A Refresher

More often than not, you get labelled - care-free, reserved, garrulous, expressive, quiet, simpleton, mercurial, shrewd, cunning, the list can go on. Of course, the latter two labels are those that are on your back and you spend many years being totally unaware of it. What got me thinking today was about those that you are aware of. The more you are aware of, rather, longer that you are aware of it, unconsciously, you find yourself living up to it. At least I became conscious of this today. My wife always upbraids me for talking very little, showing little interest in affairs of people - who is doing what, who is not doing what, what gets who excited....... Worse, I'm always a disinterested listener,my disinterest being obvious, even when the talk is about ourselves or things that she is passionate about. And that isn't all. A natural corollary is - I'm totally self -absorbed, responding only when there's any mention of my wrongdoing. You would've guessed it, I'm a bad listener. I'd like to believe I'm that only at home, particularly to the dear wife. That may well be just a wish, it cannot be that I'm all ears out of home, but stone deaf at home. I should concede my claim to be a good listener can have validity only if listening comprises nodding, 'hmmmm's, 'Haan, Haan's, 'Yes', You're right's at every pause and staring at the horizon as if in deep thought.  Having painfully realized that these alone do not make me a good listener, I just stay me, the disappointed wife is not yet reconciled to that me.

That isn't the point that set me thinking today. It was my meeting with a gentleman I was meeting only for the second time. What was to be a discussion planned for an hour at most about a transaction stretched to nearly three hours. Obviously the planned discussion transaction couldn't stretch that long, after all, it was a commercial transaction, neither I nor he are diplomats or bureaucrats. When I said bye to him & left, I felt refreshed, rather lighter. No, it wasn't  a transaction concluded to mutual satisfaction. As I thought about it, there were just two reasons.

One, a point my visitor had mentioned in our previous meeting - ' whatever happens, will happen, it is the common consciousness that is making it happen, you are just a medium through whom it will happen. Once  you realise this, you become the observer, not player. Well,. that zipped through between the ears. Only thought then was, oh, this is another dose of philosophy, a quote from Bhagavatgeeta will follow, may be, even Zen Buddhism, if not Rumi. That wasn't to be. His elaboration on the same point had meandered through a listener that now you know I am.

That was three months ago. Since then, several things have happened with me bringing me to a decision point that I'd resisted strongly for a couple of years. That the mass between the ears wasn't such a great conductor of sound as to let the whole thing pass through was a revelation to me today. The evidence is here after all, I can recall, if not exactly, but in sum. Not just that, a little of it had been absorbed.

But no, I don't dare share this with the wife, it would invariably look like a boast. God knows, boast is hardly the action I should undertake, particularly with the dear wife. 

An Issue of Dharma in Modern Times

A question that arose recently in a discussion was left unanswered to everyone’s satisfaction and left me thinking.

History and mythology is replete with instances of individuals putting their individual call above the personal responsibility to family and dependents – Prince Gautama deserted his wife and infant son to search for meaning of life and became the Buddha, well, that may well be a wrong analogy to start with, we just don’t know if taking care of wife and children was a responsibility of a prince three millennia earlier, quite possibly not. We haven’t read anywhere of Christopher Columbus’s wife complaining of his irresponsibility in running away from home chasing distant lands  and glory leaving her to fend for the home & kids. She may well have been happier to have her marital home all to herself to lord over than have an irascible man around all the time who would any way lord over her. It appears to be a 20^th century phenomenon – it is not enough for the man to fill the larder, as they say and ensure a roof over the head these days.  Rather, the scope of the man’s responsibility has somewhat expanded – a man is expected to provide for both material and emotional security & comfort to the family. 

A man who doesn’t is irresponsible. Then, a man, or a woman for that matter, may have his/ her own calling beyond the routine of running the family. Many a times, this call is so irresistible that mundane matters like meeting the family’s needs are either ignored or simply not fulfilled. Now, that isn’t a unique or special situation. Every adult goes about juggling her/ his responsibilities and obligations towards her/ his career/ family/ business/ public service or may be a higher calling, like the Buddha to be, had. And everyone manages in individual ways. In a middle class home, the man bringing in enough money to pay for the grocery, rent, EMIs, bills and such other expenses , more or less, gets away with full freedom to use his mind-space & money on whatever is his calling. A woman, on the other hand has had changing roles. Taking care of the home & children covered almost full responsibility. But no more, in this generation, the woman is expected to contribute to the family’s finances as well. In what may be called the below-middle classes, such has been the responsibility thrust on the woman all along.

Now, is not fulfilling this responsibility an act of Adharma in the modern sense ? It is a fairly open & shut case, isn’t it ? Is it as simple for a woman, not taking care  of the home & children, too  ? What if this shortcoming is due to other responsibility of bringing home some money too ? Is it acceptable given that she is taking additional responsibilities  that, in earlier generations, was not hers ?

Another turn of this question seems a little more complicated. Take the case of a man who dreams of becoming a tycoon, sets up a business, struggles through with it, in the process, falls short of providing adequately for the family. While a corporatized business or a smart businessman would ensure personal safety net for the entrepreneur in tough times, the question becomes critical for the  non-corporatized and the not-so - smart businessmen. Obviously, being not- so  - smart cannot an excuse for irresponsibility. But in a practical situation, an entrepreneur may have to prioritise between meeting professional/ business commitments and personal/ family requirements. Put simply, the challenge a small time entrepreneur may face is, given the Bank balance, which do you pay – the employee wages or home loan EMI ? Power bill at the factory or grocery bill at home ? Long - pending supplier payment or children’s school fees ? Host the annual photo-shoot  at Sun City for bevy of curvy models or pay the salaries of employees due for more than six months ?Which of these choices  mean dereliction of duty ?
It is simpler to an unattached bystander when s/ he reads of the issue that a company faces to decide between continuing to host gorgeous models at Sun City for the Annual photo-shoot for the famed calender and pay the salaries of employees waiting for months together.  

I have heard many a men say, ‘commitment is a commitment, if I give a word to pay, come what may, I will have to pay it, if it means selling wife’s jewelry or a family property, so be it. The jewelry can always be replaced, another property can be purchased in good times, but an unmet commitment means a loss of reputation and once my reputation is lost, everything is lost’. Brave words, certainly evocative, many an Indian cinema hero has mouthed something to this effect ever so frequently with a weeping but encouraging wife alongside, her jewelry in hand to be pawned.

The society celebrates those who break out of the routine of mundane existence, aspire for and achieve greatness, wealth & influence. It is invariably true that the path to that stage would be through considerable personal sacrifices, even compromises –ignoring the family, considerable difficulties , be they emotional or material. And these are faced not by that individual alone, but the family as well. Rather, the family would have suffered more as the individual’s dream & passion would have overshadowed all the difficulties. Now for every success, surely, there are numerous failures. There are also numerous failures preceding a success.

We do get to know of the pain & difficulties that the individual and people live through and not the least part of our respect and applause is for that , but only of those which have been successful. Spare a thought those numerous individuals and families who suffer through and but give up at some point to be left only with heaps of, more of that suffering, be it debt, penury, illness, displacement or worse. It can only be the way we ‘tut tut’ when we read news items like  of a family taking their own lives to escape business losses in the morning paper.

Considering it a fair supposition that the individual  chasing a dream beyond the routine does not completely fulfil, in time, all his/ her responsibilities to the family, it should apply to all such individuals, be the few successes or the numerous failures. Does the eventual success or realisation of the dream relieve the individual of the Adharma s/ he committed through her/ his path ? It appears so, I’m yet to come across a case of any success story undermined by the difficult path to that success. To the families, the success in the end makes up for the difficult journey to it. That this advantage is not available to the rest of individuals who fall amongst the failures, is what is all the difference between & success and being answerable to the consequences of failure.

It is another thing that many a person would not start out at all has s/he fully known what it means to try beyond the normal. There is no lack of advise available for free on the difficulties. Hearing of difficulties is surely not the same as going through those difficulties. Whenever I hear a person s/he is ready for all/ any difficulty, I find myself musing ‘Trust me, you don’t what you are saying !’. But that is not to be said, difficulty is to be experienced, not to be told about as much as a success is to be.

Thinking through these got me just one possible answer. Explaining the dream to the family and involving them might help deflect some of the Adharma. But that is only passing the buck, isn’t it ? 

A Rude Shock

There has been a lot of newsprint spent on the alleged polarisation that has been affected across India by unscrupulous politicians to maximise the votes in their favour in the ongoing elections. Like many other fellow lay readers of newspapers, I've also taken this to be referring to provocative statements and speeches of  politicians and candidates in the elections creating a fear complex within their community by magnifying real & imagined excesses by the other community like promising job reservations in the obvious knowledge that it is unconstitutional or saying 'It was not Hindu but Muslim Jawans who won Kargil'. Or issuing threats to 'Teach a Lesson', 'Send them to Pakistan'. These are obviously meant to provoke anger, hatred and fear sufficiently as to make people vote en bloc to the candidate from their own community. Put simply, get Muslims to vote only for Muslim candidates & Hindus to vote only for Hindu candidates. While psephologists and columnists generate enormous amount of literature mainly pre- election but also post- election analyses, I'm yet to be convinced if this is an actual pattern or a creation to just get the desired results in the elections - get my candidate to get elected.

But that is not the story I want to write here, I'm no committed political activist/ observer, leave alone a psephologist. I've always thought, may be wished, that such provocations work to a very limited extent (unless in case of  of a major event like Babri Masjid destruction and the aftermath) and bulk of the informed voters & citizens see through the game and make their choices based on their own assessment unswayed by such rhetoric. I had thought this kind of polarisation is more in the minds of the gullible excluding urbanised upper middle class. My belief was rudely proved wrong with my recent experience, actually last week.

The energetic sparring that I used to enjoy with a good friend in the school days was renewed a few years ago as we discovered each other after a long gap. Though the difference in opinion now is more due to the differing perceptions on Hindutva & Hindu - Muslim interaction, the debates continued to be enjoyable, indeed I enjoyed it so much that I tried provoke my friends through comments more provocative than I felt, just to get them to betray the limit. I didn't have to work very hard at it, I saw the limits very frequently, nevertheless, the exchanges remained exciting and enjoyable. But the latest exchange was different.

I got to see the extent of hatred that misinformation and many outright falsehoods, perpetrated by self styled protectors of Hindu culture & religion, have  affected the reasoning of many an urbanised middle/ upper middle class/ affluent people, otherwise very pleasant & friendly. The passion to make Hinduism as exclusivist as  Islam that they accuse of being exactly that, is amazing. A major gripe is fear of losing identity, a persecution complex. This, in people belonging to the majority community forming more than 80% of the population should otherwise be surprising. To a person belonging to a minority community, this kind of a fear complex amongst the majority community should be very very nerve-wracking. This is an obvious factor that has betrayed itself in several parts of the world causing a lot of destruction. Another remarkable thing I've absorbed is the glaring ignorance of things about Muslim community amongst many of Urban Hindus- I heard a senior citizen today referring to Muslims as butchers, I gently poked him asking - surely he didn't believe all 180 million Indian Muslims were butchers, he was serious & meant it ! That there is equally glaring or even higher ignorance of most things about Hinduism/ Dharma amongst Muslims is possibly very true, I don't know enough to comment and this post is not about that.

I have three reasons that made me deliberate on & post it here- this friend of mine was so upset with my response to a post on his FaceBook page that he cut out my initial comment and responses to his questions from the Post altogether ! Worse, he called me names on his post and cut out my responses to them !
Second,  a comment form me that wasn't palatable to him made him lose all sense of decency  and reasonableness. The last is more selfish, I have a duty to let people know of my response when I'm called. names.
At a time when I hear of the new silent reformation underway among the educated Muslim youth, (  kafila.org/.../fundamentalism-liberalism-and-muslims-review-of-hasan-su... ) the incidence and rapid growth of such inferiority complex among the urban adherents of SanAtana Dharma is, a little unnerving not to mention the disappointment.

The whole post with comments is attached here. The parts colored are from me that My Friend (MF) removed from the post, funnily, while retaining the posers and comments on me/ my comments ! For obvious reasons,  I am 'Me' or 'NP', my friend if MF, other friends who commented are F1, F2, so on.

Unscrupulous godmen 'rescuing the hetahens' adopting Safrron Clothes
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Saffron Christian Missionaries 'deceive' naive Hindus by adopting and/or appropriating many Hindu appearances, symbols and Ideas

Saffron Christian Missionaries 'deceive' naive Hindus by adopting and/or appropriating many Hindu appearances, symbols and Ideas.

This is just one of the many example.

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F1 Recently when I visited a catholic church in Kerala, they had the system of removing footwear just like in Hindu temples. I told the priest there, that I also have been to St. Peters Church in Vatican City in Italy and the Pope heads that church and they don't ask anyone to remove their shoes to enter the church. 

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F1 In Bangalore on top of a church at Briand Square near Mysore Road and City Market recently I saw a Neon sign that is saying in Kannada "Om Shree Yesu Christaya Namaha" 

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F2 You could also say that, they are adopting to the native culture. They hold the 'Jesus pallakki' procession in the city streets, they even do the Magalarthi like in the Temples.

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MF Once 100% of the population has been converted they go drop all the forms and go right back to the Jerusalem code

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F2 100% ? Muslims may resist though.

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F3 Where is the so called "budhdhi jeevigalu" and why don't they see the deception here. They under the cover of secularism or freedom of expression are creating these fissures. To counter the this my friend after seeing this picture suggested that group of people dressed in the christian cloths should be shown performing yagna, pooja and aaradhane.

Me: MF, interesting that I’m reading ‘Among the Believers’ of V.S. Naipaul just as I see your post. This kind of thing happens all across Asia – semitic religions getting adapted in ancient Asian civilizations through appropriation of existing symbols & what was considered pagan practices.  If it were not for the centuries of exclusivity that Brahmans practiced in India through a rigid caste system, Hinduism would probably have been much more stronger & confident than it is today.

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MF Mr NP, Please respond to the post and not some irrelevant stuff.
The main point here is : Your friends are wearing Saffron dress to woo heathens. It is not that non-Brahmanas are running to a Chruch for identity.
That is not what the post is about.

Me Thanks MF for the advice, I note to avoid any comments on your posts, I can understand if you'd like to unfriend me, no offence will be taken.

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F1:  F2, They are not adopting to native culture, if that were to be true, then it would be welcome. What they are doing is engaging in deception knowing that Hindus inherently respect Saffron clothed men as Swamis. These are fake Swamis who have no clue as to the symbolism or sanctity of the significance of the Saffron robe. It actually denotes Viragya. These are Viagra Swamis 

MF: NP, you are an emotional roller-coaster!!! One extreme to another. You come and offend me but I point it out and u act like a victim!

Please answer my question: Can your friends namely Evangelists "fool" people to convert them? Yes/No.

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MF I will tolerate reasonable dissent on my timeline. Certified communists with selective hatred of Hinduism will also be tolerated to some extent. At some point I will send you back to Vatican.

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F4 The problem here is the ego combined with directionless emotion. Those who exhibit such emotions are always hurt within. MS I agree that even tolerance should be definite Integral....

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MF BTW, for those who don't know NP and myself are very friends from High School!! We started debating against each other from 1977 itself!

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MF Narasimha Prasad, I am waiting for a short answer to my questions

Please answer my question: Can your friends namely Evangelists "fool" people to convert them? Yes/No.

·         Me (April 22, 2014): Kept quiet given your responses Mahabala, let me close off with 2 things - I can't recall any evangelists for friends, so can't respond, hypothetically, there'll always be some exploiting people's vulnerability to meet their ends so long as there are people gullible to be exploited.

·         MF:

·         Hey, You did not answer my question ------------------------------ The comment:

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·         Me: 2nd - If you plan to buy me a trip to Vatican, you are welcome but you'll have to count in the wife, son & daughter too as I cannot travel without them and thanks for the offer, its been 22 years since I last saw the Sistine Chapel. I'm not even an armchair commie & I expect Commies would hate to have me called one, given my views of them. I don't see any reason to display my sense of loyalty or pride in being a Hindu/ Sanatana Dharmi, I'm satisfied with my practice & little learning and am hungry for learning more on my Dharma, now I know your tolerance limit, which is to me, nil. Neverthless, I'll keep following your posts as I respect your honesty though despair at your intemperance. Last, there are no emotions here, only rational opinions weighed in with

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MF OK you are out from my timeline for wasting time.

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F5: MF,  The more I read about such news the more I feel helpless. Some one had recently posted 'yesu sahasra nama' in sanskrit which is being chanted in many of churches in India. What is going on in India? Or should we feel happy that they ...See More

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F6:  MF !! cool down a bit 

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F7: MF - X-ians have done mangaLaarati, oodina kaDDi, abhishekha, vrata, naivEdya, teertha etc. for a long time. It is nothing new.

Me: considering my own conduct, background, beliefs & practise, its very painful to be called 'Hindu Hater' that too by a good friend. As agreed I haven't posted this, but having called me names, I believe you have the courage to share this with your friends with whom you've characterized me & called me names. Take care.

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