The useless ‘royal, divine wealth’

“I went to the Vatican and I saw that the ceilings were made of gold. And I heard the Pope saying the church takes care of poor children, but if so, sell the ceiling, JP. Do something! I was angry with him. For the same reason I got angry with so many people. Because they are two-faced. Because they say one thing here and then another thing there. Because they stab you in the back. Because they lie.”

That was the comment from the football legend Diego Maradona about his visit to Vatican palace and I remembered this when I read about the ‘honesty’ of the Travancore royal family that the mainstream media is celebrating right now. It was all started when the stock-taking of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Trivandrum began by the supreme court order. Everyone is surprised at the amount and value of the wealth that was found inside the secret hideaways inside the temple which comes close to Rs. 1 lakh crore and one more secret vault is yet to be opened. This makes the Padmanabhaswamy Temple the richest temple in India.

Since the matter has become a topic of interest to general public, there are many discussions going on about the royal and ‘divine’ wealth. The wealth that was found in the temple is of the old Travancore royal family. In other words, it is the wealth of the old Travancore princely state and it’s people. In short, it is the people’s money, through taxes and everything, that the old Travancore king had added to the temple and the deity through the process of “thRippaTi daanam“. And through that process, the kingdom of Travancore and it’s wealth was ‘surrendered’ to the deity and the temple. Still, it’s only symbolic and the king continued to be in his position; just that his designation was changed to ‘padmanaabha daasa‘ (meaning, the servant of Lord Padmanabhan), looking after the God’s wealth and kingdom for him.

The thing is, no one would dare question a king like Marthanda Varma who was a conqueror and as was the practice with any king, he would do as he please. The royal family had kept their secrets and this wealth in the name of Sri Padmanabhan, even during the merger of Travancore with Indian Union. Which means, they have denied the right of people to know about their ancestral wealth (which includes the hard-earned and no-so-hard-earned money of their ancestors) even in the march towards a newly built democracy.

As a result, the lakh crores worth of wealth of the people were hidden and useless. Not only that it is useless, now, from what I assume from the news, every tax paying citizen will have to bear the cost of safe-guarding this useless wealth. As per the news reports, one of the royal family members seems to have asked proudly:

“How many royal families in the country can be proud of keeping things like this? You should understand that two chambers out of the six have not been opened for more than 150 years and it there that the treasure trove has been kept safely”.

I would like to tell him that if the royal family was honest as the media and they themselves celebrate to be, they would have spent that wealth for the welfare of people. This is not the hard-earned money of their labor. They once did the mistake of ‘surrendering’ it to a God, then with not surrendering it to Indian Union and now by justifying all those actions. And our slavery mentality celebrates this as an act of honesty.

Now who would tell them what Maradona told the pope?

In black and white

Biju S Balan

What does it feel like losing, or rather missing someone in your life? What does it feel like, when it is a friend? When you hear from his father that your friend had given up his life on a string of cloth and they found out after a day in another place far from home? What would you say to him? That you’re sorry to hear the news?

Silence. And a big blank space in your mind. That’s what the death of beloveds feel like. Not even a drop of tears. Funny, I wasn’t even stunned or shocked at the news. So it happened when my brother died in an accident. And so it happened when my friend gave up his life five years back, alone, in an empty room in Chennai. Today marks his 5th death anniversary.

Death is black when you hear it and white when you see it. All you see is a long piece of white cloth and the face or hands that pop out of it. And sometimes it’s just a package, a massive piece of rotting flesh wrapped up in a white cloth and put into an electric oven. You wonder why you didn’t feel a thing. You wonder if you should have forced yourself to push a tear drop. Could it be the cold early morning in the cemetery? Or like life, does death grow on you? Or is it any comfort that you still have more time in this world? That you’re lucky, or damned that way?

(Image courtesy: Outlook magazine. I was surprised to find his photo while searching in Internet.)

Sankara Sasthri and the rocker

This is a well written article by Jithin Das in his Google Buzz (found it through Thulasi) and I am re-publishing it here with due permission from him.

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By Jithin Das

There was this ‘famous’ scene in the movie Sankarabharanam where noisy neighborhood kids annoy Sankara Sasthri with loud music at midnight. The vocal was a lampoon, intentionally done to annoy Sasthri and guitars were off the track. Situation surely warrants an interception. Sasthri did it. Then the unusual happens.

Pathetic rockers inform Sasthri that this is not Sa Re Ga Ma music and he wont understand it. Sasthri in turn challenges the kidos by telling them he can sing whatever they can but they cannot sing the way he does. One of the guys try out a tra la la l and Sasthri mimics it perfectly. But when sastri hums a raga rock kid fails to repeat it. Ashamed, he accepts defeat. Well, movies are movies.

What would have happened in real (if the entire rock band members weren’t complete morons as we presume everyone except Indian classical singers to be! ) is more like this:

Rocker: “Sasthri, this is not your sa re ga ma. You think it is noise because you dont understand western music.”

Sasthri: “Is that so? I can sing whatever you can, but you cannot do that to me.”

Rocker: ” That challenge shows your ignorance, Sasthri. Let me tell you something. What I meant by sa re ga ma music is, your music follows only tones. Your system trained you to associate everything with a note, a pitch and a beat alone. Sounds are in solfage and anything that falls out, such as a chord may sound like noise to you.

This is evident from the very fact that you challenged me to sing a vocal bit so that you can repeat it. If I sing something, you- the master of Carnatic should be able to understand it at tones, pitch and beats. But the music we make is much more complex to be measured by these alone. Rock has its own different aspects. The one you just heard was a verse chorus, which has a very different effect than solo singing or harmonic singing . Asking one of us to do a solo verse is like telling me to separate sugar from my coffee so that you can prove coffee is just some grains of sugar. I hope you got it now.”

Sasthri: “Are you telling me your music is as systematic and scientific as classical music? Our popular songs are not.”

Rocker: “Yes it is. The difference is, the popular music or rather film songs here did not evolve . It is fusion of Carnatic or Hindustani and very basic western classical. But our music keeps on evolving. Rock inherited everything it can from classical to folksongs and then, it evolved as a new music genre. In fact it is not one system, it is several systems that keeps on evolving.”

Sasthri: ” Now I am getting it. May be it is so different and so complex that it doesnt sound like music to me.”

Rocker: “It is not so hard. As a person who knows music you should be able to understand an unfamiliar one too. Just listen to this guitar chord. It is called C major seventh . It is sa-ga-pa-ni played together. sa is the root note, ga & ni are the major notes, pa is the perfect note. Together it becomes the chord C major seven . Now can you identify this?”

Sasthri: ” it sounds like sa-ma- ga-dha- mixed.”

Rocker: “you got it, it is F major seven. ma is the root, dha & ga are majors sa is the perfect fifth. I told you it is not as hard as you think.”

Sasthri was impressed. He learned several new things that night. He sang too and the rock kids were mighty impressed by his perfect microtones and easiness of improvisation. He just doesnt need to write down anything to make an improvisation!

That night Sasthri decided to lead the brats to forming a new band where he will be one of the vocalists. Kind of fusion music, but very different from those who pathetically mix and match music. Sasthri did his sweet revenge to the orthodox Carnatic music fans who outcast him because of his suspected illicit affair . In his new world nobody cares a shit about the guy, they just want his music. He did not have to beg and borrow anymore to make both ends meet. Needless to say earned reasonably well, his band was popular enough to get some concerts every now and then, for a decade.

Aftermath of the Baba-giri

Back to square one. That’s what happened at the end of the fasting drama of Baba Ramdev. Everything remains the same except that we got to see Ramdev in a churidhar, Ramdev’s alleged ties with communal elements, a high-profile fasting stage and finally Ramdev quitting the biggest political entertainment show on mere promises. The man who claimed that yoga could cure the incurable diseases have finally given up to the doctors who have advised him “to abstain from yoga for two-three days and take rest“. Hmm..

Sonia Gandhi and Congress party must be laughing at all this. Had someone more credible and popular were on the forefront of these fights, they would have been in trouble handling the situation. But for their luck, the mass movements in the new India are always led by wrong people like Hazare or Ramdev who have questionable personality and stand on various issues. So the UPA government, the most corrupt government that we have seen in the recent history of India, could thrash the movement and go on to justify it. And the folks like Ramdev passed the ball to the UPA court that even the police mishandling of the Ramlila ground situation has been pushed down the memory lane.

But Ramdev did not say “at times like this, you do pranayam” as he did once. Instead, the yoga guru said he would form up an army of 11000 soldiers who would be trained in arms. Something that we can now call ‘the Baba-giri’. With the Congress on the revenge and has ordered many inquiries into the Yadav-turned-Dev Ramkrishna’s empire, we might see more entertaining news in the coming days about the yoga guru.

On another news, a Sadhu who also was on a fast-unto-death finally died in the same hospital as Baba Ramdev was admitted. There were no cabinet ministers to see him and discuss his demands and no long lines of sadhus or common man who were in support. His cause, a genuine one, was against the illegal mining to save Ganga river. On other such news, Irom Sharmila is still fasting, even after 10 years and is still being force-fed. Not many, including much of the middle-class crusaders, are bothered about it. And the middle-class arm-chair activists have now begun justifying their silence on these issues over several forums in the Internet. They say that middle-class cannot relate with the issues of Binayak Sen or Irom Sharmila, hence the silence. Reminds me of the poem/quote by the anti-Nazi theologian Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

‘My Fellow American’

Here is “My Fellow American“, an online film and social media project, that is trying to do something about Islamophobia with sharing stories of people and trying to raise awareness. Checkout their website My Fellow American and also watch the teaser video below.

In all the material I have seen and read about Islam and the common perceptions about it, I have never seen or read a convincing speech like the TED talk given by Mustafa Akyol which makes a lot of sense. A must watch.

Ramdev Lila

The sad state of India is that even the agitations in the name of common-man are hijacked by people with vested interests. So the right movements are lead by the wrong people. Wrong people who support other wrong people and the wrong causes. People who are more interested in fame and publicity. People who have an eye on being in the line of power. That is what happened with Jan Lokpal Bill and now the fight against black money.

I have written earlier about Anna Hazare and his show. Now it’s the turn of Baba Ramdev, the yoga master. Like Jan Lok Pal Bill, I so very badly want to see some action done on the black money put in the foreign countries but like the JLP bill, this movement is also lead by the wrong man, or a man who has authoritative, suspicious and intolerant views on core issues. Ramdev asked for death penalty to the corrupt people and that’s going over the top. He wants sex education in schools need to be replaced by yoga education. He wants 100% swadeshi movement. He says homosexuals are sick people and English education should be replaced by Hindi.

I see utter non-sense, intolerance and ignorance in his views. This fellow clearly doesn’t understand how economy or global trade or free-market works (I don’t believe in a full-fledged free-market but a government controlled free-market). He is also pushing us to the back of the time and is being insensitive to the non-Hindi speaking regions when he pushes Hindi instead of English. The contribution of English to the youth and marginalized in this country is more than what this guy knows.

And who chose him to represent the 121 crore Indians as he claims himself? As far as I know he represents only his followers from across different parts of India and nobody else. He doesn’t have the right to speak authoritatively for the common man without the consent of the common man through a democratic process. The same so-called torch bearers of democracy need to learn a thing or two when they or their followers makes demi-gods out of them. Shanthi Bhushan said, “Ultimately the power is with Anna, so whatever Anna says has to be accepted” and as an NYT article claims, Baba Ramdev seems to have said, “I am very powerful“. Seems that the motto now is not power to “the” people but power to “some” people. The yoga guru seems to have said, “what the people need is honest, brave and responsible leadership” and what better example than himself to show the bravery of trying to escape the police in a churidhar!

Those who are clearly benefiting from all this is still the Congress party. Fortunately for them, the leaders of the movements against corruption and black money are such hypocrites so it is easy for the Congress party and the UPA to drive things their way, though I am sure they must be regretting the way they handled Ramdev issue with the midnight eviction episode.

And the churidhar-clad Baba, who has full support from the Sangh Parivar elements, has now warned the government that “next time in Ramlila, it will be Ravanlila“. We can only wait and see the turn of events.

About growing old

(Thoughts after one chat session with a friend)

old man I remember reading a quote about old age that, ‘old age is always 15 years ahead of my age‘ or something like that. When I was in school, I thought that the people who went to college were old. When I moved to college, I thought that the final year students were old. After college, I thought 25 was old and then 30. At 31, I don’t know what is old anymore. Are they the people who have kids in highschool? Or whose kids are married and have kids of their own? Or those who have retired or counting their time in the death bed?

I would have said that the old age is when you stop being young in your mind, but that’s not true (for some, its about the physique; keeping your body fit). That kind of statement comes from those who have seen only boring examples of the old age. A generation of lecturing, boring and ordering people. One can grow old gracefully and staying alive doesn’t have to be staying young. We just have to grow old gracefully. And to do that, and to stop being the uninteresting people that the youngsters hate, we just have to stop being the oldie that we hated when we were young. And how do we do that? I have the following suggestions.

1) Interact with young people : Youngsters are full of enthusiasm and ideas. You feel a certain level of energy when you talk to them and that could trigger some fresh thoughts in your mind. They seldom think of the risks involved or spend too much time on planning and focus their energy on execution. Whereas oldies spend too much time estimating the risk, drawing out a fool-proof plan and sometimes end up with discarding the idea of execution altogether (though I’m not downplaying the importance of proper plan and risk estimation here). Their years of experience would primarily lead them to see the negatives first and most, while the youngsters always see the positives first because of their passion and enthusiasm for the execution of their ideas.

2) Give tips and opinion, not lectures : I hated it when old people started lecturing me when I asked them for an opinion or help. They would just go on and on, as if my life totally depended upon their words and they take a kind of pride in it. If you’re a parent, do not use your ‘parent power’ on your children and give them your opinion and tips that could help them without getting into an elaborated lecture. That would really make an effect on them.

3) Do not ask for respect; earn it : Many old people seem to think that being old gives them the right to ask for respect from the younger generation. That may not work anymore. Apart from the basic human considerations (of considering and giving space to the old like we do with little children), I don’t think anybody would give respect to any person just because they are old unless they are part of family (certain odd rules work for families in the name of blood-relation). And there is nothing wrong in it. You have to earn respect in your life. Age is no license to ask for it. The sooner you realize this, the better.

4) Do not act like you’re young : Some old people seem to think that ‘acting young’ would give them space among the young generation, which in my observation is completely wrong. If you want to act young, take your friends or the people of your age to do that. Otherwise, you would be making a fool of yourself. You would think cracking porn jokes or doing ‘fun’ things with youngsters would make you acceptable among them but they would think that you are a joker and they would make fun of you at your back. Similarly with your children. A friend once wrote in his FB page that his father was strict until he was 19 years of old and then became a good friend. I think that makes the point.

How do you see growing up old? As for me, I see the years to come with much excitement. For I know that I have changed for good and learned many lessons in the years I have lived so far. I am curious about what life has in store for me in the years to come. To see what the world would turn out to be in the future years. To see how life and living would change. To see my family and children grow. To see what relationships mean as we pass on each stage in life. The only thing I am concerned about growing old is to depend on someone else. About going senile, being bedridden and immobile. That truly is scary.

But what I don’t want to be is what my friend told me in the chat conversation – “I don’t want to end up like a wise cracking smart ass“.

What are your thoughts? 🙂

Image: Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net