WITH THE passage of time and the advancement of the generation, there has emerged a wide gap between thoughts and the application of thoughts. The way to live, the way to look at things and moreover the faith people repose in each other has now become mere words or phrases that we find in a dictionary . While turning the pages of history, we notice a lot of differences in people - the people who lived then and the people who live now. The word ‘faith’ has lost its relevance.
As Indian culture evolved over a period of time, the only thing which had held the whole country together was 'faith'. There were times when people used to periodically check if their counterparts stood by faith . There was once a generation which placed full faith in the elders and teachers. There was a time when people like “Ekalavya” offered their thumb to the teacher by way of 'Gurudakshina' (the fee paid to the teacher by the student).
But things have changed now. The real relationship between a student and the teacher is just a face-to-face relationship. As soon as the teacher is out of the classroom there are comments made on the teacher. The way he/she dresses or teaches is commented upon. There are nicknames ready all the time for the teachers. Moreover, teachers are humiliated in front of the students. For this reason, teachers think they have to teach commensurate with the money they are paid for teaching. They go home and take rest and repeat the exercise the next day. Trust or faith does not obtain between the teacher and the taught, these days. Students think they are more intelligent because they get all the information from the internet. The information relates not only to their syllabic requirements but also to advanced technologies. This prompts the students to assume that their teachers are fools and that they are more intelligent than their teachers.
But mythology tells us that teacher is the real 'Guru'. Faith is as important as gravity is to the planet. If faith is absent, aberration arises and leads to evil thoughts and behaviour . Faith is the in thing . It bonds people. Teacher is no more a statuete you pay respect to but one who is given nicknames or laughed at. The youth believe they’re smart enough to play their own games. But then teachers are no longer into serious teaching. They have turned sellers who sell knowledge. There is not even a trace of faith between the teacher and the taught. Students don’t respect the teacher and in turn the teacher is not into his job seriously. This is the reality; this is the truth.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Our failure in taking care of Gandhi's belongings - A shame!
THOSE WERE the days, in which the high spirited person Mahatma Gandhi got us freedom and gave away his life. There were times when he went on a month long fast to make people committed to non-violence in the backdrop of the Chouri Choura incident in the ending stages of the non-cooperation movement.
There’s a lot more to say about him, what all he did and what all his greatness is all about. We call him by different names linked to the Almighty, free spirit, high spirit etc. We gave him the position of the 'Father of the Nation'. After his soul left us free to breathe on this land, we did everything we could to sympathise with ourselves thinking he would be feeling proud.
We did everything from hanging his photograph in government offices to having his image on the Indian currency, from observing October 2, as a national holiday to having his statues in public places. We did all we thought is necessary to make his soul happy, in our terms.
Gandhiji is one of the most enlightened souls ever to be born in India. He is the man behind this free air we are breathing, he got us what we now call unity and he did everything to save this Mother India.
And what we did to keep his memory is just what money could do. Does anyone actually realise if Gandhiji would be happy with his statue standing all alone in public parks? Is this what all he wanted from us?
Our Father of Nation was so down to earth that he just had eye glasses, sandals, a pocket watch, a plate and a bowl. This was all that he had. He did not believe in materialism and commercialisation.
“The watch, the bowl and the plate were given by Gandhi to his grandniece Abha Gandhi while he was still alive. She, in turn, willed it to her daughter Gita Mehta," said Michelle Halpern, the public relations and marketing manager for Antiquorum, in an interview in The Washington Post. But she declined to reveal any of the sellers' names.
There is nothing wrong in saying that we were not capable of taking care of his belongings. We were so involved in celebrating our freedom that we forgot to take care of the belongings of the departed soul. We could just not keep his belongings safe in our country. Plus we could not even find those later or more precisely, we had no time to get into this business in the first place.
But then, one fine day, we Indians get news regarding the auction of Gandhi's belongings in New York. People who called themselves Indians then ran for Bapu’s belongings when Indians’ general concern for their heritage came under a question mark.
There were many Indians who went for the auction and were not successful in getting the memorabilia but the liquor baron,Vijay Mallya took a leap forward to get our belongings back to us.
This whole episode, according to me, is a matter of shame for us as it shows that we could not take care of our national property. But as we study history to review our past and to learn from the mistakes already done, time always gives us a chance to mend our mistakes and from now on, we can expect Mallya to take proper care of our national pride.
There’s a lot more to say about him, what all he did and what all his greatness is all about. We call him by different names linked to the Almighty, free spirit, high spirit etc. We gave him the position of the 'Father of the Nation'. After his soul left us free to breathe on this land, we did everything we could to sympathise with ourselves thinking he would be feeling proud.
We did everything from hanging his photograph in government offices to having his image on the Indian currency, from observing October 2, as a national holiday to having his statues in public places. We did all we thought is necessary to make his soul happy, in our terms.
Gandhiji is one of the most enlightened souls ever to be born in India. He is the man behind this free air we are breathing, he got us what we now call unity and he did everything to save this Mother India.
And what we did to keep his memory is just what money could do. Does anyone actually realise if Gandhiji would be happy with his statue standing all alone in public parks? Is this what all he wanted from us?
Our Father of Nation was so down to earth that he just had eye glasses, sandals, a pocket watch, a plate and a bowl. This was all that he had. He did not believe in materialism and commercialisation.
“The watch, the bowl and the plate were given by Gandhi to his grandniece Abha Gandhi while he was still alive. She, in turn, willed it to her daughter Gita Mehta," said Michelle Halpern, the public relations and marketing manager for Antiquorum, in an interview in The Washington Post. But she declined to reveal any of the sellers' names.
There is nothing wrong in saying that we were not capable of taking care of his belongings. We were so involved in celebrating our freedom that we forgot to take care of the belongings of the departed soul. We could just not keep his belongings safe in our country. Plus we could not even find those later or more precisely, we had no time to get into this business in the first place.
But then, one fine day, we Indians get news regarding the auction of Gandhi's belongings in New York. People who called themselves Indians then ran for Bapu’s belongings when Indians’ general concern for their heritage came under a question mark.
There were many Indians who went for the auction and were not successful in getting the memorabilia but the liquor baron,Vijay Mallya took a leap forward to get our belongings back to us.
This whole episode, according to me, is a matter of shame for us as it shows that we could not take care of our national property. But as we study history to review our past and to learn from the mistakes already done, time always gives us a chance to mend our mistakes and from now on, we can expect Mallya to take proper care of our national pride.
Enigmatic freedom is just a mirage!
IN THIS world, rather materialistic world, there is space for work, living and earnings. The space is much less for creativity, freedom, wishes. At every stage of life our thinking and creativity are bound by some predetermined notions. These notions make a person’s life worse than hell. No one wants such a life but its destiny.
When one takes birth in this materialistic world, it’s a new world for him. He looks at people around, different colors and different lights around. He has no option but to see and except what is being shown to him.
Then at kindergarten stage, one likes to experiment everything seeing for the first time. When he looks at the soil and tastes it, experiment seems to be complete. But then too, he has some vigilance to break his experiment at every point. It is bad for him, yet required.
At school, promising to give the best of all knowledge and making him creative, has remained a marketing strategy. The pressure of studies and getting marks become a nightmare. There is lot more what one wants to do than earning. May be one is not bright in studies but he can better the topper in the field of his liking. But due to social pressures on parents, they need their child to outshine others. With this in mind, the curriculums of schools are given highest priority.
But one thinks he would get his part of freedom when in college. Getting more marks may get him into IIT, but freedom is yet to be achieved. He gets lots of assignments, lectures but has little or no freedom. He limits his creativity within the topics given in the college and avoids thinking beyond though he hates it. Accepted everything, he still thinks once he gets a job he would earn and do and live his own way.
When he gets a job he is happy. He goes to work on time from 9am to 10 pm. He comes home takes dinner and sleeps. Schedule is fixed and life moves like a clock, rather monotonously. Freedom isn’t there anywhere, except perhaps on Sundays, when he sleeps tired of the weekdays work.
Now, the stage is set where he is ready to be a groom. It seems to be the happiest day of his life – not towards freedom but a web of responsibilities. There is no freedom and it will never be achieved by him.
Now do you realize your life to be trapped the same way? Yes, it is with everybody. Nobody enjoys his freedom. There is no way a person can do what he wants, not only career-wise but even for petty issues. You want to watch your favorite program, may be a movie but you have files lined up. You want to sit, relaxed and read novels; you still have more things to do. No one realises what he has lost in life. Did he ever do things that interested him?
Though life ends, true freedom is never achieved. You accept situations as they come and try to adjust and pretend being happy. A little hope still lurks somewhere that you may be free someday…but elusive freedom is nothing more than a mirage!
When one takes birth in this materialistic world, it’s a new world for him. He looks at people around, different colors and different lights around. He has no option but to see and except what is being shown to him.
Then at kindergarten stage, one likes to experiment everything seeing for the first time. When he looks at the soil and tastes it, experiment seems to be complete. But then too, he has some vigilance to break his experiment at every point. It is bad for him, yet required.
At school, promising to give the best of all knowledge and making him creative, has remained a marketing strategy. The pressure of studies and getting marks become a nightmare. There is lot more what one wants to do than earning. May be one is not bright in studies but he can better the topper in the field of his liking. But due to social pressures on parents, they need their child to outshine others. With this in mind, the curriculums of schools are given highest priority.
But one thinks he would get his part of freedom when in college. Getting more marks may get him into IIT, but freedom is yet to be achieved. He gets lots of assignments, lectures but has little or no freedom. He limits his creativity within the topics given in the college and avoids thinking beyond though he hates it. Accepted everything, he still thinks once he gets a job he would earn and do and live his own way.
When he gets a job he is happy. He goes to work on time from 9am to 10 pm. He comes home takes dinner and sleeps. Schedule is fixed and life moves like a clock, rather monotonously. Freedom isn’t there anywhere, except perhaps on Sundays, when he sleeps tired of the weekdays work.
Now, the stage is set where he is ready to be a groom. It seems to be the happiest day of his life – not towards freedom but a web of responsibilities. There is no freedom and it will never be achieved by him.
Now do you realize your life to be trapped the same way? Yes, it is with everybody. Nobody enjoys his freedom. There is no way a person can do what he wants, not only career-wise but even for petty issues. You want to watch your favorite program, may be a movie but you have files lined up. You want to sit, relaxed and read novels; you still have more things to do. No one realises what he has lost in life. Did he ever do things that interested him?
Though life ends, true freedom is never achieved. You accept situations as they come and try to adjust and pretend being happy. A little hope still lurks somewhere that you may be free someday…but elusive freedom is nothing more than a mirage!
Some Fights Do Matter
Relationships are a set of beautiful feelings linked naturally with one another. As a potter frames beautiful pot from clay, god moulds people into beautiful relationships. But ever person values such a relation in his own way. Some waste and some utilize this beautiful feeling.
One side of a coin is so pure but the other is really the opposite. Beautiful relationships, love, friendships, do sometimes get filled with anguish, hatred, jealousy. And as soon as this happens, lives of the people involved really do change.
When a person takes birth, god starts socializing him. He goes to school makes friends, college starts and some more friends add on. Then, he gets married makes new relations live with them and fades away.
But one has to live with love and harmony with the people he socializes with. Friendship is a beautiful feeling but when small fights intervene, beautiful feelings appear as worse as ever.
Fights are the major part of your life. At every stage of life you live, there are one or more misunderstandings and so a fight remains a solution.
Such is the game of life that a person comes to your life, touches every bit of it, becomes your friend, but suddenly because of some petty issue everything seems to be a dream. All the days you spent with your friend, every bit of sharing, back bitching of others, mean so indifferent after you fight. “A FIGHT” makes it all go up in the air, like nothing happened when you were friends. You start ignoring, pass sarcastic comments, your eyes show you want to talk but you shut your eyes to reality. You miss your friend and want to talk to him but your ego intervenes.
The situation worsens when in a lifetime you make just one friend and that too is lost due to some misunderstanding. You share a beautiful relation with him but a fight makes the relation look as awful as ever. You get so egoist that you can’t bow down to your ego and ask for the same friendship.
You know you miss it but you don’t want to take the first step. You know a part of your life is missing and that too without it the puzzle of your life won’t solve, but still you decide to live on. Wherever you go, whatever you do seems related to the same person friendship, you left behind because of your own created reasons, but you don’t want to resolve. Every time you miss it, you explain it to your heart that its not the only thing you live upto. You try to live on, go on.
But, a day comes when you come to hear that your true friendship is no more, your friend is no more. You break apart, your ego breaks apart. You run to him the body of your friend, sit and cry, open your mouth to say something or everything that you wanted to say all the years. You want to say it what all you felt all the way, how did you live without him, but there is no one to hear. You loose your friend because of your self esteem, you loose him because of your ego, you loose him because of the small fight. You cry because some fights do matter.
One side of a coin is so pure but the other is really the opposite. Beautiful relationships, love, friendships, do sometimes get filled with anguish, hatred, jealousy. And as soon as this happens, lives of the people involved really do change.
When a person takes birth, god starts socializing him. He goes to school makes friends, college starts and some more friends add on. Then, he gets married makes new relations live with them and fades away.
But one has to live with love and harmony with the people he socializes with. Friendship is a beautiful feeling but when small fights intervene, beautiful feelings appear as worse as ever.
Fights are the major part of your life. At every stage of life you live, there are one or more misunderstandings and so a fight remains a solution.
Such is the game of life that a person comes to your life, touches every bit of it, becomes your friend, but suddenly because of some petty issue everything seems to be a dream. All the days you spent with your friend, every bit of sharing, back bitching of others, mean so indifferent after you fight. “A FIGHT” makes it all go up in the air, like nothing happened when you were friends. You start ignoring, pass sarcastic comments, your eyes show you want to talk but you shut your eyes to reality. You miss your friend and want to talk to him but your ego intervenes.
The situation worsens when in a lifetime you make just one friend and that too is lost due to some misunderstanding. You share a beautiful relation with him but a fight makes the relation look as awful as ever. You get so egoist that you can’t bow down to your ego and ask for the same friendship.
You know you miss it but you don’t want to take the first step. You know a part of your life is missing and that too without it the puzzle of your life won’t solve, but still you decide to live on. Wherever you go, whatever you do seems related to the same person friendship, you left behind because of your own created reasons, but you don’t want to resolve. Every time you miss it, you explain it to your heart that its not the only thing you live upto. You try to live on, go on.
But, a day comes when you come to hear that your true friendship is no more, your friend is no more. You break apart, your ego breaks apart. You run to him the body of your friend, sit and cry, open your mouth to say something or everything that you wanted to say all the years. You want to say it what all you felt all the way, how did you live without him, but there is no one to hear. You loose your friend because of your self esteem, you loose him because of your ego, you loose him because of the small fight. You cry because some fights do matter.
Experience: The guiding light of our lives
IN THIS age of machine, one runs for wealth, for work to sustain life and to live with pride. Within such a lifestyle, one has no time to pause and ponder on what he has gained or lost. Today’s hectic schedule has made one forget what he lives for? Is it the pride or the money? Whatever the answer is, one thing is for sure, no one can deny that what he learns from experience cannot be measured with money or wealth.
Experience is one of its kinds. Nobody can overlook what he experiences in his life. An experience can be good or bad. A good experience teaches us a lot but we learn lot more from the ones which are bad. The art of life is to learn from the bad experiences. Usually the bad experiences are considered to be the lanterns to light one’s life. We should always learn good lessons from our experiences.
At any stage of life, whether it’s during childhood, at school, college or office; we experience one or the other kind of experiences. When in childhood, a child begins to ride his bicycle he falters and falls, but he gets up, repeats his attempts and moves on. He does this till he experiences the different ways, which could make him fall.
What I learnt from my personal experience was that I thought being in college life is easy and smooth. With dreams full of faith to be a journalist, I walked the college gates with pride. I thought life to be as simple as in school. I made friends with everybody. During the first year, I had good rapport with each and everyone. The first year being a simple one, with just print media teaching (there was not much of practical then). But, now it’s the second year and I see what my parents had taught me since childhood. There is nobody who is born for you except your parents.
Not a single person would experience your loss, as your parents would do!
Today, I see the real colors of those people who used sugar quoted words and swore to be my friends in bad times. Now, I see a lot of politics around me. I being simple and innocent was naive to understand the crooked ways of this world and I often ask myself why I am like this? Why am I not as smart as others? Why don’t I take advantage of half an opportunity and grab it like others, forgetting all friendships?
But now after thinking for long and analysing, I think these are what we call challenges in life. These are the experiences from which we learn. Being with the same people, talking and laughing, I have my mind working for me. Now, I want to be all the more better as a person than just being a good journalist.
Experience is one of its kinds. Nobody can overlook what he experiences in his life. An experience can be good or bad. A good experience teaches us a lot but we learn lot more from the ones which are bad. The art of life is to learn from the bad experiences. Usually the bad experiences are considered to be the lanterns to light one’s life. We should always learn good lessons from our experiences.
At any stage of life, whether it’s during childhood, at school, college or office; we experience one or the other kind of experiences. When in childhood, a child begins to ride his bicycle he falters and falls, but he gets up, repeats his attempts and moves on. He does this till he experiences the different ways, which could make him fall.
What I learnt from my personal experience was that I thought being in college life is easy and smooth. With dreams full of faith to be a journalist, I walked the college gates with pride. I thought life to be as simple as in school. I made friends with everybody. During the first year, I had good rapport with each and everyone. The first year being a simple one, with just print media teaching (there was not much of practical then). But, now it’s the second year and I see what my parents had taught me since childhood. There is nobody who is born for you except your parents.
Not a single person would experience your loss, as your parents would do!
Today, I see the real colors of those people who used sugar quoted words and swore to be my friends in bad times. Now, I see a lot of politics around me. I being simple and innocent was naive to understand the crooked ways of this world and I often ask myself why I am like this? Why am I not as smart as others? Why don’t I take advantage of half an opportunity and grab it like others, forgetting all friendships?
But now after thinking for long and analysing, I think these are what we call challenges in life. These are the experiences from which we learn. Being with the same people, talking and laughing, I have my mind working for me. Now, I want to be all the more better as a person than just being a good journalist.
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