Irony of Gavaskar's theories

I have always got irritated with the analysis of Mr. Gavaskar on the cricket matches. For the experience he has, first playing cricket for a long-long time, and second being associated in close quarters of cricket as commentator/analyst. I feel, his analysis is repetitive parrating of the age old theories. One of the big gems and stupidities has been this IPL's parrating of "How Indian domestic players cannot play on South-African pitches, and how this has been a great factor". This has been his favourite subject this IPL, and he invariably says this when a Indian domestic player gets out trying to hit the ball outside the boundary line.

In the hind-sight, before the IPL, any body who has a zilch knowledge of cricket would have guessed that playing in South-Africa would be challenging for the young Indian players who have played before, only in placid Indian pitches. But, unfortunately, the great thinker Gavaskar is, parrots the same thing again and again, as if he is the only person under the sun, who has predicted this great phenomenon. But the wonder of the situation is, the South-African pitches played in this IPL have been no different than any other Indian cricket pitch. The pitches have been wobbly and placid, and performance of spinners have been great example of state of the pitches in South-Africa this IPL. Still, our guy Gavaskar goes on and on about the In-capability of Indian players managing the Fast and Bouncy South African pitches. I hope, somebody teaches Gavaskar to talk about other things, which are happening other than this.

Yesterdays match between Royal Challengers (RC) and Deccan Chargers (DC) was a very good example of the capability or incapability of the players. The match was played on a strong pitch, which had nearly all the qualities of the South African pitch. A 19 year old kid, who has probably never seen anything else other than an Indian pitch (or Malaysian temporary pitches) played a brilliant innings and hits a century. This was in a circumstances where, No Indian has ever hit a century in IPL, either in India or South Africa. I started wondering what does Mr. Gavaskar has to say on this subject? He was no where to be seen yesterday, unfortunately.

The second theory of Gavaskar in this IPL was about run-outs. He increases the tone of his voice every time, when he says "One person has to call for the run". I wonder in disbelief who under the sun decides, who has to be the caller? In most scenarios, the situation is very clear as One batsmen is always in a situation to decide on a run and he decides to be the caller. But, most run-outs occur when both batsmen have the ability to decide, and the decision taken by both players are opposite, this leads to confusion and hence leads to run-out. And by the nature of T20 matches, which are fast paced and relatively new format, the factors affecting (Speed of the fielder, natural throwing hand, history of fielding skills, situation of the game, etc. etc.) the decision for RUN are varied and 2 players making the same decision is still improving as players gain experience of the format. Over and above this, players of different nationality, different strengths, different religions, different styles playing together makes more of a confusion and takes time, for players to reach consistent analysis for making a decision on a Run.

Man! complex entity this, taking a decision for a run. But good thing is, the batsmen do not get run-out every time they run. That is because, players use the age-old learning, (parrated by Gavaskar) and hence they do not get run-out every time. As most players are experienced in One Day and Test format of the game, there skills are honed to that affect. I am sure, with the experience of players increasing in the T20 format of the game, there ability to decide on a run will become more consistent and hence reduce the run-outs in the matches. I hope Gavaskar sees this fact and relieves the viewers of his irritating repetitions.

I was wondering and discussing with friends year or 2 back, why Gavaskar doesn't take a coaching opportunity etc. I guess it is easier to blabber theories on TV, rather than fail in implementing them. God save us from this dreadful commentary. And now I wonder, which team can risk implementation of these theories?

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Man, Woman and Understanding

We must have all heard most men saying "I do not understand my wife". This statement by itself does not make significant impact, as this is a norm rather than an exception. What surprises me is that, not many women say "I do not understand my husband". In fact, I haven't heard any women who has said this. They always seem so confident about understanding their husband. But when it comes to Men, they are mostly confused about understanding their wife. I guess, some of them, have given-up trying to understand.

Human personality gets formed by numerous amount of factors starting from the day of birth (or conceiving probably). To name a minimum few they are, upbringing by parents, neighborhood, education, friends, place, etc. etc. To stress again, this is a bare minimum list, each and every second of life impacts us in different ways. It is up to the individual how he perceives the scenarios of his/her life and what he/she/it understands from those scenarios. It is practically next-to-impossible to list all the factors which have made up the personality of person. Because of these huge amount of factors involved, a person understanding themselves itself is a big deal, live alone understanding of other person. Lot of philosophies have written loads of text on the matter of understanding oneself.

In spite of all these difficulties in understanding a person, I must admit, women have some special ability to understand their man. Some examples that I have seen are, women typically know the reason of their man being angry (Man himself might not know), women knows the needs of their man better than man himself, Women know the likings/disliking of their man, Women can pick-up cloths which a man will like (but the opposite probably is never true) etc. etc. I am sure each of you will have more examples for yourself to ponder upon. Despite of this understanding of their man, women, I have seen haven't shown much of understanding of themselves. But, in case of the children, women show an amazing clarity of understanding, which a man never can even dream of achieving I guess. This whole issue of Women's strength and weakness of understanding looks very complex.

As usual, I cannot stop myself from analyzing the reasons behind such great powers of the women.

From the days of hunter/gatherer humans, typical structure of a family is, Man has the responsibility of earning food, and woman has the responsibility of managing the family. Because of the responsibility, a typical man is always outside the house figuring out ways to earn the food for the family. (For most of the human life on earth, humans had to use physical energy to earn their food) When a man is home, typical objective of a man is to have rest, so that he can be ready for earning food the next day. Whereas typical woman, had the responsibility of taking care of family. Managing a family meant, managing the resources (food, money, house, utilities etc.) and managing the people (children, Man). Because of this responsibility, women have always put an effort to understand their Man, children, so that their needs are satisfied for the effective functioning of the family. Whereas, a man has never had a need to understand the woman to perform his duties for the family, only thing he had to know was the ways to earn his food. The balance of the family is maintained because of this, and the whole family lived happily.

For thousands of years, the responsibilities of a family has been structured in this way. And hence, women have built the skills needed to manage their family effectively. One of the skill being, understanding the people, especially the husband, they have mastered effectively. Probably over the years some of these skills have got into the gene of a women. Lately, there has been an argument for women making better managers than Men in corporate world. I guess the reason is, Women have been performing the role of managing the resources and people in a house-hold from thousand of years, it is very natural that they extend these skills to manage a corporate.

Over last 300 years, with the industrial revolution and all the technological innovations which have happened in the world, the need for physical effort to produce food has decreased considerably (The decrease has been continuously happening from last 3000 years starting with invention of wheel etc. But the industrial revolution has reduced the physical effort exponentially). With the advent of mechanization in clothing, making utensils, medicine, etc. in the society, the effort needed to manage an house-hold has reduced considerably also. The effort needed by both a Man and Woman to perform their duties in a family has been reduced considerably over last 2 centuries. Hence both Man and woman have put effort to re-define their roles in the family. The effect is clearly visible with the changing social structures, husband and wife working, decrease in importance of broader family, etc.

With the changing roles, the need for an Man for understanding his wife has increased exponentially over last 100 years. I believe, in today's world, more and more men are putting effort to understand their wife. I need to say, I have seen some who have even succeeded to a very large extent. Today's women, also expect their man to put effort to understand them, and hence the failure of a Man is more visible, when they fail and say "I do not understand my wife" in frustration.

In the historical days, woman looked for qualities like, ability to earn, strength, social status etc. in a man for choosing a husband. Whereas man looked at the qualities related to managing the family in a woman. With the nature of the world changing, today, both woman and man look at the qualities of "understanding, compatibility" in marriage.

Though, woman have head start of thousands of years in skills of understanding people, Man is making all efforts to learn the skills and continuously improve upon the skills, to live in the changed world. Best of luck for all Men! Failure is the stepping stone for success.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

What is better than money? (Rajan Acharya’s story)

What is better than money? For me it was not a question, it was an answer and whole philosophy of life. Money played important role in shaping my thinking and personality. That does not mean, I am mean and stingy, but I learnt value of money at quite early age of my life.

I was born and brought-up in typical Indian middle class family in Bangalore. We are four children to our parents. I was third son of Mrs. Vedavathi Acharya and Mr. Ranganath Archarya. I have two elder brothers and one younger sister. To my parents luck, we were all bright in studies and that presented a new problem when we started going to college later. My father was a school teacher and my mother, a house wife or home maker.

People say, children are innocent and they live in their fancy imaginary world and don’t realize the problems of the adults. But at early age I experienced and understood my family’s financial constraints. There was just enough money to pay school fee and no money to buy toys, story books, new clothes or my big attraction, bicycle.

In school, everyday we had to wear school uniform, blue shorts and white shirt, except on Wednesday. Wednesday we were allowed to come in clothes of our choice or as we kids use to say ‘color dress’. I used to look forward for Wednesday with lot of embarrassment, as there would be a clear distinction of social class we belong to. Although not many rich children were there in our school, but their dominance was such that we could see them all over the place. Their high class in society was acknowledged one way or the other by teachers, school peons or head master himself.

As a kid, I used to wonder why some people live so comfortably and we live with so much financial restriction. Why government is not paying big salary to school teachers?

One day after dinner when my father was in good mood, I asked him “Father, why don’t you do some business and earn more money like others?” He was puzzled by my question and then laughed and said “I don’t have big money to invest in business and your grandfather left me with lot of loans as inheritance but not a property!” I did not give up, I knew we could take loans and do a business and said the same to him, to which he said no one including government gives loan for a school teacher like him. Then he tried to make issue light by making comic statements. I started wondering that “Oh God! Then there is no way to get out of this rut?”

My question was answered soon. One fine day, Viswanath who was my maternal uncle’s eldest son, visited us. He had just completed engineering and had got a job as lecturer in the same college where he studied. He was a star or rather a superstar among our relatives. He was bright in studies and good looking and he seemed to know everything in the world. Everybody used to adore him and longed for his company. Every mother and father among our relatives used to quote him as a shining example for everything. Not to mention about his gold medal in engineering.

Viswanath had got a wonderful offer from Bombay engineering college for a Research Assistance Engineer post, from well know Professor Dr. Bhave. Dr. Bhave was well known scientist and even prime minister of India used to take his opinion on every science and technology matter. Then Viswanath promptly resigned to his lecturer job in Bangalore University and was getting ready for his new job in Bombay. Before moving to Bombay he wanted to visit all the close relatives. So he was visiting us on that Sunday.

That day my mother prepared special food and mainly sweet ‘Obbattu‘, which was Viswanath’s favorite.

Viswanath came to our home on Sunday afternoon. My father greeted him and asked him about his parents and new job in Bombay and all that. As a kid I was mesmerized by seeing Viswanath. My brothers and sister went out to play after few minutes. But I stayed on and sacrificed my Sunday evening play time to spend time with him. I snatched water jug and glass from my mother and served Viswanath before offering coffee. When my father and Viswanath were having coffee I stood in front of them smiling ear-to-ear for no apparent reason.

Everything and every moment about Viswanath seemed to be so graceful. I just stayed in hall and was listening to the conversation between my father and Viswanath. After sometime he said he wanted to go out and meet his friend. When he was back, he bought big Dairy Milk chocolates for all us children. Needless to say, my parents would never buy us anything more than éclairs. And then we had festival dinner with everybody competing to eat “obbattu”. Before leaving, Viswanath had some kind words for us to study well and earn good marks to become successful. I listened to him with my eyes wide open and decided to become like Viswanath.

After Viswanath left for Bombay, it took three months of hard work to get 2nd rank in quarterly test and six months to get 1st rank. Once I had hold on 1st Rank, I never turned back. I wrote a letter to Viswanath to inform my achievement, he wrote back praising me for the success and encouraging me to continue my effort in studies.

I went to join the same engineering college in which Viswanath studied. When I completed my engineering I was happy to see my name on topper board along with Viswanath. In fact I had got 12% more than he had got. I wrote to him teasingly about that. He replied saying marks are like money, due to inflation I have had more marks than him but of less value!!!

By the time I joined engineering my elder brothers had finished their degrees and diplomas and had started working. This had considerably improved our financial situation. Coming first rank in the school and colleges had its own benefits: one scholarship, concession in school/college fee and respect from fellow mates and teachers. If I have to be honest I enjoyed scholarships more than anything else. Like Viswanath I too became popular among friends and relatives.

After engineering I had job offer from private companies and engineering colleges, including the one I studied. Then I consulted Viswanath, who had married and settled down in Bombay by that time. He advised to go for higher studies. Although I wanted to do that, I was more eager to achieve economical independence. Against Viswanath’s advice I decided to take-up a job as a lecturer in a famous engineering college in Ooty. College management had promised me to send for higher studies with salary after completion of two years of service, which eventually they did.

When I was 28 years old my parents starting looking for a bride. I wanted to delay marriage as I wanted to make as much money as possible before getting married. I wanted to provide sufficiency of everything to my family. But, once when I was in Bangalore for holidays, my parents asked me to accompany them to a relative’s house. When we reached their house, there was something odd in the environment, I only realized later, on what was happening. That is when Ranjana came with coffee and snacks and kept it on the table. Ranjana was very beautiful, and my heart started beating wildly.

I realized that my parents had schemed, for me to meet Ranjana. My mind was confused, and my heart beating wildly even after we reached home. My mother came to my room, when I was reading magazine and slowly started talking to nobody in particular. She started talking about how beautiful the girl is, how good the family was, how good natured she was even after she doing engineering, not even a touch of ego etc. etc. After talking for about 10 minutes, my mother went away to do her chores. I was a mixture of anger and confusion, but didn’t tell anything to my mother.

Next day morning, my father called me and told me about the family and Ranjana formally. He told me “Things have to happen at a right time, money etc. will come later, and you cannot stop your life for that”. After all this lecture and formality, he asked me if I am ok to marry Ranjana. He waited for 3-4 minutes, before walking off. I was still confused. Just after my afternoon nap, mother came to my room with coffee. She asked me the question of marrying again. I agreed.

After marriage I took Ranjana to Ooty. She was a very mild and good natured person. Although, her cooking some times was awful, I had missed the home food from last 8 years, it didn’t bother me much. Before marriage, I was worried about my wife cribbing, crying and her asking for the sky every now and then. Ranjana was a gem; she adjusted to me very well and my lifestyle. She never asked for anything special and always adjusted with the things available at home. I was well respected in college and was easy for me to get a job for Ranjana in the college. She took up the opportunity without much fuss and questions. She was very good.

One day she announced that she is carrying. I was shocked, and answered “Ranjana! We didn’t need this now”. The whole night and next day I was thinking, my plan had toppled again. I wanted to have a certain bank balance, and the plan was to wait 2 years before having children. Next day when Ranjana, didn’t come to office I realized what had happened yesterday, and she must have felt very bad with my response. Who will not? I had given such a cold and bad response, even worst; I blamed her as if it was her problem. I didn’t know how to comfort her; I called my parents and told the good news. Luckily, my mother instantly told she would be coming the next day to visit us. After going home, when I told her about my parents visiting and helped Ranjana in her work, I could see she was returning to normalcy. My mother stayed on and helped us with the whole process of having the kid; I forgot my toppled plans and became ecstatic when I saw “Ranjini” for the first time in the cradle. I need to say, my mother was pain for me, pointing mistakes in me every now and then. I didn’t understand what was going through her mind; she had never been like this before.

I didn’t care much as I thought, “women and their sentiments, who can understand?”

One fine day I got a call from the Principal of the college. I was selected for an educational program to be done in an American university. The program was sponsored by Government of India and would be for one year. My college had proposed my name and I was selected based on my knowledge and credentials. I was proud to be selected for such a program and was ecstatic about the thing. The excitement was to go to USA and also to earn in dollars. Lot of my colleagues got jealous as my status inside the college increased and I obviously felt proud for that.

Once I was home, I broke the news to Ranjana with happiness. She looked perplexed but didn’t say no or argue or even question about it. I understood her worry and slowly explained her need for me to go to USA. I explained her from the money factor, how it will help Ranjini’s education, how it would increase my status in the community. The way I will get bigger/better salaries and how our lifestyle can change because of it. After all it was just for a year and all our dreams would be fulfilled after that. She didn’t show much happiness towards this, but didn’t negate me in any way. I was very happy.

Before leaving for USA, I made all arrangement so that Ranjana would be able to run the house with out any issue. I was very happy with the way she showed interest in learning things. I needed support from her during those days, and she provided that without complaints.

Life in USA was methodical and easy; according to my tastes I should say. It was difficult for me to adjust to food in the initial days; there were other Indians in the university and helped me in finding places to get Indian groceries. I quickly got impressed with the education system in the university and the facilities available to students and teachers. Education program was to understand the research methodologies in the American universities and I was also involved in a research project in metallurgy area to understand on-the-job scenarios of research.

The research group involved people from various countries, some students, some professors, some lecturers, etc a team of 35 people. I was supposed to be the temporary member of the team, as the research was panned for 3 years and I would be involved only for 6-8 months. Metallurgy was one of my interest areas and I took to the problem at hand with full energy and vigor. Back in India, I wouldn’t get the facilities to test my ideas in my college. I had made up my mind to make use of the facilities provided by the university. I started putting 15-16 hours a day of effort. I used to get frustrated, when I had to attend other courses, seminars, visit facilities, as part of main objective of being there in America.

I was in my dream land, and things like food, recreation never mattered to me even before coming to USA. Funnily I noticed my worry of making money slowly went into background. The research lead James was professor and had PHD in various areas. He was well known in the area of metallurgy and I remember one of the authors of my engineering text book was this guy. It was pleasure working with him, though he wouldn’t spend much time with me as I was doing not-so-important work. I used to call and talk to Ranjana and Ranjini once a week. In just a month are so after reaching USA, I used to get an urge to talk to them, but once I start talking to them, I realized their life and stories didn’t interest me much. At that point of time this didn’t worry me much, as I realized that there was something else which was dearer to me and I could survive my whole life learning and studying the nuances of science.

6 months into the program, I had made major breakthrough in my area of work. James was very impressed with my work. James got more impressed, when I proved some of the assumptions under which the research team was working were wrong. I was surprised by the positive response, when James accepted and appreciated me for my work in front of everybody. Back in my college my HOD had chastised me for arguing with him, though I was correct on a subject. There was no scope for ego or jealousy with James, an I felt happy for his appreciations. This breakthrough completely changed the track and plan of the research program. Happiest day in my life was when James asked me to stay on in the program till its completion. There were obvious problems of VISA, my government sponsorship, my college etc. James was heavily respected guy, and the research program was sponsored by one of the Fortune 100 companies. Once I provided my acceptance, which I did in no time, James could pull all strings and get the operational things covered for me. I was in dream land and started putting more energy into the research.

I never cared for money after this time, I never spent money as most of time was going into research, and most of my earnings directly into savings. There were no weekends for me and my social life was next to nothing. I had some good friends in the university and I used to visit them for lunch or dinner once in a while. James was a workaholic himself and with all the renewed energy we came to a very definitive answer to the problem we were researching on. Everybody in the core and the external team was thrilled that day. James took us all to a Pub that day. Though people had forced me to drink during my initial days in project, they had left me to be myself seeing my non-drinking resolve. This day, James was heavily drunk and was literally shouting appreciations about me. Somebody came up with the idea of forcing me to drink, James in no-time pushed a bottle of beer into my mouth and I couldn’t say no. James dropped me to my apartment at 10, my head was spinning a bit and I was struggling for air. It was a beautiful night with Moon clearly visible in the sky. I sat outside thinking about my whole life. About my child hood dreams, Viswanath, finishing engineering, craving for money, coming to USA, and I had not realized it was nearly 5 years and felt a satisfaction for my life. The acceptance and the respect I got from Americans, especially James was overwhelming.

The next 2 weeks, we had to do minor tests and the junior members of the team was writing the report. Most of my time went in guiding the members and finishing up with the job. Yeah, it was the day report was out, I remember. James came to me and took me for a coffee, he told me about another opportunity of research and asked me if I can join him for that. He will take care of all the other things and I could even bring my family also to USA. I told an instantaneous “Yes” to him. I called Ranjana the same day, sharing all the happy news with her. If I need to guess, I had talked more with her today than any other day, Not even when I had visited India 2 times for a holiday. I got an urge to talk to Ranjini, Ranjana called Ranjini but she didn’t talk to me. I felt irritated.

Next 2 weeks were free and I didn’t have much work to do. I visited friends and had dinner with them. Only question running in my head was “Why did Ranjini not talk to me?” I slowly started realizing that Ranjini wouldn’t talk to me most of the times I called. I started wondering if I was going away from my daughter? Those days were the worst, when I used to sit and think for long hours without able to understand the reason of what was affecting me. I lost all enthusiasm for life, and didn’t talk to James with enthusiasm when he came to discuss about the new project. I had booked my tickets to go to India and I thought about finding the answer when I will be there in India. This didn’t satisfy me, and I was slowly drilling myself to find an answer to my un-easiness. Some of my friends asked if there is any problem and they couldn’t comprehend why a successful man at the height of his success is not happy anymore. Forget them; even I couldn’t comprehend why I was not happy.

One of these days, I started thinking about my whole life again. That is when I realized, I was seeing the world only from my perspective. I never considered what Ranjana, Ranjini, my parents thought or felt regarding things. With this new realization, I started wondering where I had gone wrong. In my dream towards becoming financially strong I had not considered and given importance to any of my parents, Ranjana’s, Ranjini’s feelings toward me. When I was happy and Ranjini didn’t talk to me, I am unhappy. But the same me, used to cut the discussion in short when Ranjini used to tell about some thing in her school. I never listened or put effort in understanding anybody. Only thing I wanted was my happiness and I expected people around me to be happy because of that. How does a 10 year old kid, understand and care for my scientific achievement? It doesn’t matter. I felt a sort of peace of mind because of the newer perspective I was thinking.

Next few days were pathetic, as I was sitting in home on evenings. I couldn’t do anything and I could only think of the negatives that I had done to my family. The lack of belonging I had with my family was just killing me. In the evenings as I was sitting in my house, I felt alone. The loneliness slowly started irritating me in college also. One day, James approached me and asked me if there was a problem? I don’t know why, James and me never talked about personal lives before. But that day, when he asked I just broke down narrating my whole life story to him. He was surprised by the out-burst. He couldn’t tell anything and he was startled I guess. I was in a way very relieved and ghosts in my head were sleeping. Not sure why though.

That day when I was about to leave home, James came along with me to my apartment. He told me “the day I talked about this new project, I told, I would make arrangement so that your family can come stay with you. Did you notice that? I have wondered some times, how you are so attached to your work, without a family, and I didn’t enquire about it as I thought it would be indecent for me to ask”. I said, “I didn’t notice that, but as I spoke and opened to you today I realized very clearly, I had been unjust to my whole family. It is not just my wife and daughter. It is my parents, my brothers and my little sister. Whom I have loved so much and but never cared for them in any way. I haven’t even talked to by brothers and sisters in last 2.5 years after I came back from my last holiday. The way I have been raised is with family values and with love for everybody in the family and extended family. But in my efforts to make money first, knowledge and fame later on I completely dis-regarded everyone’s feelings. I didn’t even care to say a hello to the folks who love me so much. I never thought my wife and daughter had individual thoughts. I was only behind my happiness without realizing that people around me had their own way to achieve happiness. Today when I broke down in front of you, telling my whole life story, I released how unjust I have been to my folks. I have decided to go back to India and settle with my folks. I need to compensate for the injustice I have done to my wife, daughter, parents, brothers and sister, if that is compensation at all.” I started crying again; James just patted me on my shoulder and walked-off.

Next day I felt fresh with the new found truth, there was a review of our project report and I participated whole heartedly in that. At the end of the meeting James asked me to join him in his room. In the room he told me that, the company who had funded the project had a R&D center in Bangalore, India and if I wish so he would put in a word to hire me. He told, “I think this will help you to be with Love for research and Love for family together”. I told my thanks to him. That evening, the offer for a job was there in my hand.

That evening I called Ranjana and told about my plans, she was a bit confused with my talking; I could feel. I was getting uncomfortable, and I was about to break down again. I didn’t want to concern her in any way, I can wait to go back and explain to her. I quickly finished the call.

My life always has been extremes; my eagerness to make money was overtaken by my eagerness to get knowledge, fame, social status, and be something in life. Now when I achieved certain status both with money and fame, and have an opportunity to achieve more, I feel, I just want to live with my family. That is all.

-- VidyaShankar Harapanahalli
-- Madhukar Hebbar

Note to reader: If you want to know more about Ranjana, read "Me and my Friends" a short story.

I miss Mr. Bush

Today’s R K Laxman cartoon in Times of India (View Cartoon) followed by a coffee time discussion in office reminded me of impact of Mr. George W. Bush not being the president of USA any more. It has been around 4-5 months (I don’t care how long actually, so please do not try to correct me) since Obama has become the president of USA. Only thing we heard during the campaign trail of Obama was, “he is going to change something”. He is still running around the world, showing his face and smile in every news channel, news paper and telling about “Coming Change”. Has he made the impact of Bush? Don’t know what others think, but for me he has been a total disaster.

I realised today, generally I used to take about 25-30 Mins to browse through the news paper before Obama times. Typically I read only the headlines, and if some headline seems interesting, I read the article. Last 3-4 months, it takes just 15-20 minutes for me to read the news paper. If I have to drill down into my memory and see what was special before, it is all the interesting entertaining news which Mr. Bush used to create. Be it somebody “hurling a shoes” at him or “his use words of communicate something”, all made a very entertaining read, and much needed laugh to start the day with. The recent incident of a Journalist in Punjab hurling shoes at Mr. Chidambaram didn't have the same charm as Bush. Mr. Chidambaram was all political and diplomatic, killing the fun element in the whole scenario. Whereas the way Mr. Bush ducked the shoe-missile and commented later about the size of the shoe being 8, is the mark of great entertainer.

Mr. Bush had been providing us with the much needed entertainment in various forms, News paper articles about him, his speech, his meeting with a statesman of different country, etc. etc. Everything he did and everything he told was entertainment. Mr. Jug Suraiya one of the journalist in the Times of India (TOI) group even created a cartoon name Dubyaman, with Mr. Bush as a super-hero. (I think mostly these cartoons were not so funny, sheer presence of Mr. Bush made it readable.) I have read some of Mr. Jug’s other articles in TOI; it has always been a pain reading those. I must confess, I haven’t fully read even one of his articles. I would typically skip to another article just after reading first few lines of his articles.

Other than the newspapers, Mr. Bush has been the subject of numerous amounts of forward emails. For the individuals, whose aim in life is to send forward emails, it must be very depressing to not find enough subjects. I have a feeling that, the “Good luck emails” (The emails which are supposed to be forwarded to more people to bring good luck) have increased considerably after Mr. Bush has lost the presidency. This has basically stolen me of the mid-day fun seeing these emails. A complete statistical analysis on the forward emails probably will throw more light on this subject. (I am game to do the analysis, but obviously somebody has to be generous to give me the research grant)

Mr. Bush though branded by media and people in general as a bad man, stupid person, etc. never cared. Probably he was following his Dharma of entertaining people without giving much importance to what people talked about him. I guess he must have been one of those great souls, who followed the great philosophy (from Bhagavad-Gita). I rate Mr. Bush, very next to one Mr. Charles Chaplin with respect to entertaining the public, and bringing smiles to peoples face. Probably Mr. Bush would have touched more hearts than Mr. Charles Chaplin. Another area for research, Institutions and organisations have to come forward to invest in research on these subjects. I believe, the output of the research will help improve the mental health of people of the world.

Mr. Bush, if you ever read this piece, I miss your smiling face on the television. I miss your charm and talk when dealing with the gravest problems facing the world. You do not have to be president to entertain. Please take world tours, and you will be on media again. I guess this is what all the retired presidents do, why are you not doing this? I hope to see you back again in media. Thanks for all the entertainment.

I being a pessimist started thinking, what happens if Mr. Bush never comes back in prominence in media. Will the world continue like it is now? Will I go into depression? Who else can save the world? Tunnnnnn… The bell rang in my head, and a name came to my mind.

Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Last 5 years, Mr. Lalu has subdued himself and has been staying out of the spotlight, as he wants to be Prime Minister of India one day. God knows, why he got this idea, it was probably because of all the negative publicity against him in the media (I get a feeling Mr. Bush never cared for all the negative publicity against him). Though, because of the great character he cannot miss being in spotlight once in a while. Nevertheless, his presence in media had decreased considerably over last 5 years, decreasing the importance of Indian politics in the media. A man, who can make most boring, recital of financial numbers, “Budget Speech”, entertaining, has to be respected for his humongous skills. I am sure; Mr. Lalu will get back his charm once he becomes a Primer Minister.

What we can do at this point in time, is to help Mr.Lalu become Prime Minister. My sincere request to all the readers is, NOT to vote for BJP or Congress, and to vote for any other candidate from any other party. Mr. Lalu has a chance to become PM this way. In this grave situation facing the world, people of India have a huge responsibility of saving the world from depression. Please use your “precious vote” towards saving the world.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Religion and Science

The question I am trying to answer in this essay is, “why is that religion and science do not go together?”, “Are they really opposite ends?”, “Can they ever go hand in hand?”

I have listed definitions of Religion and science below, courtesy, www.dictionary.com. The essay will use this as the base definitions to deliberate on the subject.

Religion: “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”

Science: “a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.”

As one can see, the glaring difference between the two is, Religion is based on “beliefs (faith)” and Science is based on “facts or truths”. Without going into much detail, we can see that “based on beliefs” and “based on facts” naturally form the opposite ends of spectrum of thought. At a high level, we can probably conclude that they cannot go hand in hand and never have a consensus on anything.

But is this truth?

Typically people believe something, when they do not know (understand) the fact. When they do know the facts, they understand something rather than they believe it. For example, people believe that “there is God”, whereas people understand that “touching fire burns”. When it comes to subject of “Purpose of Life”, “Who is God?”, “What will happen after we die?” etc. etc. type of questions, the facts (scientific truth) are not known by the human being and hence no facts associated with it. There are number of theories, some of the learned men have created to answer these questions. These theories are imbibed in the followers of various religions/castes/sects present in our society. Hence we can conclude that the “area of play” of Religion and Science is different. They are not opposites. In the scenario where scientific facts are not available, people are free to believe (have faith) in something which makes sense to them, (Typically theories, philosophies) with the purpose of finding the truth.

Over the years of human history, Religion and Science have been loggerheads with each other. Some of the glaring examples I remember are from the western society, where Copernicus, Galileo etc. had to face the wrath of the religion because, they proved a fact, which was against the general belief of the religion. The religious belief of the society was shattered by the revelation, and at that point in time not many people had the sense to try understanding and appreciating the fact in it. Darwin’s theory of evolution was not accepted by the Christian followers, as it provided a completely different view of the evolution than the Genesis theory in Bible. It took 200 years (Just recently in 2009, Vatican accepted the Darwin’s theory) for the religion to accept a very strong theory of Darwin. (Some of the evolutionary concepts can never be proved. Some of them related to Plants, Birds have been proved through the experiments and genetic engineering).

In our Hindu society, some of the examples of following of conflict between faith and science are the non-acceptance of staunch believers in the abolition of sati, child marriage, English Medicine (Still some villagers think, it is a sin to use them) etc. We can relate some of the ills of our society, back to faith and religion, and lack of factual thinking and lack of effort to find truth. Every society has got lot of good qualities also because of the belief in the religion, For E.g. Non Violence, Respect of others etc.. (I apologise, I couldn’t think of better examples of conflict between science and religion in our Hindu society. If reader can give some, it would help me.)

As we can see very clearly, through the Faith (Religion) and Fact (Science) act in a completely different “area of play”, their paths have crossed and ended mostly in a conflict. The reason is very obvious; the basic implementation (followed by people) of a belief is to believe without logic/reason. Unfortunately this has been the method of teachings of some of the religions hve followed to keep the support group strong. (“Never question God”. “It is written in the sacred book”. These are the statements which the preachers of such type of belief make). When a fact is proved, by somebody, it is a natural instinct (survival instinct) for a believer to instantaneously reject it. This is the reason that Religion and Science have not gone hand in hand most of the times.

When theory (logic) is thrown to counter a belief, the theory has to be countered with logic of the belief, instead of blind negation due to faith (Blind negation due to faith, will hamper the knowledge and hence the opportunity to know the truth). This process will give the best of both the “areas of play” to all the individuals. This process will make sure that, Religion and Science both benefit from each other.

One of the great examples of follower of the above process was Einstein. He was an avid reader of philosophy and religion. He has also made some statements regarding the greatness of some of the religious theories and how it has helped him. He has even proposed some theories on “Meaning of Life”, “Purpose”, “Soul” etc. (This article gave me an opportunity to search and find this site today - http://www.einsteinandreligion.com. One never knows where knowledge is available :-))

The example of greatness of this process in India is Shankaracharya; he traveled across the country, having arguments with the leaders, individuals, teachers of different beliefs. He spread his Advaitha philosophy across India though this method. There are examples of some great thinkers/philosophers accepting his theory after big discussions (Discussions with Mandana Mishra and his wife is very well documented one). One story about how an “Untouchable Fisherman” teaches the basics of his Advaitha philosophy (which Shankaracharya propagated) to himself is a wonderful example of the process. (Though both are theories, than facts, a stronger theory has a better logic and appreciating that will help in reaching the Ultimate fact.)

One can argue that, “Why have faith at all? When we do not know about certain thing, why not just accept and sit down saying, I do not know about this, I do not believe anything.”

Unfortunately the above thought process leads to inaction. If inaction is the happiness for somebody they can follow this. If the purpose is to understand the Truth of any matter, Faith becomes a very important vehicle. With the available knowledge, one will have to figure out the “unknown areas”, and start searching for answers in “unknown areas”. Since, the facts are not know, Faith is the vehicle which gives the individual the belief that the answer can be found. Faith is the vehicle which takes the individual across the difficult times in his search for the truth.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

What will I be born as in my next birth?

What will I be born as in my next birth?

The very first answers to this question were provided to me by good old stories of Hinduism. Based on the actions (Karma) I perform in this life time, my soul will be born again, to live the reactions of those actions. And the cycle of action and re-actions continue for ever, until, I live a life which will have actions and the reactions of which I will bear in the same lifetime. The whole objective for an individual soul is to arrive at a balance of action-reaction in the same lifetime, so that the soul is liberated from the cycle of re-birth.

I never understood this whole concept of re-birth. There are number of unanswered questions like,

How do we define an action in non-relative terms?

What is soul?

What happens to my soul when the cycle ends?

What is the meaning of liberation of soul?

I think the critical thing in this whole theory is the identification of entity called as “Soul”. There is no physical definition of this, and philosophies term it as related to the spirit of an individual. Soul is the spiritual me or whatever. The definitions are so vague and there is total disconnect from relating this to any of the physical elements was too-much for me to comprehend.

Human body is group of Atoms. Any matter is a group of Atoms, assuming Atom is the most elementary particle of any matter. (For the folks interested on the most elementary particles, please read on String Theory.) I tried to relate the soul to the physical entities understandable by me. I could come up with some definitions as below,

1. The sum total effect of all the Atoms (elementary particles) in any matter can be termed as Soul.
2. The first Atom of a matter when formed can be termed as Soul. (E.g. First atom formed due to a reaction of Sperm and Egg)
3. An important “group of atoms” which define a matter to its core can be termed as Soul (E.g. Group of Atoms in some part of brain)

Probably, one of these might be Soul as defined in philosophies or probably there is some other definition. I will leave this to the judgement of the reader to choose or not choose one of the definitions.

For me, the definition in Point 1 made a lot of sense. Each Atom of any matter has some sort of energy (polarity or electro-magnetic energy or whatever) in it. What defines an individual is the sum total of all these energies put together, such an important grouping defines an individual (any matter) can be termed as Soul. Whereas going by my physical definition, the Soul is ever-changing, it is changing every milli-second with the numerous amounts of chemical reactions, transformations happening in a human body (Any animal, tree, thing, for that matter). For e.g. when I eat a piece of matter (food :-)), there are new Atoms which are joining my system as proteins, carbohydrates are whatever. In the same way when I excrete, the Atoms which can not attach to me are thrown out of the system.

Having defined soul, the next step is to identify my future life using this definition of soul. When I die, according to my caste, my body will be burnt. My body will be transformed into various different forms of matter like, Gases, and Ash. There is no loss of atoms; it is just that the bonding which was holding them together disintegrates. This disintegration leads to the transformation of grouping of atoms to various other forms of matter. The ashes will be immersed in the water, a fish might eat that (part of me becomes part of fish), bigger fish eats the smaller fish, cat eats the bigger fish, dog eats a cat, so on and so forth. The atoms which were forming me, has dispersed and transformed into various other forms of matter, hence killing "Me" completely.

The above flow has basic conflict with the general theory of reincarnation, which is, Soul is immortal and Soul is carried forward to my next birth. Where as in my definition, soul disintegrates completely, and dies (Liberation?). Fortunately or unfortunately I subscribe to my theories only until proved wrong, and hence, though there is a conflict with age-old theory, I stand by mine. The thought that I die, is a comprehendable and safe option for me to live my life now.

As I was writing the above, I realised I had missed an important point. All those, Atoms which formed me, had a bonding of some sort, to be part of me. With the natural process, I have selected certain atoms to be part of me and rejected (excretion, vomit etc.) certain types of atoms. The reason an atom is part of me is because, it has found a natural bonding with my other atoms (electro-magnetic force?). In summary, all atoms which have made me, have found a natural bonding (natural attraction, natural affinity etc.) to be part of the group called me.

As I live my life, the energy polarisations (electro-magnetic force) which define these atoms, would have changed in some way depending on the way I have lived my life. The principle of atoms changing because of group behavior (Me) is similar to, “People in the same place (China, South Indian, Mangalore etc. etc.) typically look the same”. It is the set of individuals who make up the group, and these individuals typically have a common factor to be attached to the group. Going further, group characterstics gets built over a period and the individuals attaching to the group implement the group characterstics in them to be part of the group. In summary, concept can be simply defined as "group characterstic changes because of the individuals", and "individual characterstic changes because of the group".

Applying this concept to an "individual atom" which has formed "Me", all the atoms which have forrmed "Me" define "Me". Also, because of the group characterstic of "Me", each and every individual "Atom" which has formed me would have changed to implement the characterstic of "Me". When I die and get burnt, my soul disintegrates and I am re-born as various other forms of matter (atoms intergate into other forms of matter after I have burnt). My next birth is multiple (Trillions of Trillions probably :-)) lives. I guess it must be fun.

In summary, there are 2 answers I could arrive to my important question,

1) I die after I die
2) I will have multiple lives after my death as human

The second option looks more realistic to me, and I prefer that as the final answer for my next birth.

If you see a piece of wood after my death, love it, it might be me :-)

--Madhukar Hebbar

What happened to election festival?

As long as I can remember the past, elections in India were celebrated with energy and jubilation like any religious festival. Way back from times when I was 10 year old kid to now, I feel the energy and jubilation for an election has worn down considerably. Though there are number of factors which have changed over this period of time, it is difficult to pin down the exact reason for the change. This is an attempt to remember the lost glory of the election period and to list down some of the factors which might have affected the change.

In the earlier days, during any election, whole city had a colourful look. The colours were the different colours representing the different brands of the political parties. Typically the roads, buildings, bridges etc. in the main business areas would be garlanded with the party symbol printed on a flashy plastic paper. This garlands sort of provided a pleasant and festival look to the main business areas of the city. I guess, it also made it pleasant as some of these political parties would have used creative brains to identify the colours which they use.

I had always been fascinated with the creativity and the artistic nature of the folks who would do the cut-outs of the leaders. In the election season one could see the cut-outs of the majority of the leaders in every nook and corner of the city standing in different forms and shapes. Two cut-outs never looked the same, and the leaders would be wearing a different dress in each of the cut-out. Mostly the dress and colour of the cut-outs were designed to catch the eyes instantly. Mostly, all the cut-outs always would have been garlanded with the some sort of flashy material; even flowers were used to garland the cut-outs some times. I believe, when the fresh flowers were used in garlands, it would be changed before the flowers dried-up. These cut-outs always looked fresh and showed the leaders always in happy/positive mood. I think, with all these colours, happy faces; the cut-outs gave sort of very good feeling to move around in the city.

Auto-rickshaws were used heavily in the campaigning during the election days. A typical auto-rickshaw would be fixed with a loud speaker and with the cassette player. One could always hear a tune of a hit movie song, which would be plagiarized, and lyrics would represent the greatness of the leader, good work of the party, manifesto of the party, a meaningless jiggle about the symbol etc. etc. Though most of the songs used to be hardly bearable, going with the 80-20 rule, there would be some songs which would be brilliant. Most of the songs were always bearable for the first time because of the different type of lyrics on a famous tune. Some times, the owners of this auto-rickshaw would stop the cassette, hold the microphone and make the announcements, shout party slogans, shower praises on the leader, reminding public of the election day (Remember "Mareyadiri matha Bandhavare, Marethu Nirasharaagadiri" ??), reminding of the party symbol etc. etc. Generally speaking, these guys always had a good voice, and sometimes if we were lucky, we would have announcer who would turn himself into a orator, making a instant speech. If we are more lucky, sometimes these guys turn out to be witty and get us into a instant laugh. There are scenarios I remember, when everybody in the house were out on the street when one of campaigners would make a really witty speech.

As kids, whenever an election auto-rickshaw came to our street, we always used to run behind it, and one of the campaigners would throw the pamphlets with election manifesto on it. God knows why we saw this as fun, but anyways we always followed the principle of running behind the election auto. This used to be the scene in the most streets during the election days earlier. I even remember, reading some of these pamphlets, and obviously making boats and airplanes out of the pamphlets.

During the evenings, one could see most elders standing outside in the compound of their house discussing about the elections with neighbours. As kids, though we were playing something on the street, we could always make out a good discussion. The conversation would get very dramatic sometimes, with the individual showing his strong like or dislike towards a party or a thing. In such scenarios, the other people who are discussing in different groups would join the group fuelling the discussion into more dramatic moments. As kids, though we would not enjoy the content of the discussion, always joined the group and listen to the discussion. God knows, what we used to think, probably it was just entertaining to see a dramatic discussion between neighbours.

All the above is what can be termed as preparation for the festival. On the festival day, that is the voting day, one could see all people dressed in better dress (I can’t say the best) than what they daily wear, moving in groups to the election booth. I think, the best part of a festival other than the food is, everybody in the neighbourhood is on there best attires, with new cloths and in a happy mood. The voting day, always provided this view as most people would go to voting booths, with better attires, and with a sense of purpose and hope in their mind. One could see every bodies face lit-up to the task of voting, and as a kid, I always felt happy on those days without purpose.

Lot of things have changed today, we cannot see much cut-out’s, we cannot see the Garland of party symbols beautifying the streets, Auto-rickshaws with loud speakers have vanished, election songs is not there and unfortunately I cannot see much discussion among the neighbours on election subject. These days neighbours mainly discuss about some program on TV. I think over 20 years number of factors have affected the bringing down the festivity of an election,

1. Television gaining in prominence as main source of information for the public
2. Frequency of elections increasing dramatically
3. Increase in immaturity of the political leaders and the parties
   
4. Civic authorities believing that Party symbol garlands, cut-outs, loud speakers etc. reduces the beauty of the city
5. Election commission controlling the spend of political parties by tightening the rules etc.

Whatever is the reason, I am not sure if we are going to get back the glory days of election festival back in our society.

I miss the fun of election festival.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Our marriage

Today morning I got engaged to Arthi. She works in a software company and is good looking. Like me, she comes from middle class background, hopefully our thinking will match. I had talked to her, once before, when we had visited their family first time. We had talked for around 30 minutes, on the terrace of their house. I am not sure how much we understood each other in that meeting; I felt she was good match to me and provided my acceptance to parents. Luckily she also accepted, and today, we are engaged. Marriage will be after 3 months and our parents have agreed for me and Arthi to meet sometimes.

“Hi Arthi”, I told when I saw her in Forum next week. She “Hi”ed me back. The conversation couldn’t continue as both were a bit uncomfortable. Taking the initiative, I told “let’s check out the movies playing, and then figure out what to do”. Tickets were available for “Gajini”, “Australia”, and “Outlander”. In the tea-time discussions some of my colleagues had told about “Outlander” being a good action movie. I thought she might not like an action movie and asked her, “Which one?”. She told, or probably asked me, “I like action movies, I have seen Gajini, how about Outlander?” I broke into a big smile, and agreed instantly. When we went to the ticket counter, ticket guy told me “Only front row tickets are available”. It didn’t matter for me, I told my OK to the guy, paid, and got the ticket. As we were walking to cafeteria, Arthi told, “Hey, it’s the first row, will it be uncomfortable? I sometimes get a head ache”. “Oops”, I told, “I have watched many times on front row, it doesn’t matter; anyways if you feel uncomfortable we will leave in the middle of the movie”. She gave me a big smile and said, “Thanks”.

We started to discuss about different movies we liked over next hour. We discussed about the different characters in the movie, how they were good and bad and all those things. The conversation was getting interesting as we entered the movie hall to watch the “Outlander”. The movie was good with mindless violence, whenever one of us got bored with the movie, we made fun of the characters and discussed in hushed tones. As we came out of the movie hall, we wanted to talk more about things. But as I realised, it was getting dark and she needs to go home, I felt sad. I guess, we both made up our mind with difficulty and left for our house. After dinner at home, I messaged her “I had great day today”. She responded by saying, “Same here, I had wonderful time with you, watch Notting Hill on HBO”. I switched channel and started watching the movie. Slowly the messages flowed between us, with laughs and discussion on the movie. It was great movie funny to start with, and a great romantic ending. I replied to her, “I never thought I will like romantic movies :-). I liked this very much, Thanks”. She replied back by saying the other great romantic movies to watch. I made a mental note to watch those, said good night and had a very good sleep that day.

Over next days, weeks, month, we constantly emailed, chatted, talked, messaged, and discussed every subject under the sun. We talked about the movies we saw, we talked about the office scenario, we talked about friends and all those small things which happen in life. It was an eye opener for me in lot of ways, getting a girls perspective on things. The way she thought regarding things like, movies, good, bad, sex, love, romance were an eye opener to me. I started discussing about my views on all these things and I could feel that we were getting closer to each other. I must say, it was surprising for me that, we rarely had arguments and even if we had disagreements we respected each others opinions. I was living a dream.

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Last 2 months, after my engagement with Ravi, has been wonderful. Oh! I was so worried about marriage and husband; all my worries have been put to rest now. What a great guy Ravi is! I cannot stop conversing with him even at work. Luckily I do not have much work, Ravi, though is a little busy, always makes time to talk to me. This weekend we are going to meet my friends. Oh! An email from Ravi, it says, “Hey, sorry I can’t make it to meeting this weekend. My college buddies have planned a trip to Madikeri. Luckily most of them have agreed this time. Sorry, you had planned this before, can you help? Can we please meet with your friends another time? Pleaseeeeeeee……” I get angry with him and reply back, “Hey Ravi, marriage is just 3 weeks away and we will get busy with the preparations. It will be difficult to meet friends after that. I have already told all my friends, can you pleaseeeee go to trip another day. Please do not miss meeting with my friends :-(”. Don’t know why, I just stopped short of telling, “Missing the meeting doesn’t look good in front of my friends”.

Man, what a situation. Arthi is getting sad and all. Such a small thing, after marriage it becomes so difficult to freak out with friends. We can meet her friends any time. Who knows probably she will be ok for me to freak out with friends :-). Ok, let me cancel the trip. “Sorry guys, I can’t make it to the trip guys. Marriage is just 3 weeks away and my parents are not allowing me to go outside Bangalore. Sorry again guys, let us plan after marriage is over.” All my friends replied, regarding difficulty to plan an outing after marriage. But I didn’t try to convince them. And then the hard part, replying to Arthi, I thought for a while and replied without going into details “Hey, its fine. I will make it to the week end meeting with friends. I won’t go to Madikeri”. She replied with a “thanks” and a 24 fonter smiley. Don’t know why I was not comfortable at office that day, went home and slept early.

Meeting with my friends went well; my friends were impressed I think. Good. Ravi was little uncomfortable between my friends, he is shy sort of a guy. Nice. Marriage preparations are killing me.

At last, the meeting got over with Arthi’s friends. Man, it was a sort of torture. I was uncomfortable sitting with 4 girls and to top it, only thing running in my head was, “What will Arthi think if I say this or that? Will she feel bad?” More or less I kept to myself talking very formally without getting into controversy. She didn’t say anything about the meeting; I hope it is fine with her.

Just one month after the marriage, there is lot of difference we are finding in life. Perspectives change very much when we are in the same home, living together, and parents and relatives make it more complex. The day after the marriage, when I made a funny comment on Arthi’s aunt. She took it very personal, and got sad that I think in a certain way. It was just an off-the-cuff remark, and I didn’t mean anything really. I need to be careful next time when I make such a comment. Honey moon was another story of discovery; I just wanted to stay in one place and enjoy with her, whereas Arthi wanted to visit different places in Mauritius. It was very good at the end, we enjoyed the place just like our before marriage days, carefree and without thinking what other would think.

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Last 2 years has been a mixture of lot of emotions. As any married couple we have had lot of fights over small things, big things, not so important things. But overall it has been good. I get up early at 6 now and prepare for the breakfast. I still like my early morning sleep, and try to enjoy that on weekends. Ravi also gets up at 6 and helps me prepare for breakfast. I have stopped going to dance classes, as Ravi’s parents are not comfortable with it. We typically go for a movie, meet friends or shopping over week ends. We do not laugh as much as we did before. No complaints, most of my friends envy me for my life and for my relationship with Ravi. They think I am leading a beautiful life, but I miss the excitement of our initial days. I walk out of the kitchen and ask Ravi,

“Ravi, we used to laugh a lot and enjoy life more during early days of our relationship. Probably for 6-8 months it was like that I think. Why do you think we are not having so much excitement now?”

"Hmmm, tough question. Not sure, probably we understand each other better now and thrill of knowing the other person is lost now."

"Is that so? Yeah, true I guess. Let’s have a kid; I think that will induce some energy to the relationship."

Ravi stutters a bit and answers "oops, but we discussed this last month right? We decided to wait for a year more, my trip to America is pending, it will be difficult to manage in America, right? Did you ask your manager regarding America? What is this sudden idea?"

"Hey, why are you getting so uncomfortable? It was just an idea and I am trying to get your views on that. I checked with my manager today, and he says it is very difficult to arrange for a project in America. He made it sound, not possible types. We had agreed that it’s not good for me to quit job, as it would not be safe for our future. Why don’t you plan for going to America alone and we will plan for kid, I can stay with my parents. What do you think?"

"What’s wrong with my parents? Hey, they will feel bad if you stay along with your parents. Too much complicated, they cannot answer questions from their friends and family. It was a big deal to them, for us to live separately in the first place. They felt so bad about it. According to norms you can stay with your parents for last 2 months.", says Ravi getting angry.

"Hey, it is not that I got you separated from your parents. It was a joint decision, we discussed and decided. Right? Even now when your mother comes visiting, don’t I put up with her without a complaint?"

Discussion continues with both in angry mood.

"Common! my mother is not that bad. It is just that she some times advices you as she is the elder and she thinks it is her responsibility. You just have to take her advice sometimes. Lets just forget this, we discussed this hundreds of times. (Taking a deep breath, talking in a normal tone) Arthi, you know how difficult it is to get an opportunity like going to America nowadays. I don’t want to miss this; It is going to do a lot to my career. It will help me get a promotion."

"All you are always interested in is you and your parents. You do not care for me at all. I do not want to stop you from going to America, you can go is what I am saying. Right? When I proposed to quit and come along, you were the person who told it is not good for family. Though I wanted to come along with you, quitting the job. I accepted your view. I also want to see America. But, when you know that I and your Mom don’t get along well, it is not good to force me to live with your parents."

Tears start trickling from Arthi's face as she says her last sentence.

"Hey, common, you can’t blame me like this. I used to meet my friends fortnightly and had some fun. Didn’t I stop it for you? My friends make fun of me for not meeting them often. They call me hen pecked, but still I do not want to break the ground rules set by us. Do you think I am doing all this for me? If this is a small thing, should I list all the things I left for us? What’s wrong with my mother? Can’t we at least try to make them happy a little?"

Arthi crying loudly says, "Hey Sorry, I didn’t mean that. But why are you forcing me now to stay with your parents? I also sacrificed a lot, right? I stopped going to dance classes which I liked; I stopped because of you and your parents. There is nothing wrong with them, but you know that I do not go along well with your mother. Why are you doing this to me?"

Ravi gets mild and says, "Why are you doing this to me, you do not cry like this. We normally discuss things, even if we fight, you do not cry. Please stop it. Let’s discuss this tomorrow or some other time, please give me some time to think. You also think about this."

Arthi walks into kitchen. Though she wants to stop crying, she can’t, she doesn’t know why she can’t stop, and continues crying. Ravi, gets irritated, walks into bed room and sleeps. Arthi slowly moves over to sofa and sleeps on the sofa in living room. Next day was a Saturday; Ravi gets up early because of daily habit, sees Arthi is not next to him, and rushes to living room. He gets relieved seeing Arthi, wakes her up and supports her in moving to bed room. Ravi goes into the kitchen to cook breakfast, slowly starts thinking of what happened yesterday.

When Arthi wakes up and comes into living room and sees the breakfast done. Ravi, slowly talks to her, “I think, I will cancel my America trip; it seems meaningless for me without you joining me. Can you try in your office more? or else we can take a holiday in America some other time. Let’s discuss about the kid some other time please.”

Arthi says, “Ok, it is not good that we fight over things. Let’s see what happens with the America thing and then decide. Not sure what happened to me yesterday, Sorry.”

Ravi says, “I am also very sorry”

---*---*--*---*---*---*--*---

4 years later Arthi and Ravi thinking at coffee table in their office:

"We have never fought with each other after that ugly day. In fact I make sure I suppress all the taboo subjects, not allowing it to affect our life. Our conversation has come down to very minimal, we only talk about our daughter and plans for her future. We talk rarely about ourselves, our interests, etc. Life is on auto-pilot with both of us cooking breakfast, work, playing with daughter, sleep. Fun is back in life with seeing our daughter play and learn to live life, but it is only with daughter. I guess we can never reach height of our relationship of first 6-10 months. Oops, stop thinking about this. Life is good..... Is it really? Stop thinking.... Do we really understand each other? Why did we fight if we understood? Why do we fear conflict? Why are we afraid of our views? What are we running from? Don't think.. Don't think.. Don't think.. Don't think.. Don't think.."

-- Madhukar Hebbar

The story is inspired by the Shetty's concept of "Old Secret for a new marriage". I suggest the reader to read the concept also.

Auto drivers monologue

It was on a Monday morning. I woke-up fresh from the weekend rest, dressed up, had my breakfast and left for work. As I reached the main road from my house, there was an auto rickshaw, waiting for a customer. The driver was ok to come to Banashankari and I sat in the rear seat. He started the rickshaw, shifted gears and started moving towards the destination.

He started off. Saar, I had not come to Girinagar from last 8-9 years. So much has changed here, lot of shops have come all along the road. There was nothing alongside the road before. Only 2-3 shops were there, that too only near the bus stop. Now see sir, so many shops are there. I used to come here regularly during those days as my friend was staying here. Actually, I was not driving auto during those days. I was working in Mico factory, this friend was my colleague and I used to come here to meet him. I left Mico because there was too much politics there; the supervisor was creating lot of troubles for me. I bought an auto-rickshaw by taking a loan. I have still not repaid the loan, sir. There are too many auto-rickshaws on the road and we are not able to make much money nowadays. It was not like this before, sir. It is not that I am not making any money at all. I earn and look after my parents. I got my sister married by earning from auto, sir. Actually the loan of auto shifted to loan of sister’s marriage, which I am still re-paying. My sister was in hospital last week, she had a second kid and I had to be there to pay the bills of the Hospital. It was a girl child sir. My sister’s mother-in-law is a bitch sir, they want me to pay the hospital fees, that too after 4 years of marriage, sir. Why do they make a baby if they can’t pay the hospital bill?

Me: Do these kind of people still exist?

Driver: Sir, we are nice people sir, but we do not want our sister to suffer. For my mother-in-law, our money is not money and there money is only money, sir. My brother-in-law is a manager in the garment factory and he earns well. Actually, my aunt who is a big bitch, told he is the owner of Garment factory. That is why we got my sister married to him. We had given a dowry of Rs.50,000 and later we came to know, those bastards used the same money for the expenses of the marriage. We never complained about it sir, I am a respectable person, and I do not have any bad habits sir. I will never marry till I have cleared of all my loans sir. It is the responsibility of the husband to take care of the wife and kids.

Me: hmmm..

Driver (Continuing): I do not want to be like these bastards who come to me begging for money. Sir, do you know the funny thing? The sister of my brother-in-law is married to a rickshaw driver sir. He is full drunkard and all sir, he is a cranky guy sir, he takes money from these guys also, sir. I have seen it through my own eyes. He is perfect fit for this family of bastards. If they want to go somewhere in the city they give me a call. They do not pay any money to me, they take me for granted. I also do not ask money, not wanting to make a big fuss. But the son-in-law of the bitch always demands money; that is why they do not call him sir, it’s funny to watch the way he handles these bastards. I meet this son-in-law once in a while sir, full drunkard he is, he asked me to join him also to drink. But, I won’t drink sir, my parents have not bought me up like that. They have taught me all good habits. I will not take dowry sir, what is that sir, people taking dowry is like selling themselves sir. I am man, I am supposed to earn and take care of my wife and kid sir. That is what my parents have taught me. We are very respectable and cultured people sir.

Me: Hmmm...

Driver (continuing): What is there in money sir? We just have to work hard and we can earn it sir, have you seen those college kids earning money? They stand in the bus-stands, market areas and give posters to people walking around sir. We can earn money in Bangalore if we put effort. There is no problem, sir. Nowadays earning money from auto has become little difficult, sir. But I work from morning 8 till night 10, to make the money sir. There is no problem sir, there are other auto-drivers who are mother-fuckers sir, and they just sit in the corner of a street and do not go anywhere when customers come. They are the guys who bring bad name to all auto-drivers. Actually, those lazy bastards are the reason we are making money sir. I shouldn’t scold them, if they also start working my business will go down sir. Full corruption every where sir, in Bangalore alone we have 1 Lakh auto-rickshaws sir. Only about 50% will be on the road any time; god bless the lazy bastards, sir. I want to make money, clear loans, marry a beautiful girl and live happily sir. My mother’s cousins daughter is there sir. She is in a village, they wanted to give their daughter to me in marriage. But, I am only waiting to make money before marrying, sir. I don’t want to become like that bastard brother-in-law. You might think, why am I swearing at my brother-in-law so much, sir?

Me: umphh, nope.

Driver (continues without listening to me): What can I do sir? I would have finished my loans and be married by now if this fucking-bastard had taken care of his family properly. It hurts to see my sisters face sometimes sir. He is not very bad also, sir. He doesn’t beat my sister and all sir, thank god. I would have killed the mother-fucker if he had beaten my sister. It is not like that. My sister is very tough girl and might even hit them back if they try so. Husband doesn't give any money for her expenses. At the end of the month he gives all his salary to his mother, sir. She blasts these people off, when they ask her to ask money from me. Very bold and tough girl sir, she was telling me that she will go to work after her second child is 6 months old sir. She used to work before marriage in a garments factory sir, but after the marriage, her mother-in-law didn’t allow her to work, sir. Bloody bitch she is. Not all are like this sir, I have seen my cousins mother-in-law sir, such a nice person she is. She takes care of the kids and cooks for the family when her daughter-in-law goes to work. She doesn’t allow daughter-in-law to do much work also when she come back home. Nice person, sir. In Bangalore, both husband and wife has to work to make a good living sir. Forget poor people like us sir, all the rich people also, both husband and wife go to work sir. So many people I only drop them in my auto sir, I get them as permanent customers in the morning. Bangalore has grown sir, and you know…

Me: Hey, take a right here man.

Driver: ok sir, where should I stop in this road sir?

Me: Stop just after the circle.

Driver: ok sir, It’s a software company, no sir? Everybody has become rich after software companies came to Bangalore sir. When I go to Kormangala, MG Road, how beautiful it has become sir. Buildings are so beautiful and shiny sir. You should see the way girls drink nowadays sir. My brother-in-law is a non-drinker compared to them, sir. These girls are so bold sir? They are completely stoned and can't even stand when they are searching for auto at 11 PM sir. They do not have any fear at all. The way they are dressed makes me puke sir. We do not even dress 2 year old kids in that way, sir. Girls and boys are always falling over one another sir, no balance at all. Don’t know what their parents have taught them sir. Bangalore has changed sir.

Me: hey, stop here, stop here. Just in front of the shop.

Driver: Ok. Sir.

Me: It's 30, take this, thanks.

Driver: Thanks, sir.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

Blank

I woke up. I opened my eyes to see morning light through the window. It must be 7’o clock. It was Saturday, and my sub-conscious mind decided that the effort of waking up at 7 is not worth it. The chill winter wind was blowing from the open window. I rolled over to the other side, facing the wall and pulled the sheets on top of my head. Slowly the warmth of the sheet passed through the body, making me comfortably slip to another sleep.

Mom was cooking something in the kitchen; I could here the tinkling of the vessels and sizzling of the oil on pan. I could also hear father rattling about something not in its place. It must be around 8:30 now, breakfast is getting ready. Who cares, let me try to sleep again.

Mom is cleaning something in my room. I change sides again, pulling the sheets over my head. Mom asks me to wake up as the time is already 10:30. Wow! A cool three and half hours I could kill with the sleeping. I say ok, and try to sleep again. Mom is rattling about something she cooked and how my father didn’t like it. I try to sleep again, it’s getting from warm to hot in the sheet. I slowly roll over, get up and sit on the corner of the bed. I sat like that with no thoughts. I try to get up from the bed, but gravity doesn't allow me, I fall back on my ass. Getting up requires energy. Realisation of the day. Finally my mom shouts at me for being lazy, I take 3 deep breaths and get up on my legs. I slowly walk to bath room and the second question of the day arises in my head. Should I take a bath? Should I just brush, clean-up and have breakfast? Life is difficult and full of questions.

I sit down on the commode with the grave task of deciding to take a bath or not. I slowly start to think of the positives and negatives of the two options I have. Oops, I had dozed sitting on the commode. I clean up and decide to postpone the decision while brushing teeth. My grip on the tooth-brush loosens and I miss to hit the teeth and brush my cheeks. The foam on the brush falls on my body; I get irritated with my clumsiness. Suddenly, I start to feel un-clean and decide to take a bath. Wow! Second decision of the day automatically taken without much thought. PV Narasimha Rao was a genius who it seems told, “All decisions will be taken by time, no need to worry” or something like that. I appreciate the thought of our former prime minister.

News paper is full of crap, generally I read only the headlines and I couldn’t even move over to the fourth page of the newspaper. World is crap. I take Bangalore Times, and read all the cartoons. I skip over pages to see some Bollywood and Hollywood actresses skimpily dressed. This section of the newspaper is very entertaining. Some upcoming actress is quite philosophical about her not taking any movies, because of the low quality of movies. Its already afternoon and with great effort I move towards the couch and slowly roll over the couch.

TV, wonderful instrument for time-pass. I slowly switch channels to identify something worth watching. I stop at HBO, something looks interesting. A meteor has fallen down and some scientists are trying to do some research on it. Looks like a good movie. I skip channels, when Ads start on HBO, Nothing great anywhere and I jump back to HBO to see the movie. It is interesting actually, the meteor has some life forms and they are slowly starting to grow in the crater and some rookie scientist identifies that when he enters the crater. Ads, again. I move over to some channels and there is a good song on a Tamil channel, good song. AR Rehman, wonderful musician. Oh! “Friends” on star world; I get interested for a while seeing some acrobatics of the great friends. It is funny actually. I even watch the ads in between in fear of missing some humour. After Friends, I move back to HBO, the rookie scientist is actually a master brain, who is frustrated with the system and hence has moved to this obscure town as a chemistry teacher. In the meanwhile the organisms from the meteor are fast evolving at a threatening pace. All the government, military, research organisations get involved, but are not able to stop the growth of these organisms. America is in terror. One of the students of our rookie scientist has always failed chemistry, but he accidentally figures out that, toilet cleaning liquid can kill this organism. In the mean time, the Government, Military and top research Institutes have made a lot of blunders and the organism has become a monster as big as a mountain. Quiet scary actually. I felt sad for the state of affairs in America. Finally, the hero with his battalion of stupid students fills up a fire fighting tanker with toilet cleaning liquid and fire the liquid onto what looks like shit-hole of the terrifying monster. The monster huffs-puffs and then dies, and all Americans live happily ever after.

Quiet a fantastic movie actually. I was impressed with the creativity of the director and crew of the movie. It is 3 o’clock, and my mother shouts at me to have lunch. Ok, I have lunch and come back my couch. Slowly browse over different channels and doze of to my dream world. I wake up fresh at 6 PM, have my beautiful coffee and browse channels again. Some song and dance and I start seeing some 3 movies together. It’s actually fun and interesting when I do this. Switch channels and watch all movies together. Only parameter is all 3 movies have to be brainless and effect of watching the movies together is great entertainment. As I was watching these movies I moved from fresh to tired state of mind. It was around 9 PM and my mom asks me to have my dinner. Sometimes I think, only objective of mothers is to feed there children. Here I am, on the bed and couch, the whole day and my mother is asking me if I will have my dinner. Hmphh. I say a big no and return back to watching TV. She murmurs something to herself and walks off.

My friend calls up, with all energy asking me to come out and freak out with him. What the heck, here I am dozing away my day and this crazy guy is asking me freak out at 9 PM. I talk slowly, asking him, where to go, and should I really come? Should I really really come? Should I really really really come? He doesn’t get the clue at all. Some guys are so stupid. Nope, this guy gets the clue now, gets irritated with my laziness and cuts the call. Thank god.

I shut the TV down, slowly move over to bed and try to sleep for the day. It was a nice peaceful day.

My body, mind and soul feel rested.

-- Madhukar Hebbar

An argument against sena outfits

What is our culture? This is the question which is ringing in all the news mediums last 3 weeks. Unfortunately, so-called custodians of Hindu culture, the different Sena outfits, have not come out with an answer for this question. Instead of answering the question the Sena outfits have made statements like “Drinking alcohol in pubs is not our culture”, “Women wearing skimpy cloths is not our culture”, “Celebrating Valentines day is not our culture”.

Though the statements clearly state the expected result from the culture, the reasoning of how and why these expectations became part of our culture is not clear. It would be better for the all the Sena outfits to come out with the definition of our culture and reasoning behind it. The reasoning when it depicts the benefits offered by following of the culture, will have more takers. Who knows? This might lead to a cultural revolution of the world leading to never ending joy of human beings.

Anyways, we do not have the definitions and there is no point of rattling on wondering what might happen. What we have today is the statements made by the Sena outfits, and it wouldn’t be justice to disregard the statements as insane without an argument against it. The article will not delve into the good or bad certain things will cause to the society. In absence of scientifically proven proofs regarding good/bad of an object, every individual has his right to make his decision regarding the object (off-course within the premise of law).

If we view some of these statements in the light of history of last 100-200 years of culture, then some statements sound true. But to really understand our culture we need to refer to texts of our civilisation (Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc.) which provide us the perspective of way of life during those days. This will provide us a logical base and definition instead of generalising from examples which some individuals might have seen. Individuals might have seen 50-100 years of life, and am sure no one individual can see the various probabilities life has offered in such a short period of time.

In Vedas, there are instances of people drinking “Soma” for intoxication. Most commonly available knowledge of the historical way of life for everybody is Ramayana and Mahabharata. These poems/stories are worshipped as sacred text in Hindu way of life. There have been numerous examples of people drinking intoxicating drinks for entertainment in these texts. There also have been instances of mis-use and abuse of intoxicating drinks in the same texts. Drinking Baang (Processed marijuana mixed with milk) on Holi is still followed as a culture in lot of parts of North India. One common factor in all these texts, the taking of intoxicants has not been restricted to Men.

These are just examples to prove the use of intoxicants in our culture based on authentic material. It is also common knowledge that the people have been using the intoxicants in our culture in various forms. There is also a secondary argument to this by the Sena outfits that says, “Women in our culture did not drink”. This argument comes out of the near history (last 100-200 years), where our people have generally not seen women taking intoxicants. If this was really the case, then it is the decision made by the women of yester years not to take intoxicants. There is no restriction on women alone which can be found in history of our civilisation. General effects of intoxicants have been known and it is just that women tended to go by the decision of not drinking. But today, if some women tend to take intoxicants, there is nothing binding them culturally not to do it.

Indian civilisation has gone through drastic changes in the clothing aspects of the culture from its historic days. Going back to the vedic days (1000-2000 Century BC) till around 12th century AD, the clothing of the people within the Indian civilisation can be defined as “Skimpy” (In today’s terms). The proofs are available in the various “carvings” around the temples which can be seen even today. The carvings around the temples, consistent across different regions should be identified as an artist’s representation of the people of those days. After this period, Indian dressing habit was heavily influenced by Moghuls, and Europeans (mainly British) during the later period of time.

(I had read a research paper on the how the dressing habits of India have changed over a period of time. Unfortunately, I do not remember the source/name of this material. But I am sure research books/materials regarding history of India will throw light regarding this subject)

Sena outfits are seeing the general tradition and way of dressing over last 100-200 years to generalise our culture. Ideal representations would be the way the people dressed in various carvings in our temples, which was during the period of no external influence. Indian way of dressing was driven from the climatic conditions of the country rather than some godly thinking. Climatic conditions of our country have not changed and hence would be ideal to get back to our roots and culture instead of withering under external influence. Going by the rules of Sena outfits, which is bound by our culture, I guess Skimpy dressing by the people is after-all not a sin. In fact Sena outfits have to support the movement of going back to the dressing styles of earliest of our civilisations.

Valentines Day is not part of our civilisation (and hence culture probably?). It was part of western civilisation and Indians off-late are trying to adopt this as part of our culture. The basic premise of Valentines Day is expression of love by one individual to another. Expression and celebration of love have always been part of our culture right from the Vedic days again. The biggest example is the life of Krishna, his exploits of love have been part of out folklore from time immemorial. Krishna is worshipped today as God, with an appreciation of the fact that he showed and followed Love in his life. Life of Meera Bhai, who wrote poems and sung it in love of Krishna cannot be forgotten. She has been part of our culture and has been worshipped for her love towards Krishna.

If the argument against Valentines Day is regarding the physical show of Love in public, then one has to go back and check out the carvings on our various temples. That is a proof enough to show that, Physical love of 2 individuals was respected by our civilisation during the earlier days. One doesn’t have to visit Kajuraho for seeing this, visit any temple which was built before 12th – 13th century AD and there certainly will be carvings on the physical love of individuals. I think the respect of the civilisation for the physical art of love allowed them to carve them on the temples. This is enough proof that our culture holds love and celebration of love with respect, instead of rubbishing it as shameful affair.

This is probably the reason that younger generation of India is trying to adapt to Valentines Day very easily. This is the greatness of Hindu culture which doesn't restrict people from following something not their own.

Another perspective of people supporting the Sena outfits view of “Hindu Culture” which the article doesn’t delve into is, “Young Indian is blindly following the western tradition”. I do not know if this is really the case, as there is no effort put in to understand the minds of young generation. The argument is based on superficial understanding of what people have seen from outside. Neverthless, do these same people want the "Young Indian to follow the Hindu Culture blindly"? Following any culture/tradition blindly without understanding the consequences will lead to disaster. Think of any atrocity in any culture and root cause will lead to the blind following of the culture.

The article was intended to show the lack of depth in the understanding of our culture by the Sena outfits. I believe, Sena outfits and its followers need to put effort in understanding our culture and then educate the public with the reasoning to achieve there goals. The current process of making statements without depth of reasoning will reduce the value of our wonderful culture in the eyes of a non-believer.

-- Madhukar Hebbar