A Small story-what a fall!

 

My countrymen and women !

ere long air travel was a luxury enjoyed by a few.

cabin crew, from what i hear , then called air hostesses caught the eye of some business magnates and became part of their family.

the hostesses would usher us in to the seats.

we had our cuppa , our breakfast or whatever at airlines' cost .

and they were so helpful .

imagine a situation when the crew protests because they have to shove the baggage into the rack above or respond to some unusual situations.

and who is a captain of the plane !

I remember Nelson Mandela travelling first class while many of his followers were travelling economy.

when the captain came to pay his respects , Madela asked him for a favour.

that his followers be accommodated in first class. fortunately there were enough seats .

but i mention this as an example of the captain's powers to do or undo anything on the plane.

i am told the virgin airlines boss checks in as an ordinary person to find out how the crew is handling the passengers.

in our greed for money we have holiday crowds spilling on to the streets at checkin time.

there is a turnaround in values to such an extent that airline passengers be aware of their rights.

i am not blaming the crew alone.

there are other factors too.

i asked a former crew member about how she could stand long hours without her vericose veins being affected.

she admitted that she was on medication.

and the girl was in her thirties.

so many jobs demand this kind of posturing .

i am surprised no doctor, no organisation has raised this issue.

no wonder the front line workers in the hospitality sector, at the counters in banks and other institutions are grumpy.

is there any special training for them ?

relaxation techniques and the like.

i am familiar  with the kind of pressures and strains the media is exposed.

are they protected?

many of them, they say, are under contract.

and as everyone knows, contracts get terminated at the whims and fancies of bosses.

not the boss.

this applies to all group activity.

the leader wins both ways whether he deserves it or not.

coming back to airlines it is time the crew Realise we keep them going , not the managements of airlines.

Brahmin-The Hatred

 I would not know for certain why i was born a brahmin.

If i had the power to be otherwise before birth perhaps i would have altered it.

the super brahmins these days , call them by any name, have a fine , cushy life.

some of them do not work , they need not.

some of them deserve not their promotion.

but they get it.

For the sins of my ancestors 40 or 50 generations ago i am suffering.

and more than all, pl remember brahmins do not jell with each other.

they have their divisions, subdivisions and sub-subdivisions.

and most of them are incapable of violence.

so their vulnerability is yet more.

in the beginning the non-brahmins would scoff at them and leave it at that.

later they were victims of violence or worse.

from madras presidency as it was known then waves of hatred reached the present day karnataka .

then the reservation bug hit us.

the bug became a bear and was on the point of swallowing everything.

the courts had to step in.

reservation, i understand, was never meant to last for ever.

now there is no hope of this shadow on merit as perceived by the intelligentsia receding.

yet you find brahmins occupying key positions everywhere , some of them in leading corporate entities here and abroad.

i do not hold a brief for brahmins , they have their weak points. one of them is that they get satiated easily.

in my limited way i am doing some research.

there is never enough land or wealth for non-brahmins.

For a  brahmin who is one both by birth and inclination material possessions matter for the sole reason that they could promote societal causes.

kumaraswamy's diatribe against brahmins is in bad taste.

for the simple reason that it is more a political ploy .

caste based politics is the name of the game now.

there is a scramble to please the backward segments and the backward in the forward segment.

i am praying for the day when the beneficiary or the intended beneficiary spurns these freebies ,

as the parsis did .

Will that day ever dawn!

The new chat device-ChatGPT

 The latest device a AI is the chat.

It is Rumoured to supplant scribes, teachers and misguide the seekers of  real knowledge.

while the fake and the real debate has many shades, what is of concern is education.

the higher powers are all worked up and search is on for effective responses.

one of them is to make the students face the test or examination and award grades on their performance.

good enough but in this season of paper leaks how does one guarantee the results ?

a colleague of mine who is no more brought in his expertise and caught the students using sophisticated devices in the exam hall.

he was a professor of communications and had the edge over the cheats.

then he was framed in a case from which he extricated himself with difficulty .

what happened next was even more appalling.

after his retirement in the university he was serving as  principal of a college.

the unfortunate aspect was that he was politically connected also.

someone planted the idea that such a one as he deserved to be vice chancellor , no less.

now it is common knowledge that such posts carry a premium.

and perhaps the premium was arranged at great cost.

when the list was out his name was missing.

because of his age he had also forfeited his chance for ever.

his last moments were spent with his wife . 

they had a long conversation, it is said, and he went into his room.

next day he was discovered dead.

harking back to glory days we had an editor who could, at a glance, decipher the motive behind a letter writer.

i have also met a few gentlemen who could read your minds effortlessly.

perhaps technology has made these skills redundant.

here comes the challenge.

how to distinguish between the real and the fake ?

in my experience no spellcheck could differentiate between there and their, or hear and here.

if the technology has improved i would not know.

spellcheck threw the tribe of proofreaders out of the newsrooms.

god knows how many would be losing their jobs due to this device.

let me round this off with an amusing anecdote.

a manuscript from an aspiring writer landed on George Bernard Shaw's table.

after perusing it, shaw sent this response.

your novel is both good and original.

where it is good , it is not original and where it is original, it is not good.

reminds me of another incident.

an author walks into a publisher's den and offers his ms.

after scrutinising it, the publisher queries whether it is his own writing.

the author says yes.

the publisher stands up, and with due reverence shakes hands with the author and greets him warmly :

i am honoured to meet you , william shakespeare.!

The Budget

 

The union budget presented by nirmala seetharaman, at the outset, is a middle class budget.

Her comment s day or two earlier earlier hinted at this. variations are any of what the middle class stands for.

in one definition it is that they have neither the benefit of rich legacy nor privilege.

they slog their way to recognition and generally choose to forget their roots if it suits their purpose, or so say the critics.

not for them the luxuries of the born wealthy.

not for them the right to adopt their own lifestyle.

like the lower classes.

torn between respectability and show they choose the latter and suffer silently.

if one were to conduct a survey most suicides occur in this category.

catching up with the joneses is the name of the game. one slip and heaven knows where they land!

in any case let us take a good look at the budget  now.

some steps are taken to bring down the cost of electric vehicles.

as an ordinary man i often wonder why tech wise india did not wake up in time.

well before covid compelled us to take a hard look.

it is good that the defence sector gets more funds.

one does not know much about the competition commission and its work in india but one does see several neighbour rivals converge for a common cause , and the most effective way is to arm them to the hilt .

like taliban gaining chinese support.

e-courts is a fine step to ease the load on the judiciary.

fast track courts and family courts and consumer courts were set up to expedite justice.

how far they have succeeded ,one does not know.

our planners in the early days were visionaries.

skill development was fostered by industrial training institutes and the like.

self-employment needs easy funding and if this is ensured the employment situation will improve.

ah, the millets!

the poor man's favourite at one time is gaining prominence for a different reason

we are happy that the son of the soil prime minister's preferred food is finding its way to the elite's table.

Saptarshi , Amrit kal  have found their way into the budget , perhaps for the first time.

let us hope what is promised is realised and our nation regains its glory.

one word of caution those.

not all the credit belongs to one party or one leader.

Mahatma Gandhi !!

 Mahatma Gandhi is Mahatma to many and a despicable character to several others who blame him for our ills.

the latter have elevated Nathuram Godse to the level of a patriot.

both schools of thought have forgotten the historical currents at play then as now.

it was my good fortune to have met and conversed with a responsible person who was heading a defence establishment at the time.

we walked together for a few kilometers because his house was adjacent to my office.

it was a cool night and the topic veered round to his early days in Lahore.

he revealed to me how mindsets change, how people respond to emotions and instantly change from friends to foes.

all that it took for his neighbours was a few hours.

and he was a school going kid then.

partition was never intended to be , by both parties .

egos come into play , opportunists take centrestage and the good ones become stooges of the vile elements.

so it was in the case of Mahatma.

further down the line appeasement advocates call the shots and what we get is what we deserve.

it is good tentative steps are being taken to restore to us the glory that was.

again , at what cost?

in defeat defiance, in victory magnanimity thundered the British bull.

was it so when partition was effected ?

two things are buried in this ongoing drama.

Jinnah had not many months to live.

a fact which might have been known to the British.

Bapu , they knew , would play to set rules.

that is why Mountbatten sent him to the hottest trouble spot . still peace reigned there.

godse could be forgiven to think that Bapu was favouring the others more than our own folks.

this does not mean the riots and the mayhem that followed should be ignored.

there is a lesson hidden somewhere.

our differences serve as the meat for someone's dish.

a wag said Britain and the usa are two nations divided by a common language. so are we.

in addition , the Ppectre of reservation , reservation within reservation etc

divide us further.

as for the foreign scenario less said the better.

Tibet was a British protectorate.

our leniency towards Chinese cost us dear.

the united nations was and still is the monopoly of superpowers.

who signed the un charter on our behalf ?

a civil servant.

for we were still a slave nation.

does not matter whether the present players were active in the freedom struggle or not.

it is a thing of the past.

the more pressing question is ..... is the present dispensation living upto the preamble in the constitution .

we are what we are today because of the sacrifices made by sung and unsung patriots.

the past is ever bitter, whether it  is the Moghul past or the imperial legacy.

yes, we have glorious future ahead of us .

for that, we have to work hard.

and form a phalanx cutting across barriers .

only then jai hind will get transformed into jai jai hind.

Republic Day -A Small Note !!

 

Happy Republic Day!

It is good that some notable figures from karnataka have got fair due by way of awards.

SM Krishna's award is well  earned. he does not belong to his community alone.

he has done well by the state and would have done even better if nature 

and Raj kumar did not create hurdles.

he had vision, he had state interests at heart but perhaps lacked a perspective of long range.

so it is with most state leaders. 

Bangalore was, is their success as well as failure.

come, come all was the call and they came in droves.

a bit of Bombay was implanted here.

Kadugodi was Whitefield.

now it is a minefield of opportunists.

rarely is any thought given to the groundwater levels of the city, especially the extended city.

why extend the city at all , one wonders.

they had their setups and their local colours.

well, the name of the game is power , first, middle and last.

and all parties are equally guilty.

the other awardees, Sudha Murthy and Dr Bhyrappa are known to me by reputation.

one respects those who swim against the tide.

the lady has to be appreciated for chalking out her own course from student days.

born in a family of doctors, she deliberately chose engineering.

when the Tata firm telco put up a notice at the Indian institute of science 

inviting candidates with the codicil , women need not apply, she wrote to JRD TATA.

and the condition was waived .

still later she pledged her jewellery to raise cash for the fledgling company she founded along with her husband and a few others .

Infosys was one of a kind and still is .

as chairperson of the charities she is quite active.

she does remember that the college where she studied had no rest rooms for fair sex.

she constructed a few.

her deceptively simple attire has put off a few prima donnas who go more by show than content.

DR Bhyrappa has thrown fresh insights on Mahabharata.

they may not go down well with the orthodox but that is precisely the point.

the yardstick of originality.

the awards have also brought to wider notice the contribution of some artisans and artistes.

i am happy for another reason also.

the fourth guru in our Parampara, Sri Kamalesh Patel, has been awarded the Padma Bhushan.

for his excellent work in rejuvenating human values thru his Sahaj Marg meditation network.

we have perhaps the biggest meditation centre in the world at Kanha, near Hyderabad .

anyone interested in this training is welcome, and the training both online and offline is free.

to me personally the just concluded republic day has been one of good cheer.

may this cheerful phase benefit all of us , we, the people of india who have given ourselves this constitution.

 

Sankranti is celebrated in many states and in different ways.

In the south it is essentially a harvest festival.

In our traditional way cattle have a honoured place. so it is common to see decorated cows and bulls being taken out in processions.

We also have a native version of barbecue when families gather in their fields and have a feast. in some states it is celebrated over three days.

“Bhogi” as it is called, in Andhra Pradesh gives prime importance to fire.

Fire is always a cleansing agent .It is our way of saying that the past be buried and a fresh beginning made !

That beginning again is symbolised by sesame seeds though polished for the occasion. accompanied by jaggery or some sweet figurines they are shared with friends and relatives.

Is it another way of stregthening bonds?

Or our way of thanksgiving to the almighty who is marching forward by changing the course from south to north.

That is also the start of auspicious period, an event looked forward to by Bhisma Pitamaha resting on his bed of thorns.

So it is generally believed that the people who pass away during this period reach higher realms.

This is all about beginnings.

In yet another ritual the sesame seeds play a prominent part.

That is when we bid goodbye to our dear and near ones.

Punarapi Jananam, Punarapi Maranam as the saying goes is the underlying message , or so I understand.

It is not advisable to club the auspicious and the Inauspicious together

But the awareness of the greater truth perhaps will resore us equanimity.

The poise to treat both success and failure in life alike because in  one  sense they are imposters.

It also enables us to live aright.

As a wag once remarked , life is a passing show.

So enjoy what comes to our lot but with the feeling that it may or may not last.

Better still, ponder over the goal of life , Yours as well as others , so that proper relationships are established.

Happy Sankranti and may this season Herald a Happy new year for all of us, that is my prayer.

#bhogi #sankranti #newyear #festive #festivities