Hampi

  You can be an atheist all you want, but when you come to a place like this, you bow down your head; not to the gods, but to the people who created this.

When you come to Hampi, you take a stroll through mythology; you see history unfolding in front of your eyes. When my parents told me stories about the prosperity of this country, maybe they were referring to this place. There are beautiful archaic structures everywhere, temples at every 100 steps; all the dash-avatars seem to have a temple in Hampi. And, it’s not just temples; there are remains of administrative buildings and bustling markets all over the city. You don’t need strong imagination to visualize this city in its grandeur. This place doesn’t require a guide; the city speaks to you. You can stroll aimlessly in this city through the unconventional tourist places and return amused. There are corners in this city that have marvels which remain unexplored. The city is too large to be entirely covered anyway.

As my friends decided to have a stroll at the Tungabadhra Ghat, I decided to sit back and write this. I am sitting on a staircase in Lord Vishnu’s temple surrounding. A monkey went past me on the stair below. Neither did he disturb me, nor did I disturb or frighten him. Today is our third day at Hampi. The days have gone by too fast. Hampi is too large to explore in 3 days anyway. Also, we’re three history geeks who were taking every scene and etching it in their memories permanently. On the first day, we got off at Hospet and left for Hampi. The road to Hampi is built on an elevation and provides a beautiful view of the landscape below. We were welcomed by banana farms and coconut trees, which spread for miles. As we got closer to Hampi, we started seeing huge boulders. The city has a copious amount of these large boulders.  In the distance, we could see the Matanga hill.

When I saw Matanga hill, I knew our day had begun. We started with the main ruins. We saw the Vitthal temple, the Stone chariot, Queen’s bath, underground Shiva temple, Parinidhi, and ended our day watching the sunset at Matanga hill. The Matanga hill is an arduous climb but offers a Panoramic view of the entire city. I sat there in awe of the Vijaynagar empire. They managed to obliterate the city, but they couldn’t destroy its allure. This city, even though in its ruined state, continues to mesmerize. Keeping the tradition and culture of the city in check, my friends recited the Atharva Shirsha and Bheemarupi at the backdrop of the sunset. Although I’m an atheist, and I ridiculed them, I admired it. I didn’t endorse it because I think religion is true, but because of its usefulness. That evening, on that steep climb, reciting the Atharva Shirhsa and Bheemarupi seemed to give them courage.

Our second day was easy. We started our tour at the Chintamani Temple caves, followed by a climb on the Anjaneya hill; and lastly by spending a calm afternoon at the Sanapur lake. After that, we went for lunch at a hipster restaurant. The restaurant made me wonder, how can a place be so hip and cultured at the same time? Later, we went to the Tungabadhra dam- the second-largest in India. This was followed by a long overdue friends night with a sumptuous dinner and cold beer.

Today, we went to the Kadalekalu Ganesh temple. The size of the stone murti left me speechless. This temple inspired me to write this piece. In a way, it was my muse. It was not until we had seen the Virupaksha and Vishnu temple, that I got the time to write this. Hampi has left me spellbound and mesmerised. It also saddens me that we’ll be leaving this place today. I’ve seen the main attractions at Hampi, but I know I’ve missed out on so much more. In this place, every stone has a story to tell. With a satisfied gaze and an ache in my heart, I promise this city, I’ll be back for the unexplored, unconventional Hampi.

Silence

 On 18th April 1930, the BBC announced that there was no news today and played piano music instead. What stops the news channels of the world from doing that today?

Since when did it become more important to keep people glued to their TVs instead of providing the news for the day and letting them go and enjoy their day. I think not all blame can be put on news channels for this. There are two factors to consider here; let’s have a look at them. The first factor states that a news channel isn’t a not for profit organization. They need revenue to pay salaries, operational expenses, and several other costs included in collecting news and disseminating it. A source of this revenue is advertisements. The longer people keep a news channel, the more ads they’ll watch. When a news channel has a healthy viewer base glued to their channel, they can demand a higher price for broadcasting these advertisements.

Secondly, no commodity - a product or service will be in abundant supply unless there is a demand for it.

This is where the blame falls on us, the people who watch these channels. We have a disability appreciate silence. We’re consistently filling our stream of consciousness with one thing or another. We’re constantly watching TV, or we’re on social media or we’re watching videos on YouTube or playing games on mobile. Silence, as it would be, is unbearable for us.

I think it is the second factor that we must address. As I mentioned earlier, no commodity will be in abundant supply unless there is a demand for it. Though, can the innocuous audience influence the news channels? Aren’t the new channel influencing the audience? I think it works both ways. News channels do influence us, but news channels are also influenced by us. Have you observed that a news channel will broadcast an incident in a manner that resonates with their target audience? I’d like to address this question in a separate blog in detail.

What’s important is we start appreciating silence and make a room for silence in our lives. I don’t mean the one-minute silence we observe when someone dies, but real silence. The kind of silence that happens when we’re not filling our consciousness with information or entertainment but simply letting it be. Do I mean we should all be silently meditating on the top of a mountain? No! News has value and it must reach people. Though, noise, propaganda, and hooks to keep them glued to the TV shouldn't. 

Fidgeting

I had a geometry teacher in the tenth standard who often asked us to stop fidgeting and focus on studying. This made me wonder, what is fidgeting? After some exploration, I concluded that fidgeting is something you do when you’re not enjoying what's transpiring at that moment. That explained the fidgeting in the geometry class.

Though as I grew up and developed a state of mind that loves to think, I decided to explore this question further. So, what is fidgeting? Before I start expounding, let me give you an example. When I’m done reading a book, I start reading another. When my brother is done watching a series, he starts another. Now, this habit of reading books and essentially philosophical and spiritual books gives me an intellectual image. On the contrary, my brother’s image is that of a guy who’s isn't serious about his future. But take a moment and think about this. Are we different? The truth is I simply have refined habits. I read books, play football and guitar to pass time, he watches series and plays PUBG. I don’t think we are different. We are the same. We are simply killing time. We have our ways to do it, but that’s exactly what we are doing.

Let me drop a bomb now. How many of you have gone out to meet a friend simply because you were alone or didn’t want to be alone? Maybe you met them and you had a great time, but can this continue? Sooner or later this company starts getting monotonous and tedious. After that as Jiddu Krishnamurti states it’s just mutual exploitation. I’ll exploit you and you exploit me.

So what am I saying? Meeting friends, watching series, playing PUBG, reading books, should we stop doing it? Well, no! But what I want to say is we shouldn't don’t do this to pass time or kill time. If you're doing an activity to kill time, you are fidgeting.

So why do we pass time? Why do we kill time? I think the answer is simple and some of you even might have seen this coming. Because we are scared of being alone. We are scared of being in our own company. The thought of being alone on a Sunday afternoon, doing nothing, frightens us. We are scared our brains will come up with thoughts that will create excruciating pain. And I’m not going to lie, this is what is going to happen. But be alone, be with your mind. Be aware of its functioning, of its thought process. When you pay attention, you will tap into a state of consciousness where your mind ceases to think. Does your mind cease to think? Bull shit! You might say. Well, try it.

Then in this state of consciousness, you don’t meet your friends or read a book or watch a series to kill time. I’ll end this blog with an excerpt from a Kahlil Gibran poem :

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Is democracy a failure?

Is democracy a failure? In my opinion, it is. But it’s a convenient failure. It didn’t result in a fascist regime, it hasn’t resulted in the deaths of millions of people, it hasn’t resulted in wars that will cause extreme damage to the world. 

Humans haven’t created a flawless system. Every system is flawed. But think about this deeply for a while. Is it really the system that’s flawed? I beg to differ.  A system is only as good as the humans that develop it and implement it. It doesn’t matter if you have a communist government or a democratic government; if you have good and noblemen at the helm of these governments, they’ll do a good job. It’s men who either pollute the system or paint it with vibrant colours.

Now, let’s think again. Is democracy a failure? This system has given us freedom. The freedom to have individual thought, the freedom to criticize the people running our country and most importantly the freedom to dissent. Dissent in so many other systems can mean certain death. In a democracy, everyone has a say. Power is scattered among people rather than in hands of one person or a selected few. Now, we squander this power with apathy, when we blithely vote for a person from our caste or religion or because he’s a distant relative or for some personal benefit. We squander this power when we fall for the blatant publicity stunts and propaganda. 

Democracy may not be perfect, but it is a culmination of humanity’s effort to come up with a just and kind system. 

A democratic workplace

Can you appraise your boss?
Can you replace your boss because he's not working good enough? Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Well let me tell you guys a secret: In a few months you will be selecting the Prime minister of the Republic of India and you will be judging him based on whether his term has been good enough or not. You have the power to choose who governs the country why can't you have the power to select your own boss?

Sounds very socialist and liberal, doesn't it? but it's more practical than you think. You see, the people of this planet have always been ruled by tyrants. Sometimes benevolent, though tyrants. If you study history impartially, without any judgement and look at things the way they were, without romanticizing the wars and regimes, you will find out that this is one of the best times to exist on this wonderful piece of rock travelling purposelessly in the cosmos. The system of having a figurehead who was always right did not work for us and in often cases resulted in suffering. So we did away with this type of system and introduced a beautiful concept where things didn't flow from top to bottom, but bottom to top, where government worked for the people and not the other way round, where the state was more important than a mortal figurehead leading it. We proudly called it democracy. Of course, people have used expedient means to achieve their goals but they've always been doing it. The collective suffering and pain are much less in this system compared to any other system.

What's beyond my understanding then is that if we fought so hard to have a democratic and republic country why did we give in to totalitarian autocrats when it came to working in an office? When people living in democratic countries proudly proclaim on independence days that they are independent on social media while they are completing their deliverables in the office, I really really wonder! A friend of mine puts it beautifully:  Your degree of freedom can be measured by how conveniently you can take leave without permission.

A very good point that people make when I talk about this is that: people are generally lazy and will not work if not supervised. Fair point maybe, but where does the lack of trust come from? Let me counter by stating that the whole point of delegating work is so that you don't have to sweat the small stuff and focus your attention elsewhere. The whole point of delegating is not so that you end up having sleepless nights worrying if your subordinate will get a particular work done. The whole point of being a boss is not being condescending and bashing your authority on your subordinates but using your experience and knowledge to lead the team in a prosperous direction.

Lao Tzu puts it in Tao te ching beautifully :

57
If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself. The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be. Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass


I'd like to end by saying.
Can you decide if you'll work from home or office without asking your boss for permission?
Can you not go to the office as you have no deliverables and all you'll have to do at the office is warm the chair for 9 hours?
Can you select your own boss?
Sounds idiotic, doesn't it? But if you had spoken about democracy to a farmer a few centuries ago he would have had convulsive laughter on your joke.

 


 

Valar Morghulis. Valar Dohaeris.

My take on suffering, nihilism and mortality.

 

A while ago I completed the GOT series. The series is phenomenal but let's talk about the famous Valyrian saying.

Valar Morghulis which translates to "All men must die" If there's one thing that's certain, it's this that you are mortal and one day you are going to die. We are all mortals. Your friends, your family, your colleagues, your heroes, everyone is going to die. That's a whole lot of suffering, but it doesn't end there. Suffering comes from earthly things as well. All prominent religions believe this, that Life is suffering. People who don't believe this tend to live in a world of self-created fantasies and generally consist of children who are living under the protection of their parents. Fantasies hurt you sooner rather than later. Reality hits and it hits hard! No one can be happy all their lives. When people find this out few of them tend to become nihilistic which is certainly not the answer.

There's a part in the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron where the Ultron says Humans as a species are doomed and the Vision agrees. He couldn't have been any right. We are doomed, we are going to die, but we don't stop there; we create suffering for ourselves and for each other through our greedy motives and actions. The Vision also doesn't counter this and agrees straight away. Mind you, Vision picked up Thor's hammer and also carries one of the infinity stones. So he's worthy and can't be wrong :P

Though coming back to the point, the Ultron believes the only way to free humanity of suffering is by completely destroying all humans by killing every person on the planet. Again that's certainly not the answer. I believe Ultron is a nihilist like many humans. But how can one escape nihilism if there's one thing that's certain: Suffering followed by death. 

This reminded me of a joke "Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% chance of fatality" The great Stoic Marcus Aurelius once said "Yesterday a drop of semen tomorrow a handful of spices or ashes" 

If there's one thing that's certain it's, Life is suffering and you can't be happy all the time. But then I saw a  small video on YouTube by Jordan Peterson where he said Life isn't about being happy all the time, in fact, it's about finding meaning. A meaningful life is a much better life and what's important is, chasing happiness is in itself a  source of unhappiness.  So you're better off searching meaning rather than happiness. That is when it dawned me, in GOT the saying doesn't end at Valar Morghulis, it is followed by Valar Dohaeris which translates to "All men must serve"

Though you must not start by serving the world, if you do there's a chance for Nihilism to creep in again. The world is very big and you're not enough to change and save it. If you've seen the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, remember Tony Stark creates Ultron to protect the earth. To make it a better place. What does Ultron end up doing? So it is better you start with yourself. Ask yourself what are the bad things I am doing, that if I stop doing will make my life much better? What is the one thing I could do today that will help me have a better tomorrow? That's delayed gratification and possibly the greatest service to self. Do what's right rather than what's expedient. Be truthful, or, at least don't lie. Have noble aims. Practice delayed gratification. Harm no one but don't be naive and harmless. Fight if it's necessary, but never for selfish motives. Then when you think you are living a life of meaning you could try and help someone else. As your life becomes meaningful it will be your duty to help others who are trying to do the same. Remember this though you have to strike the right balance while serving others. Also, be careful about who you're helping and make sure if they really want to be helped? As the old saying goes "How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one. But the lightbulb must want to change"

Valar Morghulis. All men must die.

Valar Dohaeris. All men must serve. Just because life is full of suffering doesn't mean you're allowed(Notice the use of the word "must") to be lazy. Instead, strive for a meaningful life and serve!

Take Responsibility!

Last weekend I met my friends Vinay and Swarada at Vinay's place to study. As we were studying, our topics slowly started deflecting from our curriculum. After some good amount of time we found ourselves doing the favorite job of Indian citizens, "criticizing India". We discussed about corruption, poverty, population and what not.

A day later we met again. This time we decided we've had enough of criticizing India, not anymore now! If we see a problem we will take responsibility and try to solve it. The last day we had spoke a lot on malnutrition and starvation that poor Indian kids suffer, hence we decided that on weekend (that is last Saturday) we will distribute food(Veg Pulav) to the poor kids of Pune. We Indians are experts in planning and keeping this reputation we carved out a marvelous plan. Three days later (that is on last Friday) we brought the necessary material.

Yesterday we met early in the morning and started our preparations. Vinay's mother cooked the Veg Pulav that was to be distributed.

   
  In an hour's time or more the Veg Pulav was ready and my god did it taste delicious! Feast your eyes!

We made around 5 kgs of Veg Pulav, packed it in 50 zip pouch bags and set out for distribution by 12. First we went to Nalstop then to Deccan under the bridge where the Rambow circus is setup whenever it comes in town, then we went to dagdusheth and the temples near by and lastly we went to Pune station. We distributed all the bags of Veg Pulav we had with us. We were so enthusiastic while doing it that we forgot to click photos; a mistake that wont be repeated next time. Jokes aside the smile on those children's face when they received the Veg Pulav made my day. 

The reason why I wrote this blog is not because I am looking for appreciation or recognition, it's because I want to convey this message to as much citizens as I can that: We can bring a change! Now I know that we haven't done anything Herculean, but we tried to do something on our part. We took help of no NGO, it was just the three of us and Vinay's mom who cooked the Veg Pulav. If just the 4 of us managed to do this, imagine what the united citizens of India can do. Even if 10-20 people come together big things can be done. Think, think! It's time we stopped criticizing and took some action even if small on our part. I am not asking you to do social work. It can be anything: motivate your society to implement rain water harvesting, writing a letter to the Govt official for getting street lamps or writing a letter to get a traffic signal in a busy square in your area that doesn't have one. Look around there's a hundred things you can do. Responsibility is not given it is taken. Take responsibility! We possess the power to make a better tomorrow.