census 2011 incomplete

Census 2011 gives many details such as:

1)      All India share of population of all religions.

2)      State wise population of all religions.

3)      Growth rate of population of religions.

4)      Sex ratio state wise of all religions.

5)      Faith in cities.

Times of India’s head line is, “ Muslim share of population up 0.8%, Hindus’ down 0.7% where as The Hindu has headline ‘Muslim population growth slows’ and ‘Gap with Hindu growth rate narrows’. What a difference of approach!

But very important details are missing , such as:

1)Population and growth rate of Dalits and tribals—all India as well as state wise.

This is necessary because Hinduism is a fourfold society—brahmins, vyshyas, kshatriyas and shudras. Dalits and tribals are not within the Hindu fourfold. This is what I studied in sociology. So, this important information is missing from the census report.

2) All the four rungs of Hinduism’s ladder have many sub divisions.

In Karnataka there are three groups of Brahmins—deshastha, saraswath and madhava.

Among shudra caste there are many sub castes. In Andhra and telangana for example there are Reddys, khammas, velamas, kapus, telagas, gouds, yadavs and munnuru kapus.

In Hyderabad one finds association of each sub caste.

There must be similar sub castes in all the states of India. Census report would have been complete if the details of all these sub castes were projected as they have done for all religions.

Is it the way?

There are people who talk endless. You ask a question and the answer is given in disgusting minute details and the result is you forget the question you asked. They are not concerned if one is really listening to or just hearing.

I have suffered this kind of torture on many occasions. One incidence, that I am going to narrate, is just an example. In 1972-73 Deena Kumar was depot manager of Apsrtc at karimnagar and I was sales officer of IOC covering warangal and karimnagar districts. A visit every month was necessary as IOC representative.

On one visit I found his finger was bandaged and I just asked him how it happened. He said about a fortnight ago his mother wrote to him that she was visiting him. So he cleaned up the house and waited eagerly for the fortnight to past. At last the day dawned when his mother was to arrive. The train was to arrive at 6 am and he got ready to go to receive her. He reached the station to find the train was late by an hour. He just sat on a bench for some time. Then went to tea stall and had a cup of tea. Bought a cigarette and smoked. The train slowly moved in on the platform. He started searching for his mother. He started looking into each compartment and finally found her. After greetings he asked her where her luggage was. She showed him a trunk underneath the seat. He pulled it out. The edge of the trunk was sharp and that cut his finger.

I have not been able to do justice to his version. What I have described is just a summery of his lengthy narrative; which lasted for more than 15 minutes.

World Government

Times of India of June 19, 2012 on times global page has this,‘the only way peace can be achieved is through world government—Jawaharlal Nehru'. I have no idea when Nehru said it. I am not denying his having said it. It was Bertrand Russell, who talked about world Govt. in his book ‘ Impact of science on Society’. I do not know to whom the credit should go. There are intellectuals sitting in Times of India. What Russell wanted or suggested was that the UN, which is a confederation, should become a federation. In that case Security Council members should be elected periodically. There cannot be permanent members. Each state has to contribute finance to the federal (world) govt. It is a farfetched idea. The existing permanent members of Security Council will never agree. Third world countries cannot contribute as much as US or some European countries. Maybe intellectuals can find a solution.

Treasure hunt in Hyderabad

Hunt is on opposite the A P Secretariat for treasure worth Rs 20,000 crores.
Archaeology Department received a sworn affidavit from nine prominent citizens led by Mr T.B. Raju, chief manager (personnel), Coal India Limited.
They said they got the information about two months ago but couldn’t muster enough courage to reveal it to officials concerned fearing the mafia.
Based on the affidavit, a team of officials from the Archaeology Department inspected the site on Saturday evening and decided to start excavating on Sunday morning in the presence of a mason, who will serve as a guide.
Sources said the mason was the first person to have gone inside the tunnel where he saw two almirahs full of jewels and precious stones..

Incidentally, the prominent citizens who had petitioned the Archaeology Department, has demanded that they be given their share — one-fifth of the treasure if it is found — under the Treasure Trove Act 1878. This was reported in Deccan Chronicle on 19th Feb.2012

The mega 'treasure hunt', which the archaeology department took up on Saturday, failed to yield any result till late on Sunday evening. Even after 28 hours of digging, the department could not find even a hint of treasure. The much enthused department officials have, however, decided to go ahead with the exploration as according to them, it is "necessary to ascertain facts behind the claim". Meanwhile, D S Raju, one of the petitioners, said that he had seen the treasure and is hopeful to find it. This was the report of Times of India of 20thFeb.2012.

But the archaeology department already seems worried about its tall treasure claims. Working backwards, it has now asked for ancient maps of the locality from the AP State archives and research institute something which experts say should have been sought before the digging started. And although indulging in a rather frenzied treasure hunt, P Chenna Reddy, director, state archaeology department termed the whole exercise just an "exploration" which need not yield any result.
NMDC officials said that as per the preliminary data reading, there could be a bunker right under the Naubat Parbat and its exact location may be confirmed in the next couple of days "The soil density at one particular point indicates the presence of a bunker. We will be able to locate the exact position in the next couple of days. We will, however, not be able to locate any treasure, if there is one, using the equipment," said an NMDC official. , This was reported in the Times of India of 23rd Feb.2012.

NMDC has trashed Coal India employee D S Raju's claim based on the four-day resistivity survey they conducted at the site. “We had done both resistivity and magnetic survey at all the points pointed out to us by Raju and officials from department of archaeology but we have not found anything that supports their claim of seeing a structure 10 to 15 feet under the surface. The archaeology department can get our report verified but we suspect that if there is some structure below the surface, it is way below what they had expected," the official said. This was reported by The Times of India of 27thFeb 2012.
Questions that come mind:
What happened to the masion who saw two almirahs full of jewels? Should he not be interrogated?
Mr. D S Raju had said he had seen the treasure and was hopeful to find it. If he saw he should show. Why he is not able to find the location now?
It is possible that the treasure is already with them.
Are officials of archaeology department so naïve that they started the treasure hunt without resistivity and magnetic survey?
Archaeology Dept. owes satisfactory explanation.

Accidents

Our finance minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, according to Times of India ( Hyderabad Edition)of 20th July 2010, has said " Accidents are accidents. Nobody can predict, that is why it is an accident".

one of the following two conditions only result in accidents:
1) Unsafe condition.
2) Unsafe act.
This is what our safety manuels teach.

Jeevan Das of 'green ply' plywood

Click on the image to enlarge.

Jeevan das is young, Jeevan Das is middle aged and Jeevan Das is old and similarly prosecuter also advances in age. The ad is about greenply plywood, which during this lengthy period has withstood the hammerings by the judge. This small ad has given tremendous insight into the judicial process in our country.
Jeevan Das was a young upright man working as a junior executive in a PSU. He was required to sign invoices both for sale and stock transfers by rail, and trucks against cash receipts issued by different locations. Contractors for stock transfers were appointed by different office. Supplies were made against delivery orders and cash receipts issued by different offices of the same PSU.
Cash receipts and delivery orders were checked and the current delivery and balances of delivery order quantity and cash receipts were noted in the columns provided on the reverse of the documents by an assistant. The assistant after these checks and balances issued a blank but serially numbered invoice to a typist clerk. The typist clerk typed the challan giving the details of cash receipt, reference of delivery order and then passed on the entire bunch to Jeevanl Das for his signature. In the course of time it became a routine for Jeevan Das to sign the invoices. Signing the invoices was one small part of his job. As a unit head he had many other functions.
Some stock transfers did not reach their location. But the stock transfers were effected through authorised trasporters appointed by another office. He signed an invoice for sales, which was put up to him after completing the formalities by the assistant and the typist clerk. After a year it was found that the cash receipt was counterfeit. Matter was reported to police.
Management of JeevanDas did not find any fault with him and filed FIR for recovery of goods from the contractor. He continued in his job.
After five years of investigation police filed a criminal case against Jeevan Das.
He received court summons and appeared before the court with a lawyer arranged by one of his colleagues.
once he reported, he was told he was under arrest and had to obtain bail of Rs. 30000/- Jeevan Das had never seen thirty thousand at any time in his life and was in a state of shock. But 'peshkar'( court clerk) came to his rescue. there was a wonderful system of obtaining bail. There were some registered 'bailers', who charged ten percent of bail amount to stand surety. JeevanDas managed RS.3000/- pooled and given to him by some of his colleagues. Peshkar's fees were additional.

JeevanDas’s journey to court begins at the age of thirty-six.
‘Jeevan Das ko kadi se kadi saza milni chahiye’ says police prosecutor. Jeevan Das was charged for conspiracy and cheating along with the contractor. In the court he was almost treated like a criminal and not accused. The lawyer would demand his fees in advance and some times would not even turn up resulting in adjournments. Lawyers would order tea and snacks for their colleagues as well and would ask Jeevan Das to pay. Afterall lawyers say “We do not render any service to the litigant-----it would be harsh to make lawyers pay for alleged deficiency in service under the consumer law”.

Prosecution took four years to present twenty witnesses; Jeevan Das had never seen them before except four from his office, who narrated the procedure of despatches. All other witnesses told the court how the contractor sold the goods to them. Even then the judge took cognisance and proceeded with the trial of JeevanDas. Years rolled by but cross-examination of witnesses was not even half way through. Twenty years after the case began just fifteen witnesses were examined. JeevanDas was fiftysix and the case continued.

I am grateful to ‘greenply’ plywood advertisement for providing inspiration. Green ply’s strength is symbolic of our judicial process. ‘Chalata Rahe Chalta Rahe!’

Nehru and his great grand son

Varun Gandhi thus spoke in Pilibhit as reported by PTI on their web site.

"This is not not a 'Hand' (Congress symbol), it is the power of the 'Lotus' (BJP symbol). It will cut the head of ....... Jai Shri Ram,"

, "All the Hindus stay on this side and send the others to Pakistan. This is the Lotus (BJP symbol) hand, it will cut their throats after elections. They have names such as Karimullah, Mazurullah. If you see them in the night you would get scared."

"If anyone raises a finger towards Hindus or if someone thinks that Hindus are weak and leaderless, if someone thinks that these leaders lick our boots for votes, if anyone raises a finger towards Hindus, then I swear on Gita that I will cut that hand."


It is interestig that only Naqvi and Shah Nawaz Husain of BJP said that what Varun said was not the view of BJP. But no comments came from any other leader of BJP. If you see the discussion board of rediff, you find majority have appreciated Varun’s stand. But alas! Varun has denied having said anything to that effect. Subsequently 'important' leaders supported him. He said it was doctored. Varun lacks courage of conviction.
The latest is:
New Delhi, April 18: Defending the action taken against Mr Varun Gandhi, the Chief Election Comm-
issioner, Mr N. Gopala-swami, on Saturday said his controversial speeches in Pilibhit were virulent and “much more than” what was shown on TV.
Ahead of his demitting office on Monday, he said in interviews that the fact of the matter was a stronger message must go.
“We said file a case and all cases have been filed. So the virulence of the particular incident is such that we had to go beyond what normally we keep as our limit. I think is perfectly valid as far as I am concerned,” he said.
Asked if the commission studied the tapes, Mt Gopalaswami said, “yes, we did see. It was much more than what was seen on television. We never felt the tapes which we got were doctored.”
And Gopalswamy is considered sincere even by BJP except, perhaps, in this case.

Just a thought

Truth half spoken is truth not spoken. Truth, normally, is a group of facts. If one picks up one or two facts from a group of facts, one is not speaking the truth. This happens often. It cannot be called a lie, as the facts chosen and given are facts. This is an art; every journalist is required to master.

In any organisation the wrong decisions, when they come to light, are viewed seriously and if necessary the wrong decision maker is reprimanded, if grave, punished. But Judiciary is different. A lower court passes a judgement based on the investigated facts by the police presented by the prosecutor with evidence to prove the charges, which the defence fails to defend. If the aggrieved has means he appeals in high court. High court reexamines and passes its judgement. If the aggrieved is acquitted, the high court condemns police for failing in its investigation, but spares the lower court whch passed judgment based on the same investigation. If the high court judgement acquits, the police go to Supreme Court. The highest judiciary passes a judgement, which is different from judgements of both lower court and high court. The apex court also passes strictures against police, but spares both the lower courts. If there were to be still higher courts!
Judges can pass wrong (is this word in this context contempt of court?) judgements without fear. What happens to a person who cannot afford to appeal to a higher court?
NGOs are very selective in rendering help.

Raju the genius

Ramaling Raju was an important person during Clinton’s visit to Hyderabad. While rahul Bajaj was in the back row, Raju was at the mike. He is undoubtedly a genius. Only a genius can play a fraud of such magnitude, as did Raju. What a brilliant brain!

He is now in prison. May be he will get bail and then exemption from personal appearance in the courts of law. There after he will lead a normal affluent life.

Our own government is very serious on bailing out Satyam. Afterall they work for five or ten percent of the population. What percentage of employees and their families exercise their franchise? Are they part of our democratic process? Why should the government squander taxpayers’ money on these people?

I personally think that the government should hand over the management of the company to its employees and let them manage it as a cooperative enterprise.
Or recover or seize all the assets of Raju and all his family, including their land holdings, agricultural and non agricultural, and auction all that and take over as a public sector on par with any other PSU and give the employees the same benefits that BHEL employees get.

No political party should worry about the votes because none these employees exercise their franchise any way. Government has an opportunity to show now that they do not work only for ten percent of population.

Just?

This is further to my blog 'Justice' dated December 8, 2008. Today's head line in the Times of India 'HC declares second judgement null & void' is much more disturbing. It says'The division bench of Justice D S R Verma and Justice K C Bhanu, which had delivered the second judgment acquitting Hymad of murder, on Monday ordered the registrar general to conduct an enquiry into the entire episode and report the findings to a disciplinary committee'. This is passing the buck. If Sivraj Patil and Deshmukh can resign on moral grounds, why not the judges?
Another question that crops up is: which of the two bench reviews was correct?
May be the recalled judgement is correct!

Justice

HC jails and frees man at same time

7 Dec 2008, 0254 hrs IST, TNN
HYDERABAD: In an unprecedented incident, the case of an Adilabad man charged with harassment for dowry and murder of his wife was heard by two

division Benches of the A P High Court almost concurrently. And while one of the Benches pronounced him guilty on both the counts, the second one acquitted him on the charge of murder and ordered that he be set free immediately.

The bizarre saga began when one Abdul Raheem went to the Bhainsa police station in Adilabad district on April 13, 2003, and lodged a complaint against his son-in-law, Hymad Pasha, accusing him of killing his daughter Rayeesa Begum. "I gave him my daughter, Rs 15,000 cash as dowry, some gold ornaments and household articles and performed the marriage on April 17, 2000," the father said in his complaint. But 15 days into the marriage, Hymad started harassing his wife to bring in more dowry. Two more demands of Rs 3,000 were met while the third one for Rs 10,000 could not be.

On April 13, 2003, the father said he received a call from the house of Hymad that Rayeesa was dead. After the inquest was over, a post mortem was conducted and Hymad was charged with dowry harassment and murder of his wife.

The trial court in Adilabad, after examination of the evidence on record, both oral and documentary, held Hymad responsible for the death of his wife and in 2006, sentenced him to life imprisonment for murder along with Rs 1,000 as fine and imposed another three years imprisonment plus Rs 500 fine for harassing his wife for additional dowry.

The accused has been serving prison term since then. Meanwhile, the relatives of Hymad approached S Surendar Reddy, a lawyer in Hyderabad and through him, got a criminal appeal filed in 2006 in the AP High Court against the judgment of the trial court. Around the same time, Hymad too wrote a letter to the authorities of the high court seeking their help in engaging the services of an advocate for preferring an appeal over the trial court verdict. The high court, through its legal aid wing, allotted lady advocate Shanti Neelam to argue his case.

The criminal appeal by Hymad's relatives went to a two-member division bench comprising Justice A Gopal Reddy and Justice B Seshasayana Reddy while Hymad's own appeal went to another two two-member bench comprising Justice D S R Verma and Justice K C Bhanu. The judgment on the appeal by relatives holding the accused guilty on both counts was delivered on March 7, 2008, while the verdict on Hymad's appeal acquitting him on the charge of murder was given on September 29, 2008.



Click on the image to enlarge.

I presume High Court only reviews any judgement of a lower court when an appeal is filed. If I am correct in my thinking, here same judgement of lower court was reviewed by two different benches in the same High Court. I cannot say anything further lest I am charged with contempt of courts.

Film Directors

There are many film directors. Some are over rated while some are under rated. In my view Bansali is highly over rated, thanks to media. Media tries its best to over rate or under rate anyone they choose to. In late 50s media gave a verdict that Dilip Kumar was over shdowed by Raj Kumar. Similarly, in mid 80s they gave another verdict that Vinod Khanna had over taken Amitabh. What a joke! Don’t believe me? See the archives of newspapers and Magazines.
Sorry for shifting from directors to actors. In my view Guru Dutt was another over rated director. His films Pyasa and Kaghaz ke phool were appeciated largely because of Sahir and Azmi.
Take Biall Roy and Bansali. They made Devdas based on the same novel. Bimal Roy’s Devdas is realistic apart from excelling in naturalism. Bansali’s lacks in both. Realism is about treatment of a subject, while naturalism is about external factors such as settings, attire, customs and traditions of the period etc.

Realism is not photographic representation of life or just a slice of life. There is something called artistic liberty, but that liberty has to create suspension of disbelief as well. There are two aspects—probable impossibility and impossible probability. It is the director who has to visualise and select probable inpossibility while taking liberty with the subject.
In one scene in Bansali’s Devdas you have Mrs Kher running through a hall. She is shown running for a number of minutes and the hall seems to get lengthier. If one were to combine Diwan e aam and khas of Agra fort the length would look shorter than Bansali’s hall.
Then I saw a film called Black. Amitabh is shown shouting at a dumb, deaf and blind girl in the name of teaching. Mind you, this film was highly acclaimed and had received very good crtical acclaim. How the girl responds to this shouting and then benefit by it and thereby learns to lead a normal life is a matter of mystery to me. This was a case of impossible probability.

Let us take Lagaan. It is an insult to the game of cricket. We must seek the opinion of Sunil Gavaskar to know if a team can be formed the way it was done in Lagaan. The director depended solely on patriotic feelings of the viewers for success.
Another case of impossible probability! If the film were made in a comic genre, it would have been better.

The there was swadesh. The lead actor is a NASA employee. He is shown directing the operations of NASA over telephone. He is very indispensable to NASA. The film should have ended with the collapse of NASA when the lead character returned to India for good.

We do have very good directors in Shyam Benegal, Kunal Kohli and Prakash Jha.

I have chosen only those films, which were critically acclaimed.

Actors

Dilip kumar was my favourite actor in my high school and college days. I watched Devdas in 1960. It is amazing to see pain in his eyes and on his face. The scenes of bullock cart ride, train journey and the last scene which ends with his death were superb. It was an excellent combination of Bimal Roy and Dilip Kumar. No other director would have done as well.
Naya Daur, Kohinoor, Ganga Jamuna, Moghal-e Azam, Paigham and Leader, I consider, are best examples of his acting talent.

Later he turned theatrical. He got carried away with his accent and intonation. He started sounding affected.


Amitabh bachan is another great actor. When he came on the scene I was working. When I saw Amar Akbar Anthony, I knew here was a good actor. Between 1975 and 1982 I hardly watched films. I saw Shakti in 1983. I thought he performed beautifully. Some time in 1984 Mr. Rath said that I must see Bemisal. I saw it in Chennai. He was good. In 1987 I saw Deewar. I was impressed. Television happened and I saw a lot of films. I was disappointed. Film after film he was doing the same role. But I thought he did well in Abhiman. When I saw Main Aazad Hun, I was amazed by his voice, way of dialogue delivery. His plus points were really exploited. Then I saw Alaap. His performance was very good. He was able to portray agony on his face and in his eyes. All I can say is that his talent has not been exploited.

Stock Markets

Today is 25th October 2008 and newspapers carry front page very bold headlines—SOS: Save Our Stocks (Times of India) and Investors lose Rs 3,00,000 cr (Deccan Chronicle).
I have not studied economics as a subject in college. My understanding is mere commonsense.
When a company floats shares, it does at a premium. A share is worth Rs 10/- but is issued at Rs 50/-. But when it comes to paying the dividend the calculation is on intrisic value of the share. Great!
When a buyer of shares later sells them at a much higher rate the company does not get anything out of it. The company remains unaffected. A buyer buys shares at Rs 300/- per share. In a year the share value jumps to Rs 500/-. Thereby he gains if he sells them. If he keeps them and susequently the value drops to Rs 400/- he claims he has lost Rs 100 per share. Pathetic! Why do we call them investors instead of calling them gamblers?

It is agreed that the speculator’s purchasing power reduces when the market crashes. But what percentage of Indians participates in the market? Just one percent of Indians participate in the market.
It is very true that GDP is affected when the speculaters do not make money because stock market speculaters and those with black money consume a very large portion of GDP.

Excerts from PM’s speech on civil services day as reported in Deccan Chronicle of 22-4-06 :
“Markets will increasingly become the arbitrators of resource allocation in many cases. At the same time, it is necessary to realise that markets can at times lead to marginalisation of the poor and the vulnerable. We must not forget that markets serve those who are part of the market system,”
. “While markets can facilitate higher growth, a government must ensure that growth is equitable, inclusive and not unduly harsh on those not equipped to manage change. Ensuring and assuring equitable and sustainable growth is, therefore, an important challenge before the government and its managers,”
The Sensex, at that time ended flat at 9.25 points up to close at 12,030 after touching a high of 12,102 and a low of 11,878.35 points. At one point, it was down 153 points.

M J Akbar in Deccan Chronicle on 3-6-07:
“The latest issue of India Today informs me that in just one year, 2006-2007, Dr Singh’s government permitted the shareholders of 1,100 companies to pocket Rs 40,000 crores in dividends. Did they pay any tax on Rs 40,000 crores? Not a rupee. Take out a calculator and do the math.”

Mani Shankar Aiyar Posted online: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 0000 hrs:
“So when you talk of a nine point two per cent growth rate, it becomes a statistical abstraction: 0.2 per cent of our people are growing at 9.92 per cent per annum. But there is a very large number, I don’t know how many, whose growth rate is perhaps down to 0.2 per cent. But certainly, the number of those who are at the lower end of the growth sector is very much larger than those who are at the higher end.” Mani Shankar Aiyar


Kushwant Singh in Deccan Chronicle of 18.11.07.:

“The day India’s Sensex crossed the 20,000 mark and Mukesh Ambani was declared the richest man in the world, 20,000 men and women from Central India arrived on foot from Gwalior to Delhi to protest they had not enough to eat one square meal a day. It was as ironical an coincidence as could be, what in American slang is known as a double whammy — two slaps on the face. India which is counted among the poorest of the poor nations of the world should also produce the richest of the rich.”

Amitabh

Amitabh Bachchan is an ardent fan of Bal Thakrey. Remember the statement of Jaya after Raj attacked (verbally) her husband?

For Raj to attack Amitabh is, perhaps, politically correct.

Balasaheb's paper also endorsed Raj's views. Later statement by Balasaheb about Amitabh being a national figure etc. was an after thought. He did not reprimand his editor for writing against Amitabh.

There is no comparison between Rajanikanth and Amitabh. I am not referring to acting prowess. Rajani acts in Tamil films and makes money from Tamil audience. Amitabh does not work in Marathi films. Amitabh works in films made in rashtra bhasha.

concern for health

Dr Ramdoss has a nack of staying in news. First it was Dr Venugopal. Then he started a campaign against smoking. The latest is alchohol. I am very glad that there is someone who is so very concerned about the heath of our countrymen.

The best he can do is to convince the cabinet he is a member of and close down all the cigarette manufacturing units and breweries. 'na rahe ga baans, na bajegi bansuri'. He can also similarly make all tobacco cultivation illegal.

If tobacco and alchohol are bad for us, they are bad for people world over. But he cannot decide what people in other countrie do. He can prevail upon commerce minister and the PM to stop all exports of tobacco and alchohol.

But unfortunately he is not aware of economics. Ramdossji will do well to discuss with Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh.

I am sure he knows the repercissions. All this seems to be for women voters in his constituency.

He reminds me of Rajnarayan.

Nissim

Nissim Ezekiel is (He lives in his works) a renowned Indo-Anglican poet. He taught Modern English Verse when I was a student in Bombay University way back in 1965. All verse is not poetry, just as all poetry need not be verse. There are writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and many, who in their prose gave poetry.
Here is a poem by Nissim in Indian English:

I am standing for peace and non-violence.
Why world is fighting, fighting
Why all people of world
Are not following Mahatma Gandhi,
I am simply not understanding.
Ancient Indian wisdom is 100 per cent correct.
But modern generation is neglecting—
Too much going for fashion and foreign thing.
Other day I am reading in newspaper
(everyday I am reading Times of India
to improve my English language)
How one goonda fellow
Threw stone at Indirabein.
Must be student unrest fellow, I am thinking.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, I am saying
(to myself)
Lend me the ears,
Everything is coming—
Regeneration, Remuneration, Contraception.
Be patiently brothers and sisters.
You want one glass lassi?
Very good for digestion.
With little salt lovely drink,
Better than wine;
Not that I am ever tasting the wine.
I am the total teatotaller, completely total.
But I say
Wine is for the drunkards only.
What you think of prospects of world peace?
Pakistan behaving like this,
China behaving like that,
It is making me very sad, I am telling you.
Really most harassing me.
All men are brothers, no?
In India also
Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, Hindiwallahs
All brothers
Though some are having funny habits.
Still you tolerate me,
I tolerate you,
One day Ramarajya is surely coming.
You are going?
But you will visit again
Anytime, any day,
I am not believing in ceremony.
Always I am enjoying your company.

Merit?

Through out the history of mankind, the previledged sections of society have resisted any social change. There is fear of losing the exclusivity of previledges. That is why the upper caste is resisting reservations for OBCs. They forget two things.
1) When it comes to primary education they send their children to private and very costly schools. In the social circles they boast that their children are in very costly schools. But the same people want Government aided institutions for higher education, where the educationnal expenditure is subsidised by the Government. UGC grants 1000 crores annually to these institutions of higher learning.
2) They talk of merit and quality. What is it? Memorising answeres to likely questions in a very expensive tutorial institute? That is merit.

Hero

Mahatma Gandhi will always be remembered for his fight against untouchability. He was not against caste system. Because of him untouchabiility was officially banned. But even today untouchability does exist. Do you come across any tea stall in any village in India operated by a scheduled caste person?

Ambedkar will always be remembered for his contribution in securing reservations for SCs and STs.

Kanshi Ram will always be remembered for empowering SCs and STs. He made the people outside the fourfold society aware of their political rights. Creating awareness is a great achievement. In my view he is the greatest of the three.

why?

I saw a programme on one of the TV channels that NIIT has established offices in China. As the anchor was saying apart from learning Chinese the staff are also learning Chinese manners. She was shown seated at a dining table and pouring water from a jug into the glass of a person sitting next to her and saying,” in China you have to serve others before you serve yourself”. This was surprising. This is a common ettiquette we were taught when young. The anchor or the scriptwriter is from a generation where they live in very small families and had not had the occasion for informal education. Subjects like Civics, moral science and ‘Deeniyat are missing from school syllabus. Those were the days when elders taught table manners (most of us sat on floor to eat but I am using the word table manners because using ‘floor’ manners does not sound good) to children. Children were taught-not to serve yourself first, do not search for a good piece from a curry etc. Today it is missing.

But, parents do teach children to be competetive even if it amounted to usurping someone else’s right. You have to be one up. And all this in a society, which brands itself ‘spiritual’! Talking of spiriyualism I am reminded of Shri Ravi shankar’s interactions with his desciples. I am quoting from ‘A twist of faith’ by Edward Luce.

Someone asked how she could truly know she was a good person. “You don’t need to be sweetie sweetie, goodie goodie all the time,” said guruji. The audience broke into delighted laughter. Puzzled, I looked around to see hundreds of shining eyes and ecstatic expressions. The next question which came by email and was read out by one of the his followers ended with: “I love you so much guruji.” Someone asked about whether it was always wrong to pay bribes. “You shouldn’t be too idealistic all the time,” he said. “Sometimes you have to make little, little compromises,” he added. Again, the audience erupted in laughter. I was beginning to wonder about the Art of Living’s breathing techniques.
So much for spiritualism! If this is spiritualism what is not spiritualism. Spiritualism has to have social ramifications.
I have many times come across car drivers (I am referring to owner driven cars) trying to overtake a vehicle just in front. They keep blowing horn till the car in front gives way. The quest does not end just here, there is yet another car in front and the same exercise is repeated. He knows that the car in front is in the same pursuit as he and he also knows that the car ahead has hardly scope to give him the way. But! Is this competitiveness? Similar situations are repeated in work life. How can I be second to someone irrespective of my capabilities?