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.

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).

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?

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).

Who can forget that kind, passionate and yet too innocent face from the first series of Indian Idol? Meiyang Chang may not have won that contest but he did win many hearts and even today he continues on his spree as an actor. Apart from his wonderful voice and acumen in acting he also has a flair for writing. He may have not given it a fair amount of attention but the fact that he writes amazingly isn’t in anyways untrue. His words have a strange mix of wisdom, passion and maturity. But one thing is for sure his blogs exemplifies wisdom.

He was kind to answer a couple of questions posed to him by our Editor-in-chief, U. Mahesh Prabhu. Here are few excerpts…

Can you let us have a brief about your family background?

I come from a family of Dentists and Beauticians originally hailing from Hu-bei province in China. My forefathers came to India in the early 1800’s, seeking refuge from the oppressive communist policies of China at the time. In the bargain, they found a new home and a country that viewed them with some skepticism early on but eventually embraced them. Ever since, my grandparents, parents and I have lived in India and are proud Indian citizens

How did you feel when you heard of the word ‘Blog’?

Initially, I didn’t see the sense of putting my thoughts out there in cyberspace. I mean, blogging is like keeping a personal diary. Only, it isn’t personal at all and is out there for all to see. Over time, my perception about blogging changed and I tried getting the balance right – personal without divulging secrets or dropping names and informative without getting preachy. It’s a learning curve.

Who introduced you to blogging?

A dear friend and a fellow Dentist, who herself is a fine blogger, Dr. Madhulika Naidu, who, incidentally also introduced me to social networking sites in 2006.

You write very fluently, have you been trained in literature?

Trained in literature? Ha ha. Heavens, no! I attribute my writing to a good base in English grammar in my childhood and a love for reading developed since my teenage years

You are also an actor. Can you let me know something about your movie with Pritish Nandy production?

“The Seventeens” by Guerilla Flicks, PNC is an interesting and dark take on the psyche of the city teens of today, who’ve been brought up in a world of privileges and take virtually everything for granted. In this scenario, friendship & relationships take on meanings very different from that prescribed by purists. How status, money & impatience wreak havoc in the lives of these teenagers is what “The Seventeens” is all about.  I play Ashu, a disconnected, uninterested teen who speaks little and has more virtual friends than real as he’s heavily into gaming. Consequently he believes that life is like a video game, where everything is “fixable”, “reparable “or “redeemable”. Only when something tragic and drastic happens in his life is when he gets jolted back to the real world

I am currently shooting for a yet untitled Yash Raj Film with Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Vir Das. This movie tells the light hearted and sometimes painful tale of the rise, fall and redemption of four friends. I play Tenzing, a boy from Sikkim who has a lot bottled up inside him, yet he always has a smile on his face. He experiences the typical identity-crisis faced by people from the North-East who’ve moved to other parts of India for education or work and who, in spite of being truly Indian may never be considered as one. Tenzing’s character has shades of grey, which is what attracted me as it is the absolute anti-thesis of what I am.  It gives me the opportunity to acid-test my acting skills as well as break away from my “jolly cute-boy” image

You have a great readership base. How did you promote your blog?

I’m glad people like what I write, but I have never promoted my blog. Two years ago, I did quite well for myself as a contestant on Indian Idol. The overnight fanfare & popularity meant that a blog that was intended to be read by friends, family and like-minded bloggers was being googled for and advertised by word-of-mouth by well-wishers & admirers. The kind of positive feedback that I get on what I write and the manner in which I pen it down is more gratifying than any adulation I have received so far.

How frequently do you blog?

I like to take my own sweet time to form the proper skeleton and the aimed-for perfection in the sprinkling of most effective words & phrases in the right places. This means that one post could take me anywhere from half an hour to a few days to a few months. I’m quite like an author & an editor when it comes to blogging. Given my current work schedule, I admit with some sadness that my frequency of blogging has dropped alarmingly. There was a time when I was blogging every single day!

What does blogging mean for you today?

Blogging surely has come a long way. Not anymore is it only about penning the ongoing in your mind about issues, thoughts, knowledge and information, it has re-cultivated the love for reading. Before the invention of the audiovisual media, reading was one of the major hobbies: a good habit which lost some steam to other modes of entertainment. Today, a blog is no lesser than any other media if reading is one of your passions, be it on a variety of topics. If not, then more often than not it’s a good read and a mirror to the unimaginable pool of creativity out there.

Your take on life

To borrow an oft-quoted phrase, “”Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Unpredictable, fun, amusing and amazing. That’s life. And none of us would like it any other way.

By U. Mahesh Prabhu

‘Not all are idiots’ they say, ’some are bachelors.’ But that’s only to say. With time we can only realize how much people dislike bachelors.

‘Oh… You are 28 now, aren’t you getting married? It’s high time now.’ ‘Do you have someone in mind?’ ‘Are your parents searching for you?’ ‘What?! You said you are not interested?!’ ‘Excuse me… but what do you mean when you say “not interested”’.’ ‘Err… Are you gay or something?’

Phew… the world just drives you mad and crazy as soon as they realize how happy as a bachelor you really are.

What is wrong in trying to be happy by being alone? What is wrong being a loner… at least a while? But, you see, it’s the people’s belief that you have no right to be happy for you are bound to perish. And if you don’t they will ensure that by getting you married.

Ok, assume you are interested in tying the knots… Will you ever have your say? Nope. There are several parameters you need to adhere to. You need to act and pretend what you are not while out for ’seeing’ the girl you are supposed to marry.

You may be the idiot of your generation and yet you will have to pretend as if you are the genius – at par with Einstein. And behold, the most hypocrite lady will be out there in the most amusing dress with unusual actions, pretending of course, as if an angle incarnated – just for you.

Pairs are made in heaven and here, I’m convinced, they are just re-paired. You just don’t get even the faintest of chance to meet your ’soul mate.’ all that you get is ’sought dame’.

To die your death there may be million and odd options but to loose your bachelorhood you have only two, namely: love or arranged. Either you ‘fall’ in Love to get married, or you are made to
fall in it by a mechanism called “arranged marriage.”

‘Love is divine’ they say, and finally its richness which is weighed.

Don’t fear marriage they assure and after the marriage you have no idea where they have gone – for sure.

‘I love you’ if your prospective partner says you don’t even care to ask ‘why?’ Why so?

‘She’s so sweet…’ said a boy describing his fiancée and just a couple of years after marriage he died of diabetics.

‘You drive me crazy’ said a lady to her ‘would-be’ and then he was sent to a mental asylum.

It’s a great feeling getting engaged and then married. Surrounded by people whom you love, sitting around and celebrating ‘your day.’ You are not even having the faintest idea that they have come to ensure that you have walked, and well, into your doom.

No one likes to see others happy. Today people are sad looking at others happiness.

There are two times when your relatives and friends come to join you:  for your wedding and at the time of your funeral.

At wedding they smile, laugh and party hard at your doom and cry at your funeral thinking ‘how can it be that you cannot feel pain anymore.’

Why did God make women? How simple would have been life without them? I must say God should have been drunk, at least a few seconds, before their making.

Can we even imagine our life without women? You are born out of a woman’s womb. Then you are fed for the first time from a woman’s breast. Just as when you learn to speak out your heart it’s a lady again bothering you to say ‘mommy’ as if that would win her the world. Then you are at school. It is here you begin to realise the woman-ity. You find girls and boys have a different ways to pee and, naturally different places to… You know that you are not made for being with the same sex though you don’t have a fair chance to interact with the opposite.

Just as when you begin contemplating about your future, you start thinking about a girl who with two elongated chest, err… ok… sorry… breasts. You wish to see them bare. Then when you see them you don’t want to stop. The crazy drive in you, you realize, has just begun. You feel like marrying… and couple of more sleep is lost.

Then you are married and start contemplating on when to have kids. More than often you heed to her demands for the some reason: greatest pleasure of life comes somewhere between her legs. Dirty mind… I was talking about kids.

Then you know that it’s just not possible for you to take care of kid by yourself and if your wife’s working you begin contemplating on another woman to take care of it – nanny. Then when your kids go to school, more than often, you know about them from your woman.

It is only your woman who makes you comfortable and important when your kids have so little time for you and your parents have long passed by. Sitting by your side talking of those long and thrilling
years you spent together.

Gosh… God why did you ever made woman? True… life would have been so less wonderful… but wouldn’t it be better more simple? I bet God was drunk to make the most complicating yet the sweetest thing in life called Woman!

Thank you God for this mistake! And God… a small question… who made you drunk anyways?

“Mind”,how beautiful a four letter word? It makes us what we are and determines what  we are going to be. But some times it knows not what it wants for itself. It seeks out but gets zilch. Frustration errupts and fuses unusual emotions where it sees and feels so little sense. Why? No one knows… Not even best of minds.

Mind has all the business you do… but… nothing called ‘its own’. It just gets erratic when you leave it for itself. It’s at its best when you put it to work. But when idle its an devil personified.

Maybe we can mind our business… but how can mind mind its own? What is mind and what am I? Where do I draw the line? What a pathetic issue to mind about?

My mind… I better not mind you… for should i mind… I may just go out of my mind. Err… What did I write from my mind? Hmm… well…  let someone else’ mind mind it… let me spare my mind.

So my friend… Would u mind?

I have never been to a B-School. No, I don’t regret it – at all. But I have been invited as guest speaker to over a dozen B-schools. And no, I don’t take any pleasure in this either.

Honestly, I don’t understand an iota of logic behind ranking of ‘B-schools’ by those ‘Business Magazines’. Every school has a teaching staff most of whom have joined them simply because they didn’t get lucrative offerings for their degrees in the corporate world. They talk sheer nonsense most of the times – if not all the times. They just don’t enjoy the work they do; their body language would be the best testimony. Management don’t give a damn about it and are utterly bothered about lobbying with the business magazines and the government bodies.

The students, who do most of the bookish learning by themselves are at the end of the day offered a neat pay package which their father working for decades under government units or babus didn’t receive and this makes them nothing but nerd. The surge of superiority complex in them is just way too much.

‘What is education?’ I have asked this question to so many business school teachers and I must say they give me nothing but some clichéd and boring definition from some books by Drunkard, oops Drucker, or someone else. What a sheer waste!

The kind of fees these students pays to get into B-School is just too ridiculous to say the least. I can’t understand the logic behind the people dying to get a seat here. Is that for money? I am sure IT IS so. I won’t, ever, agree if someone says that it’s for knowledge. After all, who gives a damn for knowledge?

Alas, what’s more saddening is the fact that these students have learnt ‘dog-eat-dog’ as the only attitude to rise in their profession. Well, yes, they may say it otherwise. Perhaps with their little creativity they are sure to juggle a few words from the vocabulary and present all but a rosy picture of things they want to do in their ‘profession’ but you will know the reality of it not more than a year after joining their profession.

Education’s foremost imperative, since time immemorial, was to ‘build character in men’. But is that happening anywhere (not just B-Schools)? Yes? Think again.

Being an accredited journalist has its own benefits. This morning I received a parcel from an organization called ‘Foundation for a Drug-Free World’.  It contained some documents addressing internationally burning issue of drug addiction – a very informative indeed. But something did drive me crazy. The parcel was opened.

I was so furious. But before I could get to my telephone and call up the postmaster to lodge a complaint it stuck me. The parcel had a salient image on it reading ‘Before Drugs Do?’ I am convinced the English semi-literates at Indian Post office must have mistaken the parcel to be contain some sort of ‘Drugs’ and opening it up.

Well, I would have appreciated if the Postal Dept. sent an apology letter for the same. Well, that’s Indian Bureaucracy you see… good only at demanding and never with delivery.