Culture goes the Vulture Way!

According to reseach by The National Geographic ONE language is lost every FOURTEEN days.By the next century nearly half of the 7,000 odd languages spoken in the world will vanish.

Its simply not the language that dies but the culture,the tradition,superstitions,beliefs,ideas and finally the people who spoke that language.This world has seen wars that were not only for politics,land or natural resources.They were also about people and culture that was alien to invaders.

The Navajos driven into reservations in Arizona by the whites,their fertile lands seized,their sheep and cattle butchered or the aborigines of Australia where the Government in the 1930s started a controversial program to raise aborigine babies with white foster families are but a poignant reminder that today's superpower nations who champion human rights are no less guilty.

I was born in Calcutta and I remember visiting my ancestral village with my grandmother in Punjab.The mile wide wheat fields,the blooming yellow and green mustard flowers and the dense as jungle sugarcane plantations left me spellbound because I had never seen so much open space in my life.It made me fall in love with a culture that was never part of my everyday existence.Everbody needs a catalyst and my grand parents were mine!

Yet my cousins who did not have the benefit of visits to the village have never related to the life there as its far removed from their Bershire home and their plum puddings.All it takes is one generation to lose what evolution and human civilization created over thousands of years.

Today India is excited about Taco Bell,Mcdonalds,KFCs etc .From a business standpoint the economics makes sense but its playing havoc with our traditional cuisine.Obesity,Diabetes were inherent Indian diseases which have got a huge fillip with the junk food culture that has just started to appear on our shores.

For typical Indian families these are baby killers - junk food,lack of open spaces for excercise,lack of time from studies to ensure a healthy lifestyle and a lack of awareness insofar what we eat.

Yet culture when imposed is a crown of thorns.But the feelings that are lost make us forget where we came from?The vulture embodies that final connection between Life and heaven for the Parsis and pesticide has destroyed 95% of the vultures in India.A lot of indigenous identities are set to follow.

On This Our Republic Day 26th January 2013

Another day of posturing and 1970s patriotic songs.Another day of parades.If Mahatma Gandhi was responsible for India's independence from the British,then he was responsible for the adamant elevation of Pandit Nehru to Prime ministership,consequent alienation of Jinnah and the shadow cast by Pakistan that has stayed more or less menacing for 60 years.

 

Disappointing are statements by the RSS chief regarding rights of women and just shows how 18th century the self appointed keepers of the nation's religious morality are be they Hindu or Muslim.I always believed that the RSS with their morning exercises and the reading of patriotic literature were providing a good framework to the youth but alas the thoughts have killed all the hope.

 

 

 

The BJP till yesterday insisted on making Gadkari the chief despite allegations of financial skullduggery.Just goes to show that the country has a political choice between the corrupt and the corrupt...!!The same party when in government released terrorists,the Defence minister flew with them to Kabul to ensure they reached safely!Its the same Masood Azhar and Zargar who killed more indian Soldiers.Today they talk of a head for a head?Let every young Indian serve 2 years in the Army to understand what its like to not only love ones country but to prove it as well.

 

I feel proud that despite the dirty streets,indisciplined traffic etc we are being talked about as a new power nation.Yet there is no belief....most people would immigrate to any of the western countries if given a chance.Many die taking illegal routes and the ones who survive end up being 3rd class citizens of a country that they have no links to.

 

The Irish brothers of the Order of St.Mary's who taught me in the school of the same name knew more about India and gave more to the country than a lot of Indians.We talk of selflessness yet dont mind jumping the queue if that gives us an advantage.The hypocrisy has become inherent.And that truly is immoral.

 

I am proud because I am sure the US or Europe would not be able to provide social security if they had One Billion citizens?Our government and our systems are robust but until the average guy in the street starts believing in the country,we do not have a chance of being a great country.

 

The resources are there and so is the intellect.But a strange lethargy pervades the thinking,a lacunae so vast that it has the potential to derail growth,GDP what have you.

The British did us a service(Nirad C Chadhuri has put it succintly)by uniting a land riven by Rajas and protectorates.Sixty years on regional parochialism is creeping back.Let us remember the stirring tales of sacrifice in the successive war of independence,China,Pakistan and Bangladesh, the wars of 1962,1965 and 1971 where casteism and religion were discarded for Nationalism.Right now we need a young Atal Behari Vajpayee or a young Manmohan Singh to lead the country's rapidlily discredited politicians.

 

But most Indians would know thats an oxymoron!

Ash Wednesday...reflections of Self

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again

The infirm glory of the positive hour

Because I do not think

Because I know I shall not know

The one veritable transitory power

Because I cannot drink

There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there

Is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time

And place is always and only place

And what is actual is actual only for one time

And only for one place

I rejoice that things are as they are and

I renounce the blessed face

And renounce the voice

Because I cannot hope to turn again

Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something

Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us

And I pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

May the judgment not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

But merely vans to beat the air

The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will

Teach us to care and to not care

Teach us to sit still

 

Each one of us has our 'Ash Wednesday' moments in life....sometimes in the singular and sometimes plural.In 40 imperious lines the incomparable T S Elliot skimmed off the essence of what we live for.How much value have we created for others?how much space have we given them?And in giving space to others have we created any for ourselves?

 

Somewhere in our everyday actions lies the answer,but we are too busy to try and grasp.I hear talk of working to ones strength,of maintaining a status,self esteem,ego.

 

I dont hear talk of just working upon our weakness,our faults.The education system is in the grip of the "Alpha" image.Do not show your softness or others will take advantage.Do not be nice lest you be mistaken for weakness.

 

Don't you as the reader feel an immense pressure when you wake up in the morning to having to live up to your image?I have seen ruthless bastards cry...so I know that it takes more effort to appear strong than to show your real self with its multiple frailities?

 

I do.

 

In this obsession to create and maintain an image we lose so much of who we really are that we forget the simple pleasures of life,of the minute things in Life that give Joy!!Happiness is not a pursuit.And it never will be.

 

The Celebrities and filmstars are not different but a mere reflection of our own self.Yet we criticise them without bothering to see the man in the mirror.That is deja vu`.

 

In the end the guilt gets some.I do not say that you should share your deepest,darkest fears(though I dont see any harm)but do SHARE.It wont make you  different,yes,it might take a little burden of your conscience!In the cosmic whole of things...our individual existence is of the minutest example.Do you remember what you were doing on this particular day a decade back??And if you are still not convinced,ask your neighbour!!!!Listen to the gist behind the platitudes...and you will find a hollow echo.

 

Trust me YOU WILL NOT LIKE IT!