FLIRTATIOUS WOMEN

Which women are more flirtatious?

It has been proved through research that when women expose more of their skin, make exaggerated body movement like dancing, it causes the testosterone (the sex hormone) levels of men to rise. So the more women are doing these things the more they are giving sexual signals to men, i.e., being flirtatious.

Karl Grammer of University of Vienna made an interesting experiment on this.

He set up a mobile laboratory in a night club in Vienna.

He recorded, while dancing, how  much skin women were exposing (by photographing them and analyzing those photographs) , how much  their body movements were, at which point of their menstrual cycle these women were ( by collecting their saliva samples) and recording whether they were single or had a steady mate ( by giving them a questionnaire).

The result of the experiment was startling.  Those women who had a steady partner (but going out with somebody who were not their steady partners) were sending more sexual signals. Also those women who were ovulating were more flirtatious.

And those women who had a steady mate and ovulating were most flirtatious of

JHUMPA LAHIRI

 Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa with her husband Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush attending state dinner in White House 

Child Jhumpa with her parents Amar and Tapati

A few days ago I was ruminating about myself being Lahiri and tried to identify which Lahiris made the cut in this world. A few names came up in my mind but I felt two persons are ahead of all, Yogi Shyamacharan Lahiri and the Pulitzer winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. Shyamacharan was distantly related to my family and his grandson once visited our house when I was young.  Of course Jhumpa also must be related to me because we are both Barendra Brahmins and Barendra Brahmins are all related to each other in some way. However I never knew her personally and I wanted to know about her work and life.So I ordered from flipkart .com her prize winning book Interpreter of Maladies.
 
As I waited for the book to reach me I went on to gather as much information I could from her interviews, reviews of books and of course wikipedia.First of all, she looks beautiful, both to a Bengali and an American. You would think this woman cannot be but a smash hit if she does a few things half as good as others. The biggest fact as of her life, as I found out, is that she is partly Bengali and partly American but neither fully Bengali nor fully American. This may seem obvious but this singular thing has shaped her life and work in a way that nothing else has.Her father, Amar Lahiri, started from a very humble beginning (lower middle class bengali family in Kolkata),migrated to United Kingdom in third class of  a ship possessing equivalent to 10 dollars  in total. He worked there as a librarian in London School of Economics and got married with Tapati. In 1967 Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri was born in London. Her mother gave the two names (could not decide which one was better) and called her Jhumpa at home. In 1970 Amar Lahiri got job from Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a librarian and flew to United States and settled in Rhode Island. When he took her daughter to school the teachers found Jhumpa as the least cumbersome of names and the name stuck to her for life.From the very beginning Jhumpa was pulled in two directions, one India (to be precise Kolkata) where her parents lived in their mind and second United States where she and everybody else she knew lived. Her parents always reminded her who she was, where her ancestors were and her traditions and wanted her to be like them culturally. But Jhumpa as a little girl found her parents different and somewhat weird compared to the rest of the world around her. For example they ate rice and dal with fingers unlike everybody else and her parents never kissed each other like every body else’s parents. She kept these little family secrets away from her friends in fear of rejection. In school she read American history, American civil war and at home she listened to Bangladesh war of 1971 and tried to figure out where it (Bangladesh) actually was. She had to come to Kolkata almost every year (sometimes for months at a time) and when her teachers in school learnt about that they told her how scary must that be to her. With her parents she spoke Bengali and with outside world she conversed in American English. To an American she looked foreign with her brown skin and way of life and when she came to Kolkata she looked foreign to relatives with her American English and way of life.This basic dilemma of neither a full Bengali nor a full American pervaded all her senses.As my book arrived I went through the stories (because Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories) at one go. The book gripped me for three reasons 1) they were written so well, 2) the author had the same surname as mine, 3) she looked so well. Many of the characters of her stories are second generation Americans like her, i.e., whose parents have migrated from India to US and set in USA. Two are set in India, one particularly in North Calcutta (College Street and Bowbazar crops up).The language is plain ,narrative almost placid and although you are aware that you are not understanding all of it you become captive of it. Suddenly you are given a jerk, an emotional violence is committed and slowly you come to a much understated end and you want the story to go on a little bit more and reveal a little bit more. After the book ends you inevitably want to read more from the same author. Although the stories revolves around characters who are generally second generation Americans and sometimes reveal their alienation, the emotions of people are very general and real and there is no problem in empathizing with them.Interpreter of Maladies was the first published book of Jhumpa and although the stories appeared individually in different magazines earlier they appeared as a collection in the book first. To the utmost surprise of Jhumpa she got the highest honor for literary work in USA, the Pulitzer Prize in the year 2000. My interest heightened about Jhumpa after reading the book and I went ahead with my research about her.
Jhumpa did her graduation from South Kensington High School .She received her B.A from Barnard College in 1989. After that she had multiple degrees from Boston University; M. A in English, M. F. A in creative writing, M. A in comparative literature and PhD in Renaissance studies. She was a fellow of Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center for two years (1997-1998). She also taught creative writing at Boston University and Rhode Island School of Design.In 2001 she married Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush who is Guatemalan –Greek by origin and who was then Deputy Editor of TIME Latin America, and who is now Senior Editor of Fox News Latino. The marriage took place in Kolkata in proper Bengali style and I remember the marriage was highly publicized in Kolkata newspapers although no journalists were allowed at the actual wedding. According to her relatives the menu at the wedding contained luchi, mach, mangso, misti, doi among other things and the couple went to places like Belur Math for sight seeing.In 2003 her second book The Namesake was published. It became a bestseller within a few days in America. The central character of the book, Gogol Ganguly had parents who immigrated to USA (like Jhumpa’s parents) and his pet name became his real name accidentally as in Jhumpa’s case. The novel starts with immigrant parents’ life in USA,their alienation ,Gogol’s dual identity (one Bengali, other American) ,his struggle to become one of the mainstream Americans, his romance with an American white, then a wealthy British and finally another second generation immigrant Bengali girl whom he marries ( which was to some extent arranged) and later divorces. The novel is somewhat autobiographic and was highly acclaimed by both readers and critics.Gogol has to fight for usual American things like she did (things like wearing jeans and dating with boys).In 2007 The Namesake was made a movie by Mira Nair (where Jhumpa did a bit of acting as well) in Hollywood (starring Kal Penn, Tabu and Irfan Khan).The film was not as well received as the book and Jhumpa refers it to as Mira Nair’s own namesake.Jhumpa’s latest book Unaccustomed Earth is another collection of long short stories and like before focuses on second and third generation immigrants. They are increasingly assimilated with mainstream America and eventually do things as other Americans do. As for her bengaliness, Jhumpa, although she speaks Bengali at home cannot read or write Bengali very well. Her Bengali reading and writing is, as she herself says, is like a five year old’s. So we may conclude that she has not read Rabindranath or Bibhutibhusan in original Bengali although her mother was fond of Nazrul and Nazrul Geeti (songs by Kazi Nazrul Islam).She can speak Spanish (which is her husband’s native language) and I found one interview of her in Spanish in You tube although did not find any Bengali interviews.
She presently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, son and daughter Octavio and Noor. She says she encourages her children to be fully American while having a sense of respect for their own ancestry and all other cultures in the world.
President Barack Obama appointed Jhumpa Lahiri a member of President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities

ANARKALI

ANARKALI

SALIM

DILIP KUMAR AND MADHUBALA IN MUGHAL E AZAM

Who was Anarkali?

The lore of Anarkali goes like this. She was a court dancer of exceptional beauty in Akbar’s harem in Lahore, named Nadeera. Akbar’s son crown-prince Salim (later Emperor Jahangir) was returning home after fourteen years in the service of army (he was sent to army by Akbar because he was a spoiled boy) and a mujra was organized in celebration of this incident. In this famous mujra Nadeera danced. Seeing her beauty Akbar called her Anarkali (Pomegranate Blossom, ‘dalim ba bedanar koli’ in Bengali). Salim fell in love with this beautiful dancer and Anarkali returned his love. It was kept secret since she was of low birth. But eventually Akbar came to know of it as Salim expressed his intention to marry her and make her the Empress of Hindustan. Hearing this Akbar ordered to arrest Anarkali and sent her to prison in Lahore. Salim rebelled at this. He, with the help of a friend managed to free Anarkali from prison and hid her at the outskirts of Lahore. He managed to create a force from his army and attacked Lahore. Akbar retaliated with a much larger force and defeated Salim. Salim was imprisoned and offered with two choices, to surrender Anarkali or a death penalty. Salim chose death sentence. Hearing this Anarkali came out from her hiding and surrendered herself to Akbar. She asked Akbar to take her life instead of Prince Salim’s but asked him to let her spend a single night with her lover. Akbar agreed. After the pleasant night with Salim, Anarkali drugged him to unconsciousness while she was taken away by Akbar’s men. A ditch was made and she was put into it and the top of the ditch was covered with a brick wall. Anarkali was buried alive.

There is a variation to this lore. In that variation it says Akbar once promised Anarkali’s mother that he will fulfill any one wish of her. As Anarkali was doomed to death her mother asked Akbar for life. Akbar granted her the wish and Anarkali was let to escape through a series of underground tunnels.

This lore is so vivid in the minds of people that it is taken as a piece of history. Actually the authenticity of the lore is not at all confirmed. It was first written by the Indian writer Abdul Halim Sharar where he says it is a work of fiction.

However there is a tomb in Lahore which is said to be Anarkali’s. Also there is a place in Lahore called Anarkali Bazaar which is supposed to be the place near where Anarkali’s ditch was dug.

Scholars differ in their views on the Anarkali story. Some are of the view that she was actually one of the stepmothers of Jahangir. Some other says she was one of the Begums of Jahangir the marriage with whom Akbar disapproved. There are others who think that Queen Nur Jehan ( Meher-un-nisa, widow of Sher Afghan Kuli Khan, a Mughal officer  ) was actually Anarkali.

Whatever may be the case the story has been embedded in the mind of public as an immortal love story. The legacy is many books, plays and films that have been created out of the Anarkali story. The most prominent among them is the famous movie by K. Asif ,Mughal e Azam.

Asif cast Madhubala (born Mumtaz Jahan Begum Dehlavi) and Dilip Kumar (Mohammad Yusuf Khan) as Salim. Incidentally they were both pathans, the people of the same neighborhood as the legend Anarkali.

Madhubala was born in a very poor family. And she was also born in Valentine’s day . His father Ataullah Khan was an employee of a biscuit factory in Delhi. He had 11 kids, two sons and nine daughters. His two sons and three daughters died in their childhood. When the biscuit factory closed in Delhi Ataullah went to Bombay to find work. He looked in different studios with his child daughter to find work for her. Soon Mumtaz was working in films as a child artist as Baby Mumtaz. Seven or eight year old Baby Mumtaz was earning the livelihood of her family. By the age of 14 Mumtaz was cast in a film as a heroine. She was noted not only because of her looks but also for her talent as an actress. By the age of 16 she was a ravishing beauty. Her screen name was changed from Mumtaz to Madhubala ( most probably at the advice of famous actress Devika Rani) and she did her first runaway hit film named Mahal opposite Ashoke Kumar.

Within two years she became one of the top heroines in the Bombay film industry and challenged the likes of Kamini Kaushal, Suraiya, and Nargis etc. Madhubala was of a very cheerful nature and fond of playing pranks with others (although at the beginning she was a bit reserved in nature). She had a habit of laughing uproariously , sometimes even at inopportune moments. People liked her on and off screen immediately and men fell in love with her. She also, although conscious of her beauty , liked others generally and found interest in many of her costars. She , perhaps unconsciously, gave the impression to the others that she was in love with them. In fact, as one of his costar Dev Anand said, she loved to be loved. This  sometimes caused grievances and rivalry among her costars.

In 1951 she paired with Dilip Kumar for the first time in a movie called Tarana. The young pair Dilip and Madhu immediately found  a great liking for each other. If you watch the movie the budding romance is palpable by the way both so vividly portray the on screen love.

Madhubala’s father was a stern and conservative man in nature. Although he was a doting father he was very possessive about her and ruled on how she moved and behaved as well as her financial and dealings and contracts. She came early in the sets, ahead of even minor artists and left the studio at 6 pm sharp. She never attended functions, parties etc. She seldom got out of her home or studio because she had a fear of being mobbed. Studio and home were all that was known to Madhubala until even her death .

However ,within this restriction fondness began to develop between young Yusuf and Mumtaz. In the sets between intervals of the shots and in their rooms in the studio their closeness grew.

Ataullah Khan did not look at this romance favorably. Although both were Muslims and pathans of same category and of compatible age Ataullah found this dislikable because it threatened to take away his daughter away from him. He found it unpalatable on two counts, first because the family depended on Madhubala’s earning and secondly he felt an obsessive love for her pet daughter and did not want to part with her.

As Madhubala rose in fame and her romance bloomed an incident took place during one of her shootings that fundamentally changed her fortune. In the set of one of her films she became  ill and vomited blood. Doctors diagnosed the illness as ventricular septal defect or simply put, she had a hole in her heart. The disease was congenital and no cure of the disease was known at that time. She tried to hide the disease for sometime to the industry but in 1954 she became violently ill in the set of another film Bahut Din Huwe and it became known to all. Madhubala’s fate was doomed as Anarkali’s was. She was going to die quite soon.

Shooting of Mughal – E - Azam, the brainchild of K.Asif portraying the story of Anarkali, was started in 1950. Asif had grand design about this film and he left no stones unturned to make that grand design a success. He made the sets in a grand scale. The ornaments that the actors and actresses wore were made of real gold, diamond and gems. The dresses were authentic to the core, made of actual material the kings and queens were known to wear. Although the film was made in black and white everything were made up of the color they really were. The cost  of the film surpassed all previous record by far, a whopping 1.5 crore in 1950s! And the love the film portrayed between Salim and Anarkali was real, because the actor and actress who did the roles were madly in love with each other. The fondness which started in the sets of Tarana was in full bloom now. Mumtaz was full of Yusuf. And Dilip was full of Madhu. They met outside the studios at the dwelling of K.Asif secretly and had rare moments of intimacy. Both dreamed of marrying each other.

 To watch the shooting and Madhubala many prominent people came to the sets .One of them was the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto , the politician from Pakistan ( this led to the rumor that Madhubala was having an affair with Bhutto). Another was Chinese Prime minister Chou en Lai.

But as the making of the film began to take an inordinately long time because of various reasons darkness fell on the romance. Dilip proposed to Madhu in one of the sets of a film in presence of an actor named Om Prakash. But he made a condition that Mumtaz had to sever all ties with her dominating and nosey father Ataullah Khan. Madhubala remained silent. A film was signed by Dilip Kumar and Madhubala named Naya Daur to be made by B.R.Chopra. Madhubala took Rs. 30,000 as advance.  Some of the shooting had to be done at outdoor location near Bhopal. At this Madubala’s father objected. He said that he could not allow his daughter so far away because she was not used to outdoor locations ( Madhubala ate only those foods ,even water, that were made at her home) and he gave medical reasons. He also said that Dilip Kumar misbehaved with his daughter and the out door shooting was just a ruse to farther the dalliance. Ataullah feared the unrestricted intimacy between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala in an outdoor location. As Madhubala disagreed on her father’s insistence to go to Bhopal, B.R. Chopra sued her of taking money in advance and not doing her job. Dilip Kumar, full of vengeance against Ataullah Khan, was a close ally of B.R Chopra in the court case. He gave testimony in favor of B.R. Chopra. This vitiated the relation between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala for good. In rage against Madhubala and Ataullah Khan Dilip Kumar sarcastically said in court that he would love Madhubala “until her death”.

But the filming of Mughal E Azam was still unfinished. Meanwhile both Madhubala’s health and relation with Dilip Kumar deteriorated. Madhubala did an astonishingly large number of movies considering the state of her health. For this also her father was to be blamed. He made her sign almost any movie that was offered to her without considering the quality or her health. This had a terribly detrimental effect to her health and to some extent her career.

In Mughal E Azam Madhubala had to suffer on two counts. On the one hand she had to act with her once lover costar with whom her relation has soured and on the other she had to do horribly strenuous things in set to depict the “reality” of Anarkali. . In one of the scenes Dilip Kumar slapped her so hard that she almost cried. In the dungeon scene she was put on real heavy chains made of steel and made to walk with those and sing. She also had to do the rigorous kathak dance in the scene of the famous song “pyar kiya to darna kiya”. The scene was completed in no less than 30 days. Added to this were regular night shifts.

As the movie was finally completed Madhubala’s health worsened very badly. At this juncture her intimacy with the eccentric genius Kishore Kumar began to flourish. Kishore Kumar, with whom she found a rapport in the sets of hilarious Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi , made her laugh and forget her pain. He did outrageous things in front of her. Once he tried to cut his own hands by the fan blades in her room so much so that Madhubala screamed in fear and people gathered inside the room. This new diversion kept Madhubala fascinated . But she never forgot Yusuf and continued to love him at her heart.

Mughal E Azam was finally released in 1960 . The movie theatres where the movie was released were decorated with special lights. The story of making of Mughal e Azam by that time was known to all. The movie became a success of monumental proportions. It grossed an all time record in box office which was eventually broken only by Sholay many many years later.

Madhubala did not attend the premiere of Mughal e Azam. In fact only once in her life time she attended a public function of any kind. However fame of Madhubala spread outside the barrier of countries. She was recognized internationally. An article was written in a widely circulated American journal that Madhubala and not a Hollywood actress was the most popular heroine of the world. Frank Capra, an Oscar- winning director came to India at that time and wanted to meet Madhubala with a view to find an opening for her in a Hollywood production. However she did not meet Capra. Reason: her father thought she will not be able to eat with knife and fork in Hollywood! One can only surmise what could have happened with the treatment she could have had in United States.

After Mughal- e- Azam she did not appear in too many films. Her health became very bad. In this dark moment she married Kishore Kumar. She thought Kishore would fill rest of her life with fun and reduce her pain. But after only a few days they became a very ordinary couple.Kishore’s fountain of laughter dried up. Madhubala became a very jealous and nagging wife. And in her heart there was still Yusuf. Madhubala and Kishore separated only after a month of their wedding although they remained married legally. The relation soon came to such a pass that Kishore was unavailable to accompany her for her health check up in London.

Madhubala became reclusive. She had her own projector and she used to watch the ‘ pyar kiya to darna kiya ‘ scene ever so often. It is said she watched it more than 500 times. The few acquaintances who visited her told a sorry tale. She called a very close film journalist and told him that it was only Yusuf , Yusuf ,and Yusuf that dwelled in her heart.

Madhubala was a large hearted person from a different angle. She could not refuse anybody who asked her help. She did whatever she could financially. For this reason she always carried four, five thousand rupees along with her ( it was a considerable sum those days). She donated very magnanimously. In 1950 when refugees from East Pakistan poured in to India she donated an abnormally large sum of 50,000 rupees. The then Home Minister of India, Morarji Desai was astonished and thanked her profusely for that.

But the saga of modern Anarkali was almost at end. In the 1960s she  almost totally remained at her home. Only a flicker of a hope came along when she recovered a little bit and started to shoot for a movie in 1964. But it was very short lived. She succumbed to her illness in 1969 nine days after her  36 th birthday ( the Valentine’s day).The day before her death she wanted to see Dilip Kumar for one last time. But alas no one was there to convey this message to Dilip Kumar who was busy shooting in Madras.

We do not know about authenticity of the historical Anarkali. But the 20 th century Anarkali in form of Madhubala was real. Her love for her beloved was unquenched as was Anarkali’s. She was as beautiful as Anarkali . She had an unconquerable barrier in the path of her wish to unite with her lover like Anarkali. For Anarkali it was Akbar, Salim’s father and for Madhubala it was her own father Ataullah Khan. Both were ordained by God to die young and become a legend for future generations. She was the same epitome of beauty with whom men fell in love for generations.

 In 2010 Indian Post and Telegraph department of India chose to immortalize her by choosing to preserve the stamp in her memory by engraving it in solid pure silver ingots, layered with pure 24 carat gold. Only twenty four others from history of India including Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautam Buddha, the Taj Mahal , the peacock , J.R.D. Tata and Mother Teresa were in this elite league. Except Madhubala only Satyajit Ray from film world was honored thus.

I was studying engineering when I first saw Mughal e Azam . When she dropped her veil and showed her face in the dance song “Mohe panghat pe Nandlal”  I almost dropped dead by her beauty. To me she remained the ultimate throughout my life. As I went on reading and recapturing her life it seemed to me that the real Anarkali was not in the history books but who died in Bombay in 1969.

Commemorative gold plated stamp of Madhubala released by Goernment of India

Mohe Panghat pe Nandlal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tAMc8aXRXM

Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdOS-0sIW-Y

Unforgettable Romantic Scene from Mughal e Azam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aob1I_Ifee0

THE FEMINIST CRAP

For a long time (in fact from the creation of males and females) women have complained that for everything wrong it is the males who are real culprits.

This feminist view is crap. We are all slaves of our circumstances. Males never decided that they should be born males.

Whatever has happened in this world has always been a product of dialogue between males and females. They were created jointly (just like positive and negative charge) and everything that has followed in society have been decided jointly (although apparently it seems it was a male decision).From the first utterance of human beings (or for that every creature) to I –pill and female economic liberation it has always been a joint male and female effort. Without the one gender the existence of the other gender is not possible.

Experience in an Australian Room

I will like here to relate a little anecdote from my own chat experience which gave me a first hand knowledge about what generally white skinned people think about us, Indians.

It was early in chat days….yahoo was new and I went to “ travel” to an Australian room.

As I was sitting quietly there and trying to figure out what was all the talk about and the general ambience, I found an Australian male was holding sway in the room with his witty and sarcastic comments and women particularly were swooning over his every utterance.

Somehow my id caught his eyes and he checked up my profile and suddenly he asked me (in voice)…”Hey Mr. Sand (my id started with Sand), do you have camels in India?”

I was taken aback by the suddenness of his question and did not realize what he actually meant and I hastily typed “Yes, in Rajasthan.”

This created general mirth and snigger in the whole room and suddenly I realized the significance of his question .I could see people were visualizing me going to office in Rajasthan riding my personal camel and although I was going red inside myself a smile came to my lips.

As I was still in the process of collecting myself the man shot his next question to me…..”Hello Mr.Indian…can you tell me why do Indians stink?”

As I groped inside myself for a proper answer and the whole room was again reeling with laughter I felt like Draupadi while she was being disrobed  in the royal court in full view of raucous males .

I was silent for a second while perhaps Lord Krishna came to rescue me...and I typed this reply (I still vividly remember this)…”Indians stink to avoid monkeys like you Mr.Australian and you are ignored now.”

Suddenly the room went silent for a pause, and Indians who were sitting quietly inside the room until now voiced there appreciation for me “Well said, Sand.”

I felt like an Indian hockey player who , after receiving a goal scored a hat trick against Australia in Australia in front of the their own home crowd.

The Indians now vociferously doubted the legality of the birth of the Australian and so forth as I retired from the room with a feeling that I held my Indian flag high in a foreign country.

UNITY

Unity can be defined as following. When more than one living creature cooperates with each other sacrificing some of their self interest to achieve a common and greater interest, we may call them UNITED. The property by which these creatures stay united is unity.

To become united or achieve unity one thing is a must, and that is a desire to overcome an obstacle which is common to all the members of a united body.

We may call this obstacle the common “enemy”.

Let us take an example. A country may become united because it has a common language or religion or culture which the people of that country want to preserve and /or expand. France is a country where most of the people speak a language called French (although slightly differently at its different regions). They remain united because they want preserve their language and culture against all common “enemies” who want to overpower or dominate them. Without this external “enemy” or threat the unity of France will be in danger because people of France can do whatever they like without remaining united. There is no common self interest then to remain united. Different parts of France will become like small countries where there is more homogeneity of language and culture and these smaller countries will remain united in the common purpose of saving themselves from other small countries.

Modern India (not the prehistoric India) became united  for the purpose of ousting the British from their soil and remaining united because the people of India has a common enemy called “other countries”, most notably Pakistan and China. Should these “other countries” suddenly vanish there is a real danger that India will disintegrate to smaller fragments like Punjab, Bengal, and Gujarat etc. A Bengali, a Punjabi and a Gujarati works together to preserve and expand their common culture and heritage in order to overcome the common obstacle, that is, the “other countries’.

But the common obstacle is not “other countries” in all the cases.

Scientists, engineers and industries of different nature (sometimes at loggerheads at each other) become united at NASA to achieve a common goal like creating a machine like Curiosity which can land on planet Mars on its own. The common obstacle here is not a country but nature.

Unity is not limited to human beings .Little insects like ants become united in the common purpose of lifting and carrying chunks of food much bigger than themselves. Here also the common enemy is nature which will destroy little ants if they do not get their food in such a way. Fishes become united when they are in hunt of food.

That the obstacle or common enemy is essential for unity can be illustrated most strikingly by the following hypothetical example.

Say, suddenly some other creatures from other unknown planet attack earth .This will make all countries of earth united against these aliens. China and United States will share with each other their jealously guarded defense secrets in the purpose of defeating these aliens. India and Pakistan, North and South Korea will suddenly become friends. But as soon as the aliens are somehow eradicated the old animosity will begin again.

THE INNER VOICE

What should you do in your life? Life is nothing but summation of every moment you live .So the meaning of what you should do in life boils down to doing what you should do at any given moment in life. Sometimes it is easy to decide what to do. Like you should run from the house if it is on fire. Every cell, every instinct of your body directs you to doing that. No problem in choosing what you should do. But not at every point of life the decision making is so simple. Suppose you are attracted to two persons at the same time but you have to marry one. Or you have two job offers at the same time, and you have to choose one. Or the stake can be even greater. To marry or not to marry. To live and not to live.

You may or may not have time to think before you arrive at a decision. When you have time to think the general theory is that you should think about pros and cons before decision making. If the pros in one case is far greater than the other then the decision making is easy. But sometimes there is no time to think. Sometimes pros and cons are almost equal. Also sometimes it is difficult to judge what is pro and what is con. The reason is clarity of mind is not same all the time. When you are calm and collected your reasoning power is far greater than when you are not.

So what to do? The thing to do is to listen to your inner voice.

 Now what is this inner voice? Basically something in your consciousness will tell you to do or not do a certain thing. If you try to do something sometimes you will be filled with doubt. At first glance it may be the easiest and most profitable thing to do. But somehow you will feel bad if you try to do that. Suddenly your whole body and mind will be full of negative feelings, with negative vibes that what you are doing is not exactly right thing to do. On the other hand you may be drawn to do something very unprofitable and difficult at first glance but somehow you will feel good if you do that. Let me illustrate. Take the first example of choosing a marriage partner. It may so happen one is far more better looking than the other and far more well to do. You will perhaps be drawn to marry this person. However inner voice may tell you to do the other thing, to go for the worse looking and financially less endowed person. The right thing is to do what the inner voice says. Because although initially it may seem a wrong decision  in the basis of counting pros an cons, if you go by the inner voice suddenly your whole being will be lighted up with positive feeling, you will profoundly more confident and more at ease with yourself. Your whole being will begin to support your decision and the successful aftermath of your decision will be guaranteed. Subsequently at some point the hidden justification of doing that thing will become very clear to you.

It is hard to explain the inner voice. Actually it is the inner wisdom of every being.  It is the extract of all wisdom one has gathered through one’s genes, education, experience and thought process.

When you start doing a thing which is supported by that inner wisdom every part of your being starts to work in resonance and you feel happy in a very profound way.

I have said in the beginning that the thing to do when a house is on fire is to run away from it. Well, sometimes not. It may so happen that when the house is on fire some one else is trapped and burning in front of you. Your inner voice may tell you to rescue that person first even at the expense of risking or even sacrificing your own life. Even then you should listen to your inner voice. Because if you do not your life will become worse than death with remorse and guilt. It is wiser even to die than to live if your inner voice tells you so.

WHY I AM NOT SYMPATHETIC TO MAOISTS

In recent years I find people are sympathetic to Maoists .I am not. For one thing if it is ok to use power of gun to take hold of political power, then it is ok for somebody to kill you or your family or children for that reason. My experience in Naxalite era was terrible. I never heard of any person being killed by Maoists who were real big fishes (meaning who were really big in terms of money) .I saw only very insignificant people ( in terms of money once again) like a guard of a train etc. who had no protection of any sort being murdered in broad daylight. Once I was crossing a road and found a crowd of people watching two young men lobbing the head of a beheaded man playfully to each other. I found very honorable men like Hemanta Bose being murdered. People these days are particularly vocal against the how police killed people in fake encounters those days. No one seems interested to know what happened before that, what made police to act in such brutal way. I was in school (class 7) and I and a septuagenarian teacher were barely saved from being killed by a bomb thrown outside of my classroom. They stopped all schools and work to standstill. Ordinary people were fearful of treading outside home even in daylight. Home was also no safe haven because people were forcibly dragged outside of their home and family and killed openly in front of everybody else's eye. I heard two men bragging openly how many men they killed without slightest harm to themselves and found people appreciating them and laughing with them. I do not want those days to come back.

WHO AM I?

I was wondering whether we are really responsible for what we do.Are we really doer of the deeds we do? At first glance the answer is obvious,yes.But if we delve a little deeper we come to a somewhat different conclusion.We do what our brain or mind tells us to do.Our actions are results of our thoughts. But what we think is a result of the combination of factors for which we are not responsible.The first factor is our genes,with which we are made up of. What our brain cells are made up of depend on these genes.And the brain directs us to do what we do at a certain point of time.Now we are not the manufacturers of our genes.We are not responsible for it.We inherit from our parents,they again from their parents and so on.In effect  this chain goes back to the creation of life which is again dependent on some cosmic forces about which we are not sure .

Our thoughts are also dependent on our education and experience.We learn things at first which we are forced to ,starting from uttering the first meaningful word which are tought by others .We go to school and read books etc. which we are given to us to read.We study some things  because either we are forced to do it by others or we like those (which is again dependent on our genes and previous experience).So basically all our education is a chance happening.

So also our experiences. At every moment of life something is happening around us,in this earth and more generally in this universe.Each incidence directly or indirectly affects our experience. A friend comes,tells you something and that may alter your thinking drastically.Even those who are by chance reading this article may begin to think very differently afterwards. This changed thinking will change your way of action. In the next moment some brick may fall over your head which may alter your actions radically. This is a chance happening which causes your actions.If you consider carefully  everything is a chance happening,from your birth to death. The sperm which entered  the egg of your mother’s womb was a chance happening (which is responsible for your genes).You marry someone you chanced to meet and it changed your life.So is everything else.

So we can say what we do at a particlar moment is a chance happening ( because it is dependent on the three factors,namely our genes,experience and education which are all chance happenings).

We can go even deeper. The way we look ,the way our body and health are, are all dependent again on what our genes are and what we do ( like whether we exercise or not,whether we take such and such  drugs, whether we got some disease for some reason) and our experience  ( we  look diffrently at different times according to our moods or whether one has a deep scar on his face as a result of chance happening.)

Who am I? One would probably say I am a summation of how I look, I behave and and I do at a certain point of time .Whatever I said before suggests that all these factors are chance happenings and I am not responsible for them.In fact this word I seems to lose it’s value.Because when I say I am doing this we are actually referring  to a chance happening.Actually I can not pinpoint what I am, whether it is my eyes or nose or any physical attribute or my behaviour or my deeds.And nothing is controlled by this so called I.All are chance factors at a certain point of time.

So we cannot really define I.

LOOKING

When we go out in a street most of the times it happens that we are  preoccupied in thoughts of the work we have to do, many tensions and worries, or even walking in the street safely .We do not have time or mood to look at other people unless something is very conspicuous about them.

However sometimes when we go out and weather is good and cool and not too many worries bogging down the mind we look at other people find sometimes we are looked at. Our nature need that sometimes we are appreciated for our looks. Not everybody in the world is endowed with a very attractive appearance. However each and everybody sometimes has the good fortune of being looked at as God denies none.

Sometimes it so happens that you dress up and go out just with a purpose of being looked at. You feel good when you are looked at admiringly and disappointed when people completely ignore you and angry if somebody gives hostile look.

There are different kind of looks. The indifferent look, the admiring look, the surreptitious look, the hungry and animal look, the hostile look and also the no look.

The times we feel best when we find somebody rather attractive and suddenly that person looks back with same admiration. We are engulfed by a very pleasant feeling and sometimes it makes our day.

Sometimes we find that many people are noticing and looking at us and sometimes nobody does. We get a little confused about the attractiveness of our appearance. I tried to analyze why it so happens.

A baby looks almost invariably cute. It is fresh in the world, embodying all the innocence and naiveté. Its body is fresh. So we find them pleasing to look at. Also it has almost no ego, so we are not encumbered with thoughts how it may feel if looked at.

As we grow up the body gets older. The innocence slowly evaporates. We are encumbered with worries, tensions, ego and the simplicity in our eyes goes away. Also some of us are naturally more physically attractive than others. But as the years goes by our appearance is affected by how we lead our life, how much difficulty we face in life, how disciplined we are and in what mood we are. The happier frame of mind we are in and having good thoughts, more it reflects in our faces, our walks and general demeanor.

So at a particular time our look is dependent on not only our genetic composition but also the way we have experienced our live and what we have in our mind in that particular moment. The more grown up we are the more our looks are earned.

There is another factor .Whether you will be looked at depends greatly on the mental state of the looker. A person may be preoccupied with his or her own worries or feeling pleasant or angry, secure or insecure, filled with physical desire or not. Sometimes we feel that the other person is consciously trying not to look at us .That I feel is also is  some kind of look and it may happen due to any number of reasons.

Finally there is this heavenly look. We see the face of Buddha or Jesus or Lord Krishna and we are filled with serenity, compassion and ethereal joy. On very rare occasions we see such looks in a living person and feel the touch of God among us.

THE SOLUTION

You think you have so many problems?Well you should be thankful for those.Otherwise you will not be living.
Let us examine one problem,namely hunger.You feel hungry and that is your problem.The solution to this is to eat.For which you will need food.To get get food you have to buy it or produce it.For that you have to earn To earn you have to work.While working you will face so many problems.Ultimately you solve them and earn and buy food and eat.What happens? You will sleep work etc. and have a bowel movement.And then you will feel hungry again.So the problem crops up again.If suddenly this problem, namely hunger does not occur to you, you will not eat.Your body will not get food and ultimately will stop functioning and you will die.Then you will feel no more hunger.So that is the solution.From another angle if a bus runs over  you then also you die and do not have this problem of hunger anymore.
So is with every other problem.If you solve one problem another problem is bound to be created.If every problem is solved all activity will come to an and there will be no more life.
So the real problem is living.If you do not live there is no more problem.

LINKS TO MY OTHER BLOGS

FAITH
ASTRONOMY
GAN KOBITA NATOK