A New Begining

It has been a long time that I have had time to sit down and post a new entry in to my blog... I guess I owe an explanation to the few devoted people who have doggedly put up with my 'psychobabble' passing it off as good and sometimes excellent posts...

My decision of transition from my previous organisation was sudden and unexpected for most... However, suffice it to say that it was a decision taken weighing all pro and cons...The last few days were sad and poignant as I saw my students coming to me teary eyed expressing their sadness and shock on my sudden departure... Colleagues who had become good friends over a period of time, expressed their surprise as well as regret on my leaving. Everybody however wished me well and bade me goodbye...

I packed my belongings, moved my stuff and bid adieu to Hyderabad on the 4th of April for Coimbatore... Hyderabad, to put down in few passing words, has been good to us... The climate, ambience', the city had a very friendly feel... It was like a home away from home for us for the last 3 years and we enjoyed thoroughly our stay there... At least as far as I am concerned, I look forward to settling down there (in the sunset years of my life) having already purchased a land near the airport...

Month of April was busy and hectic, with lots of travelling, arranging stuff s and lots of shopping for the new house and finally 2 weeks of blissful nothingness as we slowly settled in our beautiful house in the small but beautiful city of Coimbatore each day watching the beautiful Ooty which is visible from our terrace ...

It has been 2 weeks since my joining the new organization... Work here is interesting, challenging with scope for a lot to be done... As I am slowly settling in to my job I am looking forward to the coming days when  work together with the team here to bring about quite a bit of structural and functional changes which may serve as a model for the network all across.

Again a new assignment, a new place and a new challenge... And am up for it and raring to go as usual...  

Concluding with my favourite line from Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep....

Look up to this space for more interesting posts in the coming days as I go bag packing visiting our units spread across India...

The Voice Within

"Two roads diverged in a wood and I-

I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference."

Thus spoke Robert Frost, the great poet defining what one needs to do in life when one finds one's self at life's cross road..

Well, my brief experiment in life has taught me the above lesson as well as the fact that one should always heed to his/her own heart's calling... Coz no matter what, if you are not enjoying what you are doing, if your daily work is a like a great burden you have been carrying on your shoulder unwillingly, if work to you mean earning basic means of livelihood for yourself...Then it is time for you to stop doing all that you are doing and reflect on the path so far taken by you and also think whether this is the path you really wanted to take..

Most of the time we do not listen to the inner voice within ourselves which tells us that the road being taken by us may not be the right one but in a world of fixing priorities and jostling with others to get ahead, one either ignores this small voice or is not able to hear it...

What happens with such status quo existence is the fact that though we manage to eke out a living but our soul goes dead and the spark of creativity dies within us... In the absence of that tireless flame which helps us to go ahead in life, we become like mere mechanical robot who work as per specific commands...

Whenever such incidence has happened in my life I actually take the following steps without fail:

1. First of all I try to reflect on what I have been doing and the road I am currently travelling ; is it the one that I wanted to do or travel on respectively
2. The moment I find out that it is the wrong work which I have undertaken or is the wrong road that I am traveling on; I usually suspend all activity and work in all earnest to rectify my mistake and set right my course
3. In this process I generally ensure that I consult people whom I consider my guide/mentor for guidance/advice, talk with my employer (if it is job related) and most of all talk to my family for their opinion and more importantly their support
4. Once when I have the guidance/advice of my mentor/guide, the best option at work given by my employer and the opinion of my family; I retreat to my own 'cave' so to speak and reflect on all all the option available to me in view of the advice/guidance/opinion given to me
5. Based on the best option which best suits and is endorsed strongly by my inner voice, I pick the same and then make a decisive move from which there is no looking back

By following the above method/pathway and always listening to the small voice within me, I have realised that I have been able to keep myself happy and satisfied along with people who come in contact with me.

I read it somewhere ( I guess it was Paulo Coelho) who said that the inner voice is the loudest when a man is in his childhood. That is the time when innocence abounds in the living angel in the form of children. But as they grow up, the parents, society, teachers, religious clergy etc try to impose on them certain regimented way of living in the name of culture, values, ethics, morals, discipline and so on and so forth. 

By the time a person grows up to be an adult, that small voice within is either very feeble or totally inaudible... By making the voice muted or ignoring its message we only help to kill our own personal legend, the creativity, the soul so to say within us... With our soul gone we become nothing more than a living corpse.. an automated robot running the race of life till such time when it finally drops dead...

Hence it is very much essential for us to keep that innocence alive with in us not for the sake of doing a good to the world but for our sake for this is the fire which will goad us to perfection and make us choose profession which becomes a joy to carry out - An extension of one's life itself...An ecstasy to be felt only by the blessed who care to listen to their inner voice...

The Testing Times

Ahmadi youth burying the dead from the Lahore mosque attack

The recent spate of attack on the Ahmadiyya Community in Indonesia again goes to showcase the growing quantum of religious intolerance which is so evident and characteristics of today's new world order.

The Ahmadiyya Community was a small community within the larger fold of Islam which was found in Qadian, India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who claimed to be the promised Messiah and Mehdi as per the original prophecy by the Holy Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) who had prohesised the advent of a reformer who will appear after 1400 years of His (Holy Prohet's) advent and will reform Islam of its evil which would have crept in due to the passage of time. He also prohesised some heavenly occurrence (like lunar and solar eclipse in the same lunar year) which would be a sign of the appearance of the Reformer.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, in 1880s claimed to be the Reformer (Promised Messiah) and was also ratified by the appearance of suitable signs as was narrated by the Holy Prophet. In 1889 he started a sect called the Ahmadiyya movement which was joined by a lot of people who were convinced of his claims by witnessing the heavenly signs.

In all his work and deed Mirza Ghulam Ahmad maintained that he is a staunch follower of Islam and the Holy Prophet and exhorted the Muslim to help him bring order in Islam. He also firmly believed in the finality of Prophet hood in believing that the Holy Prophet was the seal of the Prophet.

The community has gone from strength to strength in having a global presence due to its spirit of universal brotherhood, love and humanity in everything that it does. However, as with all nascent idea or innovator, there accompanies a severe opposition from the opponent of old and orthodox ideology as they see the ground beneath them shaking and shifting.

Hence also with the Ahmadiyya Sect the quantum of persecution and torture has only grown multi fold. In this effort Pakistan has been the 'proud' torch bearer. Since the early 60s, Ahmadis have been persecuted, tortured and killed in Pakistan as they performed their usual act of faith. Many Ahmadis were killed on the basis of an ordinance passed by the then President Zia ul Haq which prohibited Ahmadis to perform Namaz, say Adhan (the call for prayer) or even say salam to each other (greetings). A state sponsored pogrom had been initiated against them since the time of Zia ul Haq and before which systematically desecrated their mosque, their community place and other infrastructure. It was such a violation of human civil rights that Ahmadis were asked to identify them selves as Ahmadis or were denied passport. The Mullahs proudly proclaimed in their Friday sermons and their hate speech to kill ahmadis as it is an act of vitrue and killing an Ahmadi will guarantee a person a place in heaven.

The culmination of all these hate campaign was the last year attack on Ahmadis in Lahore where armed people entered 2 Ahamdiyya mosque ans sprayed bullets on innocent people as they offered their Friday Prayer. 

As vice attracts vice and each try to outplay each other in its obsession of being the most gruesome and evil; so also there is an invisible race among the mullahs of various so called Islamic country to outdo each other in persecuting and killing Ahmadis. The latest has been the barbaric attack on Ahmadis in Indonesia where 3 people were brutally murdered by a mob of 1000 people in full public view the details of which was recorded and put up proudly on YouTube for public consumption.

As we see the grotesque dance of religious intolerance and violence in our neighbourhood; we in a secular and peace loving country like India should sit up and take notice of any such intolerance in our society and deal with it firmly to nip it at its very bud. 

Reader will obviously ask the question that is it because I myself am a Ahmadi that I am so concerned? The answer is may be or may not be.. But what is of essence is the fact that it has shaken the secular faith within myself which my country has given me to believe that the ultimate goodness for humankind lies in having an empathetic understanding of each others' view point and making space for each others differences and rejoicing the commonality that we have amongst ourselves. What comes so easy to us is the spirit of "Unity in Diversity" for which India has made a mark for itself in the assembly of the world. Let us celebrate this spirit while ensuring that we zealously nurture it, preserve it and raise voice against forces which threatens to annihilate it.

It indeed is a testing time for us all !

Rebuilding the world

Sometimes when I am all out of sorts, confused, angry and in total discomfiture with myself and my surrounding, bang comes Paulo Coelho like a beacon of light on a stormy night and and as an effect am all raring to go...

Below is a post from Paulo Coelho produced in toto which I found in my regular face book update... Only when I was all feeling all lost and found my spirit flagging, this piece really lifted my spirit up. Apart from the inherent message that in order to build the world we have to focus on each human being, what the post also signifies is the simple approach one has to take in life to address one's problem one by one and voila ! will find that the rest of the problems are solving them selves and falling in to the jigsaw puzzle which will complete the picture of your happy life...

"A father was trying to read the newspaper, but his little son kept pestering him.
Finally, the father grew tired of this and, tearing a page from the newspaper – one that bore a map of the world – he cut it into several pieces and handed them to his son.

‘Right, now you’ve got something to do. I’ve given you a map of the world and I want to see if you can put it back together correctly.’

He resumed his reading, knowing that the task would keep the child occupied for the rest of the day.
However, a quarter of an hour later, the boy returned with the map.

‘Has your mother been teaching you geography?’ asked his father in astonishment.

‘I don’t even know what that is,’ replied the boy. ‘But there was a photo of a man on the other side of the page, so I put the man back together and found I’d put the world back together too."

The hilarious entertainment on Television

The current impasse in the Parliament in the country since the last 18 days has been a matter of concern for not only the people of this country but also to law makers in the country (coz Parliament sessions are the time when a sizable group of criminals get locked up in the Parliament house with a sense of doing something important like breaking furniture, throwing up a delectable assortment of gaalis which shows how much they love their mothers and sisters etc etc)

The only Parliament in session right now in the country are the ones now held by various news channels during the prime time 9 p.m shows... As 3 main English news channels vie for eye balls (interestingly the 2 news editors of these 'new' channels are a product from the 'old' channel  which is the only  news channel older than the DD Channel - no offense to grand old DD- where the grand patriarch laboriously drags on presenting news like a cross between Ghajini and George W. Bush. Jr.)

The stuff strutted on these channel is more entrainment than the actual Parliament... This I realised early on my life,  (does that qualify me for a Nirvana  like tag as seen in  Mani Shanker Aiyar with a eternal expression of  "I -told-you-so" plastered on his face like the wall of our government offices are with paan spittle?) that the ultimate entertainment lies in watching representative of the world's greatest democracy in action... 

As a young college going kid I would sit down in front of our small B&W T.V set waiting for the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha to start (by the way Lok Sabha was and always will be most entertaining as compared to Rajaya Sabha which is populated by senile septuagenarian and octogenarian in a perpetual state of dazed dementia and a worried expression which is clearly indicative of a leaking bladder/bowel)... My family members forgave me with the magnanimity of Rakhi Sawant on "Rakhi ka Insaaf" thinking that I have gone bonkers...

But with new age television and cable T.V hitting the circuit, the old school charm of the 'bonhomie' of Parliament session looks outdated similar to Dev Anand trying to make a come back for the umpteenth time  in Bollywood movies (by the way Dev Saab always takes the compliment like 'the ever green man of Indian cinema, the great don of Bollywood movies, the eternal charmer ' etc etc a tad too seriously and always make a 'comeback' embarrassing everybody but himself failing to get the message each time)...

So right now I am hooked to the telly everyday from 9 p.m onwards where Jayanti Natarajan's crying herself  hoarse (a latest and major congress strategy to  drown the view point of other panelists) which will put to shame Ekta Kapoor's mother in law in her saas Bahu serials... Or the BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad's stoic ('pregnant'?) silence and the considerable effort to appear solid as a rock (must have been influenced by Bhishma Pitamaha's  character in the Mahabharat), Pranab Mukherjee talking to T.V reporters in an accent (which is so heavily accented in Bengali to put even the most rustic Bengali to shame)  as if addressing a gathering of the inhabitants of the Mangrove forest in Sunderban , the CPI spokesperson speaking like a  newbie PhD research scholar trying hard to impress his/her faculty... the minority party spokesperson whining and complaining of how they are never heard.. even on T.V shows... 

The master piece is however, the DMK leader Kaurnanidih's (the guess game about his age stopped around the time when the cave man invented the 1st stone weapons to hunt down animals for food) statement from Chennai is a treat to watch... He talks as if talking in a dream (the expression on his face is a mix of emotion wondering if he has really taken his last shot of insulin, whether the crooked nurse, who always happens to be a Mallu, ensured his bowels are cleaned and wondering if the camera is not capturing a leaking catheter jutting out of the Loins oops Lions of T.N )....

Guys, I Sh@# you not... If you are looking for a heavy dose of entertainment better  than the daily soaps, movies, reality show etc and if you do nt want yourself bombarded by lessons in morality (by tons of  SILLY cone which has been hit by a make up van doling out her own version of justice) then prime time news at 9 p.m is the place for you to be...

Hope to catch up with you there the next time around...

The Parsi way of life

Currently I am reading the 'infamously' famous book by Rohinton Mistry " Such A Long Journey"... Though I must admit that I picked up the book coz of all the hype and hoopla surrounding the book... However, having gone through the greater part of the book, I must admit that its definitely worth a read...

The story revolves round the protagonist Gustad Noble who is a middle aged Parsi gentleman and how he has to deal with various events that unfold around him... The story vividly captures Bombay of the late 60s and early 70s... The rain, the chaos, the sea of humanity and above all the sheer callousness and indifference of the common man, the state machinery, the neighbourhood etc etc which drives the protagonist to insanity and back... What keeps him reined in is the fact that he has a sweet family of 3 kids and a loving wife... However fate is not also kind on this front often  playing truant ... 

Since my masters day in Bombay, I have often been fascinated by the Parsi community and their way of life.. I have come to understand the fact that Parsis are a very close knit community whose population are sadly on the decline as the proportion of elderly people far outweigh those of the young mass.. However, I fondly recount memories of my interaction with people from this small community (mostly faculty at the institute, students or friends)... Apart from being very warm in their interaction, they are also quite a hospitable lot... Treating you to food and dine as generously as you may rarely have seen elsewhere... 

I still remember visiting the Dadar Parsi colony or the Parsi community towards Colaba or Anderi... The serenity, tranquility  and calmness about these settlement was something which attracted me to them... The houses, typically in these colonies, dated far back in history... though old and dated, they were maintained quite well and had a very haunting old world charm in them...The colony would typically have a very thick green cover with age old tree lining the road which gave it such mystical aura especially during the rainy season...

What lingers in my memory, like the fresh aroma of hot coffee made from freshly ground coffee bean on a very wet rainy day, is the charm of the community, their way of living and how the parsis have lent a charm of their own to Bombay in this enduring love affair  from as early as 10th century A.D and have made mainly  it their home... (a fact which is reflected in the statistics which estimates that globally there are only 100, 000 parsis and as per the 2001 census of India, 69,601 live in India - mostly in and around Bombay)

So go on and read the book if you want to have a flavour of this small but magnificent community which lends, to a great extent, the old world charm to the great city of Bombay...

A son is a son till he has a wife...

Was talking with a friend who was enquiring my well being and also about the expected date of the arrival of my long awaited, cherished bundle of joy... our baby...

I told him about the date (which happened to be somewhere in late December)... And some how spontaneously he asked (good intentionedly, of course): " So is it a boy or a girl?" I was somehow found wanting for answer as it has never even crossed my mind to check for the sex of the growing child in the umpteenth check up that my wife had with the doctor...

It is not out of a sense of pride or advocating for a burning social cause (like the case of female foeticide) which prompted us (myself and my wife) for not to go for such test... It was just a sense of joy and fulfillment which has kept us on our tenterhooks anticipating the arrival of our 1st child in to this world... boy or girl be damned...

While I have been an etic observer of the obsession that we as a country have for a boy child, it has always struck to me as a quintessential patriarchal passion which saw the birth of a male child as something auspicious or of someone to hold aloft the family torch etc etc... However, the real impact of the obsession hit me after we declared to the world about our forthcoming joy in to the world... That's when we heard whispers from relatives, friends et al to somehow sneak in the imaging chamber, coax the doctor to know the gender of our yet to be born offspring...

While I could go on and on about rattling statistics about the rampant female foeticide in the country (especially the northern part), how we as a country have brought ourselves to the brink of eliminating the female species with our obsession for the male child etc etc; I will desist from doing so...

As they say the proof of the pudding is in eating it, so is it in this instance too... In my opinion, the obsession to have a boy child stems from one of the basic emotion of humans.. fear... fear of loneliness in the old age, fear of being left abandoned in the evening of one's life, fear of having none to take the family name forward etc etc...

However, I have found such logic most 'illogical' and irrational... As I have seen umpteenth example of households full with boys and still the parents finding their way to an old age home in the late years of their life to lament the loneliness alone and wait for their death..

I think this perspective has to undergo a paradigm shift in our society and what should become a priority ultimately is the fact that we should strive to make a better human being  out of tour children and ensure that they become good citizens, better family man and somebody who would make you and your family name proud - boy or girl not withstanding...

I had heard of a famous quotation long ago and I will try to quote it here.. 

"My son's my son, till he hath got him a wife, But my daughter's my daughter all days of her life"
[1670 J. Ray English Proverbs 53]

Although a broad generalisation, but is  a good point for us to start to do away with our age old bias and obsession for the boy child and start looking at children more objectively in what they become in life through nurture than what they are by nature..