My Thoughts My Pen

Religious scripts are not the problem its (mis)interpretation of the texts are the problem

2026-10-22T07:55:32.475-07:00

Whether religious scriptures or their interpretations are the main problem is a highly debated topic with strong points on both sides.

Many people agree with your view that ancient texts are often misunderstood or twisted. However, others argue that some texts contain inherently difficult or problematic ideas from the time they were written.

A Common Complaint, A Common Defence

Every major religion has, at some point, been blamed for violence, oppression, or backwardness. Critics point to specific verses — a call to holy war, a rule about slavery, a passage that seems to demean women or outsiders — and conclude that the religion itself is the source of the harm. Believers, in turn, often respond the same way regardless of tradition: "that's not what it means, that's not how it was meant to be read, that's someone twisting it for power."

This defence shows up in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and beyond. That pattern itself is worth examining. If the same excuse works for every religion, either every religion is lying about its own texts, or there's something structurally true about how sacred texts function that makes misinterpretation the real engine of harm.

The evidence leans toward the second explanation.

How Interpretation Goes Wrong

Scholars of religion and hermeneutics (the study of interpretation) point to a few recurring failure modes that cut across traditions:

1. Decontextualization.

Verses are lifted out of their historical, literary, or narrative setting and applied as universal rules. A wartime instruction becomes a permanent commandment. A poetic metaphor becomes a legal statute. Religious studies scholar Karen Armstrong has argued extensively that scriptural literalism — reading ancient texts as if they were modern legal codes — is itself a relatively modern phenomenon, not the historical norm for how these texts were read by the communities that produced them.

2. Selective emphasis.

Every scripture is long, internally varied, and sometimes contradictory on its surface. This makes cherry-picking easy: a leader can find a verse to justify almost anything while ignoring surrounding material that complicates or contradicts it. The Bible contains both calls for hospitality to strangers and, in isolated passages, harsher material about outsiders. The Quran contains both verses invoked to justify violence and verses emphasizing mercy and the sanctity of life (5:32 is frequently cited by Muslim scholars specifically to counter violent interpretations). Which verses get amplified is a choice made by interpreters, not something dictated by the text itself.

3. Authority capture.

Religious institutions and leaders often gain power by positioning themselves as the sole valid interpreters of scripture. Once that gatekeeping role exists, interpretation can be shaped to serve institutional or political interests rather than the text's original sense. Historian of religion Reza Aslan has written about how this dynamic played out in early Islamic history, where competing political factions each claimed scriptural backing for their claims to authority. The same dynamic is visible in medieval Christendom's use of scripture to justify the divine right of kings, and in colonial-era distortions of Hindu texts to entrench caste hierarchies more rigidly than earlier practice supports.

4. Translation and transmission loss.

Sacred texts are frequently read in translation, generations removed from their original language and context, by people with no training in the source language, genre conventions, or historical setting. Small shifts in translation can carry large theological consequences — a well-known example is debate among Hebrew Bible scholars over the word often rendered "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14, versus the more literally accurate "young woman," a translation choice with major downstream theological effects in Christian tradition.

5. Motivated reasoning.

People — including religious leaders — tend to arrive at texts already wanting a particular conclusion (political power, social control, personal gain, in-group cohesion) and then find scriptural support after the fact. This is not unique to religion; it is a well-documented feature of human reasoning generally, but it has outsized consequences when the "evidence" being reasoned toward carries divine authority in the eyes of followers.

The Pattern Repeats Across Traditions

- Christianity: Scripture was used to justify both the abolition of slavery and its defence, sometimes citing the very same book (the Bible was invoked on both sides of the American Civil War).

- Islam: The overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars and jurists reject the theology of groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, arguing their reading of jihad and takfir (excommunication) is a radical departure from mainstream Islamic legal tradition, not a faithful rendering of it.

- Judaism: Rabbinic tradition itself is built on centuries of debate over interpretation (the Talmud is essentially a record of interpretive argument), and modern disputes between ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform communities often hinge on interpretive method, not disagreement about the base text.

- Hinduism: Texts like the Bhagavad Gita have been read both as support for caste rigidity and, by figures like Gandhi, as a call to nonviolence and equality — the same text, opposite conclusions.

- Buddhism: Despite popular Western perception of Buddhism as inherently pacifist, Buddhist nationalist movements in Myanmar and Sri Lanka have selectively used doctrine to justify ethnic violence, which mainstream Buddhist scholars and monastics have publicly rejected as a distortion of core teachings on compassion (metta) and non-harm (ahimsa).

Why This Distinction Matters

Treating "the text" and "the interpreter" as separate objects of critique has practical consequences:

- It keeps blame accurately placed on the humans making choices — leaders, institutions, and individuals — rather than on a book, which has no agency.

- It opens space for reform from *within* traditions, since believers who reject harmful interpretations aren't asked to abandon their faith, only to contest a particular reading of it.

- It resists the trap of essentializing entire religions (and their billions of adherents) based on the worst-behaving subset of self-appointed interpreters.

Ultimately, religion is a mix of both the written word and the human heart. How a society behaves usually depends on which parts of their text they choose to emphasize and how they adapt those words to the modern world. At the same time, this distinction isn't a blank defence. Texts do have some content that constrains plausible interpretation — not every reading is equally defensible, and "it's just interpretation" can become its own evasion if used to wave away a genuinely common or textually well-supported reading. Serious religious scholarship generally tries to hold both things at once: texts are not infinitely malleable, but the leap from "text says X" to "therefore this harmful policy is required" almost always involves interpretive choices that reasonable, faithful readers within the same tradition have rejected.

We Know Our Rights By Heart. Do We Know Our Duties?

2026-07-24T22:56:31.755-07:00

We Know Our Rights By Heart. Do We Know Our Duties?

A few months ago, a video of a man refusing to stand for the national anthem in a cinema hall went viral, followed by the now-familiar cycle: outrage, op-eds, a few arrests, and, within a week, silence. Around the same time, in the same news cycle, another story got a fraction of the attention — a municipal survey found that a majority of respondents in several Indian cities admitted to routinely littering public spaces, dodging civic taxes they knew they owed, or ignoring queue discipline "when no one was watching." Nobody organised a protest about that one. Nobody made a reel.

That contrast says something about us. Ask any Indian to name a Fundamental Right, and most will manage at least two or three — equality, freedom of speech, the right to life. Ask the same person to name a Fundamental Duty, and the silence tends to be longer. This isn't a trivia gap. It's a symptom of how lopsided our relationship with the Constitution has become, quick to demand, slow to deliver.

A Constitution Built With Two Halves, But We Only Read One

The Constitution gives us both halves of this contract, and it does so deliberately. Part III (Articles 12-35) lays out our Fundamental Rights — enforceable in court, backed by the full weight of the judiciary, and rightly celebrated as the backbone of Indian democracy. Part IV-A, added through the 42nd Amendment in 1976, gives us 11 Fundamental Duties. Among them: respect the Constitution and its ideals, defend the country, promote harmony among all citizens, preserve our composite culture, develop scientific temper, safeguard public property, and strive toward excellence in every field of individual and collective activity.

Here's the catch, and it's the hinge on which this entire debate turns: rights are justiciable. Duties are not. If your right is violated, you can walk into a courtroom and demand redress, and the state is bound to respond. If you violate your duty litter a public park, evade tax, incite communal hatred online, or simply refuse to vote no court will summon you. The Constitution asks. It doesn't compel. And that single asymmetry explains almost everything about why one half of the Constitution lives rent-free in our national consciousness while the other gathers dust in a textbook appendix.

Why We Gravitated Toward One Half

This lopsidedness isn't laziness on the part of citizens; it's structural incentive working exactly as you'd expect. A violated right is personal and immediate you feel it, and the system hands you a clear path to fight back: a petition, a lawyer, a headline. A neglected duty, by contrast, is diffuse and collective. The damage from a hundred people skipping their civic responsibilities is entirely real: potholed roads nobody reported, a river nobody stopped polluting, an election nobody bothered to vote in, but no single victim can point to a single wrongdoer and demand justice. There's no one to sue for a country's collective apathy.

Political mobilisation follows this same logic, because movements need a villain and a courtroom, not a mirror. Parties, activists, and civil society organise around rights because that's where the energy, the votes, and the headlines are. Nobody builds a movement around "we should all be developing scientific temper" or "let's collectively remember to segregate our waste." Civic education compounds the problem further; most schoolchildren across the country can recite the Preamble from memory, yet a large number couldn't list even four of the 11 duties if asked in an exam tomorrow. We have built an entire civic imagination around what we're owed, and almost none around what we owe back.

What This Imbalance Actually Costs Us

The consequence isn't abstract or merely philosophical; it shows up in the texture of daily national life. It's visible in the corruption we tolerate as long as it benefits "our side" of a political or social divide. It's visible in the environmental destruction we protest loudly about in the abstract climate change, deforestation, air quality while rarely altering our own habits of consumption, waste, or water use. It's visible in low voter turnout in some of the very constituencies loudest about their rights being ignored, as though voting were someone else's job. A democracy is meant to function as a two-way contract: the state owes citizens their rights, and citizens owe the republic their duties in return. When only one half of that contract lives in public consciousness, we end up with a citizenry fluent in grievance but out of practice in responsibility, quick to insist "the government must," rarely pausing to ask "what must I."

The Fair Counter-Argument

None of this is a call to guilt-trip citizens into silence, and it's worth being honest about the other, equally important side of this debate. The framers deliberately made Fundamental Duties non-justiciable, and they had good reason to. A state legally empowered to punish citizens for "insufficient patriotism" or "inadequate civic virtue" is a dangerous instrument in the wrong hands one that could easily be weaponised against dissenters, minorities, or inconvenient journalists, all under the comfortable guise of "enforcing duty." Keeping duties moral rather than legal was a deliberate safeguard against exactly this kind of majoritarian overreach, not a drafting oversight.

There's also a legitimate and pressing concern that "focus on your duties, not just your rights" rhetoric has been and continues to be used to silence people raising genuine grievances, telling protestors to be "more dutiful" instead of addressing what they are protesting about in the first place. Rights exist precisely because they cannot be made conditional on good behaviour; that is the entire point of a right, and no amount of duty-talk should be allowed to quietly erode that principle.

Where That Leaves Us

The answer, then, isn't to make duties legally enforceable; that road leads somewhere far more dangerous than mere civic apathy. The answer is cultural and educational. Schools could test students on the 11 duties with the same seriousness they test them on the Preamble. Civic curricula could spend as much time on "what do I owe my neighbourhood" as they do on "what can I demand from the state." Local bodies could publicly track small, measurable duty-linked outcomes: voter turnout, waste segregation compliance, tax filing rates, the way they already track grievance redressal.

None of this requires a single new law. It requires a citizenry that treats civic duty as seriously as it treats civic entitlement — not because the Constitution threatens punishment, but because a republic only survives on citizens who show up for it, not just citizens who show up to demand from it.

We built a Constitution with two halves. It's time we started reading both.

India's Parliament Is Getting Older While India Gets Younger — Why That's a Problem

2026-07-15T01:38:47.468-07:00

India's Parliament Is Getting Older While India Gets Younger — Why That's a Problem

India is one of the youngest countries on earth. As of 2024, roughly 65-66% of Indians are under the age of 35, and the median age of the population is around 29-30 years. Yet the people making decisions for this young country are, on average, nowhere close to that age. We need more young people in politics because they tend to bring new perspectives and energy, which can challenge outdated thinking and encourage innovation. they bring fresh ideas, make politics more representative, because a significant share of the population otherwise has little voice in decisions that shape their lives, they represent large part of the population and help to make democracy more inclusive and focused on future. Youth participation also improves policy on issues that affect them directly, like education, jobs, climate and public services

A Widening Gap

The 18th Lok Sabha (2024) has been called the oldest parliament in India's history. Over half of its 543 MPs — 52% — are older than 55. The average age of an elected MP is 56, only a marginal dip from 59 in the previous Lok Sabha. Just 11% of MPs are 40 or younger, and only about 1 in 20 MPs is under 35 — even though nearly two out of every three Indians fall into that age bracket. Contrast this with India's very first Lok Sabha in 1951-52, when the average MP was 46.5 years old and roughly 1 in 6 MPs was under 35 — a far closer mirror of the country's own demographic makeup at the time.

This is not a minor statistical curiosity. It is the picture of a governing body that looks less and less like the population it represents, at exactly the moment India's youth population needs its aspirations, its anxieties, and its technological fluency reflected in policy.

Why the Age Gap Matters

The concern isn't simply that older leaders are incapable of understanding young people — many are thoughtful and stay engaged with change. The concern is structural: lived experience shapes priorities, and a parliament skewed heavily toward one generation will systematically underweight the concerns of another.

Today's under-35 Indians are the first generation to grow up entirely inside the smartphone economy, gig work, AI, and platform-based livelihoods. They face a youth unemployment rate that stood at 10.2% in 2023-24, entering a job market where a large share of graduates is considered underprepared for the work actually available. These are not abstract problems — they are the daily reality of the very demographic barely represented in the chamber shaping labour law, education policy, and technology regulation.

A legislature dominated by a much older cohort is less likely to intuitively grasp the urgency of these issues, or to legislate with the technical fluency needed to regulate AI, fintech, gig-work platforms, and data privacy — all areas where the underlying technology is moving faster than most lawmakers' direct experience with it.

The Nepotism Problem Compounds the Age Problem

Nepotism in politics creates a range of interconnected problems, both practical and democratic: The age gap is worsened by how dynastic Indian politics remains. Analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms found that 21% of India's sitting MPs, MLAs, and MLCs come from political families — with the rate rising to 31% in the Lok Sabha specifically, meaning nearly one in three MPs inherited a family's political capital rather than building their own path from outside the system. This isn't confined to one party: research from Harvard and the University of Mannheim found dynastic representation has historically run at comparable levels across India's two largest parties, with smaller regional parties often showing even higher concentrations of family-based succession.

Dynastic entry tends to reinforce the age problem rather than fix it, since political families often groom successors within established networks and ideologies rather than opening space for genuinely new voices, technical experts, or first-generation entrants — the very people most likely to bring fresh thinking on technology, transparency, and governance reform.

What Younger, More Independent Parliamentarians Could Offer

Technological fluency: lawmakers who have built apps, worked in startups, or grown up online are better positioned to write laws for AI, data protection, and the digital economy — rather than legislating a world they only encounter second-hand.

Direct stake in outcomes: younger MPs will personally live with the consequences of today's decisions on climate, jobs, and debt for another 40-50 years, giving them a different relationship to long-term trade-offs than a lawmaker in their 70s.

Disruption of entrenched networks: candidates who rise on merit or grassroots support rather than family name are structurally less indebted to the patronage networks that enable corruption, since they owe less to inherited alliances and favours.

Closing the representation gap: a legislature that mirrors the country's actual age profile is likely to produce policy that reflects lived priorities rather than assumptions about what young people need.

The Counterargument Worth Taking Seriously

None of this means age or lineage alone determines merit, and a fair treatment of this topic has to acknowledge the other side:

Experience has real value: Legislating well requires understanding institutions, coalition-building, and the slow mechanics of governance — skills that often take years to develop, and older MPs bring institutional memory that a fully inexperienced legislature would lack.

Young and dynastic are not mutually exclusive: Many of India's youngest MPs today are themselves the children or spouses of established politicians, meaning "younger parliamentarians" alone does not automatically solve the nepotism problem — dynasties have simply started grooming successors earlier.

Some structural reforms matter more than age: Critics argue the deeper fixes are things like state funding of elections, curbing the enormous cost of campaigning (a major reason parties lean on wealthy or well-connected candidates), and strengthening intra-party democracy — reforms that could open the door to younger and non-dynastic candidates alike, regardless of any specific age target.

Technology fluency isn't strictly generational: Plenty of older policymakers work closely with technical advisors and younger staff, and legislative competence on technology depends more on institutional capacity — expert committees, research wings — than on a lawmaker's personal age.

The Bottom Line

The data is hard to argue with: India's parliament has grown older even as India itself has grown younger, and a meaningful share of its members owe their seats to family lineage rather than an independent political rise. Whatever the counterarguments about experience, the case for more younger, technically literate, and less dynastically-tied parliamentarians rests on a simple democratic principle — a legislature should, at minimum, resemble the country it governs closely enough to legislate its future with genuine understanding, not inherited assumption.

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Sources:

- 18th Lok Sabha data (Wikipedia, PRS Legislative Research, ADR);

- India demographic data (UN World Population Prospects, Worldometer, Economic Survey 2024);

- Dynastic politics data (Association for Democratic Reforms/National Election Watch, Harvard-Mannheim dataset via IndiaSpend/Scroll/ThePrint).

A thought about the 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan.

2025-05-20T01:08:00.000-07:00

Celebrations across the world by Pakistani and Western communities after India paused attacks on terrorism. Remember PM Modi said its pause not the ceasefire as Mr. Trump announced. First, why is Western media celebrating the Pakistani narrative? What are they going to get? Next is why the West adore Pakistan so much that a clear-cut bashing of their crybaby by Indian military power still West tries to console themselves to say that Pakistan still has the stupidity to announce its victories! Does the West believe that Pakistan won this or is it their wilful ignorance? I do not know but what I do know is that Western media is biased towards Pakistan. The good thing being in the UK is I could access the Pakistani media which gives me an idea of western media just playing to the tunes of Pakistani media. It is annoying to see that though Western media has more access to Indian narratives which are produced in the open world with facts and figures of modern-day technology, the West is not ready to rely on them than the concatenated Pakistani narrative without any proof.

Background to the conflict, the Pakistani general Asim Munir addressed his people and made some Hinduphobic comments. He indicated that Muslims are different from Hindus without even having a second thought about his origin! Can you imagine what would have the West to say if such comments were made by an Indian Hindu leader? What would have been the response of the Western media? His comments were like he is a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed! Also, his comments were without the understanding that the land he standing is a gift from the Hindu people! He is at the mercy of the same Hindu people who are different from him. He is the occupier! It is like someone wonderer comes to your home and you feel pity on him, offer him some food and shelter. One day he says the bed you provided for him is of his own and he throws you out of the house and claims that the home was always been his own and no one other than him exists! Because the West has provided him with the catchy phrase “Islamophobia”. He can hide behind that and terrorise the world as he wishes. Ironi is the whole world is suffering from the terror of Islamic jehadists, however, the West popularised this catchy phrase and the whole world is incarcerated against the use of any means of force against terror. Did any intellectuals condemn him?

Every one of these so-called intellectuals became cowered and deceitful by hiding under these fancy words and phrases, without even realising what are we leaving behind for our future generations. Unless we understand there are some basic problems, we will not be able to find solutions. People who are responsible for finding some solution are closing their eyes and pretending like all is well. All is not well, Mr Munir’s kids may not be living in Pakistan. He may have already moved his assets out of that shit hole, he may have 101 exit plans. However what about the common man of that country? Just spilling this kind of poison from the early age of these kids in the name of Madarsas, Mr. Munir is not going to live there as soon his work is done he will disappear to some nice location to spend the rest of his life peacefully when this country is struggling to meet the end and fighting for one meal.

Do so-called torchbearers of the democracy pin the responsibility on this gentleman? A little bit of background about the country of Pakistan. When Pakistan was divided from India based on religion there were nearly 14% of Hindus, and 8.8% of Sikhis were in Pakistan based on the 1941 census. However, based on the 2023 census Hindus were 2.17% and Sikhis were 0.01%. How systematically religious cleansing happened in that country. Did any Western media, or intellectuals bother about it? This was in addition to the trauma this country caused to the Hindus and Sikhs who were massacred and filled in the railway carriages and sent back to India during the partition. There is no end to the blood bath this country caused to humanity. The Western masters didn’t even blink because they were focused on their goal of having a puppet to control Russia. Since this country is a curse to this region. The rulers and military just sided with the side which gave them money. That is the reason though per capita GDP of Pakistan was higher than India till the 80’s. To date, they already had 25 bailouts by the IMF which is the maximum number of bailouts to a country in the history of the IMFs existence. British created this country to keep control of central Asia. They lost interest USA gave money to control Russia, and Pakistan followed their orders. The USA left China came. Tomorrow China will leave someone else will come. Unfortunately, the common citizen of this country could not even get a penny benefit. Because the money will be distributed to the top politicians and military personnel first. They send their kids to study outside the country. All Politicians and military top brasses have their money siphoned out to the USA, UK, Canada or somewhere in the Middle East. Looks like no one has any interest in developing this country. Everyone uses this country as an experimental ground for their causes including their own leaders!

Different aspects of this writing are, did Pakistan win the war? Did India achieve its goals? Did India fail to project the supremacy of its technological advancements in modern-day warfare? Did Indian leadership give the impression that it is weak? What next? I would not answer the first question as you will have to figure it out at the end of this as I address other questions in front of me with strong points and leave the first question for you to answer yourself.

Did India achieve its goals? Need to know what was the goal. PM Modi said in a public address, we will destroy terrorist hideouts which are threatening the Indian state and terrorising Indian citizens also we destroy the people supporting them. When Pahalgam attacked innocent tourists in the state of Jammu and Kashmir of India, terrorists told the surviving tourists ‘Go and tell your Modi’ What does this imply? I take it as we are more powerful than your state and we could do whatever we want to do, wherever we wish, and whichever way we chose. This was the message not only to India it is to any peace-loving democracy in the world that we will not respect your sovereignty and we do what we want to do. This should have been dealt with by other so-called democracies around the world by showing solidarity with India by putting diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to stop harbouring terrorism. Just tweeting their condemnation is not enough. Just calling the Indian PM is nothing it's like someone posting on their social media about a tragedy in their life and all watchers showing some sympathy!

If the state of Pakistan was unable to control its proxies and kept complaining that they are the victims of terrorism then India would have the will, leadership, and strength. So, if Pakistan is genuine in their commitment to end terrorism they should have thanked India! They kept saying to provide proof. India does not have any more compulsion to provide any proof as in past, On several occasions India provided proof however, Pakistan failed to act on them and little is left for India to fall into that trap again. Though on previous occasions when India provided the proof, Pakistan just rubbed off to say it had nothing to do with us, now their ministers come out to agree that we did dirty work for the West in the past! They kept falling into their own trap. So, they will come out in future to accept the incidents happening today. They said India targeted civilians, and now it's an open secret to the whole world that the whole family of the most wanted terrorist was wiped out and the funeral was attended by the top military officials. India provided satellite images pre and post-attack at their press conferences. Contrary to this Pakistani press conferences the proofs they provided were of social media! A responsible government saying the proof of their words is social media and Western media agreeing with that narrative!

India has shown great professionalism in information sharing as well. The press briefings were done after the initial attack on terrorist camps by the people who were responsible for the operation, the two officers from the Indian army and the air force with the foreign secretary. Then government informed Pakistan about the operation and its intent also told that it was a measured action not escalatory. Then the retaliation from Pakistan was very irresponsible. Because any professional attack on military installations must be specific and measured. So-called Pakistani retaliation was neither specific nor measured. Trying to attack with hundreds of military drones is not specific to any target. Thanks to the efficient Indian integrated air defence system, which destroyed all the drones. Every night Pakistan kept sending drones and firing erratically at civilians along the line of control, causing damage to civilian life and property was only an act of cower not an act of professional fighting force. Now the aim of the Indian forces changes from destroying terrorist camps to destroying the sources attacking innocent civilians. Pakistani minister told in their parliament that Madarsa children are the shield for their cowardly acts. Also by then Indian forces established that Pakistani armed forces used civilians as shields by launching artillery attacks from the civilian area and also kept the civilian aircraft operating in the highly sensitive area! Also, their old threat of nuclear power was repeated by their politicians. There was no option left for professional armed forces other than targeting their launch pads. The result is for the world to see If the world opens the eyes not to blindfold towards their mischievous grumbler! All the major airstrips were wiped out by Indian missile attacks. No one knew what happened to the so-called Pakistani air defence system delivered by China! They did not have any clue of where when and how Indian missiles hit the target with pinpoint precision. Bellyacher ran to their masters (USA) with tears! Masters called India and India agreed to pause as their objective was achieved. India did not have any intentions of escalation as India had better work to do. They are fully committed to their development agenda, no time for all these small games. I did feel initially that it was too immature of India to terminate the operation as they already started off so well and they should have finished it once and for all.

According to Arab news1 every hour this war costs around $1 billion. Of which Pakistan spends around 15-20% and it costs about the rest of 80-85%! This is because of the cheap Chinese equipment used by Pakistan as compared to high-spec Rafael fighter jets and BrahMos missiles. An analysis report (2) done by the Mumbai-based think-tank Strategic Foresight Group in 2004 titled “Cost of Conflict”, the group analysed military expenditures of the two countries to conclude that even low-intensity warfare could have “financial costs, human lives and policy losses”. Each war, 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971, and 1999 Kargil cost the nation enormously. Low-intensity conflict with Pakistan may squeeze out 3% of the Indian economy.

On the flip side, India’s main agenda now is development and full focus should be on that, doing the bare minimum to the other obstacles on the way. Not to waste any time and resources on a failing state like Pakistan. India should just ignore all these distractions and run with development so fast that no one can catch it. Rest will be addressed itself. We wasted a lot of time since independence without any strategies for a bright future. Now the leadership is focused, people are motivated, time is now to show the world how India can lead the next era.

So India has achieved the goal and never said it’s ceasefire!

Did India fail to project the supremacy of its technological advancements in modern-day warfare? The answer is yes. As Austrian military expert Tom Cooper explained this was the next generation war. Though Pakistani politicians said there was a dog fight! India clearly said we never crossed the line of control all our actions were this side of the line of control. Which means all attacks happened beyond visual range! India launched all its attacks on only Pakistani military installations beyond visual range. West can’t believe itself in a country like India, a few years ago Americans refused to share cryogenic technology, and developed its own cryogenic satellite launchers! Americans were not keen to sell any military equipment now American offering 5th generation fighter. Indian missiles has successfully struck their sniveller allies’ heart of operations! West was delusional and agreed with their pet’s narrative that we hit the Indian air defence system; and Indian military installations the proof is the social media! What else is needed for India to prove in modern-day warfare? People who can see something we could take them to the thing and show them and explain to them what it is. People who don’t want to see the effort of showing things is futile.

Only Sky News was a bit suspicious of the Pakistani victory as they had firsthand experience of Pakistani colour in Yalda Hakim’s interview with the Pakistani defence minister’s acknowledgement of support to terrorism in past! Though Mr. Defence Minister openly unveiled the Western hypocrisy, the West had so much hatred for India that they were ready to stomach the affront caused by comments.

Indian PM did the right thing by addressing the armed forces from the spot which Pakistan claimed it destroyed on the backdrop of the air defence system (S400) it claimed it demolished! Still west is blindfolding itself to cheer its squawker! Mr Modi reminded English-speaking cheerleaders it is not a ceasefire it's only a strategic pause!

Did Indian leadership give the impression that it is weak?

No, following the Pehalgam terrorist attack, meticulous strategic meetings set objectives, must have discussed the backlash of the UN members, waited for everyone’s opinions though they didn’t matter to India at this stage, clear cut responsibilities to each one of the government machinery assigned and the PM of India roared to the disruptive forces to be ready for the consequences and warned the west in their language to expect the brute force of India and keep their whining baby to ready for the outcomes of its misdeed. Cry-baby had a new nanny by now in the name of China. India did not care much about the new childminder as its forces had full faith in their abilities.

A weak leader will panic and make a hasty decision or become inert under pressure. Enough examples in front of us. First in 1947 proxy fighters of Pakistan attacked the state of Kashmir. Though Indian forces defeated them, the leadership decided to accept the illegal occupancy of the partial state of Kashmir. In the 1965 operation, Gibraltar Pakistan lost again and with Tashkent Declaration victories Indian leadership left Pakistan to have a smug smile. Again in 1971 velour of Indian forces broke Pakistan into two by creating Bangladesh. However, the leadership decided to let Pakistan let off the hooks by sending the 93 thousand prisoners of war to Pakistan unconditionally. Still, Pakistanis brag about it as their win in that war and Bangladesh forgot the help India did from the ethnic cleansing Pakistan tried to do in Bangladesh with their people and today Bangladesh joined hands with the same Pakistanis against India! In the 1999 Kargil war Indian forces had the upper hand nothing much for India to celebrate other than victory. In between these major conflicts innumerable violations of the ceasefire on LOC, several terrorist attacks like the Bombay attack, the Indian Parliament attack list goes on. Though Samjotha express blast was attached to Swami Aseemanad, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove it as observed by the court. Also given the anti-Hindu agenda of the then government credibility of the claim is also questionable. Though the USA Department of Treasury designated terrorists from Lashkar-e Tayyiba as a person involved Indian government did not pursue it because of the prejudice they had to demon the RSS.

Out of power, chest-thumping opposition about their past glory about their leadership could be blamed on all occasions as by winning wars they could not secure India’s integrity. After winning the wars they left the Pak-occupied Kashmir to Pakistan and came back. There is every reason for today's Pakistan to claim that they won all the wars as where is the medal for India? Is it not the failure of leadership?

In 2016 Uri terrorist attack happened. India retaliated. Withdraw from the SAARC summit, surgical strikes conducted and destroyed terrorist launch pads by crossing the line of control. Objective achieved. 2019 Pulwama attack. Indian forces targeted an airstrike on the Balakot terrorist camp and destroyed it by crossing again the line of control. Objective achieved. Compared to the cold shoulder response to the Mumbai attack which killed 175 people with an established link to Pakistan by captured terrorist and their telephone conversation interceptions, the leadership didn’t bother to do anything other than condemnations as if someone died somewhere in a corner of another universe! I will leave this one to you to decide Is the leadership of today weak? What next? Remember operation Sindoor is not over, this is a strategic pause! Weak people either don’t respond or respond with panic. This is a new India we are not weak. So, we respond responsibly. Our response is measured and precise because we do not have any time to spend on barking dogs as we are busy with our main agenda of development. If the West want to blindfold to console their crybaby please put your baby in the credal and look after it. If you let it loose India will show its place and bundle it into a coffin.

No intimidation with nuclear threat will work, neither your new nannies’ gimmicks. Now the first question: did Pakistan win the war? Now it is left to your imagination to answer this question. Is Pakistan your crybaby or are you a pragmatic, dialectic human being? A person who truthfully seeks reality will reach the right conclusion. A delusional person will have a prejudiced conclusion.

1. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2600663/pakistan

2.https://www.strategicforesight.com/publication_pdf/91581Cost%20of%20Conflict%20Between%20India%20and%20Pakistan.pdf

What’s up with India ?

2024-11-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

Since I left India in 2004, never thought about our history or culture. I thought I am a rebel cool Indian, don't have to be proud of my culture or heritage. Once I started settling down I the UK which took me a long 3 to 4 years, developed a skill of critiquing my views myself. I think till then my education thought me, revise the syllabus thought in the class room and get a good score (which I never did) your life is done. When I looked at the people in the western countries, it really amazes me. Here kids with aspirations of becoming bus driver, train driver, car mechanic, bike mechanics were everywhere! Coming from India where, when the fatuous is still in the womb parents start grilling the baby to be a doctor or an engineer. I think my answer to my basic question of why western countries are so prosperous compare to us was answered. Our education system sold a myth to us that population is a curse to India because of population we are not able to prosper. Now I feel that our politicians try to hide their inability to perform under this explanation and we the students in 70's - 90's bought it! Another narrative was British's looted India and spread the golden carpets on the streets of London! When reached London it looks like they hid that golden carpet under British parliament. Neither I could find any if the copper rails they brought from India and installed in all of their train lines! Does Indian mindset need to change? Absolutely, people in India need to realize, to build a society its not only doctors and engineers required but also, we need plumbers, builders, cleaners, drivers etc. In fact, doctors and engineers are the least needed to build a basic house and run day to day life. Parents are creating doctors and engineers like robots, not because their son or daughter want to be one, it’s because their neighbors’ kids are doctor and engineer. No farmer want his son or daughter to farm. They wanted them to be a doctor or an engineer and go to city and work and send money so that they can convert the land to buildings and no need to farm. No point in blaming only the people’s mindset also the government doesn’t understand the importance of farmers. Stupidest law is that inheritance property should be divided equally to all the kids. As I know in my village there were two large landlords. One of them was my grandfather who had 7 boys and 3 girls. When all the land was with my grandfather, my dads one of the brother was looking after whole property and farming the whole land with brilliant managerial qualities. He managed whole property with the clock work accuracy and when my grandfather distributed to all kids, none of them could manage the way my uncle run the show. Over the period of time all farming stopped and when next generation took over the diluted property, farming is not feasible. So, all buildings came in the framing land! The fat with another huge land lord in the village as well. Other small farmers situation was pathetic that by the second generation there was no property left to divide and they all landed in court to fight for the property! In India people/ governments think development is building infrastructure and huge buildings. Another funny thing is always build for today. There are roads which they built after I left Bangalore and when they finish building them they are already congested! This is the reason in Bangalore like cities constructions never stops because planners plan the infrastructure for today not for future!. I feel the worshiping individual person mentality is another biggest problem. We see the heroes in a politician on his way to face the judiciary! This is serios issue. Are we telling our kids to be like them? May be they are not prosecuted yet and we all know how the judiciary works in India. Enough evidences are in front of us where a person’s crime is well recorded however the police deliberately fail to provide them in in the court and person go free and carry on doing the crime again. Still when the person is on his way to judiciary he will have a heroic farewell and on way back again a heroic welcome! It’s not a Bollywood movie it is the everyday affair in India! Number of politicians faced corruption charges came back from jail on bail and stood for election and won. There are people fought elections from jail and won! And we expect change! When ruling party blame the opposition and opposition blame the ruling. They have an understanding when opposition comes to rule they just blame the previous ruling party without conducting any legal actions and vice versa happens after sometime. Common public nicely become fool and another man come in and play victim card and form another party and get votes he does the same when he gets power! BJP accused Congress for corruption and had a big agitation and movement and heads rolled. In election BJP came up with majority could do anything independently number of congress ministers accused of corruption are free and still sitting MPs in the parliament. If they haven’t done corruption where did all the money go? If they have done corruption, why are they free outside. If you could wake the supreme court judge for some silly reasons in the middle of the night and get a decision whey, couldn’t you do something about the Crs of public money lost for corruption? Meanwhile an educated man Kejriwal took an advantage of the situation and started looting people if he is an honest man why Anna left him? Why when his party politicians charged with corruption he is arranging a large heroic sent offs? Why his politicians get a luxury treat in jail? Every election he shed crocodile tears and play victim card and people become fools easily. AAP and BJP legislators fight like thugs in municipality assembly. Because they are sure that when they come back to ask the vote people still vote them! Indian politicians know memory of people is very short. Then how could you blame politicians? In Karnataka BJP blame Congress for corruption and threaten them that they are going to take action. When Congress comes into power they blame BJP of corruption Indians develop software for whole of the world however when we go to India the “on-line” concept is very different! Every government office we go they say everything is online now. However, when you fill up the form there are no submit button! Upon enquiry they say that fill up online and print and bring the copy!!! I think its attitude of people is the biggest problem. Specially those ones who never traveled outside becomes very defensive as soon we start talk about the difference between India and outside world. Best defense is as soon you criticize the system in India they say why you came back you should stay in the place where the system is good! I think this is the reason the system will never change in India. Impatient younger generation is another cause. Young people are impatient any where however recently parents became so busy and no time for kids made impact on the kid’s attachments with family values and kids are more parented by electronic devises make their human touch more impatient. It’s the problem in India it’s a worldwide scenario however its more visible in family orientated Indian families. Skipping the red signal, riding motor bikes on foot path, driving the car between the 2 lanes, not following the speed limit, driving the car in one way, driving on the opposite lane in a high way, we take pride in doing such rule breaking acts and then we complain about others and say India will never improve!

Breaking India Forces

2023-03-07T02:38:00.000-08:00

Speeches from Rahul Gandhi at Cambridge University and the British parliament are unfortunately another example of breaking India forces in action. When a family has a difference of opinion they must sit across the table and sort it out. Not calling the neighbour and requesting them to attack the house and break it. I could see why the congress government is obsessed with worshipping Tippu Sulthan in Karnataka. A person who wrote a letter to Calipha of Iran to attack India to make India a part of Caliphat and demolish the Kafers. I can draw similarities when Rahul Gandhi requested the west to save Indian democracy! The very same forces who colonized India! Similarities can be drawn between king Ambhi who invited Alexander to attack India. Why Rahul Gandhi became popular because of his anti-India speech last year. I think he gets excited to see the suit-booted people following him when he arrives at Heathrow, which does not happen in India as most of the suit-booted people in India are very well aware of his credibility. It is the right time for the Indian parliament must adopt a law that the parliamentarians must have a minimum attendance or else they should be disqualified. No one in the west will verify his attendance at work before drawing a conclusion that democracy is dead in India because that narrative is convenient to break India. It is unfortunate that from history to the present the enemies lay within India more than outside. Outside enemies visible can be handled. However within are more dangerous as they assimilate with the population and they think they are not visible to the public. Because they still live in the olden days of Doordarshan! They are unaware that commoners in India moved on from Doordarshan to satellite channels to OTT platforms much faster than the west! They don’t know that the commoner has the power of information technology even in the remotest part of India. Rahul Gandhi thinks democracy is under attack because his understanding of democracy is corrupt. He thinks that democracy doesn’t have the right to question the rulers. Because in his party rule time, politicians were not asked the question about their wealth. Now anancies are scrutinizing all deals of state governments as the priminister can not keep an eye on every state matter and states are not happy as they are questioned now or asked for accountability. Is it wrong? Some journalists who were in the pay role of the government previously enjoyed the travel in government jets when a PM visited abroad, and enjoyed the champagne at the government's cost are now crying the press freedom because PM bared them from the government flights! I as a common man feel that all people crying about injustice in India now are the ones who have still that colonial mentality. White BABOO’s are always right. White-coloured baboo’s are always right. Don’t question the person in power because I am the almighty. I can do corruption in the name of Gandhi though I don’t have any relationship with him and he is my brand name, no one else has the right to that GANDHI brand!!!!!!

My journey to understand Indian History - intellectuals

2023-02-25T13:02:00.001-08:00

Recently number of historians born with newer outlook for Indian history. I think Arun Shourie try to write some corrections to Nehruvian history and maybe he was a minority then. However now it looks like newer genre are coming up with more resilience and young people are out of influences of Gandhi and Nehru notion. Also, this new generation ready to change the perception and admissible to newer thoughts with authentication. Also, the abandons of authentications around due to access to information. My dad always thought that British brought prosperity to India. According to him British should have ruled India for another 3decades at least. Also, he thought British brought railway, bank, post office to improve Indian civilization. He lived much of his life in congress rule and he thought it will never change. His assumption was Corruption and dishonesty engraved in Indian culture at least British would have removed it to some extent. His belief was British brought civilization to India and he thought they could have tried to rebuild India like Briton. I won’t blame him for his beliefs. Because of two factors one he born and lived most of his life in British and congress India and two he never studied that much to do his research’s, as he was busy in looking at how to provide his family fir the day and how to come out of grueling poverty throughout his life. Since i came out of India I found another factor that he never traveled outside India so he could not comprehend India in the free environment without censorship and he believed whatever he was told. I think after 2014 he felt that there is meaning for independence and hope for Bharath. Though my relationship with him never gave me a chance to discuss these things with him still I could see change in his outlook by listening to his conversation with other people. Himalayan Blunder by John Dalvi was the first book I read made me to start look at history of India with different perspective. I was told my someone in India about this book however it was one of the banned books in India and got hold of a copy in the UK. Later when ban was lifted Ravi Belageri a noted journalist from Karnataka translated to Kannada and i brought a copy of that as well. Further stared reading Dr. Subramaniyan Swamy and he started making sense. I read Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out, though didn’t accept everything still made some sense. Mean time listening to Tarek Fatah and reading his books and some readings about Caliphate started making me to think about India’s history more and more. Also it made sense when read recently "THE MOPLAH REBELLION, 1921" BY Dlwan Bah and C. Gopalan Nair. Rajeev Malhotras books gave a newer outlook for modern history of India and where we stand in a global stage. Arun Shourie has my due credit for making me to look at Indian history with different perspective from Mughals brought literature and architecture to India, British brought culture and technology to India and unified India under the name, Gandhi's "Ahinsa" brought freedom from British, Nehru’s rule brought prosperity. But Mr. Shourie's "Eminent Historians" started shaking my believes and made me to start digging in to history of India. Living in the UK gave me access to materials which may not be available in India before the information revolution like internet and publication censored in India. Strangely another speaker impressed me and influenced me to read history is Tarek Fatah. I don’t recollect exactly when I started watching him and I know that I started reading him after the Subramaniyan Samys book. These above authors and speakers made me curious about real history. Specially Arun Shouries books made me to think seriously about the necessity of every Indian to know the real history. As i started this journey the myths of Mughals and British started busting. Also started getting the first-hand experience of how British use people to get to their end met and leave the mean to deal with consequences. My friends back in India started feeling I am becoming intolerant! That is the buzz word I try to explore Intolerant Indian!!! India is intolerant is another propaganda created and spread by west and so-called intellectuals of India. These so-called intellectuals see pride in demeaning India all the time. They live in a bubble of their own imaginary world where they hallucinated by all are stupids around them and they only have the heavenly foresight which gives them a clear picture of the future based on todays incidents. They are so delusional they don't even think before open their mouth and they are disorientated that they don't know when they speak, each word come out of their mind is mortifying the country! And western countries hell bent on degrading India get amused by their idiocy and applaud them for their abhor towards their own people! These so-called intellectuals are so silly and they think whole world around them so dumb that when people around them laugh, they think they are appreciating their intelligence! When whole world not even open the eye for civilization, in India people-built universities, when India had well established acritarches people in the west still may be living in the caves! When people were tortured and killed for talking against beliefs of church, quran, in India religious people celebrated "Nirishvara vada”!. When the Abrahamic religions punishing people by killing them for their questioning the religious authorities, in India social reformers came into existence time and time and their reforms did much to ameliorate living standards. There are number of religions originated from Sanathana Dharma and no one prosecuted Charvaka, Gautham Budha, Mahaveera. Reformers like Madwacharya of south India did not accepted people like Manu and said he was a man had fall of with his wife while writing the Manu smruthi! Though west and intellectuals keep screaming that Indian society strongly built on the basis of Manu Smruthi, I never heard anyone in south India considering it as an important basis for day to days life. When the world still struggling without a language of communication, we had one of the most advanced language and literature called Samskritha and Vedas! so called intellectuals still could not comprehend the what was told in Vedas and could not understand the etymological complexities of Samskritha language. Have they used so called intelligent brain on understanding what was told in Vedas rather blatantly criticizing them and their beliefs they would have become real intellectuals! When the west fighting for monopoly of Christianity by the name of crusaders, when Muslims killed their own people for caliphate, in India we welcomed Muslims, embraced Christianity, built communities for world over prosecuted Jewish people, polish people escaped the injustice and found home in India. Persians found a second home in medieval period to escape from Muslim atrocities. However, the so-called intellectuals found Indian Hindus intolerant!!!!! I strongly condemn the so-called Wikipedia intellectuals. Recently they lost the stage in India and they started traveling regularly outside of India and breaking India forces are their audiences. It’s unfortunate that with this history west teaching India the tolerance and so-called Indian intellectuals are the devil’s advocates. Recently a friend of my had a conversation with me on my views and he deiced I am intolerant and divisive and try to brush me off. I engaged him and he said where is the end and what are my expectations? Do we need to send all other religion people out of India? My answer is “No” they are as Indians as I am, may be more. Only thing is all should accept as Indians first before what is their religion. Also, we need role models like Abdul Kalam, Abdul Hamid, and accept the Indian democratic system. CONTINUES…………

ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ನೆನಪುಗಳು

2021-12-19T10:16:00.000-08:00

ಇತ್ತೀಚೆಗೆ ಊರಿಗೆ ಹೋದಾಗ ಕಾಣಾಂರಗಳಿಂದಾಗಿ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೋಗಬೇಕಾಗಿ ಬಂತು. ಹಿಂದಿನ ಕಾಲದಂತೆ ಫರ್ಲಾಂಗುಗಟ್ಟಲೆ ನಡೆದ ಹೋಗುವ ಅವಶ್ಯಕತೆ ಇಲ್ಲದಿದ್ದರೂ, ಮುಖ್ಯ ರಸ್ತೆಯಿಂದ ಇಳಿದು, ಮಳೆಯ ಕ್ರೌರ್ಯದಿಂದ ಘಾಸಿಗೊಂಡ ಕಚ್ಚಾ ರಸ್ತೆಯ ಸುಮಾರು ಅರ್ಧ ಕಿಲೋಮೀಟರ್ ದೂರದ ಕಾರಿನ ಪ್ರಯಾಣ ಹಳೆಯ ನೆನಪುಗಳನ್ನು ಕದಡಿತು. ವಯಸ್ಸಾದರೂ ಕಣ್ಣಿನ ಸೂಕ್ಷ್ಮತೆ ಕಳೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳದ ನಮ್ಮಮ್ಮ ಕಾರಿನ ಬಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆದು ಹೋದ ಮುಖವನ್ನು ಗುರುತಿಸಿ 'ಅದು ಅಂಗರನ ಮಗಳು ಗಿರಿಜಾ ಅಲ್ವಾ?' ಅಂದಳು. ನಾನು ಕಾರು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿದೆ, ಅಮ್ಮ ' ಗಿರಿಜಾ' ಎಂದು ಕರೆದಾಗ ಆ ಹೆಂಗಸು 'ಯಾರದು ಕವೇರಮ್ಮನಾ?' ಎನ್ನುತ್ತಾ ಕಾರಿನ ಬಳಿ ಬಂದರು. 'ಹೌದು ಯಾವ ಕಡೆ ಹೋರಟಿದ್ದು? ನೋಡದೆ ಸುಮಾರು ಮೂರು, ನಾಲ್ಕು ವರ್ಷ ಆಗಿರಬೇಕಲ್ವಾ? ಹೇಗಿದ್ದಿ?' ಎಂದೆಲ್ಲ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳ ಸರಮಾಲೆ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿದಳು. "ಹಾಲು ಕೊಡಲು ಮೈಲಿಗಲ್ಲು ಹತ್ತಿರ ಹೋಗಿದ್ದೆ" ಎಂದ ಗಿರಿಜಾಳನ್ನು ಅಮ್ಮ ಕರೆದು ಕಾರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳ್ಳಿರಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಳು. ಕಾರು ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜನ ಮನೆ ಕಡೆ ಹೊರಟಂತೆ ನೆನಪಿನ ಬುತ್ತಿ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿಕೊಂಡಿತು. ಅಂಗರ ಪೂಜಾರಿಯ ಮಗಳು ಗಿರಿಜಾ, ಅಮ್ಮನಿಗಿಂತ ಒಂದೆರಡು ವರ್ಷ ಹಿರಿಯಳಾದರೂ, ಊರಿನಲ್ಲಿನ ಪ್ರೈಮರಿ ಶಾಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಐದನೆಯ ತರಗತಿವರೆಗೆ ಒಂದೆ ತರಗತಿಯ ಒಂದೆ ಬೆಂಚಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಕುಳಿತು ಕಲಿತರು. ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನ ತೋಟದ ಅಂಚಿನಲ್ಲಿರುವ ನೀರಿನ ಕೊಳದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಈಜು ಕಲಿತಿದ್ದರು. ಅಜ್ಜನ ಅಗಾಧ ಆಸ್ತಿಯ ವಿಶಾಲವಾದ ಗುಡ್ಡೆಯ ತುಂಬ ಹರಡಿದ್ದ, ಕುಂಟಲದ ಹಣ್ಣು, ಕರಂಡೆ ಹಣ್ಣು, ಸೂರಿಮುಳ್ಳ ಹಣ್ಣು, ಬೆಲ್ಲ ಹಣ್ಣು, ಕೇಪಳದ ಹಣ್ಣು, ಜೋಗಿ ಹಣ್ಣುಗಳನ್ನು ಯಥೆಚ್ಛ ತಿಂದು ಬೆಳೆದವರು. ನಮ್ಮ ತವರಿಗೆ ಬಂದಾಗಲೆಲ್ಲ ಗಿರಿಜಾಳನ್ನು ಸಂಧಿಸದೆ ಹಿಂತಿರುಗಿದ್ದಿಲ್ಲ. ವಯಸ್ಸಾದಂತೆ ಒಬ್ಬಳೇ ತವರಿಗೆ ಬರುವುದು ಕಮ್ಮಿಯಾಗಿ, ವರ್ಷಕ್ಕೊಮ್ಮೆ ದೀಪಾವಳಿಗೆ ನಾನು ಊರಿಗೆ ಬಂದಾಗ ಕರೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಕಳೆದೆರಡು ವರ್ಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನನಗೆ ಮಗಳು ಹುಟ್ಟಿ ನಾನು ಊರಿಗೆ ಬರದಾಗ, ಮತ್ತೂಂದು ವರ್ಷ ಬಂದರೂ ಕಾಣಾಂತರಗಳಿಂದ ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೂ ಹೋಗಲಾಗದಾಗ, ಅಮ್ಮ ಗಿರಿಜಾಳನ್ನು ಸಂಧಿಸಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅಜ್ಜನೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರ ಸುದ್ದಿಯೆ ಇರಲಿ ಅದು ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜಿ 'ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ' ಉಲ್ಲೇಖ ಬರದೆ ಮುಗಿಯಲಾರದು. ನಮ್ಮ ಮಗಳು ಹುಟ್ಟಿ ಆಕೆ ಕಣ್ಣರಳಿಸಿ ನೋಡಿದಾಗ ನನಗೆ ನೆನಪಾಗಿದ್ದು ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ. ತಳ್ಳಗೆ ಬೆಳ್ಳಗೆ ಬೊಜ್ಜು ಬಾಯಿಯ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯ ದೇಹದಲ್ಲಿ, ನಾನು ಕಂಡಂತೆ ಇದ್ದಿದ್ದು ಕೇವಲ ಎಲುಬುಗಳು ಮಾತ್ರ. ನಮ್ಮಮ್ಮನಿಗೆ ತಾಯಿಯಾದರೂ ಎಲ್ಲ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೂ ಆಕೆ "ಚಿಕ್ಕ " ಅಥವಾ ಚಿಕ್ಕಮ್ಮ ಆಗಿದ್ದರು. ಕಾರಣ, ಆಕೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜನಿಗೆ ಎರಡನೇ ಹೆಂಡತಿ. ಸಣ್ಣ ವಯಸ್ಸಿನ ಮೊದಲ ಹೆಂಡತಿ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಮಕ್ಕಳನ್ನು ಕೈಗಿಟ್ಟು ಕಣ್ಣು ಮುಚ್ಚಿದಾಗ, ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ಆ ಮಕ್ಕಳ ಹೂಣೆ ಹೂತ್ತುಕೂಂಡು ತನ್ನ ಸಂಸಾರವಾಗಿ ಮತ್ತೆ ಆರು ಮಕ್ಕಳನ್ನು ಹೆತ್ತು ಹಾಕಿದ್ದರು. ಮೊದಲ ಹೆಂಡತಿಯ ಮಕ್ಕಳು "ಚಿಕ್ಕಿ " ಎಂದು ಕರೆಯುವಾಗ ಸ್ವಂತ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೂ ಅದೆ ರೂಢಿಯಾಯಿತು. ದೊಡ್ಡ ಜಮೀನು ಇದ್ದರೂ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಸಮಯವನ್ನು ತನಗಿಷ್ಟವಾದ ವೈದಿಕ ವೃತ್ತಿಯಲ್ಲೇ ಕಳೆಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾಗ, ದೊಡ್ಡ ಬೇಸಾಯ ಮನೆತನದಿಂದ ಬಂದ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ಬೇಸಾಯದ ಹೊಣೆಗಾರಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಹೊತ್ತುಕೊಂಡರು. ಆರಂಭದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಕ್ಕದೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ತನ್ನಣ್ಣನ ಸಹಕಾರ ಪಡೆದರೂ, ಬಹಳ ಬೇಗನೆ ಬೇಸಾಯದ ಸೂಕ್ಷಮತೆಗಳನ್ನು ಅರಿತುಕೊಂಡು ಬಿಟ್ಟಿದ್ದರು. ಆಕೆಯ ನಿಜನಾಮ ಕಮಲ ಮರೆಯಾಗಿ ಊರಿಗೆಲ್ಲ "ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ" ಆಗಿದ್ದರು. ನಾಲ್ಕುವರೆ ಅಡಿಯಷ್ಟೇ ಎತ್ತರದ ತೆಳ್ಳಗಿನ ದೇಹದ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಬಾಯಿ ತುಂಬ ವೀಳ್ಯದೆಲೆ ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡು ಕಟ್ಟ ಹುಣಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೊರಟರೆ, ಕೆಲಸದಾಳುಗಳೆಲ್ಲ ಪಂಚಾತಿಗೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು, ಮೈಮುರಿದು ಕೆಲಸಕ್ಕಿಳಿಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಬೆಳ್ಳಗಿನ ಆಕೆಯ ಮೈ ಬಣ್ಣಕ್ಕೆ ವೀಳ್ಯದೆಲೆ ತುಂಬಿದ ನಾಲಿಗೆಯಿಂದ ಸವರಿದ ಕೆಂದುಟಿಗಳು ಆಕೆಯ ಸೌಂದರ್ಯವನ್ನು ವರ್ಧಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದುವು. ಈಗ ಕೆಲವೊಮ್ಮೆ ಅನ್ನಿಸುತ್ತದೆ, ಕಡುಗಂದು ಬಣ್ಣದ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನೆಲ್ಲಿ, ಮುಟ್ಟಿದರೆ ರಕ್ತ ಚಿಮ್ಮುವ ಮೈ ಬಣ್ಣದ ಅಜ್ಜಿಯೆಲ್ಲಿ. ಊರಿನ ಜನ ಮಾರು ಹೋಗಿದ್ದು ಆಕೆಯ ನಿಸ್ವಾರ್ಥ ಸ್ವಭಾವಕ್ಕೆ. ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಂದವರು ಏನಾದರೂ ತಿನ್ನದೆ ಉಣ್ಣದೆ ಹಿಂತಿರುಗಿ ಹೋದದ್ದಿಲ್ಲ. ಅಜ್ಜನಂತೂ, ತನ್ನನ್ನು ತಾನು ದಿನವಿಡೀ ಪೂಜೆ ಪುನಸ್ಕಾರಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಡಗಿಸಿ ಕೂಂಡರೆ, ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜಿ, ಆತನ ಧಾರ್ಮಿಕ ಕಾರ್ಯಗಳ ಜೊತೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮನೆಯ ವ್ಯವಹಾರಗಳನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ನೋಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಸಕಾಲಕ್ಕೆ ಕೆಲಸ ಕಾರ್ಯಗಳನ್ನು, ಸಮರ್ಪಕವಾಗಿ ಈಡೇರಿಸುವ ಆಕೆಯ ಚಾಕಚಕ್ಯತೆ ಮತ್ತು ಚಾಣಕ್ಯತನ ಆ ದಿನಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಅರಿವಾಗದಿದ್ದರೂ, ಇಂದು ನೆನೆದರೆ ಆಕೆಯ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ಷಮತೆ ಬೆರಗುಗೂಳಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಇಂದಿನ ಎಂಬಿಎ ಗಳಂತೆ, ಪವರ್ ಪಾಯಿಂಟ್ಗಳಿಲ್ಲ, ಎಕ್ಸೆಲ್ ಷೀಟ್ಗಳಿಲ್ಲ, ಗೊಣಗಾಟ ಟೆನ್ಷನ್ಗಳಿಲ್ಲ. ಕೈಯಲ್ಲೊಂದು ಕುಡುಗೂಲು, ಬಾಯಿ ತುಂಬ ವೀಳ್ಯ, ಅನುಭವದ ಪಾಠ, ಸಾಧಿಸುವ ಛಲ, ಸೋಲುವ ಭಯವಿಲ್ಲ. ಏಕೆಂದರೆ ಆಕೆಗೆ ಸೋಲು ಒಂದು ಪಾಠ, ಇದು ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಓದಿ ಕಲಿತದ್ದಲ್ಲ, ಬದುಕಿನ ಅನುಭವದಿಂದ ಅರಿತದ್ದು. ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜನ ಮನೆಯ ಎಡಗಡೆ ಇದ್ದ ಒಂದು ಹತ್ತು ಮನೆಗಳವರು ಬಲಗಡೆ ಇದ್ದ ಹದಿನೈದು ಮನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಬೇಕಾದರೆ, ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜನ ಅಂಗಳ ದಾಟಿಕೂಂಡು ಹೂಗಬೇಕು. ಅಂಗಳದ ಅಂಚಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಂದಿಲು. ಮುಂದಿಲಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾವಿಕಟ್ಟೆ, ಬಚ್ಚಲು ಮನೆ, ದೊಡ್ಡ ದನದ ಹಟ್ಟಿ, ಮಧ್ಯೆ ಒಂದು ದಾರಿ ನೇರ ಬಯಲು ಗದ್ದೆ ಕಡೆಗೆ. ಆ ದಾರಿ ಇಕ್ಕೆಲಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳಿತುಕೂಳ್ಳಲು ಎತ್ತರದ ಕಟ್ಟೆ. ಆ ಕಟ್ಟೆಯ ಮೇಲೆ ಕುಳಿತುಕೂಂಡರೆ, ತಣ್ಣನೆಯ ಗಾಳಿ ವರ್ಷವಿಡೀ ಬೀಸುತ್ತಿರುತ್ತು. ಆ ಕಟ್ಟೆಯ ಮೇಲೆ ಕುಳಿತು, ಮುಂದೆ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿಕೂಳ್ಳುವ ನಮ್ಮೂರ ಹಸಿರು ಸಿರಿಯ ಸೂಬಗನ್ನು ಸವಿಯುವುದೇ ಒಂದು ಅದೃಷ್ಟ. ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನದ ಊಟದ ಬಳಿಕ, ಒಂದು ಕಟ್ಟೆಯ ಮೇಲೆ ಅಜ್ಜ ತನ್ನ ಆಧ್ಯಾತ್ಮಿಕ ತಾಳೆಗರಿಗಳೂಂದಿಗೆ ಕುಳಿತರೆ, ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಕಟ್ಟೆ ಮೇಲೆ ತನ್ನ ವೀಳ್ಯದೆಲೆ ಪೆಟ್ಟಿಗೆಯೂಂದಿಗೆ ಕುಳಿತು, ಗಂಡನಿಗೆ ಮನೆಯ ವ್ಯವಹಾರಗಳ ಕಿರು ವರದಿ ಒಪ್ಪಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ನನಗೆ ನೆನಪಿರುವಂತೆ ಅಜ್ಜನೆಂದೂ ಸಲಹೆ ನೀಡಿದ್ದಿಲ್ಲ! ಆದರೂ ಈ ವರದಿ ಒಪ್ಪಿಸುವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮಕ್ಕೆ ಹಲವಾರು ಬಾರಿ ನಾನು ಸಾಕ್ಷಿಯಾಗಿದ್ದೆ. ಉದ್ಯೋಗ ವ್ಯವಹಾರಗಳಿಂದಾಗಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಪ್ಪ ಪರ ಊರುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಇರಬೇಕಾದ ಪ್ರಸಂಗ ಬಂದಾಗ, ನಮ್ಮ ಅಮ್ಮ ಮೂರು ಮಕ್ಕಳೂಂದಿಗೆ ತವರಲ್ಲೇ ಉಳಿದಳು. ನಮ್ಮ ಮಾವನವರೆಲ್ಲ ವಿದ್ಯಾವಂತರಾಗಿ ಪಟ್ಟಣ ಸೇರಿದಾಗ, ನಮ್ಮಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜಿಗೆ ನೆರವಾದಳು. ನನ್ನ ಬದುಕಿನ ಮೊದಲ ಏಳು ವರ್ಷ ಅಜ್ಜಿಯ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲೇ ಕಳೆದರೂ, ನಮ್ಮಪ್ಪನ ಊರಿಗೆ ಬಂದು ಶಾಲೆಗೆ ಸೇರಿ, ಬೇಸಿಗೆ ರಜೆಗೆ ಅಜ್ಜಿ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೂದಾಗ, ಅಲ್ಲಿನ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿದುಕೂಂಡಿದ್ದು ಜಾಸ್ತಿ. ಮನೆಯ ಕೆಲಸದ ನಾತು ಮತ್ತು ಆತನ ಹೆಂಡತಿ ನನ್ನ ಅರಿವಿನ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಮೂಲಗಳು. ಅವರಿಗೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ವಿಷಯಗಳು ಸ್ವಂತ ಅನುಭವ. ಇನ್ನು ಕೆಲವು ವಿಷಯಗಳು ಹಳೆಯ ತಲೆಮಾರಿನ ಜನ ಅವರವರ ಅನುಭವಗಳನ್ನು ನನ್ನ ಬಳಿ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಹೀಗೆ ಹಿರಿಯರು ಹಂಚಿಕೂಂಡ ವಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಗೆ ಮೈಮೇಲೆ ದೆವ್ವ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಕಥೆಯೂ ಒಂದಾಗಿತ್ತು. ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ಊರಿನ ದಾದಿ, ಯಾವುದೇ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಸುರಿ ಹೆಂಗಸಿದ್ದರೂ ಅವರೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯೇ ಡಾಕ್ಟರ್. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಜಾತಿ ಬೇದವಿಲ್ಲ. ಬ್ರಾಹ್ಮಣ, ಒಕ್ಕಲಿಗ, ಗಾಣಿಗ, ಹೂಲೆಯ ಎನ್ನುವ ಬೇದವಿಲ್ಲದೆ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ಪ್ರಸೂತಿ ಕೆಲಸಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಹಲವಾರು ಮಡಿವಂತರು ತಂದ ಆಕ್ಷೇಪಗಳಿಗೆ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜ ನಸುನಕ್ಕು ಸುಮ್ಮನಿದ್ದಾಗ, ಆಕ್ಷೇಪಣೆಕಾರರು ಮೌನವಾದರೂ, ಒಳಗೂಳಗೆ ವಟಗುಟ್ಟುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. 'ಮಾನವ ಧರ್ಮಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಮಿಗಿಲಾದ ಧರ್ಮ ಯಾವುದು ಹೇಳಿ? ಭಗವಂತ ಸೃಷ್ಟಿಸಿದ ವರ್ಣಬೇದಕ್ಕೆ ನಾವೇಕೆ ಜಾತಿಯ ಬಣ್ಣ ಹಚ್ಚಬೇಕು? ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಜೀವದ ಕಷ್ಟ ಸುಖದಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗಿಯಾದಗ ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಶೂದ್ರರಲ್ಲವೆ? ಅದರಲ್ಲೇನು ತಪ್ಪು?' ಎಂದು ಊರವರ ಅಸಮ್ಮತಿಗೆಲ್ಲ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ತಲೆಕೆಡಿಸಿಕೂಳ್ಳುವ ಜಾಯಮಾನದವರಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೆ ಕಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದದ್ದು ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯ ಆರೋಗ್ಯ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಯಲ್ಲಿ. ಊರವರ ಪ್ರಕಾರ ಸತ್ತ ಆತ್ಮವೂಂದು ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯನ್ನು ಕಾಡುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಆ ಆತ್ಮ ಆಕೆಯೂಳಗೆ ಸೇರಿಕೊಂಡಾಗ ಆಕೆ ವಿಚಿತ್ರವಾಗಿ ಆಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದರಂತೆ. ಕೈಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ ವಸ್ತುಗಳನ್ನು ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಸಿಕ್ಕಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಎಸೆಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದರಂತೆ. ಮಕ್ಕಳು ಎದುರು ಸಿಕ್ಕರೆ, ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದದ್ದರಲ್ಲಿ ಹೊಡೆದು ಬಿಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದರಂತೆ! ಕೆಲವರ ಪ್ರಕಾರ ಆ ಸತ್ತ ಆತ್ಮ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನ ಮೊದಲ ಹೆಂಡತಿಯದ್ದು! ಈ ಹಣೆಪಟ್ಟಿ ಕಟ್ಟಿದ್ದು ಅಜ್ಜಿಯ ಧೀಮಂತಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಖಂಡಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಮಡಿವಂತ ಜನ. ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜ ನಲವತೈದು ಕಿಲೋಮೀಟರ್ ದೂರದ ಉಡುಪಿಗೆ ನಡೆದು ಹೋಗಿ ಭೂತರಾಜರ ತಾಯಿತ ತಂದು ಕಟ್ಟಿದರೆ ಅಜ್ಜಿ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ಇರುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಕಲವೂಮ್ಮೆ ಪ್ರಸೂತಿಗೆ ಹೋದಲ್ಲಿ ತಾಯಿತಕ್ಕೆ ಅಶುದ್ದಿಯಾದರೆ, ಸತ್ತ ಆತ್ಮ ಅದೇ ಸಮಯಕ್ಕೆ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯ ಮೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಂದರೆ, ಮತ್ತೆ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನಿಗೆ ಉಡುಪಿಗೆ ನಡೆಯುವ ಯೋಗ! ಅಂದಿನ ಕಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಸ್ಸು, ಕಾರುಗಳು ಓಡಾಡುತ್ತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಟಾಂಗ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆಯೂ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನೂರಿಂದ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ಇಲ್ಲದೆ ಕಾಲ್ನಡಿಗೆಯೆ ಪ್ರಧಾನವಾಗಿದ್ದ ಕಾಲ. ಉಡುಪಿಗೆ ಬಂದು ಹೋಗುವುದು ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನಿಗೆ ನಾಲ್ಕು ದಿನದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ. ಉಡುಪಿಗೆ ಬಂದಮೇಲೆ ಸ್ವಾಮೀಜಿಗಳ ಒತ್ತಾಯಕ್ಕೆ ಮಣಿದು ಒಂದು ದಿನವೊ ಎರಡು ದಿನವೊ ಉಳಿದುಕೊಂಡರೆ ಬರೋಬ್ಬರಿ ಒಂದು ವಾರದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ. ಮಳೆಗಾಲವಾದರೆ ಹೊರಟ್ಟಿದ್ದೆ ಸಮಯ, ಹಿಂತಿರುಗಿ ಬಂದಿದೆ ಸಮಯ. ಮೂರು ನದಿಗಳನ್ನು ದಾಟಲು ದೋಣಿಯ ಸಮಯ ಕಾಯಬೇಕು. ವಿಪರೀತ ಪ್ರವಾಹವಿದ್ದರೆ ಅದು ಇಳಿಯಲು ಕಾಯಬೇಕು. ಕರಾವಳಿಯ ಝಡಿಮಳೆ ಕೆಲವೊಮ್ಮೆ ನಡೆಯುವ ವೇಗವನ್ನೂ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಮಾಡಿಬಿಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಹೀಗೆ ಹತ್ತು ಹಲವು ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳು ಇಂದು ಕಠಿಣವಾಗಿ ಕಂಡರೂ, ಅಂದಿನವರ ನಿತ್ಯ ಬದುಕಿನ ಚಟುವಟಿಕೆಗಳಾಗಿದ್ದುವು. ಬಲಗಡೆ ಇದ್ದ ಬಾವಿಕಟ್ಟೆ ದಾಟಿ ಹೂರಬಂದರೆ, ಕಟ್ಟ ಹುಣಿ. ಆ ಕಟ್ಟ ಹುಣೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಕಡಿಮೆ ಆರಡಿ ಎತ್ತರವಿದ್ದು, ಸುಮಾರು ಎಂಟು ಅಡಿಗಳಷ್ಟು ಅಗಲವಿದ್ದು, ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನ ಮನೆಯ ಬಾವಿ ಕಟ್ಟೆಯಿಂದ ಸುರುವಾಗಿ, ಸುಮಾರು ಐದುನೂರು ಮೀಟರ್ ಗಳ ದೂರದಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ನೀರಿನ ತೊರೆಯ ಬಳಿ ಕೊನೆಗೂಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಮನೆಯ ಕೆಲಸದಾಳು "ನಾತು"ವಿನ ಪ್ರಕಾರ, ಹಿಂದಿನ ಕಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಆ ಕಟ್ಟ ಹುಣಿಯ ಒಡೆತನಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಹೊಡೆದಾಟಗಳಾದದ್ದಿದೆ. ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜನ ತಂದೆಯ ಪ್ರಾಬಲ್ಯದಿಂದ ಅದು ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜನ ಮನೆತನದ ಒಡೆತನಕ್ಕೆ ಬಂತು. ಆ ಕಟ್ಟಹುಣಿಯುದ್ದಕ್ಕೂ ಬೆಳೆದು ನಿಂತ ಫಲವತ್ತಾದ ತೆಂಗಿನ ಮರಗಳು. ಕಟ್ಟಹುಣಿಯ ಕೂನೆಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ನೀರಿನ ತೊರೆ, ದಕ್ಷಿಣ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಕಡೆ ಇಂತಹ ತೊರೆಗಳನ್ನು "ಸಾರ್" ಎಂದು ಕರೆಯುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಸಣ್ಣದೇನಲ್ಲ ಸುಮಾರು ಹದಿನೈದು ಅಡಿ ಅಗಲದ ತೊರೆ. ಆಂಗ್ಲರ ನಾಡಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನದಿ ಎಂದು ಕರೆಯಬಹುದಾದಷ್ಟು ದೂಡ್ಡದಾದರೂ ನಮ್ಮೂರಲ್ಲಿ ಅದು ಕೇವಲ ಸಾರ್! ಯಾಕೆಂದರೆ ಇಂಗ್ಲೆಂಡ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ಕಂಡ ಕೆಲವುನದಿಗಳು ಆ ತೊರೆಗಿಂತ ಸಣ್ಣಗಿವೆ! ಆ ತೊರೆಗೆ ಕಟ್ಟು ಕಟ್ಟಿ ಇಡೀ ಬಯಲು ಗದ್ದೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸುಗ್ಗಿ ಬೆಳೆ ಬೆಳೆಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಕಾಲವೂಂದಿತ್ತೆಂದು ಕೇಳಿ ತಿಳಿದಿದ್ದೆ. ಆ ತೊರೆ ದಾಟಿ ಪಕ್ಕದೂರಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಲು ಕಲ್ಲಿನ ಸಣ್ಣ ಸೇತುವೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿದ್ದರು. ನಮ್ಮೂರಿನ ಕಡೆ ಈ ಸೇತುವೆಗಳಿಗೆ 'ಪಾಂಪು' ಎನ್ನುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಜೋರಾಗಿ ಮಳೆ ಬಂದು ತೊರೆ ತುಂಬಿ ಹರಿದರೆ, ಪಾಂಪು ನೀರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಳುಗಿ ಬಿಡುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಆ ಸಾರಿನ ಎರಡೂ ಕಡೆ ಮುಳ್ಳಿನ ಗಿಡಗಳು ದಟ್ಟವಾಗಿ ಬೆಳೆದು ಕೆಲವೊಮ್ಮೆ ಸಾರು ಮಾಯವಾಗುತಿತ್ತು. ಹಬ್ಬ ಹರಿದಿನಗಳಿಗೆ ಬೇಕಾದ ಕಡುಬಿನ ಎಲೆಗಳು ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಯಥೇಚ್ಛ ಬೆಳೆಯುತಿತ್ತು. ಬೇಸಿಗೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಊರಿನ ಯುವಕರು ಶ್ರಮದಾನಮಾಡಿ ನೀರು ಸರಾಗವಾಗಿ ಹರಿಯಲು ದಾರಿ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಡುತಿದ್ದರು. ಊರವರು ಹೇಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದ, ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಯ ಜೀವನದಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆದ ಹಲವಾರು ಘಟನೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಪೂರ್ಬಗಳು ಹೇಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಕಥೆ ತುಂಬಾ ರೋಚಕವಾದದ್ದು. ಒಂದು ಮಳೆಗಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಕ್ಕದೂರಿನ ಅಂಗರ ಪೂಜಾರಿ ಮಗಳು ತುಂಬು ಗರ್ಭಿಣಿ ಗಿರಿಜಾಳಿಗೆ ನೋವು ಆರಂಭವಾಯಿತು. ಮೂರು ದಿನಗಳಿಂದ ಸುರಿಯುತಿದ್ದ ಮಳೆ ನಿಲ್ಲುವ ಸೂಚನೆ ಕಾಣುತ್ತಿರಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನದ ಊಟ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕಣ್ಣು ಮುಚ್ಚಿ ಕುಳಿತಿದ್ದ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನಿಗೆ ಅಂಗಳದಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊರಂಬು ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡು ನಿಂತು 'ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕೆರೇ...'ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕೆರೇ....' ಎಂದು ಕ್ಷೀಣ ದನಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕರೆಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಅಂಗರನ ಪರಿಚಯವಾಗಲು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಸಮಯ ಹಿಡಿಯಿತು. ಅಂಗರ ಪೂಜಾರಿ ಹಲವು ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಜ್ಜನ ಗದ್ದೆ ಕೆಲಸಕ್ಕೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ಒಮ್ಮೆ ಕಾರಣಾಂತರ ಜಗಳವಾಗಿ ಈ ಕಡೆಗೆ ಬರುವುದು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿದ್ದ. ಆತನ ಮಗಳು ಗರ್ಭಿಣಿಯಾಗಿದ್ದು ಅಜ್ಜಿಗೆ ತಿಳಿದಿತ್ತು. ಆದರೆ ವೈಷಮ್ಯದಿಂದಾಗಿ ಅಂಗರನಾಗಲೀ ಆತನ ಹೆಂಡತಿಯಾಗಲೀ, ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನಿಗೇ ವಿಷಯ ತಿಳಿಸದಿದ್ದರೂ, ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತೊ ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತೈದೊ ಮನೆಗಳಿರು ಊರುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಒಬ್ಬರಿಗೆ ಶೀತವಾದರೂ ಅದು ಸಮಾಚಾರವಾಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಕಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ, ಅಂಗರನ ಮಗಳು ಬಸುರಾಗಿದ್ದು ಊರಿಗೆಲ್ಲ ತಿಳಿದ ವಿಷಯ. ಅದರ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ನಾಟಿ ವೈದ್ಯಕೂಡ. ನಮ್ಮೂರ ಜನ ಮಾತ್ರವಲ್ಲ ಅಕ್ಕಪಕ್ಕದ ಊರುಗಳಿಂದಲೂ ಯಾವುದೇ ಅನಾರೋಗ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಜನರಿಗೆ ಮೂದಲು ನೆನಪಾಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದು ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ. ಅಂಗರನನ್ನು ವಿಚಾರಿಸಲು ಮುಂಬಾಗಿಲ ಬಳಿ ಬಂದ ಅಜ್ಜಿಗೆ ಮಗಳು ಗಿರಿಜಾಳಿಗೆ ಕಳೆದ ರಾತ್ರಿಯಿಂದ ಹೆರಿಗೆ ನೋವು ಶುರುವಾಗುವ ವಿಷಯ ತಿಳಿಸಿದ. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಒಳ ಬಂದು ಹದಿನೆಂಟರ ಹರೆಯದ ಮಗಳಿಗೆ ಕೆಲವು ಸೂಚನೆಗಳನ್ನಿತ್ತು, ತನ್ನ ಕೊರಂಬು ಮತ್ತು ಕತ್ತಿ ಹಿಡಿದು ಅಂಗರನ ಹಿಂದೆ ಹೊರಟರು. ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂಗರ ತನ್ನಿಂದ ಆದ ತಪ್ಪಿಗೆ ಕ್ಷಮೆ ಯಾಚಿಸಿದ, ಇನ್ನು ಮುಂದೆ ಎಂದೂ ತಪ್ಪು ನಡೆಯದು ಎಂದು ಕಣ್ಣೀರಿಟ್ಟ. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಅಂದರು 'ಅದೆಲ್ಲ ಈಗ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಬಿಡು ಮಾರಾಯ ಮಗುವಿನ ಪ್ರಸವ ಸುಖಕರವಾಗಿ ಆಗಲಿ ಏಲ್ಲ ಆಮೇಲೆ ನೋಡೋಣ. ನಿನ್ನೆಯಿಂದ ನೋವು ಶುರುವಾಗಿದ್ರೂ ಯಾಕೆ ನಂಗೆ ಮೊದಲೇ ಹೇಳಿ ಕಳಿಸ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ? ಪಾಪ ಮಗು ಅದೆಷ್ಟು ನೋವು ಅನುಭವಿಸ್ತೋ' ಎಂದು ಆಕ್ಷೇಪಿಸಿದರು. ಅಂಗರನಿಗೆ ಇನ್ನಷ್ಟು ನಾಚಿಕೆಯಾಯಿತು. 'ನಾನು ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ಮುಲ್ಕಿಯಿಂದ ಡಾಕ್ಟರ್ ಅಮ್ಮನ ಕರ್ಕೂಂಡು ಬಂದೆ ಅವರು ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನ ದೊಡ್ಡಾಸ್ಪತ್ರೆ ಕರ್ಕೂಂಡು ಹೋಗಿ ಅಂದ್ರು. ಈ ಮಳೆಗೆ ಏನು ಮಾಡಬೇಕು ಅಂತ ತಿಳಿಯದೆ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಹತ್ರ ಬಂದೆ' ಅಂಗರ ಹುಲ್ಲು ತುಂಬಿದ ಹುಣಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಜ್ಜಿಯ ಹಿಂದೆ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಹಾಕುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಒಂದು ಕ್ಷಣ ನಿಂತು ತಿರುಗಿ ಅಂಗರನ ಮುಖ ದಿಟ್ಟಿಸಿ ನೋಡಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿದರು. ಅಂಗರ ತಲೆ ಎತ್ತುವ ಸಾಹಸ ಮಾಡಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಮತ್ತೆ ಎರಡು ಫರ್ಲಾಂಗ ದೂರದಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಅಂಗರನ ಮನೆಯವರಗೆ ಇಬ್ಬರೂ ಮೌನವಾಗಿದ್ದರು. ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ ಮೂರು ಗಂಟೆಯಿಂದ ಆರಂಭವಾದ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಪ್ರಸೂತಿ ಕೆಲಸ ಮುಗಿದು ಮುದ್ದಾದ ಹೆಣ್ಣು ಮಗು ಜನಿಸಿದಾಗ ಗಂಟೆ ರಾತ್ರಿಯ ಒಂಬತ್ತು ಕಾಲು, ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಹೆತ್ತ ಹೆಣ್ಣಿನಷ್ಟೆ ಸುಸ್ತಾಗಿದ್ದರು. ಹಸಿ ಬಾಣಂತಿಗೊಂದಿಷ್ಟು ಹಾಗೂ ಅಂಗರನ ಹೆಂಡತಿಗೊಂದಿಷ್ಟು ಸೂಚನೆ, ಆದೇಶಗಳನ್ನಿತ್ತು ಮನೆಯ ಕಡೆ ಹೊರಟಾಗ ಮಳೆ ತನ್ನ ಅಬ್ಬರವನ್ನು ಕಮ್ಮಿ ಮಾಡಿ ಜನುಗುಟ್ಟುತಿತ್ತು. ಅಂಗರ ತೆಂಗಿನ ಸೋಗೆ ಬಿಗಿದ ತೂಟೆ ರೆಡಿ ಮಾಡಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನನ್ನು ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಬರಲು ಹೂರಟ. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಅಂದರು 'ಹಸಿ ಬಾಣಂತಿಯನ್ನು ಈ ರಾತ್ರಿಯ ವೇಳೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ನೀನೆಲ್ಲೂ ಹೋಗಬೇಡ. ಆ ತೂಟೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊಡು ನಾನು ಹೊಗ್ತೆನೆ. ಮಳೆ ಹೇಗೂ ಕಡಿಮೆಯಾಗಿದೆ ನಾಳೆ ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ಆ ಕಡೆ ಯಾರಾದರೂ ಬರುವವರಿದ್ರೆ ತಾಯಿ ಮಗು ಹೇಗಿದ್ದಾರೆಂದು ಹೇಳಿ ಕಳೀಸು' ಎಂದು ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ, ಅಂಗರನ ಕೈಯಿಂದ ತೂಟೆ ತೆಗೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಮನೆಯ ಕಡೆ ಹೂರಟರು. ತೂಟೆಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಸೊಗೆ ಹೊತ್ತಿ ಉರಿಯಲು ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಚಿಟಿ..ಚಿಟಿ ಸದ್ದು, ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆಯ ಭಯಕ್ಕೆ ತಟ್ಟನೆ ಹುಣಿಯಿಂದ ಹಾರಿ ಗುಳುಂ ಎಂದು ಸದ್ದು ಮಾಡುತ್ತಾ ಗದ್ದೆಗೆ ಹಾರುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಕಪ್ಪೆಗಳ ವಟಗುಟ್ಟು ಮತ್ತು ಜಿರುಂಡೆಗಳ ಸದ್ದು ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ ಮತ್ತೆಲ್ಲ ನೀರವ ಮೌನ. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಸಾರಿನ ಬಳಿ ಬಂದಾಗ ಮಳೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಜೋರಾಯಿತು. ತೂಟೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮಳೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆನೆದು ಮಂದವಾಯಿತು. ಮಂದ ಬೆಳಕಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಕಲ್ಲು ಪಾಪಿನ ಬದಲಾಗಿ ಕಡುಬಿನೆಲೆಯ ಪೊದೆಗೆ ಕಾಲಿಟ್ಟರು. ಮಳೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆನೆದು ಸಡಿಲಗೊಂಡ ಮಣ್ಣು ಮೆಲ್ಲಗೆ ನೀರಿನ ರಭಸಕ್ಕೆ ಕೊಚ್ಚಿ ನೀರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ತೇಲಿ ಹೋಗಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿತು. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಒಂದು ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ತೂಟೆ ಇನ್ನೂಂದು ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪೂದೆಯನ್ನು ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾಗಿ ಹಿಡಿದುಕೂಂಡರು. ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾಗಿ ಕೂಗಿದರೂ ದ್ವನಿ ಮಾರುದೂರ ಕೇಳದಷ್ಟು ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾಗಿ ಮಳೆ ಸುರಿಯುತಿತ್ತು. ದೂರದಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡಿದರೆ ನಡುಸಾರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ದೊಂದಿ ಹೋದಂತೆ ಕಾಣಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು! ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಪೂರ್ಬುಗಳು ಸಂಜೆ ಲಿಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾಯಮ್ಮನ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಜಗಳವಾಡಿ ಮೈಲಿಗಲ್ಲು ಬಳಿಯ ಗಡಂಗಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಸಾರಾಯಿಗೆ ತುಂಬಾ ನೀರು ಹಾಕಿ ಕುಡಿದು ಅದು ತಲೆಗೆ ಹತ್ತಲಿಲ್ಲ ಎಂದು ಗಡಂಗಿನ ಸುಧಾಕರ ಶೆಟ್ಟಿಯ ಬಳಿ ಜಗಳವಾಡಿ, ಒಂದಷ್ಟು ಕಳ್ಳು ಏರಿಸಿಕೊಂಡು, ಲಿಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾಯಮ್ಮನ ತಮ್ಮ ದುಬೈಯಿಂದ ತಂದ ಊರಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಣಸಿಗುವ ಒಂದೇ ಒಂದು ಪಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನೆ ಕುಕ್ಕಿ ಸಣ್ಣದು ಮಾಡಬಹುದಾದ ಕೊಡೆ ಹಿಡಿದು ಕೊಂಡು, ಒಂದು ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಹುಣಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹತ್ತು ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಗದ್ದೆಯಲ್ಲಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡು ಮನೆ ಕಡೆ ಹೂರಟಿದ್ದ. ಹಳ್ಳದ ಗದ್ದೆಯ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆ, ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಪರ್ಬುವಿಗೆ ಸಾರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸಾಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದದೊಂದಿ ಕಾಣಿಸಿತು. ಮೊದಲ ನೋಟಕ್ಕೆ ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಪರ್ಬುವಿಗೆ ನೆನಪಿಗೆ ಬಂದದ್ದು ಆತನ ಅಪ್ಪ ಹೇಳಿದ್ದ ಪಂಜುರ್ಲಿ ದೈವದ ಕಥೆ. ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜನ ಮನೆ ದೈವ ಪಂಜುರ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮೂರು ಮಾತ್ರವಲ್ಲ ಅಕ್ಕ ಪಕ್ಕದ ಊರುಗಳಲ್ಲೂ ಬಹಳ ಪ್ರಸಿದ್ಧ. ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿಯ ತಂದೆ ತಾನು ಪಂಜುರ್ಲಿಯನ್ನು ಕಂಡ ಕಥೆಯನ್ನು ಊರವರಿಗೆಲ್ಲ ರಸವತ್ತಾಗಿ ವರ್ಣಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ಆ ಕಥೆ ನೆನಪಾಗುತಿತ್ತಂತೆ, ಕುಡಿತದ ಮಬ್ಬು ಅರ್ಧಕ್ಕೆ ಇಳಿಯಿತು. ಆದರೂ ಅವನಿಗೆ ನೆನಪಿನಲ್ಲಿ ದೈವಗಳು ಮದ್ಯರಾತ್ರಿಯ ಮೇಲೆ ಹೂರ ಬರುತ್ತವೆ, ಇಷ್ಟೊಂದು ಬೇಗ ದೈವ ಇರಲಿಕ್ಕಿಲ್ಲ ಎಂದುಕೊಂಡರೂ, ಅಪ್ಪನ ಅನುಭವದ ಮಾತು ಮರೆಯಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಕಡೆಗೂ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಧೈರ್ಯ ಮಾಡಿ ದೊಂದಿಯ ಬೆಳಕಿನೆಡೆಗೆ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಹಾಕಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿದ. ಮಳೆಯ ತೀವ್ರತೆ ಕಡಿಮೆಯಾದ ಕಾರಣ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ತೂಟೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಜೋರಾಗಿ ಉರಿಯಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿತು. ನೀರಿನ ರಭಸಕ್ಕೆ ತೇಲಿ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಪೂದೆ ಇನ್ನೆರಡು ಪೂದೆಗಳ ನಡುವೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿಹಾಕಿಕೂಂಡಿತ್ತು. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿನ ತೂಟೆ ಒಂದು ಕಡೆ ಸ್ಥಿರವಾಗಿದ್ದರಿಂದಲೊ ಅಥವಾ ಕುಡಿದ ಮತ್ತು ಕಮ್ಮಿಯಾದ್ದರಿಂದಲೊ ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಪೊರ್ಬು ಇನ್ನೂ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತೂಟೆಯಕಡೆ ಹೋಗುವ ಧೈರ್ಯ ಮಾಡಿದ. ಆಗ ಆತನಿಗೆ ಕ್ಷೀಣವಾಗಿ ಹೆಣ್ಣು ಧ್ವನಿ ಕೇಳಿಸಿತು. ಯಾವುದಾದರೂ ಮೋಹಿನಿಯ ಕಾಟವಿರಬಹುದೇ? ಅಂದುಕೊಂಡು ಒಂದು ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಹಿಂದೆ ಹಾಕಿದರೂ ಮತ್ತೆ ಧೈರ್ಯ ಮಾಡಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಹೋಗಿ ಭೂತ, ದೈವಗಳ ಕೈವಾಡ ವಿರಲಾರದೆಂದು ಖಚಿತಪಡಿಸಿಕೂಂಡು, ಹೇಗೆ ತಾನು ಆ ಪೊದೆಯನ್ನು ಬದಿಗೆ ಎಳೆಯಬೇಕೆಂದು ಯೋಚಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವಾಗ, ಉರಿವ ತೂಟೆಯ ಬೆಳಕಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಮುಖ ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟವಾಗಿ ಗೋಚರಿಸಿ, ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿಗೆ ಪೂರ್ಣ ಧೈರ್ಯ ಬಂತು. 'ಹಾಗೆಯೇ ಹಿಡಿದುಕೂಂಡಿರಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕೆರೆ ಈಗ ಬಂದೆ' ಎಂದು ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಏತದ ಬಾವಿಯ ಬಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಏತದ ಹಗ್ಗ ಗಂಟು ಬಿಡಿಸಿ ತಂದ. ಅಷ್ಟು ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ಆತನ ಕುಡಿದ ಮತ್ತೆಲ್ಲ ಇಳಿದು ಹಗ್ಗಕ್ಕೂಂದು ಉರುಳು ಬಿಗಿದು ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಕಡೆಗೆ ಎಸೆದ. ನೀರಿನ ರಭಸಕ್ಕೆ ಎಸೆದ ಹಗ್ಗ, ಪ್ರತಿ ಸಲವೂ ಗುರಿ ತಪ್ಪುತಿತ್ತು. ಹತ್ತಾರು ಬಾರಿ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿದ ಬಳಿಕ ಆತ ಎಸೆದ ಹಗ್ಗದ ತುದಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಕೈಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತು. 'ಉರುಳು ಸೂಂಟಕ್ಕೆ ಹಾಕಿಕೂಳ್ಳಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕೆರೆ, ಅದು ಸೂಂಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿಕೂಳ್ಳುವವರೆಗೆ ಪೂದೆ ಬಿಡ ಬೇಡಿ' ಎಂದು ತಾಕೀತು ಮಾಡಿ ಹಗ್ಗದ ಇನ್ನೂಂದು ತುದಿಯನ್ನು ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಮರಕ್ಕೆ ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾಗಿ ಬಿಗಿದು ಕಟ್ಟಿ, ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನನ್ನು ಮೇಲೆತ್ತಲು ಸಿದ್ಧನಾದ. ನದಿಯ ದಡದಲ್ಲಿನ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ, ನಾಲ್ಕು ಗಂಡು ಮಕ್ಕಳೂಂದಿಗೆ ಹುಟ್ಟಿ ಬೆಳೆದ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನಿಗೆ ಈಜುವುದು ಯಾರೂ ಕಲಿಸಬೇಕಾಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೆ ತುಂಬಿ ಹರಿಯುವ ವಿಶಾಲವಾದ ನದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಈಜಿ ದಡ ಸೇರಲು ಬೇಕಾದ ಎದೆಗಾರಿಕೆ ಮತ್ತು ಶಕ್ತಿ ಇದ್ದರೂ, ಈ ಮಣ್ಣು ಮಿಶ್ರಿತ, ಮುಳ್ಳು ಪೂದೆಗಳಿಂದ ಆವೃತವಾದ ಸಾರಿನಲ್ಲಿ, ಈ ಕತ್ತಲಲ್ಲಿ ಈಜಿ ದಡ ಸೇರಲು ಬೇಕಾಗಿರುವ ಛಾತಿಯೇ ಬೇರೆ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನಿಗೆ. ಒಂದೇ ಒಂದು ಧೈರ್ಯ ಅಂದರೆ ಈ ನೀರಿನ ರಭಸಕ್ಕೆ ಕೊಚ್ಚಿ ಹೋಗಿ ಸತ್ತು ಹೋದರೆ, ಅನಾಥವಾಗಿ ದಿನಗಟ್ಟಲೆ ಕಾಯಬೇಕಿಲ್ಲ. ಯಾಕೆಂದರೆ ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಸಾಕ್ಷಿ ಇದ್ದಾನೆ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು! ತನ್ನ ಹುಚ್ಚು ಯೋಚನೆಗೆ ತಾನೆ ಮನದೊಳಗೆ ನಕ್ಕು, ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಎಸೆದ ಹಗ್ಗವನ್ನು ತನ್ನ ಸೊಂಟಕ್ಕೆ ಬಿಗಿದು, ಒಂದು ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಿಡಿದ ತೂಟೆಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಮೆಲ್ಲಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟು ಹೊತ್ತು ಆಸರೆಯಾಗಿದ್ದ ಪೂದೆಯನ್ನು ಬಿಟ್ಟು ದಡದ ಕಡೆಗೆ ಬರತೊಡಗಿದರು. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ದಡದ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆ ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಹಗ್ಗದ ಉದ್ದವನ್ನು ಕಡಮೆ ಮಾಡುತ್ತ ಹಗ್ಗದ ಮೇಲಿನ ತನ್ನ ಹಿಡಿತವನ್ನು ಗಟ್ಟಿಗೂಳಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ಆಸರೆಗಾಗಿ ಎಡಾಲನ್ನು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹಿಂದೆ ಊರಿಕೂಂಡು, ಬಲಗಾಲಿನಿಂದ ಎದುರಿಗಿದ್ದ ಹುಣಿಗೆ ಒತ್ತಿ ಹಿಡಿದಿದ್ದ. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ತೀರ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬಂದಾಗ ಆಕೆಯ ಕೈಯನ್ನು ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾಗಿ ಹಿಡಿದು ಮೇಲೆಳೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಬಿಟ್ಟ. ಒದ್ದೆಯಾದ ತಲೆಯೆಂದ ಕಣ್ಣಿಗೆ ಇಳಿಯತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನೀರನ್ನು ಒರೆಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತ 'ಈ ಕತ್ತಲಲ್ಲಿ, ಈ ಮಳೆಗೆ ನೀವೇಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಹೋರಟದ್ದು ಮಾರಾಯರೆ' ಎಂದ ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ. 'ಅಂಗನ ಮಗಳಿಗೆ ನೋವು ಶುರುವಾಗತ್ತು ಪೂರ್ಬಗಳೆ, ಹೆರಿಗೆ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೊರಟಿದ್ದೆ. ಪಾಂಪಿನ ಮೇಲೆ ಕಾಲಿಟ್ಟೆ ಜಾರಿ ನೀರಿಗೆ ಬಿದ್ದೆ. ಈ ಪೊದೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿ ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡೆ, ನೀವಲ್ಲದಿದ್ರೆ ಇವತ್ತು ಬದುಕಿನ ಕೊನೆಯಾಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತೆನೂ' ಎಂದು ಚಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಡುಗಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿದರು ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ. ನೀರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸುಮಾರು ಒಂದು ಗಂಟೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿ ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡಾಗ ಆಗದ ಚಳಿ, ದಡ ಸೇರಿದ ಒಂದೆರಡು ನಿಮಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತಡೆಯಲಸಾಧ್ಯ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು. 'ನಡೆಯಿರಿ ನಿಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಹೋಗ್ತೆನೆ' ಎಂದು ಎರಡೊ ಮೂರೊ ಕಡ್ಡಿ ಮುರಿದ ದುಬೈಯ ಕೊಡೆಯನ್ನು ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರಕ್ಕೆಂದು ಹಿಡಿದುಕೊಂಡು ಹೊರಟಾಗ, ಚಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಡಗುತ್ತ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಅರ್ಧ ಸುಟ್ಟ ತೂಟೆ ಹಿಡಿದು ಆತನ ಮುಂದೆ ನಡೆದರು. ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ದೂರ ಸಾಗುತ್ತಿದಂತೆ, ಮುಳ್ಳಿನ ಪೂದೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿಹಾಕಿಕೂಂಡ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಕೊರಂಬು ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತು. ಮೆಲ್ಲಗೆ ಬಗ್ಗಿ ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಕೊರಂಬು ಎತ್ತಿ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಕೈಗಿತ್ತ. ಕೊರಂಬು ಧರಿಸಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ಚಳಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕಮ್ಮಿ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು. ಬಲಕ್ಕೆ ತಿರುಗಿ ಕಟ್ಟಹುಣಿ ಹತ್ತಿ ಮನೆ ಸೇರಿದ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ, ಮಗಳನ್ನು ಕರೆದು, ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿಗೆ ಒಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಕಷಾಯದ ಪಾತ್ರೆಯಿಂದ ಒಂದು ಲೋಟ ಬಡ್ಡು ಹುಳಿಯ ಕಷಾಯ ಕೊಡಲು ಹೇಳಿದರು. ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಜಗಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳಿತಿದ್ದ ಅಜ್ಜನಿಗೆ ನಡೆದ ಕಥೆ ಹೇಳಿ, ದೂರದಲ್ಲಿ ತೂಟೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆ ಕಾಣುತ್ತಿದ್ದದ್ದು. ಅದು ತನ್ನಪ್ಪ ಹೇಳಿದ ಪಂಜುರ್ಲಿಯ ಕಥೆ ನೆನಪಿಗೆ ಬಂದದ್ದು ಎಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ಎಳೆ ಎಳೆಯಾಗಿ ವಿವರಿಸುತ್ತ ಕಷಾಯ ಗುಟುಕರಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜ ಮನದಲ್ಲೇ ಮುಖ್ಯಪ್ರಾಣನನ್ನು ಸ್ಮರಿಸುತ್ತ, ನಸುನಗುತ್ತ ಕುಳಿತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಮಾರನೇ ದಿನ ಊರೆಲ್ಲಾ ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ಪ್ರವಾಹದಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊಚ್ಚಿ ಹೋದ ಕಥೆ, ಗಸ್ಮಾರಿ ಪೂರ್ಬುಗಳು ಭೂತವೆಂದು ಭಯಪಟ್ಟಿದ್ದು ಸುದ್ದಿಯಾಗಿತ್ತು! ಪ್ರತಿ ಮಳೆಗಾಲದಲ್ಲೂ ಯಾರಾದರೂಬ್ಬರು ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕನ ಕಥೆಯನ್ನು ನೆನಪಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಅಂಗರ ತನ್ನ ಮೂಮ್ಮಗಳಿಗೆ 'ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ' ಎಂದೆ ಹೆಸರಿಟ್ಟಿದ್ದ. ನಮ್ಮಪ್ಪ ವ್ಯವಹಾರಗಳೆಲ್ಲ ಲಾಸ್ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡು ನಮ್ಮೂರಲ್ಲಿ ಮನೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿ, ನಾವು ಅಜ್ಜಿ ಮನೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಐದಾರು ವರ್ಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜ ತೀರಿಕೊಂಡರು. ನಾಲ್ಕು ಜನ ಸ್ವಂತ ಗಂಡು ಮಕ್ಕಳಿದ್ದರೂ, ಎಲ್ಲ ಸೇರಿ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯನ್ನು ತಂದು ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಟ್ಟಾಗ, ಸಣ್ಣಂದಿನಲ್ಲೇ ತಾಯಿಯನ್ನು ಕಳೆದುಕೊಂಡ ನಮ್ಮಪ್ಪ ಆಗದು ಎನ್ನಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾವುದೇ ತಕರಾರು ಇಲ್ಲದೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಕಡಿಮೆ ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ ಇದ್ದರು. ಕೊನೆಗೂ ಹಠ ಹಿಡಿದು, ತನ್ನ ಗಂಡನ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ ತನ್ನ ಕೊನೆಯ ದಿನಗಳನ್ನು ಕಳೆದ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿ ತುಂಬಾ ಮೌನವಾಗಿದ್ದು, ದಿನದ ಒಂದು ಹೊತ್ತು ಮಾತ್ರ ಊಟ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಬೆಳ್ಳಗಿನ ಮೈ ಬಣ್ಣದ ನನ್ನ ಮಗಳು ಬೊಜ್ಜು ಬಾಯಗಲಿಸಿ ಮೊದಲ ನಗು ನಕ್ಕಾಗ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯ ನೆನಪಾಗಿ ಆಕೆಯನ್ನು 'ಪುಟ್ಟಕ್ಕ' ಎಂದು ಕರೆಯಲಾರಂಬಿಸಿದಾಗ ನನಗಾದ ಒಂದೇ ಬಯಕೆ ಆಕೆಯೂ ನಮ್ಮಜ್ಜಿಯಂತೆ ಸಹಜವಾದ '

Some thoughts 1

2018-05-30T23:55:00.004-07:00

Visions for India Some of the beautiful and meaningful concepts given by the Indian priminister Mr. Narendra Modi in 2014 when he became brand new priminister of India. When he became PM, he did not have any baggage's. He was a new man at this high position of the biggest democracy in the world. All participating parties of the National Democratic Alliance were happy. Though Mr. Modi did not need any help form participants he shown he is not the one who forgets partnership in good time. As he started giving new vision statements like "Sub Ke Saath sab ka Vikas", "Bharath Vishwa Guru", "Make in India", this corporate concept of vision statements, result based elevation in a rusted Indian public sector sounded like a joke. General public started getting excited by these kinds of new words and phrases. Unrest in the alliance, jealousy in opposition started appearing. As the profile of India started raising on the international stage, the childish behavior of the alliance and opposition started coming to light more frequently. The incapable leadership of the opposition believed too much in proof of assertion! own alliances started pulling the leg of this man with the illusion of one day it might come out! Effects of these negative acts are the man started becoming more stronger, the international arena started wondering how useless people could be in Indian politics just because of they inherited it. India Vishwa Guru is a beautiful concept which is thousands of year old reality. The wisdom and knowledge of Indian ancient civilization yet to fully uncovered and understood. Since the independents, hardly anything is done for an identity to Indians. Anything did happened since 1947 is only try to keep the vote bank safe by different political parties and given a little in the name of development. A country like Israel became independent similar time as India and look at the development it has done in the midst of all the conflicts and enmity. In the name of democracy in India the governments try to programme people to believe themselves whatever they got is the best and they don’t deserve any better. Pseudo-democracy of India is pulling its own greatness down and destroying the country in the illusions British build while leaving India in the hands of incapable people. Maybe Mr Gandhi was an illusion as well when he thought Mr Nehru is more eligible than Mr Patel to run the country. Or was British created brand calm Gandhi against aggressive nationalists like Bose? Post independent India lived in that illusion for such a long because there was no one, to tell the truth to the common man of India. It is good to be enjoying the independence but it is also acting responsibly and think about future. but our leaders only looked at how to divide the people and build their vote bank. people were so uninformed due to the lake of the honest information system. People were said they are not equal and they believed it. In the name of reservation people with talent forced to fly out of the country and they did. this was beneficial to the countries like the USA and European countries. People with 35% marks in education joined the workforce to do 35 % performance. People above 90% mark holders and good performers escape the country and build the countries like the USA and Europe. There is no point in giving free gifts, it is important to make people earn them. People should be able to live when a person giving gifts are not around. By giving free facilities political parties rule India made people lazy. When people know they don’t get free gifts they work hard and competing for society harness itself in the middle of opportunities. But independent Indian political parties didn’t realise it or lazy people are good for their political benefits. Parties in power fed people their own glorification in the name of education and try to keep them as less educated as possible. In the midst of this, the people went outside India in search of opportunities started bringing back the knowledge. The result was IT revolution of India. Different political parties may claim that it was their achievement of bringing computers to India. I strongly believe the Indian youngsters in west visualized the opportunities. Maybe government policies aided their vision, but once the common man decides to go in a direct political workforce has to follow that. It is the compulsion for the politics. At the same time, politicians can give vision people need to follow. But for years in India, there were no visionary politicians. If I remember right last such thing happened was by Lal Bahadur Shastri's "Jai Javan Jai Kisan". Maybe people claim that "Garibee Hatao" as well but no action followed that slogan. Its once again needed the opportunities and schemes to help people to become capable than just feed them with free food. Unless one earn something one will never realize the importance of that thing which is in his hand. Also, you can give free things as far as you are in power but once you are not in power that person becomes poor again. Instead, you make him capable of earning my own rupees then he will never go back to poverty again. I feel that the reason India failed to achieve its greatness back since independence is just that of this concept of freebies. Political parties ruled India since the independence just to keep their vote back safe distributed freebees once every now and then and keep getting their power back. I feel like this is first time happening that a ruling party tries to make people capable of lifting themselves out of poverty and empowering themselves to achieve a better lifestyle. I feel like Sab ka Saath sab ka Vikas is happening because there are no schemes (Scams) I could see targeting one community or cast or section of people announced. No Schemes (Scams) announced near a state election which indicates that people should feel the development, not look at them and vote. ……………………………………….

Baby came

2018-04-14T13:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday (28th april 2017) at 17:26:47 baby came. That is a line I wrote about a year ago. I want to capture a feelings and emotions of baby in my life. It is hard to explain. We don’t know how these 11months passed.
To start of exactly 11 months ago today that was 27th April around 11in the night Sunitha said her water broke. I didn’t want to drive to hospital in that tension. Called one of our friend but his brother in law passed away. Another friend didn’t pick the call. May be god wanted us to have that time only for me and Sunitha. After a bit of a try got my good old friend cabbie Panda car said not to worry he will send a taxi. We were not expecting baby for at least one more month. So we were not done our shopping fully yet. We picked up whatever baby cloths we had and taxi was in front of home in 10min and we left. I was very nervous but could not show it to Sunitha. In another 15 to 20 min reached Homerton hospital. By then I lost the count of time I wanted Sunutha to be safe. I even felt that whatever it may happen I wanted Sunitha to be safe. It all looks very odd now but those were the thoughts at that moment.
After waiting for about an hour they decided to admit her and scheduled c-section following day which was Friday the 28th April. I sat next to her bed holding her hand whole night. She was sleeping because of pain killers worked well for her. I was not slept whole night all kinds of thoughts passing in my mind, Felt like alone in the world, cannot talk to anyone, don't know what to do, bad thoughts started coming as well. If something happens to Sunitha? Just keep reciting vishnu sahasranama. Morning realised I was not sure I locked the home door or not. Could not leave Sunitha alone but what should I do? I spoke to a nurse early morning. She gave me lot of courage and said I could go home and come back and she will make sure Sunitha is not gone to theatre before I come back. When Sunitha woke up I kissed her with heavy heart ran to train station. I was really ran through out that that day’s journey When I reached home I straight went to take bath and picked up all the stuff Sunitha asked me to then quickly went to Tesco and purchased diapers for the baby and ran to the station and to the hospital . It was waiting for whole day because of they had lots of emergencies. One of the nurse was very helpful may be she knew that I work for NHS. Ashok keep texting me to say that delay the delivery because of not good time in the morning. It was so much of tension because you don’t know what is happening. Once a while Sunitha wakes up and tell me baby is not moving but I cannot panic. If I panic she will as well. Kept talking to her and talking to her only positive things. I think only god helped me at that moment because no one to tell or give courage to me. Initially it was decided to have the C-Section at 8:30am but due to delay it was keep postponing. In open I was very relaxed but inside I was very nervous, my heart beat was very fast and all negative thoughts passing by. Try to give Sunitha as comfort as possible, she looked very excited and relaxed. I dint feel like having anything because she was not able to have anything till the surgery. It was about 5pm the nurse came and said they are taking Sunitha in for surgery. They gave me the scrubs as well. I accompanied Sunitha to theatre. She looked very excited I was very nervous till I hear the babies cry. It was 5:26 we could hear the first cry of the baby. When she came out didn’t cry it was anxious moment. A moment later she cried. It was the sweetest sound I ever heard in my life. She was so beautiful, they left her on Sunithas chest, I was scared she may fall down I hold on to her when Sunitha was looking at her. I was just thanking god again and again.

I was so happy to see her, can not explain it. Nurses took Sunitha for recovery and I had to accompany little Aadhya to the pediatric department for antibiotic. They give antibiotic for three days for pre matured delivery. Aadhya came about 4 weeks early! I saw about 10 to 15 babies in the incubeters. That gave me a little relife that my baby does not have to go through that. I called Amma and told her the arrival of Puttakka. I called Sunitha's mother as well. Puttakka was sleeping happily. When the doctor try to cannulate her I felt more pain than Pttakka! Doctor told me such small Babie's wont feel any pain. After couple of hours away from Sunitha finally me and Puttakka joined with Sunitha in the ward. All other new born babies were quiet and happily breast feeding. But our Pttakka was eager to have breast feeding and crying. Sunitha tried to breast fed her couple of times it was all experiment for us. Nurse try to teach Sunitha. Puttakka had a bit and the nurse thought me to change the diaper! I changed Puttakka's first diapper! almost one year later I published it

ಯುವ ಶಕ್ತಿ

2017-12-18T12:26:00.001-08:00

ನಾವು ಸಣ್ಣವರಿದ್ದಾಗ ಅತಿಯಾದ ಜನ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಯನ್ನು ಶಾಪವಾಗಿ ಪರಿಗಣಿಸಲಾಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಶಾಲೆಗಳ ಸಮಾಜಶಾಸ್ರದ ಪಾಠಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾರತ ಹಿಂದುಳಿದ ದೇಶವಾಗಿರಲು ಜನ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಯನ್ನು ದೂರಲಾಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ದಿನ ಕಳೆದಂತೆ ಭಾರತದ ಜನ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ವರವಾಗಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿತು. ಜನರನ್ನು ಬಳಕೆದಾರರಾಗಿ ಪರಿಗಣಿಸಿದಾಗ, ಭಾರವಾಗಿದ್ದ ಜನ ಪ್ರಗತಿಯ ಪ್ರತೀಕವಾಗ ತೂಡಗಿದರು. ಜನ ಸಾಂದ್ರತೆ ಕಮ್ಮಿ ಇದ್ದ ಅಮೇರಿಕ, ಐರೋಪ್ಯ ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರಗಳ ಕಡೆ ಹೂಗಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿ ಊರ್ಜತವಾದರು. ದೇಶದ ಯುವ ಜನಾಂಗ ದೇಶದ ಸಂಪತ್ತು ಎಂದು ಸಂಬ್ರಮಪಟ್ಟ ಜನ, ಮೀಸಲಾತಿಯೆಂಬ ರಕ್ಕಸನ ಹಿಡಿತದಿಂದ ತಪ್ಪಿಸಿಕೂಳ್ಳಲು ಪಲಾಯನಗೈದ ಪ್ರತಿಭಾವಂತ ಯುವಕರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಲೆಕೆಡಿಸಿ ಕೂಳ್ಳಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ಅಧಿಕಾರ ದಾಹದಿಂದ ರಾಜಕೀಯ ಪಕ್ಷಗಳು ಜಾತಿಯ ಆಧಾರದ ಮೇಲೆ ಮೀಸಲಾತಿ ಅಂದಾಗ, ನಾಚಿ ಅದನ್ನು ತಿರಸ್ಕರಿಸುವ ಬದಲು ಅದನ್ನು ನಮಗೂ ಬೇಕು, ನಮಗೂ ಬೇಕೆಂದು ಹೂರಾಡುವ ಜನ ಅದೇ ಹೋರಾಟದ ಛಲವನ್ನು ವಿಧ್ಯೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸರಿದೂಗಲು ಉಪಯೂಗಿಸಿದ್ದರೆ ನಮ್ಮದೇಶವೂ ಇವತ್ತು ಬೇರೆಲ್ಲ ಅಭಿವೃಧಿಯಾದ ದೇಶಗಳ ಮುಂಚೂಣಿಯಲ್ಲಿರುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ರಾಜಕಾರಣಿಗಳು ಮತ್ತೆ ಮತ್ತೆ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಲೂಟಿ ಮಾಡುವ ಅವಕಾಶವಿರುತ್ತಿರಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ.
ಒಂದು ರೂಪಾಯಿಗೆ ಅಕ್ಕಿ ಕೂಡುವುದಕ್ಕಿಂತ, 50ರೂಪಾಯಿ ಅಕ್ಕಿ ಖರೀದಿ ಮಾಡುವ ಸಾಮರ್ಥ್ಯ ಒದಗಿಸುವ ರಾಜಕಾರಣಿ ಬೇಕೆಂದು ನಮಗೆ ಅನ್ನಿಸಲೇ ಇಲ್ಲ. ಕೆಲವು ರಾಜ್ಯಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಚುನಾವಣೆಯ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಭಾವನೆಯಾಗಿ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಟೆಲಿವಿಷನ್ ಜನತೆಯನ್ನು ಅದೆಷ್ಟು ಸೂಮಾರಿಗಳನ್ನಾಗಿ ಮಾಡಿತ್ತೆಂದರೆ ಮುಂದಿನ ಚುಣಾವಣೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಜನ ಉದ್ಯೋಗ ಕೇಳಲು ಮರೆತರು. ಕೇವಲ ಬಿಟ್ಟಿ ಜೀವನಕ್ಕೆ ಒಗ್ಗಿ ಹೋದರು.

ಯುವ ಜನರನ್ನು ಸೊಮಾರಿಯಾಗಿಸುವ ಷಡ್ಯಂತ್ರ ರಾಜಕೀಯ ರಂಗ ಸತತವಾಗಿ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದರೆ, ಯುವ ಜನಾಂಗ ತಮ್ಮ ಕುರುಡು ಬುದ್ಧಿಯಿಂದ ದೇಶ ನಾಶ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಇದೇ ಕಾರಣಗಳಿಂದ ಭಾರತದ ಯುವ ಜನ ಅಸಹನೀಯರೂ ಸ್ವಾರ್ಥಿಗಳೂ ಆಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ.
ವಿಧ್ಯೆಯಿಂದ ವಿನಯ ಮರೆತು, ಧ್ರಾಷ್ಟ್ಯರಾಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ.

ಇದು ನನ್ನ ಸ್ವಂತದ ಅನುಭವಗಳು. ಕಳೆದ ಹನ್ನೆರಡು ವರ್ಷಗಳನ್ನು ಪರದೇಶದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಳೆದರೂ, ಬಹು ಪಾಲು ಬಾಲ್ಯ ಯವ್ವನವನ್ನು ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಳೆದಿದ್ದೇನೆ, ಈಗ ವರ್ಷಕೂಮ್ಮೆ ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಳೆವ ಎರಡು ಮೂರು ವಾರಗಳು ಕೆಲವೂಮ್ಮೆ ಅಚ್ಚರಿ ಹುಟ್ಟಿಸುತ್ತದೆ.
ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗಿ ಬ್ಯಾಂಕಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ ಬಾಗಿಲ ಬಳಿ ಸರತಿ ನಿಂತಿದ್ದೆ. ಬಾಗಿಲು ತೆರೆದಾಗ ನನ್ನ ಹಿಂದೆ ನಿಂತಿದ್ದ ಜನ ನನ್ನನ್ನು ಬದಿಗೆ ಸರಿಸಿ ಒಳಗೆ ಹೋದಾಗ ಬಾರದ ಸಿಟ್ಟು, ಒಬ್ಬ ಹೆಂಗಸಿಗೋಸ್ಕರ ಬಾಗಿಲು ತೆರೆದು ಹಿಡಿದಾಗ ನುಗ್ಗಿ ಹೂದ ಮೂವ್ವರು ಯುವಕರನ್ನು ನೋಡಿದಾಗ ಬಂದಿತ್ತು. ಸರತಿ ಸಾಲಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಂತಿದ್ದ ನನ್ನನ್ನು ಕಡೆಗಣಿಸಿ, ಕಂಡೂ ಕಾಣದಂತೆ ಮುನ್ನುಗಿ ಹೋದ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಯ ಮೇಲಾಗದ ಸಿಟ್ಟು; ಹಣ್ಣು ಮದುಕಿಯೂಬ್ಬಳನ್ನು ಬದಿಗೆ ಸರಿಸಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋದ ಯುವಕನ ಮೇಲಾಗಿತ್ತು.
ಇಂಥಃ ಯುವ ಜನಾಂಗ ದೇಶದ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ದಿಗೆ ಎಷ್ಟು ಸಹಕರಿಸ ಬಹುದು?
ನಮ್ಮ ದೇಶದ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ದಿಯ ಮಾಪನಗಳಾವುವು?. ತಿಂಗಳು ತಿಂಗಳು ಬರುವ ಸಂಬಳ?, ಹತ್ತಾರು ಮರ ಕಡಿದು ಕಟ್ಟಿದ ಮನೆಯ ವಿಸ್ತೀರ್ಣ?, ತಂದೆ ತಾಯಿಗಳನ್ನು ಮನೆಯಿಂದ ಹೊರಗಟ್ಟಿ ಬ್ಯಾಂಕ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಇಟ್ಟ ಹಣದ ಮೊತ್ತ? ಹೀಗೆ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ದಿಯನ್ನು ಅಳೆವ ಸಮಾಜದಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಯುವಜನತೆ ಸ್ವಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಾಗುತ್ತಿರಲು, ಅವರು ದೇಶದ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ದಿಗೆ ಸಹಕಾರಿಯಾಗುತ್ತಾರೆನ್ನುವ ಮಾತಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನನಗೆ ದಟ್ಟವಾದ ಸಂಶಯಗಳಿವೆ.

ಪಾಶ್ಚಮಾತ್ಯರನ್ನು ಬೈಯುವುದು ಸುಲಭ ಆದರೆ ಒಂದಂಶ ಅವರ ಬದುಕಿನ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯ ಗುಣಗಳನ್ನು ರೂಢಿಸಿಕೂಳ್ಳುವುದು ನಮ್ಮ ಯುವ ಜನತೆಗೆ ಕಷ್ಟದ ಮಾತು. ನಾವು ಭಗವಧ್ಗೀತೆಯನ್ನು ಜಗತ್ತಿಗೆ ಕೂಟ್ಟಿರಬಹುದು ಆದರೆ ಇಂದು ಅದನ್ನು ಬದುಕಲ್ಲಿ ಅಳವಡಿಸಿಕೂಂಡ ಭಾರತೀಯರೆಷ್ಟುಮಂದಿ?

ಒಂದು ದೇಶದ ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆಗೆ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞಾವಂತ, ಪರಸಹಿಷ್ಣು ಯುವಜನ ಬೇಕೇ ಹೂರತು ಪ್ರಜ್ಞಾಹೀನ, ಸ್ವಾರ್ಥಿ ಯುವ ಜನಾಂಗವಲ್ಲ. ನಾವು ಲೆಕ್ಕಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಇರುವ ಯುವ ಜನರ ಲೆಕ್ಕ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಗುಣಮಟ್ಟವಿರುವ ಯುವಕರನ್ನು ಸಮಾಜಕ್ಕೆ ಕೂಡುವ ಕೆಲಸ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು. ಈ ಸಮಾಜವೇ ಯುವ ಜನರನ್ನು ದಾರಿ ತಪ್ಪಿಸುತ್ತಿದೆ ಎನ್ನುವ ಎಡಪಂಕ್ತಿಯ ನಿಲುವನ್ನು ಬಿಟ್ಟು ದೇಶಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಸಮಾಜಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಬದುಕುವ ಮನೋಭಾವದ ಯುವಕರಿಗೆ ಅವಕಾಶ ಕಲ್ಪಿಸಿ ಕೂಡಬೇಕು

truth

2017-02-18T04:22:00.001-08:00

Why people need compare themselves to others? Every one has their own life. Just live it. I have seen people get sad by only compering their life with others.
Basic question is why one is sad?
Someone is sad because of that someone don't have something?
Who says so that someone have to have that something?
Because some other one has It, so some one thinks that they should have that.
If one keep think about the life what is going to happen or what is true is one day each one of us have to leave this world. So it doesn't matter what we have and what we don't, does it?
It looks sad that we have to think about the death on the other hand that is the truth. Yesterday when we weren't there we didn't bother about what we had and what not, tomorrow when we gone we don't care what we have and what not, so why we have sad about today?
When we gone we are gone, did we do something that world would like to remember us? Unfortunately we just worried about what we don't have rather celebrate what we have. It is not easy not to think about what we don't have unless we know that we have to go one day forever.
When Janaka Raja was told that his capital city was on fire he was cool as cucumber and replied it's not mine. He knew the truth that it's not his capital once he gone it will be his son's, then it will be someone else. When do we understand the truth? or do we want to understand it?.
I do agree quest for happiness is the root of all unhappiness! People fail to understand happiness is inside them rather outside. We all belive that happiness is the ideal life, where everything is perfect and beautiful. I think our ancient philosopher's might have called that perfection as good. In normal human life nothing is perfect. Each and every person has an unfulfilled dream. So no one is perfect. But some people know to live a life of perfect feeling.
I remember a story from purana. Once God called all the scholar's and asked I want to live in one place where human being can't find me easily, tell me which is that suitable place. Different scholars gave different opinion, some said himalayas, some said under see, deep forest etc. Shukrachrya one of the great scholars of all time said one day people are going to reach all those places with their intelligence only place good for you is heart of human being, they always look for you outside you sit inside only eligible will look inside for you. God thought this is right and he started living inside each one of us. We being human look for him all over places and get upset and unhappy in life and ourself. If we know God is inside us ?

Is this civilised community?

2014-01-10T05:58:00.001-08:00

Saw a lady sitting in the train and putting onvher make ups before I got in to at Stratford, which was the last station gor that train and I was the first one to get in. I thought she was clever and got in to the train at Hackney Wick to beat the crowd. I got a seat right in front of her. The train attender came around with his bin bag and collected news papers, coffee cups and all other rubbish belongs to the civilised people of London! In 10min time train packed with people announced ready leave she was hurring and hurdling through the crowd. The train was so crowded she had to struggle to get off. And now she started swaring at people! In the hurry she dropped all the metro papers on which she was sitting. At last in between the warnings of the driver 'please don't obstruct the doors if the doors damaged we have to take this train out of service that may cause delays to services' she got off. Next lady well dressed occupaied that seat in front of me just stepped on those magazines and opened her own metro and started reading it. Once she finished reading dropped her metro on the floor and got off at conenburry!
I remember a guy use to travel in the same train. He use to get up at Camden Road and he was 6foot plus well built and dressed. If he finds anyone leaving their news magazine or coffee cups, he use to call the and hand over to them and asked them to take their rubbish. Unfortunately I don't have that personality and I had the bad experience of me doing that. I feel frustrated and enoyed by myself why not me like him. I have done that in india. Is that I am scared I am in a foreign land?

Photography

2013-05-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

My Model

Rotating torch with very low shelter speed of 30second

rotating fan in the dark

2013-01-03T05:01:00.001-08:00

Olympic and India 2

2012-08-17T13:11:00.001-07:00

Blue print
To achive any great thing we need a plan. We need a plan for pramoting sport for young people in india. We need a team of dreamer leaders to lead this project (not another Suresh Klmadi please!) Who has got a clear vision and idea about indian sports. It doesnt need to be an indians. Because a passionate foreginer can do better than a greedy inlander! We need to identfy 5 to 6 diseplen of sports to start of with. Clear written plan to build these games to be drawn in consent with some of the explayers. We might need to get some help from the sucessful countries like UK and USA.

We have to leave our ego that we will do everything ourself. We always need others help, once we achive what we want we will get oppertunity to help others.
All these process we need to keep the politicians away from every bit of it. In india we got enough experiace of one person spoiling the whole program. We doesnt need another blander in the name of sports.

Training
Once the identification of the sport and blueprint to build it to the sucessfull level done, we need to identify youg talents from all over the country. We need international level training whic is scientific we definitly need forigen help in this area because in the name of modernization we forgotten about all round development. We only spoild nature in the name of modernization.
Each and every step it should have a performance review system. Unless perform no more funding will be given. Each division should have a vision and budget. Good performance should be rewarded and bad one should be penalized. All the process should be transparent. All process should be audited tell and time and report should be published. It might look like a long process. But to have a long sustainable sports system this is what need to be followed. I am sure once a little bit of success the money will be infused in to the system by sponsors. It is the initial system the government need to set up. When country like Britain can do it why not India. Indian leaders need to think as a visionaries not like a stupids. Going to mars is not what needed for India. Getting basic necessities is more important. Sports can give entertainment, health , opportunities for lots of people under poverty line.

Olympic 2012 and India

2012-08-12T23:25:00.001-07:00

Monday 13th August just after finishing a spectacular Olympic display by London, 2 days before the 65th India independents day, sitting on the London overground train passing through the Stratford Olympic park, my thoughts started reflecting on the Indian performance in this Olympic. I started thinking as a true Indian as what is going to happen to all these participants? What is going on in the minds of these people who played in the Olympics? All these days the compete each other played for the nation played for the pride then played for the medal. Today all disbursed in their own directions. Some with joy, some with disappointments, some hurt, some sober, everything has to end!
India a country with 1.2 billion population, emerging economy failure in Olympic! Countries with less population with a smallest state of India pproduced more gold medals than India, countries with out any economy could produce more gold medals why?
I think if India serious about learn from the past and want a good future, they need to draw a map from the memory and draw another blueprint for the future. Learn from the countries like Briton, a country with less than one fifth of our population can produce some many medals, can compete with mighty Americans , Chinese and Russians what are we doing. Britons success is not a overnight miracle. Sixteen years earlier briton had one gold medal in Olympic. They decided their destiny and decided that will be golden one. India need a golden dreamer. Each one of Indian need to dream the success of Briton, each parent tell this success stories to their kids and stop portraying British as villains and crux. If see present India we are defeated by outsiders we always defeated by our own people. Our own people ganged up each other and let outsiders to take advantage, so stop crying British spoiled India. Since British left howmuch development did we do in our country? What kind of sensible development did we do? Other than our own people looting the country in broad day light. What else is our achievement in past sixty plus years?
We need to restructure our sporting system. We don't need politicians managing our sports. We need some serious wellwisher of sport to run the sport system. Need transparency in sport management. Need to build the trust in business and charities to invest in the sports. We need a proper scientific training and research and development system. And we need to have a system which support and run the system in longnrun need to be placed. Presently I can assure any Indian soul these things we vantage archive by yourself for now. We need some western help because our people have zero experience in all the above! We need some good standard non partial well managed sporting events to boost all the above activities.
So if our people serious about what do we do?

We need a blue print of plan which sports areas we want to tap first and what we want to archive in those areas with time scale. Then the government need to find money to invest in those areas. I said investment because initially government had to invest because it is easy to get sponsor for cricket but not for any other sports because nothing else is popular. Making something popular is the job of government. Parallel to the task government need to spend dome money on research and development under which we need a sport medicine, equipment development and scientific analysis for all sports. We also need to develop some world class sporting events where sportsmen and women's from all over the world can come and compete. We need make our national championship s more accessible to the real talents. We might need to try to acquire the existing ones like world championship and regional championship like Asian championship. We need a more transparency in each stage of these processes like selection of sportsmen and women, selection of administrative staff, fund allocation and spending. ...................

Paris June 2012

2012-08-10T12:16:00.001-07:00

The first sight of Eiffel Tower was exiting

The design of the Eiffel Tower was originated by Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers who worked for the Compagnie des Establissments Eiffel after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair which would celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. In May 1884 Koechlin, working at his home, made an outline drawing of their scheme, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals". Initially Eiffel himself showed little enthusiasm, but he did sanction further study of the project, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base, a glass pavilion to the first level and other embellishments. This enhanced version gained Eiffel's support, and he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885 Eiffel read a paper on the project to the Société des Ingiénieurs Civils: after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying that the tower would symbolise

"not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude."

Little happened until the beginning of 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as President and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as Minister for Trade. A budget for the Exposition was passed and on 1 May Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition which was being held for a centerpiece for the exposition, which effectively made the choice of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion: all entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. On 12 May a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals and on 12 June it presented its decision, which was that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or insufficiently worked out. After some debate about the exact site for the tower, a contract was finally signed on 8 January 1887. This was signed by Eiffel acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, and granted him one and a half million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated cost of six and a half million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the following twenty years. Eiffel later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.

Musée du Louvre

The Musée du Louvre in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre—is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, France, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (district). Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet).

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) which began as a fortress built in the late 12th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of antique sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During theFrench Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum, to display the nation's masterpieces.

The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The size of the collection increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed the Musée Napoléon. After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and gifts since the Third Republic. As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

The Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) which houses the museum was begun as a fortress by Philip II in the 12th century, with remnants of this building still visible in the crypt. Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, but it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. Although some believe that the word 'louvre' may refer to the structure's status as the largest in late 12th century Paris (from the French L'Œuvre, masterpiece) – or to its location in a forest (from the French rouvre, oak) – one finds in the authoritative Larousse that it derives from an association with wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara).

The Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis I (François 1er ) renovated the site in French Renaissance style. Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvre's holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed; however, the move permitted the Louvre to be used as a residence for artists.

By the mid-18th century there was an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery, with the art critic La Font de Saint-Yenne publishing, in 1747, a call for a display of the royal collection'. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing of the Tableaux du Roy on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and contained Andrea del Sarto's Charity and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck, until its closing in 1780 as a result of the gift of the palace to the comte de Provence by the king in 1778.Under Louis XVI, the royal museum idea became policy. The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the "French Museum". Many proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum, however none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution.

Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris; French for "Our Lady of Paris"), also known as Notre Dame Cathedral or simply Notre Dame, is an historic Roman Catholic Marian cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. Widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architectureand among the most well-known churches ever built, Notre Dame is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris; that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra (official chair) of the Archbishop of Paris, currently André Vingt-Trois. The cathedral treasury is notable for its reliquary, which houses the purported crown of thorns, a fragment of the True Cross and one of the Holy Nails – all instruments of the Passion and a few of the most important first-class relics.

Notre Dame de Paris is often reputed to be one of the most prominent examples of Gothic architecture in both France and in Europe as a whole, and the naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture. The first period of construction from 1163 into 1240s coincided with the musical experiments of the Notre Dame school.

The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensiverestoration supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc removed remaining decoration, returning the cathedral to an 'original' gothic state.

In 1160, because the church in Paris had become the "Parisian church of the kings of Europe", Bishop Maurice de Sully deemed the previous Paris cathedral, Saint-Étienne (St Stephen's), which had been founded in the 4th century, unworthy of its lofty role, and had it demolished shortly after he assumed the title of Bishop of Paris. As with most foundation myths, this account needs to be taken with a grain of salt; archeological excavations in the 20th century suggested that the Merovingian Cathedral replaced by Sully was itself a massive structure, with a five-aisled nave and a facade some 36m across. It seems likely therefore that the faults with the previous structure were exaggerated by the Bishop to help justify the rebuilding in a newer style. According to legend, Sully had a vision of a glorious new cathedral for Paris, and sketched it on the ground outside the original church.

To begin the construction, the bishop had several houses

demolished and had a new road built in order to transport materials for the rest of the cathedral. Construction began in 1163, during the reign of Louis VII, and opinion differs as to whether Sully or Pope Alexander III laid the foundation stone of the cathedral. However, both were at the ceremony in question. Bishop de Sully went on to devote most of his life and wealth to the cathedral's construction. Construction of the choir took from 1163 until around 1177 and the new High Altar was consecrated in 1182 (it was normal practice for the eastern end of a new church to be completed first, so that a temporary wall could be erected at the west of the choir, allowing the chapter to use it without interruption while the rest of the building slowly took shape). After Bishop Maurice de Sully's death in 1196, his successor, Eudes de Sully (no relation) oversaw the completion of the transepts and pressed ahead with the nave, which was nearing completion at the time of his own death in 1208. By this stage, the western facade had also been laid out, though it was not completed until around the mid 1240s.

The cathedral illuminated at night.

Over the construction period, numerous architects worked on the site, as is evidenced by the differing styles at different heights of the west front and towers. Between 1210 and 1220, the fourth architect oversaw the construction of the level with the rose window and the great halls beneath the towers.

The most significant change in design came in the mid 13th century, when the transepts were remodeled in the latest Rayonnant style; in the late 1240s Jean de Chelles added a gabled portal to the north transept topped off by a spectacular rose window. Shortly afterwards (from 1258) Pierre de Montreuil executed a similar scheme on the South transept. Both these transept portals were richly embellished with sculpture; the south portal features scenes from the lives of St Stephen and of various local saints, while the north portal featured the infancy of Christ and the story of Theophilus in the tympanum, with a highly influential statue of the Virgin and Child in the trumeau.

I am back

2012-04-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

Its been long since I been here. I thought lots of time that i should be here regularly but some reason its not happening. I purchesed a new samsung tablet which might help me to be regular now. Since last time i bloged lots of changes, purchesed a new 3D smart telivision. I alwas thought sony is the best but me and Sunitha went out shoping after the christmas and saw in a shop Sony and Samsung side by side felt love with Samsung! Did lotsof research, came to conclusion next telivision should be Samsung. Our dear friends bougt Sony smart TV, we did saw lots of advantages of it and decided with out much discussion to buy one for ourself. It was with out preplan! We actually went to buy a table for one of ourdear friends. There was a offer if we buy a TV half price on table, funny thing was we purchesed the 55" Samsung smart TV. Sunitha paid for it! It is a very smart pice of equipment. I laminated the ground floor, kitchen and conservetory. It is a good feeling when you do something yourself! I bought a iPad for Sunitha and a Samsung 10.1tablet for myself. I compaired it with iPad, definatly they got their own good and bads at the end if you are a seriously want to use a tablet in place of our computer and do some office work as wel, Sasung is the bes Bigger display, thinner, and more friendly, with polaris office (word, power point and spreadsheet for free). Sunitha felt the same after using the iPad for a month. We are playing badminton regularly but we need some good player who play better than us to play with us so that we can improve our game a bit more. Missing home a lot recently. Feel like dispose eveything and go back home and stay with parents. But what is next bothers a lot, still hopeing to go back in 2015 forever hope everything going to be ok

India trip

2011-12-05T23:56:00.000-08:00

It was so refreshing to be in India after two years. But the days went pass so quickly, its only 2weeks later back from India; but feels like its been long time since been to India.
Registration of Bangalore house was the biggest achievements of this trip and it was one of the proudest moments. At last I have my own house in my own land! Not bad for a useless country boy?
I was such a tensionless life of 3 weeks with no worries. No need to bother about getting up in the morning, what to cook, what to eat, running for the bus, getting seat in the train, playing politics in the office, fighting with colleagues for the credit of the work done! I still felt people has more time in India than in London!. At Udupi I haven’t seen anybody in a rush or tensed.

Everyday morning once I get up read a book, while sipping the coffee amma made. Play with the cow, dog and cat; take bath by then morning breakfast is ready. Read news paper and watch some TV, read some book. Lunch ready! Post lunch small sleep then again some TV with coffee and some snacks then to Udupi to lord Krishna. Some shopping and back home. Talk bout friend and relatives and sitting all together and watch TV and dinner and go to bed!!!

I went to Sunithas place as well. When I had to leave her back home go to Bangalore for house registration I felt very sad. I felt longest 3days away from her. After finishing my work at Bangalore with out wasting even a single minutes I left to her place!! It was so funny!

We had nice time with her cousin and her family. We went to melukote

Riot in London

2011-09-01T10:37:00.001-07:00

I have not been to my blogg for a while. May be due to my laziness! Yep I am been lazy off late!. I want to write a lot but just postpone all my ideas I don’t know why. May be I am too tired because nearing forty?!!!

Lots of things happened since last I wrote something here. It is not only past makes me to write its also the present which hurts and make me to write. It was riot in London. I was lucky I never felt the heat of it other than my mother’s frequent call! She didn’t believe me, when I said to her there is no problem for me. She thought I was lying! All thanks to international media coverage.

Someone died and started the riot. I cannot believe in that is the main cause for all these fighting. I think this country should weak up now. Basic cause for all these problems is the law in this country. Can anyone believe that the youngest like eleven year olds were among looters! I knew this is what going to happen when people do not know what is happening with the young once. When we were kids, we had fear of parents, teachers, any elders and lawmakers. But this country think that kids having fear will hamper their development!, but it will not create rouge citizens!!

House is the first school, and mother is the first teacher. This is what told to me when I was a kid and I think everyone believe this. Yesterday I was travelling on the national express east Anglia from Stratford to home, since Sunday not much crowded. There was a buggy with father standing next to it and mother sitting by the side, they were young couple, in between the talk mother said ‘F’ word to the husband (it is western culture wife or husband no need to have respect because people in this country started forgetting the word respect!!!). After couple of station father said something to the kid. She told him the ‘F’ word! I was shocked

Cause root for all these according to me is the fear. I feel the law in this country gives too much freedom to the younger generation. In the name of modernisation, the teenagers in this country act crazy on the street. They don’t care about parents or elders not even teachers and by the name of law they are given more rights than they should be. Kids are like clay, however we mould them they take the shape! If we don’t have right to mould them they will be rotten. Once it is rotten it is just a blame game politicians blame parents! Parents blame teachers! Teachers blame politicians! Who is responsible?!

I feel that India need to learn from this. I have seen parents in India and the government trying to follow the western culture in the name of modernisation and civilisation. I don’t think we need this kind of brutish behaviour. We should be happy what we are, but it is fashion to follow western culture. It is unfortunate that people does not understand the prize for this.

Ugadi

2011-05-13T23:14:00.001-07:00

Ugadi festival, the beginning of the year for Hindu’s. There are 2 of them one according to solar calendar and another as lunar calendar. We follow the solar one so usually our one falls around the date 14th or 15th April. This year I missed it a lot because I hadn’t to home for last been for dipawali as well.

All the remembrance started unfolding on the day after the ugadi in the morning sitting alone in the conservatory and sipping my cup of tea. Sunitha was still in the bed!

We use to have ‘Khani’ to see in the morning. The Khani is a plate full of rice seeds and a coconut decorated with all the gold's in the house and flowers and coins with a mirror kept in front. We have to getup early in the morning and with out looking at anybody's face straight go in front of the worship room were the Khani is kept and look in the mirror in front of it. The significance is that leaving all the old evil and taking only the good things to the new year. Then take bath and wear new cloths. It is also the starting of the new season of farm works. So the rice seeds need to be seeded in the paddy on the same day. Father use to do the worship then he would ask me to take the seeds to paddy and seed them.

Before seeding we need to burn some dry leaves collected from the wood nearby with some dry mud from the paddy. We have to do 3 burning spots on the each paddy and do the burning then pray god for the good yield in the year ahead and plant the seeds. I use to go to the paddy's and finish all burning and seeding then play there itself! mother use to come with a cane to chase me back to home and from there to school!!

Now only all the customs we followed and celebrated are remembrance. My father said all the paddy’s are no more a paddy’s now everybody filled them with more mud and building the houses and constructed roads. For me paddy’s are not only a piece of land, it has the life as well, it need to be kept as cultivation land not as a building. I don’t know why people does not understand this. I had a dream of buying a lots of cultivation land and do a mas farming.

I feel that in India rules are crazy. There is no protection for the farming land. After seeing the way the farmers do the farming in England, I feel that India is not doing anything towards agriculture. It was my dream form my childhood that I want to be a farmer. Unfortunately the amount of land we have I am not afford to do that. So I decided to go out of house earn some money and buy some more land and settle down as a farmer. When I came to Bangalore I started thinking of buying a coffee plant, but it is very expensive so I came to London!!! It was chasing a dream and going in a wrong direction!!!! But still I want to do that I don’t know how?

I was lucky in a way because for my High school education I need not had to go to Udupi like my sisters. I had a high school near home. I had privilege walk a short distance to reach to school and having afternoon lunch at home!!. My mother never brought me up like only son. I had to do all the households. Cleaning the house, washing and milking the cows, paddy works, if time remains then play!, then in remaining time read!!!. I think in my life I never gave first preference for study which was very unusual in India. My parents wanted me to give first preference to my studies but I never did!!

I high school I seriously started thinking about writing. Our Kannada teacher Gopal Bhat encouraged me as well. I was good in making different models with cardboard. I did a model of a ship and couple of flights! Science teacher Nagabhushan Bhat encouraged me for that and because of him I developed interest in astrophysics. I did a model of planetary system with clay, I carved a galaxy on a stone! My teachers in my high school encouraged me a lot. Whatever I did they appreciated my work. I did wrote a book about solar system!!

I met some of my good friends for life there! Yogeesh and Ajith are the couple whom I am still close with!! I look back those were the golden days of life. Tension use to be only couple of days a month!. When I get my marks card of the monthly exam!!!. My dad wanted me to do well and be first in the class. But I use to be 5th or 6th!!! Every time I get my marks card acting like I am serious about reading and read all day. Once dad signs the marks card then all the other things come ahead of reading!!!!

My teachers called my mother to school, when I was in 10th standard and told her that your son is intelligent but he doesn't concentrate on study he may miss first class result. Because 10th standard was one of the important stage of study, my parents want me to concentrate. Previous day of the exam I went to play cricket! On the day of exam early morning my dad caught me reading Kannada novel!!!. Now it feel like such a fool I was.

I don’t know was I a rebel those days? Was that a age? Whatever it may may be I understood one thing we need to pay the price for every action we commit in life!!!

Early Summer (Unexpected Photos taken in my Mobile)

2011-04-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

One early summer afternoon
Sun signaled its summer soon

People of UK out with their sun bikini's on!

Envied Cloud wage a war
Engulfed sun with the colour of tar!!

Everybody stared at sky with disappointment
Clod wind blow with excitement!!!

People wanted sun to win

wind blown with rain!!

Sky heared the people pray

Started looking sun's ray

Cloud scattered, sun shine

people happy with the wine

Beautifully girls with bikini on

started whistling summer is on!!!!!

India Pak Semi-final 2011

2011-03-30T15:24:00.001-07:00

Congratulations team India, You did a brilliant work you made us proud. The way team India played against Australia I was sure India has all the capability to beat any team in the world.

I was bit nervous to see Ashish Nehra in the playing eleven!, But he proved why he was in the team. Full credit to Verendra Sehwag again. If he fires no one can stop India in any format of cricket. It was dream the way he batted again. I would love to see a match in which he play at least 30overs! Thanks to Pakistan for giving chance to Tendulkar bit disappointment he could not reach 3figures.

According to me Bjji’s 2wickets of Umar Akmal and Afridi was the turning point with out that there was all the possibilities Pakistan would have turned the match in their favour. It is very important Bajji bowls his 10overs with good economy with out getting frustrated because of no wicket.

As Dhoni said Indian team has given chance to all its player to show their talent! this is the advantage for the bats men to play the final against Sri Lanka. Every match only Sri Lankan top order played. Their middle order not played enough in this world cup they had very less exposure! India need to penetrate through the top order of Sri Lanka by initial 10overs then the match is India’s !!!

India need to play the Malinga’s 10overs with bit of caution (definitely not Veru!!! let him play his own game!!) If it is Veeru’s day Malinga may not have a place to hide in the first spell. If team India penetrate through the top order (Dhilshan, Tharanga, Sangakara) in 10overs and stop untested Jayawardana Sri Lanka will not be able to host or chase a big score.

One of the Indian top order bats men need to play a long innings (If it is happen to Veeru it will be a one sided match only India will win the match).

Bowling, I am not sure what kind of pitch Mubai will have but worth to take the 3rd spinner if it is a spin track rather than taking a gamble like against Pakistan. May be Dhoni need to do a lot of bowling changes if he fail to take the wickets. Zaheer need to get his tally more than 21 wicket. Munaf need to support Zaheer and keep his cool and be a integral part of team India.

Gambir need to realise how important for him to play his role with more responsibility, Kohili need to understand what he need to learn from the senior players to be a reliable part of team India, Yuvi and Raina convinced me to feel that they know what they are doing and what team expected of him.

A billion prayers, a billon wishes and a billion dreams are with you team India. When you get out on the 2nd of April to the field each and every Indian will be ready to follow all their superstitious believes and take their posture on which you won the match the Pakistan match. It may be sitting in the left hand side of the sofa or lighting the ghee lamp to the god!! You may be 11 out their but it is the dream of a billion dreamers. All the people criticised you it was just because we love a game so much we cant see you helpless. Get out their and make a history we will witness that moment we all can cherish that moment for rest of our life. All the best Team India we love you.

Why don’t India learn the lessons ?

2011-03-12T16:21:00.000-08:00

Good question to ask. Indian players might say that Indian fans are mad and they are there when India win and they blame the team when they loose. But why does the fans do that , because they do believe that this team could win the match by looking at the initial performance but when team India decide to suicide then the fans go wild.

Match against the South Africa is a good example for the above reason. As They had been shown how poor they are on the batting power play, they need not have to prove that again and again they need to show the fans they are living up to the expectations of the fans.

Well played Sewag you did a brilliant job. We the fans could understand your frustration after you played with that pace and distracted one of the best bowling side in the world of cricket, your team let not only you down but also the fans. Well done you my man you are unstoppable on your day. South African attach looked like worse than then a bunch of common boys bowling at a international bats men! I don’t have any comment on Tendulkar’s batting as well I will bow at his mastery in batting. It was a different Tendulkar fans could see in this world cup. I had seen Tendulkar pulling the balls from off side to leg side long ago. But now Tendulkar decided he want to bring the World cup to India. I don’t remember when Tendulkar scored 90 to 100 so quickly. But he do have a question from a sincere Indian fan!

I think the team India need to realise the Sewag can not bat till the 50th over till he was in the crease team India had a plan and they were on the track to score a big score. Gambir came around, it was a good day for him to find some form he did it well. Once he did his fifty it was his time to go for some slogging because to win a big match team need to play the innings around a experienced player. Gambir had a massage from the dressing room and he shown some sign that he received that message that he is the man going for it and not Suchin, by hitting couple of consecutive boundaries. With all the respect for Tendulkar my question is why he had to go for a foolish shot by knowing that his responsible to finish the match? If it was the massage from the dressing room was both the batsmen are going for big hits blame goes to Mr.captain. Some one need to answer these question because this performance is the repetition of Match against England.

Next came was the Mr.Patan. Does Mr.Patan knows that only 3fielders will be out side the 30yard circle when batting power play is on? If so does he know that it doesn’t take much effort of him to lift the ball above the 30 yard circle or find a gap as a responsible player and does he know that he hasn’t been thankful enough for being in the playing eleven with out much contribution in any win? And also I got a good suggestion for him if he want to be a integral part of India for long time, he need to sit and watch the South African innings of the second batting power play. He need to understand when 2 new batsmen are in the crease how to build the innings.

I may ask the question to Yuvi as well that why he didn’t realise what had happened against England but he had just been build 2 beautiful innings and also he warned after the last match that batsmen need to take some responsibilities but Yuvi no one cares you!

Mr. Kholi do you know that one century is not enough to cement your place in the world cup for ever? do you know that there is another person called Suresh Raina is in the boundary lines looking at your place? Do you know that he can be a more consistent performer than you with bat and he can challenge you fielding? Mr. Raina can also handy with bowling which provide Mr. Captain with another option?

Mr. Dhoni goes a step forward and comes back couple! If he had given the instruction for both Tendulkar and Gambir to go for hit then he is the culprit. If not I got a question he had seen his side dropped like flies against England after a amazing performance with batting so why Mr.Dhoni thought that he will increase the run rate by sending Mr.Patan ahead for a innings stabilizer like Kohli? I know he need to be aggressive if so why didn’t he send Yusuf Patan as one down!. Why do we need Kohli in the team? Did he ask Yuvi to go for hit after he hit a six why didn’t he asked him to stay and build the innings like last two?

Bowlers we don’t have complaints. One don’t expect them to score, when our middle order failed repeatedly. We can not blame them they bowled well other than last one over!!! Mr.Dhoni can some one speak to Harbajan Singh and ask him to keep his mouth shut and improve his bowling performance, rather than pissing the batsmen in the middle he need to concentrate on how he can help Tendulkar to make his dream true.

There were lots of lessons to learn after the England match first and far most is the importance of singles! Yes scoring singles I can show the 2 pieces of clips one from Indian innings, one from South African innings, a ball played to the same place with same pace Indian batsmen rested South African batsmen scored a single. Indian scored a single South African scored tow runs!! If team India had taken a page from the English team of the tied match they would have learnt a lesson. Fitness needs to be maintained except Kholi and Nehra every body looks like they are pregnant. I feel shamed to see the shape of some of the Indian players. Why don’t they realise they represent a country in a sports which needs a lots of fitness or are we watching the matches in extra wide screen Televisions!!!!!!!

South African innings was a good example of how to chase a big score. Simth was not inform but he knew this was not a match for him to do that. They built their innings around Amla. Once he was out they looked at Kallis, he stood there and played through. At the fall of Kallis one could see that De Villers was the centre of batting. Once he gone innings started building around Duminy, then it was Plesses who finished the match. There was no confusion seen. When was the last time India did that?

Oh my dear team India you need to learn from the defeat. You cant act like fools. You are representing a billion fools! We thought you 11 are not as fools as we are so try to live up to our expectations.

As last thought some one wrote on face book ‘ a bunch of jokers representing a billion population!’ and some other felt ‘even Dhoni thought Indian doesn’t deserve to win so he opted Ashish Nehra fro the last over to Bajji !!!!!!’