The Magic called Change.
Date: Dec 8th, 2007 6:36:06 pm - Subscribe
Mood: glowing
I live in a small part of a big city. This city has become the face of emerging India. It seems that people have again started to dream, the world has freed itself again, the air is fresh again and suddenly optimism has found place in man's heart. In all these changing shapes I find one face which remains same as ever, he seems to be living in a different world, away from all the optimism and happiness which I see around.
This person aged about 65 is one of the millions of construction workers in India. His present home is a makeshift hut in front a construction site. I have been seeing this man and the making of this house from past six months. In the past six months the house has risen all of a sudden from a piece of land like a phoenix rises from ashes. The old man .... seems unchanged since ages. Nothing can be a bigger irony than seeing these two contradictory faces working together. On one hand the house arose from the stones around like a living being and this person has been lifeless like a stone.
I wonder what must be the thinking of this old person. Does he have any dream? Does he have any expectations from his so called life? I always get the feeling that he has become a machine whose only aim is to live. There are no emotions in his life. Just like a machine in a factory he starts working at the break of the dawn and stops in the evening. He eats and sleep after getting dead tired only to start working at the next dawn. Last six months have been as good as a day for me as an observer of his life. On the contrary the same six months have been like a lifetime for this house which became alive from earth and stones.
Change is the essence of life. Change represents the motion of the river of life. Without motion the river stagnates, becomes home to all the filth in the world and ultimately dies. Man is a supreme animal. He has the power to bring this change in anything he touches. He has the power to create life from stones. He is all powerful but only as long as he retains his motion of life. The day he loses this motion, he gives his life to a stone and becomes a stone in return.
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The Magic called Change.
Date: Dec 8th, 2007 5:49:31 pm - Subscribe
I live in a small part of a big city. This city has become the emerging face of India. It seems that people have again started to dream, the world has freed itself again, the air is fresh again and suddenly optimism has found place in man's heart. In all these changing shapes I find one face which remains same as ever, he seems to be living in a different world, away from all the optimism and happiness which I see around.
This person aged about 65 is one of the millions of construction workers in India. His present home is a makeshift hut in front a construction site. I have been seeing this man and the making of this house from past six months. In the past six months the house has risen all of a sudden from a piece of land like a phoenix rises from ashes. The old man .... seems unchanged since ages. Nothing can be a bigger irony than seeing these two contradictory faces working together. On one hand the house arose from the stones around like a living being and this person has been lifeless like a stone.
I wonder what must be the thinking of this old person. Does he have any dream? Does he have any expectations from his so called life? I always get the feeling that he has become a machine whose only aim is to live. There are no emotions in his life. Just like a machine in a factory he starts working at the break of the dawn and stops in the evening. He eats and sleep after getting dead tired only to start working at the next dawn. Last six months have been as good as a day for me as an observer of his life. On the contrary the same six months have been like a lifetime for this house which became alive from earth and stones.
Change is the essence of life. Change represents the motion of the river of life. Without motion the river stagnates, becomes home to all the filth in the world and ultimately dies. Man is a supreme animal. He has the power to bring this change in anything he touches. He has the power to create life from stones. He is all powerful but only as long as he retains his motion of life. The day he loses this motion, he gives his life to a stone and becomes a stone in return.
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The Wealth Sink
Date: Oct 19th, 2007 12:34:20 am - Subscribe
Mood: outraged
Wealth Sink ... exactly similar to a heat sink. But instead of sinking the Heat, it sinks in Wealth. I know you must be wondering about what I am talking about. Read on....
This happened about 150 years back. Scene : 22nd Oct 1757, Battle of Plassey
Sometimes, the time plays such an irony with mankind. There are innumerable great wars which must have been fought in Indian history with lakhs of casualties. But this fatefull date will go down in the history of India as one of its most important events for all the wrong reasons. There were only 22 casualties. The result, a part of India was now a part of British Colony. Sometimes I wonder if there is any other example of such big euphemism in history of any other country. A war not even fought properly to be called a war and the consequences of which is the start of downfall of the Indian subcontinent..
I say all this because after this event
the richest province of India, Bengal was now called the colony of England. The Golden Bird was caged today.
It is so very rightly said that 'Greed' is the cause of all the problems of Man. It makes you blind. Blind to all the miseries which you spread, blind to all the suffering you cause to small innocent individuals in your path to glory. This was exactly the kind of greed which drove the traders of Britain. They were excellent traders, Probably the best ... but they traded the happiness with sufferings, they traded worthiness with worthlessness,they traded the blood of Indians for pounds.
Earlier the english were only the traders in India who had come here to buy the Indian textiles, handicrafts and spices. They gave back gold. From now on they will take the revenues from peasants and buy the produce with the money of peasants and then sell it to markets in Britain.
'Made in India' must have been the byword all over the Europe that time. The Indian products were as common as air in Europe that time. Europe had an insatiable thrist of Indian products that time. But now they were not needed. The interests of English Manufacturers were supreme now. High imports were put up against indian goods. But the Indians weavers survived. They could still squeeze out enough profit for the trade to go on. But then the final blow of death came. After industrial revolution in Europe, the english imposed a one way free trade with India. Goods were free to come in Indian market and heavy imports duties were put up against the Indian goods. India was now a economic market for english.
Bring in the raw materials, we will sell the finished goods to you said the english. The raw materials were bought with indian money and then the finished goods were sold again taking the Indian money. Above all, this Indian money was being taken to England.
But seldom does the greedy give up. They wanted more. Having killed the markets for the Indian goods overseas they now wanted bigger markets, more profits, more people to buy their goods. They built railways, not because they wanted to improve the conditions here, but they wanted to reach the remotest markets in India. They devised fares such that it will help import and export only and not intenal movements. They spread the western culture, not because they thought it good for us, because it will create a ideal buyer of western goods.
Since then, they systematically and methodically killed the indian industry. The weavers and the manufacturers who were once among the richest came down to become agricultural labours. Agriculturers were traumatised with exorbitant taxes. The once bubbling economy was now dead and the economy was just a rotten market of imported goods with no enterprises. For the next 150 years India was squeezed of her life blood making her poorer and poorer each year.
India had her share of invaders. The greeks, parthians, Scythians, afghans, Turks, Mogols, Mughals were all called invaders once. But they were absorbed into the culture of this country and eventually became a part of this culture. They must have looted the country, but eventually the spent in India. The trade was retained in the country and multiplied the wealth again and again till it became the richest. But the english were never here to become a part of this country. It was shear greed and nothing else which drove them here. I dont hesisate when I think that all the wealth in the europe belongs to some poor,remote country in Asia or Africa whom they now called underdeveloped and backward economies.
Today India must be the only country which dreams to be a superpower without sucking out the wealth from other vulnerable countries. Probably there in lies the greatness of this culture and my heart fills with pride today to think of this.
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Pride and Shame !
Date: Oct 6th, 2007 4:43:23 pm - Subscribe
Mood: philosophical
Human Being! Sometimes I think why is this name given to this creature. What is the meaning of being "Human"? When I probe deeper into my conscience I find the thing which differentiates us from all the life forms on the face of this Earth is an eight letter word called "Feelings". I am always amazed by the brain of a human being, so complex yet so simple, so powerful yet so delicate, so independent yet so much dependent on the other organs .....
It is because of this power of a pound neurons that we can feel so many diverse and varied feelings which makes us so very different from others as well from ourselves. This brain can take us from the highest feeling to the lowest possible shame in a moment.
I was reading history of India today. Its funny that the subject which gave me tonnes of nice sleep in classes is now one of my most favourite subjects. Reading history of India can really be such a eye opener. I felt a sense of pride when I read that the likes of Aryabhatas and Brahmaguptas. When all the world was thinking the earth is the centre of the universe, it was Brahmagupta who said that Earth rotated around Sun. He even calculated the period of the revolution to a nearly exact figure of 366. Aryabhatta gave the world the number "Zero" which was unknown till that time. Varahimira did no less than others in any respect. He calculated the value of pi more accurately than the contemprory mathematicians in the world. Just imagine if you had called the Pythagoras Theorem as Brahmagupta's theorem ! It feels odd but its certainly more deserving to this guy. All this was achieved 1700 years ago. The trade was so strong that Java and Sumatra became Indian names. Singapore was called Simhapore and Cambodia was Khambojia. I was over-awed by all this. I was filled by a deep sense of pride in my country and in my culture.
But as I said earlier that brain is such a wonderfull thing. It can bring you down from the highest pride to the lowest possible shame. I saw later Deepa Mehta's "Water". It was another eye opener in itself. It depicted the plight of Widows in medieval India. I had heard and read about this ghastly practices earlier but to see them takes you a level closer to these acts. I was shell shocked to see a small girl of seven being shaven bald because his "Husband" had died. She did not even know the meaning of being a Widow. She was to live a colourless life now in which she could not eat spicy foods and wear or have any colour on her body. She was a sham in the society. The so called intellectuals did not want her shadow on them which will make them impure.She is looked upon like an object of sex by the same higherups of the society. I was feeling terribly ashamed and angry at the same ancient culture and same country which I was talking of earlier. I felt utterly helpless and desperate when I thought that these things actually happened in the so called Great Civilisation of India.
Its so sad that after achieving so much we stayed so low where it mattered. I would have preferred an egalitarian society which our Rigved had actually said about than to have this rotten society where the life becomes a living hell for some innocent women. I would have loved to see that the same Great Aryabhatas and Brahmaguptas working for the eradication of these practices instead of discovering the facts of the outside world.
In the end I know now that no matter how much higher you rise your feet must always be on the ground. No matter whatever good which you have done , one small wrong will make you the most miserable person of the World.
Comments: (4)
Gandhi !
Date: Sep 27th, 2007 2:57:24 am - Subscribe
Mood: inspired
Gandhi ! .. people in my country call him Mahatma meaning 'The great Soul'. He always occupied a very special place in my mind. I always used to wonder the power of his methods. I always wanted to know more of him. Not what the usual history books taught us but I wanted to know his thought process. He seemed to me a impossible creation of God. When all the world was breaking free of the shakles of the Raj by killing and spilling blood, he thought of 'Ahimsa'. I had my own prejudices about him. I must confess that I was a fan of the man who killed him. But I did not want to have a judgement of any individual without knowing his thoughts, principles and ideals. Reading his autobiography was the answer to all my questions.
After reading 'The story of my experiments with Truth', I must say I am inspired. Not many stories have inspired me as much as this story of a simple man who became a person called Mahatma in his later life. His frankness about telling the truth is what really astonishes me. He told somethings about himself which many other persons might have kept in their inner most parts of conscience and would safely have taken that fact to their grave alongwith them.
His emphasis on exercises and dietary control came as a surprise to me. I dont think I would have ever known these aspects of his thinking without reading his autobiography. His novel methods of resistance were indeed powerfull. These methods attacked the conscience of the opponent and that really made them such effective methods. Its so sad that this world seems to forget the cherished ideals of this man which I think are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago.
There were also some things about him which didnt struck cord with me. The way he treated his family and more specifically his wife was indeed very sad. Gandhi often repented his behaviour with his wife later on but such great men are not allowed to make such mistakes. Over and all this book was a treat to read, a deep insight to his thoughts and what he used to think about his Ideals.
You will have many critics of this man. Infact the condition is so bad that you will get two critics for every symphathiser of Gandhi. But I think that criticizing such great people is more to do with pretending to be an intellectual than really feeling critical of him. It has become a vulgar intellectual show off to criticize the likes of Gandhi and Nehru. Gandhi remains a person who should be idolised according to me. He had his own thoughts about some things. He respected the feelings of his enemy even if that would mean his defeat. And thats what really lacked in the people opposed to him that time and even today. He thought that Raj was good for us and no one can deny that fact. It was the Raj which brought us on a common sabbatical. This commoness was the reason for rise of the Nationalism which was limited to regionalism earlier on. His thought of ahimsa and truth are ideals today. I will wait for the day when his ideals are followed in letter as well as spirit.
You may say a lot of things about him but for me he will always remain the person who united whole Nation and defeated the mighty Raj by mere denying food to his stomach.
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