Let's be patriotic from our hearts, not our heads! Happy Republic Day!

Quite likely, this RD would pass off as any other. A day to be remembered for nationalism, and therefore, a day to do a lot of patriotic things...consciously.
So, some among us will wake up early, wear khadi and go and sing the national anthem to impress that they feel the pride of being an Indian.
And when the day has passed, we will get back to our routine in which, unfortunately, patriotism gives way to selfishness, indifference and -- what has always been in our Indian blood -- cynicism and we-are-no-good, boo-hoo-hoo mentality.
But when we get back to our routine, please stop in your tracks, and think: what is patriotism? Do we consciously need to be patriotic? Or, a little consideration for your fellow-citizens/countrymen (and women, of course) will ensure that much-hyped concept of nationalism via patriotism?
For that, we need to be patriotic at heart, not merely in our heads. 
The difference? It is this: If you are patriotic only in your head, you will remember that January 26 is our Republic Day; that August 15 is our Independence Day, and we will try to show off our patriotic best. 
But if you are patriotic at heart, every day will be an Independence Day or a Republic Day. Your heart will tell you that it is not just the land that you have to protect; it is the people, their emotions, and getting to understand them which will make you genuinely patriotic.
Sad, that there are very few genuine patriots around. 
Let's be genuine ones rather just remember to show off our patriotism through strange things only on specified days....
 

An eye-opener for safe driving

"I can't follow you everywhere...!'

'Avoid using mobile phone while driving...'   

 

Chanakya's Quotes - Worth reading a million times…  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "A person should not be too honest.  Straight trees are cut first  and Honest people are victimized first."  Chanakya quotes (Indian politician, strategist and writer, 350 BC -275 BC)  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "Even if a snake is not poisonous,  it should pretend to be venomous."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "The biggest guru-mantra is:  Never share your secrets with anybody. !  It will destroy you."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "There is some self-interest behind every friendship.  There is no Friendship without self-interests.  This is a bitter truth."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions -  Why am I doing it,  What the results might be and  Will I be successful.  Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "As soon as the fear approaches near,  attack and destroy it."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it.  People who work sincerely are the happiest."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind.  But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction.."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "A man is great by deeds, not by birth."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them.  By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "Books are as useful to a stupid person  as a mirror is useful to a blind person."  ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***  "Education is the best friend  An educated person is respected everywhere.  Education beats the beauty and the youth."

ends/..

The Mouth of Small Things

I feel like crying out loud because I have the freedom granted by the Constitution so I can do that without a care.  I could shout from the rooftops saying nasty things about religions, about God, about everything that hurts people to a point where a mass riot is started; all because I have the freedom of speech and expression.

Remember, Harold Laski in Grammar Of Politics says: “The freedom to swing your arm ends where your neighbour’s nose begins”.

Similarly, the freedom of expression must be curtailed by one’s own responsible behaviour when any utterance made by using the basic right to expression threatens to hurt others’ emotions.

This is what has happened when Booker Prize-winner Arundhati Roy expressed what she thought was her right to do so and announce to the world that Kashmir is not an integral part of India.

No doubt that everyone and anyone in India is granted the right to express whatever he or she feels like expressing; but expressing one’s heartfelt ideas should not hurt any other to such an extent that it leaves a bad taste like what has happened now.

If we are living in society, then social living (responsible one at that) must involve some degree of control exercised by ourselves on our own whims. Otherwise, each one of us will be zipping about like free radicals in the social domain hurting each others’ emotions only because we have been granted a certain kind of freedom, called the freedom of expression.

Arundhati is right in her defence that she was just exercising her freedom of expression and that people should be allowed to exercise that right.

But the point here is not about the freedom of expression but the responsibility with which that freedom is exercised.

The Booker Prize winner may also do well to remember that freedom of expression exercised by a personality of her stature comes with another responsibility – the accuracy of facts on what she is expressing.

By stating that Kashmir was never an integral part of India she has placed both her feet in the domain of speculation rather than truth.

Does she forget in what manner the Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of the Valley over the years? Why has she turned her head away from this bitter chapter in Kashmir’s history? Probably because it is not politically correct to even give a hint if support to the Kashmiri Pandits who have spread across the rest of India in search of home and secure living.

For her, probably it means more to give a word of support to the perpetrators of this mass movement away from the Valley while ignoring the fact that the Pandits left their native land only because they felt threatened to continue living in Kashmir.

Whatever happened to the other constitutional right, Ms Roy; the one that gives us freedom to settle anywhere in India with the right to work and live?

I wonder why one who is been perceived as an “intellectual” harps on only one kind of a freedom while ignoring (consciously?) a whole range of other freedoms which our Constitution grants us.

Kashmir is a touchy topic, Ms Roy, not just for Indians, but obviously for Kashmiris (including the Pandits) and (for your knowledge) even for the Pakistanis.

Just thought I should make Ms Roy aware about why her statements have wounded the emotions of many an Indian.

May be – just may be – she doesn’t know that at all. Ignorance can be bliss, Ms Roy.

WE VOTED TO BE CHEATED BY THOSE WHO WE VOTED FOR

Former chief minister of Karnataka and state JD(S) president, HD Kumaraswamy, on Saturday, said “a surprise awaits the people of Karnataka” on Monday.

Well, is it surprise, or is it disappointment for the people of this state?
It's not because it is the BJP government which is falling; it is because the people of this state have forgotten what political stability means.

So sure was Kumaraswamy on Saturday that the BJP government will fail the October 11-scheduled floor test that the vanishing act by the 13 of the 14 rebel MLAs holed up in a 5-star hotel in South Goa appears nothing less than intriguing.

Surely, it was all planned as an instrument to trigger the fall of the Yeddyurappa government. It was no coincidence that Kumaraswamy's statement about people being surprised was timed about the same time as when these dissident MLAs were taken by his close aide and Chamarajpet JD(S) MLA, Zameer Ahmed, to Chennai to keep them away from changing their mind and supporting the Yeddyurappa government.

BJP leaders wasted no time to scream “foul play” while accusing the JD(S) leaders and their close aides of masterminding an operation to abduct the 13 MLAs.

The Yeddyurappa government is on the brink of collapse. But even if it doesn’t, what the dissidents have done shows in ample measure that the people of the state have been taken for a ride…and what a ride it has been!

Then, what surprise was Kumaraswamy talking about in an almost sadistic tone  about pulling the government down, as if it is in the best traditions of the state's political culture.

During the run-up to the state election in May 2008, political activists were all over to appeal to people to come out in good numbers and vote, and “bring in a change”.

Is this the change that the people of this state were promised, that too mid-way through a five-year term?

What a way the people of Karnataka have been cheated! And the cheating has not stopped there; the JD(S) continues to brainwash people to justify what Kumaraswamy is doing is right as it is no less than a revolution to usher in the good for the people, because the BJP-ruled government has been “corrupt” and “neglecting” the people since they came to power on May 30, 2008.

If that is to be seen as sincere, then why is Kumaraswamy gunning for a ministerial berth at the Centre by delivering a fall of a BJP government to the Congress high command, and expecting to be rewarded like a good boy in the form of a Union ministerial berth?

Why are the rebels being wooed with promises of ministerial berths in the state to ensure that they do not return to the BJP fold?

Doesn’t ideological values, political ethics, and respecting the trust of those who voted for them, mean nothing at all?

Do not be surprised when many among the voters will be so disillusioned with the political processes and the present demonstration of political behaviour to bring down government after government in Karnataka, that they will shun anything political altogether to look for “other means” to have their problems redressed.

They already are; that's why activists run from one corner to the other pleading to the people to vote and not "neglect their responsibilities as good citizens of the country".

But for having carried out our responsibilities, this is what we get -- a government voted to power by free and fair means being run down by a bunch of morons who are showing how well-meaning they are towards the society at large, but actually are trying hard to satisfy their own lust for power.

So, people will shun the political processes.

Where then will these netas run with folded hands pleading for votes? Of course, they will still get those from their ardent followers who will vote for them in exchange for promises from their political bosses for jobs or some rule-bending help here and there to get them out of their troubles, criminal or otherwise.

This is what our political parties have come to -- agents of the Devil himself.

Much ado about nothing, this Ayodhya issue

The judgment day is here. The afternoon of September 30, 2010, will probably go down in history of India as the moment when two religions clashed over a small property on a 2.77-acre plot in Ayodhya.

Guys, get this straight! It’s just a property issue now; something that’s referred to as a title suit.

For all you know, the case will drag on for more years to come – with generations  getting sucked into it – with the party losing the title appealing to the Supreme Court. That’s the judicial procedure.

But we need to open our eyes to this fact – that by losing or winning a legal case, the respective religions do not get enhanced. The spiritual enhancement will have nothing to do with a material structure over which the dispute began in the first place.

Over the centuries, this structure in Ayodhya had become the bone of contention only to prove a point about which religion will come out triumphant.

Basically, it is much ado about nothing.

Wherever you go in the world, where there is religion playing a dominant role, politics follows, and the border between the two becomes so faint that it allows the players to identify one as the other and justify it. We saw that happening Afghanistan where Taliban did that.

Such a threat can be mitigated only by mature thinking or reason. Just keep religion in its place, and get about your lives.

Because the happiness levels in your lives will not ultimately be decided on which party won the case on September 30, 2010, at 3.30pm, will it?

Education dented over religion?

Anxiety ruled among students and their parents with Supreme Court staying the Ayodhya verdict until September 28.

Now, it’s a game of now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t for many primary, mid-school and senior secondary students who are already tensed up over their ongoing examinations.

The holidays that were declared for Friday and Saturday now stand withdrawn after the Supreme Court stayed the Ayodhya verdict, forcing the state governments to withdraw the holiday notices and making the students sweat all over again in the absence of a confirmed communication from the helpless schools.

Why helpless? Because the ban on bulk SMSes continues despite all other things being withdrawn.

Great!

So how are the schools supposed to inform the students or their parents about whether there will be school or not on Friday and Saturday?

See? This is what happens over a long-forgotten structure that has become a symbol of victory or loss for the two religions in question who will unfortunately view the Ayodhya case as a credible indicator of that.

But in the bargain, what we call the future of our nation continues to suffer.