Farewell

We end the year 2012 with sadness. Bidding farewell to Amanat, the young fighter who lost her life after being raped, but who has given us hope and inspiration. She represents the vast majority of women who are molested and abused in the country, which go unnoticed. Why did her story bring in such a strong reaction, one would never know. But the youth in Delhi and in other parts of country, bring within me a feeling of hope... Hope that they have a consciousness of knowing what is right and wrong irrespective of what a bunch of insensitive, arrogant and ineffective politicians say and do.... Hope that justice will prevail and the guys responsible will be dealt with capital punishment... Hope that such reactions will instill better behaviour and deter crime against women, children or even men in general... Hope that the power of common people will prevail ... Hope that the political system, police and judiciary will realise the power of people and act accordingly. I have always felt helpless and angry when similar instance happen before, but now I am hopeful that people like us do react angrily and can make our feelings felt... that we have not completely lost hope and are not helpless. I pray that the Youth of today, bring about a revolution, a change in our thinking, a change in our living in a positive way as only the Youth can bring... a feeling of freshness. I am disgusted with the vast majority of politicians who have appeared in the media and are clueless of what they are commenting. It shows how shallow they are in their thoughts and actions.  

I have seen the Youth take up cudgels when allegations of corruption had peaked. I dont know if the politicians have the sense to hear and acknowledge this voice, a voice which would reverberate and sound the death knell of their political career. And so my hope rises that we could see a revolution in the year ahead.

I felt sad that Sachin Tendulkar decided to call it quits in one day international. We will not be able to revel in those magnificent skills that he displayed. But I hope that he will continue to show his prowess and demonstrate to his detractors that he is still the indisputable God of Cricket, when he plays Test Cricket in the year ahead.

I feel hopeful that we will see more youngsters bring name and fame to our country as we won six medals in the London olympics. The competition is tough and in a large country as ours, we still have a far way to go to reach optimum performance, but it is a beginning as new heros/heroines in the world of sport rise in the horizon.

I hope and pray that the year ahead will bring in peace and prosperity to our country and to the world in general. I pray that we learn to love our fellow humans and nature and learn to co-exist with other living beings so that the world is a much better place to live and our children to get to enjoy all the beautiful things that God has to offer. Here is to Hope and Happiness! Wishes for a happy 2013.

Carl Sagan, Time Machine and the Need to Act Now.

Cosmos, the serial presented by the famous Carl Sagan, had been one of the most fascinating TV series which, I used to watch when I was a kid. He had a very simple way of explaining scientific facts. He explained the concept of artificial evolution by giving an example of the samurai faced crabs. Heikegani, is a species of crab, he said, found in Japan,which has a shell resembling the face of a samurai warrior. It is believed by the locals that these are spirits of the brave samurai warriors and the child Emperor of the Heike Empire, who opted to perish rather than surrender to the clan of Genji, in the war of Dan-un-ora. As a result,Sagan went on to explain, the fisher-flock who realises that people do not eat the samurai-face shell crabs, tend to throw them back to the sea. Thereby this species of crabs survived and multiplied. This was, Sagan pointed out, a situation of artificial evolution, as against natural selection of survival of the fittest - a theory propounded by Darwin. Time Machine, one of the oldest classic science fiction written by H G Wells presents another aspect of futuristic human beings. In the story, the protagonist, identified as the Time Traveller in the book, travels ahead of time to 802701 AD. The story talks about two types of beings, the Elois- the small and elegant adults, and second -the Morlocks, who live in darkness. He conjectures that the human race evolves into one class, which is weak but intelligent and other the downtrodden but brutish class. As I consider both these, I wonder, how our society would evolve over a period of time. I keep on remembering what one of ex-bosses used to say - "Nice people are just that... Nice!"... I used to think, he had a weird logic. But experience has taught me otherwise. A large section of our society, consists of nice people, people who are immersed in earning their own living and wouldn't want to interfere in anything unpleasant which does not directly affect their lives. So we remain within the confines of our shelter, refusing to act if strangers get murdered in the streets, if women get raped and children get assaulted, thinking that it is not happening to us and it is therefore happening to "others". We therefore, have brutish and corrupt politicians running the country more like the Morlocks. Politicians who dictate how and with whom you should party with, which movie you should see, how much money you should pay tax and how much they will take away in their pockets. The media and the law enforcers seem less effective. The day will not be far, when we like the Elois will stay in fear and possibly become extinct, because we continue to elect these corrupt politicians, who if the theory of artificial evolution has some basis, might rule the world. Scary but a probable scenario, if we dont take responsibility and act.

Marvels of Science

I remember the first lecture of Chemistry in my 11th Standard. Our professor, who had taken a sabbatical from the college and taught in Nigeria before resuming his duty in a college in Changanassery in Kerala, was a very humourous person. He explained the concept of the structure of atom very simply to the class in our all boys college - "You know, whenever I happen to walk across to teach some class in the girls college, (which was behind the boys college), I find most boys walking around the compound of the girls college. The guys are obviously walking around the college walls in the faint hope of seeing some of the girls of their liking through their hostel windows. Clearly there is an attraction of the girls, which is what making the boys roam around the college compound in the hot sun. Now imagine the structure of the atom, which is quite similar. The electrons roam around the centre of the atom, which consists of the positively charged protons and neutrons. And they do that perpetually." Men being men, the imagination of the structure of atom was quite vivid to all of us guys and I am sure that to this day, none of us have forgotten the structure of atom. There was brief reference to Max Planck and his theory of quantum physics - the fact electromagnetic radiation released and absorbed quantas of energy. I had then forgotten all about it. Science has has obviously not stopped developing since then. While reading the book " God and New Physics" by Paul Davies, my interest in physics was revived albeit marginally considering the lack of time. What I found interesting was there were so many things that have since evolved, the study has gone beyond explaining the structure of the atom and the smallest of the then known particles - electron, protons and neutron.Scientists are still trying to explain various phenomena including energies, mass and the big bang explosion. For eg, Paul Davies explains that if an electron gun is directed at a wall , it is impossible to predict where an electron emanates and which direction it takes. Scientists are still unavailable to explain the black hole, which constitutes a major portion of our universe or across galaxies. In the Discovery channel, a series presented by the famous movie star, Morgan Freeman, a lucid presentation of evolution of scientific theory, makes us wonder at the extent of involvement that scientists across the world are trying to explain how the world came into existence. The Large Hadron Collider, is the world's largest and highest energy particle accelerator, where the scientists are trying to recreate the Big bang in miniature way and to find the Higg's boson (a particle, if found could possibly explain a lot of unproven theories). In the interim, my son is hoping to clear his academics before Higgs boson is added to the school curriculum.

UP Elections, Akhilesh Yadav and Disillusionment

The elections in the state of UP are seen as a preview to the outcome of the national elections. The newspapers and TV channels having been covering (some for 100 continuous hours) the precursor to the elections, the counting and ultimately the rout of the BSP in the hands of Akhilesh Yadav, who led the SP to victory. One of the leading journalists, in his blog (I think, it was Soutik Biswas from BBC), likened the elections to cricket... you need to be aware that there is no permanent victory or defeat. Cricket correspondents cover the joy of victory as much as the reasons for defeat and does not rule out the defeated team ever. The fact remains, you are as sure of the defeated team's fair chance to come back. I will go one step ahead, reasons for winning elections is as easy as analysing the reason why a movie turned out to be a hit or why a cricket team won a match. For, it that were possible to understand the reason, it would be so easy to replicate the success. Having said that, I would very much like to believe that the outcome of elections reflected people's disenchantment at the large scale corruption of Congress and the BSP and lack of development initiated by either parties. I would further like to think, that people had pined their hopes on a younger generation being brave enough to lead them away from corruption, disorder and lawlessness to growth and success. Whether Akhilesh Yadav is able to do that remains to be seen. Newspapers have already been covering the violence perpetrated by the SP party workers as soon as they have won the elections.Akhilesh, in interviews in all leading channels, reiterated that he will deal with such instances firmly. Will he? We will wait and watch. I remain sceptical. There have not been any saviour in our political system of late. I would love to be proved wrong. In the recent elections in Mumbai to the Muncipal body, I remain clueless on which party to vote. Since I am not a celebrity, I have no qualms in not voting at all -nor fearful of admitting it -to express my disillusionment of the parties standing at elections - congress now known only for its corrupt ways across the country, shiv sena for being in power for the past three terms and yet ignoring this great city - the road to my house is full potholes and the power to be remaining least concerned (incidentally the shivsena has an office in the corner of the road), MNS who thinks about driving out non- marathis from Maharashtra but has no plans whatsoever for improving the lot of people already living here - whether it be education, employment, medical facilities, infrastructure et al. So when actor turned politician, Ms Shabana Azmi tells in a TV channel that if you dont vote, you deserve the leader you have, I need to remind her that if you vote, you deserve the leader that you have! How are you better off than us Ma'am? Do you have a better choice?

Faith in the LORD and the GOD - SACHIN!

The do or die match in the Tri-Series tournament is being played today. I had been disappointed with India's performance in the test matches in England and Australia and had stopped watching the one day matches in disgust. So what has made me switch on the TV on a Sunday morning to watch this match when they have lost the previous two one-dayers ? I was upset that Kapil Dev - one of my favourite idols when I was a child - had asked for Sachin to step down from one- day match. I realised that the Aussies had taken the opportunity to pile on... Ian Chappel and Harvey joining the fray in their thoughts, which was allover the newspapers today. I dont know how many Indians share this view. But, I am watching the match to express my solidarity to the two of my most favourite cricketers in the current team- GOD himself and the ever cool captain. I have faith in the Master and GOD of cricket and if I can will it with my thoughts, I am sure India will win the match today and redeem themselves. GOD can work another miracle, I am sure and Aussies will face his wrath today.

Corruption

“Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?
Hobbes: I'm not sure that man needs the help”

A friend of mine invited me to a seminar arranged by AIM Aluminee, which had this rather debatable topic - Can Corruption be tolerated if it is for the common good. I missed the first speaker as I struggled through the perennial traffic in Andheri West before the cab managed to pick up speed on the highway. As I reached the conference hall, the host had just announced the second speaker, Tarun Tejpal of the Tehelka fame. I quickly responded to my friend's wave and caught a seat next to him, even as Tarun embarked on the definition and history of corruption. He pointed out that life has never been fair from time immemorial... whether it is Lord Ram deceptively killing Bali or whether Krishna guiding Arjun to use unfair tactics to kill Karna, or guiding Yudhistra to bring on the downfall of Drona ... corrupt practices have always been prevalent. But maybe these were done with the objective of common good for all. What is important is that one decides what is right for the common good and act accordingly.

Subsequent speakers, all of them great orators in their own way, including Mani Shankar Aiyar and Ram Jethmalani, were as critical of the corruption prevalent in the society at large, their respective parties and and that of the opposition, the fact that people on the streets were indifferent to the core issues and of the political undertones of the Anna Hazare anti corruption campaign. In the end, I came back with the same sense of delusion, frustration and helplessness, if not more. For, the speakers, did not offer any solution or hope, which despite my logical thinking, I had hoped they would offer. Ram Jethmalani, infact, questioned the sanity of topic... wondering if there can be any good arising out of corruption in the first place.

As I pondered over what they said and feel all the more angry when I read constantly about various frauds, robberies, chain snatching incidents and overall ineptitude of the law enforcing agencies, I have wondered whether the concepts of ethics, honesty and integrity are dying. I have discussed with my closest friends on the rising prices and how black money is driving property prices to spiralling highs. I asked myself whether life is unfair and couldn't resist thinking about Calvin's argument with his dad, when his Dad points out "The world isn't fair, Calvin." He wonders .."I know Dad, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favour?"

However, as I watched people with whom we are in touch constantly, whether it is our own plumber - Rafiqbhai, or our electrician, Younus bhai - people who never hesitates to assist us when we need them, all honest hardworking individuals willing to work hard and earn their living and not compromising on their integrity, I realise that they continue to teach me what Krishna said to Arjuna....

Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachna
Karmaphalehtur bhurma te sangostvakarmani.

"You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action। Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty".

These men, aspire to grow but not at the cost of the others. They believe in being true to their work and not expect the world to reward them for that. I realised I am more lucky, life has been unfair in my favour and still I am looking not at those who do not have but at those few who have earned more than they deserve.

But again as wise Calvin points out in the following dialogue with Susie Derkins,

Susie: You'd get a good grade without doing any work.
Calvin: So?
Susie: It's wrong to get rewards you haven't earned.
Calvin: I've never heard of anyone who couldn't live with that.


The important thing, I realise is to continue to work honestly and be true to oneself. You be the change unto yourself. Then you have earned yourself a good night's peaceful sleep.