A Lamenting Soul

This was the last thing I wanted to see this morning as I embarked on my five kilometer long routine morning walk.

It was somewhere 5:30 in the morning and as I progressed on my regular walking route I began smelling something foul. It was a terrible smell as if something was dead and rotting. From far I could see a bitch (as female dog is known in English) moving hither-tether along with a pup of it’s, which was just following the footsteps of its mother.

Little did I know, then, that it was lamenting over its dead pup which it seemed to me was hit by some pitiless-reckless driver. It’s body was crushed and the blood was spilled all over the road. That pup was little old than few days. I used to see it everyday. It was one of those countless street canines which greeted me every morning by wagging its tail. No – it never begged.

It was pitch black in colour and had those sparklingly innocent eyes which would make even a devil human – at least for a while. Who was that reckless driver? What on earth would he be? I ask this question, unto myself, because the corpse of the dead pup was on the extreme left of the road.

It can’t be that in the morning on the highways someone could have just lost balance. If at all he had lost he would have rammed himself, along with his vehicle, to the wall. But that he didn’t was evident.

There is a soul in that lamenting mother – what if she’s a dog. If not how could it be that she could lament on that foul smelling corpse and expecting it to return hale and healthy, besides shooing away those crows trying to eat its baby?

Rest in peace my dear pup. I beg an apology from you… for this isn’t a world worthy of you.

This is Arundhati Roy

By U. Mahesh Prabhu

Radical Islam and Naxals are the two most potent threats to our nation, today. Neither of them cares for the values we believe in and stand for. True, our society has several problems, including corruption, unequal distribution of wealth, illiteracy and so forth. But to believe in the words of these Islamist radicals and Naxalite sympathisers and to support them is a sure path to doom. Here’s why:

Of late several self styled “secular” journalists have been embarking on columns and articles in direct, or indirect, support of these two lunatics. “The rise of Naxals and Radical Islam is owing to poverty and corruption” they would suggest. “They deserve to fight the administration for their barbarism”. How true is this? Let me quickly recall the facts for you.

Hitler, the most hated person of our generation, killed two million Jews. Joseph Stalin the communist leader of the former USSR killed just a little over seven million Russians.  But there is one more barbarian who killed 17 million of his own countrymen – Chinese – in the name of ‘Cultural Revolution’. Our “Naxals” are followers of this man – Mao Zedong. The people, who worship the bloodiest murder in history, are to “liberate” us from the clutches of corrupt administration. How interesting?

The radical Islam is another factor which the governments the world over is having troubles with. In exchange for “Jannat” (heaven) these radicals give up life in the name of Allah – the most merciful. Why? Because they get houries (virgin women) to enjoy and feasts to endure! Are you too interested in?

By now several people are clear that there exists no merit in either of those ideologies and that they are nothing but political theories of insanity one that is to be forsaken – for good. Yet, there are several “distinguished” intellectuals and journalists supporting it. One of them is Arudhati Roy. Here are some of the very important facts our fellow country deserve to know about this lady in her late forties.

Born in Shillong, Meghalaya,to a Keralite Syrian Christian mother, the women’s rights activist Mary Roy, and a Bengali father, a tea planter by profession, Arundhati Roy has consistently taken positions against the interests of the Indian state – all in the name of ‘human rights’. These include her support for the Kashmiri separatists and more recently the Naxalites. She raised questions even over the culprits who attacked the Parliament leading to the death of security personnel – all, yet again, in the name of human rights!

She is one of those self-styled activists who seem to think that receiving an award, any award from a Western, white country makes them morally superior to others. She was virtually unknown to the public until she received the Booker Prize for virtually unreadable book: God of Small Things.

Her record before the Booker was undistinguished, being that of a struggling writer trying to make ends meet, but turned her into a moral authority because of the accident of the Booker Prize. In reality, there is no greater hypocrisy than a Booker Prize recipient posing as a champion of human rights. Here is a little history about that award that the public needs to know.

The prize was originally known as the Booker-McConnell Prize after the company Booker-McConnell began sponsoring the event in 1968, and became commonly known as the “Booker Prize” or simply “the Booker”. Among other interests, it operated the sugar industry in Guyana (British Guiana before independence in 1966).

Booker-McConnell had a long history of exploitation of sugar workers through the indentured labour system during the 19th and 20th centuries. At its peak it controlled 75% of the sugar industry in British Guiana and was so powerful that a common joke was to refer to the country as ‘Booker’s Guiana’. In 1952 Jock Campbell took over the Chairmanship of the company. After centuries of exploitation, Jock Campbell began to treat his workers as human beings providing basic benefits for sugar workers.

Shockingly, his company was involved in slave trade. It was John Campbell (Senior), Jock’s great-great-grandfather, ship owner and merchant of Glasgow, who, towards the end of the 18th Century, first established the fortunes of the Campbell family in the West Indies, through the slave trade. By the 1780s they were supplying the two most important British exports to the West Indies, herring and coarse linen goods. Among the principal beneficiaries of this booming trade were John Campbell (Senior) and Company, which supplied merchandise to the slave plantations along the coast of Guiana, then in Dutch hands. It was in this role of supplier that the company first began to acquire plantations along the Essequibo Coast of Guiana, from planters facing bankruptcy.

Jock Campbell (Junior) had the decency to admit that his ancestors had been de facto slave-owners. (They acquired slave plantations from bankrupt owners.) Campbell himself abhorred slavery, and it was in fact the urge to make good the misdeeds of his family that was the catalyst for his own reformist ideals.

Where Campbell suffered from a deep sense of guilt, Arundhati Roy seems to have no sense that as the recipient of an award instituted by a slave-trading company, she should have the decency not to talk about human rights. Hypocrisy is too weak a word for such a charlatan.

Arundhati Roy is hardly an isolated case. Girish Karnad, another Karnataka based ‘humanist’ mouthing Leftist causes was a Rhodes Scholar. Why should one be flattered by being given a scholarship instituted by Cecil Rhodes, a racist who made a fortune in diamond mining in South Africa exploiting slave labour? (Until fairly recently non-whites were forbidden from applying for the Rhodes scholarship.)

Author is Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London (UK).

 

A bunk called ‘Austerity’

It is so silly and, sometimes, infuriating to know how gullible our populace can be. How easy is it for them to believe and then, also, a bit later, undo that whole belief? Look at the recent ‘austerity’ controversy engrossing Minister of State for external affairs, Shashi Tharoor and then also about his ‘tweets’.

Some people may claim masses aren’t fool, but the way in which Mr. Tharoor, once an United Nations Under-secretary General was elected from a constituency in Kerala and then declared, without a second thought, Minister of State for External Affairs, according to me, should say otherwise.

I am still baffled as to how could it be that the man who is handling the Gulf and Africa portfolio was for two years lobbying with the Government in India for these countries just a year ago. Isnt that some kind of a joke?

Having witnessed the world of Indian Polity as a Political Editor from a fairly close proximity I have realised that until good works are being done, and not at the cost of national interest, a politicians corruptness isnt a point to bother. For me austerity means zilch when there is no productivity at the end of the day.

You cannot get a jackass to the post of any minister just because he is for free. Or can you? If they can deliver then they should be paid. Of course, accountability has to be high on cards, because without it nation’s progress would be difficult. Won’t you agree?

Stitaprajna: Standing Consciousness

Feelings and emotions are explicit testimonies to the fact that we are men. But when we fail to tame them and flow with them, our life is on a sure path to disaster.

There is a word in Sanskrit, which is largely unparalleled in any other language, called Stitaprajna. Simply translated the word can mean “Standing (Stita) Consciousness (Prajna)” in English. But its meaning is way too convoluted.

Imagine, for a moment, that you have slapped a kid. What will it do? Cry. Right? Definitely! What is its response when you cuddle it? It smiles – naturally. And when you stare with terrible look? It tries to ignore in panic. The same is true in case of adults too! The only difference is that grownups’ reciprocation pattern is largely varied and this is owing to their complex mental structure.

There are people who get carried away by their feelings and ones who know how to control them. But that they reciprocate, appropriately or inappropriately, is for sure. But once they react their mental equilibrium is imbalanced. Given this we can effectively conclude that feelings are paths unto miseries.

Yes, there can also be one more argument – not certainly for the heck of it. “What about the positive feelings?” one may ask. True, feelings like love compassion can be called “positive.” But what we should realize is that even such feelings lead to some sort of crisis. To demonstrate it: You love a dog and when the dog dies you are [sad]. So it is imperative to concluded, that every feeling leads to loss of mental peace.

So what is the way out?

The only way out is embracing the aforesaid concept of “Stitaprajna”.
“Stitaprajna” is a state of mind where your feelings have been effectively controlled by your own intellect. The person attains a state of equilibrium which isn’t easy to be disturbed. He doesn’t get wooed by praises nor is he saddened, or infuriated, with insults hurled at him. He’s always steady. True, it isn’t easy to be “Stitaprajna”. And because it isn’t great men are in scarce numbers.

There is one poem authored by an Imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling which attempts to simplify the concept of Stitaprajna – but not completely. Entitled as “IF” the poem reads as below:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Author, U. Mahesh Prabhu, is Editor-in-chief of Folks Magazine (http://www.folks.co.in) and Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London (UK).