Monday, October 29, 2012

Rebirths Happen

Hinduism and related religions always knew that rebirths happen. Christianity and Islam, however, both say that rebirths and reincarnations do not happen. The fact of the matter is that Dr. Brian Weiss had long ago proven and captured authentic evidences of past life regressions and reincarnations. In yesterday's Times of India also, his interview has appeared.


I have read two of his books and was very much enlightened by his revelations. Everyone interested in spirituality should definitely give some efforts to understand this aspect of life. If what we do in this life impacts us in next lives also, we should definitely care more and do things after enlarging our visions... We are definitely not our bodies alone and there are certainly some things which we carry from our past lives...

The Times of India also carries review of a book titled "Reincarnation : True Cases of Children Who Have Lived Before", by Trutz Hardo, on this very subject:


The review says, "In this book, children from England and the rest of Europe, the US, Lebanon, South Africa, Israel, India, Brazil, Sri Lanka and Turkey remember their past lives. Scientists report on how their stories are then followed up to verify that the children's memories are correct. Especially convincing are the cases of children born with missing limbs who are able to describe exactly where and when they lost these limbs in a past life. They also often know precisely who their parents and relatives were and where they lived. When the children's statements are subjected to scientific verification, they are invariably confirmed in every detail. Reincarnation is proved to be more than a belief."


Very often in India, people who are sceptic and don't want to believe in reincarnation, ask why such cases proving reincarnation are found only in India. Such people should get a good answer in the above book. The reason why we get to hear about rebirth cases in India is that we live in India and hence such news reach us easily. But definitely world over, people are interested to know the truth and they have done enough research to prove it.

I think the idea that rebirths happen doesn't find support, or better, finds opposition from the consumerist and capitalist market and economies. If people know that there is life beyond this life and become spiritual, who will buy so much consmetics or who will spend all those bucks to "enjoy life"? So it helps to make people believe that rebirths do not happen. Why Christianity and Islam don't accept reincarnation may have historical reasons worth exploring also.

I would recommend Dr. Brian Weiss's books to anyone interested in spirituality. The start can be made with Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss and then there are many others [Search on Flipkart].


Friday, October 26, 2012

Train to Pakistan

Today’s newspapers tell a story which would make any sensible person sad and filled with disgust at the way innocent Indians are being treated.

In 2004, Bhavesh Parmar, 24 years old software engineer working with an MNC in Mumbai had accidentally boarded Pakistan-bound Samjhauta Express train from Amritsar. He was depressed due to loss of his father with Cancer and then losing his job due to absence from work due to depression caused by the death. He landed up in Lahore and was arrested upon arrival.

The “Process” of his release was also very interesting. Earlier this year, a journalist Neeraj Sharma had interviewed a batch of prisoners released at Wagah border. One of the released Indian prisoners Ram Rajji passed on a chit of paper to the journalist. Bhavesh Parmar had written his home address in Vile Parle, Mumbai on that piece of paper. The journalist sent a letter to his family who in turn got to know that their son was at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.

His case went to United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations. Ultimately, in July this year, a “Mercy Petition” was filed before Pakistan’s President Asif Zardari by a Pakistani lawyer and he was released.

After seeing his family, Bhavesh said, “Mamma mil gayee” (I got my mother).

This episode shows that the distrust between the two countries is too big. On one hand Pakistan sends terrorists to India who kill dozens of Indians and also gives shelters to India’s criminals, if accidentally innocent Indians happen to cross the border, they treat them with least sensitivity possible. On the other hand, Indian politicians carry on their “one sided” and unsolicited love-affair with Pakistan.

You can read about the news here:



Also note that Times of India, which promotes "Aman Ki Asha", a so called peace initiative, chooses to call his release merely “repatriation". Pic courtesy: HT

Ramayana and Mahabharata by C. Rajgopalachari

If you are thinking about reading any epics, or thinking about recommending some to your kids or younger ones, I would highly recommend Ramayana and Mahabharata as presented by C. Rajagopalachari. The learned scholar and a wonderful narrator has presented the old stories in most scientific ways and his books are very relevant for the young and modern day readers.

Here are the flipkart links to the two books. You can get the books also at major book stalls. If you like e-books, you can search to download free copies of the same, if you can get.


and


 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Happy Vijaya Dashmi!

Today is Vijaya Dashmi - a unique festival which is unlike most other festivals of the world which are communal in nature. It is a festival with a universal message - celebrating the triumph of good over the evil.

I think it is important to know that good doesn’t win over the evil by default; but we have to make it happen. In our mythology, when individually the Devas couldn’t defeat a demon, they...would “combine” all their energies and forge one god or goddess who would eventually destroy that demon. Such is also the power of unity in a democracy. We can destroy evils and demons not by attacking individually from thousands of directions, but from one direction with all the combined force.

We also don’t celebrate Dashera particularly as victory of personified Lord Ram but as victory of goodness over evil. A person is never important – his actions and what he stands for – is what matters. Because ultimately, all the world is a stage and we are merely actors playing our part in it.

Goodness and truth will win over evil and falsehood, if we make it happen.

Happy Vijaya Dashmi to all!



Sunday, October 21, 2012

President Pranab Mukherjee Celebrates Durga Puja!


Kudos to President Pranab Mukherjee for maintaining his family tradition of organizing Durga Puja at his ancestral village in Birbhum dist, WB. He is performing it in full spirits this year even after becoming the President and it is amazing and very appreciable... 

Happy Durga Puja to all!



(Pic is old one courtesy Rediff)

You can read about the news here:

http://www.business-standard.com/generalnews/news/prez-arrives-at-mirati-to-perform-all-durga-puja-rituals/70841/ 

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-exclusive-how-the-prez-is-celebrating-durga-puja/20121020.htm 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/President-Pranabs-Durga-Puja-Rituals-same-but-the-road-changes/articleshow/16884193.cms 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

My Hindi Blog


A few years ago while searching for meaning of a term I reached a language forum (portal). Out of curiosity I checked out if it also had threads related to Hindi language. It indeed had such a sub-forum for Hindi and many other languages. I found that most members on the portal were international members who were somehow involved with Hindi and hence cleared their doubts there by posting queries. Some were even NRIs (Non-resident Indians), or a foreign-born spouse of a Hindi speaking Indian member who wanted to know meanings of many Hindi words. There were very few active members from India who could answer them. And next part of my realization made me shift in pain:

There were members from Pakistan and some other Indian Muslims settled abroad who had formed an alliance. They would dominate any thread marked with “Hindi” and would start discussing Urdu in those threads even if the thread-starter had no interest in Urdu. They mixed up Hindi and Urdu and made best efforts to denigrate Hindi against Urdu. They tried to map all the pitfalls of Urdu (which literally means a military camp) on Hindi and tried to show Hindi devoid of its rich heritage. For example, they would claim Hindi is (allegedly) getting extinct and Urdu words are more common now giving examples from lyrics of Bollywood’s popular songs. They alleged that Hindi didn’t come from Sanskrit and that Sanskrit was a religious language. All such false allegations and insertions were to promote Urdu and show Hindi in worst light imaginable. I tried to counter them for months by posting unbiased answers. I succeeded in many threads where I defeated them with logic and evidence. But then I realized that the moderators were also “one of them”! Moderators tried to harass me with finding small technical faults and coming out all united with those Pakistani and Urdu members. The only other active Indian member, who posted unbiased and true facts about Hindi in those forums, also expressed sadness and disgust at the moderators’ attitude and their nexus with Urdu-supremacists.  

After posting more than 500 comments and answers, I retrospected that my sane posts were getting lost in the clutter of those biased anti-Hindi members’ posts. And then I thought about changing the game itself.

I have started a blog called “Ask about Hindi” where any member can ask questions related to Hindi words and Hindi language. I would also like to support if queries in other Indian languages come, by taking help from my friends versed in those languages. I know that everyone Googles their questions before posting on forums now a day. If I continue and keep building up my Hindi-Help blog, it will get popular and people will get good alternative to that biased anti-Hindi language portal.

Here is my blog for your review and reference:





If you are interested to contribute too, please comment or send me your email ID. I may ask you for answers and your views on some of the queries as and when they come to me. Or if you run write articles related to Hindi, you can send me links and permission to share it on this blog too.

Best regards, 
Rahul Tiwary


P.S.: I have kept language of communication in the blog as English along with Hindi, so that all are encouraged to ask. Also, I may not be an expert in Hindi but I plan to contribute by sharing my knowledge accumulated while spending 30 years amongst Hindi speaking population. 

Disclaimer: Opinions on this blog are personal and do not represent those of any organization associated with the author. You are welcome to share your opinion in the comments section. 

Ten deadly Marketing Sins by Philip Kotler


Just a refresher: 
  1. Your company is not sufficiently market focused and customer driven.
  2. Your company doesn't fully understand its target customers.
  3. Your company needs to better define and monitor its competitors.
  4. Your company has not properly managed its relationships with its stakeholders.
  5. Your company is not good at finding new opportunities.
  6. Your company's marketing planning process is deficient.
  7. Your company's product and service policies need tightening.
  8. Your company's brand building and communication skills are weak.
  9. Your company is not well organized to carry on effective and efficient marketing.
  10. Your company has not made maximum use of technology.
Ref: Ten deadly Marketing Sins - Signs and solutions, Wiley

Kotler also says that most of marketing today is reduced to only one P – Promotion. Most do only: Advertising and selling. While there is so much to do. For example, in customer research itself, there are so many approaches, like Focus groups, Surveys, Dept interviewing, In-home research, In-store research, Mystery shopping, etc. 

Ideally, marketing should drive business strategy!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Golden Player – Go Getter Award


Very good news. I have won “Golden Player – Go Getter” award at my company’s Consulting Group. There were many awards titled as interesting categories meant for excellent performance in projects. I am certified as “Go Getter” now :)

Today I collected certification of excellence from our practice head at the awards function.

Regards,
Rahul

Monday, October 15, 2012

Open Letter to the Makers of OMG! - Oh My God!


Dear OMG! Team,

I watched the movie OMG! Oh My God! today and have many complaints. I think it would be sane and reasonable to express my feeling and opinion about your production by writing to you, instead of filing a case against God for allowing you to make such a movie. Just like you chose to identify God with Lord Krishna in the movie, by OMG Team I mean to address director Umesh Shukla, producers Ashvini Yardi, Akshay Kumar &; Paresh Rawal, and writers Bhavesh Mandalia &; Umesh Shukla.



Complain#1: You are copy-cats and it shames our country India:

I found that your movie is "inspired by" (read: copied from) an English movie. The original movie is "The Man Who Sued God" which clearly has exact matching plot as in your movie. Since it was made many years before your movie has come up, it is clear who copied whom. I read about The Man Who Sued God here: [Link1], [Link2] It is pretty evident that you copied the concept and plot of your movie and it shows badly for our nation. Why couldn’t you be original? If you made a remake of that movie, why didn’t you take permission from them and also mention it in writing in the credits?



Complain#2: You went on telling lies that you hadn’t make the movie for “earning money”:

I read it at many places about your claim that you had made this movie to spread awareness and not to “earn money”: [Link1], [Link2]. But having watched the movie, I felt otherwise and here are my reasons. There are at least two brands which have been openly promoted (obviously leading to commercial gains). One is Godrej and the other is ABP News. At least in two scenes, the Godrej brand has been clearly projected with intent to advertise. In one of these, when the entire building falls to the ground, a “Godrej locker” remains safe and a character announces it by saying like, “only this Godrej locker has remained safe”. The other brand, ABP News is shamelessly promoted with full screen real-like displays of ABP News logo and channel’s live look-alike feed. Of course you were not promoting Godrej and ABP News as an “Act of Charity”. If you claim so, I will ask, “Why only Godrej? Why only ABP News”? No loss to the plot had happened if you didn't mention those brand names on the screen. Of course you wanted to earn money and even employed such marketing gimmicks to make that "extra" buck. Then why go on telling lies to everyone that you didn’t make the movie for earning money? Is it an atheist's license?

Complaint#3: You were unfair in choosing to attack Hinduism alone by and large, and showed Hindu spiritual gurus in a biased and disgraceful manner:

Even the poster of your movie shows [Link1] that you chose to attack Hinduism to the maximum extent possible and all posters highlighted your choosing Hinduism as the uniquely identified religion your main character was attacking in the movie. To "demonize" Hindu riligious figures, you chose actor Govind Namdeo as Siddeshwar Maharaj while Govind Namdeo always plays negative and villains' characters in the movies. For Leeladhar swami, you chose Mithun Chakraborty but gave him a female-like behavior with weird hand movements which generate irritation in the minds of viewers. You made his hair, white costumes and getup to give resemblance to Sri Sri Ravishankar and it was very corrupt and manipulating. The Bhagawat Geeta shown in your movie had clear resemblance towards the ones published by ISKCON and most of the saints and religious figures in the movie had a unique tilak mark on their forehead which made them appear like ISKCON members. Perhaps you chose ISKCON because it is very popular outside India and people identify it with Hindu group at many places. (On the other hand, you tried your best to make your main protagonist Kanjibhai  gain public sympathy. If a well educated young man criticized Hinduism while wearing shirt-pant, may be public would have shrugged him off for being immature, so you made him a rather old man wearing dhoti-kurta, gave him a look of beard, made him cough and show frail health, all gaining public sympathy which could be used to your advantage later on.) The character of female spiritual Guru was after Shri Radhe Maa who is shown doing nothing wrong in the movie but still has been projected as a vamp.

What was most revealing was that your movie chose to make fun of almost everything related to Hinduism and Hinduism alone. Be it when Kanjibhai called Shivalingam as “kala pathhar”, made mockery of rebirth and reincarnation theory and also of the practice of keeping fasts, or even threw a stone at Lord Krishna’s idol (though he misses it, he threw it with full hatred), and in the last scene, Kanjibhai broke the head of an idol which was supposed to be of Lord Vishnu’s incarnation as Kanjibhai. After the idol’s head was broken down, the remaining of the idol was exactly like Lord Vishnu’s and it was a horrifying scene for any God loving person to see an idol in such a state. I felt sad and angry and cursed you for showing such crude scenes. What else could I do? May be you would suggest me going to the court to file a case against you?




Though in the later part of the movie you showed representatives from other religions namely Islam and Christianity also, your characters in the movie never insulted, harmed or ridiculed the basic elements of their faith, like you made him do against Hindu gods and symbols. I felt it was unfair to choose only Hinduism as target for such a movie.Your movie could have been neutral and subtle when it attacks God and religion, like in Bruce Almighty or its Indian remake God Tussi Great Ho, and in that case I won’t have felt bad about it. But you chose to “name” the God as Lord Krishna, "name" the religion as "Hinduism" by and large and you made the religious organizations pretty evidently identifiable with real-life Hindu spiritual masters.

General observations and review:

You were so busy ridiculing and making fun of Hindu spiritual Gurus and symbols that you forgot some basic structure of the story. For example, the movie didn’t throw any light on why Kanjibhai was an atheist. From the beginning, he is shown as a skeptic person with no sense of humor but only an everlasting contempt with any thing religious. The man is basically a fraud and a drunkard. He is in the business of selling idols of gods, and cheats his customers by telling false stories about the idols. His customers are devotees of God and hence perhaps he enjoys cheating them shamelessly. He drinks wine at his home in the presence of his wife and kids – and even distributes wine to a group of devotees going on a pilgrimage. He is a bad father; when his son was about to break dahi-handi after reaching till the top, he makes an announcement to stop the festival, as if those 2 minutes saved will make his son stand first in the examination! He could have waited for some moments and would not his son have gotten down after breaking the handi? He is a bad husband also, and harasses his own wife by ridiculing and doing unaccepted things to mock her religion. The spiritual gurus are not shown doing anything wrong or illegal, except one of them being friends with a politician and helping him win elections. The irony is that while all minorities like Muslims and Christians in India vote on the basis of religion with their religious gurus and priests making open declarations of their choice of candidates or parties, OMG has chosen to show as if Hindus vote on the basis of religion. These are the elements far from truth which makes us be sure that the producers of this movie had something very rotten and biased in their minds while making OMG!




When it comes to “logic” in the arguments presented by the main protagonist, the movie again fails miserably. Kanjibhai keeps chanting “God is not inside temples”, “Don’t donate any money to temples but give that to the poor”. Who Hindu priests say that God is “only in the temples” and not outside? Who Hindu spiritual Gurus ask all to donate “only in the temples” and “not to the poor”? Hindu spiritual gurus are shown to be wearing Rolex watches and moving in BMW cars and it is shown as if living comfortably is a sin. Hindus are shown as starting to worship Kanjibhai as an avatar of Lord Vishnu with many idols of his installed in a temple, while this practice is unprecedented in reality. It is told in crudest and insulting manner that the practice of offering milk on a Shivalingam is a “waste” of milk, and the milk should instead be given to the poor. Hinduism doesn’t ask its followers not to donate milk to the poor. Anyone is free to donate milk to the poor, and why it should be like one should only donate to the poor "the milk" one was going to offer at the temple? Why can’t I donate one glass of milk to a poor person and one glass in the temple? Or may be one glass to the poor every day and one glass to God every Monday? No one is stopping me from doing charity along with being religious. But Kanjibhai, the protagonist of the movie, and hence the producers of the movie try hard to ridicule and insult each of the practices of Hinduism and show their own thinking as the “right thing to do” and Hinduism’s traditions as “wrong thing which should be given up”. I find such inclinations of the producers to be very bad.



As explained before, Kanjibhai is basically a fraud, a drunkard, bad parent and a loser and still he goes on to teach others lessons about life and religion and the movie projects him as a sort of champion. This is neither very logical nor justifiable. Every one wants to change the world to suit his/her own way of things and the applicable philosophy here is "before you go out to change the world, first change yourself." At least you should have shown a person with a good character trying to clean the system. But I know that you were so closed-eyed (which copy-cats do) while copying it from The Man Who Sued God, that you forgot to make the changes. The protagonist in The Man Who Sued God is also a loser with a troubled life and hence you made Kanjibhai a loser too. Because The Man Who Sued God caught the phrase "Act of God" to pit it against God, you copied the same thing here also. Logically, most insurance companies do mention what is understood by the phrase "Act of God" by listing the natural disasters.

The movie does feature Lord Krishna appearing on earth in the form of a man (played by Akshay Kumar), but the God’s character is like a fence sitter who almost does nothing and the story would have remained exactly the same even without God’s role. In one scene, the protagonist tells God about how he had “thrown” away Bhagawat Geeta. I strongly feel such direct insults towards the sentiments of Hindus could have been avoided without any loss to the plot or the argument. A basic empathy and sensitivity is missing from the dialogue writer all across. Also, as if all the attacks were not enough, you chose Janmashtami to launch the trailer of the movie. In all promotions, you made it appear as if Akshay Kumar and his role as God is the main character in the movie, but actually it appears only just before the interval and has limited role. Your movie doesn't glorify Lord Krishna but sends insults his way (Akshay Kumar as God is shown saying that he has 16,000 wives; dahi-handi is shown to be deserted and abandoned; a stone is thrown at Krishna's idol; Vishnu's idol (with Kanjibhai's face) is beheaded and broken. 

I know that sky is not going to fall down just because such a corrupt and insulting movie has been made against Hinduism and its traditions. But I worry about the long prevailing trend of choosing only Hinduism for such kinds of “social reformation”. No movie makers dare to challenge Islam’s or Christianity’s basic faith elements equally, like they do with Hinduism. Somehow, I don’t find the situation fair.

The audiences in the movie theater laughed at the Hindu spiritual gurus shown in this movie. The audiences also didn’t show signs of any discomfort when Hindu symbols were clearly being insulted. Perhaps no one shifted even on seeing Paresh Rawal throwing a stone at Lord Krishna’s idol with a gulel, or breaking the head of an idol and destroying the cash donation box kept in front of the temple. I know this shows very high tolerance levels amongst Hindus. But I think if we keep allowing them to insult and ridicule each of our religious practices and symbol like this, one day our children and grandchildren will be “brain washed” enough to feel uncomfortable with their religion and culture. 

With these thoughts and feelings, I protest against your movie “OMG! Oh My God!”’s cruel, insulting, biased and unfair treatment towards Hinduism.

- Rahul Tiwary

Saturday, October 13, 2012

A Talkative Man?


I think in most cases it is easier to talk than to do something about things. But does it mean we should not talk about those? 

I think if we could do something then either situation will become better or worse. Most of the time situation can go only worse because if we could solve it, someone else would have already solved it by then, and we would only disturb the equilibrium by trying to solve it now. If we can't do something about it and don't even talk, then we can experience the closed-box syndrome and would express displeasure at unrelated things in unexpected ways. But if we talk about it, merely sharing something can result in either we realizing that the problem was not really so grave or we feeling more relieved because the mental burden is less now. Humans like to talk and talk all types of stuff, be it gossip, whisper, quarrel, shout, and what not. But the way our education conditions us, we are not encouraged to talk much. 

Our conventional wisdom would make us remember all the time that gentlemen and well groomed ladies should be calm and composed; no wrinkles on clothes and no emotions on face. Communities which love talking are tagged with being loud-cultured and even idlers. Somehow it is believed that those who talk, don't do enough work, as if talking and doing are mutually exclusive activities. I think such notions are taking a phrase to the extremes. 

It is correct that we should do things rather than talk about them. Or better, rather than "only talk" about them. But there are many things about which we can't really do something, and for those things, it is not wrong to talk about. Therefore, I think we should not take the saying "it is easier to talk than do" as a "show stopper" :) Keep talking...

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Hindu Temples I have visited (Part-IV)


Shri Ganesh Temple, at Hinjewadi Chowk, Pune, Picture (c) Me.


Mata Mandir inside Jamwant Cave, Jammu... (Jamwant Gufa) — in Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir.


Kali Temple inside the fort, Jammu... (pic taken from web) — in Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir.


Raghunath Mandir of Jammu. A wonderful grand temple of Lord Sri Ram. Great place to visit... (pic taken from web) — in Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir.


Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, Jammu. Blessed to have visited this wonderful abode of the Divine... (pic taken from web) — at Katra, Jammu.


Shri Mahtoba Temple, Hinjewadi, Pune. It is a recently renovated beautiful temple of gram-devta and other deities, situated at a hill top. It also has a very old Shivalingam. It is still being built. From the hill top a good view of city can be taken. Picture (c) Me.


ISKCON Temple, Pune (Sri Sri Radha Kunjabihari Temple) (Pic courtesy: http://www.iskcondesiretree.net/)



A wonderful Temple of Sri Ram in the heart of Muzaffarpur, Bihar. It is popularly known as Sahu Pokhar Mandir. More details here: http://wikitravel.org/en/Muzaffarpur#Shri_Ram_Temple. Picture (c) Me.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Attendance Graph




All Graphs are entertaining but some graphs are more entertaining than others :) For example, here is my attendance graph for the last some months:





I am not sure where is it taking me? :)