The Enlightened One

"Those who see me, see my teachings, Those who see my teachings, see me". The global panorama regard him as the cordon bleu of human existence.He has reverberated in the hearts of millions through his enchanting "prana" & preachings. Amid the iron age, here is a man who sits under a tree, thinks & brings about the most greatest change man has ever witnessed. Unlike other monks, Buddha was seeking rationality within the existing moral tree.Contrary to his princely magnificence Buddha was a bulwark for the much lauded Sanatan Dharma or Religion for all.He disseminated his sermons throughout Asia for 45 yrs on foot encompassing subjects of death,suffering & compassion.Unlike other religious theologies, Buddha went forward to collude both practicality & spirituality into an abysmal yet conspicuous theory which later got the name of Buddhism.The mind boggling dimension attached to this magnate thinker was his chutzpah to show the world his transition of a mere prince ruler into an enlightened divinity.

Born as Siddhartha, he was prophesied as either being a valiant warrior or an influential tutor to the world.Apprehension churned in the heart of Suddhodhana, his father, who hitherto subjected his only son to a house arrest hidden under the cloak of royalty.Siddhartha knew that this abode was lacking the answers about life which were the leitmotif in his soliloquy within the palace.Thus, under the shade of darkness he renounced his royal patronage & thus began his quest for enlightenment.Nothing came hunky dory for our new monk, who was seeking the reason coupled with the path for a person's liberation.It took 6 yrs along with a beleaguered physical & mental state to transcend from Siddharta-"the prince,the monk" into Buddha-"the awakened soul". 

 The Buddha story serves as a paradigm for all those seeking bliss & compassion on this planet.He boldly couples oxymoron's of dispassion & compassion & became the 1st social scientist to give a CAUSE AND EFFECT diagram."If you attach desires to your soul,welcome suffering as a companion,this was the basis of his 4 NOBLE TRUTHS wherein he beautifully expounds the inevitability of suffering & searching the panacea to treat such an ailment."Be your lamp, seek no refuge but the light from your truth",Buddhism is popularized as a "do it yourself" exercise augmenting Buddha underlining on self-reliance.He refuted exorbitant rituals to charm gods & termed it as fooling the "smartest". The contemporary social scientists debates on self-actualization are precursors of Buddha scriptures.He despised miracles or promoting the distribution of God-Man statuses to monks but rather highlighted the degree of introspection required by everyone.His roller coaster commences through the corridors of pride,envy,anger,avarice,sadness,gluttony & lust & culminates at your awakened soul. The tale of Buddha is an unfinished story of each individual, some finish it like him others die "unfinished".

Khoon Chala.....

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

Our country’s maiden tryst after 1947 with an Armageddon for the scourge of corruption started on the 5th April 2011 at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi with veteran social activist Anna Hazare starting his “fast unto death”. The moot was surrogating the present draft of the “toothless” Lokpal Bill with Hazare’s Jan Lokpal Bill. Plethora of Social Activist’s including former IPS officer Kiran Bedi, RTI crusader Arvind Kejriwal, Swami Agnivesh etc backed Hazare’s undertaking.

The present draft of the Bill has been touring the boulevards of our legislatures for the last 42 years, failing an entry in the ambit of our constitution. Emissaries of Anna Hazare claim the present draft to be dubious &“eyewash” in the name of curbing corruption. Showcasing the present bill on public platform’s Anna Hazare has marred the face of our Union Government with shame. The present draft is no “rocket science” & can be critique even without someone possessing high legal aptitude. Excerpts from the Bill are as under:

1.) Section 11 of the bill forbids enquiring into any memo of complaint if it is made after the expiry of 5 years from the date when the offence is alleged to have been committed. Thus, Cases such as the Bofors, Adarsh Housing Society & the 2G fiasco won’t lie within the ambit of its jurisdiction.

2.) When the Lokpal’s(ombudsman) prima facie observation smells a stringent need of an enquiry all it can do is send a report of his finding to the Speaker and Chairman, of the

Council of States, and they alone will determine what action to be taken – obviously it may include rejecting the report of Lokpal.

3.) The composition of the Lokpal committee is a mere group of 3 retired judges. Social scientists & Activists are ipso facto accomplices of curbing corruption & excluding them from such committees is a grave mistake.

Such excerpts are enough indication to obliterate the Bill & welcome Hazare’s panacea for corruption—The Jan Lokpal Bill.5 parliamentary members & the other 5 would be a mixed blend of judges & social lobbyists. Amid the jingoism of its victory over the Union Government, The Jan Lokpal Bill is not a magnum opus judicial structure but a mere tool which can be instrumental in quelling corruption. They say that even the Anti-corruption law by itself was well armed on paper but lost its tussle when the pervasive cronyism sabotaged its implementation. The RTI if used can unilaterally bring a sea shift in our polity, but again if used! Tainted members leisure the comfort of holding top political portfolios, the recent appointment of the CVC serves as a paradigm. The British looted away less than the money laundering of the 2G fiasco. Our country’s laws have been too generous for the netaji, making corruption an endemic virus of our system. It is ironic that “unelected” coteries are shouldering the onus of legislating laws. They say that it was transparency acts like the Jan Lokpal Bill which made Hong Kong the least corrupt country in the world. The Lokpal is envisaged as the Super Cop who can banish the specter of corruption, but what if the roadside thanedar continues the prevalent quid pro quo of hafta’s from people to survive in his Raj. Retrospection is a real Lokpal which can make people aware that giving the extra 50 under the table makes them accomplices of corruption.

The Jan Lokpal Bill is a harbinger of sanguine augury which has resurrected the era of a non violence facet of agitation. Public allegiance to the movement & their passion to get attached with the entire catharsis was commendable. The ire within every Indian was meticulously channelized by Hazare’s regime. The truce between the government & emissaries of Hazare is a minute step of a marathon which if completed within time can lift India at the cusp of success. The fervor that ran across India for 5 days was enough to exhort the government to bow before the “demo” of democracy. If Anna Hazare’s determination is present even in a mere “ek hazar” Indian the Lokpal will indeed be a Super cop…....Jai Hind !!

BE "SANE"

“First they came for the Communists & I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist,
Then they came for the Jews & I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew, Then they came for the Catholics & I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant, Then they came for me & by that time there was nobody left to speak up”



The trajectory of Dr.Binayak Sen’s life sojourns you through the hallowed boulevards of a medical college, fora felicitating him with awards of humanitarian excellence & finally halting in a cramped & solitary cell of the Raipur (Chhattisgarh) Central Jail. In May 2007, Dr. Sen was detained for his

alleged involvement with the outlawed Naxalites, thereby violating the provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act & Unlawful Activities Act. Hitherto Sen’s quests for a modicum of justice through his bail petition have been refuted & on the 24th Dec 2010,Raipur’s Session court sentenced him a life imprisonment.

An MBBS & MD (Pediatrics) Sen’s incarceration has showcased the trilogical nexus of the Bureaucracies, echelons of Politics & the Executive. His academic acumen provided him with lucrative offers but he never succumbed to such materialistic temptations rather channelized his philanthropy to bolster the underprivileged. The only Asian to receive the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award, plethora of mobile hospital, schools & rural employment schemes were the brainchild of Dr.Sen.It is undoubtedly heart rending to see that a state that has been the very background of Sen’s achievement in the field of Rural Health Care Schemes has hunted him down with its draconian laws.

But what made Binayak Sen the “marked man” within the Chhattisgarh polity?. Sen is the National Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and General Secretary of its Chhattisgarh unit. In this capacity, he helped organize numerous investigations into alleged human rights violations carried out during anti-Naxalite operations. The alleged violations included the murder of unarmed and innocent civilians by the anti-Naxalite movement “Salwa Judum”. Thus, the state governance had its own vendetta to quell Sen’s chutzpah & an unfortunate turn of episodes including fabrication of key evidences & propagating conjectures by the State police was triggered against Sen. Amid such ignominy, there is sea shift in the way the society views such social activists. Nobel Laureates have rallied behind Dr. Sen’s acquittal.”The Argumentative Indian” Dr. Amartya Sen in a letter to the Prime Minister described the jurisdiction as being “unjust”. The Amnesty International & National Human Rights Commission has appealed to the judiciary for a judicial review of the verdict. Spouse Illina Sen says, “There is support both at home & abroad but not in the Chhattisgarh administration."

Even after such a “miscarriage” of justice went unnoticed,Illina Sen still invests her trust in the Indian Judiciary by taking further litigation's to the Supreme Court. In a world were individual eyes stars that glitter & talk glibly, cricketers who can hit the ball hard, integrity, austerity & truth remains endangered”. It is no coincidence that men like Julian Assange, Binayak Sen & many more are facing trials because they mustered the audacity to uphold the baton of truth. A deaf ear to their appeals would churn in sedating societal equity.

LAJJA

A controversial literary composition by the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin brings the bigotry, fundamentalism & communalism that perpetuated around the Hindus of Bangladesh during the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition.The story revolves around the life of the Duttas who get entwined to the entire chronology of events conceptualized by mindless bloodthirsty fanatics in Bangladesh. An atheist Suranjan who finds solace in the mighty hands of communalism, his father Sudhamoy, a patriot who detests defecting from Bangladesh to India amidst the communal riots, his sister Maya who falls prey to the lustful jaws of human barbarism & his mother Kironmoyee who keeps the photographs of Radha-Krishna close to her & pray for the save arrival of her daughter.

The novel encompasses the entire phase of how Bangladesh was conceived & the advent of its religious fanatism. The dark corners of religious dogmas have been widely highlighted throughout Taslima’s writing. She dauntlessly essays a complete list of attacks on the Hindu Temples, large scale confiscation of lands owned by Hindus, molestation of women etc. Certain Muslim association in Bangladesh highlighted such writings as antisocial & “communal”, thus banning the book & issuing a FATWA against Taslima.

A Chinese proverb says “My Religion is Simple,
My Religion is Kindness”. Lajja demands a rationale outlook by every human regardless of caste, creed or religion to outweigh Religion through the basic tenets of Humanism. The Masjid dispute was complimented by genocides of Hindus by Muslims & Muslims by Hindus. What Lajja highlights is amidst an environment of religious extremism have humans relinquished the ability to introspect. Lajja is definitely a must read for everyone who wishes to read about the savage indictment of religious extremism & how to curb man’s inhumanity to man.

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No Country For These Men

The Galaxy of events that surround our countries “7 sisters” along with regions of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand & Orissa are inceptions towards a civil war wherein the gladiatorial Adivasis take on the constitutional “abiding” Government. Here we have the poorest, most malnourished “people” waging a war against what in our history book was referred as the “people’s rule”. The year has witnessed Naxalism as being the burning topic within the corridors of our Home Minister’s chamber. The sketch up till now puts “our” Government on one side, the Maoists on the other & “our” civil society activists in the middle. With Arundhati Roy advocating for the Maoists on International podiums & Mr.Chidambaram urging the extremists to abjure violence, a healthy bargain seems to be a tough proposition.

The genesis of this conflict can be traced back to the emergence of communist movement in India.The formation of CPI-Maoists led to the mobilization of  tribals from Remote Villages of West Bengal such as Naxalbari (coining the term Naxalites). Annihilation of the Landlord Class & strict military formation were the precursors of the entire rebellion. The region of Naxal militant activity came to be known as the Red Corridor. The entire CPI-Maoists regime were a messiah to the hundreds of unheard cries who had lost their lands to the Zamindar’s through title deed riddles. Demanding stiff reformation in such Remote Villages, the CPI-Maoists were harbingers to the upheavals that would result when MOUs were signed by the Jindals,Tatas,Birlas to extract unexploited minerals from the “Red Corridor”.

The seeds of enmity which got sowed from now led to phases of genocides on both sides of the fence. In a meticulous plan,the Naxals of  Chattisgarh ambushed  & killed  75 CRPF soldiers, a mastermind of a plan which goes down as amongst the deadliest of acts amidst the insurgencies. Killing 75 CRPF soldiers was a heinous display of barbarism & pomp by the Maoists & taints every single iota of  the Tribal development. The other side of the coin bears similar episodes drenched in blood. Contemptuous atrocities inflicted upon the petty peasantry during such rebellious uprising. Taking advantage of such acts Maoists leaders probes the minds of the innocent tribals  & thus a Maoist is born. The government appeals for a ceasefire from the Maoists but itself pours down new army formations within the “Red Corridor”. ”Mujhe ek CRPF jawan maarne ka 500 rs milta hai in logon se….ghar pe bachon ko khilana hai….hamein aur  kuch nhi pata”,says Kashi Naxal throwing  light on how the Maoists leaders are prejudicing the minds of  the innocent  peasants. Arundhati Roy said in a meeting”

The question we need to ask the Indian Government is that Can they leave the bauxite in the  mountains ? “.In some spheres Ms Roy blatantly asks, Is the Indian Republic run by a democratic governance or a corporate enterprise? The Naxal prone area has significant resources - in particular large unexploited mineral, forestry and potential hydroelectric generation capacity. Orissa for example

"...has 60 percent of India’s bauxite reserves, 25 percent of coal, 28 percent of iron ore, 92 percent of nickel and 28 percent of manganese reserves....”.  

What the government calls Maoists corridor, is in fact MoU-ist corridor. You have an MoU on every mountain, river...MoUs signed by biggest corporations in the world who are waiting to gain hold of the resources.Such a pursuit of economic totalitarianism can only have effective results when these MOUs are made public & the  tribals get a clear idea of rehabilation programme by having  people at public forums discuss these issues and take up opinion of those present at the Ground Zero level.The Media should  rise above the biasness & appeasment policy & broadcast transparent coverage of the events at the Ground Zero.It can aid in making the 2 ends meet through better communcation between the confronts.        

                                                 

The Government on the other side tries to increase the Human Development Index (HDI) through development in these areas, but when they build roads the Naxals blow them up, when schools are built the Naxals blow them up, they mine everything and they do not allow development to take place.One violence does not justify others,Be it a Naxal or a CRPF or a Innocent person ultimately more than 900 people are killed in 7 months due to this issue.Thus,  violence which stalks this region may never let development enter its premises.     

Events such as Bhopal Gas Tragedy,Narmada Issue have mocked at our countries judicial  machinery & tainted its authencity.If given similar treatment the complex issue will soon turn into a civil war .The point that needs to be understood by the government is that in fuelling the indusrites with bauxite they should not set the hearts of thousands ablaze & on the other hand the maoists should reach out to the Government not in a spirit of confrontation but in the hope to reach out to a solution..  

                            

My Guardian Angel

Relaxing on the Sofa,relishing the taste of my favourite “bun-tikki’s” & enjoying the semifinal of IPL with my father,I gazed at DRDO’s yearly calender,the bottomline of which says,”HOME SWEET HOME”. For the next 3 days ,their was No waking up early in order to grab the last piece of stale brown bread from the mess, No “dynamics of machines” interfering with the daily dynamics of my life & escaping the scorching heat of Patiala. Luxuriate in using high speed internet & in my Dad’s Sony cybershot which always sparked the photographer in me, made me a busy person even on holidays. My mother, who gives me a “‘V’VIP” stature during such visits, was engrossed in preparing the necessary “masala’s” for tomorrow’s South Indian breakfast—(presumed to be a surprise by her but thanks to my father who likes to disclose every such surprises my mom wishes to keep). Everything was going hunky-dory just like any other day just when..…...

It was my maternal uncle’s phone call who broke the news to my father that my grandmother was dead. The demise of my granny came as a shock for every member of my family, grief stricken faces of everyone around made me recall all the time I had spent with my “Nanni ji”. The ecstasy in her eyes when she opened the doors of her House in Delhi evanesce every iota of fatigue of our journey. My Mother had lost her “guardian angel” & seeing her dissolving in tears made it hard to console her. The series of phone calls & the weeping acoustics that followed made me feel nostalgic. Times of me & granny having hours of conversations flashed in my memory. Till date, I treasure the collections of old & post independence coins which she gifted me.”Nanni ji” used to take joy in showing me black & white photographs of Grandpa & satisfied my inquisitiveness by answering every single question I asked her about the former days. Asking about my mom’s childhood days was the fun part, which gave me enough opportunities to blackmail my mother later at home. My Birthday was never complete till a “Janamdin Mubarak” call came from my Grandma. Spending here life at Delhi she was a witness to the series of changes which took place in the city, the nearby super-market shop owners greeted her & people in the locality seeked her advice & respected the generosity of this old but young at heart lady. She never liked asking for help but was always ready to lend a helping hand to others. An embodiment of a devoted wife, an adorable mother & an affectionate grandmother.

True,the next time I visit my “nanni ji’s” house in Delhi the “ecstasy” which welcomed me would be absent.Agreed that Death might be a reality of Life still Love overpowers it & today as I sit down writing this post I sense the presence of my “guardian angel” waiting for yet another conversation to begin…....