Mar 12
30
The Glory of Sport
Sometime back in India we had a get together of old friends from the teenage. Some of them are in academics and we were discussing School buildings and its ambiance. The center point of the discussion was what makes a school too good academically as as well as administratively. Guess what almost everyone agreed upon? Sports and Athletics. These two were the major things that made a school great in terms of Academics??!! Duh! The Administration was deemed superior if they had a football field size playground or even larger. The larger the playground the more expensive and quality driven the school was.
This someone would argue not to be correct but remember the people discussing were educationists with a background of more than a decade of experience in the School Business. The fact is just true. If you can spend enough on sport than a healthy attitude towards learning and teaching can definitely be expected, especially in a place like “India” where sport is given very little credit today.
Paan Singh Tomar – The Movie, based on the real life of a national athletic champion turned outlaw is a must watch for the horrible treatment of sportsperson in our country, India. Well, not the Cricket maniacs who are given all the media publicity for the sake of dirty marketing tactics used by the idiot box companies. The most wonderful message and thought provoking idea in the entire movie was that the, 4th standard fail, school dropout, athlete had learned not to give up and surrender once the race had started, to any circumstance in any situation until the finish line was crossed. The glory of sport and sportsmanship lays in reaching the finish line no matter who gets the Gold, Silver and Bronze.
When in school, we used to participate in the annual sports meet and take an oath under the school flag that we would strive hard for the glory of sport. This is true in every aspect of life, be it academics, play, business or any profession one takes up. Its the very decision a person takes at the starting point and lives up to it through the fire-up till the end of the finish line.
Sportsmen live up to this oath throughout their lives. However, at times, their lives become miserable when the country and its politicians do not understand the glory they have brought to the country. Paan Singh Tomar is dedicated to such forgotten record breaking sportsmen of our country. The forgotten men and women may not have become history but are still forgotten, standing before our own eyes. A few months back I had come across a picture of our hockey team, I think women, who had just returned home from a triumph abroad, standing at the International Airport for Taxis to pick them up. No one to receive the champions, while the country runs after the showbiz cricketers as if they were gods. I am not against any sport but a champion is a champion and pride of the nation for god sake.
The very thing that, I myself do not remember what tournament the ladies had won and the details of their triumph, is embarrassing but then there are many champs out there who have died penniless, even to the extent that they have had to sell of their medals for a survival. The greatness of the country indeed lays in how it treats its national heroes and not how it takes care of the national security of its politicians. A very small percentage of the entire money spent in budgeting for personal security of zillions of representatives of the public would suffice to uphold the glory of these sportsmen and keep the honor of our country shining. Athletes and Sportsmen are the go getter of our society. They are the pride of any culture and tradition right from the dawn of human civilization, remember the Romans and their Colosseum, they are the dignity of our country for they win battles with perspiration and not a drop of blood shed. Our public consciousness needs to wake up and applaud their achievements for the sake of our civility and for the glory of sport itself.
Posted in Education Personal Views The World by .
My favorite place to in any city or town that I visit is a place where book lovers just stand glancing at the covers of books for such a long time that you could easily finish off the tour of the entire place. The statues you see among the piles of bound paper should amaze you more than any monument in the world. A few years back I came across a book which is now a high ranking and frequently visited website. The book cover cautioned the reader with these words “Beware, highly addictive”. If you have not guessed the book title by now, it was eHow. Well I have left no room for guessing since my post title seems self explanatory.
Back to where we started about this book with hundreds and hundreds of pages written on just about any topic and subject in the world. The book simply laid down basic bullet-ed tips for just about doing anything in the world. Well, that’s what I thought and found it to be and believe me it was really addictive. It made the reader feel a master of all sciences just like those wizards in magical fantasy movies. The book was quite nice reading and it gave me a hard time to part with the book, when finally I had to consider the space it was consuming in my books’ cabinet, compared to its more regularly updated and far more handy and easily reachable electronic version on the worldwide web. Although the later is no more additive. In fact I doubt if any ready would actually spend more than only a few minutes on the site. This I guess would suffice for the age old and much talked about argument of modern times. Hard Copy or soft. Even though I would be easily termed as a geek by those who know me, but when it comes to the love for the written word, I would vote for the former without doubt. Except for the one reason, that, in our times just as we are running out of broader thoughts and vision, so are we lacking much space of storage elsewhere.
Short essay’s written wittily and with a wonderful sense of humor would turn the chapters of any book magical. Guy Browning has a wonderful sense of writing as he elaborates the Small Rules for Little Problems in his book which I thought I should compare with eHow. The comparison would have been a real flop and would have ended up with a, Duh, at the end of the write-up. Both the books are totally unique in its own kind. Though when one picks up Guy Browning’s “Never PUSH when it says PULL”, he would just think that it was a concise eHow with the power of knowledge. Though I do not really believe that Knowledge is power. Knowledge is NOT power at all. It is the application of knowledge which is power.
That said, just like Guy Browning puts it, Antique books are bought by people who collect rather than read while second-hand books are bought by people who read rather than collect, I find myself falling in the second category more over than the first. Its not that I do not buy new books but again, Not all books are bought new, and this one was from the book shelter. It was love at first sight with the book and as I found time to read it, it turned out not to be the concise version of eHow. Each How to… essay wonderfully penned by the witty author and the art of brevity and humor, churned with some real life drama that we experience almost everyday, is sketched for the leisure of the reader. It’s two pages of How to.. write a novel, would inspire any blogger to write one in just a single day of dreams. The book simply has a How to.. for every occasion, moment and scenario of the human life. Believe me this statement is a result of How to… lie.
That’s about all there is in the highly academic comparison above which should end here, else the entire writeup would simply suffer the status of alie. A nice read to enjoy on a wonderful day out in the park. A book worth reading for those would would like to learn the art of narrating everyday humor and some funny stuff we do, without hurting anyone’s feelings that is. And no, I am not paid to write this review.
Posted in Interesting Language Personal Views by .
Countries like India, which off course I am a proud citizen of, brag about Human Rights and being the largest democracy in the world but are obviously the highest ranking crushers of basic human necessities and the right to live in the name of state security or even protecting their citizens. There are several instances and cases but the one I have been involved in for several years is a real pity about the way the government in India works and the way the government treats it own official documents and citizens.
The world we live in today no longer believes in the story of Felious Fogg’s “Around the world in 80 Days’ story”. Its far ahead and given the challenge one can make it in less then 80 hours. Our government still relies on manual processes and works at a snails pace for the people who pay them their wages through Taxes. Now here is the entire story which would surely turn you to think what are we really doing.
A person of any country cast or creed has the right to marry any human being in accordance to his belief and desires be the human being from any colour or country. No man made law can stop that, if both were happy with the fact and the marriage contract is legally binding. This is basic within the norms of human rights and every person on earth will agree to it. Both these persons have the right to live a happy and fruitful life together within the social norms of humanity. The trouble comes in when the man made boundaries are levied on these people. To further elaborate, if a person is an Indian and his spouse a Pakistani, there you are. He and she enter into a nightmare of being married to a labelled terrorist or a harmful demon for the societies of both the countries. The agony further increases when the off springs take up the citizenship of one of the two parents at an age when they are not aware of even, ending up with a passport of a nation that is termed a danger by the other.
Enough of human right bragging and enough of what each country says to other and what the politicians mean. Below is the scenario of such a couple that resides in a third country instead to get over the woes of being label unpatriotic. Remember every citizen has the right to scold their government, term it whatever they want, for they have elected it for god sake. Remember the democracy lectures, for the people, by the people and what not.
The scene:
A couple with an Indian male married to a Pakistani citizen having Indian children, the male having a history of generations in India and the female having a history of generations in Pakistan, are legally married and the names of each person endorsed in the passport of the other as well as in the children’s passport as parents. The passports are issued by the government of India and Pakistan accordingly. The family is living in a third country and happy until the woes of visiting their homeland start emerging.
The Pakistani wife would obviously join her husband to her homeland when he wishes to visit. What happens, she needs a visa to travel. The legal procedure starts here for the branded terrorist from a country living in the stone age to maintain its national security.
The visa application has to be made at a private courier company that manages the mails of the local consulate, after an online form being filled by the applicant. The application consists of the printout of the online form that is supposed to be an entry in the Home Ministry database. The form along with passport copies of both the Indian male and the Pakistani wife have to be submitted, in addition to the photos and previous visas if she has traveled earlier. So far so good, one draw back and problem with the application however, is that the Pakistani wife who is dependent on her Indian husband can only enter the country from only three stipulated places. 1) Mumbai 2) Dehli 3) Chennai. The Pakistani can enter India by Air from only these places and the exit from the same place she entered. So the husband and children do not have much of a choice of International Airports of a country, making the travel cumbersome. I think it is quite acceptable for most. The second application flaw is the the Pakistani wife of the Indian can only visit places for which is she granted visa, specified in her application along with address and phone numbers of people actually staying there. Now this means they can only travel to their home town and a place or two where their relatives live and the Indians are bared from tourism of the country that it so much takes pride in. That too can be acceptable.
The application once submitted to the private company is sent to the consulate for processing. Here comes the stone age scenario. The consulate faxes the visa application to the home ministry and sends of a courier containing a few copies of the application for verification of address. The home ministry then sends of the same to local police stations and departments for verification. All of this if the approval ever comes from the home ministry would take 5 to 6 months and even more.
The irony here is that the Indian government does not approve of its own endorsement of addresses on the Indian passport of the husband as well as the name of the spouse endorsed by the government itself. What does the government want to prove?? Will the people who are threat of the security of innocent citizens arrive in the country taking such labor or simply enter the country through illegal means.
Every citizen is concerned of national security and patriotic about his country but here the country doubts his loyalty and patriotism and holds him responsible for acts of cowardice undertaken by a handful of maniacs. The irony is that the visa has to be approved each time it is submitted and takes months to get through even if the person has traveled many more times previously. Either the government needs to get its facts straight and data in place and stop harassing each and every person bringing him or her into the light of suspicion under the label of national security or face the the mistrust of its own citizens. Who would elect a government that does not trust its own citizens and its own documents so legal as the passport.
And we call ourselves a country that is advanced and well versed in communication with a caring ans nurturing culture. The other side of the scenario which is totally related to the “Chai Paani” corruption is known to every Indian and is much of a reason for the delay of documents and procedures that can be followed up on by people whom we pay to serve us and not bully us around. Let’s face it we have become a nation concerned with national security in terms of corruption and pocket filling politicians, where procedures such as these are legal persecution and harassment for the common man or let me put it this way in this wonderful season, the “mango man”, aam aadmi. A country where those in power do their every bit to stay in power yet display their might in bullying their own citizens, the people who actually not only pay their salaries but pay for their comfort, leisure and entertainment as well.
Posted in The World by .
Mar 12
22
Beyond the thinking Mind
The Truth is far more all-encompassing than the mind could ever comprehend. No thought can encapsulate the Truth. At best, it can point to it. For example, it can say: “All things are intrinsically one.” That is a pointer, not explanation. Understanding these words means feeling deep within you the truth to which they point.
Become at ease with the state of “not knowing”. This takes you beyond mind because the mind is always trying to conclude and interpret. It is afraid of not knowing. So, when you can be at ease with not knowing, you have already gone beyond the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conceptual then arises out of that state.
Dogmas – religious, political, scientific – arise out of the erroneous belief that the thought can encapsulate reality or the truth. Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because it give them a sense of security and a false sense of “I Know”.
Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas. It is true that every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reality will eventually disclose its falseness; however, unless the basic delusion of it is seen for what it is, it will be replaced by others.
Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought. Wisdom is not a product if thought, nor does knowledge bring wisdom. All knowledge is transitory and therefore when one becomes at ease with “not knowing”, the doors to wisdom are opened up.
Posted in Interesting Personal Views by .
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Disclaimer
Not all posts on this blog are my own words. Nor are all articles written by me. The blog is intended serve as my journal and dairy of interesting reading I have enjoyed and want to share. Some write-ups do not have the name of its author, the reason behind it is that I do not know the original source nor the author. If someone knows it they can add it to the comment box.
