Where have we come from, and who wants to know?

The debate over how exactly our world, our universe has been created will perhaps be one that can never be resolved. It isn’t that the solution is difficult to locate; on the contrary, it simply requires the application of a rational mind, one that isn’t prejudiced against any possibility. Unfortunately, in our present circumstances, both the scientific fraternity and the theological communities are incapable of appreciating the possibility that anyone other than themselves has an amount of truth in their beliefs.
The theory of evolution, as proposed by Charles Darwin, is the cornerstone of the belief system of the scientific world. And to a rational mind, it seems pretty true to reality. When the habits and behavior of man can undergo subtle, yet significant, changes, simply by moving to a different cultural zone, who is deny the possibility that the physical structures of beings could also be affected by the characteristics of their extraneous environment? And yet, there is too much probability involved in this entire process, too much mathematics, something that unnerves the common mind.
Biologists refer to this as the unique event hypothesis. While physicists and chemists tend to believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life, biologists tend not to. Many biologists feel the development of intelligent life on Earth required so many peculiar steps that it represents a unique event in the universe that may never have occurred elsewhere. How can one define the birth of intelligent life on Earth as a unique event?
Well, it barely arose on the Earth. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and single-celled life appeared 3.9 billion years ago – almost immediately, geologically speaking. But life remained single-celled for the next three billion years. Then in the Cambrian period, around six hundred million years ago, there was an explosion of sophisticated life forms. Within a hundred million years, the ocean was full of fish. Then the land became populated. Then the air. But nobody knows why the explosion occurred in the first place.
Even after the Cambrian, the chain of events leading to man appears to be so special, so chancy, that biologists worry it might never have happened. Just consider the fact that if the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out sixty-five million years ago – by a comet or whatever, reptiles might still be the dominant form on Earth, and mammals would never have had a chance to take over. No mammals, no primates; no primates, no apes; no apes, no man. There are a lot of random factors in evolution, a lot of luck.
However, just because something involves a hell lot of probability or even mathematics doesn’t mean that it is necessarily wrong, or even delusional. Evolution is something that seems logical, and it is so, in many respects. And still, it doesn’t explain why things are the way they are, why humans are the predominant species, and not, say, tigers.
These gaps are what allow intelligent design or the concept of a Creator to have some following. After all, why rely on probability when you can attribute these events to some mystical being, far beyond your realm of vision and perception, who somehow controls all that you see? But intelligent design falters when confronted with the evidence that there is a past, a past that extends beyond the man of today. This past doesn’t start with the time since when the Neanderthal roamed the plains of Europe. It goes far beyond that. Trying to explain the presence of fossils as a ploy to delude man into believing that he is simply a cog in the larger scheme of things is not only far-fetched; it’s absurd. If the Creator wants to delude us, He would hide greater things than bones of reptiles and apes.
By now, you would have realized that I have no definite stand on how this world was created. Frankly I don’t give a damn whether I am part of a huge tour de œil (I hope that’s the proper expression) or the culmination of a long drawn process of change. My antecedents are of no relevance to me; there are more important things to worry about. What say?

(quoted liberally from Michael Crichton's book 'Sphere')

Carlo Ventresca's Lament

I found this most beautiful piece, something that made me think. It’s from the book ‘Angels and Demons’ by Dan Brown, and is a speech made by the chamberlain to the Pope, Carlo Ventresca, to the Conclave of Cardinals.

“To those of science, let me say this, “You have won the war.” The wheels have been in motion for a long time. Your victory has been inevitable. Never before has it been as obvious as it is at this moment. Science is the new God.
Medicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation . . . these are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede.
But science’s victory has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply.
Science may have alleviated the miseries of diseases and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been reduced. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident. Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Scepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything secret? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn foetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning … and all it finds is more questions.
The ancient way between science and religion is over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channelling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mind quests – all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.
Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the Church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species … moving down a path of destruction.
Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.
To science, I say this. The Church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plough blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the Church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens and computers, but it is the Church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.
And all the while, you proclaim the Church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This Church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be God! You ask what God looks like. I say, where that question came from. The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him? You proclaim the even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? It is really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?
Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith …all faiths…are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable…With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed.
Tonight, we are perched on a precipice. None of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality…the dark force is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Together we can step back from this abyss.”

Let Justice prevail!

Yesterday, the Houses of Parliament expelled 11 of its ‘distinguished’ members on the charge of having accepted bribes to ask questions in their respective Houses. To me, it seems rather inane to ask for money to ask questions. After all, what possible harm or good is a question going to do, even if it is raised in the highest legislative body in the country? And then I realized that it wasn’t the harm the question was doing. It was the harm the bribe would do to the legislature, to the system of a reasonable State, driven by the actual needs of the people, and not by the desires of a few demented groups. The representatives of the people must be ideal, someone the people can look up to for inspiration, who conjures images of integrity and trust, and inspires confidence and hope in the minds of the most despondent soul. They cannot be affected by human afflictions like greed, sloth, lust, envy, and all the cardinal sins. Not too much to ask, is it?
Unfortunately it is. What right does a people who will give bribes just to get their jobs done, maybe out of coercion but nonetheless performing the act, to demand such high standards from its representatives? After all, he is your ‘representative’ and will therefore contain all the characteristics of you, those whom he must represent. I plead that you, my reader, not construe this as a defense of those charged. For it is not so much a defense of the accused as an entreaty to my fellow Indians to introspect as to whether we do inhabit such high moral ground to expect such high standards from our politicians?
The manner and procedure followed by the Houses of Parliament is not of concern to me. That they deserved to be punished goes without saying, and the most appropriate punishment was the one that has been meted out, that being revocation of the membership of the accused in the clan whose trust, honour and prestige has been sullied by their nefarious acts. But, one must pause to ask whether even in the light of evidence as obvious as television videos, can the laws of natural justice be relaxed? Can, in the presence of seemingly infallible odds against the accused, he be denied the right to defend himself before his peers? In our urge to inhabit a high moral ground, are we guilty of having transgressed on the most basic of moralities, the law of permitting an accused to a proper trial?
I may seem to have political pretensions or prejudices when I write this, but in truth, I agree with the punishment. The guilty must suffer, and that they suffer will be ensured by the Fates. But, in our pursuit for Righteousness, we must not inflict wounds on Justice, for one without the other is of no value. Have a trial, hear them out. The verdict may be predetermined in your minds, but even then Justice will be satisfied that you gave her a chance, an opportunity to be fair.

Books Forever

Google has announced its plan to digitize every book, every tome, in the printing world. And somehow, this hasn’t disturbed me too much. Maybe this is because I really was never so much of a computer guy, a man whose life is dictated by the bytes and bits of the processor. My world is inhabited by people, and most importantly, books. Mind you, my books aren’t digitized, and I am thankful for that.
For if they were digitized, how on earth would I read them in those cold nights in the light of candles when the electricity forsook me to visit her mom at the power plant? How on earth would I feel the rustle of the pages, the swiftness of the passage of time as I rushed through the chapters? How could I leave a tome partially unread, and then rush back to it, guilty in that I forsook a friend? Books aren’t such pages bound in a hard cover, covered with publisher’s ink. They are living entities, the sentinels of their time, and the markers of eternity.
To digitize them would merely take away their allure, their mystery from them, and render them so very ordinary. And yet, when I say this, I have committed the most abominable blasphemy, the most heretical sacrilege. For books have been the harbingers of change. They have given hope where hopelessness reigned supreme. They have consoled the grieving when the heavens seemed unable to come to provide succour. They have infused souls with inhuman courage when the hearts of men sought to liberate themselves from the yokes of oppression and tyranny. And in this context, if one were to ask the books, they would shrug their shoulders, maybe straighten out some ruffled pages, and say as simply,
Our's not to make reply,Our's not to reason why,Our's but to do and die.
Those who have delivered change will not shun change. For it is in evolution that we better ourselves. Maybe it is the destiny of mankind. It is not for us to question as to why it is just so.

Intelligent Inside

Continuing with the newspaper comments (this blog is mainly inspired by the big bunch of newspapers (at last count 3) that I get at home), Vinod Dham, the father of the Pentium chip, in an interview said, “In China, if you tell someone to walk from point A to B, they do it quietly. In India, they’ll ask you ‘why’ or figure out an algorithm to do it in one-third the time.”
No small words, especially when it’s coming from a man who’s been at the forefront at Intel for nearly 16 years, and is acknowledged as a Silicon Valley legend. And I am in complete agreement with Mr. Dham. In China, the scope for the individual genius is suppressed beneath the greater collective good. Admittedly, this is needed when one’s talking about team work, but then there isn’t that much of an incentive for creativity. Again as Amartya Sen said, we Indians are a tremendously argumentative people. Sometimes these arguments may be inane, but they imply an almost neurotic desire to be not only smart, but also be seen as smart. These arguments serve the purpose of enhancing our abilities where they may seem deficient, as also of buttressing our confidence in our knowledge. The ‘wh’ questions are the main part of our vocabulary. And that is a sign of a genius people.
But that doesn’t mean the Chinese are any less. Mind you, they are now being toasted because they are hard-working. An inherent desire to be applauded sometimes may make a man complacent, to the extent that he forgets his true goal. If India is to retain its edge over China, it has to ensure that this Fountain of Creativity doesn’t dry up; rather that it is supplemented by the Spring of Perseverance and Diligence. Our priorities need to be set right; once that’s done, I think we will not only make our cake but also have it.

Total Recall

I am reading in the newspaper that the Speaker of the House of the People, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, has expressed his support for the right of the people to recall their representatives in the legislatures. To quote him, “The people who elected him should also have the right to say, ‘I sent you to perform but you have let me down, so come back.’”

With all due respect to him, the idea is a really brilliant, if not original concept. The principle of recall already exists in the United States, as far as my limited knowledge of its politics goes. Indeed, the people should not be expected to be encumbered by the incompetencies of their representatives (sounds more like an insult than an honour, given the quality of these blokes) for five years. Give them the chance to recall the fool, if he/she isn’t performing to their expectations. I do feel that if this idea is implemented, not just on paper, but also in reality, then there will be a huge increase in the accountability that elected representatives will have to bear with respect to their duties towards their constituents.

However, I am cognizant that in our country wherein elections are such an expensive affair, and having them even once in five years is like a burden, expecting the State to bear such a burden once every two or three years is simply not practical. Moreover, the people do have an implicit right of recall; only this right can be invoked only when the next elections for the legislative body concerned come around. Heck, if you aren’t happy with the way the bloke’s worked; don’t elect him the next time, as simple as that.

Again, the fact’s that our populace isn’t as educated as one would like it to be, if such a scheme is to be introduced. When I mean educated, I am not implying an academic education, but a general awareness of one’s rights and responsibilities towards one’s society, and one’s nation. Until such awareness can be perceived, introducing any such scheme, no matter how well-meaning it may be, will be in vain.

The struggle must go on!

The brutal murder of Maniappan Raman Kutty, an employee of the Border Roads Organisation, by the Taliban in Afghanistan is yet another example of how a warped vision of the world can try to drown out the legitimate concerns for development and progress of the people. The Taliban's sole aim seems to have become the overthrow of the Hamid Karzai administration, and the reversion of the Afghan state back to the Dark Ages. In this process, if innocents die, merely because they did the unforgivable deed of assisting the current Afghan government in dispensing its duties, well that's fair, because this is war.
But, it really isn't fair. If you have an issue with Karzai, talk with him, or even declare an open war on him, and resolve the matter once and for all. Don't slowly and steadily corrode the nation for which even you profess love and affection. Don't harm those whose intentions are noble, who only desire to assist your people in their aim to progress, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the world. They don't seek to take sides in your struggle, they don't care who rules the State, so long as they can go about their job of helping the people smoothly. These are the basic expectations from those who seek to help your people.
And, whilst I write this, I am cognizant that somewhere down there, even I am reconciled to the fact that we are speaking to a wall. That those who seek to harm, harm not because of ideological persuasions, but out of sheer animosity, a despicable desire to undo all the good that can be accrued out of development and progress. Kutty hasn't died a victim; he has died a matyr; a matyr to the cause of humanity, a hero for the oppressed people of this world, a man who despite all odds persevered to assist those who were related to him, not by blood, but the holiest of all relations, by their humanity. His death must not go in vain. His deeds must live on. The struggle must go on.

The dawn of a new Bihar (and a new India)?

The end of the Laloo era in Bihar may take some time to sink in, but whether this is the beginning of the end, or just a momentary glitch in his glorious reign, needs to be seen. In 1947, an independent study conducted by a prominent research institute in the United Kingdom had remarked that Bihar is amongst the most developed and most advanced provinces amongst all of the British Empire, and with some autonomy, may even rival the mother lode herself. Flash forward to 2005 and you see a state that has progressed all right, just the direction of progress has been in reverse. The per capita income in Bihar is below Rs. 4000, amongst the lowest in the country, while more than 65% of the population is illiterate. Mind you, it isn’t as if the people enjoy living in such squalor. The very fact that you have so many Biharis crowding all the major metropolitan cities, working in any capacity available, is evidence that given a conducive atmosphere, the people can and will work hard even there. A major chuck of the Indian Administrative Services’ higher echelons are from Bihar, a testament to the sheer genius resident in its people, for it isn’t easy to crack the UPSC exams.
But when the political system is so corrupted that it is almost synonymous with corruption, I don’t feel any enterprise can survive solely on its merits. The countless movies depicting the absolute lawlessness in the state testify to the absolutely dismal protection that the State provides to its law-abiding citizens.
Of course, the specific contribution of Laloo is debatable. His regime started barely 15 years ago, while it can be reasonably established that the downfall started sometime around the mid-1970’s, around the time of the Emergency. With increased politicization of the education system, and an increasing propensity in the political class to accord more importance to sheer muscle power over principled stands, a society based on knowledge and awareness shrunk back into its shell, back into the Dark Ages. Maybe, Laloo with all his popularity could have made a difference. He ought to have used his rapport with the people to better their lives. That he did nothing of that sort and instead chose to treat the State as his personal fief is the tragic part of this tale. A man who could have been the knight in shining armour became the all-consuming dragon.
Now the NDA is presented with a massive mandate, a mandate one prays it doesn’t fritter away like Rajiv Gandhi did. A comatose state has, through this verdict, announced its intention to rejuvenate itself. Laloo himself said once, “Biharis don’t aspire to become kings. They assume the roles of king makers.” A king maker always remains so, a shadow behind the throne. His powers are limited, his mind restricted to ensuring his primacy. He is no one’s beloved, no one respects him, no one aspires to take his place. Whether the NDA wishes for Bihar to continue to assume this despised role is not known, but one thing’s for sure; the Bihari now aspires to be a king in his own right!
What however is clear is that this verdict is a sign of the changing times, a welcome sign, a sign that all is not lost, and that the people are maturing, that democracy hasn’t yet been smothered by the demons of corruption and casteism, that governance still matters, even at the cost of ‘secularism’. India has reason to rejoice. What must be seen is how long this optimism lasts.

Salut, mes amis!

I usually am very cautious, even shy about expressing my feelings, especially when they concern other people. It isn’t because I tend to disparage people, or run them down. On the contrary, I nowadays somehow always try to find something to appreciate in every person. I say this, not because I wish to be praised, but because this nature of mine is in some way because of the excellent friends I have had the honour of being associated with.

To quote Yeats, ‘Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.’ And I am not being over-sentimental here. For me, friendship is a very dear, a very treasured, a very sacred relationship, one to be guarded against all harm at all costs. Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. True wealth cannot be found in your bank account. It can only be found in those you call friend, those with whom you share your deepest feelings, and those who accept you for who you really are. When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

For the last two blogs, I have been very sentimental, very emotional. It is a departure, a very marked departure from my usual expressions, and one that I am enjoying. This may just be the last one in this new genre, so I wanted this to be special. So, I am taking this opportunity to thank all my friends, who stood by me through thick and thin, who criticised me when I was wrong, who applauded me when I am jubilant, who wiped my tears and supported me when I was grieving, who laughed at my inane jokes and didn’t beat me up in frustration. I may not be able to name all of them, but that speaks for my good luck, for in the words of Henry Brook Adams, ‘One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.’.
So, thank you, Purnima, Winny, Subu, Satish, Pudi, Rajesh, Rohan, Nitya, Savita, Roopali, Remya, Maya, Murthy, Vinay, Neeraj, Aditya and Aabha, for tolerating my eccentricity, my childishness, my insensitivities, my rudeness, my brashness. Thanks for showing me the mirror when I stood in the wrong, when I was misguided by my senses, when I was getting my priorities wrong. Thanks for helping me grow up and outlive my fears, my apprehensions, and my misconceptions.

To conclude, I quote Winnie the Pooh and say this to all my friends that If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.

A Lover's Sigh

The two hardest things to contemplate in life are failure and age, and those are one and the same. Perfection is the natural consequence of eternity; wait long enough, and anything will realize its potential. Coal becomes diamonds, sand becomes pearls, and apes become men. It’s simply not given to us, in one lifetime, to see those consummations, and so every failure becomes a reminder of death.

But the loss of love is a special kind of failure, I think. It’s a reminder that some consummations, no matter how devoutly wished for, never come, that some apes will never be men, not in all the world’s ages. What’s a monkey to think, who with a typewriter and eternity still can’t eke out Shakespeare? Such a love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Unrequited affections are like a disease of the mind. They give a touch to illusions, make bodies shiver, dreams bleed and loneliness to creak the stairs at midnight and terrorize us. There is nothing more painful than seeing someone you love loving someone else.

And yet, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing two people you love loving each other. In the end, if the one whom you love is happy with someone else, can we insist our love is more sacred than her affections? Sometimes, it makes sense to fail, for true love is giving all you have to someone you know you’re going to lose. He who has never experienced hurt cannot experience true love. Many have found the paradox that if one loves until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. Khalil Gibran so beautifully put it, ‘Think not, you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

I also loved once; maybe love is too strong a word for my emotions then. Maybe it was the infatuation of an emotional teenager, maybe an adulation of a star struck boy, but in my heart, I believed it to be love. I wanted a perfect ending to my ‘love’ story. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Now if someone says, “I love you” to someone, I feel as though that person had a pistol pointed at his/her head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? “I love you, too.” I haven’t become skeptical about love, just circumspect.

A Fool's Guide to Love

Love draws lines between us like an astronomer plotting a constellation from stars, joining points into patterns that have no basis in nature. In the geometry of love, everything is triangular. The butt of every triangle is the heart of another, until the roof of reality is a tessellation of love affairs. Taken together, they have the pattern of netting, and behind them is Love. Love is the only perfect fisherman, the one who casts the broadest net, which no fish can escape. His reward is to sit alone in the tavern of life, forever a boy among men, hoping someday to tell stories about the one that got away.

But what is the basis of Love? John Nash said it so beautifully in his Nobel acceptance speech, “It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found.” A splendid irony if there was any.
A very dear friend of mine opines that it is essential that in one’s lover, one find both beauty and brains. It is fine for her to say so, she herself being endowed with both gifts. What is to be the test for mortals such as myself, I wonder? So, the search must proceed on a more idealistic, a more holistic note.

Love, the elders opine, is a matter of the heart, and not so much of the extraneous senses. And so, to seek true love, one must delve deep into the hoary depths of the heart of one’s lover, and test the purity of that love.
One may query, is one’s love itself pure enough to stand the test, to justify one questioning another individual’s love? To the sceptics, I only can offer the reassurance that this isn’t a mechanical process, or an obvious process, to be performed step-by-step else failure is one’s reward. The test for the purity of soul is a mental, a spiritual process. One scarcely even realises when one is being tested, when one’s actions are being weighed. In truth, one never even realises when one is testing someone. A conscious effort to guage love is nothing more than a charade, a farce, because when one doubts something, no matter how bright the truth may be, it simply cannot pierce through the darkness of such a doubt.

So, when does one realise that one has found the perfect soulmate for oneself? Well, maybe when you realise that the mere presence of that special person in the room increases the illumination, the aura, the joie-de-vivre in the gathering manifold, when that every gesture of your beloved seems so special, so unique, so inimitable. When she laughs, it is like the sound of a thousand wind chimes ringing in the breeze. When she smiles, it seems like a rosebud has just begun to blossom on the face of the earth. When she frowns, in her anger, one feels the fire of Hades, undesirable, unwanted, and most of all, something that one wishes to dispel as soon as possible. Even when she herself never calls asking for your help, if you can sense her troubles, that’s telepathy. When not a single day seems worthwhile to you if you haven’t seen her face at least once, if you haven’t spoken a word to her, if you haven’t given her joy, that’s true love. And believe me, all that you will feel for her then, she will feel for you as well.

Battle between equals!

The recent tiff between the judiciary and the legislature, and to that effect, the executive, brings to fore the increasing tensions between the two wings of governance. On one hand, where the executive is responsible and accountable to the legislature on a daily basis, the legislature is accountable to the people only once in 5 years, or if the people's luck favours them, earlier than that. The people nowadays are peeved at the manner in which the legislature, and by implication, the executive, is running the country. The judiciary, as a consequence of its role as the guardian of the Constitution, is and has been compelled to intervene on the entreaties of the People in the very act of governance of the State.

Very recently, when the Bombay High Court passed its landmark judgement on the Mumbai Mill Lands Case, wherein it castigated both the Government of Maharashtra and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for having abdicated their responsibilities towards providing low-cost housing facilities, open spaces, and liveable conditions to the people of the city of Mumbai, the activism of the judiciary was starkly illustrated. On the same day, nearly 17 articles were found in the Times of India regarding some direction from the courts to the Executive on matters strictly non-judicial. The judgement of the Supreme Court of India regarding the rights of the heirs of a tenant to the tenancy also cleared up the air regarding the most vexing issue, which often became a major election-time concern, yielding precious votes. That the heirs of a tenant cannot by implication claim inheritance of the tenancy could have been stated even by a ordinary citizen, and the judges shouldn't have been bothered, but the fact remains, when you have such a spineless legislature, and your executive is derived from such an assemblage, your only recourse can by the judiciary.

And yet, the fact that the judiciary has to resort to such activism doesn't call for celebration. True, this indicates that our democracy is vibrant, that it is responsive to the needs of the People, and that not all hope is lost. But, in truth, attempts should be made to ensure that the judiciary can concentrate on matters more attuned to their duties, as indicated in the Constitution. Cases are pending in the highest court of the land for the last 20 years, and in lower courts for more than five decades. These cases may not be of so much political significance, maybe even their outcome may not change the course of the nation's history, but for the plaintiff and the defendant, the case is all that matters. These cases should be dealt with first, and that the judiciary also acknowledges this, implies the serious need for the Executive and the Legislature to get their act together.

The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, R.C. Lahoti had, in one of his press comments, remarked that the Courts weren't subservient to any of the arms of the State; rather they were equal partners in the governance of the State. Furthermore, in a most bitter comment on the conflict between the judiciary and the Executive-Legislature combine, he remarked that if the combine so much as despised the judiciary's manner of working, they should close down the courts, and abrogate the duties of the same. And this is saddening. One of the few arms of the State which are actually working is being bullied into replicating the inefficiency of the laggards. Although I have titled this blog as a battle between equals, that the combatants are equals only in name is clear. Only the victor will be neither, for the People need a responsive Judiciary as also a responsible Executive-Legislature. One prays that this battle end in a draw, a mature draw.

Be reasonable, please!

A recent incident in Chennai over teenagers and young adults kissing and hugging, and such photos being splayed all over the newspapers was shocking and disturbing, to say the least. And the responses even more.
Indian society has always been non-committal about sex education, and has been rather coy about inter-gender relations prior to marriage. Of course, this coyness was often a mask for much deep rooted hypocrisy. And that such hypocrisy emerges out of the coyest societies isn't unusual. After all, the most restricted souls most desire of even the most depraved of excitements. But for the sake of maintaining a sort of holier-than-thou posture, such societies choose to don a "conservative" outlook. They frown on any deviations from their traditions, their customs, and their beliefs. So, the general uproar about the couples kissing, hugging, and fondling each other was really expected.
Not that I am supporting the uproar, but really, the so-called miscreants should really have done whatever they were doing then in more private confines. Admitted, they being citizens of a free India are permitted the freedoms of expression, but surely this freedom cannot be presumed to be absolute. Maybe in this particular case, there weren't families i.e. children around to witness their frolicking; however there is emerging a general tendency to brazenly ignore societal concerns on morality and general good social behaviour in public places.

But what I found even more disgusting was the tendency of the print media to splay the pictures of these blokes on the front page, as if encouraging people to see their brazen behaviour, and maybe even emulate it. Admitted, of late the print media has considerably lowered its standards, especially to counter the influence of the television news media, but surely, one could have expected better behaviour from individuals calling themselves the vanguards of democracy, as the guardians of the reader.

There is also a very heated debate on whether or not practices such as a live-in relationship should be encouraged. A recent televised discussion on this listed one of the live-in arrangement's advantages as that any one of the partners could easily leave the other without having to resort to messy legal procedures should he/she find himself/herself unwilling to accept the other partner's style of living. And I watched amazed. For me, such a relationship is a farce, one that should never be termed a relationship in the first place, because it is based not on trust or on love, but on a sort of uneasy compromise to be broken as and when one feels.

No relationship can be deemed pure and unblemished unless it is based on trust and love. If you choose to hide details of your life from the ones whom you claim to love, then you sadly do not love them, you merely tolerate them. Hurting those who love you is the greatest sin imaginable, and cannot be washed away for all eternity. But these kids simply have abnegated the feelings of shame, and responsibility to a greater being than themselves - their family.

This incident and many more like this brings to fore the confusion of the so-called westernized populace of the urban classes, who whilst insisting on their rights to privacy, persist in doing all sorts of depraved displays of affection in public. Someone ought to wring their ears and yell in them, "Care to be reasonable, pal?"

Musings en général!

The past one week has been a remarkably eventful one for me, with both happy, and somewhat despodent moments here and there. Guess one can term it a microcosm of life in general.

Had my first "real" simulated CAT test on the 24th, and did much better than I expected. Actually, much would be understating my surprise, because I managed to enter the hallowed ranks of the top 1 percent students giving the test. And this when I really am not preparing to the best of my abilities. My mom always would tell me that although I never put in the most of my abilities in whatever I did, and mind you, despite this, I still would manage to scrape through with pretty good grades, imagine what could have happened if I would have been better prepared. But the bumbler that I am, the message simply never sank in, until now.

And yet, I see no reason to be exultant over my performance, simply because the test in question was a simple one, and mastering it would really have tested not many people's skills. And yet, I am not questioning the ways of the Fates. I am greatful for this boost, and I pray that my performance should continue to maintain this level, irrespective of the grade of difficulty or ease of the test concerned.

Of course the very next day, i.e. on the 25th, had my viva voce on Digital Signal Processing. In truth, the subject is a very interesting one, especially after the seminar I had attended on the topic wherein some very interesting applications of this subject were explored. But after the test on the 24th, I was so tired that studying was simply something my mind had pushed to the back of the priority queue. Of course, I did manage to brush up something before the viva, but as usual, became blank when faced with questions. I did manage to make a complete mess of things by not satisfactorily answering even those questions whose answers I knew very well. And then like a jerk, I sulked and simply refused to be social with my friends for the rest of the evening. Maybe they understood my emotions, but had I been in their place, I perhaps would have been offended by my behaviour. My apologies to my friends for my most childish behaviour.

Guess I should be signing off now. Just leaving you with a thought for the day:
There is nothing more painful than seeing someone you love loving someone else. But there is nothing more rewarding than seeing two people you love loving each other. ~ J.H. Li

What is Love?

Was just listening to Haddaway exclaiming what must perhaps be his most famous song, when this post struck me like lightning. And made me wonder, what really is love? Since I cannot claim to be an expert on love, I let the professionals do the talking:

• Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh. ~ W. H. Auden
• I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. ~ Mother Teresa
• If you love something, let it go free. If it doesn't come back, you never had it. If it comes back, love it forever. ~Doug Horton
• Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• Love doesn't make the world go around. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. ~ Franklin Jones
• Love gives us in a moment what we can hardly attain by effort after years of toil. ~ Goethe
• Love is good in feeling, even if you are always being hurt. It is better to be hurt by love than not loving at all.
• Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. ~ Robert Heinlein
• Men always want to be a woman's first love. Woman like to be a man's last romance. ~Oscar Wilde
• Once a tear fell off my cheek and into the ocean. The day I find it will be the day I stop loving you.
• True love is giving all you have to someone you know you're going to lose. ~Ray H. Wall
• We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. ~Tom Robbins.
• Woman was created from the rib of man: Not from his head to be thought of only, nor from his hand to be owned, nor from his foot to be beneath, but from under his arm to be protected, from his side to be equal, and from his heart to be loved...

My experiences with Science

It has always been a matter of great astonishment to me that people should insist that the pursuit of science and that of religion are two different things, and one cannot be or rather should not be mistaken for the other. Science, for all those who believe it be the supreme source of life, is the art of the intellect, while religion, in common belief, is the fact of the senses.

To some, the intellect is any day more superior to the senses, for what are the senses in comparison to the mind? They feel, they see, they hear, but they do not think. And for some, the knack of thought is more important than the ability to emote, the skill of sensation, and the art of feeling. But to quote Ralph J. Cudworth, the 15th century theologian and philosopher, “Sense is like a line which is the flux of a point running out from itself, but intellect, like a circle, keeps within itself.” Can there be a more eloquent yet simple expression, a more subtle speech that should so demonstrate the superiority of the senses over the mind? But, in no way do I wish to state that religion is superior to science, for the twain are brothers of the same seed, and within brethren, there is no one superior to the other, for brethren are born equal, equal halves of the seed. The seed here is the human race, and from its mind, and its senses have arisen the sciences and religion. Whenever the mind dominated our understanding of our world, we termed it as science, and whenever the senses dominated, it became religion. Different names for different viewpoints, yet the view remains the same.

It is remarkable that despite the apparent differences in the two, they are so very similar. True science and true religion can both never be achieved so long as there exists rigidity in the rules governing that concerned. God and science alike reserve their attentions for those who go beyond the rules, who dare to seek new heights, who dare to challenge what they perceive to be wrong. Why is then that we should insist on the separation of the religious mind from the scientific mind? Why should scientific temper be so highly valued as opposed to religious piety? For are not they sides of the same coin, expressions of devotion to the supreme Knowledge, be it science or God? Were not the greatest scientists such as Galileo Galilee, Isaac Newton, Nicolas Copernicus, Edward Hubble, C.V. Raman and Albert Einstein devout theologists? In the earlier days, there was no difference between a scientist and a theologian. Monasteries and temples have for countless millennia been the seat of learning, be it spiritual or scientific. In the medieval ages perhaps, a few black sheep in religion persecuted those whose ideas went against their beliefs. Can we not to blame the mind here, for “the eye sees only that what the mind comprehends”? In response to this, science left the folds of religion, and since has never re-entered into it. We do have to realise that history is the story of the victor, and today, science assumes such a role. But what hath brought about the brethren, shall it cause them to drift apart so? That will remain the existential question as to whether man, who created the two, shall now cause them to go so apart that one cannot survive so long as the other exists. The death of either is tragic, and will reduce our race and our world to an insentient one for sure.

I have but few experiences with science, and very few with what one could call “pure science”, but in my experiences with computer programming, and they remain but a drop in the ocean, I have come to realise that whatever I have learnt so far has to some extent connotations of Hindu and sometimes even sociology. I jest for sure, you say? But no, for we all see these signs, yet like horses with blinkers, we choose to look only at what we set out to do, and not at the environs in which we must attain our goals.

Consider this. The Hindu faith emphasises on the collection of good karma in one’s life, for the life to be deemed successful. The procurement of even a single moment of bad karma, or experiences that go against the laws of society, propels man back down to rebirth. But a life filled with experiences compliant with the laws of society is but a gateway to enlightenment, to perpetual moksha. Now compare this with a C or C++ program. There exist laws of programming that define the rights and wrongs that may arise when writing a program.

Should we go against these laws, we encounter erroneous code when compiling and we are compelled to debug the program from start. But if we always maintain conformity with the laws, our program runs without a hitch, and to say the least, we need never even look at the program code again, a sort of programming moksha. Again, all religions insist on the duality of faith, the existence of good and evil in the same world. Compare this with the language of the conventional computer. The basis of all communication with the computer is the binary system, the dual system, where 0 stands for “inactive” or “false”, and 1 stands for “active” or “truth”. To see such similarities between programming and religious faith may seem naive, but as said before, the pursuit of knowledge is important, not the source of the knowledge.

Often, I would think that the human race is like a couple of adaptive machines. Adaptive machines, you ask what are these? Well, I am not sure whether such a term already exists, but in my mind, these machines are those who are not instructed as to what situations they may possibly encounter in their lifecycle, nor are they told what they may do when such situations arise. These machines are expected to experience, learn and adapt to these situations, and should they ever come across the same situation again, act according to what they have experienced before. It is clear to even the lay mind that the machines of our day, such as the computer, the telephone, etc. are very much non-adaptive machines, for they need to be told everything. In this very significant fact lies the reason why the human race is superior to machines. I wouldn’t say that we are superior to animals, because they too have the power to adapt, just their ability to retain these experiences may seem limited as compared to us.

In this context, whenever I read of someone researching in the field of AI (Artificial Intelligence to the uninitiated), I would be confused. Is man so noble a creature to bestow a power that makes him so unique, the power to learn of one’s own volition, upon insentient machines? For when such powers be resident in the metallic hearts of robots and machines, what would the uniqueness of the human race, and why would the earth feel the need to retain them? These questions troubled me, and still do, though not to such an extent. For the reduction of my doubts, I am eternally grateful to a most dear friend of mine, who explained to me that the uniqueness of man does not lie merely in the fact that he is able to learn of his own choice, rather it lies more importantly in the fact that he is able to discern between right and wrong, a power that no other being on this earth possesses to such a large extent.

So long as man confers mere learning powers onto machines, no harm is done, for still man makes the decision as to what the machine may learn and what it may not. But should the discretionary powers be bequeathed to machines, then what? Where shall the human race go from there? Such are the questions that the human race shall have to live with for all eternity.

Is the Nation turning its back on the Father?

Yesterday India celebrated, or at least I think it must have celebrated, the 136th birth anniversary of its greatest child, a child whom it honoured by calling him the Father of the Nation. This it did, not because he was a member of some aristocratic family to whom the nation was indebted, not because he was one of its former Prime Ministers or Presidents, but because through his simplicity, he drove the colonial powers from the shores of India, unveiling a new sun of freedom and hope. For achieving his goals, he didn't take recourse to arms a la Bolivar; for him, to be able to befriend even one's enemy is the finest outcome that can emerge out of a struggle. But, even in that, there is no paradox, no contradiction.

Befriending someone never means one gives up one's right to criticise and to question the actions of that friend. So it was even with satyagraha. Only perhaps the mode of criticism was starling different from the rest. The revolutionaries before him, and even after his struggle showed results, always believed that criticism masked in violence is often the best understood. They may be right, but in the end, such comprehension is filled with rancour, and as such can never end well.

That his aim was appreciated by not only those to whom he spoke and preached personally, but appealed to all across the globe, is a mark of the universality of his message. Sometimes, it makes no sense to take recourse to violence, what matters is you must never abandon the truth. Whenever I hear the word 'satyagraha', I tend to feel it means 'insistence on the pursuit of the truth', as in 'satya' or truth' + 'agraha' or 'insistence'. And where truth is the aim, the final goal, no wrong can ever occur in the path.

And yet, 57 years after his demise, the Nation stands accused of ignoring the man, in whose grief it cried out that the light had been extinguished. It is accused of forgetting his message of sarva dharma samabhava, and adopting the rubbish termed 'secularism' nowadays. It stands guilty of ignoring his insistence on a value-based system, preferring a materialistic society instead. His appeals to his colleagues to abandon self-gratification and to embrace the greater good of humanity have gone unheard. His 'heartlands' remain as they were in his days, and cry out seeking redemption of his promises to them. Promises of a new dawn which would come along with independence. Promises of liberation from shackles innumerable, once the foreigners left.
Promises that now bite. Because whence we were ruled by the British, our under-development could at least be attributed to their inherent desire to enrich their own nation. But now when our own rule us, what reason can we attribute to this? I am sure that if today he were to live, he would jump into the ocean, and cry out, 'Fie be upon me, for I have begotten the demon!' Simply singing 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram' on the 2nd of October is not enough; to truly honour him, we must live his dreams, his dreams of an India, where there would exist no divide, where religion would be a source of healing, not of pain. Until then, every moment the flame flickers at Rajghat, we mock the sacrifice, guidance & leadership of a man whom history knows as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a man whom the world knows as MAHATMA GANDHI.

Reservation for women: An appeal in defense

Affirmative action, or in the Indian parlance, reservation, must be comprehended to be not so much as an accusation of inferiority aimed at the intended recipients as much as a desperate attempt by a State, that is obliged to work towards the development of the people, and not just work at that, but also be seen to work, to ensure the aims and objectives of social justice.
Why such aims and objectives necessitate such desperate measures isn’t hard to answer. We are what our society makes us out to be. When social prejudices and biases can derail even the most well-intentioned reform schemes, then how can social justice be achieved? The answer lies through the forceful intervention of the State.

Society contends that each and every member of its fold possesses the sacred right of representation. On the basis of this representation, it then presumes to accord legitimacy to the State. And yet, when such representation fails to echo the true character of the society, choosing instead to mirror the jaundiced and bigoted visions of a few demented sections, can such a representation lay the foundation, a strong one at that, of a legitimate and powerful State? In truth, in a nation of one billion, in the highest legislative body in the country, there exist less than 15 percent female legislators, when the proportion of women in the entire population is nearly half; it speaks volumes of the “representative” nature of the legislature.

And so, the State must assume for itself the right to impose on a generally unwilling society a reformative process to achieve justice and to right all that must be deemed wrong by the laws of natural justice, until such time as when the society comprehends genuinely the need for the said process. Such an enlightened society is capable of executing or rather meeting such egalitarian objectives on its own, without intervention by the State.

It is an important element of affirmative action that merit alone is insufficient. A policy based only on merit would not recognize past - and continuing- injustices that may hinder the realization of their full potential by disadvantaged groups. In many cases, what we see as merit is the product of years of social and economic opportunities, so that those who have not had these opportunities may appear to lack merit.

Women have traditionally been denied access to education, and in effect, to a better and much more empowered lifestyle. That such mentalities are on the wane is a positive sign, and worth applauding, but it is important that we also investigate avenues whence we can empower the woman further. It is not merely a question of empowering members of a specific gender; rather it is of recognizing that an empowered woman implies an empowered family. We have the example of the local self-government bodies, wherein nearly one third of the seats are reserved for women.

A study indicates that women representatives are usually more responsive to their duties, more attuned to the sensitivities of their constituents, and more focused on meeting the core requirements of sanitation, public health, education, water supply, and basic infrastructure. Such representatives also are more amenable to proposals for investments in entrepreneurial ventures, as also for limiting or even eliminating the influence of alcohol and other intoxicants on the family. That doesn't go to say that male representatives are boors, and drunkards; it's just that such empowered women tend to pass the fruits around, rather than hoarding it.

And yet even while we observe all these statistics, we must never lose sight of the fundamental question: Is reservation for women in today’s age justified? My take on this contentious issue is an emphatic ‘yes’.
With all due respect, I do think that India’s women deserve this legislation. Merely the fact women may seem to avail of such reservation to enter the legislatures in no way implies that they aren’t equal to men. On the contrary, when I observe the statistics, I feel that they are more justified, more qualified to be in the legislatures than men. And yet, I cannot bring it upon myself to ignore the urban-rural divide.

Women in urban India are more liberated in the economic sense of the word and perhaps even in the social sense as well. I don’t wish to imply that city women are not restricted like rural women; just that the restrictions are different, and perhaps lesser. Rural India to this day remains a predominantly feudal society, whence the birth of a boy child merits celebration, while that of a girl child means grieving. That this society chooses to deny its girls access to education, basic healthcare, employment opportunities, etc., in my opinion, is one of the primary reasons why rural India remains underdeveloped. Admitted, this situation doesn’t exist in cities. But, on the basis of certain kinds of freedom enjoyed by urban women, it cannot be said that women as a whole have managed to win equality.

Reservation, in any form, for any group, is never, or rather should never be intentioned to last forever. A carte blanche is not my idea of a beneficial proposal for either the women of India or for India per se. But as always the devil lies in the implementation. We must understand that reservation alone also is not the panacea to the problems. We need to create more awareness, and also enlighten our people. An enlightened implementation of the reservation policy may ensure that our society is sensitized to the issues facing the female population as a whole as a result of its prejudices and biases, and as such these prejudices and biases are discarded.

Anger at reservations is common, but such anger may be better channelled when it is targeted at the real problem. The seats that will become subject to State policy on reservation may prove to be miniscule in comparison to the daily deprivations that hundreds of millions of women endure. The simple truth is, reservations on the basis of gender happen far more as a social custom than through state policy. Those reservations of opportunities by custom are the larger phenomena; if we are going to be angry about reservations, we should begin by first attacking those. Only when we have made significant progress in erasing reservations stemming from social customs can we honestly focus on gender equality as a State policy.

Merely because the prevalent reservation policies have been misused is no reason, or justification to deny the State the opportunity to use the same tool for achieving some semblance of gender equality. Misuse is an act of the People, not of the State. A responsible and responsive citizenry will or rather should be able to appreciate that reservation will succeed only when those for whom it is intentioned are the true recipients of its fruits. This appreciation should arise out of a greater realization that the empowerment of the recipients will only lead to an improvement in the general standard of our society. If the political system is seen to misuse the provisions of the policy for their own vested interests, then this responsive citizenry must use its powers and purge the system of such miscreants, whose sole aim is self-gratification. If a certain section of the citizenry is seen to abuse the terms of the policy, then through their representatives, the remaining electorate is entitled to the right to purge the policy of such provisos which are being misused. Whether or not it chooses to exercise these powers and rights is solely its prerogative.

We may be diverting our attention from the meritocracy goal for a moment, but when by the effective and efficient implementation of the reservation policy, we would have in effect eliminated the very need for it, that day, truly we shall be justified in terming our state a meritocracy, not so much a result of the impositions of the State, as the efforts of the People.

Ala re ala, Govinda ala!

Today marks the birth of the most beloved of all the deities in the Hindu pantheon, Lord Krishna. This Godly figure, however, isn't distant and forbidding like the rest, maybe that's why He's so loved. And love is a more appropriate emotion for Him than mere veneration, because He is the god that resides where there is love.

Throughout the tale of His life, He never bothered about the ethics of dharma, or the fairness of religion with respect to his actions. That doesn't mean that He was as bad as those whom He opposed, just that He exemplified the view that 'Do unto others as they do unto you'. Those who know no right, who care not for niceties, for justice and righteousness, cannot be reformed using soft words and diplomacy. They must be dealt with in the same manner, as they treat others, for in that they realise the fundamental lesson: It could happen to us. A perpetrator of evil, when faced with a similar situation dawning upon himself, realises the folly of his actions, and is expected to reform. Krishna is the epitome of this thought process.

For me, when asked to choose between Rama and Krishna, the choice is a difficult one to make, and for many reasons. While Rama is the ideal man, His conduct with respect to His wife in the culmination of His legend brings to fore the inherent hypocrisies of the Hindu religion, which on one hand praises Him for his steadfast devotion to all that is righteous, and on the other hand, through His actions, sanctions the mistreatment of one's beloved for the safety of the throne. And there Krishna scores. Because His entire life was a game, meant at outwitting those who tormented their fellow beings, at their own play, using their own methods, His life isn't a contradiction; rather it's a open book.

One can search the ancient tomes, the songs of yore, the dramas, and one will find many references to Rama, and yet one can find more fond references to Krishna. His love for Radha, though in the end left unrequited, is an immortal tale of how love must be. His heroic rescue of the lady Rukmini and Hs subsequent marriage is an Indian girl's version of the tale of the knight in shining armour. His surrender of the throne to the aging Ugrasena, his great uncle, showed the purity of Hs character. His genius at defeating His enemies is the Indian equivalent of Sun Tzu, maybe even more the better because in the end, He always got the girl.

His guidance to the troubled Arjuna serves as the message that the Divine wishes to give to humanity: 'Do your duty fearlessly, without any expectation of results, and I shall manage the rest.' His protection of Draupadi, when her own wedded husbands failed to do so, speaks of the power of devotion. His city of Dwaraka, the impregnable island city, is a testament to the greatness of the skills of the Gods, and to that of the genius that is inherent in the Indian people.

In truth, Krishna is not a God. He is one of us, a common man, who laughs and cries with us, who plays with us, and frolics in our glee. He is present in each and every child whose aim is to break the Handi. His antics are the stuff of childhood lore, which every mother prays her own child emulate. His bravado is the type that young teenagers aim for, consciously or unconsciously. And His love is the reward that we all desire, for in the end,

'Who the Lord loves, no grief shall touch,
Who the Lord protects, no harm shall come unto,
For the Lord is the Supreme,
And in Him, we place our lives.'

Rantings of an inconsequential lot!

I just was going through the newspaper, when I came across an article on the latest fatwa issued by the Darul-Uloom Deoband seminary in Uttar Pradesh. The seminary, once known as a vanguard of modernism amidst a sea of fundamentalism, has finally succumbed. Of late, its edicts have bordered on being retrograde and outright ridiculous.

The edict in the Imrana case was shocking, nay deplorable. That a man can rape his daughter-in-law, and then be "rewarded" by a clean chit, as also by his own daughter-in-law's hand in marriage, is mind-boggling. And why, pray did the seminary issue such directions? Because, in its warped vision, the daughter-in-law is, I quote, "haram", for her own legally married husband, and should he insist on identifying himself as her husband, he may as well accept excommunication. For one moment, even if we neglect the stupidity of the seminarians, then we must feel appalled at the sheer cowardice of the husband. You loved a woman, if not loved, you cared for her as she cared for you, and now just because some bearded goat thinks it fit to deny you your marital rights on the grounds that your father has had carnal relations with her, you simply are not expected to accept it lying down. The husband ought to have denied the seminary the right to decide what and how the matter was to be resolved. He ought to have stood by his wife, and pressed the administration to punish his erring father, excommunication be damned.

But no, the husband simply bent. And that is a great defeat, for those who sought to portray an image of modernity amidst conservatism, of the Muslim community. For a community to accept this so silently, is to acknowledge and affirm its support for it.

The seminary's latest salvo was on the Women's Representation Bill, which has been in limbo for as long as I can remember. From what I read, and from whatever I understood from that, I was shocked. The seminary seemed to imply that for women to contest elections, or to aim to represent people in a popular assembly is un-Islamic. Even if they were to accept the validity of their claim to contest elections, women must stay within purdah the whole time, and must delegate to their men folk the right to represent even after getting elected. Well, I cannot comprehend why any Muslim woman would want to contest elections, if such an activity were going contrary to the tenets of her faith.
The truth is that the Muslim community is now fed up of these seminarians, and their bigoted vision. No religion can claim to be the true representative of God on earth, so long as it denies women, one half of God's greatest creation, humankind, and their rightful place in society. And if a religion does not hold this "divine" license, well then why bother with the mutterings of its leaders?

The environment be damned!

Recently the Environment Minister in Maharashtra spoke of selling all the open spaces in Mumbai in the control of the State Government to raise funds to help get over the near 1,000 crores deficit. God knows, where these politicians get their brainwaves from? Sell the open spaces, and do what? Live in a concrete jungle? I'd rather the State get its money from the citizens than from such avenues.
A city's lungs are its open spaces. These absorb light, heat, and keep the area generally cooler than the other area. Open spaces aren't just important for meteorological purposes, they are the indicators of the culture of the people. Shivaji Park is the symbol of Maharashtrian pride, a popular venue of the annual Ramleela, and the bastion of Hindu nationalism. It has also contributed to the Indian cricket spectra by way of the luminaries who broke their first bats on this ground. And this hallowed space is sought to sold for a few pieces of silver?
The environment minister is renowned for supporting causes that definitely harm the environment. And this proposal is definitely aimed at the builder cabal. Maybe, the minister's vision of Mumbai entails having each and every square inch of free land occupied by structures, its people dull and listless. Whether we will allow him to dream on is for the people of Mumbai to decide.

The end of an era!

Yesterday, my great grand mother passed away. And to say the truth, I am sure that she would be relieved. All of 90 years, she had lived her life with the zest and enthusiasm of a teenager. She loved sweets, and sometimes, even stole them when we weren't watching. Her mastery over all affairs, be they related to sports, politics, or plain religion, was simply mind-boggling, especially given the fact that she just had a basic education. Her love for cooking, music, the arts, embroidery and other artistic pursuits was a testament to her genius.

However of late, she was ailing. Her eyes were failing her, her ears had long started to desert her, and after a fall in the first week of August, her memory also began to disappear gradually. She had a chronic cough, something that had the capacity to keep her awake for nights. And yet, she was cheerful. Maybe it was her love for life that sustained her. Maybe it was her love for reading.
When her eyes were so clouded that she couldn't read any more, she was reduced to half. Her time simply wouldn't pass. And often she would say, "My dears, give me leave to go now." And that breaks the heart now.

And yet, I am glad she went without pain, in her sleep, without any suffering. And in that, I praise the Lord. For her death was expected, as is all of ours. That which is born must die, and that which dies, will be reborn. So, her death wasn't a surprise in itself. It is just that we never expected she would go so soon. I cried for just two minutes, and then the tears didn't flow. It wasn't because I have become apathetic. It was because in the end, she was relieved. She would have been pleased to go this way.

As she lay there in the hall, bedecked in a sari her late brother had so fondly given her, and which she herself was fond of, she just seemed to have gone into an eternal slumber, a peaceful rest. In fact, she was so tranquil that it seemed possible that she may get up any moment, with a mischievous smile, muttering, "I was just testing you, whether you people can organise things properly."
Her neatness in life, her zeal for life, its joys, and its pleasures is a continued inspiration for me and my family. To say that we cannot forget her is to quote a cliché, and yet, today I am realising what it means to lose someone close.
In conclusion, I remember her words, when I once had met her, and that I did very frequently.

She said, "I have done so much, I have enjoyed so much. And yet, I am still to do so much. Trust me, I shall do all that I couldn't do in this birth in the next. Trust me."

Amma, I trust you, and pray that you come to my house, so that I can care for you just as you cared for me.

Where the mind is without fear...

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
-Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore always had a way with words. No wonder, they gave him the Nobel for Gitanjali. His plea to the Almighty resounds even in today's mindless cackle and cacophony, merely because it's a entreaty from the heart, from the soul. Every Independence and Republic Day, people salute the flag, sing patriotic songs, make great speeches about freedom, the sacrifices that our freedom fighters made, and how we must safeguard it. And that's that. No really, I am not accusing the Indian people of being unpatriotic. But there's more to patriotism than saying "Mera Bharat Mahaan".

Making big speeches about freedom, its importance, and our duties towards the nation is all well and good, but we must comprehend this basic fact. No freedom is absolute. No liberty is ever unrestricted. It is an irony, but it is the truth. Mind you, liberalism is all nice on paper, but in principle, its conservatism that's fashionable. And why wouldn't it be so? Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said, "Unrestrained freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership, because newspapers mostly transmit in a forceful and emphatic way those opinions, which do not too openly contradict their own, and that general trend." If the so-called vanguards of freedom, of liberty should resort to such double standards, then why single out the bureaucracy or the politicians for criticism?

Just on Sunday, two young ladies were attacked by a drug addict, a morally deranged individual, in a prominent tourist spot in Mumbai. One lady had a throat cut, while the other suffered wounds on her head, and her hands. And while this happened, what were our "free" people doing? Watching the tamasha, as one would say. Just two gentlemen had the sense to attempt to assist the victims. And what was the press doing while this was happening? Clicking away to glory! This isn't freedom, this isn't independence. This is a mockery of all that those involved in the freedom struggle bore for us. That in such a prominent spot a man could so brazenly attack a woman, and then proceed to knife her companion, and that no one should even bother to assist them, is not just shocking, it's downright deplorable.
And that the companion yelled out, "We are not foreigners. We are Indians.", hoping that this might elicit some assistance, is to me the most shameful of all things. That someone in need has to convince you of his/her identity before you decide to help him/her speaks a lot about your character. And yet we exult over being independent for 58 years!

Tagore's poem remains a hope that things will change, that they will improve. Maybe things will progress from just lip service to true altruism. We cannot afford to wait another 58 years for that.

Out of the blue!

I usually do not go all out against anyone. Maybe, it's because I feel there has got to be another side of the coin, the side which I may not have seen, and having not seen it, my decision is based only on what I perceive. To my great satisfaction, this policy has always served me well, well maybe not always, but generally yes. But then, there are always exceptions to the rule, aren't they?

We have a new Principal in college, and for future reference I am referring to him as P2. Well, P2 is rather young, as compared to our previous principal. The previous chap, for all his work, was often criticised for being dictatorial, even tyrannical in his administration of the institute. Somehow, I failed to understand where he overdid it. As far as my observation goes, his actions and statements were generally logical, and made a lot of sense. Once in a while, when he did go haywire, one could comprehend the pressure that he was undergoing, and should ideally give him the benefit of doubt. I am not posing as a apologist, nor am I pleading for his reinstatement. A chapter once closed is best left so. Tampering with the course of Time is neither easy nor desirable.

But what I felt was that P1 (the previous principal) was a nice guy, really, and it just required one to know him a tad better to understand and maybe even forgive his whimsical behaviour. Whatever his faults, still he was rather polite, understanding, and in some cases, even contributive to the attempt to solve problems inherent in a college.

Given that I have displayed such affection for P1, one may wonder whether I reserve the same for P2 as well. Well, I DON'T! Believe me, I have nothing against him as a person. Maybe if I get to know him a little better, then maybe I may start liking him. But P1 was special. And so in my eyes, I cannot accept anyone other than him as my head. And heck, where's even the comparison?

P1 was a tall, couldn't exactly call him strapping, but yes, impressive personality he surely had. When he walked in a room, one couldn't help looking at him, even if to curse him. He had nearly 40 years of teaching and administrative experience behind him, and this showed in his approach to problems, and even the day to day running of affairs.
P2 on the hand has such a personality that simply blends in the crowd. If I didn't know better, I could even mistake him for another professor. His age, rather his youth, is a disadvantage at times, because then he depends on others to make even the simplest of decisions. And most of all, when any person is invested with such power at a diminutive age, it is bound to go to his head. That individual desires acknowledgement, not as a product of respect, but of that of fear. And that is a dangerous thing.

For the last two years, the students of my college are involved in litigation against the college authorities. Never in the tenure of P1 was our struggle ever used to obstruct our extracurricular activities. And yet now in the final year, P2 actually wanted our placement process to be delayed until such time when our litigation is completed. Such underhanded tactics, and I am not afraid to use that word, are simply unbecoming of a person to whom one must look up to in respect and admiration.

Maybe he had some obligations, some compulsions, but if he would have cared to explain them to us, there may not have so much rancour amongst us. Admitted, even if he would have spoken of this to us, we would have objected, but still his involvement in this drama would be clearer. For now, he's the protagonist, the villain of the piece.

I now fear only for those who succeed me in this college, for in the presence of such an uncommunicative and boorish head, the institute can go nowhere but down, and I pray, that it does not.