thoughts

Salman Rushdies absence sparks debates

2012-01-27T03:42:00.000-08:00

And obviously the controversy never really ended. We still saw Salman Rushdie splashed across newspapers and on television, because we could not get enough of the man. Journalists have wondered over the attention that the Satanic Verses’ author has elicited inspite of his absence from the Jaipur Literature Festival. While some maintained that the author should have been given due importance and security, to facilitate his presence at the fest, others like Markandey Katju, Chairman of the Press Council of India and former Supreme Court judge say that Rushdie isn’t worth all the commotion.

On the other hand there are liberals who feel that the man and the world should be spared the drama because the book never really did anything to anyone, except for bug a few people, mostly those who haven’t even read the book.

One can hardly picture a group of blood thirsty intellectuals wielding swords and guns chasing Rushdie because he blasphemed the Islamic faith with the book that again, hardly anyone read.

There is an immense capacity in the human mind to stretch matters out of proportion; to make a mountain out of a mole hill and more often than not and become subjects of ridicule. There are many of us who will eventually feel silly for having written about this, but the knowledge of this will still not restrain us from doing the same. And yet we write on, letting other matters slip by as we fine sublimity in disappointing web links that never happened.

Celebrated authors, at the Jaipur Lit Fest probably felt ignored because no one even bothered about them. We will not deny the fame that those got from reading excerpts from Rushdie’s book. Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi were hailed as heroes as they went against everything and read the excerpts. We are still waiting for reports about some four authors who were pelted with tomatoes by a group of extremists alongside a photo showing four unfortunate individuals being chased by youths who probably don’t have a clue about why they were committing the act in the first place.

The whole chain of events triggered by the alleged threats from extremist factions has taken comical proportions and has reiterated the fact that the media is just as gullible as the common man, who is just as clueless as that monkey in the zoo who doesn’t care about anything but its next meal.

The intention is not to demean any section of existence be it the media, common man or even the monkey. The point is that we all just got sucked into a whirlpool of nothing, wasted our time and felt jolly good about it!

Say it right

2010-02-02T08:59:00.001-08:00

We, sometimes, wonder what went wrong when we thought that we had everything rights. The situation hits us, smack, in the face and after the initial confusion we settled ourselves to the fact that it was not really our fault. But, think again!

It is the one word, one phrase, one expression, one sharp intake of breath that decides the fate of the reaction of the person standing in front of us. The power of communication!

We often come across people who know just what to say and we also come across people who have the most ill timed punch lines and jokes, and then we have the most dangerous of all-the ones who express nothing at all. They could be sniggering behind your back for all you know.

However, coming back to the matter at hand, with so many people judging our speech and actions we are often in a dilemma. We feel that what ever we say or do should please other people. And so it should be, so that people around us are happy. With numerous lessons going around on social etiquette, we wonder where all the talk of individuality and uniqueness is gone.

Still on the actually telling our natural selves in order to conform to cumbersome social standards? That thing that really confuses us is whether we should go and do what pleases others or should we put ourselves above the rest. And one really wants a boringly uniform set of behavioural patterns running through communities and societies.

In other words, where are all the people? Why is everyone saying the same thing? Today it’s easier to be someone else, but it’s tougher to be yourself.

What for?

2010-02-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

When we think about the future of anything, we consider its incipient stages, where development and moulding may best work. So when we talk about the evolution of humanity we think of it in terms of children. It is, then, very rightly said that children are the future of the world. Bringing them up to be efficient and responsible individuals is the collective influence of a responsible society.

Children are like soft clay that takes the impression of anything that comes in contact with it. They are the creators of tomorrow and they are the makers of what is to be and because of this it is very important that they get the best there is.

Every child is different from the other in one way or another and traditional methods of conditioning and training are being done away with and a more individual sort of attention is being paid to children. Special attention is being given to their unique requirements at mental and emotional levels. This is a big step in the way of a child’s mental and emotional development. We may look at this change as a positive move in the direction of much needed evolution of the human race.

Children should be able to tap into this advantage of being given individual attention and work towards their aspirations. The exposure that children are receiving now, as compared to what children were receiving some decades ago is very different and very vast. Development in technology has made everything so easy. Accessibility, in terms of available information, centres of learning and qualified guides has grown manifold. Opportunities, today, are endless. There is no reason why our future cannot be bright.

What children can do, now, is to diversify their knowledge and churn out better careers. The concept of having super specialized skills helps people to do what they are best at, and this should be a step towards encouraging children to follow their dreams, something which was only a utopian concept until now.

A seedling when nurtured, with utmost care and devotion, will give you, after careful supervision, an individual that will give you the fruit of your labours. Same is the case with children. When you nurture their needs and essentials you are making an investment in your own future.

Life does not come easy and to prepare for the uncertainties of an undisclosed future the understanding of the trivialities of the world is very essential. Redeeming the future from the clutches of a tainted past should be the one and only motive behind developing a race of, undeniably, superior beings.

Children are the very key to the realization of this vision that the well wishers of the future talk of. This realization is not a far thing because today our children are sharper and more independent. Their constant development is insuring us of a very bright future.

The innocence of a child is the beginning of a new dimension from where he or she starts the journey to their future. The duty of a balanced societal structure is to give them that opportunity and guide them in a direction that best suits their needs.

Not all children are as privileged as the others, and keeping this in mind our duty to humanity in general is to be sensitive to them. A majority of the Indian population cannot afford an expensive public school education, but that does not mean that these children are any less intelligent that those who have had the advantage of a more holistic education.

For those who are lucky enough, it is imperative that they understand the gravity of their situation in the social structure, as more responsibility is expected from the people who have than from those who are not fortunate enough. And for the same reason, the collective effort that goes into such ventures, which work towards uplifting the more unfortunate sections of the society, needs to be emphasized and reinstated in the minds of children.

As implied earlier, what you sow, so shall you reap, there is no substitute for hard work and diligence. So when it comes to achieving something for yourself, or the people around you, you must not leave any stone unturned. And at the end of the day when you look back at the milestones that you have conquered, they should not only tell you how much you have done for yourself. Instead it should tell you how much you have done for others.

You must not only grow for yourself, but for everyone. A part of you is obliged to do your bit for the others as well. Limiting yourself to pitiable restrictions of race, caste and creed not only undermines your abilities, but also makes you small in perception and approach. A complete human being was never one who held prejudices.

When you are done with realizing your dreams and aspirations you will know that you were happier when you saw others happy around you. Great avenues are there for people to explore and reach out to, but what makes you a person of integrity is when you take people along with you. You will work better and achieve more if you have the blessing of a grateful population that is indebted to you for their success and progress.

Hungry Hungry

2010-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

Have you seen baby sparrows eat? They eat as if their lives depended on it, and so it must. If you ever have the opportunity to see these little tufts of feather, notice that, these creatures make sure that their tiny beaks are never empty. I can imagine the plight of the parent birds, because I elected myself parent of one such speck.
Every year, the monsoons come like an ominous wave of destruction, and sweep away everything in its path. While some enjoy the showers, others detest it. Grey skies and howling winds accompanied by lashing rain are the characteristic features of the monsoons in the mountains of Mussoorie. More often than not, one comes across fallen branches and nests with dead birds in them. On one stormy day, I almost stepped on a small lump on the ground. Had I not detected the insignificant movement, I would have probably squashed the poor mite under my foot.
On close inspection, I saw a pink, featherless, and very ugly baby sparrow. (Correction. I did not know that it was a sparrow till much later.) More out of curiosity than love, I, gingerly, caught the bird by one wing, between my thumb and forefinger, and held it up for further scrutiny. It made feeble attempts, at what I thought was, defence by straining its puny head to peck at my trespassing fingers. Its beak did not reach me and after a while it just gave up and retired to its fate and so I did not get pecked. Encouraged by the forced docility of the chick, I decided to keep it and look after it because the creature looked cold and, obviously, did not have a home anymore. The first thing I learnt about birds was that they had enormous appetites and lightening fast metabolism and in all my limited knowledge of parenting, I set out to mother this impossibly, hungry bird.
A bird is one thing, but how many of us actually, feel like we are nurturing peculiar ‘hungry’ expectants? How many of us are, relevantly, aware of these wolves that are eating into our existences? We would never agree that we are passive targets for active exploiting elements that function at various levels in our lives and the lives of others around us. The hitch lies in the identification of these elements. While some of us accept their presence, some of us live in denial. We, conveniently, delude ourselves and start believing that life, as we live it, is perfect. We find ourselves, constantly, adopting concepts and attitudes that feed on our sense of belonging, which corrode our reasoning of right and wrong. We go against nature and pick up little habits and quirks on the way and let them feed on our way of life to a point where they become a part of life itself. Drinking, smoking or doing drugs may start out as experiments and while some leave it at that, some incorporate it into their lifestyles. Innocent curiosity, may eventually, lead to guilty addictions which at first seem harmless but, once indulged in indiscriminately, become lethal consequences.
Feeding the foster avian was a thankless job. The bird wanted food every ten to fifteen minutes and just when I thought that I was done feeding the bird, it would let out a long mournful chirp followed by frantic, ear drum splitting, and shrill noises which I never knew sparrows had the ability to make. Then its body would break out into spasms and the spasms would flow out of the body in the form of bird excreta. The grey mass would settle in the tissue paper that I had used to line the box in which I kept the bird, and that would call for a change in the interior decoration. This exercise took place, once, every hour, during the day and the only time when I was not feeding or cleaning was at night when the little thing would snuggle into the crook of my neck and sleep and that was the only time that my ward was not in the box. With its constant demands for food it is no wonder that I decided to name the bird ‘Hungry’.
The feeling of not being able to get away from something is not an, altogether, alien one. There is one thing or another that we want to get away from but are bound by the way we project our personalities or by the way we expect others to. These things are like that hungry little bird that demands your, undivided, attention, and the more you give into it the more they become a part of you. We create barriers in our minds about people. We divide them into socially acceptable or socially not acceptable on the same lines on which we were judged ourselves. There are three categories of people in this day and age, the privileged, the underprivileged and the unprivileged. If we were to split hairs, we could safely say that no one, no matter what they say or do, completely, belongs to one particular category. Making ourselves believe that we are a better sort of people than the rest, has us feeding the hunger of undue attention and importance. But when we want to get out of the manner of doing things in a particular way we are shackled by our own commitments to social arrogance.
The little ugly, pink thing had sprouted soft, white and brown feathers after a while and had stopped looking quite so ugly. In fact it looked quite cute. With me having taken up maternal duties and with Hungry having accepted me as its mother, we had built our lives around each other. To be precise, I had built mine around Hungry’s. After such a long time, curiosity had turned into attachment and just like any pet becomes a member of the family, Hungry had become a part of mine. If anything was to be done it was done with Hungry in mind and, although, I had gotten used to the bird’s demands, I was finding it difficult to cope with the way it was changing. Hungry was not a docile little chick anymore, in fact I was having trouble confining it to its box. It had become quite spirited and had a mind of its own. It hopped around at will and pecked at everything. I was scared that it might get hurt or get lost or get into trouble or get me into trouble. I did not have the heart to cage it nor was I willing to let it saunter around on its own. How long could I hold on to Hungry before he was to fly away? Hungry was growing up.
Sometimes, the hungry elements in our lives tend to get out of control. They may have seemed to help somewhere along the way, but really, all they did was aggravate the situation. Constant pestering by parents may push one child, or two children to get better grades, once, twice, thrice, and maybe throughout their academic career. But let us not forget that many parents have lost their children to grades. The hunger for being at the top may not always be fed instead it may lead to dire consequences.
Soon it was time for me to let go of Hungry. I had been letting him fly off to the nearby trees. Hungry would be gone for a few minutes and then be back. Soon it had taken to staying out late, but it would always return before sun down. I was reluctant but determined to let it be where it was meant to be. I know I could not give it any ‘birdly’ advice neither did it have a birdlike upbringing. To let it go seemed like the hardest thing for me to do. I might have even wept a little on the eve of letting Hungry fly away for good, but to let go was something I had to do. Then one day Hungry flew off and never returned. I was hoping that it had found a mate and had made a nest and was ready to incubate eggs. I wasn’t sure whether Hungry would be a mommy or a daddy. All I knew was that whatever it was it was not going to be good at being it.
Letting go of ingrained habits is the hardest thing to do, especially, when they are the wrong ones, those that have been unnaturally incorporated into our lives by external influences. But getting rid of them is essentially important, and the best way to get rid of them is to stop feeding them. When we continue to let these elements dictate our behaviour and how we feel we end up in a mess that we need to constantly clean up. Being able to maintain a certain level of peace of mind is a difficult task. There will always be some hungry state of mind eating away at our patience and peace. Trying to keep that condition at bay is one thing and to eliminate it, another. The stronger our conviction the better able we are to deal with such situations.
These ‘hungry’ expectants are not as trivial as a baby sparrow. The intensity of their damage is beyond measure and cure. We all have our little birds, making us uncomfortable, and making us stray from the more important things in life. The idea is not to control them, but to let go of them, so that our existence, and the existence of those around us is less cumbersome.

You need to laugh when...

2009-03-14T05:38:00.000-07:00

In more than one instance, I have been caught expressing mirth at the wrong time and in the wrong place. And it is everytime that this happens, my behaviour is questioned and tagged errant. Then it is not wrongly opposed when I crack up when my friend calls up to tell me that her dog has died. But why do I laugh then? Strangely, I have no answer to that question.

Why do people laugh? What makes them act in a particular manner when they hear, see or feel something "funny"? I am no expert on the subject, but I can tell you that this is one emotion that cannot be contained. No matter how much you need to control your laughter you cannot, and will eventually give into that belly bouncing exersise as soon as it wells up within you.

But coming to why I laughed when my friend told me about her dog. Honestly, I don't know. I can surmise why, but I cannot be too sure. I think I laughed because the sadness of losing a pet did not reach me. Mind you, I cried alot when my own pet died. I howled as if there was nothing more dear to me and that dear thing had left me forever. What I am trying to say is that the incident did not affect directly. Ofcourse I felt sorry for my friend, but that was it. She was behaving the same way I, probably, had when my pet died and now I found it funny.

How ironical!

But this is only one of those times when I have offended others sentiments by my ill timed laughter. Let me not make you feel like I laugh at others miseries and weep at mine own. The twist in the story is that I happen to laugh at my own sorry self more than I laugh at anyone else!

Maybe I laugh at other people without guilt because I can laugh at myself and do not mind if others laugh at me.

Whose getting drunk?

2009-02-26T05:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you end up wondering whether what you did really justified itself as fun.
It's fun to be drunk, but it's no fun if you get so drunk that you don't remember what you did. And the worst thing that can happen is if you throw up. That's against drinking ethics.
Honestly, I don't see the point of drinking if you cannot enjoy being drunk.

My definition of being drunk is that stage where you lose all inhibitions and get bold enough to do a striptease. But that's the phase where you get bold enough and not really go out and do it, because if you actually lose your clothes you are likely not to find them till the next morning. And I don't think that people would appreciate you walking around without your clothes. When you do get sloshed enough to misplace your modesty you end up pretending that you do not remember anything, whereas you remember every single humilliating moment of the previous night. Then you blame it on the alcohol.

How convinient!

Now, alcohol does not only give you a high it also causes water retention in your body which leads to your weight, mysteriously, shooting up to astronomical numbers. That's why people who are trying to lose weight are strictly advised against consumption of alcohol in any form. That includes liquor laced chocolates.

Recently, I had the opportunity to witness the antics of a very dear person who was under the influence of a considerable amount of alcohol. On one hand it was very entertaining, but on the other, you cannot but help wondering what sort of trouble that person could run into in that condition. It's one thing to be in the company of friends and be safe but what if that is not the case. Being in such a situation is as good as inviting danger with a big smile.

It is alright to have fun, but it is important to know where to draw the line. Where to stop. Irresponsible drinking does not only put the drinker at a risk, it also causes sober companions embarassment.

An eye for an eye makes the world blind....

2008-04-15T23:53:00.000-07:00

Has it ever crossed your mind that if you were to attack someone, physically or verbally, you would not be able to get away unscathed by, at least, a retort?

It is a normal animal reaction to external stimulus to respond to anything that might threaten its existence or cause any sort of harm. It is, but, only natural to react to anything that that happens around us.

Let us take, for example, a bully trying to make someone weaker listen to them, or make them finish their homework, or whatever. The victim has two choices. The first one, being, to listen to the bully and do whatever he says, or, stand up to him, punch him in the face, and let him know that you will not oblige him. The second option leading to a brawl and then detention over the weekend.

I am not asking you to condone bullying, or give in to it. But there are other options that can be used to come around this problem.

Speaking on the national front, we see a lot of communal violence. One community rages violence against another and then the other must get back. It makes sense for once..... but just once. The long term repercussions are difficult to handle.

First, one party fights. Then the other must retaliate. Then the other must respond and so on and so forth. Ever wondered where it would end?? Oh, yes, it would end. Just not very nicely. We will end up punching each other till we fall.

Violence is not the answer to violence. Did not the great Mahatma send the British packing with his non violence? This great example of non violent response did what centuries of violence could not do.

Then why resort to violence every time. We know what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We know what happened at Pearl Harbour. We know what happened when Hitler tried to annihilate the Jews.

Despite the fact that retaliating with violence was never a good solution we still imagine that if we were under international threat we would use our nuclear weapons to drive them away. If we all started using nuclear weapons against each other we would end up ruining everything the earth has to offer. Then we would not only not have any enemies, we would also not have any friends.

An eye for an eye is not a solution. It is the fuel for an ongoing struggle which will remain a struggle as long as there is anyone to sustain it.

The learning process

2008-04-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

We all learn from our experiences. Experience being the best teacher. There is no point in time when there is nothing new for us. We may not grow so old as to say that we are aware of everything in the world. We not only grow mentally everyday, every minute, every second- we progress spritually, emotionally and physically. Every pain we suffer teaches us something new. Every smile we smile teaches us something new. Every morning we wake up we wake up to a new day.

The novelty of the new keeps us striving. When we feel that there is nothing for us to know in this world we lose all enthusiasm for living.

There is nothing constant, but change. And every change we are subjected to gives us some thing new to learn.

If a particular method of doing something has stopped showing results, we invent new ways of doing that particular task. We learn to keep up with the times. The human hunger for knowledge keeps us longing for more.

Never has there been a time in the history of human civillization when there has been a slump in inventions and discoveries. We learn more everytime there is something new to learn.

We grow, we learn. We know that there is not other way to survive. As we form new relationships, change jobs, or even keep a new pet, we are constantly learning to adapt, to work and to modify our attitudes.

The process of learning never ends. It goes on till the time we breathe our last.

Music........

2008-03-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

Listening to music is such a relief from the hectic lives we live. Many would echo this sentiment. For some people like me, there are no boundaries for music. We can listen to just anything , as long as it pleases the ears.

Well, choice varies among listeners. There are some who like to listen to music which other's find utterly revolting. Well most music is heavenly to my ears. Yes, even that earthquake inducing metal rock, that seems nice sometimes. Loud, soft, fast, slow, all work for me. Well, most of the time they do.

Music works towards a balance in the mind. Lots of good music has been composed for any and every type of mood. And it does not come as a surprise that music is the healer of the soul. Well, of course with other things like time and love and the other stuff too, the soul is healed. But, I will just dwell on music.

Music calms, soothes, invigorates, energizes and does a lot of those things to the human psyche that other things cannot.

The next thing I write you about music will go against all I ever thought about music. No, no, music is just the same for me always. It's just this kind of music that i am going to talk about. Well, the place where I heard this dreaded music was in the Art Room, back in school. Boy! Did we all hate it! The music was supposed to help us channel our creativity and sketch our hearts out. In fact, right now I am listening to some, pretty loud, music. But it's fueling the creativity. Unlike the music that was almost heart rending and did just the opposite to our creative flow.

I will indulge in some grovelling and complain about that music that grated on the nerves at a time when the requirement stated a calm and balanced environment. I am not able to put a finger on the culprit of our discomfort, but I can enumerate the suspects. The music player that played the music was a suspicious specimen that probably dated, or that's what I thought then, to prehistoric times...... Fanciful thinking....... I suppose the music played pretty well on any other player because our art teacher rather liked that piece of music and played it despite our protests to change the music to hip hop or rock.

The recording could have been faulty. Turning the more deeper sounds to scratchy noises that put our teeth on edge. Some of the tunes sounded like someone was scratching in the surface of the blackboard........ It was not our fault if we did not get our proportions correct on the drawing sheets if everytime the music took a high turn and our pencils flew out of our hands!!

Another suspect, I believe, would be the acoustics of the room. Whatever it was. Whether it was the cement- brick ratio, or the cement- sand ratio, or the glass in the windows that threw back such tormenting sound at us, I do not know. We were tortured. Unable to defend ourselves of the horrible sound, we were accused of not appreciating music if we covered our ears!!!!

Till today I feel that if I had to listen to that music again, I would flatly refuse. Not because I would not like it, but because it will bring back memories of mental pain that was endured at the hands of this music. However, if you made me listen to it without my knowing that it is the same music I do not know what I would think of it.

All along the way.

2008-03-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

When I was a little child I used to think that the only thing keeping us from getting spanked by our parents was the fear of the pain that would accompany the spanking. We would not care for any other reproach, but a spanking was out of the question.
As children we were very naughty, like all children are. But our trysts ended with the stern warning of a spanking.
We liked to play outside and would often forget the time when we had to be back home. We played, savouring every moment of that juvenile pleasure that conveniently eludes us now. And we did not realise that we had taken liberties with our curfew till we heard my uncle yelling our names in the colony. That moment, that precise point in time when we heard our names, saw us like frightened deer caught in the sudden glare of headlights of an oncoming vehicle.
And then, heaven knows, how we ran back home, taking the most out of the way route so that our uncle did not catch us.
We would be at home by the time our uncle returned and we would try and act indifferent to the whole thing. As if nothing had happened, and as if whatever was going on did not have the slightest inclusion of our deeds. We did it not because we were professional con artistes. We feared the spanking.

Today, a decade later, things are no different. Only the consequences are different. We do not get spanked anymore, but as the mistakes grow so do the punishments. We are not bound to be spanked everytime we overshoot the deadline, or we do not get spanked if we do not return home on time, but life has its own ways and means to get to us. We outgrow the spanking, we outgrow the scoldings, not because they become non-existant as we grow, but because we have bigger things to fear. Bigger punishments to face, bigger follies to commit....

Unwilling....

2008-03-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

There are more resons to not do something than to do it.
It hardly matters how it effects others. We, sometimes, do things that we cannot explain. There is an urge or just absent mindedness. We are excused for these lapses in logic by our own interpretation of why such incedents occur.
We are at some point regulators of our own actions. During this point we, still, unfailingly fail in attempting our task.
Who are we to blame? Ourselves? Is there the slightest possibility that we may attribute our failure to ourselves?
Hardly.
Do we realise that the rut we create for ourselves is the rut we can get ourselves out of too?
There again there is the question of whether we understand the gravity of it or not. Or whether we are willing to accept the follies of our own doing.

what we think.....

2007-11-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

what we think of anything, reflects what we are..... many times we do things that do not really speak positively for us.. yet we do those things.... the mind is a hard thing to please... it is easier to please the heart.... :)