RELIGION

The most difficult thing to do is to live in peace and harmony with people. We might be friendlier with dogs and cats for that matter but when it comes to people, a hell lot of analysis is done before a happy relationship starts. One factor that eases this very phenomenon of analysing people is Religion.

We are automatically free from vexation with people who belong to the same religion that we do. There is an inbuilt trust factor amongst us that unites people belonging to our religion with us. This is a good thing for sure because the phrase “United, we stand, divided, we fall” holds true. It is also true that the latter part of the aforesaid phrase is often too much neglected and it is this act of our negligence that makes religion the most powerful weapon for destruction of mankind. Religion, when used as a factor to unite can create wonders but if misused, proves to be deadlier than a nuke.

Religion is supposed to be considered as a personal matter. But very often, little do we realize that the things that we do in the name of religion leave it as more of a public display of superiority and authority. This happens the most during festivals when people forget that though it might be a moment of joy and celebration for one, there are a million others who are not interested in what that one person is doing. By expressing joy publicly, we end up disturbing many others and eventually cause a lot of problems for them. If religion is a private matter, why display it publicly?

I remember one of the debates held in the classroom during my college days. The group that I was in was assigned the topic “Religion: Is it a personal matter?” Many of my colleagues agreed to the very topic and explained in all possible ways the influence of religion on human beings. However, I and a few colleagues were of the opinion that in today’s scenario, religion has no longer remained private. It has been imposed on others, especially babies, when born, automatically come under the religion of their parents. Why impose the religion on the baby? Why not let it decide by itself which religion to choose after it becomes an adult. There is no such thing that a child can do by itself until it turns 18, i.e. becomes an adult. Then why not choose its religion after becoming an adult, after becoming mature enough to take its own decisions. Till it turns 18, the responsibility of the child’s actions is that of the parents, who already have a religion. Why trouble the child by imposing religion on it and compel it to abide by the rules and regulations of the religion?

The reply to this argument was “Why did your parents name you? You could have become an adult and then chosen a name for yourself?” Well, amusingly enough, there was a huge applause for this remark; the reason for the applause still remains unknown to me. The fact that we are named is only to identify us amongst million others. Well, religion does the same, right? Yes, of course, it does the same. But do we teach our children as to why they were named? Do we ask them to follow rules according to the names they have? Do we tell them about different deities as per their names? And lastly, but importantly, do we teach them that their names are superior than others? The last statement may not be acceptable to many of us, but such things do prevail in the society even today. We don’t impose our understanding about things on our children based on the names, but in the name of religion, this is exactly what we do. Rather than letting our children develop their own understanding about god, we induce into them, the concept of “GOD” that was induced into us. How many times have you seen people telling their children about humanity and respecting humans? We are taught not to back answer our elders. The reason given is that God will get angry and punish us for our sins. Never are we told that the elders might feel bad about it and we should make sure our comments don’t hurt anyone.
Instead of making people aware of God, why not make him aware of his teachings? Why is it that religion is more preached and less practised? What is the use of knowing a thousand prayers if you don’t know the worth of a human life? When hanging in a situation between life and death, all we pray is for someone to save us. The religion of our saviour doesn’t matter at all. The only thing that we require for that moment is help, and it is appreciated no matter where it comes from. Why is it that we don’t wait to be saved by someone of our own religion?

Religion cannot be completely eliminated. Since it has prevailed over thousands of years, it is not feasible to remove it and have the same way of life as before. However, it can be kept limited to ourselves. We need not fight in the name of religion, caste, sect or any other categorization amongst us. The division was done only for ease of administration and for personal convenience. It is not something that the Gods decided upon and divided the human race into. In fact, the Gods themselves might be surprised to see people under constant communal tension, something that they never practised or preached.

Religion was brought into existence by man and not God. Let us not forget that we are humans first and then Christians, Hindus, Muslims etc. Humanity is our only strength, because it is the only thing that all humans have in common. As my friend, the Dark Angel (http://www.darkangel1988.blogspot.com/) says in one of his posts on religion:

"It is rather ironic that people are willing to hurt, rape and kill other people whom they can see,hear and understand for Something or Someone whom they cannot see,hear or understand."

Let us stop these foolish acts that are happening in the name of GOD, in the name of MAN.

ONION

The first thing that comes to our minds when we think of an onion is “tears”. Tears are something that each one of us readily identifies the onion with, however, it can be better related to the person whom we love the most or the one who is close to our hearts. Whenever we cut the onion, tears roll down our eyes. The same can be said when we lose someone special. It is this aspect of emotional attachment of the human nature that is related to the onion. Onion can also be compared to our behaviour towards others. For instance, if the onion is deep fried in oil or fried till it turns golden brown; it imparts certain sweetness to the dish. This phenomenon sends out a message that the true sweetness in a relation can be experienced only if you feel deeply about it. Mere frying won’t make it sweet. The deeper you fry, the more you come close to people. But, just as the onion teaches us to come close to people, it might as well teach us tricks to keep people away from us. Eat a raw onion and many of the people won’t even come near, forget talking alone.

Unlike other vegetables such as carrots, radishes etc (all grow underground), an onion cannot be directly eaten. It seems tasteless. It is best when cooked properly or if raw, with salads. The thing that comes out from this fact is that some relations cannot be sustained by a single factor alone. They seem useless and pointless when the interest is narrowed down to one thing. However, to make sense out of a relation, we need to view it from all possible angles and analyse it to make it fuller, richer and deeper. Some relations are best when mixed up with various emotions. This too can be related to the onion.
To sum it up, it is not the onion that teaches us these great things. These are simple things that are not paid much attention or given much importance in our daily lives. It is just that someone like you and me sat down for a moment and thought about the onion, else the onion would have been just another vegetable............. or is it still?

Half filled........Half empty

Many-a-times, we encounter situations where we end up in a dilemma because the situation appears to be one thing, but in reality, it is something else. Analyzing these situations might lead to more than one conclusion. Different people might feel different conclusions to be correct which is very true. The point is it doesn't matter what the conclusion is, what matters is how we look at it, how we take it to be. That's the reason the glass below might be either called "half filled" or "half empty".

Consider a real life situation when it is "Result day" and we have tried a lot to score well in the exam. But we as well know that it is not in our hands to decide the scores, there could be a chance that we might not get what we deserve. Two thoughts go through our mind.

1. The positive outcome of the result

2. The lack of faith in the positive outcome

Both the thoughts, though they contradict each other, co-exist in the brain.

Most of the times, the "half full, half empty" concept is associated with optimism and pessimism. It is said that the person who considers the glass to be half filled is quite optimistic about life and the one who says it is half empty has a pessimistic approach towards life. This, however depends on the situation to a great extent.

For example, the terrorist population of the world.... It would be optimistic to look towards it from the "half empty" point of view rather than the "half full" point of view. It is true that things should be taken in a hopeful way so that there is always a possibility of success. But if it is convincing enough that the reality is in no way agreeing with optimism, there is no use of being optimistic and wasting time. It is hard to strike a balance between the two, but when struck, makes life simple.

Real Understanding....Understanding the real

CONFESSIONS OF A STUDENT

I smile at myself when i remember my early years of life. I was a good student who topped the exams every year. I had loads of knowledge about my syllabus and the subjects but no wisdom otherwise. I could rote everything in the book and vomit it out in the exams but if asked anything apart from the subject, I would start grumbling. The reason being that I was not used to being speechless about a question (I knew everything man!) and the fact that I couldn't answer it hurt my ego. I was no good at anything else and sports were a big no-no for me. I liked watching cartoons and munching on chips. Apart from studying and eating, I had no other interests. As time passed, the subjects kept getting tougher and I lost my numero uno position. Since then I never gained it back. I was amongst the top students but never at the top again.

But during those years, I learnt a lesson that has proved beneficial to me till date. Although I couldn't make it to the top, I always knew more than what was there in the book. I was considered to be the best person to get the doubts cleared because I knew much more than anyone else. It is then that I started to realize that my learning process had changed completely. I never had to learn things by rote. I could understand them well and use my own methods to form the answer. Though it never helped me to score full marks, I always had a deep contentment inside me. This approach of doing things on my own changed my attitude forever.

I started taking interest in other activities like reading novels, participating in sports and within no time, I started winning on all fronts. I would be ever ready to volunteer for a task someone had backed off from doing and would try to do it in the best possible way. I kept on challenging myself against more and more difficult situations and was successful in most of the cases. TODAY, after twenty years of existence, I feel I have understood the way of living life to the fullest. It doesnot mean you go out there and have all the fun and adventure as if it was your last day alive, but rather challenge yourself everyday, every moment. Most of us are victims of the "I can't do it" attitude and we say this even before trying to do the task. One cannot judge one's capabilities until trying them out. If you feel something’s beyond your reach, do give it a shot. In the process, you might end up increasing the range of your reach. Try and fail but never fail to try.

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.”

SMOKING ON

It has been quite a time since the smoking ban was brought into force. I still remember how happy and relieved I was when I heard of this rule for the first time. Most of us cannot even stand the smell of the smoke coming out from the cigarettes. It is this unfortunate group of people that has suffered the most because of people smoking in public, and it is also believed that passive smoking is more hazardous than active smoking. This is not something that the government, you or I or any smoker is unaware of. We know everything that affects us, yet we behave as if we are ignorant. But by enforcing a ban on smoking in public, the government had done a really good job. “Good” is relative though.

The ban seems to have fallen on deaf ears, not only ears but eyes, nose and mouth too. I still see people standing at the “pan-wallah” stalls and sending beautiful patterns of smoke into the air from various openings on their face. Ask them about the ban and they reply, “Main akela nahin peeta, sab peete hain” meaning “ I m not the only one who smokes, everyone does that.”

In the first place, the basic truth of life is one can’t change others, its only that he can change himself. Others may realize and change themselves. So forcing a ban doesnot make sense. If at all the government is so concerned about the health of the non smokers, then the ban should have been of a much higher degree of strictness and smoking in public should have been treated as a crime. Well, that is not happening.

Secondly, most of the people who smoke are well educated people, who are aware of the ban. This is for all those of you who know about the ban and still smoke in public: Do you have any sense of understanding left in your box or has it been blown off with the smoke? Why is it that you cannot understand the basic commandment of life- “Donot do unto others what you would not want them to do unto you.” Would you not mind if someone would do something that could cost you your life? Put yourself into the shoes of the other person, only then will you understand how bad the shoe stinks!
It is time to wake up and realiize that change is possible only if we are ready to give ourselves to it, the moment you change, the world changes for you. Stop following the herd, rather quit smoking and lead the way. And if you still did not understand how to get rid of smoking, trust me, Cancer surely cures smoking…. (darkangel, are you reading?)

Terrorism as a career option

All that we see today around us is moving in only one direction- DOWN! Be it the financial condition of the world economy or the amount of trust in the country’s government or even the natural reserves for that matter (this might be a vague comparison), everything is plunging deep. Youngsters though qualified as engineers and graduates are finding it tough to get hired. But there is something that is constantly on the rise despite of all these recessions and if considered might even prove to be a valuable career shift.

Terror is almost omnipresent today. There are cases of bomb blasts in different parts of the country almost every fortnight. This displays the amount of intelligence and power that the terrorists have in store. And to top it all, it is not a cheap business. Huge amount of cash is flowing in into this business. This might be an account of the terror at the national level, but then there is the local level terror too. There are cases of the “Acidwallah” from Delhi who throws acid on the face of young innocent girls for reasons best known to himself. The girls in the area are scared to even step out of their homes. Then comes the Ms. Meerut story where a former beauty queen kills her parents over petty money issues. To add more to it, take the case of the famous Raj Thackeray…… These new ideas of instilling fear into the minds of innocent people might help the terrorists in their missions and we might even get paid for it. Worth giving a thought?

*It is evident today that terror is on a high, more that it was ever before. But a majority of us haven’t experienced it, hence we don’t bother about it. We might have not lost our near and dear ones so far, but are we going to wait till doomsday? Terror doesn’t have a name, caste or religion. We will not even know when it strikes us, but the consequences will surely make us realize our foolishness and ignorance.

Change we need...........

The reason why I am writing this post is because today, BARACK OBAMA has succeeded in winning the U.S. Presidential Elections and all that he kept insisting was "Change we need". Indeed the eloquence of Obama truly displayed his genuineness and finally, today, "Change has come to America".

The power of change can do wonders if properly handled. Change is all we need whenever we are depressed, sad, angry or frustated. Change might be in the form of pleasant music, loneliness, silence, love and affection or simply, realization, that is awakening of the subconscious mind. People who know to change their mindset according to the situations they come across are far more happier than those who lack this ability. In order to be capable of changing according to the situation, one needs to be aware of the happenings. Only an alert mind can act quick and adapt to the situation. Adaptability plays an important role in our survival and is all about changing as per the change affecting our life. It reminds me of the quote "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." by W. Edwards Deming .

Most of the sorrows in our life are because we are so attached to things that changing from one thing to another is something we try to avoid. Such a scenario is common when we are in a comfortable situation and things stop going our way. It is then that we start cursing and praying and doing everything but changing ourselves. For example, we are attached to many people in our vicinity and there are some who are really close to our hearts. Imagine losing one of them and a shiver runs down your spine. Most of the time it is the fear of the consequence that stops us from changing. A change in this scenario would be becoming less attached to people and understanding the law of nature. Another example would be a failure at a particualar test or an exam. It may so happen that we put in our best efforts to perform well but the results might come out to be shocking.

"Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer"~Shunryu Suzuki

We need to understand that if things dont go our way, we need to go their way and get back their control. Rather than wasting time crying over spilt milk, it is better to boil it once again. An inspiration would be the birds who keep building nests no matter how many times they fail. Failure is a part of success, any if we want to overcome failure, change is what we need. Just as the popular saying goes "Change is the only thing constant in life", in order to make our life happy and contented, we need to keep changing ourselves.

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." ~Victor Frankl

Friendship....

If there is any relation that has virtually NO problems in it...it's got to be friendship.The other relations, though blood tied, lack the strength that friendship has, moreover no relation is as open as friendship. It is better to have all friends and no relatives because friends are the people with whom a lot of things can be shared without much hesitation whereas the same is not possible in case of relatives. It is said that " A friend in need is a friend indeed" but I would rather say that "Friends indeed are the people we need". We can express all of our emotions(joy, sorrow, anger, frustration etc.) when with a friend, and the best part is we need not worry about the reaction from the other end because a true friend will understand every word you speak and every emotion you express. Despite this fact, people tend to think a lot about others rather than thinking about themselves. It may so happen that we may not like some particular comment made by our friends or we may feel offended because of some of their acts, yet we never speak out our minds because we feel that we might end up hurting them. This is nothing but lack of trust in the friendship. A true friend is not someone who will support you in every decision you take but rather the one who will stop you from making wrong decisions. We need to be as straight forward as possible with our friends because complications arise when things are kept inside and allowed to accumulate. Let go of your tightly held emotions and everything will be as fine as possible. Learn to lose and you will gain immensely, and when you gain, remember...LOSE AGAIN!!

RETURN 1

Returning after a very long time, infact after a semester in engg. The study leave has started and I am free once again. I know the blog needs to be updated within a short gap, but sometimes, that becomes difficult.