Delhi Gang Rape

It is an established fact that the urban India has had the lions share  of the increase in India’s prosperity. With prosperity come greater employment opportunities. The bulk of these job openings come from the unorganized or quasi-organised sectors viz. domestic servants, drivers, guards, artisans etc.  And more often than not these jobs get filled by rural and semi-urban migrants.

This interfaces rural India with India’s metro moderns giving increased opportunity to act out their latent fantasies to the former.  Anonymity afforded by the metros emboldens the perpetrators of the heinous acts like the recent gang rape. Such incidents happen with lesser frequency in non-metro cities because the same level of anonymity is lacking in those towns .

Other factors inhibiting such incidents are cultural homogeneity and lesser presence of short tenure transient migrants. That Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai have lesser occurrences of rape, murders & robberies by domestics etc is because of the latter two factors.

Life’s Journey

Life’s Journey

Having reached that station in life when Alumni Reunions and Fraternal Jamborees become the order of the day a common motif that repeats in all these do’s is the poser – stock taking of the journey thus far.

Having traversed the better part of life’s arc from birth to death, it is time to look back and sift the gems and nuggets from the accumulated detritus of time travel. In any such exercise the conundrum that confronts you is of choosing the set of standpoints against which you take stock – what mesh to chose that sieves the grain from the chaff.

The universal benchmark for assessing one's life’s worth is his/her contribution to the society. It could be qualitative and as well as quantitative. Everyone sets out on this journey with lofty goals but with time as the lag between ambition and ability increases one tends to pare the ambitions to keep the gap realistic. It is here the super-achievers do better than the soft pedlars and underachievers. To make life comfortable it is easy for the latter to rationalise and fall into the trap of over trimming one's goals. Less tension, of course, but a smaller canvas too.
So, as you look back on your life’s path, you see a series of bumps when compromises were made but taken in totality you still have reached somewhere. And it sure looks pretty substantive and surely enough to regale your grandchildren with stories of how you've done it and gladly retire. Happiness is the essence of a life well lived. Always heed the old adage –“Happiness is not as much in having the best as in making the best of what you have”.      

Virtual world of half truths.

The virtual world of half-truths - the spoiler.


No matter how apocryphal, half-truths have a life of their own. Many inhabit this virtual world of half-truths. Their beliefs, ideology, societal values and political activism derive sustenance from this terra Apocrypha.
Thanks to the 24x7 hissing of the hydra-headed 3D-media, the head count of the denizens of this world has seen an exponential swell.

It is a groundswell minus the ground. And like all manipulated ground swells in democracy, it is a potential agent of change invariably for the worse. A spoiler for the efforts of those at the helm of nation’s affairs grappling with real issues of growth, equity and probity in public life.

The risk to our one-man-one-vote democracy becomes even more palpable when hitherto honest academicians, politicians and opinion leaders start leveraging this constituency of ‘half-truth believers’ to enhance their clout and bargaining power.

Half truths have played their part from times immemorial – recall the famous  ‘Ashwathama Hatahath, naro va Kunjaro va’ from Mahabharat. Even as late as the second world war – Goebbels used it with deadly effect to brainwash the German populace. And remember Dr Goebbels had only the Nazi-press and the emergent Radio media to drive home his extremist agenda so effectively, though his mission was accomplished sooner aided by the Nazi authoritarian regime

Today you do not need a dictatorial dispensation to achieve what the Nazi’s did. The reason being the multiple media bouquet on offer with instant global reach- Press, TV Channels, Radio, Internet- mail, social media, Cell phones with 4 G capability et al. High time the prime enablers namely ‘media’ evolved some  effective self regulation mechanism lest they unwittingly assist  puny rabble-rousers to grow into Frankestinian destabilizers of our democratic system.  

I BELIEVE

I am a Hindu. Values, beliefs, obligations and behaviour-pattern imbibed and absorbed from my parents, family and society have all contributed in determining and distilling my beliefs and have shaped my world-view. I believe that each one of us has the potential to realise and experience that universal GOD in being rigorously true to ones value system. As a Hindu I have no issues with people of other faiths and persuasions as all their paths would also lead to the same Ultimate provided they live by the essential precepts of their religion rather than squabbling over it.

My belief in one Universal God in no way clashes with the myriads of gods in the Hindu Pantheon. In my view, the sages of yore in order to drive their point home of the universality and omnipresence of godliness in every object on earth had resorted to allegory and symbolism. Good, bad, ugly, grotesque or seemingly-evil all of them have the same godliness hence find a place among the pantheon of Hindu gods.

My Hindu belief stands for becoming a good human being who values truth, honesty, constant self examination and compassion over any dogma driven holier-than-thou exclusivity. Being true to my beliefs has given me equanimity and a resolved unconflicted approach towards seemingly dichotomous situations.

26 by 11 The Outcry !

The indignation, angst and knee jerk solutions being thrown-up by all and sundry at the Mumbai outrage all have a déjà vu surreality. And sure enough the coming days would see an exponential decay in this fervour. So while the E-quotient is high we should look for workable structural remedies to prevent and contain the damage wreaked by such dastardly acts of terror.

The firm, measured and deliberate systemic response that the incident calls for cannot be ushered by the rag-tag ersatz model of ‘Westminster Democracy’ that obtains in our country. It might sound like sacrilege to the blind votaries of one-man-one vote system but the truth is that the democratic process in India has been hijacked by the goons, ‘booth-capturers’ and demagogues. It is a grim-scenario that has unfolded over the last two decades while the silent majority has wishfully hoped that things might get better next time round and stayed put comatose in its cocoon.

Response to such acts of terror can be prompt and successful only if a machinery like the ‘Fire-Brigade’ is established all over the country. ‘Fire’ is quite akin to ‘Terrorist Acts’. Both come unannounced and the incidence and fury of both can be lessened through preventive measures. Both require round the clock readiness. But unlike Fire Briagade’s this Anti-Terror–Brigade, for obivious reasons, would have to be centrally administered from Delhi . Can the current government take this call or for that matter would any succeeding dispensation be able to usher in such a set-up without watering it down at the altar of fractious State-Centre domains of control? Sadly, NO!. Not in the present ‘free-for-all’ open season raucous ‘prajatantra’.

Reminds me of a very apt sheyr on the state of our current leadership:

Jab Bauno Key Saaye Lambey Honey Lagey,

Samajh Loe Ki Sooraj Doob Raha Hai

Nov 30, 2008 AKS

Path to Self Realization

Most of us while discussing the path & practice leading to ‘self realization’, invariably end up masticating the ideas, words & phrases that we have read or heard.

A lay seeker looks for operational definitions that he could implement and lift himself by the boot straps. You need to commence the quest from your present 'spiritual' state of being, however gross & mundane, to the next more subtle state of being. What I have and what I am (bhogi, vilasi, seeker of transitory pleasures, etc) I know, but the next step forward has to begin from the terra firma of the available sensory and mental footholds in one’s grasp. Pray how does one go about doing it?

In the early seventies in Bombay , I used to attend discourses by Acharya Rajnish at his Woodland abode and in Azad Maidan. And in one of his lectures on Brahm Sutra, he came nearest to explaining the initial tangible steps leading to the next sensitized level that could be receptive to the eternal concept of Brahmasmi.

I quote from memory:

“ We live on the middle floor of a five storied house. There are two levels below and two levels above. The two levels below are the ‘sub-conscious’ and the ‘deep-sub-conscious’. The levels above are – ‘super-conscious’ & ‘supra-conscious’. We are born in this world and live out our whole lives on the middle floor without ever learning of the floors below or above. But at times we do get a glimpse of the immediate levels below and above without recognizing it thus. The example of waking up early in the morning to catch ones train or plane even when the alarm clock did not go off is an example of ‘sub-conscious’ taking over to save the day. Likewise the orgasmic pleasure of intercourse transports you momentarily to the realms of super-conscious. So we need to train our self and mind to move freely in all the five floors before we could embark on the quest for Brahma. It is for this reason that the First Chapter of BRAHM SUTRA begins with..Athato Brahm Jigyasa …. (i.e. After this the quest for Brahma begins ..) By ‘After this’ the allusion is to the state of preparedness i.e. the perceptive ability and sensitivity to move freely among all the floors…”

The operational aspect of preparedness was through ‘sleep meditation’ and ‘dynamic meditation’ that was taught by the various teachers of “Neo Sanyasi International”.

Sleep Meditation I did try but the Dynamic Meditation classes were conducted at Chowpati early in the morning and clashed with the timings of the Titvala Fast Local to Bhandup from VT.So had to be given the go by.

In the words of Faiz:

Woh log bahut khush kismat the
Jo ishq ko kaam samajhte the
Yeh kaam se ashiqui karte the
Hum ji te ji masroof rahe
kuch ishq kiya kuch kaam kiya
Kaam ishq ke aade aata raha
Aur ishq se kaam ulajhta raha
Phir akhir tang aa kar humne
Dono ko adhura chod diya

So that be it.

Education scene in U.P.

I would like to share some of my thoughts on the state of education in my state of U.P.
a) Primary education in rural areas of late has seen some modicum of improvement mainly because of ‘mid-day-meals’. But lack of commitment and sincerety of the stake holders namely Village Panchayat & Teachers (BTS grade) combined with the hapless and resigned attitudes of inarticulate parents is resulting in no qualitative improvement. At this level a strong pull faactor from parents asserting their rights for better education for their wards could only improve matters. Such a groundswell needs to be catalysed either by local opinion leaders or NGOs’ otherwise there is no hope in site for the betterment of primary education in the rural set-up.

b) In urban and quasi-urban and erstaz-urban areas there has been a mushrooming of ‘pre-nursery’, ‘nursery’ and 10+2 (recognized) schools and in the long run ‘market factors’ will decide their survival. Most of these schools have been started by first-timers with the aim to make a fast buck and commercial considerations in most of the startups gets primacy over quality of education. High fees and add-ons take a heavy toll on the parents disposable income.

c) Professional and Graduate education has seen a revolution of sorts in UP. Overnight most of the MLAs and MPs have become educationists setting up a chain of such Institutes. Thanks to the innovative channelisation of MPLAD and MLA Constituency FUNDS, erecting massive physical infrastructure has been no problem. But time alone will tell how many of the ‘public-men-educationists’ would attain the status of mini-Madan Mohan Malviyas.
AKS