Some inspirational words

Just as I was thinking along these lines, they occur in the interview a sportsman gave. This is a man I've admired for a while now, for all his calmness through achievements, a man who came back from failures, but all the time remaining gloriously controlled and dignified. This is the sort of character I like for a role model: a man with a drive for achievement, tempered with dignity, culture and composure. He brings an intensity into the game that is as focused on the goals as is measured. Well, the sport is cricket and I'm Indian, so no marks for guessing that its Rahul Dravid. Here's the quote I was talking about earlier, and its from this interview:

Q: Your cricket is characterised by intensity ... whether it's batting or captaincy. How do you manage to sustain that intensity over a long period?

RD: You have to enjoy playing. And you have to make sure you never forget that it's just a game. You have to love the game. I always think about how I began.

When I was a young kid I remember what it felt like to come back from school, throw the bags, quickly get something to eat and then get out to the street to play cricket. We played for two-three hours and how we enjoyed it. It was so much fun. Then there were the school nets and I couldn't wait to go out and play. I was so keen just to hear the bell ring so I could get out there and bat. That's something that never goes away.

Obviously when you're playing professionally for such a long period of time the pressures are different. You taste success, you face defeats, there are some lonely days on the road ...

but if you can always go back to the joy of why you began playing the game in the first place, then the intensity will automatically come whether you're playing your first game, the second or the hundredth.

Self-giving and self-discipline

I have often thought on the theme of self-giving and selfless patriotism, ever since I read Swami Vivekananda's views on patriotism some 7 years ago.

Swamiji's ideas, to me, for the first time, showed that patriotism could be an intense spiritual practice, and in the light of his ideas, patriotism could also raise us to a summit from where we could survey our own role in the larger context of human welfare.

But this greater idea of patriotism also means, we need to exert ourselves more to achieve it. Because it is easy to be patriotic in the sense of cheering one's national sports team or being passionately jingoistic about one's own national ideals. It is easy to even die for one's nation. But it is more difficult to mould oneself according to, and live for, a noble ideal.

If to be patriotic means to feel the suffering of fellowmen coursing through the veins every second, and work in that attitude, the idea enters the rarified realm of the sublime. In that realm, self-giving is the meaning of love. To love then means to suffuse oneself with the ideal. Then, life of the self is control of the self.

Ofcourse the more someone wants to conform to these ideals, the more he or she has to strive to manifest them. But if patriotism must lead to human welfare, it must be practiced in no less a light than this!

Bhajans and Ambulance Sirens

As the evening draws close, the temples in our Varanasi resonate with peace- the chimes of bells, evening Aratis, the aspiration of the human soul for the Divine all merge to create an atmosphere of bliss. It feels like Gods descend on earth to savour the sublime flavour of the hour.

Not on tuesday. The sirens of ambulances that immediately fileld the air after the blasts, perhaps modified and modulated the evening Bhajans: 'Lord, show us a way of of this madness'.

What do Hindus do?

They have a religious leadership which is confused and rudderless and unable to respond to times. A secular leadership which cares more about power and votes. A government that cannot protect their interests. A law enforcement mechanism which is medieval. And the miscreants who aid these inhuman deeds are almost invisible amongst the sea of innocent Muslim citizens of the nation.

A thousand years later, we are free in our lands. But our lives, religion and culture are not still safe. Each new incident only reminds the sad fact more poignantly, 15 August 1947 was only an illusory day of freedom.

another beauty from the same piece:

You're inconsistent, Lord,
I say with all due respect:
You created the merriest poet
But left his sense of humor wrecked.
Pain has suppressed my cheerful trope
And left me in the lurch;
If the maudlin game doesn't come to an end
I'll join the Catholic Church.

From Spenglers's regular at Asia Times online, a translation of this beautiful poem by Heinrich Heine, the 19th century German Jewish poet:

Skip the learned exegesis
Skip the reverential blessing,
Solve the damned conundrum for us
Just this once without digressing:

Why the righteous bear a cross
Along their road of woe, and bleed,
While the scoundrel trots victorious,
Happy on his lofty steed?

Who's to blame for this?
Might God's Omnipotence be less than full?
Or does He play these pranks on purpose?
Oh, that would be contemptible!

Every day we ask until
The question wears us out like cancer.
Then a shovelful of dirt stops up our
Muzzles - but is that an answer?

The Milkmaid's rapture

But why should I worry if Akrura took Him physically away?
When did my Kanha ever live in the world out there?
How can Sunrise affect the moonlit scenery in the heart?

Here in heart's chamber flows timeless, the music of His flute
Wafting through midnight's breeze fresh by Jamuna's touch
How can even a drought affect this eternal inner spring?

O this dark youth, swathed in yellow robes, adorned of
wild flowers and the peacock feather on his crown, has
enraptured the heart; what is time and where the world?

The Milkmaid's song

The whiz of husking, chatter of womenfolk,
and the whish of churning have stopped
Nanda's village has gone calm, its twilight:
Awaiting the return of men who left early;

It is so many years now since Akrura
summoned our beloved cowherd away
but still, this evening, my heart stops
as I hear this nearing clatter: of hooves,
stray moos, and desultory voices of men

Maybe, suddenly, out of that raised dust
He will appear, the dark one, like on that
distant day, He loomed sublime, dancing,
of swarthy Jamuna, on the serpent's head

The lamp of hope

I have lit the evening lamp in this
my small hut; It is really the lamp
of hope: this dusk like on so many
past ones, I sit still by the window
looking, into the courtyard, will my
Kanha, black like a monsoon cloud
appear out of the darkness today?

I have swept the dust out of this
my small hut, really, the dust of
distractions, today like on so many
past days; the evening breezes in
as I look anxiously outside: will my
Kanha, black like moonless nights
appear out of darkness today?

I have adorned the insides of this
my small hut, with flowers of best
fragrance: this day like on so many
past ones, I plucked'em finest, from
love's labour, in the garden of life;
I long for my Kanha, when will he
come drive this unreal light away?

another way os saying the same thing I was saying in the post below:

...

I have shut the world out of my room;
But looking at moonbeams trickling in,
I wish these delightful ones could
somehow come alive and give company

I have locked my lips from talking;
But I wish, this winter breeze could beat
with the sorrow of my heartbeats and
carry it away into that glowing distance

I wish I could be just my shadow-
Even if I wept with my muscles flexed
All that people could see would be
that strength in the silhouette

I cant even cast my present off,
move on: I'm addicted to this sad song
played out by the winds of time blowing
through this hollow reed of my life

To want and to deserve are things
quite apart: the waves of the oceans
all desire the blue sky above but
perish, in this very attempt to soar high.

I dont know what I feel
I dont wish to meet noone
but I long for soul's company
Dont want to talk nothing
but long to pour my heart out
I wish I could be strong
but just want to sit and weep
I see my hollow present
but just can't give it up either
I know what I want but
I dont feel like I deserve that

This excerpt from TVR Shenoy's latest opinion piece sums up the UPA's 'constitutionalism'. And the national media went to sleep because the mischeif maker is Congress, their own darling imp:

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is old enough to recall why January 26 is something more than just another holiday. It is the day we adopted our own Constitution. It is also the day we snapped all links to an alien crown, replacing a governor-general with a president — Dr Rajendra Prasad. This Republic Day, a man whose action was condemned as “unconstitutional” by the apex court, took the salute in Dr Rajendra Prasad’s home state, at a place named after the Father of the Nation.

Be honest with India, Mr Prime Minister, were these really reasons to celebrate Republic Day?

Hi again, world!

Hi world (I mean those litlle numbers who view this blog)! I'm back here after a while.

What did I do in this long time where I wrote no word here? Like the phoenix, tore myself down and rebuilt my life again!! Well I went to India. Each trip to India is such a memorable experience.

Winter in Hyderabad these days, is an amazing experience. The month of Kartika is beautiful- coming as it does after Diwali and how each house is decorated with lamps and how all temples send a lighted lamp up their flagposts! The mild chill that invades the city slowly, seems to carry with it a mystical quality. The early morning wind carries songs from temples. The afternoon sun is like soothing balm. Evenings are poignant. Thus days pass, like a tug of war between warmth and cold! Then as Kartika gives in to Margazhi, that holy month of devotion, the city is filled with fervour. The black colour is ubiquitous- this is the time at which the devotions of pilgrims to Sabarimala reach their peak. The Sabari pilgrims form groupsin neighbourhoods everywhere: colonies, markets and shops, and there are bhajan mandalis all around. Early mornings, noons and evenings they gather and chant aloud. In temples and streets batches after batches of devotees go around singing and dancing- 'Swami appa Ayyappa, Saranam appa Ayyappa, Swami tingana tom tom, Ayyappa tingana tom tom' , 'Rajadhi Rajane, veera Manikandane'..

India! beloved India!

I must sign off now, but I thought I must mention something unconnected to that para above: I found this really funny, the reposte that Prem Panicker, rediff cricket columnist gave to someone who was fooling around during a recent chat session with him:

sraidas : prem why are you wasting time like this.is it true that u are jobless and can do anything to get a piece of bread?

Prem Panicker : Oh lovely -- do you normally waste YOUR time chatting up jobless people?

Standard Responses

This is a witty way of saying what I was saying below about the standard and meaningless 'we condemn's:

Standard Pakistani Response

Some lives are expendable

It is time for Diwali, the favourite Hindu festival, time for celebrations and time for joy. But when in the last thousand years has this curse that hit India with Bin Qasem's stinking swarms left Hindus to live their life and enjoy their festivals in peace and happiness?

More than 60 people murdured again in Delhi. But who cares beyond those customary 'we condemn'? Who cared when a thousand years of relentless persecution and intolerance was imposed upon them? Who cares when every single day Hindus die in Bangladesh and Kashmir?

It'll all be forgotten soon. Just like the Hindu family which was killed brutally just on the day of that earthquake by Islamic terrorists. Just like the Mau violence few weeks back. Just like the attack on Ayodhya few months back. Just like the Marad massacre has been forgotten. Just like Akshardham has been forgotten, Godhra has been forgotten. Just like the 6 soldiers who were tortured and killed in Kargil were forgotten, just like Ripun Katyal has been forgotten. Just like Coimbatore blasts have been forgotten. Just like Bombay blasts have been forgotten.

Some lives are simply expendable.

Humanity comes first...

We humans are a special breed indeed. We raise ideas and ideologies to uphold supposedly noble things and then carry the heavy burden of these ideologies on our heads to ridiculous extents. Some quaint fellow in long past times thought up a few slogans. And the vast majority of semi literate men cling to these ideas as if ideas are for all time or that an idea that is good in one context is good for all contexts or that the more fashionable an idea is, the nearer to truth it is.

The Nazis were all taught kindness to animals but they couldnt be kind to fellow human beings. And the great irony that is, Hitler was a vegetarian. Love for all creation is the real virtue and not mere tendency to feed on grass. Its not being a vegetarian that makes a man great, but development and possession of a sensitive heart, that can feel suffering and respond to it.

And add to all such corpses from past that men put in holy coffins and carry on their heads, the idea of 'secularism'. Either in its etiologically pristine European form as sepration of Church from State or in its vulagrly distorted Indian form as equidistance of the State from all religions, it is simply unsuitable to modern times. Separation of Church and State assumed implicitly that both stood for the same values, and it was temporal power that was being snatched away from the former. But times have changed, modern society no more subscribes to the narrow bigoted views held by the Church or its draconian order or even its totalitarian God. Modern man does not hold that justice means different things to the faithful and the infidel, nor does he consider it natural that men must be persecuted just because they hold 'heathen' views. Reason, freedom and dignity are now recognised as universal values, that must be granted equally to all men and women.

And equally with the Indian distortion: equidistance from all religions is only possible so long as all religions are equally capable of being distant from the polity and equally recognize universal human values. But how can religions that have historically been at loggerheads with such values be allowed to carry on with their work at the expense of fundamental human values? Does the state stand for human values or for artificial ideas that have become modern crosses it must carry just to please some 'liberals' who are but a bunch who think their ideas are great just because there are some in Europe or in China who appreciate them?

Ideas are not great just because some smug intellectuals think so or because somebody pats us on our back for holding them. Ideas are to be judged only on the basis on how fair they and how true they are. Weighed on this scale, secularism fails, wilts. It is time for us to assure in Humanism as our guiding policy and uphold values such as will be conducive for human growth and enrichment.

This is called pure unadulterated bullshit.

excerpts:


How do you look at the earthquake?

The earthquake is the result of the rulers' sinful policies. They wanted the women to abandon hijab; run with men nude in bikinis; and learn dance and music. They were not afraid of Allah but (US President George) Bush. At his (Bush's) behest, they wanted to purge our schoolbooks from verses on jihad; befriend India and recognise Israel. They banned all the jihadi outfits and abandoned jihad. They made jihad an abusive term. They wanted all the Pakistanis to adopt the 'get-up' of Bush. They blatantly ridiculed the commandments of Allah. Thus they invited the wrath of God in the form of the earthquake.

yeah thats why Allah didnt strike Punjab but struck NWFP and AJK.


But the earthquake didn't kill the rulers?

Allah knows better why He didn't kill the rulers. He has warned the rulers by killing a section of the population. He wants the rulers to learn a lesson from the quake and become pious Muslims. There is also a lesson for common folk like us. We too are sinful. We too should seek Allah's forgiveness and adopt the right path. Otherwise, a bigger devastation will completely ruin us.

secretly he must be telling himself..'thats coz Allah knows I'm one of the connivers with the rulers , how can He strike us!!'

The quake and the wounded civilization

Naipaul's words have been famously quoted now so often: India is a wounded civilization. The internal factors that allowed that wound to be scored have not yest ceased to be and nor has the external hand that thrust the dagger right into India's heart has not been amputated yet. The wound is still suppurating.

The world does not understand when it puts China and India on the same platform. What strides India has made are a hundredfold more prodound that what China has. China did not have to contend with a thousand years of colonization and the hundreds of years of pillaging and marauding and plundering which accompoanied it in varying extents through time. China did not have its land and people and minds partitioned, I will not bluff like many people do, 'on the basis of religion': India was partitioned not because of 'religion' but because of Islam and the colonialism it represents. A spade is a spade, a dagger is a dagger. And many people, even the so-called 'nationalists' dont recognize this, when they gloat over 'the serious imbalance that exists in China's political system'. If not rolled back and repelled permanently, this dagger will cut through India's heart as if through butter, the day that external hand wakes up from sleep and connectes back to its chest, the Ummah.

And the only way to roll it back is to face the questions posed by it without wincing. Islam was thrust upon large parts of India at swordpoint, with daggers drawn to chest, through terror and through force. Centuries later, the converted populace, the brainwashed future generations of an enervated society, rationalised the conversion citing social reasons. But India accepts the faults of Her social system. Her whole national energy in a thousand years has been directed to correcting these faults, and we can see what stupendous progress has been achieved even in the paltry 50 past years after 'independence'. India accepts the ageing and the fallibility of the Smriti and proposes to rewrite it for every age. So there is no social reason to continue acceptance of an alien ideology on Indian soil and there is no basis for continued existence of a 'Pakistan'.

And the spiritual reasons? When was the last time the proponents of Islam could take on rationally the advanced spiritual views of the native Indian traditions? Individually or collectively, the Vedic-Shramanic or Hindu viewpoints present questions which the Mullahs sweep convenietly under their prayer carpets. What are the criteria for your acceptance of a man as a 'Prophet'? What is a 'Prophet' anyway? How can there be a 'one last Prophet' when we know that that last Prophet lived more than a thousand years ago and the world is not going to end in any near future? How does 'God' arbitrarily choose one man as his 'Prophet' as opposed to other men and women? Which brings to the most important question around which all this myhtology is built: what is 'God' anyway? Is this true, that there is a 'God' who interferes in the affairs of mankind like an impatient school kid?

And all facts that we can use to reason argue to the contrary, that there is no such 'God'. This earth is a cooled down collection of volcanoes and life is part of Earth's chemistry. This is what we can come to conclude. If more proof is required, please go to Muzaffarabad today and verify for yourself. Then, either you can continue to delude yourself on the mercy of a loving 'God' whose mercy is mysteriously concealed through disasters which 'He' sends to test man or, shake your head and reach for your senses: there is no such 'God'. The 'God' upon which Islam bases so much of its causistry is a humbug. The pious Jihadis who gave up everything in their life to fight the infidels on the mountains around Muzaffarabad found it the hard way when the shelters they were holed in during their pious endeavours fell upon their heads. The one solid argument which could be used like a crowbar to lunge this dagger out from India's chest was revealed from the depths of Earth's bosom last week. some 50,000 dead must be enough to convince reasonable men.

Where silence is so intense, only thoughts seem louder, where Sun's rays struggle but barely reach the earth; wind susurrates through the leaves to charm the heart; a gleaming stream looks like a blue necklace wrapped around the woods. To that remote jungle I want now to be transported. In that undisturbed joy, the mountains painted against the distant sky, will seem like a pointer. The distance is still undone, Truth yet unknown, and the peak yet unscaled. In that atmosphere I will lose myself in my self.

Existence of 'God'?

For quite sometime now I had completely abandoned the idea of a creator 'God', someone who sat as arbitrator on the events of the world. If at all there was someone, that someone is well beyond human reason, this is what I held. To those who propound a merciful God of the world, I had only few questions to ask: forget the endless number of natural disasters which seem sent to swallow men by the thousands, the Tsunami and Katrina being the latest, even the small timeline of a few thousand years of our memory is crowded with events of guesome cruetly of man to fellow man.

If Islamic armies committed macabre raids on India and the rest of the world upto just a few hundred years ago, the holocaust is not far from our view, 'Lajja' must bring me closer home and the latest Iraq war is still festering. A thousand people die in Iraq every week, their lives reduced to figures in the politcal battles in western capitals. How can a loving God, God of mankind permit such things? If even we accept that these are 'temporary' events in 'Cosmic' vision, every suffering man can know how intense the pangs of individual misery is. Unless ofcourse that God is among the sufferers. And that God is also evil as much as is good, and the veil as much as She or He is light.

This is Navaratri and Kaali is the answer. She generates life as much as She grants death. Nothing is excluded from Her. I for long, accepted 'Being' as the ultimate and dismissed a possible divine 'Will'. But what if that 'Will' is all play and that play is not simple? The answers to the most profound questions in life are paradoxes. 'Being-Will' seems to be the answer. A new joy has come over my life, I'm not a lost twig being whirled around by this current of life. There is an anchor and a direction.

Something has changed. Summer's now gone for weeks, autumn too will soon recede before menacing winter, like hyena before a lion. But there is warmth like in spring. There is anticipation, hope, a lightness of heart. Is this to say I'm being emotionally vagarious?. Far from. Its about the inner values. When I cannot live upto the values I hold dear, I feel low, unconfident, crestfallen and broken. When I have fallen back to being what I believe is the right way, the way that appeals to my heart, I feel on top, I feel special. The days are drawing markedly smaller, and sun sets earlier and earlier, but for now, cheer's the word and not drear.