moronic musings

Somnatha - III

2012-02-06T23:53:00.001+05:30

Some books I read with a prior opinion, Romila Thapar "Somnatha the many voices of a history" is such a book. But I must say I'm mellowed after reading it but still I find it difficult to agree to her thesis in substance. The book is an attempt at a major revision of the accepted history of Somnatha raid by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026 AD. Going by her own admission she doesn't try to recreate the entire event but mainly attempts to understand different voices emanating from various sources. What the book tries to analyze is essentially this - was the raid of Somnatha by Mahmud in 1026 really a seminal event which created the most inveterate of antagonisms between Hindus and Muslims? She analyzes five different kinds of sources 1. Turko-Persian 2. Sanskrit Inscriptions around somnatha 3. Oral traditions 4. Courtly literature of Rajput kings and biographies and Jaina texts 5. Colonial interpretation

Book can be summarized in following points..
1. Religious fanaticism was not the only factor there were many equally(and perhaps more) important factors such as desire for booty, breaking hindu political backbone by destroying somnatha etc etc. Economic motives are more rigorously advanced by her predecessor - if that's the right term - Mohammad habib, she just builds upon it

2. Turko-Persian accounts mentioning the raid are often exaggerated in order to appease Caliphate so that Mahmud can get political legitimacy from the him which he subsequently did get.

3. It might well be the case that Mahmud raided Somnatha believing that its idol was actually an idol of Arab goddess Manat destruction of which was the command of prophet Mohamad himself. Therefore Somnatha was more important to the conquerors than the conquered(somnatha being only one of 12 jyotirlingas for hindus)

4. At the time of the raid Somnatha was already under repeated attacks by various local Rajas and chieftains and therefore attack on Somnatha by Mahmud left local Hindus unperturbed. An explanation which goes well with the fact that almost no sources other than Turko-Persian accounts(chronicles of the conquerors) mentions the raid.

5. Activity of raiding or building the temples in those times was carried out in order to gain political legitimation, Rajas funded construction of temples to assert their authority and legitimation and by the same token Mahmud's raid should be viewed as an 'inverse legitimation' that is legitimation through destruction

The author is an eminent historian of India and a authority in ancient India but that no more impresses me after reading this book. Much can be said against her thesis...

1. Her's is a two pronged technique firstly she tries to diminish credibility of Turko-Persian chronicles by pointing to the contradictions in it. And secondly she tries to increase the reliance on other sources like hagiographies and epics and all that. This is against the classical approach where Islamic chronicles are considered more reliable than indigenous accounts which are full of myths and contradictions. In both this approach I think she is mistaken the contradictions in Turko-persian accounts are contradictions of details but in essence they inevitably agree. For example Turko-Persian accounts mention one fresh raid in every half century some say a mosque was built at the place of temple but all agrees that raid did occur different thing if mosque was constructed or not. And about other sources I think there is some indirect evidence as elucidated in earlier articles(see Somnatha-I, somnatha-II).

2. Arab chronicles maintains that Manat(arab goddess) was sent to Somnatha because it was a safe place for idols similarly Jaina texts also mention that jaina idols were sent to Somnatha for safety(probably from Turks). If raids on somnatha were so common that Mahmud's raid was considered minor irritant then why was this place considered safe?

3. If there were other motives(apart from loot and iconoclasm) such as political legitimacy and all that then why did Turks keep on raiding somnatha repeatedly particularly when after raids Mahmud restored local hindu kings? It seems rather odd that Mahmud was keen on destroying political symbols of hindus and glorify it when his actual political interests in India was so little that he didn't even care to install a Muslim ruler.

4. She stresses too much on Sufi stories regarding Mahmud many of which twists the story by asserting that Mahmud was a pious ruler and attacked somnath to emancipate people of somnatha from tyrant hindu raja. This must not be confused with views of hindus, these stories are propagated by sufi saints who might be familiar with Turko-persian sources(author admits this possibility). Sufi saints were missionaries also, they wanted to convert people through persuasion, in doing so it was necessary to create a positive face of Islam and while doing so they have to re-brand Mahmud and cast a benign image of Mahmud, sufi stories regarding Mahmud is but an example of such endeavors.

3. Then comes the confusion created by Tantrik tradition stories, here they seem to praise Mahmud as a brave man(though no mention of raid). This I cant understand but surely this must not mean that hindus praised Mahmud for his iconoclasm or a decisive evidence that hindus have forgotten raids by him.(this perplexity can be better understood with what is discussed in Somnatha-I, Mahmud survives in oral traditions long enough even when intermediate ages show no mention of him, this means penetration of Turko-persian or sufi sources in oral traditions and also means that hindus didnt have any direct memory of the even but that doesn't mean that the anguish created by the event had subsided- it might have been transformed from a person to a religion i.e. from Mahmud to Islam in general)

4. There is another approach that I cant agree to. She(all marxist historian in general) argues that the concept of the Hindu as a monolithic identity(like Islam and Christianity) is fundamentally flawed, that hindus didn't have any common identity they were divided and known by their castes,varnas etc and 'hinduism' is more of a convenient label. This I agree wholeheartedly. Modern idea of a religion stems from our understanding of religions of book like Islam,Judaism and Christianity all of which have a high level of ideological uniformity. On the other hand there is almost nothing that cements all hindus in one frame. So a freshness in attitude is indispensable to understand Indian history. But this conceptualization should not be selectively applied, each hypothesis must be re-examined whenever religious factor appear to influence order of events. This is not what the author does, she invokes the idea of nonuniform 'hinduism' only when it aids her thesis. For example she lays too much stress on hindu kings and bramhins allowing(grants were also given) Arab traders to build their mosques in and around somnatha in 13th century, this she asserts is a sign that there was no animosity between hindus and muslims. This is a flawed conclusion. An ordinary hindu has nothing to do with hinduism as such his only religious concern lies in temple rituals and following caste norms, and in this a mosque doesn't give any threat to his limited religious objectives. And for priests there was no reason to feel threatened by Muslims because their thin number would mean that muslims will never be able to compete for state patronage. Here the primary reason is lack of any zeal to proselytize. For a muslim mindset(or any religion who believes in proselytizing) a center of worship of some other religion is something undesirable, because in his ideal world there is no other religion but Islam. Hinduism simply lacks this incentive, their outlook is fundamentally different. A merchant is both a merchant and a religious man, in his mind there is division between dharma and artha, so he wont mind doing business with an Arab merchant(as prevalent in somnatha of that era) but at the same time due to his dharma he wont eat food cooked by him(as mentioned by Al beruni in his Kitab-ul-hind, he was contemporary of Mahmud). A muslim mindset cant comprehend this for him Islam is not just a religion but a politico-economic doctrine(I am just comparing without implying any moral overtone). This lack of dominantly religious outlook- the division between karma and artha - helps us to reconcile many a contradictions.

Let me explain it a bit further, Al biruni's account goes diametrically opposite to what Thapar tries to explain through indigenous sources. Al-biruni is sometimes called 'first indologist', his erudition is evident even if you read a few pages from his book on India. So if you go against his observations you have to explain it satisfactorily why he was mistaken. Sadly, Thapar doesn't try to explain his observations in any serious way. Al-biruni makes following observation relevant to our discussion(he writes this in 1030 a few years after Mahmud raid) 1. Somnatha economy is devastated due to raid 2. Raid has created the most inveterate antagonism between hindus and muslims 3. Hindus find Turks and their customs so alien that they frighten their children with us. Thapar says that economic devastation of somnatha was temporary and Al-biruni was talking about brahmans when he used the word Hindus. The contradiction completely escapes her that those grants to the mosques she is so obsessed to talk about were provided by these very bramhans and those sanskrit inscriptions too were written at the behest of these bramhans only.

Addendum:-
om namo adesha guru ka,
turkani ka put mahmanda bir,
nari ka put narsingha bir,
age chale mahmanda bir,
piche chale narsingha bir. - A couplet from Tantrik tradition

Somnatha - ll

2012-02-01T22:16:00.001+05:30

This should be read in continuation of Somnatha-I

A college going Muslim girl from Ahmedabad said she had started wearing veil- the symbol of her faith after Godhra riots(apparently telling the government "you killed muslims I am muslim do whatever you want"). It didn't deter her that she had never worn a veil before and it will only increase her discomfort without creating any problem for government. Such themes are understandable, Government was held responsible for attacking people of a particular identity and as a result that identity became more assertive and more crystallized. In such events fear of losing one's identity makes him more assertive about it. There are other examples of such themes, importance of vegetarianism and non-violance increased when jainism threatened hindu faith, caste system became more rigid after the rise of Buddhism, Dharmashashtras and Manusmritis were written to counter the effects of increasing urbanization In this background I find it easy to understand why temple building activities increased after the raids of Mahmud Ghazni, it was a peculiar kind of resistance not unlike that of an anxious Muslim girl. As I understand it the author(R.Thapar of Somnatha many voices from a history) attributes this rise in temple building to economic prosperity of Rajas and the increasing importance of temples, but even that explanation leaves unanswered the question why temples were increasingly more important. Unlike author I tend to see even this activity as an 'epics of resistance'.

Somnatha - I

2012-01-30T22:40:00.002+05:30

When Mahmud of Ghazni raided Somnatha and desecrated the temple, what was the subsequent reaction from the local people? how did hindus view that event? how did they come to terms with it? After Ghazni's raid he had been and still continues to be hailed as a champion of Islam, as a holy warrior who brought Islam in India. His raids are glorified in words and repeated in deeds throughout the medieval Islamic world. Turko-Persian accounts mention the event in gory details. If we call this 'epics of conquest' what were the corresponding 'epics of resistance' from hindus of the time? what was the retaliation?

There is a serious lack of contemporary accounts to begin with and that hindus have no sense of history writing complicates it further, what is available is the inscriptions and texts from about a century onwards of the event and there seem to be a mysterious silence about the event. Almost all accounts mentioning somnath apart from Turko-persian ones don't mention the raid at all. But one unusual 'memory' manifests itself repeatedly. One inscription dating the reconstruction of the temple in 12th century(that is more than a century after the raid) attributes the dilapidated temple(and hence the need to reconstruct) to 'Kaliyuga' where there is moral decay,rajas dont protect their temples and administrators are corrupt. There are stories saying that temples will continue to be destroyed in Kaliyug. In one such story from 15th century speaks of a dialogue between Narada and Vayu, a question is posed that, if an image, when consecrated, becomes the habitat of the deity, how can it be destroyed by the Yavans(meaning Turks here)? Why do the gods not prevent this? The answer covers more than one facet. It is said that there has been and will continue to be a conflict between devas and the daityas and other evil ones. The Yavanas are a part of this conflict, which will continue until the end of this Kaliyuga cycle. The current Yavanas are presumably repeating what the earlier ones have done and doubtless the Yavanas still to come will be doing the same. The Yavanas destroy images as do the asuras, and devas do not prevent this, since the conflict is eternal and cannt be stopped. It is now the Kaliyga and iconoclasm is to be expected because the world turns upside down in this age. The Yavanas are already carrying the burden of being cursed. Whenever rulers are lax in their duties or devoid of faith in Shiva, the Yavanas will break images. Fatalism is complete in this story, no one is thinking of fighting against the Yavanas and save the temples, all they are prepared to do is to rebuild the temples once the Yavanas have their rampage spree. In another story it is said that due to too many good people heavens are overflowing and then gods decide to destroy the temples themselves and thereby corrupting people so that they become less virtuous and heavens become less crowded again. In yet another story it is explained that in the Kaliyuga gods leave the idol so it simply doesn't matter if you break them or worship them. How utterly resigned to fate! Am I using this myths selectively or is it really that after having failed to resist the Turks, after having failed to protect themselves, Hindus resorted to mythmaking to assuage their trauma? Is this the sign of Trauma? To me it seems rather clear that these are the 'epics of resistance' represented not through defiance and glories of war but slowly and subtly through mending inner beliefs in such a way that not only tolerates but accepts the mayhem of the outer world no more in your control. Myth-making is effectively used as a balm to the wounded conscience.

Romila Thapar poses a question somewhere in her book("Somnatha the many voices of a history") "why the saviour figure of Kalkin, the tenth and last Vaishnava avatara, is not invoked to counter the Turkish attacks on temples?", she considers only two admissible answers to her quest "..those so traumatized either exorcise it by referring to the experience again and again to expurgate their fear; or, alternately, they suppress it by withdrawing and refusing to have anything to do with those who have perpetrated the trauma." No there can be other possible reactions if only we are ready to understand their semantics.

Regressive step?

2011-12-09T23:51:00.000+05:30

Ok so there are talks of 'prescreening' content on social networking sites like Facebook and Google with government throwing its weight to put censorship and IT companies refusing to buckle. Shashi tharoor wrote an article 'Virtual reality' (deccon chronicle, 9 Dec,2011) on this controversy. His defense of gov's position is neither consistent nor logically sound.

First as common place among apologists, he empathizes importance of freedom of speech and then starts justifying moves which are indistinguishable from a moderate censorship. He begins by saying that all societies exercise some kind of control on freedom of speech as with US where any racist remarks are de facto bans. But then he ventures from social conventions to government policies arguing that government policies also should curb freedom the way social conventions do. If social traditions can so smoothly be allowed to convert itself into laws then we would never have got rid of untouchability for example, no denying social traditions are a factor for consideration but there are other factors which easily supersede local cultures, and Tharoor wont deny that freedom of expression is such a first principle.

Meaning of freedom of speech does change from place to place but then we can always tell what interpretation is progressive or what is not. Surely Tharoor wont say that freedom in china is just a different kind of freedom and not a regressive one. Western form of freedom of speech is more mature than Indian just as Indian form is more mature than Pakistan or China.

Further he argues if there are regulations on print media, broadcast media then why only internet media is exempted? well even in those media trend is that regulating becomes more and more lax except recent attempts by the same gov to tighten regulations again. Additionally sites like FB and google too are regulated by respective organizations.

Then he gives the example of 'shouting fire in a theater when there is no fire' to empathize again that freedom cant be absolute. Now this shouting-fire metaphor is borrowed from a US SC judgment way back in 1919 which convicted an anti-graft propagandist during world war-I. He uses the analogy wrongly, the judgment also stressed 'clear and present danger' criteria to curb freedom of speech. And in present context where pre-screening is disputed, the danger caused by FB is neither clear(all abstract arguments that it will hurt religious sentiments and all that) nor present(not a remote possibility of FB inciting a riot). If something from US is to be put in context it should be 1969 judgment which acquitted a Ku Klux Klan member upholding freedom of expression despite organization's open provocation to bring down gov through violent means and threats to Jews and niggers(acquittal despite another fact that Ku Klux Klan was a headache for gov sort of semi terrorists)

He is not yet satisfied with metaphors he puts another extremely abstract metaphor, 'match stick near a petrol storage'. Now here is a problem, one can also argue that its not the match stick only that can be blamed but the combustibility of the liquid poses a greater danger. A Gandhian analogy inevitably comes to my mind, he believed that lasting Bramhcharya cant be attained by keeping away from women it can only be achieved by cultivating mental discipline strong enough that sexuality no more troubles you. No doubt there is a dangerous immaturity in a person who will start rioting after reading a Facebook status. So instead of playing guardians of people's sentiments and creating a pampered, hypersensitive society teach them that tolerance is absolutely essential, there should be enough provocations all around that people find nothing provocative at all(case in point is Indian cinema, Delhi belly in black and white era would have sent guardians of morality into a hysteria, but see society has improved we don't feel particularly immoral after watching that movie nor do we go out and rape anyone). Only economic reforms wont do social reforms are equally important though i would hate the idea that government should play any role in such reforms but at least they should remain neutral.

Finally he concludes "I reject censorship. Art, literature and political opinion are to me sacrosanct. But publishing inflammatory material to incite communal feelings is akin to dropping a lighted match at a petrol pump", without giving any clue on how to decide/who will decide what is 'sacrosanct' and what is 'inflammatory'.

2011-03-24T00:00:00.001+05:30

In philosophy there have been two schools of thought running counter to each other, one side looks at the material world and from the uniqueness of physical truths(reality) deduces that morality and other value judgments are also of this nature. These abstractions too have eternal veracity like laws of nature. Thus a bad action is a bad action inherently, regardless of its consequences. This is a basic element of Aristotelian thought. On the contrary there goes another school of thought, it looks at the multiplicity of sense-perceptions and variety of moral values and concludes that all facts of the material world have similar multiplicity. There is no single truth(reality), sense perceptions are subjective so are the truths of material world perceived through senses. No this is not exactly like solipsism or anything of that short, because though these schools base their theory on the variety of sense perceptions, they believe that ultimate truth is one and unchangeable. Whereas here it is admitted that truths themselves have multiplicity, for example its possible that two mutually contradictory theories may be true. This I think is distinctively a Hindu philosophy(if that's a proper term), i don't remember to have come across anything like this in western philosophy(in my very limited amount of knowledge). Though this philosophy seems very innovative at first, i think it suffers from a careless metaphysical treatment, it's not well explained or not well understood if explained.

To a modern scientific mindset none of these schools may appeal, however they are very interesting and enlightening.

P.F: written a bit carelessly, may not be a very accurate classification.

On omniscience

2011-01-30T03:07:00.000+05:30

       The paradox of omniscience is a favorite argument for rationalists to bring down theistic arguments. I too have used this paradox extensively to win arguments with theist types. But I think the paradox is more interesting than what I've hitherto believed, it has greatly disturbed me since. Let me explain.

       First of all to forestall quantum mechanics from being considered as a possible explaining factor, we'll assume prevailing scientific opinion regarding quantum mechanics. The opinion is that despite our material world being non-deterministic at the sub atomic level, it does follow all the laws of classical physics at the macro or aggregate level. Therefore as the definition of classical physics goes all the events are deterministic. If a state of an object is given, theoretically we can apply laws of physics on that state of the object and determine the subsequent states of it. By this way we can predict each and every event of this world with complete accuracy, all events are knowable before it actually occurs and gets known. For example it is perfectly knowable in advance whether I'll have a glass of juice before I sleep or not. Continuing the same example the answer to this question can be given if some extraordinary super computer is given all equations regarding laws of nature and all the necessary data like the current neural network pattern of my mind, environment information, every minute information about my physiology and internal processes. The ultimate answer will be either 'yes' or 'no'. Here is the paradox, if the machine answers yes I'll go to sleep straight without having juice and if it answers 'no' than I'll have it. In both cases the assumption that 'physical world is deterministic' is violated. But if we dispense with this assumption our entire concept of classical physics will be proven erroneous. So it follows that the paradox of omniscience is not only a pastime argument to irritate theists but it also confuses our understanding of science.

       Looking on the formidable questions that this paradox can raise about science, I think I must admit a probable chance of error in the basic understanding of physics on my part. But so far as my confidence goes I've studied my high school physics too religiously to err on that and I think that for anyone who has an inkling of the philosophy of physics this problem of omniscience will be only too obvious, but surprisingly I've never come across anywhere where this question is considered.

Misunderstood atheism....

2010-08-04T20:57:00.001+05:30

Of late I've noticed a surge in the number of atheists. Their number is bound to soar still higher owing to the availability of internet and books on atheism (such as 'the god delusion' by Dawkins). The atheist communities and organizations campaigning atheism are flourishing in the western society(Estonia is a atheist majority country). I must admit that I fully admire these efforts because ultimately they help free people from the tyranny of religious dogmas and false notions of God. But despite my wholehearted appreciation somehow I find myself uncomfortable and out of place with this scheme of things, I can't identify myself with this cause or if I do identify, I cant appreciate the way it is being carried out.

I think the goal should rather be rationality or clear thinking and the atheism shall automatically follow. Fundamentally human mind has a natural inclination to avoid clear thinking and favor obscure/superficial thinking because superficial thinking is less exhausting and thus more comfortable. This is the reason why dogmas and prejudice of every kind are entertained by human mind. In such conditions whenever atheism is preached or arguments against the existence of God or arguments against the religious authority are put in front of the person and as a result he is convinced of the arguments and therefore has become an atheist, he is actually spoon-fed only. He hasn't arrived at the arguments buttressing his newly acquired atheism by reflection but by a sort of intellectual cajolery. Therefore his reluctance to clear-thinking mostly persists because a short period of spoon-feeding can't make him think clearly. This ends up in producing atheism of a fragile character, the sort of atheism which justifies the famous saying "there is no atheist in a pit". Such atheists, because of their fragile intellectual conviction, will become believers again in the moments of serious illness or when a tragedy destroys their personal life. When such kind of people free themselves from religious dogmas their irrational mind is still susceptible to seek refuge in another kind of dogmas. He might continue to believe in astrology or frighten when a cat crosses his path for instance.

This spoon-feeding must end if we are to inculcate a healthy and a lasting scientific disposition in a person. Cultivating the art of clear-thinking and acquiring a thoroughly rational mindset is the only way out. But unfortunately there is no short cut for it, you can not become rational in a day or two or by reading a book. It's a long and continual process which may consume considerable energy just like learning calligraphy or a musical instrument. But once it is learned, all dogmas will vanish into thin air including religious ones and even if he still hold the belief in religion and Gods it will be a harmless and refined predisposition the way it had been held by people like Plato, Leibnitz, Newton and likes.

Another grave objection to atheism without a rational mindset can be that it can nourish an ideology of escapism from the generally accepted moral codes,it can become a convenient way to rationalize nonconformist instincts of a person. People like Hitler are atheists not because they don't find the moral codes of religions unconvincing but because they are too cruel and too mean to conform to any kind of moral behavior except what satisfy their instinctual tendencies.

"Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents." - Bertrand Russell

dynamics of yore

2010-03-25T19:22:00.000+05:30

The key to understand human nature is wealth if you ask Marx, sex if you ask Freud and power if you ask Russell. I don't dare to take sides in this tri-party war therefore, let me bypass this war ground altogether. Coming to the contemporary writing we've got another couple of freaks who think they have found the philosopher's stone when they try to prove "People respond to incentives" in their books titled 'Freakonomics' and 'Superfreakonomics'. They say that the key to understand human nature is in understanding the incentives that lie behind their decisions. Let us give this theory a chance...

In the recorded history of India there is no evidence of any large scale forced conversion of non-muslims into Islam. With few notable exceptions all the muslim rulers of medieval India were bigots, they often plundered and destroyed shrines of other religions and many of them were cruel as well. But even Aurangzeb-the most fanatic of all didn't resort to forced conversions. Why? Perhaps the economical incentives explain this. Almost all the muslim rulers be it Delhi sultanate period or the Mughal period imposed an additional tax called 'Jaziya' on all non-Muslims and the revenue generated from that tax constituted a big chunk in income of the state. So once a Hindu is converted into Islam he ceases to be a source of additional income. And a sane ruler would not jeopardize royal treasury just for the sake of proselytizing. There was a strong disincentive for forcible conversion. Wasn't it mentioned earlier that "People respond to incentives"?

Just one thing which needs to be added is that all the mughal emperors except Aurangzeb were more like sufi muslims than like extremist mullahs. They celebrated art, music, poetry and were inclusive of non-muslims in their court. They were not so much bigoted as their stereotypical portrayals are. Hence, the reason given in above para may not be the only reason that explain the lack of forcible conversions.

nymphocracy

2010-03-08T20:50:00.000+05:30

Some secretly, some volubly but all of us agree that this world has been and probably would always be dominated by men. Women, despite relentless efforts and Utopian fantasies of feminists, have always remained subjects to men. But then how to measure the status of women in a society? Is there any way to quantify this womenfolk's position on social ladder vis-a-vis men? Frankly speaking I don't know, sociology is alien to me. But let us guess..

1. Ratio of girls to boys in schools/colleges:-
Nope, this is a bad idea. Not only in developing societies but also in developed societies education, though in varying degrees has been an instrument to get good job plus a high income husband for women.(This is how I interpret a chapter in a book titled 'superfreakonomics' which says that an average married man in US earns significantly higher than an equally qualified married woman even when childless. The authors also alludes to the same conclusion.) So this metric wont give credible estimates.

2. Number of woman employees in public and private sectors.
Public sector has women quotas so it's an enforced, state driven equality not a genuine one. Apart from that there are many kind of employments some man dominated, some woman dominated and also they all are divided into several categories which makes a straight forward analysis difficult.

Apart from these two other candidate metrics may be number of driving licenses issued to women, number of woman traveling in public/private transports but all have their shortcomings and none of them are simple.

So a crazy alternative- what about 'Number of public urinals for woman per hundred male public urinals'. Obviously these metric is simple to assess. Now let's see whether it's robust or not. Use of public urinals is directly proportional to the economic as well as social participation of either sex. If women participate in public life sufficiently and yet don't use PU's, that means that they are reluctant to use them and that's an indicator that they are still not on a par with men. Second thing is that PU metric shows no enforced equality, they are mostly built owing to necessity, not in order to flaunt government's goodwill towards women(for example in shopping malls urinals for both sexes will always be found in equal numbers- that shows that malls are frequented by both sexes alike.) We can also compare the figures from different countries because urinals like gods, are omnipresent.

PS: nymphocracy is hand-made combining nymph=a beautiful woman + cracy=a rule like in autocracy,democracy.

Less popular

2010-02-27T12:55:00.000+05:30

Remember Ruchika case and the tainted cop Rathod? Cases as such are not rare in India. A conscientious(?) student of NID felt extremely indignant over the delay in justice and attacked Rathod outside the court. The student became an overnight hero. But this is also not rare in India. But the rarest of the rare thing happened yesterday when in an interview Mrs.Sharma-mother of that (ex)NID student said "All of us get agitated about wrongs that are happening around us. But we do not go about taking law in our won hands to carrect them. Justice has to be sought in a lawful way. What Utsav did was wrong and he needs to understand that."(ref:TOI) How civil! Now this is not what you expect in India. As a rule when some criminal makes headlines, his family members always justify his crimes or tries to exculpate him in all possible ways. The responses like "my son is not a terrorist he is the victim of a conspiracy", "my daughter was not drunk above danger level when her car ran over 7 people" or "my husband is innocent he didn't rape our maid, it's all her way of black-mailing." has been in vogue. Every other educated man talks in great length about social justice and law and order and all those unattainable ethical values, we promptly excoriate every malpractice in the system. But when the burden to hold those values comes upon our shoulders we shirk. We so love double standards. The cases I cited above are just a superficial manifestation of a kind of moral bankruptcy that is rampant in our society. In such an environment the cases like Mrs.Sharma's reminds us that we are a little off the track.

"Every person carries with himself two sets of morality, one that applies to himself the other to the world"- Bertrand Russell

'Objectivism' , really objective?

2010-02-05T00:28:00.001+05:30

Ok. A few questions. What kinds of conducts are desirable, what kinds of not? what is good and what is evil? Is there a standard against which you can evaluate all actions of men? These questions are asked throughout the history despite the fact that they have been elusive all the way. Answerability of these questions depends upon the fact whether goodness or badness(or ethical values/propositions hereafter) is subjective or objective(universal), in other words is anything inherently bad or good in an action or does it depend upon psychological tendencies of a person? Those who believe that ethical values are only subjective in nature has a ready answer as to the standard for goodness, 'whims'. But those who believe otherwise, have a tough job to do. The assertion that an ethical code is rational and hence has an objective justification means that that ethical doctrine is on a par with doctrines of science, it can be proved or disproved the way scientific theories can be. If someone claims that galilio's theories are wrong just take him into a laboratory and show him some experiments that testifies galileo's conclusions. Here we reduced the claim to observable phenomena the proofs of which are directly demonstrable. In a broad sense we need exactly this kind mechanical nature in any ethical code. The obvious advantage is that in case of a conflict of opinions just go back to fundamentals and check it out what is right. Such an ethic would bridge the gap between 'the true' and 'the good'. Has such a code ever been discovered? Hardly any. Many philosophers have put rationality in ethics but hardly has any given a complete ethical doctrine on a rational basis. They hold that ethics is innately irrational. But there are heretics also who believe otherwise. Ayn Rand is the most prominent among them. She has developed a philosophical system named 'Objectivism' wherein she has developed an ethical system that is based on reason. She has written several books elaborating her philosophy but the book I've gone through is 'The virtue of selfishness'. I brief her theory in the next paragraph and if the reader is already familiar with it, he(oh the sexist language!) can skip it.

Her first task is to base her ethical doctrine on metaphysics so that she can derive her doctrine from the metaphysics(the way science is based on observable metaphysical facts). 'Survival of an individual human life' is that metaphysical primary(similar to axiom) upon which the doctrine resides, it is the scale against which all the values are tested. If a value(like honesty, cruelty,truthfulness etc..) increases the chances of survival of a person it is good or desirable and if not it's bad or undesirable for that person. Here she sets individual human life as an end in itself and all other actions are only means to achieve that end. So a person should pursue only those actions which directly or indirectly help him increase his chances of living and to determine what actions are such he must use his reason alone. A man in her theory should be selfish only but rationally so. Because reason is the only trustworthy faculty in humans, emotions are deceptive so it must be cultivated on rational basis only. Here each man will make his own policy independently but since all are guided by reason all individual policies will be in agreement with each other. So this is the essence of her theory everything else is a matter of details, for example love, honesty, cooperation, sacrifice etc can easily be justified or dismantled, without going into details of all those ratiocination I simply add that she has preserved most of the notions of goodness and rejected most of the notions of evil.

Now I happen to disagree with her completely both in essence and in details, reasons being..
1. Prudence, prudence is the tendency to forgo immediate gain in the hope of a better reward in future. For example a farmer will work all the day in the field in order to cultivate a crop which will give him substantial reward in future when he sells it. Prudence is what distinguishes a civilized person from an aborigine. But prudence comes in all shapes and sizes, it's a spectrum, which degree of prudence you prefer is a wholly subjective matter. For example I may save none from my salary(presently none) if I see fit and someone may save a large portion of his salary if he sees fit, you can't say which one is rationally better. So, a less prudent thief can always think of a short term gain, and rob a bank or a soft target rather than thinking that he is spoiling society and in a long term he may be the subject of same treatment, or what would happen to his self-esteem and all that intellectual rubbish. According to Rand's theory he is licensed to do it because it will increase his survival chances. All evils are justified likewise. This is inevitable because the theory includes society only as an add-on to it not as an integral part. In a nutshell the theory is wholly depended upon the individual interests no significance is given to the society as a collective whole. She seems to have realized it but has deliberately ignored it.

2. Suicides are strictly unjustified according to the theory. See suicides are primarily a priority given to one's psychology over physical existence. So if I commit suicide it's because I find my life unbearable mentally(I'm not talking euthanasia which is the special case of suicide). In Rand's theory life precedes emotions because emotions are means to an end that is 'preservation of life'. To an anti-suicidist it may seem valid, but then take the case of a husband risking his own life to save his drowning life or the case of a father sacrificing his life to save his child. All this life sacrifices are unjustified because it takes life which is the only end. She herself concludes that life sacrifices are justified in above cases, but such conclusions do not follow from her theory.

3. She advocates capitalism in absolute lassis-faire(spelling mistake), means absolutely no control over economic activity by the government. Well, only stock-market giants and their likes would celebrate this view.

4. Her theory lacks originality or at least it's not as original as it is purported to be. Objectivism is a watered down Darwinism, a philosophical adaptation of Darwinian theory. But being unoriginal is not same as being fallacious so this point is misplaced in the list.

5. She rejects all kinds of mysticism outright. Another unwarranted conclusion. Mysticism has a high emotional value. Problems arises only when mystics assert their feelings as undeniable truth. Mysticism, if we understand it in it's raw form, is in no conflict with reason or science. Mystic feelings are extra-rational but not irrational.

These are a bit personal..

6.I detest any systematic philosophy. They mar the very spirit of philosophy. They are just anti-rational. Uncertainty and speculation in case of uncertainty are the central parts of philosophy. The moment any certain knowledge is obtained it becomes a separate science and ceases to be philosophy. In such fundamental uncertainty doggy devotion to a particular system of philosophy would be as futile as having no philosophy at all.

7. She mixes rhetorics with ratiocination greatly, few of her arguments seems unfeignedly logical. Rhetorics are notorious tools for indoctrination, they are good for emotive titillation but is misplaced if used in a philosophical treatise.

These are the problems with objectivism, the problems with other ethical codes are also similar in kind. So the chasm between 'true' and 'good' is still wide open. Honesty,truthfulness,humility all these values are thus rationally indefensible, they defy every rational explanation, but why? unfortunately I do not profess to have the answer what I do profess to know is that we mankind do need those lofty values, always whether rational or irrational.

Let me make it clear that I'm no congenital opponent of Rand. I do admire her as an excellent teacher of philosophy and a prolific writer...after all her books are considered modern classics.

P.S: Lately I've realized that I've written this article too poorly and rewriting it is no fun. The issue of ethics needed to be properly elaborated so as to make its importance apparent. Anyway do ask me in case of any confusion or incomprehension.

P.S.S: This critique will appear more sensible if the reader learns Rand's theory directly from her books rather than my review.

historically incorrect..

2009-10-03T00:06:00.000+05:30

Apart from mugged up text books people scarcely know anything about Gandhi and are largely ignorant and/or misinformed about him. Here are a few popular opinions that I think don't go well with facts.

1. Gandhi was responsible for the partition of India.

      I have encountered this allegation several times but, as a rule, it is never followed by supportive evidence. Ask an RSS ideologue and he would perhaps be of this opinion. Ramchandra Guha-an eminent historian attributes the partition of India to three factors first, Jinnah and muslim league, second British Raj, third Congress itself. Congress, because of it's lack of foresight in tackling Jinnah, it undermined Jinnah and his influence. But Guha also notes that 'some moves of Jinnah defied every other explanation for partition except his own will'. So responsibility of partition mainly rests upon the shoulders of Jinnah(not even Muslim league because all lower ranks of Muslim league were not so staunch believers as Jinnah in two nation theory). Even when it comes to congress Gandhi himself, against the opinion of Congress, had always sought to persuade Jinnah. Few examples might suffice here. First, when Gandhi-Irwin pact was signed(around 1931 after dandi-march) he made sure that Jinnah is released from jail. Second, when quit India movement took place he approached Jinnah for conciliation between league and Congress(which Jinnah denied). Apart from this there are glaringly conspicuous facts which supports that far away from being a cause of partition he was, on the contrary, the most vehement opponent of partition plan to the effect that he even proposed that Jinnah be made the prime minister of united independent India if he abandoned partition. He even broke up with congress when it supported partition plan.

2. He choose Nehru over Patel for the Prime ministerial post of India out of his personal preference.

      Yes there was an element of personal preference but there were also serious considerations behind it. Rajmohan Gandhi in his biography of Patel throws light on some of it.

(1).Nehru had more public appeal than Patel especially among Muslims and youth, clearly Nehru was more popular.

(2). Only Patel could have accepted second place not Nehru, Nehru could potentially have seceded from Congress and made his separate party if he had not been made the prime minister. And in that turbulent times political stability was much essensial.

      Apart from that Nehru over Patel controversy is given more attention than necessary, Nehru was made PM in the cabinet of Interim Government only and thereafter in all subsequent elections he was voted by 'people' not by Gandhi as the PM. But the speculations will never end as to the alternative flow of history that might have taken place had Patel been chosen by Gandhi. But the speculations are not the part of history let it be handled by fairy-tale makers and astrologers.

3. India become Independent not by the struggles of Indians but because of the decolonization policy of the Britain.

      This is a half-truth. Britain was almost bankrupt after the world war 2, and as a result she was unable to handle the countries that where not economically beneficial so she wound up from the countries that were not fruitful. But India was not a bankrupt country like zimbabwe or other African countries, it was a country full of resources. True that after world war Britain was not much interested in colonies, but that doesn't automatically lead to her overnight departures from colonies. See the chronology of decolonization, the last colony Hong Kong was handed over to china as late as in 1997/98 and many other were freed in sixties also. So it can be safely said that while India didn't cause the departure of Raj it definitely hastened it.

      Then there is another myth that Britan left India not due to quit India movement but due to the naval mutiny that took place in the February of 1946. A difference of date might clear the the confusion, the announcement of the arrival of a delegation of three persons to handle the issue of India(it was a foreshadow of British departure) was telegrammed from England on 14th Jan,1946 and the mutiny broke out in the second week of February.

      Apart from this whole mumbo-jumbo there is some value of indian struggle in itself not just as a means to achieve independence. In 1857 mutiny, the fighters were mainly soldiers not common man and those soldiers too had fought not out of nationalistic vigor but out of purely religious sentiments. i.e. enfield riffle. A common farmer,a merchant,a businessman was not mobilized in this mutiny, they didn't sought the freedom, freedom was not much awaited, much sought after and much valued. A majority of Indians was unperturbed by the mutiny. The mass behavior was totally different in 1947, millions had participated in civil disobedience, dandi march,quit india(more than one lakh had gone to jail in quit India only). This time the underlying current was mainly nationalistic. And in this situation when independance arrived it was like a feast for the hungry. And this mass transformation, If I've understood correctly, we owe to Gandhi.

4. He used his weapon of fast against India when he fasted for the release of 55 crores which India withheld against Pakistan.

few things to say..(keep in mind that the money had to be given sooner or later to Pak because it was theirs after all)

(1) To compel the government for the release of money was not the main reason for his fast, the main reason was to restore Hindu-Muslim unity in Delhi. And the issue of 55 crore was greatly magnified due to the stereotyped love of sensationalism in Indians. That the government conceded to Gandhi's demand over money on 14th Jan 1946, but he broke his fast on 17th Jan only, testifies the above contention.

(2) Going by purely utilitarian way of thinking(which majority do) it can be maintained that his fast didn't really make any difference to Indian status quo. Because Pakistan was really on the verge of bankruptcy and after receiving the money it did not use it to resume the war against India(which was the main concern of government), so the fear of Congress was eventually turned out to be baseless. And even the idea of blackmailing Pakistan over Kashmir issue was futile given the furor over the issue in Pakistani mindset. And many scholars also argue that it was ethically/diplomatically wrong to withhold their share(including erstwhile governor general Mountbatten).

(3) One objective of his fast was also that all the mosques and homes of Muslims who have fled Pakistan and who wanted to return, should be vacated by Sikh refugees who had occupied them. This made him quite notorious among Sikhs and by many he was regarded as a pro-Muslim and it provided one more reason to his assassin to kill him. Now another side of the coin. He also wanted to restore all the refugees fled from Pakistan, he endeavored to march into Pakistan by foot followed by all the refugees. But Jinnah, his biggest enemy denied him entry into his country. His newspaper dawn said that people would kill him if he stepped on Pakistani soil. Now see the turn of events, Gandhi fasted for the release of money and it created great sympathy for him in Pakistan, telegrams flooded in Delhi from Pakistan asking what they could do to save fasting Gandhi. Jinnah softened though reluctant, allowed his enemy an entry into his country. He was resolved to leave for Pakistan just after few days of his death and live there forever to ensure the safety of his fellow countrymen(read Hindus). But before he could embark upon his great endeavor he was alas, killed. It can never be said surely whether this consideration was in his mind or not but it surely helped him in achieving his goal.

PS: I can point out the source of all the factual information given above if doubted.

Rationalization....oh no please.

2009-08-22T13:04:00.000+05:30

Perhaps the single thing that outrages me most is a rationalization. I can, in my good days, sympathize to crime, robbery, corruption, hypocrisy or even fanaticism but rationalizations are something that makes me crazy, it sucks all my equanimity out of me. I abhor all rationalizations. Rationalization (confused? don't misconstrue it with relation to rationality) is a kind of pseudo-reasoning that apparently seems true but beneath it lies sheer prejudice or in some cases vested interests of those who put it. Rationalization is an intentional/unintentional effort to exploit methods of logical reasoning in order to achieve personal ends. Its a massacre of proper reasoning. Ayn Rand explains it quite nicely, there are two kinds of what generally passes as truths, one is called 'metaphysically given' and the other 'man-made'. For example, The sun is metaphysically given hence it has to be accepted as it is, you can make fairy tells around the sun but can't deny the existence of it, it is there whether you accept or not. On the contrary the concept that heavens (or hells for that matter) exist is purely man-made, it is not given in nature or if it is given by chance we mankind has yet no demonstrable evidence about it, so at best we are ignorant about the existence of heavens, and in this condition to accept the notions of heaven as truth is purely man-made and technically irrational. In it's general application, in order to ascertain veracity of a belief, it is assessed in light of 'metaphysically given' things if our belief can be made to correspond with what is metaphysically given, our beliefs are true otherwise only mane-made crap. The corollary that can be drawn from this is that, question everything assume nothing and the truth will come to you effortlessly.

Examples of some broadly accepted rationalizations.

1. " shorter clothes makes a girl vulnerable to rapists so more a girl is covered safer she is. "
This gibberish is well known in private but I have heard it publicly being projected in a speech of Dr.Zakir Naik(if you don't know him he is a modern,educated orthodox Muslim. sounds like pravin togadia huh?). This is sheer ignorance of criminal psychology or common sense or both. This reveals strong prejudice of a male dominated society toward females, this kind of beliefs are just a tool at males' disposal to subjugate women. Actually an exact opposite psychology works in a criminal's mind. They tend to find a 'soft target', a shy, timid girl who at first don't resist much while being raped and second don't run into a police station to lodge an FIR. I do not say that this happens in all the cases but this psychology also constitute a rapist's motives and you can never know which one is working when, a tendency to find a sexier victim or a safer one.

This was an information based correction in a fallacious reasoning and not all have that information, but all do have common sense and anyone who lacks it better migrate to some other world. OK statistically in India every year deaths occurring by road accidents far outnumbers incidents of rapes. So according to probability, when a son rides the bike he is more likely to die or suffer serious injuries than a daughter be raped. And here comes the manifestations of a double-standard society a father will never really demand that his son ride bike slowly(or if demands, often its only perfunctory) on the other hand he will show great intolerance towards his daughter's dressings. why so? perhaps a mixture of love of power and fear to lose social pride should the girl get actually raped(and characteristically both the reasons don't have to do anything with daughter's betterment).

2."During their cycles women feel uneasy all the day therefore men in ancient India disallowed them to do any household chores during periods and this adversely evolved into total isolation of woman during periods"
well, well who believes this? if the pioneers of this custom were really concerned about women rather than their self-interests, there were hundreds of other ways to accomplish the same thing. I don't know how well spread is this practise in India but it is well spread at least in my community, although in its minor or less severe form. Now-a-days woman are only kept away from gods and all religious worshiping during periods, but nevertheless the practice is totally irrational and above mentioned justification is only a lame defence of Indian culture.

3. "Untouchability started because the toilet washers used to be very unhygienic, full of germs and they due to their regular exposures to such filth, developed their immune system so well that they become immune to adverse effects of such germs but we the common people(read elite) do not have such powerful immune system so our ancestors thought it better to be away from them."
Another lame defence of Indian culture and lineage. And I seriously doubt the scientific base for this sophistry. If untouchability was the necessary step to be taken to obviate health disaster, how could non-Indian culture survived without untouchability? History do not show us any example of civilizations fatally affected by the lack of untouchability nor does India show any sign of extraordinary salubriousness in her civilization due to presence of it.

"fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity"-from internet

A misplaced criticism.

2009-06-20T20:51:00.000+05:30

Critiques are fun to read,they give you insight into the matters and shows you the less seen side of the matters, they explore what might have been missed by your less analytical/knowledgeable mind. Similar kind of critiques I came across to read at three different places First, in the famous Gujarati magazine 'Safari', Second in the autobiography of now dejected/rejected L.K.Advani, Third in the book titled 'India after Gandhi' by eminent historian Ramchandra Guha. All pointed to the same story and rendered same conclusions namely the notorious incident when in the year 1951 Somnath Temple was reconstructed and was inaugurated by then the president of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru protested the move of Dr. Rajendra Prasad to inaugurate the Somnath Temple because he believed that by doing that Dr. Rajendra Prasad was violating the policy of secularism of the state by actively participating into the religious activity of the people as an incumbent of the presidency. And here comes the whole universe of criticism on Nehru for his so called allergy-towards-hinduism gesture. Dr. Rajendra Prasad when protested by Nehru replied that he was not becoming pro-hindu and he would have also attended the inauguration of a mosque or a Gurudwara or a synagogue if invited. It was a master stroke from Dr.Prasad if we consider the tone of critiques. Nehru believed that President should not attend any religious ceremony officially in contrast Dr.Prashad believed that the President should attend every religious ceremony. Our above mentioned critics speak in the favor of Dr.Prasad and severely criticizes Nehru for his allergy toward religions. The views of the magazine Safari and L.K. Advani can be understood because the former is covertly and the latter is overtly saffron colored. The case of Ramchandra Guha is curious he calls himself 'nehruvian' and yet he seems to have criticized him.

Majority will believe the view of Dr.Prasad to be just and a few will believe both views to be equally right. I believe the Nehruvian view to be the only correct option. Let us rephrase both of the views Dr.Prasad's view is "the government should belong to(or practice) every religion." and the Nehru's "The governmentn should belong to(or practice) no religion." both are equally good if life is perfect. But if we consider the rightness of any view on the basis of the consequences it effects I favor Nehruvian view. If the ministers have the right to participate in any religious ceremony they will inevitably tend to favor their own religions, not to mention its the direct connection with vote bank politics. And if you happen to live in Gujarat you can't fail to notice the trend. I attended, when I was in highschool, a congregation at a temple at my home town and the invitee was the CM, Narendra Modi. And there is a rule of thumb that you can't glorify a religion on its own merit, you have to do it by belittling the other religions and that religion too must not be the geographically farther one because it doesn't give you any political mileage. What a waste of time would it be if you compare hindusm with Confucianism practiced in China. So the favorite option was the Islam he maligned that religion obliquely. On the other hand imagine if any minister is not allowed to participate in any religious ceremony or something like that, no religious mud-slinging and no provocation take place. And this kind of approach is particularly necessary in the pluralistic society as ours. Religion must must be considered as one's private affairs and the state has nothing to do with it at all. If one wants to go to Mecca-Medina it strictly is the kind of foreign tourism and the facilities provided should be on a par with any normal traveling. The plethora of problems start when state recognizes the religions as something non-private like schooling and employment. In the Nehruvian view people will eventually have to accept that their feelings are confined within their neural networks and the outside world bears no concern for it. We are going on the exact opposite trend people believe that their feelings are universal and as believable as E=mc^2 and how can the other people not feel the same? And here starts everything from religious bigotry to multiform civil code. So the big trouble is multi-religious government and the first step towards the solution is to get the government ordained in total atheism.

"I bless the the reconstruction of Somnath temple but the fund for the reconstruction must be raised from the community only not from the state"
- The immortal wisdom from the Mahatma Gandhi(recalling from memory not ad verbatim)

Mundane affairs, let it remain mundane....

2009-06-12T21:46:00.000+05:30

      Ok so the story goes like this, the other day I went to Gujarat University reading room at about 10 in the morning. While entering into the library I was stopped by the desk clerk, and was asked to show my i-card, I went to the desk but when I was taking out my wallet for the i-card, I heard him say “what are you wearing? With this type of clothes, you are not allowed to enter. Go and get it changed and then come.” I was startled by his rebuke, I realized I had put on a 3/4th pants, and to this pants he had an objection. It was scorching heat outside and another round trip to my hostel would cost me 2kms, so sensing the imminent dehydration I urged him to let me come in only this time and promised him to be cautious from next time,

“sir please let me go inside for today only, I would certainly be cautious from tomorrow, I am coming from far away” I requested.

“so what even if you are coming from Gandhinagar?, rule is rule, this is the temple of education, tomorrow you will come wearing underwear only.” he said, totally unmoved and indifferent to my troubles.

I was fuming. First, because that moron doesn’t know the difference between 3/4th pants and a mere underwear. Second, because I couldn’t understand what the hell was the connection between being in an education institution and wearing comfortable clothes? Girls were openly allowed to wear 3/4ths. And how on earth can it be possible that when a girl shows her legs it’s within the decorum of the library and when boys do the same it becomes downright obscenity. Perhaps they don’t like the legs of boys because they are hairy but my legs were not so hairy (FYI: the librarian was a female, and that too a fastidious one I infer). We argue with each other for next 5 odd minutes but all was in vain. But I could not quit or say I could not afford to quit.

“ I am ready to give my apology in written if you let me in.” I said finally.

“Don’t argue with me go to librarian m’am she will answer you.” Expectedly he remained unmoved.

      We went into the library building to meet mrs.librarian , unfortunately librarian had not yet come. So he told me to wait outside until she comes. I waited for a few minutes; meanwhile I found no person sitting at the desk and slipped into the reading room hurriedly. My wish to meet the female librarian of the Gujarat University library in her office in a 3/4th pants thus remained unfulfilled.

      Now why did I bother to write about this apparently trivial incident? Reason is simple, I hate this kind of senselessness and I want to express my trouble at the top of my lung. People go to the reading room in order to read properly and that should be the only thing what matters, and somehow people are a lot with ease in their 3/4ths. If one can wear something in day-to-day life without getting the eyes frowned upon, why can’t he wear the same in the reading rooms? Nobody is going to come into the library and take his photographs and publish them into the next day’s news paper. And in general what the hell is the relation between good education and a particular type of clothing? Einstein could have found equally good theories in pyjamas, or Hubble could have found Hubble’s law in a chaddi if they wished so. Then why do we need this martinet discipline in our education institutions? Strict discipline may be necessary for the defense forces but for all general students it’s an unbearable tyranny. Excessive discipline of excessive liberty both hinders the healthy development of a student. The root of this entire misconception lies in our stereotypes about the education, if you ask me. We consider education as divine and the teachers as corresponding deities and Indians have intrinsic propensity to screw up whatever they consider divine, look at all the famous shrines, look at the condition of sacred rivers, look at the big religious gatherings and you will understand my point. We consider short/fashionable clothing as an evil permeated by west and bollywood, and our divinity has two peculiar aspects, First it should be impervious for western influence and Second it must not be maligned by fashion, however it is perfectly allowable to make one’s life akin to hell. Thanks to the crazy influence of ancient Vedas that we senselessly believe that education must be taken in total asceticism, student can’t have fun while studying because all kind of fun deviates him from the education. These idiots cant understand that the uncontrollable longing for the fun(mobiles,bikes,fashionable clothes etc.) also deviates a student from the study. These idiots can’t understand the difference between moderation and excess, gourmet and gourmand. Excess is bad whether it’s in indulgence or in prohibition. Prohibition is not a viable solution where regulation is needed. Look at the students in west, they do everything during their schooling from sex to parties and yet they give the kind of the results not even remotely imaginable from our students. There is a good way to change towards betterment, remove the status of education as a divine thing and treat it as a mundane affair, stop worshipping the deities of education and start revering the greatest scientists, leaders, writers, artists. And above all stop glorifying the virtue of faith and start glorifying the virtue of questioning. Ok I think it’s too far I’ve digressed from the main topic. So let us finish.

The virtue of Sleep

2009-05-26T18:27:00.000+05:30

      Sleeping might serve the biological purpose but it also has the latent potential to serve an equally important social purpose. This purpose has never manifested itself considerably chiefly because of the untold harm inflicted upon it throughout the annals of mankind. Sleeping is the greatest virtue if you ask me love,honesty,altruism,kindness all conventionally so cherished the virtues seem dwarfed against it. Why? What's so special? OK let me start from somewhere, for example, primordial man didn't get any spare time, all day he searched for food,female and ate the food he collected. Gradually our primordial men due to his intellects devised techniques that reduced his drudgery and he started producing crops in less and less time and that too far more than he required, thus he started getting idle, experienced anything called boredom which otherwise was alien to him. He had two concerns side by side, first to kill his time and second to do something of the excessive crops he cultivated. So he started exchanging his extra crops for what he thought would help him kill the time i.e some thought living in a good hut would make him happier and if he is happy he would not feel boredom. Thus his anthropology changed our primordial man evolved into what is today called as 'social animal'. And still he is in quest to find more and more means to kill the boredom rightly justifying what Bertrand Russel said "To get out of the boredom, would be the greatest invention of mankind"

     But in this entire fuss men forget that their main purpose was to kill boredom. And sleeping is the other and perhaps better alternative to serve that purpose. If people develop a habit of sleeping(it's hard but my personal experience says its not that hard) when idle, all the civil problems resulting from the hyperactivity will eventually die out(though I don't guarantee other problems will not come out). Imagine a world where people sleep instead of rioting, instead of protesting violently, instead of killing each other, instead of the nations waging war with one another. Governments particularly like this idea because when people sleep they don't ask for water, they don't ask for employment, they don't ask for exam delay. So the Governments, instead of funding for temples and all craps, should develop sleeping shrines where people can sleep for unlimited times. An idiotic utopia may it seem but what better is our present world to forbid this experiment.

     But, hell this world has always been and will always be ruled by all the insomniacs. They will never sleep and never let others sleep. They will shout slogans in commercials to wake us up, they write poetry which spread the message of vigilance, they inflict lessons of wakefulness in the vulnerable minds of children, they will sing the virtues of wakefulness. But then who cares? The Snoozers don't retaliate because for even the retaliation you need to abandon sleep. The entire existence of the universe doesn't bother you once you fall asleep. If sleep is half-death, you half-reincarnate every morning.

     "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

_ E. B. White

(PS: IF you've followed me upto this line congrats for your patience and If any of the above lines stood convincing to you, you are a MORON.)

Astrology...a science?

2009-04-05T23:59:00.000+05:30

I acutely remember that when the earthquake hit Gujarat and devastated the entire villages and towns, I had often read in news papers that such and such astrologer had forecast the disaster in such and such daily. That this kind of claims are largely entertained by Indian people,it is evident by the huge success of astrologers like Bejan Daruwala and others. People are so eager to know about their future that huge attention has been paid to the sms schemes of the cellphone companies which delivers daily horoscopes from the expert astrologers. I, myself does not have any faith in astrology and often I fall into the debate with the people believing the otherwise. I have come across various arguments in favor of the astrology, many of them can be easily discarded with a little effort but some are hard to answer. First and foremost the conspicuous fact is that the entire supposed science of astrology is based upon the belief that the earth is the center the universe, but that according to proponents does not falsify the veracity of astrology because by that way even the Indian calender system is based upon the same conception of earth. Then there is the most eloquent of all arguments, they say astrology had been a well developed science in ancient times(of course in India), But now-a-day due to the invasion of foreign rules the knowledge about that ancient science has faded away and what remains is the present vague form of astrology, so on the basis of that vague science we can't predict anything exactly. These kind of arguments are very hard to counter because the other person is giving the evidences which can not be disproved. At a first thought this statement seems true because Indians were fond of not doing any documentation of whatsoever was worthwhile. Ancient Indian civilization was not like Romanian or Greek which had documented too many things. But given an afterthought these kind of defense does not have any value. Suppose that the ancient Indians had a well established science of astrology, now it can be assumed that at least few noble men like today's scientists were the masters of astrology and thus were able to predict every event including floods,disasters, external invasion in advance. Then why those omniscient masters could not help save their land from external invasion like mughal?, why the masters could not prevent the the deterioration of their science of astrology? So many good or bad things can be done if you know the future, but so far as we know the history nothing that much extraordinary happened. Now the proponents again will argue that there must have been a purpose in their mind to let the history being shaped like what we see it now and we don't know that purpose for the same reason we don't know about astrology. There is no limit to this kind of debate because the context is history and a life long prejudice.

At the firmest of my belief I can say that astrology is just a mix of probability and a guess work using common sense. So astrology is as much a science as any good guess work can be or any seasoned stockbroker's forecasting can be.

“Respect to diversity” a practice long forgotten…….

2009-02-10T16:11:00.000+05:30

A simple question: “what makes a good society?” A simple answer: “good people.” Another simple question: “what makes good people?” and there is no simple answer to this question. Two news events are hitting the headlines now a day first about manglore pub event and second, the arrest of a couple (married) kissing in public. And a lot many headlines are expected to come on 14th Feb as usual. From these headlines a new word has also been added to my English vocabulary and that is “moral police.” As if shiv sevaks were not enough for good of the society that another ram sevaks have also come into scene. As a student of college I am aware of valentine’s day fever taking on over the college campus. I have also seen volunteers distributing pamphlets requesting students not to celebrate valentine’s day and to protect our culture from invasion of western culture. Do these guardians of the Indian culture truly love our culture (for now suppose that there convictions about culture is true and there attitude is justified)? Are they really benevolent by heart towards Indian culture and the only wrong matter is just that they are violent and dogmatic? Well again a tough question to answer. But to me it seems that there is some another thing cooking behind this fervor. I have also seen women distributing pamphlets and protesting against valentine’s day celebration. There was one thing in common among all those protesting women, they all were strikingly ugly, without a single visible attribute of womanlike tenderness. And probably there lies a real reason behind their cries, that reason is not the sense of culture but its rather psychological. These women must be the women who have not get any attention of men in their adolescent and that teenage deprivation of love affair and teenage fun has been converted into a sense of utter jealously and that sense of utter jealously, not the concern for culture, is the prime motive behind this outwardly seeming culture keeping activity.

This is the case of women I don’t know the case of men but the first conspicuous motive for them is the power and fame which they would get from these activities another motive may (whenever I use ‘may’, actually I am tempted to use ‘must’ but I can’t as I don’t have documented, tangible proof to justify my point. Ha ha this is pretty like softwares that are not open source and you have to guess only about what is running behind?) be the unemployment because you can’t go for ‘dharnas’ on working hour unless you are unemployed(this reason equally applies to rioters also). And I bet that all these sevaks have ugly wives back at their home and they have unhappy and UNROMANTIC marriage life. As in women’s case this unromantic life creates envy of others happy and romantic lives. Let whatever be the issue about the society or about culture there is one question everyone should ask to themselves “Is the culture meant for the good of people? Or are the people meant for the good of culture? Who comes first?”. At least i am pro-life, pro-fun....Have a happy and safe valentine’s day in advance…..

Gods,Religions,Morals…strange trinity...

2008-12-24T23:17:00.000+05:30

I don’t remember the name but a well known thinker once said “If there is no God, I can do anything.” That seems quite palatable for all the proponents of the existence of the God. Why one should be good or generous if there is not any God, not any one who can give you reward for your virtues or sins. We try to be (at least some of us) good or virtuous because we fear God, like a person in general won’t rob anyone because he fears Policemen or laws. Same is the case for most of the believers in God. So discipline and goodness doesn’t come from within but comes from the fear to be punished by GOD. Such is the base of all the religions without a single exception, “FEAR”. Why should atheists have morals and be kind, generous or good because he doesn’t believe in GOD (and by the same reason it is widely believed that atheists are immoral)? The reasons are many I present the soundest one. As we have learned in those boring school text books that man is a”social animal”. Right from the birth a child is constantly in the warmth of society, throughout his childhood, throughout his adolescence he remains in the safety sphere of society where no one can come and kill him, no one can come and eat him. This factors are not seen in animals they kill each other, they eat the flesh of their own siblings because they have one and only thing to consider, ‘survival’, whereas humans do not need to worry about his survival because that is assured by the society and that’s the essence of human society. So if a person is alive till he dies without ferocious efforts like animals, it implicitly mean that he is obliged to the society for the vaccination he had been given, for the cerelac he had been fed with. And also, nothing comes free in this world. Here applies a simple business rule “give something in order to get something”. In order to savour fruits of that society you also have to maintain that society very well by not robbing others, by not killing others, by not eating others, by supporting others and that’s the precise definition of the morals for atheists. So whosoever said the sentence quoted at the beginning of the article is dead wrong.

(comparing morals defined by religons over the morals defined by individual on basis of reason)Now the concept has taken 180 degree turn. First in case of GOD based morals it is fear that convinces people that they should be good, in second case it is also the fear. But there is a vital difference, in the former case the GOD is a third party who decides the morals but in the latter case it is a person itself who decides individually or the entire society collectively, what the morals are. Don’t both the cases give the same result? No there is a fatal flaw in the former case(wherein we consider the god as a regulatory element), which is that the concept of GOD is not intuitive, a child learn that concept eventually from the parents(or rather say religion), parents (or religion) may teach the wrong definition of the GOD and his rules ( so is the case when it was believed that a widow has to be burnt alive with the corpse of his dead husband otherwise GOD would get angry or in case of Islam one must not portray GOD otherwise he would punish) and the child even after growing mature can’t change those wrong definitions because it is based on the wisdom of a few persons who died thousands years ago and not on the wisdom of the contemporary men who are according to Charles Darwin far more intelligent and sensible. Whereas the morals based on reasons can be changed eventually and can not be wrong as often as it would have been in the GOD’s case. Morals or ethics based on the GOD(or religion) is unchanging, static but the morals deducted from reasons may be changed when need be(like drinking may be immoral in east as it is addictive but in the west with freezing cold drinking it must be moral). Religion and morals can not be considered synonyms instead they are often contradictory.

"It is very beautiful over there!" -Thomas Alva Edison (considered to have been told by him in his last days)

Terrorism

2008-12-15T20:46:00.000+05:30

Rs.1.5/- lac as reward per perpetrator * 10 perpetrator= Rs.15/- lac Rs.
250$ per 1000 bullets.
Approximately 200$ for satellite phone.
Approximately 200$ for gps system.
500$ to acquire an AK-47.

By summing up above expenses and adding other major expenses like traveling, hand grenades, expenses in search of the candidates and rigorous trainings of them would according to me make the staggering total of more than 1 Crore Rs. Terrorism comes at a cost, deadly cost because the people around from your community can’t get their daily food and you worry about the people geographically far away from you whom you have never seen whom you have never talked to. How stupid people can be?

They (terrorists or rather say the masterminds behind them) used this amount just for a single attack on Mumbai in order to kill people. By killing people as they justify it, they are being benefactors for their fellow Muslim brothers in India who according to them are being suppressed, killed and executed from 1992 Babari Breakdown to 2002 Godhra Carnage and from Palestine to Kashmir. And I almost certainly believe that a large portion of Indian underdeveloped Muslims or the victims of Godhra Carnage believe in so called jihad in order to teach their suppressors( majority Hindu or in a global view everyone except Muslims) a lesson. Correct that the entire India is learning her lessons the hardest way but hold it!! Hold it!! My question is, are those terrorists who call themselves the true worshipers of faith really being beneficent to their brothers? No certainly not..because if they were to do good to so called suppressed Muslims, they could have opened new madressas, new orphanages, new old age homes or other activities which would give an effect far immediate than the other options. They could have used this money to rebuild the houses of Muslims who lost their homes in Godhra Carnage. And who knows how many hundreds of crores of money have already been wasted in fostering of terrorism which would have alternatively been utilized in more sophisticated and fruitful way. But call it inanity of them or the eloquences of mullahs that some Indian Muslim would continue to entertain them.

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this." - Bertrand Russell

............................

2008-10-24T16:29:00.000+05:30

       Marketing sometimes helps the customers to know about the products they need, but the other times it’s the most pleasant way for both the parties, for it helps the seller ‘to cheat’ and helps the buyer in the act of ‘to be cheated’. Now-a-days every economic activity includes marketing strategies at different levels and the grand business of begging is no more an exception. After I came to Ahmedabad for study I’ve been experiencing some tremendous types of beggars with equally tremendous begging acumen (of course I don’t know the names of them). On an occasion I was at bus stand waiting for bus and a young man in neat and clean clothes came and told me that his cycle had got a flat tire and he didn’t have enough money to go home by bus and asked for the ticket fare. Without even the slightest suspicion I gave him 5rs. with the immense satisfaction of being a philanthropist, and to be frank I could have given even more money if he had asked for so. Then I met the similar type of experience again and this time also funded him his rent convinced that in such a big city like Ahmedabad two persons can have their cycles with flat tire and pockets with empty wallet simultaneously. Now it was the third time I heard the same story but till than I was no more a vulnerable subject and was prepared not to be robbed (though I don’t call them robbers or cheaters due to the negligible amount they rob or cheat) by all such types of broad day robberies.

       On another incident we were in Delhi sitting in the bus to Agra when a poor girl came and handed over us a template asking for monetary help which claimed that the girl is an orphan, and above all the template borne a sign of an advocate. Till now I was become highly invincible against these traps and didn’t give a single rupee but I was slightly feeling guilty for not helping her, but that guilt was completely vaporized when an another girl came on the next station with the same type of template.

       On yet another but the most memorable occasion in Ahmedabad me and my friend was waiting for bus and a man in thirties, well dressed came and told us that he had taken a pledge for his daughter that he would collect some money only by bagging and would present that collected money before the goddess in some temple, having informed this he showed us his wallet with the amount of money more than the total amount we had in our wallets and asked for 10rs. by adding that money doesn’t matter it was only a matter of pledge. Now this was totally irresistible for both of us, and my friend contributed his part to his ‘holy’ pledge. Needless to say it was only a trick.

       But such wonderful experiences make me ponder a little. Should we patronize the beggars? Well this has been a big topic of debate. Out of a sympathetic feeling some are in favor of helping them on the other side there are so called rational people who never give a paisa to them. I am partially in favour and partially in opposition. By digging deep into this apparently trivial but yet a factor affecting all of us, I can say that there are 3 cases of beggars. First the children , nobody should ever give a single rupee to them if we think of philanthropy because the moment he starts believing that the begging business is a profitable and easy one he would never come out of it and would remain a beggar lifetime. The another case is the youngsters, with the rising economy even the biharis get the daily wage by drudgery so why cant those beggars? The last case is of old-aged, there are two types of old-aged beggars one who have always been beggars right from their childhood and have never tried to work, they deserve this poverty and should not be given help. The second type is of those who because of old-age are not able to work and at a last solution they chose begging, to help them is a social duty for every one of us. But how to differentiate between these two types? Well don’t care take risk, patronize the both types.

the rama and the ramayana

2008-09-18T02:34:00.000+05:30

       For the majority of indian population the most sought-after kind of societal arrangement would surely be "ramrajya". Ya there should be a society like that, because 'ramrajya' is in any sense better than todays society. But as far as the factor of perfection or 100 touch is concerned, "ramrajya" is also not spared. why? what was imperfect in bhagvan Rama? let me write point by point.

1. it is obvious that when a war is waged, thousands of lives are put at the death. So one has to have the strong reasons in justification of war before he wages it. In case of bhagvan Rama, the conspicuous reason was the kidnapping of godess seeta. But had the rama any reght to bring thousands of lives at the brink just for his beloved wife? True that the pride of the ayodhya was in question, but in that condition too was the war only option? I remember a plot from the movie "troy", wherein the enemy countries had their representatives fight(one from each) with each other and the winner representative would win the war for his country. with the cost of only one life the war was over. couldn't rama use the same tactic? So morally the war was the bad option. Now if i suppose that the war could be justifiable morally, than also logically the war was the bad option because it did not guarantee seeta. Was there any guarantee that on seeing the defeat at the horizon, ravan would not kill seeta himself? In that case rama would have lost the war even after winning it.

2. This issue is of more serious concern. He abandoned seeta, for not a single logical reason. At the very root i can say that he should have realised that in the society he lived, to save ones wife was the duty of her husband, and he could not fulfill it so at first he should have punish himself and than innocent sita. He knew that his decision to deport seeta was wrong, and he did it just because of the society, he did it just because of the fear of loosing his 'prestige'. And the 'prestige' of a person is largely related to himself and to hold the prestige high at the disaster of your beloved ones, is purely a selfish act and nothing more. so wasn't that the selfish act by rama?

       To conclude with, I am just calling a spade a spade. Personally i like many of his characteristics and believe that there are too many good aspects of lord rama to introduce in our life. But that shouldn't make me blind, i have written this post just to make one point very clear that this is the age of "reason" or "logic" and "rationality", in science we use these extensively but when it come to religion or deep rooted beliefs we become totally 'immune to reason'. We bury everything under the label of "faith" where common sense contradicts.

"Life is short, play more"
           -Advertisement slogan on release of XBox.

lateral view-1

2008-05-03T22:52:00.000+05:30

Are you planning to commit suicide?If you are not in a mood to commit suicide now-a-days,you are having the same probablity of committing suicide as i have in far future but if you are seriously thinking towards it, then do any noble thing before you shorten your life because you are going to die anyway so why not after doing a good thing for which others may respect you after your death. like kill anyone who has been harmful to society or country. If you cant kill anyone than do anything that befits your courage.

Another way for those who have been thinking of committing suicide. Do you know that committing suicide can bring you money? Ofcourse you wont get the chance to withdraw the cheque but,your family will do. There is a channel in a European country(i dont remember the name) named "Death channel/TV". This channel shoots you while you are jumping into water or doing similar adventure and will telecast the video on their tv channel. The compensation that the company gives for this coverage may make your family millionaire. Not only this it will make you famous all over the country. And all mortals have always been concerned about money and fame, so if you think that life is not giving these to you,death will definetly give you.

I know it seems absurd, because a person thinking of having suicide is very depressed or frustrated from life and in this case he/her cant think of anything else than leaving this planet earth and get salvation as fast as possible, but its not totally inapplicable. So why not to make your death worthwhile if you think your life was not.

A poem by a black

2008-04-16T23:01:00.000+05:30

I αm α Black...
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη I вσrη, I вlαcк
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη I grєω υρ, I вlαcк
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη I grσω ιη ѕυη, I вlαcк
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη I ѕcαrєd, I вlαcк
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη I ѕιcк, I вlαcк
　　　　　　　　　& ωнєη I die, I ѕнαll вlαcк.

αηd υ ωнιтє ƒєlloω...
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη υ вorη, υ ριηк
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη υ grєω υρ, υ ωнιтє
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη υ go ιη ѕυη, υ red
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη ιη cold, υ вlυє
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη υ ѕcαrєd, υ уєlloω
　　　　　　　　　ωнєη υ ѕιcк, υ grєєη
　　　　　　　　　αηd ωнєη υ die, υ grαу.

　　αηd ...

αηd υ called мє coloured ???

тнιѕ ρσєм... "I αм α вlαcк..." ιѕ ωrιttєη ву αη αƒrιcαη child !
...ωαѕ ησмιηαтєd ƒσr the вєѕт ρσєм σƒ 2005

'kaka' : A Tribute

2008-04-11T22:28:00.000+05:30

.................There is a word 'altruist', i came to know long ago. Since then I have been finding a person who should be given this nickname , I have tried too much and in this search many saints, many ascetic persons, many magnanimous personalities seemed to be the right one but no body has ever been able to stand before my (common)sense of reasoning, no one deserve this word, though this is my personal opinion (I like this word 'personal opinion', you can write any crap by declaring it as a personal opinion).

...................But there is always an exception which scatters the rule. I have met a true 'altruist'. People call him 'kaka', yet very few people know his real name ( but what's there in name?). He is an excellent english teacher and a former militant. I think he is probably of 79 or 80. He has been teaching english more than 8 hours a day for more than 30 years with per year only a single holiday of 'new year day'. One more thing is missing to note that he has been teaching without taking any fee, not a single rupee,instead he provides notes and pens to needy students. As far as I know he has never accepted or asked for any external aid, he is doing all these on his own feet by spending his own pension money. Taking resources from rich people and transfer it to needy students under the name of charity has never been his mantra. I owe a part of my being what I am to this person who has first served the nation while in army, and then society by teaching english to typical gujjus like me. It hurts when I see that in jamnagar, only the the people from his neighborhood knows him and the rest of the city has not even heard the name of him.

At last, a sentence I have uttered countless times and If you have ever been a student of kaka , you must have also uttered it too many times.
"kaka, jay hind".

Controversies....Part-2

2008-03-20T21:54:00.000+05:30

......+Controversy:- M.F.Hussain has made a few paintings for which he was opposed by some(actually many) so called guard of hinduism and , patriots. Mostly his two paintings one is of Hindu Goddess Durga portrayed nude and another painting of bharat mata is also nude.

......+But :- Hinduism, my inherited religion(of course inherited,i didnt get any chance to bargain on any other options). But yes i can describe too many great things in this religion,but that would lead to a different topic.

.........Let me ask all those who hates M.F.Hussain a very simple question. If M.F.Hussain was a hindu and had made the same paintings would you have still hated, and oppossed him. If your answer is yes, than go and hate The Great Mahakavi Kalidas, destroy all his Mahakavyas, and remove his name from Indian History because he is also a culprit of you. He has elaborately narrated the romance(foreplay would be certainly a perfect word) between Shiv and Parwati in eighth Chapter of his wellknown epic "Kumar Sambhavam"(I wont use the word freedom of expression for defence of MFH ,because freedom of exp. doesnt mean that you are allowed to violate the religious beliefs of people). But on the contrary we have written his name in golden letters. The only thing i want to put here is that the contemporary hinduism has become just an anti-islam version.
..........I am not telling that MFH is a good painter because i personally dont know anything about that art. But if Kalidas had not written any vulgar poem, MFH has also not drawn any vulgar painting. It's not fair that if one person does something, it is labeled as 'ashlil' and the same thing is done by the other becomes ' shrungar'.

Controversies....Part-1

2008-03-20T17:12:00.000+05:30

....................Having known the issue about the British author Sir Salman Rushdie n Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, Having Seen the paintings of the famous(notorious) painter M.F.Hussain , Having watched the movie "The Da Vinci Code", I will add few more lines to already written hundreds of pages about all above issues. May be the subject is divided into more than one posts. Continue.......

........* The Satanic Verses(by Salman Rushdie).
.........+Controversy:- I have not read this entire book. But mostly the Controversy has arose because in this book the author has narrated the wives of Prophet Mohammad as "whores" and also claims few mistakes in some verses of the Holy book Quran. As a result The Muslims Mullas all over the world has declared fatvas on him.

........+Qustion:- Do you believe that only god is free from committing mistakes and no human can be perfect. If the answer is yes than stick to it until the end of this post.

........+But :- Islam ,I love this Religion for its Intellectual Concept of God. I can say that Salman Rushdie has criticized the Quran in his controversial book. He has pointed out some fundamental mistakes(atleast he has claimed that) in Quran. The muslims believe that(same for hindus n others) their Quran is perfect and there could not be any mistakes.First of all let me tell you that a religion is just a human-made definition of the GOD If it were established by GOD it/her/hisself (ya God must not have any particular gender,name,size,colour as this attributes only belongs to Humans, and must be beyond such humanlike identification), was he/she/it so confused that he/she/it made too many religions. So and Since this is a human made concept,it is not beyond imperfection, there can be or must be many loopholes, so is about the holy books. The Quran is written by PM, and the PM however great, was a human he might had made mistakes in Quran(same for Gita and Bible also). One may argue that PM was not a human he was a child of God himself. Nope, never, I counter argue that why all the so called children of God or Birth of God were born as a male? PM,JC,Krishna,Rama,Budda,Mahavira all were surprisingly men. GOD could have born as a Female. GOD could not be so unjust to women (jaago naari jaago). PM was supposed to make mistakes, and if a muslim wont criticize his own religion than who else is supposed to do that.

.............Still you believe that Rusdie was wrong, than dislike him, oppose him, abuse him, but you can't kill him, no religion gives you that right..

Indians on Forbes

2008-03-13T23:03:00.000+05:30

Read the news?(I hate this word read,you will never know whether it is Rid or Red). Indians are conquering the Forbes list of the richest persons of the world. Gautam Adani is also listed on the Forbes. Hurray, Celebrate.

But something is missing to note..

Once our professor had said(of course with a little exaggeration)that the 90% of our national income has been possessed by the top 10% people and only the rest 10% of national income has been shared by the rest 90% of population. Seeing American names on the list of toppers is surely a matter of feeling proud for themselves because they are having a car per family. They are having a strong middle class and far less income inequality. Whereas India is having 30% of its population below poverty level
. But we Indians are just used to over-react on any matter either it is Ambanis or Sunita Williams.

True that our economy is one of the fastest growing economy in the world,but that doesnt mean that entire India in all aspects is developing at the same pace. If someone says that our poor class is developing rapidly than I must ask why the NAXALISM is broadening horizons? NAXALISM is nothing but the consequence of the uneven developement of our nation. India is growing up like a handicapped child. India is undergoing rapid industrialization, but at the cost of Agriculture. The Higher class is getting more and more rich, but it is also a bitter truth that farmers are committing suicides across the country.

"Playing for India is surely better than having Ferraris in your garage"
-Dhoni on IPL

An Anatomy of Language

2008-03-07T23:23:00.000+05:30

If you are not intrigued form the above title consider this: the reason behind the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear-attack was the wrong interpretation of a Japanese word. The reason behind the invention of Fax Machine (it was invented in Japan) was the language, because Chinese/Japanese language doesn’t comprise of alphabets, it is rather a picture language, so if you want to make a Chinese typewriter then it will consist of more than 50,000 characters(yes, four zeros). ‘Sanskrit’ is the oldest language of world.

What is Language? It hard to define what ‘language’ is. But it is easily acceptable that the Languages are basically for communication purpose. The language could be in many forms, but our conventional concept of language is comprised of four forms spoken, listened, read, written (say Natural Language, English, gujarati etc. ). But the language is not that much only. When a child becomes hungry and points to refrigerator or his mouth and we understand what he wants, what do you do along with wishing “best of luck”, or “all the best” to your friends in exam-hall? You may call it Body Language.

So it is clear that we have two ways for communicating with each other one is above mentioned Natural Language the other way is by using Body Language. As one can understand that the birth of any language can not be spontaneous rather it is invented, developed, modified by people over a huge span of time. The pronunciation style is also greatly affected by natural climate when it is created gradually. (E.g. there is a huge difference between Indian and American dialect). So one may argue that how came we choose Natural Language over Body language as our communication mean (the advantage of body language:-it can be made global, same gesture can be made across the globe if you want to say you are hungry) . It is because verbal language requires much less muscle movement, when movement of hand and fingers etc.. requires more muscle movement. So choosing any Natural language is economical in terms of energy usage. But the dumb people have to choose the uneconomical way.

One point is also about use of sophisticated language in oral form, the language you may find in dictionaries or in news papers. Personally I hate to use the sophisticated language, because the so called formal or sophisticated lang. has restricted the use of pre-linguistic words (want to know what are pre-linguistic words? Then prick a needle on your butt and the spontaneous word you will utter comes under this category). I firmly say that any language is not the possession of any litterateur or any Oxford or Cambridge dictionary, language representation doesn’t need any authentication. The richness of pre-linguistic or informal words in your language enhances acuteness of your expression, and of course that is the ultimate aim of mankind ….

“Poetry is the mother-tongue of mankind”

-Anonymous

About

2008-03-06T13:29:00.000+05:30

Hi,

     First of all let me tell you that I have never written even a single word myself (Except those few kilos of answer sheets), it is my very first attempt. Therefore I don’t claim to keep your attention over here from prologue to epilogue in any post. But usually I won’t be challenging your endurance. It would be my modest effort to express my views in a less acerbic manner. Over here I will be just encapsulating the things as I see, as I understand, as I enjoy, as I endure.

     I am also not confining myself into decent English, even not in English only(frankly, my English is not quite good). It is likely to be used slang a bit.

     There was a TIFFIN DISTRIBUTER. He always had a fist everyday. Reason? He used to browse through every Tiffin he got for distribution and take out his favorite recipe in small amount. The matter I want to clear to you is that I consider myself much like that tiffinman , the sort of thoughts or information I shall write in upcoming posts might be merely a compilation, like that tiffinman(In that case I will provide references). But surely it won’t be a Copy-Pest venture.

     After this entire so called Swearing-in Ceremony. It is informally declared that “મન થશે તેમ લખીશ થાય ઍ કરી લો."