Who killed her???

Today she died. Everyone is shocked and sad. A mix of sadness, anger, frustration and helplessness and gloom. She is no more and it makes no different to her what happens now. But will her death go in vein just like any other case? So many crimes happen everyday and are forgotten with the news of the day, but this time whole country is mourning for her.
Who killed her?

The police?
for not providing protections?
for not filing FIRs for hundreds of such and similar cases happening everyday.
for not taking action on molesters and criminals?

The judicial system?
for being so slow and inefficient that it takes decades and all your earnings to get judgement, but still not the justice. Where advocates and judges have a nexus to delay the case forever. Where all kinds of reforms and accountability measures are just pending like millions of cases.

The transport department?
for letting such illegal buses run in the city and letting those criminals use it without any check. For not providing safe and secure service. for not taking any action on them despite complaints.

The politicians?
for letting all that happen. Do I need to even talk about them? Do they even care?

or
Us, the people, the society? for ignoring hundreds of such cases happening everyday.
for living comfortable despite everyday some crime was happening in the very city we live in.
for not doing anything for inferior and insecure position of woman.
for blaming and shaming the victim for no fault of hers.
for letting woman be treated as a property since the Pandavas used Draupadi as a property in a game of dice.
for not letting them feel equally human?
for not respecting them.
for not being sympathetic but pathetic.
for voting for politicians who themselves are rapists?
for letting the corrupt rule and letting the whole system rote?

what were we waiting for? A gruesome death to shake and awaken our conscience or to happen it to ourself?
Is it gender insensitivity and discrimination, lack of reforms (police reform, judicial reform, social reform, political reform, election reform .......the list is endless) ,corruption, negligence, or moral decay or defeat of humanity?

Till when we will keep ourself in this illusion that "it is not my job to care" or "what can I do about it".

Who is to blame? what be the punishment? or we should rather think on how to make it the last such case ever. There is a great distance to go, but when will we take the first step? when will we start moving? When will be understand that cumulative small steps of millions will make the journey smaller. When will we realize that millions drops makes an ocean. That we need to walk together but we also need to walk alone before we can join others. lets not keep standing, lets move. its time to act. Be vigilant. Use RTI , use vote, use yourself against any thing wrong, no matter how small or big, related to this crime or anything. Because those small things, when left unchecked come out as a monster who do heinous things and then we say we are helpless, weak, alone.

Act! or else we are also among those who killed her...... or let her die.... whats the difference!

Evolution of God III

   Why the concept of God is so strong, how it persisted through the test of time. It must have some great utility otherwise it would not be an integral part of our society. Two causes, love and fear may cause one to believe in God. We find solace in God from all the unknown dangers and uncertainties. But in our daily life, how the God helps. Even if one doesn’t believe in God the way religions propagate it, there is such a great utility in an impersonal concept of God that one can hardly ignore. It takes pressure out of you. If you are a creative person, you can attribute cause of your creativity to the God, and will it cost anything? No. But it will save you from the pressure to perform. If you do well, it’s God’s grace, if not, God didn’t want it to happen. There are so many uncontrollable and uncertain things in this world that limit us and no matter how much effort we make, we cannot do everything.  And when we fail, we need to attribute those failures caused by the external variables to some other entity. Otherwise we will have to bear the burden of failure unless we attribute that to God. And if we win, the vanity may attack us so we attribute that too to God’s grace. That’s what probably learned people would have tried to suggest when they said to submit oneself to the lord or God. But unfortunately many a times it is misinterpreted by leaving everything on God. When the concept of God, being a mean of our psychological well being, becomes the end in itself and the purpose of our existence, we are in trouble. We are not here for God; we have created or assumed a God to be there so that we live happily. But when we start living to achieve or reach God, we are missing the point. We are making our means, our end.

    However, this means-end-displacement is a very common phenomenon. Another example is money, which is a necessary tool for a comfortable life but we end up losing all our comforts just to earn money. So as far as God is to keep us humble and sober, save us from vanity and depression, we are good. But when we get obsessed with this human created concept, going to the extreme of its interpretation as if God is everything and we are nothing, we demean the very existence of ours. And of course when a belief or faith comes into picture, we can’t talk about rationality. Can anyone argue why so many bad things happen in this world if there is a God? No. Some say that it’s the result of their bad karmas. But then why God let them do those bad karma’s in the first place. Some says it’s not God’s job to take care of everything, well, then why is he therefore? These arguments are of no use as soon the logic goes miles away and people get sentimental. On the other hand so called atheist ignore the utility of the concept of God. If a person is so mature and psychologically sound that he can bear responsibility for everything and bear the pressure of success and failure equally and easily, he or she may not need a God. But not all have that power and capacity, so it’s easier to leave it on God.

    It’s difficult to take a balanced view here. That’s why people are so confused, that’s why there are so many religions, so many types of God.  Sometimes they exploit people by frightening them in the name of God. God and religion can be tools of power politics also. No one knows about God but all claims their version to be right despite the fact that it is imaginary. But by misinterpreting this concept, we can do a lot of harm to self and others. Anything based on fear and force cannot be right. Religion has its cultural value and it should remain so. It is not transcendent to the human existence itself. We should not blindly believe anything. It should be backed by reason and should not be detrimental to humanity itself. It is difficult to agree with a view that demeans being human and sees human life a sin and only objective of it being with the God again. If there is a God, why would he make this world and us only if we are supposed to leave this world and get assimilated in Him? If He is arbitrary, then he is hardly a God. If He is omnipresent, then why we need to go elsewhere to meet him. If he is omnipotent, then why so much chaos in the world. There are numerous inconsistencies in religious dictums and their concept of God, but we can’t argue as people have forgotten that we have created those concepts and they didn’t come from the heaven. It is almost impossible to argue against a belief system. Whatever serves the purpose of those in power, they will defend it with all means. Very few religions allow dissent. If something is static and doesn’t change with time, how can it be called alive. And how can we follow a dead thing!

The Adjustment bureau: an inspiring movie

Besides my new found love for Emily Blunt, I loved the theme of the movie. This movie reminds us how important the two things: 'love' and 'free will' are. Can we really sacrifice love for a great career? can life be really great with out true love? When we are determined to get something or love someone truly, even the God has to accept our choice. That's the message we get from the movie. A very beautiful and dramatic presentation. We always have a choice. And love is so powerful, that nothing else seem to matter. Little bit of "happy ending" or fairy tale  kind of movie but some scenes are really moving.

loved it, loved Emily Blunt.

Oh My God! What a movie

A must watch movie. An exhilarating experience. For all those who want to really understand the significance of God and Religion.
I loved that. Thanks Paresh rawal, Akshay kumar and Ashwini Yardi for making that. Prakash Shukla..ultimate direction!
I loved it.
trailer of the movie.

The Life particle

The Life is an active force. It is not passive like gravity and electromagnetic field. It gives us choice, ability to think and consciousness.
    This "activeness" and choice is required to enable life to propagate itself in future. As all forces of physics are following their basic natural attributes, life also has a natural instinct, which is, to exist, to survive, to adapt, to propagate and go on. It tries all possibilities and take a suitable form to adapt in that environment. Once our earth had life, it reached down there in volcanoes at thousands degree temperature and even at poles at sub zero temperature and even at the ocean bed and everywhere it can be in whichever form. We don't know the origin of life but neither do we know about the origin mass of the matter!
    Just like we are hunting for higgs boson, which gives mass to the matter, there may be some dark matter like element, which we can't see or detect, which makes a difference between living and dead, which may be the life particle, which is even more important than so called God particle. Because we don't know whether there is a God or not, but we certainly know there is life, just like there is matter and the dark matter. The quest for life will go on, it is in all of us and yet is so illusive. This real world is made of things which are so surreal, the solid mass is made of hollow atoms and the living things are made of non-living things. Who says there is no universal theory of the world, the life itself is the Grand Unified Theory of the Universe.

Note: I am NOT talking about the life particle mentioned in the so called The Secret or law of attraction which I do not believe at all. They anyway take that only in context of humans, not as life in general. That's unscientific and bullshit! I am talking about all life in general, be it a microbe or a whale or a tree or us. I just checked on google if anyone has used this term before and its just a coincidence that the term is same.

Is religion good or bad?

Is religion god or bad? Can one ask this question? Or merely questioning religion is blasphemy and a crime. I don't believe in religion the way generally people do. But I have no intention of hurting any belief of those who does. Religion is a very powerful thing. It is like nuclear power which can be used constructively to make electricity and light up our homes or destructively to make atomic bomb and destroy everything.
When religion inculcate values like humanity, kindness, equality, hard work, respect, knowledge, innovation, compassion and individual freedom, its a good thing. But when it differentiate people, it make people blind follower or make them do certain things out of fear or blind faith or make them superstitious taking out control of their lives from their hands and putting it at mercy of some masters of religion or people claiming to be closer to God than others, when it cause hate, violence and helplessness, nothing is more dangerous than it.
The most dangerous thing is that you can't question why something should be done just because some hundreds or  thousands year ago someone said or wrote something. Doing something without knowing why, not being able to think away from what is prescribed takes away individual freedom. How can God, if there is one, be specific to a religion? How do different Gods coordinate with each other? If all those who don't follow some religion are bad, than certainly all would go to hell of some other religion. And if God is one, why so many religions, and at least then they should not be so different. But we can't question this or we are either hurting some one's belief or its blasphemy. Religion is a social phenomena, its a tool of organizing society and of power sharing. Whatever is based on fear and ignorance or blind belief, is dangerous and takes away individual freedom. Any ideology which allows exploitation of one by other, which make one smaller or greater than other, which limits itself within a dogma, can never be a good thing. It only allows some to rule others. I don't hate religion or those who are religious. Religion is very important for many. I just can't accept the way it is misused to exploit people, violate human rights, demean lives of some, and mostly to kill each other. 

Any one living in poor condition is susceptible to fall in trap of fatalism and superstitions. One who have no choice need to find a solace in the belief that their is some power who will make everything fine. But If everyone else who is better off, who can do something about that poor person also leave it on that supernatural power instead of doing something to make this world better by our own actions, then nothing can be worse. We can't wait for an avatar to come and solve our problems, we better work hard and help each other. But the negative side of religion is too deep and so much into us that most can't even see that. But there is no magic remedy for this. Choice is in our hand whether to make light or a bomb!

waqt shayari by javed akhtar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnfM9pZYm2w&feature=related

वक़्त !
ये वक़्त क्या है
ये क्या है आखिर कि  जो मसल्सल गुजर रहा है
ये जब न गुज़रा था तब कहाँ था?
कहीं तो होगा!
गुज़र गया है तो अब कहाँ है?
कहीं तो होगा !
कहाँ से आया, किधर गया है?
ये कब से कब तक का सिलसिला है?
ये वक़्त क्या है ?

ये वाकये ये हादसे ये तसातुम
हर एक गम और हर एक मसर्रत
हर एक क़जीयत हर एक लज्ज़त
हर एक तबस्सुम हर एक आंसू
हर एक नगमा हर एक खुसबू
वो ज़ख्म का दर्द हो कि वो लम्ज़ का हो जादू
खुद अपनी आवाज़ हो कि माहौल कि सदायें

ये जेहन में बनती और बिगडती हुयी फज़ाए
वो फिक्र में आये ज़लज़ले हों दिल में  हलचल

तमाम एहसास
सारे जज्बे
ये जैसे पत्ते  हैं
बहते पानी कि सतह पे जैसे तैरते हैं
अभी यहाँ है,
अभी वहां है,
और अब हों ओझल ,
दिखाई देता नहीं है लेकिन ये कुछ तो है जो कि बह रहा है !
ये कैसा दरिया है !
किन पहाड़ों  से आ रहा है?
ये किस  समुन्दर को जा रहा है?
ये वक़्त क्या है ?

कभी कभी मैं ये सोचता हूँ
 कि चलती  गाड़ी से पेड़ देखो तो ऐसा लगता है  दूसरी संत जा रहे हैं
कभी कभी मैं ये सोचता हूँ
 कि चलती  गाड़ी से पेड़ देखो तो ऐसा लगता है  दूसरी संत जा रहे हैं

मगर हकीकत में पेड़ अपनी जगह खड़े हैं
तो क्या ये मुमकिन है
सारी सदियाँ कतार अन्दर कतार अपनी जगह खड़ीं हो
ये वक़्त साकित  हो और हम ही गुजर रहे हों

इस एक लम्हें में सारे लम्हें तमाम सदियाँ छुपी हों
न कोई आइन्दा न गुज़िस्तान
जो हो चुका है हो रहा है
जो होने वाला है हो रहा है
मैं सोचता हूँ कि क्या ये मुमकिन है
सच ये हो कि सफ़र में हम हैं
गुजरते हम हैं
जिसे समझते हैं हम गुजरता है ,  वो थमा है
गुजरता है या थमा हुआ है
इकाई है या बंटा हुआ है
है मुंज़मिद या पिघल रहा है
किसे खबर है किसे पता है?
ये वक्त क्या है ?

-(जावेद अख्तर)

Online Education

Engineering Education: http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/
Youtube channel : http://www.youtube.com/iit
also on http://videopulp.in/

Higher Education Channel by UGC http://www.cec-ugc.org/cec/24hour.htm
Live streaming at http://webcast.gov.in/vyaslive/

IGNOU Social Science Courses
Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/ignousoss

UCB : University of California
http://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley


MIT online : http://www.youtube.com/user/MIT
MIT Open Courseware http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

ek aur kavita

कुछ करो नया, कुछ करो नया
कुछ नया रंग फ़िर भरो जरा,
फ़िर कुछ बिजली सी चमकाओ
तूफ़ानो सा फिर चलो जरा।

कुछ बात व्यंग से निकली थी
तुम बात नई फिर करो जरा,
होते होते जो रह गयी थी
उस विपदा का हल करो जरा।

कुछ कहने वाले कह गये थे
कुछ हमसे भी तुम सुनो जरा,
जो कहते सुनते रह गयी थी
उस बात मे दम फिर भरो जरा।

कुछ अजब रंग की चालों से
ये जीवन गाथा भरो जरा,
कुछ देर अभी तुम और रुको
पग धरती पर रहे धरो जरा |

आकाश उमड़ कर आया है
जीवन का सागर लाया है,
इस वर्षा मे तुम भीग डूब
जीवन मे रस फिर भरो जरा।

कुछ आशायें बाकी हैं अभी
कुछ देर अभी दम रखो जरा,
सूरज बस उगने वाला है
निज ध्येय को जाके छुओ जरा।

-प्रदीप

Life and Death

‘Death’ is the biggest ignorance and the ultimate truth. Knowledge of death teaches us value of people around us and hence that of life. All the things, we fight over or struggle for, becomes trivial and we understand the importance of love, companionship, faith, trust, relation, happiness, sharing…..all that we ignore in the blind race for material possessions of our so called modern life.

'Life' : The mysterious illusion, with its indefatigable instinct to exist and continue, a path, a journey or a destination? Who understands life?


P.S.: I wrote this on 22nd Jan 2010 in a thought to post when I write more, but a year passed in that thought. May be a larger essay some other time when i understand this duo better.

India and NRIs

This post is a comment to a blog which was a response to another blog. I have two interesting blogs for you to read.

This starts with a story of an NRI who wrote “Why I left India (again)”,  (do read this to make sense of what follows) and then Chetan Bhagat wrote a very interesting response  "Why i am still here" ( not to that NRI but to us all in general). In first blog the NRI has explained how he tried to return to India but found himself losing those traits he valued. Then Chetan Bhagat shared  his positive and indeed inspiring experience. What follows is my comment to Chetan but before that please read above two.

Thanks Chetan for sharing this.
what an experience...I stumbled on your blog while reading comments on the blog of that NRI. and i stumbled on that while googling for whether Indians tops in remitting forex or not. It was also very interesting to read the comments.
    I really appreciate that you are practicing those values which others just find "lacking" here in India but when comes practice , they also hide behind the "hypocrite" status of Indian society.
I also share the ambivalence in the treatment to domestic helps and really abhor calling them servant and rather refer them as employees. on the other hand, being nice to domestic helps is, as with you, a mixed experience. Specially when a raise disturbs the "market price" and my neighbors tend to complain and every other help want a raise. And as we know by Herzberg's theory, money is not a constant motivator. However, good family like treatment invariably wins their heart and they themselves tend to be good at service.
 I try to talk to a rickshaw puller or vegetable vender as an equal and it makes them happy except few instances when my politeness is (mis)interpreted as weakness(but i don't care). Of course one has to struggle hard to find one's way in India, but being good yourself really helps. It had happened many times that i have avoided a road-rage (imagine Delhi roads) just by with a smile having a sorry or forgiveness (depending on who is at fault more) tone. Actually just before one start responding to an unintentional scratch on your car, if you show a smile, and be as considerate as its just an accident and your body is more important than your car, they tend to copy it and do not take the course of anger and just shrug it.

Coming back, i started this with my search on which country has highest remittances in the world. India is numero uno :-) and till 2010 our foreign remittances were about 55 Billion USD, keeping China as second with a close sum. This money is about 5% of our GDP, So I believe many NRIs are doing a very good job out there. About half of this money comes from Gulf countries where poor labourers are working away from home sending money to feed their family. That's also the reason Kerala is amongst rich states in India.
I thank all NRIs for bringing wealth and modern values in to India. We will take time, but we will come to what we dream for. All we need is just each of playing our own part well.

Science and Religion

There is one religion which tells that people are different and those who dont follow your God are not good. and their is this other which says that we are all one. Which one shall I choose?

We all originated from forests of Africa so we are compatriot in the sense that even after taking American citizenship, an NRI is called Indian American.
We all evolved from the same unicellular protozoans and thus all species are one. 

We all share same electron protons and neutrons and are thus build by same material hence are inherently same. 

What a unifying experience science is. It is all about what is naturally there. Its pure and not limited some man made rules. It does not discriminate between man and among, between different cast, color, creed, race, species or anything.  It has no man made limits. It is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Its thus the most divine. Science is at a much higher plane than religion.

Many times science is misrepresented as anti-nature. But that's only when we put out greed or stupidity before it. Science is all about nature. We are supposed to live together in harmony, taking care of everyone's need, even when in this cycle (like food chain) one is fed by one above it but in the end thats makes the whole life possible on earth. Had it not been a cycle but a singular chain, as we are making of most of things using our unnatural and unsustainable linear exploitative methods, we would end up killing us all (like killing the hen for all golden eggs) . We are exploiting the resources with out giving anything back. We ate most of fish making many species extinct , polluted all rivers and consumed most of the oil and still think that we are going to survive this way. Life and Nature has its own survival instinct and if we don't align ourself to this cycle, its a matter of time when the world with end. But that would only end this greedy humanity and not the world. It wil come back but may be we might end up doing a permamnet damage to it. 

We are in a unique position , we are the only life in so called advance form in this universe. Even if there is some life , its not near, not within many thousands light years. So we are the only hope of taking this miracle of evolution, called humanity, further. or as like other species that went extinct, we would also be one failed attempt of nature to create a species that can carry life further so that when after millions of years later when our sun is no longer able to support life, we have advanced enough to spread in other part of the universe. who knows this is the first time the life has advanced so much , at least not in this galaxy. we should not be in so hurry to kill ourself. Life is so hard to kill. Its instinct to exist and go on will keep doing something and we better move in that direction instead of our self destructive methodology of killing nature.
 

So coming back to religion, the religion that unifies all, that teaches all to love and take care of each other and every species and everything on the planet, that is in conformity with nature, is true religion. and that is the religion of science. The statements like "my country is best or my religion is best" are like the statement like "my home the sweetest or my dad is the best". Of course we all love our family and home but we don't hate or look with disdain other people and still make friends and other relations. We are not confined to just our house. We need to have wider vision. Its ok if you don't love the other country or people as much as yours but don't hate that just because its not yours. Everyone is someone's father, mother brother or sister. So no one can go start hating others.
The rigidity of a religion kills the very spirit it is supposed to exist, the dignity of human life..and not just human but of every living being . Any philosophy or thought that brings rigidity is destined to rot with time.
Now coming to Atheism. Atheism is not anti-theism, its just absence of dogma but not rejecting the utility of religion! Its like just going back to the basics. Religion originated with culture, the nature way of living and respecting nature. But then it turned into scripture and become rigid..and now....when we are trying to understand it again...instead of blindly following the dogma..we are getting closer to the "righter" or "purer" and "rational" form of religion.  Religion was supposed to be the "means" for having a good life...but some selfish people turned it the other way round and people got confused and we started "living" (mostly dying and killing) for religion (that too in the name of God) and made it an "end" rather than "means". This means-end reversal can be corrected with atheism 2.0

But its really difficult to take away religion from society, as pure rationalism is colorless for a common man. Culture and art fill life into it. Very simple example, its difficult to follow the advice of a doctor to avoid junk food or do exercise...but people walk miles on pilgrimage and stay hungry for days for religious festivals. People donate billions in religious institutions but otherwise a common man is not so generous. Religion is not a thing to reject but to reform. We need faith and religion and we want a God to be there for us..even if we are atheist and our God is not a deity but a force inside subatomic particles.