Prayer No Help

Prayer is of no help when you are in pain. Now the researchers have come out with revolutionary ideas against all beliefs. The result is the output of the effort of more than a decade and involving more than 1800 patients. The research was led by Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston. That’s why I respect science and technology. They do not only disclose hidden facts but have courage to come out boldly with revolutionary results. The human being without solid knowledge lives in this world like a dumb animal. Human can live like human only if knowledge is inside like Intel Inside.

Since time immemorial, God has been made as a means for exploitation of the poor and downtrodden. God has always been a very powerful tool to exploit the large sections of society. No revolution has taken place to stop these exploitations for the benefit of humanity in general. People have either spread the knowledge of God or kept quite. They have either followed the path or made a separate path to be followed by other human beings. The people, who have acquired the wisdom to know about the availability of God, spread its message for the exploitation of humans in various forms. They have forced large sections of society to follow blind path of obedience on the name of God. They have spread the message of ignorance and fear. They have spread the message of slavery in some form or other. Hardly on the name of God, have any preacher ever given sufficient justification to the society. Even today, if somebody acquires some knowledge about the superpower, i.e. God, he or she becomes another God to be worshipped or issue fatwa or spread terrorism. He or she hardly spread knowledge and convictions. They hardly try to explain their wisdom. They hardly try to explain why they think some way why not other way. They go out of way to convince large section of population that his or her form of understanding of God is close to real one and that is only true and certainly not forgetting to declare other are all false and myth. The normal human being gets in these traps so easily that he or she hardly have time to come out of those false impressions.

Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Letters from a Father to His Daughter (p-72)- has said, “Religion first came as fear and anything that is done of fear is bad”. It was fear only because of which many religions were spread. As the people understood the religion and God in little more depth, they also followed the path of their ancestors and spread a new religion with minor changes here and there. Even today, plenty of such new groups are being formed. They all try to spread the message of God in some form or other. They all claim to be taking forward the cause of almighty for the betterment of humanity. They all are working for the welfare of the poor, downtrodden and deprived. They all are claiming to be serving humanity in some form or other. They all claim to be passing the great moral values to society without which the society will not able to be disciplined. It is long and tiring arguments for the prevalence of a system and their followers.

The research work conducted by Herbert Benson gives me confidence that the human being will be able to reach to truth someday or other. We must spread knowledge rather than faith. We should never allow the situation to occur in 21st century like it occurred during Gallilio time. He was jailed for twenty years because he told truth to this world. Who believed him? Even now, a large section of population remains in dark and blind faith. They are almost at fatal level in developing countries but even in developed countries, it is in bad state. People must be awakening from this menace of wrong beliefs. Rather than wasting time and energy in irrelevant things, we should try to find truth! 

Write On Target

Naipaul, Nobel laureate from Indian origin speaks about world writer. He is concerned about emerging situation where people are not writing on target. He abuses all literary greats starting from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens. He goes to extent even telling that they do not know to compose a paragraph. He did almost similar things few years back when he accused E M Forster of being sexual predator and described Irish author James Joyce as incomprehensible.

Naipaul speaks his brilliant mind when he is in England. What happens to his brilliance when he comes to his origin. He has never spoken like that on Indian soil about Indian author. Unfortunately, Indians are forced to read the books written by all rich and mighty. There is a specific section of people who have taken the responsibility to write in India. We have Khushwant Singh and Shobhaa De. Khushwant had been writing from his childhood days. He passed with third division in all his college education but it did not stop him from writing extensively for Indians. He spread his views all across this country. He could do this because he had power to spread his words. Even today when he writes book like ‘The company of Women’, he is able to achieve his popularity. Ravi of penguin India does editing for him even if he may not have time for other creative skills. Similarly, Shobhaa de has taken responsibility to write for us Indian even if she is poor in selecting topics, subjects, contents and mediums. She may go to any extent to prove herself a success in this materialistic world. She gets all the help from her Penguin friends.

India is a country of Khandan and Gharanas. Every successful person belongs to some big Khandan or famous Gharanas. The person may belong to any field. The few famous names could be Kapoor Khandan and Khans’ in Bollywood, Gandhi and Nehru in politics, Tata and Birlas in business, Jaipur Khandan and Lucknow Gharanas in dance and music, south Indian as scientists, Bengalis as diplomats, Gujaratis as merchants, Sardars as hard workers and so on and so forth. After independence, especially the change of initial Congress Government after Emergency during 1979, things started changing fast. The biggest turning point in India took place in the year 1991 when the country economy was quietly transferred from government controlled economy to open economy. Within 5-6 years, changes occurred and they were magnificent. The changes during these times surpassed the changes taking place across the world in positive direction. The common people started emerging from mud like a lotus. Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister. Dhirubhai Ambani and Narayana Murthy made billions in one generation. India could produce Miss Universe and Miss world. That was a time; I was at the brink of my capability crossing my 30s. The changes taking place in India and across the world, America or Europe, gave me hope that a person could provide some input to humanity without belonging to Khandans or Gharanas. Can we think and write on target? Can we concentrate on the issues which affect large section of humanity? Are we not little more selfish writer? Selfish to self pains, self appraisals, self developments and self growth and so on…. How self is selfish? The result of selfishness is what happening in India.

But in literary sense, it is still being predominantly dominated by few selected people of specific origin as far as ideas and writings are concerned. How far these can go? Indian publishers still believe that no other Indians can write something good. There is hardly any solid ground to have this belief. This may vanish in hardly few years time now. Why should we have few struggling writers like Arundhati Rai or Jhumpa Lahiri or Chetan Bhagat? If India has to become a develop nation by 2020, ideas have to emerge from common man like Raina or Munaf of cricket. We have to give a chance to the common thinker to write on specific issues. A common man should not struggle hard to get one article published forget about getting a book published. The situation has to improve. Indian publishers have to come of this feudal mentality. They have to generate confidence of free India. They have to search and give chance to new emerging writers. We have to have many writers, authors and thinkers on Indian soil. Why not Naipaul comments on this? If he at thinks something about origin, he must comments on Indian writers and publishers too! 

An Evening With Amratya Sen!

I went to Hotel Oberoi to hear from CEO mouth - CEO of M/s Texas Instruments. Unfortunately, there was some confusion in the function organized by The Economics Times. The organizer could not trace my registration. Many people were arguing with organizers to let them in. But I took decision to come out of that place. There is no point arguing to prove your existence in Indian scenario. There is no point. No body is going to listen. Even the young guy - boys or girls managing or involved in managing the show, have capabilities to demoralize and frustrate you. Even if you show them prited paper like as below.

We are pleased to confirm your participation in ”ETIG Knowledge Forum on Digitizing the Communication and Entertainment Era” in association with Texas Instruments at “The Oberoi Hotel” to be held on March 27th 2006.
How will the latest advances in digital technologies energize growth?How to innovate in this era? These are just few instances amid the leading sub-topics of the core session, by which he is going to shed light on the next generation of digitized Technology and its impact on Communication and Entertainment.

I was demoralized and sad. I went in analysis mode of self identification. What is my identity is? I came back. But I did not come abck home. I went to India Habitat Center with the promise to Janet to have dinner in Eotopia. Vidya remain very energetic when she advised us to make a round to Amphitheater. And there I had chance to make my evening as one of the best in the near past.

I had evening with Amratya Sen, Nobel laureate, Girish Karnad, Gulzar, Kamla das, Nandy and many more... What an evening to spend time with so many intellectuals of this country. What a present for a future writer? We had fantastic evening. We had juices, and snacks - fish fingers, fish Tikka, Shammi Kaba..... We had drinks with Amratya Sen. I got opportunity to talk to Amratya Sen in person. Great. I got opportunity to listen their discussions, their interactions, their joys and confusions. The meeting with Pakistani writer was another unique experience. She has taken my visiting card. Hope she mails me back. It will be great. Life has something in store…. Let us wait and enjoy! 

Fooling Poor Indians!

It is so easy to fool large section of the population of developing world. In India, I observe, it is a very common affair. The intellectuals of the society keep fooling Indian i.e. common people with their writings, their concerns, their feelings, their successes, their failures and so on. He intelligent people can fool large section of the population with their selfish speeches, views and expressions. That is what our Nobel laureate Amratya Sen is doing. He is fooling Indians shamelessly.

Amratya Sen left India and settled in America. Hardly anybody remembered him till he got Nobel Prize. He remained in America. He earned his entire livelihood there. He married there. He produced children there. He studied and taught there. He earned good name there. He maintained his brilliance because of the supporting and encouraging environment of USA. He owes so much to USA for his survival, progress and successes. He ate salt of USA. Once he got Nobel Prize, he has gone in ‘Raman Effect’ now. He is trying to earn glory on his past good work. Whenever he speaks, he speaks poison for poor and growing Indians. He is misguiding them through his speeches, thinking and expressions. He must stop this. Growing Indian must rise above caste, creed, region and language to discard these forceful wrong ideas.

How can now after so many years of exploitation of American soil, he comes to exploit Indian soil? How can he can this namakharami with USA. On what basis he is trying to convince Indians that war on terror by Americans are not essential? He is going like his communist partner of this country. He is too much influenced by his home state philosophy who have allowed communist to rule state for so many years, approximately 30 years now. He should give some self introspection before he speaks. He must analyses on the need of the hour. He must learn part of knowledge from his economist friends Man Mohan Singh or Ahluwalia. If he is interested in seeing Indians or even Bengalis (which he feels proud of), he must not speak and write these things. He must rise above these mean thinking. These mean thinking has kept India behind for more than sixty years even after independence. He must do some kind of self analysis to reach to some conclusion and pass something futuristic to the people of this country. Hope our fellow poor Indian will understand this?