The Tawang twang

Zilch, aught, nada!

India is racking up a goose egg.

Against what?

The Hambantota port project in Srilanka, Kyaukpu port project in Myanmar, railway line from Pakistan, oil lines from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Iran.

These are but defined as “aiming to found a basis for a Harmonious Society domestically and for Peaceful Development internationally”

These are just measures of expanding the sphere of influence against the Indian competition as another Asian power.

 

Eyes! all over.

India has never had any well planned strategy towards China. China, just like the rest of the world has always used Pakistan as a decoy to derail India. The rose strategy of “Hind-Chin bhai bhai” aimed at an Asian axis was no wonder a phut.

Many people argue that the Chinese intrusions are nothing new but date back to India’s independence and hence not to be taken seriously. But the fact that is hidden is that even India has been going through changes that are tantamount for it’s important developments.   The intrusions were important but neglected then but now these are not to be left un-noticed but should be met with the same mettle to sort out the undulating problem of very large magnitude.

Thinking out of the Indo-Pak lock has never been looked up as an option until late. Well, times have changed now, India is growing up.

Indo-Aus replaces Indo-Pak encounters.

DOW Jones replaces Karachi Index.

Comparison is between Hollywood and Bollywood.

Similar situation demands India to get out of the Indo-Pak deadlock and look in to the world with greater challenges: China’s vision of Indian rivalry.

The origin of the mongoloid race is one bound to lots of uncertainties. It either traces back to the single mother of African origin or to the Peking man.   

Well, the name China itself gets traced back to its Sanskrit roots in Mahabharata!!

The Chinese problem started early in the 1950s with their roads built in Aksai-Chin region even without the knowledge of the Indian officials.  What do we call such careless Indians?

DADs ------Dumb Ass Desis (no intended paternal disrespect).

The Chinese are going to be really serious about a clean table set up for talks only if His Holiness Dalai Lama is sent back to China. The Indian junta itself would never want do a so called ominous act on top of the pressure from the international cabal. Frankly the Lama to Chinese, who are basically communists, is just like Dawood to India or Bin Laden to the US of A.  The harm that’s being inflicted on the nation is just the same irrespective of the method being adopted.

The Chinese are beefing up their forces along the Tawang border in India and in turn the Indian tanks lining up along the LAC. 

Why has the Chinese interest in Tawang gone up? The Chinese feel that Tawang is strategically the best place to launch the destabilization of Tibet. Apparently that’s the route Dalai Lama took to run down to India and the next Lama is even expected from there. Isn’t Tawang feast enough for the Chinese to lay their hands on?

Politically, the Chinese sighting some documents where Tawang was paying taxes to Tibet is itself illogical. The Chinese claim of Tibet is like the Israel for Jews, “oldest testament”! Their claim for Tawang looks sillier. But Power carries with it possibilities, proofs, policies and politics and China is the Power of today and tomorrow.

If India really wants to concentrate on its domestic problems and maintain cordial relation with its giant neighbor it really needs to set up the table. The Law of the land is the greater good. I do not know how His Holiness perceives all this, “Two nations warring for a monk? Or for Tibet?”  Anyone can support the cause of the monk, truly, even I do. 

No intended insult, but I liked his wisdom.

But the bigger picture needs to be accounted for, Tibet exposition or a Tawang explosion. Also the Indian officials need to think and come to a conclusion keeping in mind the priority of country’s welfare. Militarily India might be capable of taking on the Chinese unlike the war of 1962, but that’s not really necessary. The monk has to at least bring out the monk-like character in him to prevent the fall out between the greater forces for absolutely no reason.

Well, where is Steven Segal?!

Chaos and Karma

“What goes around comes around”,

”As you sow, so shall you reap”

"Then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought is that karma? When you’re not nice, that the bad things happen to you?", Off-the-wall words of Sharon Stone on the earthquake in china in 2008.

This is probably the oldest known principle that billions of people around the world believe in and agree upon: Karma.The belief has dragged in so much momentum, that many people don’t realize that this is yet another word that was absorbed into the English language. Unawares of the root, people still get to enjoy the essence of the word itself.  Although the word is still the same and the basic meaning is still uncorrupted, yet the meaning itself has different spatial orientation that changes with time. The Karma that the hindus talk about, the Karma that Buddha believed in and the Karma that the Shwetambaras and Digambaras follow fall in to this category. While the Western understanding of Karma is still the same yet there is a deliberate difference in their perspective.

What is Karma?

We all must be familiar with this. If not, the first couple of lines must be a sufficient definition.

Why Karma?

Karma and Reincarnation form the basis of the Indic religions. The lure of the western flock towards the Karmic principles strengths the point fact about the human psychological fear. Let’s get to the roots of Karma.

The world itself is a typical representation of confusion and randomness. The world has been reeling under the constant iron rule of Chaos. Chaos is pretty much the inherent nature of the Universe which comprises of the world and its surrounding,  non-linear dynamics!

Man has always been at odds with nature: trying to defend against its fury and out compete its powerful reaches or to mimic its impeccable unique patterns.  The result of one such attempt of countering the chaos kid of nature was the birth of the Karma, an intelligent design that can be attributed to the human mind. Karma is not something supernatural but the result of the complex mixture of the need of the hour and some critical thinking by the brain of the hour. Controlling the entropy is what the everyday life is all about.  The constant red shift that the Universe is tending towards can only mean that randomness is increasing constantly (may be until the bubble bursts, if it is bursts again or sucked in again). The process of reincarnation and Karma go hand in hand.  The deterministic behavior of the Karma is largely what keeps people at bay and makes people refrain from doing things that they think are morally bad and again “Bad” is relative wrt time and person.

 

The Catch 22.

I get stymied every time I try to read between lines. The Hindu belief of Karma seems to be largely deterministic in nature. What when I recollect the life of my superhero (sorry for ruminating on the same character over and over, but that’s what runs deep in my veins and that’s what I based my life, my actions and my beliefs on), Rama from Ayodhya, the Karmic effect does not seem to run in its real form.

Ram was a good son to his father, mothers, a good brother to his brothers, a good student to his teacher, a good husband to his wife, a good master to his servants and a good prince to his citizens. He was embodiment of human goodness. He stood for all values. He never displayed any divine trait except for a couple of instances which come at the far end of the mainline story. He lived his life as a human and if that is true the law of Karma must be applicable to him too. How does the law of Karma come into effect for a person who is a spic and span? What forces him into the forest, hardship, bereavement?

There is no explicit mention of the cause and effect action in many cases.  A vague mention of Valmiki’s curse ( a mistake: this is not Karma though) and a kid making fun of the maid of Kaikeyi can be attributed to the Karma, although both these instances do not feature in the original Ramayan written by Valmiki. This leads me to think otherwise.

1.       Either Ram is just a character in a story with no consideration of the Karmic principles.

2.       Ram did not live his life as a human; rather he had designed his own destiny before he descended on this Earth, (if he is perceived as God).

3.       Karmic principles are just the result of the game of chance rather than a hard rule bound to the spatial mind-body matrix.

Considering my position as a conservative and from a lot more examples and experiences I would always side with the third option.

Though Jesus Christ is deemed as the one born on this Earth to help people, Karma did not apply, it backfired.  There are examples of lots of such ill-fated people who where the principles of the cause and effect failed.

This is yet another effect of Karma: Karma misunderstood/misused.

I perceive Karma as an intelligent design of a highly advanced state of mind which was aimed at bringing harmony, peace and goodness by baiting people with the invisible carrot or perhaps an imaginary carrot, a non-existential carrot.

All these are the essential parts of a game.  A simple game of chess with 64 equal sized squares and equally powered armies on either side is a simple example of a controlled chaos.  There are no stealth moves that are possible, the opponent sees all the moves and the space of movement is limited and still many a times we don’t even perceive a gambit and there is always a winner and a loser.

A chess board is an example of controlled chaos and true to its nature, it originated in India. The Karmic principles are trying to control the vast expanse of the uncontrollable realm of chaos. Though it instills a feel good factor and leads people towards prosperity yet in reality Karma is a non functional, illusory, false concept.

A lot of time Chaos has its say over the happenings. Chaotic flight time control principles can be used to evade the adverse effects of chaos. These will essentially have the same probability that the Karmic principles have to get the good. “Do bad, get bad and do good get good”: The non-existential bait that has driven civilizations after civilizations just like another mystic phenomenon, the invisible god.  It was rather used as a tool to explain the unexplainable, events occurring without a reason could easily be tied to the previous birth, ha ha.

The Nth Phenom

The conundrum never ceases to create the sensation. The detention of the Khans, Ishrath encounter, the racket called the swine flu, the Quad-e-Azam factor, the Chinese incursions, the hyped hype of Force India and Fisichella along with the incessant Arushi, 26/11 probe have spiced up the media. Apparently the Indian media needs more holes in the donut and want the people to see the holes as such and not the dough.
Justice delayed is justice denied. The futile efforts of the Indian government are very much reflected in their efforts to divert the people and the media away from the 26/11 probes. The government’s lack of conviction in bringing justice to the people of Mumbai by bringing Pakistan to its knees is evident from its blame game along with the Pakistani counterparts. The blame game played by these the two countries is more of a scripted act enacted very poorly by at least the Indian part.

The turmoil within the Lotus party just reminds me of the role played by rubles in dethroning and defacing Morarji Desai in the 70s and 80s. The MPs were paid in rubles, a number of media agencies and influential people were in the payroll too. The rubles elevated the ‘I’ and helped it to maintain the Nehru legacy. Mr.Desai was the scapegoat then. Looks like it is either USD or liras for Advani and co. Well, the lira is now officially Euro but it still comes from where it has to. The BJP are the Indian Democrats minus Obama. The delay and stupid games played with the low profile American mediation in the 26/11 justice cover up is slowly losing its momentum. As always, this is going to die out as every other tragedy in the past has always. Who should be blamed for this? The poor memory of the self centered egoist who forget the past or the greed of the profit minded officials and corrupt politicians?

It is the whole of India instead of just North East.

I have always wondered why the evolution has been biased for the Chinese: their nose and eyes. Well, the answer becomes obvious now; the evolution is not to be blamed for these anomalies. Their nose seems hidden because it is always on the other side of McMahon line doing stuff that people on the other side don’t like. The eyes are probably in Tibet and Xin Jiang! The recent red painting in Ladakh is not something new. But the description and evidence from the Indian side looks very bleak.
With neighbors who are very cordial and warm as in the case of India, there is a lot to concentrate on foreign affairs. But the Indian politicians: the governing group and the oppositions, the media are all too busy with many things much more important: Toppling each other, wooing the MINORITY, safekeeping the people’s tax in Swiss bank, cleaning up their mess. The problems in our hands are much more than what we imagine.

Apparently, the Swiss partiality has been meted out too with details of its account holders catered to US on its request while India is shown the carrot.
Well, from Gujrat came the two hurricanes: one peeled the British oppression while the other feared the Hindu oppression. While there is no one called as very good politician, the question is who is better and it is always relative to the people. In the bigger picture, it always boils down to what colors and who paints rather than who all contributed. Jinnah fought for the freedom of his people. In reference to the previous blog post, demonization of Jinnah and deification of Gandhi was a result of the reasons mentioned in the previous post: Dichotomy. History clearly speaks that Jinnah was not the one who wanted a separate nation because of obvious reasons but the weakness was with Gandhi’s favoritism to Nehru. Well, good luck on us that Patel did not demand a separate nation due to the same reasons that Jinnah was forced to demand. India would still be there if there was no Gandhi but no Pakistan if there was no Jinnah. But Jinnah was always portrayed in the dark and as a villain even in the movie Gandhi.
My respects to Jinnah: He was a self-made man. Gandhi, Nehru and all others were born rich families to wealthy fathers and lived a comfortable life. Though Jinnah was born to a wealthy merchant, yet he was so poor that he strived hard to create a position for him and champion a cause.
Well, I do not understand the row over Jaswant singh‘s book. These were his views on Jinnah and the only reason might be because he equated Jinnah to Gandhi.
It’s high time; a common realizes the essence of the analysis and stop getting drowned in the useless ramblings of the opportunistic politicians and hype seeking media.
India is developing; yes the media racket is now followed by medical rackets. The Swine flu scare is a real troublesome affair. The very blowing up of the issue out of proportions makes it glaringly evident. There is shortage of masks!!!
Swaminathan Aiyar examines some numbers and finds:
[In India] 1.37 million people die annually of respiratory diseases and infections, 7,20,000 of diarrhea, and 5,40,000 of tuberculosis. These are staggering numbers. They imply that on an average day, 3,753 people die of respiratory diseases and infections, 1,973 of diarrhea, and 1,479 of tuberculosis.
The 20 swine flu deaths are not trivial but not so huge compared to what these staggering numbers are.
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/entry/swine-flu-learn-from-94

The media and medicine rackets have blown it out of proportions.

Amidst all these, the rise of phenom down in the south is being watched very closely. The Failure of Ganesan, the deliberation of Shivaji Rao Gaekwad and the lack of impression of Vijayraj Azhagarsami Naidu have all led to a vacuum of Pseudo MGR space with every one trying to fill up the space with appellations and captioning failing to catch up with the reality. The phenom is now Vijay. At 35, politics is a daring venture worthy of applause. Let us wait to see if the phenom stays to cause a change or just volatilizes.
To end the post on a good note: Feel good:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=1357180n

M.A. Flaws of Pee

“To be or not to be has been a question since times memorial………………………………….” on and on went the jammers during the high school competitions. This was the then opening statement of the present Vodafone, IRS and DEShaw at SAV and ER. Well, for me this was just another rhetoric to pass the time for the ring at sixty seconds for 10 points. I never analyzed the seriousness and the truth behind the statement.

Dichotomy originated in the human mind. The human mind has been programmed to to see an issue in pairs. May be, it is the penalty we are paying for a three dimensional life with n-1 degrees of freedom.
Light-Dark, Good-Bad, God-devil, sky-earth, land-water, heaven-hell, male-female, hot-cold and many such eternal pairs exactly at the opposite ends of the spectrum are the snapshots in the minds of the billions today before they start their prayer.

The ‘F’ words are the reason, the world has been moving. They are the reasons civilizations formed and collapsed. The two main psychological ‘F’ words are faith and fear. These two go hand in hand.

Too much fear of the Devil created faith in God. The concept of God, now, is the result of the thousands of years of fear and faith of the human species molded in the melting pot of HPU taking in to account the various conditions and geographical locations of human settlements.

All locations irrespective of the geography, fertility etc fostered faith and fear and therefore GOD ruled there and so did his pair. Isn’t it more like the good-cop bad-cop strategy? Even the car dealers use this strategy to fool us these days. Everything began with fear, followed by faith. With success and domination over other species developed the ego.

Many of us would never have wondered why most gods look like humans! I do not know if the formless worship originated as a forward thinking to negate the idolatory worship but it is still all about faith and fear.

” In the beginning ………………………………………………….God created man in his own form”: The last sentence is an egoistic proclamation. I cannot comment more on that. Buddha’s was more of a decoction. If Buddha did not do it then, someone must have, well, Ambedkar would have.


Different civilizations might have worshipped different animals or same civilizations might have worshipped different animals at different times. The near and dear animals served some tribes so much that their services many thousand years back are remembered even today by worshipping the near and dear ones in the form of god: cats, dogs, monkeys, lions, cows, sheep etc. This is more of a holistic approach to save the endangered animals playing with the strong sentiments of the weak human mind.

The fear of failure and insecurity and the inability to protect oneself against the inevitable raised the human mind a step above. It’s a part of the evolution process. The greatest twenty first century entertainer Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster derives much of the story from the greatest myth of the past twenty centuries, the savior of the lamb, the Christian Jesus and the Greek Hercules. These guys in turn bear an almost 100 % semblance to Krishna of Mathura. All of them were alien to this Earth and were brought up by foster parents. They all had to fight for justice. The cows and sheep, Kaliya and hydra are a drop in an ocean.


If my intuitions are right, in 4000 A.D. there will be as many Superman statues as there are churches today: the great American plagiarism. There may be sub division in superman worshippers on whether the underwear should be on top. I would be happy if there were at least a few Batman temples and statues. I prefer Batman to any other superhero. This guy has no super power but uses his own money power to save people. He is more human. I might equate him with Rama but not on the same scales as Superman and Krishna. Rama is one of the greatest sources of Inspiration, if not for many at least for a few like me. Ved Vyas or Valmiki, Schuster or Kane and Finger: I have not seen these guys and I will never, but whatever they have written instills amazing faith and shows the human nature’s incessant craving for super natural power. Well, The Harry Potter of J.K.Rowling is a concoction of Krishna Leela and young Kuru tussles. While most Indians can tell tales about the seven books of Rowling they stumble when they hear about Krishna or the Kuru princes.

To get the basics right, you need not believe in their existence but enjoy them as a fiction and amazing pieces of creative imagination which man has created in this world but in case of believing let not the belief turn into obsession.
The plagiarism continues in the form of mother, the living god. The mother and child is another aspect of every religion. Devaki and Krishna, Isi and Iswara, Semiramis and Tammuz, Thetis and Achilles, Isis and Horus, Mary and Jesus bore exactly the same values at their locations and their times. Though there is doubt about which preceded all the others, yet one thing that is clear is that the Mary and Jesus was the last of all these. Even the Chinese had the Shing Moo with her child in her arms by the time the myth of Jesus and Mary reached China.


In his book, “The worship of the dead or the origin and nature of pagan idolatory and its bearing upon the early history of Egypt and Babylonia”, Colonel . J. Garnier writes about the various semblances between the various civilizations: The manifestation of Shiva, Dionysus, Bacchus, Osiris, Horus etc. It’s a very good read.
When we start to think that all these are the delusory effect of the human minds of past and just when we strike a chord allowing science to take advantage as the only authentic source of knowing the origins of universe, the ‘COSMOS’ by Carl Sagan rings the bell. Buddies, the 7 set DVD series on the origins of the Universe is just too good to be described, but amidst the scientific explanation and devaluation of various myths, legends and beliefs long held as path to God there is a confession very scuttle, “ The Indian calculations and theories are the ones pretty close to the modern propositions”. This comes right from Sagan himself.
Just then you realize the three different perspectives of the Big Bang in the form of Advaita, Vishitadvaita and Dvaita. All these three philosophies concur with each other and with the modern Bang but the descriptions were pretty much perspective oriented and time dilated. No other philosophy even comes closer to the modern acceptances.
It’s time we start being introspective and look into what we already had and never ventured into its richness rather than seeking richness in an outside world alien to ourselves.

On a final note, temples for superman, he-man, spider man, batman, harry potter: these don’t sound weird for me any more either.