Change Agent

It’s the people, stupid! My previous post on assembly elections in Maharashtra was proven erroneous by the election results which came out today. The ruling political party of Congress (INC) whom I had blamed for many things including visibly evident poor economic management (resulting in farmers’ suicides) and sitting duck (institutional lapses in Mumbai terror attacks and hiding probe report) comfortably retained power. The party of regional chauvinist Maharashtrians which had beaten taxi drivers for not being Maharashtra born, the MNS, did very well in cities and urban areas. And the opposition of BJP - Shiv Sena were outsmarted. I talked to my Maharashtrian and Marathi friends and I stand corrected now. The discovery was personally disappointing to me: 1) People in Maharashtra (or at least those who voted) are Maharashtrians first and then they are Indians. This explains why they ignored MNS’ rioting against non-Maharashtrians and supported it. And this was the attitude of higher...

Sister Nivedita in her book “Cradle Tales of Hinduism” tells the story of Sati. This is one of the most soul touching narrations I have ever read: Sati : The Perfect Wife Long, long ago, in the beginning of time, there was a god called Duksha, who counted himself chief of divinities and men. And it happened once that a great feast was held, and all the gods at the banquet did homage to Duksha, and acknowledged him as Overlord. Save one, Siva. He, the Great God, was present also, and was clad indeed like any beggar, in ashes and pink loin-cloth, with staff and bowl. Yet He would not bow down and touch the feet of Duksha. His motive was pure kindness. We all know that there is nothing more unlucky for an inferior than to see one greater than himself prostrated before him. It is even said in India that if this occurs to you, your head will at once roll off. So out of sheer mercy to the Overlord, Siva could not do homage, and probably afterwards forgot all about the occurrence. But the poo...

If there were any previous benchmarks in political hypocrisy, Rahul G, the crown prince of Nehru dynasty has surpassed all and he seems to have set one of his own. In one of his recent comments, he says he doesn’t believe in caste system. And he says he doesn’t visit dalit homes but he only visits poor humans. But the truth is very different. He has been making one-night-stands at Dalit homes since long and under provocation from the so called dalit-queen Mayawati who had ridiculed him by saying he washed his hands with a particular brand of soap after meeting dalits! If we scrutinize any media report, one fact is obvious that he visits villages and hamlets which are predominantly housed by dalit castes exclusively. I have checked it myself by searching news reports. Did you find any single media report where he made a one-night-stand at a poor Brahmin’s house for example? This realization makes me wonder at two things: Why hasn’t Rahul Gandhi got the guts to say that he does visit dal...

Wake up and Make a Difference: Vote for Change! I had gone to watch Wake Up Sid (WUS) on the first day of its release. The movie was well made, very much enjoyable and I loved it. It’s a story of a girl from Kolkata who comes to Mumbai with big dreams and no contacts. She falls in love with the spirit of Mumbai, and on her way changes the life of Sid - a spoiled kid from a rich business family. When she comes to Mumbai, she finds her first friend in Sid, whom she sends an email calling him “my first Bombay friend”. I wondered why she called it Bombay and not Mumbai; but it was understandable. She was a Kolkata girl and people from outside Mumbai very often call Mumbai as Bombay even now. (We Mumbaikars now use the word Bombay very scarcely). But as the movie progressed, even she used ‘Mumbai’ for the city, and the magazine where she and Sid were working, was called ‘Mumbai Beat’ and not ‘Bombay Beat’. The use of ‘Bombay’ or ‘Mumbai’ was hardly worth noticing, because one very strong st...

Some days back, a UN report claimed that Iran had the expertise to make nuclear bombs. That made me thinking. It reminded me of Pakistan's greatest (or world’s worst) scientist - AQ Khan. Some time back he had accused the Pakistani Govt of 'using' him for its own political purpose. He said that the nuclear technology which he had sold to other nations including Iran had full consent of the Pakistani government. He had sold nuclear technology which was to be used for producing nuclear weapons to many nations including Iran, North Korea, Libya and China - all of these are violent establishments marred by human rights violations. Now the future of this whole earth is at the mercy of those whom Pakistan helped, as the greatest threat is that Afghanistani Taliban can get access to Pakistani nuclear technology! And just imagine what could happen if Taliban or other Islamic terrorists get access to these nuclear weapons and technology. From India to the US, or the UK, they can be ...

How to Dispel Negativity and be Centered on the Positive Images tell a thousand stories. And I find all the Hindu images of the divine as very positive. On the other hand, I found some of the images from other religions as negative in character (e.g. a cross and a crucified dead body as symbol of sacrifice, or images of tombs where dead bodies are kept). Once I shared my views with a friend who said that there was no comparison of any other image with the image of Dhanushdhari Ram. Dhanushdhari Ram is an extremely positive image. Dhanush and weapons represents our spiritual rigours which would help us dispel negativity and detachment in life and would reach us to the divine. This made me think of some other images that Hindus worship. The picture along with this piece is also one of these. Lord Krishna driving the rath (vehicle) of Arjuna, a disciple and friend who goes on a righteous war (dharma yuddha) is such a positive image. There are many lessons from it too. Lord Krishna being B...