Prophetic Words

“Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed in India."

The above quote is attributed to the British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. The source of this quote is not known, but Churchill is supposed to have made the remark “on the eve of Indian Independence” or in the House of Commons. If Churchill had indeed made such derogatory and demeaning remark about Indians, the then nationalist leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad, and many others would have definitely condemned it and rightly so. After all, the nationalist leaders who fought and won our freedom were selfless men and women of character and integrity who sacrificed everything for the country and were always committed to the welfare of the people at large. So, all Indians would have condemned Churchill’s remark as highly objectionable and yet another instance of British arrogance, colonial mentality and insensitivity.

Now, cut to today’s India. Look at our current breed of politicians and the words of Churchill do not seem objectionable at all. In fact, his words seem so prophetic because whatever Churchill had said is the reality today. Power has indeed gone into the hands of “rascals, rogues, freebooters” (and, if I may add, murderers, rapists, dacoits, mafias, scamsters, etc.) who have plundered India in the last 45 years (assuming that during the first 20 years after Independence, we had men and women of integrity at the helm) more than the British did in their 200-year rule. The series of scams being unearthed every other day shows how India is being plundered, looted and pillaged by our very own desi bandits going by the names of the Raja, Karunanidhi (and his clan), Kalmadi, Koda, Pawar, Gandhi (not the Mahatma), Chavan, Deshmukh, Mayawati, Laloo, Yeddyurappa, Jayalalitha, Sukharam...the list is endless. These dacoits (in the garb of our leaders) have plundered billions and trillions and stashed the ill-gotten moolah in foreign banks.

In the early 1990s, the scams used to be of the order of a few hundred crores or few thousand crore rupees, but today the scams are in tens of thousand crores and even couple of lakh crore rupees. But we Indians have become so morose and moribund that even these mindboggling amounts do not shock us anymore and it’s business as usual for us as we continue with our daily routines. So the white-kurta-and-dhoti clad or the safari suit-wearing dacoits are gleefully continuing with their looting spree.

Almost all Indian leaders we have today (barring some honourable exceptions) are “of low calibre and men of straw” who have “sweet tongues and silly hearts”. What a realistic and perfect description of our political nincompoops! Is it not true that these leaders “fight amongst themselves for power” and, as a result, India has got “lost in political squabbles”. As for taxes, the good news is that they have already taxed water long time back, while the tax on air is perhaps just a matter of time! 

I think Churchill deserves to be conferred with a “Bharat Ratna’ posthumously for providing us 65 years ago such an accurate and realistic description of our future leaders! 

Our present day leaders make me feel the British rule was probably much better (despite some 'aberrations'). Can’t we throw these leaders into the Indian Ocean (with 500-kg stones tied around their neck!) and bring back the British once again?

New Book - A Course Correction

It's been three months and a week since I began writing a book full-time, but after three months of exhaustive readings, contemplation and introspection, I began to feel that probably I have bitten more than I can chew. The subjects on which the book was supposed to be written are so vast that I realised it was virtually impossible to complete the book in 2-3 years' time (as I had initially thought I would). Now I feel that such a voluminous book would take at least 8-10 years to complete, and if I try to complete it in 2-3 years, I would not be able to do justice to the topics because I would have to rush it to meet the deadline. Also, I cannot think of writing full-time for 8-10 years without a job because I do not have the bank balance which could last that long. And taking up a job once again is definitely NOT an option because my experience shows that trying to write such a book while doing a job simply doesn't work.
So, what do I do now? I was in a fix and needed to find a way out of this tight spot. And I found a way in a casual remark I had made in the presence of some of my office colleagues. I had casually hinted to them about the possibility of splitting the book into six different books. Which means that instead of covering six different topics with the same theme in a single book, there could be six different books on six different topics with the same theme! A sort of 'series' of books with a single theme! That was it. I decided I'll write these six books instead of writing a single voluminous book. This makes my life easy and the target very much manageable and achievable within the time-frame where my savings can sustain me. I expect that the publication of first book will bring me the money I need to keep me going for the next book, and so will the subsequent books. Most importantly, assuming that it would take me 18-24 months to complete one book, the six books will keep me occupied for the next 10-12 years (health permitting, hopefully)!!
Now, the next question was: what would be the topic of the first book in the series? I had no hesitation in deciding on this: it would be on spirituality, no doubt. God and religion are the most sensitive subjects arousing intense passions, emotions and reactions among followers, so I decided to deal with the topic first. After that, the next book would be on yet another hot topic: politics. Thereafter, it will be economy, society & culture, human understanding (philosophy) and science & technology, in that order.
The first book on spirituality should be out by the third or fourth quarter of 2012.

If Wishes Were Horses...!!

It's been exactly two months since I left my job and took a sabbatical to write the book (whose title I am yet to finalize). I can see for myself the remarkable progress made on the book in terms of quantitative as well as qualitative output. Not only is the output more prolific, but it is also more focussed and well-organised and, more importantly, it is much better in quality. The statistics will tell the whole story: 7,000-plus words in 2 months since I quit my job, as against 9,000-odd words in 5 years or so (from 2005 when the idea was born to Nov. 2010 when I quit).
The reason is simple: I have all the time in the world to read whole lot of books, articles and other reference material (collected over a period of over 30 years) or browse the web and access the entire universe of knowledge made available by Google; then duly understand, assimilate and introspect over whatever I have read; and, then, finally pen down all that gets distilled and keeps popping up in my mind all the time. This goes on without any distractions, worries or tensions {Correction: Exceptions being four distractions in a day (from my better-half, of course!) for morning breakfast & coffee, lunch, evening coffee and dinner....I cannot thank her enough for these distractions - although mundane and routine her work is supposed to be - but the truth is: her distractions keep me going!}
How I wish I had begun working full time on the book when the idea was born in 2005...! (in which case the book would have been out by 2008).
Ah...well, as they say, if only wishes were horses......!!!

The Ocean Of Knowledge

The ocean of knowledge is so deep that the deeper one goes, the deeper it keeps going. It is a bottomless wonder and one can only watch in amazement at the wonders that keep unfolding on the way. As Sir Isaac Newton, the English physicist who propounded the law of gravitation, puts it humbly: "I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Mankind will have to keep diving into the depths of the great ocean to unravel the secrets of nature. Intellectual giants from Plato to Locke, Copernicus to Galileo, Newton to Darwin, Einstein to Hawking, Marx to Freud, and many others, have already unravelled some of the greatest mysteries of nature or interpreted the human mind and existence. Yet the riddle about how the first pulse of life got ticking on earth still remains to be solved, the mystery about whether life exists on other planets somewhere in the universe still eludes us. These are just two of the most formidable mysteries before mankind today, and the need is to channelize all our energy and resources towards solving them. We shall definitely be able to meet these and many more challenges, provided we don't use our huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons against each other and, in the process, annihilate the entire human race and all forms of life on earth. That would be the most colossal tragedy ever.
(A short extract from the concluding chapter of my forthcoming book)

A Miserable Moral Failure

Rudali's haunting song "Dil hoom hoom kare..." also revived some very sad memories of a tragedy that happened about 15 years ago. Especially the words in the 'antara' of the song "Teri oonchi ataari, maine pankh liye katwaaye..." opened up memories of deep regret in my heart. Why? Read this true story and you'll know.

A 25-year-old Hindu girl (can't disclose the girl's or her parent's identity for obvious reasons) had fallen in love with a Christian boy and both of them wanted to tie the knot and live together for the rest of their lives. The parents of the girl were horrified at the prospect of their elder daughter marrying outside not just their so-called 'high' caste, but also outside Hindu religion. The boy's parents had no objection, but the girl's parents were dead against the marriage, which created daily strife and tension between the girl and her parents. Days passed and things had probably gotten worse for the girl. One day she called me up and told me she wanted to meet me along with the boy. When I met her and the boy at a hotel in Matunga, I could see that both of them were very much in love. The girl requested me to speak to her parents and try to convince them to give their consent to the marriage. The boy told me that he had even offered to covert to Hinduism to make her parents agree to the marriage, but apparently the parents were adamant and would have none of it. After hearing them, I trotted out the usual smug advice about remaining firm in their resolve and told the girl to elope with the boy (if necessary) and get married in a court of law. I thought I had done whatever was necessary on my part and left them to fend for themselves.

I do not know what transpired between the girl and her parents after the meeting, but a few weeks later on a Diwali day the next thing I heard was the shocking news that the girl was dead. Her parents trotted out some goddam lies as explanation for her death (to save their face, obviously), but I knew very well that the girl had committed suicide. I could not stop my tears on hearing of her death and cursed myself no end for being so indifferent and insensitive to the plight of the girl. The girl had looked up to me, confided in me, desperately hoping that I would help her out in her hour of crisis, but I failed to understand the gravity of her situation. The tragedy was waiting to happen and probably she was looking up to me as her last hope, but I had failed her miserably. And with no hope left, she had ended her life. I cannot stop mourning the premature end of a beautiful young girl.

I do not know whether I would have been able to avert the tragedy and save the girl, but my lifelong regret is that I did not even try. It was a Himalayan blunder I am regretting and would continue to carry the burden of my regret for the rest of my life. It was a miserable moral failure on my part and I shall never pardon myself for this failure.

The young girl had not just 'pankh liye katwaaye' (cut her wings), she had cut short her precious life for the sake of love, while I stood on the sidelines watching the tragedy like a dumb and numb bystander.

As for the girl's parents, I pity them for sacrificing their own flesh and blood at the altar of some imaginary 'family honour' and 'sanctity' of their religion. The parents are as much to be blamed for snuffing out the life of their young daughter as our society is to be blamed for erecting the imaginary 'oonchi ataaris' and 'deewareins' of castes, creeds, classes, colours, races and what not. It's such a horrible shame that even in this 21st century we are ready to sacrifice our near and dear ones to defend and protect these imaginary barriers that clog our minds.

Of Legends And Faded Talents

Few days back I was fully immersed listening to the haunting melody of Rudali's "Dil hoom hoom kare, ghabaraaye..." (one of my all-time favourites) rendered by the legendary Lata Mangeshkar. I marvelled at the heavenly voice of the melody queen and wondered how she could achieve the height of perfection in her vocation. Was it the 'God's gift', was it her 'naseeb' or was it her hard work?

What is it that separates the legends from the others? What creates living legends like Lata Mangeshkar, Sachin Tendulkar, Bhimsen Joshi, Amitabh Bachchan, M S Subbulakshmi and the chosen few who attain perfection and scale the dizzying heights of glory?

I think the answer to this question partly lies in the reply given by Vinod Kambli explaining the difference between him and Sachin Tendulkar many years ago, when he said  "I took the stairs, while Sachin went up by the escalator!" But this does not explain why, despite starting together, Sachin could take the escalator and reach the top of the 100-storey tower (so to say) where no one else has reached till date, while Vinod panted after barely climbing two floors!

One reason, of course, is the talent. A person must have it in good measure to begin with. Both Sachin and Vinod obviously had loads of cricketing talent. In fact, Vinod was said to be more talented than Sachin. If this was true, why did he fade out so early in his cricketing career, while Sachin left behind trail-blazing records which may probably never be surpassed by any batsman in future? Surely both had to struggle initially for a place in the national team, but once in, Sachin converted the opportunity into gold, while Vinod squandered it recklessly. The same goes for Lata Mangeshkar, Bhimsen Joshi and other legends who had to wage their own battles to make it big in life.

The secret behind the extraordinary achievements of these legends lies in their dedication and commitment to their art and craft and their willingness to put in years of hard work to attain perfection. It's their years of 'sadhana' which separates these legends from ordinary talent. People hail their achievements and admire their success, but behind the success of every legend lies years of 'sadhana' which people are unable to see and appreciate.

What Keeps Us Going?

The other day I was wandering aimlessly on a crowded road. Hundreds of faces passed by, and since I knew none of them, these faces were nameless too for me. After watching the crowd for some time I started wondering what kept those people in the crowd (including myself)  and millions others like them going. Is it the work at the office or the factory? Or the chores at home? Is it the money in the bank accounts? Is it the property and other belongings? Or is it the near and dear ones?

After some introspection, I realised that work at the home, office or factory, bank balance, property, etc. are just the means to realize one's dreams. So, it's the dreams that keep us going. We keep doing things that we do every day, day after day, with the fond hope that we will realize our dreams some day.

So, a clerk in the office or a foreman on the shop floor dreams of becoming a manager, a young manager nurtures the ambition of becoming the CEO of the company, a political greenhorn aspires to be a corporator, an MLA wants to be the chief minister, an MP dreams of becoming a Prime Minister, a rap dancer wants to be next Prabhudeva, a painter dreams of becoming the next MF Husain or Anjolie Ila Menon, a 'gully' cricketer sees himself as the next Sachin Tendulkar, a budding singer wants to be tomorrow's Lata Mangeshkar or Mohammed Rafi, a junior artiste in the film industry dreams of making it big like Amitabh or Rajnikanth.

A slum-dweller may aspire to move into a flat, while a flat owner may want to buy that dream weekend home. A young girl may want to marry the boy of her dreams, or a newly-wed couple may dream of becoming proud parents of a cute little angel couple of years later. Young boys and girls may dream of making it into the IIMs, Harvard or Cambridge and a fresh MBA grad may expect to land a dream job. Millions of people, millions of dreams - because there is no limit to goals and no limit to dreaming. Some realize their dreams, some don't. Those whose dreams are fulfilled relish their success in life. But those who do not realize their dreams draw solace from the fact that they did give it a try, and their efforts and their struggle kept them going and made the journey worthwhile.