This video captures one of the high point of my trip . Here you can see some Kids from the village Nako singing few Kinnauri songs on my request .Look at the innocence and cuteness of these little performers . Do watch it till the end when they sing a hindi song .
Here is one more which I capture at a primary school in the village of Kalpa .
keep watching this space for story of my trip. That's not as refreshing as these videos but its worth reading nevertheless.
One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.~Alexander Pope
Efficiency Loss :
“The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public”:~ Anonymus
We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of master to disciple.
~ Swami Paramhans Yogananda
I have noticed a strange thing amongs many of these friends. Those friend amongst this group who are personal bloggers ,Whenever I am with them I always get a distinct feeling that though they are with me , nodding to my remark , answering my questions, laughing on my joke still they are not there. as if I am talking to a medium . real self is somewhere else .standing by the side may be.
Lately I had a pleasure and previlage of interacting with a very talented blogger , a celebrity in making .This feeling was very clear during my interaction.There was a third person bitween two of us. Always.That third person was aloof and observant at the same time . I saw that third person once . We were in a car, I looked up to the ceileng and there it was , hanging up side down . watching intently . when I treid to scream it casted some hogwartian magic spell and my scream was supressed. All right ! That last part was figment of my imagination But I did saw it ,for a sec, before my car hited a bump and I was jolted back to reality.that was the moment when the core idea of Meta curse theory was born.
Anyways,I had felt this way few time before (with diffrent folks, some of them bloggers , some not ) everytime I got an impression that the "Third Person" don't want his existence to be acknowledged and He might be offended if I even tried to commit the transgression of attempting to contact him . That made me a little uncomfortable and concious.
Second was a poem "श्री कृषण का दूत कार्य " ( When Krishna acted as messenger )by Ramdhari Singh "Dinkar". It was in my younger brother's hindi text book. Its really cool you can see the scene in embeded video below .it start at 2:27 in the clip.you can read the transcript of poem on my other blog here.
Finally there was best of all , a Piyush Mishra's orignal composition . Aarambh
listen to it here.its mind blowing. I liked it so much that i set it as ring back tone on my mobile phone. so here is one more reason for you to give me a call sometime . :)
Andrew Lang
Ever seen a mountain ? Those big huge vast bodies of stone. Apparently frozen in time. Everyone think of them as embodiment of timeless ness. Epitome of stability. Set in their path, making concession for nothing and no one. Hiding precious things like gold, diamond and some purely utilitarian things like coal and fossil fuel. Sometime covered with snow but mostly barren. Very few people live there most of us go to mountain for convalesce.
This is the common perception about them and for most of the purpose this perception serves us well to understand them. Unitll ...untill you see a river flowing through a mountain. For river, those same timeless , changeless , eternal Mountain makes exception and give path to the her . It tears himself apart to make way for river's flow .never regretting or thinking about the loss of identity incurred in the process. River flows through it and life flourishes in the valley. People worship the river. His sacrifice or contribution is never noticed or appreciated. However he notices that children in the valley never draw a picture of river without mountain but then they are children their parents lives on the bank of rivers and soon they teach their kids that valley owe everything to river.
River keep flowing till it falls in sea. After that there is no river any more . There is only sea. River loses its identity. Her water becomes saline. Sea never takes notice. After all for sea its just another river falling in to it. What’s the big deal ? Mountain feels bad. He thinks his sacrifice, his effort went in waste. He made an exception for river. And river chucked that for what? To become just another anonymous contributor to saline water reservoir ? Mountain feels sad and angry and a volcano erupts from it . it’s lava hurts the people living in the valley. they curse mountain.
But than one day after a very long time something strange happen .a lone drifting cloud ,floating high up in sky passes through the mountain. That cloud is not visible either to people of valley or river. And much like mountain, that lone drifting cloud is of no use for them. Thanks to their altitude, that cloud collide with Mountain. They talk , She listen to his story ,understand his pain and tear start rolling from her eyes . Only the water is not saline this time and people in valley call it rain . Volcano cools down, grass sprouts on the mountain, and river get filled with fresh water. Life flourishes.
That lone drifting cloud who appeared out of nowhere tells something to the mountain and mountain is happy again .He can see things in perspective. Looks back at the river, valley and people. only this time he don't seek any validation , recognition or approval. He resolve to keep doing what he always did. As the lone drifting cloud moves on to her path to heal the pain of others like him he prepare to face another season of summer. Another flow of river passing through it. World, oblivious to all this keeps moving on.
Are you wondering what that cloud said to mountain which made him forget his sorrow? She asked him to not to be judgmental and learn to let go . She told him that "what you are is your nature and what other are is there nature. neither is wrong or right . only different” and she told him that "Because of your this very nature you have a special places in god's heart. He loves you more than anything else. Ever wondered why mountains are highest place on earth ? Because highest on earth is nearest to god."
Forever the rationalist, mountain dismissed the idea saying "I don't think god gives a damn."
Lone drifting cloud smiled and said “Who do you think has sent me??”
In life we all act like that mountain at times, than we feel angry, upset and dejected. if that's the case I have one advice for you. look around and look up. Trust me ,Your guardian angel your lone drifting cloud will be somewhere near to you.
Pic courtesy Aris Gionis
Nothing in this world is to be feared...its only to be understood
~Marie Curie
I was sitting on my living room couch, lazily reading some old magazine when I learned about Terrorist Attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team. There was a news flash on TV and within 5-10 minute "experts" were ready with their “informed” opinion on how this incident will effect everything from Cricket, Peace in Asia and sponsorship of IPL. True to their nature, News channels were filled with rhetoric, meaning less call for action and other such ploy to cash on public sentiments. In short our reaction to the attack was very predictable : “knee jerk “. Having seen many such incidents in past I was confident about what is to follow. We will forget about it . Soon.
But I was afraid,Loss of human life is always tragic. But I think it will be a mistake to see this incident as just another terrorist attack. Something is different this time, something subtle which disturbed me.A threshold has been crossed. Its not terrorism anymore. This issue is a Vendetta. Implication of this difference are far reaching and if not checked in time.It will be devastating to stability of our nation.
What is Terrorism?
Its not in my nature to be afraid . Never . I strongly believe in above mentioned words of Marie Curie. Whenever I am afraid of anything .I take it as a symptom/side effect of my failure to comprehend. My life's experience has thought me that if you look deep enough , hard enough and long enough you will find some pattern of logical coherence in every problem. So I spent last couple of days thinking about the problem of terrorism . This essay is result of that thought process .
First and foremost I was surprised to see that most of the time when we talk of Terrorism we talk about act of violence only. Our whole perception of terrorism revolves around acts of violence. Something that is not violent is not terrorism. That’s the fundamental flaw in our thinking. Violence is culmination of terrorism not origin of it. We talk about "How to solve/remove/eradicate Terror" very few times you will find your self thinking what Terrorism actually is? What we are trying to do is to solve a problem with out understanding it . A hallmark of brute force mentality. No wonder that we are not going anywhere with it . So first step in my quest was to define the term “terrorism”.
You will be surprised to know that till this day there is no standard definition of terrorism on which all of us agree . wikipedia define it as "violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands." Now tell me "What were the demands of Gunmen who were involved it Mumbai Attack of 26/11 ? What were the demands of fidayeen who carried out September 11 ? None. How did attack on sri lankan cricketers helped the cause of terrorist?”.No,None,zilch,Nada.
Vir Sanghvi was right when he said that “Joker is the terrorist of our time.(Link) .Like Joker ,these terrorist never cared to put forward their demands. They never tried to hold hostages. They just came and started killing civilians . they knew they won't get out of it alive . but still they did it .why ?
At this juncture I want you to forget every single rhetoric filled in to your head by media ask a simple question to your self "Is there anything ,anything at all in the world for which you are ready to die? or ready to kill " I doubt if your answer will be anything outside of standard response of "my family". Very few of us will even consider the possibility of doing such act for the sake of any idea ,opinion or promise land. We will call it madness. ergo we lable doer of such deeds as MAD. This is shallow thinking . We need to understand that fundamentally they are (were??) same as us . I don't think anyone start his life with the intention of killing the strangers . Revolutionaries and Terrorist are not born . They are created by a system . Ergo, any solution to the problem of terrorism must address and attack the underlying "system".
We don't need to study groups like LeT, LTTE, Al kayeda to understand the basic premise and modus operandi of Terror. Basic premise is "When logic fail or when one of the involved side is not open to logic you resort to non verbal force to attain your objective". A kid in school playground who Bully his peers, A spouse who exploit the dependency of his/her partner for undue advantage in relationship. A Manager who exploit his insider knowledge/position to push his own agenda. Politician who exploit the differences between his electorates to manipulate them. No matter which walk of life you choose. Chances are that you will encounter someone who is a terrorist there. Its our foolhardiness that we associate terrorism with violence and bloodshed only. Some are terrorist in thoughts, some are terrorist in action. Usually terrorist in thought breeds terrorist in action. when we blame a single individual for terror we are basically trying to surge off the responsibility.
Ways of Terror
Thanks to my early and extensive exposure to news media in my formative years I have seen many terrorist conflict from the side line, on my SONY Trinitron. List include Arab Israel conflict, Fijji, Maldeev, Bostnia,Afganistan ,PLO, IRA, Chechen rebel etc . At Home turf we had more than our fair share of conflict like Punjab -Khalistan Issue, Kashmir issue, GNLF, Sri Lanka -LTTE,BODO. Its seems world will never run out of such things. On the surface level each issue seems to have a different cause and a different origin but once you venture to examine these issue beyond superficial details and compare underlying socio-political-philosophical dynamics you will see a shocking level of similarity . you see a clear and distinctive pattern .in following section I am going to present some of them.
Implosion of Roles:
"Bush and Bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional “next world” is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them. ”
Richard Dawkins
First and very obvious part of any terror situation is a "Oppressor-Victim" duo . oppressor violates the rights of victim and victim retaliate . This part is fairly straightforward. what’s hazy is the perception of the act in the mind of oppressors .from the sideline it might seems to us that oppressor is taking a liberty in full knowledge and awareness about his action .But from his frame of reference its not that black and white. Often time oppressor never really makes a conscious choice to commit the transgression.
Think of the White people in pre civil war America who practiced slavery . it took a Abraham lincon to abolish slavery. Think of constitution writer in modern world who coined the phrase “One Man One Vote”. It took feminist moments to convert it to “One Person One Vote” . Think of all our ancestors in India who celebrated “Sati” system . think of Tulsidaas calling women destined to torture . Think of all the great people who were upholder of cast system and never found anything wrong with it . it took Ambedkar to make them realize. How does American soldier killing innocent civilian in IRAQ are different from German soldier killing Jews in World War 2?
All these people were perfectly sane, educated and god fearing people based on the standard of their respective times. It’s the standard of morality of that times which needed a revision . Much as we want to believe otherwise , Moral framework of society is not frozen , its not a objective constant . sadly moral framework is a “work in progress” and every society need to revise morality periodically.
In all the example mentioned in previous paragraph , you will see that wherever an issue of transgression/terrorism was resolved by non violent method ,without a blood shed it was resolved because both parties were open to dialogue and they had vested interest in resolving the situation . This is not true for our time. For a long time now involved parties has vested interest in keep this issue alive . In one form or another.
What ? You don’t know what I am talking about ? I am talking about Military Industrial complex, I am talking about Arm Race and Cold War. I am talking about dependency on Oil . I am talking about aiding LTTE . I am talking about PAK Govt’s need to keep the Kashmir issue alive in order to divert attention from more burning pressing issue at home. I am talking about willfully ignoring issue of human right violation in Tibet and Philistine by self appointed moral watchdog of modern world. Hard as it may seems to believe but we have created these monster and we are creating some more. Boundaries of the roles between Oppressor-victim is blurred. Meaning of these terms are imploded.
At times we are terrorist in thoughts, at times we face terrorism in action. Roles are swapped periodically. That’s why we are stuck in this perpetual cycle of Terror.
Flexi Ethics leading to Nihilism
All Bombs are clean; their only pollution is the system of security and of control they radiate as long as they don't explode
Jean Baudrillard in Simulacra and Simulation ( A Very good book)
When it comes to matters of foreign policy , conventional wisdom dictates that “there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies . There are only permanent interest” . No country and I repeat NO Country today practice an objective or moral foreign policy . All these world bodies are a hogwash. An elaborate drama, staged for the sole purpose of providing a cloak of legitimacy to the greedy agenda of whoever pulls string.
When your ethics are situational (flexi) than you can’t help violating the right of someone. Do it over a sustain period of time and you have a disaster in making .No act of transgression goes unpunished. Nature has its own way to deliver justice even when there is no enforcement authority to administer it. That’s why bodies like UN,NATO ,Non Align Moment, OPEC are somewhat ineffective in handling the terrorism issue. They are mere puppet to the global bully. They turned blind eye to the act of transgression and now they are resting in a well earned oblivion . Appeasement is predecessor of terrorism.
For example right now world is busy keeping china happy. Mark my word; 10 years from now world will be facing tibetaien terrorism. Sooner or later agitation in every victim reaches a critical point. After that point, underlying issue becomes irrelevant. Fight becomes a vendetta and ideology becomes nihilism. This is dangerous. Those people won’t stop at anything. Not even killing there on people.
its is widely believed that “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” . A freedom fighter stands for values of his people. He enjoys sympathy and (moral) support of his people. That’s his power. By that logic no terrorist would ever think of hurting sentiments of very people he is fighting for. But that’s exactly what gunmen in Lahore did when they open fired at the cricket team. Cricket is a Quasi religion in Indian subcontinent. Why they did it ? Because for them there is struggle is not about attaining a goal anymore . It’s a pursuit of total annihilation. They are fighting a battle where on a certain level they have already accepted the defeat.
Its not about idealism and ideologies anymore. System failed and tricked them for far too long . Now they are trying destroy that system . That’s what disturbed me about these attack. This time its there final shot . they have an asymmetric advantage over us. There will be blood on the street. There will be collateral damage.
Collateral Damage :
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. ”
Morpheus In The Matrix
When elephant fights . It’s the grass, which suffers. I have had opportunity to talk to some Pakistani guys . They are very much like us . Very loveable people. My friends who study in US universities face this dilemma often . They can’t help feeling an urge to avoid a Pakistani guy/girl in social setting. I am sure it will be same for Pakistani folks. And if the conflict came to final phase I am sure our soldier will kill their people and vice versa. That will be a real loss . That will be the innocent victim of terrorism . We will condemn the killing . We will say its bad.
Have it ever occurred to you that at some level, we might have endorsed these acts? At least subconsciously? Read the lines from matrix movies quoted above. As I write this there are 16,200 websites on internet which quote it verbatim . Pretty neat for a movie right ? Most of these guys who published this will say that they agree with Morpheus. Now Read it once again carefully. You will see that this is an endorsement of terrorism. A justification of collateral damage.
Lets face it , it can be our turn someday .Possibility that YOU and I can be a collateral Damage is very high. Danger has knocked on our doors. We had attacks in MUMBAI. We have a totally unstable country as neighbor. To complicate the situation we have an economic climate which is less than healthy. If things continued like that than its only a matter of time when this menace of terrorism will claim somebody from our friends and family.That’s what I am afraid of and that’s what You should be afraid of too.
Solution
So In my opinion these three component are common to every terror situation . Any possible solution to the problem of terrorism should must address theses three component simultaneously .Our traditional response to the threat is to First Quarantine the sect , which is followed by a Power struggle and finally dialogue ,on the terms & conditions of who ever comes out victorious in that struggle. This system never works. Much as the same way that all the prison in world can’t bring down the crime rate.
What we need to do is to
#1) Stop/Control the implosion of roles . Define the identities of all the involved parties. These identities won’t be black and white .so do a honest job of admitting where you acted as an oppressor and where you suffered like an victim . this honesty is difficult to achieve if you are in the position of power and if its against the public sentiment. But this is the price we need to pay. It will be a stepping-stone toward developing confidence. Once the identity is defined we can find the overlap and common ground . Trust me this will be a Big Step. But this require a political will power. This sort of will power is hard to attain in a country where no one has got an absolute majority in past few elections .
#2) Define a moral /legal/Constitutional Framework : This is relatively easy if Step #1 is achieved . Define a framework based on humanistic values . Freedom, Peace ,justice and Equality.
#3) Seize the killing at once . Let go of past . easier said than done .
Easiest way to attain #2 & #3 is to attach some sort of economic reward to the peace. Something like Suez Canal . Everyone knows that suez canal has done more good to the cause of Egypt-Israel peace than all the guns and politicians. There are more than enough economic incentive of peace in Indian subcontinent. If only our politician choose to highlight it . Social incentive can be another bait . Think of the public euphoria if Every Pakistani can visit Ajmer Sharif. and If Indians can do the trading with Pakistan. This sort of economic dependencies are best guarantee of lasting peace. Wishful thinking ? You are right it IS wishful thinking . But is it Impossible ??
This is for our politician to answer and their time is running out .
Photo Credit : Sunandini Basu
Author's Note: This Post/Essay is a slight detour from usuall stuff i publish on "knowprashant". this kind of thing happens to me once in a while when i put on my dusty academic hat . do let me know if you like it .
Not that I agree to what he says but its funny never the less . worth watching
I won't even try to make a pretext to tell you about the awesome video embeded below . Please take time to see it . It's an award winning short film which was shooted in a day and it took two years of post production to create this stunning piece of work. I wish I could have made one such movie . thanks Bruce Brainit. Hats off to you.
So without further ado , I present you World Builder
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
[Waiter] Excuse me sir ! would you mind sitting on someother table .[Me] Why ?[waiter]( pointing to a girl standing near the counter) M'am , Wants to sits here[Me] Than Go and Tell your "M'am" that if She wants to sit here she will have to request it herself .and don't YOU come back again as her attorney( After two min of soul searching she walked to me and said )[Girl] Excuse Me![Me]Yes ![Girl] Would you mind shifting to other table . Actually I am waiting for my Boyfriend and I can keep an eye on road from here .Plus its his fave table[Me] You want to delkho rastaa of your BF ?[Girl] (Blushing) Yes ![Me] WoW Must be a New boyfriend ( you see i was on roll that day)[Girl] (seemingly uncomfortable becuase this talk is going longer than her expectation)[Me] just kidding . Its my pleasure .
[waiter] your order sir..?[Boy] (looking at menu ) Baccha Kya khayega ?[Girl] (looking at her menu card ) aaj baacha kunch nahin kaheyga . aaj baccha dieting pe hai[Boy] Oh fir tou mein bhee nahin khaunga kuch[Girl] No baby ..tum khao na[Boy] No tum nahin to hum nahin ...... Atleast juice le lo na[Girl] OK . I will have orange juice , make it sweet and a Cesar salad . happy ? ( by god . Kya ehsaan hai )[Boy] I will have a Veg Cheese Sandwich and Coffee(waiter leaves )[Girl] that was very sweet of you baby[Boy ] Anything for you baccha ( by god kya insaan hai )
[Boy] kya hua baccha ... what happened ?[Girl] sob sob ..khhr khrr sob sob ( khrr khrr sound was probably originating from her nose)[Boy] bataou tou sahi ..whats the matter ?[Girl] hich hich ..sob sob ....[Boy] at least tell me.... did I said something wrong ? I am sorry .That went on for next 2 min or so . waiter sensed some trouble and came to them . than finally she wiped her nose ,took a sip from glass of water. and spoke .All three of us ( the guy , Me and waiter ) were listening intently[Girl] Mujhe lagta tha ....sob sob.....kee tum mujhe pasand nahin karte . khrr khrr[Boy] oh stupid girl . fir aisa kabhi mat sochna .[Girl] hooo. hooo ho... sob sob
[Girl]....why did you waited for so long ?[Boy] well.... sach bolun[Girl] haan ?[Boy] I thot i will do it after 6-7 months of body building . I wanted to impress you with my biceps[Girl] (blushing and punching on his arm) I Like your bicepsthat was it . I burst in to laughter.....
[me] I am sorry but I couldn't control it i am sorry .[Girl] [Boy] Blushing smiling[me] I m sorry guys..I guess i should move . You guys look good together .god bless you.[Girl] [Boy] Thanks :)
