On Paul Raja’s Anguished Anger Towards Crony Capitalism

Paul .A. Raja begins his reaction, indeed a welcome acceptable response by beginning “how do you treat a leader who behaves like a child? I don’t mean the one whom you describe above. But the one who throws his toys out of pram. He has raised a pertinent question: What if leaders, central bankers attempt to appease the business and banking community, which have behaved liked recalcitrant children and causing the global financial crisis. After speculating and squandering, after looting and plundering the nation’s wealth, these smart and idiotic children do not have any sense of shame in asking for more financial assistance .And for the sake of financial stability, the system has also responded in a more generous way. Paul Raja’s lamentation and concern over the current awkward situation, where the private losses are socialized and all the bailout packages only benefit a few crooks merit attention. His narration of the story in a few sentences touching upon Mr.Obama. Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown lending a all helping hand and looking like a savior, appropriately end with a poetic sentence , “ End game the angry upset children got their end while we look on haplessly. To console his wounded soul and comfort many , who are equally worried like Paul . Raja, let me share insights given by Paul.A.Samuelson before his death at the ripe age of 93, in one of his interviews.

“The whole history of capitalism has had up-bubbles in real estate and down-bubbles after something different. This time the new fiendish Frankenstein monsters of financial engineering blinded the eyes and the minds of everybody. The CEOs and the chief financial officers are the most surprised people. Nobody learned any lesson from Long-Term Capital Management. And what happens with this “new financial engineering” is an incredible “super over-leveraging” and you don’t even know you’re doing it. You know, it’s as if you’ve been blindfolded. And nobody learned any lesson from that. … And this all could happen only because Bush, with his “compassionate capitalism” appointed incompetent people …
This is a new crisis because if you look at its bottom it says, “Made in America” (laughter). It’s not Thailand. It’s not Mexico. It’s not Argentina. It’s America. And, of course, it spread from there. Could you believe that the whole country of Iceland is bankrupt? Icelanders were the happiest people two years ago. They’re the unhappiest people today. …”
I want to make use of this opportunity to dwell more on the attitude of a good child. At a fundamental level, children every where, whether they are here or else where are the same. If they feel like crying, they would. Or if they like to laugh, they would neither control nor conceal it . Have you ever seen a child laughing or crying? There is tremendous rhythm, grace and splendor packed into laughter or crying. Indeed we can’t describe that attribute and their appearance will be like a poem or a painting which we cannot fully appreciate.
Children don’t have fear, envy, cruelty, wickedness, cunning nature, evil thought and for that matter any great disappointment. A child is always a child. Pure, innocent, caring, sharing and profusely loving with all smile radiating on the face . No evil ever take a shelter in Child’s mind or memory.
Children do ventilate their feelings with all their innocence and freedom, whenever they want to, without any inhibition: But after the outburst, their hearts are unburdened and without any ill will or embracement they move on for the next adventure in life. We have to learn a lot from them. Especially a leader must internalize the true spirit of innocence, benevolence and all stubbornness of a child, to do some thing good instead of indulging in acts of crookedness and wickedness in the name of power and authority. I wish and pray that the champions of market fundamentalism as also the Keynesian interventionist philosophers devoted more attention to the problems of the majority poor in any crisis situation rather than getting concerned with crooks and fraudulent elements.

To register beauty, grace and style in the prolonged run:

“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently”. Says Agnes de Mille. When I look back and ruminate over my life I am amazed and thrilled to find the wisdom contained in this quote. So many important events/ decisions have taken place in my life in a more subtle and a silent way. I know that I should have done many things in a different way as every one would like to think .Bu I guess there must have been a reason for every thing I did. Although I want to set some modest goals to streamline the academic files and write something substantially and more significantly, still I am so sure what I want to be any more. Being displeased and disappointed with my own academic output, now I want to keep the frustrations to myself. I know I have to stay focused in order that I will finish what I had started. Sometimes many things happen even when you do every thing right. That is precisely the time where you have to have more faith and move on , so that you can get out of the hellish situation .People go through life wondering what they are suppose to do, when it always right in front of them. The tendency not to notice it is the main reason for not doing many things in life. We should do what we are good at. How do we accomplish the task an whether or not it is good or bad, right or wrong, shallow or rich, let the posterity decide .I know I will never be as strong as my father and mother but they gave me enormous amount of intellectual capital and therefore a moment will definitely come and some thing will click with me as was the case in the distant past .I cannot run faster to win the race. But I must run the race in such a way that others must see a beauty, the style and the grace in the art of running .During day time I had slept more than warranted. I had not slept well and go the usual quality sleep at night: the disturbed inadequate sleep meant that it was shallow. Now it is clear that I have to make a clean break from the past and catch up with the new spirit of great moderation in sleep and run faster, without skipping minimum diet and walking, which are very badly needed to register that beauty in the prolonged run which eventually make the heart beat with a sense of academic solace and joy to register beauty in the prolonged run.

“Too Late Now.I will never make it” goes a saying : Too late now I know but still I will make it .

“All changes in miracle to contemplate: But it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.” says Henry David Thoreau.
After many months I attempted to clean the messy environment of the hall. It was a small change, more like a miracle that I could accomplish. Despite my best intention I could not go the temple . This is either because God did not want me to come or by sheer habit I had my allergy in going to temple. Be that as it may, I worshipped my parents at home and I did lot of physical work, thereby internalizing the spirit of my parents.

Now let me go back to my dateless dairy. There is a reason for all of us to be here. All of us may not be very clear about it but each of us is destined for some thing, which also we don’t know very clearly . In my case, purpose often seems to be more muddy or clearly vague.

I know very well that I don’t have any right to be unhappy. Because that is against the very nature of our creation. I have read long ago, “Be happy. That is one way of being wise.” I want to be wiser, despite all the failure on many sides of life because I will try to attain happiness. We may not know or discover many great things in life but if you are patient or still long enough, we will catch all the miracle in fleeting glimpses . I know I need to change in many areas of life. I will be careful with diet .I must do more walking than merely writing about its benefits. More than the diet and the exercise, quality sleep during night is very much important to rejuvenate our health and restore normalcy during waking hours. Still I am not able to take the first step. Bit I know that all the necessary changes will come across my highway of life .

There is more pain in life than I have bargained for . But in the end there will be peace, joy and harmony . That is what we optimistically hope for . An interesting quote “Too late now . I will never make it.” Seem to fir into my mood and character. I will not meekly submit to it. Better late than never . I know before the day exit comes, I should exist each moment of life to be engaged with something . To some extent that neglected domestic side must get predominance over everything else. This is not only for me but also for others who have forgotten to fine-tune the domestic side of life in pursuit of professional infatuation .All the action packed events and incidents of life – the setbacks in life –some times the loss of life itself, I have enjoyed it some thing like a thriller movie. All of us are in one way in a perpetual battle field and we should know how to be happy amidst all chaos.

Dear Mr. God! Who are we to question your wisdom?-part two

Long ago, while I was
Working at Karaikal College
I had to travel
Every week at the early hours.
I used to imagine and fantasize,
“My bus is just a dot on earth
Rotating in the cosmos,
And how it would be, if some other
Planet in the galaxy would come nearby?”
Now Choudhry writes:
Galaxies, seen through a telescope
“Would appear like a cloudy haze
With millions of dots,
The earth losing its individuality
In every sense of the term”

Like economist Joseph Schumpeter
Innovative concept of creative Destruction,
Which is the hall mark of Market economy
God has his own plan of
Creation and destruction
To keep the Cosmos
In a disorderly orderly way
Who are we to question his wisdom?

Dear Mr. God! Who are we to question your wisdom?-part one

For quite some time,
I have been philosophically musing
Over death,
Writing about it
And occasionally mentioning it,
In the class room, too,
Especially after I saw my
Aged, healthy mother,
Exiting the world after a great fall
For which I was
Inadvertently responsible,
A cruel act done through me
By the Almighty.

And watching her 45 days ordeal
That she underwent,
And that last breathe
She sighed, first louder and then
Shallower and gentler
All are etched in my green memory.

But the sudden demise of
Our Amanullah,
In a distant land, at midnight
In a gruesome Car accident,
In a very casual manner,
At the prime of youth,
We can’t just wipe out
That hard truth of his
Non- existence here, on Earth

I thought I am a loner
Talking and thinking about
This subject. Thank god!
I have a companion,
A Journalist from Business Line,
To feel and write about this subject
And all about the fault lines of life.
The other day I read
The major fault lines in macro economics
Now Ranbir Ray Choudhury’s
Reasoned, poetic and philosophical
Reflections on death and life
By revisiting YSR Reddy’s and his
Co-travelers tragic demise,
In a more unpredictable way.

Quite understandably,
In his characteristic fashion as a typical writer
With all Creative genius,
This crash reminds him
Of the Twin Tower’s
Savage fall by educated
Terrorists act meticulously planned
And intelligently executed
Where are they now?
Our friend asks

“Like a hypothesis waiting for Proof”
“And a number of stars in the
Firmament”, just wandering there
And each one is trying for explanation
We’ll cry for an answer
I know, you know,
All our friends and relations
Of yesterdays and tomorrows would know

The purpose of existence,
Arrival and departure time,
The good and bad we indulge in,
The search for mate, job and home
And eventually saying good bye,
At young, median or old ripe age,
All have been programmed already
With some flexibility in order
Like an arrangement
Under classical macro model
My Journalist friend
Is eager with imagination
To seek guidance and assistance
“From fellow human being who are wiser”
In order that
The mystery will be unraveled
He is right,
Spending too much time to think about it
And exploring all about death and life
Even while finding answers
Are going to be very difficult
Nevertheless it’s worth it,
And could hardly be termed as escapist

Dear Mr. God! With all our anger we don’t quarrel

What did Ammanullah Think?
When the Lord crushed him?
Did he wage a war
To survive?
Was he conscious or hopeful?
Why is he not coming in my dream?
How could he go just like that?
Abandoning his duty here
How could he yield to
His command and decree?
So meekly.

Today I met his friend,
Who is also closer to Kamaiah
I recollected my cumulative
Experiences with Amanullah to him
Especially in the summer days before his exit.

Amanullah is remembered
Not merely for his scholarship
Accomplishment in subject,
But mainly for his soft-spoken
Refined, cultured and polished
Behavior as a human,

He was an embodiment of virtue and
All the good things under the sun
He was more like a son to me
A charming, innocent,
Clumsy, bright sun.
That charming face
Neatly trimmed beloved face

And all the fun he had concealed in
That mischievous smile,
Will linger in my memory for ever
Entrenched in my computer memory
Never to be corrupted
By any virus,
Or breakdown in hardware.
His life is a classic case of
Illumination and illustration of
Human values, ethics, honesty
And gentlemanly gesture andBehavior.

The gruesome death is a reminder
Even God can commit a
Grave error,
Falter in his judgment, rather
Inadvertently
He snatched away his beloved son
So soon
Unmindful of the
Injury inflicted into many hearts.

Oh unmerciful god! We can only
Lament and cry
Ordinary mortals, short lived we are,
Uncertainty of this kind
We should always expect
And yet, your madness in methods
Without any forewarning
In taking your disciple,
Make us angry and unhappy

Dear God,
Forgive us for our misplaced anger
Should not we live a little longer
To praise your glory
Of maintaining this international disorder
The complexities and chaos
Pushing the good and honest
Away from circulation?
Keeping Srilankan Tamils and Palestinians
In perpetual humiliation/deprivation

Forgive us Lord,
We are grateful to you for
All the good that still
Envelopes the Earth
A small request:
Give some bonus time for
Those who take their own time
To accomplish and fertilize the earth
Through green manure
And green technology

All great souls
Bharthi, Vivekananda, vallallar
And others,
Go early, after turning out
A torrential output
If you put Ammanullah
In that bracket, of saints and stalwarts
Then no quarrel, my dear Lord!

Thinking of Death; Its both Intimidating and Enchanting –From My Dateless Diary (mid 2009)

Today for a few minutes,
I ruminated over death
How I would feel,
When it embraces me
And what would happen
‘To me’, thereafter
The solid fact that
One day, we would kiss this world
And say good bye,
Is both terrifying and refreshing

Will all our restlessness and uneasiness
At long last come to an abrupt end
Or will it be a new and another
Beginning for another round of
Blissful experience and despair?
A series of cycles of birth and death.
Thank god,
Excepting the saintly souls,
Ordinary mortals like
Are deprived of this knowledge
It’s better to be ignorant than intelligent
In this arena

But going back to death,
Is it either an intimidating or
A kind of enchanting game?
What did my mother think
At the time of death?
A sight I couldn’t bear
And a kind of suffering that should not
Have visited her.

My father had all the feelings
And remembrance about me
On that fateful night,
Fully unaware that
In the next few hours,
He was going to dissolve
Into cosmos

At the time of Father’s death
I didn’t cry and weep for days
As I did when my
Mother left me.
She was all solidity
And lived for long.
Nearly two decades after my dad got delinked from us
With moistured eyes,
I can only feel more about my lapse
For my parents now.
Where are they now?
They come in my dreams
Very rarely,
Will they interact, when
I exit from here?
I long for it
Fully knowing that
That is an impossibility.

Sam@60-Part Two

I have not had any goals in life,
No grand design
To do any great thing
No Networking for
Rocketing me towards Mars.
Excepting the passion for my discipline.
Which has rather come
In a spontaneous fashion
I sincerely feel now,
The Forty years of Academic life, gone by
Could have been spent
In a still more productive way
With more writing and reading.
It was consumed away rightly by Teaching
No problem
This in essence was
My productive investment
For others, though not for me
As I could not build upon it.

The loss of life in general
Especially financial component of it.
Can’t be just assumed away.
Lack of goals, targets,
Absence of minimum ambition,
All can be rationalized
Given my innate parental genes
And my obsession with Reading
The sheer cruel fate
In just one line
Has deprived even the legitimate due
Sapping energy and
Draining all enthusiasm.

“The pleasure of learning is indeed pleasures”
So goes a reasoned statement.
Thank God,
I am blessed by ‘work’,
To enjoy and internalize the
Pleasure of learning.

My hard working parents
Never tasted any minimum
Comforts of life,
Although they could afford them
Given their critical ability
To earn by honest means
Yet they didn’t complain
Till the end, they lived in a
Small Thatched House
Peacefully and comfortably.

At ripe age of 75
Father breathed last,
With all memories about
His son, locked deep into
His heart,
A son who could not be
With him in the final years
Of his life.
His bank balance was nil
Rupees Five Thousand was
Left in Wooden Almara
Without much financial stress
He lived happily,
Peacefully, frugally .
It was only towards end of his life
The sugar invaded
And made him to
Moderate his diet,
Which he faithfully did.

I was and I am his wealth
The House in which I live now was
The bonus given by him
With the foundation money
To buy the plot.
While the construction was on
He came to see
The structure
After the ceiling was put
Scaffolding remained intact
He touched the walls
With all love and
Sense of accomplishment
And climbed down the steps
He couldn’t come thereafter
Had he lived longer
He would not have left
His village home
And stayed with me
On a longer time basis
As he was tied with the soil.
I was unlucky to miss him,
At the prime of my youth
while he was at ripe old age
And as if to the fill Vacuum in life,
He sent Sakthi the very next year
To breathe fresh oxygen of life.
I could adjust to his
Exit rather swiftly,
Given my young age and immaturity.
My mother was there
As an anchor and savior.
On the eve of sixtieth year
I remember my parents
All the memories of my father
Fully envelop me,
Giving me all the welcome cry
A kind of outburst
That I had savored
While my Mother left me
Two years ago
At the ripe age of 90 plus.

No visit to big temple in distance place,
Conventional holy places is contemplated.
At least, I would step in
Puducherry temple shrines
And do some meditations
And watch the roaring waves
To get some peace.

My parent’s blessings,
My Teacher’s concern
My students’ goodwill
And of course, my
Family members love
And Last, not the least
Economics my first wife,
Would keep me in good stead.

Sam@60-Part One

Nearly a month ago, I wrote the following, while dusting the new diary.Today, I reach an important milestone of my life. Reaching 60 is more like moving towards a century, while your in nervous 90 plus. Those marginal runs count to reach the magic figure 100.So also the march towards one’s sixty. When my father reached this number, I was at Madras Presidency College. They didn’t do any celebration. Indeed there was no need for it, as every day was lived practicing hard and honest work,and as a reward for that honestly released energy,they took their wages of labor. I also want to follow my parents in this regard.

At 60,I look back with a sense of pride of my parents and work ethics and my own disillusionment with academic work and this also gives me an opportunity to think about my parents , my immediate relations and my students.

In a matter of a month,
If God willing,
I shall be completing sixtieth year.
Nearly forty years of academic life
And Thirty eight years of marital life
When I look back and ruminate,
Reflect in tranquility and troubled peace,
I honestly wonder
How those long years
Have been lived through
Sometimes with a sense of exhilaration.
And many a time, especially
In late 90’s and early 2000s
In deep depression/despair
Digesting insults and swallowing
Continual humiliations.

As Mother Earth does not
Grumble, even while it is caved in
I have also endured
With patience and perseverance
And delivered the common good
The academic good.
Mother Earth has been raped
Plundered and exploited,
And yet it moves on with
Measured steps
And Revolves around the Sun
With clinical precision.

With all destruction process
In the name of development
Global warming going beyond
Tolerable limits,
And ecological balance
Turning into a tail spin
There is an understandable worry
About sustainability of life itself.

When I look back and ruminate,
I am not fully happy with myself.
I know I could have done better
Led a still better life, on varied fronts
I couldn’t go beyond
A certain limit
With all my academic greed.
I am thankful to the God
For whatever has been given.
I only know,
This lengthened life itself is a bonus.
Many happy and miserable
Accidents of life
Could have just whisked me away
Just like that.
My Friend, Amanulla’s kind of
Premature hand shakes with Destiny,
Why did he give this bonus?
I don’t know
We are all living on bonus time.
And we must live each moment
As if it is the last or first one
That we have encountered.

“Infatuation is like common cold,
Therefore it must run its course,”
I read once.
The same thing must hold good for
Everything in life
Both good and bad
Just pass like a fleeting moment
I want to forget all my
Cumulative financial losses of life
By strange quirk of fate, sorry
My own indifference and stupidity
Has distanced me form
Elementary fund management.
I also motivate myself
With an auto suggestion to
Overcome all physical stress
And psychological strife
With a stoic smile.
It would also passé….
By absorbing more into the subject
And getting dissolved there,
An insulating mechanism may ensue.

The language of violence and hatred
Is more like a volcano
They don’t erupt suddenly
You must learn to live with it
Insulate from it, and if possible
Profit by that experience,
An experience that millions
Will not get in this birth.
True, waves of the sea
Do not rest,
Heart beats continulsy with a
Rhythmic beauty and yet
They too will take a small break.

In the sea of life called suffering,
Fused with transient pleasure
You too will take that
Small break of rest,
A blissful joy.

You are alive today, because of work
Hold on to it.
Embrace it feverishly
Get mesmerized by it,
Love it, Labor for it
Remember your Mother
For further guidance in this regard
Besides meditating on work, also
Resume your walk.
Enjoy it and get energized by it.

When death finally embraces
In a more pleasant way
At the appointed hour
Causing mild and short lived suffering
To your close hearts
You will be fully liberated.
Until then enjoy, some freedom,
Love and friendship
If they come on Your High way of Life

Waves of anger and fear will not wither away

"Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odor of death
Offends the September night,”
What a powerful, meaningful,
Down to earth meaningful lines
I don’t remember the author of the quote.

The other day, and on many other
Previous days, months and years,
Huge waves of anger and fear
Have swelled in my heart,
When the other side of my life
Had been obsessed with inexplicable anger.


Sri Lankan Tamils have anger and fear
Those who are trapped inside
And also living outside.
Who’ll give them peace?
And a piece of land.
Palestinians and Tamils had their
Homeland for ages.
Where’s the justice, when wanderers, Jews,
Were given solace by super powers
By depriving of Arab’s power and place
What’s the super super power doing?
Oh! Don’t disturb Him,
He can do, only through super powers,
For He does not have any real power!

How can a huge population live
By begging for water and food
On a daily basis?
Can this great country, Bharat
Wash away its cumulative sins
For its prolonged neglect,
In failing to protect
The innocent and upright Tamils.
And facilitate the process
Towards normalcy?

Even the great Barrack Obama,
The president for change, Dharma,
And equal relationship for all,
Promise help to Cuba and Latin America
But only talks and talks about Lankan Tamils
And climate change
Like God, he too will take his own time?
Can we blame him?
Absolutely Not. Why?
After all what can they pay back to him?
Oil, support to Dollar, dethrone euro…
Nothing, absolutely nothing.

But they can give enormous good will,
An endless love, a good certificate
To the U.S, to wash away that
Country’s accumulated sins…
They are helpless and defenseless,
Voiceless and faceless,
Sleepless and stressful always,
No jobs, no trade, no agriculture
Only tears, fears, anger,
They can’t, will not and should not
Forget the humiliations heaped upon them
By the vested interests, inside and out side.
Time will heal their wounds.

What I felt on Two yesterdays-From my dateless Diary

Towards the end of May 2009, along with few professors and a senior business executive I had some good time in a restaurant .Prof.Amanullah was also there at that time. That business executive by recollecting the late poet Kannadasn’s film songs profusely, just mesmerized me I could feel the quantum of interest and passion that gentleman had for Kannadasan’s poetic flavor . For more than an hour I was drinking the elixir of his lecture. Yesterday I had the privilege and honor to listen to a great historian from Kashmir, rather a historian of historians speaking on the changing contours of 20th century history and also 20th century religion. His lecture was bristling with sense of humor and wit; he had a lot of things to say, quoting profusely from many scholars. It was an extempore lecture. No reading of the material.His depth in the subject, the delivery style and the air of romance surrounding it , I cannot forget . Indeed I will internalize his intellectual spirit by accelerating my reading which has vastly diminished in the last few years . Besides romancing with my discipline I would peep through many must read historical texts and also varied literature stuff .It is easy to write like this . I don’t know to what extent I will translate my academic greed into action . But I will sincerely try. In the following, I am sharing what I felt on that yesterday of May 29th, 2009 and this yesterday of 20th February 2010.

Yesterday evening was spent at
Hot and Cold,
In the company of varsity friends
And their friends over a mild drink
Which was more like a fruit juice?
But the intoxication came from a
Middle aged Business Executive,
Bristling with laughter and an incredible
Sense of humour

Being a fan, admirer of late Kavi Arasu
Kannadasan, he was in full form,
Like a river in full spate.
Recollected the famous lines of that
Great Immortal poet.

Profusely eating the grilled chicken,
I was also keenly watching him.
By singing the lines of Kannadasan
He was opening up a new world for me
How could I remain oblivious
Of this for so long?

I was just admiring and internalizing the poet’s spirit
Taking decisions to read Tamil literature
His joke apart, his self criticism
Was just enchanting as his narration of
Kannadasan’s lines.

For me, Kannadasan is only a
Symbol for my academic greediness
And also all the pleasantest things,
That I would like to see, hear, touch, feel
And devour, with appetite of a child
There’s an endless list of things
Which I would like to do
If health and time permitting.
I know I can only dream of those things.

It’s too late in my life,
During the final days of my life,
To have Dreams, desires and even modest goals.
Getting up early, and taking steps
Towards beach to see the rising sun,
Clothed by gentle breeze, I want to walk
Slowly, gently, then more briskly.
This must become a daily routine
More like a sheer habit
I am yet to take the first step
I have read more about walking
Its beneficial externalities
Its only when I internalize it and
Make it a regular habit
I will not enjoy its beneficent character

God as the greatest artist,
Paints every day on the clear
Or cloudy sky.
If there is no time to stand and stare
At this divine beauty,
We are wasting our life time
By sheer happy accident,
I was inducted into mild yoga,
For only one day
That was the end of it.
I fervently hope, the time has come
To streamline all aspects of my life,
The messy, clumsy, idiotic life,
A lopsided life, life spoiled by my subject to some extent
A mission not climaxing in any
Scholarly output, befitting of
My potentials and honest reading.
No regrets.

Yesterday I stumbled upon a Great Historian
From the extreme north
Going steadily beyond eighty
With fifty years of Teaching
And public speaking
A clear Role model for me.
At 87,he looked more of a child
With all innocence and energetic intelligence,
A face bristling with radiance and happiness
Kashmir weather adding more color
To his handsome features
Hence forth I will not worry more about
My critical inability and laziness
To see my accumulated notes into printed book format
I will neither abandon
Nor abdicate my academic responsibilities
I will be concerned
Not become anxious
Let the time come in natural way
To facilitate my modest ambition
I know I must read more
Teach more and lecture more
In many academic corridors
To repay my debt
To the academic community
And also consolidate my comparative advantage
In public speaking.
For the common cause of global civil society .

A Leader should have a Child in him

Yesterday my two grand daughters came home in the evening at discrete time interval. Both of them are fond of taking soups and a well cooked Biiryani at various restaurants in Pondicherry. They are at the Pre K.G and L.K.G. levels .It so happened yesterday that the Biryani bought from the restaurant was full of green chillies and the young girl mistakenly chewed the green chilly,thinking that it was meat and the hell broke out. She screamed wildly and the glass of water could not succeed in reigning in peace .

Closely watching her, I felt that she would develop a distaste and get angry and would not proceed to eat further. But I was mistaken. After a while she started relishing the food with tremendous enthusiasm, unmindful of our comments. I could learn lot of lessons of life from her. She was all concentration on food only.

Now I recollect her behavior when she began learning to walk. She took her own time to take the first step. Even while belatedly learning to walk, she was very cautious, lest she might fall. Being not sure footed, she measured her steps always.

Once she started walking, touching and smelling things at sight and on the shelf, it became very difficult for all of us to ‘manage’ her. As you know, the children are the most attentive, curious, eager, sensitive, quick and generally congenial, without much bias and prejudices. Indeed we have to learn a lot from young kids, by observing them more closely and spending time with them more passionately. They deserve all the attention from close relatives at home.

Leaders at various levels of organization, too must have ‘this child’ in them, and internalize all the qualities attributed above. So long as the leaders present the views honestly, fearlessly and clearly, others almost accept them without question. This holds good for the employees too. If they are also eager to learn, willing to work without looking at calendar and time and present their views honestly and convincingly, a true leader will quickly understand and implement their vision.So,it is a two way interaction. Let there not be any congestion in the traffic of communication between the employer and the employees.

An Old letter Rekindled My Memories

While preparing myself for the visit of Academic and Administrative Committee, which is prelude to the proposed NAAC committee visit in August 2010 , I was putting some order in my disorderly files . At that time I stumbled up on a letter dated March 14th 2003 written by one Central University Professor . Exerpts from that letter.

“It is difficult for a genuine academician to face the ugly realities of life, family and work place especially when the time is unfavourable.You are now in that phase. But the present phase ( for that matter any phase) is unlikely to remain permanent. Soon relief will come. You will once again enjoy reading your subject in peace. Amanullah will give you company. Please guide him to do further work in financial economics by collaborating with him.”

That was a time when I was falling into a tails pin of a mild recession as I was denied my legitimate promotion to the next cadre, ‘Professor’. By sheer manipulative politics, I was made to fall and fail. Despite all my academic credentials and serious publications having contemporary national and international relevance, I was denied my due. However this did not propel me to loose faith in the goodness of the universe and I wrote more poems on the crisis of leadership at the top. Indeed long before that I had given sufficient vent to my societal concern in free verse. I don’t know where all those emotive feelings clothed in poetic prose are scattered and bundled. I have already given the title to the collection of those poems and written introduction . That silent soliloquy on Campus Politics; Wild Tigers cannot be caged. Will come after a lagged time interval decided by the supreme.

That professor’s letter gave me consolation and some relief. Why that letter affected me today is that ,Prof.Amanullah is not with us today. An ardent disciple of that professor and also my affectionate son like friend has been now dissolved now into the cosmos, never to return and see our faces. Many weeks after his demise, I wrote a few lines in my dairy which I shall post in the subsequent few weeks .A re-reading of a old letter written by a scholar rekindled my old memories about a academic injury inflicted into my heart, which opened a new vista of poetry in me and also to think about a good soul namely Amanullah.

Part Eight –Summing up the Incomplete Letter

The series of preceding seven posts were my reflections when my aged mother was counting her days after the head injury. They were written at two stretches. For reasons which I am unable to recollect, I could not continue thereafter. I took leave and sat with my mother and administered food through tube. An attendant, a superb male nurse by name Bhaskar was more than God sent Angel, took care of the bed sore. The skin had decayed and delayed and bad odour could be smelt in the hall. The ordeal came to an end, two years ago on January 11,around 8.30 pm. When she left her last breath I was there to watch, with more composure and not losing balance.Especially when she was bedridden for more than a month, I realized how much I loved her, liked her and wanted her to live or a few more years.

Indeed, it would be very difficult for others to believe that more than me supporting her, she was only supporting and comforting me, while I was in a state of uneasiness and suffering for long,given the chaoitic situtation in my academic life during a particular period. She was hale and healthy: until the calamity struck her, she never fell ill. All her parameters were at right levels .Occasionally only I had seen her crying, while I scolded.Immediately I would make fun and she would laugh like a child with all moisture in her eyes.Till the end she had springs in her steps and spirit in her heart and her slender hands were always doing work. More important, she remained more innocent and naïve till the end.

More than anything else in life I want to internalize all her attributes including her naivness and village innocence because I know in concrete jungles we live, we need a particular mind set to forgive and forget many actions of devilish forces steeped in crookedness, wickedness, shallowness and all kinds of self aggrandizement. We can’t reform them. But should we not insulate from them by maintaining our purity and innocence?

Revisiting the letter to Mother on Death Bed- Part Seven

After 48 hour flirtation with
Private nursing home ICU
You are again back to the pavilion
Our Rainbow Nagar Home.
Seduced by the good intentioned advice,
An aggressive intervention of nutrients
Through hi-tech medicines/drugs
Might revive your sagging cells,
I drove you to the clinic
On Saturday night.
Did it help you or harm you?
I don’t know.
I can only pray that
Your prolonged suffering
Must come to an end
The Sooner it ends, it’s better for you
Foolishly, feverishly I believed,
Some miracle would take place.


For Nearly 36 hours, you were
Placed on huge dose of medicinal nutrients,
That’s what their monetary value show on paper,
Did it really do anything better good for you?
Was it more food to your body
Lacking nutrients for a fortnight.
But your suffering
Provided food for my thought
Continual, periodic cry
During the last fortnight,
Has made me light,
And provided me the necessary strength for my survival.
I know I have not applied
My reasoned Power to
Handle you during the crisis period.
The cruel and wicked fate,
Delayed and denied the special ward.
Lack of support from people drove us out.
We should have got asylum
At private clinic at that time.
But alas, we both were unstable
Wallowing In past,
About Cumulative lapses in the past.
I couldn’t look forward
Confidently to the future,
An optimistic future.
Post G.H. bungling,
Had its own ramifications on
Your nutrient department,
Depleting your energy line
Sapping the very existence itself.
I was too naïve and foolish
To act fast
And allowed the moments
To pass in a laissez-faire way.

Revisiting the letter to Mother on Death Bed- Part Six

It appears, you are preparing
For the next Journey
The wise and benevolent Destiny,
The all merciful God,
The Greater power, which
Has all along empowered you,
All through your life,
Must help you at this hour,
The agonizing moments of
Your life and of course our life too.
As far as I am concerned,
I want to see you
Exit from earth/ for a
Better tomorrow
And also see Sakthi,
Settle down in life.



Will there be any miracle?
Can you get back to your feet?
Thus far, you were energized
By work and work only
Now, bed ridden, gradually
Losing Memory,
And also lacking ability to
Weave words and express,
The possibilities for your resurrection are remote.
We can only pray that
All merciful God, Must wrap you up,
Gently , sweetly and tenderly.
Should not God compensate you
For all the harsh
Treatment meted out to you by me
Inadvertently, stupidly and in a semi state of
Savage unconsciousness
It seems God is more cruel then me.

In the absence of special ward
As also the absence of
Female attendants,
We could not prolong our stay
At General Hospital.
Without ‘walk’ and ‘work’
You are slowly withering away
And shrinking
And moving far away from me.
Already I am seeing the vacuum
At Home;
More than going from ‘here’
Me not giving you enough
Will haunt me for ever
It’s only my mistake
That I couldn’t realize fully
Your ageing process
And its attendant consequences.
It’s natural to part at 90 plus
And yet
I feel that I have not
Done full justice to you.

Revisiting the letter to Mother on Death Bed - Part Five

To continue my letter,
I read once again what I have
Written thus far,
A welcome cry followed, I am not sure,
For how long, this God given medicine
I will administer on myself
To sustain my life on Earth.

Eleven days have gone
Since you have fallen on
The Ground.
Your steel like body frame,
All the good acts you have
Performed, in this birth,
Have stood in good stead.


All through your life,
You have never visited hospital
Previous falls in the village
In the Distant past,
Did bother you for some time.
Like a vibrant economy,
You always recovered from those
Recessions!
Now, we are afraid,
You have entered into a
Serious heightened depression like
Phase, after your quick
Retrieval from ICU and surgery ward
Given your age (ripened)
The skeleton frame, (yet withstanding the stress)
And the nature of the fall, (a savage one indeed)
You could come out of the
Initial crisis, effortlessly,
Much to our amazement and joy.
But your critical inability
To come out of your disabilities
Worries us and dims our hope
Only on occasions, you were
Confined to bed.



Even after heavy meal, you used to remain awake
And also resort to some work;
But now,
Negotiating this long confinement to bed
Is indeed a Herculean task.
Despite CT scan saying ‘clear’
B.P reading trumpeting’ normal’
ECG echoes a rhythmic beat
And sugar has not yet tasted you,
You are not coming back to
Normalcy.

Revisiting the letter to Mother on Death Bed- Part Four

I n my academic or personal life too,
There were many dates.
To recollect only the recent dates,
January 19, September5th and the more recent
December 9th, all taught me vital lessons.

I am not a great believer in religion,
I have hardly developed the
Good habit of going to temples,
I did go and pray for a few
On select occasions,
But I could not make it as a habit
As a natural impulse
Even the student driven fiat
Could not fully succeed in
Completely transforming me.

But the wise and benevolent Destiny
Has neither abandoned me
Nor you.
The Great power, the ultimate power
Behind this expanding universe,
Has just held both of us,
More lovingly, caringly.
On September 5th, I would have gone
Just like that ,
Leaving you, alone and orphaned.
He did save me,
Many a time I have fallen
I have been made to fall
But He took care of me.

You and Father took care of me
Now, again the backdrop of my
Folly, my lapse,
Your cumulative folly and incidents,
When that great fall had
Befallen us,
There were saviors, messengers
Sent by God,
The old, pious lady,on the street
The lady Doctor and her husband,
All acted in tremendous ‘act’
To prevent your pulse rate from falling
And the Heart to revive itself.

How much insults and wrong words
That enduring heart must have
Faced and weathered all kinds of storm?
In the able hands of the neighbor,doctors
You were resurrected.
Rushed to the Govt Hospital.

Revisiting the letter to Mother on Death Bed- Part Three

For almost a decade,
You are with me,
But were you really here?
The flesh was here, and
The spirit and atman
All your inner feelings were there.
Did I remain with you,
When you were here?
Did I show love and respect
In abundant measure?
Or atleast in a Moderate Dose?
Did I think about you,
And spend more time with you
And took care of you?

When I recollect all those
Spent years, wasted years,
I can tell with clean conscience;
I have not handled you properly
Now I can only lament and cry
And can’t even write coherently
About my cumulative lapses,
Although they were unintended consequences
You deserved a ‘better deal’
A typical Keynesian New Deal
But I was too naïve enough
To immerse in my
Sea of anxiety, sorrow and despair
The Result:
There was progressively, a sense
Of Distance, an inexplicable anger
A harsh treatment
Wounding of your innocent
And finer sensibilities and feelings
And so on.

And yet, they were neither deliberate
Nor intentional.
You are to be partly blamed for
My ‘wrong behavior’ and ‘attitude’
Like your strong genes in your body
You had your weak spots.
The tendency to get attention,
Full attention from ‘us’
That ensuing act, continual act
Got ingrained into your system
And became a part of personality;
With ageing process
I got legitimacy and got deeply
Entrenched, but still
I did not get wisdom,
With my aging process
I could not understand your own
Senility and helplessness
Of your falling and failings
Only that Great fall,
Opened up my eyes
And that was too late
To repair, to redress,
To make all amends.
But by divine grace, you are alive
September 11, December 5th or 6 th ,
Have become significant dates
In the U.S. and Indian History
Their current History

Revisiting the letter to Mother on Death Bed- Part Two

I know, you can neither
Read nor write,
Nor can you communicate like us
And yet, I must write,
As I feel that you can understand
And feel my helplessness
And of course, I write
For my own peace and salvation,too.
I have told you, I am writing a letter
I have read and written about
A lot of things in life,
Periodically I have written to people
Who are close to my heart
To your daughter in law,
In the distant past
When I was in the Academic
Soil of Pune.
And more recently, your granddaughters
And grand grand daughters
But these lines are different.

Many years ago,
When you were in close
And connected relationship with
Your Daughter’s Family,
I had written more about you in my diary
My critical inability to keep you
With me and so on and
How it saddened me, crippled me
Geographically, we were little far away
But emotionally I was closer
You too must have felt
About my‘absence’ .
They were the wonderful days
Of innocence and tolerance
And of course the acceptance of the inevitable
Even during my occasional trips,
To see you at native home
I was not fully comfortable
Given the strange and peculiar
Relationship in the village.
At least I made a few trips
I thank the Almighty for that

Revisiting the letter to Mother on Death Bed-Part One

Yesterday my father came in my dream, after a very very long time. He was in white shirt and looked very handsome .A few days earlier, my mother came with a young look and more spark in her eyes, calling me’Thambi’ with all affection written on her face . She was full of energy, enthusiasm and happiness. I held her tightly lest she would leave me .I could not think and believe that it was all only dream. I couldn’t hold her in my waking state. No problem. My parents always live in my thoughts and all layers of memory built into the molecules of my brain while I am marching towards my Sixty, I want to revisit a few lines that I wrote to my mother, while she was in her final days. She had a massive fall and a sever head injury.

I must write a few lines,
For me, more than for you,
Although I write for you.
Had I written all these,
A few days ago,
It would have been far difficult
Perhaps, they might have dissolved
Into salt soaked tears,
And disappeared?
Even those emotion ridden words
Would have been of no help.

As I was floating in a different world
A sea of despair and despendency
The best solution was
A FULL CRY,
An uninhibited, spontaneous,
Natural and normal cry,
Heart rendering, reverberating cry,
A kind of mother of all my
Cries in the past.
That eased my heart,
Made my nerves calm
And made me realize my limitations and
Also reconcile to the reality
And more important to face the reality.
Friends and Relational souls
Have taken care of me
It was a case study
To document the dominant role of
Non Monetary forces of life
Lending a helping hand
To make life happen and evolve
And make it function
Without much chaos.

On bigger questions of life, Valluvar says; “I am sorry, I don’t know. This needs to be investigated"

Looking around we see in the case of persons of ordinary talent being catapulted to power and wealth, flourishing in terms of riches and recognition with all their scant or little intelligence and capabilities and rolling in luxuries and enjoying all kinds of the best of everything, we are sometimes bemused and blindfolded. It appears that they walk off with life’s prizes seemingly without putting any extra or extraordinary effort.

With all shallowness and crookedness in hearts they are being showerd with favors and fortunes breaking through roof. Is it pure luck? Or sheer manipulative politics? How is that those who are good and reasonably honest and show lot of commitment in their work, suffer silently and meet all kinds of adversities in life?.

Thiruvalluvar, the author of famous Thirukural is asked about this anomaly in life. “I am sorry, I don’t know. This has to be researched; I think this needs to be investigated thoroughly.” he says .

I remembered my obligation to do translation

Today morning, while clearing files, to spot out materials dealing with crisis in Macro Economics, I stumbled upon cuttings from Ananda Vikatan 2007 issues. Thamyanthi poems merited my attention. I wanted to translate it. It was 8:10AM. I had not shaved/ taken bath. Hardly 40minutes time was there to start for university and I had first hour class at 9:30.In a matter of 20 minutes I could do that translation as I was in a trance state while doing that work. Many a time, I realize I have my obligation to do translations, which will depend upon my time and health conditions.

Thamaynthi Poems
When you read these lines,
At this moment
It might rain somewhere
Some one would read Anna Agmadhova book
Some Saravanan might be asking loan
Vehicle may breakdown
Somebody might get married
Like a butterfly flapping wings,
Death might fly over someone
Some male might be
Beating his wife
Anything of this sort can happen
And yet
I will write the first line
Of my next poem
And you would go to
Next page

Things I have missed in life
Are aplenty
Son’s existence
Independence of childhood/ adolescence
The Mind’s imagination
Faceless Railway lines
Loneliness

Like the (river) water
Spreading over pebbles
There’s nothing that
I have accumulated
Except Myself

Who will love
A dayless night?
Who will drench oneself
In rain devoid of Sun?
By only sheer rare chance,
Is there rainbow.

While you’re passing the road,
The falling folded sunrays,
Give way as memories
Between you and me
In the present
How did it penetrate ?
The shadows of the past?
Like the Weaving net
Your lies
Will get unmasked
In between the words,
Decay my considered love
In order that
I must keep smiling
On my death bed
Pray for me If possible, tomorrow.

Towards Sam@60:A Few lines for Me

Hardly two weeks to go to reach 60. For the last few days I felt like writing a few lines for me. For varied reasons there is a peculiar work pressure, I am feeling. I can’t put it in words. My insatiable thirst for reading remains unfulfilled. I hope I would streamline both ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ in the days to come. The two day workshop on Macro Economics Theory and pedagogy (February 13-14) at Annamalai University provides me a chance to read more about crisis in Macro Economics. To avoid crisis in our own life let me contemplate a few lines. Of course they are meant for me . They may also help others.



Be always in the present and remain positive.
This moment by itself is a present.
Don’t complain.
Always remember to remember the people
Who have nurtured your welfare
And Contributed to your native intelligence
And offer the same to others

Wear always a smile and all the sweetness under the Sun.
That will avoid wrinkles
Not just on the face, but also on the mind.
Forge ahead; surmounting all obstacles,

Don’t be frustrated by the slow pace of development,
On publication side and many other fronts .
Don’t lose hopes. Things will evolve slowly.
Your academic accumulation
And thirst for knowledge will not go waste.
They will goad you to action.
Dream, design, and execute with dedication and commitment.
Your student friends will play a larger role in shaping things

Before the date with destiny arrives,
Do your work pleasantly, quietly and willingly.
That does not depend upon other’s approval.
The task before you is huge, massive .
The divine will must power you to manage it.

Strive to participate in a new experiment,
Be receptive to new ideas, always
Current academic ambience will help stimulate
More serious academic work
Despite the pressure of administrative work.
Don’t give up .

There is surpassing beauty, majestic grandeur
And immortal glory in nature.
Get swayed by it.
Live in close harmony with it.

Children observe well.
They are also difficult to manage.
Learn from them.
Laugh and play with them.
Those heavenly moments
Will make your existence
Just enjoyable.

To play a marvelous game here
What we need is,
Creative capacity, energy and courage.

In doing our work,
Do it faithfully and cheerfully.

Don’t look to the past, only to the future
We may not be charismatic and inspirational,
But we can attempt to evolve in our own way.
Remember Kamaraj and C.N.Annadurai
For their simplicity and honesty.
Internalize their spirit of integrity and commitment.
Dedicate your work, your life
With all love and immense gratitude
To help fellow humans.
The Lord will show the way.

Every Kid cannot be lucky to have Mom at home

Very recently a write up on ‘Stay at home Mom’ in the open page column of The Hindu generated among the readers. The theme is the most familiar one. It is all about educated young girls taking of job in search of both income and independence and its spillover effects in raising family more particularly taking care of young children. This debate will remain open ended and no one can pass any adverse judgment on those who take up their career as seriously as they take care of home. So long as the young wife gets support, a real support from the life partner in the kitchen and also a little assistance from her in-laws, there will not be any difficulty to take care of children and family responsibilities. But invariably sharing of burden is only an illusion and the ground level reality is that she is sand witched between home and office and virtually her life becomes a sacrificial one.

This article rekindled the memories of my younger days. I was born to my parents seventeen years after their marriage. My elder brother was born some seven or eight years ahead of me and he died in the sixth months. My parents were ordinary rice merchants in my village performing the difficult task of transforming the paddy purchased from vendors into consumable rice. With the exception of transport and the role of the machine in the rice mill, in the whole process of transformation of paddy into rice, the rest of the labor was shouldered by my father and mother in equal measure and I as a small boy faithfully contributing my very marginal share as if it was a playful activity. Indeed I feel proud that I was lucky to have that kind of parents who physically labored for more than three decades, rendering a great deal of business ethics, without accumulating riches in life in economic sense. But the amount of good will and the name that they accumulated for their family was indeed the greatest treasure in my human capital and the education I had in both my home town Pondicherry and the neighboring Madras city .

When I recollect my childhood experience in tranquility , the amount of care and concern evinced by my parents in shaping me was some thing which everyone born on this planet would not have got. Illiterate and hard working parents made their son literate.

Many a time I feel that I should labor physically like my parents but I don’t have the training and the physical stamina to work like them . Even at the old age of Ninety my mother was helping me in putting some order among the academic debris I have accumulated over time. Whenever I find my academic component of the house is in disorder which is always a reality, I remember my mother and I feel that I should do some physical labor daily in arranging the books, dusting the files and so on. I doubt very much With all my academic greed and with all my insatiable thrust for reading , how far I will emerge as a scholar but one thing I am be sure enough I will be an intellectual worker, living and laboring with books and that is sufficient for me. For any child the love of parents is some thing very important and a working mother cannot render full justice .But the other day my grand daughter was asking her mother, “Mom, if you go and work I will tell my friends that my mother is a teacher” and then she went on listing her dreams in life “ I want to become Doctor, teacher……… and a Security guard”. Before I conclude can I say in a lighter vein, a well informed kid would say that she doesn’t mind her mother going for work. But kindly note, my M.Phil daughter resigned her job in a lucrative publishing house and remained at home for more than four years to deliver the baby and take care of the kid. Perhaps if the governmental authorities and the private sector can give a lengthy holiday with pay to take care of the baby in the formative years of life, the Empty Nest Syndrome will not do much damage. But in any case children need to suffer and forego all the happiness that most of us had in our young life precisely for the reason that many families need some supplementary income and Mom remaining at home, sweet home, being sweet to kids will be rather an exception than a rule.

To keep writing actively is proving to be difficult.But I won’t meekly submit

For quite some time I have been inactive in placing fresh postings .Virtually it has been in a state of suspended animation. A variety of factors stood in the way. I feel very sorry and many a time I am afraid that I would go back to my initial equilibrium of not writing anything. Indeed there are many issues crying for attention. I am waging my own war in my mind to articulate on many themes .The absence of my Ph.D Scholar for one or two weeks introduced some lull in the activity of writing and for reasons known to God even after his return and despite his repeated goading, the pen refuses to accelerate . There is plenty of materials accumulated over a period of time in my countless dairies and lecture notes files which have got tremendous contextual relevance. Somehow I tend to postpone many things in life. I very much wish that blog writing does not fall into this category.

One of the prime villains of piece which distanced me from blog writing was the sudden unplanned planned trip to a few Arab countries and Colombo for a period of five days under a packaged tour arranged by a travel agency known to me. Never in my wildest dream that I had contemplated after my first European trip that an another trip would quickly follow suit. Despite leaving the visa at home in a typical characteristic feature of an absent minded professor, the wise and benevolent destiny operated through one airport officer at Chennai to get the visa by fax with hardly an hour for departure towards the destination of Dubai, the emerging tourist spot for Europeans and others in the recent times, I could clear all formalities and fly once again in a familiar route without much butterflies in the stomach. A colleague of mine also accompanied me. It was a crew of two dozen people drawn from business community of youngsters and some of them were young couples besides one retired old couple. I have not included my self into that list as I sincerely feel that I am sixty year old young and the aging process in the ensuing years will make me further young in thought process and attitude, given the company of young student friends in the campus in the remaining period of my life.

Unlike the previous academic trip to Europe, this was totally a different one and I was always in the company of people moving around. Five days travel with five star hotel accommodation and rich buffet food at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Colombo, made me so exhausted that I have developed distaste for rich food – a feeling which I will continue to have for at least next two to three weeks. I had a very rich experience in talking to Pakistanis and Indians who are moving like brothers with tremendous harmony among themselves. If time and mood allow me I may re visit the blog and write more about this trip which opened up a new vista of experience, fun and a sense of adventure which included a Desert Safari and a photograph with a belly dancer.