I think people did not think through this, In the first glance it does appear to be a great decision but the facts indicate otherwise.

Why did we want to stop drinking Coke or Pepsi? Because they use up too much water which otherwise would be used by farmers? Well in that case, where do Indian cool drink companies get their water from? Do they manufacture their own water? Why say one thing is better when they are also doing the same thing?

If pesticides in cool drinks is your main concern, how confident are you that local Indian products are pure? Just because it is Indian , doesn’t mean it will be safe. In fact Tamil Nadu is really famous for adulteration. Indian cool drink companies are probably worse than international companies, because Coke and Pepsi has water regeneration policies, Does Bovonto or other Indian companies have such schemes?

The point I am trying to make here is, All these corporates, Indian or otherwise operate for profit, they are not here to help us, they are here to make money. In the search for profits they will cut corners and make illicit deals. Thats what will happen when a society is predominantly greedy.

**Stop drinking ALL cool drinks**, stop supporting any company that behaves unethically, not just foreign. If you really cannot stop drinking cool drinks, drink local made “Goli Soda” and Butter milk. At least your money will go to local mom and pop stores, not some rich guy in an Audi.

Now coming to Coconuts, Coconuts are one of the most water intensive trees along with Sugarcane and other cash crops. High swaths of our farm lands are still farmed by inefficient open water ways. Drip irrigation is still not practised everywhere. They waste huge amount of water, have you ever been to a coconut farm without drop irrigation, if you see the volume of water that is used, you will realise how bad it is.

Coconut trees in their natural habitat where there is enough annual rainfall to sustain them is perfectly ok. But if we all switch to drinking tender coconut, the supply won’t be enough. It will encourage more farmers to grow coconut trees, growing coconut trees in arid and semi-arid lands where there is not enough rainfall (which is most of Tamil Nadu nowadays, sadly) will only worsen the situation. We will probably end up wasting more water than the coke companies!

Think about it.

Before you declare I am not a Tamilian for saying this, please do read what I have to say.

I was longing for a revolution among the Tamils for a long time, and when it finally came, it only brought despair.

We Tamils have long been complacent. no matter what problem you throw at us, we will be happy in our small little world. Unity was something you find only in moral science text books. We never stood up or gathered in any reasonable numbers to protest anything. half day power cuts? lets just buy UPS and continue watching TV. Farmers suicides are increasing? hey thats not my problem, they should be doing something wrong. Problem for Srilankan tamils? lets just look the other way, I have my own problems, don’t i?

I am one of the thousands of tamils who were eagerly hoping for some sort of change in peoples mentality, a sense of brotherhood, empathy for my fellow humans, that sort of thing.

Millions of people did gather for the Jallikattu protest, an amazing feat, something i never thought i will see in my lifetime. BUT and that is a big but, why did people gather? what brought them together? the answer i found troubles me.

What did you see?

If you were in Tamil Nadu you would have probably been to the protest, you would have heard and noticed the innumerable slogans and the banners. Did you notice a common theme?

I did, there were two things.

– Almost all the slogans and banners were penned in a language that meant our “enemies” were specifically targeting Tamils
– This is a matter of “pride” and “courage” to Tamils

The Premise

Were we really targeted? Were all the things media was spewing out about “Naatu Maadu” and the conspiracy to destroy our native species really true?

Let me ask you this,
– Did the farmers adopt jersey cows because it earned more money for them or were they forced to buy?
– If native species is all that better, why did we switch?
– Is the only ethical way we can save a species is by forcing the cow to do something it probably won’t like? All so we can drink its milk? Sounds too selfish?
– Vultures and a hundred other species have become extinct from our state, do we NOT care because they don’t have any direct benefit to us?
– What about the buffaloes?
– What happened to the native species of cows in other states? How are they keeping their cows from being extinct?
– The fruits and vegetables we eat are not real native species either, they have been selectively bred through years of farming and directing evolution to happen that are beneficial to us. How are cows any different?
– The supposed idea that our cows milk is special, do we have peer reviewed scientific evidence that it is in-fact true?
– What do we have to say about people who use this mentality to sell milk for 100,150 Rs per litre. The supposedly good milk is only for those children who are financially better off?

At any point of time, did we question anything that was said to us?
Why did we assume “everything” was true?

Is it because it “felt” true? Or is it because it held up our identity and gave us something to feel proud about?

The Pride

Most of the people in the protest were really proud, emotions ran high. The fact that we are Tamils and that we are somehow superior were pounded into everybody’s head again and again. Blanket statements like “we are courageous” , “Don’t test our வீரம்” , statements that broadcasted our superiority were way too common.

Almost all the banners put up by college students had words like “கெத்து”, “வீரம்” and “தெனாவெட்டு”. Some even had words like “கெட்ட பசங்க, don’t mess with us”. Even the stickers plastered in cars and shops exhibited some aggression. What do they signify? Feelings of Macho?

This movement, I feel was successful because people had something to feel proud about, everybody wanted to feel they are heroes (Cinema is THE important if not the only influencing factor in TN). The protest gave everyone an opportunity to act like heroes, as if they are superior people, and everyone jumped on the wagon.

In this age of social media driven narcissism, people are obsessed with how they present themselves and how the world perceives them. Everybody is a hero in their own little world, I don’t think they will honestly care about other peoples problems, unless there is something to feed their own ego.

Implications

If people had gathered to protest because they felt empathy for fellow humans, because they cannot stand someone getting hurt, because they cannot digest injustice , then and only then we can be sure that we are in good company, we can rest in peace knowing that our society will move towards everyones betterment (Utopia, if you will).

But protests that are held based on ones superiority (even if its untrue), and feelings of heroism will help no one. Such people will not gather for things that matter the most, such as farmers suicides or Methane extraction or GAIL pipes or anything else that does not have something to feel proud about.

In the end it will only be used by politicians like Seeman, Trump and Modi to manipulate people and use their division to their advantage.

Next time there is a protest, just analyse what the predominant feelings are and you will know what I mean.

While there is a widespread understanding among common people that the Sri Lankan army (and by its extension the Sri Lankan government) has committed atrocities against Tamil people, the activities of the Tamil tigers against the Tamil people has not been given much space for thought, neither in the public conscience nor in the south Indian media.

Brief History

Geographically Ceylon or Sri Lanka was part of the peninsular India that got separated from the mainland few million years ago. Widespread consensus among the historians is that during the Fifth century BC Indo-Aryans from northern parts of India migrated to Sri Lanka, who later became the Sinhalese.

In the Second century BC a tamil king Elara ruled some part of northern regions in Sri Lanka. Subsequently some parts of the coastal regions came under the occupation of Portuguese, Dutch and the British for some time. The history of Ceylon is replete with wars among the native kings and also between the sinhalese and the foreign invaders.
Buddhism spread to Sri Lanka during the Ashoka period, which was later re-popularised under the British rule by Olcott.

Finally under the British Sri Lanka came under a single rule. The British favoured tamils and lot of the administrative posts were held by the tamils. It is during this period that the British brought in huge population of poor tamil people from South India as cheap labourers (essentially slaves) for their tea plantations among others (Similar to what is shown in the tamil movie Paradesi).

Trouble began to brew after Independence when sinhalese nationalism was triggered among the people. A large section of the population were by that time influenced by the Buddhist monk Dharmapala, whose racist and exclusivist preachings created a portrait that Sinhalese were the chosen people of the island since time immemorial.
This Anti-tamil sentiment later resulted in multiple riots which killed and displaced huge swathes of tamil population.

Stephen Senanayake got elected as prime minister under this wave of Sinhalese Nationalism. Sadly all the subsequent leaders tapped into this nationalism to further their political gains. Tamil people began to be marginalised, communal representation was abolished, Sinhala became the language of administration, Tamil students were required to take more marks than their sinhalese peers in order to enter certain courses, Job opportunities were reduced significantly and so on.

The riots and the marginalisation led to extreme discontent among the tamil people which provided a fertile ground for the birth of multiple radical groups, one among them will come to dominate them all – The Tamil Tigers.

Increasingly “Sinhalese only” activities of the state and its assertion on Sinhalese identity stirred Tamil nationalism among the Tamils and also provided them with a justification of their demand for a separate nation state – The Tamil Eelam.

The Tamil Tigers

Under this atmosphere, when all of the non violent means of opposition proved to be fruitless, justification for using violence became increasingly reasonable, such radicalised tamil students and teenagers founded the Tamil Tigers and Velupillai Prabakharan established himself as its leader .

During this time period there were multiple militant as well as moderate groups which almost all had similar ambitions, to liberate the Tamil people.

Prabhakaran had an innate belief in the utility of violence and was thoroughly anti-democratic. He hand picked cadres and sub-commanders for his group. Tigers were ruthless, they fought with rival militant groups, destroyed moderate Tamil groups, killed informants and alternative leaders who emerged. The bloodshed was enormous and by their sheer brutality towards their own tamil people they became the dominating revolutionary force.

Initial funding for their activities were from looting banks and from foreign donations from people who had earlier escaped to distant countries during the anti-Tamil riots. Later, funding will also come from legitimate businesses and investments done abroad under leadership of Kumaran Pathmanathan (KP). His mission was mainly to trade and make profit, financing the Tiger operations.

Tigers needed lot of man power, at first there were lot of volunteers from young people who were drawn in by the glamour of Tamil Tigers, teenagers who had heard or seen the sufferings of people from their community under Sinhalese atrocities and lack of opportunities. But this didn’t last for long after people began to be disillusion by what they saw. This resulted in Tigers resorting to use of violence, threat, trickery, blackmail and abduction to recruit youth and children from among the tamil people. Even little children were not spared and a highly regarded NGO in Jaffna estimated that between 2001 to 2003 around 5000 children were recruited.

A possible Solution

In 1987 Indo-Srilanka accord was signed in which finally the Sri Lankan Government made a number of concessions to Tamil demands, it acknowledged the multi ethnic nature of Sri Lanka, attempted to transfer powers to the tamil occupying regions and so on. You can read the document that was signed from here.

As per the accord, the tamil militants should surrender their weapons and the Sri Lankan army should withdraw their forces from the northern regions, with the presence of Indian Peace keeping force to monitor the conditions.

This could have been a peaceful resolution, but Tigers did not agree to the resolution, refused to surrender their weapons and retreated to the jungles of Vanni.

Further in 1995, Sri Lankan Government and LTTE signed a cease fire agreement as a preliminary step for peace negotiations, again its the Tigers who broke the agreement by resuming attacks during the cease fire period.

The final conflict

During the final war, when Tigers were surrounded by the Sri Lankan army, they had thousands of civilians(Tamils) amongst them, the UN and RedCross wanted to move the civilians away from the conflict zone to avoid casualities, but the Tigers refused to cooperate resulting in the death of thousands of innocent lives. To make matters worse Tigers outright killed the civilians who tried to escape!

Questionable intentions

LTTE was supposedly formed based on the intention to free Tamils from the state oppression and to help them get their rights. But judging by their activities, they were very far away from that. We can clearly see that they haven’t been sympathetic to Tamil peoples suffering, and ironically they themselves had become the oppressors of the tamil people. They appeared to be more intent on remaining in power, securing Eelam so they can rule over the people than any honest intention to keep the people happy. They were willing to overlook peoples suffering in their struggle for power.

The media (especially south Indian) portrays as if the Sri Lankan government is on one side and the Tamils and Tigers are on the other side. In reality the common people got caught up between the power struggle between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. Neither side was too keen on helping them and simply used them for their political gains.

References:

1) The Cage – Gordon Weiss
2) The Sun Gods children and the Big lie – University teachers for Human rights
3) In my mothers house – Sharika Thiranganama
4) Still counting the dead – Frances Harrison
5) This divided island – Samanth Subramanian

Of course, it is your money. You have all the rights to do whatever you want with it. But lets think through this, shall we?

Imagine that i am a very rich guy, i earn in millions and can almost afford anything. I am married and have a son. Now you on the other hand are my neighbour and a ‘poor’ software engineer who works in an IT park nearby , you live in a modest home, you have a wife and two children, a happy family. Since you are the lucky few who earns enough to feed your family, everything is going great. Your son and my son are friends.

Now my son, being rich goes ahead and buys a brand new BMW to add to his collection, he brings the car over to your home to show it to your son. Now imagine what would your son feel? At that moment you might say he would be happy for his friend, but deep down, What would you think? Wont you or your son feel jealous for a moment? won’t your son feel at least a little bit bad that he cannot afford such a beautiful piece of engineering? Lets be honest, have you never had such thoughts when somebody tells you they did something, that they bought something? Have you never been jealous of anybody?

He sees my son everyday, he is reminded everyday about the things he cannot afford, won’t he feel inadequate? won’t he be unhappy with his life? Wouldn’t he begin to compare my sons life and his?

So, he is a little unhappy, so what? well the story doesn’t end there. Now that we have successfully made your son insecure about himself, we have affected how he will spend his money for the rest of his life. Your son decides to buy a bike, wouldn’t he try to buy the most expensive bike he can afford? Will he be happy with a Honda shine ? Whatever he buys wouldn’t he try to buy the most expensive he can afford? So that he may feel better about himself? Instead of buying things that he actually needs, he will begin buying things that show his status, so he will feel adequate so he will feel worthy.

If everybody around you are wearing expensive clothes, wouldn’t you also want to wear them? When everybody around you are using touch screen phones, will you be tempted to buy one for you? Do you see how ones spending affects others? Do you see how we all are interconnected? A touch screen phone may not mean much to you, but to a person who is earning 6000 per month, buying a touch screen phone means he would have to sacrifice something else. A poor guy who came looking for work to bangalore might use his salary to buy this new phone instead of sending the money back to his home.

Once in a petrol bulk, the kid who was filling air in my bike asked me, How much does a touch screen phone cost? I asked him what phone does he have now. He showed me his samsung slide phone, which is a decent colour phone, probably cost 6000 – 7000 during its time. Since it is good enough phone, i asked him why do you want a new phone, this is kind of a nice phone. He replies, but brother this does not have a touch screen. I asked him, but why do you need a touch screen, touch screen phones at lower prices are crap anyway, you might be better of using this phone. But he says i want a touch screen, everybody has one, that is the latest! Do you see what we have done to that poor guy? He is working there because he is poor, because his family is in need of money, but do you see what he wants to spend his money on? I am not judging him, probably i would have done the same thing had i been at his place. It isn’t his fault, it is ours.

Once when travelling in a passenger train, an old man sitting in front of me was talking to me about his family. He was a regular soft spoken middle class fellow, he works in a factory all day and makes enough to keep the family running smooth. But he has a problem, his son wants a bike and he cannot afford one right now. But his son is adamant on having a bike, the poor man did not know what to do, neither did i know what to say. Why do you think he wants a bike? his home is walkable distance from his home! Problem is all his friends have a bike, they probably show off on their bikes zooming around and this guy feels inadequate, may be he feels left out. You can argue saying it is the fault of the father for not having brought up his son properly, for not making the son aware of the hardships in the family (It kind of is a typical Indian middle class mentality to not make our children know about our sufferings). We cannot blame him alone, as a society aren’t we responsible too?

So what can we do? I need my car, i need a touch screen phone for my work, these are things that are essential for me, what can i do? i cannot lose everything. Of course we cannot, some things are essential for some people, we cannot all live like a hermit. But what we CAN do is stop showing off, stop flaunting our things, stop showing to everybody how much better we are than everybody else, stop buying things for status, stop buying things simply to differentiate us from the poor.

We are not better just because we have more money, just because we have a better car, because we have better clothes, but we will be a better person if we show more compassion and humanity. Humility is a long forgotten word in this age of fashion ,blitz and glamour. Imagine how life would be if everybody in a society were humble and modest? So before you rush off to show your new gadget to somebody, please think for a moment about how it will affect them.

At a high level, providing cheaper access to some websites might seem advantageous to the consumer, since it can reduce the cost to consumer if the websites he/she uses falls under the category defined by the ISP. It does appear like a Win-Win scenario, but if we consider the broad ways by which this type of pricing can affect the consumer in the long term, we will realise that it has moral implications as well.

# Why Free?

First of all, why do the companies such as Facebook allow their websites to be accessed for free? What do they gain from it? These companies claim it is to help the consumer, to help the poor access the internet (From a recent statement by Facebook). But how much of this is really true? Is this their real intention? or is it some ploy to keep people hooked to their system?

If, as they claim, the intention is to help people apply for jobs, to allow poor people to access the internet, why would they allow only certain websites (conflict of interest) they determine to be accessed for free? Who determines which websites are useful for the masses? Is Facebook really that important for the poor? If you or myself wanted people to have access to internet for free aren’t we more likely to provide a bandwidth capped internet service (Say 50MB) which allows all the websites to be accessed? OR would we say i will give free internet but you can access only my website? what does that say about me?

As with everything, actions speak louder than words, their actions clearly betray their so called intentions.

# Non-Competitive

So what do the companies gain by making certain service cheaper? By making certain websites cheaper for the consumer to access, they can
– Prevent competition from emerging
– Provide biased information to be readily available
– Allow rich companies to reach people easily

ISPs can act as the middle men to quash competition. For example before Facebook there was Orkut and MySpace, they are now history thanks to emergence of Facebook. Social networking websites depend on the presence of a certain critical population on their website to be viable. If all your friends are not on Facebook, you won’t be. The companies have the advantage to keep people hooked to a system. By forcing this so called “free internet”, they can prevent new and better alternatives from emerging. Because a new startup cannot afford to let people access their website for free and Facebook will not allow any potential competitors to join their gang.

Therefore, if we allow this system we are giving preference to certain companies over the others.

# Nothing is free

Some of the people in support of giving access to some sites for free assume that the people doing this are philanthropic, that they are doing out of interest to help the poor. As already explained, if their motivation is philanthropic, this is the not the way you provide internet access to the poor. There is conflict of interest between their business and their so called philanthropic acts.

Facebook claims they do not advertise on their free site so they have nothing to gain. This is a naive argument, they own the website, nothing stops them from adding advertisements later on. Moreover, as the famous saying goes **”If you are not the Customer, you are the Product”**, Social networking websites are known to mine user data and this data is their resources. Data and information are traded for a service, this is not a one way exchange as some people assume. None of these companies are here to help people, they are out there to make money, this is a basic premise which we have to keep in mind when we are dealing with situations like these.

# Something is better than nothing?

Some people argue that letting people have access to some websites is better than none at all. I disagree with this statement, When designing a policy we need to take into account how it will affect life of the people in the long term.

People have a natural tendency to want to save money. In this age, a lot of people are addicted to social networking websites, by allowing free access, most of these people might end up restricting their usage to these free websites. Even now, for a lot of college students i know, internet is only Facebook and WhatsApp, they aren’t even aware how to spend time on the internet without these sites. Then the information these people will learn will be solely from the social networking sites and the sites that will be controlled by select few.

By allowing internet/media in the select few hands, we are allowing people to be controlled by the elite few. This i feel is a threat to democracy! Social media can be a great tool to manipulate people and share propaganda. This will only make people easier to control, limiting their options.

Our newspaper & media is already in the hands of the select few, our only hope is internet, Please let at least internet be free. Let India be a good example for the rest of the world.

First of all, these are wild blanket statements which attempt to justify a line of thought without giving any sort of room for nuances. Almost all of these messages attempt to justify one practice and then confirms their main agenda by saying, “see, that was scientific. Hence all the pratices of our ancestors were based on science”. Just because one apple appear good, does that mean every apple in the basket is good? If spreading knowledge was the main intent, shouldnt these people handle them on a case by case basis?

For a moment assume that whatever is mentioned in the message is infact scientific. How do we know for which reason a specific practice was followed centuries before? Do we have any kind of factual proof or historic record which tells us this is the reason these things were done? They could have done something for a million odd reasons, how can we be so sure about why they did something so may years ago? Just because our thought process appears to align with some of their practice, doesnt mean that it is the sole reason something was done for. Arent we giving our own meaning to their practice? What we are doing is pure speculation.

Now coming to the main point, which is the scientific accuracy of these statements. Almost none of the statements made by these people are scientific in any way, Period. People appear to accept something as scientific, if there are just a few words they dont understand and somebody says it is scientific!! If we show these messages to somebody from scientific community they will most likely laugh at our face.

Like i said earlier, just because something appears to make sense to us, does not mean that our understanding is factual. This reminds me of Russels Tea cup. Assume that you and your friend are staring at the sky on a clear night. Suddenly you catch a glimpse of a sparkling thing in the sky. You wonder what that is, your friend says it is the reflection from a tea cup that is circling the earth. Now a tea cup rotating around earth would definitely behave something like that, would you accept your friends explanation just by that? What evidence does your friend have, to prove that it is actually a tea cup? The burden of proof is on your friend.

It is the same thing here, people attempt to give their own explanations for thse things, but they are just assumptions, they are not factual and have no evidence. Now some people will ask me, will you believe only if you have evidence? That is the whole point of something being scientific, if you say something is scientific it SHOULD have emperical evidence otherwise it is NOT scientific. Please dont claim they are scientific.

## Purattasi and Non-Veg : The myth

I will give you an example, there is a message going around which says that not eating non vegetarion food in Purattasi is good for health, because of our supposed reduction in digestive capabilities during winter. The message states that this is a scientific fact.

First of all, we are not cold blooded animals, we are warm blooded. That means our body temperature is tightly regulated.So winter or summer doesnt really matter much. Secondly there are no studies which prove that our digestion is poorer in winter. Thirdly Non-Veg food is eaten by people all around the world in all seasons, people in other countries are not getting admitted in hospitals because they eat such foods during winter. What about people who live in countries that are cold year round? Hell, dont even go that far, what about people from other religion in your same locality who eat Non-Veg? Are they in hospital now? Do you see how absurd this claim is?

If you want to believe something based on your faith or religion, that is fine with me. But please do not say it is “Scientific”.

### Final Words

I am not trying to discredit our ancestors or blame them. They were people just like you and me, their thoughts and actions were based on what they observed and what made sense to them. That was how every societies ancestors were, making do with the resources they had with human ingenuity.

However what they did not have, was an easy way to share their knowledge, the information that travelled along the trade routes were slow. The common people also lacked an understanding of logical fallacies (People lack that even now) So they were prone to make illogical conclusions from their observations, this is natural, this is only human. But instead of realizing that they too were human, we are upllifting them to this God like status. Believing that our ancestors were some kind of supernatural beings might help boost our ego, but it will not help us progress in any way.

Edit: For your reading pleaseure, Here is another one i got as forward today!

தூங்கும் முறை பற்றி சித்தர்கள் கூறியது…

தூங்குவதைப் பற்றியும் அதில் உள்ள அறிவியல் உண்மைகளையும் சித்தர் பெருமக்கள் தங்கள் நூல்களில் வடித்துள்ளனர்.

தூங்குவதற்கு ஏற்ற காலம் இரவு மட்டும் தான் என்பது இயற்கையின் விதிகளில் ஒன்று. பூமியின் தட்ப வெட்ப நிலைகள் மாறி இரவில் குளிர்ச்சி பொருந்திய சூழ்நிலை தான் தூங்குவதற்கு ஏற்ற காலமாகும்.

இரவில் அதிக நேரம் விழித்திருப்பதால் என்ன தீமைகள் விளையும் என்பது பற்றி சித்தர்பாடல் ஒன்று.

சித்த மயக்கஞ் செறியும் புலத்தயக்க மெத்தனுக்
கமைந்த மென்பவை களித்தமுற வண்டுஞ் சிலரை
நாயாய்ப் பன்னோய் கவ்வுமிராக் கண்டுஞ் சிலரை
நம்பிக் காண் .

இதன் விளக்கம் :-

இரவில் நித்திரை செய்யாதவர்களிடத்தில் புத்தி மயக்கம், தெளிவின்மை, ஐம்புலன்களில்[உடலில்]சோர்வு,

பயம், படபடப்பு, அக்னி மந்தம், செரியாமை, மலச்சிக்கல், போன்ற நோய்கள் எளிதில் பற்றும்.

எந்த திசையில் தலை வைத்து படுக்க வேண்டும் என்பதை சித்தர்கள் அன்றே தெளிவாகக் கூறியுள்ளனர்.
.
உத்தமம் கிழக்கு
ஓங்குயிர் தெற்கு
மத்திமம் மேற்கு
மரணம் வடக்கு

கிழக்கு திசையில் தலை வைத்து படுப்பது மிகவும் நல்லது.

தெற்கு திசையில் தலை வைத்துப் படுத்தால் ஆயுள் வளரும்.

மேற்கு திசையில் தலை வைத்துப் படுத்தால் கனவு, அதிர்ச்சி உண்டாகும்.

வடக்கு திசையில் ஒரு போதும் தலை வைத்து தூங்கக் கூடாது.

இதனை விஞ்ஞான ரீதியாகவும் ஒப்புக்கொண்டுள்ளனர். வடக்கு திசையில் இருந்து வரும் காந்தசக்தி

தலையில் மோதும் போது அங்குள்ள பிராண சக்தியை இழக்கும். இதனால் மூளை பாதிக்கப் படுவதுடன்,

இதயக் கோளாறுகள், நரம்புத்தளர்ச்சி உண்டாகும். மேலும் மல்லாந்து கால்களையும்,கைகளையும்

அகட்டி வைத்துக் கொண்டு தூங்கக் கூடாது. இதனால் இவர்களுக்குத் தேவையான ஆக்ஸிஜன்

(பிராண வாயு) உடலுக்குக் கிடைக்காமல் குறட்டை உண்டாகும். குப்புறப் படுக்கக் கூடாது,

தூங்கவும் கூடாது. இடக்கை கீழாகவும், வலக்கை மேலாகவும் இருக்கும்படி கால்களை

நீட்டி இடது பக்கமாக ஒருக்களித்துபடுத்து தூங்க வேண்டும்.

இதனால் வலது மூக்கில் சுவாசம் சூரியகலையில் ஓடும். இதில் எட்டு அங்குலம் மட்டுமே சுவாசம்

வெளியே செல்வதால் நீண்ட ஆயுள் வளரும். மேலும் இதனால் உடலுக்குத் தேவையான

வெப்பக்காற்று அதிகரித்து பித்தநீரை அதிகரிக்கச்செய்து உண்ட உணவுகள் எளிதில் சீரணமாகும்.

இதயத்திற்கு சீரான பிராணவாயு கிடைத்து இதயம் பலப்படும்.

வலது பக்கம் ஒருக்களித்து படுப்பதால் இடது பக்க மூக்கின் வழியாக சந்திரகலை சுவாசம் ஓடும்.

இதனால் பனிரெண்டு அங்குல சுவாசம் வெளியே செல்லும். இதனால் உடலில் குளிர்ச்சி உண்டாகும்.

இரவில் உண்ட உணவு சீரணமாகாமல் புளித்துப் போய் விஷமாக நேரிடும்

சித்தர்கள் கூறியது அனைத்துமே நம் அனைவரின் நன்மைக்கே, இதை நாமும் பின்பற்றி பயன் பெருவோம்

Lately I have been seeing a lot of advertisements in and around Coimbatore for something called as “Brain Train”, They supposedly make children more “intelligent” by giving some training by blindfolding them. Since our district is famous for loosing money to scammers, i decided to check the validity of what these people claim.

It turns out “Brain Train” is only one of the many institutions that have sprung up all over the world (especially in developing countries). Some of them are:

http://www.tiaedu.in/
http://www.gmtindia.in/
http://www.midbrain-activation.com
http://www.nlpart.com/improve-memory-mid-brain-activation/
http://getsetgoindia.co.in
http://www.ignitegeniusmind.com

Home

https://universalmidbraininfo.com
http://www.geniusmindacademy.com.sg/mid-brain-activation/
http://www.gkids.in

This is only a partial list, there are just too many to list them all here!

Lets start with their FAQ, almost all these sites and organisations have the same FAQ copy pasted and all follow a similar pattern since they all are based on the same concept.

“Can the children really see in the dark after the Course?

Absolutely. In a dark room they would even be able to read a newspaper. Many animals can see in the dark. Fish can see in the darkness of water, all because their brains have been trained to use these functions. However, without a doubt, a human brain DOES have this ability.”

This is the first warning flag, the ability to see in the dark depends on the photoreceptors in our eye and presence of Tapetum lucidum, Human eyes are physically different from our animal friends. This is a very basic fact and we are talking about physical limitations of our eye this has nothing to do with “Brain Ability”.Talk to your doctor or simply just read the wikipedia article on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_vision.

“If my child is already talented, will the Courses still be useful?

Scientific research has proven that even a person as intelligent as Albert Einstein does not use more than 10% of his or her brain. The TIA Course has the potential to transform children with average intelligence into highly intelligent individuals, and capable children into outstanding kids. The workshop aims not only at improving the IQ of children, but also their EQ. It also helps a child achieve emotional balance.”

This is the best example which shows these organisations don’t know anything about human brain. No one in the scientific community accepts or believes in this 10% crap. This is a myth.Even wikipedia has an entry on this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_the_brain_myth

Ok this is depressing, these institutions claim they are scientific, so lets see based on what study these people are claiming all these things.

Makoto Shichida! this is the name quoted everywhere in these websites, all these institutions claim to follow his studies.

Most of his original studies are in Japanese, and there seem to be no references of him anywhere else in the scientific community. Even wikipedia does not have an entry for him. Generally if a scientist publishes a paper (especially if it is something so important as what this guy claims) peer review is done and people try to validate his claims, but it appears no such studies have been done.

Here is a very good critique of his studies from a scientific view point,
https://gerryp.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/evaluation-of-superachievers-magazine/

Another commenter pretty much nailed it after reading his book, to quote his words:

It was full of pseudo-scientific clap-trap which any serious neuroscientist would dismiss as ‘snake-oil’. Google him on the web, and you’ll see that apart from his own websites and a few new-age parenting magazines, he doesn’t seem to exist in the minds of serious educationists.

Acclaimed Dr.Narendra Nayak did a test on these Brain trained children, you can see it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=V6dDfGqnZQM#t=215

I could go on and on, there is just so much bull shit that these people say, we can sit and prove almost every claim they make are out right lies and they are nothing but a scam.

Our brain is not like a computer, to turn a portion of it on and off whenever we want to. All parts of our brain work together to accomplish our daily tasks.

We want our children to be intelligent and super achievers and we are constantly trying to find shortcuts to make them smarter and this might be the reason why we have such products in the market, to make use of our weakness to their gain.

These are obvious scams, please refrain from supporting these people.

Further Reading:
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/education/caution-urged-over-blindfold-brain-gym-craze/390311
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=96&t=7409&sid=229b2b08edc09c34a9c10d67a0058504

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=24682

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23640

Our very own thirukkural mentions this as,

“எப்பொருள் யார் யார் வாய் கேட்பினும் அப்பொருள்
மெய்ப்பொருள் காண்பதறிவு.”

So lets take a step back and try to objectively analyse ourselves, shall we?

One-upmanship:
I think we are as far away from ‘humble’ as we can possibly be, almost everything we do involves making us look better than our neighbours, our relatives, even our very close blood relations . It is so bad that it appears hardcoded in our genes or something. I mean think about all the things we do, take marriage for instance, How much do we spend on a marriage? People want to make their children’s marriage as grand as they possibly can afford, why? When you ask them, people will usually say “this is my only daughter, Ellarum Mookula verbal veikara mari irukanum” Or something to that effect, isn’t it? You will have to agree 99% if the time it involves impressing others, so your relatives will be impressed, your friends will be impressed, isn’t it? It can be painful to agree but deep inside don’t your conscience don’t you think thats why we do such things?

Why do we wear so much gold ornaments when we go to somebody’s marriage? Why do we go in a car even if the marriage hall is nearby? why do we show our newly bought expensive gifts in Facebook or show it to our neighbours? Why do we wear expensive clothes? How many of us buy expensive phones and actually use the features that warrant the price of the phone? why do we keep changing the phone every year when the old phone is perfectly good? Why do we have to boast our salary? why are we like this? Aren’t we trying to impress others?

So you ask , yeah i am boastful whats wrong with that?Aldous Huxley`s quote neatly summarises what is wrong, “Flaunting your blessedness is the face of so much misery — it’s a sheer hubris, it’s a deliberate affront to the rest of humanity. It’s even a sort of affront to God.”

This mentality affects us in a lot of ways than you can imagine. Lets think about a scenario, imagine you are a poor guy, earning only 6000 rupees per month , with the salary just enough to barely meet your needs and you have a girl studying 6th standard who you struggle to educate, given your salary. So you have a close relations wedding and off you go with your family, with your wife wearing the only gold necklace she has. The marriage is very grand being blessed with enough money, everything about the marriage is grand, they are even “Gifting” a brand new Ford Figo to the bride.
What would the majority of poor people feel? Envy of course, when your wife sees how everybody else seem to be wearing so much gold, won’t she feel slight a bit depressed? When you see how much they are spending for the marriage and the dowry they are giving, won’t you be concerned about your daughters marriage? won’t you start worrying about how you will get your daughter married of to a good guy? So by flaunting aren’t we making their day bad? If your son sees his class mate coming in a 1 lakh rupee bike, wouldn’t he want the same? If you see your friend boasting his earnings of 40K or 50K, whom you used to teach in college since he had difficulty grasping the subject, won’t you feel life is unfair.

After seeing your friends, if your son is adamant on getting a bike what would you do? If your wife is adamant on getting more gold ornaments, what would you do? You see all your friends have touch screen phones, what would you do? Invariably we all would spend our money which have saved for something else to satisfy our ego , so we can be equal with the people around us. It will end up making us spend our money for others. How many of our purchases do we honestly make for ourselves? How much do we spend to impress the people around us? Do we buy the 10 lakh SUV to drive in a forest or to look good (Gethu – man i hate this word)? Why do you wear that gold chain or the gold ring?

So, do you see what happens when you boast? It only causes unhappiness, think about how many times such an incident affected you and you will see the truth in my statement. Flaunting boosts our ego, makes us feel special, but for the person in the other side, it will end up most of the time hurting them. Making them take life decisions to please others. Is the happiness which we get by hurting others, by making others feel bad about them and their life really worth it? Next time you flaunt something, please put yourself in their shoes and think for a minute how they would feel.

Almost all the religions of the world preach humbleness, to treat everybody as equals, Ironically we have started donating gold jewels and money to the same God who preached modesty and humility. Such is the state of our very own Tamil Nadu.

Okay that became longer than what i expected it to be, so i will try to summarise the other points i had in mind about our culture, and try to elaborate on them in future posts.

⁃ Caste Caste everywhere, Casteism – people don’t even realise it is something that was not even inherent to our tamil culture, a system that was imposed on us to control us. Good guys and Bad guys are in every caste, think about it for a second, do you think there are no bad guys in your caste? Hell, are all your relatives good people? Don’t you have any good friend who is outside of your caste, but still a good person? then why do we divide ourselves? Why do we see our differences when we have so much in common? why do we develop hatred among our fellow human beings? What if you were born in the caste you so despise? why can’t we get along together? Does one mistake done by a person in other caste make everybody in that caste bad?Is caste so much important then our children that we sometimes forego our loving children because they married somebody from other caste? Our ego and ‘what our relatives think about us’ is more important that our own kid? whom you spent the entire life rising? If you won’t you forgive your own son/ daughter, how do you expect God to forgive your sins? Don’t you think your political leader is playing caste to garner more votes or to really help you?

⁃ With great power comes great Douchebag-ness. Somebody once said, with great power comes great responsibility, we all are so hungry for power that once we get some power, such as becoming a manager in Office, or anything that puts us above two or three people , we start becoming Jerks to them. Look at all the big shots around us, they don’t even treat others with respect, there are really very few who don’t let power take to their head, thats why i think we make really bad managers but very good workers. Once they get it into their brains that they are above somebody, they all start showing their superiority and general disrespect for others. I mean, how many of us give proper respect to the watchmen’s, our maids? why should their work decide the amount of respect we give for them? Is that the only inherent quality with which we judge people? People don’t have anything to them other than money and status? How many times did you have to beg your manager for a favour? its the same mentality that perpetuates this. When will we start treating everybody as equals?

– Material Possesions are our God, Right now money seem to be the only thing we listen to, When it comes to money we don’t care about love, we don’t care about relationships , we don’t care about family, Only money matters. Of course money is important, but money is only a means to serve us if we make money our master, then we will lose everything except money. Why are there so many land cases in court?Why do loving brothers and sisters fight over a piece of land? Why do brothers cheat their siblings of their wealth? What does that say about us? lack of love among brothers and sisters? or that when it comes to money there are no brothers, no sisters?

Imagine a society where everybody is being kind to one another, everybody treat everybody as equals, where there is no caste to discriminate others, Where people are being humber and downplay their achievements. Wouldn’t you want to live in such a world?

Imagine how life would be?

What would you talk with the other person, would he/she be interested in what you have to say? Would he share your passion? Would you have common interests? Will you be able to tolerate him? What if you selected the wrong person? What will happen to the rest of your life? Do you think it would end well?

Now given this , would you still want to select based on looks alone?
I guess not.

Then how different is this from our marriage system in Tamil Nadu? Can you select your partner for the rest of your life based on

a) a photo
b) few minutes you talk with him/her?
Is that enough to take a decision?
40 years from now, would you still have the same opinion?

Now you can say “dude what are you talking about? We don’t just consider the photo alone. We match with horoscopes and research about the family before we do anything crazy.”

Well indeed you do! I am not refuting that. Lets analyze the two more options you have stated.

Horoscopes:

Hmm an interesting technique to find matches. Historically horoscopes/astrology evolved as a way for humans to make sense of everything around them, humans nature is to enquire, to try to understand or find meaning around what is happening around them. Astrology was a result of the search for human meaning in the sky. It has been argued that astrology began as a study as soon as human beings made conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles,

For example, when our ancestors saw solar and lunar eclipses for the first time, they couldn’t understand what was happening, to find meaning they assumed there are two snakes in the sky and when they swallow the sun or moon you get the solar and lunar eclipses, they even named the snakes, which we now call as Raagu and Kethu. It is not their fault, at that time there simply wasn’t enough information available to them to know it was the shadow of the earth/moon which caused eclipses, but as science developed we now have empirical evidence to fully understand how eclipses occur, It made perfect sense then but after all the advancements in science does it make sense to still believe there are two serpents the sky? and do pariharam for them?

As astronomy and science developed (Because of the similarity in name, a lot of people think astrology , like astronomy is based on science), astrology began to lose its credibility, it was simply time for us to move on, but the people with vested interests in horoscopes did not allow it do die. There is a whole group of people whose livelihoods depend on horoscopes and its related branches so it is only natural for them to resist the change. Couple this with the fact that the early upper classes used this as a means to control the masses, so the lower classes wont take any decision without involving them (even Kings had to) and they can earn their bread without doing hard physical work.

I mean the information is everywhere,but we have to actively look for it. The media will always follow what is mainstream, media houses are in the industry to earn money not to educate users. Practically, what is more advantageous to them? have a astrology hour everyday which they know a lot of people want to see or risk losing viewers? How many informative programs do we have?

Even though we know from history that it is not based on science, lets see what the scientists have to say..there is no empirical evidence to prove that any of this works and there are numerous papers on why it is false.

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_04_1_mcgrew.pdf

The cosmic perspective (4th ed. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson/Addison-Wesley. 2007. pp. 82–84. ISBN 0805392831.

“Objections to Astrology: A Statement by 186 Leading Scientists”. The Humanist, September/October 1975. Archived from the original on 18 March 2009.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010531_vedic.shtml

http://www.astrosociety.org/education/resources/pseudobib.html

http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astro/act3/astrology3.html

There are lot many more…

It is easy to accept what you hear everyday around you , Lenin is quoted as saying “”A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”, this is applicable to a lot of things around us, unless you question everything ,unless you are willing to look beyond the facade you will not be able to see the truth.

I will give you two examples, you have probably heard the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, you have heard it often, did you know it was actually a marketing slogan to promote apples? or ” carrot is good for eyes” was actually a rumor propagated by the British to fool the Germans during world war two! How many of us know these facts? horoscopes aren’t any different, we just aren’t questioning enough.

Wait what did you say?
“Those guys dont know anything, they are ignorant about the advanced techniques our ancestors have used.”
Well considering that these are the same people who invented your mobile phone, taken us to the moon and are creating antimatter,  I would have at least some respect for what they have to say! (by the way, horoscopes are not even something tamil`s invented, but only we are so actively pursuing it after all these years,)

In fact the Randi educational foundation offers a million dollars to anybody who can prove that horoscope works, so why don’t you try your luck? Oh and did i say the offer has been open for quite some years now and nobody were able to prove till date.

Nevertheless even if you believe it, you now know that it is disputed.
So are you willing to bet your life, your entire existence on a horoscope,something which may or may not even be true?

Horoscopes weren’t even considered that important till a few decades back, they simply didn’t give that much importance, if they like a bride they will pick a flower in front of God(poo potu kekaradhu) to decide, if the horoscopes didn’t match. Now you have too many doshams, too much importance. Psychologically it could be cause of our insecurity, early days you generally got married to some relative or a girl from a nearby place whom you probably knew about , since our towns were small and we married among relatives. So you had some idea about the person and family to whom you are getting married, but now in this age where we know enough science to not marry among close relatives, we look farther, but we dont know anything about them, parents get anxious to marry their girl or boy to a good family, because of the lack of solid information, because of the anxiety in not knowing about the bride, you begin to use Horoscopes as a crutch, as a walking stick  to give us a false sense of security in assuming that the girl will do great with the boy. Is it healthy for us?

Is the risk worth it?

Regarding your second point about the family, i would have agreed with you 10-20 years back, when people married among the close relatives. They definitely had a good idea of what they were getting into,had a
good understanding of their family, so yes the system worked.

But in today s world, having clearly understood that marriage among close blood relatives can cause genetic disorders, we don’t really have that option. So we would have to look outside our close relatives, It would be very difficult to access how good a family is just by looking from the outside. A family may look posh on the outside but the nitty gritties remain hidden. I mean look at your family, how much about you and your family will the outsiders know? Also your partners character need not even depend on their parents,  take yourself as an example, are you same as your dad and mom?

Couple this fact with the anxiety of the parents to get their children to get married before they get too old it is very easy to make mistakes, mistakes you cant correct.

So Considering the fact that the direction the rest of your life will take hangs in the balance on these factors, do you still think this is a good idea?