On criticism...

I've spoken about the nastiness of criticism or being critical. Forget the unpleasantness, the idea of making someone feel bad about themselves or their work/art etc. is bad. We have no right to make one of God's children feel bad about themselves. So reason yes, but never criticise.

That is one of the reasons why I don't want to criticise SRK (or anyone else) anymore. That is the reason why I would rather review a film/book/album that critique it.

Here are 1 & 2 links to what I've said about criticism earlier.

And here is what "Sacred Space", TOI's pride has to say about Criticism. (Substitute Churchill's use of "criticism" with feedback. He was a politician, not a corporate citizen)

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticise me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.
~William A Ward

I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
~Winston Churchill

Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
~Dale Carnegie

Three-quarters of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world would finish if people were to put on the shoes of their adversaries and understood their points of view.
~M K Gandhi

I hope to emulate what one of my idols preached.

The Media & some other thoughts...

I've criticised the media rather harshly in the past, even referring to the word as profane.

I've called some of them biased, some of them over the top & some sometimes slightly opinionated, I've questioned Pune Mirror, and decided that some of them (I mean the TOI here) had indeed sold their souls. And all of rightly so I believe.

Recently I was thinking about the awakening that we've witnessed in the masses recently. My uncle in far off Calcutta is doing his bit, awakened by the 26/11 attack on Bombay. Friends from Pune to Paris are doing something. Practically everyone is trying to say or do something to change the situation or the attitude to the sitation.

There's a campaign afoot to dress pramod muthalik up in lacy pink lingerie. They better wax his black ass before they do that, if they want it look anything like Beyonce's! The campaign has touched an instant chord with the masses & netizens alike. People are sending pink chaddis, suggesting wearing them on the steering wheels of their Mercedeses, others are blogging about it in a newer, fresher, more welcome vein! Scroll right down to the last widget on the right side this blog for more details.

People in India are doing something about the things that bother them. It's not enough yet, but it is a start. And we only need more people to keep joining in to bring about that change!

I believe that it is our Media whom we malign (often with just cause) that we have to thank for this awakening.
So we can criticize the excessive coverage of 26/11, the horror stories, the strong opinions being voiced.
We can accuse the media of being sensationalist (& we won't be wrong); but one thing we will have to give them, however much we don't like it, & that is the fact that their sensational, excessive, opinionated coverage has been able to awaken us out of our lethargy!

My dear friend TB seems to be missing this positive aspect of the Pink Chaddi Campaign & the media in general. (Edit: Oops! As usual, that comment has mysteriously disappeared! Trailblazer, any clue of what happened to the comment?)

Are you forgetting my dear friend that there was a karni sena who had indulged in nonsense sometime last year over the release of Jodha-Akbar. What happened to them? Is that karni a hero? He appeared on NDTV & everything. Does anyone remember him?? And what do you expect people (media are people too) to do when faced with these idiots? Keep quiet? Haven't we done that for far too long? It's much better than retaliatory violence, or long drawn PIL's or having to watch his goons pillage pub after pub. The people are standing up to a goon, without taking the law in their hands. It's a saluteworthy move! It's not enough, but it's a start!

And in case you missed it, this initiative too comes from someone who is associated with your favourite magazine Tehelka! :-) (do visit it & read through their "Vendors of Anarchy" piece to change your opinion.) Nisha Susan, more power to you!
You may also want to see what VS Naipaul has to say about Tarun Tejpal's latest novel.

So time to say it, however grudgingly... Indian Media, take a bow!
_________________________________________________

Trailblazer,

Continuing from our earlier discussions on war & capital punishment, I'd like to leave you with a few thoughts that appeared in an article in Verve:

Acharya Suryoday Surishwarji & Acharya Rajratna Surishwarji Maharaj of the Amichand Pannalal Adeshwar Jain Temple, Walkeshwar, Bombay, say that:
"Religion ordains that we should make our enemies our friends. A hundred guilty people can go free, but one innocent person must not die.
Politics or Governance demands that we finish off all our enemies. A hundred innocent people can die, but one guilty person shouldn't go free."

Hopefully you get the difference between governing human beings & living as human beings.
_____________________________

And lastly... WHY DOES NO ONE ACKNOWLEDGE SHEKHAR SUMAN AS THE MOST TALENTED THING TO HAPPEN TO THE TELLY??? THE MOST VERSATILE, THE AMITABH BACHCHAN OF THE SMALL SCREEN???

My Prayer to God

I write about an abundant variety of topics. One thing however that doesn't get it's due is my relationship with God. I don't what the reasons for this are. Maybe I've always considered it very personal; maybe I hadn't come to terms fully with my relationship with God, but it's been in my mind to post about this for some time.

i'm not very regular, and the following conversation is a roughly 99% accurate draft of what i say to Him. i hereby share with you my rather irregular prayer to God:

Dear God,

Thank You for the blessings that you have bestowed upon my family & me. Thank you for keeping us safe, secure, healthy & happy. Thank You for all the small & big things (like family, friends, a job etc.) that make our daily lives happy.

i ask You to bless my family & me, with long lives that are fiscally, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually... fit, secure, safe, healthy & happy.

i ask you to bless our close & far relatives, friends, the whole world, and indeed all of Your Creation, in the very same way.

i ask you to heal my aches & pains (that i have developed from excessive typing on the keyboard).
(Sometimes i pray for God to help friends & relatives find good jobs when they're looking, sometimes i ask to not be critical of others, to be patient with them, sometimes for something else, but the main prayer remains largely as it's been produced here.)

Dear God, i humbly thank You, my all powerful, merciful, only benefactor, and ask you to grant me my wishes & prayer come true.

Amen.
_____

I'd also like to quote a few prayers & hymns that I identify with, that I sometimes draw inspiration from & use in my prayers:

• St. Francis' "Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace" (School prayer which I only began to understand recently)
• Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, sabko sanmati de Bhagwan
• Abide with me
• The Namaaz
• The Spirituality section & The Speaking Tree (one of the rare good things in TOI), which exposes me to quotes from Buddha, Guru Nanak, Kabir, Gandhiji, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar among others.

i send this prayer out into our World, so that God heals us all, cures us of hatred, sows us with love & bestows peace upon all, even those we criticize or don't agree with.

Disappointment & Hope-II

While the existence of one non-blinker-wearing blogger gives one hope that openly partisan apologists for murderers aren't the only people populating my country, the decidedly premature celebrations of the aforesaid apologists is a sad occurence.

Why do I use words like blinkers, partisan, premature etc., one may ask.

Let's see why:

• If you can see faults in everyone else, but not in narendra modi, it isn't because you're blind. You're just partisan or wearing blinkers. Please forgive the Raja Bhoj-gangu teli (respectively) analogy, but how else can one find faults with Dr. Manmohan Singh yet not give him his due for bringing India to where it is today economically, yet be totally forgiving of modi's complicity/inaction during the 2002 riots?


• How easily they forget the earlier toast of IT, AP, certain sections in the press, Chandrababu Naidu (apparently the longest serving CM/CEO of Andhra Pradesh)! This is why I say premature.


• They don't even have all the facts at hand, yet they celebrate! Good Governance did I hear? I guess offering security & a dignified living to it's citizens isn't part of good governance... No Corruption did I hear? I guess they don't know the real truth. Maybe they can compare PCI stats with other states before they rejoice prematurely? Do they actually believe no one else is watching? That no one else knows? That no one else will speak up? That the voices will not gather momentum? Blind? Nay... Blinkers!


• And for every ratan tata, sunil mittal & anil ambani, there is a rahul bajaj & Jamshedji Godrej to take into account! Hopefully the media is only keeping modi alive in public memory, so that the voices for him to be brought to justice become louder & louder!


• And how does the backing of those industry-wallas (with the obvious vested interest of making more money) hold good at all? Since when are industrialists as a group known for rectitude or ethics? They're known for protecting their own interests!


• Now this bit is purely conjecture, but anil ambani is close to Amar Singh, and he may only have backed modi in public to further widen the rift (vajpayee-advani-shekhawat-modi-rss factions) within the bjp! (Gleeful Grin!)

And since vinod sharma has taken to hurriedly deleting every comment that I put up on his posts, I'm refuting some more of his silly claims here:

1st reply:
Right Time???

He was on Karan Thapar's show & walked out when asked to express regret? Was that not an appropriate time?

He's just milking the sentiment of those hindus who're extremist. And similarly with the money that comes in. Forgotten so soon why sonal shah was embroiled in so much controversy? The funds come from hindutva sympathisers living abroad.

2nd reply:
You wish Vinod.... The recurring skirmishes/riots in India doesn't suggest that we're a different people.

3rd reply:
Amit,

There is no unhealthy obsession with 2002. The obsession with 1984 still continues till today.Both you & vinod have brought it up in this form & others do all the time. It isn't forgotten. Nor should it be.
Nor should 2002 be forgotten.
And just because we weren't able to fix problems in the past is no excuse to not cry out for justice now!
That's all one is saying.

And can you please stop berating the English media? They're the one's who raise the cry for justice. Read this Tehelka piece.

OPEN your eyes!!!

The other 2 pieces of rubbish that vinod claims in the latest post on his bog...

at a scorching pace that even now seems impossible in any state except
Gujarat

&

**** has become the beacon that has illuminated the truth that an honest,
competent and visionary leader

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!! HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Joke of the century vinod!!! Really good one!!! LOL!!! And I thought phoenixritu was the funniest blogger I knew!!! :-D

I really hope you went through the links to the PCI GDSP pdf & the prohibition news article, that I provided above. This making false claims vinodji... tsk tsk... aapko shobha nahi deta...

Stop being an apologist for modi. Otherwise people will remember you like they remember hitler supporters. Heard of the slur "nazi"?
_________________________

Related Post

Please look forward to 2 posts, one on the Janus-facedness of modi supporters
& the other that analyses the truth about gujarat.

kya contradiction hai...

Some people get it, while some others just don't get it.

Funnily enough, in this particular case, a so-called non-Muslim gets it, while a presumably avowed Muslim doesn't.

Edit 1:

And then she goes & blows it!!! I wish she'd clarify her urge to criticize. Is it born out of a desire to reform? That's the only excuse I can understand for criticism.

What will stop these people from arguing over religion in these times??? (Inke beech ka faasla kaun kam karega?) Have they learnt nothing from the rest of the nation? What will it take to unite them? More of the same? Such a shame...! I'm itching to help them merge as one, but I'd said I'd refrain, so I will.

Edit 2:

However I'd also said that I would attempt to change the mindset of every religious conservative that I came across. (Read 1, 2, 3, 4). I'm therefore seriously contemplating writing to Adnan. Apparently Swati has answered my question on her blog. I will check that out shortly & come back with an update.

Life’s little disappointments…

The last few weeks have been good on the personal front, but a look at the world around us also brought to light a few incidents that have left me more than mildly disappointed.

1. Barack Obama’s picking Sonal Shah as a member of his transition team. Sonal’s links with the VHP are public knowledge, but it is said that Obama knows her from his Harvard days. Maybe we can trust his judgement. Maybe he knows that her support to the VHP is limited to earthquake relief work. Maybe I’m dreaming! He may also be putting together a cabinet of rivals. It’s always better to have hope than to be perennially negative. It’s not a good path to be walking on, easy to start down it but very difficult to walk away from it.

2. Baba Ramdev. While I never bought into his tall claims of being able to cure cancer, diabetes & heart disease through Yoga, I did have respect for the man for having effected a positive change in the Indian masses towards healthy living. I didn’t lose that respect when someone accused him of using animal bones in his ayurvedic medicines. I knew people take potshots at celebrities. The guy went all over the country spreading the message of healthier living. He went to the UAE & spread his message there. I started thinking that a guy with his mass following can surely spread the message of communal harmony in our country. All he needs to do is say in each one of his shivirs that all human beings are equal irrespective of religion. That Indians should remain brothers. The masses would’ve responded well to his call. Even when one of the World’s premier Yoga gurus, BKS Iyengar publicly denounced Ramdev’s knowledge of Yoga, I still gave Ramdev credit for marketing Yoga well in India. I was taught Yoga by one of Ramdev’s disciples and can say from personal (bad) experience that Yoga isn’t the totally safe practise it’s made out to be. It has to be taught by someone who really knows it & knows how to teach it. Then the Ramdev I thought was progressive, inclusive & apolitical, goes & does the exact opposite of what I had in mind from him:

Raising the pitch on the Pragya Singh Thakur issue, Ramdev said: “Power is today
being exercised by people who should either be in jails or who should be hanged.
There will be a massive tussle for power three months hence. The country needs a
big change, where Sant Shakti (religious gurus) and Jan Shakti (people power)
come together. This process will not stop until the glory of India’s past is
restored.”

3. Our current Opposition Party, one that aspires to lead India in her march towards prosperity & peace, one that has always advocated a hardline approach, on being tough on terror, on equal rules for all; for doing a 360 degree turn on all of the above (which incidentally is consistent with their past record!). Rajnath Singh falls back on divisive politics (a harkback to the British rule they claim to hate) by saying on the Pragya Thakur investigation that the Govt. is angering Hindus and that it is pushing the country towards a civil war! Strangely, today’s Indian Express reports that Lt. Col. Purohit during interrogations revealed that RSS leader Indresh Kumar had received Rs. 3 Crore from the ISI!!! I thought my suspicions on the sangh & the ISI being in cohorts was just a silly theory!! And to borrow a sentence from Offstumped, the alacrity with which they moved from embarassment to aggression & opportunistic politics, they have managed to even embarass the word “shame” with their abject lack of it.

4. Disappointed at no one filing PIL’s, making any arrests, banning the seditious website because of this. No one cares, huh? sanjay? swati? guy? Are you not offended? Is your taking umbrage partisan?

5. Disappointed at terrorism claiming religions for themselves. But happy that amidst this madness there is hope, that there are people with whom we may have differences, but who agree on core issues. Do read this, this & this please.

I’ve come to realize that faults lie within all humans, not within all religions. That’s why a leader of men that brings our the best in human nature is called a Prophet; & a leader that brings out the worst in humans is called a politician or more appropriately a crook!

6. I’m disappointed at the difference between the leaders of their country & ours: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-gross/powell-honors-fallen-musl_b_135964.html

7. Ashutosh winning Bigg Boss. I erroneously thought that someone who publicly slapped a woman to win a third-rate reality show, shouldn’t get to win another third-rate reality show. I’m obviously disappointed that the rest of India doesn’t agree with me. But I know that this is not the whole picture.

What is the whole picture? The whole picture is work-in-progress. That is part of my learning.

What else have I learnt from these little disappointments? To ignore them. To move on. If there is any truth to the Karma philosphy, everyone gets their due. Also that “It’s all OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end”.

Happy Dusshera

Dusshera represents the victory of good over evil.

India today is struggling in the grasp of evil. From the evil of the multiple & repeated bomb blasts of the terrorists, to the evil of communal riots, church burning, murder & mayhem of the sangh parivar, to the evil of most of us turning a blind eye to this evil & it's perpetrators.

I pray today for the triumph of good in my land, and in all other lands afflicted by evil.

I pray for God to give all of us the strength to speak out if not do something about the evil.

And I present two links to people who are doing something good in the environment of evil. Things like this give me hope that we will win like Ram did. I wish the people I meet in the blogosphere, would give me that hope too.

Please do read this & this. It's the least you can do.

Perceptive, Insightful, Discerning...

are all adjectives that I will attribute to myself henceforth.

Of the recommendations that I had made here, one was about the liberals using the media to get the truth out, to send positive messages out to the unknowing world at large.
And HERE is vindication that I was on the right track!!!
Read up about how Alyque Padamsee's brilliant brain is being put to nobler use than it had ever before!
Read about how people like Madni, Padamsee & Javed Anand exist. Rejoice at what they stand for & represent!
Read up about how it's to be done!

A half-Hindu's view on how Hindus should be percieved

I'm half-Hindu. The other half is Muslim. I've spoken about one aspect of this earlier and am therefore going to skip some parts of the preamble.

I grew up accustomed to people marvelling at my knowledge of "Hindu" mythology, and other religions. I also grew up practically unaware of what Islam was about. Since my family didn't pay much attention to it, I was only aware of who the "heroes" of Islam were: The Prophet, Hazrat Ali & his martyred sons Imam Hasan & Imam Husain, and their clan.

As I grew older, I mixed with more Hindus than Muslims, by virtue of the simple fact that they're in greater numbers in India. Also by virtue of the fact that my parent's mixed-marriage effectively precluded our either staying in areas determined by ethnicity or fraternizing based only on it.

Apart from a few stray incidents I rarely met a religion obsessed Hindu (churkhi & janayoo notwithstanding). This may have to do with the fact that my Muslim sounding name may have deterred them in some way, but despite that I can say with a fair degree of confidence that the Hindus I met were not the kind that carried religion outside on the street with them. Only once when I was about six or seven was I asked in the park, "What religion are you?" by a group of similarly aged youngsters. I am still unable to comprehend how 7 year olds could ask me a question like that. Unless they had instructions from home to ask... Wierd, very wierd.

So my best friends were Hindus right through school, graduation & post-grad. Irrespective of whether I was in UP, Rajasthan or Maharashtra.

It's important for me to state however that I hadn't scratched the surface yet. Young & forgiving I ignored the people who refused to rent me a room to stay in upon hearing my name. I told myself that they're an aberration.

So what has changed now? Have the recent events in India, made me change my opinion of the average Hindu? Have people like bal-t & advani & modi, have babri & gujarat made me rethink? Has the rise in the number of bjp supporters made me rethink my stand? Has the absolute glut of hindutvis on web forums everywhere made me rethink?

To be honest, the first few did not. But the last two really have!

I've just needed to look at my friends in order to dispel any doubts about the first few questions. But the second set of questions bothers me... Is is because I've realized that there's another world lurking behind the anonymity that the Internet offers? Is this a new phenomenon or has it always existed & I've been oblivious to it?

I have also been bothered by some of the statements that some of my Hindu relatives make. Something about Hindus being tolerant & being taken for granted. These are well educated, high ranking, retired people! To be fair, they've always voted the jansangh and to be fair they had to leave Lahore leaving everything behind, but it worries me nonetheless.

So to answer my own question... has all of this changed my stance towards Hindus outside my family? Frankly it hasn't. 5 or 6 incidents are not representative of the attitude of all Hindus. And 15 idiots on web forums do not make up the entire Hindu population!!!

My experience with non-family Hindus has been largely great. I continue to enjoy the love & admiration of friends & family. There is no reason for me to being doubting the larger populace of Hindus, even those that don't have the advantage of a Western education!

So how do we deal with the sections in the media that are right-wing? How do we deal with pronouncements of bal-t, advani & modi? How do we deal with the extremists in web forums?

This is the second part of my mission. I intend to meet them head on. Ignoring them is dangerous, so they must be countered. In every forum! People like Alyque Padamsee are doing it in the offline world, using the clout they have. People like us should do it in the areas where we have the clout.

I will volunteer time at schools & colleges & teach children & youth about tolerance & communal harmony!

I will debate them in web forums, TV shows, wherever I get a platform. I will present facts to them. Most importantly, I will show them how they're hurting the image of the average Hindu by doing all of this. How they're giving an opportunity to the extremists to showcase their hatred to potential recruits!

Educated, liberal Hindus should use media to clear the air about what the religion stands for. They should showcase the lives of Hindus like themselves using TV, papers, novels, films whatever is available. They must undo the damage that the conservatives have caused. A PR exercise is as desperately needed to safeguard the image of the tolerant, secular, progressive Hindu as it is by similar Muslims!

Work should be done to improve the lot of minorities & backward sections like Dalits. Educated Hindus should actively condemn when something goes wrong in areas like that!

My mission going forward is to impress upon each uber-conservative Hindu I come across, the importance of being as modern & liberal. And how it's important for their community to come across as that, if they're to contribute to solving the problems that face all of us today. We must sow the seeds of the idea in their mind.

If you agree dear readers, please help me do the same. Please speak to every hardliner you come across & tell them to live their life as they would like their religion to be perceived. If they want to be viewed as progressive, educated, liberal, loving & peaceful, then they must be that themselves. Do spread the good word.

Afterthought on KKL

A more critical analysis of KKL came to me as an afterthought. It doesn't take away anything from the movie at all for two reasons: The movie is genuinely good; and secondly as my favourite playright GBS put it, "A critic is one who leaves no turn unstoned"!

The part that I'd have liked to see made differently is the absolute ending. There's too much wrong with the ending according to me. The elder brother deserved better & that is what should've been shown. The younger brother deserved much worse and that is what should've been shown, instead of showing him happily returning to his piano. I know for a fact that guilt makes each day unlivable! How happily they've shown the misguided youngster return to a life of normalcy. This according to me, is one flaw in the movie. In short the ending is further from a happy ending than I would've liked.

Maybe viewers with a taste for the quasi-realistic don't share my problem with the ending.

Attempted Crosspost

4 Movie Recommendations

I'm fairly picky about the movies that I watch & even pickier about the ones I like. Any regular reader of this blog will vouch for that. I am recommending 4 movies today for mass consumption. Movies that should probably be made mandatory viewing in India. Just like Sir Attenborough's Oscar winning classic has!

There is no order here, neither chronological, nor preferential.

Aamir:
A thriller worthy of Hollywood. The film starts off fairly innocuously and from there a series of events hurl the protagonist by the same name deeper & deeper into a web of conspiracy & deceit.
The film keeps the viewer feeling edgy all the time, due to the slowly unfolding nature of the subject, the mystery that refuses to unravel, and mainly due to the superb execution of the plot by the director!
Bombay has been grittily shot, realistic, teeming, buzzing, filthy. The glimpses bring memories of the city back to anyone who's stayed there for any decent length of time.
So, brilliant camerawork supports a great plot, a capable cast, and gives us a gritty, gripping thriller that stays with us even after we leave the movie theatre. Surely one of the best made thrillers to come out of India ever!

Dharm:
I haven't seen the movie yet, but my wife has & thinks it should be on a compulsory watchlist for all Indians, specially those who've gone over to the conservative side.

The Message:
Needlessly controversial, banned in many parts, this is a film in the tradition of the Ten Commandments & Ben-Hur, only not that dramatic. It is a representation of facts around the origin of Islam, only more reserved.
The film is a must watch for anyone seeking to dispel any popularly held notions about Islam, for anyone seeking answers about the religion and what it's message is.
Starring Anthony Quinn as Hamza, the warrior uncle of Prophet Mohammad, the rest of the star cast is a bunch of unknown (to us) names. The cast really isn't that important as will be clear when you watch the movie; the movie focuses on the history and the origins of Islam & The Message.
Watch it if you are desirious of developing any know-how about the religion at all.

The idiotic ulemas of the sub-continent and a few other people have made a very poor remake of the film called Al-Risalah. A totally unnecessary butchering of the original. Avoid it & go for the original "The Message. You local pirated DVD wala should be able to get you a good copy. Make sure you ask for a totally unedited one! One never knows these days!

Khuda Kay Liye:
Much talked about, much less seen movie. Although, without a doubt a syllabus recommended, compulsory viewing movie! So important is it's message!
The brilliance of the film is in it's theme, the characters essayed rather well by the cast (that includes our Naseer in a small but very crucial cameo), and to some degree the plot. I know many fans of the movie will disagree, but this is my opinion. Don't get me wrong. It's a good movie. A very important modern work! But the style is somewhat documentary. Not that that shold be a negative for any movie, but I'm a little biased towards Hollywood's style of movie-making. It's brilliant in patches, but stops just short of being overall brilliant!

The songs are quite a rage I hear. I'm not humming them yet, so I will reserve comment on that bit. The cast is good, the theme is brilliant. The movie succeeds in getting it's very worthy message across.

A word of caution here: DO NOT PICK UP PIRATED COPIES OF THIS MOVIE. I have heard that certain conservative elements have edited out the secular maulana's (played by Naseer) very crucial very enlightening speech towards the end!
Go to Planet M, pick up the original CD's from there. BETTER STILL, pick up an original DVD if possible as the subtitles will make it easy to understand the otherwise difficult Urdu.

A half-Muslim's view on how Muslims should be percieved

I'm half-Muslim. The other half is Hindu. While there were no overt attempts in the house to make me choose between either religion, there was exposure to both. Outside of the home, you didn't meet many Muslims and therefore the exposure outside the home was primarily Hindu. And thankfully we grew up celebrating all festivals in the house, and had Christian teachers in school, so there was an ample dose of Christianity thrown in.

I was raised by my Mother on Amar Chitra Kathas. (Uncle Pai therefore shares some of the blame for how I've turned out.) I read comics on Jesus Christ, Rama, Krishna, Hanuman, Buddha, Mahavir Jain, Guru Nanak, Kabir, Agastya, Ghatotkach and a truckload on Hindu mythology. I read loads about India's history, her invasions, her home grown kings, and Amar Chitra Kathas always presented an unbiased, usually positive viewpoint, the kind that kids should be exposed to.

I grew up accustomed to people marvelling at my knowledge of "Hindu" mythology, and other religions. I also grew up practically unaware of what Islam was about. Since my family didn't pay much attention to it, I was only aware of who the "heroes" of Islam were: The Prophet, Hazrat Ali & his martyred sons Imam Hasan & Imam Husain, and their clan.

As I grew older, I met more Muslims, relatives who didn't have the advantage of a Western education, who were amazed at how little I knew about Islam. They tried to impress upon me, how good the religion was, what it said etc. Unfortunately, I was in my teens & rebellious, saying emphatic NO's to everything. Also, these people were not exactly the best of teachers.

Thankfully my Grandfather was an erudite, liberal scholar. And his daughter, my Mother had learnt her Islam from him. So she chose to teach me about the progressiveness of Islam. I found that my Grandfather's interpretations of the religion were radically different from what the common Muslim knew & believed. My Mother taught me all about the history of the region where the religion originated and linked it to why certain things were expressed in a certain way in Islam. It made much more sense that way. Simple things like this: Islam considers Moses an earlier Prophet of Islam and his teachings are incorporated in the Quran. So "Thou shalt not kill" is an integral part of Islam.

The damage however had been done by then. I knew my family was different, but the image of the common Muslim in my mind was this: They're Islam obsessed. All they seemed to talk about was religion. If ever another topic came up, the answers were sought in Islam. And that bothered me. Until I realized that all over the World, people seek answers & direction from their religion. Why then did it seem to me that Muslims were more religions focused than other religious groups? That is something I am looking for an answer to.

With all the World attention on Islam & all the hate that spews out in blog forums & on the roads sometimes against it, I've been wondering if there is anything Muslims can do to clear the air. Here are some of the things that I think Muslims should/should not do:

• Educated, liberal Muslims should use media to clear the air about what the religion stands for. It should showcase the lives of Muslims like themselves using TV, papers, novels, films whatever i available. The common non-Muslim deserves to know what Islam really stands for. They must undo the damage that the conservatives have caused. A PR exercise is desperately needed.


• Muslim majority countries like Iran should lay off minorities like the Bahais. Educated Muslims should actively condemn Iran when it does something like this. Countries like Saudi Arabia should allow freedom of religious expression in their countries. Unless they're content to be knows as a hardline, conservative state. I as an educated, liberal, half-Muslim would be the first to condemn religious states!


• The Shia-Sunni divide needs to be bridged. This is easier said than done, but if the differences are irreconcilable, they should at least lay off each other. And guys like zakir naik should be condemned publicly if they mouth any hate.

Notice that I am not just saying "educated". I am saying "educated, liberal". There is a difference and that is the section in whose hands the image of Muslims worldwide lies today.

• The media doesn't seem to be helping on it's own. So there should be an active involvement with the media, a partnership that showcases the attitudes of people like Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Farooque Shaikh, the bin laden niece who made a magazine cover in America. People like Dinara Safina, Marat Safin, Sania Mirza & their parents.

I intend to do my two bits. This way while I can & more if I can later.

My mini-mission going forward is to impress upon each uber-conservative Muslim I come across, the importance of being as modern & liberal. And how it's important for their community to come across as that, if they're to contribute to solving the problems that face them today. I'm aware that most of them will take it as personal criticism & will react just the way I did as a teenager, but I must sow the seeds of the idea in their mind.

If you agree dear readers, please help me do the same. Please speak to every hardliner you come across & tell them to live their life as they would like their religion to be perceived. If they want to be viewed as progressive, educated, liberal, loving & peaceful, then they must be that themselves. Do spread the good word.

deconstructing arun shourie

This led to this, and now we're here! What started it all was this article by the rabble rouser this post seeks to analyze.

Let us begin by refuting shourie's article point by point:

There are many reasons why someone would mock anyone else's "secular credentials". From the simple of jealousy that stems from feeling inferior in comparision, to the more sinister attempt to influence by the power of suggestion. What is important to note is that the latter stems from an insecurity of losing one's identity. Anyway, mocking a virtue doesn't make it any less of a virtue.

shourie's tendency to ramble makes it difficult to deal with his essay point by point. If you read it you will appreciate the effort I had to make to stay on track.

Hindutva in it's current form is not different from the Taliban's brand of Islam or for that matter any other totalitarian, violent approach.

shourie's meandered about for miles before finally summarizing that Hinduism gives it's followers the Violence go ahead. Yet he keeps referring to a difference that he doesn't seem to demonstrate clearly. Actually Mohammed too gave his followers the battle go ahead when there was no other way out. So there is similarity in the teachings. But shourie is no expert on either religion & must not be taken seriously. People devote entire lives to the study of religion, yet do not overcome the very basic language & contextual barriers so intrinsic to an in-depth understanding of any literature in a foreign language, let alone religion!

shourie is actually an expert at manipulation. He paints a picture of an India ruled savagely by non-Hindu rulers for thousands of years! He very conveniently forgets that across North & South India, the rulers were primarily Hindu by religion. Even under Mughal rule, there were Hindu Kings in other parts of the country. As for savagery, I suppose the savagery of battle in the Mahabharat, at Kalinga, and the patricide that Hindu kings (how I hate myself for having to use this term!) indulged in are meant to be forgotten because of the fact that they happened on what he considers "his side". As for the peaceful, unifying rule of Akbar, the progress in art & culture that India still lays claim to, that needs to be kept a well hidden secret. Typical RSS-BJP type misrepresentation of facts, doctoring of history & propaganda! Not expected of an arun shourie, but what the hell, the man's human!

He forgets conveniently that India has been primarily Hindu ruled, except for the Mughal period. Even in modern day India, no Muslim/Christian/Jewish/Parsi/Jain/Buddhist/Sikh/etc political party has come to power. The rulers have been Hindus. But wait... these aren't shourie's Hindus.. these are the despicable secular Hindus; the kind that have caused the downfall of the great Hindu state of India! The ones who're better dead than alive! Which is what explains why people like Gandhiji, Indira, Rajiv etc. kept getting assassinated, while their leaders continue to die of old age!

shourie's fogginess vis a vis the Palestinian-Arab religions as he puts it (he could just have used the generally accepted term Abrahamic!) is evident in his "exclusivist" statement! The truth is that Christianity recognizes Moses as a prophet, and Islam acknowledges both Moses & Jesus as preceding prophets. If he'd have read the Quran, he'd have known that Adam, Abraham, Noah and many others are also acknowledged as prophets.

Forget reading the Quran, even if he'd watched "The Message", he'd have learnt that the early Muslims took shelter with Christian kings of neighbouring areas. This shelter was granted to them when verses from the Quran were recited, clearly proving Jesus to be a prophet of both religions!

But shourie doesn't want you to know that! Assuming that he knows that himself, that is!

shourie also skilfully tries to dodge the Khajuraho question in response to the MF Husain argument. If it was OK for artisans to depict Gods & Goddesses in naked, thrusting glory then! on temple walls if you please! how come it isn't OK for Husain to depict them thus in his paintings?

Instead he tries to turn the argument to Husain's never having painted the "icons of Islam". He knows only too well that there are no icons in Islam. It is forbidden to paint or sculpt the prophet or his family lest Islam's message too gets lost among another idol worshipping mass of humanity!

At this point it is wholly clear that shourie's piece is not meant for the discerning reader. It is unmitigatedly targeted at further inciting newly English literate RSS sympathisers. It is a dangerous piece of writing & in an ideal scenario shourie would be in jail for acting against the interests of peace in our country! What is surprising is that the Indian Express chose not to see it like that!

More examples of his attempts to incite are here:

What does shourie mean by "serve as a warning to all who keep pushing Hindus around"? WHO is pushing Hindus around in a country where they're the dominant majority???

Or by "... Gandhiji’s incontestable greatness and the fact that it was so evidently rooted in his devotion to our religion... "? Our religion? Is he talking from a Hindu standpoint here? Or is he insinuating that the religion of India is Hinduism?

It doesn't matter. He is talking rubbish!

Now on to the deconstruction that I spoke of.

arun shourie was probably one of India's bravest journalists. All this happened while I was very young, but I have updated myself on shourie through that (often unreliable) source called Wikipedia.

shourie was with the Indian Express. A newspaper I respect. It was unafraid to speak the truth, it set benchmarks in investigative, truth-be-told journalism; what journalism should be. shourie was during his time with them, probably the biggest exponent of these values. so what happened then? how did he become the malicious rumour mongering arun shourie of today?

Well.. it so happened that the I.E. & shourie took on the ruling Congress party at that time & won a few crucial rounds. It was a laudable effort, they even succeeded in forcing AR Antulay's resignation on corruption charges! Unfortunately, they became victims of a witch-hunt, once the Congress came back to power, post the emergency debacle. Interestingly, the party that had briefly replaced them failed miserably.

I am inclined to believe that I.E. & shourie had no vested interests in their campaign, and that what followed was very unfair.

The pressure on I.E.'s owners it is said, forced them to give shourie the sack. You can imagine how traumatizing that must have been for an honest, eager journalist!

They didn't just take his job away from him. They took his career away from him!

I believe that something inside shourie snapped. he began hating everything that the Congress stood for. Even things like secularism!

he went from truthful journalist to shameless rumour monger!

I believe that for shourie, it isn't about national or even Hindu interest. It is about personal vendetta.

What he doesn't realize is that by becoming what he has, he let that handful of crooked elements in the Congress party win! he has become a caricature of what he once was, he has lost his credibility, he has let his detractors win. They wanted to finish him off. And they have succeeded.

Attempted Crosspost

The Monsoon hits Pune...!

Ah...! The fresh, clean, crisp air. The clean streets, the washed trees (as my Mom calls them), the fewer people on the roads... WONDERFUL!!!

I need to get drenched! On the outside as well as the inside!!! ;-)

There was lightning & loooouuuuuuud claps of thunder as well. I felt fresh just looking at it!

Jai_Choorakkot's Question

Jai seems to be fairly popular in the blogosphere despite his own blog not having been updated for years now! This is the second post one of this comments has inspired, and I'm happy to answer the question he raised here:
http://indianmuslims.in/amar-akbar-anthony/
Jai,
Your reference to the propaganda on the right-wing site intrigued me a lot. I wanted to speak to the more learned elders in my family to learn more about this, but didn't get the opportunity. So I looked it up on the net.
One only needs to know the name of the Prophet Muhammad's so-called "child-bride" to get the right results in Google. Her name was Ayesha.
http://www.guidedones.com/metapage/frq/Aisha.htm
The comments here are from the likes of Dr. Annie Besant, not indoctrinated mere nobodies.
Most interesting is Geoffrey Parrinder's comment. Or should I say the non-reaction of the Church to his comment. This is what I find admirable in Christianity & the West. You can lampoon anyone, burn the flag if you please, depict Christian sects as evil, but it will not elicit a violent reaction, nor stupid PIL's, nor despicable fatwas! We really should learn all this from them instead of importing high-fat burger chains from them. Don't you think?

The men with the silvern touch...

Not Midas obviously, but close. This is a person whose antics I have resented in the past (with valid reasons at that point in time), but with more maturity & a calmer disposition, not anymore.

Shahrukh Khan. Much of what I said about him previously on this blog & in conversations, I still stand by; but one thing I cannot take away from the guy... practically everything he touches turns to silver. Despite limited acting, he still draws in the crowds; despite doing the same type of movies repeatedly, he still manages to set the cash registers ringing (largely). His touch seems to worked with the Calcutta team in the IPL circus, and the KBC debacle (and the DON damp-squib) notwithstanding, by the looks of it, he is set to romp home with his latest quiz show on TV.

Not that others don't outdo him in all these areas. Aamir, Saif, Hrithik etc. are better actors (and with probably better track records); Akshay reportedly is paid more than him these days. Shekhar Suman's rip off of Jay Leno did better than Khan's KBC... Yet Shahrukh makes all the news. And I am past blaming his PR machinery for that. They're only doing a good job of what they're hired to do!

On a separate note, it is sad that Shekhar Suman doesn't get the celebrity he deserves. The man is probably older than Khan, built up a great physique before Khan, recorded an album (in the process adding to his already long list of many many talents!), yet it was Shahrukh's apparent six-pack that made the news! Quite a shame actually.

Yet, it isn't all of that that I admire the man for. I have very little respect for SRK the actor, but I have immense respect for the man.
To the casual observer, he seems blessed, a modern day Midas (that's why I said silvern. I wouldn't wish that on anyone!); but anyone who has delved a little deeper will realise that he has had more than his share of misfortunes. His parents died young, his sister apparently still suffers from the impact of those early blows. He's had a serious spine problem. He has to face critics like me, worse probably, all the time. Yet the man carries on bravely!
It is this trait that I admire most about him. His ability to keep on moving.
He has got to a point where he doesn't let criticism bother him too much, and this is a trait very few men can develop. He is content to be who he is, and make himself successful with his limited means. Very admirable traits!

So, all the best Shahrukh. Keep on moving!

Similarly, Hrithik. Leads an apparently perfect life, looks like God sculpted him with His own hands; but look a little closer and you'll see. Hrithik isn't perfect. For all his God-made looks, he has two thumbs that give the impression of a claw. And the man has developed the guts to flaunt it on screen. His father was shot at by goons. He was unsure of the industry, unsure of whether he'd be able to make it, yet he hung in there, dug deep and gave it his best shot! And look what he came up with! Again & again!
No one is perfect, no one has it easy, everyone has to stand up & be brave, face his fears, & fight to come out a winner. Hrithik has done all of that and handles immense pressure. Till now. And my he continue to do so. All the best dude!

And who knows pressure better than Sachin Tendulkar? Who has people writing him off time & again? And who slams cricket ball after cricket ball deep down the throats of his critics to silence them again & again? Despite 20 years in the game having taken a toll on his body & mind, despite numerous surgeries, despite recent recurrent injury enforced hiatuses from the game, who comes up trumps again & again? Sachin Tendulkar! Absolutely Saluteworthy!

To these men of mettle...

New Year SMSes

I had intended to this in January, but the fact that I've gotten round to it now could point to anyone of the following:

• I am a lazy, procrastinating no-gooder!
• I am a committed workaholic with no time for myself!
• Since there are a gadzillion new years in this country & on this planet, there's never one time to put these up!

So here goes. Here are some the sweetest, funniest New Year SMSes that I received this year. Please add to this list if you have any others that you think would fit in here.

• Smetmes d Road traveld Turns out 2b More Beautiful thn d Destination reachd..! njoy leadng Ur Life no Mater wt it Turns out 2b..! Wish U a gr8 '08 happy New Yr
• Faith makes all things possible. Hope makes all things work. Love makes all things beautiful, May you have all the three this coming year.
• Happy new year happy lohri, maghi, holi, id, visakhi, ram naumi, shivratri, janamashtmi, diwali, sare gurpurban diyan lakh lakh vadhaiyan, merry chrismas 2008, vichale jedo hove thoda happy bday, je exam hove taan best of luck, 365 gud mrng, noon, night,kuch reha taan nahin, chalo saal bhar da syapa mukeya................ Wishing you a year full of laughter................
• Swarglok se samast devta,Vaikunth se Laxmi -Narayan,Kailash se Uma -Shankar,Brahmlok se Brahma, aur
  Prithvi se Swayam HUM, aapko kehte Hai.. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Quite a selection, eh? :-)

The Hinduism I know

Like I stated earlier, the Internet is overflowing with communal outpourings and facist propoganda! The fact that the web allows one to publish stuff that no self respecting newspaper or daily would carry is a boon for raving maniacs. It is dangerous as wel,l as it has the ability to influence minds, young & old alike. More so in a country like India where people are only beginning to become literate & are positively unaware of the unreliability of the information available on the net!

I am providing links here to some of the more grisly comments that some posts have attracted in recent times. Go through these & be shocked at the kind of India we live in! Nothing in school or college or even work life prepared us for this shock. Did you realize that the person walking next to you on the road could possibly be one of the commentors on these posts? Somebody at work maybe?

We were taught not to discuss religion while we were growing up. We were told that it is impolite & in bad taste. And above all that it was personal. So despite the urgings of the sabziwala, the train companion, the new friend in school & college, I stoutly refused to answer any questions or indulge in any conversations pertaining to religion.

Until I realized recently that the only way we can live harmoniously is through better understanding achieved through dialogue. My friend Chacko too made that mistake. And LOOK where that landed us...!!!

Dialogue with who??? Who are these people that we are trying to talk sense into? You & I have grown up reading English Literature and therefore don't have a problem accepting their culture or religious choices. We grew up reading Amar Chitra Katha editions on the lives of Jesus, Buddha & Ram. So we don't have a problem accepting that culture or religion either.
The newspapers we read, the magazines we read, were the likes of the Indian Express, Outlook & Reader's Digest. Respectable journalism, neutral writing went into making us the tolerant forward looking Indians we became.

So who are these "other" people? What did they read while they were growing up? panchjanya sapthik??? And if they did read what we read, how come they turned out so different??? Who is to blame for corrupting a young mind? Who is to blame for creating hate-filled, pro-violence creatures from humans???

I have ranted enough. Here are the links to the comments that I am speaking of. See for yourself & judge.

See how the comment forum of a secular thinkers indictment of modi was corrupted by baseless propaganda!

This one is a set of slightly saner responses, but the strong indoctrination & factually incorrect view of history is evident in some of the comments.

& more defilers here...

It does seem to point to education & exposure doesn't it? If not that what else is it?
I am quoting a prominent Indian here, one obviously more qualified than the rabid-ranters I provided links to above. This gentleman is qualified, educated & has the kind of understanding & view-point that a only an open, tolerant mind can develop. In light of the previous comments you read above, please read what he has to say on Swami Vivekananda. And do please note the difference in his viewpoint & shourie's nonsensical propoganda!

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/264498.html

This one should rank as one of the best short essays on tolerance & secularism. Do help in popularizing it.

God Bless the CJ.

Sports snippets

I remember when we were young, we used to wait for a weekly news programme called "The World this Week". It was a finely produced (by NDTV I think) news package & the most interesting part used to be the sports coverage at the end that used to carry a generous dose of Tennis headlines, an absolute treat for a starved Tennis lover like me in cricket obsessed India!

I've managed to catch some sports action over the last month (this new job is really great!) after years! So here's my version of the last 5 minutes of that show:

Tennis, Twilight, Tenacity, Talent & Hope:

Chennai Open: I should really have been in Chennai for the only major ATP event in India; one that attracts the likes of Nadal, Moya, Baghdatis, Youzhny etc!
The highlight of the tournament was the semi-final that Moya & Nadal played. Everyone expected Nadal to come out on top without much difficulty, after all he is the World No. 2 & the only real challenger to Federer!
But Carlos Moya had other plans. For himself & for the fans. Even though the first set went to Rafa, Moya matched him almost stroke for stroke, until the tie-break where Rafa pulled ahead.
The commentators oddly seemed to be echoing everything I was thinking. Sample this: Nadal is playing like the Carlos Moya of 10 years back! Oddly the older Spaniard must have been wishing that he was a couple of years younger because the one fact that separated them last night was the younger legs of Nadal.
It was a HIGH QUALITY match, with breathtaking shotmaking from both players. My wife isn't as tennis crazed as I am, but the boisterous cheering that the shotmaking was eliciting from her, could be heard by our neighbours I'm sure!
Vijay Amritraj's comment on Moya's aggressive strokeplay while down breakpoint, was simply, "NO FEAR!". It was true; Moya felt no fear. Why should he? Not only was he up against an opponent 10 years younger & the World No. 2, but more importantly Chennai had become his backyard over the past few years! He was a regular visitor here, one of the first marquee names to come to Chennai, and a 2 time winner here & as a result of these three reasons, he was immensely popular here. He had the full throated backing of the crowd! He had no reason to feel ANY fear!
Moya's play that day carried a very important life lesson for anyone who cared to learn: IT'S ALL IN THE MIND! There's no other way to explain his performance against Rafael Nadal that day! Despite having done precious little on the tour of late, despite facing a rising star in the twilight of his own career, he made Rafa dig in deeper than he has ever been made to in recent times! His 2 previous wins here make Chennai his home turf, and give him the confidence & pride like nowhere else. That's why he plays here like nowhere else! Like I said before, "It's all in the Mind"!
And like someone else said, "If you can change your thinking, you can change your life"!
This isn't just a quotable quote. This is a remarkable observation from life. It's possible. It has been done before. By the likes of Moya. And you can do it too!
But I digress... Moya came back to win the second set (in another fiercely contested tie-break), and force it into the decider. From there on until almost the very end of the match, he rode a wave of confidence. He played himself into a position where he held a series of matchpoints.
But the match was not only Moya's best twilight performance; it was also a tribute to Rafa's amazing tenacity! He isn't the World No. 2 for nothing. More than his wealth of talents, he is a fighter! Rafa saved 4 matchpoints and went on to finally win a match that will go down in the record books. The match could very easily have gone the other way if it wasn't for Rafa's tenacity! Even Rafa acknowledged after the match that he hadn't seen Moya play like this in ages!

The post match ceremony was brilliant marketing brainwave! What with the Amritraj Award for Sportsmanship going to Carlos Moya, thus ensuring that Moya will visit Chennai even as a 90 year old! Rafael Nadal picking up a cricket bat for the first time in his life to hit balls into the equally cricket crazy Chennai crowd. Vijay Amritraj seems to have contributed quite a bit to the success of this event on the ATP tour. Attracting top level talent, recruiting Moya as brand ambassador for the event, etc. If I get the chance, I am definitely going next year!

Amritraj was sombre while talking to Moya. I guess he realizes what it means to put in a superhuman effort in the twilight of your career & lose. Moya took his disappointment like a man. It's easy to see why this man is so popular in Chennai!

Historic Match said the commentators. We agree. It was a rare 7-6, 6-7, 7-6 win; more importantly it was the longest best of three final on the ATP tour in 15 years! It was a physically & emotionally draining match. It was the Final before the Final. As a matter of fact, the final turned out to be a damp squib! Rafael Nadal had nothing left in him to offer and Youzhny won easily. But with the kind of sportsmanship that Tennis is known for, Youzhny acknowledged that he wasn't playing Rafael Nadal on that day, he was playing someone else.

I wish cricket would be known for this kind of sportsmanship!

Currently in Oz:

I began writing this during the Gonzalez-Cilic match, at the end of the second set. Gonzalez is playing a pretty scratchy match, doesn't look at all like the player from last year. I can guarantee that Cilic will win this match. He seems set for tennis superstardom! Reminds me of an early Marat Safin.

And that brings us to the end of the Tennis section. After Lendl retired, Agassi ruled my Tennis world. While I will acknowledge that Sampras accomplished more, Agassi did more for the sport of Tennis than anyone in his generation. He inspired a whole new generation to take up Tennis (Federer reportedly said that Agassi was the one who inspired him to take up Tennis), he brought in the fans. And yes, he was the one who won a Career Slam: each of the Grand Slam titles during his illustrious career! And an Olympic Gold as well! Add to that his exciting strokeplay & his charisma & good looks & you have a collossus of a sports icon!
Marat Safin with his talent, unpredictability and strapping good looks has the charisma to rule Tennis consciousness. But he is a victim of his own mind. He would do well to hire a Moya or a Nadal as his coach. But the most endearing thing about him is his simplicity. He says of himself: If I play well, no one, I mean no one has a chance.
If he plays badly, he reminds us of the another talented but totally unreliable entity, Team India!

Crick-shit:

India looks set to win the Perth test. Unless they screw it up as only they can, this will be the smearing that Australia deserves and that the World has been waiting for!
The best part of this series has been Ponting being officially labelled Harbhajan's bunny, among other more serious labels!
Sweeter is that Harbhajan got him twice in this series. Harbhajan first got him when he was a 17 year old aggressive sardar. Ponting nudged him on the walk back to the pavilion & has probably held a grudge ever since!
Even sweeter is that 19 year old Ishant Sharma got him twice in this very match, both times rather cheaply!
Never been too fond of Ponting. He's been caught using a graphite composite bat, his team is misbehaved. He frequently crosses the line a la Cronje.
I like it when Ponting fails.

I've learnt...

Through a fairly painful process called Life, I've learnt a few things. I'm sharing these with anyone who wants to avoid the entire cycle & prosper on borrowed wisdom!

• Not to offer advice unsolicited.
• Never to criticize anyone. It shatters the other person's self-esteem. A gentle word is more important than correcting somebody. The Quran apparently says something to this effect on criticism: "Criticism is akin to eating the flesh of your brother"!
• No matter how many interests I cultivate, no matter how much I know about everything, No matter how much capacity my brain has been blessed with, I've learnt that even that has it's limits. I know now that in order to achieve something big, you have to make sacrifices, you sometimes have to go through trauma.
• I've learnt: that often we’re too hard on ourselves. We judge ourselves too harshly, expect too much, even perfection from ourselves. I've learnt that it's not working for me. I've learnt that we’re as ordinary or just as significant as everyone else. So what I’ve learnt is this: No more judging harshly, and no more totally unrealistic expectations! Ambition yes, but none of the previous expecting the earth stuff!
• I've learnt that I'm as important or as strong and as susceptible as the next guy. So no more fear of bullies. You can tackle them, and with just a little bit of luck superbly! So no more getting intimidated by bullies or unnerved in the face of aggression! Stay & FIGHT! You stand almost as much a chance of winning if you fight. If you don’t fight, then you stand no chance at all!
• We don't understand right from wrong, or spirituality or religion when we are young. We understand these things only later, when we're battered and bruised. After we have sinned(?) and learnt some lessons in humility and in our fragility and impermanence. And we have been thru moh and have realized what a devious mistress it is. And that the devil is a seducer who tempts as depicted so effectively in The Devil's Advocate. How even a virtue can become a vice if taken to extremes.
• Peter sinned before finally tending to the flock. Even Jesus and Mohammad started preaching late in life. Using that analogy we realize that we lesser mortals have stained damans before we begin to receive the first rays of enlightenment. Because it is only the test of fire that makes fine steel.
• Not to worry. Worry leads to anxiety & stress, and these can become lifelong mental & physical conditions is unchecked. After all, there are billions who go through life's ups & downs unpeturbed. What do they lose? They same that everyone else loses! Also, read these two excellent couplets from 2 great poets:

Chinta se ghate chaturai,

Dukh se ghate sharir,

Lobh se ghate laxmi,

Kah gaye das Kabir..*

&

Chinta se chaturai ghate

ghate rup aur gyan

chinta badi abhagini

chinta chita saman

tulsi bharose ram ke

nischint hoyi ke soye

anhoni honi nahi

honi hoye so hoye!*

• I've realized after much misunderstanding & maligning it, that Religion is essentially a school. Or a course therein. Of Spirituality. When you want to learn about Law, you go to Law school; when you wanna learn about God and Spirituality, Religion teaches you.

Note: This list will expand.