Friday, 4 December 2015

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 !
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Wednesday, 2 December 2015

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 !
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Tuesday, 1 December 2015

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:


# 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.

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


# 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.
Gujarat’s agri success an eye-opener: Kalam
 

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


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

# 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.  

Gujarat tops states in number of Muslim policemen


# 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.

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


# 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. 



# 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:
Obama quietly reverses Hillary’s ‘get Modi’ policy


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.
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