Bedu Pako Baramasa - arr. Meghan Quinlan

THE PROBLEM WITH HAPPINESS IS..

THE PROBLEM WITH HAPPINESS IS..

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The problem with happiness is that you are fine till you find it. Our whole life is a journey in search of happiness but we don’t know what happiness is. A normal life would be just fine and if fact is just fine but we are not ‘happy’ with it. We want to be happy but do not know what makes us happy. A good job, a good house, a good meal, a good night sleep, a caring spouse, loving kids- we have all of them and we are just fine with them but we want happiness. If all this is not, what happiness is? 



Okay, life is just fine but not fine enough to make us really happy. Really happy?  What is that? Oh, I need a big car. Sure enough, save some money, take some loan and have a car. Are you happy now? You wanted a big car and you have it, so you should be really happy. You were just fine with that old small car of yours, it was running, wasn’t it? You found your new car and thought you will be happy but you are just fine only. The statuesque remains. It is the same thing when we have a bigger house, a holiday to a most aspired destination or with a large Bank balance. Will having more cars, more houses, more holidays, and more bank balance help? Does not look so. People already having all these are also feeling just fine.

The so called happiness lingers for a while but sooner than later we return to where we started from. This is about finding happiness in material possessions.

Let us talk about finding happiness in spiritual journey. The world we live in is not real. Our real purpose in life is to find happiness within and for that we need to cultivate spiritual longings. We immerse ourselves in scriptures and Yoga. We visit temples and all religious shrines in search of the happiness. We do find some peace when we are in the temples or in the company of the learned saints but that is all. After a while the feeling of just fine returns. Where has the happiness gone? Will more time in the temples and with the saints help? Does not look so. People who are here for years look just fine if not bored.

The question therefore is why are we running after happiness if being just fine is what we are going get after the long race? We are already just fine, is not that good enough? 

Text Verdurian Hari Lakhera

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EXPERIENCE COMES WITH AGE (?)

EXPERIENCE COMES WITH AGE (?)

Not necessarily, I think. Then what else becomes experience? Of course age is important in the sense that as we grow in years we have the opportunity to try and observe many things in our life time. Experience as per dictionary is Personal trial; Continued observation; knowledge gained by trial and observation; Trial and knowledge from suffering and enjoyment; suffering itself. Age is the number of years a person gas lived.

Let us go back to our childhood and formatting years at home and at school and college. As a child, as we now know, everything was new to us and we asked questions and more questions. Most of these questions and the answers we got were beyond our comprehension but we took those answers for granted because we trusted the people who answered them- our parents and teachers. This experience  in the form of answers were to be tried by us in our coming life.

Let us now look at the experience we gained in our working life. We have worked in our chosen field of training or choice as engineers, doctors, accountants, salesmen, clerks, managers, actors, artists, politician, and bureaucrats and so on. We came across many events that took place during our work span. We call all these events as experience based on our observations and trials.

Let us also look at the events that took place outside our field of work.  There were many events in family, neighborhood and elsewhere.

All these trials and observations called experiences prepare us to react suitably to similar situations in future. These experiences become the yardstick for our belief. Younger generation looks up to their elders for advice in times of need because of their experience.

Many of us failed to try and observe the events that happened around us in the years we have lived so far and many of us again have different experience on similar events and therefore different reactions and solutions. The younger generation look up for answers and we have none or we have some vague answers. They start doubting us. We call it generation gap. We forget that trials and observations are ongoing processes and we cannot say this far and no more  as long as our mental faculties are in place.   

Age, therefore, has nothing to do with experience. A younger man/woman may have more experience than an old man because the former took interest in events happening around him and the latter didn’t. Some of us are tremendously gifted and have vried experience but some of us  limited our trials and observations to our field of work and family and did not bother to go beyond that. Our lack of interest in things that did not bring us money or fulfill our selfish ends resulted into a huge deficit of experience. If this is true, it is our duty to tell our children to look outward and gain as much experience as possible, develop interests other than that give them money and personally gain the experience. A little bit of experiencing sufferings will help in understanding what suffering is.

        

WHY HINDU GODS ARE DEPICTED DIFFERENTLY am at loss to understand why Hindu Gods are depicted with special features. Is it becaise they are super humans and that’s why they have many heads and hands? Is it because they all in one or one in all? I have profond respect for my Gods more so because they are beyond my comprehension. In such situation you can either love or hate or just stay neutral and I prefer to respect and that is my personal choice. They are there to preserve, protect and destroy me. It is their will. Could not they do the same by remaining just comprehensible? Or is it the product of our imagination that we have depicted then like that? Contrary to that Christian God is just as human as we are. Muslims do not have any picture of their God and they are saved from this dilema. We have some 33 million God and Goddesses and each one of them is depicted differently.

WHY HINDU GODS ARE  DEPICTED DIFFERENTLY?

It may look rather whimsical but at time I am at loss to understand why Hindu Gods are depicted with special features. Is it becaise they are super humans and that’s why they have many heads and hands? Is it because they all in one or one in all?

I have profond respect for my Gods more so because they are beyond my comprehension. In such situation you can either love or hate or just stay neutral and I prefer to respect and that is my personal choice. They are there to preserve, protect and destroy me. It is their will.

Could not they do the same by remaining just comprehensible? Or is it the product of our imagination that we have depicted then like that?

Contrary to that Christian God is just as human as we are. Muslims do not have any picture of their God and they are saved from this dilema. We have some 33 million God and Goddesses and each one of them is depicted differently.

BEING MODERATELY MODERATE

BEING MODERATELY MODERATE

Lot has changed since we were in schools. The changes are evident in every walk of life from the clothes we wear to the living standards we follow. Even the way we think and act in a given situation. The changes are more dramatic in the way we observe our religious beliefs or dictates.

Let us first talk about dress because that is the most visible. Nothing much has changed as far as men’s dressing is concerned because the poor fellow has a few choices from wide flared to narrow drain piped trousers, from full sleeved to muscle shirts or from flat heeled-wide toed to high heeled narrow toed shoes. Nothing really matters what he wears at home which can be a lungi to a Bermuda. All the designers’ wear for the females, of the females but not necessarily by the females. In those olden days the girls would come to school/college in salwar suits/lahanga kurta /sarees. The salwar suits or lahanga kurta were accompanied by dupattas (scarves). The saree were worn in such a way that only the small angle of the neck was visible. The whole idea was to cover the cleavage. In a way it was regressive because managing the saree was a job by itself and during summer times these dresses were quite oppressive. Things started changing for some good when skirt tops in schools replaced salwar suits/lahanga kurta at least. Currently there is some sort of competition among females in out placing each other by dressing as scantly as possible. The tops are moving upwards and the jeans/skirts are going downwards. So is the case with blowze and saree. It appears what is good for the west is good for us too. The good thing is that there are people liberal enough to accept the change but there are people who would impose dress codes in schools colleges and offices.

The other area is about religion. There are fundamentalists and there are liberals and moderates. There are rebels who would eat meat and drink alcohol much against the dictates of the tradition and there are moderates who would not mind this happening in moderation. There are fundamentalists who would want their women to dress in a particular way and there are moderates who accept the changes in moderation. There are people dead against inter cast marriages and there are moderates who do not put any hurdles.

Another area is the value system. These days it is quite common for men and women frequenting bars and discotheques and enjoying the fare late into nights. Not only dress codes or food habits or religious beliefs have changed but also the entire gamut of our way of living has changed. It will not be very correct to say that this change is visible only among the educated and upwardly mobile strata of our society. Even the middle class and lower middle class is not untouched. We should not be surprised if we find a jean top clad teenaged girl in some remote village of our country.

Moderation in moderation is good but the point is how moderate the moderate should be. Simply put how to define moderation.     

CHAI PE CHARCHA (DISCUSSIONS OVER TEA)

CHAI PE CHARCHA (DISCUSSIONS OVER TEA)

It all started some 66 years back in 1947 and a seal of approval was stamped in 1950  by the makers of our sacred Constitution. The charcha (discussions) resumed centering around the subject of lifting of the life of the scheduled casts and Scheduled tribes who formed a major chunk of our population. The charcha continues.

Then came VP Singh and who  expanded the scope of the charcha to OBCs (other backward classes). Charcha continues.

Meantime, more and more tribes- Jats, Gujjars, Yadavas- vied for entering the ambit of the subject of charcha because unless you are ‘the subject’ of charcha you do not count. The latest entry is that of Jains, a community known for its expertise in trade and commerce.The charcha continues.

But it was not just enough. We had already ‘charchaed’- discussed SC, ST, OBC, Jats, Gujjars, Yadavs, Jains. Charcha is something in our control, changing their lot is not.

Not satisfied with their won performance, the subject was given religious and communal colors. Neither the lot of the targeted minority improved nor the Mandir was built. Charcha, however, continues.

Then one fine morning the PM to be realizes that he was once a chaiwala (tea vendor) who made it big by becoming the CM of the most developed State in India. If he can do it why not every chaiwala? His propaganda managers did a quick survey and found that there are as many chaiwalas in the country as many chaipeenewalas-tea drinkers. They thought it was time to have charcha on them and with them. Overnight sprung an army of chaiwalas dispensing masala tea to everyone who passed by. The special brew was named after the PM to be. The chaiwalas will be charchaed –discussed for a few months and then dispensed with like a fly from a milk cup as was done with SC< ST< OBC< JATS>GUJJARS>YADAVS >JAINS etc.

THE CHARCHA WILL BE NENEWED ONCE EVERY FIVE YEARS.NEW AVENUES WILL BE EXPLORED IN THE MEANTIME. NEXT IN THE QUES ARE BRAHMINS.

  

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CM OF DELHI

Honorable Chief Minister Shri Arvind kejriwal Saheb,
I am an AAP supporter. In fact I became AAP supporter after reading its Election Manifesto. It fired the imagination of many people like me who supported you and on whose support you became the Chief Minister.
But I am disappointed not because 700 liter water per head per day has not reached every household, not because not a single contract worker has been made regular employee, not because the Janta Durbar was mismanaged, not because not a single election promise has been fulfilled, not because the Law Minister used abusive language but because you sat on Dharna. I have the following reasons:-
1.    You were well aware that Police is not under Delhi Government. You should have taken opposition into confidence and tried to reason out the issue in the Parliament rather than taking law into your own hands. This way there is no difference between you and a common criminal.
2.    You should have waited for the outcome of the investigation ordered into the Khirki episode before launching your agitation.
3.    Your Law Minister is equally responsible for the unfortunate happenings. No one has the right to brand someone, particularly a woman, as immoral. You asked for the suspension of police officers but did not take any action against the Minister.
4.     You started your Dharna with your demand of suspension of five police officials, then scaled it down to transfer and finally agreed forced leave for just two. It shows you are not sure what you want.
5.    You threatened to disrupt the Republic Day Celebrations. Sir, this is the only success story our country has over the last many centuries. No one has the right to abuse it. Talked of
6.    You put so many people into inconvenience as your Dharna disrupted the Metro Service.
7.    You could not handle the AAP supporters present there to keep order.
8.    You  talked of flooding Rajpath with people on 26th Jan. You should know that there are many like you who can also bring their supporters and create disorder.
9.    You used this Dharna to prepare for 2014 General Election and garner support in your favor.
10.    You neglected your work to run the Government.  Work at the Secretariat came to stand still for two days when all of you were at the Dharna Sthal.

Yours Truely,
Hari Prasad Lakhera
B-5/395, Sector 8, Rohini,
Delhi-110085.