Out in the cold

While we enjoy winter and its chill; there are people who struggle to survive through its every moment. The same divine flame illuminates their souls too; and they were also born with same blood, flesh and bones. It's moments like these when you realize how heaven and hell both are in front of us - some of us have privilege by birth, some by karma, yet there are some others who fight every night in the cold to keep their flame of hope burning...

I read this article and could not stop tears from coming out of my eyes:

http://indianexpress.com/?post_type=article&p=1958916

Shaniwar Wada in Pune

Shaniwar Wada is often the face of promotions for Pune Tourism. It was constructed by Peshwa Baji Rao I of Maratha empire in 1732. 'Shaniwar Wada' literally means 'Saturday Home'. 

In the below picture we can see 'Dilli Darwaja' meaning 'Delhi Gate' since it faces Delhi (North) - as a challenge to the Mughal empire. The steel spikes made in the gates were to discourage elephants from attacking it. 

There were around a thousand people living inside the fort. Teak wood from nearby Junnar forests of Pune was used extensively to make the buildings inside the fort which were exquisitely carved. The highest building inside the fort was seven storied high! 

In 1818 the British won over the fort from Peshwa Bajirao II and in 1828 there was a massive fire in the fort which destroyed all its buildings. People say that the British had set the fort to fire since it stood for Maratha Pride. Today only the foundation of the palace remains inside the fort which has been converted into a garden. We have visited it several times. In the ground adjoining it, Shaniwarwada Kala Mahotsav and lots of cultural festivals are conducted regularly.

Picture (below): Zooming in more to get glimpses of beautiful wall paintings:

(You can click on these pictures to see in bigger sizes)

Picture (below): Another Gate of Shaniwar Wada on the East side:

Picture (below): Glimpse of fountain and garden inside the fort palace:

Picture (below): Family Tree of the great Peshwas displayed inside the fort:

All pictures ©: Rahul

Tendency to collect

Some months back I realized how many things we were storing in our house which we did not need. Anything for which we don’t find immediate utility, we have tendency to keep it somewhere. So I started throwing out all such things. When wife protested, I reminded her that during our childhoods our mothers would store and preserve things because of many valid reasons. They were running large families and hence requirements were varied; they also had multiple kids of different ages with different demands; and were too busy to visit the market so easily to buy small things and even shops those days did not have everything. But these days we have small families and our requirements are fixed, so we need not follow the old pattern. So I threw out lots of things that we did not need; and gave away some things of utility to the baai (maid). Around the same time I watched a show on National Geographic channel on TV telling how American families have often this habit of collecting or hoarding things. It showed families which stored and kept everything in their homes, then bought cupboards to accommodate all those stuffs; and then went on to keep bigger houses to accommodate all those cupboards. Effectively American homes were much bigger than average houses as compared to some other developed nations and impacting their economy severely. The programme anchor made the respondents review their stuff and classify what items were indeed needed and which were never to be needed. They were astonished to find how much garbage they were storing in their house!

This reminds me of a Sanskrit word around which a philosophy in Hinduism and Jainism is built - Aparigraha. I have read about it many times in books and when I read about lives of Rishis and Sanyasis from Ramakrishna order, I can see that all those followed it. Swami Vivekananda also followed it and though it is not named as a concept, it has been integral part of lives of all the great persons in India. When I remember my sage like grandfather I think he was following it all along in his life…

Once again I have realized that a lot of space in our cupboards is occupied by clothes I do not wear and do not plan to wear. So I am starting to give away those items to our baai or poor people around us. It would be great to keep only those things in our house which we truly need. Whether we see it from economic point of view or cultural or psychological, from all angles this concept of aparigraha is worth practicing by us. I think if we inculcate it in our way of life, we shall be much happier and clear-headed than we are without it. Last time when I was cleaning our house of unnecessary stuffs, I discovered several important stuffs which were ‘lost’ amidst the clutter. I had taken it as a great symbolism also – if we discard all that is not needed, we can discover what we truly need. Since life is all about self discovery and realization, how could we think of achieving these if we make all important things lose and hide amongst all unimportant stuffs? 

Importance of father’s role

I think since we are with our mother from early childhood and since we have soul-connect with her, progressively our mutual bonding gets stronger; or at least remains the same. A father on the other hand spends less time with kids largely due to his other responsibilities in the world and also tries to inculcate discipline in the kids in order to make them fit into this world and hence often fathers are not so similarly popular. I know that individually people may find some variations from above theory but I think in general this is the trend. But in the few years after my marriage and responsibilities, I can see a silver lining. If mother is like foundation, father is like walls and roof. Both are equally important.

I think our history; art and literature have been a bit unfair towards fathers and not given them their proper due. For example if a novelist has to show good character traits of some person, one would try to show one’s bonding with mother. In general mothers are shown as doing the right thing or keeping the right opinion while fathers are in a way if not demonised at least shown in bad light more often. Situation is similar in movies and other art forms. In world famous epic of Ramayana, though mother Kaikeyi is shown in very bad light, the story also tells about two other mothers in the same house who were very virtuous and pious. On the other hand, father Dashrath is shown as a weak person who directly or indirectly played into the hands of a woman with ulterior motive and caused much pain to his sons. Here also the mathematical proportion is in favour of mothers and against fathers. Similarly in Mahabharata, blind father Dhritirashtra is shown as a weak king who went on to tolerate atrocities to the virtuous young Pandavas; on the other hand her queen is blameless into whatever was being done by their sons.

I see one reason for such discriminatory treatment is since fathers or males in general don’t show much of emotions while literature and script writers want to demonstrate or elaborate emotions in all relationships and hence they don’t count fathers in as much high regard. Or else the reason may be that since males would be making proportionately more of the readership base, by the law of opposites a writer describing mothers as virtuous would be more successful than the one showing fathers as virtuous. For quite some time in their life, sons have this problem of getting compared with their father’s achievements and hence their relationship towards them is often one of competition for many years; mothers on the other hand are non-competing by virtue of nature and hence are more likely to become an embodiment of all that is good. Whatever be the reason, this historical and literary distortion against fathers needs some balancing act.

Do the poor have self respect?

I had settled inside the shared auto-rickshaw which accommodated 10 people when I noticed an old lady speaking something to a man sitting on the opposite row of seats. The lady had a child in her lap, perhaps her grandchild, and appeared stranger to the man. She asked in a local language which I understood approximately – she was saying that she did not have money to reach her destination and could he offer to pay her fare which would be 5 rupees? The man appeared to ponder for a moment and then nodded in consent. I noticed that other passengers were well dressed and better-offs except the old lady who appeared poor and the man who appeared rugged and not in great shape.

Then the auto-rickshaw started and after a while I noticed that the woman was getting down. Curiously I tried to look if the man was indeed paying her fare. I saw that the man had also gotten down. It appeared that he gave her fare also to the rickshaw driver, but was told that the fare had to be Rs 10 and not Rs 5 each and hence he had to extract another currency note from his pocket. As the lady and the man tended to turn back, I saw something which was difficult to believe. The man kissed the old lady on her cheek while the lady tried to put him away by smiling shyly and saying “na na na” asking him to go away. But the man achieved what he wanted to and by that time I lost them since auto-rickshaw had already moved ahead. Seeing what had happened, I was outraged and felt horrible and also found it pitiful that I was not in a position to do something.

When I recollected the incident, it appeared that the man was drunk. It appears that when the drunken man realized that he had to pay extra and perhaps a substantial amount to help a completely stranger (since he had already committed to pay) he tried to extract some benefit out of the deal by subjecting her to that ordeal. The lady knew that she did not have a choice and tried to run it down. Or else, it might have happened that the man was a habitual offender. As what kind of a man would take a moral high ground of keeping his word (to pay her fare) but still do something outrageous to appear like a thug? May be he would still have subjected that ordeal on the lady no matter if he had to pay Rs 10 extra or not. It is also a possibility that the two knew each other from before and hence the lady did not raise an alarm. Whatever be the reason it is evident that the lady had to suffer since she was poor. That brings me to a difficult question: do the poor have self-respect? The lady in this incident appeared not to be affording some. I had read an author once who argued that the poor people can’t survive maintaining self-respect and hence keep none… What do you think? 

When life as journey ends untimely

Untimely death of Sunanda Pushkar has caused varied emotional responses. Speculations about reasons of her death apart, there is one aspect of it which we can’t ignore – that life in our present birth does come to an end and we can’t do anything to prevent it from happening. That reminds me of the popular saying, “in the long run everyone is dead”. So what does this mean of the long-term goals and planning which we seriously indulge in? If one plans for something 20 years from now, or even 5, and something happens in between, what could be said of the planning and the goals? I think one effective method to deal with this is to remind us of the idea that “excess of anything is bad”. We should certainly plan for the long term but not excessively. There is always a limit on everything and the key is in us knowing it. Still, we can’t achieve 100% perfection even in this work. There always be loopholes and some work will remain undone.

But this idea of an untimely end of life can disrupt everything. At any moment of our life, can we be sure that we have done all and said all that we ever wanted to; to be ready to go without regrets? Having a clear heart and conscience is very important but practically one always has something unsaid, some things yet to be done. Despite us having so many words, languages and skills to express ourselves, gravest tragedy is the realization about how effective our communications have been. This is why at times people say that best communication in life is for which we don’t need to speak a word. A wife fights her husband every day but deep in her heart she knows that her love for her husband is deeper than the ocean; a brother fights with his sister but yet given a chance he can sacrifice all he has for her; a boss reprimands a worker yet respects one deep in one’s heart; examples can be here, there and everywhere; we only have to ‘see’ with our third eye…

A young girl keeps a two-dimensional rose bud in her book; a boy looks in a particular direction while riding his bicycle; a mother looks at her kids sleeping peacefully; a father taking deep breath when he finds his son at home when he returns back from office; a lot of people looking for the deity while passing in front of a temple; a pigeon flying off following another… a cat looking desperately at the bushes when she returns home… where do we need words and languages to speak? But it is also equally true that just looking at water surface, not all of us can find its depth… Words, like measurements, reinforce our beliefs and consols our insecure minds… Our plans, like words, mean something tangible and give outside support to our frail confidence… 

Humor in Hindu Scriptures

Once I read an author wondering if Hindu scriptures had 'humor' in the verses. Just chanced upon a Sanskrit verse which appears as humorous as wise:

तृणादपि लघुस्तूलस्तूलादपि च याचकः।

वायुना किं न नीतोऽसौ मामयं प्रार्थयेदिति॥

Husk is light in weight and cotton is lighter; but a person asking or begging for something is lighter than all... He is so light that I wonder why wind does not simply blow him away? Perhaps the wind fears that he may even ask it for something! (my translation)

Nataraj Temple Saved from Politicians

At least one big ancient Hindu Temple saved from the clutches of greedy politicians. Who offered help? Once again one and only Dr. Subramanian Swamy . World famous Nataraja Temple or Chidambaram Temple is thousands of years old and a major shrine for Shaivites. You can read more about it here [Link] on Wikipedia. 

News: 

Supreme Court says Nataraj Temple to be Managed by Priests and not by Government

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Nataraja-Temple-to-be-Managed-by-Priest-not-by-Tamil-Nadu-Government/2014/01/06/article1985968.ece

Should Banks Charge Separate Fee for ATM Withdrawals?

So far banks in India do not charge us for withdrawing money from their ATM machines. And if we some other bank’s ATM machine, we can withdraw without any fee up to 5 times a month. But now there is a proposal by banks to charge customers separately for withdrawing money from ATM. Here is a news article about the same: 

http://www.rediff.com/business/report/be-ready-to-pay-more-for-atm-transactions-this-year/20140102.htm

So far no bank has said that it is actually going to charge. We are yet to know if banks are actually going to charge us. I think they should not charge separately because of following reasons: 

1. ATM transactions are part of the banking service and ATMs are now integral part of banking system. So banks should not charge separately for withdrawing money from ATMs. 

2. If my bank charges me for ATM withdrawals, I will stop using their ATM and will simply go to the nearest branch and withdraw my expected monthly expenses – may be once a month. It will crowd their branch and hence bank employees won’t get time to solicit us to sell some lucrative investment proposals! 

3. Situation of more crowded bank branches will need banks to go for more floor space and bigger office space which means more expense; and also need to hire more employees on teller counters. This is against their business model. 

4. Net deposit with banks will reduce since people will start withdrawing in higher amounts to avoid multiple withdrawals at ATMs, so banks will lose net deposits.  

Therefore I think it is loss making proposal for banks to charge separately for ATM withdrawals and they should not go for it… We already have proposals for no-frills ATMs or unbranded ATMS which will be run not by banks but by third parties for all banks in single ATM; with unique revenue model; I think that is the best way out in the future since it is a win-win model for both banks and the customers. 

Statue of Unity

Someone asked what is the purpose of creating such a huge statue of Sardar Patel (called Statue of Unity)- a project initiated by Gujarat CM and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The friend thought that the project was a waste of money and did not serve any purpose even politically. I explained this as follows: 

There are several aspects of this project which are of benefit. First, there is a huge campaign going on for some years to promote Gujarat Tourism. I hope you would have heard that Amitabh Bachchan is brand ambassador of Gujarat Tourism. This statue will create one more iconic site which tourists can visit. Secondly, somehow this Status of Unity will be similar to USA's Statue of Liberty; and hence it announces India's arrival on the global map. I think about it this way... And from the angle of politics, through this project Modi is hitting at the root of Congress party. By highlighting and paying tribute to Patel, he is ridiculing Congress dynasty which started with Nehru. Patel was elected by most Cong members to be its President and deserved to be India's first PM, but Nehru had played games with Gandhi to become PM. So this statue will remind all of us about this unfair decision - and it will help destroy the roots of dynastic rule... So economically or politically this project has many benefits.