Love, Victory, Forever

What makes a movie tick? Or perhaps makes a novel as addictive as an obsessive drug? What are those abstract intangible things that humans would persistently strive to acquire, cherish and consume? What are the essential ingredients that would make the readers and viewers’ tongues loll out but would also strike deep reverence and admiration in their eyes and when the experience is, unfortunately, over; make them draw inspiration from it for the rest of their lives?

It is simple. I think, the pivotal ingredients are three- to be loved beyond measure, to hold your integrity and honour in the toughest of times known to the face of the earth and still manage to emerge although bloody and wounded, but righteously victorious and; to betray time, to make these astral feelings last for immortality. Allow me to be a skeptic and label these as “particularly hard-to-get” and “romantic”. However, the truth is that even though most people are convinced that they are unachievable, we still sweat to get just an inch closer to them everyday. Only this can explain the popularity of  ‘The Twilight Series’, for it harnesses the  “forever” and “generally inconceivable love” very cleverly; or The Harry Potter series (a curious mix of extreme human emotions, love, courage and victory), The lord Of the Rings, P.S. I love You, Armageddon, The Matrix Series, the works of Charles Dickens, Steven Speilberg… The list goes on but I think I made my point.

Small traces of these feelings keep us alive, make us move and most often then not, become the reason of our very existence.
To see greatness rise from the common, to see superhuman feats being achieved by people from amongst us, fire us and, make us believe in the worth of this life. To see compassion and love hitherto not-at-all-pragmatic in today’s scenario stir the deepest recesses of our heart and make us hopeful that we might receive it someday too. However, an unusual truth is that the consequent and subsequent of these ‘three’ is fundamentally, passion.

Seriousness apart, and well, child-like enthusiasm in, I know these things do not follow a logical trail but still draw us, maybe as fleece are drawn to the dogs or the sunflower to the sun. It can both be a burden, something to shun as the ascetics do, or something to be enjoyed tremendously. For all of us who are firmly addicted to the shackles of this mundane yet alluring world, creating and living this romance of love and victory is all we want to do every day. We do get a choice, either to renounce or to embrace. The tragedy of our world, of commoners like us, is that we are generally able to do neither.

So this April, I say, PICK A SIDE. TIME is daring you to. Take a side that defines you. For even though some of us may get lucky and get our romance but I am sure that we are not going to get it forever!!

MY MULTI-COLOURED UMBRELLA

We tend to think that it is about

“Your culture, my culture

Your language, my mother tongue

Your temple, my church

Your perspective, my perspective

Your world, my world”

But the truth is dear brothers and sisters, our nation is one and our nation is home.

Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true. India is a land of historic pluralism and heterogeneity, a virtue with which every Indian is born with, made inevitable by India’s geography, reaffirmed by its history and reflected in its diverse ethnography. India has rightly been called the epitome of the world with its 1700 odd dialects, a gamut of religions, all the 28 states and 7 union territories housing not just a multitude of cultures, senses of music, dance, arts and theater but over 13 races from across the world but harboring the fundamental commonality of “live, let live and if possible, live while appreciating others”. India’s culture has been enriched by successive waves of migration which were absorbed into the Indian way of life.

However, the whole of India is not a melting pot, existing to achieve cohesion. Rather we have become “a bowl of salad” searching for harmony. Indian culture is a continuous synthesis and therefore the Indian mind has assimilated much of the thinking of other cultures, making itself richer, durable and virtually indestructible. Diversity in culture also gives us diversity in thought processes, a pre-requisite for a nation with multi-faceted growth. Ours, therefore becomes, a pluralistic democracy, giving us the privilege to be many things at once. As an engineer, I’ll conclude with proof, that there exists a Diversity Prediction Theorem which states that the diverse group almost always outperforms the group of the best by a substantial margin.

It is, therefore, a pity, that in recent years, the communal clashes and all-too-frequent denunciation of each other has been reborn due to lack of appreciation of a kind of beauty that is different from ours, but opus dei all the same. The reason that our indigenous cultures have stopped being “cool” is that they have not been marketed as well as that of the westerners. Or it could be because of either of the possibilities of we being too egoistic or we being simply ignorant. Friends, the most Brobdingnagian tragedy of ignorance is that it compels the system of mind to lose its capability to entertain an intelligent thought.

On the other hand, Swami Vivekanand’s reaffirmation of “Vasudhev Kutumbakam”, Sri Rabindranath Tagore’s pluralism which allowed him to write the national anthems of two nations, Satyajit Ray’s belief of cultural intercourse, Sardar Patel’s idea of national tolerance, Dr. Kalam’s talisman of brotherhood, Ashoka’s thoughts on peace, all tried to kill the expansion of cultural sectarianism as they all believed it, and so do we, that it is closely associated with an artificially separatist view of culture. However it’s not mere talk. In the recent times, the corporates are taking huge initiatives to promote unity by celebrating various festivals, recruiting a diverse team, etc., Dr. Kiran Seth’s endeavour of Spic Macay, The Special Marriage Act, the introduction of the study of cultures at school level curriculum are all big leaps.

It is true that only through performance music and dance traditions thrive. The great Kumar Gandharva’s work, a gamut of underground collaborations like The kabir Project, the Laya project need to be thrown into the public eye for mass consumption and the department of art, culture and languages of our government as well as the Ministry of Telecommunication can step up to the job. 

Bruce Tuckman gave a model for nation-building and team development. He said that there are 4 steps to it.

1. Forming- where divergent groups come together

2. Norming (self evident)

3. Storming- where divergent and diverse groups exchange not only their thoughts but their thought processes so that some kind of friction also develops

4. Performing- where the nation becomes mature and rises up to the occasion whenever and wherever need be.

Even though we are still toiling on the “storming stage”, I am hopeful. I am hopeful because I believe that we are inching towards the path of progress despite the fact our country is comparatively young and way too populous.

Let me take you to the bone-chilling winters of 1947, when a Hindu family was desperate to get out of Lahore and move to India after the partition but were fearful for their very lives.  Their neighbours, the shahane pathans, devoted Muslims, not only saved them from getting butchered but ensured that they left the city safely. How did they do it? The ladies at the neighbours had cried to the city that if anybody durst so much as touch the Hindu family, they would shed all of their clothes and jump off from the highest terrace at Lahore…

Two families of two different cultures, caught in the irony of time. They had a choice to make, and they chose friendship over madness. It was in 1947 but still, 65 years later, friends, we all face the same choice.

Upheaval

As I gazed upon the infinite ocean

Amidst thunderclaps; searching for a horizon

The waves washed my footprints away

Perhaps into oblivion

Or otherwise; I would never know

For I would never live to see

But they say that our thoughts are stretched into eternity

I was taught to walk on pebbles; shifting, sliding sand

by hands that held me well

But would I ever be able to sprint on it?

I surprisingly and incessantly dwell

The jewels of wisdom were scattered below me

Mixed with pebbles that pierced hard

And I bent with simultaneous pain and joy

Hoping to somehow sieve them apart

But for the first time ever, light said to me “Wait!”

“Think my child whether you are really ready yet”

I couldn’t fathom what it meant

But I had come to know better and

Took its word there and then

The strong stream of winds bent me,

Humbled me to the core

And the thundering light where the horizon should be

Stirred emotions unexplored

Grey clouds had consumed the dark green hilltops

Not far from me

And two rainbows rose from the earth

What a sight to see!

But I think the clouds blurred the mountain’s vision

Just as circumstances had blurred mine

I fell in the clutch of fate, O Lord!

Guide me to set it alright

How could one really become wise?

I pondered over earnestly

Alas! They were the things I feared

Mistakes, toil, misjudgement, pressure, unobtrusive subtlety

The storm was slowly settling in

Both outside and within

And out of the clouds two stars appeared

Happy and ever together

Neither very far, nor very near

They were intimate

That I could see

As they were blinking and twinkling in rhythms

In beautiful, musical harmony

I wondered how my life looked from up there

I wondered how it could and couldn’t be

Unbelievably the stars replied

In wondrous, melodious voice

“Do away with your conflicts! Do away!”

“Gain a little perspective, that’s all we have to say”

“What is the Earth, you and your life from such a great distance away?

A tiny thing of beauty!

Delicate and wonderful

A tiny thing of beauty!”

And I understood what the stars were trying to say

the great distance between us was actually perspective

Righteous perspective that I keep losing in the way

The stars smiled kindly at me

And induced calm everywhere

They said in duet “As long as you learn from them,

You are allowed to make mistakes my dear!”

I was slightly relieved in my heart, where guilt was also there

This was the one thing that

I truthfully, honestly craved to hear

Suddenly the stars shone brighter; brighter than they ever did

And I fixed my eyes upwards in anticipation

Then waited, and waited

Slowly the sky became a magnificent stage for music and cosmic rhythm

Urging me on! Fearless! Urging me to shine with ‘em

I looked back timidly, looked at the bumpy path I had trodden

And beautiful, powerful memories surged in my heart

Memories that I had intentionally forgotten

And these keepsakes somehow got synchronized with the urge of the starlights

Music and strength was everywhere

I had never seen such a miracle right in front of my eyes

The stars with all their light and love conveyed to me

“Keep awake or you’ll miss the sunrise

Life goes on, my child! Dawn is coming

So keep awake or you’ll miss the sunrise”

The Girl With the Sparkling Eyes (Episode-1)

EXPECTATIONS

She was absolutely sure that her life has taken one giant leap, not just for the better, but for the best.

Saanvi Mathur had been sweating and slogging, living and dying for this moment since God knows when. The International Chamber Of Salient Entrepreneurs or the I.C.O.S.E. (pronounced as I-Cose), and the life henceforth,  was her dream. Her one dream she secretly nurtured, one dream she never let go of, the one dream she always carried in her sparkling eyes. It was her private stargaze.

It was something that we all conceive at some point of time in our lives but try to forget as a childish fantasy. It could be the childhood dream of becoming the coolest man on earth or being richer than Richie Rich or becoming the first astronaut to land on Mars or possibly fostering a wish of becoming the next big Superhero who saves the world and wins the girl.

However her fantasy was different in one way. She knew that it was a fantasy but she also knew that it could be realised. She had always had unwavering faith in this one, single fact, and what was more, her unbounded faith had finally been rewarded. She had received the Confirmation Mail from ICOSE that she had made it to the ‘Novice Bench-2012’ of their chamber. It was the most fitting and an absolutely direct key to a lock which almost every young entrepreneur of her age was trying to pry open through not just keys but chisels and levers and hammers and everything else. It was a spotlighted debut on the International Stage of World Class Business leaders.

Ergo her induction was a huge achievement not just for her, but for the people of her state as well as the ICOSE inducts only 20-25 people every two years or so as permanent members for their hierarchical benches. Her lambent resume, her circumstantial logistics, wit and lively charm had paved her way to ace her C.C. It was a call for magnificent celebrations. Her family could not stop beaming despite of their initial misgivings of the idea of her becoming a full-time entrepreneur. The party was an opulent affair. However the girl of the moment was not even present in the jubilation. She had quietly slipped off after exchanging warm pleasantries with everyone while her family got busy in entertaining the guests. As Saanvi went further and further from home, the tunes of her and her father’s favorite Kenny G’s tracks became less conspicuous until they were completely gone. She had escaped to the peaceful banks of the holy Ganges. It was a beautiful sight. The lights from the lamps above shivered on the water along with a full-moon. A soothing summer breeze blew and the mighty Ganges flew with great assertion, producing a forceful but divine music. The river was unaccompanied, and so was Saanvi.  It was here that she needed to carefully imagine what her near future was going to be like. She required some time alone.

She had always heard that sometimes things turn out to be better than you could ever imagine, better than you could have ever expected. How much she wished it could come true now, as she was about to leave for U.S.A. for a 40-days training programme called ‘Innovative Frequencies’ under the biggest, the most successful businessmen of the world.

She expected a mind-boggling series of workshops but she also thought that it could be something totally unexpected as well, as this is the way with entrepreneurs. You never know what you could get out of them, and this unexpected fun was what she loved most about the life of, and around instinctive businessmen.  She simply could not stop imagining how it would be to discuss her ideas of revolutionizing the world with the most influential humans of the time. As this thought crossed her mind, she grinned smugly which then instantly turned into a humbled smile. While staring at the flickering lights in the water, she tried to imagine the campus; the set-up of Innovative frequencies. She guessed that the campus would be a perfect mix of wonderfully lighted skyscrapers flashing the hugest plasma screens, and exotic lush greenery. She was expecting and imagining her entire existence in the-time-to-come not as a hallucinatory episode but something based on the premises of her C.C. Her C.C. had rendered her expectations to be based on firm foundations that everything she knows would cease to exist the way she perceives it after the ICOSE would have done its job on her. She started to recall what they had really said to her word for word…

Coming Up Next… Episode No. 2 -The Chamber Call

THE GIRL WITH THE SPARKLING EYES- (Prologue)

The Intertwined Threads Of Life

She was standing tall near the ivory fountain of her magnificent garden, breathing in the beauty of colours, and nature’s miracles she loved so much; the green, velvet grass under her bare feet; the smell of daffodils and roses mixed with the scent of wet soil filling up the air and, the occasional chirps of tiny little birds in harmony with the sploshing sounds from the fountain under a vast but cloudy sky. She cherished the moment, its every component; and she cherished holding the hand of her beloved, tickling it lightly, as she took in everything she possibly could. They looked at each other and found home in each other’s caring eyes. As she breathed in, jubilation caught her, rendering her spirits anew.

She firmed the grip on her husband’s hand out of love and moved closer to the basin of the fountain to study her own reflection. Her face was wrinkled just a bit, her hair turning grey from the sides. She did not repent it; rather, she smiled as she marveled where she was. She remembered amusingly that in her late teens and early twenties she could not even have imagined herself in grey hair. She closed her rather sparkling eyes and consequentially, dug into the memories of her past on her own…

Coming Up Next- (Episode-1) Expectations

The Proposed Foreign Education Bill Will Not Benefit The Indian Education System

Ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you all the major problems that the Indian Education System faces one-by-one and then I shall prove point by point why the proposed foreign education institution (regulation of entry and operation) bill will do no good to our existing problems.

PROBLEM 1 is that even though India has over 18000 colleges and 528 universities, breeding at a rate faster than fishes in a pond, we lag far far behind in the quality of education imparted. Will the Bill improve it?

People would argue that if foreign universities do get setup here, they would increase the competition and hence bring about a chain of improvements, a wave of improvements. To them I say that a hierarchy in higher education institutions already exists in which IIT’s and IIM’s reign at the top and the rest are at a complete standstill. If after so many years, this hierarchy is only growing stronger, the chances are absolutely thin that foreign Universities would do some good here.

PROBLEM 2 is the dearth of qualified teachers. Will the Bill provide us with an excellent faculty??

I don’t think so. Rather it will cause the migration of proficient lecturers from Indian colleges to these foreign Universities in search of better pay, better incentives and even better environment adding to the already acute faculty shortage across the nation.

PROBLEM 3 is that the reach of higher education in India is not good. Will the bill improve that?

I doubt it heavily. It will rather transform higher education into an unattainable dream for the BPL, lower class and lower middle class people through their high fee structure and numerous other tantrums. It will be a rich kids’ school, and nothing else more.

PROBLEM 4 and a very big problem indeed is that of the “Brain Drain”. Will the bill solve it?

Now, many would say that every year, our educated cream checks in on the airport and flies abroad to these Universities. So the logic follows that instead of making our students fly over there, let’s bring the Universities over here. But friends, this syllogism here falls apart. The students leaving India leave it for global exposure not just education.

PROBLEM 5 is the out flux of Indian money to foreign education providers. Will the Bill stop that?

Well, even if the bill prevents repatriating profits back home directly, then if not directly, then indirectly it can be done in numerous other ways. Friends, foreign Universities are no charitable institutions. They are for-profit organizations, de-facto commercialization institutions and they shall see to it that they do make profit wherever they invest whether we like it or not.

PROBLEM 6 is that there is a neglect of courses such as basic sciences and humanities. Will this Bill make it flourish?

The answer again would be a negative. There is a dearth of scope here in India, not a dearth of institutes.

PROBLEM 7 Is that there is an absence of research and co-ordination between the Universities and industries. Will the bill revolutionize that??

Very frankly ladies and gentlemen, I firmly believe that it shall not. See, teaching, teachers and education must be based on the ground realities of the context. To cater to the Indian needs, to cater to the co-ordination between the researches in Universities and implementation in industries, the education system must always, always be indigenous.

Let me tell you some facts here.

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) also benefited from subsidies upwards of $80 million. Even so, after just one semester, UNSW folded up from Singapore citing its “unsuitable financial model’’. The John Hopkins Centre, which received $52 million in funding since its 1998 arrival in Singapore, also closed down as it did not meet the performance benchmark. And the UK’s prestigious Warwick University, which was to set up a full campus in the real sense of the term, backed out at the last minute.

The two universities that China can boast of are Nottingham and Liverpool – no great shakes, by world standards- and both have local partners, as required by law. Even Israel, with all its close links to the US, managed to attract only the low-grade institution.

All these are stories of absolute blunders.

My father always says to me that it is foolish to wait for the apple to fall on our head and then reprove that it falls due to gravity when Sir Newton has already proved it and gone. Similarly, Friends, why do we not learn from the blunders already committed all across the globe?

We have to face up to the fact that no country has developed a great university system through imports. All great universities have always been and shall always be home grown.

Saa Vidya Yaa Vimuktyay: this has been the concept of education in our country for times immemorial. No mere knowledge but wisdom, no mere information but transformation, no mere vocation but education developing inside out.

Friends, since ancient times, this is what our educationists dreamt. This is what sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Sri Madan Mohan Malviya dreamt. An education system based not only on technicalities but also on the revival of our culture, of our ethics, of our ethos, of our values, of our age-old morals and our diverse religions.  They come here to increase their own GER (their gross enrolment ratio). They come here for their own prestige enhancement. They come here for their own maximization of revenues and they come here for the maximization of their own profits.

Brothers and sisters, come with me. Let me take you to an India 50 years now. Try to dream of a sovereign India in the truest sense. Do  foreign Universities fit in there?

Ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention to what the foreign universities will serve you to eat, not the pompous way in which it shall be served.

QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM

Reconnect

I thought that this blog would be about the problems I am facing, that people all over the world face, but then I decided to take the optimistic approach and the article turned out very differently from the one I had imagined earlier in the day.

I have been thinking up many titles like ‘The Two Inevitable Levels’, ‘The Escape’ and ‘Returning To The Roots’; and I have been meaning to upload a blog for a long time but only I couldn’t, because of a lack of sound mind and my absolute failure at coming to a conclusion at this one. My dear readers, I am sorry for being away for so long but I was trying to figure out certain things and now, after almost a week of mild distress (or perhaps intense, I don’t know really) and another week of contemplating, I finally feel I have some solutions for myself. The reason that it took so much time is because the following is not just empty talk but I daresay, I have lived through it.

I will prefer not to be so self-indulgent as to drool at the problems I have been facing and bore you with it (though initially I thought that I would), rather I shall get to the crux of it all.

I thought of the title as ‘The Two Inevitable Levels’ because I have finally figured out that almost all human beings prefer to exist in multiple dimensions out of which two are of prime importance- the ‘superficial’ level and the ‘core’ level. Now, at certain times of your life,you may pretend with all your might that you are happy but you will not be in the state of a bliss and it has nothing to do with excessive or forced laughter but something else. If you’ll pay a little close attention to yourself, you would know whether you are really in the seventh heaven. I mean I did it, and I found that I have not been there for quite some time now. I don’t mean to be the ‘Ultimate Agent’ of the gloomy and the depressed and I, by no means intend to make you one either. All I am saying is that in our heavily predictable mechanical life, we must never stop caring about what we really want and what really makes us happy. I read an article in ‘Times Life’ about feeding our soul and it did give me a huge insight without really caring to get it. I’l tell you what it said a bit later.

I also thought about titling this article ‘The Escape’ because that’s what I thought I was doing. Sometimes what goes around you becomes too much to take in and you might consider escaping the situation. If  the going gets tough and you feel like you have been lassoed and ping-pong balls are being thrown at your knuckles at high speed, you would certainly like nothing more than to run out of the t.t. room. The reason that this might happen is because the turn of events taking place right under your nose (emotional or professional) is not a part of your grand plan or something. As a consequence, you freak out and cry about it or be depressed about it. This was what was happening to me at college but as I promised, I shall not evoke boredom.

See, your mind (or if you prefer, the soul) has got ways of telling you that you are not walking on air even if you want to ignore it and continue living superficially in a superficial world. All you have to do is listen to it closely. For me, the wake-up call came when my room-mate told me that I had been crying aloud in my sleep for a couple of nights. It scared the hell out of me and I fled home to get myself back on track.

This brings us to our next title and our next step, ‘Returning To The Roots’. If you have identified your problem and it’s not the world, it’s you because you are unhappy in your dictated circumstance; then you must be willing to solve it. The best possible way to do that is to take a break and go off in the pursuit of things that delights you and stabilizes you. For me, it would be singing, writing, reading, dancing, travelling, playing, resting, listening to music, watering the plants and being with my loved ones. These activities would feed your soul. Though it might seem that it is not working initially, but if you persevere, you will find that you are healing. They will provide you fulfillment. Believe me, I tell this by experience.

I would love to tell you a short story that I read in ‘The Speaking Tree’. Its a parable from the Chinese Philosopher Chuang Tzu.

“There was a man who was so disturbed by the sight of his own shadow and so displeased with his own footsteps that he determined to get rid of both. The method he hit upon was to run away from them, so he got up and ran, but every time he put his foot down, there was another step, and all this time, his shadow kept up with him too, without the slightest difficulty. Wasn’t he running fast enough? So determined was he that he ran faster and faster without stopping until he dropped dead.

If only he had stepped in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared  and if he had sat down and stayed still, there would have been no more footsteps.”

I want you to draw your own conclusions for the above story but one of the things that I learned through it is that you need not escape the situation no matter how ugly it gets but try to acquire stillness and tranquility in body and mind and have the faith that things will surely fall into place if your heart is pure.

Which brings us to my last and final title. ‘Reconnect’. Reconnect with yourself.

Just take a short break, feed your soul by pursuing those hobbies that takes you on cloud nine, rejuvenate yourself, mull things over, be back into action in the way that you earnestly want and try to protect who you really are (as my friend Dimri always says, “we must never lose ourselves”. I think he fears that we will ruin a perfectly good creation by doing so, after all almost every human is a wonderful creation). If you do not do all this, I guarantee you that you will become emotionally closed-off  and hollow due to high levels of frustration that we face in this fast-paced world. If you know that you are not glowing from within, its your mind’s way of telling you that you really need to work on yourself and establish a deeper friendship with yourself, with your soul. Talk of a big mouth because even I haven’t achieved it fully yet but at least I have found the way. I am trying my level best and hopefully, I would sail through. In fact I am sailing through it right now.

All we have to do is be happy to the core, work up the courage to deal with problems and be intrigued by our own constant personal quest. If the old dream fizzles out, we must find a new dream and chase it with even more vigour and  hopefully then, the gloom will not linger for long.