Today is January 30th. Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead on this day 59 years back. They say these days that we have forgotten Gandhi's principles and only remember him on Gandhi Jayanti and his death anniversary, but I guess we don't even remember him on even those days. And had it not been for my growing up to doordarshan news and a 2 minute silence in school on this day, even I wouldn't have remembered because if one go to any of those leading Indian newspaper site they didn't even have a single word about Gandhi till late in the evening. (Though right now I can see a feature on Indian Express and a photograph on HT).

Mahatma Gandhi is someone I have grown to admire. And I really get irritated when people fail to see how remarkably he achieved what he did.

Part of blame lies in the way Gandhi is portrayed, while I agree he is a saint but our school-books, documentaries everything just show so much of gratitude and heap so much of praise without underlining his strategy and philosophy that people just get uncomfortable with the idea.

What doesn't help is that there are people who believe that wearing a torn jeans, doing drugs and bashing Gandhi is a sign of modernity but well damn with them !!!

Non-violence is a philosophy that was needed in a country like India. For a country as diverse as ours and a society which was not as aggressive as few others we know today, a country where Bhagat singh and Chandrasheakhar Azads were far and few, non-violence was the only way to broad base a freedom struggle.

Even during freedom struggle, people had their families to look after. Not everyone could have gone and become revolutionary. I don't even think everyone could have sacrificed not only their life but their families and all they had to the freedom struggle.

But that doesn't mean they didn't want to be part of the movement. What Gandhi did was to unite them. To provide them a platform where they can do their bit for the country and once you have a platform people can do impossible tasks and people did. They faced bullets, took blows of lathi charge ...they did all that they never thought they could. Gandhi made them discover their inner courage. Just step back in time. in those times...you should be sure of your courage to join a bhagat singh but you can discover courage by joining Gandhi. By making his movement non-violent, not only did Gandhi did away with need for people to put their life on the way but he also made it difficult for British to find excuses to shoot those bullets.

People could take part in a satyagrah and go back home in the night. Their families could see them, they didn't have to remain in hiding ...and I am talking about common Gandhi follower. No one should doubt the police persecution, and cruelty that the Gandhians faced, no one should say that they offered even an inch less than the revolutionaries. But all I am trying to bring forth is that but for Gandhi our freedom movement could never have been as broad based as it turned out to be. Gandhi figured that independence can't just be get by few heroes, it requires involvment of a majority of people. He never asked people to do more than what they can, but once people joined him they did what earleir seem impossible.

Gandhi is indeed a saint. His views on trusth, ahimsa, bringing up the down trodden, his love for humanity all that he did in his entire life was just exemplary. When he made Sardar Patel release the Pakistan's share of Indian funds, he didn't do it for pakistan ...he did it for people of that country. For him boundaries meant nothing, he lived and thought of people. And today when people come up with all those accusations that he did this which is benefitted pakistan or he did that which didn't help India, they forget that for him people on both side of border were always Indians who had walked with him on the path to Independence.

But behind that saint was a master strategist, who saw what could unite India. Who figured the key to stimulate common indian to egt out of his and revolt against the British Raj. He did what no one else could do and he did it without a bullet. We somehow miss this man and so fail to find why should we admire him.

Einstein once said of Gandhi: "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth". And that's exactly what's happening...people of our time can't believe that Gandhi achieved what he did and so they look for excuses , sometimes invent few and sometimes come up with stupid arguments to give justification to their disbelief.

But Gandhi did walk on the face of this earth and he did lay the foundation of a confident India. He showed that voice can be raised without crying hoarse. He showed that mountains can be moved without blasting your way through them.

And I bow to him for that !!!

-sid

Song recommendation of the day:

Mahatma Gandhi's one of the favourite Bhajans originally penned by gujrati poet Narsinh Mehta

Vaishnav jan to taine kahiye je peer parayi jaane re

par dukhhe upkaar kare toye, man abhimaan na aane re

Let's sample the headlines ( and I mean top of the page headline) of India's leading newspapers on their website this afternoon.

Times of India : After win, Shilpa in forgiving mood

Hindustan Times : Jade shouldn't be called racist: Shilpa

Indian Express: Shilpa Shetty's career gets 'real' boost

The Hindu: Shilpa looking forward to return home

I felt revolted by the way our media is blowing up the whole thing.

First of all, some bottom of pyramid celebrity ( if she can be called one) shows her crudeness and lack of civility by calling Shilpa names and here we go....that's an attack on nation's pride. Ministry got involved, I was wondering if GoI might just call back our troops from Siachen, so as to teach Jade a lesson. Is it some inferiority complex of our country that makes us respond to something so low and trivial with such ferocity ? For God's sake it's a TV show, the person who said what she said has no locus standi, she may not even represent the British population. What's the furore about ?

And that too when someone got Rs. 3.5 crore to be in the show. Why did media go berserk?

Is our country so devoid of printable news that we now have to resort to printing minute by minute commentary of what's happening in Big Brother's house?

It's amazingly stupid, news I thought was the only medium that brings us close to reality but somehow there is this new form of news which I would label as escapist news that's taking centre stage.

I have not seen Indian TV news for some time but the depths to which channels like Aaj Tak etc had fallen was for all to see or just take the case of Times of India, British tabloids may be shamed by kinda reporting ToI have started doing.

I almost decided never to buy that newspaper ever again by my own money till they become a newspaper once more. Indian Express that way at least till I was in India was still a newspaper and not a tabloid.

And what surprises me that Abhishek-Aishwarya's marriage or John-Bipasha's breakup or salary of IIM grads make up bigger news in the country than Noida killings, Orissa droughts and Assam massacre.

We as a society have become so immune to hard realities of life that only sensationalizing of trivia interests us...nothing else. Isn't it escapism ? We want our news to be served to us like a dessert, sweet and juicy. No bitter truths, no hard debates. Just a relaxing piece of stories sensationalized and put together for my after-office entertainment.

Indian media has finally arrived.................huh !!!!

-sid

Why Old is gold ? Why 'what was' has to be better than 'what is' ? Why we resist change ? Why we pull down the new so that old can stay up ?

I understand that we might have built a level of comfort with how things were and when they change we feel inconvenienced. But where is the need to steadfastly cling to the old, to not let it go.

Is there some hidden joy in being disappointed with the way things have turned out ? or

Is that an expression of loyalty to old guard? or

Is there a sense of guilt - how can i share the bed with new when till yesterday I pleasured myself with the company of old ?

Why do people just don't want things to change ?

Why past and present need to be compared.....why we need to judge the two and let the world know which one is better. Why can't both be good. Just Good. None need to be better than another.

It's good to just ask questions some days. When we don't check if we know the answer before posing the question then we don't hide the uneasy questions.

-sid

This is Prof. Anil Gupta and this pic is from the article that can be found on the front page of BBC news site. Well, as I had missed this evening's EPL games so I opened the BBC site to get my EPL update, specifically chelsea's shocking loss to liverpool, but right there on the front page even before I could click on the sports link - I saw Prof. Gupta's familiar face.

It's interesting to know how I heard of Prof. Gupta for the first time. It was a june afternoon, I had got an admit to IIMA. I was back in Haridwar for a while before the joining. One fine afternoon while checking my mails, I found one from Prof. Gupta - he had read my review of '1984' on the online-literature site ( yes, the same review which I posted in one of the posts few days back) and he had mailed me to tell me that he liked them. That's when I first heard of Prof. Gupta.

Next I came across him in one of the courses that he took for us - ISPE (Indian Social & Political Environment). In a curriculum replete with courses on finance, marketing and strategy - this was an interesting and welcome change. And it's in this course that I got to know of his dream to bring rural innovators to fore. It's a very interesting concept and he works on it with full dedication. Few of my friends thought that he sticks to his ideas and convictions rather than taking note of contrary view. But I have no issues with that, I guess that's what differentiate thinkers from entrepreneurs. When thinkers plan something they chose to get into everyone' shoes to figure out, how would each one of them feel on their journey together. It takes a long time and you never start the journey. Entrepreneurs just put on their shoes and run to their goal. Others can join them if they want or just be spectators. And Prof Gupta, nominated by Business week as one of the stars of Asia, is one such achiever with a mind of his own.

If you meet him, and he is a busy man trust me, you will realize that his white beard is just a deception, he stands tall, absolutely upright, walk briskly, talk in a strong and firm voice and has a logic that can be best described as business like. He is fit as Federer from what I have seen of him. Even though his work with rural poor may give you an impression that he would resort to ideas of compassion and care and equality to drive his point, but trust me his logic is far more potent and convincing. In my second year while I was working with a NGO in nearby village, we consulted him for few things and it was amazing how he could understand the reality of rural existence and translate it for "never been to a village before" B-school grads.

I missed a great chance to go on Shodhyatra with him to laddakh when I saved my course bidding points for just a shade too long to ensure I end up getting all the finance courses. Result - I did get all the fin courses but was left with enough points that could have pretty well taken me to a trek across laddakh and a chance to know this man better.

I think what I admire most about Prof. Gupta is his unflinching dedication to a worthy cause. A cause that makes a life purposeful. A purpose greater than buying the swankiest apartment, latest gadget and finest car. May be each living soul needs a purpose like this but not many have guts to go and pick one for themselves. I hear this constant calling to use my empowerment to empower others, not to waste what I have in structuring debt transactions but to go out there and contribute to the society in a meaningful way. But at the same time, whenever I see that stylish Lamborghini parked outside an expensive restaurant, i hear another voice that calls me to go and get one such toy for myself.

One can either provide his life with means or meaning and right now I have chosen to work on the first, but thank god that there's a Prof. Anil Gupta out there who has chosen the latter for himself.

Hats off to you Sir !!! I hope some day, I can gather enough guts to emulate you.

-sid

PS: Here's the link to the BBC story on Prof. Gupta by Peter Day-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6279929.stm

It was a physics lecture at school, must be class 11th, having introduced concept of Ohm's law in last class, my teacher started his new lecture asking the class definition of Ohm's Law. And as soon as he finished, I started - "Ohm's law states that, in an electrical circuit, the current passing through a conductor is directly proportional to the potential difference applied across them i.e. V = IR". As I finished and looked for some words of appreciation, my teacher shocked me by saying - that's not right. How could I get that wrong - wasn't it V = IR ? It indeed is. The puzzled look of mine must have shown coz he came right next to me and asked me to tell where have I made a mistake, but I had no clue. And then he gave me correct definition,

"Ohm's law states that, in an electrical circuit, the current passing through a conductor is directly proportional to the potential difference applied across them, provided all the physical conditions remain constant."

All I had missed, was the assumption but he insisted that for me to get the complete meaning of Ohm's law I should not only know the law but also the assumption on which it stands.

And that's so true just not about a concept in physics but about so much more in life.

So may times, we tell ourselves - If I have behaved in a certain manner with my friends earlier, then that's how I should be with all my new friends. - If i have reacted to a situation in a particular way in past , that's how I should react it to always. - I have made myself believe that to be like how I have been in past , is to be myself.

But what I forget is that all this can be true only " provided there has been no change in underlying condition"

How often we just multiply I and R and say that's what V should be and if someone tells us that's not what V is, we either fault the voltmeter or blame the guy taking the reading, but do we ever step back and check the basic assumption ?

To mistake life to be an excel file where one can just put in a formula in one cell and drag it down the column could be the biggest mistake we can make. Every relationship in life is unique because it has its own context, a context which has taken shape through interactions of two unique individuals. While I may have the same reason to be friend with A and B but A and B can have vastly different reasons for being friend with me. So how can I just let my needs define the whole context of a relationship. How can I be so insensitive so as not being able to perceive that if there is a dissonance in contexts of different relationships then it is because they are not the same. Why I just want to offer just that much of myself to A that I have offered to B and C and D. May be A don't even need that part of me. But I world rather sit and wonder what's wrong with A, coz it's all so hunky dory with B, C and D. Rather than explaining why things should be as I expect them to be, why shouldn't I try and figure out why things are not how I thought they would be. Why can't I just step back and check my assumptions?

Life has no laws but even if we believe for a moment that there are some, what we can't forget is that those laws are incorrect and incomplete unless the assumptions they stand on are true and valid. So while our experiences give us wisdom to act in a certain way in future, we should also be wise enough to view those experiences in their entirety - complete with assumptions, presumptions and contexts - so that we know when is the time to fall back on experiences and when should we just let our instinct show us the way.

-sid

We all have our shields....arrogance, condescension, silence, mockery, meekness, modesty, aggression, surrender, ignoring ....and more all of these are ways we use to shield ourself.

Someone might just say, "Me need no shield !!!" but that's use of arrogance and if someone ask, "Shield ourself from what ?" he is just making use of tool of ignorance.

And so everyone pretends, that life is absolutely perfect for them........

That pops up two differing questions....

Why anyone else should have anything to do with what's right or wrong with my life ?

Vs.

Why should someone feel apprehensive of letting others know how exactly things are ?

To first my answer is "Why not?"

And unless the first question is backed by high degree of aggression or some contrived logic about individuality, it's tough to see how someone can continue to hold fort on that question.

And so whenever I play referee to a match between these two questions, the second question always come out winners...blame it on me but that's how it is.

And I think my choice of word should have made this clear for someone with an eye for detail. After all, use of 'shield' for what could also be called 'shell' is a clear reflection that I will be more inclined to explore answers to second question and dismiss the first one.

But let me get back to the question that what do we fear after all ? Why do we wanna let everyone believe that everything is fine.

Let's pick probable answers...

Is it a show of strength, a show of control....that we have everything in order ?

or Is it a fear that how would we be judged if we come out as weak?

or Do we fear that someone can exploit us if we let the guard down?

or Do we just don't wanna come out as second best compared to the other guy ?

or We just don't wanna bother someone else with our worries ?

or Is it a hope that soon everything would be ok and why let anyone know that's something i wrong at all ?

I guess am running out of believable excuses that we can invent......answer to the question could be one of these, or a combination of these or may be something entirely different that I have not been able to unearth. But fact remains that there are shields out there and so someone ought to have either seen daggers or imagined few. And this could lead us to only two conclusions that either world is one big hallucination or a battleground ?

I hope it's not first and I wish it's not the second............

And so may be questions that I put up above are still unanswered....well if so, the that's how it is..

When have I claimed that I have all the answers, I just try to pretend that I have.......

-sid

Song recommendation for the day:

From the movie Guru

Ae Hairat-e-aashiqui....jagaa mat

pairon se zameeen, zameen....lagaa mat

Kyun urdu farsi bolte ho

das kahte ho , do tolte ho

jhoothon ke shenshaah bolo na...................

Discussions over onion rings and french fries are often just like the eatables – spicy but junk. And usually once you have had your fill, you leave those topics on the table with coke cups and used tissues to be put into trash bin by the service boy later.
But in present days when even much-maligned McD have included fresh salad and corn in their menu, once in a while you may just find some interesting cue during those gupshups at the fast food outlets.
Well, last evening while all of us minus Jayesh were taking a snacks break, topic of discussion somehow turned to love.
Now, I seriously feel sympathetic for this four letter word …..it’s easily the most abused word in any of the contemporary languages or to put it in another way I guess it’s the most abused notion irrespective of the language.
First of all, the word has been almost hijacked by a particular relationship so if you love your parents or siblings, well take a walk….that won’t count as love at all. After all, that way everyone love someone …..try understand what we are talking about dude !!!
And well whoever said, you find love only once in lifetime…he was definitely wrong, people here fall in love every quarter and they even show robust growth in volume of “I love you” said quarter on quarter.
But to be frank these guys are not what I wanted to write about. I know they are fools and well I guess they know it themselves that they are just fooling around.
Let’s turn to people who believe they are in love as in the highest and purest sense of the word. Hmmm, People say you just fall in love, it happens by chance or it just happens. A romantic idea I must say, lotta movies have made lot of money cashing in on this idea just like few others have made money showing that there are trains that leave every summer for school of wizardry.

But does everyone really fall in love or do lot of them just convince themselves that they are in love?

Now before anyone accuse me of being a non-believer etc, let me clarify I definitely believe in existence of love. Anyone who needs a proof whether love exist or not, my advise to him is just go and look at a mother with her child. That’s love in its purest and highest form and to me that’s an inarguable proof of love. And given that love exists therefore there can be no denying that there can be other form of relationships full of love and affection.
But I still get the impression that there are times when people just get carried away by grand ideas of love and start believing that they are in love even if they are not. To be frank it’s not difficult to convince oneself of a particular state of mind, a good looking guy or girl who can talk well is a reasonable reason for you to feel sure that you want to spend your entire life with her. You might rue it later (and that explains fate of so many love affairs) but at that point of time you just can’t see anything else. But don’t love affairs last years, well they can but then where am I saying that you have convinced yourself of something wrong. All I am saying is, isn’t it possible that people just condition themselves to believe they are in love. In the process, they may just get the best guy or girl for themselves but that was just incidental. Look at what am explaining as a phsychological process, it's an effort by one's subconcious to make him/her conscious about their being in love. And guess people work themselves into such a state. They play their own doctor, look for known symptoms and then somehow interpret something or other to be those symptoms and make a diagnosis that they have fallen in love and then start treating themselves as patients. And ask any doctor, half the people pay for the medicines not because they are suffering from any illness but because they 'believe' they are suffering from something.
I repeat again that I am not denying here possibility of love in its true sense. But am just exploring why suddenly everyone around you is falling in love. It’s definitely not the weather, is it?
It’s like people who have just started drinking, well they have heard that you get high when you drink. So once they start drinking, just after first peg …they start thinking they are getting high even though they may be in their most alert state of mind ever. That’s what power of mind is. I can be what I want to be. And somehow the grand notions that come with love make everyone believe that this is an experience that they must have and therefore, bit of attraction coupled with some sweet words is often trigger to “I guess Iam in love” syndrome…but it’s not that simple. Because people just don’t mistake themselves to be in love, they convince themselves that they are. And therefore they enjoy the state just like someone actually in love would or feel the pain of break up in exactly the same way. They have to, they must feel the pain or feel happy because how else will they feel convinced that they are/were in love.
Is it good or bad? Well, I don’t know. Am not sitting here and passing a judgment. All am trying to say is that while God might have created love so that people just chance upon it and fall in love, we are just pushing ourselves to take a fall…..if falling is still fun…Good Luck !!!

-sid

Song recommendation of the day:
Just keeping with the mood, here’s this beautiful song from Jogger’s Park

Ishq hota nahin, sabhi ke liye…
Ye bana hain, ye bana hain…..kisi kisi ke liye…………

Decisions are not difficult to make, difficult part is to stop waiting for decisions to be made for you. We grow up listening to stories about miracles, watching movies where things just happen and somehow we find it difficult to get over these stories. It's difficult to say why we prefer things to happen to us rather than pick up the wheel and drive to where we want. And I have noticed that most of the men and women I know are strong minded people who have made hard decisions once they were convinced that decision will have to be made by them only. But I have also seen that wavering, that indecision, that hope of someone else making the right decision. The most capable people seem to develop an unfounded confidence in someone else's capability . It's strange. There is always that other group which would jump to make decisions for others but no I wont discuss them today.

I guess we as a society judge a man by how things turn out for him rather than how things were for him. It's like this ...say India is playing Australia and they are 17/5 in reply to 275, and this one gentleman make this prophecy that India would win and though realistically this would never happen but just for sake of argument let's accept that India goes on to win. Now this guy would be hailed as the greatest expert on cricket. He will be giving hundreds of interviews with strange theories about why he said what he did. But yeah he would be a hero. Soemhow we are fixated with our desire to get it right in future rather than to do it right now. Reminds me of "Arms and the Man" by Shaw. Our heroes are never practical they are always courageous. I have deep appreciation for self belief and strength of human spirit, but i believe that it's unfair to liberally use those terms to romanticize illogical feats.

But I seem to be drifting, and anyways reluctance to take command of our own lives have deeper reasons than just social conditioning. May be faith in God has a role to play as well , hope for a miracle. But I think biggest reason is absence of a power source to drive up enough force to disturb the inertia. We need reasons to do things, while there are enough reasons available but they must add up in a way that a person is compelled to make a decision. It's physics i guess. I must act because....... that because need to be a strong force, very strong force. Because how often we see that while everyone else is convinced a particular thing need be done, principal actor is still not willing to make a move...why's so? When he should be the most concerned? What's he waiting for? What's his plan ? I guess he is waiting for those situations to add up to ensure that they drive him to action, that explains why men driven to most impossible situations achieve the most heoic feats. I guess in those situations they just get enough motivation to make the most determined action. Till a situation exceeds a threshold desperation, a human being just dont get convinced enough to act to change things. Well this threshold could be different for different people, there may be vector addition of reaosns and so things may not just add up but whatever it is trust me it's a fascinating study. And more need to be understood and written about it. Let's see.....

-sid

Back from my phuket trip, I was planning to write about the beautiful beaches and scenery of phuket but while checking score of final ashes test on BBC's site I happened to find this strange news piece:

"Kidnap girl grapples with freedom"

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6192433.stm)

Now this is a strange story, a girl was abducted when she was 10 and she escaped finally few months back at the age of 18. Now this girl is finding it difficult to come to terms with the freedom she has finally got. Was just wondering what effect such a traumatized childhood would have on the girl. One of the experts quoted in one of the articles said that girl has not lived several phases of her early life in a proper way and therefore it would take several years for her to recover completely from the ordeal. Now, I don't know what could have motivated the kidnapper to do this - every man acts at least by his own mind in a right way - but I wonder what makes a criminal believe in what they do. I can understand that rage may play a role in some murders, greed can make u do lot of things from fraud to robbery, momentary drive of lust can drive someone to rape. All these acts are abhorrent but come to think of it I can paint the man who committed the crime, I can at least claim to understand what could have driven them. But people like the kidnapper here or the serial killer from Noida killings, there mindset just elude me completely....what and what on earth can make these people live on with ghastly acts of theirs. I can understand kidnapping but to live with it for 8 years...well I guess man needed a drive and passion of almost maniac levels to do that - but what could have driven him to that level. After all here the kidnapped was a 10 year girl ?

And come to think of it those perpetrators of Noida known to mankind could describe what they did....30 women and children - killed over two years - why ? sex, organ trade or whatever you just can't be human to have done that. I just wonder how these men get to live with themselves after all that they do. And how can they repeat a wrong over and over again.

I strongly believe that death is not a punishment for perpetrators of such inhuman acts, they must breath but die every day. I care a damn about human right activists for a moment....just hope someone can come up with a punishment which make these guys writhe in pain for every moment of rest of their life.