Ruminating over 2010- I would like to Read and Travel more in the years to come

2010 has been a memorable year for me as I turned sixty this year and also completed forty years of teaching .This year is coming to an end in a matter of two days .I look back, with a feeling of satisfaction of having visited quite a few places and a sense of uneasiness with regard to publication/ reading side. I did travel to Kashmir along with my youngest daughter in the pleasant company of a professor’s small family and two Kashmir boys studying in our university.

For lecture purpose, I also did visit quite a few places in the south and the most recent Tirupati lectures at two places , one in the University and another in the S.V. Arts College- one of the oldest colleges in that region were simply incredible and linger in my memory as a good food or good book I tasted in my life . I am neither religious nor spiritual although I am understanding the inherently good nature of the universe and many good things being done through many honest and good people by the divine.

In so far as the felicitation and the recognition bestowed upon me by one retired professor of Economics, rooted in Tirupati soil and his host of friends, subtly and substantially operating through one of my own students, who is also an ardent devotee of Lord Venkateswara, I could very well sense , smell , feel and fully experience the hand of the divine in my visit there, despite me keeping a long distance from the creator of the universe in the last so many years of my life. I am more like a split personality, having all the love for the Lord but my anger- anguished anger outsmarts love towards Him. I know ,that my behavior is silly, irrational and I cannot hold God responsible for all the atrocities taking place on Earth. The feedback from the students and faculty especially from the college, provided me the much needed academic tonic for the improvement in my physical health, which I hope will co-operate with my academic greed .

Travel provided me the much needed peace and moderation in blood pressure. Through out 2010 I had my own ups and downs and experienced unavoidable setbacks both in body and mind over certain administrative/ financial chaos, most of them were self inflicted and lack of knowledge about the wordly affairs. To put it in simple terms I know very well that I am not made for this kind of materialistic world and I really wonder and give a pat on my own shoulder , how I have managed to live- marital life for nearly four decades . For this alone I must thank the supreme for having managed me amidst all chaos. It is high time that I sorted out all the messy part of my life ,so that I will have some peaceful time to meditate upon the history of economic thought and also the related literature and philosophy of life.

Fortunately, the familiar saying, “Be happy, that is one way of being wise.” I have not forgotten all through the days of suffering. Indeed when I write this at sixty plus I have been more mellowed and matured enough to understand that only by laughing at the actual and potential losses of life we can avoid the wrinkles on body and mind and that sense of laughter will take us to greater height –though not monetarily but on the spiritual plane .Now I recollect the belly laughter of the two middle aged ladies that I wrote in the blog some time ago and they are the guide post for leading a peaceful and happy life. Instead of getting more anxious and depending on others for guidance and help I should entrust the task to some auditor friends or members of legal profession and fight it out with the rotten administrative machinery, which has done an enormous amount of damage to all the molecules of my body.

I know, life has been never fare and good to the honest and the good, sincere and hard working. And yet history shows that even those who have become the victims of cruel and wicked fate or the rulers of the land, did not lose their faith in life and had all the sense of humor and zest for life. Even while suffering physically or financially, they did not actually suffer much as the mind was not focused on that . All those knew very well that the best way to negotiate suffering in life is to laugh at it and get swayed by the inherent goodness of the universe and all merciful nature pervading everywhere in the cosmos.

Yesterday I had a chat with current batch of MBA students, one boy and another girl. It was a very casual conversation and the boy was more curious and inquisitive to probe my mind a little deeper with regard to my goals and priorities in life, as I am in the final leg of my official academic journey.

That chat helped me to understand my residual academic obligations and my hidden academic greed, an enormous amount of thirst for reading. Having lived for nearly six decades without any explicitly stated goals, targets or objectives, I don’t have anything but the desire to read and also write and undertake more travel if the purse and the health would permit. I am grateful to the Lord that I am getting wisdom at sixty plus and yet I may not be able to come out of all the clumsiness and naivety inherited from my mother. My only prayer now or in the future is that I should internalize all the hard working attribute of my mother and not even a single day I should remain idle and she must guide and goad me to action in doing the only work I know , ie., reading. So long as the desire to read and teach is there, I will have desire to live. How much I shall see my accumulated debris into books, I am not sure .But I will try to put some order in my disorderly life and leave behind some academic legacy of having understood and enjoyed some complex areas of the subject but neatly re-told for a broader audience in the distant future.

Scriptures say that the essence of life is to understand the meaning of and the reason for living : To know about one self. All of us are here to unravel and to know who we are , what we are ? why are we here ? and what we are suppose to do while living. I know , attaining self realization or self purification is a grand ideal , perhaps applicable to exalted souls .For me, beyond this impossible theorem what strikes me more is that , how I am going to make myself peaceful and in the process what we can do for the fellow men in whatever capacity or ways and means we can. Life lived at high corridors is very much shallow and empty. Huge wealth and luxurious way of life have not made people happy. Life any where and under any circumstance must be lived with some minimum commitment to love and respect for fellow humans and make them laugh profusely. Even the so called spiritual path should not be selfish and the world of material side cannot abandon the spiritual undertones of life.

Before I close and say goodbye to 2010, let me quote some data that I have noted down in my dairy from some where that might give some solace and comfort to those disadvantaged segment living not in comfort zone .only 15% happiness comes from income and wealth (assets) the reports say , nearly 90% comes from attitude , life control and relationships. But majority of them neglect this 90% or 80% but only cling to 15% and crave for more wealth and pleasure.

I raise this question to myself. Where do I stand? To be fare and honest, given the frugal and hard working life of my parents, brisling with a tremendous work ethics of high order and great deal of integrity, and my own critical incapacity in not earning more wealth or rather a distaste or not much inclination for a comfortable life, I never had any longing at any point of time in my life for happiness through material means. This does not imply that I did not want money and or I did not make any efforts towards that end. But when I look back now in retrospect, it was all a dream, more fictional than real .I only dreamt, imagined and I did not make any concrete effort/ attempt towards that materialistic end. All through my life I have craved for a real life, love, friendship, and good company . I wouldn’t say that I was denied or deprived of all these .But I suffered more in my relationship with people and my own subject, I loved. There was more pain than pleasure in the entire drama of life. Please note that this is not the recent realization arising out of some frustratingly irritating experience e even with some good souls. This wisdom was internalized long ago. I will not abandon my responsibility of loving, even those who do not love me and treat me as a common enemy because of their immaturity and stupidity and God given curse. Sometimes I may not love and keep a distance but still I shall not develop any hatred or animosity .

Are you a Saint or Super Politician?

Are you a saint or a super politician?

He was asked once by

A learned professor,

Who had also suffered like him

In the distant past.

Although they can’t be described

As close friends,

They are more than mere colleagues.

Especially the person who was

Asked this question,

Has an inexplicable admiration

For the scholarship of another gentleman

And his voracious reading

Habit and appetite,inclusive of writing style

Which anyone could envy rightly.

This intellectual warmth and

Collective suffering of the past

Have also kept them in good stead

Despite their ideological differences

And one unforgettable Tsunami,

Experienced unexpectedly like a bolt from the blue.

Going back to the question,

He replied :

‘Professor, you are thoroughly wrong

I am neither a saint nor a sinner

The truth is I am just human

In this dehumanized , globalized world

I want to be a better human

In doing a little to fellow human;

Fully aware of my brief stay here

Any act of little kindness,

Warmth and respect that I can show,

I want to do it now.

There is no politics built into it.

I have learnt from Kural:

Which you have always treated ,

As a matter of no consequence

By not attaching any importance at all.

Perhaps reinventing identity politics there too

And yet I will translate that Kural .

The best way to punish a

Wrong doer is, the saying of the Kural goes,

Is to do something good

In order that

He will feel ashamed of himself.

I know the gentleman in question

And many gentlemen whom we have to come across in life

That list will grow in the years to come,

Given the chaotic nature of the society

Will not have any sense of shame

And no moral fiber to cloth their physical frame.

That’s not my concern

If they don’t want

Any solution, its their problem

If they don’t want to be a part of the solution

And be a perpetual problem to others

Even then ,

Let me do something good as much as I can

Unmindful of suffering

Caused to me,

As I cannot change my nature

Derived from the parental genes.

But then, your statement

About super politician, I am sorry.

My good intentioned attitude, and

Good intentioned behavior and action

Must not seduce you,

Should not blind you to dream and

Conceive that kind of frame

Even in your wildest dream

For I wouldn’t appear even as a

First rate politician in your wildest dream.

Don’t say the days of

Thirukural are gone, once and for all .

Will pay in the short run

Or who knows, in the long run too,

In all places of Marketized environiment,

The poisonous air of destructive politics

Might undermine the

True economic activities.

But independent of that,

Rural India, Youth India,

And Women India will get empowered.

We shall pray for that day of freedom,

Real freedom for the Disadvantaged.

We shall not be alive

To see that favorable outcome.

Hardworking people will strive and work hard

For wages of their labor and sell their

Honestly stored energy.

We shall remain optimistic

And remember the slogan

From Wall Street Journal

“Politics will divide and Economics will unite”

We Suffer from the Scorching Sun

For the past few days ,
I could not look at the rising Sun
There God does live really, magnificently
Giving both light and heat
In more than adequate measure
To our part of the earth,
The beautiful side of earth
We are put on it a little space
Both physical and academic.
But everywhere, my Lord
We suffer from the scorching Sun,
Even a good rain the other day, the copious rain
Proved to be in vain to cool the earth
To stem the tide of cumulative heat wave.
There’s barrenness of love and friendship
And emptiness of water in well .
It has nothing to do with global warming
Or Cliamte change my Lord!
It is a different kind of heat
Bottled up in devilish mind and spirit.
We pray a prostrate before you
To cure their illness
And make them laugh and smile
With ease and comfort ,
Taking away the old mask of
Hostility , venality and
All kinds of criminality.

Enough is enough: But you can’t abandon your decent behavior

You may be good natured and capable,
Cheerful and lively,
Agreeable and polished in conversation
Intelligent and also a sociably good man
And yet,
It’s better to take an attitude of
Dignified aloofness at times,
When confronted with
Utterly depressing, unruly behavior,
Apparently the unpleasant behavior,
Frustratingly irritating
Wild temperament of individuals
Always unexpectedly showing itself
Time and again.
It’s just disgusting
What shall we do Shakthi?
When that kind of encounter takes place,
Virtually a sterile conversation,and
Poisoned look in the eyes,
Typically an apparently irritable and exacting attitude
Disturbing the pleasure and propriety of life
Jealousy and anger well written on the face
With all misplaced arrogance and hysterical behavior
Always enacting ill mannered scenes,
Even in an assemblage of well behaved group,
Blaming you for every misfortune that befalls on him,
Deriving a sadistic pleasure thereby
In sinking and soaking himself in the
Ocean of veiled hostility and
Open defiance at times
You have to assume a different stand
Some times mild and kind
While at other times take the whip
Sending proper warning signal : enough is enough
Its time in concrete jungles,
Be it legislative or academic corridors
Life regains its natural and normal character,
Pleasant light heartedness, decency and decorum
Of the rural folk of the olden times
By making good and clean friendship
Forming habits and adapting right attitudes
In order that life will be made
Richer and fuller and grow stronger
Don’t lose hope Sakthi,
There are still good many souls
Revolving around the Globe
Doing a serious meditation on their disciplines
With tremendous discipline of mind
And strength of character
We shall salute them,as
It’s only because of them
The earth rotates itself on its axis
And also moves gently in the wild cosmos
Without clashing itself and causing chaos .
(From My dateless Dairy)

“Each one of us is just one thread.”-A Quote

“We have all been born as part of one great family,” says Dalai Lama. More than 2000 years, our forefathers talked about one world, Global village concept, according that all are our kith and kin. All are our countrymen and all are our relations .All of us are united and tied in a particular way and this dependence is very crucial for our survival and prosperity.

I feel that the essence of life is this interconnectedness, not only with fellow human beings but also with nature and all the creations of nature through love and friendship.

“Each of us is just one thread, contributing a unique and humble role part of an interwoven and inter -dependent fabric of humanity.” Says Lindsey Hebberd.

Let us feel humble in all our deeds and actions and proud to be a part of the larger drama of life, which is full of twists and turns and all unexpected events.

For the past two days, I was at the Lord of Seven Hills in the pleasant company of my students and certain faculty members of Tirupati. I had gone there on the invitation to deliver a lecture and later, again on demand again delivered one more lecture, besides having the privilege of having thedarshan of Lord Venkateswara.The trip was very pleasant and I could see huge amount of warmth and concern in the region. The weather was equally very pleasant and yesterday the Sun did not show even its face at all. If I can recollect something about this trip later, I will write. But I could see my interconnectedness and interdependence with a select few there by sheer physics and chemistry and of course our Karma.

2G Spectrum Fame/Shame A. Raja and his tribes should not be allowed to grow. Oh God! Are you listening to our Prayers? -II

India is shining in 2010, many experts say. There is also an optimistic forecast that in the next few years, India might outsmart China in terms of growth rate. True, the rulers and their close relatives, inclusive of the nameless and faceless benamies are the major beneficiaries. Our former Minster Raja, and his leader, who always talks in a flowery language, also wants to demonstrate the same critical capacity in playing with the game of 2G spectrum. People of this kind are enormous throughout the country and by occupying the corridors of power; they call the shots, thinking that the hands of judiciary will ever hardly touch them as there is always a collusive oligopolistic relationship between the criminalized segment of politics, politicized bureaucracy and corrupt segment of judiciary.

If only all the wealth plundered by individuals and institutions of independent India in the last 60 years of existence as a free nation had been collected that massive figure might run in terms of trillions of Dollars; that would make the so called loot in the British India look very small and insignificant. If only some benevolent dictator in future could recover and confiscate all the ill owned wealth of these tainted individuals, for the next one century, we need not put any tax of any kind in the resurgent India and no nation on Earth would find it easy to compete with us. I am trying to fantasize things and live in a world of illusion but one day this will become true. When will that tomorrow come? Until then to console ourselves in the present shall we listen to our architects and spiritual giants like Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi , Aurobindo, who really had a real concern for the common man and the collective suffering of the humanity.They were a witness to poverty and malnutrition, enveloping post independent India, and attempted to do something for their salvation.

“Everyone is celebrating Diwali, but my house is only enveloped by darkness. There will be real Diwali, only when India attains independence”, wrote Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter, Young Indira. That was in 1942.

Sensing and seeing all round poverty and starvation, Aurobindo, while his revolutionary spirit was still alive asked his wife Mirunalini, to travel along with him on the rough road.

“A man can’t satisfy himself by rendering assistance to his brothers and sisters. During these days of famine, I feel everyone, those who have not anything, are standing before our house for alms and assistance. All through my country, I have more than 30 crore relatives. Most of them die out of poverty and starvation. And many others are plagued by diseases and more suffering. Somehow they live and pull on. It is my duty to help them and enable them. What do you say, my better half?” Aurobindo asks his wife. It was in 1938.The question is so choked with emotive feelings and it is posed to all of us.

The quotes given above were not the actual sentences spoken / written by Aurobindo or Nehru. They were my translations from what I read in my language , Tamizh long ago. It is really puzzling and amazing to see Ms.Jaya, waging a war against corruption when her own ill gotten wealth is revolving around her neck like a millstone. The amount involved in court cases might look very tiny as compared to the huge amount appearing in the news today.Being one among the many, in plundering the wealth of the nation, no politician worth the name, of her tribe can preach sermon, to others.Since Gresham’s Law-Bad drives good from circulation, has been well entrenched in politics, our criticisms are not aimed at honest and good, still playing a role of pivotal importance at both national and regional level.

The entire independent India is posing a challenge to the majority of the masses , who are disadvantaged and dispossessed. Who will wage the second war of independence against the so called Indians who are virtually raping the soil, the river, the farm, the factory and the forest regions in the name of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), modernization of Airports, constructioin of five star hotels and I.T.Parks and so on .

This is also a country where the sports activity like cricket is more fun involving more scandals and cricket like other political event, elections, have more room for a particular segment to become very rich, impoverishing thereby the majority poor. If the politicians think that money and muscle power alone can place them back to power, they will be living in fools paradise. Nitish Kumar’s Developmental model of Bihar, one of the weaker states of India will be a timely reminder to all the politicians cutting across the party lines in the North and the South, East and the West that people do whisper by pressing the button in the voting machine: “ Enough is enough.”Meanwhile, we the intellectuals, the so called elite who do not even go and vote, will write poetry , lament in the class room and sometimes cry. That crying will be good for our health.