Ganesha, my Friend

      Traffic for temple.  

      When Shiv Sena stopped the city from breaking down a temple in the middle of the road, people were surprised. Wouldn't it be for the greater good of the city if people can move freely? Would it not be a better city if traffic got better? If I could save five minutes of travel each day, does it not make sense to tear down a temple? Thoughts like these flooded the minds of people watching an unruly Shiv Sena mob stop the destruction. What people fail to see however, is what role the temple actually plays in every day life of a typical Mumbai-kar.

     Praying to Ganesha is a part and parcel of every Mumbai-kar's life.

     A twelve year old child stands awkwardly outside of a temple and gazes at the smiling God with an Elephant face and pot-belly. He has a very tough exam ahead of him and he has spent countless nights studying for it. However, he can't help but feel nervous. And so he closes his eyes, joins his palms and prays. A thin smile flickers on his face and he feels at peace as he walks away towards his school, ready for a challenge.
     A boy and a girl have waited for four hours in a long line to enter Ganapati's temple and they have not spoken a word. They have decided to spend their lives together and have also decided to tell their parents the next day. Their mind can't do anything besides play them videos of what all could go wrong. As they hold their hands, much to the anger of old aunties behind them, they are unaware that Ganapati has heard them without them even having spoken.
     A newly wedded couple go and distribute sweets at the birth of their son, thanks to having prayed incessantly at the feet of Ganesha. A woman has Ganapati bless her new car which he bought from her hard-earned salary. A student flying to US for the first time mutters "Ganapati Bappa Morya" as the plane takes off.

     Blurring the line everyday between God and Friend, Ganesha sits happily on this throne, smiling at devotees who come to pray.

     He is gifted with flowers and sweets, money and words. He sees people praying for help and thanking Him for having blessed them. He has spent His entire life helping people remove obstacles from their intended path. He feels sad on watching His devotees go through tough times and He eats their grief without even a second thought. Thus sits the Son of Shiva and Parvati, the Remover of Obstacles and everyone's Friend Ganesha.

     He is the child created without (Vina) the help of a Man (Nayaka), Vinayaka, who stops Shiva from entering his Mother's cave. He is Ganesha or Ganapati, the leader of Shiva's followers (Ganas). In the Varaha Purana, when Shiva (eyes shut) opened his eyes (Shankara), He laughed and out of the laughter Ganapati was born.

     When Shiva tells his Ganas to bring him a head, he tells them to go in the Northern direction. The North is associated with all things auspicious- permanence, immortality, prosperity and wisdom. And so is Ganesha.  It is said that when the Ganas went North , they found Airavata (vehicle of Indra, the God who brings rain) and hence brought back it's head. The Ganesh festivals typically are celebrated when the monsoon is on a wane, and his worship is related closely with wealth and fertility.

    Our obstacles are a collection of our own demons. Ganapati helps us remove our obstacles by helping us get rid of out own demons.

     Ganapati has assumed several forms to destroy evil. Vakratunda(God with curved trunk) rides a lion to kill Matsara. Lambodara (God with a pot belly) rides a rat to kill Krodha, the demon of rage. Vighnaraja (Master of obstacles) rides a serpent to kill Mama, the demon of self-indulgence. Dhumravarna (Smoke-colored God) rides a rat to kill Ahamkara, the demon of arrogance.

     Worship of Ganapati is incomplete without understanding what it actually means. When one bows down and prays to Shiva's Son Ganesh, he is killing these demons inside of him. He is praying to Ganesh to help him get rid of these evil qualities within his own soul. No obstacle is ever removed without removing your own vices. And this is how Ganapati helps you remove them. He helps you help yourself.

     Be aware and be sure of what your world is, Ganesha says.

     In a race with his brother Karthikeya, to circle the entire world, Ganapati teaches every one an important lesson. He simply goes around his Parents once and smiles. This lesson was told wonderfully by Bal Thackerey, "Before worshipping anyone, worship your parents!"

     On Akshay Tritiya, Ganapati becomes Sage Vyasa's scribe and writes down the epic Mahabharat without stopping for even a moment. When a great drought plagues South India, people prayed to Ganapati to remove this obstacle. Ganesha asked his Father to tell His disciple Sage Agastya to carry a pitcher of Ganga water south. Ganapati then took the form of a crow and tipped over the pitcher and caused the water of Ganga to flow across South India in the form of River Kaveri.

     Stories of Ganesha are many, varied and each teach us a valuable lesson. But there is one lesson which Ganapati teaches us every day and not all of us get that.
   
     Religion is not meant to be frightening, rigid and confusing. Religion is comforting. Religion soothes your soul. Religion gets rid of your confusion and fears. Religion reassures you. Religion guides you. God is your Friend. Be God-loving and not God-fearing.
     We treat Ganapati as our Friend, and confide in him all our fears and joys and sorrows. We speak to Him as if we are speaking to a Close Friend.
     In Pune, when the winter caught every one off guard, and the city came to chilling standstill, a devotee went and put a woollen sweater and a cap on Ganesha's idol to keep Him warm and comfortable.

     In Mumbai, we see Muslims celebrating Ganapati festival, and crying each year when Visarjan day arrives.

                                   
     Families which fight for the entire year, smile and get together for this time of the year, not because they have to, but because they simply cant do anything else! Lanes, localities, areas, cities come together for no reason whatsoever, simply to celebrate a Good Friend's arrival. And for that we prepare, and for that we prepare well. We donate time, and we donate efforts, we donate creativity. We come together, perform on a stage, express opinions, showcase our talent and make new friends.

     In a time when our country dreamed of independence, Ganesha answered our prayers and called all of us together and united us. Worshiping Ganesha goes beyond religion for our country and transcends all reasons. 

     And that is why when the temple was meant to be broken, the city officials never realized how many people had deeply rooted connections with the place. They ignored the importance of the temple in shaping Mumbai. They ignored their Best Friend.

     Every year, people of all castes, religions and culture come together in a wonderful country to celebrate the arrival of their Best Friend. And atheists have no reason to complain here, because our Best Friend takes care of everyone of us. And because people can always say that they do not believe in the existence of God (albeit wrongly), but no one can deny the love of their Best Friend. 

the human deal

your heart and mind are mindless fools
fall prey to foolish fears
whne your mind is convinced your should laugh
your heart starts with curious tears

how can you convince yourself
if you cant convince your mind
what love can you expect from your
heart of an eccentric kind

every day they are at war
caught in the middle poor man
we try to listen to both of them
as much as possibly can

but in the end we neither do
nor say what we truly feel
because your mind and heart are heartless fools
it's all a part of the human deal

ed lithium

Unforgettable

Time has changed. Once you would cast your vote, now you vote for caste.

The concept of Donation

     At the heart of Hinduism,  beats the concept of charity. How we connect to God is through donation and how we donate forms the crux of being religious. The society works well only if people do their duties, and this is completely different from donations. So, where do we draw the thin line? Is charity not our duty? This is something my family priest explained once very well and I hope to share this concept of donation with you all.

     He said, "When you have leftover food, time, money or clothing, it is your duty to give it to others who need it. Donation occurs when you have a valid need for these objects but still give it to others who need it. "

     In fact Hindu scriptures advise going out of the house and shouting three times, " Is any one hungry ? Please come and take your meal! " before one sits down to have a meal. And every time we sit down to eat we offer others first, not caring for our hunger. This thing is so ingrained in Hinduism that we do it involuntarily.
   
     In a true incident that strengthened this belief of mine, on a long and arduous trek me and friend got lost. And we came across an old man carrying a disturbingly heavy bundle of wood to the village. He gladly told us where to go. And he added, after helping us, "please come and eat with me. I will feel bad if I do not share it." So we went over and we saw a tiffin box which contained one small bhakri and an onion. The feeling of sorrow and shame overcame us, as we were carrying so much food with us. We told him we would rather leave it all for him. He became visibly upset that we refused. He became upset that we said no to sharing the little portion of meal he had for himself.
    Imagine yourself in this position where an old guy who can afford just one bhakri for lunch after having carried a load of wood heavier than himself, is sitting down and offering to share his food and gets upset when we refuse to eat. In the end we had a morsel and gave him the food we had and left.

     And we left changed, humbled Indians.

     These days we all crib, "I am so busy, I have no time!" But just imagine now staying up one hour late to do your homework and spend one hour each week teaching a poor kid English or Mathematics. It does not take a lot of time understanding that adding a little stress to your own life, at the cost of your own time, is nothing compared to how much the little kid will be benefited. This is because many times your time makes a bigger difference for someone else than it could ever do for you. 
      When a father gives his son twenty rupees to buy a toy worth fifteen rupees, and the son donates the remaining five rupees to someone, this does not count as donation. The child had been eyeing that toy for weeks and weeks and finally got money to buy that toy after convincing his dad. When that child sees a beggar on the street who hasnt had a meal in days, and decides to give his twenty rupees so that the beggar can have a meal, instead of buying his toy, that would be a good example of donation.

     Donation is never easy, charity rarely is an comfortable act. And that is why it is rightly said, “We only have what we give.” ― Isabel Allende
   
   
   
     

Corrupt Country

     It was a dedicated effort, and well directed. It was a sincere effort, and well orchestrated. It was aptly advertised and cleverly caused. People were called out into the streets, from different houses and localities. People of every religion and caste made their presence known. Man, woman, child---- all were there, agitated and ready to walk. But, something was missing. A sincere question to Mr. Hazare on his recent bout with the Government against corruption in the country- Really?

     India is a corrupt country not because of politicians. India is a corrupt country because India is a country of corrupt people. An agitation was not required. People are well aware of corruption. People are well educated about corruption. Every man in his life has encountered corruption and dealt with it. People are really very well aware that corruption haunts the streets of India, starting from getting admission into pre-school to getting a death certificate to prove a man is actually dead. Individuals and groups, people and the government have both been actively involved in this process. Corruption is all around us, because corrupt people are all around us.  People were all across television expressing anger against the government.So, lets assume for now the fight is against the government. But then again, we elected the government. Every one of us did. And we hold them responsible. You tell me you don t vote because it doesn't matter and I will tell you it matters much more.
   
     And this helps me modify my question for Mr. Hazare a little.
 
    What is your fight against, really? Is it corruption? Is it corrupt government? Is it corrupt people? Because, corruption cannot exist without corrupt government, which in turn is meaningless without corrupt people. and if you are indeed fighting against corrupt people, here I am. Come. We all have gone through corruption and been very active in corruption since our birth. Why in fact, for most of us our birth certificate was got by paying a bribe to a peon. We then go to school, where every day our mother and father bribe us with sweets and toys to get a good grade. In college, the police bribe us every time we drive without a helmet. For many of us, getting into the college of our dreams is impossible without corruption. Getting a job, getting promoted, getting a raise, everything now has incorporated corruption very easily.

     And we accept it. Which we shouldn't.

     And so, before we can even think of saying something as ridiculous as "We don't want corruption in the government" we should first have the guts to not pay a bribe when we break the signal.
 
     The question that needs a answer is which of the following is more dangerous- the government with a thousand crore rupee scam and a population all angry at it, or simple individuals who bribe a policeman for having broken the signal? This question might seem innocent but it has its roots for deep in the actual problem this country is facing.

   I hear a lot of people saying that when the Government gets caught in a million rupee scam the National pride is hurt and we as a nation are humiliated on a global scale. I contradict this, because I think that every time a foreign tourist sees a citizen who pays a bribe to get out of trouble, we as a nation are shamed much more.

     And lets assume for a minute that Mr. Hazare gets rid of corruption in the country. What next? Would we have an utopia? Would we have a country where everyone is happy? Would every one follow the rules now?

     Hardly.

     I can guarantee you that one day, when no one is taking bribes, there will be a person who wonders whether he can get a better deal. This will start a whole cycle of corruption and a struggle against it. More people will see that to get a better deal all you need to do is be corrupt. And why would you not do it? The system is bad, you can always convince yourself. Everyone is doing is, you can always console yourself to sleep. And so you join and drag with you, a multitude.
   
     A better approach in this case would be to not target corruption but the causes of corruption. We can spend time and think why we need to pay the bribe to a policewaala everytime we break a signal. Make the system of paying fines better. Give the policemen better wages so they do not have to take bribes. Keep on reviewing these changes after certain fixed times and make changes as needed. Make the citizens realize the seriousness of breaking a signal. Make the policemen realize the seriousness of not taking a bribe and fining the culprits to the full.

      Corruption will never go, but it will always teach us a lot about ourselves and our country. It acts as an extraordinary pointer to underlying causes of distress to people. It tells us where and how our system is failing. More importantly, it tells us where we can better ourselves and the system. We should learn as much as we can from this symptom of failure, because corruption is not a cause but a symptom.

     And so I always maintain this point of view- corruption can never leave us alone. We should not strive to be a country which is corruption free, but a country which is always striving to be corruption free.

Ed Lithium

home

so far away from people
but never alone
i return each day to my own house
but never my home


ed lithium

Bhakti

No words could help express

A poet's love for his wife

A man as mortal as me

Counts your smiles as my life

A life spent in your arms

I shall earn my goodwill in your smiles

But what is the need

Why should I heed

Warnings saying I need to do good to get into heaven

When I am in a heaven with you

Such is the love of a beautiful wife

A poet finds no words to spend

All a poet really wants 

Is a beautiful best friend

Ed lithium

Saffron Dadar

         How does a child grow up in Dadar?

        He speaks and breathes Marathi, a beautiful regional language which defines Dadar/Parel/Lalbaug localities in ways more than one. He may come from another state, another city or even another country but Marathi absorbs him quickly.

          He plays cricket in Shivaji Park or in his lane, breaking window panes, many a times on purpose. He fights his ways into crowded BEST buses and trains at the Dadar station, so much that he laughs at the crowd he sees at VT.

        He eats vada-pav, often hiding this fact from his mother who scolds him for not eating at home. He goes walking to school over Tilak bridge and laughs every time a woman driver makes a u-turn in a place she ought not to. But there is a very specific thing that he sees every day.

       And these things make sense in time.

     

      He sees a lion. He sees saffron flags. And he sees many posters of rather thin man, wearing saffron and white staring back at him in a way his grandfather does. He seems stern and contemplative. He looks old and sports a formidable moustache and beard. He is seen wearing thick shades of black and smoking a handsome cigar. He is seen addressing a million or greeting a few. He is seen with common people and celebrities. He is seen everywhere.

     At Sena Bhavan, which he passes every day, he sees his portraits hung at every corner. The place is a fortress with people with guns standing at every exit.
 
       The little boy is impressed and intrigued. Some times he sees the elder man walk out of the building into a sea of supporters and drive away. In that one minute the atmosphere of the place changes and the little boy wonders. And so he decides to go home one day and ask his family who the person is.

          His cousin tells him he is an evil politician with blood on his hands. His father tells him he is in charge of Mumbai. His grandparents regale him with stories of his speeches and rallies, stuff of regional legend. His mother gives him an interesting answer. He is, she says, you third grandfather. And this is a family who votes every year, a family where politics mix and mingle in every day conversation, a family suited for democracy. This is a family who is half from Maharashtra and half from Karnataka. A family who has lived and breathed Bombay. 

          And so, naturally, the child grows confused, but still in awe of the man who stops the city at his will. For the little child, he is an extremely powerful man because of whom he gets more holidays in the school year. As he grows older he is confused and frustrated he cannot take out his girlfriend on valentines day. He wonders why the name of his city changed. He wonders why there are shops shut on some days, why the trains halt on other. But as his thoughts progress he realized how much of his childhood has been spent in saffron. 

       In the city, at very frequent intervals, he sees forts and banners of the saffron kind. People are inside discussing, laughing and sometimes contemplating. He sees how one person from the fort goes and wakes up a lawyer from sleep so that a tensed student can get his papers attested in time. He sees a little child walk in and complain about improper water in the swimming pool and from the next day the problem is not heard of again. He hears stories, stuff of legends, of one person helps an entire state, an entire city, without thinking twice. A famous story, as is told, includes a mother who goes crying to the person. Her son, who she says has worked for the saffron brigade, needs money for an operation urgently. The person does not smile, blink or frown. He simply calls for his trusted aid and tells him to get the box. In the box is a lot of money and the person, without counting, gives the mother several handful of money. He does not even ask her once if her son actually works for him or not. All he sees is a mother in need. Such stories are innumerable.

      As he grows, his love for his city grows. He realizes something important. He sees a city change so rapidly, that children are teased if they speak Marathi instead of English. He sees a city where eating fastfood breakfasts. He sees children wiping the religious Tilak off their forehead before going to a rock show. Almost no one watches Marathi plays, very few watch Marathi movies and barely anyone can say in his college group if they want to discuss a P.L. Deshpande book. It becomes cool to get disgusted with history and culture. A city, the Marathi bastion, slowly bleeds.

     He wonders if that is how cities progress.

    One day, the person is no more. The city screeches to a halt.

   The air is muffled with grief. A million people gather on the streets, sobbing and crying. These are, not as expected by most, poor people in tattered clothes. These are youth, workers, taxi-drivers, housewives, mothers, professionals. Every strata of the city is seen on the streets. And the boy wonders, what has the person done to demand this?

     The answer given by his mother still echoes in his mind, hundreds of miles away.

     He was the person holding the city together. He loved the city more than he loved anything else and much more than any one could. He spent every minute of his waking day working to keep Marathi culture intact and viable. In the rapidly changing world, where there are very few things as sublime as culture, he fought to keep the Marathi tradition intact and tangible. He faced innumerable obstacles in his way, and made many enemies. But not one person who ever asked him for help was turned away. There can be no unity in diversity without unity. If you want India to be united, you need to have all stated united within themselves. That was the vision of the person.
     He wanted to take Mumbai to a global stage, but where Mumbai was still Mumbai. He dreamt of a world where people would cherish, embrace and propagate Marathi thought. And that would have to natural. It would not have to be forced. The logic is simple. In order to have a united country, first have a united house, then a united building, then a united city, then a united state. And after that, you can dream about a united India. And when we have a gift of diversity in India, it would be unwise to not use it to unite people. A united state would be in a better position to help the country than a divided land.
     It is very difficult to find people who love their land so much, and the loss is felt by the entire region. This is irrespective of whether you believed in the person or not.

    And there is no point in having a united country in you hate the place where you are born, if you hate what your mother-state has nurtured you with.

     This is not fact. This is not a recommendation of a line of thought. This is just an opinion by a boy who is now many miles away and still feels scared and tensed about what would happen now to his home state now that the saffron brigade has lost its hero.
     And he is very worried if he would be able to recognize his state when he goes back. Because it was only a few months before, if someone asked the boy "Why is Mumbai the best city in India?" , the boy would have replied, "Go to Dadar and see for yourself!"

Ed Lithium


   
   

     

Saffron State

In the Saffron state
As his body lay on the pyre
even the skies burned saffron to pay their respect

A million lives touched
He lived his life by a simple code
"Be proud to call yourself Marathi
and be proud to call Maharashtra your abode"

Misunderstood, misinterprated, misquoted,
Never underestimated, feared, respected,
We never need to thank him for all he did for for
For in a true Marathi household
We never thank our family for being there for us whenever we need

For many he gave strength and hope
When things looked bleak, he made us look harder
We may have lost the father of our nation years before
but today we lost our grandfather

Adopted an entire state, took care of each and every one
He brought people out from the cold, and right into his home
Helped people selflessly, loved unconditonally,
He dared to speak what everyone was too afraid to do themselves
He dared to speak out every Marathi mind

In the Saffron state
As the tiger roars no more,
What would happen to his house, we now suspect
As his body lay on the pyre
even the skies burned saffron to pay their respect
In the Saffron state
ed lithium

The beautiful friend

     The whole world is full of beautiful people. 

     For a while things got really bad. Every time I saw a group of people walking on the road, students, the beautiful people, I felt unworthy of walking on the same road and I would cross the road. I could barely give a presentation in a class without feeling horrible about myself. I started going first to class because I felt that every time I walked into a room every one would judge me and laugh in their heads.
     I am in a much better place right now, I am a much more confident human being. But this particular phase of my life has taught me few things I believe nothing but experience can teach.

     Growing up, I have always been a dark skinned boy. I have had my hair extremely curly and my skin pigmented with spots and scars. I have been tall, but I have no muscle mass to go with it. I have been incredibly thin all my life and I have a paunch celebrating my years of good eating and good drinking. I wear spectacles, because contact lenses hurt my eyes. Growing up, I have always been that guy.

     And growing up, I have always been compared, like every other boy has. And not unlike most of them, I have fallen short many a times. I had landed flat on my face, and have lived through restless and sleepless nights in such dark shadows of unwanted comparisons. This blog is dedicated to a very particular comparison that has played a significant role in shaping up my life.

     I have always been compared to my best friend.

     Separated by life by less than a week, we have been friends much before than when we could utter that very word. We grew up as brothers and we matured as friends. We shared mothers and we shared fathers. In fact, in a few years we even shared brothers. We grew up simply as one family and not as two. Me and him and our brothers would play every day after school. We would laugh and fight, like friends are supposed to. But at the end of each day we would all be in a better place and shake hands and go home. Things continued quite well right up until adolescence.

     It was around the time I started developing feelings for girls that I came across a rather curious truth.

      My best friend was fair-skinned, blue eyes and had nice flowing hair. And there was no need for me to quite bother myself with this until a very particular day. My first girl friend while breaking up with me told me that she was only going around me so she could meet him. No one had ever spoken about my best friend like that to me. But that got me thinking.
    This happened quite often. This happened more often than I could deal with, at times. My girl friend would talk about coming to visit me in my college just so she could see my friend. Every time I spoke of him, she would swoon. But, then that never happened for me. 

     Something happened that day which brought another dimension between two extremely good friends. And today, my counsellor recommends me cutting off contact with my best friend to make me less depressed.
       People have ridiculed and reduced my problems and called me insecure. That is such a strange and inappropriate word for those feelings. If I am insecure, what am I insecure about? Is it  that I am insecure I will not get a girl, who at some level in her mind hate the way I look? Is it insecurity in a way that I will never be able to change how I am fundamentally? I think, and this is the worst part of this word, that the only insecurity I have had and will have is that will I lose my mind or will I lose a really good friend?


What about the color of of my skin
About the color of my eyes
I may not be a good looking guy
But I really feel neglected


     So I grew up doubting the color of my own skin at times, in a country which took special efforts to make me feel uneasy.
     People come and talk to me that looks don't matter. Well, I think I can beg to differ. I believe looks are extremely crucial to one's social interactions. And I have had family and friends who have constantly reminded me of that. I have had to base my trust on compromises and accept things my mind would not let me digest. Because, it is really bad to have bad thoughts about such a really good friend.It is really a bad feeling to have bad feelings for a really good friend.
      "You should try to be like him. Wear clothes like he does, be little less awkward", "Have you considered using fair and lovely?" are some sentences which have surprisingly come from family members ( not mom or dad or brother). Family is supposed to be a sanctuary where I can come and be at home, even the whole world is trying to bring me to tears. Friends used to feel sad if I did not call that friend when we were going out. Girls would talk to me, but just so they could may be talk to him. I would see people in my lane cozy up to the good looking guy, which the dark skinned oily nerdy kid with glasses smiled awkwardly waiting to be a part of the conversation.
    
     And I accept it is all apart and parcel of life, a huge part of growing up.
     But it would not hurt to have someone tell me I looks good, once in  a while.

                                                Ed Lithium

    

      

Losing Mumbai

  
DISCLAIMER: This is an extremely random blog with no structure or goal in sight. This is what I do best.



  We Marathi people have been absorbing and accomadating, over the years, the beauty  and culture of several states in India. The Marathi manoos have playedan important role as the standing example for unifying the extreme diversity found in India. Maharshtra has seen the influx of many populations over the history of its existence. the British, Portuguese, the Islamic invaders have all played an important role in shaping the heritage of this great state.
     From Mumbai to Nagpur, from Nashik to Jalgaon, you can see the immense diversity in this wondeful state.
     We are a gentle population and have rarely tried exerting our own culture over other in the country. However, in the recent decade or so, troubling incidents have taken place which shows challenges faced by the Marathi culture in Maharshtra herself.
     Sure, the influence of outsiders in Maharshtra has been quite big. but that is not the most distressing signal that should be noticed. Outsiders bring their culture to our state, and preserve it amongst themselves and take pride in it. What we should be worried about is Marathi people losing touch of their own heritage. What we should be worried out, is insiders and not outsiders.

      A whole generation of Mumbaikars has been spawned which will never feel connected to Mumbai or Maharashtra, even for one day of their life.

    Finding excuses and reasons to detach yourself from the land which raised you, has become disturbingly easy. In this bastion of Indian Marathi pride, the moats are drying up and the towers are collapsing not because people are trying to get inside the fort, but because people are trying to break out.

     When Raj Thackerey made a fuss about having hoardings in Marathi, people were strikingly quick to call it an extremist view in a metropolitan city. No one gave a second thought to why there weren't hoardings in the language. No one really cared about the mass neglect of the language that defined the land. Where is the pride in our language, I wonder, where has the pride gone and why has the word ghati become such an abusive and hateful comment?

     Learning English is really important to survive in a world where borders are blurring at an accelerated pace. But, at the same time learning the language of the land you live in keeps you grounded and puts globalization in a much more relatable scale. It's kind of like much used and abused tree example. Without your roots deep,steady and well-spread in the ground, you can never grow tall and wide and expand yourself in this world. And, every day I spend a minute of my day wondering why, in India of all countries, staying true to your roots is becoming a challenge. No other country in the world has the wealth of languages we have, and yet our pride rests in the one language that we picked up from our invaders.

      To put things into perspective, Balasaheb Thackerey generated a deep sense of love for Marathi, Maharashtra and Mumbai in my Mom, who had lived for two decades since her birth in Karnataka. She did not even have the luxury of birth in this Marathi land, which is being extremely undervalued these days. On the other hand, it is extremely visible that the generation below me has alread moved on and have chosen, at an extremely young age, to disgregard the place of their birth.

     At this point I can see many of you shaking your heads and calling the Thackereys hate mongers. However, I guarantee you that the day the Thackereys have no power in Maharashtra,  our state will no longer have its own identity. These are extreme and violent steps taken by a group of people that defame the other wise extremely important changes the Thackreys have pushed into this state. Mithibai college has a Gujurati quota. Xaviers has a Christian quota. SIES has a south Indian quota. How come no Marathi college in Maharshtra has a Marathi quota? Balasaheb Thackerey had tried his best to get this thing set up. Why is the Marathi ideal so undervalued these days? Marathi cinema and theatre has talent that is extremely difficult to find anywhere in the country. However, with a few exceptions, Marathi movies have been under explored and unappreciated by the masses. Raj Thackerey's efforts to make every hoarding in Mumbai have a Marathi translation as well, I think should have worked wonders. It would have been a small yet important step in the propagation of this language. To every one who complains why this is necessary in a place like Mumbai, please visit Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi and come back and we will have another discussion.

    Recently we witnessed the unfortunate passing away of Balasaheb Thackerey. And the only reason that two million people showed up without any bribe of money,biryani or alcohol was testatement to the efforts of the man to bring together an entire community. No man in recent history has commanded this much respect. During the silence, two million people stood quietly and people should take some time to think why this was possible.

But many other people have tried emphasizing the need for revival of Maharashtrian values.

So why is this transition happening?
   
     But, here is my opinion on why so very few people actually go out into this world and start helping people and making a difference which actually makes a difference. You can never start helping the world if you don't love your own house. There is great sense in the proverb 'charity begins at home'. If you want to save trees in the Amazon, first plant a little plant in your own backyard, take care of it and help it grow into a flowring wonder. If you want to help the hungry orphans in Africa, take a stroll down the slums of Sion, you will see many kids who need your help. You do not even need to go that far, take care of people in your own home first. And we all do that, sub-concsiously- we take care of people in our house first. If two babies playing in the sun start crying because of thirst, the mother watching them will always give water first to her baby. And this is not being selfish.
     It is a process.
   
     But here is where we rationalize every thing to suit our own needs. Our process stops working when it comes to our own mother state.
   
     We can never love the entire world, as so many "global" youths today claim, if we dont love our own country. How can we love our own country if we do not love our own state. How can we love our own state if we do not love our own city and how can we love our city if we do not have anything but the deepest respect for house in which we stay?
   
     It is a process. It is an order of things. We can rationalize it anyway we want to, but somethings do not change.
   
     In my earlier blog post I had complained like a little child, that people in India love to break the process. This is more than evident in Mumbai. As an entire generation watched with bated breath who the next President of USA was going to be, much less than an handful of the same generation sat down and watched Goswami announce the BMC results. This is because, in this mad hat race to go ahead, we have taken the good and bad from this process of globalisation.
     Globalisation has the unmatched benefits of sharing help across borders and blurring the edges so people can move freely across the world. It is a slow step towards the entire nation becoming one country and all of us becoming 'earthicans'. But, along with globalisation comes the issue of growing disregard of what we have in our own house, in our own backyard. As more and more countries start offering us choices in education, lifestyles and culture, our own heritage takes a backseat. The frustration of certain processes not working make this an ideal solution- let us substitute what is not working in our country by what works in another country. This happens across cities, states and countries.
     We learn English to catch up with the rest of the world, and forget our own language. We start eating hashbrowns for breakfast and lose taste of upma and idlis. We start watching Friends every day, and have no time for Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai. Every movie we see in bollywood, we make a mental comparision to Hollywood, and we like it if it matches up. In almost all colleges I went, (I use the world 'almost' here because I hate to generalize), speaking Marathi was considered to be down-market and you could see students taking great pride in speaking with other accents.
   
   
     Shashi Tharoor speaks highly of India's soft-power and the effect of the same on the world. But, we fail to see that as Indians, we ourselves have steered ourselves away from every thing our own country has to offer us. How can we expect the world to respect us, we do not respect ourselves?
   
        
    But, coming back to the point, especially in a metropolitan city on a very large scale like Mumbai, we are forgettin everything that makes Mumbai, Mumbai. We forget how Shivaji Maharaj protected our land from mauruaders and kept the Marathi pride intact. We forget every Marathi freedom fighter who put India before his own life and freedom before his own dreams. We have become to blind to see the beauty and wonder of the forts that adorn the mountain ranges, from where the history of this region originated. We forget how a man with the small stature and unmatched intelligence single handedly stopped the entire region being over-run by invaders. The city of dreams, where every one in India wants to come, we are now trying to leave. The beauty of Marathi language is lost in hoardings of languages left to us as a gift by our rulers.
   
    We forget all the efforts of our own granparents and the multiple generatione before them who built this state we are now living in.
   
    Take a hike to Pratapgad, take a hike to Rajgad and stay in the fort for a night. Look around you, and see what history is made up of. Sensitize yourself to your own history. This is where you come from. Every minute in those places, you get the massive overwhleming feeling of being Marathi. You look down into the valleys and you see the trees and the railroad tracks and you see the ridges and the mountains stretching on and on. The feeling you get in that one moment cannot be put into words.

    Why then, when you come down into this urban mess, that those feeling dont take more than a minute to fade away?
   
    Take a stroll in Thane and go eat the spicy Mamaledaar misal. Go and eat the hot Vada Pavs of King George school. Take an afternoon off from watching Big Bang theory and see "Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy" or "Gela Madhav Kunikade". Give your mind some rest, and talk in Marathi with your friends, the way you are supposed to. Put down the Twilight book and pick up a P.L.Deshpande book.

   
    Take a walk around Shivaji Park, eat a frankie or chaat and watch the sun set at the extremely polluted beach. But as you start to leave the park and take the taxi home, take a minute to look at the Shivaji statue overlooking this park. Take a minute to think about his and then leave.

     The point is, you should always expand your horizons and take the best from every culture you encounter. But this should not happen at the expense of your own language, or at the expense of your own culture or at the expense of the pride you have for your motherland.  Before you tell some one that you came to USA to help people or make a difference in the world, ask yourself one simple question "What have you done for your own mother state"?    
   
     I ask myself this question every day, and I have no answer to face myself.

    Ed Lithium
   
   
        

Bombay's Best

     Today I write as a disappointed and frightened civilian. Bombay, and I absolutely refuse to call it Mumbai, has been my home.

  
     Bill Waterson said once, "A man's house should be his castle, but it need not be a fortress." How true is that...
     I refuse to punctuate my sentences with exclamatory marks because frankly, its nothing exciting or new. We all know what I am going to write. I sat home the whole day, listening from friends what is going on the city. I do not have a television at my place and my Dad commented that we were a whole lot happier this way. I am curious even when I know I might vomit when I see the pictures. I surf the internet and I talk to friends and I find out how many people were killed, how many places caught fire, how many bombs went off, how many Policemen died... Have I become a sadist I thought? The answer is an emphatic "maybe". But this was not my choice. This is what terrorism has done to me. I watch a man bleed but I don't flinch anymore. I feel bad but I am not scared at all. I know deep down I could have very well been THAT man but I go out anyways. I feel very bad still how many children are left orphaned because of one person's blind-sight, but then I almost forget about it in a day or so. I believe every single person in Bombay is going through the same thing.
I believe we are not getting stronger, we are just getting used to it...

When I look at Bombay, variety stands out. I can see many people, of so many distinct personalities and weird characteristics. I can write an entire blog about such people. Well I guess I really can.

Bombay is Bombay because of people who make it Bombay. Unfortunately, and without any route to escape, we have all sorts to make it our home.


All the way aunty

Lets begin with the first kind. I'll just call her All the Way Aunty, because she really goes all the way to tell every person who can hear about what is happening. She is a walking news-channel of the extremely wrong kind. I met All the Way Aunty yesterday. Lets see how I heard it All the Way from her. A person went and told her, "I heard a bomb exploded in CST. I think I saw it on the news. Should I send my children to your tution class?" What All the Way Aunty told me frantically, her eyes blod-shot and scared, "Bombs going off in the city! The newchannels are covering it right now. School and colleges closed tomorrow!"
Did you just see what happened? Its a good old fashioned game of Chinese Checkers.
But she is a real help sometimes. I was in college the other day. A student comes and tells me the trains are not working. I just dont listen to him. I get to know every time even if a train is half a minute late from All the Way Aunty.


Told you so uncle

The next person is the Told you So Uncle. This person is a real gem. He reads the news in the papers and goes, "Tsk Tsk... told you so!" And this is the tip of the iceberg. He speaks with a grin on his face and an expression as if people really regret not coming to him for any advice. He speaks of Government policies, he speaks of safety, he speaks of Police ethics, he speaks of mindsets of people.... But then he sits in his house comfortably, sipping his cup of coffee, believing that his job is only to tell people where they go wrong.... People can do it all themselves.... Better watch out for this person... If you dont, well, I told you SO...



Why me of all people Ramesh

The next person is the Why me of ALL people Ramesh. Ramesh lives in a small flat in Parel, confined to his one bed room hall kitchen, where he harbours his entire family of five. He earns exactly as much he needs to run his menagerie. He has started saving money slowly because he will buy the Nano as soon as it comes out. He will finally stop travelling by the overcrowded trains where people come a little closer than you actually want them to. He walks out of the station hurriedly and goes for his job. He looks at every female that passes by him as if he is seeing someone of the opposite sex for the first time. He goes down and enjoys tea and sutta at the nearest tapri. He comes up and listens to his boss shout at him. His friends have ditched him at the end of the day and gone together. He walks alone. He enters the station. He sees a man fumble with his bag. Out comes a loaded gun and people run helter-skelter. And as he finds himself at the wrong end of a loaded gun, all he can do is wonder... "Why me of ALL the people!?!" He falls down and there's a sharp pain in his chest. He wants to die. Because he cannot afford any hospital bills right now. Pay day is still a week away....



I dont give a fuck Kenny

The next is I dont give a **** Kenny.... Kenny is in the bus now. The road is empty and there is not a single person other than him in the bus. Even the conducter cant stop sweating and palpitating. "Why are you even out?" he asks Kenny. Kenny cant listen to him. His ipod blared in his ears. He has blinded and deafened himself from this world. He is a rebel. He doesnt care. His mom is calling him again and again. "Why are you calling me so many times!!???" he shouts at her. He looks out again. He is going out with his friends to the nearest Lounge. He knows there will be no one there. He feels he is not hurt. Why should he bother? He has to die someday he believes. But now in this world of smoke and alcohol, he has nothing left to believe in....


Roadside Romeo and Footpath Fatima

The next two very weird characters are Roadside Romeo and Footpath Fatima. They can be seen getting cozy behind every rock and behind every tree, in every garden, in every park. They are alone now. No old people to shout at them. No young children to goggle. They are finally free they believe. Looking at them makes you feel sick, and you allow yourself a chuckle. He is sleeping on her lap and she has her dupatta over his face to shield his eyes from the sun... or whatever... The police have better things to do now.... A very cheap date for the two.... only fifty bucks if Pandu intervenes.... The whole city burns and these two get hot...

Next is probably the weirdest character - Hey he's Cute Cindy. Cindy is nothing like Cinderella. She walks up to a crying friend. Her friend is all worked up looking at the pics in the newspaper. She has lost someone dear. She has called Cindy so that she can cry on her shoulder. Cindy has been her best friend for a long time. And Cindy walks in, a smile from ear to ear. "Dont you think the terrorist is cuteee????" The reaction on her friend's face says it all.... Cindy smiles....



I'd-love-it-from-that-angle Ishaan

Ishaan is a well established film-director in the glamourous and audacious Bollywood. He has worked up his way from scratch- a real life example that a man can come from rags to riches... Well, he knows how to use his riches now... The entire city now burns, people pray, citizens shocked, politicans bray, "What happened today?", "This is such a bad day!", "Honey I am going to work tomorrow, This is Bombay!"
There's Ishaan... walking around, daplling in the debris, groping in the dark, walking amidst a broken palace thinking,

"Hmm... I think I ll let Amitabh play Salaskar!"

Its Krystalnacht, there's a Bombay Flambe, there's a Nigthtmare on the End Street, but there's a different type of a thought in his mind... Ishaan is thinking-

"Why did you wash this blood off from here? It doesn seem realistic!!!"

A memory walk down the corridor, a policeman sits down and weeps... His friend got on to the wrong side of a bullet here. He was a good friend. "A friend in need is a friend inde..." he is about to continue when Ishaan breaks in...

"Exactly how was he killed? I mean shot in the head or the heart? Did he bleed to death here? Has he a family? Were you there with him? What did he say last? Thats not a problem, I can change that!"

The policeman thinks, " I sure wish Kasab was here. I would have given him my gun to finish him off!"



Ed Lithium

Failing to succeed

     Today, it is 12.39 am, just past the dead of night, and I am trying very hard to fail my first class.


     I am not a person who is not sincere with his studies. I even have spectacles, as a constant reminder of the bookworm that I have grown into. I have tried every academic year of my life. to pass each exam with great enthusiasm and extreme dread. I have  always tried my best to get what I want. And today, I am trying my best to not succeed. 

     To put things into perspective, I am a twenty five year old boy, studying for his PhD in US, half a world away from the world he has grown up in. His parents, his friends and his fiance are electronically connected very well, but he knows that they are just pushes of buttons and throbs of electricity. He is studying for a subject he has never studied before, because he really wanted to take up the challenge. 
     A fish out of water, struggles, but eventually evolves into everything it needs to be. The question is, does every fish want to evolve?


     People told me that succeeding in life was the most difficult part. However though times thick and thin, 
I have come to believe that giving something up requires much more courage and succeeding. Should it be so difficult for a boy to give up when he is man enough to understand he is not good enough? Should we keep trudging and crawling down roads not meant for us, keeping in our minds small and subtle thoughts of succeeding if we want to. Success is not the end goal of life. Life is the end goal of life. But the problem happens when you want to quit something you are good at. How often do people question the fact that not every one wants to do something they are good at? However, in this world of maladjusted priorities that is exactly what we all have been tuned to think. Convincing people who have hopes and dreams about what you will do. Something I was really hoping would be taught to me once I was done learning the alphabet. 


     I am good with what I do. My results, my outcomes are a testament to that. I have always been great with grades. I have always had that piece of paper that says I am really good with what I do. But, sadly, that does not always correlate with what I want to do. And here is the tricky part of this quagmire, how do you convince people that you are not interested in doing something you are really good at?

     I have been blessed with a publication very recently, and it is a striking example of what I am trying to convey here. 
     I have worked in a lab for a year, in a wet lab setting- where I wear a white coat at the beginning of the experiment and walk out with medals of stains. I rarely got to sit down and my whole life depended on assumptions and hypotheses. Proving tests and results became my life. I forgot to eat. I forgot to sleep. I forgot to remember how it was feeling good about doing something. Every day I entered the lab, I would imagine the day passing by quickly, and I leave the lab and go home. And do nothing. Just sit by the window and do nothing. But be away from the lab.
     I wanted to cry out to people I knew how miserable I was. How I wanted to be home. How I yearned to be closer to my own country. How I wanted to do something else. If a year of research made me so miserable, was there any evolutionary advantage in going ahead with that? Logically and theoretically it made perfect sense. But then something happened.
     I graduated with a good GPA of 3.8/4.0. And a year after that, my research ended in a publication. 

     People started believing that my efforts had paid off. People started believing I was really good at what I did. People came to a conclusion that I was good at what I did because I really liked what I did. 
     And the problem was, how do I ever prove to them that was not the case? How do I ever prove to people that being good at something and being interested in doing something were two quite different things. 

     Convincing a people you don't want to do something is easy if you are not very good at it. But, if you excel in something, you can never convince a people that your heart is somewhere else. 

     It is a sad thought that today people call me crazy when I tell them I want to leave a country where I can earn in dollars and go to a country where I might earn the equivalent of a pizza delivery guy. But, that is a the topic of a completely different blog entry. 

     Today, I sit in my empty apartment, and my empty life, with good grades, and good results, trying fail because sometimes you need to fail to succeed.

Ed Lithium
    

The Process Has Gone Kaput

We do not believe in processes    

     Things we Indians are known for include list too long to pen down, but some of the more noteworthy observations about us countrymen include no sense of punctuality, spicy food, love for cricket and brilliant engineers. Shashi Tharoor recalls an amusing encounter with an Asian ( Indians are not included in this term, unless it benefits us!) at an airport where he was requested by the quite frustrated and confused stranger to fix his laptop. At Northwestern University, on the very first day of college, the dean looked to us Indian students all sitting together in a group(surprise surprise!) and said, "There is no concept of Indian Standard Time in Northwestern." He smiled, but managed to send his message across. Indians have been loved, hated, misunderstood and confused in almost all parts of the globe and have earned a set of defining qualities through these experiences. However there is once characteristic that I feel deserved much more attention than these.
     India, as a country, do not believe in processes and we will skip a process every time we can, irrespective of whether we need to or not. We believe that steps in each process can be discarded as long as the ends are achieved. Ends justify the means, and we really love to play around with those means.  We are impatient people, hungry and dreaming. We are hoping to move ahead, on every road we see. We are competitive and we are fierce. But we are lazy and goal-driven. And in this whole stage of frightening confusion, we have decided that for the time being, let us not focus on the process.
     An extremely disturbing and chilling incident recently in the capital of India highlighted this very fact.The horrendous and appalling rape of girl leading to her death brought about a sea of emotions throughout the masses. People from every part of the country stood up and held a candle, to show solidarity. They sang songs and wrote witty articles. They shouted and they walked all across the nation trying to wake up a country that they call 'sleeping'.

Death to rapists

     "Death sentence to the rapists" and "Castration of the rapists" were being uttered by every girl I knew (a fact quite disturbing in itself. "We should look at Saudi Arabia how to deal with rapists" people proudly spoke, and my heart sank. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying rapists do not deserve a harsher punishment. They deserve a punishment much worse than murderers for at least murderers don't leave their victim in a pool of their own shame and humiliation. Murderers don't leave their victims behind to be ridiculed, ostracized and shunned. Murderers are better people than rapists because I believe theft of dignity if much worse than the theft of life.

     But, what I want to highlight here is the sheer lack of people saying "Hmm, lets make the process of investigation and the process of court proceedings clean, efficient and transparent." What I heard instead was , " Kill them"
     In short, we skipped a process.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Death-to-rapists-may-spell-doom-for-victims-Experts/articleshow/17950308.cms

     "The investigation process needs to be more efficient. Culprits were getting away easily because of loopholes in investigation," said former law commission member of India, Mr. Mishra. "There is no doubt rapists should get stringent punishment such as life imprisonment. There should be heavy financial penalty on the culprits and compensation to the victims. But without improving the conviction rate, by making probes and trial time-bound, these would not be possible," he said.

     The Bar association advocated there should also be enough safeguard against politically motivated allegations and complaints by vested interests to avoid unnecessary harassment of innocent people. Let the new rape law not be misused like Section 498 (punishment for dowry), it said.

     A process that would in theory decide the fate of a human being. How can we a country as a whole, ignore some of the main reasons why rapists walk away free? Sure, rapists walk away with a lighter sentence now but what about those innumerable cases where the cases never reach the court. People don't come ahead and report cases due to lack of sympathy for victims. Victims go through a harrowing process of first
1. reporting their case to people who do not care
2. get threats from the rapists to not complain to the police
3. go through the trauma of having to stand in court and relive the nightmare again
4. live a life of shame and humiliation because the entire society treat them as outcasts
     In country where accusations and convictions can be bought and sold, do we really want to have a punishment as harsh as death or castration in such cases? Do we not want to make sure there is a transparent and effective process in place first? If not, please visit the innumerable families who are currently rotting in prison because of a falsified harassment over dowry complaint by angry females.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Now-men-seek-shield-against-women/articleshow/18095492.cms

     Do we really wish to ignore the fact that increasing the prison sentence will punish only two kinds of people
1. rapists who actually get reported and caught
2. innocent people framed
     Did we skip a process here of tackling the actual issue?
     Rape is extremely scary because the society as whole has a pathetic attitude towards the issue. Victims have to live a life in hell while the accused usually roam free.

     In a country where we worship the Goddess as the most powerful Being in the universe, a hypocrisy has arisen that tells a bad story about our nation.

     We feel no need to change the attitude of multitudes of men who still treat women as inferior. We feel no need to change the attitude of so many families who do not educate their girl child and simply prepare her for marriage. We feel no need to sit down and tell our own kids about this issue. We skip so many processes in between that the increase of prison sentence seems like a joke.
     Mishandling of victims has been reported so many times. But does anyone bother to change that? No, because here we skip a process. Do we take any active efforts to make the victim lead a normal life and not feel like an untouchable? No, because we skip a process. Do we take some time to even think about what would happen to every innocent man who is framed and is castrated or killed, who never had the chance or money to beat the system? No, because here we skip a process.

Do we really want to skip the process of preventing rapes and changing mindsets as a whole? We should never try for male dominance or female dominance. We should aim for a society where co-dominance is the key to survival.

     Agreed, it will no doubt deter a large group of people who are extremely scared of the law. And No doubt it definitely needs to be much harsher than it is now. But we are ignoring everything else that needs to happen along side. So, besides a change of mindset, how do we change a nation's approach?
     Simple, we change the politician's approach. And how do we do that? Simple again. We deal in the political currency- votes. 

     
     To effect a change in our system, we need to first be a part of the system. People often think that being a part of the system means stepping up for elections and being a part of a political party. That is an extremely ignorant view of democracy. The most important role any person can play in a the democratic process if the role of the voter.
     We deal with vote banks and the country has no option but to bend and change. But here we skip the process again.
       The Government does nothing for me- the cry of the person who never votes. But in order for the democratic process to even have a chance of succeeding we cannot ignore the one simple rule it was built on------ voting. It is only when people understand the true power of a vote that India will come ahead stronger and cleaner. We rarely take advantage of this democratic detergent of voting.How many of the throngs of people who walked with candles in their hand actually show up for voting in Delhi next time. How many people who sat at home and cried would go out and vote?
    This is one process we simply cannot skip. If you want to be heard, all you need is one hour of one day every couple of years. But apparently, people are too busy to give that time but have more than enough time to gather around for a couple of drinks of scotch and complain how ill treated the country is and how the system had gone kaput. But that however is not the case.

To sum up my point- We currently live in a country where people spend hours a day going for candle walks and marches but do have one hour a couple of years to stand in a line and vote. The system has not gone kaput. Democracy can never go kaput.

The process has gone kaput. Because we simply don't want to care. And the thing is we can reach the same destination over and over again by ignoring the process, but we can never reach the destination everytime. This is what we have to live with.

     Quoting quite an intelligent person, "This world today is not ruled by the country which has the largest army. This world belongs to the country which tells a better story". And as Indians, we really need to hire better script-writers for our nation's grand Bollywood finale.
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