoric by the US.

There was a clear and present danger to US economic interests. Luckily for the US, Osama preempted a foolish move by carrying out the 9/11 WTC bombings giving the US a much needed façade to pursue their unilateral economic policies. This also created panic in the American tax payer, who would now think twice before questioning the Bush administration’s war against terrorism. It was after all his own security for which the US govt was fighting for, he would justify himself. I have read some conspiracy theories about this WTC bombings, which some believe were orchestrated by the US Govt itself, to convince the US public of the pervading security threat. Though I take these stories with a pinch of salt, it is still worth a read.

The US eventually attacked Iraq in response to the WTC bombings. Most of Europe, notably France and Germany, did not support the war, for in effect it would mean digging the grave for the petroeuro. But the message was loud and clear. The US will protect its economic interests, even if it means waging a war to instate friendly regimes. Invasion of Iraq and reconversion of its oil exports denomination to petrodollars from Euros was a warning to other OPEC nations thinking of making a shift to Euro. The whole nuclear imbroglio of Iran, seems to have an underlying economic reason as well. Beginning mid 2006, Iran has planned to start an oil bourse to compete with the London IPE or New York NYMEX, with Euros as denominated currency for trading oil. And I there are already news reports that US is planning to attack Iran for restarting its nuclear program apparently to prevent an Islamic nuclear bomb!! A strange coincidence once more?

Why is the world public and especially the American public least informed about these underlying economic reasons for this so called war against terrorism? For an interested reader like me, the facts are very much available in the internet. But why isn’t any kind of mainstream media, be it the print or the TV, has brought out these seemingly logical reasons for the said war? Petrodollars, oil trade and things like that are least talked about in the media. Yet , they seem to me as one of the most important factors for this war. Why is the common man kept in dark? Is the American media hand in glove with hegemonistic policies of the US Govt, which ofcourse are in the overall interest of the American tax payer, though in an utterly notorious way? Why is the Indian Govt supporting these policies of US, especially those relating to Iran? Is it because the irreversible process of globalization would hit a road block, if the dollar collapses? In this dirty world of politics and international relations, there are no friends and there are no enemies. There are only self interests. Each one of nations, strive to serve their own self interests, at all costs. Some are kingmakers, like the US. Some are mere pawns like most of the NATO, serving the US interests for protection against imaginary threats. Slowly but steadily, the whole world is getting sucked into a global conflict that it can ill afford. That’s the truth.

Put on your Thinking Cap

2006-01-30T01:30:00.000-08:00

Journalism in India : Has it come of Age?

India Today was doing it for years. The Times of India has made it just easier for us. They have got the page 3 stuff to the front page. Is Indian journalism losing its direction?

I think, the newspapers have started losing their relevance for the purpose of news, slowly with the idiot box entering almost every household today. Gone are those days, when parents insisted kids to read newspapers and editorials. Now, we get news and more, 24hrs a day, live. In a way I would say that this change is inevitable and in this fast paced life, getting time to read newspapers is a luxury. In any case many of us with access to internet do end up reading the epapers. I don’t think that the print media would die; nevertheless, its losing is teeth to shape the minds of the people with the entry of satellite television.

It is also a myth that the English language media dominates the print media scene. Infact, statistics suggests that the vernacular newspapers sell much more in India than the English papers. But I can’t vouch for their quality. Most of these papers cater to the intellect of the not so literate, with flashy images and juicy stories of the thefts in the neighborhood and petty political stories. But the better part is that these vernacular papers also deliver local news more relevant to the readers who are really not concerned what is happening in Eastern Europe.

If I would say one singular aspect which is destroying Indian journalism, it is their insatiable greed to sensationalize issues, grab attention and sell more prints or have more TRP ratings. There is a deluge of TV news channels on the offer and not one can be relied upon. Where is the integrity in reporting? Truthful reporting, journalistic ethics are things of past. Journalism and media is being used by the politicians as means of propaganda, a means to attack the opposition and their views and a legal method to bring disrepute to anyone and everyone, in the name of freedom and democracy. A political party owning a news channel gives it a license to lie in the name of journalism. The overall interest of the nation and its people are the last priority.

Godra riots is one of the worst examples of how irresponsible journalism and sensationalisation of issues can exacerbate already burning issues. Sure there were killings. But I feel that, most of the killings were fuelled by the sensationalized reports of the media. If a hundred hindus were killed, a sensational media and print reports fuelled the vengeance of the people, who were misinformed by distorted reporting, and who went on kill a thousand muslims and it was a cycle until sense prevailed in all, by which time it was too late. I am sure the situation could have been controlled by responsible reporting.

Just to compare, I was amazed at the way the western media handled the WTC bombings on 9/11. There were no specific figures of causality given out, until it was officially announced by the US Govt. There was no criticism of the then present day administration for laxity and the media stood by the nation and the Govt at the hour of crisis than serving their commercial or parochial political interests.

The trivialization of issues is another cause of concern. The 24hrs news channels are just not finding the quality programs to air and they end up reporting the most mundane and trivial issues. Over reporting has become the order of the day. A simple news like Dravid hitting a century in the recent Indo – Pak cricket test series, was given so much importance and time slot that journalists were going ga-ga over it, and every half an hour interviews of the Dravid’s parents, friends and fans were being flashed. I couldn’t see so much attention given to even the English cricket team by their media when they won the Ashes. Amitabh Bachan’s illness grabbed so much of airtime that it appeared that nothing else is happening in this country of 1000 million people. Common Guys, give us a break. We are not interested much in Bolivian crisis or Western Sahara. But neither does Big B’s illness matter much. Even the print media is not far from these crimes. A sex survey in Indian cities hogged the limelight of the cover story of India Today. Majority of the Indians are happy, claimed another weekly. It’s a matter of wonder, how these weeklies give out such conclusive reports made on surveys of less than 3000 people in such a large country like India!! Statistics says, your body is in room temperature, if you dip one hand in boiling water and other one in ice cold water. Would it be true? No wonder, none of the exit polls are even close to the real outcome of any elections. And when their exit poll flops, they praise the Indian voter and power of Indian democracy.

Off late, one thing that has caught up is sting journalism. Ends justify means, they say. But I can already smell rat. Most of these stings are politically motivated. As long as it exposes corruption, it is good. I would like to throw a question to the speaker of the parliament. If majority of the MPs involved in the money for question episode, were from the ruling party, would they have been expelled with such speed? But I still have my appreciation for this stern action. The guilty deserves to go out. Minor exposes like bribery in the customs check point and police stations does put a caution in the minds of the people, enlightens the public of what is going on and forces the authorities in power to be less corrupt or atleast be careful not to get caught! But my worry is that, is sting journalism done to expose the corrupt alone with mere social interests? I feel no. There is an underlying commercial interest of increased TRP ratings and ad revenues. What if the politician caught on camera, offers more money than the advertisements and TRP ratings would rake in for the channel? How many have already done that and saved themselves the ignominy of such an expose? What is the guarantee that these stings are not used to fill the coffers of individuals who carry out such operations? Its time to think.

Social values in a resurgent India took a beating first when schools were commercialized and were to begun to run on profit motives than with altruistic values. The final death blow is being delivered day after day, by the print and the media which is turning more and more commercial and profit oriented. Is it correct to hand over the power to shape the minds of the people, especially children in impressionable age who are the future of the nation, to such irresponsible media?

I feel that FDI inflow in the media sector would solve the problem partially. The monopoly must be killed and when foreign media houses with deep pockets and quality programs would come in, the local media would be forced to prune up and dish out good stuff. But the question remains, would the media deliver what the people don’t want? And if they are delivering trivias, may be it is time to take a relook at ourselves. Which programs or news we enjoy more, the PM’s visit to US or the Kareena’s Kiss episode?? When there are contradictions, check your premises, says Ayn Rand!

Put on Your Thinking Cap

2006-01-13T10:26:00.000-08:00

Charity begins at Home?

A few days ago, while I was climbing the stairs of Malai Mandir, a temple for the Hindu Deity Lord Murugan, in New Delhi, I happened to notice a small marble slab pasted along side the wall. It had the engraving of the name of the person who had donated money for construction of the stairs, possibly put in place for publicity by the person himself. It is not the first time I was seeing such a thing, but then this time it really made me think. Then every passing day, more and more marble slabs in temples or a neat painting in the corner of a bus shed tin roof advertising the name of the person who had donated it, became conspicuous to me. It often makes me wonder why people would do that. When someone does a work of charity, why would it always have to be accompanied by some publicity? Is it direct fallout of our basic human need for recognition? Is it a manifestation of our reputation consciousness rather than character consciousness? If the real intention is to do charity alone, then I don’t think it requires any sort of publicity. It is said that even the left hand should not know what the right hand is donating.

Many institutions even offer options for publicity in a sliding scale such as donations above a certain amount which would be felicitated by proper acknowledgement in the newspapers or inscriptions in granite stones etc. This is very common with these Times of India relief fund, India Today funds or such like funds collected for national calamities like the Tsunami or even the Kargil war fund collection initiatives. Big organizations host expensive dinners under the veil of fund raisers whose invite list would include the rich and the super rich people who then donate a lot of money to these NGOs for their projects. And without doubt, these parties are hosted with the money that has flown in as donations in the first place. A deeper look does give me the wisdom to realize that these are indeed a necessary evil. The pity is that if an NGO does not satisfy some men’s need for public recognition of their nobility and altruism, then big bucks just wouldn’t flow. It’s a case of satisfying someone’s vice to save the needy and the poor.

But if indeed one expects to find his name in the list of donors, neatly engraved on a marble and put up in the most prominent place, where is the nobility and altruism at all? Personally I don’t think the value of money donated goes down, if donor chooses to have his name publicized. If that serves the ends of receiving more donations, then by all means, we can promise every possible publicity to attract more donations. But what puzzles me is the underlying human need for such publicity. These are the same denizens who would criticize the politicians for hogging the media for anything and everything they do. Is it a case of throwing stones from a glass house? Possibly, yes.

Talking about charity, it is said that charity begins at home. But when a person decides to donate a certain sum of money, can he really help not feeling guilty when he donates for someone among his own family? For that matter, the neediest person could be his own son or daughter, or even parents or relatives! Is he being selfish by helping his own kith and kin? Will it make his act any less noble than had he helped an unknown poor beggar or an orphan? If indeed charity begins at home, then what is wrong on spending the money on himself? Where would one draw a line between need and luxury while judging the merit of a case where one needs help?

Let me illustrate with an example. Let us say a person X, decides to donate Rs 50000. Now, who would constitute a better candidate? A Rs 50 meal for 1000 beggars for one time? It would mean, that the full power of Rs 50000 is not being harnessed and its broken into 1000 parts of Rs 50. It is easier to find 1000 people ready to donate Rs 50 than one person ready to donate Rs 50000. So, in my opinion, the power of this total sum must be fully exploited and hence it must be donated to a cause that is in critical need of this sum. Would it be nobler to save a life by helping to finance a life saving operation for a man? Or to help someone to get that education which he is otherwise not able to afford, which when acquired would empower him to earn further and help others like he was helped by someone when he was in need?

But whatever it is, at the end of it all, I always wonder how would it feel to suddenly walk into someone’s life, silently pull him out of that gravest misery he is undergoing, and walk out as silently as we walked in? Doesn’t it feel exciting to play God sometimes? To me, it does!

A New Begining.

2006-01-03T03:43:00.000-08:00

I wish you all a very happy and

prosperous New Year 2006.

May ALL your dreams come true.

Reflections

2006-01-03T01:42:00.000-08:00

2005 : The Year That Was

Life often unfolds itself in recondite ways and no wonder, 2005 was a remarkable year in my life, accentuating, yet again, the fathomless mystery of fate or randomness. The year began with one of the most precious gift that almighty has ever bestowed upon me, which I thought I had lost, even though I never believed I lost it or I would ever lose it, coming back to me. This year was one of learning and before I could realize I was already on a path of spiritualism, guided my own conscience. The Journey of a thousand miles had just been begun with a single step. No extraordinary event marked the commencement of this journey. No functions. No joining of spiritual groups. No following of masters and gurus. But, for sure, the journey towards the core of my heart and in search of my soul had surely begun.

Amongst other things, this year took me offshore from my country to a remote poverty stricken northeast Africa as I was deputed to serve with the UN. And this gave me an opportunity to interact with people all across the world, see different cultures and customs, different outlooks to life. Nowhere in the world, I guess, would one get an opportunity to serve with over 70 nationalities, from every part of the world, significant or insignificant. And what I saw changed the way I saw this world. I realized that there are people and a whole lot of them, living in this world, holding diametrically opposite views of life, following completely different things and yet living happily. Suddenly, the lines differentiating the right and wrong, the good and the bad, blurred and merged. Does that mean that I need to exorcise all that has gone into shaping me what I am today? This is a question looming large in my mind, for which I have no immediate answer. I hope wisdom would prevail upon me in due course of time.

I started writing this year and this Blog was born. This was the most singular propellant for my spiritual journey. All these years, I have always been philosophically inclined. But when I started giving shape to my ideas and thoughts in the form of my writing, the first thing that struck me hard was my own life riddled with unwanted hypocrisies, false facades and skewed perceptions of how the world is in front of me. The more I wrote, the more I became aware that if there is one person that I can change and I need to change in this world, it is I. I wish I was perspicacious enough to understand this long back, but then it is never too late.

I earned a lot of money this year. A whole lot of money, which I always knew I will earn, but I had the providence to do so at early stage of my life. Again, it is all relative. This whole lot of money as per me might be a pittance to someone else. Let me not get into that. In short, 2005 has made me financially a lot sounder than before. Professionally, it was the best year of my career. The kind of exposure I have gained this year alone is stupendous.

When I look back at 2005, I don’t see 365 days, but just an evanescent moment, a small drop in the ocean of time, receding as fast as it came. But this drop was a prism for me, which gave me the wisdom that the white light of life is indeed a mixture of several colours. And what colour I see, depends on the way I see it, as much as it depends on the colour itself. Pure Metaphysics.

And then, when 2005 came to a grand denouement, I was told that I had lost it all. All that ever mattered to me. Strange are the ways of life!

Logic Puzzle

2005-12-19T23:34:00.000-08:00

Excess Baggage.

This is about a funny experience I had while I was boarding an Emirates Flight to Dubai. I was flying from Madurai and I was in the Chennai international Airport well before the departure time of 0330h for the flight to Dubai. So, I happened to be the first passenger to check in for that flight. Everything went normal and I got the seats I wanted and I took the boarding pass. But when I was about to leave the counter, an airline official stopped me and asked me to get my hand baggage weighed. I did and and the total weight was found that it was 5 Kgs over the normal authorized baggage allowance. I tried to convince him that the size of the hand baggage is perfect and it will fit in the cabin luggage space, but to no avail. I finally paid the excess baggage fare Rs 1700/- and then proceeded further.

When I turned back, I saw a huge fat man, checking in with a small brief case who was welcomed with a plastic smile by the counter clerk. A flash of thought struck me and I was puzzled by logic behind this whole excess baggage rule. Normally aircrafts have a specific payload and they cannot take more weight than what they are supposed to, which varies from the climatic conditions, landing area etc. As far as the hand baggage is concerned, it must be ensured that the volume of the hand baggage is small enough to fit in the available space in cabin. But, since the volume of my baggage was perfect, it was the weight which was causing trouble. I have a question to all airlines. Say, a person X, who weighs 60 Kgs himself, is carrying 5 kgs excess baggage and then there is another person Y, who weighs 80 Kgs himself, but carrying no excess baggage. What is the logic of charging X, the excess baggage fare when the overall weight that he contributes towards the payload of the aircraft is lesser than what Y contributes?

Puzzling! Isnt it? I feel, they must give a baggage limit, which is inclusive of the travelers weight. That’s fair and logical.

Now, after a while, I was just looking at the check in counter and I realized to my horror that there are many passengers moving out of the check in counter with hand baggage far exceeding even the authorized size, seeming far heavier than the 10kgs. I enquired a couple of them, did they have to pay any excess baggage for which they replied in negative. And then I realized, that the queue is very long and the departure time is closing in and that’s why there is hardly any check of the hand baggage. So next time when I am in doubt about my baggage weight, then I will check in late and leave no time for the clerk to think about my hand baggage. An Idle Mind is Devil’s workshop!!

LOL.

As I See It.

2005-12-12T05:36:00.000-08:00

Gajini

No. This is not a viewer’s review of the Tamil Flick Gajini, starring Soorya and Asin. But it has got to do something with certain aspect of the movies in general, which I felt I must write about and this film I chose is just a case of example. Before anything else, I must confess, Asin rocks. And may be that’s why I am writing something about what I have been feeling all along for a long time. In the film in question, Asin, a girl next door, is brutally murdered for apparently helping a few minor girls who were being kidnapped and were about to be sold in the flesh market by the villain. So far, so good. But the way in which they have shown her murder is absolutely heart wrenching. On one hand, Kudos to the director, but on the other hand, it leaves the viewer with a deep sense of anguish, pain and fear that would linger on for a long time. We all know how deep is the impact of the celluloid world and the films in the minds of Indians, more so in the minds of Tamilians, who have chosen two chief ministers including the present one, from the film industry. There are still some people who would not believe that actor MGR has died as long as they are able to watch his movies in the movie halls!

While many of us would just watch a movie and forget about them, a great many among us, especially the women, the not so literate daily workers , the rickshaw pullers, among others, connect emotionally to certain scenes, relate our own lives to some part of the story line and regurgitate it, relive it , hours, even days after we see a movie. This is where the skills of cinematography clashes with the requirements of the society. When such powerful scenes are enacted in front of the viewers, especially like this one in question, wherein a girl is shown being brutally murdered for helping a social cause, for being a good citizen and a Good Samaritan, wouldn’t it leave an indelible message in the impressionable minds of the people, in the conscious and subconscious levels? Firstly the message that is being inadvertently sent across is that, fighting against the system or bad elements is dangerous. And then these powerful images forced upon the people by the mass media such as cinema will only discourage even those very few citizens, who would like to do their duty, demand standards, question the illegal and the unscrupulous, and who would come forward to report a crime and prevent one if it is within their means! It simply would make people walk away from difficult situations and merely accept things the way they are and gulp it, rather than raising against the storm and trying to set things right.

The card of violence in the films is being overplayed, too much for too long. I feel, cinema as mass media and cinematographers as such has a bigger social responsibility for empowering the society and send across positive social messages rather act parochially and over sensationalise social issues for mere monetary gains. To that effect, I must confess that our censor board is turning a blind eye to this issue. One can call censoring sexually intimate scenes as moral policing and get away with it. But there is no good argument why violence must not be censored. If one argues that such strict measures would lead to heavy monetary loses in the film industry, then there is nothing more short sighted than this. The industry as such may be worth Rs 1000 Crore. But the social loses are incalculable. How many crores of rupees could have been saved if the cinema empowers and educates every citizen be good, ideal and honest? Even if it would have motivated one man who would have reported a telgi scam or a boffors issue in the right time, how much more money could have been saved by the exchequer? Imagine the boost it would have given to the national pride!!

Indian Cinema does not show the reality, always. Most often it’s the viewers who make what is shown in the films as reality. It’s a silent process. Just as a type of outfit worn by the hero becomes a trend, an attitude or mindset depicted by some characters becomes the mindset of a large cross section of people. Unconsciously. I am not saying that bad things don’t exist in our society. They very well do. But then, creating unwarranted hype, showing too much pessimistic things in the name of showing reality, creates a mirage that nothing can work right in this country, which is far from the truth.

And most of these insipid movies are imaginations of sick minds. In the name of creativity, they produce putrid films which would eventually find its way to dustbins, but not before spoiling people’s mind, irreparably.

Religion, Spirituality and Fate

2005-11-27T03:13:00.000-08:00

Epilogue

When I read through this series of what I have written and apply the same lens of rationality which I have ruthlessly applied over anything and everything, I cannot help noticing certain big loopholes in my loud thinking of what religion, spirituality and fate. Let me start with the title of the first series which I feel must be “What could be the purpose of Religion?” rather than “What is the purpose of religion?”. There is a sea of difference between the two. Over the period of time, one thing that I have realised from the discussions and the valued comments of various fellow bloggers, that there are views diametrically opposite to what I hold, held by more fanatical believers with equally logical arguments though debatable and convinced till their soul about the validity of the same. Hence in all humility I must accept that I haven’t been able to draw any solid conclusions in black and white.

I realise that the most conspicuous loophole which trounces all my arguments to smithereens, is that I have no explanation whatsoever for children born with handicap or terminal illness. Its hard for me to accept it as part of randomness. It rather pains me to apply any of my arguments of not succumbing to fate and fighting it out, on these special children. The blind, the deaf, the dumb, a child born with terminal disease or even those detected with painful diseases later in life caused by no fault of theirs!! What about mentally retarded people? I have no immediate answers. Also this series preposterously assumes that the theory of evolution is true, which like all scientific hypothesis could be proved wrong at any point in the timeline. Nevertheless, today, the theory of evolution has a standing backed by strong scientific evidences and as rationality demands, it has been interwoven in my beliefs as a possible and more probable approach for explaining life on earth.

The search for the soul would never end until we know the answers for the three basic questions that has remained a mystery for the majority of the human race until now. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? I must confess that I am nowhere near the answers I am seeking for. Many spiritualists say that one must come out of the agitated state of mind before any attempt to find out these answers. Prepare the mind. Clear up the old thoughts to make way for new ones. Meditation is a easy way to start with. I am not contesting any of these approaches.

For me, these discussions itself are a part of that mental preparation. I could not find one good reason, why these answers must be beyond normal human comprehension or why does it warrant a higher mental state? Can’t a normal man know these answers? Should he always only believe them without knowing them? There must be a simpler way out. Sure, the best answers are always realised inside us. But aren’t these realizations, just analogies of what we already know and what we learn from what the collective mankind already knows, including opinions of others? Is there any law of conservation of knowledge? Can we create knowledge? Can knowledge be destroyed? Is it just change from one form to another and one analogy leading to another, leading to extrapolations, rephrasements and so on? Sounds weird, but it was just a passing thought and I am wondering.

This series is not an attempt to draw any definite conclusion but only do a loud thinking and conduct a thorough inquiry into my values that I have so fondly holding and defending. Though I have given an impression that I am little on the atheist side, I must clarify that I am not an atheist. I am just being inquisitive and ruthlessly at that. But from whatever little conclusions I am being forced to draw from this discussion is that when so much of it is so very inconclusive, then why let it affect my mind? Why must I handover the responsibility of living my life, of taking decisions in my life to a third unknown entity called fate, which may or may not exist?

Finally, I thank each and everyone of you who have taken active participation in this series with valued comments and those of you who taken pains to read through this series. It was a great learning experience for me from all the discussions through the reader’s comments. Also this happens to be my first concerted literary effort. The immediate goal of this search for me is to become a better human being, to shun my hypocrisies however bitter the process may be. The destination isn’t important to me as of now. But the journey is. The end is to become more humane. Means may be dynamic. Nothing more, nothing less. As a theist or as an Athiest.

Religion, Spirituality and Fate

2005-11-15T23:14:00.000-08:00

Part VIII : My Observations of Hindu Spiritualists.

Having talked about the various facets of what I feel religion, spirituality and fate are, I must tell here that these writings have got crystallised after several discussions with people far and wide, in several forums, with people of different religions and culture drawn across the world, having had the opportunity to serve in a multinational environment. Now being a Hindu myself, I felt the need to write my observations on the so called Hindu Spiritualists. We say that Hinduism is a way of Life and not a religion. We also claim that we are the most tolerant among all religions. We fall back to scriptures like The Bhagavad Gita and the Vedas for guidance and reference in times of crisis or doubt. These scriptures are our navigational aids, lighthouses in the vast ocean of humanity.

The instantaneous reaction of most hindu spiritualists to my questions and arguments are two pronged. Either they say I haven’t read enough or they say that my mind isn’t ready and it is in an agitated state. I find both these arguments to be extremely childish and defensive. Is there an end to reading or seeking knowledge? Even in one’s death bed, one cannot claim to have attained complete knowledge. A teacher worth his salt will never curb the student’s questioning. That’s the only way to learn, the only way to get involved in learning and the one and only way to extract what the teacher knows. But unfortunately, the so called defenders of Hinduism or that matter any religion, despise questioning of their beliefs.

Dialectic is a formal method of seeking knowledge and wisdom by placing logical arguments. There is nothing wrong in arguing and discussing. Many term questioning of established belief as ego and in the least offensive term as agitation in mind. Whether we do it for ego or not depends on how one sees it. If they find it unpalatable, it may be because their ego is hurt. We condemn in others what we fear the most in ourselves.

Amongst all followers of any kind of spiritual path and predominantly the Hindu spiriualists, I find one thing common. My incessant questioning of their beliefs and their resultant unsatisfactory answers is assumed as my unwillingness to listen. And worst is when I place my counter question immediately after their loophole filled answers, they feel I haven’t studied or I need to think about it more. I feel it is an unfair allegation. If a person replies immediately, it can also mean that he has infact thought over it for a long period before or must have discussed it in similar lines elsewhere. In fact, this question about religion and spirituality is not being asked by me for the first time, this is not the first forum in which I have asked these questions and definitely I am not the first one to ask these questions.<br>

Following a path and following a path blindly are two different things. One must ask himself the questions I asked about karma theory and rebirth. I wonder if one can get a convincing answer at all other than ones like "we need to read more" or "person who has said this must not be fool" or "some supreme being exists and we have believe in him, other wise you cant explain the randomness" or “It’s a feeling that cant be explained and draws analogies to feeling like love, sadness or happiness!!<br>

If a person like Einstien gives out a new law of physics, will one believe it blindly? Sure, you will have a belief that it may be true but you will nevertheless apply your mind. Why dont we follow this to our religious scriptures? I am sure that Bhagavad Gita or Krishna does not prevent questioning them. It’s the followers of it, who detest people questioning it, who get paranoid when being questioned about the reason for belief. In the end they neither have the answers nor let people seek, because of a blind fanatical belief that our scriptures can’t be wrong. I am not saying that they are wrong. I am too ignorant for that. All I am saying is that they have been said the way it is because of an entirely different and comprehensive purpose of making a man a better human being in all ways. The purpose starts and finish there.

In all paths of spiritualism, there is one thing common. If you cant explain something, attribute it to its profundity. Believe in it. And answer with a counter question which cant be answered by the student in the first place. (that’s why he is the student). Answering a question with a counter question will lead you no where.

Q : Who is god?
Ans : First know who you are.

If I know who am I in the true sense, will I come to that master or teacher in the first place? Does that master or teacher know who he is in absolute terms? Then where is his defense against being an hypocrite?

The root cause of all this problem is that most of us have chosen to believe rather than to know. What is the difference between knowing and believing? When you know, you can explain, but when you just believe, many things are beyond your comprehension and you have chosen just to believe. To top it all, right from our birth we are indoctrinated by our Vedas and so called scriptures that we are nothing, we can do nothing, ellam avan seyal, ellam vidipadi than nadakum. (All are HIS actions and everything is as per one’s FATE). These have just stunted our minds and made us into a bunch of mediocre idiots settling for substandard things, for that matter even in virtues. Its OK for us to accept any thing as long as a million others have followed or following it. And when some one wants explanation, he is unfortunately termed as egotist.

What are our scriptures/ spiritual paths afraid of that it cannot satisfy the simple mind of a man, if it claims to be so good? When I asked the same questions to a follower of Sahaj Marg, he cancelled his plans to take me to meet his "master" because he felt I wasnt ready for it!! Ready for what? Only a student asks Questions. Not the teacher. And a teacher worth his salt will answer it. At least he will try to. I haven’t found one single person till now, who at least doesn’t get angry by my questioning!! I wonder who is intolerant. The student or the defenders and followers of spirituality!!

In any case, hinduism being the most tolerant among religions is one of the biggest hypocrisies I have ever come across. We are not tolerant with our own people. We discriminate people with caste and creed and practice untouchability even today in many villages. We can’t even treat our own people equally. We deny them entry into temples. Is there one good reason why doing the religious rites in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple must be a Brahmin domain or for that matter anyone’s domain at all? Then what tolerance are we talking about?

Another aspect of all these spiritual gurus and masters I find ridiculous is their dress sense. Why saffron coloured or white coloured dress is a favourite among them? Can they explain? It all boils down to the fact that they are seeking identity and when they do so, they expose themselves of the fact that they haven’t renounced their self which they so fondly and fanatically advocate their followers to do so. As per me, most of them are making money and nothing more. But as long as people like Sai Baba or Amritanadamayi does something for the world by opening hospitals and schools and serve the poor, personally I couldn’t care less whether they are fooling the public or really liberating them from this world. To me they are just modern day Robin Hoods.

Back From Exile

2005-11-11T23:27:00.000-08:00

I was on a month long holiday in India and had a lovely Diwali with appa and amma. This was one of the most memorable and by far the busiest holiday I have ever had. I am back to Blogosphere from my self imposed exile and would resume posting very soon. I have loads to write. See you all very soon. Bye for now.

Religion, Spirituality and Fate

2005-09-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

Part VII : Happiness. A mirage worth pursuing?

In this vast humanity and creation as such, I often wonder, why there must be so much anomalies, divide between the rich and the poor, children born normally and those born with diseases etc. Superficially looking at it, one gets a feeling of indignation at Nature or God, for having created such conspicuous disparities in quality and condition of birth. Having travelled far and wide, having seen many societies and having interacted and lived with many people of different culture and a deeper introspection, reveals to me a clever balance that has been an integral part of such creation. It is Happiness. Can we ever counter argue against the statement that Happiness is a state of mind and all these material / conditional disparities and discrepancies never actually matter as far as the state of mind of an individual? Everything is relative, even Happiness. Before I proceed to write on happiness I would like to state my axioms that I had enunciated right in the first part of this series, on the premise of which I have written my views.

My Axioms:

Axiom 1 : The ultimate desire of man is harmony with self and peace of mind (happiness is a part of this). The collective desire of mankind is peaceful co -existence in progressive societies.

Axiom 2: Everything is Relative. Each man has his own set of situations which define what is what for him. The picture of happiness which when you think about it, makes your mind pervade with a sense of joy, peace and harmony, is different for different person and different for same person at different points of time in his life.

My Views:

In progressive societies, as we grow and know more, our expectations rise, and it becomes difficult to make ourselves happy. Does that mean we should stop learning or progressing?? No. It is absolutely true that the more we seek the more we have expectations and desires. Ignorance is bliss and Knowledge is power. And happiness is subtly interwoven between these statements. Infact it bridges these two statements. Because, the first knowledge man must gain is the fact that pursuit of happiness and desires without adequate amount of action towards achieving his desires will only make him unhappy. We sure cannot stop learning. But if we know that desires without efforts will only lead to unhappiness, I feel most of the problems will be solved. That’s what happens all the time.

For someone, after settling down in his profession, owning an SUV might be a condition to give comfort and therefore happiness. Yet, for a multibillionaire, born with a Bentley car, he would feel, how can these guys roam in a simple SUV. Its all relative. And yet, seeing a Bentley, if one is contended with a SUV, he would be happy. But if not, he would be unhappy, until he chooses to fight his fate and work hard. He may achieve that Bentley and pursue the mirage of material happiness to yet another level!!

Many may feel that for an average individual, for practical day-to-day living, happiness is definitely clouded by the lack of material fulfilment. A beggar is not going to have a high level of thinking. Even if he does, his worry about how he's going to provide for his next course of meals will leave him unhappy. All I would say is that, a beggar with desires of eating a baskin robin ice cream will surely be unhappy till such time he just begs, lamenting all the while why he begs, and why he cant do anything else than begging. The moment he makes an effort to better his life towards his desires, then his life is changed for good. A poor father is never going to be happy in his life if he's not able to make his family happy. But not more unhappier than a rich man bothering about his son's conduct at an international school or bothering about how to win the next bid for oil explorations in the Caucasus!!!

There are two ways of being happy. One is without desires what the Hindu cultures teaches. We are born by chance and we need to live our life. Each of us have feelings and sorrow, happiness etc are part of our feelings. We cannot escape them. Nature has not intended man to be without desires, for the very concept of procreation is based on desire. Hence life without desire is against nature and hence skewed. In the first case, there is complete harmony but if everyone leads a life without desires then where is the progress?? So it doesn’t suit the collective desire of mankind for a progressive society. Can you see the reason why Indians have no invention to their credit till recent times except a zero and few historical anecdotes about prosperous Indian society?? Because, the greatest achievements of mankind has been propelled by man's desire infact his greed....greed for excellence, subtly redirected to money, fame, power and everything else!

The second is to have desires, and work hard to achieve them. The act of pursuing one's aim/desire itself gives some level of happiness for many people!! And once we achieve them, we will be happier. In the second case, we have desires, so we have development and progress!! In this pursuit of ones aim we have fear, risk and once we achieve some, we have more desires. I guess, this is a vicious circle and we have live with it. But the key is to know oneself, desire according to own capabilities, make the pursuit of your aims itself a part of your picture of happiness and pursue them relentlessly and achieve them. If one feels that one will enjoy only after reaching the Mt Everest, then one will be happy for only few moments and that too if he reaches there. But if one starts enjoying the climb itself, then I guess he can be happy throughout the stretch. This I am sure, will keep our stretch of happiness longer. I feel it is a more practical way of trying to be happy, than living a renounced life, which I doubt most of us can.

In the end, I would say that humans have not been vested with a power to reason and think just to renounce the self and think that we are nothing, ellam avan seyal (Its all an act of god) , ellam vidi padi nadakum (Everything is destined) etc. We can achieve the impossible. Material happiness is surly a mirage. But without it there is no progress in life. The medium of internet through which you are reading this blog is a product of one of the forms of desire, pursuit of material happiness and hence progress. One must have desires and pursue it relentlessly, within the framework of accepted ethics of a progressive society. And if we also include the climb in our picture of happiness and not just the summit, Happiness is ours.

Religion, Spirituality and Fate

2005-09-14T03:36:00.000-07:00

Part VI: Astrology and Superstitions.

If there is one curse that has befallen the humanity, I would say it is astrology. The argument whether this astrology is science or art is beyond the scope of this blog. Because i want to discuss something more basic and i would like to question the whole premise as such. It is well known that none of the astrological theories has stood the test of scienctific world and most of the rules and guidelines of astrology do not even stand the reasoning and logic of an inquistive human mind. All that believers of astrology has to say is that, most of the sciences have been lost over the period of time and as per them, a day would come when all these theories would be proven beyond doubt!

Well, everyone seems to be taking refuge in the newton’s apple syndrome that just because today we dont know it fully, doesnt mean it doesnt exist, just as gravity existed even before Newton. Very true. But the basic point of contention is that, in all cases of scientific postulates and hypothesis that doesnt have an explanation at any point of time, there is an element of empirical observability and repetetiveness. That is to say, if one would drop a million apples on the ground, all will travel down and none of them will fly up. That is a phenomenon. Explanations can come at any point of time in human history. But, the phenomenon doesnt change with in a set of same experimental conditions. Is this true for astrology? None of the predictions can be repeated. Not even identical twins have same life structure and path, though born at the same time, time of birth being the most crucial factor in the predictions of life.

Certain examples where astrology fails to stand the heat of scientific reasoning :-

(a) If time of birth is most important, then why is it considering the time of birth of the child and not the time of conception of foetus? Isnt foetus a life? If abhimanyu could actually start learning the skills of war inside his mother as a foetus, if scientific experiments prove today that foetus does have a life then why this major dichotomy?

(b) Why doesnt astrology take into account the new planets uranus, neptune, pluto and sedna?

(c) What is that force which the distant celestial objects exert on us? If that is gravitational force, then even high school physics tells us that an object nearby us such as table and chair exert much more force on us than those celestial objects!!

(d) What is astrologies answer to mass calamaties like Tsunami? Is it probable that all those 1000000 who died had their death predicted?

Like this many more questions can be asked which astology cannot give conclusive and satisfactory answers. The only premise is that, it must be true because milions of people are following it over thousands of generations. The other refuge is that, many of hyposthesis of astrology do not have proof today but that does not invalidate it.

I am not here to give my opinion on whether astrology is true or not. But my point is, when we all know that the science of astrology is not complete today, then why follow it and believe it just because it has been followed by a thousand generations? Unlike any other science, astrology affects human minds. It affects the way we think and act. It affects our actions and influences decisions. If that be so, why must we depend on something that has no proof, base our actions on something that is not sure about itself. This science of astrology has single handedly destroyed human will to act in many thousand cases. For example, say a man goes for an interview and doesnt get the job because he had bad computer skills. Now, as a port mortem, if he improves his computer skills in future, he will surely NOT get rejected for the same reason on his next interview. In this case, he has assumed full responsiblity for his shortcomings and worked to improve them. This is a sure way for personal betterment.

But, if he walks to an astrologer to find out the reason why he hasnt got a job and the astrologer whose capability to predict is in itself a big questionmark, predicts that it is because of a particular planetary position that is responsible for this state and it will be ok by next year and that he must visit a particular diety and pray on a particular day and start using a particular saphire for better peace of mind, then the whole issued is skewed beyond the comprehension of a logically reasoning mind. In the second case, the ultimate issue of lack of computer skills has been completely sidelined and the reasons for failure has been attributed to external reasons, which is a sureshot recipe for further disaster. Stephen covey has explained in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” about the circle of action and influence. When a failure results, one must put oneself in the center of the problem and start searching outwards from inwards for a solution, first search being our own shortcomings. Thats the surest way to succeed.Unless a man learns to put himself in the centre of his problems or situations, I doubt he will get anywhere.

Has anyone seen anybody going to an astrologer and asking “ I am undergoing the best phase in my life and all things are going right for me. Please have a look at my horoscope and tell me why this is so? And also tell me till when it will continue?”. This itself singularly proves that we go to astrology to seek comfort and tell ourselves that there is nothing wrong with us and the stars are to be blamed for everything. It’s a manifestation of human nature to run away from reality. Nothing else.

Now about the science of astrology itself. Who has made these rules, formulated what should be done and what are the set of guidelines for predictions? This is a very important question. The science of astrology has been deciphered and formulated by humans, for humans. If indeed a higher level of fate, god or planetary influence does exists, how can man know of the complete set of events, permutations and combinations of the planetary positions, its causes and effects?

I shall narrate a simple analogy to bring to light the basic flaw in premise.I am the CEO of the company. You are just a branch manager, but a brilliant one at that, who not only knows everything about your branch, but also knows many things about other branches, which are beyond your vision, yet you are intelligent enough to learn many other things. But at the end of the day, how can you formulate policies for the entire company?? It may be close, but never accurate because many a data would be your mere interpretation and extrapolation.

Lets look at the matrix theory. It says we are subset in a superset of matrix. This concept of matrix is an imagination of human brain. If indeed a super set exists, then how is it possible for a subset to fully know the super set?? No imagination of superset can be complete from a subset! But I do agree with matrix concept that it’s all in the mind and you feel/ see what mind perceives to great extent within our own domain of reason.

About Superstitions, the lesser said the better. Superstitions exist at various levels. Some of them are in the lighter side of life like looking for a lucky number for registration of vehicle etc. Such superstitions enhance faith that all will go well, if random events of nature fit in the demands of such superstitions. Some people are even superstitious about the place where sit and watch the cricket match of their favourite team, so that their teams do not lose. Those are harmless superstitions. But when these superstitions are extended beyond a certain limit and you start attributing them as reasons for your failure, then that is where the problem arises. People go such ridiculous extents of assigning reasons for their failure like " kaalaila kilambum bothe poravan ellam enga saar poreenga nu ketan, appuram kariyam eppadi vilangum??!! ( “Even when I was leaving for the job in the morning, many people kept asking me where am I going? Then how do you think I would be successful??”). Many people are simply superstitious because they don’t want to take a chance!!

In the end, all I would say is that, according to me, all these astrological pariharams for improvement of our daily life and superstitions are a method to condition our mind. Its like telling the mind that the god has been taken care of by these rituals and now nobody can stop us in further progress. This is a method to increase the faith in us. Faith moves mountains. But most of us, most often take refuge in this horoscopes, pariharams and superstitions and fail to look for the real reason and picture. It is perfect to make a prayer, have faith in god thereby reinforcing faith in self and work hard towards the objective. If we make a promise to god (for me, my self) that we would offer something should we succeed, then work hard for it in the faith that all will go well, there is nothing wrong. But making a promise of some offering to god and simply sitting back and watching, is mere superstition and it tantamount to offering bribe to god. 99% one would fail in this case.

Religion, Spirituality and Fate

2005-08-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

Part V : My Views on Atheist Arguments.

I would consider most of the arguments of positive atheism, appealing to a logical mind, which analyses rather than accepts things as it is. Positive Atheism is a term coined consciously to emphasise that atheism is indeed not negative although it is a negative form of theism. Nevertheless, I have certain strong arguments running against the very basics of positive atheism. Before I present my point of contention, I would like to bring out a few basic philosophies of positive atheism: -

(a) There is no god, fate, supreme power or force.

(b) Belief in god makes man a slave and robs away his free will to act. Man’s will is supreme and he is capable of doing anything. Man need not be subservient to anyone, even god.

(c) Creation is by Evolution from single protoplasm and many strong positive atheists extend this theory of Darwinian evolution and natural selection to even the whole universe as such.

(d) Man does not need religion to be moral, upright and virtuous.

(e) Theists have the advantage of grabbing the child as soon as it is born, force their beliefs about god in a child’s mind and program it irretrievably. Instead, the child must be given the time, education and wisdom and most importantly, the liberty to cull and chose between theism and atheism.

The philosophies I have listed above are some of the many other strong beliefs they have and propagate. For all those who have read my previous parts of the blog series on Religion, Spirituality and Fate, these statements would find a striking similarity to my own views on various issues, most noticeably about evolution and supremacy of man’s will. However, I have the following arguments to be presented which in my own view questions the very basic building blocks of these philosophies of positive atheism.

The atheist’s arguments that they don’t need religion to know what is right and wrong, stands no good, if you realise that the concept of right and wrong has infact flowed from religion itself. I feel that the collective conscience of mankind, ethics and what is right and what is wrong, who is to do what and who cannot do what, has all evolved and flowed from religion itself. Over a period of thousands of years, these things have got internalised in our society and in our fabric of life so much that it escapes our attention and we take them for granted.

Firstly, is anyone a born atheist? Yes and No. Because, all new born children in this world are like a clean slate. To emphasise my point, I will draw the example of feral children. Those children, who are born human, but abandoned and brought up by animals or who grow up on their own are known as feral children. Now, should we discover them on a cave and bring them inside the society, would it be possible for them to instinctively know what is right and wrong? Would it have ethics? It simply is an unprogramed human mind. In an hypothetical situation, when one starts teaching them virtues, it would again be from those told time and again by religious scriptures, stories and epitomised by legends and mythological heroes or else, concepts borrowed from them and retold with local and more human heroes. Isn’t listening to stories the favourite pastime of any child?

Coming to next important issue. When a child is born and it is growing up, how can you explain so many things to that child and make it understand the concept and logic behind it? Say, you want teach your child not to steal. Is it possible or does the child have the mind and maturity to understand that stealing is not good for the collective happiness of the society? Firstly, it wouldn’t understand what is a society!! Then only it can understand why it is not good for the society. And most importantly, you would want your child not to steal even as it is learning why stealing is not a good thing!! Now, how would you do that? Isn’t it an easy method to explain so many things and make it follow, in the name of god? So in effect, somewhere deep down, religion and its teachings runs deep in the fabric of each man’s life. There is no way one can escape this. Each of us know stealing is bad. But how is value that stealing is bad has got internalised in our fabric of life? Its religion that has got it internalised over thousands of generation of mankind.

Let us again take the example of stealing. At all times there are two kinds of people who don’t steal. There are those who don’t do it because it’s a sin as per their religion and there are others who don’t do it because it is bad for the human society. Since, most of us don’t have the maturity and as such, humans have a tendency to act on free will, we need some guiding factors for controlling them. The best way is to put the fear of unknown. Should all of us don’t steal because it is not good, then its an ideal world. But imagine a world without perception of god or a supreme force. There will be a set of people who wont steal because it is bad and then there will be those who would say “Who cares?”. And then it would be ultimate chaos. So, I feel, it is absolutely essential for a concept of religion to guide and mould the majority. Ofcourse, there will always be a minority who has the providence of understanding why we do what we are doing and who do it for the right reason. And this minority is able to exist because there exists a majority who are controlled by their conscience closely guided by their religion!

Coming to their other argument on losing man’s free will to god. This is highly debatable point. God or no god, Is there anything called a free will at all?? Leave aside losing one’s free will to god, I feel, when we as human beings, started living in societies and became gregarious animals, we renounced a part of our free will for the collective interest of the society. Again, in a world without theists, will these atheists have free will, an environment to do anything and everything they like? I doubt. One man’s meat has always been someone else’s poison. What I do agree is that, most of us, most often, abdicate our will to rise above the ordinary in the name of fate. That most definitely will not be present in a atheist’s world!

Last but not the least, I would like to conclude that after so many billion years of human existence, religion undoubtedly has been playing a vital part in keeping this humanity sane. Man is indeed what he is because of religion. It’s so very true both in the positive and negative sense.

Religion, Spirituality and Fate

2005-08-06T00:08:00.000-07:00

Part IV : Fate.An Analogy with the Game of Chess.

I would like to draw the attention to my previous blog in which I had argued that Fate is indeed the last refuge for a Coward. What is fate? I feel it is not a force that preordains man’s action to the minute details. Neither it is a program which dictates man’s life. Its not something which can explain the order of life but precisely it’s a disorder of infinite proportions that overwhelms man’s thinking prowess. It’s the infinite choices that each man is presented with, in his everyday life that makes man think that infact he is being worked upon by a force beyond his control. But the real fact could be that it is indeed is inability to work is the reason why he is feeling being worked upon.

Imagine life to be a game of chess. The difference in this game of life chess is that it has infinite squares and infinite players all moving their pieces ie exercising their choices at speed of thought. Now like in a game of chess, each of your move depends on three factors namely, your last move, the last move of other players and the way in which you want the game to proceed. Before doing each move, you have a choice, which you exercise consciously, or being forced to exercise consciously because of lack of other logical choices or for the fear of consequences of exercising those other available choices. Now, this present move of yours and all your opponents move will dictate the future moves and it has irreparably altered the way your life proceeds. So if this be so, it is easier to see why some are successful in life while others resort to finding excuses for their failures. Apart from hardwork and determination, one who has got more vision coupled with tolerance to ambiguity is likely to succeed. What is the difference between people like me who play chess casually and champions like Vishwanathan Anand? It is simply that a champion analyses more number of possible moves that can be made in every stage of the game and infact makes a mental calculation of how the game will proceed for another 30 moves, completes a full game in his mind if that particular choice of move was exercised and if it is in consonance with his overall game plan, then he makes that move.

So in effect, if it possible for such an analysed action in a game of 64 squares with just one opponent, then it is indeed possible in the life game of chess with infinite squares and infinite players. Though before making every move, we have infinite choices, we do have certain rules like the rules in chess dictating how a piece is to be moved. Some of these are in the form of social restrictions that limit some choices of action in the game of life chess. Every move is dictated by previous move and it governs the next move. If a man is able to calculate all the permutations and combinations and visualise how each move will proceed and end, then ideally he has won the game of life. But man's intellect is limited and he can’t do that. He is overwhelmed by the amount of choices and he feels some sheer force beyond his comprehension dictates his moves. That is named god/fate as per his comprehension. In a game of chess, the champions always see moves much ahead of the normal players. That is why they are champions. In real life game, I agree that one cannot completely visualise all the possibilities but atleast if one can think in life and cater for many possibilities, we have a fair chance of not being overwhelmed too much. That is why it is said, if you think in life, you can defeat "fate" and here I mean by that the phenomenon of overwhelming choices in front of you. And I wish to point out that many a times, most of us end up thinking about life than thinking in life. There is a world of difference between the two.

The moves in life chess is your actions. May be the hindu mythology is terming this as karma. So since your previous action dictates your present action more than other actions of the infinite players in the field, it says all actions have their effect. Most of the hindu spiritual paths talk about cause and effect. And since the results of your action does not depend upon your action alone but also includes the actions of infinite other people, it will be not be wise to expect the exact results as calculated by you before and hence I interpret this as one of the meaning of what Bhagavad Gita says “Do your Duty, do not bother about the results”.

Let me give another analogy. Two people A and B proceed for the same interview. Both of them come to the same bus stop to board a bus to reach the place of interview. For some reason, there is a heavy traffic jam. So A decides to start walking through narrow lanes and reach ahead where ever he can and board another bus struck much ahead in the road, so that when the jam clears, he would indeed reach faster. B decides to curse his fate and does nothing. There are two possibilities. A reaches in time, attends the interview and gets the job. Perfect. The fatalist theory is shattered. It is triumph of will over fate. Now say there is a person C, the boss of the company who is to take their interview, coming to office in his car, is also stuck in the same traffic jam and reaches office later than normal time. By this time B has also arrived and both get to attend the interview and by virtue of B’s better skills, he gets the job. In this case, the fatalist will cry victory.

So your results does not depend upon your actions alone, but also on the actions of infinite other players. The traffic jam was indeed caused by an accident by a truck whose driver was drunk because he had a fight with his wife last night since he gives less and less money for home because of the increase in diesel prices which was caused by surge in world oil prices due to the war in iraq for curbing terrorism………This can go on and on. Each and every action of us is minutely interconnected with some other action in the world by unknown faces, Its an intricate web. And that’s what overwhelms man. In this randomness, Closer the players, more profundity of the effect of their actions in our results. But all said and done, the closest player is our own self and by our careful analysis and thinking, we can mitigate the effects this randomness has on us. We can let this infinite choices not overwhelm us by our tolerance to ambiguity and thinking in life. So at the end, even though A did not get the job in the second situation even after trying not to let the situations affect him, his course of action is more correct. If one were to follow B and keep standing in the bus stop and think that if he is fated to get the job then he will get it, then why come to bus stop only??? You can stay at home and think that if you are fated to get the job then you will get it anyways!!!

The essence of my article is that fate is a creation of man's imagination, its all in the mind and that he conveniently assigns it as reason for his failures and shortcomings. While phrases like “ ellam vidhi padi than nadakum” ( All events happens as per destiny) or " maram vachavan thanni oothuvan" ( one who planted the tree will water the plant too) may provide solace in the face of odds, it cannot and must not serve as a refuge for our incompetence, inability to perform, unwillingness to find a way and our shortcomings. For a million Jews cursing their fate in concentration camps and gas chambers, there was one Victor Frankel who chose to fight his fate, who inspired others in the concentration camp and was a source of motivation. He is a legend today. He definitely did not think " maram vachavan thanni oothuvan" ( one who planted the tree will water the plant too)!!

Religion,Spirituality and Fate

2005-07-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

Part III : My Questions to Karma Theorists

The Basic premise of Karma theory is that complete phenomenon of the world can be explained as actions and effects of actions. That is, when we do a certain action, we incur certain Karma. So what is Karma? Karma is effect of actions. This is further interpreted that when you are born in this world, you are already having the baggage of your previous birth and by good deeds in this birth, we can mitigate the effects of bad deeds of last birth and also we can ensure that we are reborn in a better state in our next birth.

Firstly, before embarking on any dialectic to question this belief, I must say what I interpret from this Karma Theory. I feel it is a beautiful way to explain the unfairness and anomalies of a random world by attaching a baggage of bad karmas incurred in our last birth that defines the state and disposition of our present birth. You are born with a disease because probably you would have sinned way too much and incurred bad karma during your last birth. Beautiful, comprehensive and irrefutable argument, irrefutable because it leaves man with no space to refute, by placing this reasoning beyond his reason itself, blaming his own actions albeit of his previous birth for what he is now and finally debilitating him to do anything about it by telling him that he was infact destined for it. Now by keeping a carrot of rebirth in front of man it forces men to try to be a happy individual by following the right and eschewing the wrong and who is also a virtuous social animal. As a matter of fact, in this process, it defines what is right and wrong based on the general direction of ensuring man’s happiness both as an individual and a social animal, for which purpose it was created in the first place. So, two birds in one stone, explain the anamoly and unfairness and motivate and guide men to be happy. Bulls Eye.

Now I have my arguments for all those who extrapolate this karma theory and argue that infact karma and rebirth does exist.

Is there only one god or many gods controlling people born in under respective religions? If yes then no arguments. If no, then, is your karma and rebirth limited to being born again and again as hindus, hindu dogs, hindu donkeys?? If yes, then no arguments. If no then, Is your sin list universal to mankind? I feel not.

For example, slaughtering a cow is a sin in Hinduism but acceptable for all other religions. Why go that far, we can even draw an analogy in Hinduism itself. There are various castes and subcastes in Hinduism. Killing is not a sin for a Kshatriya but it is a sin for a Brahmin. And if that be so, they would incur a different karma for same action of killing! As per previous example of slaughtering a cow, for performing the same act of killing a cow, a Hindu man accumulates bad karma and a Muslim, at the least accumulates no karma at all, which according to karma theory, will decide about his sin total and therefore his disposition in the next birth?? Is value of life different when killed by different people?

OK. In your rebirth, there is every possibility of being born as an animal. What are the karmas for an animal? Does it also have a effect for its actions? Is it fair to assign effects when it cannot think logically and reason out and that’s why its an animal in the first place? So how would one calculate the karmas for an animal and how it is reborn as ?

Hindus are at the maximum, 1/6th of the population of the world. The rest of world is believing and practicing a different set of rules, many of which supposedly yields bad karma when done by a Hindu!!! So, if there is one creator, karmas and therefore your rebirth sin totals must be equally applicable to one and all which is not the case. So, I feel karma theory falls flat on this argument. To summarise my questions as follows:-

1. What does one mean by karma, what constitutes a bad karma, what is a good karma and finally who has formulated them?? Who has decided what is bad and good karma??

2. Who controls, calculates, decides how many good karma you have done and bad karma you have done and where and under what conditions you are to be re born as? Is it that fate/god is a self sustaining computer program that keeps a check on all your deeds and finally spells out the result and mechanically redirects your souls to the next place of birth???

3. Finally as per karma theory, is fate and god separate? If yes then what is fate? And what is god?

My Proposition

Man in search of harmony and happiness and to make himself a social animal by peaceful coexistence, formulated religion and karmas, what to do and not to do, what is right and wrong, good karma and bad karma. Hindu society believed in division of labour and it formulated caste system as a means of coexisting in a social group. Here the anomalies were much more to be explained, for many lower caste people were denied basic human rights in the name of castes. If indeed, performance of good deeds were all that was intended by karmas, then, people who are educated and enlightened are in a much better position to perform good deeds. Unfortunately, Hinduism has consistently denied education to more than 50% percent of its population who were born in lower castes, practiced untouchability and created inequality in birth. And I feel that this karma theory was best suited to cover itself up from assault from many fronts.

“Do your Duty. Don’t bother about the results”

Last but not the least, this single statement of Karma theory puts everything into clear perspective. What does Your Duty mean? How did this word originate? I feel that Our Duty means to be virtuous in all your dealings, which will lead to your self-harmony and in effect contribute to peaceful coexistence in a society. But Combined with the division of labour aspect, does it explain itself that, each man has to do what is intended out of him from the society also without questioning??

Religion, Spirituality and fate.

2005-07-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Part II : Is Partial Virtuousness enough for men to coexist in progressive societies?

When I discussed the purpose of religion and the reason why the things the way they are, and when I placed my line of arguments to many forums and many others in person, I was amazed to find almost all of them were towing the line that partial virtuousness of man is enough to be a part of any society and religion’s purpose is to inculcate just about all virtues partially in men, so that a society of intelligent human beings can exist in substance and form. Surprisingly, some of them proposed that religion and spirituality has many uses and placed a counter question that once a man becomes virtuous, then what use is of religion to him?

Let me place my views to take on these arguments piece meal. Firstly, can man ever become completely virtuous at any point of time in his life in this kind of society as we see today? So much so that one does not need spirituality anymore for that purpose of making him virtuous? Is it possible to be without any vice at all in today’s society? I feel it’s a preposterous assumption. Even that great Rama, after all those years, suspected Sita and that too in an ideal world!!! Is it any virtue?? I feel that in today’s society, being good and Virtuous is a journey, not a destination. Spirituality and religion are navigation tools and not modes of transport!!! One needs them life long to steer him in the correct path through out his life. So I beg to disagree with this line of argument that once becoming virtuous then what use does spirituality have and therefore spirituality has many more uses, because the assumption of becoming completely virtuous is impossible for a normal human being and hence use of spirituality is complete until end. It never crosses this condition that’s laid in this argument.

Having said this, I do not conclude that since it is impossible to be completely virtuous, it’s enough to be partially virtuous to be a part of any society. Unfortunately, this fundamental assumption of partial virtuousness being enough has been ingrained so much in our minds that I feel this belief has singularly caused all the chaos in the society. This phenomenon of lack of complete virtuousness in humans and impossibility of complete virtuousness is itself a direct consequence of this assumption that partial virtuousness is enough to be a part of any human society and it is not the other way around!!

Before we proceed any further, it is imperative to clarify what I understand by a society and what did man intend to achieve by forming a society in the first place. A society is a large group of people who live together in an organized way, making decisions about how to do things and sharing the work that needs to be done. This was formed by a singular intention to protect himself from external dangers, make him more productive and last but not the least to make his life happier by peaceful coexistence. Has advanced societies made man happier than the primitive ones? We cannot assume this even when compared to a society that existed two generations before. Day after day we see the law of entropy only proved more assertively. The entropy or disorder of the world is increasing every moment. There is chaos; it is definitely not a safer world than before. There is large-scale dissatisfaction and soul searching.

Is it any sane to think that man intended this when he formed a society? That religion and spirituality aimed at this state, when they were conceptualised? When you form a concept or invent a machine, is it logical to state that it is enough for it to work partially or achieve its aim when it demands that you need to aim for the highest? Aren’t partially virtuous people including us, the curse of the society? Don’t you feel that the “chalta hai” or “parava illai” (meaning that its ok to be what it is) attitude isn’t doing any good to mankind and infact wrecking man’s happiness?

I feel there is ultimate chaos in the society because of partially virtuous people and that includes you and me. We have our vices and add to chaos in the society in our ways. Each one of us does it. And it is also true that each one is tolerant to other's vices/partial virtuous nature. Even a terrorist has some virtues. Does that mean he is good enough for the society? And if I had to point out one single vice of mankind that we haven’t learnt even after thousands of years of organized living, it is intolerance; Intolerance to other’s opinions and existence itself in many cases. Wars have been fought over ideologies and religion in some form or the other. If it was Jews who faced the wrath in the second world war, it’s the Islamist Jehadis who are wrecking havoc in today’s scenario.

It all depends on what level you accept the society to be a society. If we are ready to accept substandard ideals from our own self, then there can be no greater curse to mankind. If we feel partial virtuousness is enough to be a part of a society, we infact, are giving a self certificate to our misguided beliefs, a self acceptance to our own self that it is enough for "me" to be partially virtuous to exist in this world and in fact it is no vice to have some or many vices! And as long as each one of us believes so from deep within and continues to aim at just partial virtuousness, there is no question of any happiness in the society. All actions thus flowing from this basic ideology of partial virtuousness being enough to live in a society are going to be myopic and parochial leading to more chaos and it is all just a compromise at the end of the day, nowhere near the terminal objective of making man happier.

Is this correct? Don’t we have to aim, set target and believe that complete virtuousness is essential and must be achieved? Don’t we have to set that target to ourselves, start self-improvement and get rid of this settling for substandard aims of partial virtuousness? Must not religion/spirituality help us in that direction?

Religion, Spirituality and Fate

2005-07-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

What is this religion, spirituality and fate? Is it an answer to man’s quest for knowing the know all or is it just a social engineering tool ? Did man create religion or religion create man? Is there anything called fate? Are human lives pre programmed and pre determined? Is the will of the human supreme or is it just a supplicant to will of god? Who are we? Where did we come from? And where are we going? These questions have been there in my mind for a long time and I am searching for answers in almost all the places I go and in each person I interact. I havent succeeded much, most of knowledge I have is shallow but still I have formed some opinions on this subject. I haven’t read any scriptures and I follow my own spiritual path, which holds no value for many fellow spiritualist for the simple reason that it is my own path. Yet, I have my own views and I am proud of them. I am planning to blog my views on this subject in the following parts.

Part I : What is the purpose of Religion?
Part II: Is Partial Virtuousness enough for men to coexist in progressive societies?
Part III: My Questions to Karma Theorists.
Part IV: What is Fate? An analogy with the Game of Chess.
Part V: My views on Atheist argument.
Part VI: Astrology and Superstitions
Part VII: Happiness. Can it explain Anamolies?

Part VIII: My Observations with Hindu Spiritualists.

Part I : What is the purpose of Religion?

My Axiom:

The ultimate desire of man is to be in complete harmony with himself and achieve complete peace of mind (which includes happiness, infact is a direct outcome of it). The collective desire of mankind is to enable man coexist peacefully in progressive societies.

My proposition:

The purpose of religion, their teachings, concepts of Hinduism such karma, rebirth, fate, concept of heaven and hell of other religions are all designed to mould man into a good and virtuous human being, make him a sociable animal, set him on the right path to ensure that he satisfies his own desire of attaining complete peace of mind and harmony with self and also peacefully co exists in progressive societies!!!

Life is a set of random events. In this randomness, some are born rich and some are born poor, some in advanced societies, some in primitive societies and many with hale and hearty, some with deadly diseases. As long as this earth was inhabited with just animals, there was no requirement to explain this anomaly or unfairness, because in the first place, most of this unfairness except being born with diseases, must have never existed. But since human beings think logically, they could not reason out this randomness and infact needed explanation which was and is beyond his comprehension. More than that, every day life offered infinite choices and man was always overawed and overwhelmed by this randomness. If he were to continue his incessant questioning, he would go insane. As such, there were nature, sun, moon, celestial objects, rain, storm, natural calamties that always were unexplainable to man. And the mother of all reasons was, he was never in control of his death. So undoubtedly, he started believing in a supreme force that controlled atleast his birth and death. The primitive form of all beliefs and religions were all directed towards worshiping nature and natural objects like the sun and moon, fire, water etc.

Side by side, man started to live in societies. What used to be actions out of mere freewill, what used to be actions which were a result of reasoning directed to merely suit his own purpose, were now beginning to be demanded to suit his group of people living in his society also. That called for a certain sacrifice of personal free will so as to enable man coexist, so that each man’s free will doesn’t affect the other men in the society. So, the social principles, ethics, virtues and vices were born, rather were created. Is creation of such things enough? Who would enforce them?

So religion was a one stop solution to kill two birds in one stone. Firstly, all the inconsistencies that nature’s randomness created would be explained as will of god or a supreme force and then it also provided a navigation tool for man not to lose his way in the vast ocean of humanity and remain sane and virtuous. The creation of god and his making God's will supreme, explained the unfairness and provided answers that would directly result in his peace of mind and happiness, thus satisfying the ultimate desire of man to achieve harmony with self. And by making religion his navigation tool to tread the path of humanity and helping him to be virtuous and keep his wits toghether, the ultimate collective desire of mankind was to form progressive societies in which virtuous men co-exist with other virtuous men.

The purpose of religion and spirituality was to put some social order in such societies by motivating men to be virtuous or putting the fear to force him to be virtuous. Ideally, all religions aimed at taming man’s freewill to be automatically virtuous rather than by fear or force. This battle of between man’ freewill and social rules and regulations which restricts it started thence. Soon, such rules codifying the ethics and morals, what to do, what not to do, the right and the wrong and so on were slowly in force and it religion was used to give a divine authority by adding all the right, to do’s etc among the virtues of man, following of which there was a carrot of heaven waiting for him after his death and vice versa for vices which included the wrong, the don’ts which if men were to indulge in, would take them to hell after death.

Hindus talk about rebirth theory to induce the spirit of goodness and benevolence by putting a carrot in front of you. That carrot is rebirth. Like wise Christians talk about heaven and hell. Going to heaven is the carrot. We are all just rabbits running towards the carrot. But not always, and definetely not all of us. Those who see a carrot and run towards it are rabbits. And those who understand the meaning of why it is said the way it is said are humans. And when you know or when you indeed have realised that being virtuous social animal is the end, you don’t require the carrot anymore for motivation. The point to be understood is that we should not do the Right thing for the reason that we will get Heaven, but for the reason that it is right. But, may be many "right" things were beyond comprehension of common man, may be someone wanted them to be followed unquestioned or many "right" things were unpalatable but since it has to be done, it needed a divine authority and religion was the one to enforce it. Religion here is to force down a medicine which otherwise man wouldn’t take it voluntarily!

At the end of this part, I would just pose two questions to the reader:

1. Is their any other purpose of religion other than the one I have stated and comprehended?

2. To exist in progressive societies, is partial virtuousness of man enough? Is partial virtuousness is all that religion / spirituality aims at to make man live in progressive societies?

To be Contd...

Did British Rule help India?

2005-07-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

Recently,our PM, Dr Manmohan Singh on his address at the Oxford University, spoke about the many benefits India attained because of the British rule in India for close to 200yrs. There was a lot of hue and cry about his statements and many political parties demanded an apology. I went through a couple of blogs which spoke about India’s lost pride and some said that our PM should have demanded an apology from the Queen for all the atrocities and return to us our valuable artifacts. I reflected upon the issue for some time and I would like to blog my views on the rule of the Raj in India.

Firstly, a State called India as we know today exists because of the British Rule. India was a number of small kingdoms with no resources complete in itself. The Mughal rule which existed in majority of Indian regions, was in no case more benevolent than the British rule. The majority of the population, the hindus, were under religious persecution of the Mughals. But for the British rule, India would have been another Islamic state with Hindus, though in majority yet never a part of the ruling class. Had the East India Company, and later the Queen’s direct rule, not annexed all the small kingdoms and the Mughals, there was no way one single individual state would have prevailed over others. Even after the Britishers left, it was because of the Iron Man of India, Dr Sardar Patel, that states were united under one Tricolour. Just the Kashmir issue has led to four wars. Imagine a situation of 30 different kingdoms, fighting each other and that too under the Mughal Rule.

It was because of the entrance of the Britishers, India is a secular state today. By their presence, they forced all others to unite against them in the fight for freedom, irrespective of language, culture and religion. The unity in diversity and secularism India is boasting about today, has its roots to the freedom struggle against the colonialist British Empire. In a negative way, it has resulted in a positive outcome.

Secondly, Indian states in 1700s were blissfully unaware of the industrial revolution. It was the Britishers, who got us introduced to the idea of mechanizations. Many infrastructure in our country today was initially established by them. They introduced the lifeline of India today, the Indian Railways. They introduced the postal services. The various institutions of the armed forces and our reputation as one of the world’s finest professional army and a disciplined fighting force are all about British contribution at the inception level. Our training methodologies, regimental drills, day-to-day administration have all been inspired from the British Army.

Any semblance of bureaucracy and administration is a direct contribution of the British Government. The judiciary, the police and the free press as such have all flown from the British ideologies. The idea of democracy, constitutional government and the rule of law is one of the greatest contribution for our country which always faced the curse of monarchs interested in self development and arts and culture rather than real development of people. The Indian Constitution that has stood the test of time has been heavily inspired by the British rule of law system.

Their contribution towards education is very profound. India, a land of thousand cultures and over a hundred languages and dialects, was given a common language for education and higher education by the Britishers. Modern School system and universities are all there contribution. It is this advantage, which we are reaping now in our growing IT sector and economic cooperation with the other rich western countries. Our higher education and scientific knowledge is all taught in English and its advantages are very evident.

Yet having said all these, I am duty bound to speak about the negative side of the whole colonialism of British Empire in India. The region, the people and the resources were thoroughly exploited. No amount of explanation is enough to justify their economic and social exploitation of our country. Most of the nation’s youth were involved in freedom struggle leaving no scope of social development. The locals were not a priority and all infrastructure established in the country was to assist the colonial rulers. Though it helped the nation when they left it, the intention was totally different at the time of establishment. The glorious history of India was rewritten to suit them. Indians were never encouraged to excel in any field and if very few have done it, most of them sung the British tune. Those who opposed them, never stood any chance. In effect, it was a systematic assassination of indigenous human resource. I am sure the generation, which had witnessed the rule of Raj, will have more to tell about the atrocities committed by the Britishers in India. The armed forces of India, were made to fight for the Britishers in all corners of the world in both the world wars, in which India had no direct interest nor did we get any pie of the war booty which the Britishers amazed. The Divide and Rule policy had its own side effects. The greatest and most conspicuous mistake and injustice of the colonialists was the creation of Pakistan, a direct outcome of the policy of divide and rule. This blunder has proven very costly to not only India as a nation, but the world in general. Recently, it was four Pakistanis who carried out the London suicide attacks, for some terrorist group. As you sow, so shall you reap!

At the end, I would say that though we cannot forget the ills of the British rule in India, at the same time, we cannot ignore the positive outcomes of their rule, some of which have formed the backbone of very existence of India as nation today.

Please Help: Formating in Blogspot Sucks!!!!

2005-07-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

I dont know if I am the only one facing this problem or is it that I am too dumb to solve this formating problem in blogspot? I changed my template thrice if its a template centric problem but it isnt. Firstly, whenever I try to write in seperate paragraphs, I find it almost impossible to give double space between two paras. How many times I try to give two spaces, in the final blog, it comes the same. Many a times, it is not even a single space. It looks really ugly to see the content loose its punch because of poor formating. And then, when I try to write the blog in sub paragraphs with indents and tab spaces as we do it a word document, the sub paras never appear, even if I create one using blank spaces and push it a little right. The crib about the spell check is the worst one. Try using the spell check and when I indeed substitute with the suggested spelling, something wierd happens and only a part of the word is replaced with the new spelling, with the rest cling still hanging on, making it all the more wrong.

How to underline a particular word? Is there a way? Can one use colours other than what is given here simply by changing the colour code in HTML edit? In anycase, I am totally clueless about HTML and all the changes I have made is infact through logical comparison and amending another code of a similar nature and pasting it. Is there a way to use smilies in posts? The photo upload feature isnt working at all!! The page always loads with errors. When I click "upload" it says "Error on Page"!!

So many problems in blogspot. Someone please help!! Are koi sunte ho? Yaravathu udavi panungo!!

I have been Book Tagged!

2005-07-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

So, even I have been book tagged!!! I thank Ram for doing this??!! Here I go with my statistics. Anyways I am glad to pause and look back!!

Total Number of Books I own:

I have no count of the number of books I bought. I buy them as I wish, mostly second hand ones from the roadside or cheap reprints from Darya Ganj Sunday bazaar. This gives me the liberty to indulge in book buying because I feel like a millionaire after I come back purchasing 20 books for Rs 500 . I am in love with what is said in the book rather than the book itself. I see a book as it is and not as it seems. So I dont get sentimental on new book purchases or them being reprints,as long as they can endure a few good readings by me.

Total number of books lent to others which never came back:

Very few perhaps, but I distinctly remember a book named Defeat into Victory on Burma Campaign by Field Marshal Sir William Slim, which I lent to someone that never came back. I need to buy that book again!

Total number E-Books:

1. LETTERS TO HIS SON by the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD on the Fine Art of becoming a MAN OF THE WORLD and a GENTLEMAN.

2. The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I Download these books from Project Guttenberg. This site has thousands of ebooks that one can download for free.

Last Book I bought:

Seven Habits of highly Effective People by Steven Covey. I brought this book for the sixth time because each time I buy, I give away this book to someone who gets inspired by it!!

Last Book I was gifted:

The last significant book I was gifted was The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I was blissfully unaware of objectivism until Feb 2004, when my close friend gifted this book to me. I am glad. I took a full year to read and assimilate Ayn Rand's philosophies and am eagerly awaiting to read it again.

Last Book I read:

The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. A book that has had a deep impact in me and it has made me come back to it more than many a times. Everytime I read it, I understand a new face of it, which was hitherto beyond my comprehension. A great book.

I am currently reading:

The Bourne Legacy by Eric Van Lustbader to ease my brain after overloading with philosophies of Ayn Rand and Pirsig. And I am also reading Crisis in Command . This was a groundbreaking book on America's failure in Vietnam War. I am reading it for the second time, in the wake of America's predicament once again in Iraq War. History repeats itself.

Five Books that mean a lot to me:

Reading is not my hobby. Its my habit. I have always realised from my heart, the famous saying of Sir Francis Bacon "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.". There were times when I used to be a reading machine, finishing books after books, mostly novels in no time. But somewhere down the line, I realised that I am falling into the trap of reading the book to make my book statistics look better and just to say that I have read a book, rather than having gained anything from that book at all. So, off late, I am taking my own time to not just read but understand, assimilate and apply my own mind on the author's ideas. Some books that have actually changed the way I think about myself and this world are :-

1. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
2 The Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
3. Johnathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach
4. The Alchemist by Paulo Cehlo
5. Wings of Fire by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam

Three books I started reading, but never completed:

Conversations with God, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, Psychology of Military Humour. And there are many many more.

Book that made zero sense to me:

A lot of them never made sense to me. As soon as I realised this isnt going anywhere or I am not mentally prepared to assimilate what is being intended to be said, I just hang up.

My most treasured books:

All the books that have been gifted to me are most treasured by me. Because I feel if someone is interested in our intellectual enlightenment, the least we can reciprocate safeguard their token of interest in us!!

The Books I am planning to Read in the coming days:

1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
2. The Road Less traveled by M. Scott Peck
3. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
4. Ignited Minds by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam
5. Future Shock by Alvin Toffler

Who am I going to tag:

Ram the Wacko

Unfortunately, I haven't made much friends in the blog world and most of my friends have already been tagged by someone else. So anyone who feels interested after reading this blog, may get tagged by just posting a comment. I shall tag them.

The Book that Changed My World

2005-07-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son
LIFCO Publications
18 Pages
50 paisa

Yes. This was the book that started it all. This was the first ever book I read rather I was made to read and time and again. The man behind this was none other than my father. It was in those wonderful days of my childhood, at the tender age of twelve, when I just finished my class VI, those never ending sessions of reading this book everyday morning started. My father was fanatical about these English reading sessions and his most unforgettable quote used to be “I won’t leave you until you are able to read one letter everyday with such fluency like the running water flowing out of the tap.” The book in mention was a highly abridged version of the original book “LETTERS TO HIS SON By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD on the Fine Art of becoming a MAN OF THE WORLD and a GENTLEMAN.My father wanted me to be one. He used to explain all the letters, their meaning, their context and there used to be a dictionary kept next to us during those reading sessions to look up those bombastic words. At 12 yrs, all the words seemed to be bombastic. I don’t remember a day when I have voluntarily started the session myself. But then I used to do it anyways. These English reading sessions, put that habit of reading in me and subconsciously I started becoming a keen reader. I started reading almost anything and everything I could lay my hands on. Reading became my habit and soon it became my attitude. This was singularly responsible for all that happened to me in the following years. I became a book maniac. These reading sessions increased my reading speeds and hence I could read more for an exam in the same given time. It gave me the power never to be lonely. Because, any man who is a friend of books, is never lonely even when he is alone. Recently, when one of my superior boss asked me what were my hobbies, I told him about a few. Nonchalantly he remarked to my immediate boss, that nowadays youngsters don’t read and attributed it to all ills. When I quietly replied that reading was no more my hobby but a habit, he was amused.

This was the book that started it all, this was the book that taught me good manners, this was the book that grilled into my mind that character is the best wealth one can amass, this was the book that catapulted me into this long literary journey, this was the book that sowed the seeds of my unsatiable quest for knowledge, this was the book that was the precursor to the attitude to seek and learn. I have come very far from there. After almost 15 yrs, I have just downloaded the e-version of this book to start all over again because those days when I did went through the rut of those reading sessions, I comprehended very little of what was being told. It is never too late to start again. This time, it is by choice.

And behind all this, there is a man who had the vision then, who relentlessly pursued it even at the cost of his popularity with his son, a man who had a dream of seeing his son a Man of the World and a Gentleman. Yes. He is none other than my father.

Is he standing silent with victory at his feet?

Dreams Unlimited

2005-06-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

If you can dream and not make dreams your master

These are the infamous lines of Rudyard Kipling from his poem “If”. This poem has played a singular role in defining me what I am today. I carry this poem in my purse and not only in times of need and crisis, but sometimes just for some self motivation I read this poem and it has never failed to electrify my senses and rekindle the passion for life. Yet, I would beg to disagree with Rudyard Kipling regarding the very lines that I have quoted and I wish he had written it

If you can make dreams your master and work like a slave for your dreams.

How many of us day dream about our life? How many of us start our day in the toilet seat with those five minutes of powerful dreaming and perfect planning for the day, living out the activities of the day mentally as we wish them to occur. The four by four feet cubicle is a perfect dream spot. And then another great dream spot is your car. You get inside the car, zip up the windows, switch on the music, adjust the air conditioner and start your drive. It’s then a private universe, where you are the king. As the outside world zooms past in fast pace, how many times we find ourselves taking off on our own track? Its dangerous I know, but involuntarily I have done it many times. Even when I have driven through the busiest of the roads, at the end when I arrive, I wouldn’t remember a thing about the journey. But I had just established the greatest business empire of the world! And yes, ofcourse I had been dreaming all along the journey for sure.

Most of the spectacular feats that I have achieved in my life have all been the ones that I have dreamt about. There are things I used to dream and relive over a thousand times in mind, which, at the time of dreaming were the most impossible things that any sane mind would reasonably believe that it would come true. And in my conscious mind, I too believed and would tell myself that its mere stupidity to even dream of such a thing. But subconsciously, somehow I enjoyed this day dreaming and would continue to do so. And in more than many cases, my so called impossible dreams would become a reality sooner than later. It has happened time and again. Many a times I would get carried away and disclose what I was dreaming about to my friends and my friends would admonish me that I am too outspoken and explained that people would term it as arrogance and even I may be subjected to shame if I don’t achieve my dreams. But the fear of not achieving my dreams has never been able to prevent me from dreaming.

Now coming to some motivational talk. I feel dreams always come with a power to achieve them and make them a reality. If you are passionate about a certain thing and dream and relive it a thousand times, your subconscious mind is being channelised into that direction and works silently towards your objective. All your actions and thoughts are directed towards that and combined with conscious efforts at the superficial level, it almost always makes it a reality. There are so many examples that I can quote from my personal life, that I have dreamt and enacted in my mind before they actually became true. But what equally matters is that your dreams must be substantiated by concrete actions on ground. Many times, even if I didn’t want to do a thing consciously, my subconscious mind would drive my conscious mind towards that end which would finally see me achieve my dreams. I must also confess, that many times I have pushed myself to do things even when I was down and out, to save my face, because I couldn’t let it go just like that as I had already disclosed to my friends, which may range from a mere mention to a loud boasting about what I had intended to achieve. Finally to conlcude, I would just mention a line from the greatest book of all times on pursuing your dreams, The Alchemist, by Paulo Celho.

If you are passionate about your dreams, the whole world will conspire to see that it is realized.

And it has been one hundred percent true in my life! Today if people hear what I am dreaming about tomorrow, they will certainly laugh. But then, they laughed even yesterday when I told them what I would be today. And I am not too much off the target!!

Five Rules to Stay with Less Work in Office

2005-06-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

All of us crib about that extra work from our boss. Most of it is never your department in the first place, which your “efficient” boss has passed on to you, and you know very well that all the credits for your hardwork is going to be hogged by your boss and boss alone and your name is not even going to figure anywhere. Every time he does it, all you do is shout “Yes Sir” from the top of your roof and the moment he leaves, you take out the choicest of abuses but nevertheless end up doing his job anyways. When you are breaking your head on that stupid project of your boss and suddenly you see your colleague coolly walking off for coffee or waves good bye and wish you best of luck, when he himself is going away to meet his wife or girlfriend, all you can do is to break your head more. Most of us go through this and I am no exception. So amidst my busy schedule, I wondered a way out of this syndrome. And I remembered my worthy seniors passing on these simple rules, which they conveniently passed on after getting that coveted promotion or that plum appointment. Nevertheless, Here I go with those golden rules, most of them added with my own spice :-

1. Rule No1 : Rule of Alphabets. When you sense that your boss is trying to find a guy to take on his work simply follow the Rule of Alphabets.

(a) A for Avoid. Avoid the work somehow. Avoid going in front of your boss only for sometime.Out of sight, out of mind principle may work wonders for you here.

(b) B for Backout. In the unfortunate event of you being sighted by your boss, simply back out. Convince him why you are not the best person to do this job and how he can employ the other guys who are more experienced and things like that. The more creative you are at this stage, the better off. The next stages are going to be increasingly difficult.

(c) C for Confuse. In you cant convince your boss why you are not the best person to do the job, Confuse him. Say something like “Actually sir, my mother’s daughter who was married to my friend’s friend is very sick and she has been taken to the hospital which is next to the cycle stand, which is itself next the same hospital I told you sir, which …..”

(d) D for Delay. So now you know that you cant escape. Atleast delay the start of the work by stating some clever reasons. If you have a work of his superior boss at hand, nothing like it.

(e) E for Extend. Now, that you are doing the job, extend the completion of job as much as possible. Make your boss realize that if you continue doing the job, then it may get delayed so much that he may lose his job.

(f) F for Finally F**k it up. After all this you are unsuccessful, finally f**k up the job so much that next time your boss does not even think of giving you his job!!

2. Rule No 2 : Rule of Competence. Don’t be competent. Because, the prize for competence is more work. And even the price you have to pay for your competence is more work. So be careful.

3. Rule No 3 : Rule of Minimum Work. Remember, efficiency is minimum work and maximum output. So to be efficient, start with minimum work in the first place. Maximum output will automatically follow. So some principles for this rule:-

(a) Never stand when you can sit.

(b) Never sit when you can lie down.

(c) Never just lie down when you can sleep.

(d) Never get up when you can keep sleeping.

4. Rule No 4 : Always Look Busy. Always look busy. Even when you don’t have any work, look busy by doing something by which everybody feels that you are about the make the next biggest invention. Because, work expands to fill the time available. No use finishing you work fast and showing off to the world. Sooner than later, you will get a new job. If you feel you can have a free evening when your boss is working, you are sadly mistaken.

5. Rule No 5 : Google it Out. If you get 24 hrs to finish the project, head straight for Google. For 23 hrs, search for another similar project in Google, which someone has already worked hard and which you need to just cut and paste. You will almost certainly find one. If not, you know you are brilliant, you can do it in the remaining one hour. In any case, had you known it would take two hrs for your own work, you should have demanded 48 hrs from your boss in the first place. That’s the scale.

Disclaimer: Lastly, be ready to face the open door your boss will soon show you for your “excellent” performance. The least you can expect is to be booted out of your department if not out of your company! And Dont blame me for giving you ideas.

The State of Educational System in India

2005-06-24T02:50:00.000-07:00

Before I even begin to write about this topic, I am left to wonder what is meant by education. Is it mere obtaining of degree certificates or getting actually enlightened, that which helps to become morally upright and a good citizen, that which imparts with the ability to think logically about any given situation and last but not the least, can provide with some base to pursue a career based on what one has studied ?

The rural India, constitutes about more than three quarters of the Indian population. The urban India, that is visible, makes opinions and which creates an image in front of others constitutes the minority. This dichotomy between the urban and the rural India is so prominent now that there seems to exist a country within a country. One side is making rapid progress in all fields and the standard of living is much higher and the other is not even trying to catch up. This is all due to the flawed policies of our government, which refuses to concentrate on the heart of India but more bothered about the face. The state of education in India is also facing the same problem. It’s the apathy towards the rural education that is the root cause of all the problems in India. Its apparent that most of the problem in India is caused due to illiteracy. The rural population forms the chunk of votes and it’s precisely this illiterate population that almost always decides who is going to govern this country in every election. Sure, it’s a vicious circle but the center of this circle is illiteracy. Everything revolves around it. Now having said this let me analyse what is the present state of education in India. For once, lets stay away from statistics and try to look at the real picture as seen by a layman like me.

The first and foremost aspect which hits you is the sad state of infrastructure for education in rural India. There are no proper buildings for schools in many places, no laboratories and no permanent teachers. The people attending these rural schools have a very clear mindset that they are not going to benefit from this education as far as providing a decent livelihood for them. There is no hope, for, the system of getting admission to higher education is our country is weird and these rural schools simply do not cater for the system of entrance examinations for technical courses and institutes like the IITs, IIMs and other professional colleges. It would worthwhile to carry out a study as to number of people who secure admissions in these universities, who have really gone through the primary and secondary schools in rural area.

Next issue is the medium of instruction. Most of the rural schools impart education in local language upto high school level but when it comes to higher education almost all colleges have English as the medium of instruction. Is it possible for a student who has studied throughout in his mother tongue to suddenly switch to a new language ie English, not only pass the entrance tests which may include group discussions also, where he is competing for a limited number of seats with the so called urban educated student and in the unlikely event of getting a seat in the college, will he be able to complete the course effectively?

The greatest farce in India is the general belief that a person who can speak English is supposed to be educated. If English is that important, why not make it compulsory from nursery for all students across the board even in rural India? Why create this dichotomy at the apex level? Agreed that the logic behind education in mother tongue is that, most parents were illiterate to start with and hence it was believed that it wouldn’t be any easier for the child to learn, that which cannot be taught by parents at home. But, there are a number of parents who don’t speak English but their children study and come out with flying colours from English medium schools in urban and semi urban areas. Most of the non English speaking countries are having university level education also in mother tongue. But in India, with 500 odd languages, it is not possible to have so. Agreed. But why not start with primary education in all rural schools in English, with the mother tongue as just one of the subjects as in most urban schools? In essence, make English medium schools everywhere. That will enable a rural Indian to stand a chance in the highly competitive higher education.

The state of urban education is also in a very precarious state. Shrewd business men rather noble people are running the “education industry” in urban India. Its a pain to watch that schools are slowly being turned into money spinners and insecure parents, anxious to see their wards in some professional college, are giving in to every demands of the schools, who are demanding with more impunity. Scoring good marks seems to be more important than assimilation. In fact there seems to be no time for any assimilation at all for the students. Coupled with this is the system of Indian examinations. Barring a few, most of these exams test the memorizing capability of a student, rather than one’s analytical capability. Interestingly, as if the schools weren’t enough, the number of coaching centers that have sprung up like mushrooms create such a fear in the mind of students and parents as well, that everyone feels insecure if he/she doesn’t enroll himself for at least some of these centers so as to “ensure” a better performance. This makes the schools complacent as such. The schools which claim the best results are the ones that always deny admission to any one with less than as high as 95% marks in the previous board exams. Obviously, if you don’t admit “dumber” students, then whats the great deal in producing toppers?? A school is really worth its salt, if it produces a topper, who had a poor track record in academics prior to getting admitted with them. The schools have neither the time nor the inclination to motivate, and produce such a topper.

If the state of schools is like this, then the state of colleges is no better. A number of professional colleges have come every nook and corner, that has absolutely no infrastructure in terms of buildings and equipments, that have critical shortage lectures and professors and that are churning out engineers and doctors who are substandard, leaving much to be desired as far their professional competence is concerned. Again it is simply because of the mad rush towards procuring a professional degree somehow. That printed sheet of paper saying that one has graduated in engineering, signed by a chancellor of an obscure university or a principal of autonomous college seems more important than education itself in the true sense.

The reservation of seats for socially backward classes is being used as a powerful tool to garner and secure votes from various communities. This defeats the very purpose of its introduction wherein it was supposed to dilute these social divisions and remove prejudices. The amount of reservation cannot exceed 50% as per Supreme Court directive, but in states like TN, we have 69% seats reserved for various communities. The lobby to get separate allocations among this 50% seats is so powerful that elections are won and lost on this issue. Reservations are making people more aware of their caste by this system rather than forget them.

The education sector is also rampant with corruption from the political level. The amount of money which actually reaches the beneficiaries from the amount of money allocated in each and every budget is miniscule. Once when Lalu Prasad was asked about the various scams he was charged with and the way the local newspapers are tearing his image off daily and how is he expecting to win the next election, he coolly replied that, let the newspapers write what they want, because the people who vote for him do not know how to read and there is no electricity in most villages for them to watch TV. So his vote bank wouldn’t be affected. And Lo Behold, he was elected with absolute majority!! There can be no better example to portray, how an illiterate population actually is beneficial to the nefarious designs of the politicians to be elected for power time and again.

Off late, education has become a vote spinning factor also. TN Govt has cancelled the TNPCEE results because, it was supposedly very tough and most students were losing out on many ways. So a politically motivated decision was taken, to consider admission purely on results of board exams. And there were 100 first rankers, 300 second rankers and 700 third rankers and so on. So to break the deadlock, amongst other things, their seniority in date of birth is to be considered. Its anybody’s guess to see the reason behind this decision to consider seniority in date of birth to break the deadlock. It is simply because, the state assembly elections are due next year and most of the students would attain 18 years of age by then and would be eligible to vote. So to keep the vote bank intact and to win over these new voters, the hard work of thousands of students have gone down the drain due to a factor over which they never had any control in the first place. Its disheartening.

Having discussed the various ills of our educational system, I have the following suggestions to make to reform the system:-

1. Make English compulsory at all levels in all schools. Synchronize medium of instruction for education from base to top. It will be difficult initially but in the long run, it will prove beneficial.

2. Create real infrastructure in rural schools and make it mandatory to attend high school. Make it a punishable offence to drop out from school and if one has not completed high school until 18. He could even lose the right to vote. This may prevent illiterate population from voting and falling prey to politicians. Instead of stocking food in FCI storehouses, only to be eaten by rats, use them to provide free lunch and even a second meal. This will go a long way in preventing child labour as well.

3. Regulate the exorbitant school fees and other fees collected by many urban schools and make all schools become a non profit making organizations with public audit mandatory.

4. Make it mandatory to admit poor students and support them through various aids, nominated by the local authorities, in all urban schools, to give them equal exposure.

5. The student workload in schools must reduce. Is there any actual need for any student to cram up so much knowledge, most of them factual, which he may just wouldn’t need after securing the admission in a college?

5. Make a common entrance exam for all students across the board like CAT for all admissions in any particular stream. This would prevent students from studying different syllabus for different institutes.

6. Revive examination system at all levels. Is knowledge bound by only what one can rattle out in the paper in just three hours, which is mostly objective and factual rather than being analytical and applicative? This question needs to be answered immediately.

7. Any student, who wants to pursue higher education abroad, shall perforce must comeback within 5 yrs of after completion of his education. As a corollary, anyone going to work abroad, must come back within 5 yrs as well. Once they have come back, there must be a ban for 10 more yrs before they can proceed again. Else, they will lose Indian citizenship. This will not only ensure that talent trained in foreign shores is available for our development also, but this 10 yr ban will also ensure other aspirants to go and get back our country. This is the only way to mitigate effects of brain drain.

8. Lat but not the least and most importantly, a common man in a village, whose parents are illiterate themselves, who has no resources for himself, must be able to get atleast high school education. If our policies cannot achieve this basic aim, then majority of India is bound to be illiterate and no problem can ever be solved.

To implement these radical changes, we need strong government. At the outset, we need a rethinking, whether democracy in our present form is suitable to us at all. Because, if each and every policy is going to be dictated by populist measures and the ones that will ensure victory in the next elections, then there is no way we can implement strong policies like this. Its true that there is no flaw in the Indian constitution, but then the politicians implementing these policies are corrupt themselves, and the people who elect these corrupt politicians are illiterate. Beyond all these tall claims that India is a vibrant democracy and the feel good factors, there exists another India within India, where there is illiteracy, poverty, and above all there is no hope. And it is this India which is the heart, that is deciding who is to govern us. There is no use injecting botox in the face to look younger and smarter when your heart is about to collapse. You will die anyways.

America's Oil War

2005-06-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

“Either You are With Us or With the Terrorists”

This is how President Bush conveniently put his war against terrorism. A statement that has changed the geopolitics of the world. A statement, which is threatening to divide the world into an axis of good fighting against the axis of evil. History repeats itself and on 9/11/2001, when a pearl harbour repeated itself horribly, America woke up from its slumber, bruised by its own misadventures in the middle east and blindly supporting Isreal, having made too many enemies for itself. At stake was American pride, a concept of secularism and free economy, and above all the reputation of a Republican President Bush, who at that time was the most controversially elected president in the history of USA. Coupled with these, were an ailing american economy, dwindling oil resources and a strengthening Euro. Where was the panacea? Any other President would have crumbled under pressure. But not President Bush. An one stop solution he knew was war, to wage a war. The defence industry will be re-invirgorated once for all for years to come. The billions of dollars stagnated in stockpiling its weapons will be liquidated with the tax payers money, who would be all the more eager to cough up more tax or atleast not raise a hue and cry for more allocation in the budget, in the name of patriotism.

The republicans weren’t sure whether they would win the war, but they were very sure, that they would win the elections for the second term, for, no American war time president had lost an election during a war. They weren’t wrong, as people brought them back to power, not because they were convinced about the war against terrorism but because they expressed solidarity as a nation in times of crisis, as they have shown always in their history. Above all, personally for Bush, it was a chance to complete the mission what his father dreamed in 1990, to control the oil fields of Middle East Asia.

After the cold war, for long, the American psyche was not boosted but ironically, it was challenged by the phenomenon of lack of a credible enemy. The billions of dollars invested in so much of research and development of weapons, stockpiled over the years were going waste. The defence industry had started to plunge into a recession. It desperately needed an enemy. Voila!! 9/11 happened. They found one, in the name of Osama Bin Laden, a ghost which the CIA had painstakingly created to fight the soviet juggernaut in Afghanistan.

Now, they decided to fight their own creation. A brilliant technique in an unipolar world. Create your enemy and then fight him. Four years since Op Anaconda in Afghanistan, Osama is nowhere to be found. Nevertheless, we can find an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, constructed in record time, ready to ship out oil, from the Baltic central Asian republics, where America so cleverly befriended, entered and stationed its troops in the name of a base for its fight against terrorism. Once this was achieved, it needed the security of this pipeline in west tribal areas of Pakistan, before it reached the sea ports. So, it awarded the status of Most Favoured Non NATO Ally to Pakistan. This meant more weapons and more money to a dictator run state! American hypocrisy personified. The fact that Pakistan is one of the major perpetrator of terrorism in the region for its sinister plans to keep its fight against India in Kashmir, the fact that it was the only country which recognized the Taliban government in Afganistan and used its territory for all the wrong reasons, were blissfully forgotten in one stroke of a pen inking the deal.

A careful look at President Bush’s speech after 9/11, I quote “ ….Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own: dozens of Pakistanis; more than 130 Israelis; more than 250 citizens of India; men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan; and hundreds of British citizens. America has no truer friend than Great Britain. (Applause.)” will make his intentions very clear. Look at the order of the nations in his obituary, he has mentioned in this speech. A master stroke, to convey where he was going to mean business for seeking help for his fight against terrorism. Of course, India never budged any more than making peace with Pakistan, by declaring ceasefire along the LC, so that Pakistan can make available more troops along its western border to secure the area from fighting tribesmen and guarding the pipeline.

Now, coming to the Iraq conundrum. After two years of war, there are no signs of any peace and prosperity, and there is only chaos and mayhem, with death tolls mounting everyday. At the beginning of the war, the allied forces were too happy. It was a cake walk to Baghdad with no major opposition in any area. But the Iraqis were clever. They knew, they never stood a chance to fight the American war machine in a conventional way. So they chose, what any clear headed fighter would have choosen. To cause attrition to enemy in his weakest area and fight him where it hurts the most. They knew, they stood a better chance to fight a guerilla warfare in a built up area than any conventional fighting. So they let the allies in and are now making them fight in a place of their choosing and the result is increasing number of body bags transported back to US everyday to a screaming US public. Added to this, is a general feeling of despair and helplessness among the common Iraqis, leaving them wonder what the Americans are doing in their soil.

Right from 1990, the area of interest for the Americans in Iraq has been Kurdistan, because it is where maximum oil reserves are found, that can be safely shipped out. But, giving in to the demands of kurds and creating an independent Kurdistan is being heavily opposed by Turkey and Iran, who have their own Kurdish regions bordering the Iraqi Kurdistan and they fear an uprising for a demand of unification into a greater Kurdistan. Hence this was not an immediate solution and an easier way was found by appointing a Kurdish president after the elections in Iraq. But this has only resulted in increased attacks against the Govt machinery and the allied troops, by the sunny Muslims, who are minority but nevertheless, fighting tooth and nail.

Amidst all this confusion, not a single WMD has been found, which was supposedly, the cause of starting this whole war. Giving Iraqis, freedom from Sadam Hussain, a Sunny himself and his Baath Party was a secondary aim of this war. Americans have declared that their troops will stay as long as the elected Iraqi Government wants them to stay. But it’s a child’s guess that this puppet govt machinery, put in place by the Americans themselves would never want them out of Iraq at least in the near future. Now, say there is some peace in the near future, what will happen to the oil resources of Iraq? There wont be any credible Iraqi oil company which would be left to run the industry. The Govt, a puppet under the Americans, to sustain the Iraqi economy, would award all the contracts to extract, refine and export the oil to the major oil companies of the world and that pie would go undoubtedly to all the troop contributing nations. With this money, Iraq has to be rebuilt. So, who will rebuild this war torn nation? Again, it’s the allies. That’s going to a cool multi billion dollar pie. A classic case of neocolonialism, reinvented. Use Iraqi oil, boost your industry by awarding contracts to build roads, buildings, set up subsidiaries back in Iraq . Excellent.

Now, America has begun its rhetoric against Iran. I was watching the American undersecretary of state, in a Hard Talk program in BBC. His contention is that, America believes in personal freedom of each and every human being and is commited to spread democracy and promote free world. In Iran, out of some 1046 candidates for presidential elections, 1020 have been disqualified and there has been complete denial of freedom to people. Also, the american contention is that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and is aiding terrorists all over the world, by clandestinely financing terrorist organizations. I ask, if spreading democracy is the aim, then why zero in on Iran alone? There are fifty other states, where there is no freedom to people, which are ruled by autocrats. And, after the present war in Iraq and all the rhetoric of WMD present in Iraq, today, no one can believe American claims of a nuclear armed Iran. Obviously, who would want to spread democracy in a country void of any resource?! In any case, its not too difficult to see that Iran is one of the states with maximum oil reserves.

Once you construct the overall picture from the mosaic, it clearly emerges that in this 21st century, in a truly globalised world, it’s the economic imperialism that’s here to stay. To fuel your economy, you need oil. Anyone who controls oil resources will control the world economy and precisely, this is what America is doing. Its next target is Darfur, a brand new oil rich area, in Sudan. That’s where the future oil war is going to be. The stage is set. A crisis is already being created. And someone would come to solve the issue. And we know who!

Last but not the least, all depends on this ongoing crisis in Iraq. I personally predict an American defeat in the long run and that too a nasty one, because no force, least of all American, in the history of the world has contained or defeated an enemy fighting guerilla warfare, with out local support, wherein the local population truly wanted the conflict to end. In Iraq, there is minimal public support and in the event of this unabated fight against the occupation forces, should the so called terrorists outwit and outlast the allies, like what we have witnessed in Vietnam, then Uncle Sam’s state is going to be in real jeopardy. Until then, its oil all the way.

Animal Instincts

2005-06-05T04:01:00.000-07:00

Once, in a class on observation and survival skills , I was explaining them how to sense human presence, by seeing animal movements in a jungle. I was expounding,“….Like a cow, being a domesticated and friendly animal, if it sees some human presence nearby, it always moves in the direction towards him. So if one sees a cow moving, he should always observe the area carefully with binoculars for any human presence, in the direction of movement of that cow. But a Deer, will stop for a moment and immediately turn a hundred eighty degrees and sprint away. So, if one sees a deer sprinting, he should observe the area carefully in the direction exactly opposite to its movement. And a Rabbit always looks for the nearest burrow. So one cannot clearly judge….”

Suddenly, a bright spark from the class, asked loudly “Sir, What about a lion? Which direction will it move?”

I was taken aback, but regained my composure in an instant and replied “If you see a lion, look everywhere. The man will be running!!!

The class roared into laughter.

Where is the Brahmanan in Me?

2005-06-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I have always faced the wrath of my parents and other staunch Hindu Brahmin friends, for being too radical and not following the rituals and procedures that has been laid out in my culture, which is supposed to be followed if I am to be called as a Brahmin. I have always hated following the rahu kalas and believing in stupid superstitions, long rituals and other poojas laid out in the various scriptures or which has been followed by our ancestors over a period of time.

The Hindu religion has always believed in and followed the caste based systems of society. The Shudras were supposed to be doing all the menial jobs like cleaning, washing, and other such trades. The Vyshyas were traders.The Kshatriyas were warriors and finally the Brahmanas were the people who were in fields like teaching and were supposed to reach the God and the Universal Truth. Now, in pursuit of the truth many down the line followed a certain path and tried to reach god. The various paths that have been laid out, must have been simple. But I feel, over a period of time, in order to maintain the supremacy in the social structure, the brahmanas made more and more rituals and complicated the whole issue by including many rituals and poojas, which by virtue of their complications and fear of antoganising the god, the common people followed them unquestioningly.

I feel, that if I have to search the truth, then I must have the freedom to choose my own path. This freedom has never been denied, but has always come under heavy prejudices by many who feel that not following what our ancestors have laid out, is a sign of confused mind, which is neither here nor there. Let me take a couple of examples, even at the cost being verbose.

Following the Rahu Kalam and Nalla Neram( The Bad and Good time of the day in hindu mythology).I personally have never bothered about starting a new venture on an auspicious time, or not starting it in rahu kala. I believe that there is never a wrong time to do a right thing. Believing in god, gives me faith. And that faith moves mountains. If things go wrong as they will, that faith is the anchor. But that does not mean that one must get overwhelmed by the rituals and sayings and forget the main objective. I can quote many examples, some from my personal life also, that even after carefully following the shastram and sampradayams, the efforts have not yielded any results, simply because they were not enough or were in the wrong direction.

Vegetarianism is another hotly contended item in the list. It is good to be a vegetarian because of all its good scientific advantages to health. But if someone says because I am a Brahmin and therefore I am supposed to be a vegetarian, then its ridiculous. Following a certain way of life is my choice. In the olden society, the Kshatriyas were always on the move and on campaigns and the Vysas were busy doing business which again kept them on the move. On the other hand, Brahmins were mostly confined to a one place like gurukul, temple or palace and lead a calm life, enhancing their knowledge, serving god and searching the truth by meditation and things like that. They were even prohibited from crossing the ocean. So the other community people were not bounded by vegetarianism except for the Brahmins for the simple reason that only they could have followed it by virtue of their lifestyle. But, today, there are more Brahmins going abroad, there are even those who have taken up arms as their profession, which was unimaginable even 300yrs ago. If they choose to exercise the option of non vegetarianism, then whats wrong in it?

For all those of you who quote ahimsa as the principle behind vegetarianism, then there can be nothing farther than the truth. We kill houseflies, cockroaches, snakes and all other living things. Is it not himsa? Nobody has been endowed with the right to choose what to kill and what not to kill!

Does, not following these makes me a non Brahmin or a fool? For times immemorial, Brahmins have staunchly believed and practiced social discrimination and untouchability. Even today, there are Brahmin households which has a separate tumbler for giving water to even fellow Brahmins from other subcastes. But many do not follow those principles, having realized the futility of such shortsighted parochial stands. In other words they have infact exercised their choice of not following them. In the same way, if one is convinced that vegetarianism or following Rahu kalam is not going to help in anyway his lifestyle, then whats wrong? Is it unfair for someone who chooses to be a good human being first and has a set of higher ideals rather than getting stuck in these rituals and sampradayas?

And finally, why does all religion preaches to renounce the self? Many feel happy to say that we are no one in this universe and cosmos. Why we must eschew comforts for reaching god. Why cant we be wealthy, proud of ourselves, comfortable and yet reach god? I feel there must be a simpler way to do any thing. Even reaching god. The Human mind has been empowered with a reasoning ability evolved over a billion years, simply not to renounce it, but to ask questions and find answers. And unfortunately, it has been indoctrinated for times immemorial that we are nothing and no one in this universe and things to that effect.

Having said these, When somebody, asked me a question as to where this freedom, which had never been denied in the first place has taken me, I was taken aback. Yes. It was one of the most profound questions, which made me realize that I need to take stock of all that I have learned and tried to follow.

This freedom has given me the power to choose my own path. As long as no one has ever known the path to the truth, the Brahman, I shall choose my own path. Sure, people like Vivekanada had made great progress, but for all you know, it could have been in the wrong jungle. So, not to regret later, I shall trace my own way, however hard, however slow. I may fail, I may get belittled, I may become an outcaste, I may reach nowhere, but I shall grind my own way in search of the truth. The Brahman.

In this search, till now I have realized a few things.

The self is supremely powerful, and if there is one omnipotent force, it is the self and hence, I start my search, inwards, to seek the truth, to search myself. The Krishna is in us. Deep inside. And in this experiment, I have the power to choose my tools.

I believe in equality and treating fellow human beings with respect.

Achieving purity of mind and thought is the end. All the poojas and sampradayas are mere means. There is no obligation for me to follow them as long as I am trying to reach the end, in my own ways.

I believe that pursuit of happiness is not a sin, but pursuing happiness by infringing on others is a sin.

I believe greed for anything is not a sin. But usurping from others to satiate that greed is a sin. As a corollary, I say It’s the greed for excellence among the very few of us, that has powered all development in this world today.

Seeking wealth is not a sin, but seeking it illegally and immorally is a sin.

I believe emotions like anger is not a sin. But taking out that anger on someone else is a sin.

I feel that we have been empowered with the ability to reason, not to simply denounce it and blindly follow others. The self need not be denounced. There is no need to sacrifice. I believe I have the power to be anything and anyone in this humanity, and such a quest is not a sin as long as I do it ethically. The self is supreme.

Every human being has got a deva and asura in him. Its that asura, we need to conquer, without pity, without remorse and that’s what I believe Bhagavat Gita preaches. That is our karma. To conquer the asura in us. Its not a war against anything else. It’s a civil war with ones own self!

Talking about karma, I have chosen the profession of arms. I fight for people I have not seen. I have killed/caused to kill people I don’t know and I fight for a cause I don’t believe. But I shall do it till my last drop of blood, because, that is my job, my karma.

At 16, when I asked myself and my near dears just before my exams, that if I don’t appear in XII class exams, will it invalidate all that I have studied and make me an illiterate, I was wondering about the truth. Now when I am actively posting this blog, I am seeking that truth.

I may be termed as arrogant and intransigent, But it doesn’t matter.Because, as I have said in my earlier blog, character is what I am, reputation is what others think I am. Character is a fact, but reputation is just an opinion. And, opinions are functions of time.

Last but not the least, In my death bed, in that moment before my last breath, when I close my eyes in naked honesty, If I realize that in search of that truth, I have made stupendous progress, but in a wrong jungle like a zillion others, I will only smile because it was my choice to choose that jungle. And I will be contented, because I fought till my end!!

This is what freedom means to me!!

So where is the brahmanan in me? If rituals and sampradhayas are all that brahminism is about, then I wish to be outcasted. But achieving purity of mind and thought, in search of that truth is brahminism, then I feel I am on the right track!

A Street Car Named Luck

2005-05-30T01:50:00.000-07:00

This incident happened with me today and I realised something very profound from it.

I was driving in my Nissan to a nearby village administrative centre about 10kms away. On the way, I saw a group of old women in the road, walking slowly. I stopped to give them a lift. They were going to the same place as I was. After about half a kilometer, we saw another group of women, not as old as those in my car. In any case I couldn’t have stopped as there was no space in my car. As we crossed them, much to my surprise, the old women in my car started waving victoriously at them and the women on road, retorted back furiously with shrills and hoot. And the same thing happened, again and again, as we crossed more groups of women, walking in the same road. A deeper enquiry, revealed that all of them were going for collecting food aid from a near by WFP(World Food Program) centre and apparently they were all from the same village and had started together. But the ones whom I had given lift, were left behind in the journey as they were old and couldn’t keep pace! Since only the first few who reach, manages to get some aid, now, by virtue of me giving them lift, they would reach the centre first and surely get some food aid.

At first, I felt like god. But it didn’t take much to dawn on me, a profound truth. These old women knew well that they will never be able to keep pace with others. They also knew that they may walk the entire distance only to reach late and return empty handed! Yet, they chose to walk the distance. And from nowhere, a car reaches them from behind, picks them up and puts right in front, ahead of all others, the able, the faster, the fitter people. Imagine, had they given up enroute, or for that matter not started at all, then would they have got food?!!

We can extrapolate this realization to a greater depth. All of us in our long journey of life, get left behind somewhere. Somebody is always ahead of us somewhere. It doesn’t matter how fast you walk, but what matters is how fast you reach. The idea is to keep walking and never lose hope. For, you never know, the street car named luck driven by god may just be around the corner, waiting to give you a lift, a gentle push to propel you in front., ahead of others who think they are ahead.

Lastly, this incident must be viewed in the correct spirit and one must not reason out that luck is everything!

Self Create Your Purpose, Plan Your Destination in Life. Now!!

2005-05-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

What is our purpose in life? Is it to live life the way it comes and then lament about its emptiness? Is it to live in search of the unknown and live in the darkness? Or believe in the omnipotent and further believe that you are not supposed to question his omnipotence? Or to create one for ourselves, so that we reach somewhere, even if that somewhere holds no value with the so called spiritualists? I feel that as long as we are not aware of any divine purpose, we must self create a purpose for our existence in this world. I would say that a person without ambition is a mere vegetable. And in order to exist, he becomes a parasite. When one talks about ambition, is it only accumulation of wealth or becoming more powerful or reaching a certain status in life, as the lexicographers has chosen to describe? To me it sounds perfectly sane when one says that it is his ambition to become a good person or a great father!

Talking about a self created purpose in life, It is undoubtedly a matter of personal choice, forced only by our conscience. One must not decide to choose a purpose, just because the things are the way they are today. This is a dynamic world. The conditions keep changing every second. The trick is not to lose your way and if indeed you lose, then not to regret about it. When I say that, I mean not to regret about it from the bottom of our heart, when we strip ourselves in naked honesty. For example, say, my family needs financial support badly today. So I decide to follow the rut and end up doing things which will suit my immediate needs and not things which I would like to do, had these conditions not existed. And in due course of time, I earn so much that my family is no longer in the kind of need that it was then, my sisters are married off and all the troubles seems to be over, then the sole need that has been motivating me all these days will suddenly cease to exist and I will have to invent reasons to convince myself that I infact made the right choice then. That is a difficult proposition. Let me illustrate my thoughts with a small metaphor.

Imagine life to be a great tour. Logically, before you start the tour, you must know where you want to go, your Final Destination. Once you are clear with the final destination, then you may start thinking about the modes of transport, shortest routes and things like that. That is what I mean by self created purpose, the final destination. Because, without knowing whether you want to go to Delhi or Dubai, it is illogical to reason out why going by air is a better option. On the other hand if your final destination is crystal clear, then even if you choose a longer route, you will be doing it consciously. There are two profound implications of this. Firstly, in the sub conscious mind, you are still clear as to your final destination, which acts as a light house to guide you in darkness. Secondly, you shall have no regrets, because you chose to choose a longer route or a different destination. So the first step is to decide where we want to go in life!

One must understand that every human being has different needs at different points of time. At 20, it feels nice to be surrounded by girls, but at 30, you start craving for a family, and then for a child. These needs are genuine and do not invalidate a diametrically opposite need that existed in some other point of time in our life. So our destination and purpose must transcend all these need cycles and must be something that should be able to guide us through this maze of confusions and contradictions.

So the best way is to begin with an end in mind. What do you want to see yourself as, 40yrs from now? And Where do you want to see yourself as, 40yrs from now? Both of these questions seem to be the same, but a deeper look will tell you that it is not. The first question, talks about the imponderables like ethics, morality, integrity, honesty, on being a good husband, a loving father and the like. The second question talks about the materialistic achievement like money, power, status and other visible signs of success that others can see, that you want it to be seen. A happy mix of Character and Reputation.

Say, you have decided that you want to be and known as a good person. Materialistically, you set your goals to become a millionaire. Now once your self created purpose, the final destination is clear, then you will chalk out the route. Then, being honest and trusty worthy to your friends, a loving father to your children and a good husband to your wife etc becomes your stopover and refueling points, enroute to your final destination of becoming and be known as a good person. Likewise, the aspects like a great and secure job in a good company, going on adventure holidays to relieve your stress to further your career, acquisition of a great deal of wealth, all become your intermediate stations to your final destination of becoming a millionaire. The beauty of this journey is that these intermediate stations are dictated by the dynamics of life and one’s needs at that point of time. They may vary, but everything is perfect as long as they are congruent to your overall itinerary.

And more importantly, once you reach your intermediate destination, as demanded by your needs of life at that point of time, you tend to feel exhausted, many a times you may be blinded of your final destination, as that particular intermediate destination satiates your immediate needs and would make you feel as if you have arrived. But, not for too long. Its here many give become tired of the journey and give up. They convince themselves of things they would never be convinced of in the first place. They enjoy the temporary coziness that life offers, for too long, only to discover to their horror that they have missed the life train which has already left the station. That’s why its said “Time and Tide waits for None”.

After all these ordeals, when you arrive at your final destination, you look back at the route you have tread and feel satisfied that you have not only become a millionaire, with a great career, with toppings of adventure holidays and all that you craved for, but also, you have been a loving father, a good husband and a true friend, and all other imponderables.

So if you look at what I have said in totality, it is manifest, that the final destination must be clearly spelt out and earlier one does it in life, the better. Because, it becomes extremely difficult to change course once you travel long. It requires great courage and determination to retrace your journey and start all over again. And if you choose a destination, that falls into your present route, but its not anywhere near where you would have loved to go, then it’s a compromise.

Now, the mother of all questions is that, “Is your final destination flexible?”

Yes and No. Yes, because one has to be prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities that the game of life throws up in front of us and has to grab them to give mid course corrections and reset our targets to better, bigger and more lucrative destinations. And No, because flexibility should not serve as a refuge for reaching the penultimate destination.

Last but not the least, one must remember that at every stage of this journey, whether one gives up or changes course, we do it by our own choice. No amount of external reasons and practicality can explain a phenomenon of lack of choice. If one tries to reason out that, he could not go in pursuit of his dream because of an ailing mother or a demanding family or a overbearing boss, and it was beyond his control, there can be nothing farther from truth. Because, you always had a choice of leaving your ailing mother or your demanding family or to overbearing boss to pursue your dreams. But you chose not to exercise it, because you feared the consequences more than what you thought you would relish your success otherwise. So, don’t regret. It was after all your choice.

And look, we have come a full circle.

Shortcut to Brain:\My Memories

2005-05-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

As I travel the long journey of life, every day is filled with so many incidents, some worth remembering, that remains with me as pleasant memories, some I am forced to remember by its sheer unpleasantness, that turns out to be those bad memories and finally, of course those mundane happenings which easily fades away very soon. I wonder whether it is common with everyone, but I am certain for myself that, there are some objects which connect with some particular memories. That could be a material object like a painting or memorabilia or a photograph or any such physical stuff, which when I see, I travel back in time to relive them in my mind. But what amazes me are these abstract things like some fragrance or some songs associated with a particular memory that profoundly and instantly transforms me to to those past memories and the experience is more deep and palpable compared to those transformation by say a photo or a painting! I continue to stay there only to crash back from that utopia into the real world.

To talk in particular, I can easily recount some songs which, when I listen to, automatically makes me leap into my past, a new universe that’s so familiar, where I am just a spectator of a drama in which I am also the hero. Like this album of Byran Adams “MTV Unplugged”. Whenever I play this CD, I just fly back to Harsil and Gangotri, a paradise on earth, where I was on my mountaineering training camp before my first expedition. Everything would run like a movie trailer. Me, in my small two man tent, snuggled into the sleeping bag braving the cold, eyes filled with wonder, dreaming, where I would summit the peak a hundred times.

And then there is this album by Bombay Jayshree called “ Shravanam”. I would never play this album in my lifetime, because this was one album which reverberated in my drawing rooms continously, when I was in search of some emotional solace during those periods of intense personal trauma I faced during the latter part of 2004. The songs of this album have somehow become associated with that trauma so intensely that once when my dad played that song, my mind and body suffered the same trauma in complete totality and within seconds the experience became unbearable that I screamed to stop the music.

But the song “ Suno Na” from Jhankar Beats reminds me of my glorious days in Indore, when I used to ride my Pulsar, with the helmet on, and loudly singing though only a couple of lines from this song, repeatedly, may be a thousand times, bothering about nothing, not the past and definitely not the future. Those were the time of my life.

The song “Am leaving on a Jet Plane” by John Denver , just takes me on board the flight I used to catch to Leh, back to work after every holiday, literally leaving behind my loved ones, never knowing whether I will be back at all, leave aside when. After I would land at the Leh airport, I would repeatedly hear this song, throughout my long and arduous journey to Eastern Ladakh. This song still makes me feel terribly lonely.

The song “Woh Lamhe” from Zeher has its own pleasant memories associated with it. The moment I play this song, I fly back to that wonderful day I spent with someone close to my heart in my ford car, with this song beating in sync with our hearts. Sometimes, it does feel nice to live life!

There are umpteen such objects, both abstract and physical, that I can count, which associates itself with great many memories of my past. Its not just songs, but many other things, thats equally magical in taking me back in time. They are like shortcuts placed on the desktop for memory files stored deep down in my mind, most of them by default. They are wonders of the human brain, and its myraid capabilities to store and retrive information, which the scientific world has just started to grasp.

I Don’t Know Tamil Ya!

2005-05-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

This blog is strictly for tamilians or people whose mother tongue is tamil. I have directed my ire against the so called "peter party"

I Don’t Know Tamil Ya!

This is one statement I hate to hear from people whose mother tongue is tamil, especially so when said with a lot of pride. It’s a sorry state of affairs, to see even parents say with pride to their friends and neighbors about their wards, how poor he or she is in tamil. What I don’t understand is that why people feel inferior about their own mother tongue. Countries like China and Japan, who have been able to harness 100% of their human resources, have made the greatest progress. And they have been able to do that just because the importance their mother tongue gets in their educational system. But back home, we have this general perception that people who cant speak English are uneducated. Tamil language is such a rich language popular all over the world. But it’s a pity to see the slow death that has already started. More painful to see is how this issue has been politicized in Tamilnadu. I completely agree that all of us don’t get adequate opportunities to learn the language, owing to so many reasons. Many of us are away from tamilnadu. But my only point is that there is definitely no pride in saying that we don’t know our mother tongue. In this vast ocean of humanity, the only lighthouse is our culture and they are ones, which provide us direction to prevent us from becoming a misguided missile. No one can be an expert in any language, but when I see these so called “peter party” , especially the tamilians who have been born and brought up in tamilnadu, saying “I don’t know Tamil ya!” and expect a nice pat on their back, I feel they deserve a kick!!

Late Latiff

2005-05-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

Yes. This is how my friends call me. I don’t know why, but I have always been late for everything in life and everywhere I go. I firmly believe that there must be a better way to start a day than getting up from the bed!

To start with,I was born late. It was on a Monday at 0830 hrs on 28 Nov 1977, I started squirming inside my mothers womb, desperate to see the world for which nature was preparing me for nine long months. But my mother took injections to delay her labour pain to ensure that I was born an hour later and not during the rahu kalam, which was an inauspicious hour falling between 0730 and 0900 on mondays. So I was born at 1033h, a late entry by two full hrs. I don’t remember a day when I reached my school on time. I was the assistant school pupil leader of my school, who was supposed to preside over the assembly. And most of the time, I could hear my principal screaming in the mike, calling me to the stage, when I used to be standing helplessly outside the school door, which used to be strictly closed at 0915hrs. When I graduated into 11th grade, things became even more difficult as the new timings were from 0745h instead of 0915h, which I felt was too early for me. I used to be always late and faced a lot of problems. So I walked up to my principal and cooked up a great story as to why I am always late and why I cannot be on time because of situations that are beyond my control. Hence I requested for a late pass, a pass to legalise my crime of coming late to school. I was a very bright student and hence the principal considered my request but with a condition. He told me that if only I show my sincerity for just one week and be on time for school.

I happily agreed to his contention. But, in hindsight I realized the trap that he had cleverly set for me. So I audaciously continued my late arrivals for next one week and promptly reported to him for getting my late pass signed. He was at first surprised and then with a lot of indignation screamed at me “ Karthik, I asked you to come on time for just one week. You never came on time and now how dare you stand in front of me asking for a late pass?”

I calmly replied, “ Sir, If only I could come on time for just a week, then I can come on time all through the year. I have a genuine problem and that’s why I am here. So I kindly request that my late pass be signed at the earliest“.

Struck by my logic, he gave that omniscient smile. But he immediately signed my late pass, and I am sure, in the history of my school, I would have been the only one who was allowed to come late by half an hour. This habit continues till date. And thats why, I am fondly called the Late Latif !!

IS FATE THE LAST REFUGE FOR A COWARD?

2005-05-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

How often have you been confronted with a situation which you felt that its beyond your abilities to overcome and you just conceded defeat and blamed it on fate? How often have you found solace in the statement “All that happens, happens for good?”. How often you have consoled yourself when you haven’t been able to reach your target, that you are only destined that much!

What is this fate and destiny? Are they the limits man has created himself? The Cambridge Dictionary of International English defines Destiny as that force some people think that decides their future and that cannot be influenced. The same dictionary defines fate as that power which is considered to control and shape things of future and that one which cannot be influenced or changed by people. Is each and everything in this world that is happening around us predetermined and pre programmed? If we have no power to change our fate and destiny, then why are we empowered with a brain that can logically think and act with reason?

I feel that there are five stages in every great action, innovation, victory, discovery and such thing that can be called success. It all starts with an idea, a dream in the first stage conceived into a chain of thoughts in the second stage that further graduates into actions on ground in the third stage which perseveres the test of time in the fourth stage to reach finally the podium of success in the fifth stage. In each stage somebody gives up, due to whatever reasons and feel that they are only destined only that much. A very few reach the final stage of successfully achieving our goals. It may vary from a simple weight reduction schedule to a great invention. Also it is very true that a person has set innumerable goals to achieve in each aspect of life. In some, he is successful and many he just falls short. The ones he falls short are the ones he almost always attributes to fate and destiny.

This world is today where it is because of one single trait of only human beings. It is the vice called greed. No creature on this earth amasses things beyond its minimum needs. But human beings do it. And precisely this negative trait in a positive form has powered the world and propelled it to reach where it is. Yes. It’s the greed for excellence among very few of us that has got us where we are today. The ultimate motive of greed for excellence may well have been greed for more money, power, fame and any other such thing considered as a vice in established ethics of society. But its this greed for excellence that has single handedly motivated people to do the unimaginable.

It is but natural to presume that the way ones life proceeds until death is solely determined on which environment he is born. A man has no control over his birth and his death. But in between these two things, he lives what is called life. How much one has control over his journey of life? Say you are walking on the road, safely in the correct walkers lane. And a drunken truck driver comes all the way from his lane and hits you and you lose your limb. Is it fate? Yes. Absolutely. But, only till this point. After that, how your life proceeds depends on your will and ability to turn this defeat into a victory. That’s what we have been endowed with a brain for. If you give up taking refuge in the fact that you were destined only that much then I feel it’s an act of cowardice. Sporting history is replete with such examples where people after grievous injuries, have beaten even the minimum recovery schedules to come back to their grueling routine and achieve the impossible. A sixteen-year-old Nepalese boy while scaling Mt Everest, suffered severe frostbite and lost his fingers and had to return unsuccessfully. But his determination saw him through the very next year and today he is the youngest mountaineer to have scaled the Everest. Had he given up taking refuge in the fact that he has no fingers, could he have achieved what he aimed for?

I have another point for people who say all that happens, happens for good. OK. Imagine a situation where in you tried for a particular thing and you were not successful. And suddenly something else happened what you never imagined before and you feel good that “Look, had I been successful in that, would this new good thing have been possible?” and feel happy and convinced that you were destined to fail in the previous endeavour, only to get this new success. I ask a simple question. What is the guarantee that another event more lucrative than this would not have happened as result had you succeeded in your previous endeavour? Its all in the mind.

Finally to conclude, I feel that life is a game of dice. It throws up situations all along and at each point of time every man has a choice to make. We are, what we are today, simply because of our choices we made yesterday. As a corollary, the choices we exercise today, will decide what we will be tomorrow. Personally speaking, there are so many situations in my life, I know in my heart where I did gave up. But when I close my eyes, in my naked honesty, I know they were more because of my own makings and less because of an external force. And there are also situations where I persevered beyond all sane limits of both physical and mental endurance and turned the tables to achieve the seemingly impossible. This makes me believe more in the fact you are the sculptor of your own life. What shape you want to give to your life, depends on what you conceive in your mind.

Faith moves mountains. I feel that faith in god is very important. But it must be an empowering force. Not a limiting factor. Unless, a man searches himself for reasons for his failure and not attributes them to fate or destiny or even any other external factor, there is no personal development. I completely agree that success is a very relative term. It doesn’t matter where you reached but what matters is, where did you start and how much of obstacles you overcame in journey. Success is a journey and not a destination. And in the journey of success, there is no limit to human endurance. Impossible is not a fact. Its just an opinion. I read these lines in a shoe shop in PVR Priya complex in New Delhi and have inspired me more than anything else.

Now, do you feel that fate is the last refuge for a coward? Yes. I feel so.

Nutty Professor

2005-05-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

Once I was taking a lecture about some optical equipment. One of the most important component of that equipment was a tiny nut, which had a major role in the smooth functioning of that device. I held the pointer facing inwards, pointing to the nut on that equipment which I was holding close to my chest, and asked the class " Ok Students, Can you all see this nut? "

The class plunged into silence. In a second, I knew where the confusion was and I clarified myself " No. Not the big one which is standing but the small one here, on top of this drum!!"

The whole class rolled into laughter for minutes toghether and I had to break them off for a few minutes to put back some order!!

Where Did We Go Wrong?

2005-05-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

These are some pictures of whats going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As you are reading this blog, there are 2000 people getting killed because of the bloody civil war to control the vast expanse of natural resources. The world powers are turning a blind eye and infact many are even funding these barbaric cannibals to fight amongst each other to control the resources, so that the west can keep draining them amidst anarchy. Do you see some reality? In this era of silicon chips and nano technologies, Its painfull to even realise that technology of guns has reached these tribals, but nothing more!!

For times immemorial, the so called western world has been draining the resources of the african continent and even they did it to India for 300 yrs, to power their thier pursuit of excellence!! And then they claim intellectual property rights!!

Where did we go wrong?

where did we go wrong?

Cannibals of Congo

2005-05-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

where did we go wrong?

Runaway from Reality?!

2005-05-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

Its a reality, everyone wants to run away, wish such a thing never existed!!
How far can you run and for how long?

Where did we go wrong?