for that peaceful easy feeling

Long time, since i wrote last....blame it on lethargy, and blame it on being busy in spurts.... Lots has happened since last time, and innumerable thoughts crossed my mind, every time i thought that i should write, and then i gave up. Would try to type in as much as i could recall, though the intensity would have subdued:) First and foremost, the Kanwar yatra passing through Delhi, every year, makes me think...we are running after money, material world, flashy cars, more money, high tech mobiles, and then there is this other India, where people are more than happy to walk across 300 kilometers or more over weeks and days, whatever be the religious significance, For us delhi-ites even religion is luxury item....we tend to go to the most flashy temple, where we feel happy about putting in obscene sums in the hundi/daan patra, the pandits judge you by the weight on the thali that you bring in, and the time in front of the idol varies directly with the "chadhawa" that you have offered, we go to temples in cars, and insist on parking the cars right in front of the temple, causing jams, all to please the gods....trying to buy god through money and limited time, and here are loads of people who are trying to please the gods by their own labour, no money, little dikhawa....and we call them old fashioned. these guys actually have 2 weeks of time on their hand to do what they feel is correct, how many of us in the cities have that luxury, for us weekends are shrinking and work hours increasing...we socialise with friends at pubs and discs, these people socialise with people all the way...beat that, and yours truly really wants to go "kanwar yatra" with friends, may be for no religious reason, but to simply have some quality time spent with friends, and may be that 200 km odd walk would do something good for weight loss , than months of gym:) This brings me to the next thought, and we have discussed this at office and among friends as to how we are becoming more and more unsocial, if that is the correct word. Every one i meet or talk to( OK - my age group +/- 5 years) seems to crib that the world has got more digitised now....more materialistic, we were kids and played badminton at nights, vish amrit, chain chain, and school cricket with paper and polythene balls....we played with no tools, just games out of nowhere, all you had to get was to catch hold of 2 or more people from your locality, parks were full of kids, and we knew the kids staying on the other extreme of the colony....you knew everyone, who ran fast, who studied where, and who had the maximum number of comics, and the best bats. now the kids play video games, chat on the computer, watch movies and that's the end of it, parents don't send kids to parks...or at best allow them to play the elite game of cricket. Till around 10 years back, rakhi and independence day used to all about kites....now its about sales and malls and movies, it used to be evening walks and parents taking kids to parks in the morning and evening, now its TV and saas bahu soaps, the only broken glass and window pane that you see is in TV ads.....and i have a serious question to all who read this post....don't you want to get back to those simpler times, i know money is important, but money is turning all of us into an endless rat race.....i love watching movies in multiplexes with tickets worth 200 bucks each, but the charm of actually standing in line for a 6.50 ticket at Priya was priceless.....we can buy almost everything everywhere, but you could not get the pleasure of being the last one running in the chain game, surrounded by chains of people everywhere, and laughing merrily at the person who was pulled by the chain, the weakest link, breaking off just before the other end of the chain caught you..... so how does this crib session fit into the marriage thing, well i really need to have a partner, who could enjoy the simpler things in life, as much as she could relish the materialistic world. someone who could go street shopping with me with equal ease as in a mall. someone who would not mind a drive into leh, only to fly back business class.....someone who could dream big, but with her feet to the ground, and her hand in my hand...... getting mushy, and also getting lethargic, now i would try and jot down things as they happen, so expect more posts here...till then, adieu!!

Picture - the Tranquil hills at Lansdowne, End June, The trip that made me even more city-hater

Musings on Religion

The other day, there was a discussion about religion and the babas in the office, and i felt it may be a good idea to pen(ok, type:) my thoughts here. Well, the census of India and my passport says that I belong to the religion- Hindu. I take pride in being a hindu, i do believe in god, but i may not be a devout hindu by the scale of worshipping. I may be a hindu by the way of life, and that is the major characterstic of hinduism - the concept of dharma. All other religions that you could think of, have been initiated by god's incarnataions, there was one preacher. They were defined in a certain manner and listed out the do's and don't of the world. You had to do so and so to be a good person of the faith. The only religions that i could make out, which do not point to a single preacher are hinduism, jewish and Zoroastrian( i hope i spelled it right- that's parsee for us). Well, the amazing point about hinduism is that it has not only retained its unique way of life, it has grown to become the third largest followership in the world- whereas parsees today are a dying breed, and Jewish influence is limited to a small around 50 million followers( that too by lineant estimates). This is what makes me proud to be a hindu- noone told me what to do, what not to do, and the concpet of right and wrong was open to people's understanding subject to a overarching guideline- that follow your karma , and the goods would follow. HInduism is not about amassing hordes of things , its about "Tyaag" or giving up the worldly pleasures. We have had saints and other interpreters whose control amuses not just the foreigners but also some of us worldly indians. And then here comes the twist in the tale- why are we so hellbent upon ruining the religion or the way of life that is the identity of all of us. WHy do we need baba's and sant's of all hues and cries, trying to tell us what to do and what not to do. IN the hindu scheme of things saint's ar ethe people who are away from worldly gains, then why do these baba's go out flying in the business class, and then travelling on SUV's to the remote places where massive tents have been laid, trying to convince people about the afterlives. Inka Tyaag kahan hai??? and who are they to interfere in my religious lives which is very personal to me. And i love when these baba's open social service institutes, saying that they marry poor girls, teach kids et al- appreciated, but then where does the need to have precious real estate for ashrams come in? why do they need to pay the sadhna and astha channels of the world, to get a prime slot, so that they could pass their messages to more unsuspecting people. And then there are my favorite religious fanatics who claim that the religion is under threat from other religions- excuse me- you guys never cared for the lower classes, and when they convert you are worried. Bhai aapne unhe pehle to hindu nahi samajha tha, ab itna pyaar kyun. My religion says that "har jeev mein atma hai, jo parmatma ka ansh hai" then why kill any one else, they are the same jeevs, they have the same atma and the same ansh of parmatma. they only believe in another god-so what?? why kill them in riots and otherwise. One of my good friends from office had the penchant of being vocally anti muslim, since they are out to eradicate hindus and india. And he had no dearth of the academicians from the hindu side of things to show the data and arguments for it. And he always maintained that that is the correct view of things, i don't and we always had arguments on his facebook profile on the articles he posted. The third category that really pisses me off are the devout everyday religious zealots. people who love to spend hours together in poje, running from one of the temples to another, and then go out in their daily routine screwing up the lives of people around them by their actions, and then go to the ganga and jamuna of the world to wash away their sins. All temples in delhi are full of these, people who would drive a luxury car to the temple since they could not walk that 200 m to the temple, wearing the heavy gold chains with kurta pajamas bribing the pundit a 500 rupee note, and then drive back possibly hitting and spanking a poor rickshaw wala on the way. Looting poor people through their overpriced businesses, and then earning "punya" by the way of a langar on amavasya. I remember the time when we were in the US, and had gone out to a road trip to pittsberg, one of my friends was bent upon visiting every single temple in the town( ok, there are close to 5 temples there that we knew of) and leaving out the other parts of the town in our itineary. when asked why he wants to do it his answer was "mandir jaane se shanti milti hai dil ko" to which my remark was " agar ek mandir jaane se shanti nahi mili to 5 mein ja ke bhi nahi milegi", and then he wasa quiet for some time and then roared back " main jaoonga, tu kar le jo karna hai"....so much for dil ki shanti and worship. To the dismay of the centrists, i am a Narendra Modi fan, not since during his regime people were killed, they should not have, and we are still getting flak for it, but because he did what his dharma wanted him to do, he has made life better for people in his state, and that is what a true hindu should be doing, doing his tasks better and in best possible way. I do not know when he goes to temples, whether he does or not, (surprisingly indian media does not seem to be interested in that), compared to say a Lalu Yadav, who turned vegetarian when "lord Shiva" ordered him to be (some shradha towards shiva)and then screwed up some 80 million people in Bihar. THat is my view about religion. and why just politics, such examples are abound in almost all areas of life. Too much for the things I do not like, what i like about my religion is simple- It does not stop me from doing anything as long as i do not step on some one else. So you could have hindus who eat meat and chicken, and other who do not even eat onion and garlic. Its their belief and they could live with it. People would get drunk to hell on alcohol, and then remain a teetotaller. There are 33 crore gods and goddesses, and so its to each person their own, you could worship god in your own ways-katha, aarti, meditation, mantras, and anything and everything you wish, for me it is simple remembering god once a day for a minute or a split second. Any god would do, or simply any thought would do.