tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86065431391800744962024-02-21T02:15:52.764+05:30Thinking Man - Rishit DesaiPoems and PhilosophyRishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-11650479209191075312012-10-26T12:49:00.001+05:302012-10-29T14:23:42.902+05:30The Supreme One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Aditya marched<br />
Several hundred of them two<br />
Followed their king or was it the beat<br />
Of the golden drums that played<br />
One stroke for every step<br />
The music was the pace.<br />
<br />
We all too stride<br />
The flowers, bees and birds<br />
Rest of us and animals too<br />
We beat to His steps<br />
His sounds, show the way<br />
Only His Will shall end this race.<br />
<br />
Do not try to look but,<br />
On land and mountain tops<br />
For His presence or divinity<br />
The Sun, the rhythm, the air, the womb<br />
Why don't we just see around?<br />
All of us are his trace.<br />
<br />
<br />
Explanation:<br />
<br />
1st stanza - VikramAditya was one of the most illustrious Kings ever to have ruled India. As per the legend, his army used to march to the beats of the drums; one step for every beat.<br />
2nd stanza - Lord Shiva is the most powerful and revered God in the Hindu pantheon. In mythology, Lord Shiva has said to have played his 'damaru' (tabor - percussion instrument) to create all the sounds that make up our speech (popularly known as the 14 Maheswara Sutras). Our heart 'beats' as per His Will and we all march on, in this cycle of creation and destruction.<br />
<br /></div>
Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-18806353542120008222012-07-15T14:07:00.001+05:302012-07-15T19:29:20.260+05:30The Cobbler<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.2868586527183652" style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Life in the city is an awful hustle,</span></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.2868586527183652" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We make no time to look around;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Must complete a task to start anew that second,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even the comforting bed is now a battleground.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This morning was like all the rest,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Who but cares for the cuckoo’s nest;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heart was just another muscle today,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Didn’t vex nor pain for the grieving breast.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eager to catch the first train out,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A push and a nudge bereft of a bout;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time is a treasure never found in abundance,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To steal a moment is ever the key essence.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In some such days I did find success,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Found a few seconds and a task to attend;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In front of me was this diligent craftsman,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He laboured while I spoke to my friend in Phnom Penh.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He rubbed and brushed and polished my shoes,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Put in all his effort, made them shine like new;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While he then got busy and his tools did he rearrange,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lauded his effort with disgustingly small change.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So much did I like his work,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That i went to him on occasions many;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amazing was his love for my leather,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In sun or snow or the floody weather.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that I think, there was never between us a conversation,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Face to face makes me coy, such is our civilization;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder what changes me when spoke unabated on phone,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whilst he worked with his tools I played with my own.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some went to him to shine,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some went to mend a hole;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gave everyone the stitch they deserved,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be it leather, wood or simply a rubber sole.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sun ceased its role long ago,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But never did it bother me;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My work went into the night,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The setting one was never for me to see.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today was but a little different, Lo! beholden,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cam to the station this time untrodden;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sinking sun still shone the sky a golden,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Disembarked the same platform, That which was boustrophedon.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saw the repairman sitting all alone,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As if waiting for someone whilst his hair windblown;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Packed and ready to go were his many-a-tool,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Couldn’t figure out what was holding up his schedule.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stood and watched him pass his time,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So did I as smoke my face atone(d);</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He played with the dog or was it the other,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Who derided the shoeman as if a bone.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next few seconds left me shell-shocked,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In these few seconds my whole life was mocked;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In these few seconds every knit of my veins unravelled,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Left me still, motionless on this platform so often travelled.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Came this youth I took him for his son,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sat down in front of the ol’ man with his back complete;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Laboured limbs latched around with joy and fun,</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Piggy back he rode, Alas!!! The Cobbler had no feet.</span></b>
<br />
<b style="font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-80638590557373323112012-06-16T22:55:00.000+05:302012-06-16T22:57:23.540+05:30Beyond the Law of the Jungle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Scorpions bite</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Without a hiss;</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Some bugs bite</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Along with a kiss.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Hiss and bite</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">The crawling slime;</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Wild cats jump</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">They give no time.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Swooping hawks</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Armed with sight;</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Bears but attack</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Armed with might.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Jaws of a whale</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Who does dare;</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Trampling elephants</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">They just don't care.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Jungle's Law</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">That is Nature's Call;</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">Aha! the Cupid's arrow</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;">but, Beats them all.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><br /></span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
Glossary and Explanation:<br />
Crawling Slime - Snake<br />
Bears are perhaps the only animals which attack unprovoked.<br />
<br /></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-63531560722891354922012-05-28T18:13:00.001+05:302012-05-28T18:30:41.780+05:30Destiny's Children - A quatrain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Thetis held Achilles by his heel and dipped him in the Styx,</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Gandhari's vision made Duryodhana impervious, but for his Fix;</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">A Mother may try all to shape His destiny and fate,</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Alas! the struggle is as good as lost, when it is against Time and Date.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Mythological Background:<br />
<br />
In Homer's Greek Epic 'Illiad', Thetis tried to immortalize her son Achilles by dipping him in the river Styx. For this she held him by his heel and immersed him in the river. Since the portion of the heel could not come in contact with the water, it remained vulnerable. In the Trojan war Achilles was subsequently killed by an arrow which struck him exactly at that portion of his heel.<br />
<br />
Similarly, In Ved Vyas's Indian Epic 'Mahabharata', Gandhari, the mother of Duryodhana had accumulated power through penance (remaining blindfolded for years together) such that when she would remove the blindfold the person whom she would see first would be indestructible. She asked her son to appear in front of her completely naked and she would open her eyes. Being embarrassed to go completely naked in front of his mother, he covered his groin with a piece of cloth (or leaves). His enemy Bhima killed him in war by striking a mace at this very place.</div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-62215579920580807402012-02-29T16:56:00.001+05:302012-02-29T16:57:31.806+05:30Teardrops from Heaven<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.6410765678156167" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In adversity and for pity</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can see her drops appear;</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But why use them for deceit</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to draw me away from a peer.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When do I or do I not grieve?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When do I or do I not fear?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If they are those of sudden joy,</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would love to share them with a cheer.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The crying of a girl is her blessing;</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One that she never forgets to keep near.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O Lord, I ask thee why this unfair bias?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not all, but with a tragedy at least gift the man a tear.</span></span></b>
</div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-15020905490964870332012-02-13T17:42:00.000+05:302012-02-13T17:42:31.664+05:30Stars Of Fortune<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<span style="color: blue;">The day I was born was not just another night, </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">The stars were all aligned, neither bull nor scorpion put up a fight; </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">What better beginning than to let the moon govern your tide, </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">It is not good enough to just have one’s mother by his side.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">There is a right time for everything, from waking up to bathing</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">To start a new task, but not for its finishing; </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">The times they’re a changing, this much you told me Bob, </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">But why should I care for that, when I have a stone for every job.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">I did not fall in love, my heart did never allow, </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">A perfect girl was arranged, so that together we could plough; </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">The stars were all matched and we rode on the carriage, </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Rituals and vows are just not enough for a happy marriage.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Signs and symbols at every corner they lay, </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">When in doubt and distress they cleared my way; </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Every lucky charm did help me, I shall not lie, </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Why not will someone tell me then, whence will be a good time to die.</span><br />
</div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-84823906773993951282012-02-07T21:20:00.001+05:302012-02-08T15:43:09.079+05:30Newton's Karma<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.9593407844658941"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Introduction :</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sakyong Mipham metaphorically and very aptly explained what many religious leaders and philosophers have been debating about for more than the past two millenia.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Like gravity, Karma is so basic we often don't even notice it.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Karma is a Sanskrit word which means ‘Action’ or ‘Deed’. This simple word has been dissected and explained by hundreds of philosophers over millions of pages and billions of words. The most popular proponent of Karma was </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lord Krishna</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. His teaching is more popularly known as :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Karma karo, phal ki icchaa chod do.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Act. Do not be attached to the fruit of your action.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The text of Lord Krishna, more popularly know as Bhagawad Gita, forms a part of the largest Epic in the world, The Mahabharata. For the curious, this Epic is several times the size of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey combined. The depth in meaning has been said to be so profound and cryptic that no single interpretation can be agreed upon by scholars even today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Newton’s laws</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of motion are also saying exactly the same thing. The commonality with Newton is not the fruit, apple, which led him to discover gravity. What Newton proposed, or rather discovered, was that :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Every action has a … reaction</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although he used many more words in his three laws which were supported by even more formulae (which to a certain extent have needed to be changed), what has been summarised in the five words above is all we need in the present essay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More recently, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amartya Sen</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has continued this very discussion in his paper “Consequential Evaluation and Practical Reason.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this essay, I would like to discuss that portion of Lord Krishna’s, Newton’s and Sen’s thoughts which I feel would be and is relevant to us - the people living an inhuman and barbarious life in the 21st Century.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">War and Defeat :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What better way to discuss about Karma, then to speak about the very place where it all started - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the battlefield</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. For the ones not familiar with the Indian Epic, Lord Krishna, believed to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, spoke words of guidance to the army general and price Arjuna at the beginning of the epic war. These words of philosophy are now recorded separately as the Bhagawad Gita.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The wisdom in the words of the Bhagawad Gita cannot be doubted but in the context of this essay I prefer to agree more with Sun Tzu who says :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is very similar to what the Japanese General said on being commended on his brilliant insight, strategy and implementation after the successful Pear Harbour attack :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A truly brilliant man would have thought on how NOT to wage a war.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately ‘non-war-waging’ brilliant men are soon forgotten as they do not make history and more importantly they do not add up to any numbers. As Stalin said :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the ‘apparently’ brilliant men bring to us Wars and we are sometimes even thankful to them for this.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We shall specifically discuss over here the US - Japan equation in WWII. More specifically we shall discuss the bombing of the twin nuclear bombs Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which on impact and in subsequent years killed about 200,000 people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In earlier times </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wars</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> were fought by codes. The wars in Indian princely states, including the Mahabharata mentioned above were only fought during day time. Once the sun had set, everyone went off to sleep and attend to the wounded. Wars in most Islamic states were avoided in the holy month of Ramzan. Even school fights have rules like, for instance, no kicking in the nuts. More importantly, wars never targeted civilians. Wars were fought on the battlefield. Technology changed all that. (I always remember to thank God for making me technologically challenged). Now civilians are part of the ‘statistic’.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was another important change in WWII. This was the use of WMDs - Weapons of Mass destruction. Not like the ones which were not found in Iraq. These were the real things. Nuclear. The ones which first suck the life out of the body and then suck out the body from this world. Fortunately, in most cases it happens together in an instance, before we can realise the pain. For that we need to thank its makers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The success of these WMDs was so huge that every Government with the means to have them have them. And so many of them. And more powerful than the Little Boy and Fat Man. And since a couple of them may not be enough to end the next war, may be the military ‘thought’ (and I thought they were trained only to fight and not to think) that they needed to have a couple of hundred of these </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘mean things’</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What shall we say is the outcome of WWII? Some would say the Allies won. Some would say the Holocaust ended. Some would say the right people won. Unfortunately, WWII gave to the ‘mean people’ a practical demonstration of a weapon that could wipe out our entire civilization. Reminds me of the old Swahili saying :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When two elephants struggle, it is the grass that suffers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The outcome of this WW if you ask me is fortunately yet to be seen by us. Or should I say that the outcome is yet to be ‘felt’ by us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe Newton was correct when he said that </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Every action has an … opposite reaction.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consequential Evaluation : </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Please skip this part if you do not want to stress your mind)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Can we really blame the war strategists? Are we any different? How many times are we really ready to bear the the near term difficulties and act for a longer-term solution and a longer-term good?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amartya Sen explains very correctly that a ‘good starting point for (any) analysis, is the need to take responsibility for the consequences of one’s choice.’ My philosophy teacher would have called it </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘consequence-based-deontology’</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Deontology is that branch of philosophy by which one can avoid the painful root-canals. That is what I too thought at first. But deontology is actually that branch of philosophy that is concerned with ethics, duty, moral obligation and the right action. This is that part of the meeting where most strategists (war or otherwise) tend to doze off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are not war strategists (unless we consider marriage to be some kind of war) but most of us are parents. And this is where there is a demand for evaluation. Consider the selection of the baby’s food. Is it harmful for our child? Is a trade-off between what is commonly followed by our peers and what is beneficial to our child such a huge dilemma? And we may really feel that there is no difference between the two, but when we really start to ‘look’ around we can see our ignorance and the consequence it is going to have on our child.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sen remarks that such theoretical arguments may take us even to the argument of maximization. Whether we have considered every possible alternative before arriving at any decision (since the child cannot remain hungry till we decide on the best possible alternative). But he clarifies here that ‘maximization’ would be better described as </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘optimization’</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lord Krishna’s Karma Yoga : </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bhagawad Gita</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Lord Krishna says :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Your right is to work only and never to the fruit thereof.......nor let your attachment be to inaction</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” /2.48/</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Several western indologists have translated the Sanskrit text verbatim and hence lost out on either the intended meaning or the context of reference or in some cases both. The message of the Bhagawad Gita is that </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">firstly,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> any Work (Karma) should not be carried out to achieve any selfish motive. And </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">secondly</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it goes on to say there should be no attachment whatsoever with the fruit thereof.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nowhere does he say or mean that the action should be independent of the consequence. There should be every responsibility attached to one’s action. A </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘selfless act having no expectation of its fruit’</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which is the true meaning of Karma Yoga should not be equated to a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘consequence-independent act’</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right to do Wrong :</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The question we always ‘wrongly’ ask ourselves before taking any action (Karma) is about our </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rights</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Think about this for a moment. Consciously or not, this is what we have been doing for the past several years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘This is my Right.’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Ofcourse, I have a Right to do this.’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘I have the Freedom to do as I please.’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why are the words ‘responsibility’ and ‘obligation’ never part of the question? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why does the equation </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Responsibility > Rights</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sound so incorrect to us?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is the equation </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Obligation > Freedom</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> incorrect?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have social rights and economic rights and cultural rights and political rights and even the right to go left. But, we find the burden of Responsibilities so huge for our shoulders that our Rights help us shrug it off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We first fought for Gay Rights. That is not a bad thing. But now people want to fight for a Right to be a Bi-sexual. What is that supposed to mean? Why can’t we select a gender of preference? Isn’t asking the Right to be bi-sexual equivalent to a Straight man asking the right to be polygamous. Which person straight or not (in their right mind) wants to fight for a Right to have two partners? If you ask me I would rather be on the side of Mark Twain who said, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Bigamy means having one wife too many. Monogamy means the same thing”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have seen people fight for their Right not to wear a helmet while driving a motor-cycle. It is your life that the Government is trying to protect. Citizens want a Right to Reject all election candidates to show their disapproval for the political nut-bags. Why cannot they get together instead and put forth someone who is good enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How can couples who are parents fight for a divorce? Too bad that they cannot get along. Why did they not think about this before screwing (literally and figuratively) up the child’s life? The child is now their responsibility. Before the Right to divorce should comes the Right of the child to see both his/her parents together. Before the Right to divorce comes the Obligation for the parents to raize their child together and compromise on whatever ‘happiness’ and ‘peace’ and ‘space’ they need. The ‘space’ can wait, at least, till the child grows up to be eighteen. To hold off the fight and the unpleasantness and the ‘irreconciliable differences’ till such time should be the real law. Courts of Law should stop granting divorces. Maybe the ‘divorcer’ should be made to do some time behind bars for spoiling a young child’s life. I am nor arguing on behalf of the drunk and the violent parents for whom there are laws anyway; to get them behind bars. I am arguing against those parents (men and women alike) who seem to get motivated with ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’. (I see these on television for entirely different reasons). The argument is against those parents who wish to live a ‘fulfilled life’ after the divorce. It is Our Action (Karma) for which our child may have to bear the consequences. The situation here is no longer random or chaotic. While both parents may seek to protect their individual rights and freedom, their greater responsibility towards the child which would have a much longer term impact is highly compromised. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marshall Poe in his book has commented on the so called ‘Right to privacy’. He has mentioned what he refers to as the most disquieting example. ‘In a 2002 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that virtual child pornography (viewing on the Internet) was protected by the First Amendment.’ </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Citizens in most developed nations have so many Rights that even the lawyers are sometimes unaware of all of them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discussion :</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problem with academic philosophers is that all these questions are interspersed with words such as libertarianism, utilitarianism, welfarism, inclusiveness, prohibitionism and that is why the strategists and us doze off. Any word having more than three syllables and our mind just switches off. The truth is that the problem is in our-own-selves, but what the heck, let us blame philosophers for our </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ignorance</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and attention-disorders. Do we even have the awareness to think about the longer-term?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The whole point of this essay, which has swung like a multi-dimensional pendulum from wars to children is to highlight the responsibility for one’s choice and their consequences. As Sen put it that responsibilities ‘provide the motivation behind discipline.’ Let us not look into the limitations of the choices that we have and treat that as an excuse. The words of Bonhoeffer beautifully summarises this :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Otto von Bismarck once declared that, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“People never lie as much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Maybe the war-strategists feel justified to lie to us. One of the reason is also the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">amputation of</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> our own </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thoughts</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which refuse to see beyond the obvious. We are a failure when it comes to thinking about the longer term consequences. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the game of chess we are ready to lose a pawn to trap the queen. We are more than ready to kill the few in war in order to win that disputed commodity. But we need to be aware of the real commodity that we are fighting for, the real consequence of our action. American Presidents (who are brilliant at both speeches and waging wars) have correctly identified the problem, but unfortunately have not been able to implement the solution. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” - John F Kennedy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars...an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling differences between governments.” - Franklin Roosevelt</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prelude to the Conclusion :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The antagonist from the movie Agneepath who commits the gravest of sins under the pretext of the teachings of the Bhagawad Gita said :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hum kya le kar aaye the, Hum kya le kar jaayenge” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We have come empty handed and we shall go the same way, so let us not have any attachments and responsibilities”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whereas, the protagonist from the movie Sarkar rightly said :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Naazdeeki phayada dekhne se pehle duur ka nuksaan dekhana zaroori hai.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Before looking at the near-term benefits we need to look at the harm we are committing for later life”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The former is That (mis)interpretation of Lord Krishna’s words which deal with our </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rights</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the latter is what will help us deal with our </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Responsibilities</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Pearl Buck again brilliantly summarizes for us :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We need to restore the full meaning of that word, duty. It is the other side of rights.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We only believe in Rights. But no responsibilities. The Code Books written by our earlier religious leaders were exactly meant for this purpose. The purpose was to outline our responsibilities. That the religious books may not remain relevant to some extent, and that we refuse to change them in the name of religion and God is another story, again not the subject of this essay (which I need to end before you go off to sleep). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Courts and Laws of today outline our rights. But who is to teach us our responsibilities. We want the freedom, but we are unable to handle it.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we are taught to forget the consequence, we are indirectly taught to remain motionless. We are approaching </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inertia</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And that was the latter part of the message of Lord Krishna written above, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“..nor let your attachment be to inaction.” </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conclusion :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Newton’s first law told us that </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“a body will remain in a constant state unless it is acted upon by an external force”.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This constant state is </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘our state of inaction’</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the external force is that of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Responsibility’.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thus, we can now successfully state Newton’s Law of Karma :</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Our body will remain in a state of inaction unless it is acted upon by a sense of Responsibility.”</span></b></div></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-84964007492689076842012-01-07T12:18:00.002+05:302012-01-07T12:18:55.119+05:30A48W854SREFC<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-54593325132195084052012-01-03T23:33:00.001+05:302012-01-05T17:15:46.913+05:30Why did I fall in love this time of the year?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.3551718925591558"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is January now and I hate the dryness,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her dove-like eyes entice me with their shyness;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">February it is and I have grown a year older,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buxom breasts caress me as she rests on my shoulder;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The work in March leaves me with no time,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As my eyes undressed her I told myself ‘tis not such a big crime;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colours of the April Holi remind me of the destruction that wars bring,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The scent of her breath put to shame even the growing buds of Spring;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The heat of May makes me want to run away,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Would I be able to, her supple body besides me lay;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With first drops of rain the snails and worms disgust me with their slow trips,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What would I do if it wasn’t for the moistness of your soft lips;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The pouring of July along with the winds make those ensnaring whirls,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How did I get the patience to see your wet hair as you untangled those twined curls;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sun and clouds seem in an endless battle this August,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the sight of your round hips makes me weak with this uncontrollable lust;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sickness of September is something I would not like to remember,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wrap me around with your legs, they are chains so slender and tender;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leaves keep dropping this Fall, how can nature be so ruthless and cruel,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Curves of your neck, lustrous and sparkling though not lined with any jewel;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">November is so confused, not this not that, neither here nor there,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As you uncovered your sublime thighs, you left me with no option to go anywhere;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The chill in December makes my bones stiff, they could soon crack,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I seem to forget all the pain when my hands begin to run down your blissful back;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope and pray this month to be dear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! Why did I fall in love this time of the year?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twelve damsels, all so different, sculpted as if in clay,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twelve damsels, all so different, I love them each in their own way;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lord be praised for sending these angels down here,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without this master could I have loved twelve times this year.</span></b></div></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-92204781242333486962011-12-03T14:27:00.001+05:302011-12-03T14:37:32.730+05:30The Fluvial Mind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>If the path before you is clear,</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>It may be your eyes but definitely another's mind;</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>If you know what you are looking for,</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Then that is all you will ever find.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Like a river has no choice but to flow,</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Meet a lake, fight a mountain even though;</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Disappear will it one day with a desert bend,</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Or merge with the ocean in the end.</b></span></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-27128773746570809312011-10-06T19:50:00.000+05:302011-10-06T19:55:04.438+05:30BlindOculus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>With the sun shinning I could see no stars, no bodies, not even my beloved moon,</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Have they been eaten by this vulture, beast, is this the day of doom;</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>No! not at all, they're all right there, albeit this distraction between them and me,</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Is there ever a thing such as darkness, or is it only a failure to see.</b></span></div>
Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-19378201595273501192011-09-11T20:02:00.000+05:302011-09-12T11:20:23.961+05:30IGNORANCE : VIRTUE OR VICE ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.7005224407184869" style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The one thing that makes me proud</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is my Ignorance, That I don’t need to fake;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The more I read, the more I learn</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">makes me certain, That no one can take.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; white-space: normal;"></span></span><br />
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; white-space: normal;"><img height="2px;" id="internal-source-marker_0.7005224407184869" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/image?id=s84eP3__3h3t_ioCVeUb4FQ&w=226&h=2&rev=14&ac=1" width="226px;" /></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; white-space: normal;">
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<br /></div>
</span></span><br />
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.7005224407184869" style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I tried to know all and then some more,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My doubts increased from one to four;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Could not get as much Confidence</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #741b47; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from Knowledge, as I could from Ignorance.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-51824423986890112172011-08-18T22:39:00.001+05:302011-09-11T20:03:30.408+05:30School Friends<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>Why can't we make friends like in school,</strong></span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>Is it us or them who have changed the rule;</strong></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>Wouldn't count for rich or poor or not so smart,</strong></span></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>Just clean in the mind and pure by heart!</strong></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-16899309432975582542011-08-05T23:10:00.005+05:302011-08-09T13:43:29.648+05:30The Story of the Hare and the Tortoise v3.0<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div><div closure_uid_ns2mox="116"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Story of the Hare and the Tortoise is one of Aesop’s fables. Like in all fables (apologues) there has to be a moral at the end. There has to be something we need to learn from. Likewise, we will now try to learn from The Story of the Hare and the Tortoise (SHT) v3.0.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I could straight away tell you the story and then discuss the lesson we can learn from it. But It would be like seeing the third part of The Matrix trilogy without seeing the first two. I can only imagine the reactions of those viewers who went to the third part of the movie without seeing the first two. As a matter of fact, in spite of seeing the first two parts my reaction to the third part was no different.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SHT v1.0 – Aesop’s fable : </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Briefly; there was a race between a hare and a tortoise. When the race began the hare raced ahead as expected. Being complacent and seeing himself well in the lead he decided to take rest under a tree. With the cool breeze blowing and the shade of the tree for comfort the hare dozed off (pretty much like the back-benchers in my school). On hearing the other beasts cheering the tortoise, the hare got up and realised that the tortoise had not only overtaken him but almost reached the finishing line. He ran as fast as he could but could not beat the tortoise. The unexpected happened. The tortoise won the race. The moral is that ‘Slow and Steady Wins the Race’.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SHT v2.0 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">– The Story as written by Lord Dunsany (not the same as my sindhi friend’s father Mr. Dunsani) : </span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lord Dunsany himself never referred to his version as v2.0. He thought of this as the original. The beginning is more or less the same. The race starts. The hare dashed off and after running for a hundred yards stopped to look back and see where his rival was. Then he sat down and scratched himself (something like what Aamir used to do in Ghajini). “It is rather absurd,” he said “to race with a tortoise”.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Meanwhile the tortoise overtook him amongst the cheering of all his beast friends (those days there were no designated cheerleaders). After a while as the tortoise drew near to him he thought to himself “There comes the damned tortoise”. He once again got up and ran as hard as he could so that he should not let the tortoise beat him (something like how Aamir stopped beating Ghajini and then suddenly started to beat him again).</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The hare ran again for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far as the winning post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked running races with a tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat down again and scratched (something like Kulbhushan Kharbanda in Shaan). “Whatever is the use of it?” thought the hare, and this time he stopped for good. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There was desparate excitement for an hour or two amongst the other beasts and then the tortoise won. “Hard shell and hard living; that is what has done it.” said everyone. “It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness.”</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In SHT v2.0 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lord Dunsany brings out the view that the hare realises the stupidity of the challenge and refuses to proceed any further. The obstinate tortoise continues to the finishing line and is proclaimed the swiftest by his backers.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SHT v3.0 :</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Long long ago, there was doubt with acrimony amongst the beasts as to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some said that the Hare was swifter of the two (something like Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious) while others said the Tortoise was swifter because he had a hard shell (something like Vin Diesel in xXx).</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Just then the cunning jackal (something like Mike Myers as Dr. Evil in Austin Powers) came in and suggested Vin and Vin to have a Sisyphean race.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Can you imagine the look on the Vinses faces? They never knew what Myers meant. Vin (one of the two) held a gun on Myers’s head and agitatedly said “Sisyphus to you, you Mother%*($@#. Don’t you dare threaten me”. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sanity prevailed and Myers explained thus:</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A Sisyphean race is a race where the finishing line is the beginning of another race. So basically the race never ends, except by death. And that is exactly what Myers wanted. That the Vinses should die and he could eat a good meal. Ofcourse it was not very difficult to convince the Vinses. Myers just spelt out the rules and left out the fine-print (like the Risk Factors in Offer Documents). It is just amazing what a little bit of “keeping-up-with-the-Joneses” speech can do. After all they were animals and “herd mentality” was not uncommon to them.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin: 0pt 108pt 0pt 76.5pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The real story goes like this (flashback in a flashback). King Sisyphus. a King in Greek mythology, ruled over his kingdom and wasn't a very good king. As punishment the Gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a huge rock to the top of a mountain, from where the rock would fall back of its own weight. The Gods had thought that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. Every time poor Sisyphus managed to get it to the top, the rock rolled down and he had to repeat the task. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anyway, when you refer to a task as being "Sisyphean", what you are implying is that you are involved in endless and meaningless labour, that which can be brought to a stop only by death.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Myers basically wanted to eat the Vinses (or atleast one of them) as well as have fun while they kill themselves.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The race starts. Everytime they thought one of them had won the race, the next one began. Everytime they saw the finishing line with some sense of achievement, the next race began. Everytime they felt as if happiness was round the corner, the next race began.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While Vin and Vin are in between their 21st race, let us discuss the moral. SHT v3.0 puts up an apparent paradox but it is also an apologue. It has a moral like the previous two versions. Infact the moral of v3.0 develops on that of v2.0.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rising in the morning, taking the train (or the BMW), ten hours in the office (or fourteen hours on the smart phone), sleep. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday according to the same rhythm. This is our life. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is our Sisyphean race.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One day the “why” arises. We scratch our heads like all the bald heroes (it does not matter whether we are bald or balding). But unfortunately, after a little bit of scratching we get back to our Sisyphean race again, until it is time to scratch our heads again.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We live on the future; “tomorrow,” “later on,” “after we have made it”. Do we think of ourselves as immortal? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Procrastinating for the future is irrelevant for our today.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Such irrelevancies may feel wonderful, but the thing to remember is that, after all, it’s a matter of dying.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Whether the absurdity of Our Sisyphean race dies before Us - that is the question.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We are busy in trying not to miss a deadline, but what if we are dead before time.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We have our “needs”, “impulses”, “reflexes”, “urges”, “hungers”, “wants” and “desires”.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Whether in trying to gain all this, we are losing the one thing that we truly own, our life - that is the question.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">From Pandora’s box, where all the ills of humanity swarmed, the last one to be drawn out was “Hope”; after all the other ills. This was the most dreadful of all. As Albert Camus tells us, “Hope equals to resignation. And to live is not to resign oneself.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One is running a race with the other. Absurd marriages, jobs, challenges, wars and achievements. For each one of these absurdities springs from a comparison. And the comparison arises from the consent which has not been engineered by us, unfortunately. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We have inherited the “herd mentality”. Whether we are still animals - that is the question.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While we have asked so many questions, the Vinses are now in between their 34th race.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The answer may not be in going to Morocco and throwing your livelihood (like Hrithik did with Katerina in Zindegi Na Milegi Dobara; although, going with Katerina for three months is not exactly a bad idea). The answer may be in the question, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">what is worth the trouble of living on this earth?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is always a spot where one’s heart will feel at peace. Virtue, art, music, reason or simply the Mind. Something with which melancholy rises in our heart.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To know our “passion” should be our interest.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Whether or not we can live “without passion” is all that should concern us.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Can we adapt ourselves to the life given to us without compromising on our “passion” is our only race.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As Camus asks “Whether one can live with one’s passion, whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt” - that is the question. And to find the answer we need to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">THINK</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> our way to the Truth, as Plato (or the ancient wise men) taught and not to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FEEL</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> our way, as Hugh Heffner is teaching us today. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the words of Nietzsche (who always has the right words for everything), we need to put the “cult of reason.....in place of the cult of feeling.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So coming back to our story. Vin and Vin(the other one) are in between their 55th race. Vin looked at Vin (the other one) and said “It seems Myers has played a joke on you.” To which Vin (the other one) replied, “Maybe the joke is on you, Vin.” And the Vinses argued thus.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Is the joke being played on you? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Is our life similar to the people in the Matrix whose real existence was inside their pods?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are those who are made for dying and there are those who are meant for living. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Like the Hare in v2.0 it is best that we realise and understand as to what is the extent of the futility of our race. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As Dumbledore (the other one) said “It does not matter if you lie to me, but what troubles me is that you are lying to yourself.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Or else, in our Sisyphean race it will be the rock’s victory.</span></div></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-78403810709236440552011-07-22T12:15:00.001+05:302011-09-11T20:03:12.721+05:30FIRE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="background-color: transparent;">
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.854359891731292" style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fire melts iron with iron,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So also discerns the taint from gold;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">May it merge with me my love,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Isolate the evil which keeps me cold.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From my first breath, till the last,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The present will in future be past;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At all times must stay by my side,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This fire in me, be high or low tide.</span></div>
</div>
Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-38309973781368681352011-07-12T19:09:00.000+05:302011-07-12T19:09:39.669+05:30You and Us<div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You gave us legs, we trampled the earth,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You gave us hands, now we kill since birth;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You gave us eyes, but not the sight,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You gave us speech, now we speak to fight;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You gave us ears, but another’s cries we cannot hear,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You gave us air, and we filled it up with fear;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You gave us a heart that can hurt more than a fall,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O! But why did you give us a brain. Now we doubt if you gave us anything at all.</span></span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">The use of the word ‘brain’ instead of the word ‘Mind’ is deliberate. As according to the Indian philosophies (and many others all over the world), ‘Mind’ is equated with consciousness as well as the soul. ‘Mind’ gives us peace. ‘Mind’ helps us control our desires and emotions. ‘Mind’ helps us find the ultimate truth. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</span></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-64653595603467588472011-06-28T11:46:00.000+05:302011-06-28T11:46:30.944+05:30Is God a Woman?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.5396147852245867" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Emmeline Pankhurst once said “Trust in God – she will provide.” Pankhurst was a political activist in Great Britain who helped women win the right to vote. This really brings us to the question on whether God is a woman? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I will try not to dwell into the religious interpretations of this subject matter for three reasons. The first reason which is of primary importance is that most (if not all) religions, in spite of the fact that they have both men and women followers have subjected their own women to great cruelty. The witch hunts in the middle part of this millennium had accounted for about a hundred thousand deaths in cold blood effected by followers of Christianity. Pope John Paul II has in his open letter to all women in 1995 expressed deep regret on behalf of the Church’s actions. Indians will be much aware of the shameful practices of ‘Sati’ and exploitation over dowry over centuries in both the first and second millennium of the Common Era. And last but not the least are the still occurring violations of basic human rights against women in the name of the Islamic religion. One thing that is clear from this is that the so called ‘followers’ of none of these religions have held women in high respect. Hence in order to be unbiased in forming our opinion we will try to keep religion out of this debate.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The second reason as to not go into the religious interpretations is because they are just that - interpretations, the correct word would be ‘exegesis’. Exegesis is the interpretation of textual material. Different exegets might interpret the same material differently. That is, they might each claim a different meaning from the same text or passage. This allows for the subsequent drawing out of sometimes very different implications from the same core source.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’d tell you the third reason, but then I will have to kill you. Actually I’m not Tom Cruize and this is not Top Gun so let me give you some clue. Its an old Spanish proverb “una onza de madre vale una libra de clérigos”. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I would also like to keep Philosophy out of this debate. To discuss any idea of Philosophy, one would first have to understand Ontology. Ontology is concerned with ‘Being’. It is about what is really ‘out there’. Ontology crudely explained is like a base. Is everyone made of up 5 bases (Ether, Air, Fire, Water, Earth) or just 2 bases (Matter and Spirit) or just 1 base (Illusion). Initially I found it very similar to the Logarithmic base. (The point of similarity being that I could not understand either).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Galileo once said “The great book of nature lies before our eyes and the true philosophy is written in it...” So to nature we shall turn.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Let us consider some biological facts. We are all present in this world today because of reproduction. Reproduction is the only way any living thing can move forward. As we all know that reproduction can be asexual as well as sexual. Species that reproduce by the former means do not have a gender classification. There is no male and female. Some people I know would die to be in their shoes. Imagine not having to go through commitment and marriage.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Not having a man and woman basically means that there is no sex involved. This form of reproduction is mainly found in bacteria or single-celled organisms (prokaryotes), which basically do not have any nucleus. (Just to clarify that not having a nucleus is very different from not having a soul, or else most of our politicians would have made it to this classification.) We now know that in the beginning, right at the beginning, the only living beings that existed were all asexual prokaryotes. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In other words, in the asexual prokaryotes we have the mother and then we have the child, who then becomes a mother only to asexually have another child and so on.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Under the above arrangement the mother is a free being. There is no man in her life. She is the master of her destiny. She can wear skimpy clothes and does not have to worry about eve-teasers and rapists. No fighting for rights. The President, the leader of the ruling party, the leader of the opposition and the speaker would all be women. Just like the Indian parliament.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One cannot but wonder as to why the prokaryotes had to evolve into eukaryotes – organisms with a nucleus (and a soul preferably). The corollary of evolving into these eukaryotes is that now they need to have sex. So they had to get some of them to evolve into a man. Why did the woman (asexual) who was her own master go through all this trouble. Now, she has a man to deal with (and a headache).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Richard Dawkins in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’, Matt Ridley in his book ‘The Red Queen’ and Nick Lane in his book ‘Life Ascending’ have very well explained the most probable reason. It would be much better if you’ll read the books yourselves rather than try to understand it from me. The gist of these books (I just got to understand the gist, as most of the matter was not for minds like mine) is that genes (the prokaryotic bacteria also have genes) would be able to mix and match with others (a man’s genes with a woman’s genes) and put their best product forward only when they had sex. A mix-and-match of various combinations of genes raises the chances of the child surviving against various parasites. The good mixtures (of genes) will survive successfully and try for a still better match whereas the poorer cousins will just be dispensed with in time. On the other hand, asexually the organism would just copy her own self. The genius Picasso couldn’t have explained it better, albeit in a different context, “...to copy oneself... leads to sterility.”#</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A gene does not die with the body. It remains alive in the next generation and then in the generation after and after and after. If we think of a gene as being ‘immortal’, nothing could describe the above process of gaining immunity and evolving better than the words of Nietzsche (Americans pronounce his name as Neechee) – “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sophia Loren can help us put all this in context; “A mother has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” The woman (asexual) having the best interest of her child in mind evolved into a sexual organism and got the men up (pun not intended). As Nick Lane says “Men are woman’s insurance policy against her children being wiped out by influenza or small pox.” </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We are here today immune from the zillions of parasites because of our Mother. She will go to any extent to see the well-being of her child, even if that amounts to getting a man in her life. At the microscopic level we all have our Mother whom we are indebted to. At the cosmic level there is another Mother we are indebted to, that is, our Mother Earth. And what the Spanish (or Mexican) guys wanted to say was that “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of priests.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Is God a woman? The mathematician Poincare once said “There are questions that one chooses to ask and other questions that ask themselves.” And then there are some questions which just should not be asked. </span></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-81917322215482213142011-06-12T20:52:00.000+05:302011-06-12T20:52:22.696+05:30Back in the USSR<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“All I know is that I am not a Marxist”</span></i><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">. Perhaps few people know that this is what Karl Marx (1818-1883) said when he was so</span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">upset with the various misinterpretations of his ideas. This was in the 19<sup>th</sup> century when most of the world was still under feudalism and colonialism.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Subsequently, much after his death, during the 20<sup>th</sup> century many countries declared themselves as communist, Marxist or socialist; some after revolution, some after coups and some after neither of the two.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Instead of studying and analysing the theories, intentions and the background behind what Karl said or meant, much of what we came across in history and education about Marxism was as defined by USSR and China, by the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, by Vietnam and North Korea and more recently in India the brash interviews of the Karat duo of the Communist Party of India. In fact in our school education, it was clubbed in History in the same year as fascism and dictatorship (something which becomes difficult for our innocent young (not so intelligent – in my case) minds to distinguish between). I will use his first name henceforth not out of lack of respect, but because the use of his last name Marx inadvertently gives rise to preconceived notions and emotions thereby closing our minds. As a wise man has said “If you already know what you are looking for, then that is all you will find”. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Karl was of the view that Communism will come about through the natural progress of society and the disintegration of the capitalist system, due to its internal flaws. Of course he did not completely rule out revolution and violence as a means to effect that change, but that is not the point of debate in this essay.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">The two main so called Communist economies USSR and China did not progress in this manner at all. Russian Communism was brought about by the Bolsheviks led by Lenin against the autocratic leader Tsar Nicholas II. And when Stalin took over in 1953 and ran his dictatorship it was assumed to be just another level of Communism. The Chinese Maoist Communism was the effect of fighting by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) under the leadership of Chairman Mao against the leadership of the warlord class. One of Mao’s famous sayings that “political power comes from the barrel of a gun” is perhaps ideologically opposite to what Karl believed that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“ideas that rule any country must be the ideas of the working class”</i>. Karl had believed that for Communism would eventually flow after the extremism of Capitalism, the latter was not present in both USSR and China.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">An important tenet of Karl was his belief in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">False Consciousness</b>. Because the way that people actually think is influenced by the society around them, people find it difficult to develop entirely new ideas. They can only think in the way that their language and concepts handed down to them allow. When people cannot see the way their beliefs are artificially constructed by society they are said to be in a state of False Consciousness.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Human nature is a not a fixed thing but alters with social and economic conditions. This means that society can be changed by altering the economic system (although I would personally prefer that we change Chairman Ben before he changes the society).</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Karl believed art and culture were important parts of our society. Both art and culture are meant for people to enjoy. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Capitalist society tends to see everything in financial terms. Everything is given a financial value.”</i> Karl believed that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“nobody should have one exclusive sphere of activity.....to hunt in the morning</i> (since there were no endangered species back then), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner</i> (not the cooking),...., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic”.</i></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Although the largest democracies emphasise and boast of their essential rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press (especially to broadcast breaking news) and equality under the law, Karl did not agree with any of these rights. He believed that as long as the base of society was still capitalist, the people were never free in the true sense. For example, although in the eyes of the law everybody is equal, those who are better off can afford better representation in court; although there may be freedom of press, but the rich control the flow of news. We appear to be free but our economic conditions and thereby our societies control our work, religion, politics and ideas. What do we control?</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">What nations started off on principles of Capitalism have quite some ago progressed (deteriorated) into Imperialism or as Lenin would have called it “financial oligarchy” (oligarchy is not to be confused with the word orgy, although in the current context they could mean the same).</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Post-modern thinkers do not see the relevance of Karl’s theories as we now live in a post-modern world which bears no resemblance to the 19<sup>th</sup> century. Karl predicted that large corporations would dominate world markets. Today with large conglomerates, world-wide banking corporations and large super-market chains it is only for time to tell the relevance of his theories. Are we really more <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">satisfied</b> than our parents and grand-parents, despite an increase in material possessions (I was going to say – despite having more money – but looking at the food inflation here and the money printing of the US FED I really don’t know what more money means). As long as 10% people hold 99% of the wealth Karl’ theories will have a chance to prove its relevance. The question is not ‘<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">if’</b>, but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">‘when’</b>. One thing is for sure that the capitalist economy cannot guarantee the prospective development of humanity because it does not take into account the cultural and human losses that result from its own expansion.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">“Religion is the Opium of the people”</span></i><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"> was Karl’s more famous quotations. Opium is an addictive drug that dulls the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">senses</b>. Would you say he is wrong after looking at the wars and terrorism and deaths of the last three decades fought in the name of religion? Here I do not justify either side at conflict, because both are taking advantage in the name of Religion and Nationalism (something which another great thinker Rabindranath Tagore was strongly against).</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Even if Karl’s theories are adopted conflicts will always be part of society and society will always be unstable and changeable. Capitalism would try to fight back (some would say that it is the other way round). It may not be easy to create a state of equals, but inequalities even in Communism do not mean that Karl’s vision was entirely wrong. Karl might have said some instigative statements and proposed a lot of disputable theories, but that should not take away the merits in his approach and intention.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">A wise man (second one) has said “In Capitalism <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">man-exploits-man</b>; in Communism it is just the opposite”. As the Latin saying goes - Mundus vult decipi – ergo decipitatur; meaning the world wants to be deceived, let it therefore be deceived. The purpose here is for us as thinking and educated individuals to select the good theories and the merits within the not-so-good theories to help us live a happy satisfied life and also a life where we can work for mankind. For like every journey has to come to an end, our modern civilization (Vedic Kali-yuga) will in the end meet our equivalence of the Vedic deluge, the destruction of the Atlantis or the Biblical Flood (that discussion will be left for another time). But as a wise man (third one) said “Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning”.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Karl’s intentions can be summed up in a line from one of his letters <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">our happiness will belong to millions</b>, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people”</i>.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Notes:</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">All statements in Italics are attributed to Karl Marx, but I could not get him to personally verify this.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Efforts are being made to find the identity of the three wise men.</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8606543139180074496.post-19849979201891999012011-06-12T20:45:00.001+05:302011-07-28T12:31:28.260+05:30Summer of '69<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So it was a fine sunny day. As children we used to play out in the gardens next to our home on such fine days. Those days there were no air conditioners to keep our homes cool throughout the day. In summers we used to feel hot and in winters we felt the cold. When it poured, the roads got flooded and that day was the best of the week, as we got a holiday from school and got to swim in the waist high waters.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now things are a bit different. Playing in the sun gives us dehydration and dark spots. Floods interfere with our schedules. Basically the weather needs to meet our expectations and should not be a source of inconvenience. Never mind the fact that it is common knowledge that weather is always erratic and difficult to predict, especially as you get in the tropics and closer to the equator, but what the hell, since we are now in the iAge whether supply precedes our demands, how can we have any inconvenience from this thing called “Climate”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Informed experts say that the weather now has become erratic. Just then, there was a huge volcano blast somewhere in Iceland inconveniencing perhaps the whole of Europe and anyone passing by. This is really crazy. That volcano was supposed to be dormant. And there wasn’t any dormant volcano which had blasted since I was born. Are they supposed to do that? Or is it because of Global Warming.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I do lose my line of thought now-a-days. Maybe it’s the heat. Anyway, everyone is concerned about GW. Let’s call it GW. Anything with a G* sounds very important. The developed nations want to do something about it. They are forcing the developing nations to do something about it. All the people in power, basically people who have money, want to do something about it. The best thing to do is to have a meeting and discuss about the possible solution. So a meeting was held on a boat. It was decided that boat should not be docked but should be sailing in the water. Off the Florida coast seems good enough. I happened to be on the boat. The story about I got to be there is for a later time. Unfortunately, I could not take my phone and camera. So, I couldn’t get you a video. But I can repeat what the powerful men had to say.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There were too many of them. Let me make it easy for you and me. Let us group all heads of state as one. We will call that group the Leaders of the Free World (LFW). LFW doesn’t only stand for London Fashion Week. Then we had an Economist, a Military Strategist and the Head of the World Reserve Bank. Finally we had a Scientist. We got to have a Scientist. Don’t you get it; GW has something to do with Science.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So that is where I started writing. It was a fine sunny day. I got lost in my thoughts again. It does happen a lot with this heat. But now I’m back where I started. It was a fine sunny day. The boat started sailing. The guys had a good breakfast. I didn’t like any of it. You see, I am from India. I shifted here to study and then got this job. So I prefer Idli in the morning. It’s light on the stomach. They had some 27 types of breads and so many different fruit juices. And I never went to the other side where they had a lot of non-vegetarian food. Sorry, I got lost again. After the breakfast we got in the conference room. Here starts the conference. I did promise to tell you what happened.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Good Morning, brothers and sisters. (There were some at the table who starred at me when I said ‘sisters’. I bet those pretty stewardesses were not exactly their sisters.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Let me welcome the LFW. May I respectfully ask one of them to start this conference.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: The last few years have been very very difficult for our people. Never before has any species had such a difficult time on our planet before.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: But sir, the Dinosaurs went extinct 60 million years back.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Rubbish boy, Steve is going to get them back. He is already in talks with that guy from India for his new movie. Don’t interrupt me again. We have gathered here to prevent our planet from GW. We have to find some solutions quickly. Never before has the earth faced so serious a problem. The scale is unprecedented. We need to outline points today so that we can save our planet. The destiny of our planet is now in our hands. Com’on boy, list out. What’s first on the agenda?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, the ma... (interrupted)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: You guys. Don’t sit on that side of the table. I got a terrible sprain in my neck. You all move to the right side. I cannot move Left. Continue son.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, the main reason why we are so much of a burden to the planet is that because we are so many. At last count we were 9 billion people. In the history of 4.5 billion years of our planet, the planet has never had to handle such a burden.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Economist: That incorrect. We are just 7 billion people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, That’s official. But if you would come to my country and the neighbouring one above me and also see the African nations, then the actual count will be around 9 billion. It pretty much like your unemployment rate. Understated by about 25%.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: So does that mean that we are growing at the rate of 2 billion people every billion years?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: No sir. The first Homo, that is, the Hominids family came about 4 million years ago. (I don’t know why, but everyone started blushing at that time).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: So, it’s about 2 billion people every million years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: No sir, these Homos’ is not us people. Our first ancestors were the Homosapiens which came about less than half a million year ago.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: So, it’s about 2 billion people every hundred thousand years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, you could say so. But you see there is something called exponential growth. It’s a mathematical term. Basically, until the beginning of this Inter-glacial era there were less than 10 million people and until the beginning of this just concluded Age of the Pisces there were less than half a billion people in this world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Boy, you are a very confused person. We are talking about people and you have got mathematics and geology and sun signs into all this. If I really understood all this I would not be in politics.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sorry sir, the last inter-glacial age started at around 10000 BC. And... (interrupted)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Economist: Like the movie 10000 BC.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, just the name matched.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">BankHead: And why the Sun signs. How does it matter which month I was born?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Briefly sir, the earth does not move exactly round its axis. Its motion is more like a spinning top. I know a lot about spinning tops. When I was a young boy this was my favourite sport. I never had an Xbox. Sorry, I got lost again. So the earth moves like a top. Round and wobbling. Just like the equator runs through the centre, we have an ecliptical plane which is at a tilt, like the top. So every 2100 years the equinoxes (Vernal and Autumnal) change their corresponding constellation. Since about 200 BCE/200 CE till 2000/2400 CE we were in the Age of the Pisces (Virgo for Autumnal Equinoxes). You may have heard of the Mayan Calendar ending in 2012. Now any moment (relatively) we are going to start the Age of the Aquarius. So, coming back to our point, at about 100 BCE, just before Christ was born we were about less than half a billion people and now we are almost 9 billion. In the next 2100 years by the time the next Age ends we might really have about 200 billion people (200,000,000,000 people). Actually I am speaking quite conservatively sir. Maybe we could reach a trillion people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">BankHead: That is still too slow, if you really compare to the money I am printing my son. Just too bloody slow. It’s just typical of the developing countries. They are just too slow.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: So will we now have to print more money to save this planet?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: No sir. The real point here is that we need to control our population growth sir. Immediately, sir. Maybe a one child policy would be correct. And, if any one chooses not to have children then we can give them a tax exemption for life. Maybe if we do this right away, then in the next 100 years we might just reach equilibrium where we will not have any growth.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Economist: What do you mean no Growth? How can we have no Growth?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: And after that we can aim at reducing the population, that is, if the planet gives us a second chance sir.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">BankHead: Did you say negative growth? Son, do you know what deflation means? The earth will come crashing down.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Son, there must be another way out.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Either that or we might have to wait for the planet to take care of itself. Maybe natural catastrophes which will wipe out millions of people at one go. And we must hope that these are repeated very often.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: What are you talking about son? You there, science man. Why aren’t you saying something? I have got you on board to make some suggestions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scientist: Sir, but I am a physicist sir. I am trying to make the God particle. I do not know anything about GW.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: What do you mean? Haven’t you studied science? Are we not talking about science?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scientist: Sir, there are many forms of sciences.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Just give me another solution. I am the LFW. I don’t want to hear a NO.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, in order to reduce the carbon footprint, we should stop cross border trades, especially for luxury items. Intercountry trade contributes to the largest percentage in carbon footprints.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Economist: This is utter rubbish. We need to make things economically. The strongest will survive. We need Mergers and Acquisitions. Investment Banking is the key to today’s world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, don’t get me wrong. Most of items being imported in the developing countries are for the urban rich whereas, the rural poor have to bear the brunt of their luxuries. How does it matter if the rich do not get to eat a Kiwi in India? Besides, the clothes you wear are made of American cotton, but this cotton was imported by Pakistan to spin yarn and woven in India and stitched in Vietnam before coming into your stores in New York. Wouldn’t it be better to have all the processes there itself. Maybe it would be a tad expensive but look at the saving in carbon footprint. So, no cross border trades, except absolute necessities like food grains or energy requirements for those in need of relief.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Military Strategist: Can we export arms and ammunitions or will that add to the footprint?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">BankHead: Let’s give a credit to someone who saves the chemical footprint.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, Carbon footprint.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bankhead: Yes exactly. We can call these the Carbon Credits. And we can trade in them. Cross border trading in Carbon credits will not add to Carbon footprints, will it?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Military Strategist: But we need to export security. Free will has to be protected. We need to fight for Rights.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, Right to Live and Right to Eat are the foremost rights. We need to ensure that all people are treated equally (walking to the Left to drink some water)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Son, come to the right. You know, I can’t look Left. Stop all these jargons. Science, mathematics, exponential!! Just tell me when the Oxygen is going to get over.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Not really. The Oxygen is not getting over. Sir, you see, the earth has had 21% Oxygen for tens of millions of years. If you must attach a value for the change, then the level of oxygen has changed by 0.001%. And, that figure too does not have any statistical significance. Ever since we started the “fire” about 2 million years back, the oxygen level has not come down. Today even after 9 billion people are burning so much energy, Oxygen levels are still at 21%.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scientist: Isn’t it true that at the time the Dinosaurs went extinct Oxygen had dipped to below 15% levels. I read that somewhere.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Maybe that is true. But they were not burning anything. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bankhead: We know that.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: We do not know the real reason for their extinction. What you say is the most likely. But that could have been caused by an unprecedented volcano or something like that.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: So you say that we should do nothing about the ozone layer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir maybe not bursting bombs might help. Sorry sir for that tongue-in-cheek remark. But the truth is that building fuel-efficient cars and eco-friendly refrigerators is not going to help.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: So who said that this was an unprecedented crisis?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir that was you. And you are right. But the problem is not the oxygen. The problem is us.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Are we going to die?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bankhead: Yes Sir, ofcourse. We are human after all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scientist: That is not what he meant. Will Homopeople be extinct?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Since the Cambrian explosion.... (interrupted)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Military Strategist: Did someone say bomb?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: No sir. The Cambrian explosion was 550 million years ago, which initiated the birth of millions of species. Since then there have been mass extinctions approximately every 26 million years. Also there have been approximately eight to nine dominant species which have lasted for 50 to 80 million years. Reasons are not really known for their extinction. And although we would like to believe that the reasons were extra-terrestrial like meteorites the extinctions have been mostly local factors, not clearly known as yet. Maybe, they are as simple in most cases as Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection. (Looking at the economist) Something like what they showed in the X-men.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Economist: Brilliant movie. And now they are coming with the fourth version.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bankhead: So we are safe for another 20 million years. That settles it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: But sir, the population.... (interrupted)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">BankHead: Enough boy. What about the population? How can we stop screwing each other? Let nature play its part. We will do ours by issuing carbon credits.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Next time, I want the agenda clearly outlined, just like the lunch buffet. We need to discuss the cooling of the Earth’s core.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Lunch begins)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scientist: Why don’t you eat the non-vegetarian stuff?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: I feel we should not be killing someone. We are lucky enough to be on this planet. We should behave responsibly. We are already the reason for the extinction of a billion species on this planet.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scientist: Man is also an animal. The strong will kill the weak. It is the Law of the Jungle.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: After 300,000 years since Homosapiens came about I would like to think of myself as having evolved to more than an animal. And if I have to be classified as an animal, then I would prefer to be of the herbivorous kind. It is a philosophy some of us follow. But like they say “To each his own”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(LFW walks up to me)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: I am glad we gave you people the Visas to come here and make a living. You should thank us for that opportunity. Tell me, isn’t it a bit chilly here for this time of the year?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me: Sir, that’s actually because the Atlantic Miticadal Oscillators.......(interrupted)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LFW: Forget I asked you that. Can someone turn down the air conditioner?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div></div>Rishit Desaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05714682472534524140noreply@blogger.com0