Simply Mind-Blogging !!!

Krishna - the guy next door

noreply@blogger.com (aditya) — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 13:30:00 +0530

Well, this write up is not about any God or his Godly powers but simply about a guy who remained perhaps the most youthful, the most futuristic, a very self-assured, a very care free, a very independent, least power thirsty, ever unbiased, a very pride less, most courageous and most importantly someone who always had the coolest head above his shoulders no matter in which situation he was thrown into. For me it’s best to see Krishna as an idea rather than a God, because I can bargain and implement an idea but a God is simply out of my reach and at best, his use in my life would be limited to worshipping, something which even Krishna would reject.

So who was Krishna?

Was he a king? No, his grandfather was the King of Mathura.

Was he the most righteous among nobles? No, Yudhishthira was the one who knew best of Dharma.

Was he the best looking among nobles? No, Nakul was the most handsome person of his time.

Was he the biggest warrior of his time? No, Bhisma was the one who could never be defeated in a battlefield.

Did he win over other kingdoms? No, in fact he ran away from Mathura to Dwarka just to avoid war.

And there are many more ordinary stories of him, but wait, let’s discuss some examples from his life which shows how different and ahead of his times he was.

Unorthodox, Futuristic

a. Krishna helped his sister Subhadra elope with Arjuna. He was against the practice of forced marriage or ‘Swaymvar’ of princesses at that time: as the girls were just the prize money in these contests and they never had a say in whom they really wanted to marry. In fact, the forceful swaymvar of Amba by Bhisma led the first foundation of Mahabharta war.

b. In his childhood, he stopped the meaningless and irrational worshipping of many Gods in Gokul.

Content, not power hungry

a. He did have Sudarshan Chakra, the mightiest of all weapons but he never went to annex other kingdoms. He could have easily won over Pandavas and Kauravas, but he was content with his own kingdom.

b. He could himself have become the King of Mathura after killing Kansa, but made his grandfather the king. And see the irony, for the same throne, Kansa had imprisoned his father and killed many. A gold for someone is just a dust for someone else!

No glory in Pride, care free

a. When Jarasandha attacked Mathura, Krishna opted to leave Mathura and settle far away in Dwarka for the welfare of his people. He didn’t find any pride in fighting an unnecessary war just for the sake of his own pride or for the pride of his clan. The opinion and abuses of others never bothered him, even if they called him ‘Ranchor’ for running away from battlefield.

Ever Unbiased, Independent

a. Krishna was a friend of Pandavas, but had his own mind. He respected Karna, very much to the dislikes of Pandavas, who ridiculed him for having friendship with a low born. But for Krishna a birth was never a low but a life could be if surrounded by low thoughts.

b. He also rebuked Draupdi and Bheema for their inhuman vows to punish Duroyadhan and Dushashan.

c. He criticized Bhisma and Karna for their half-baked definition of Dharma, when they showed unflinching support to Duroydhana. As for Krishna dharma could never be static, never be absolute. It was meant to change in changing times and for bigger good.

d. When Arjun and Duroyadhan both approached him for his help in the Mahabharata war, he didn’t refuse Duroyadhan just because Duroyadhan was the enemy of Pandavas, but gave him his army.

Courageous, self-assured

a. When war looked imminent and everyone had given up hope on peace, Krishna took his chance for peaceful settlement between Pandavas and Kauravas, and went alone to Hastinapur to persuade Dhritrashtra and Duroyadhna to abandon this mad idea of war. Standing alone, and amidst his enemies he had the courage to scold Duryodhna and Shakuni for their self-defeating schemes, something which even Dhritrashtra could never do. And what else could poor souls do at his audacity other than being mesmerized!

b. And look at his self-assuredness, he did not fight in Mahabharta war, but also didn’t run away when a choice was to be made between good and bad, and participated in the war as a charioteer of Arjun. And all the big names kept falling in that war, but he stood tall despite of being totally unarmed, and no one could dare touch him. And only if Kauravas could have tried to get rid of him, the war could not have lasted even more than a day!

A true friend, the guy next door

a. Krishna never went around with his baggage of heroic claims. He was just himself when he friended others. And look at the variety of his friends; Bhisma adored him, Vidura praised him, Karna respected him, for Draupdi he was a brother, for Sudama he was always a childhood friend, for Arjuna he was a guide and friend, and for Gopis of Vrindavan, he was just one of their own. He was unlike other kings, who were known either because of their ancestry or stature in society. Krishna was always just him. He never friended people based on ranks, pedigree, age or gender.

It feels so envious, that how could someone live a life so carefree, so effortlessly amidst so much chaos around him. Only if we could learn a bit from his life rather than making him just another God.

Lost in the air...or found it !!

noreply@blogger.com (aditya) — Sun, 3 Sep 2017 20:53:00 +0530

And the plane was going up in the air…things were getting left behind. The airport walls, the runway, the people, the identities everything was getting blurred. Here I was up in the air, inside a plane hanging in between a sky above and clouds below. Though I was not alone and had few more fellow beings nearby, but that was it, this was the new definition of world left to me now. The conventional definition of world had no more significance in the mid air.

So, between an endless sky and clouds, here I was. There was no more North, or South or up and down for me. Completely aimless and groundless and hanging somewhere, I had lost my identity. The identity which was cultivated or rather many times imposed on me for so many years was lost in a moment. Nothing mattered anymore. For a moment I started to think, which world I belonged to. The one which I had come from and claimed to be very much my own, or the one in front of me. My body, my name, my friends, anyone I had known, the paths I had traveled, my successes, my failures all were looking irrelevant in the mid-air. Perhaps, the only way to regain my lost self was if I landed back to the ground. Here I was no one to anyone or rather there was no more of anyone and neither of me. I don’t think I ever had such an existential issue before.

Occasionally when I looked inside the plane, I could come back to myself, and could establish the separateness of my being, otherwise whenever I looked out of the window; it was a nameless and endless ocean of white and blue without any traces of me. The feeling was horrifying as well enchanting. What, if I had to stay like that for many more hours, or days and never return back to land? How would be my life, if such a thing happened? Would any of my previous learning help me in this new world, or would I need to start from zero, and unlearn everything I had learnt so far. These thoughts were disturbing as well strangely calming. And somewhere I knew that in some hours I would be safely landing at a familiar turf, ending the current uncertainty, and strangeness and then these thoughts would not haunt me.

And then, the plane started gliding underneath, and I found myself below the clouds. Now I could make some sense of where I was. At a great distance downwards, I could figure out the brownish land masses, the shining water bodies and the tiny spots of greenness around them. But, still I was unable to see any signs of roads and vehicles, the marvels of human accomplishments. At best, I could make out some straight and curvy yellowish patches, originating in between from somewhere and ending abruptly.

And then another thought struck me. In some time, I was going to land, and was to continue my life from where I had left, but was it really worth it? From, such a magnitude, with a much broader vision (at least literally), what I could see was that every possible creature or object I had acquainted or known or imagined of so far, everything was looking so tiny, or even not visible. So whatever, I had held so grandeur, so valuable, and had spent energy of my life to get after, was actually not bigger than a child’s play. Even the proud ideas of ‘I’, and ‘my accomplishments’ were lost in this maze. I felt as if in my entire life I had been misinformed about my priorities, and had just wasted it in gathering and building stuffs, which didn't matter at all. Neither it mattered that how good or bad I did in my financial and social standings. From this distance, the whole idea of usual life was looking invented and fictitious to me.

In this new light, life suddenly became much simpler, and I had a laugh at my ambitions, my desires and expectations I had tangled my life with. I can’t say how strong and lasting this feeling would be, but at least this experience gave me a totally new dimension to look at my life. Perhaps, up in the air, I didn't lose myself but found a new of me.

To Write Or Not To Write

noreply@blogger.com (aditya) — Wed, 7 Sep 2016 20:51:00 +0530

My fingers are at keyboard but I don’t know which letter to start with. What to write and what for, for myself or for others, for a passion or for an accomplishment or just for my engagement. Yeah, I am lost, lost in my direction and my pursuit. But still there is urge to write and so remains the question.

Not sure what should I write about? Should it be about history, politics, economics, tourism, religion or what or whatever? Everyone is already up there writing something about anything and so I will be just rewriting and have nothing new to offer. Then why to join this bandwagon. Why not I should try something from my personal experience instead, something which exclusively belongs to me and so the total authority is mine. Others can only share their views but the author can only be only me.

But the irony is that there is nothing like a personal experience in this world. The experiences which might sound unique are actually not. With such a big human crowd out there it is very likely that one’s personal experience has been experienced by someone else albeit at some other time and in a little different form. But the essence is same. The agony, the pain, the ecstasy, the confusion, the dilemmas and the reactions all are but same; none is actually new or unique. If we turn the pages of history we will come across different characters in different times and different regions who have gone through almost the same experiences as others. It is just that the character has changed, the plot has changed and the audience has changed. But the story remains the same. So again a pause for me. Sharing of my personal experience also does not bring any excitement in me.

So I come back to the old question. I don’t have anything new to offer through my writings. Hundreds of thousands of stories, blogs and poems are already written on perhaps the same number of subjects or even more. So what to write?

But wait, have I got it all correct? People out there still rewrite and rephrase old stories and yes there are people who read it. Perhaps here lies the answer to my questions. I don’t need to look writings and readers in silos. They together make one entity and perhaps need to be looked that way. Let me little elaborate it.

Readers are different people: people with different thoughts and different understandings and so different choices. What may appeal to one may not appeal to another in same way. And for the same reason, for one subject a single book cannot satisfy all its readers. And so an ordinary writing has equal chance of getting read against a masterpiece in the same subject. A good reader will not settle with any inferior writing and a not so learned reader will also relish a not so good writing .So every writing has its share of readers and so each will survive and make a good reading.

One more point I will like to elaborate. Might be a new writing looks more like a repetition of an old one but still it is a repetition by chance and not by intention. Now why I say so is because of commonness of our human experience that every writing on it will have some common stories to tell but still it will have personal perspective of the narrator and so essentially won’t be a repetition. For instance let two people are experiencing the same phenomenon together. Their experience will be very common but still vary somewhat because of their individual personality and individual interpretation. So when a reader goes through different writings on same subject he is also going through different writers and so each story appeals him somewhat differently. And that’s where the originality or non repetitiveness of writing lies and why it appeals to its reader.

Now the pause ends for me. Hopefully I will find something to write about which is unique and original.

Ye Dilli Hai Meri Jan!!

noreply@blogger.com (aditya) — Sun, 5 Jul 2015 20:52:00 +0530

Hello, I am a Delhite,The one and only - The Dilliwala'. You must have heard of me, I am very famous.Today I wanted to tell you something about me, you see I am a very modest person but with so many media bashing against me I just thought to share myself with you. You know 'Brand Marketing', the another way to sell your stuffs; some MBA guy told me about it and so I thought to give it a try.

Now from where should I start, but I will start with the most obvious about me; yes I am the one, the famous and the rich. Actually I am the way I want to be, I have the money,the connections, and I know all the tricks to survive in this crooked city.And I have the best of the cars and gadgets. You name it and I have it.But it's not me alone here,heard there are some other species also who have come from Bihar, U.P and other BIMARU states. They are so disgusting ,without any manners, just squabbling and crawling and spreading around their filth. And those idiots always come in my way when I am out on my Ferrari or BMW.They are giving bad name to 'my city',yes you heard it right,I said that the city is mine and of no one's else. But few politicians say that the city has become cosmopolitan and a place for everyone. Must be another disguise of politicians who added these beggars and laborers in some list of their own and we became a world culture.What rubbish!! Anyways, who cares! Let them be from where they are, its none of my concern.

Also I am a very honorable person. I honor everyone. And without honor neither I can live nor I can let anyone else live. I follow the mantra of 'Pran jaye par Honor na jaye'. And those media guys, men of no honor, think that I am a killer.Those fools, ignorant of Indian culture, let them know that I am the savior and custodian of the Gotra system, and there are many more systems, I will let you know some other time. But who listens? They are after me, must be, like others.You see I have lots and lots of money, so much that even I don't know. That must be the reason for all this noise against me. But let them say, who cares?

Another good thing you will notice in me is that I am a great friend and very honest. You just try once.I am so good at company, I will not leave you till I know all your bank details or any other information which you want to hide. I won't leave anything personal in your life. You see we are a family and in a family there is nothing personal. But then it's said that I am unprofessional and don't allow personal space. Now what is that, what is this personal space? Sometimes I don't understand this angrezi also.When I have already said that whole Delhi is mine then where is the question of any personal space. What nonsense? I already said that this is my place and so are you.You see how great a friend I am, I won't allow any space between us, whether personal, professional or any. You don't worry, just don't pay any attention to those who want to divide us.

I am also a very peace loving person. I don't allow any noise in night. Our streets become very quiet after 9. By that time ,everyone packs himself peacefully in his house. You see, what is the need to stay on streets so late and disturb others. It may also corrupt the morality and character if one stays out that late, also who knows what may come out of the dark, why to take any chances. But then no one understands this, what I hear is that there is no safety and security in my city and it's not like Mumbai where there is never a night. My reply to them is that Delhi is not Mumbai and never will be.I am a very dignified person and hope you must be also.How can I allow that Filmi-Shilmi culture to grow in my place.So never pay any heed to them.

I think that you are the first person with whom I could speak my heart out and who could understand me. Thanks a lot!!

I promise that in future also I won't disappoint you and will not allow anyone to play with the image of my city.This is a world city and I am the world citizen.

Still you have any doubt??

The Story of Hindi Cinema

noreply@blogger.com (aditya) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:58:00 +0530

In my childhood, I had read somewhere that 'Culture is the Mirror of a Society'. The best way to know about a society is to know about its culture. A vibrant and lively culture can only be an outcome of a progressive and prosperous society. In the modern times the culture has evolved in many forms like movies, painting, literature, music, dance and cuisine. And if we look today, out of the various forms of arts known the world over, it is the cinema which is the most popular and influential medium and represents the mood and aspirations of people at large. So it will not be wrong to say that the best way to know our society is through the kind of cinemas made these days.

In early years, it was little difficult to comprehend the exact meaning of this statement but after watching hindi cinema for a few years and observing the social developments around, the statement has started to make more sense to me. The way our society has evolved and the way our movies have changed, both tell the same story.

The Current Hindi cinema has changed a lot from the cinemas made in 60s and 70s. Everything has changed about film making: the kind of stories, the style of narration, the kind of songs, the actors, the language and most importantly the purpose of film making itself. It is not to say that everything has become better or worse but definitely the change only reflects the change in our social values. From a time when a Raj in Anari refused to betray his conscience for making any illegal money we have come to a Guru Bhai who believes that money making is the only noble virtue, no matter how you earn it. It would have been only suicidal for any producer to make a ‘Guru’ in those days and an ‘Anari’ now days.

Moral values, personal sacrifices, complexity of human relationships and social divide were few of the plots around which all the early movies revolved. The protagonist was supposed to uphold the moral values at any cost and self sacrifice was more like a reward. But our country has come a long way since then. From being pseudo socialist, where excess of personal money was considered amoral we have come to a capitalist society, where money making is considered the only virtue. It does not matter any more that how has One earned the money; but what matters is whether he is good enough to earn money or not. Slowly, we have accepted Corruption and Inefficiency as part of our daily lives and people with these qualifications enjoy the maximum privileges in the society. So has been the case with our screen heroes. The concept of Mr Right and Mr. Wrong is replaced by a lesser Mr. Wrong and the original Mr. Wrong has almost disappeared. The difference between a hero and a villain is becoming a story of the past and the only way to recognize a hero is that he is supposed to outsmart all other characters in a movie, at least in the eyes of heroine. The public sympathy for the hero as a terrorist in the movie Fanna, where the hero didn’t even blink to kill anyone, only shows a wider acceptance of Mr. Wrong.

Another change the movies have gone through is in the story and the language. The early movie directors generally had either villages or middle class in the backdrop of their stories and special care was taken in the language. There used to be a rich use of Urdu, Hindi and local dialects in the dialogues. The movies like Teesri Kasam and Mother India beautifully depicted the India in villages and were a big success of their times. The landscape has changed today. The villages have lost their charm and we are introduced to something called Indian Diaspora which only emerged a few years back. Unlike the rest of India, this Indian Diaspora is lot wealthier and growing in size and influence everyday. But what these ‘foreign Indians’ miss is their home country and their home connection. And the movie industry has jumped to the idea. Major Production Houses are routinely coming up with the movies specially aimed for Indians living abroad, and these movies do well also. But sadly what they are selling is not Indian. Indianness has got reduced to showing Indian festivals and celebrations. The use of Hindi and Urdu is on a downfall and the words in these languages are more often used to create amusement. The contemporary language is shown more as rowdy and loud and the original sweetness is lost. However, there has been handful of movies like Swades and Namesake where a very true picture of contemporary India is shown; as it is in the villages and is in the cities. These movies were more so important because they were made under big banners.

            Also, majority of earlier movies had some kind of social theme or message. On one hand movies like Bandini, Sujata and Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam discussed the state of women in Indian society, the movies like Guide and Pyasa directly hit the very foundation on which a society stands. There were also many successful movies made on our history, mythology and also the patriotism. The Middle Class was flavour of many movies like Golmaal and Chupke Chupke and these were big hits. What was common in all these movies was that they all could establish some kind of connection with the Indian audience across all ages, either living in cities or villages. Everything was Indian about these movies and the viewer could easily identify himself with the story.

            But as the canvas of Hindi cinema grew, such movies became a part of what is popularly called Parallel cinema or Art cinema. The mainstream directors and producers kept away from such experimental movies and rather stuck to conventional Masala movies which had a much better chance of revenue making. So, what happened was, beginning late 80’s we have had a flood of movies which all were mostly a copy of or what they say a remake of another hit Hindi or English movie, and so all looked terribly similar. The creativity was more invested in not bringing a new idea but to recreate an existing idea. We suddenly had a dearth of mainstream producers and directors like Raj kapoor, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, V Shantaram and Hrishikesh Mukharji who gave the Film Industry its golden era and an envious position in the world cinema.

Now a days seldom we come across movies which are original and uninspired from any previous movie. The originality and creativity have no takers. The focus has completely changed from making a good movie to a hit movie. Everyone is on a hunt for a hit formula. Inspired compositions and inspired scripts(read copied) have become the norm of the day and a lot of emphasis is put on marketing. So sometimes I wonder whether the earlier film makers were fools to ignore such an important aspect of film making when none of their films look repetitive. Or were they too smart to know how to make a movie which was not only good but equally successful. We need to accept the fact that these days barring a handful of directors, the rest, and mostly the big banners, just keep on playing with a hit formula.

Well, to say that everything is bad won’t be right. In fact the Hindi movies have a much wider audience today and make a lot more money. The Movie Stars are more like the cultural ambassadors of our country and many are compared with the best in the world. What I feel is more needed is to understand that movie making is not just another form of business but also a work of art. To look them separately is only going to deteriorate the standard of commercial cinema. We need more producers like Aamir Khan, Vishal Bhardwaj and Vidhu Vinod Chopra who have masterfully blended the difference between a commercial cinema and a meaningful cinema. And they have also tasted the success quite continuously. Hope the rest follow suit and we just don’t keep getting just another hit movie but also a memorable movie of our times !

Science and Religion

noreply@blogger.com (aditya) — Mon, 8 Feb 2010 20:58:00 +0530

There has always been disputes, differences and layers of mistrust between the two ideologies-one called Religion and another called Science.The former is generally identified as a practice,believe or set of daily life activities passed on to a new generation by an old one from the times unknown whereas Science is generally associated with future, something new and not archaic, something more contemporary,directly involving current generations and so very universal in appeal.Also we have many religions followed in the world but there is only one Science followed.

But are the above generalizations( I won't call definitions) adequate or correct or further are both ideologies contradicting in nature so that the existence of one can not accept the existence of other and so we often have to make a choice between the two.

Let me take Science first.

Our believe in Science in undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of human race which has helped us in breaking the age old shackles of ignorance and false believes and so has helped us in overcoming our greatest worries of poverty,misery, diseases and security. And still is helping us in unlocking many more frontiers which looked beyond our reach so far.It is science which is helping us in understanding all the mysteries in the tangible/real world and helping us in making this world a more comfortable place. Most importantly it has helped us in being prosperous; something without which we couldn't think of any other development of any kind.It would be apt to quote Vivekananda here who said that all growths in a society can be attained only after the society becomes prosperous.Unless that is achieved the society can't strive for higher growth be it in field of spirituality or be it in the field of materialism.We need to feed the poor first rather than bring new ideas to him.Only a healthy mind and healthy body can be a recipient of higher knowledge. And it is where Science has done wonders. So it can't be our enemy but a great friend.So how can we ever question its service to us.

But is that all? Have all our questions got answered? Well, I don't think so.

There are many other questions we still need answer of.Like why was this Universe created and by whom and why is it in this current form and what will happen in the future? Who controls all this? Why do we continue in our current form? Why different people think differently? What is the purpose of this life and so on...the questions seem to be endless.Well,is it possible that this status quo is just a coincidence and there is no source behind it or is it all structured, already some plan in place for all of us, just we could not comprehend it. By the theory of Science it can be said that this whole setup can't be just a coincidence because whenever there is some effect there must be some cause behind it.Every state of an object has a causal relationship for its existence in that state.
So what is it we don't know or need to know...

Let me come to the Religion now...Let us see whether it provides any solution or just imagines to provide some solution..
We will also see whether it is in loggerheads with Science or it is just another wrong notion...
What is basically a religion? Is it a social phenomenon, defined by the society in which it's practiced and therefore generally remain confined only to that society? And therefore we have different religions practiced in different parts of the world. Is it just a rule setup in the name of God by few people in their own times and gets carried forward as a part of tradition or civilization in the new times? Can such practices be called a true religion? Further why a religion, as perceived by many cease to continuously evolve like Science and generally does not appeal to the young people?

Well, if we look a little deep in the making of these religions we will find that they did not thrive for so many centuries only by their zealous followers but by few thinkers and philosophers who with their own understanding and experiences time and again established the basic philosophy of these religions among masses. Further many of these religions got started with a rejection of the prevalent rituals and practices at their time.So to say that religions didn't have any reasoning or theory behind them will be a little naivete.There must have gone a lot of research and personal experiences in the formation of what we know as a religion.It is a privilege here to take some examples from India and and what is commonly known as Hinduism - the religion practiced by people on other side of Hindukush mountains, that's how it got this name. Gautam Buddha was a prince in Hindu kingdom. But he didn't endorse any of the rituals in Hinduism and decried them. Unless he experienced the knowledge or truth himself he kept looking for it.Also he said the same to his disciples that not to follow his teachings blindly but experience it first.And Buddha was not alone, there have been many other thinkers also who had their own interpretations and who never believed in any ritual or practices of their times, but still were very much part of Hinduism because they were against those mis informed practices but not to the essence of Hinduism. Be it Shankaracharya, Ramkrishna Paramhansa,Vivekananda or Aurvindo Ghosh, they always described the religion as per their own experiences and not going by what people around them perceived it.

So it can be said that the way a religion is presented and practiced in its present form may not represent it's core essence , what we get to see may be a muti layered structure which need to get investigated first by the self and then only we can either contradict it or accept it.So basically a true religion can't be a social phenomenon rather it's a very personal experience. For me the true religion is that which compels you to question and then to find answers and not the one which just enslaves you intellect.

Now the question is whether the religon has answers to the complex questions and does it really stand against Science?

Well, I think that these questions are big enough to be answered in this blog.. will try to answer them in a new blog...here I have just tried to discuss about the legitimacy of both these ideologies and their subsequent contributions to the mankind.