"We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race,and that blessing is on our head.." - Swami Vivekananda
"...Gawakadal bridge in Srinagar, Kashmir, where, on January 20, 1990, the Indian paramilitary troops of the Central Reserve Police Force opened fire on a group of unarmed Kashmiri protesters, including women and children. At least 50 people were killed..." - Wikipedia
Curfewed night is one of the most disturbing work of non fiction I have read. Peer's writing shows Pankaj Mishra's influence and is part memoir and part a "Butter chicken in Kashmir at Wartime". You can hear the gunfire on every page, only to be broken by the silence of the "martyr graveyards" that are filled with the war dead, and the despair of the families whose lives have been destroyed during the conflict.
A good example of the life this book talks about can be seen here
Must read !
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Eric Fromm: The art of loving (summary)
Sometimes people write very elaborate books when they could say the same thing simply. This is an attempt to save time for anyone who wants to read this book. I hope to condense the ideas of such books, like I did before with the 'decision making' book.
1. Love is care , responsibility, respect,and knowledge. You cannot love something you do not care about, and you cannot love someone without knowing who they are.
2. Children growing up experience motherly love (unconditional) and fatherly love (conditional). Gradually, they synthesize these two contradictory aspects in themselves, this is the beginning of maturity. Lack of either leads to becoming either too harsh a person, or too helpless or dependent.
3. Most people experience separateness as physical separateness, and so physical union means overcoming separateness. With passing time, this sense of closeness gets reduced, and one may tend to seek out a new stranger, with the illusion that this love will be different.
Two views: On one hand erotic love could be viewed as an act of will- since everyone is essentially similar, one could choose to love anybody. Yet contemporary western society views love as an outcome of a spontaneous emotional reaction, unique to two people. Both views have failings ( if the emotional excitement disappears , should the marriage end ? If there is little in common, should the marriage never be dissolved ?)
4. Love in an industrialized society
Modern capitalism needs :
a) men who cooperate , who feel free but can be guided without force.
b) who consume more and more
c) whose tastes are standardized , predictable, and easily influenced.
The outcome is that man has been alienated from himself and nature,transformed into a commodity. He experiences life forces as an investment that must bring maximum profit under the existing conditions. He counters loneliness with a busy work schedule, or though passive consumption of entertainment on TV and media, or by shopping for new things. Everything, spiritual (Deepak Chopra !) or material (Pepsi) , has become an object of exchange. Even the concept of God and religion in today's culture of 'getting ahead', is that of a psychological tool to improve one's personality and succeed.
A happy marriage now is viewed like a smoothly functioning team. The main emphasis is on seeking a refuge from a sense of aloneness.
5. The practice of Love
Fromm says that concentration and patience are essential to love- and this must be in all spheres of our lives. This discipline that we exercise in all spheres, must be a willful expression, not an authoritative plan. The activity at the moment must be the only one that matters. Apart from this, Sensitivity to our thoughts, having a realistic, objective view of the world based in humility, rather than a self centered one, is also important. The process of loving involves replacing the self centered view of the world (based on our own desires and fears),with an objective one.
To love may require to emerge from one's clan and grow and connect with the world, and this needs faith, which in turn needs courage and risk taking. Finally, developing these traits in the personal realm is not enough, these must be practiced in the social realm with everybody.
Fromm believes that the principals of capitalistic society, where speed is everything and uniqueness is discouraged, clashes with the principles of love. However he is optimistic that modern life offers enough non conformity to allow love to exist.
1. Love is care , responsibility, respect,and knowledge. You cannot love something you do not care about, and you cannot love someone without knowing who they are.
2. Children growing up experience motherly love (unconditional) and fatherly love (conditional). Gradually, they synthesize these two contradictory aspects in themselves, this is the beginning of maturity. Lack of either leads to becoming either too harsh a person, or too helpless or dependent.
3. Most people experience separateness as physical separateness, and so physical union means overcoming separateness. With passing time, this sense of closeness gets reduced, and one may tend to seek out a new stranger, with the illusion that this love will be different.
Two views: On one hand erotic love could be viewed as an act of will- since everyone is essentially similar, one could choose to love anybody. Yet contemporary western society views love as an outcome of a spontaneous emotional reaction, unique to two people. Both views have failings ( if the emotional excitement disappears , should the marriage end ? If there is little in common, should the marriage never be dissolved ?)
4. Love in an industrialized society
Modern capitalism needs :
a) men who cooperate , who feel free but can be guided without force.
b) who consume more and more
c) whose tastes are standardized , predictable, and easily influenced.
The outcome is that man has been alienated from himself and nature,transformed into a commodity. He experiences life forces as an investment that must bring maximum profit under the existing conditions. He counters loneliness with a busy work schedule, or though passive consumption of entertainment on TV and media, or by shopping for new things. Everything, spiritual (Deepak Chopra !) or material (Pepsi) , has become an object of exchange. Even the concept of God and religion in today's culture of 'getting ahead', is that of a psychological tool to improve one's personality and succeed.
A happy marriage now is viewed like a smoothly functioning team. The main emphasis is on seeking a refuge from a sense of aloneness.
5. The practice of Love
Fromm says that concentration and patience are essential to love- and this must be in all spheres of our lives. This discipline that we exercise in all spheres, must be a willful expression, not an authoritative plan. The activity at the moment must be the only one that matters. Apart from this, Sensitivity to our thoughts, having a realistic, objective view of the world based in humility, rather than a self centered one, is also important. The process of loving involves replacing the self centered view of the world (based on our own desires and fears),with an objective one.
To love may require to emerge from one's clan and grow and connect with the world, and this needs faith, which in turn needs courage and risk taking. Finally, developing these traits in the personal realm is not enough, these must be practiced in the social realm with everybody.
Fromm believes that the principals of capitalistic society, where speed is everything and uniqueness is discouraged, clashes with the principles of love. However he is optimistic that modern life offers enough non conformity to allow love to exist.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Bhadra Reservoir
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
- W.B. Yeats
It was built between 1952 to 1964. Over 20 villages went underwater (36 probably), and the original forest area was split up into two by the reservoir. The remains of some of the trees that are underwater are still visible today.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Books I read in 2007
1.Brick Lane
2.Every second Counts
3.Girlhood
4.Parting Song
5.Ruby on Rails
6.Angelas Ashes
7.Waiting for Godot
8.The one Minute Manager
2.Every second Counts
3.Girlhood
4.Parting Song
5.Ruby on Rails
6.Angelas Ashes
7.Waiting for Godot
8.The one Minute Manager
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Arranged marriage in Indian society
"The man lives with his parents. Then he goes into his family business; he can't do what he really wants to do. Then he has to get married to the girl his parents choose. There is no feeling. When he wants sex, he has relations with the same mood with his wife- as a bodily need. He discharges.When he finds a new girl, he has relations the same way. He might want to do something else, but he does not know how. The wife also, breeding children, cooking at home, does not know what life is outside."
"..there seems to be so much sexual unhappiness in the city. If all the other areas of a person's life are circumscribed, if the pattern has been established before they even have been born,then when it comes to sex it will be similarly conditioned,its positions and its techniques preordained or hastily improvised in the darkness."
-Suketu Mehta, Maximum city
When rendering images for computer graphics, we try very hard to create randomness. The more diverse the set of random numbers we generate, the more accurate is the final image. Life is about being open to randomness, and making the best of it. Arranged marriages are not about relishing the randomness of a relationship. They are about eliminating randomness.
The so called 'success' of arranged marriages is because marriage does not need love to 'succeed' ! Marriage could also be about security, a sense of a life goal achieved, without any love present-like Indian IT companies with their various ISO 9000 quality certifications which do not imply technical innovation.
In Tagore's 'Parting Song', the protagonist Amit Roy compares marriage to having a well in your house from which you could drink water at any time. Love on the other hand, he says, is like a vast ocean (but perhaps not so predictable, or controllable!)
In a few years this will become a non issue, this system will die out. But for my generation in their thirties, who faced two roads forking in the wood (with one path a bare trail with no map or precedent, unlike the omniscient teens or 20 somethings of today,for whom everything came so easily) it is a fight for one's individuality.
"..there seems to be so much sexual unhappiness in the city. If all the other areas of a person's life are circumscribed, if the pattern has been established before they even have been born,then when it comes to sex it will be similarly conditioned,its positions and its techniques preordained or hastily improvised in the darkness."
-Suketu Mehta, Maximum city
When rendering images for computer graphics, we try very hard to create randomness. The more diverse the set of random numbers we generate, the more accurate is the final image. Life is about being open to randomness, and making the best of it. Arranged marriages are not about relishing the randomness of a relationship. They are about eliminating randomness.
The so called 'success' of arranged marriages is because marriage does not need love to 'succeed' ! Marriage could also be about security, a sense of a life goal achieved, without any love present-like Indian IT companies with their various ISO 9000 quality certifications which do not imply technical innovation.
In Tagore's 'Parting Song', the protagonist Amit Roy compares marriage to having a well in your house from which you could drink water at any time. Love on the other hand, he says, is like a vast ocean (but perhaps not so predictable, or controllable!)
In a few years this will become a non issue, this system will die out. But for my generation in their thirties, who faced two roads forking in the wood (with one path a bare trail with no map or precedent, unlike the omniscient teens or 20 somethings of today,for whom everything came so easily) it is a fight for one's individuality.
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