When the King lost the jewel in his crown

"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we will redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again." These were the words uttered by the first Prime Minister of India when British granted a dominion status to India and hence giving independence to its 40 crore people. But little do we about the detailed events that happened among the British in deciding to give India its independence. Alex Von Tunzelman in her book Indian Summer: The secret history of the end of an empire deals with, in detail, the lives of Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah and the Mountbattens who are the crucial people in birth of India and Pakistan. These are the people who triggered various actions that led to the independence. And these countries endured a lot of struggle and suffering even after their birth.

The author, a history student at Oxford, starts with a startling perspective. There were two countries in 1577. One was a vast, mighty and magnificent empire, brilliantly organised and culturally unified, which dominated a massive swathe of the earth; and the other was an underdeveloped semi-feudal realm, riven by religious factionalism and barely able to feed its masses. Guess what! The first is India and the second is England. In 1857 it was the other way about! Now you know what alien rule does to the ruler and the ruled! But, the country divided by its diversity fell prey to the British who found a way to enter this land as traders in the name of The East India Company. And India became a prized possession in the King's crown.

It is difficult to make history an interesting read, but Alex overcomes this problem by making the text highly readable. Her research deals with treacherous politics and personal details of the key players and her presentation of the otherwise boring history, clear and restraint.

Of all the things this book had to offer, I was particularly disturbed after reading about the aftermath of the independence. The Indian summer of 1947 had witnessed the transfer of power by the British empire to the Indian Union and the Dominion of Pakistan. But, it had to also witness one of the worst tragedies mankind had ever seen. The tragedy in which about one million people were murdered in communal and religious clashes. Sad, we celebrate independence every year but fail to mourn the death of these countless civilians. Perhaps Stalin was right, 'Death of one man is tragedy; death of millions is statistic'.

And, these key players has achieved what had not been achieved in 130 years of Mauryan rule, 180 years of Mughal empire or 90 years of British Raj. A united India by bringing about 570 princely states together. But then, is India really united? I think Nehru's words during the hour of independence will achieve salvation only when India becomes united in the true sense!

I will sue you for the heck of it

One of the few things that amused me when I first came to US was the nature of lawsuits filed in this country. People here mockingly use the words "I will sue you". But, I understood the gravity behind these words only after I heard the story behind the caution on the paper cups in which coffee is served in the American coffee shops. I was having my first cup of Starbucks coffee in the US, and could not help noticing the warning "Careful, the beverage you are about to enjoy is extremely hot". Of course it has to be, it's a cup of coffee. Who guessed, accidentally spilling coffee could lead to product liability litigation and fetch 640,000 dollars. In a country where warning signs on hair dryers read "Do not use in shower" for the fear of getting sued, it is totally sensible to have a caution on coffee cups reminding people that it's content is hot.

According to studies by the Economic Journal, Americans spend a lot more on civil litigation compared to others. In year 2002 alone, there were about 16 million civil cases filed in the courts. The fear of lawsuits has changed the way people do even the simplest of things. No longer can lives of people be the same when frivolous lawsuits are filed on a family owned restaurant for serving not so hot soup, or on a weather channel for not predicting rain, or on a school management when a kid gets hurt while playing.

Bizarre and funny lawsuits is a common case. One such instance happened in the 90s after a Michigan man watched advertisements by Budweiser beer company. In the advertisement, beautiful girls came across a man's way while he  was drinking the beer, but unfortunately for him it didn't work out. He went ahead and sued the beer company and the court dismissed the case. I wonder how the courts tolerate such junk and useless cases and waste their valuable time. There is no bound to creativity when a prisoner filed a legal litigation on himself for a few millions for the crimes he committed. Had he won the case, the government must pay him since he is in jail and not earning and could not pay himself for the legal lawsuit filed by himself. I don't really understand what exactly happens to common sense?

The sue-for-everything mantra became popular in America, when the legislators  in 1960s decided to give the people of this country a right to demand monetary compensation for any ill treatment meted out by them. Sadly, this "right" is very rarely put to use in the right way. Doctors suffer the most in this country, because a significant number of medical cases which lead to failures end up into a lawsuit - doctor getting sued, or the equipment manufacturers, medicines or even the hospital as such. This leads to a huge increase in cost of healthcare and hence costs of medical insurance.

Glad we did not have such a suing culture in India, else it would have been another source of free money people will be looking for, like lottery!

I Dare To Dream

The Great Indian Robbers!

Do you worry if some one stole Rs. 200 from you? Probably you would not as much as when Rs. 2000 was robbed from you. Now, if you have not worried enough when you heard of 2G Spectrum scam then let me tell you that you need to worry. According to reports, the estimated loss due to this single scam is Rs. 1.76 Lakh Crores which approximates to Rs 1760 per every person in India's 1 billion population. If you start looking into other scams that have happened recently, then there is every reason for you to worry. An estimated 63 Lakh crores of Indian money sits in all the Swiss banks. There is no way we could ask these people to not rob the poor, because not even the animals were spared in this country.

The Give and Take Principle

During my college days, I often came across people who wanted to rag their juniors only because they were ragged by their seniors. When I go to a government office, I would have to deal with a bitter employee because he was treated with bitterness by his superior. A mother-in-law would want to make up for her bad experiences by treating her daughter-in-law in the same way. And this ill behavior only increases as it goes down the chain, because at every point one wants to feel good by venting out more than what one had experienced. Same is the case with our politicians. If the politicians pay Rs. 100 asking you to cast vote for them, they only expect to take back Rs 1000 or more from you after they win. 

Political Party Co. Pvt. Ltd.

Starting a political party is a profitable venture in this country. With nepotism having its strongest roots in Indian political scenario, politics is now a family-owned family-run venture mostly. And, like any other business there is competition in this as well. Be it at the central level or the state level, most of the ruling party's time is invested in devising methods to retain the power for a better future for their children, who would eventually be the politician of the next generation. So when your hard earned money is taken away and stashed in Swiss banks by politicians now, their children would increase their family assests by taking from your children. After all that is what BS Yeddyurappa said "I have done what my predecessors did".

Gifts for being Honest

It was Shanmughan Manjunath and Satyendra Dubey earlier, and this time only the name changed. Yashwant Sonawane was murdered for doing his job honestly. The unexplained deaths and murders of Right To Information activists and corruption whistleblowers only reasserts the fact that being honest in this country has its own risks. And how difficult will it be to find an honest person in any government organization? Very easy, the one who is termed outlier by his/her colleagues, who had most number of transfers and who is the most constrained economically. What would you tell your children when they read the newspapers and ask you if honesty is the best policy?

I hate what is happening and yet I love my country. Despite all this, I dare to dream of a corruption free India. Do you dare to dream? To make our dream come true, this time we cannot wait for a savior to lead the march. We cannot even trust any butterfly effect so that an instance in a far away land can trigger the movement here. We are by ourselves. Let us together fight against our common enemy "corruption" and make India a better place.

Source: www.5thpillar.org

India Against Corruption http://voteforindia.org

Also, do read what Zephyr has to say. 

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This post has been selected by BlogAdda under "Spicy Saturday Picks".

  

Micro Finance Institutions, the Indian scenario

What

Organizations that offer financial and banking services to low income people are called Micro Finance Institutions (MFI). Low income population, more specifically poor people, who do not have any assets for mortgage formally and/or proper employment cannot get credit benefits from the mainstream financial institutions like banks. These MFIs accesses financial resources (money) from the banks and give the poorer people the benefit of credit. Their prime target is to help microentrepreneurs (from the low level income strata).

How

Some of the main goals MFIs try to achieve through their services are to understand and identify what helps people to move out of poverty by creating self-employment opportunities. And, they also provide financial resources to the under-previleged and train them in putting the resources to their best use and generate income and employment through it. Micro financing is also profitable because if properly it can generate upto 50 percent returns on investment and it also helps the clients to pay higher interests.

Challenges

One of the major challenges that our MFIs come across in promoting micro-financing is the client illiteracy and lack of experience managing their finances. This requires people trained in micro-finance to deal with people in training them, and their unavailability affects the growth of the organization. And other challenge is in distributing the funds that government releases in support.

The Indian Scenario

Major Indian population resides in villages, and there has been a consistent effort by various governments after independence to develop rural India. The governments have tried to reduce poverty by providing grants, subsidies and credit through the main-stream banks. But these schemes proved to non-profitable for the banks and often led to their misuse. And it was also ineffectiveness on the governments' side in helping out the targeting beneficiaries. This scenario gave a platform for local money lenders to dominate the poor by lending money at exorbitant interest rates, which often leads to selling of assets and suicides due to inability to pay the debts. This has also led to the urban migration in search of a better living. With this, India adopted the micro-credit concept.

Just like anything else, the MFIs could not even protect themselves from the face of corruption in India. These non-profit organizations with a 25,000 Crore INR industry gradually turned out to operate for profits. And these "for profit" MFIs have grown spectacularly in the recent times by charging greater interest rates. Which made, MFIs a paradox in India. A recent study revealed about the coercive practices used by some MFI agents to recover the loans. There were incidents which have led to lots of suicides in the recent past, and which were allegedly coerced by the agents so that the loan money gets repayed through their insurance. And, government has recently taken steps to monitor these MFIs after they have faced the allegations at various levels.

But do these people, who face hardships through out their life for making a living, need to face exploitation at this level also?

To Follow Or Not To Follow Your Heart

We always refer to "heart" when we make our decisions emotionally and "brain" when we follow some instructions mechanically. It is quite obvious from the saying, "Follow your heart, not brain" which tells us to make our decisions emotionally based on our liking rather than following the herd.

Throughout the history and in various ancient cultures, heart is treated as the intelligent force behind all our thoughts and feelings we experience intuitively. In one of the oldest books of Egypt on wisdom "Ptah-Hotep" ('The God Ptah is satisfied'), it is said "Follow your heart during your lifetime; do not do more than what is commanded you." Old Testament of Bible says "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he". "Let your heart guide your head in evil matters" is a very old and famous Spanish saying. The New Testament of the Bible has a reference to a reasoning heart, "What reason ye in your hearts". Bhagavad Gita talks about the intelligent/ignorant heart, "Sever the ignorant doubt in your heart with the sword of self-knowledge." The Chinese, Hebrew and the followers of Islam also have their interpretations of thinking heart.
 

Brain vs. Heart (Source: Tumblr)

But, did you ever try to logically think if these statements and interpretations make sense scientifically? Rather medically? I've not and now that I'm thinking in this direction my mind raises this question. Didn't our high-school science teacher tell us that heart is a muscular organ that pumps blood and maintains circulation to all parts of the body until we breathe for the last time, and it's the brain which has the ability to think and make decisions? And, it is quite possible that throughout this history, this attributed thinking ability of heart is a result of lack of understanding of our body's functionality or incorrect translations/interpretations of actual manuscripts written in various languages.

But, looks like I shouldn't have doubted the thinkers of the past and my high school teacher is not all that correct. Documented by scientific evidence, the heart communicates with the entire body neurologically, biochemically and bio-physically. Neurological communication happens through the impulses of nerve cells. Biochemical control comes through hormones and neurotransmitters. Bio-physically the heart can also send out pressure waves when it pumps the blood. Recent studies show that heart's innate capability to control the brain comes from electromagnetic interactions between them too. The heart generates body's strongest electromagnetic field which is 60 times stronger than what brain could produce. The rhythmic patterns of our beating heart changes with various emotions we go through. The experimental data also backs up the fact that positive emotions give out distinct mode of psycho-physiological coherence which leads to increased efficiency and harmony in the interactions of our entire body. Maintaining this harmony inside our body is important for being healthy, and this is why it's important to follow our heart.

Source: Link

Often, due to the challenges the society we live in poses, our decisions are not based on what our heart says. This leads to dilemma when our heart opposes the mind not only in the life changing career decisions but also in the simplest of the cases when we want to decide what to eat. Listening to heart might give satisfaction, but following the mind might lead to results and success. When I talk about results in this modern time, it is money. Because, mostly the measurement of success is in terms of the money we earn, the house we live and the cars we drive. And if you are a person of heart, I know it hurts. But, here is why you should follow your heart.

Do you know why most scientists lock themselves in labs and invent things they do? They work for their passion, they follow their heart. What would happen to all the innovation if those passionate entrepreneurs don't push the boundaries risking their careers? Bhagat Singh would have never started a revolution had he done what his brain said. Gandhi would have never cared for our freedom had he not followed his heart. Martin Luther King need not take that bullet had he not followed his heart. But, things would have been different had these great people followed their minds.

Remember how many lives changed when only a handful of people fought for what they believed and risked their lives despite knowing about the imminent hardships. What happens to this world if everyone follows their hearts and works for their passion? Why don't we do that?

Tyler Durden (Source: Toonz)

Because, it's not simple! It requires us to move out of your comfort zones. How many of us can stop caring what other people would say for some action we do? We live in a hypocritical society and in constant fear. And because of this fear, we are not what we want to be. We live under a facade, an attractive one for the sake of the society. We are worried about following our heart. May be this is the reason why I adore Tyler Durden. Tyler believes in being content at what we do. He believes in being true to self. "Sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken". We are not the job we do, not the money we have, not the car we drive, not the assets we own and not the contents of our wallet. The stuff we own doesn't define us, it's what we accomplish. I'm not saying to risk your family and everything. Follow your heart; but don't lose your shirt.

If you don't know the Tyler Durden I'm talking about, he's the character of the movie Fight Club which was made after the novel by the same name written by Chuck Palahniuk. When people ask me why I like the movie so much, I tell them only about the rush the movie gives. But, there is more than the adrenaline rush to it. It's not about just fighting or creating chaos. To me the movie is more of a preaching throwing some light on the way we live now. People do it every day, they talk to themselves… they see themselves as they’d like to be, they don’t have the courage to just run with it. Tyler, in the movie, helps the protagonist by taking him down the path of enlightenment. For those of you who have seen the movie, do you remember the scene in which the penguin echoes "Slide" when the hero enters his secret cave in his mind? The power animal in that scene asks the hero to slide all those things that truly doesn't matter. To let go all the fear and distractions from being what you truly want to be. But, it was not easy for our protagonist to let go, and this is where Tyler helps him.

As Tyler said, "This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time." If only we have our own manifestations of Tyler Durdens in our life too, for those of us who want to follow our hearts but cannot.

Vee

Attention Problem!

I always knew that Siddharth Narayan is an intelligent actor, but only recently did I know about his intelligence as a person too. Have a look at this video and you will know what I'm talking about. The major point in his talk is how the current generation of Indian population have this "Attention Problem" and how we cannot focus on something even for a little while.

I might have had something to argue either on behalf or against his point, but after I went through the comments in that youtube video above I don't. There is this man trying to make a point, trying to motivate us. And we just abuse each other without caring for anything at all. And, this is a common case with all youtube videos or forums or anything which have India as their central theme. Seriously, what's the problem with us! Can all these abuses attributed to anonymity these online forums provide when the users comment? May be, given a chance to go anonymous or invisible these bunch of shameless people would start looting the country in every possible way just like the way they loot the country's pride by posting shameless comments against each other.

And what's with these fan groups in India? Fans of a certain hero cannot withstand fans of another. Followers of a politician cannot bear followers of others. When all these heroes and politicians are friends in reality, their fans and followers go on fighting with words on online forums for no reason. What's wrong with their gray matter, and what happened to their thinking ability?

War, peace and the side effects

Just a few hours ago while I was traveling in the local bus, I became the subject of a strange situation. Although I was expecting such a thing to happen sometime, I was quite shocked when it actually happened. I happen to grow my beard a little longer than usual these days. And today I was asked by my fellow passenger in the bus to not blow away the bus with a bomb. At first I thought he was kidding and laughed back in response, but he kept on saying that for about 6 - 8 times until he got down the bus. He said its okay for him if I trigger the bomb I was supposedly carrying after he leaves the bus. To add to my shock, a bunch of other people around me were laughing when all this was happening. Not sure if this incident comes under racial abuse or whatever but it really disturbed me for sometime. And it really left me thinking how many others face this scenario in their lives and how disturbed they get.

And this made me think about the chicken and egg kind of question, but in this case it's easy to find answers. Did terrorism start first or greed? More specifically in the context of USA, did terrorism against them start first or did their greedy nature to become oil power of the world by saving natural resources in their land and declaring war on Oil rich countries? I think it is the latter case. After all the damage has been done in Iraq, thanks to Bush and other masterminds, Obama has taken up the job of scavenger to clean the mess made by his predecessors. Listen to Obama's speech from the Oval office about declaring the end of Iraq war. But is the war over yet? 

Will it be the same to all those who lost their loved ones on both the sides? And, with the situation gone so far will there ever be peace? To me, when I think of this whole war situation I feel the fire was light and fuel was added. And, its just the matter of time to let the fire rage! 

~Vee...

P.S.1: Not thinking of giving up on my beard look yet! 

P.S.2: Thinking of reading War and Peace which I've been putting off since years.