Oh Nari Tu Hi Narayani !

Once upon a time in a different era, there waz a so called 'unsinkable' ship called the Titanic.

Alas, it waz but found to be sinking. 

To make matters worse, there were too many people on the ship & too few escape boats. 

The men in charge pulled out their gun and screamed out an order: "Women and children only" !

That order was not about flirting, holding doors or pulling chairs - it waz about who lives & who dies. 

It meant that men, including those with the gun, would go down with the Titanic and into the ice cold water grave below.

Their worst fears eventually came true and most men did die.

What is important, is that there waz time to change the mind.

Yet, till the very end, the expected chaos, in the face of certain & soon approaching death, waz still way below expectation and most men remained disciplined in death.

You may already know all of this.

What you may not know, is that among the men on the Titanic, waz a Japanese guy called Masabumi Hosono. 

He had somehow escaped, dressed as a lady. 

Hosono was employed by the government of Japan and when they found out, they fired him for taking away a potential lady's seat in the life boat and thus bringing death to some unknown lady. 

That waz not all, his name reached the school textbooks and children were taught on how not to bring disgrace to Japan. 

He had betrayed the Samurai ethos.

Such culture of 'Ladies first waz almost everywhere, but is fast diminishing. 

In most cultures across the geographies, women (and children) were typically kept away from the harm’s way. 

Not necessarily because she is physically weak, but to borrow the movie caption: "There's something about Mary"!

In the western culture, a man was more, in fact is a gentleman, when he is putting on hiz best manners especially in the presence of ladies.

Unless the men were fighting each other over her (my tongue firmly in cheek); everywhere, quarrelling men would at once feel a wee bit embarrassed & got tamed, if a lady showed up on the scene.

The man's principled duty waz to protect her.

Why?

Because she waz, the assumed guardian of the entire society.

And the man?

He is perpetually aspirational always wanting to expand his territory. 

What feeds hiz state of wellbeing vis-a-vis other men, is either hiz higher Wisdom, Strength or Wealth. 

These are the three key parameters by which he compares & competes with fellow men.

In the Hindu-centric culture in India, the sources for his Wisdom, Strength & Wealth are - Saraswati, Shakti & Lakshmi respectively.

The high and mighty men, bow to these feminine deities with no hesitation whatsoever, is all but Indian-ness at its core.

Oh woman o woman, you are such a mystery !

Anyone who says that men & women are equal, haven't understood women. He's the mighty sinksable Titanic. She's hiz mariner's compas showing him hiz North!

A lady is not just a non male. She is distinctly unique. 

And if she becomes him, what uniqueness does she then have?

How I lament the gender-blender, the equality narrative of the day.

Oh lady, know that your reverence is in your intangible soft power.

Under what wisdom do you want to equal him? Why are you so keen to abandon your higher position and match his?

Be forewarned, for if you do - you might be thrown off the Titanic.

I hope you remain your unique self, just as the great Goddess in her infinite wisdom intended you to be, when she created you !

Learning 101

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple have taken over our lives, and how !

All have no college degrees to boast about.

I find it amusing that parents of young children fret so much on type of education curriculum even in lower schools & begin to worry of college for their grownups of the future !

If education really transformed ordinaries into greats, then a few wealthy people with access to best institutions and teachers would have continued to rule over us for generations to infinity.

If you thought that the products by the above mentioned geniuses have become ubiquitous due to technology, then you are wrong.

Their power comes more from cutting edge insights into human behavior and less from cutting edge technology. The latter is just a tool.

It is a worthy ponder : Historians have bestowed the title of "The Great" on Akbar, who was not only uneducated, but was illiterate too.

The Forbes 'Billionaires List' shows that 2/3 of folks who made it to the coveted distinction, are self-made 1st generation entrepreneurs and almost half have no college degree; movie stars and sports champions even less so.

We can experientially conclude with a bit of authority about the futility of a 'success-thru-education' belief, at least in the class room teaching model.

I think the educational institution per say is fantastic, if it allows the student to go through the right experiences like he / she faces, succumbs & then rises from all sorts of peer pressures & it's associated pokes, pinches, pulls & pushes.

What is important in life is the development of emotional stamina, contextual cleverness & synthesizing skills. A mark of leaders is that they call upon themselves to take decisions, when the crowd is found fumbling in doubt. 

The real life hard decisions, be they tactical or strategic, are not from text books and often have to be taken keeping in mind the situation at hand, where one must either fight, flee or fudge in-between. 

All this in the midst of friends, foes and politicians that are inescapable in our daily lives.

Finally, no institution can offer a child what nature has withheld, at most it can only set an ill-set, but already formed diamond.

I am more than convinced that scores in an exam has almost no real role to play in a child's development & in fact, often plays a negative one. At some level, the foll also happens:

* The child is gloomed if grades are bad - as it depresses the child.

* The child is doomed if grades are good - as then the child could get wrong notion of self-worth.

One could get educated but not be learned. Education is simply an advantage and not a solution.

It is time we know that a college degree is definitely not a certification of a higher level of degree of one's thinking.

It is the right experiences that ripen the knowledge into wisdom. And all wisdom is of, by, for & from the people.

At the end of it, humans by nature are gregarious & it is only people that give us most pain & pleasure. A child needs people practice. Thuz, it is still essential to go to school & college as it's the cheapest means for bringing about a long term congregation of young people (none other exists) so that good, bad & mad experiences may most likely occur in them - a simulation lab, if I may.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to hang a well laminated college degree certificate on the wall, as with advent of cell phones, wall calendars are outdated & so a fancy degree is a good fill-in-the blank item ;-)

Pls take the above with a pinch of salt !

Less freedom of speech, please

At the onset, let me clarify that I am not anti-minority of any kind, in fact I belong to one of the smallest minority community in India.  I own a Christian first name, a Muslim last name & but am a non-practicing Jain. 

I come from a very broad minded family, with Indian-ness being central to our family ethos.

I refer to the "intolerance debate" & insinuation that the freedom of speech is being curbed by the Modi Sarkar. 

As a counter, I assert that the liberal Indian media is anti-Hindu as claimed by some:

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bloody-mary/no-the-liberal-indian-is-not-pro-muslim-and-anti-hindu/
Well nothing can be further from the truth & the so called liberal creed who are in control of popular media, are as anti-Hindu as anti-Modi as anti-India.

Your game is up media. It is well known that very conveniently, you touch upon actual facts in your e-version, as same is in open domain. In print media however, since foreign media dailies cannot operate in India, you are taking advantage of the same & attempting to manipulate national opinions with only half truths or putting the truth in the inside pages.

You too should learn to exercise restraint & not spread news beyond its expected importance or utility. The media is seen cherry picking communally incite-full news; instead it must change its focus on bringing out more positive insightful views. There are many good things happening in this wonderful country. And not all politicians are dumb, lazy or corrupt - do debate policies & show genuine recognition where due.

Also please be aware that most Hindus are not extreme right wingers nor are most Indian men rapists as you make Indians to be. 

Your constant bombardment of stray incidents, in all papers & TV news channels which btw surprisingly scream in unison & chorus (copycat journalism?) on exact same topic at the exact same time has come to become a suspect of trying to apply the Joseph Goebbels' law : "If you tell a lie big enough & constantly repeat it, people will eventually come to believe it".

Ingluenced by you, the foreign media, including that of the West are portraying India as a nation run by male chauvinist Hindu fundamentalist, and portraying Indian men as soaking in lust & a nation on the brink of a communal divide. 

They regularly hold media trials and even mention that of RSS at the UN, without an iota of understanding of what the organization stands for. 

Earlier, when the Indian media had gone overboard in reporting rape incidents, a German university had got influenced & denied Indian male students admission there.

As far as the Indian citizens go, most of us have lost faith in the Indian media.

Now coming back to the various articles surrounding the Dadri incident, for argument's sake, let's agree that the Dadri's Muslim man's killing waz indeed an act of murder in cold blood, while that of the Bajrangdal Hindu activist in Karnataka was a political gang war. Let us also agree that the former deserves more media attention than the latter.

The moot question is, how much more attention? The almost 3 weeks of reportage for the first one & absolutely no mention at all for the other one? 

The urban left leaning liberal media was compelled to talk of the Karnataka killing only after they were trounced in the Twitter world.

The media created "PM's shocking silence" after every incident haz come to haunt you now & it's your turn - people are demanding that you not remain so shockingly tongue tied each time a Hindu person is killed by any minority, else you will make most neutral persons become right wing cheerleaders. And speak if you must, then let it be balanced reportage.

Also understand that the PM is not expected to comment on every state issues (the elected Chief Minister of State may) else his stated developmental agenda will get sidelined or overloaded, as folks will demand a statement every now & then. Your bias is anyway visible as you never ever print on 1st page or debate on TV on what the PM does, speaks on governance. You have also conveniently stopped understanding figure of speech or metaphors and are putting word for direct meaning, instead of focusing on the spirit behind the words when it comes to BJP leaders - Modi's puppy remark & VK Singh's dog remarks are examples of lopsided "presstituting", if I may.

Now let me make my case. You also forgot to showcase or debate the following:

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# Even when the PM alluded in favor of Islam, you ignored the statesman. The words "Islamic Terrorism" had become common place. You failed to highlight that it was PM Modi who pushed & compelled the world at the East Asia Summit to replace it with simply "Terrorism" so as to not serotype the Muslims nor alienating the vast majority of peaceful Muslims.

http://indianexpress.com/article/world/neighbours/we-should-reject-any-linkage-between-religion-and-terrorism-pm-modi-tells-east-asia-summit/

We should reject any linkage between religion and terrorism: Narendra Modi tells East Asia Summit

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# You lamented the farmer's suicide and did not beat the UPA as hard as you should have for loan waiver of Rs. 70,000 crores and instead hid from all the success of Gujarati farmers, as that would have brought the Gujarat Model on the forefront of debate.

http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/gujarat-s-agri-success-an-eyeopener-kalam/975557/

Gujarat’s agri success an eye-opener: Kalam

 

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# You made it sound that under Modi, Gujarat was a living hell for the Muslims. Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Recall, the Sachar Committee was formed by the UPA to know about the well-being of Muslims in each state. You failed to highlight the sad plight of Muslims in pseudo-secular non-BJP states.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-muslims-prosper-in-gujarat-and-kerala-up-bihar-the-worst-1971244

Muslims prosper in Gujarat and Kerala; UP, Bihar the worst

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# The trial of Sanjiv Bhatt in Supreme Court revealed that the entire post Godhra riot media soap opera, was orchestrated & paid for by foreign NGOs. For a media trial that ran for 12 long years, should the Supreme Court’s revelation not have run for at least 12 days with the most intense debate so that such a travesty of justice does not happen again?  

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/2002-gujarat-riots-sc-dismisses-ex-ips-officer-sanjiv-bhatts-petition-against-amit-shah/

Supreme Court quashes Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea, says attempt to influence court through politics and activism

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# Further, the anti-Modi campaign had run on the premise that Gujarat police were biased against Muslims and gave a free hand to the Hindus to kill the Muslims. The truth is Gujarat police has a great minority representation.  

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Gujarat-tops-states-in-number-of-Muslim-policemen/articleshow/17185874.cms?from=mdr

Gujarat tops states in number of Muslim policemen

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# The star witnesses Ms Zaheera Shiekh waz paraded in front of public and prying media's cameras by your liberal brigades when it suited you but the day she confessed that she was tutored, you hid the facts by putting that news in a corner. The court has sent her to jail.

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-zaheera-will-pay-for-lies-with-3-months-in-prison-1035131

Zaheera will pay for ‘lies’ with 3 months in prison

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# The dastardly act of MPs writing to Obama against an elected chief minister Modi was witnessed without disciplinary action by the UPA government of the day & instead they choose to remain mute spectator. It seems that the liberal media had joined the ruling party's chorus of deafening silence, when Modi asked them to speak up. 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/65-MPs-write-to-Obama-seeking-visa-ban-on-Modi/articleshow/21287530.cms?from=mdr
65 MPs write to Obama seeking visa ban on Modi

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# While Wikileaks was well reported by you, the stand taken by the Americans through the NGO fronts was well masked by the traitor media folks:

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/obama-quietly-reverses-hillarys-get-modi-policy

Obama quietly reverses Hillary’s ‘get Modi’ policy

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The media has further said that the average Muslim is falling behind in most social and economic parameters. Good point, but why not debate the why-behind-the-what, rather than show them as the victim?

Ask : Why are the Parsis or Jains or Sikhs or Christians not lagging behind so poorly? Recall the "We shall become the sugar in your milk" story told by Parsi chief when they first arrived in India. Parsis arrived here from foreign land & prospered just like the Hindu-Indian NRIs, or the Hindians do in America.

It happened by imbibing human intuition & not through reliance on any man made institution. The security of any minority is in the goodwill of the majority - that is simple human nature & not India specific. 

The elephant in the room is that most Muslim homes don't push their youth to pursue a more well-rounded or higher education & nor do they nudge them later to go up the corporate ladder. At least not with the same zeal as maybe they would, to remain faithful to the religion. They must also focus on the greats from among their very own.

India has iconic folks from the Muslim faith to boast about, including - a President, Chief Justice, Air Chief Marshal, richest business man of the year, cricket captain, movie stars, music masters, script writers & poets, journalists etc. to name a few.

Wow, like no other country in the world, India has indeed produced so many top most leading folks from the Muslim minority faith - can the Muslim kids not seek inspiration from them?

Not just Muslims, a narrow religion centric identity driven demand by the elders would inevitably render any community inward looking & backward as it would not be capable of assimilating to reap the wealth from a multicultural society. 

If thiz be the media's norm, of focusing on the selective 'what' & not the universal 'why' behind the story, then we can surely do with less freedom of speech. 

Here are the universal truths entwined to robust commonsense. 

1)That faith is a fact beyond the realm of proof or reasoning, and every stakeholder of the nation must accept & respect the same. 

2) That the real security of any minority is not found in the law, but goodwill of the majority. 

3) That the civility of the majority is in its ability to accommodate any minority.

4) That media's freedom is a right, but it's responsibility towards national integrity is paramount and therefore essence of its reportage. 

Sorry liberal media folks - it is only you that is dividing & bringing disrepute to this great nation.

His questions, were his only answers

Jams -  the saying " The older I get, the wiser my father becomes" applies to our dear departed principal or as we called him "princi" as well, for it is only now that we begin to appreciate the depth of the wisdom of this father figure that he was.

At the prayer meet last evening, I felt a deep sense of loss. Today, I am alone at home and so mind raced back to my golden childhood days in which JNS and it's fond memories occupy a huge space with obviously Rasikbhai our principal, being an integral part in it.

In school days I used to be teased by my JVPD Gujju Jam gang; they called me Socrates. It all started after this one incidence in which I questioned one of them on the futility of breaking a branch & then attempting to decide the love-fate by plucking one leaf at a time with alternating recitation of 'she loves me' & 'she loves me not' respectively. 

It is paradoxical, for I had earned my many moments of glory in school days by imitating & poking fun at our very own Socrates; who like the original, was a misunderstood personality - less because he was complex and more because he was simply simple. 

Among Rasikbhai's many behavioral traits, some that instantly & vividly come to my mind are his walking about the school foyers & hall ways like a wondering Buddhist monk by the country side. His hands would be clasped behind his back, his nodding without uttering to acknowledge the passing teachers' or students' greets. The bunking students, never feared him as they did of other suspicious teachers much lower in ranks, for their princi would never stop them in their tracks to inquire about where from they came or where of was their next destination class. 

Rasikbhai just quietly went about observing and taking mental notes. Maybe he was constantly assessing the pulse of the institution on which he sat at the very helm.

Or how about the time when he would be giving a speech, then pause to get an instant approval on his pointed points. He was always correct, he knew well. Hansaben still assured him he was also as right.

His other peculiarity was his habit of regularly pursing his lips shut, pressing them together to reduce them into just a thin line. The next moment we knew, we could accurately predict - he would now pass his neatly four times folded white kerchief over them, which he would remove from his non-fashionable lab coat styled off-white  un-tucked shirt's lower pocket with his right hand. Through all this, the other hand would remain unmoved, his 4 fingers buried in the adjacent lower pocket, only thumb visible. If the left hand fingers ever saw light, it was only momentarily to scratch his head with the nails of his bent fingers, as if he was trying to stir his million greys below his super short hair, to come up with the next set of points to ponder. 

When some of us famed naughty kids were dispatched to the principals' s office & when he would begin to recognize the regulars, much to our amusement and relief, his interrogation was with Qs of a different kind. A dreaded place as so reputed, the princi's office was actually a cake walk for some of us with lesser conscience and an unbearable one for a few with a heart. Princi was a man of equanimous mindset - the art of screaming had bypassed him completely & I bet, so had the science of laughing out loud. 

He was always at peace & the Zen master never gave correct answers nor directly showed the path to reform; he was all about asking the right questions and leaving the child to introspection. He would ask the naughty boys ( girls then had not yet fought their way down below to cross the lowest set bar for decency, what for some reason n is now strangely perceived by many as equality ) in front of him about their family background, which part of India their grandparents came from, what they did for a living - as if to decipher some meaning out of the family history. To our little minds, all this had absolutely nothing to do with the process or even vague connection with our crime for which we were sent to the highest office and merited the presence before a person beyond the foyer supervisor's or headmistress' title and aura. We know only now, he was attempting to make the teenagers realize their own past and somehow assist them to discover & understand the values, the cultural heritage & thoughts that need to be inherited by them by choice, before anything material by chance. 

Having demonstrated their genetic advantage to the kids, he would have hoped that the on-the-cusp adolescent fellows would have left his chamber rejuvenated & basking in positivity and wanting to leverage their legacy for creating a better future citizenship for themselves and very worthy of their family's name and expectation. 

That was about the lucky naughty boys. What about the vast majority of good boys and all the girls- when would they get a piece of his mind? 

Well he was clearly ahead of his times, for not withstanding the ICSE Board's requirements, he had the audacity to carve out a personalized curriculum, that of having a mandatory weekly connect, for 3 whole periods before the short break with all his children - in the main hall.

Here he did not teach any particular subject & yet we all unknowingly would have learned. What he spoke there, it was all from outside of the syllabus but still easy to understand at one level & yet difficult to grasp at another. It was so, not due to the complexity of the subject but rather the easy of it.

For example, in each session he advised us to keep the posture of our body correct by sitting crossed legged on the floor, keeping head up, chin straight, spine erect, hands on the knees, eyes shut and observe our own breathing. That to us obviously meant - ya-ya yipee yipee ya i.e. not doing anything & in line with every kids desire at school - a free period. Here the bonanza was 3 times longer and remarkable become astounding, as it was coming from the big guy himself ! Does he not realize that we are only fooling him? 

But how can even motionless in paradise ever be compatible with the restlessness of the raging teenagers' hormones that were brewing inside us ...and for what? What's the use of all this? Hey, it's a punishment on 2nd thought. 

Some of us facing him still felt obliged & so obeyed only to fight back or embrace sleep, as the case may be. Many pretended with half eyes shut and looked around from the corner of our eyes to check the sanity & status of others around us. Those tall fellows and late-to-school remarked ones in the rear rows would go unnoticed, so they asserted their bravery through disobedience. Some worked hard to get bored while few took the opportunity to partially volunteer and disclose the name of the girl they liked but had not yet gathered the courage to ask her out or even share the secret with their monthly best friend. They hesitantly passed the information, as they wrote the clues about her by pressing their fingers on the back of the person in front of them, asking that person to guess her name - half hoping that the person in the front gets it correctly & half not. If well guessed,  the person in front instantly became the lover boys new found best friend, not withstanding the fact that it's all still one sided with respect to the clue giver's love for her & best friendship bestowed upon him !

Princi was then preparing us to experience meditation, which we all now know, would be needed in stressful times to come. 

The man was a thought leader & he is no more. The best tribute we can offer him is to keep him in our prayers and imbibe in our lives, at least some of his subtle teachings.

There were plenty of people at the prayer meet but I was really disappointed, as there were hardly any students. I was in fact angry but then I realized; the expectations were all only mine, not his. If such emotions are out of respect for my princi, then I would be doing disservice to the very soul I was praying for. 

For I am sure, if I could somehow ask him "Sir, there was a poor show at your funeral - how unfair isn't it?"; I know he would not have replied with a correct answer - no that's not him. Instead,  in his inimitable style, the simpleton would have surely just gently smiled and asked me to ponder "Is there ever anything like a poor birth or a rich funeral for the really concerned?" !

May our princi's soul rest in peace. 

China-India - a see saw?

China's stock market recently fell by almost half, hurting many. Their economic growth rate is at a 2 decade low.

Is this India's time? 

Let us understand, it is not a zero sum game - loss of one is not others gain. Besides differing political system for governance, both nation's have different USP - India has law, China has order.

China had built its infrastructure at a time when oil was, for most part sub-$25 per barrel & with a powerful zeal of its united politburo gave it the desired the thrust. Thats a great advantage.

The other advantage it had was that its timing was perfect - at the very beginning of the globalization phase, over 25 plus years ago. It had no competition from any potential manufacturer base economy in the world & the rich western world was moving up the food chain, looking for avenues to source cheap finished low end products.

China is still in a good position - it is innovative, it has higher HDI ranking, has sound infrastructure, strong forex reserves & no demo-crazy related hurdles, if I may.

It is however severely bruised on many fronts & going forward from here may be with a limp  :

Today, there is a backlash to excessive globalization.

Jobs & protectionism is a mainstream discussion across geographic landscape, keeping politicians of every color employed with rhetoric on 'bring back employment' blah. 

To make matters worse, China made too many enemies over the last decade, which it did not have in the first 15 years of its growth. It has simply kissed every cheek that the western world has slapped - to get cheap raw materials from sanction affected nations. You can't be a leader with no followers. 

It's traditional customers in the West are also a wee bit poorer now. They are also angrier at it and so are on the natural hunt for an alternative - drifting away from it. 

It does not stop there. 

It has created a hostile neighborhood for itself by making expansionary claims on territories - India, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam & Philippines dislike it.  Can't say same about Pakistan. Contrast that with Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico for America.

China now has a sudden psychological uneasy to it.

Recently we saw that it still relies on devaluation of its currency for competitive-ness i.e. it has run out of super low wage & high productivity labor force.  

On the other hand, China is flexing its muscle & wants to create formidable alternative to the World Bank & have its currency at par with the American Dollar as a reserve currency for global trade. For that, it will have to make the Yuan fully convertible and tradable & thus exposing to the market vagaries, risking it's rise. A rising Yuan can be a sinking China.

It will have to begin privatization of its PSUs as they are artificially pumped up. 

Moving from conventional to high technology industries will require it to be interdependent on some of the advanced nations it annoyed & competes with. 

It has over invested in industrial towns,  some now dubbed as 'ghost towns' as further urbanization has halted. Property prices may be a bubble waiting to go bust. Construction activities have slowed & steel is already in the drain hole. 

It has polluted itself and closing some mega industries is going to hurt it so.

It will now have to transition from the government spending model to a population consuming economy and that is difficult in any place esp where there is a citizens' trust deficit with its government & no social security for the aged. The problem is further compounded as they are running out of young people & it is ageing due to years of one child only rule.

Its population was always more literate than India but is now more educated as well; recall they had closed almost all universities for a decade from 66-76 during their cultural revolution ! They are also more wealthier now ( but not rich enough ) & so not just comprising of  peasant class. An evolved population is an involved one too by default. That makes them more politically demanding, a hurdle & challenge for any government to rule over. 

Our incredible India has some of the above & much more deeper problems ( a noisy democracy being the worst ) but it is likely to pose a serious competition to China in the future esp. if a pro-business & governance efficiency seeking Modi gets both houses by 2017. Such a parliamentary control would be historic for India.

A low oil & commodity prices will be a bonus for a nation like India, which is at the cusp of building infrastructure.

Unlike China, India is a natural ally of the free world and that is its strongest intangible asset with Modi adding to the aura. 

Due to his personal stamp on foreign policy, the direct rapport with world leaders and ambition to engage nations across the spectrum, he has put India on the 'To do list' for most of the world's political & business leaders. In the very early years, he travelled to the widest variety of countries, be they big or small like... America, Bhutan, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Kyrgystan, Myanmar, Mongolia, Russia, Seychelles, UAE, Uzbekistan to name a few !. He enjoys an unprecedented popularity among the rich, famous & influential non resident Indians & foreign business leaders at large.

With a bit of luck, India could be that destination in few years time, that - even a blind, mute & deaf Christopher Columbus can't give a miss !

I rank the chance of both, that of stagnation of China and rise of India from here at 50:50 but with a very favorable bias towards India !

Be an optimist. Bolo Bharat Mata Ki ....Jai OK Please !

The almost illiberal me

As an undergraduate engineering student in a very democratic America, I a foreigner, was yet "forced" to learn American history !

I am an unabashed admirer & critic of America today.

Talking of history, the 1971 war "victory" over India was recently celebrated in Pakistan.

Now, we all know the result of that war - an entire chapter in history needs to be dedicated to it, not just for the military establishment to relive but also be taught in schools & colleges. The enemy had far better American weaponry & first move advantage. India was a 3 legged horse, not worthy of a bet. The movie Border is not fiction, we won that war so convincingly that it would be hard for anyone today to believe the same.

A similar one I read about on a flight in a Singapore news paper - was the Battle of Kohima. It was fought in the far eastern corner of India at Nagaland against the Japanese invasion. The British knew they were ill prepared & so put the Indian jawans on the forefront as sacrificial lambs.

It is voted by the National Army Museum in London as "Britain's Greatest Battle" in recorded history, where the lost-for-sure verdict turned upside down. The Indians, were out numbered in all respects but they prevailed. It ended with so much bloodshed that in the end, the last 20 odd men on both sides faced each other on a tennis court, killing each other with bare hands, wrestling !

This British war, was fought entirely by Indian men.

I believe it is George Orwell who once said that "If you want to control the future, you must control the past. To control the past, you must control the present " !

So now you know why the Paki establishment does such things with their history. If you teach of the glory of past to the children, you are more likely to produce real men, defenders of the motherland in future.

Their problem is that it's now a www that we all live in and so a lie is more likely to be exposed than ever before. Ours is a very different problem. We in India were not told lies, we were unfortunately told someone else's truth.

On our side, while the Doordarshan showcased the glory of the 1971 war, the popular commercial minded media was occupied in a different ideological war with a vested interest. And not having any emotional umbilical chord to the 1971 war, I am sure that during the telecast, most urban Indians had their eyes shut and mouths open in a yawn.

Shri Arun Jaitley hass hit out at the "liberal" folk for creating a wrong impression of India in the popular media. What caught my eye in particular, was him saying "Perpetrators of this propaganda never allowed an alternative viewpoint  ( i.e. one that belonged to the conservative majority ) to grow in academic institutions or cultural bodies they have controlled".

Please note that conservatives outnumber the liberals in India ( & most countries ) & yet they have the smallest voice everywhere, as traditionalists are boring people. It is the liberal non-conformists that the media plays ball to.

It got me thinking :

I was born to upper middle class family & so went to an English medium school, the best in the Mumbai city at the time and a very liberal one at it. I had almost entire Bollywood's kids as fellow students. It was multicultural & I grew up with a feeling of superiority & at some level, looked down at that guy in my building who studied in a Gujarati medium school.

I recall predicting that vernacular schools will close down. I was sadly right.

It is now coming to the forefront that, if the language of instruction at school is in a language different than the only one spoken at home, it is possible that a child might lag in studies. Not because the child is weak, but because there is a micro second processing lag in the brain. The child might have to put extra effort to keep up or catch up.

Coming back, I recall that we had learned about Romulus & Remus & even the Mughal Empire in depth. However, the Indian political history & the most significant part - India's Freedom Struggle, had completely bypassed us. The "cultural history" was taught to us from the lens of a westerner, as seen in the National Geography channel - romanticism with 'mystical Indiyeah' i.e. the on-the-surface architectural beauty of the monuments, but not truly the why-behind-the-what part.

If I over time, had I not learned to question myself, I too would be that make-believe liberal : the elite who controls the media & lives in 'Indiyeah', unaware of the ways of the majority, who live in that Bharat & who went to vernacular medium schools.

Can any developing nation afford to have a school as prestigious as mine, that churned out students,  bereft of real Indian history & yet call itself a truly liberal center of excellence? Should such a school & it's incomplete curriculum even be allowed to operate in a nation that is truly free - I ponder? Even as late as in 1985, the year I passed out, my school did not have the freedom to set its curriculum - the long shadow of Cambridge board did.

Now don't get me wrong, all my batch mates know my love for my alma mater & I would give my right arm to go there again. Both my kids are products of the same school. Thankfully, the curriculum is a wee bit better now, but still much is desired.

We in India are going through a tremendous churn. The Indian, marginalized till recently vernacular conservative have become a bit more vociferous & wealthy over time and are not willing to forget their glorious past, even as they assert their stake in the future.

They want it all to be a very : of,  by & for Indians. To them, a true education is one that is rooted in the past & wedded to the future. They want to set it right.

This has spooked the liberals, who say that freedom is now being taken away & educational saffronization is at play.

Social liberals bolo "Ganpati-bapa moriya" !

Here's a wonderful incident that I once experienced first hand.

Many years ago, an American fellow from a company that I worked with had come to India. On one of the evenings, we were headed through Bandra, in Mumbai for dinner.

We came across one of the many Ganpati pandals by the roadside. 

He wanted me to stop at one such sarvajanik one. He was curious. There was this colossal statue staring at us invitingly, with lights and decorations to beckon. The majestic setup looked empowering with many people that were seated before it.

We entered the make-shift mini temple like structure, much to the amusement of the local crowd. I asked the American to observe respect for tradition & remove shoes, hold up hands in an Indian namaste style, shut eyes and pray to his "own God” or simply observe short silence. He looked around in amazement & then did as I had instructed.

Soon he was lost in a trance, longer than my expectation. 

When he opened his eyes, a very cute child offered him & me a banana each, as prasad. I explained that it is was a spiritual ambrosia of sorts. We left & went back to the car. I could tell, he was overwhelmed.

Suddenly as I drove on, his eyes welled up & he began to weep out huge tear drops.

I was in utter disbelief.

He said "America has lost community living. Look at all these people, they have so much of it!"

In that moment, I realized how wealthy we Indians are ....as I held back my own tears.

Even when I,  as an urban fellow, do not practice religion or traditions with the kind of zeal most folks do, I do believe religious traditions have an immense soft power. My point is narrow i.e. keeping only India and Indian-ness in mind.

Let us accept that India lives in her villages. And we have heard that religion divides.

Religious conflict, is not new to the world but is not really a thing of the small villages but more of an urban phenomenon. Almost all religious riots in India are in or around tier 1 or tier 2 cities of India, perhaps either with a bit of instigation by the politics of the day or wild spread of misinformation by our overtly zealous & TRP-seeking media. Social media now is the kerosene in the flame.

In fact, I would say it is religion that has kept the deprived rural Indians to cope with adversity born out of village poverty. Sure, the different village communities will not intermingle in marriage, but they have learned to live in harmony.

At times, I feel that we in city are more trained to exercise our rights at the cost of learning how to exercise judgment. Demanding a tiny gain by asserting one's right rather than accommodating & letting it go for sake of peace, leads to territorial conflicts in mind space. Religion then becomes the excuse, not the cause. 

Sacrifice - what is that? 

I would like to believe that the things that us city folks so rationally seem to profess, namely "live & let live," is often just lip service. In fact, they the rural folks, who actually practice it.

Religion and the associated traditions are far more a blessing than most urban citizens realize - it is the ultimate cling-on-to thing for those facing the abyss. 

When we drive through the heart of India, I am sure many would have felt & realized, that the people there are not really law fearing as law simply does not have a reach there. However, there is something beyond the normal expectation that is at work - why else won't they rob us even when the financial gap between them & us is so wide & appalling?

Faith is a fact beyond the realms of proof or reasoning. For them it's an omnipresent entity. 

They seem to possess a Dharmic sense, to let things just be or some sort of a human responsibility i.e. duty towards fellow beings, the nature & society at large.

They don't question their own or others.

With this understanding of Dharma, I may go on to add that in my personal observation, the most intolerant of the lot, are the pseudo-intellectuals, those following the Scoratic Mehod as inquirers of everything. These are financially secure socially loose liberals who look down upon all ancient traditions or beliefs as something that is superstitious and an expired product being peddled in the modern world. They question every tradition with hard logic and utility value, not realizing that they seek correct answers with wrong questions.

And yes, they question but provide zero answers.

These social-ethnocides are nothing but selfish hippies, demanding freedom from traditional values and not providing any responsibility in exchange. Notice how angry are.

They are of course the popular media's favorite, who go about shouting & setting their agenda & opinion during prime time. Even in instances when they are right to ask, their methodology is not correct. 

Coming back, traditions by themselves don't do anything at one level except for argument sake, offer restrictions. And yet on the other side it gives one pride & connect to one's past, a sense of belonging in the present day and continuity into the future - the essence of human race, its survival & inspiration to thrive in unity. Deeper the roots, sweeter the fruits. Sadly, that bonding is becoming so scarce in our cities.

Without deep tradition, one is a, if I may - a kati patang .

Gandhi had opposed the tradition of the practice of sati and untouchability & had sought reform, was himself a super traditionalist & pushed for a philosophy that meant - each one must always swim with ( & not against ) currents of his or her tradition, so long as one doesn't drown in it !

Thus, I am not for once saying all blind practices or traditions are good, sure reform is needed. However it is only traditions that keeps a unit of people closely intact & content.