Every person of faith has his temple or church or mosque or synagogue to revere and use as his guiding light in his or her life. Religion serves that one purpose quite well in that the fear of divine retribution keeps most people 'on track' shall we say. For atheists there really isn't a formal guiding light or principle to go by and for that reason most cultures tend to think the atheist is not someone you want to associate with, he/she must be evil. For this reason most atheists hesitate to announce to the world that they are atheists, much like people of alternative sexual preferences plying their sexuality without announcing it to the world for fear of being ridiculed or even cast aside by the public.
In western societies gay and lesbian communities have been reasonably successful in their fight against discrimination and have succeeded to a large extent to be accepted as normal people. Its a different story in our oriental cultures where being gay or lesbian can often lead to disastrous consequences, even death. Mercifully, us atheists are not stoned to death but shunned by most oriental societies as 'not so nice people'! So it was with some pleasure that I read of atheism becoming acceptable in many western societies so maybe there is hope for us here in the East!
But what really can be a guiding light for atheists who don't believe in a god that will show them the path? For me its about the laws of Nature - its about being respectful to Nature and leaving a place better than I found it. Starting with the washroom in a hotel or restaurant, I think it is possible to leave the place better than one found it when you stepped in to use the place. I find it strange that even well-educated people in these parts will wash their mouths after a meal and spit into the washbasin and think nothing about leaving the washbasin with food particles from their mouth lying all over the basin. I would think the least they could do is rinse the basin out after use so it looks presentable to the next person who uses it. One would imagine this is basic to most people but no its not so.
Cleaning up after ourselves seems anathema to most Indians - thats somebody else's job right? One wonders how this scenario can be changed in generations to come. Will we ever be able to make our people understand that spitting, urinating and defecating in public spaces is unacceptable in the 21st century? Can all these religious teachers and spiritual leaders prevail upon their people to atleast live clean and keep their surroundings clean? If that were possible I guess I'd become a believer too, in the goodness religion!!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Whats with us Indians?
My two kids grew up here in this city of 7 million people, they started with nursery school here and they went on to finish their schooling right here. The values we as parents tried to instill in the kids were the usual ones of respect for elders, honesty, compassion, fairness, loyalty and simple things like getting into line to be served. The children have long since left home, they have been away for over 6 years now and I often wonder whether those values that we taught the children stand them in good stead or do they actually hinder their progress through life.
These questions come to mind mostly when I drive to work every morning, there is a particular right-handed turn that I have to do to enter into a main road on my way to work - most folks driving cars stay to the left of the road and await their turn to take the right turn. But invariably there are those morons, some in fancy cars, who will ignore the line of cars on the left of the road, drive up the right of the road without bothering about the fact that they will hinder or even block traffic coming along that side of the road from the opposite direction. When the block happens, its chaos because vehicles cant come into the road from the main road and they pile up on that part of the main road and many think they should try and go around the traffic and block us who are trying to turn right on to the main road - the result is a grid lock and for may be 10 minutes its complete anarchy. All the while the inconsiderate violater thinks the guy who came in from the main road (on the correct side of the road) is the ass, 'he can see me, he should have waited for me to pass'!! Talk about self-righteousness!! We Indians as a people must be the most self-righteous people on the planet!
Those violaters can actually get through that traffic chaos and still ask whats wrong with the whole world - look at the mess 'they create'!! And we as a people can conveniently forget about those law abiders who chose to stay in line and await their turn - never mind that the idiot violater thinks they all must be fools to stand in line and await their turn to make that turn into the main road! Even the traffic cop thinks the violater really did not violate - he was just in a hurry to get to work you see!
Its the same thing in a ticket queue - theres always the violater who thinks its ok to jump the queue - every one in the queue are fools again you see! I wonder if I taught my kids the right thing by telling them to stay in line and never jump a queue - they must really look like fools to folks who think nothing about jumping a queue! Is it that teachers or schools dont teach these kids to await their turn? Will it help to hammer value education into kids in school? The cynic in me says that when there are so many people chasing so few goods & services there will always be people who will want their goods and services delivered out of turn and will even be willing to pay to get those goods & services out of turn - herein lies the root of corruption that we as a nation so bemoan - that then is my Queueing theory of corruption!
These questions come to mind mostly when I drive to work every morning, there is a particular right-handed turn that I have to do to enter into a main road on my way to work - most folks driving cars stay to the left of the road and await their turn to take the right turn. But invariably there are those morons, some in fancy cars, who will ignore the line of cars on the left of the road, drive up the right of the road without bothering about the fact that they will hinder or even block traffic coming along that side of the road from the opposite direction. When the block happens, its chaos because vehicles cant come into the road from the main road and they pile up on that part of the main road and many think they should try and go around the traffic and block us who are trying to turn right on to the main road - the result is a grid lock and for may be 10 minutes its complete anarchy. All the while the inconsiderate violater thinks the guy who came in from the main road (on the correct side of the road) is the ass, 'he can see me, he should have waited for me to pass'!! Talk about self-righteousness!! We Indians as a people must be the most self-righteous people on the planet!
Those violaters can actually get through that traffic chaos and still ask whats wrong with the whole world - look at the mess 'they create'!! And we as a people can conveniently forget about those law abiders who chose to stay in line and await their turn - never mind that the idiot violater thinks they all must be fools to stand in line and await their turn to make that turn into the main road! Even the traffic cop thinks the violater really did not violate - he was just in a hurry to get to work you see!
Its the same thing in a ticket queue - theres always the violater who thinks its ok to jump the queue - every one in the queue are fools again you see! I wonder if I taught my kids the right thing by telling them to stay in line and never jump a queue - they must really look like fools to folks who think nothing about jumping a queue! Is it that teachers or schools dont teach these kids to await their turn? Will it help to hammer value education into kids in school? The cynic in me says that when there are so many people chasing so few goods & services there will always be people who will want their goods and services delivered out of turn and will even be willing to pay to get those goods & services out of turn - herein lies the root of corruption that we as a nation so bemoan - that then is my Queueing theory of corruption!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
My city and me.....
The city of my residence (I can't believe I've lived here for 28 years!) turned 370 years old just three days ago. It was on the 22nd of August 370 years ago that a factor, Francis Day, of the East India Company was given a small piece of land on the east coast of India by a local Nayak chieftain, to set up a trading post. The English built the Fort St. George on this spit of land - the city of Madras grew around this Fort with the locals setting up a township outside the walls of the Fort (it was called, rather politically incorrectly, Blacktown). Fort St. George grew into an institution when it became the seat of the Government of the Presidency of Madras and the base of the Governors-General of the East India Company. These Englishmen were essentially called upon to ensure that the company made good profits while making sure the natives were kept in their place and trading lines were kept open. The Madras Presidency ofcourse covered pretty much most of peninsular India s
outh-east of the Mahratta territories. It was a huge swathe of land to be governed by one man but the EIC ensured that their writ ran in all corners of the Presidency. It was only the other day that I actually paid a visit to the Museum at Fort St. George - I am ashamed to say that it took me so many years to get to see this fantastic collection of artefacts relating to the East India Co. It was after this visit that I was pleasantly surprised by the arrival of a courier in my office bearing a cover from Melbourne, Australia - it contained a book by Nick Robins entitled 'The Corporation that changed the world', sent by a friend from down under. It is truly an eye-opening book and I was gob-smacked when I learnt from the book that there is no memorial at all in England to the East India Company that very English entity that helped ensure that the 'sun never set on the British Empire' - even their huge headquarters building on Leadenhall Street doesnt exist any more. Its almost as if the British do not want
to be reminded about the Company. True, the Company wasnt the most ethical in its dealings in India and China but it took home to the English nation untold riches and hastened the ushering in the industrial era in ye olde England. But it makes me wonder why a nation that takes pride in preserving its past would want to remove from memory all traces of a 274 year old Company that brought untold riches to Britain. Seems like our history books did not tell us enough!!
outh-east of the Mahratta territories. It was a huge swathe of land to be governed by one man but the EIC ensured that their writ ran in all corners of the Presidency. It was only the other day that I actually paid a visit to the Museum at Fort St. George - I am ashamed to say that it took me so many years to get to see this fantastic collection of artefacts relating to the East India Co. It was after this visit that I was pleasantly surprised by the arrival of a courier in my office bearing a cover from Melbourne, Australia - it contained a book by Nick Robins entitled 'The Corporation that changed the world', sent by a friend from down under. It is truly an eye-opening book and I was gob-smacked when I learnt from the book that there is no memorial at all in England to the East India Company that very English entity that helped ensure that the 'sun never set on the British Empire' - even their huge headquarters building on Leadenhall Street doesnt exist any more. Its almost as if the British do not want
to be reminded about the Company. True, the Company wasnt the most ethical in its dealings in India and China but it took home to the English nation untold riches and hastened the ushering in the industrial era in ye olde England. But it makes me wonder why a nation that takes pride in preserving its past would want to remove from memory all traces of a 274 year old Company that brought untold riches to Britain. Seems like our history books did not tell us enough!!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sustainable agriculture in the midst of a drought
I'm getting quite perturbed by the agricultural situation in the country because it seems like farming is not a paying proposition anymore and financial distress in the farming community is rife. Add to this the drought situation prevalent in more than 200 districts in the country and we have a potentially disastrous situation on our hands.
I'm wondering if it is high-input agriculture that is the cause for distress among farmers - as somebody who has advocated hi-yielding varieties of crops to farmers I guess I am culpable but did we really have a choice at the time? With massive food shortages facing us in the 70s we couldnt possibly have consciously advocated continuing use of the traditional seeds of cereals and pulses, could we? At the time the higher yields and the greater incomes that farmers could garner from use of hi-yielding seeds and higher doses of inputs made eminent sense and indeed it ushered in a green revolution and saved us from becoming another basket case economy. But in hind-sight we know that what we advocated also resulted in massive removal of nutrients from soil and increased vulnerability to disease and pest attack necesitating even greater use of agro-chemicals which we now realise is a non-sustainable system.
But advocating sustainable agriculture in the midst of a drought doesnt seem like a workable proposition because yields are bound to drop when sustainable agricultural techniques are put in place. We may therefore simply have to carry on with the older hi-input format for atleast a couple of years before we implement Sustainable farming schemes. It is here that governments will need to step in and help farmers with inputs (not subsidies) to keep costs of cultivation within acceptable levels and to keep farmers out of the clutches of usurious money lenders.
I'm wondering if it is high-input agriculture that is the cause for distress among farmers - as somebody who has advocated hi-yielding varieties of crops to farmers I guess I am culpable but did we really have a choice at the time? With massive food shortages facing us in the 70s we couldnt possibly have consciously advocated continuing use of the traditional seeds of cereals and pulses, could we? At the time the higher yields and the greater incomes that farmers could garner from use of hi-yielding seeds and higher doses of inputs made eminent sense and indeed it ushered in a green revolution and saved us from becoming another basket case economy. But in hind-sight we know that what we advocated also resulted in massive removal of nutrients from soil and increased vulnerability to disease and pest attack necesitating even greater use of agro-chemicals which we now realise is a non-sustainable system.
But advocating sustainable agriculture in the midst of a drought doesnt seem like a workable proposition because yields are bound to drop when sustainable agricultural techniques are put in place. We may therefore simply have to carry on with the older hi-input format for atleast a couple of years before we implement Sustainable farming schemes. It is here that governments will need to step in and help farmers with inputs (not subsidies) to keep costs of cultivation within acceptable levels and to keep farmers out of the clutches of usurious money lenders.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Ramblings on atheism continued
A friend wrote in with this quote from Freud "The more I study religion the more I become convinced it's about mankind's unconscious desire to worship his egoistical Self". Now isnt that interesting - Man creates God in his own image possibly for the reason cited by the father of psycho-analysis! Every religion seems to do this - except perhaps Islam which refuses to put a shape on Allah but his intermediary Prophet Mohammed is ofcourse human in form. Freud's explanation is perhaps also the basis for all the wars that are fought in the name of religion - the ego is at the centre of it all!
Buddha preached that adherents of Buddhism should avoid focus on a form but by design or default, practitioners of Buddhism seem to hold the human form of Buddha in their minds while in prayer and prove Freud right! On the other hand Buddhism advocates detachment from all things material and mental thereby implicitly advocating atheism. Buddhists are therefore perhaps the closest to rationalism compared to adherents of other religions.
My quarrel is with ritualism - it is rampant in most religions - one wonders why. My pet theory is that it provides the priests of those religions with work in that they are the ones people look to to learn the specific rituals of that religion. Thus, there is employment for such priests and they in turn advocate orthodoxy and strict adherence to ritual as a means of self-preservation of the priest class. Nice way to ensure that you and your ilk are taken care of by the believers for their entire life! Once again Buddhism scores here because priests in that religion are supposed to live on alms (bhiksha) but then organised religious structures are quickly developed and hierarchies develop within the priest fraternity even among Buddhists and put paid to the concept of living entirely off alms! Guess its too tedious to have to live by alms alone - it doesnt leave the priests with enough time to perpetuate ritual! Religion therefore is 'of the priest, for the priest and by the priest'!
Buddha preached that adherents of Buddhism should avoid focus on a form but by design or default, practitioners of Buddhism seem to hold the human form of Buddha in their minds while in prayer and prove Freud right! On the other hand Buddhism advocates detachment from all things material and mental thereby implicitly advocating atheism. Buddhists are therefore perhaps the closest to rationalism compared to adherents of other religions.
My quarrel is with ritualism - it is rampant in most religions - one wonders why. My pet theory is that it provides the priests of those religions with work in that they are the ones people look to to learn the specific rituals of that religion. Thus, there is employment for such priests and they in turn advocate orthodoxy and strict adherence to ritual as a means of self-preservation of the priest class. Nice way to ensure that you and your ilk are taken care of by the believers for their entire life! Once again Buddhism scores here because priests in that religion are supposed to live on alms (bhiksha) but then organised religious structures are quickly developed and hierarchies develop within the priest fraternity even among Buddhists and put paid to the concept of living entirely off alms! Guess its too tedious to have to live by alms alone - it doesnt leave the priests with enough time to perpetuate ritual! Religion therefore is 'of the priest, for the priest and by the priest'!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Random thoughts
If you have been following all the news happening in developed parts of the world you may have noticed the distinct anti-immigration stance that most countries seem to be taking of late. I find it strange and positively selfish when first generation immigrants, like some of the Indians who are naturalised citizens of the UK, Australia, USA, France and several other countries take up issue against immigration. Don't these folks realise that not too long ago they too were people clamouring to enter that country? Its almost as if these folks have gotten into this life boat and will not allow other poor wretched folks to get in for fear of the boat sinking!! Well, I guess once you are on the inside you dont want others to share 'your' space!! In my humble opinion, its alright for the indigenous people of that country to take that anti-immigrant position but completely unacceptable for immigrants to take that position.
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I thoroughly enjoyed this recent article in the Times of India on Atheism in India - the writer, Prakash Shesh actually brings up an interesting point about Hinduism which seems to have a God even for Atheists! Brihaspati, is the God of Atheists he says! Indeed, its nice to know that Hinduism openly tolerates the concept of atheism and is absolutely ok with the idea that there are people who will not be able to accept the concept of God in their lives. Not so with other religions I understand - in Christianity and Islam you either believe in their God (and no other) or you do not qualify to be Christian or Muslim.
In a recent article author R Jagannathan argues that "Hinduism is essentially agnostic in nature because it allows you to customise god to your requirements. If god can be whatever I want him/her/it to be, it must be my creation rather than something separate from me. This aspect of Hinduism cannot but be appealing to people who seek god without religion." Now thats an interesting take isnt it? But for a rationalist like me even that discount that Hinduism provides me doesnt entice me into buying into the concept of God & religion! Maybe it has to do with the biologist in me - I dont regard creation as something that requires a supernatural element (read God) to cook up!
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I thoroughly enjoyed this recent article in the Times of India on Atheism in India - the writer, Prakash Shesh actually brings up an interesting point about Hinduism which seems to have a God even for Atheists! Brihaspati, is the God of Atheists he says! Indeed, its nice to know that Hinduism openly tolerates the concept of atheism and is absolutely ok with the idea that there are people who will not be able to accept the concept of God in their lives. Not so with other religions I understand - in Christianity and Islam you either believe in their God (and no other) or you do not qualify to be Christian or Muslim.
In a recent article author R Jagannathan argues that "Hinduism is essentially agnostic in nature because it allows you to customise god to your requirements. If god can be whatever I want him/her/it to be, it must be my creation rather than something separate from me. This aspect of Hinduism cannot but be appealing to people who seek god without religion." Now thats an interesting take isnt it? But for a rationalist like me even that discount that Hinduism provides me doesnt entice me into buying into the concept of God & religion! Maybe it has to do with the biologist in me - I dont regard creation as something that requires a supernatural element (read God) to cook up!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Forest cover is not always lost
The newspapers are constantly bemoaning the fact that the country and the world at large are fast losing forest cover mostly due to the increasing requirement for human habitation on a vastly over-populated planet. These newspapers hardly seem to contain any news that would make a smile pop up on your face - its always the lousy news that makes it to the press it would seem. Is it about some kind of perverse pleasure people get when they read about somebody else's misery or misfortune? It almost seems like it because papers that purvey the good news don't seem to sell!
Lets have some good news for a change, I'm going to recount an interesting case of natural afforestation taking place on my beautiful school campus. Back in my days the school campus seemed so large to us, well it was large, some 200+ acres of land surrounded almost all around by
a stream and the whole campus was situated in an idyllic valley nestled amidst the Blue Mountains of south India. It was reasonably forested back then - mostly by tall eucalyptus trees, wattle trees, some conifers and a fair amount of under-brush which provided us hungry boarders with sustenance! Boarding School food is notoriously bad but ours seems to have hit a new low because not only was it difficult to send down the gullet it was in such small quantities that we found ourselves almost as hungry after the meal as before the meal. The result was that we boarders reverted to the hunter-gatherer mode of our ancestors and spent all our free time scouring the hillsides for food. Outside the campus, beyond the little stream that was the school boundary the Badaga farmers grew carrots, potato, radish, cabbage and cauliflower. It was forbidden for us to step out of bounds but if the hunger pangs got real bad we raided those potato fields, stuffed the tubers into our jerkins and made a dash for the wood-fired boilers behind our living quarters. There we roasted the spuds and ate them with much relish. Ofcourse, if the seniors came to know you wound up roasting the spuds for them to eat! One of our chief pursuits in the under brush was the hill guava or the clogger as we called it because of its effect of constipating us if we had too much of the small, tasty fruit. When nice and ripe the clogger could give any fruit a run for its money - it tasted so good to us hungry souls. But I digress, I was trying to tell you the story of afforestation wasnt I? Well suffice it to say that we hunter-gatherers back then kept the under-brush under control by simply moving about the area and not allowing it
to grow over. The fauna was limited to some jungle fowl, jackals and maybe a few birds like the bulbul, warblers, bush quail and a few doves - nothing really remarkable.
Today the school delivers the most awesome food and what is perhaps most important is that the quantity is not limited - boarders can eat as much as they please. This satiation seems to have resulted in the atrophying of the hunter-gatherer tendencies of present-day pupils of my alma mater. As a result they no longer forage for food 'down the banks' and the under-brush has over grown to such an extent that animal life has returned to the old valley possibly because every where else they go there is de-forestation but in old Ketti valley the story is panning out in reverse! The range of animals you now find on the campus is impressive, if not scary! Look at this picture of the valley taken a year ago (2008) , notice the lack of forest cover all over the valley - the only forested area is the area that forms the school campus! There have been numerous sightings of panthers, elephants, giant Malabar Squirrel, monkeys of different hue and ofcourse plenty of wild boar and jungle fowl. Now isnt that a happy story, one of the flora and fauna getting back their due, after all its their world too!
Check out this picture of a giant Malabar squirrel, taken by yours truly in 2007 right in front of one of the cottages we boarders lived in! That's a Luckote tree there, we regularly plucked, ripened and ate those Luckotes - today the satiated kids in school leave the Luckotes to the Malabar squirrel to eat - no man-animal conflict here!
Lets have some good news for a change, I'm going to recount an interesting case of natural afforestation taking place on my beautiful school campus. Back in my days the school campus seemed so large to us, well it was large, some 200+ acres of land surrounded almost all around by
a stream and the whole campus was situated in an idyllic valley nestled amidst the Blue Mountains of south India. It was reasonably forested back then - mostly by tall eucalyptus trees, wattle trees, some conifers and a fair amount of under-brush which provided us hungry boarders with sustenance! Boarding School food is notoriously bad but ours seems to have hit a new low because not only was it difficult to send down the gullet it was in such small quantities that we found ourselves almost as hungry after the meal as before the meal. The result was that we boarders reverted to the hunter-gatherer mode of our ancestors and spent all our free time scouring the hillsides for food. Outside the campus, beyond the little stream that was the school boundary the Badaga farmers grew carrots, potato, radish, cabbage and cauliflower. It was forbidden for us to step out of bounds but if the hunger pangs got real bad we raided those potato fields, stuffed the tubers into our jerkins and made a dash for the wood-fired boilers behind our living quarters. There we roasted the spuds and ate them with much relish. Ofcourse, if the seniors came to know you wound up roasting the spuds for them to eat! One of our chief pursuits in the under brush was the hill guava or the clogger as we called it because of its effect of constipating us if we had too much of the small, tasty fruit. When nice and ripe the clogger could give any fruit a run for its money - it tasted so good to us hungry souls. But I digress, I was trying to tell you the story of afforestation wasnt I? Well suffice it to say that we hunter-gatherers back then kept the under-brush under control by simply moving about the area and not allowing it
to grow over. The fauna was limited to some jungle fowl, jackals and maybe a few birds like the bulbul, warblers, bush quail and a few doves - nothing really remarkable. Today the school delivers the most awesome food and what is perhaps most important is that the quantity is not limited - boarders can eat as much as they please. This satiation seems to have resulted in the atrophying of the hunter-gatherer tendencies of present-day pupils of my alma mater. As a result they no longer forage for food 'down the banks' and the under-brush has over grown to such an extent that animal life has returned to the old valley possibly because every where else they go there is de-forestation but in old Ketti valley the story is panning out in reverse! The range of animals you now find on the campus is impressive, if not scary! Look at this picture of the valley taken a year ago (2008) , notice the lack of forest cover all over the valley - the only forested area is the area that forms the school campus! There have been numerous sightings of panthers, elephants, giant Malabar Squirrel, monkeys of different hue and ofcourse plenty of wild boar and jungle fowl. Now isnt that a happy story, one of the flora and fauna getting back their due, after all its their world too!
Check out this picture of a giant Malabar squirrel, taken by yours truly in 2007 right in front of one of the cottages we boarders lived in! That's a Luckote tree there, we regularly plucked, ripened and ate those Luckotes - today the satiated kids in school leave the Luckotes to the Malabar squirrel to eat - no man-animal conflict here!
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