India's rich heritage and culture

 Replace kind Hindus by stupid Hindus and add indifferent governments, corrupt temple priests. The whole area is kept dirty by everyone without proper infrastructure as is the case with Kumbakonam, Chidambaram etc.

I have been to this place twice a decade back and three or 4 years back. 

It remains undeveloped for all illogical reasons. ​

The boats are operate​d by a mafia of boat owners. Why can't the government itself or let some good & big corporate operate proper cruise services ( water is deep enough) to do that. Every time, you take a ride , you feel that the boat can capsize, over crowded, no rules, no control. 

The fundamental problem in India is total lack of interest and involvement in promoting tourism and lack of  pride in our heritage.

The local population is busy with their routine business and revenue generated from visitors. You cannot expect them to pause their activities and wait for infrastructure development without compensation for that period. 

No government is bothered because these things don't get political mileage​.

Any other country would have paid attention for example say kumbakonam by listing all temples in that town, collect the story and history behind all those temples, made a big museum with a theatre and documentary giving details, take on a tour of miniature structure of topography of the place,  manufactured miniatures, key chains, fridge magnets, T- shirts with those pictures etc for people to buy as memorabilia and that would  generate jobs, revenue, visual impact of the monuments, temples, structures lingering all over in houses, shops , home and help things to linger in the mind of the people.

Having failed and continuing to choose to fail in all these, now because everyone has access to the internet we keep sharing all sorts of good, bad, ugly information out of frustration and awe at such a great civilization which had every great and good thing all around from our daily life styles to our surrounding space. 

Which other civilization has that method of teaching , learning , practising the art of making designs , pictures in one of the easiest and excellent ways as our tradition has in Kolams or Rangoli. 

If any other Western country has such a tradition there would be thousands of books, photos, souvenirs using different Kolams with a literature / write up accompanying that.  

What about our simple  Bhajans which impart music. It is very unfortunate that we have lost our 'aesthetic sensitivity' to everything nice around us and about us, instead making everything either merely an aspect of religion and now politics.

These two have all sorts of heaps of  connotations, contortions, contradictions, conditionings and confusions that all those nicer aspects of our civilization and tradition have been subsumed by the brands, labels and identities of religion, now politics. 

Every country on earth, except those occupied by inhumane creatures, preserves, promotes and takes pride in its heritage, monuments, culture and tradition. 

But alas, a country with ( the biggest quantity wise and the best quality wise) art, culture and traditions has ignored it for reasons listed above and many more counter productive activities.

Viruses that affect the Indian socio- psychological perceptions-mostly media induced

Viruses that affect the Indian socio- psychological perceptions.

Myth making; hero-worship; citing exceptions as examples and make sweeping statements based on that; over generalizing the particular; particularizing the general; over simplifying the complex; complicating the simple; resorting to unloving criticism and uncritical love; projecting poverty and suffering as the important requirements to get god’s grace; evaluating anything or anyone with irrelevant aspects; quoting and questioning things without contextual relevance; proceeding with justifications to bolster up or brush aside facts; paralyzing simple events with unwarranted and perverted analysis; forging for facts to fit into preconceptions; showing intolerance towards dissent; invent intentions when results are good and useful; pandering to populism and political correctness over providing long term prosperity; making desperate attempts to degrade some and deify others; opposing for the sake of opposing; rejecting reasoning; operating with  selective amnesia and collective indifference;  trying to mask present short comings by raking up past glories and gloat with ethnocentric pride; sit on judgment over everything and everyone without trying to know in detail what we are judging ; generously throwing  opinions around even without doing some home work on any issue, diverting attention from intrinsically important issues by projecting emotionally appealing allegations, twisting facts, total indifference to facts etc have all become such a huge carapace covering the present generation that no one can know what is the real character of this generation.

The prime reason for most of these  ugly trends are because people are overwhelmingly negatively influenced by media houses both in the print and audio visual which churns out heroes out of zeros and in some cases the glamorous reel industry dominates over and sometimes replaces the reality. These worthies in the media are mostly guided by some petrified ideological fixations bolstered by some putrefied slogans and outdated statistics ,  pelf that pours into their purses,  propelled by pseudo intellectualism and all of these masquerading as meaningful concern for the public. These media worthy pawns are moved around to manipulate, mislead and micro manage remotely all domains by multiple forces.

Most unfortunate impact of the manifestation of these attitudes is that  many gullible youths apply most of these indiscriminately across the whole spectrum of human activities like in  political domain, religious activities, social issues, cultural institutions, sports arena, economic development  projects, commercial sector etc.

Unfortunately all these lead to a socio-psychological conditioning which grows into a belief system, then that very belief system conditions everything we encounter it becomes a sort of vicious circle.

“Everything changes as you move through three stages of awareness:-

first, that beliefs are the result of conditions;

second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions;

and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions.”

― Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Recently a retired Indian army general showed his great skills as a minister in rescuing not only Indians but people from  many countries from the violence torn Yemen while the media managed to divert the whole attention by focusing on a single word ‘presstitudes’ over a whole lot of great work done by the entire team.

Here I would like to some pertinent quotes:-

“Get out of your own way… stop the paralysis by analysis… decide what you want, create a simple plan, and get moving!” - Steve Maraboli.

“Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.”

― Ram Dass.

 “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” - Immanuel Kant

“The reflection is not in the mirror but of the mirror”.-  ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson

“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow     humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.”-Thomas H. Huxley

 “Commitment is an act, not a word”.- Jean-Paul Sartre .

"When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit”.- Ayn Rand

"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone." - Ayn Rand:

“Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty”.- Galileo Galilei.

“Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.” -Elia Kazan

“Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist”.- Steven Pinker

“Ignoring facts does not make them go away”.-Fran Tarkenton

“Reason is man’s tool of knowledge, the faculty that enables him to perceive the facts of reality. To act rationally means to act in accordance with the facts of reality. Emotions are not tools of cognition. What you feel tells you nothing about the facts; it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts. Emotions are the result of your value judgments; they are caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or subconsciously, which may be right or wrong.”- Ayn Rand

indifference,identity cages

Please define common man is he an IRS officer who does not attend his official work and works for an NGO and gets heavily paid and also gets dubious funding from various organizations with ulterior motives and hidden agendas through multiple NGOs? How many common men are with IRS, with these facilities? do not get trapped into media projected labels on secularism, communal-ism, common man etc then you would end up forgetting the real meaning of the words , forget the language and also allow someone else to think for you . AAP got to prominence on a single agenda anti- corruption hoping that the media will never expose the inherent corruptions of AAP itself and to top it all he has joined hands with Congress I don't think I need to explain any further. Our country's greatest ills are indifference of the academically qualified and materially well placed
[I will never call them educated] and ignorance of the masses and now added to these misleading paid media propaganda. Sane people must not fall a prey to any of these. Another senior journalist today wrote an article please give them, AAP, time they are not just another political party but a social movement and I wrote to her "what you mean by social movement against corruption? Even if it were so, How about revealing all the details of all the NGO funds that is running this party? Biggest joke is a social movement against corruption joins hands with Congress to form a government."
you may also update with thishttp://www.satyablog.org/.../21/truth-about-kejriwal-a-view/
Truth About Kejriwal – a view | Satya's Blog


Arvind kejeriwal is just an academically qualified highly corrupt NGO activist facade of Indian brand of, sorry breed of Leftist Marxist Naxal mafia who are used by many forces some of which even Arvind may not be aware and the crowd with him may also be not aware .“There's a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.” ― Vera Nazarian , "A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity...one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul."
~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes from Good Business

And I would not blame Arvind or the bunch of youth getting carried away by his brand of sloganeering because a huge chunk of educated youth without proper clarity about any identity or role model and all these coupled with the most corrupt popular media houses will succumb to any cage of identity, as all of us are, it could be as stupid as Bollyhood movies or meaningless religious rituals or socially appealing ideology etc. More the brain washing slogans, populist measures and promises promoted avidly by the mass opinion molders in the form of media the easier it is to catch the prey of youth.

But the problem is once we are in the identity cage we refuse to come out , we fail to realize and value our various types of relationships with myriads of things, ideas, people, events etc or their relation to us . It is a dilemma wherein we unconsciously subject ourselves to limited options or reduce our choices. I felt the pathetic situation of the present day's talented, educated, intelligent , toiling youth but rudderless and not getting spotted by any sane radars as well and thought philosophically about it and wrote this essay for this New Year [this contains many references, links etc highlighting the importance of many institutions, individuals of real worth etc
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/.../new-year-with-new..

“Whatever is a reality today, whatever you touch and believe in and that seems real for you today, is going to be, like the reality of yesterday, an illusion tomorrow.” 
― Luigi Pirandello

problem gets compounded by a herd of ill informed but tall advise giving breed of very active youth who report and also sit on judgment on any personality and on any subject without either polishing their language or updating their knowledge on the subject at least through googling before unleashing their diatribe on paper and on channels. All of these reporters have one thing in common they have no national pride, they know nothing about anything regarding the nation and all their knowledge if at all they have managed to get time to acquire that by 23 or 25 years has been through their history, social, geography text books and leftists propaganda pamphlets. which I too read from 4th std till my SSLC every year I read about the likes of mogul emperors’ wives and love affairs of mogul emperors followed by colonial oppression and Gandhis experiments with two new nude girls everyday[lucky chap] and his doing surya namaskarams dialy and reading the bhagawath geetha etc [ great virtues for a leader why bother about governance , economic development, welfare of people, preservation of native culture, protection of nation's heritage , culture etc] this was coupled with Nehru's biographical account explaining about his greatness in all details and glory [sans[ except] his house of birth because that was a brothel otherwise that would have been a monument by now] so I always felt what a wonderful country it is we can have unlimited romance and unlimited wives à la mogul style or uncensored experiments à la gandhi style or unquestioned promotion of an English speaking, good looking hypocrite who can then be trust upon the nation as a great personality à la Nehru style; Never did I learn any of these things that there is something called administration, governance, welfare of the people, India's economy, its immense varieties of cultures, its great heritage, its unique agricultural strength as probably the only country with maximum geographical zones soil wise [ excuse me for being too academical here] and the only country where you can cultivate and harvest 365 days in year [ these two luxuries no other place on earth has and what more you need?] India's vast cultures, India's contribution to humanity in many spheres of life [ fortunately some Britishers who came to colonize India took interest and documented some good things for posterity][ incidentally I am reading a wonderful research work on 'physics in the Vedas'. Here I would like to quote something which I send to TMK, another upstart à la kejeriwal, [1] Page 141of ‘Becoming Indian’ by Pavan K. Varma
“When people are the subjects of their own culture, their creative expression has self –assuredness and spontaneity, so they create a unique and effective language of communication even when the grammar is imperfect. This is because the idiom is authentic. But when people become objects of a foreign culture, a huge transformation takes place. Suddenly, a creative work is judged not for its intrinsic value, or for the heritage it is sourced from or is a part of, but for the degree to which it is comprehensible and conforms to the outsider’s culture. The process is all the more mutilating if the outsider belongs to the dominant political or military power of the time [or a putrefied political ideology-italics mine], and there is necessary prejudice, condescension and prurience in his gaze. When this happens, spontaneity reduces itself to self –conscious mediocrity; creativity seeks to qualify itself [to some irrelevant yard stick]; authenticity gives way to imitation; self –assurance is replaced by denial. An entire culture attempts to reinterpret itself in terms that will somehow win the dominant outsider’s approval. The ‘objectified’ people then thrive only as exotica; their historic role becomes that of the observed; everything external about them –and nothing of intrinsic value-is collated, classified and investigated. They finally end up as caricatures, divorced from their own cultural milieu and perpetually alien-in spite of their best efforts at emulation-to that of the outsider.” [What is more pathetic is the hitherto insiders getting converted into outsiders causing chaos]
Please note: All things written in this quote in brackets and in italics are mine.

Monsanto’s weapons of real mass destruction

Monsanto’s weapons of real mass destruction

Our politicians and  policy makers take money from MNCs who are harmful to humanity;

Our media gets advertisements; unfortunately most of our farmers are illiterate; Why, even many in the academic circles are as ignorant as the farmers;

While the majority of people are indifferent till the problem knocks at their door affecting their own kith and kin;

Our community of scientists are dependent on the funding from these companies so they cannot afford to speak against them ;

Most of the so-called NGOs are busy hunting for foreign funds and promoting activities which have no direct bearing on human beings and does not contribute to any form of economic development;

There are many who can only effect some impact through sending e-mails  or posting in Face book groups.

But only a very few can get down to real activity to stop the menace of some harmful MNC products mostly originating from USA like Monsanto like Sofía Gatica [ see her achievement in attachment].

If this mail and message can motivate at least one such person it would be meaningful.

But whatever be it all of us must make it as our religious duty to stop many of the weapons of real mass destruction emanating from Monsanto like its many pesticides, GM crops etc please do educate the villagers and farmers.

Let us make a change in whatever way we can and make the media realize their ineffectiveness.

Mother takes on Monsanto, wins global prize

Courageous mother

Ms. Sofía Gatica is a mother of three from a small rural community in Argentina. Thirteen years ago, her newborn died after being exposed to pesticides in the womb.

Tapping strength she didn't know she had, she turned her family's tragedy into a grassroots movement to protect children in her community and beyond. Over the past decade, Sofía has taken on powerful pesticide industry interests - including Monsanto. And she's winning.

When Sofía lost her newborn, she soon realized that such losses were all-too-common in her small community of Ituzaingó Annex. Aerial spraying with Monsanto's herbicide RoundUp had climbed dramatically in the region as the number of acres planted with the company's "RoundUp Ready" soy crops grew.

Sofía and other concerned mothers went door to door collecting stories about health problems in each family - basically conducting the community's first-ever epidemiological study. "The Mothers of Ituzaingó" discovered the community's cancer rate to be "41 times" the national average, and rates of neurological problems, respiratory diseases and infant mortality were astonishingly high. In response, the mothers launched a "Stop the Spraying!" campaign.

Their efforts bore fruit. In 2008, Argentina's president ordered an investigation of the health impacts of pesticides in Ituzaingó Annex; the resulting study corroborated Sofía's door-to-door research. The Mothers of Ituzaingó then won a municipal "buffer zone" ordinance, prohibiting aerial spraying less than 2,500 meters from residences. Despite few resources and real threats -  including being held at gunpoint in her own home - Sofía and the Mothers of Ituzaingó are now working to expand protections to families across the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHHS45AJsoI&feature=player_embedded

source:Pesticides Action Network North America

positives about chennai

positives about chennai

1] it has rich heritage and culture retained in tact by culturally sound and sane elders and youth both.

2] cost of living is comparatively less than other metros

3] has good and great number of hospitals and educational institutions 

4] being more conservative have not got spoiled to that extent by the negative western influences like too many cafe coffee days or too many kfc outlets or too many pizza outlets

5] when you talk of lack of Hindi speakers bla bla it is perhaps the only state in the whole of India where any Westerner can board a bus anywhere because you have place names in English also not only in the local language and internationally recognizable numbers unlike in many states like maharashtra where you hav emarathi numbers, in gujarath you have number sin gujarathi etc

6] everywhere almost anyone can at least understand and to a certain extent speak in English

7] after there are only three things that are common and unites all Indians across India irrespective of caste, religion, region etc and they are 1.cricket, 2.railways 3. English all the three unfortunately the gift of the Britishers. 

8] Though unfortunately we have done away with other aspects which united we Indians namely belief and practice of Sanathana Dharma with all or as many of its components; respect for elders and Hindu religious edicts and the concomitant basic value system and wisdom of respecting human and humane values and even worshiping environment leave alone protecting it; study and research into the multitudes of our scriptures; natural hospitality shown to any one from any region, religion or country; imparting to everyone the essence and importance of all the philosophical, rational and life enhancing and soul enlightening aspects of Sanathana Dharma through native forms of Folk dramas, folk arts,folk story telling methods, serious religious discourses like katha kalashebhams etc as tools for imparting the derived wisdom to people with various levels of or capacities of understanding all of these have been very cleverly and cunningly replaced by methodically worked out tools meant to psychologically wean the youth from the above mentioned great traditional aspects.

9] flip side of this argument is in many cases we all have rather remained indifferent to the changes effected as a hidden agenda naturally by some vested interested groups about which we need not worry, especially now, as the damage has already been done

10] besides inherently we were also to be blamed to a very great extent that our pride in our rich ancestry almost drove us to a sense of absolute complacency , abysmal levels of  self and critical analysis required for updating to the changing times and trends coupled with the necessity to make a living [ material survival] taking  a higher priority over living a life peacefully, properly and with constant philosophical probing into life and its mystery.This is perhaps the reason that the amount [ as percentage of  global input and output] of great contribution from this great land has comparatively reduced in many spheres of life be it original creativity, scientific discoveries, inventions, adventures, critical and philosophical analysis etc 

11] If only we had continued with the same amount of wisdom as our ancient seers, sages and scholars have had almost 90% of all the Nobel Prizes in Sciences and Literature should have been  won by us.

12] We need to really look into where have we faulted? How we can address these issues and rectify them? 

We need to set right lot of things, undo many of our past mistakes

We need to set right lot of things, undo many of our past mistakes

There is no point in continuously complaining about many bluffs made by the westerners as that was the tool with which they ruled and continue to rule the world. However why they rule? While we have been only grumbling why? It is high time we raise our economic stature, power and start owning or having control over major media I mean search engines, television channels only then we can establish truth. Otherwise we can at best react to every issue that goes against truth, that too, very late and by the time the falsehood has got enough credibility that people dismiss you as a fanatic without any job. We have failed to document our knowledge, resources and achievements in all fields, we have failed to publicize, we have allowed ourselves to be raped by whoever came to rule us; we have not taken pains to master and create if not anything new at least our ancient scriptures which unfold and unravel many gems useful for the whole of humanity and make it to have a global appeal and acceptance. When the power was decided by  war and establishing authority we sulked and prided ourselves as big pacifists and as a result we have a religion where even goddesses have weapons and there are so many stories of them waging fierce battles we passively allowed to be raped by whichever invader came and submissively obeyed them. When industrial revolution made huge strides we failed to make a mark we improved belatedly, when modern military R & D was promoted everywhere we did nothing, when media started ruling the world as mass opinion molders we just remained mute spectators or copied others, when the internet revolution started we were willingly working for them as a result be it Microsoft, Google or Del or Yahoo who owns them and who can manipulate them, all our top brains may be the CEOs and techies but they are not the key to operate and manipulate; initially we suffered from a sense of superiority complex before the middle ages and enjoyed unquestioned superiority but in exclusivity [ this is an undeniable fact irrespective of whatever justification is given to support this]. We failed to understand that in the process of human evolution, especially the advancement of civilization and its growth it is imperative to link everything in a broad inclusive structure of social aspects involving harmony among all human beings around, after all human beings are primarily animals, and then social beings then evolved human beings or even divine beings. There must be a conscious effort to structure and cater to every ring in this ladder of evolution; this is only a broad outline. Unfortunately we have failed to pay attention to this fact especially as a group we have even failed to acknowledge these facts. We, I mean the Indians in general, have culturally evolved as a very sophisticated, enlightened species wherein the individual human being was given immense importance than the group. That’s why even all aspects of our life has this imprint of importance for individual excellence, enjoyment and enlightenment rather than collective good or group harmony , ideally that should be the outcome if every individual in the group elevated himself in totality of life. There is very old joke. once when one British was bragging about how lucky were the species that got a chance to be in NOAH's boat and turning to the Indian sitting by his side he asked what you Indians would have done if such a thing happened in Hindustan to which the Indian replied then each one of us would have built or had a boat for us and not depend on one Noah. That’s why in our religion the individual independent worship in the form of meditation is important; in music the individual improvisation and melody is stressed unlike the western music where harmony is given more importance; we never master any team sport and if at all we shine in any team sport that is the result of few individual excellence; our medicines like Siddha and Ayurveda do not accept or advocate universal application to any disease [rightly so, because the same disease could be for different reasons in different individuals and its impact also will be different and may require different types or at least different levels of treatment; all our best dance forms are performed by individuals; all our greatest monuments have been carved by a few dedicated and talented sculptors and so on and so forth but the unfortunate negative side of it is, that it also created lack of social cohesion and the gradual subconscious development of total lack of concern to share and in many cases indifference too. This continues even today in many families which are low middle class, one fellow will be fortunate to go and work abroad and earn a lot but he would not bother to contribute and develop the status of his own family, leave alone the society. There are some exceptions.

. We are also gregarious in appreciating something or someone and unkind in our criticisms. Everything and everyone suffers from unloving criticism and uncritical love. The whole nation will adulate some without any sense of perception or criticize the cricket team heartlessly when they fail in a tournament. This is an unbecoming contradiction of the Indian psyche which while always promoting individual importance resorts to collective folly of adulation and criticism for irrelevant reason. This started with some of our popular leaders, a sort of hypocrisy adopted to camouflage our short comings and used as an effective tool to divert others from perceiving our short coming and in the process gradually and subconsciously we failed to even notice the short comings. We have seen how even our most respected leaders resorting to all attention grabbing activities to project themselves as an ascetics, making a big propaganda about their religious practices and as a result they became an incorrigible and incomprehensible mixture meandering in vacuous inanity. In these aspects we are as bad as the Americans who suffer from mass paranoia and untreatable fear psychosis. We need to set right lot of things, undo many of our past mistakes, amend our innate weakness of indifference and lack of sense of sharing and caring and learn to grow as a cohesive team of excellent individuals.