In an Illusion.

The story of life isn't life in the end, its a story. In describing a story what points do you put in as relevant and elucidate ?Out of the innumerable incidents , born out of desperate moments , desperate to make them momentous, a writer gleans the few which would serve the purpose of a story, one's which would generate interest and intrigue. They will either portray a simplicity, a beauty, an intricacy or something worth contributing to the story.

Mythical Anxiety

Anxiousness and trouble are both a myth. They emerge from our conception of future, based on past patterns, and from a restricted sense of self. But, when the time passes we wonder , what was it we were worried about. In a sense, this seems to me to be a cycle of life. Even though, I very well understand that what I would worry about would not lead to the same things, I do worry. Its like a routine. Worry first and then feel relived later that you are no longer worried and the in some time pave way for another worry.

Swadesh - exemplified in Bihar.

I liked Swades, the movie. Reason being, the simplicity with which the movie was portrayed. It touched everyone's naive heart. Most of my friends jeered at me for romanticizing such idea, for the naive simplicity that film portrayed and for the foolish idea that an NRI could ever conceivably return to his/her native to generate electricity. I accept that I didn't disagree much with them then, yet I saw it from a different perspective.

Hope and Fear

Hope and fear are phantoms, that arise from the sense of narrowed self. When our self is understood to be as compassing the entire universe, the ghosts disappear .
But hope is what has kept the world moving , a bright morning's hope makes the night bearable , a cozy home's hope absorbs all the dullness of a day's work . How would a person face the world , if he doesn't hope for better! That better world is a myth, as serious political thinkers have realized , yet, it is as necessary as life itself. It is the mover of the life , the factor that motivates men to act. But let's take a look at the role of fear in our life . It hinders growth, demands submission and targets resignation . Fear is the antithesis of hope , a factor the inhibits men from acting.

Words and me.

I feel like throwing in trash all that I have said and written. In this very moment, I wish to destroy all that has been created and seek recess into unknown. At this juncture of the conflict between mind and without , I feel the limitation of thoughts ,mind and reasoning. How far can these take the situation of human cause and the vicissitudes of life? How far could a literary "Happy" be pretended to be an equivalent to one that is actually felt by humans? How far could a literary word elucidate or justify the human conditions? Aren't they all just limitations , trying to get as close and personal to the human condition, nevertheless, always inferior to what actually is.

Too much of Coincidence!

Coincidence. Serendipity. They are catchy words and equally felicitous are the circumstances accompanying them. But , once thought about, coincidence seems to be the most impossible thing. Mathematically, what is the probability of seeing the same stranger in a big city, say Bangalore ? 1/6,000,000 ~ 0. Yet, I bet I have seen same stranger more than once, many a time. I have even seen same auto- wallahs again and again. And if this is not enough proof, then how about this one.

Inconsistent Self

Inconsistent self. Every word that I write and think about, is susceptible to inconsistency. By being inconsistent I mean, being at variance with what I am and what I actually think I am. There is a considerable difference between these two. Our choices are rational and irrational, and due to the lack of further knowledge, we term anything as irrational , which doesn't come from careful thinking. Hence , our thinking and non-thinking nature guides most of our decisions ( not all, for I am not sure about that). Which one is our "self" ? That which is rational or that which is intuitive ? But the main question is not whether, what should be defined as our self, but , whether consistency is possible or desirable in that definition of self , which acts.

A story worth not telling - Part I

Water leaked through that opening, all night. Drops gleamed in moonlight and crashed on the floor into invisible splinters. Wind was howling outside. Knocking or rather beating on the walls. Despite of it, silence was too deep in me. I felt like those sounds were coming from oblivion, far away from me, yet, their presence was never out of my senses.
I was an outcast. I was sick. Diseased. And the virus lay in my mind.It refused what it found non-tenable. It chided what it found irrational. It smirked at the certitude of rightness. All of these were part of a crime. Thought crime.

India - a wayward polity.

Does India still hold the promise to individual liberty and life? Does it , as a state, still has the capacity to provide guarantee of life and sovereignty to its citizens? Answer seems to be mostly negative .

Entrepreneurs

Perhaps the biggest candy that the Capitalism offers is , that any enterprising person, in pursuit of his own self interest could , on the base of capital accumulated can create and utilize resources , thereby improving the standard of utilization of resources of society. This form of guarantee is offered by no other political economy/philosophy, and the persons they create are "Entrepreneurs".

Delhi 6 - A perspective

And I landed at Kashmiri gate ISBT. Climate being comparatively cooler in the early morning , I planned to take a stroll around. Very soon I was standing in front of LalQuila, which appeared more of a black quila, and the chain of history began flowing in. At this place, the fate of my country was chosen. At this place my country took birth. I wished to salute it, but eccentricity is mostly reserved for blogs and thus I dropped the idea. There were stream of visitors moving around that place, perhaps visiting the place for the first time in their life. I wondered, how many really understood the idea of nation state, or did I myself understand it? Philosophical indulgence in hot Delhi sun could be harmful for health,however, and thus I moved on.

A reflection on instinctive choices.

Untangling the rationality behind human choices has always been an intriguing field. Adding my personal reflections to this theory I would like to focus on choices made instinctively in particular .

Maximization of Self Interest - A philosophical outlook.

Maximization of self interest -
This idea of maximization has been widely endorsed by utilitarians and criticized by Amartya sen in his political philosophy of capability and development and not maximization of interests as the indicator of freedom. What I propose is a different perception of "interest" itself and not restricting it to only material objects. An idea of interest would be all encompassing , ranging from materialistic greed to altruistic philanthropy. Very certainly men have reason to do acts of such moral worth that may not necessarily reflect materialistic gains , but other non tangible objects , such as contentment , joy of giving , pride of superiority , gaining worth in glory . In championing the idea I would like to clarify that it's certainly not a new idea to flow across human community. Human interest has ranged from satisfaction of ego, satisfaction of physical wants , glory , material wants, fulfillment of duty, knowing the secrets of the world, fighting against the injustices of world, and so on. It is to be noted here that although with the increase in the faculty if human knowledge , new ideas may evolve which would render this idea useless, nevertheless. , the idea doesn't falter in it's essence , even in adopting to a different faculty of knowledge , they are adopting only better prospect or rather furthering their own interest.

Vested Interests

Vested interests - means a set of rights of enjoyment , or , a group seeking a social system for their personal good. In psychology , vested interests is a method to index the consistency of choices among different groups that represent respectively , high , low and medium vested interests groups.

Balcony

A balcony - it is one of the most important part in a house. Why ? From a balcony you can sit tight or stand casually and watch the world go around you . It moves around you and gives you the philosophical sense of being the master of everything around you . You can watch them and muse over the rightness and wrongness of passerby's acts . They are in so much of hurry, they are in so much of tension . And while you watch them , you can gloat yourself at being beyond those petty worried humans or may be lesser humans as well.

YMI (Yeh Mera India)

Yeh Mera India , is an honest attempt to film a microcosm , of country, of everything that has been at the heart of an Indian . The movie had a similar voice to , Bable, another great flick that showed how different cultures and races are clamoring for a confused set of idea, none too sure . But it's here, that YMI fails. It gets didactic , preachy, opinionated. And , of course , ending is far too much abrupt, unrealistic.

Rightness of Wrong

Rightness of wrongs - for every right step/act/method there are numerous wrongs, at least in popular perception. While eulogizing democracy we never fail to add the caveat that " rights of minorities " have to be taken special care of, shouldn't we then by the same analogy infer that,being in minority is no measure of being inferior,especially if we adhere to the idea of universal justice. That a "right" act bears sweeter fruit shall be no measure of bias against wrong.

Rationality - What and Why

Does reasoning and thinking provide the rightful solution ? Is rationality absolute ? Can we depend upon rationality to guide our morals and ethics and out motivations? To gain an insight into the matter we need to define rationality first and distinguish it from reasonableness.

Intellectuals

And the question of intellect versus non-intellect surfaced again. Should a non-intellect consider itself to be at a lower level than an intellect? Intellects identify solution to the problems and make the world a better place to live by the use of their faculty of reasoning and thinking. It considerably affects the lives and actions of non-intellects, yet of what use is the "discovery" of an intellect of there are no "non-intellects". Both an Intellect and a non-Intellect need each other, they are both dependent upon each others existence.

Where and why does the comparison come into the picture over here?

Moments that Change lives.

In claiming that Mahatma Gandhi was the one that got us freedom we undermine the efforts of millions of other nationalistic workers. One can very easily attribute the cause of an effect to the event that occurred last in the long chain of events that constituted the cause like demolition of mighty British empire. A common analogy proposed for my argument goes somewhat this way: when a laborer strikes the rock and its sundered apart in multiple pieces, its not the last blow which alone did it, it was the series of blows which made fine dents into the structure of rock and ultimately led to rock being split into pieces.