Old wine in a new bottle

Long back, I wrote a travelogue here on a wedding I attended. I was never satisfied with my description of the marriage, the bridal ensemble and all. So, I rewrote it.

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My Best Friend's Wedding

The wheels squealed lazily at being forced to move after a short but a well deserved halt as the train chugged painfully, fighting the inertial resistance, taking its first 'steps' out of the station I boarded it from. I pushed my handbag up on the top berth, settled quietly in my seat and surveyed my sleeper class co-passengers: a sexagenarian man gazing blankly through the window, a family with two kids; parents too busy teaching their kids how to enjoy and the kids too busy doing what they do best - flouting those norms, and a young lad unabashedly staring at me as if I was the only known key to solving the Bermuda Triangle mystery. It didn't take me very long to get talking to them. An enquiry about their destination was all it took to be a part of the group. A couple of hours later we had discussed most of our nation's problems, almost solved them along the way, shared our lunches and became a family. It was so easy initiating a conversation with sleeper class passengers. Compare and contrast this with a reaction from a co-passenger in an AC compartment. A similar enquiry would fetch a suave verbal reply masking a curt non-verbal expression overtly portending of a cold shoulder of non-reciprocation for any further attempts at initiating a conversation. The puffed up egos actually keep the AC compartment, which is otherwise cold, quite cozy.

I was traveling by train after a long time. The recent nose-diving of flight fares made them affordable to us lesser mortals. That, coupled with the traveling allowance provided by my company, made traveling by train not just unenviable but also unglamourous. And yet, there was something about trains I missed while flying. Although flying has its own share of ecstasies in take-offs, landings and God's eye view of earth, a train journey is about a different romance altogether. The snail-pace of Indian trains affords us the luxury of sliding open the window and enjoying ourselves in the unadulterated countryside breeze in all its glory. Watching the scared cattle fleeing, the confused dogs barking, the kids cheering and the adult males leering has its own beauty when viewed from inside the fortified window of a train. Sooner or later, our quest for speed will introduce faster, new state-of-the-art trains. But then, we won't be able to stick our necks out of the door and experience the gush of wind slapping our faces. In our hurry to reach the destination, we miss out on enjoying ourselves through the journey. Ironically, while technology helps us connect faster with far off places, it disconnects us from our immediate neighbourhood.

I reached Bhuvaneshwar slightly before dawn. To my relief, it had rained the previous night, forcing mother earth to show its more pleasant form in the midst of scorching Indian summer. I pushed my handbag in before getting into a pick-up auto that was arranged for me. It seemed to glide over the broad, rain-washed roads of Bhuvaneshwar. Engrossed in the surreal morning experience, I failed to notice when the smooth boulevards segued into potholed bylanes and brought me to my destination.

I stood in front of a big, black, iron gate guarding a small bungalow. A black metallic sheet, high enough to keep peeping toms at bay, was welded into the gate. An average Indian would not be able to see through its top. However, its bottom was considerate enough to show ankles. I rang the bell and a known voice hollered from inside the bungalow. It ordered me to hold on lest I wake others up. Out of excitement, I forgot it was still early morning. I heard a barrage of instructions progressively getting louder as the bearer of the voice approached the gate. The person reached the gate and started opening a chained lock at the bottom. I could see only the palms and feet, for the miserly gate would let me see no more. Intricate design of Mehendi adorned her hands and feet. Amrita opened the door and we were face to face after three years. That night was her wedding.

Amrita looked at me for a moment, attempted a wry smile and carried on with her verbal tirade as if we had met only the day before. I noticed her as I entered the gate. Her big black eyes were a little swollen due to lack of sleep. Her black curly hair were parted in the middle and hurriedly bound by a clip at the nape, a tuft of hair near the temples hanging down and resting lightly over her collar-bone, her gums protruded as she rebuked me for nothing that I had done. A set of glass bangles and metallic bracelets clinked as she gestured with her wheatish brown hands.

Her house was full of guests but it didn’t look congested. As her only friend to attend her marriage from out-of-station, I was accorded celebrity treatment. We chatted for a couple of hours in the morning before we moved on with the chores.

“Could you tell me how you feel?” I asked her, curious to know what a girl feels on the eve of her marriage.
“Don’t ask that,” pat came the reply, “I won’t be able to control myself.”

The only child of her parents, Amrita would not have been able to control her emotions had she let them flow any closer. The pain of separation from their loving daughter, in spite of the pleasure of her getting married to a worthy individual, was giving her parents a torrid time. Amidst her parents’ frequent breakdowns, she was the only one who composed herself and kept the situation under control.

Towards the evening, her relatives took me to the marriage venue. A hall was booked in one of the better hotels of Bhuvaneshwar. The route from home to hotel was marked with pot-holed roads devoid of street-lights. But the cool, unpolluted breeze made the journey exhilarating and refreshing. The sigh of untamed breeze of Bhuvaneshwar invigorated my spirits.

We reached the marriage hall excited and ready for the event. The bride arrived later, looking exquisite in the bridal finery, different from the girl next door I met that morning. She wore a bright red silk sari brocaded with gold-threaded designs. The free end of the sari draped over her head signifying bridal modesty. She was bedecked with heavily ornate gold jewelry that seemed to have jumped out of the matching design in her sari. A larger than normal red circular bindi adorned the center of her forehead. Gold bracelets were stacked on her slender arms. Decorative red strip was painted along the edges of her feet each of which wore two pairs of golden toe-rings. A group of elderly ladies carefully chaperoned her past the marriage pavilion in the main hall to an adjacent room where she was seated on a soft-velvet brown sofa until the marriage rituals began. Like a typical shy Indian bride, Amrita kept looking down surveying the carpet near her feet as the ladies slowly led her to the sofa. I had never seen her walk as slowly as she did that evening. I could sense in her face a mixed feeling - an anticipation of the wedding, an apprehension about life after marriage, a fear of the unknown, a remorse for having to leave her parents and yet, an invitation to find a loving life-partner.

The groom, his family and guests arrived much later. There was excitement all around as the groom’s procession arrived in the hotel. They were seated in an adjacent hall. The groom was dressed in intricate design bearing cream Sherwani and a traditional turban over his head. We chatted for a while after I introduced myself. He came across as a simple, shy and a mature person, quite different from the bubbly Amrita. I thought he complemented her well.

The marriage rituals started around midnight. Alone and tired, I followed the rituals with intermittent naps. But I was lucky to be awake at the most important moments of the marriage. I saw the groom tying the mangalsutra around Amrita’s neck. I saw them exchanging their garlands and taking the rounds around the sacred fire. I got goose-bumps as I watched them.
Amrita later told me her thoughts at that moment.
“I felt like the Vedic mantras chanted during the rituals celestially bound me to him. As if going forward we would affect each other’s lives astrologically also and not only through physical proximity. It was an act of giving him the control of my life, the key to my emotions. In that moment, I gave him the power to make me happy or sad, to make or break my life."

"Can such a moment of entrusting my life to him be anything less than sacrosanct? The priest chanted those mantras perfunctorily as it’s a daily business for him. I paused for a moment to think about the other life I was making my own and the responsibilities that come with it. My knees grew weak as I wondered whether I was fit for such a responsibility. I gained strength from seeing my groom leading me. It dawned upon me that he was there to lift me when I would fall, and guide me when I would falter.”

The next morning was her Vidai – the ceremonial farewell. Knowing Amrita, who used to cry at the slightest thoughts of missing her parents, I expected the Vidai to be an emotional catharsis. However, she defied all expectations and didn’t let tears roll out. Quietly, she sat in the car and didn’t look at anyone for long. Our eyes met only once. I could see the pain of separation from family waiting to explode but marvelously controlled. The car left, unsettling the dust and leaving everyone’s heart with an emotional void in its wake.

I wondered why Indian girls leave their families after marriage to join the grooms family. It is easy to blame the patriarchal society. Another plausible reason emerged as I pondered deeper. An average boy has much bigger ego than a girl. So a girl is much more capable of accepting a new family as her own. She can better manage the complexities of adapting to differences. Spiritually speaking, the ego is one of the root causes of distancing yourself from God. Being born a woman is hence a mark of spiritual upliftment. Only a spiritually higher being can make bigger sacrifices to keep another family happy. Unfortunately, the feminists take this as another form of female discrimination.

Thanks to Amrita, my trip to Bhuvaneshwar was an experience worth living. I came back with quite a few memories to cherish and thoughts that made me wiser.

Dinner with God

This evening I had dinner with God.

He waited for me at the table

as I scanned Him in the menu.

One of the Gods very kindly

poured water in the glass.

God, as water, quenched my thirst

even as God brought me the order.

God, as food, was delicious too.

I thanked God lovingly

and He became tastier

with every morsel.

I couldn't help smiling

and horripilating

when I saw and felt

God all around me,

my little Samadhi.

The Gods that waited

were all amused

at the radiant joy

on my face.

I smiled for I knew a secret

while they reciprocated ignorantly.

I smiled even more

for I knew their secret as well;

for my secret

was no different from theirs.

It was a moment of remembrance. 

Esoteric Ramayana

The Ram Janma Bhoomi verdict of Allahabad high court was declared yesterday (30-Sept-2010). There is wide spread media coverage of the event and analysis-paralysis of the situation on ground. All self-pronounced stakeholders have their versions of truth around it causing wide spread conflict and distrust.

This seems to be a good time to take a step back and see what Rama and Ramayana – the epic -inherently stand for and to introspect whether the whole conflict stands you in good stead.

I have gained this understanding from a very nice book ‘Kundalini’ written by Svoboda as a dialogue between him and his revered Guru Vimalananda who is an Aghora Master.

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Symbolically speaking, the story of Ramayana is a story of an individual soul’s spiritual journey and the interplay of various chakras and the expressions associated with each other. We all live some aspect of Ramayana in our daily lives.


Before we understand the symbolic esoteric meaning of Ramayana, it is vital to understand the symbolism associated to the main characters of Ramayana.

The characters

Rama - the indwelling spirit – the soul who is the king of the 72000 nadis. Nadis are to energy body what blood vessels are to physical body.
Lakshman – Rama’s brother represent the power of concentration which helps the soul regain it bride – Sita. He did focus his entire attention on his brother Rama – the individual soul.
Sita – Rama’s wife represents the Kundalini Shakti, the dormant energy located at the Muladhara Chakra. It is the dormancy of this energy that helps us identify with the body which we call the ego.
Dasharatha – ‘Ten Chariots’ meaning the ten senses. Five of these are cognitive incoming senses (Gnanendriya) of smell, taste, see, touch, hear and five are external expressions (Karmendriya) of eliminating, reproducing, moving, grasping, speaking.


Ravana – The devil King represents the limited ego personality that constantly contemplates its greatness.
Hanuman – He represents the prana which when properly harnessed clears the path for Kundalini (Sita) to meet her beloved soul (Rama).

The story

Sita was found when her father Janaka was ploughing a field. She was found from the earth which is an element associated to the Muladhara Chakra where Kundalini Shakti resides. Janaka is a symbolic representation of the creator who awakens the Kundalini (Sita) by removing her from the earth, nourishing her as she grows (rises upwards) before meeting her consort Rama (the soul) through the marriage. Soon after the marriage, Ram and Sita – accompanied by Lakshman - leave for the forest. When Kundalini unites with the soul, they are blissfully immersed (focused – Lakshman) within each other and immediately withdraw from the senses, which wither and die. That is why Dasharatha (the 10 senses) dies soon after Ram and Sita depart.

This was all fine until Sita chose to disobey Lakshman and strayed from her focus on Rama. As soon as this happens, Ravana – the devil – abducts Sita (the Kundalini Shakti) to Lanka which represents the earth element, the Muladhara Chakra. This means, that as soon as your concentration shifts away from the soul, you are bound to be dragged down to your limited self state.

Vimalananda says that Rama (soul) now lost Sita (shakti) to a strong adversary – the limited demonic human personality that uses her for his own gratification. Rama had to wander far and for long before He could reach Sita even as we all must search incessantly for the Kundalini once she has self identified with something other than the soul.

Rama (soul) needs the help of Lakshman (power of concentration) to search for Sita (Kundalini). Rama also needs the assistance of Hanuman (prana) to eliminate Ravana (the limited ego) and liberate Sita again from Lanka (the Muladhara chakra).

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This is the purpose of our soul - to awaken the Kundalini and experience its true universal consciousness. The day we realize that Rama dwells within all of us, the outward symbolism of Ram Janma Bhoomi or Babri Masjid will cease to matter. We will become the living embodiments of God.

Jai Shri Ram.

The moon and me

Scared as a child when I was
of the frightening dark,
the moon in the sky I was shown,
in my heart to create a spark
of a semblance of support
up in the distant sky.
That waned in my heart
the fear of the dark nearby.

In youthful love when I was,
in the wild years of adolescence,
the moon in the sky I was shown,
with beauty being its quintessence.
I likened my love to the moon,
wherein I searched for her face,
her lashes in the lunar shades
and her smile in its nightly grace.

The first heartbreak devastated me,
as the season of love altered its stance.
The moon in the sky I was shown,
pale it was even in resplendence.
Its light for me carried no hope,
as it lumbered through the clouds
in eternal state of remorse
even as I wrapped my soul in shrouds.

Lost in a desert I was for days,
hunger and thirst battered me bad.
The moon in the sky when shown itself,
water in its shine, I perceived.

The moon was the same at all times.
I always discerned it differently.
It was always about me and never the moon,
for it only reflected the inner me.

Suicide

I burn myself every moment
in the fire of introspection.
I drown myself often
in the ocean of self-abnegation.

I hang myself sometimes with
insults whose memories I snooze.
I bury myself with my ego
through fights I choose to lose.

I butcher myself in the moments
I abstain from reacting.
I run into the wire when
I refrain from judging.

I slay myself in
moments of real observation.
I pulverize myself to dust
in a state of meditation.

I kill my old self everytime
I choose to refine
I commit hara-kiri whenever
I preempt my whine.

I mutate my parochial self
when I exercise charity.
I discard my old skin,
when I live out of spirituality.

Whenever I change myself for better,
my worse self commits suicide.
Humanity, in every moment,
executes a collective genocide.

We all kill ourselves in
our moments of transformation.
Shame - we recognize the only suicide,
to our eyes, which is visible.

My name is Khan - what clicked with me

1. There are two types of people: The world is born out of duality. We just cannot do without divisions of gender, religions, nationalities and so on. But never in my memory has a movie so simplistically hammered in the message that if you want duality, then keep this in your mind – there are only two types of people: Good and Bad. Every other division is irrelevant.
2. Fear is not bad: Crowd gathers on the road around Khan when camera zooms in from behind, signifying someone approaching the melee. A very recognizable voice asks the crowd to disperse and gives a piece of advice to Khan, “It’s ok to be afraid. Just don’t let the fear within grow big enough to block your progress.”
3. BC - AD - 9/11: Most of us around the world remember what we were doing and where we were when 9/11 happened. The same cannot be said about any other calamity where more people would have died. That is the impact of 9/11, and it has surely changed the world. However, I have not seen any movie put the impact of 9/11 in one simple statement as it does here.
4. Khan’s Monologues: Khan pens his experiences in a diary. He also talks to his beloved through this diary. The power of simplicity is exemplified many times as he makes us chuckle, laugh, cry and get goose bumps through the heartfelt honesty of his words.
5. Satan: The only time Khan seems to get angry is on meeting the instigator. The music score at this point is pure adrenaline stuff. For a non-violent man like Khan, stoning someone requires biggest emotional upheaval – and the crescendo matches the catharsis. Symbolically speaking, Khan accomplishes his Haj on that day; stoning satan is a ritual performed at the Mecca during Haj.
6. Storyline: For a change, Karan Johar focuses more on universal over romantic love. However, the leading romantic pair of Bollywood have not allowed the romanticism a renegade treatment. The movie portrays a fine balance of selfless individual love that collectively lead to universal love.

A Quest to Define

What, why and how?
asks man's mind.
For his own good,
must answers he find.

He is in a hurry
to know and identify.
He must name the discovery,
to label and classify.

All he ever comes across
must be controlled;
a friendly discovery must be tamed,
an adversary conquered.

Only in knowing the unknown
he feels more secure.
But every knowledge leaves behind
a hint of something more obscure.

The more he knows,
the more there is to know.
The more he defines,
the more he feels insecure.

He feels safer
not in the strength of his adversary,
but in the knowledge of
the power of his enemy.

His bigger fear is not the known
but the fringes of the unknown.
For in his knowing, lies
the genesis of conquering.

The mother of all fears
is his not knowing himself.
These conquests are a means
to define his own 'self.'

This quest to define
he must win,
to conquer his own
fear of the unknown.

Until he knows his true self
the fears will drive him.
The day he truly 'knows,'
his fears will cease within.

So will end his urge to control
and with it the need to define.
He will not want to rule everyone,
so he will let everything just be.

The Holy Sex

There are not many words in English language that can match the range of emotional reactions evoked by or outnumber the adjectives attached to the word ‘sex.’ Lip smacking, fascinating, fist pumping, anticipation, ecstasy, joy, winking, smugliness, curiosity, eyes opening wider, agape, surprise, shock, denouncing, shame, hatred, satanic, sacrilegious to list a few. What is it about sex that evokes so extreme reactions from different factions, genders, age group and so on?

I always wonder what is it about sex that human society has always tried to keep it under wraps but it still resurfaces? Why the values like honesty and integrity taught everywhere but found nowhere? Ironically, sex is not taught anywhere but is found everywhere. Why is this multi-billion dollar porn industry thriving in-spite of so many moral, statutory, technological, societal curbs around the world? Why were Indians – who pride themselves on their spirituality – the people whose most googled word in 2007 was ‘sex?’

I was convinced that there is more to sex than its physicality; that it is not as abominable as our society has made it out to be. On the contrary, I felt there was something divine about it – why else would sex be the source of creation of new life? My search led me to Osho and his book ‘From Sex to Superconsciousness.’

Osho says that our apparent yearning for sex is not actually a yearning for sex. It is a yearning for something way beyond. Sex is one of the channels to reach there. Sex culminates into an orgasmic climax. This orgasm we experience for a fleeting moment has two innate states that we actually yearn for. They are Egolessness and Timelessness. In the moment of orgasmic ecstasy, there is no ‘I’ or ego and no sense of time. It is in that condition that our consciousness is closest to God. Any wonder then that we can create a new life only when we pass through that state wherein we are closest to God.

Osho adds that it was only in the moments of love making that human beings realized for the first time that so much bliss was achievable. Those who introspected on the phenomenon of sex saw that in the moments of love making mind becomes free of thoughts. For a moment, all thoughts disappear. And this emptiness of the mind, the no-thought, is the cause of showering of the divine bliss. What mankind has all along been calling ‘the original sin’ was actually the first doorway to divinity. Man also discovered that if through some other process the same no-thought state could be achieved then the same bliss could be attained. This was the origin of the idea of yoga and meditation.

God is that orgasmic ecstasy multiplied many times. Imagine this: with a fleeting experience of this bliss we can create a new life. What would happen if we can practice and learn to be in blissful state for as long as we want? Self realized saints live in this state and hence can refrain from sex. That condition is true celibacy. Celibacy is not avoidance of sex; it is rising above sex.

Sex is no less a truth than hunger or thirst. At our current level of existence, God is still far away. By not accepting the existing fact of our life, we are not getting any closer to God. An average human being cannot pray to God if he is denied water and food for days. So it is with sex. Only when we accept sex will we open a doorway to rise above sex. If we force a person to stay hungry, someday he will steal food. Similarly, when sex is denied to someone, the person 'steals' sex from any source - resulting in sex crimes. Our own society is the real creator of sex crimes. By denying the naturalness of sex, we are denying the design of God. There is no bigger sacrilege than calling sex anti-religious or sinful. This world will only be free of sex crimes when we become capable of having a normal and healthy dialogue about it. Only by accepting sex as a natural phenomenon we will be able to understand it. Only by fully understanding sex, we will be able to transcend it. Only by transcending sex, we will be able to knock on doors of divinity.

Think of the contradictions we have built within our lives. From childhood we are taught that sex is sinful. Girls are also taught that their husbands are their Gods. So when the husband tries to have sex with his wife, she is confused; how could her God lead her into sinful act? We are also taught that children are a gift of God. This complicates the contradiction even more. God is leading her into a sinful act and giving her a divine gift. All these contradictions hinder a wholehearted acceptance of sex. These contradictions might not matter so much, if not for a deeper truth. The kind of soul that chooses to take birth through you, depends on your state of mind during the sexual intercourse. The more accepting, serene and positive you feel about sex, the more evolved soul will choose to experience its life with you. Similarly, the more negative you feel during sex, the more negatively oriented soul will choose you. Do we now see why, generations after generations, we have only given birth to same type of men? Do we now see why there are so few spiritually evolved souls that visit earth? Our sexual contradictions do not create an inviting atmosphere for them to uplift our own experiences. Hence, resolving this contradiction is very important.

Lightning in the sky is a wild force capable of killing people. But we did not antagonize or try to stop its power. Rather, we befriended that power, tried to understand it and now we have used it so wonderfully to light our houses. Similarly, only when we understand sex, we will be able to realize its true potential.

Our antagonism to sex is so deep and widespread that the recovery has to be gradual. The first and the foremost step is to drop this antagonism to it and develop an acceptance. Accept your children’s sexual curiosity as normally as you accept their hunger. Nothing in nature happens without a reason and before time. A flower blooms when it is ready to pollinate. Children get curious about sex when nature wants them to. Treat their sexual discovery with acceptance. Once the coming generation befriends sex, there will a downpour of spiritual evolution in the generation thereafter. There is no peace in this world in-spite of so many revolutions: industrial, technological, social, renaissance. This is because we have not allowed a spiritual revolution. Only after a spiritual revolution, the world will become a much better place to live.

Ever lifted a person with your finger?

'Is this possible at all?' you might wonder. The answer is yes, it is. And I did this on 28 oct, 2009.

A spiritual Guru called 'Nithya Shanti' was visiting our company this day. He was explaining to us the power of the mind when he asked five volunteers to get on stage for an experiment. I was one of the five enthusiastic volunteers.

He then asked us to join our palms (like a namaste) and then have only the index fingers standing upright, with the remaining fingers interleaved to form a fist. He then asked one of the volunteer - a man weighing 85 to 90 kgs - to sit on a chair and asked the remaining four to lift him only with the index fingers. Two volunteers standing in front of him had to put their fingers under his knee and the two behind him had to squeeze in the fingers in his armpits.

We tried but we failed to even lift him an inch. I even had to crack my knuckles after it since I had never subjected my fingers to such experiments before and it started paining.

So then he made us all put our hands over the sitting volunteer's head and made us close our eyes. He then started saying some affirmations and asked us to start believing that his body is getting lighter for our fingers to lift him and our fingers are getting strong enough to lift him. After about one and half minute of this affirmation, he made us take three slow and deep breaths.



Then he asked us to try lifting him. As we four tried lifting him, I could hear gasps of disbelief in the crowd and some mute shock in the volunteers breath as we were all left agape. We had lifted this person well over two feet from the chair with only our index fingers.



That is the power of our mind. In one moment, the Spiritual Guru, turned over its head the age old saying 'Seeing is believing.' For now we saw what we first started to believe and not the other way round.

Below I embed the video of Nithya Shanti proving the same with a different group of people.

Gandhi - a Sublime Failure

The title of this article is inspired from the book of the same name written by S. S. Gill. I have yet to read the book but what attracts me to it is the title, which so succinctly packs the contradiction that Gandhi’s life was.

Not many Indian leaders have done as much for the Muslims as the Mahatma did through the Khilafat movement and during the post-independence riots; yet not many Muslims rate him highly as their leader.

Not many Indian ‘upper caste’ leaders have done so much for eradicating untouchability and fought so diligently for the upliftment of lower-castes; yet the so called ‘lower-caste’ communities have completely ignored Gandhi as someone who contributed to their wellbeing.

As a saint who loved humanity beyond the divisions of religion, caste or race, he did so much for entire humanity – which benefited the Hindus as well – but the current Hindu youth hardly consider Gandhi their benefactor. In fact, they consider Gandhi almost the sole reason for India’s partition and the strife that followed.

What could be the gap that explains his lack of credit-worthiness in the minds of those he fought for? Why doesn’t a single community, caste or religion accept that Gandhi was with them?

The answer to this is two-fold. Firstly, the humanity as we know it has deep rooted insecurity and secondly because Gandhi – the Mahatma – was spiritually way ahead of the times we still live in.

The insecurity has evolved from a deep rooted fear called ‘survival of the fittest.’ Man has always been fighting a battle for supremacy because of his inherent fears that he will be killed if he doesn’t kill, and trampled if he doesn’t trample. He wiped out forests and built civilizations to lessen his fear of animals. Concomitantly, his thoughts and concepts developed into religions and castes and various other forms that divided man from his fellow-men. As he outgrew the fears of basic security from animals, his mind started feeling the threat of a different race, religion and so on. And hence the religions and castes started the battle for survival. Some of the biggest conflicts in the world have been fought for such supremacies. The human mind is so insecure that anything good you do to a man’s adversary is not good for the man himself. There lies the inherent contradiction of Gandhi’s life.

Everytime he helped a Muslim, the insecure Hindu felt the pinch. Everytime he toiled for an untouchable, the upper class Hindu became circumspect. Not to mention that the Muslims could never accept Gandhi over someone from their own religion (Jinnah) and so did the lower-castes that gave him the boot in favour of Ambedkar; Gandhi, to them, was still the significant ‘other.’ The fact that none of these communities could make Gandhi their hero due to the limitations of their own insecurity remains irrelevant.

Secondly, not many true saints have made politics their bastion. In a field where ‘winning’ is the only thing that matters at any cost, it ran in a direct conflict with a man to whom the means mattered as much as the end.

To him, Independence as an end had no value if it was attained through blood-shed. Independence with partition was like freeing a person from jail after amputating his limbs. To us, no price was big enough to achieve independence. So what if we had to stain hands with the blood of the perpetrators if that ensured a quick freedom?

He was against the British rule but had the capacity to love the British. To most of us, the British deserve as much hatred as their tyrannical government. He was capable of separating the real bad from the real good and was not scared of praising the good in the aggressor while denouncing the bad.

We have always believed in ‘tooth for a tooth.’ It is anybody’s guess what a common man would advise a Hindu father whose child gets killed by Muslims in riots? When approached by one such man, Gandhi asked him to find and ‘adopt a Muslim boy orphaned by Hindus in the same riots’ so one Muslim’s faith in the goodness of Hindus and vice versa remains intact – and love gets a chance to bloom again.

He was the messenger of unconditional love – we are very far from there yet. Hence Gandhi can never be our hero. Inspite of his subliminal love, he will remain a failure for all of us.

It wasn’t Gandhi that failed us, but mankind that failed this Mahatma.

Ambition

In a world bent on winning over others,
a quest for winning over yourself - is ambition.

In a world passionate about knowing the outside,
a passion for exploring the inside - is ambition.

In a world ruled by subjectivity,
maintaining objectivity - is ambition.

In a world possessed with strife and sorrow,
keeping a smile - is ambition.

In a world seeking things for happiness,
seeking happiness sans things - is ambition.

In a world that magnifies strengths and hides weaknesses,
acceptance of both - is ambition.

In a world chasing infinite power,
chasing the infinite – is ambition.

In a world preferring one over the other,
living without preferences – is ambition.

In a world seeking scapegoats in others,
acceptance of what is – is ambition.

In a world burdened by past and worried about the future,
living in the moment – is ambition.

In a world seeking control to allay its own fears,
letting freedom take control – is ambition.

In a world swearing by judgmental observation,
simply observing – is ambition.

In a world obsessed with beautifying what is seen,
beautification of the unseen – is ambition.

In a world believing only in ‘either or’,
considering ‘and also’ – is ambition.

In a world ruled by the mind,
enslaving the mind – is ambition.

In a world fighting noise pollution,
silencing the inner voices – is ambition.

In a world seeking providence,
being that providence – is ambition.

In a world projecting forgiveness as a favour to others,
believing it to be a favour to oneself – is ambition.

In a world worrying so much despite faith,
believing that worrying is lack of faith – is ambition.

In a world that doesn’t care for any of these,
valuing them all – is ambition.

Rise of Jain Practice in Pune

Jain saints follow an ancient practice of tying mask around their mouths.

Pune seems to have caught up to that fancy lately as the picture below proves.


The only difference is that the jain saints wear the masks to prevent the germs from getting killed while the pune citizens wear the masks to prevent themselves from getting killed.

Thanks to the Swine Flu.

Office Office

This was part 2 of the first assignment at Writers Bureau.

I have written a short description of my office and some colleagues in the office. I’ve titled this description ‘Office Office’ after a famous TV series in India.

*****************************************

I scan my access card to unlock the door of my office. The door opens into big AC hall twice the size of a basketball court. In the centre of the hall are five rows of five rectangular cubicles each. The rows collectively form a big rectangle equidistant from the peripheries of the hall. Employees sit in the corners of the cubicles, facing the corners. An aisle runs through the longer sides of the cubicles. The wall bang opposite the main door and the one to its right are made of stained glass that makes even a hot sunny day look pleasant. Small shrubs line up at regular intervals along the glass walls. To the left of the main door is a cabin, a printer, a small pantry, washrooms, a meeting room and a cabin, in that order. To the right of the door are one more cabin and a few cubicles.

There are three balding men occupying three corner cubicles each in central set of cubicles. All three are also the tallest men in the hall. Thanks to their heights, we can see the shining scalps just above the partitions even as they recline on their chairs. Each has a distinct peculiarity: one who sits closest to the door has a smiling visage that frequently reveals two of his central teeth pushed back to give way to protruding canines and a baritone voice that more than makes his presence felt, the second one has the largest of paunches that cannot hold the trousers if they slide below the navel causing him to keep pulling it up frequently. The third one is so quiet it sometimes takes effort to know his presence.

On the farthest left corner from the entrance sits the big boss in a makeshift one-meter-high polymer enclosure that forms his cabin. His chair is cleverly positioned facing the main entrance of the hall to keep a watch on his team. He is a diminutive, mustachioed man in his early forties. He has jet black hair, sharp nose, dimpled smile and a slight paunch. I sit on the farthest row from him so it is very inconvenient to go all the way to his cabin only to find him busy on phone. So if I wish to know – without getting up from my seat - whether he is on phone, I just look at his cabin and check whether his head or elbow is visible above the partition. When on phone, he reclines as far back as possible, one hand on the phone and the free hand stroking the hair at the back of his head or caressing his upper back inside the collars with his elbow raised high. Consequently, I see either his hair if he is glued to the laptop or his elbow if he is on a call, never both simultaneously. I choose to get up or continue working based on that information.

Why do I write?

This was the part one of the first assignment at Writers Bureau.
The word limit was 300 words:
****************************************
I was in sixth grade when I first wrote a very forgettable poem on God. I never knew then that the act was actually a precursor to something I would enjoy immensely as an adult.
Years rolled after that poetic escapade. Long dry spells of non writing were punctuated by sporadic bursts of creativity through writing greeting cards on friends’ birthdays, writing witty four-liners for friends during parties and so on. Time flew. On my younger sister’s twenty third birthday, I wrote a poem for her. I then performed an encore for her next birthday; the time in between, however, was a literary drought.
What characterized these impulsive spurts of writings was an immense sense of satisfaction and calm I rarely felt doing anything else. The feeling was surreal, almost like home coming, as if that was where I belonged. That was something I was made for – and vice versa. My soul quenched its astral thirst every time I penned something.
On December 31st, 2003, I wrote a poem that I thought catapulted my writing to the next league and forced me to consider writing seriously. I haven’t looked back since. I wrote scores of poetry, articles, short stories and blogs.
I send my work to various websites, magazines, newspapers etc. with occasional success, most of which is non-remunerative. My biggest success so far is a short story that got selected for ‘Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul.’ Other than this, I’ve not come close to being paid for my work. As a writer, I’ve matured as much as I can on my own and feel that I need professional help to leapfrog into the next level.
The world is seldom seen through the prism of words; I want to change that.
This is where I need Writer’s Bureau; not just to hone my writing skills but also to develop in me the art of approaching a publisher or an editor with reasonable or assured success.

Will this give me the break?

As most you know, I am writing for a few years now. I have had intermittent successes with each holding its sweet little place in my heart. However, what was missing was a ‘wow factor’ of success.

In order to take my writing to the next level, I enrolled for ‘The Writers Bureau.’ This is a correspondence school designed specifically for people who need professional help in improving their writing skills and taking it to publishable standards and dare to more than just eke out a living out of writing.

I have been asked to submit two assignments to begin with.

1. Why do I write? and

2. Go to any market, soccer match, or any place of your liking and describe the place in your own words. Make the author feel the place.

Next I will blog assignments that I submit and would eagerly wait for your feedback. Please review and help me improve through this course.

Thanks a lot in anticipation.

Is Spirituality bad for economic growth?

What in the world would spirituality have to do with economic growth? Shouldn’t spirituality be disconnected from money and hence the economy?

Economic growth is studied and analyzed by economists. One of the tools that most of the economists use to track growth is called Gross Domestic Product (GDP.) GDP for a country is defined as the ‘total market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country in a year.’ This definition shows that existence of a market – a place where people gather, physically or logically, to buy and sell - is a prerequisite to analyzing growth. A country is called a growing economy if its GDP keeps growing. Getting a little mathematical might just be handy here.

The most common approach to measuring and understanding GDP is the expenditure method:

GDP = personal Consumption + private Investment + Government spending + (eXports − iMports),
or,
GDP = C + I + G + (X-M).

All above activities happen at a market-place. The basic tenet of this ‘growth’ perspective is that the more willing customers are to spend (C), the more willing producers will be to produce and sell things for profit. This willingness drives businessmen to take the risk of private investments (I) and governments to spend (G) on providing the required infrastructure. The willingness of international consumers drives exports(X) and that of national consumers drives local industries and imports (M).

How did the US become the largest economy in the world? US society made ‘living off credit’ and ‘spending beyond the means’ a way of life. The spending propensity of US citizens almost single handedly gives a reason to the rest of the world to keep producing. Credit cards were mainly introduced to induce a willingness to spend – to own more than you can immediately afford. The result: the spending power of the world grows, increasing with it the willingness to produce, in turn increasing investments and hence employment, which again increases the spending power, thus completing the circle. So the more we spend, the more we drive the world economy. And the single biggest tool to make us spend is to inculcate a feeling of wanting something which is not yours until you spend to own it. Thus the whole corporate world out there is creating a feeling of a lack of something and hence a wanting within you. True spirituality does the direct opposite to you. It attacks at the root of wanting from the outside world by creating a sense of completeness within. By connecting you to your happiness within, it reduces your needs from the outside world, through the fulfillment of which you seek your happiness. The more spiritual you become, the more you tend to live without most of the things you normally can’t live without. Most of the necessities start to look like luxuries. So you reduce your wasteful spending and that slows down the wheel of development. Hence, spirituality is bad for the economic growth of world.

I once came across an interesting ideology which I would call ‘Five why’s’ concept. It states that if you ask a series of ‘why’ to find the reason for a person’s action, and subsequently to his answers, then latest by the fifth ‘why’, his reply would be ‘He did it to be happy.’ This shows that the root cause for any action of a man is a desire for happiness. Every intermediate answer to a ‘why’ is a different path to the same end. And in these intermediate answers lies the unlimited selling potential for all the companies in the world. And boy! Haven’t they done a good job exploiting this? Think of all that makes you happy and then just imagine how many people are out there to exploit this desire of yours just to sell their product or service.

The problem with this whole cycle is that every source of your happiness is outside you. Eating a decent meal at home was very satisfying until you saw someone doing a candle light dinner in a five star hotel.

However, the real question to ask is not whether spirituality is good or bad for the economic development but whether GDP is the correct method of tracking growth. Does the monetary exchange of currencies mean everything – even more than the happiness, seeking which people exchange money at the markets? GDP was not created to be a measure of societal well being, but it is often used as an indicator for just that because it is the best available measure so far. It has served well for a good number of years, but not any more. GDP is all about money and as it is with money, GDP can keep track of food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not happiness; the shell of all things, but not the kernel. As economics moves away from monetary value towards happiness index, more policy makers realize that GDP cannot be the only basis when deciding and devising an economic policy in today's society.

A person’s intelligence can be gauged from the answers he gives but his wisdom can be gauged from the questions he asks. There comes a stage in evolution where wisdom should win over intelligence. We’ve reached a stage in the evolution where we need to ask ourselves some of the most basic, wise questions that shake the very fundamental premise on which the intelligent human society is built. Is ‘survival of the fittest’ the right ideology? All through our long process of evolution, mankind has either controlled or eliminated anything that threatened its existence. It all began with wild animals, harmful plants and unruly weather. And now that these three are more or less tamed, the word ‘survival’ has added an extra dimension to itself. Survival not only means living and breathing but also means material progress, lifestyle and status to name a few. And in the new avatar of the word ‘survival,’ the above ideology pits man against man. Our basic premise has made our own fellows our enemies.

Hence the right question is not whether spirituality is bad for economic development but whether development, as we see it, is the right path? Probably for the first time in human history, more people worldwide are living in cities than in villages and thousands more are migrating to cities daily. What has this done to our lifestyles? Most of the cities worldwide are crowded, congested, polluted, crime-ridden, badly managed and much more. If, as deduced above, happiness is our final aim, then are our concerted efforts towards the so-called ‘development’ taking us towards that happiness? Where are we going wrong here? Where is the missing link? Aren’t all news on TV or newspaper a result brought about by a mankind that has ‘survival of the fittest’ as its deepest fears? If I don’t trick, cheat, beat or kill my adversary, he will trick, cheat, beat or kill me; unless I’m the best, I’ll be trampled upon by others who would use me as a stepping stone on their way to success.

Where is the solution to this? Slowly, we need to start living a life that rejects the established notion of ‘survival of the fittest’ and we can then gradually change the very definition of development. Let us stop hoarding and start sharing. Let us not celebrate without making somebody’s life better. No good news should cross our lives without doing charity. We need to start living a simpler life so we save more for the needy people. Once these simple ideas become our basis for living, we would see that the tenets of spirituality and the parameters of development are not contradictory but complementary.

Spirituality is the deepest core in all of us. Millions of years of misguided ideologies have taken us away from it. And the human soul, having tried it all, is hankering for the inner essence that has been denied to it for eons. We humans get drawn towards anything that has been denied to us. Is it any surprise then that in 2006, the most googled word in Pakistan was ‘sex’ and that in the US was ‘God?’

Freedom Haikus

Freedom
in not wanting
to win

Freedom
in loving
needlessly

Freedom
in the acceptance
of everything

Freedom
in the greatest prayer:
thankfulness

Freedom
in living
in the moment

Freedom
in not wanting
to judge

Freedom
in letting things
just be

Freedom
in giving your love
the freedom

Freedom
in loving
without possessing

Freedom
in living
without preferences

A to Z of Subprime Crisis

This article was also published in Gulf News, UAE's leading news paper.

***************************************

Clarence Nathan was a man with three part-time jobs who earned about $45,000 a year, and yet a bank loaned him $540,000. The bank never checked his income.

What happened that diluted the most basic rules of lending? What happened that made the banks open their coffers without bothering to even consider the risks? What were the brokers and bankers that made all this possible thinking while showing their generosity to those least deserving of the loans?

When we first heard about the subprime crisis we would’ve thought it had to do with the housing industry. However, it had less to do with that and more to do with financial services industry – and the people who were financing those houses.

The crisis really starts with what some researchers have started calling ‘The Global Pool of Money.’ This is the entire world’s investments: pension funds investing for people’s retirements, insurance companies investing our premiums, governments’ central banks investing their nation’s wealth. This global pool is estimated to be about 70 trillion dollars. This amount is more than entire money spent by everyone – individuals, companies, governments - all over the world in a year. So, this global pool of money is a huge amount of money.

We also have a group of people called the investment bankers whose job is to watch over that money. They have a twofold task to perform: not to lose a penny from the pool and to also make it grow. For a long time, they made this pool grow by investing in very safe bets like US treasury and municipal bonds. But right before the actual story starts, something happened – something really big. This global pool of money got too big too fast. In fact, it doubled between the year 2000 and 2006. The scale of this proliferation could be gauged by the fact that this global pool took centuries to reach 35 trillion dollars and just six years to double up. The major reason for this humungous growth was the sudden growth in the wealth of many historically poor countries like India, China, Brazil, Gulf countries, etc. These countries banked their profits and looked around the world for ways to invest them. So, suddenly there was twice as much money in the pool waiting for investment. However, the world wasn’t ready, simply because there weren’t twice as many good investment options. Another parallel development was Alan Greenspan’s move to reduce the US Fed interest rate to one percent, thus making US Treasury bonds – the then darling of investors - not so lucrative for the international investors. So this global pool looked around for options and found one in the US housing market and a special bond created by the Wall Street. This bond just couldn’t produce enough profits to keep all the investors happy and the pressure of generating ‘good’ profit figures just kept building up. More and more international investors wanted those bonds than the investment firms like Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers etc. could actually produce.

This is how the investment banks produced the financial magic of turning mortgages into bonds. They buy up all the housing mortgages – thousands of them – and pool them all together. That way, they had this constant stream of mortgage EMI payments coming to them every month. They would then sell shares in that stream to global investors. That is how you create mortgage backed security or mortgage backed bond. Now, between 2003 and 2006, US housing market was growing so fast that all the global investors were itching to get a piece of that action. But there was a problem. The problem was that to make a mortgage backed security, you need a mortgage – and there weren’t enough mortgages. By 2003, with very low interest rates, all the people with a steady income who could afford mortgages – and were considered safe borrowers - had already taken those bonds. They didn’t want to take any more bonds. But this global pool of money was hungrier than ever for these mortgage backed bonds. So Wall Street started lowering its standards for offering such loans.

It used to be that to get a mortgage, you had to prove that you made enough money, that you had a steady job, that you had some assets in banks. But starting around 2003 onwards, Wall Street started to loosen up a bit every month. One month, banks would say that buyers don’t have to prove how much they make, they can just state how much they make and we’ll trust them. The next one was a No Income Verified asset; so you don’t have to tell the people what you do for a living or how much money you make – all you have to do is state that you have a certain amount of money in the bank and we’ll trust you. Then the next one that came was No Income No Asset (NINO) loan wherein you don’t have to state anything; you just need a credit score and prove that you’re living. Even the latter was optional in some cases like those in Ohio where 23 dead people were issued mortgage loans. This NINO loan is now retrospectively infamous as ‘The Liar’s Loan.’ Within the banks, there were people getting sick to their stomach at giving such loans. They fought tooth and nail with their sales force and bosses to stop offering such loans. But all they got were cold shoulder replies like ‘Others are offering it, we’ve to offer it too. The global investor has some loose cash and if we don’t use it, somebody else will. We’ll get more market share this way. House prices are booming and everything is going to be fine.’ All of this was happening under the assumption that US house prices would always appreciate. So even in the worst case if someone defaulted, the impounded house would be a bigger asset with the bank. That assumption proved very costly.

In the old days, such mortgage companies would’ve held on to these loans for years - until they were sure that the mortgagee would be able to pay - before selling these mortgages to Wall Street. In the new system, they held them for a month or two and then sold it to Wall Street – all that risk was Wall Street’s problem. Even Wall Street wasn’t too concerned because it just passed the risk to the global pool of money – all the global investors. The irony, however, is that Wall Street also wasn’t particularly cheating on these global investors. They had complex computational models that were constantly monitoring the data to assess the risks of the bonds. That data told them not to bother since mortgage foreclosure rate was one or two percent and the models were designed to perform well even on a foreclosure rate of ten to twelve percent. But this conclusion was way off because all the data they were looking at in 2005-06 for the loan repayment was years old –and was positive because the old bonds were issued to qualified people who were duly paying them back. Then there were companies like Dynamic Credit that bought and re-packaged those bonds into a complex financial product called Collateralized Debt Obligations(CDOs) and sold them to these global investors.

This finishes the chain which now looks like “Individuals taking mortgage -> broker -> small bank -> Investment Bank (Wall Street) -> thousands of mortgages in one big pool -> shares of monthly income called mortgage backed security -> repackaged into CDO -> global investors”


When it all came down at once, these pools started showing a foreclosure rate of around 15 to 50%. Therefore, such bonds then started losing money – taking with it, everyone involved. Four million Americans facing the foreclosure, hundreds of mortgage companies are now bankrupt, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs. IMF has estimated that banks and investors could lose around a trillion dollars.

But everyone involved was not exactly foolhardy. Companies like Dynamic Credit refused to buy the bonds that were outright risky. They thought they were being conservative – yet they lost millions, even billions. Almost everyone involved in this knew that something weird was going on. The deals they struck did not feel right. But none of them really questioned things. Why would they? Everyone involved was making an awful lot of money.

The nosediving of all the share markets the world over is just the symptom of a disease. The disease is imprudent financials practice of flouting the basic pragmatic rules. As David Moore, CEO Moore Investment & Holding, Inc, wrote, “Our efforts will all be for naught until two things happen:
1. investment banking and mortgage lending institutions follow strict, conservative and prudent regulations regarding investments and lending and
2. the American people are not allowed to obligate themselves to loans they cannot afford. It would be nice to get people to conduct themselves with their own financial interests in mind, but we must regulate the areas that we can and not give financial access to people who cannot prove a reasonable probability that they can repay loans, and we must regulate business so they don't engage in these unsound lending practices for personal and institutional greed ever again.”

Main Sources : http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6035.html

and http://www.npr.org/

Ramadan in Gulf Countries

‘On Sep 16th 2008, a salesman and a female visitor who publicly drank juice during daytime in Ramadan were each fined Dh1000 for breaking article 313 of the Federal Penal Code of the UAE.

A Public Prosecution source explained that eating or drinking in public before sunset during Ramadan is classified as a crime, which offends religious faith and rituals. "

The punishment against such a crime is a maximum one month imprisonment or a maximum Dh2,000 fine... it depends on the judge's discretion," said the source.

An Arab witness, identified as T., spotted the couple drinking juice in a station. He reported them to the police, who referred the duo to court.’

That was a news report on Gulf News, a leading newspaper in the UAE.

Saudi law goes to the extent of terminating work contracts and deporting the Ramadan law violators. All this because they believe that Non-Muslim residents must respect Muslims' feelings by refraining from eating, drinking or smoking in public places, in the streets and in workplaces.

During Ramadan, in all the Gulf countries, restaurants are closed during the day time. They cannot serve food, only supply take-away parcels that people eat in closed rooms. The only exception to this rule are the best and the most expensive hotels that house the VVIPs who pay a fortune.

Ramadan is the holy month for muslims when they’re supposed to self-abnegate, introspect, lead a simple life – renouncing their indulgences – and observe a month long fast wherein they’re not supposed to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset.

Gulf countries observe the month with a lot of fervour and faith. In these Islamic countries, the government enforces a strict observance of these fasts through an honest police, an efficient legal system and religious zealotry of the citizens.

However, these countries have grossly misunderstood the spiritual commandments. Shouldn’t fasting be a call from within rather than be enforced from without by the government, the police or the legal framework? Shouldn’t fasting be a free choice over a coerced and pompous ban on eating and drinking outdoors lest you tempt those who observe the fast? And wouldn’t a fast that is ‘truly’ a divine inspiration from within be impervious to the temptations from the display of foods which is banned to cover for the imperfections in the self-control of the fasting people? Only a vacuous and shallow law can force the non-muslims to not eat or drink in public. A truly spiritual call doesn’t need collusion with the governments, the threat of imprisonment or monetary fine for its observance. A true fast would not want to control the external display of foods or drinks much less control the behaviour of another person only to bask in the false glory of a strict observance of fast. An honest introspection would command controlling oneself before controlling others. True spirituality should be a free choice. In the absence of that choice, there is no spirituality. Sadly, in the enforcement through the law, they cheat the spirit of the fast; in punishing the law breakers, they kill their own spirituality. Spirituality is no slave to any law and yet the misinterpretation of the same necessitates a law to begin with. The non-believers (Kafirs) are made to suffer because of the imperfection in their own self control.

If you want to see a more free and unforced environment of fast observance then visit India. I want to stick my neck out and say that the fasts of those Indian muslims are much purer than the pompous fasts observed in the middle east.

In the open streets of India,
my Ramadan fasts are truly tested.
In the enticing display of sweets at shops,
my tongue is tested.
In the heat, dust and non AC ambience,
my perseverance is tested.
In my donations despite poverty,
my sacrifice is tested.
In the people eating around me,
my determination is tested.
In my not forcing heathens to stop eating,
my self-control is tested.
In my acceptance of this difference,
my spirituality is tested.

Is customer really the king?

“Customer is the king” – is a cliché used ad nauseam in business circles. With the kind of buying options available today in every walk of life, even a casual glance at the market only corroborates this claim. Why then do we need to question the apparent truth? That is because it’s only the casual glance at the market place that brings about this belief. The cliché is derived through a static perspective wherein we observe only the market-place instead of people. To question this cliché, we need a dynamic perspective that entails we follow customers through their day to day lives.

This apparent truth would’ve been the absolute truth if customers and vendors were a mutually exclusive lot. This, however, is not the case. In this complex society, any given person is a customer to someone and a vendor to someone at the same time. The increase in options makes the customer more demanding while every increased demand means someone somewhere has to slog at work. The vicious circle ensures that almost everyone works harder, as a vendor, to meet those never ending deadlines. The bigger ‘King’ a customer becomes, the more slavish every vendor in that industry becomes. The circle ensures that the monarchy of the customer, however, is short-lived as he soon assumes the role of the vendor.

An example might help elucidate the point. Consider the hospitality industry. A man is on vacation with his family in a five star luxury hotel. The man expects top class service from the hotel. He ‘demands’ continuous Wi-Fi access, spic and clean rooms, gyms, spas, pickup & drop, travel advisories, smart attendants on their toes and not a semblance of discomfort. Anything less and he threatens never to come back to the hotel. So the hotel makes receptionists, cleaners, waiters, drivers, accountants, IT technicians and many others work overnight in shifts. For every such customer, vendors across many such verticals and/or horizontals are kept on tenterhooks. The hotel wakes up an IT techie at 3 a.m. to fix the Wi-Fi for this esteemed customer having problems watching ‘online streaming videos’. The IT person’s family is frequently troubled with such support calls at night. Often, the family can’t sleep properly, affecting their daytime activities. This IT person is generally competent but badly overworked and this support call is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. He is not able to come and fix the Wi-Fi. The customer on holiday is pissed off, creates a scene and books a room in a rival hotel. The first hotel chain, having lost its ‘kingly’ customer, cancels the contract with the IT vendor providing the support people. The IT vendor that had a contract of exclusivity for the hotel chain in the entire country loses its major customer and takes a bad hit. The news spreads the next day and its shares nosedive. This company is an IT venture of a famous business house of the country. The parent company calls an urgent meeting with all the CXOs to address this exigency. Coincidentally, the hotel guest in question gets a call from his company informing him of cancellation of his vacation and asking him to report immediately. He rues his predicament, not knowing what in the world went wrong to have his vacation curtailed. He is the CFO of the parent company.

In the real world, the circle may not be so small or the strings of events may not be so fortuitous but what cannot be argued is the fact that you begin the trail that ultimately leads back to you. In other words, there is nothing that is not your business. As Justin Timberlake said, “What goes around, comes around.”

So the next time you feel like ditching a vendor for a small lapse of service, think twice: you might be creating a world that ruins your own holiday.

Barber and God: A fable

This fable was an email forward I once received.

=========================
This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen:

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed.

As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation.They talked about so many things and various subjects.

When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said:"I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist.

Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people?

Would there be abandoned children?

If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain.

I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument.The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber."I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

"Ah, but barbers DO exist! That's what happens when people do not come to me.""Exactly!" affirmed the customer.

"That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! That's what happens when people do not go to Him and don't look to Him for help. That's! why there's so much pain and suffering in the world.

"If you think God exists, send this to other people---

If you think God does not exist, delete it!BE BLESSED & BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS !!!!!!!
==================================

While this fable does a good job in making one realize one's mistake by not approaching God, I feel there is a flaw in this article when looked at from a different perspective.
Let me try and bring out the gap in the argument. First I number the lines of interest and then take them one line at a time and try to elucidate that it might be more complex than this article has made out. There you go.

==========
1. "I don't believe that God exists."

2. "Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

3. "Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist.

4. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people?

5. Would there be abandoned children?

6. If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain.

7. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."

=================

1. "I don't believe that God exists."
In trying to prove the existence of God, this article does a good job. It simply explains that people don't go to God and hence they suffer from all the pain and suffering. Beyond that, however, this article is too simplistic and incorrect. It toes the line that religions all over the world have always taken: trying to prove that God is jealous, revengeful and unforgiving. He will give you all the pain and suffering just because you hate him or don't consider him or don't accept his existence or don't go to him. Read the first line that this article begins with.

"This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen."

Ask yourself a question here. Is this the kind of God we are praying to? A God who makes us go through hell if we don't pray or go to him? Doesn't he appear vengeful and unforgiving? Isn't this a God conceived and contrived by humans who in their "mortalized and conditional" love couldn't think of a God that could shower His love upon us "eternally and unconditionally"? And yet, God is not what this article portrays. That is where this article goes wrong. For God is with you even if you don't go to Him. God is irrevocably, perennially, deeply, sublimely, blessing you - in every act you choose for yourself. And that act can be Hitler's genocide or Gandhi's satyagraha.

Let us go to Line 4.
"4. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people?"
All the Popes and priests are men of God, aren't they? Don’t they fall sick and die? Is being sick proof enough of God's inexistence? Line 4 has an inherent fallacy: may be, falling sick itself is not bad. It doesn't have anything to do with suffering. For pain at a physical level is an experience that soul chooses to experience and precisely that's why we fall sick. We consider sickness bad because we find it a precursor to death and death is a bad occurrence in our conscience. What we need is a way to answer for ourselves if death really is a 'bad event'.

Line 5 now.
"5. Would there be abandoned children?"
Yes. There would be. Because of the way the universe is designed, it is blessing every thought and desire of the soul. So if the soul desires to experience learning independently without experiencing parental love then it gets that experience through what we call abandonment or being orphan. And hence, those parents who we brand "bad parents" just because, fearing some social stigma, they dumped the 'physical child' into the orphanage are actually helping the soul of that newborn baby to slowly experience being an orphan. So now with one change in perspective, what you call bad is no longer bad.

Line 6 now.
"6. If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain."
If everybody in this world had money, would there be any value of it? In this world of relativity the good can't exist without the bad. If you've never felt pain, how will you ever enjoy being pain free? Would you even know that there is something called pain free until you experience pain? Pain and suffering are two different things (the author however uses the words as synonyms). Pain can be very much a physical experience. But a pain doesn't necessarily cause suffering. Suffering is a very psychological phenomenon. You can be extremely poor and yet be extremely joyful. Haven't you seen the little kids of labourers playing by the road side? They have the pain of poverty just like their parents, but that pain doesn't convert itself into suffering for the kids. For they need to understand the existence of money before they can feel bad about the lack of it. Until then, they have the pain, but they're not suffering. Pain essentially is a lack of some kind of comfort of a desirable state we want to be in. Disease is a pain because we see health as a desirable state to be in. But can we avoid the suffering due to disease if we know that I'll appreciate my health even more for I now know what it is to be 'not healthy'? And you alleviate your pain and suffering too or just the suffering, even if the pain persists. So just revel in the glory that every bad thing exists so that you could appreciate the good. When many souls are created from one supreme soul (that we call God), some souls choose to be good and some choose to be bad. This is precisely why God doesn't punish anyone for choosing to be bad because they're only seeking to be one aspect of that duality. And until we meet bad souls, we can't appreciate the good souls.

Line 7.
"7. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."

Your imagination is too limited my dear fella. God will never block your free will. If the soul that envelops your body (yes – soul envelopes the body) wants to experience pain and bad things then God lets you experience those things. But why would a soul want to experience bad things or be bad by itself? Because soul knows that the physical life is a limited reality. If you are a good and a versatile actor, would you prevent yourself from taking up a role of a begger, a rich person, a villain, or a hero? Every role has its essence and after you finish one role - say of a hero - you feel bored and feel like doing something different; even if that means being a villain. Our soul goes through such cycles. And would it be fair on the part of God, to first allow us such a freedom to choose and then punish us for being bad? Is that by any means a free choice at all if God tells us something like, "I give you two choices to choose from: Good and Bad. But if you choose bad, you'll suffer in hell for eternity." No. That is not true. And hence, there is no hell. Hell is a concept contrived by religion to introduce fear of God in the minds of people. For without fear, religion would lose its existence. So have no fear. Everything that you did or happened to you which you think is/was bad is meant to be savoured as an experience and God needs to be thanked for it, for he brought to you what your soul chose to experience.

Bless every moment. !!