A misplaced criticism.

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....

      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

      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?

      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…….

 

     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...

       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

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