The religion that Hinduism is

I am no prophet, I am no expert in religion, I am a normal Hindu who believes in what she has understood in all these years. Whatever I am going to write in this article are my personal feelings and might not be pleasing to everyone's sentiments because that is not what I intend to do through this. I only intend to vent my long suppressed feelings about what I have been seeing happening around me in the name of religion. Apologies if these thoughts hurt anyone.

Being born and brought up in a 'liberated' Hindu family, ('liberated' because I was never forced to practice my religion but left on my own to understand it and accept it and practice it the way I want to) with each passing day I am appreciating Hinduism more. My present surroundings, living with Christians in a Christianity dominated country makes me rather unwillingly compare my religion with theirs every day. Religion is something I wish to talk about the least, as I feel they are very personal feelings and are meant to be enlightening to oneself the way they believe in it, while here it is more of convincing others to feel enlightened the way they have felt it. How can you make somebody go through the experience you have gone through? I don't doubt the intentions behind such a deed, they believe that anybody who is not a Christian has probably not gone through such an experience, not "born again" as they say, and so think that if persuasion can change my life, make me feel God and help me get born again then what's wrong in that.

But what I don't understand is that why do they need to persuade somebody to feel this. Can persuasion ever generate feelings, enlightenment cannot happen by somebody coaxing you everyday, it has to come from within- on its own. In a class a teacher teaches the same things to everybody, but everybody grasps the material differently through their unique ways. Then what's the need of persuasion, instead why not ask our Gods to be that powerful that they can communicate without the need of anybody to persuade. Hinduism does not need persuasion to be followed. Nobody asked me to be a Hindu, I picked it up because I appreciated its open-mindedness. It is subtle and yet so profound to me. I don't bother myself if people around me are enlightened about Hinduism or not, it's not my job to persuade them about my God and ask them to go through what I have felt, my God says that it is His job and He takes care of that. I want to believe in what I believe without having to wonder why others don't believe the way I do.

I was recently reading an article in which the Christian missionaries in Orissa were attacked, my immediate reaction was of disgust, then on further probing I found that they were attacked because they were alleged to persuade Hindus to convert themselves into Christians. This made me think for a while. Myself experiencing the extent to which this persuasion goes, telling those poor villagers that all your miseries would be taken care of by God if you become a Christian is not something I would disbelieve. So the anger seems justified to me, though under no circumstance do I justify the way it was vented. Then how does one vent these thoughts, by writing a blog which only a couple of people read, or by giving a speech which only tens of people hear. I am still to find an answer to this.

I have come to accept that people need religion, or rather I would say that they need a faith to hold on. In times of distress and failures in life, this faith helps one from breaking apart, and so it is to some extent essential to make everybody aware of the existence of this faith. But one needs to decide to what extent do we want to persuade somebody in accepting that faith, when should we let that person decide on his own about what to do next. There can not be any Government censorship on this, only moral censorship can work. Tolerance to accept whatever the person chose for himself is needed.

Season's greetings

Here's wishing everybody a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year...

May this new year bring in happiness and prosperity in your life...

May this year be an year of accomplishment and fulfillment for you...

May you get love and lots of love this year...

May you find a meaning in life and your search for the unknown ends...

May you find joy in every breath you take and feel thankful for your existence...

Have a glorious new year!!!

Join PETA! Turn vegetarian :-)

The most recent and the most satisfactory thing that I have done is to Join PETA. I share my house with a Nigerian, a Russian and a Mexican and all of them "eat just anything". I am the only vegetarian in the house and I always astonish my house-mates by still "surviving". I have a Greek friend and the day I told him I don't eat anything that is to do with flesh, he said either I am taking him for a ride or I have lost senses to be saying so. Another friend said that I am surely short of proteins and I must be too prone to falling sick due to low immune system. Huh! How ignorant they are, they don't know that I get all the required proteins in my vegetarian diet, I get all the vitamins for strong immunity through milk and citrus fruits and I feel healthy and fit.

I have grown up in a neighborhood which would celebrate every little function from a baby's birthday to a marriage reception by butchering tens of chickens or couple of goats at least. I never really consciously thought of campaigning against the merciless killing of these innocent animals for the culinary pleasure of mean human beings. But now I want to make a conscious effort in spreading awareness about the benefits of turning vegetarian and letting the animals live life the way they choose it to be unlike us forcing death on them.

I have joined PETA as my first step towards this direction. Now I look forward to do more towards this goal. Join PETA. Animals have as much right to live life as you and I have.

'Salaam' Life!

I have not been writing since a long time. Had been a little busy with resettling my house, packaging and shifting to a new platform. The last month had been a month of test of endurance, spirit and courage. Above all the last month had been a test of my emotional strength. I have not failed miserably, but I have not passed as well. Life is a game, a zero-sum game, in which to get something you have to lose something. I have chosen to travel an unknown road.

I worked for an NGO called Salaam Baalak Trust for almost four months. This NGO shetlers, rehabilitates and educates street children. It was sheer desire to do something like this that I landed up there and decided to lend my services as a volunteer. I played with them, laughed with them, told them cooked up mathematical stories to make the subject interesting to them, discussed with them the Human anatomy (with all the little I know about human biology), counselled them for a career ahead and most importantly inspired them to dream.

Salaam Baalak is a great place to volunteer and thereby contribute our bit to the society. The staff is so motivated that it always left me wondering as to what it is that drives them so much. They work selflessly towards the betterment of the lives of the children who left their homes, or had to run away due to some reasons and were spending their lives on the streets. I was specially fascinated towards Nawab, Tabrej, Sharafat and Satinder- the four children whom I used to teach Mathematics. I miss them sometimes, as what they taught me possibly nobody could have ever taught me. They taught me to be positive towards life, no matter what I am going through. I know all of us must have heard this a numerous times before this, and there is nothing awe-inspiring about it, but trust me, just follow it once in your lives. When you feel that things have gone utterly wrong and undesirable, be positive at that point, and see how things would strangely change thereafter. It works. Your life is governed by your mind. So it's important to think healthy.

Lets all make this world a great place to stay in, a place where all of us radiate positive energies, speak soft words and wish good for each other. Let's all kill the devils in ourselves. Let's pray that no child is ever made to live on the streets. Let's pray and work towards making this world a great place to live in for every life that is born. Let's all welcome life and say 'Salaam' to it with a radiance we never saw before.

An awakening

I have been following the US market crashdown. A close friend of mine informed me a few days back that her brother is now jobless due to this crashdown in the American market. He was working for an American MNC in India. This perturbed me and left me thinking. Yesterday, I found a friend of mine Umang who is working in Wipro, Bangalore online. I could not stop myself from having this conversation with him. I am copy-pasting the conversation in almost the same form.

Me: This subprime mortage market crash in US has made so many jobless in India. Global economy you see...
He: Yeah. We are always US dependent. You know dollar value has come down sharply. This has created a huge impact on all the company profiles.

Me: Yeah the dollar has depreciated....infact that makes me feel good, that rupee is appreciating.
He: Rupee will rise because our economy is improving, but again IT indutry is so much dependent on US that it will affect the profit and billing rate of the IT companies here.

Me: Yeah I know... but thats what is strange to me, all the IT experts in the big US companies are Indians but still we do not have anything like Microsoft or Apple. Why we Indians don't have the global entrepreneurship skills in us is what amazes me!

He: A very good question...let me clarify this, first thing is that all the Indian companies are service based companies. There is no Indian company which has their own product and market globally. We only provide service to the client.
Me: Yeah, that is my point! Why not have a product based company something like say owning Wipro operating system. If we can build products for somebody else then why not for ourselves?
He: See in India we do have manpower but not that efficient and skilled one to go to that extent. And most of the work here is either related to support or testing.
Me: Oh comm'on, I don't agree that we don't have skilled manpower. We have the largest chunk of intelligentia.

He: Yes we have, but not in masses.
Me: I think the only thing where we lag behind is the dare devil thought process. We have colonialism so much in our mindsets that we don't believe that we can rule the world. We somehow like it being ruled by others. We somehow have just accepted that all that we are best at is to provide service to others and not make others provide service to us. Do you understand my point?
He: Ya very much!
Me: And see regarding skill sets, nothing comes without training.

He: Yeah you have raised a very valid question.
Me: If we train our youths with this notion, we would have a huge chunk of entrepreneurs. Tell me how many IIM graduates take on to opening their own ventures? They all get into working for some big MNC thereby adding to their knowledge pool. India gets nothing from them. How great it would have been had they rather gathered to form a product based company of their own taking services from some US companies. The idea itself is so enticing to me.

He: Ya! Then again it requires courage and risk which no Indian company is willing to take at this moment.
Me: Thats the point precisely. We lack courage and risk taking abilties. We always try to play safe.
He: Ya!
Me: And that is not gonna lead us anywhere. No risks, no rewards!! Very soon the India Inc. should realise that it's time to take on the world, we should not have this mindset of serving the world all the time. LET US NOW RULE!!
He: Hmmm...right! Oh you have put down some very good points. But then that's how Indian companies are operating, asking work from the US and then getting billed for the work done.
Me: Things have to change, and for a change at the bigger platform it's important that each one of us start thinking differently. Grassroot level change has to be there.
He: Ya!
Me: If one Umang and one Nidhi thinks differently today, someday some Premji would get to hear it.

He: Ya that's true!

Me: Or why not that this Nidhi or this Umang themselves turn this dream to be a reality without any Premji's help. We must have the courage to dream big!

He: Ya but then most of us are scared and afraid. And let me tell you one thing which you have to appreciate, that today because of IT only lots of people are getting employment opportunities which was tough 12 years back.

Me: But does that help, are we making our lives any better by being scared of taking risks. Yes I appreciate your point, but how does that kill my point? Even if we turn into a product based market we still generate employment.

He: And our standard of living and percapita income has increased.
Me: Let's not bask in the glory of what little we have achieved... let us decide not to pat ourselves till our ultimate goal of being world rulers is achieved. Let the youth not take this as a victory, let this just be a political agenda for the politicians to take advantage before elections.
He: Hmmmm! You are right. I appreciate the way you think.

Me: I want that even if we oursleves may not be in a position to do something towards this end, but then speaking about these issues would help us propagate this to our countrymen in some way or the other, thereby making somebody finally to work towards this. Though I would personally very much love to do myself something about it. I feel stuck up in life at present, but surely would love to have a company of my own some day catering to an international client base.

He: Hmmm! Great, I appreciate that!

Me: Thanks!

Though probably I won't be able to materialize all that I said in this conversation, but it left me surprised to see that I have started thinking this way and I feel happy about it!

Impressions

Just a few minutes back the thought that not updating my blog is such a let down for my friends who make it a point to keep themselves connected with me by knowing about the happenings of my life through my posts, occurred to me. And in no time do I find myself writing this. After my last post on the sorry state of research I received some mails from my close friends saying that all would be fine in no time, research is known for sucking out the juice of sham thereby leaving the residue of concrete knowledge which cannot be faked ever. I have let this sink in me all these days when I was away from blogosphere.

What also brings me back after so long is a chance meeting with a friend's friend Prajakta who had been reading all my posts without my knowledge and admiring my thoughts. She did not feel her ego hammered even an inch to accept that she is my "secret admirer". We three met over lunch and I found out that she is a college going student. I wanted to tell her what all I do, but then found that she knew more than I would have told her over first lunch (thanks to all my posts that she has read religiously and connected to create a picture of my life in her mind). As human beings we all crave for recognition, and to find recognition from unknown people is the best kick one can look for. Thank you, Prajakta!!

Another kick to revert back to writing has been the new book that I have been reading, or let me say imbibing. It's called "Who would cry when you die" by world-renowned motivational speaker Robin Sharma. I have also read his best-seller "The monk who sold his Ferrari". I am the kind of person who does not take time to slip into phases of solitude, and such books help me stay connected. My elder brother gifted the book to me with a note "Your brother, when your brother is not around". I found the book to be full of life and soul and it does not fail in making an impression on me. Catch a copy of it if you can, I am sure all of us have something to borrow from it. Thank you Bhaiya and I love you!!

P.S Decided to change the look of the blog, had got a little bored with the earlier one. I would be happy to know your views on it. You may drop in your comments or mail me.