Friendship Day

 Certain rituals are rather routine, and hence banal and boring by now. Yes, I am referring to the Friendship Day. The celebration is so much a ritual now that even its criticism as a convenient concession to capitalism also appears trite, vapid and cliched.

Well,  these days, you cannot quote Sudama and such myths to celebrate friendship. Oh, yes, 'friends' these days are mere fair weather friends. The moment you are not useful to them, they drop you like a hot potato. They behave as if you do not exist at all. They are forever busy to spare even a minute to talk to you, while they can gas on and on,  gossiping with 'the' gang, and for ages. You are plain amused at yourself for ever thinking of such curiosities as possible friend material at all. 

Hence on this friendship day, a little think-through about who is a friend. In my opinion, a friend can be a person who basically respects you. Such a person would not two-time, would not stab in the back, would not spread gossip slyly and secretly so as to 'manage' some silly and minor gains. 

A friend is always upfront about the apparent mistakes, possible errors even when the tone for explicating these can be gentle. A friend always has a friend's back in absentia, would stand up for the friend's honour, right?

Given such realities, I suppose, the best friends should be the immediate family who would always have your welfare at heart. Books, whether writing or reading them, are best buddies, too, as the whole universe, in all its complexities and absurdities, its beauties and glories, literally unravels in front of  you. So are hobbies like music, painting, gardening. A pet, especially a dog, can be a great companion, in fact, often the best one.

Personally I am of the opinion that THE best friend you can ever have is YOU Yourself. Thus can you freely critique yourself, better yourself as your only comparison is with yourself alone. By trying to be a better version of yourself by the day, you increase the respect quotient hugely, too. There is no question here of consciously belittling or of compromising on genuineness, right? The moment you achieve this balanced relationship, bliss is life, and every day is a  friendship day!

Pratima@I suppose, the entire human species better tie, and as soon as possible,  a forever friendship band to nature and environment, right? 

Tiger's truth

 Remember the "jungle, jungle hawa chali hai" jingle? Yes, I am referring to "Mowgli". Most Indians thus got to know Shere Khan, the truly wild, wicked tiger from Kipling's "Jungle Book".   

He was not vastly different from our other childhood read's, be it Aesop's "Fables" or Vishnu Sharma's "Panchtantra." A cruel, wicked, fierce animal always on the prowl! The folk wisdom of the wily cat as its aunt added to its notoriety. No wonder, the teenage read's of the Manohar Malgaonkar kinda of colonial romances made us appreciate the Jim Corbett's of the 'hunter of the man-eater' variety.

The happily growing numbers of this truly majestically handsome animal in the numerous tiger sanctuaries make me feel, however, that unlike the popular perceptions,  a tiger is actually a shy and a reserved animal, rather sleek, quite efficient at fulfilling its natural needs, resting otherwise 'cool-ly' in a shade, blending with the background that matches its unique stripes.

Just as locating various shapes in the fleeting clouds can be great fun, much better is the excitement of assigning psychological profiles to animals. The rabbit, for example, would be the classic case of a passive-aggressive personality. The rhino with its huge body and its skin would literally be the thick-skinned baddie who is not easy to bash up either.

A lion in this scheme would be extroversion incarnate, given the 'pride'. The tiger would, however, be the ultimate introvert, lost literally within its stripes. An absolute loner, hence with a unique mystique! A tiger always reminds me of the mafia masters, rarely sited which is rather good as the sight would be quite a terror.

I suppose, it is such type-casting that made the poaching of the tiger rather legit. Luckily, however, the glamour of the tiger safaris  amidst susurrating forests has saved this wondrous animal from its almost near extinction. May his tribe grow, flourish fast and forever! 

Pratima@In the recent most "Man ki baat", the P.M. listed the successful attempts of tiger species specific conservation. He talked of how the man-tiger clashes are avoided by the human(e) co-existence. Truly essential for the natural cycle, may it live quietly happy in the interior parts of the forest. Happy world tiger day!.

Poles apart?

 Science and literature are supposed to be poles apart. Are they indeed? In my opinion, there are any number of similarities between the two. So, even if they are two different cultures, to quote the famous C.P.Snow analogy, they are vastly similar, too.

Why do I say so? First and foremost, both need vast imagination and deep creativity. To think of a new paradigm in science, a scientist has to be both creative and imaginative so much so that the new scientific  and/or technological solutions often appear as images, and in dreams.

Similarly, literature, too, has its own logic and its own discipline, however much may it be mystified as "divine frenzy". So much is the method in this supposed madness that critics can find ever newer patterns and paradigms in each individual text and/or in the oeuvre by an author, or in a genre, and so on.

Want the currently popular, best ever example of the deep connection between the two? Remember the robots and the AI. Both have depended on vast imagination, deep insights, and a disciplined and logical  intellectual rigour for their very emergence and  their existence!

And yet robotics and the AI of every possible latest design prove irrefutably that science and literature  are poles apart. Why? Well, science, as robotics and the AI prove, is absolutely amoral, while literature is deeply ethical. 

Similarly, science and technology, especially, are use-, nay, even user-centred. In other words, their fortune is essentially utilitarian. Literature, on the contrary, is actually 'useless'. Why, these days nobody reads deeply. People read just self-help books, even these are preferred  to be 'heard', as ten-minute audio summaries! Who cares if the summaries are imprecise, and the language is incorrect? Online authors are a-plenty!

Well, let me end this small little piece with an image from the Roman mythology. In my opinion, the relationship between the two is like the two-faced Roman god, Janus who has two faces, both looking in different directions, one backward and the other forward. Yet the brain that drives them and the mind that underlies them is the same, right? 

Pratima@ If they are indeed poles apart, for a full life, both these poles are as much needed as the earth depends both on the South and the North poles for the diurnal rotations!

Is this a country for senior citizens?

 The title of our blog, as you can guess, a take off on a famous title by W.B.Yeats, addresses a major issue in our country, especially because today ends the senior citizens week. 

Why say so, is that your question? Well, ageism is horribly rampant in our country. We are so sold out on the so-called demographic dividend that we are eternally mocking the senior citizens, actually a huge and exponentially increasing  group, just for their being senior citizens!

Age is actually nothing but a mere number. The senior citizens today are much better than the youth today who mostly have only one quality, the so-called youth. In the age of Info Tecnology, they are only good at using technology as an addiction, be it the now-out-on-its-way t.v. or the currently ubiquitous mobile. 

They would never use the t.v., if at all, to watch better channels, and they use the mobile for the silly social media or for binge watching. Just because they can use in a little more adroit way  the programmes, already coded and uploaded and channelised by someone else, they continue to think they are smart!

Actually, they mostly create nothing. They pride on, for example, how they can use the ChatGPT to download answers to questions they could never even imagine! Their hold over every  natural language, including the mother tongue, is extremely poor. They think they are smart because they communicate using the abbreviations as slang and the emojis!

Why talk of them? Well, in comparison (an activity they are very good at in a jealous, mean way) with the better among them, any, even a mediocre, senior citizen would be the best, as a human being, as a citizen, as a communicator, as a creator, and, oh, yes, as a user of technology which even a child can master with a little bit of practice.

Those who are now senior citizens, newly minted or already well in to senior citizenship, have cared for and developed in a huge way all that makes anybody a human being, be it relationships, be it knowledge  creation, be it social awareness, be it conscious conscientiousness. Their humour continues to be sardonic, never wicked nor mean. They have always been  truly progressive in every field. 

Unlike the so-called youth today who are masters of none and jacks of all that is ordinary! The only thing they are okay at is the ageism bias! Cry, hence, the beloved country coz is it at all country for the aged? That is the question!

Pratima@ Yeats' solution was the soul singing the songs of contentment which yet again the aged are much, much better at, mostly because they do not know just the sole, whether be of a shoe or of a rampant sole/(self-centered-)ness!

Memorable Events

 July 26 this year marked two memorable events. The first one is the Silver Jubilee of  the martyrdom of our soldiers at Kargill. Across the nation, it created a patriotic fervour of pride in our army. The army protects the country even in impossible conditions such as the Himalayan heights where normal breathing would be difficult , not to mention the climate vagaries. Yet the braveheart soldiers take their profession to such heights, both literally and metaphorically, that they deserve a forever salute from the citizens.

If this celebration at the national zenith was august, at the international horizon unfurled a unique event, the inaugural ceremony of the Olympics in Paris. Frenchies, and especially Parisians, are famous for fashion-consciousness. It is, moreover, the hundredth anniversary of the event in Paris. That is to say, the Olympics take place in Paris exactly a century later.

No wonder, the 'wide open' games, to quote the motto of the event, began beautifully, what with laser lighting of the Olympic flame, Celine Dion singing from the Eiffel Tower, the beautiful boats sailing down the Seine, the works!

For a month now, the best in various sports would present their sporting skills. This Olympics would highlight the hi-tech use of the AI in an the arena of international sports.   To attract  the Gen Z, and onwards, youngeraudiences, there will be four new disciplines: sport climbing, skateboarding, surfing and break dancing or "breaking".

For a month on, enjoy the "melody" (to quote from the theme song of the Indian Olympic team) of the magical mo(ve)ments presented by the best in sports.

Pratima@ A memorable day indeed!

Monsoon Madness

 Every year it happens. There are two masks to it. The title must have clarified what I am talking about. Let us talk of these two masks. Behind the first one lie the comparatively well-off citizens. They live in rather posh societies right by the riverside. 

Do not they know the dangers of flooding when their gated society is right next to the flood line of the river bed? Who allows the construction of such buildings? Who is to blame? The corrupt unconcerned officials in the system and/or the educated, unconcerned citizens/buyers who wake up to their rights only during the monsoon? Do not these citizens have any responsibilities to Mother Nature at least? Where would the monsoon waters, regular or excessive, go if the rivers are not allowed any breathing space at all? Whole cities are entirely carpeted with cement roads with inadequate drainage and river beds are encroached upon with hi-fi societies. Where does the monsoon water flow in to?

Like the 'adventure and selfie freaks' who are up to all sorts of stunts for a reel and an adrenaline high, but want the systemic help in the hour of crisis, are not the apartment buyers also very much responsible for the havoc every monsoon causes?

Now let us look at the other mask. Your WhatsApp must be flooding with cuuuute and oh-so-politically-correct messages about how you should help the swatch sweepers because their bastis are flooded. Why do not these melting hearts, before the monsoon, take upon themselves the politically correct and socially very much necessary duty of gathering all the basti-wallahs and cleaning up the nullahs whose centuries-old beds are encroached by the ghettoes? Why conveniently hide behind the governance duties of the system? Why do not such 'aware' and concerned/caring citizens constructively advise their support staff of all sorts not to build juggies in to the river/nullah beds? Why do not these melting hearts conduct sit-in's and/or protests before the monsoon for cleaning up of nullahs whose banks are marauded to the brim?

The heavy rains are  not completely under human control, though human beings ARE responsible for the climate change, too. Where can the excess (or even regular) monsoon waters in the catchment areas of dams, necessary for human consumption yet again, go if downstream water beds are encroached every which way? 

The politically correct responses are absolutely partial, moreover. They would blast, and rightly so, the roads and constructions work in the Himalayas. Ask them about the more than hundred years old mud-n-mortar Mullaperiyar dam which is a ticking water bomb. All of them would go absolutely, and conveniently, deaf-n-dumb because it is politically correct to blast only a certain political party! Incidentally, I wrote to Ravish Kumar for a video on this issue. No response at all. Not a single video has happened on this theme, at least not according to my limited knowledge.

Human hypocrisies  and selfishness-es of all sorts are the real and only cause behind the annual monsoon madness! It happened last year, nay decade, it has happened this year, it will continue to happen next year because Mother Nature, typically like kind parents, however furious, continues to forgive!

Pratima@Equally are responsible for the 'curious' (in all senses of the term) annual monsoon madness, the system and the citizens!

A forever day

 They are a miniature island in the infinite oceans where the norm is the raging storms. Yet the Sindabad desire to roam these watery ways stretched up to the very horizon is strong enough. And after every tempestuous adventure, or even pleasant excursion, that small little island, however long lost it may appear, always appeals. Yes, parents are the Ithaca of each of our forays. Always welcoming, forever fostering!

July 24 apparently is the National Parents' Day. Much deserved for sure! Actually, every day, even when we are grown-up, is the parents' day. This bond is a natural fix. Better than any fevicol. It nurtures, moreover, while binding. Like a lubricant that keeps the machine going, however much rickety.

They give us the very life, the very values that make us. The sacrifices they make for us are infinite, beginning with the lack of sleep in our babydom to the sleepless nights worrying over our well-being. Even when a child is wayward, parents alone never give up on him/her. 

Despite all disagreements, every disappointment,  each distraction, any deterioration, this is the only tie that knows no divorce. The parental woe is a heart-ache you understand only when you yourself attain the parent mode/mould. The parent feel, in brief,  is so soothing that even an ultra-modern DINK couple wants to be a pet or a plant parent!

In the mobile world today, ambitions take wards way away. Aging parents, left alone, need NRIPA (non resident Indians' parents association) or an old age home. No wonder, a socially aware billionaire like Ratan Tata has thought of a new and much needed venture named 'parent pals'. It gives the senior citizens a young assistant who in return gets a good pay package. No wonder, I would like to repeat  at the end what this opinion piece began with, yes, parents' day is forever.

Pratima@ So strong is this bond that great poets had to begin their magnum opus, be it Kalidasa's "Kumarsambhav" or Milton's "Paradise Lost", with a reference to it. Every which way, forever IS the parents' day.