Global outlook

  The maximum reward one may get is social ego massages in the form of gracing functions as a chief guest and getting decorated with some awards prefixed with ' padma'. ( You cannot even have free time with any Padma).

There is an unwelcome ecosystem with lack of rational, scientific, measured evaluation of one's contribution and value addition.

Here unfortunately, real quality work is not valued and opportunities are not open. Everything is tossed between hypocrisy and hype, excessive ideology based political affinities and restrictive religious sanctions. 

I always believe at ' personal level' the healthiest life is one in which we have freedom of expression and before that socially unfettered original and creative thinking which offers simple, comfortable, happy , peaceful life. 

At a ' social level ' the concept of ' connecting people and creating contextually relevant relationships'  'to deliver outcomes with proportionate and reciprocally justifiable trade offs'. (Tsekung asked, “Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct of life” and Confucius replied, “It is the word SHU meaning ‘reciprocity’.)

In the present India, I would not like to say, modern India, I am struck with an uneasy ambivalence. 

I am in love with this ' great country' but hate this ' poorly governed nation ' for almost 6 plus decades. 

I am proud of its ancestry and dream/wish of it being a hope for the future because it has certain inherent value system which are far more humanitarian and ensures a very hospitable mentality where people 'were' living socially friendly without any inhibition, paradoxically, very ideal for growth but we have ended up the other way.

So, I think as a country, it is worth having such dreams and another advantage was it did not have an institutionalised religious authority hindering individual human  aspirations and hence had inherently a vast scope for freedom which enabled it to excel enormously when many parts of the world were still in the dark. 

However, we cannot infinitely carry on singing  the refrain of our past glories.

Unfortunately, we are 60 years behind in adopting modern governance in tune with basic global trends of a sophisticated rational thinking cosmopolitan civilization with focus on economic priorities or at least ensuring infrastructure providing basic needs of the people.

"We live in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception of it”-Timothy Ferris

“There is no tomorrow. There is only a planet turning on its axis, and a creature given to optimistic fancies”-Robert Brault

“Evolution itself is an open ended and indeterminate process”… “Given the remarkable progress in our understanding of biochemistry, molecular biology, and evolution as a whole … we have failed to develop concepts, ideas, even a language that could capture the dance of this life” - Guy Murchie

Even our much paraded monks and Swamijis had to be either endorsed or sponsored by foreigners. Even a great Swami Vivekananda had to get endorsed by Sister Nivedita, Ramana Maharshi by Paul Brunton, Sri Aurobindo by  mother Mira, Prabhupada , Srisri, Jaggi are all sponsored and sustained by foreign funds. 

Without the global exposure not only would they have ended up as one more regional monk and their spiritual and philosophical insights would have gone unnoticed and unrecorded. Why even the greatest philosopher J.KRISHNAMURTHY had to be discovered by foreigners.

Why even all the following had to be recognised by foreigners .

Bose the great scientist, Bose the real freedom fighter, Ramanujam the Mathematics genius ( had he stayed here would have ended up as a clerk in Port) ​.

So, it is high time that we adopt a global outlook and perspective to grow rather than getting stuck in petty local sloganeering for political mileage.