Shivaji: Saffronization of a secular king

Yesterday was the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (1627-1680).  It was celebrated with great joy all over the Maharashtra and by all Marathi-speaking people wherever they are in some form or other.  Shivaji was one national hero of who is still revered by millions above cast and creed.  Indeed Shivaji is a towering name above all, and if you ask anyone to give just one name that binds all Marathi people together, it would be that of Shivaji without a second thought.

The popularity and greatness of Shivaji’s character have given rise to a typical phenomenon in the modern India.  Each and every ideological group want him colored in their own color, and unfortunately the far-right saffron Hindutva folks succeeded in it.  They distorted his image so much that he is almost deified as an incarnation of God who took birth “to save the Hindu people from the tyranny of Muslim rulers”; and this is far from truth.

This needs to be checked against historical facts and people should be made aware about this.  This has become more important in the post-1992 and post-Godhra India where Shivaji is again and again projected as a destroyer and enemy of Muslims.

It need to get it pulled out!

It’s about 5 o’clock in the morning and I have already been awake for about 2 hours now.  I have been having a toothache.  It is certainly not the worst pain I have ever had, but it is still annoying.  It awoke me from sleep and kept me awake thinking about the pain and its possible consequences.  Eventually, I got confused whether I was awake because of the pain or because of those thoughts, so I chose rather to get up and do something.

I am about 28 now and never had a complete set of 32 teeth in my mouth; only 26 erupted, others remained latent never coming above the surface, so I have always had a lot of vacancies in there.  To worsen the things, two of my existing teeth (a lower molar on each side) are decayed since childhood.  I took a good care of them and they never gave me any trouble until the recent past.  One of the decayed molar fell out last year, rather I pulled it myself and it came out leaving some roots behind; those roots are causing pain providing a site for recurrent infections.  I went to a dentist a couple of weeks ago for the same problem.  She prescribed me some medications and advised to get the tooth extracted completely.

Coming to the point, I’m afraid of injections, so I don’t go to doctors.  I had had my last IM injection back in 1999, which was a tetanus in a school health program.  I took it only after I found out I cannot run away from school.  IVs are less painful; I’ve had one in some 2006-07.  Now the problem is if I go back to the dentist, I would have to get the tooth pulled out and it’s going to be painful.  Dental procedures are mostly done under local anesthesia, so she will give me injections in my gums.  I haven’t had a tetanus shot in years, so I might have to get one.  And frankly, I am afraid of injections, much more than the tooth pain itself.

I have worked in the emergency rooms for a long while, and have done procedures under local anesthesia almost on a daily basis.  I know it is painful just for a while and then it only helps the patient, but I’m finding it tough to apply the same principle to myself.  It is not that I cannot tolerate the pain, just I am afraid of it.

But I think I will go to the dentist sooner or later and will have the tooth pulled.  I will have injections and I will bear the pain, I know I can do that (if the fear is out).  Why shall I stay awake for nights just because I am afraid of something?  Why shall I not enjoy chocolates and cold coffee?  I cannot live without chocolates, so I must go and get my tooth pulled, and possibly a root canal to the other one decayed.

I need to get that damn tooth pulled out, and before that, the fear!

Note:  Sketch by Kazumi Hatasa/Flickr.  Fair use for illustration.

Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya…

Because it will not be forever that the the peace will prevail.  There will be times, as it is now, that I will find myself lost.  You have a plan.  I have a dream, unfortunately, and even more cowardly, as you call it, not a plan.  Some day, suddenly out of a blue, you will put the plan forth, and I, with the extensive burden it would put on me, would succumb.  I should not.

Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.  Psalm 119:173

And aren’t your precepts mine too?

Note:  The post title is taken from a famous Sanskrit prayer from Brihadaranyaka 1:3:27; it means “lead me from darkness to light.”

The neglected people of shining India

While I’m still waiting for more opinions on my last post (What is God?), I am here with a new post that has been building up in me over the last couple of weeks.

A while ago, I started posting a daily photo on Flickr.  The concept was to get an eye looking for new ideas on a daily basis.  I had a hard time for the first few days to find something new to click.  I had already shared about 100 photos from literally every corner of the city, so it was very difficult to find new places everyday.  Also, one cannot go on a photo-shoot daily, we have our own jobs etc., so I had to find something new at the very same places day to day, and I turned towards people.  After all, we can always find new people on the same streets forever.

But what I started as a leisure activity turned out to be a disheartening thing for me.  We are a booming economy.  People are getting salaries that they never believed they would.  Roads are getting poured with more cars and more bikes.  India is shining.  And as I turn my camera on roads, I find people living at the lowest brink of poverty, at the depth of human dignity.  And the socioeconomic system, the religion have deep-sown a philosophy in them to be satisfied in what they are.  They neither aspire something higher, nor are they conscious of what destitute life they are living.  I am standing between the two extremes of India, and I’m awed with those both.

I wish someone of them grows up to sue me for publishing their pictures in such inhumane state without their consent.

Note:  Hover over the photos for the alt text.  Click on the photos for the respective Flickr page.  All photos are CC-BY-SA.

What is God? I need ideas!

Here I am back, this time not to tell something, but to ask all of you “what is God?”  I know this is one of the toughest questions one can have, but I don’t want to know what God really is, neither do I mean to ask “does He exist or not?” (now call me a sexist for calling Him “He”), I just want to know what God is for you.

I want to know your personal opinions and not what your religion thinks about it, but if you are putting your thoughts as a representative of your religion, please put a note to let me know such.  You can put your thoughts in comments, or if they are lengthy enough, you can trackback on your own blog.

I hope this ordeal would help me to get a better understanding of one of the most complicated ideas of human conception, and hopefully I will get some insight into my philosophy of God too.

I deserve you, I do!

I have not been writing these days.  My computer has caught a virus and would need a cleanup.  Also, life is going too much tumultous on the personal front, so I need to keep up with everything and also to maintain a smile.

I don’t have too much to write tonight.  I am writing this post from a pubilc computer; it does not give the comfort of the personal one.  I’ll again have to get a new setup, again a new installation of Windows Live Writer, again a template dummy post to all my subscribers, I apologize for that in advance.

In the meanwhile, I am keeping myself in-touch as much as I can with my cellphone browser.  You can always check me on Twitter.

I am running out of life, and I am living it.  I want to live it full.  I have a right to pursue happiness, happiness that for now just allures me from afar, sometimes from a bit closer.

Yeah, I’m again going random–you say I need to keep a check on myself, I go random more often than I should.  I don’t know how should I keep myself on track.  I’m running out of life, and I want to live it.

And I want to live it, because I deserve to live–I deserve much more than I have now, I deserve you, I do!

Of the fear of freedom

I am unsure; of various things.  For example, is this blog worth reading or worth following?  It is going to hit the mark of 7000 hits by tomorrow; it has more than 20 subscribers, about 170 comments on more than 100 posts.  I have found a couple of good friends because of this blog who really care to read every line I type.  I don’t want to be suspicious about their judgment.

My question is about myself.  Am I being honest with myself while I write these things?  I know I am not.

I am a writing guy.  As a friend pointed out, I need to write down things to come at a decision.  Still, I have kept some decisions pending; and they are left pending because I am not writing about those things, not here on this blog, not anywhere else.  I even tried to start a new blog.  The main issue is not of freedom of expression, on this blog or that, what matters the most is the freedom of thoughts, and I am afraid I have lost the habit to have it!

Again, I don’t want to point a finger at someone else.  It’s me who is keeping myself under constraints.  I can fight with everyone else for trying to cage me down; how shall I deal with myself?

I want to fly, free from myself!  I am choosing an easy way—stay where you are—I would rather not!  I must remember what the Buddha had told me, in the Dhammapada, “Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves, are easy to do; what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult.”

And I want the strength to do the beneficial and good!

Of the brighter side…

NOTE:  This is a cross-post and announcement from my new blog “Of the Brighter Side…”

There is nothing special with January 17, 2012 to start a new blog; but it was not such with April 9, 2011 too when I had started the Blog of Reflections.  The Blog of Reflections was started as a safe outlet for all the things that crowd within me and press hard to blow their way out.  It was intended to be a personal blog where I can post whatever I want to, may be a single photograph, or just a status-like sentence.  But again, as it had happened with Ghalibana, the Blog of Reflections turned out to be more serious than what I had thought it would be.

So again, here I am with a new blog that I hope will not be as serious as the previous ones, where I can smile, laugh, cry, or do whatever I want to, as long as it pleases me.

And as always:

The moon never shows his 100%, not even on a full moon night.  The darker side of the moon may not be as dark, but it is his own, and he prefers it concealed from the world.

And here I am, to talk of the ups and downs, of the growth and decay, of the full moon and no moon, and whatever—of the brighter side!

Mannipaaya? Will you please forgive me?

I had promised all of you in a previous post that that I would write a post comparing the Tamil song Mannipayya with its Hindi counterpart Sharminda Hoon.  Because of my busy schedule and because of all the books I have brought, I could not find much time to share all those thought with you via a blog post.  I cannot, however, stop myself from sharing this song with you.  This is the first time ever that I am sharing a YouTube video on The Blog of Reflections.  I am in love with this song and I am sure you will love it too if you are in love, or were in love at some point.

Will you please forgive me?

I hope language won’t be a big barrier.  I don’t know Tamil too, still I enjoyed the song.  Everything is perfect, Thamarai’s words, A. R. Rahman’s music, Shreya’s voice, the 2000-year-old poetry of Thiruvalluvar in chorus, and oh how can I forget it, the picturization.  I’m loving it.  For the curious ones (like me), here is a translation (external link).

Do let me know of your thoughts, I’m waiting for them, and yeah, I am in love

Of Makar Sankranti and kites…

It’s Makar Sankranti, an Indian harvest festival marking entry of the sun into the Capricorn zodiac and start of winter solstice.  It’s the only India festival following the solar calendar instead of the lunar one, falling each year on January 14th or 15th.^[1]  Consistent with the vast variety of languages and subcultures across India, it is known by different names in different parts of India.  In Maharashtra, my home state, it is called teeL sankrant (तीळसंक्रांत), and celebrated with laddoos of teeL-gooL (sesame and Jaggery).

In many parts of India, and in the city where I live, the main feature of Makar Sankranti is kites.  It’s January, sky is bright clear, temperature is pleasantly cool, a perfect time to fly kites!  Hundreds of kites can be seen above in the sky, of different colors and shapes, sometimes as big as a chopper.  Just the day before yesterday, they were attempting for Guinness Book of World Records  for flying the largest bamboo-made kite in a nearby ground.  I don’t know of the result, however.

I can’t fly kites.  My mother never let me fly kite as a kid.  I was the only son, and too much cared for.  Once only I had bought a kite for four annas (0.25 INR) and was beaten for it.  Flying kites can be hazardous sometimes if precautions not taken!  There was a little boy who fell in a well while running behind a cut kite.  My mother never let me fly kite; later I never attempted it too!

I lived in relatively small towns then.  People didn’t have this much craze of kites there.  Nagpur goes crazy behind kites.  One needs to be too much cautious even if he is not flying kites.  Kids run across the roads behind the kites.  Some hanging thread across the road can slit your throat.  It’s dangerous.    I myself have seen one such a patient.  He was riding his bike and a kite thread slit his throat across.  We had to take assistance of an ENT surgeon to repair his throat as it was too deep!  The administration has banned China-made nylon threads this year and have suggested to use simple threads only.

Still, Makar Sankranti is a joy!  It’s a holiday, the teeL-gooL laddoos taste good, and I like watching people flying kites and enjoying the good air!

Notes:
1.  The winter solstice falls on December 22, but for some reasons unclear to me, Makar Sankranti is celebrated on January 14/15.
2.  Both the pictures above are taken in/around Reshimbag Ground this morning.