About Bose

http://hindunationalismmuslimunity.blogspot.com/

New looks at Agni pariksha

I was listening to the incident of Agni pariksha of Mother Sita after her coming out of Lanka.
I was thinking of a different way of looking at the matter. Lord Rama was going to become King of Ayodhya. By the same virtue Sita would become queen. It is too be understood that there were different set of Dharma for Rakshasa people and humans. MotherSita should be considered as the one who had been taken as prisoner in the enemy camp. When a soldier is taken a prisoner of war there are chances that he may change change his alliance during that period of confinement. when they return they cannot join the rank so easily. they have to pass certain test. Soldier understand that procedure. Now the question can be asked will that same rule apply for Mother Sita. Lord was very strict with his own people when it came to following of Dharma. He did not listen to the lament of his father and even words of elders which were comingin his way of following Dharma. Later it is shown that just to uphold Dharma he did not spare Mother Sita, who was carrying twins, and ordered her to move away from palace. So the Agni Pariksha should be seen as the one of following the Dharma of an army commander receieving people from enemy camp.
People may think that Agni pariksha is too harsh a test. But the way conversation is goes on in that context nobody tells that Ram wants to kill Mother Sita. This makes it appear that it was one of the very severe kind of test reserved for proving integrity of character. That must have been other example regarding that in those time. Like Narco test or lie ditector test which are carried out in present day.
Question was not that Ram believed Her or not. It must have been like affidavit produced before society for purity of character.
That is what i can understand from understanding of present day.

Making of a Leader

What would I do if I become prime minister- one of the essay topics given to the students of Primary schools. At the time when even the meaning of country is limited to few imaginary inputs, nothing much is expected other than killing some imaginary ghost and building Utopian place to live. It is not the topic in high schools or even colleges due to dawning of awareness regarding reality of multiple faces of problems. Three people can try to solve problem, the scholar, an experiences and person with divine intuition. Their efficiency is also in the same order. The first can be logically satisfying, second is of emotionally liking and third is of silent spiritual approval. I think Rahul Gandhi is deprived of all these. It is very easy to understand that it easy to get in the leadership saddle of congress party and by that virtue one can get the power to rule nation too but that does not ensure that he is capable of handling problems. People praise Rajiv Gandhi at many occasions. It is not merely because his widow is having the real power now. It is often told that he has very lofty ideal for ushering the nation in new millennium.. If one is praised for having lofty ideals then the children should the first among them because they present some of the unsullied dreams among human being.he did not have practical solution for any problem. He told that there is corruption, as if nobody new about it. there was hardly anything noticeable done to reduce it. rather he sank under the burden of Bofors. Though he was born in a political family he did not know how to take political decisions. That resulted in decimation of his party after getting highest ever mandate, which could be attributed only to the death of his mother. Again congress could come in power because he passed away. Congress should ever be thankful to P V Narashimha Rao, one political man who rode the country through troubled times. It must be to his credit to bring in Manmohan Singh as finance minister who stirred economy away from the socialism policy. Socialism should be should be advice government not lead economy. Manmohan Singh is a good administrator or wise advisor but that does not make him a inspirational leader or even firm decision maker. Even the best of the tailor with finest of the stitching ability cannot be conferred role of surgeon to stitch a wound. Finance ministry is not all about running government. But in present day society where money is only which matters this logic will never go across. So the Singh is still a King. He thinks silence is the best response to every question because when ever he opens his mouth it seems he is not on the same page even with his own men. He could not bring consensus even in group of three leaving one hurt- the case of appointment of CVC is very clear. He put his reputation on the issues like Nuclear bill. Since at that time congress did not have any other alternative to him it became duty of the party to find support for him though party was not very much in favour of it. Country watched how the number was managed. It was alleged that money and the immunity to criminal cases were offered in exchange to number. Numbers have always been managed but depends how how it is done.
He has got into habit of defending which appears indefensible. He allows government to speak in many contradicting voices and continuously shifting highlights from one to another depriving space even for any sane voice.
Every time it is told that he is a great economists. As if that is the criteria to be the prime minister of the country. But the worse is what awaits in future. It is being told that he has to give way to the scion of the Gandhi family. Preparation is going one. There has been many attempts to show his potential. He was given charge of Bihar election. Congress was decimated there. Knowing that he cannot do anything much in Gujrat he was not even fielded in local body election. There was a chance in Karnataka but the fear of bringing more bad name made party manager keeping him away from local bodies election even from there.
Then it was decided that he will make a new brigade for the future of the party. Looks like it was decided that it is better to tap potential in education institute where student start making up their mind. That made him go to the universities but here again he proved himself to be a bog flop, it was told that he god drubbing in Bihar and Gujrat. Strategy was changed and it was decided that he will not interact with press and conferences became closed door interaction. It foiled the very purpose as only previous hardcore members could attend. Detail of such interaction was never made public. What was fed to media can me thought as careful exercise of the media cell of the party. It was being said that even question during those session were sponsored. The results were seen when elections were held. NSUI lost it ground. His managers may give many reason for these failure but it cannot be doubted that the party is waiting for one success story to unfurl its Rahul flag. Somehow it is not happening. YSR of Andhra was a catalyst in securing the central stage for Congress but now there is no YSR may be there will not be the same Andhra too when there is next election held. One by one constituencies are slipping away. Now hopes are being placed on W Bengal and Kerela. Both of them will benefit congress but by default of change which will come from removal of communist government. There is no doubt that Rahul will be fielded to corner glory for whatever the party can gather.
Leaders should get opportunity to prove them at lower levels first. It will help them gain confidence to achieve something higher and also instill confidence in the public about his ability. Without such exercise every step of Mr Rahul will appear to be a sentence int hat essay of that primary school student who has been told to write essay about becoming prime minister.

Links for Bhaarateeya sanskriti

There is a nice site, http://ancientindians.net. It appears to be some what unbiased and putting facts in one place. To me, sometimes it appeared to oversimplification to avoid what cannot be understood. Still there does not seems to be an agenda driven site.

Chat Pooja and Skand Shasti

I was going through website of Swami Nityananda. There was one video clip in which one USA priest explaining about Skand Shashti. There were many things which were not known to me about Kartikeya. Two of them I should mention here. First, there were the names which I did not understand i.e. Sarvan( because he was born in the forest of reeds), Karthikeya (Lady Krithika associated with Nakshatra Krithika or just because it was month of Karthik). Then about the story of his birth. First time I read about birth of Karthika was from Kumar Sambhavam, a glorified composition of Kalidasa. Like his another composition Abhijnana Sakuntalam, there is lot of poetic imagination involved in that story. Since, it has very high literary value it became very popular among westerners. Most of the present day Bhaarateeya have habit of learning their history from westerners. It was natural for westerners to rely more on the imagination of an poet, which was more suited for their mission to portrait History of Bharat in perverted manner, than on the more revered Puranic sources. I would like to mention the difference some where else. I should not forget the main thought process which initiated this piece. It struck me when he told that Skand Shashti is celebrated six days after Diwali. Six days after Diwali were the key words. I remembered this was the count for Chat Puja. So I got interested in that story. After that I thought of knowing little more about the Chat Pooja. There is an impressive Wikipedia link for chat festival.
I would not like to repeat them again here as they can be followed by clicking the link. What I came to me was reaffirmation about culture Bharat.I would like to share few of them here.
1. There is similar theme going around in different form. It becomes Chat pooja in North and Skand Shashti in south. Both are associated with Sun. Chat is directly worship of The Sun and Karthikeya, the presiding deity of the Skanda Shashti has Yantra with solar base, which can be noticed in another video in the same site in another video clip in the same site.
2. Every action has different aspects associated to it. First and most apparent is cultural aspect. In this case Chat Puja carries with itself and identification of Bihari people. Skand Shasthi will be associated with Tamil people. Then is ritualistic aspect, which is preserved by the adherent devotees even when they don’t understand it. I don’t know anything about the Skand Shasthi directly, but neither do I know much about Chat Puja. That does not stop me from mentioning what I observed. Ladies fast religiously during these days. I have seen that from generation to generation they meticulously carry out smallest detail of the Puja. In any of the festival of Bharat what cannot be forgotten is the social aspect. People share the Prasad (offerings) with relatives and neighbors. So there is exchange of material and feelings. This creates bond and keeps them strong. Then there is philosophical aspect.. This is for the intellectuals to indulge in and newer interpretation keeps coming. Then there is spiritual aspect, which interlinks all of them together.


This reminds me of one of the teacher who had impressed me during school days, Mr Padmanabhan at JNV Adilabad. We used to discuss a lot. Mind it, I was just in class tenth at that time. And our topic used to be very serious, sometimes philosophical religious. But he initiated in some sort of healthy discussion and discussion. I also improved my English due to him to some extent. Once I asked him how he developed good command over English. (Remember that at time somebody speaking in fluent English was a matter of achievement for us. No need to ask who was that us. Us were the students, who had migrated from JNV Darbhanga). He told that because he had command over his mother language, (which was Tamil). That left me thinking that to have command over any other language one must have command over his or her own mother language. This learning helps in learning everything else properly. I think I will have to write a little about him also else where. Before I digress from my present topic, I saw similarity in what I learnt at that time about language and now about these festivals, Chat and Skand Shasti. I feel that if one understands ones own culture properly one can better understand other culture and even see connections and similarities between them, specially in context of Bharat.

Karpatri Ji Maharaj

Karpatri ji Maharaj. Let me try to remember where did this stream of thought started. Not very clear now. May be it will come later or it might have been lost forever. So somewhere while going through internet I came across this name. Instantly, what came to my mind was words of my youngest uncle, lovely called Chota Chacha. When I used to appear like giving lecture on religious topic he would call me Karpatri ji maharaj. I thought all the time that it was a name cooked up by him and never took that seriously. It must be because I never heard that name from anybody else. So when I got the name again while going through internet I thought that there must be something behind it. so I search a bit about it.
It seems he was a great orator with religious dialogue. There is one link in Wikipedia, but that is very limited. I got another link from blogspot of some Jagadanand (http://jagadanandadas.blogspot.com/2008/06/swami-karpatriji.html), who claimed himself to be achintya-bhedabheda-vadi.
There are few facts which I came across. He was a man of wisdom, an authority on advaita and specialized on mayavad. He must have been a very respected person in Varanasi. I see that there are some educational institute in his name. nothing unusual many religious leaders have invested in education of society at large. It also appeared that he was critic of Iskon and in return was at their aim too. He was a great and popular Harikatha proponent
Few things I found very interesting and I feel like quoting them here.

“Karpatriji explores the commentaries for each verse, and won't put a verse down until he has explored every alleyway, every nook and cranny of interpretation possible, whether it comes from the Gaudiyas, the Vallabhis, or any other sampradaya.”

“His language is just shaped through and through by the language of the Bhagavata. Entire phrases that slip from his tongue with such natural ease, names of Krishna—he won’t just say “Krishna,” but “Shyamasundar Madana-mohana Paramananda-kanda Sri Krishna” or instead of Radha, he will say “Hladini Shakti Svarupini, Mahabhava svarupini Vrishabhanu-nandini Sri Radha.”
“It is really interesting how he uses language. He is basing everything on the tikas, he is repeating the Sanskrit over and over again. Not only the Sanskrit of the verse, but the Sanskrit of the tika as well. He then translates into a moe sophisticated Sanskritized Hindi, following with the more familiar language, repeated his translation over and over until he gets that sentence just right, until he gets that full idea . It does not sound like he is struggling at all, just that with each repetition it becomes more full and complete. Then he goes into the vyakhya. Then he will bring in other verses or citations from other scriptures--Gita, Ramacharita Manasa, or some other text, tell an entire story. Or some nice asvadya verse which he will do something similar with.

Then as he completes the interpretation of one section of the original verse, he will repeat the entire verse, or just the same one or two lines and start in on another vyakhya of the same words or phrases. The end result is that by the time you have listened to the whole five hours of discussion of one verse, it is beating away like a drum in your head.”

I should not miss the meaning of the name Karpatri which means he held a bowl (patra) in his hand (kara). I got few more sites dealing about him. (http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/IHD007) here I came to know that he was active even in political field and was in active opposition to RSS. That was an interesting point for me.
And finally since　Chote Chacha also used this tells that he was very much know widely and denoted certain quality.

A bhajan touching mermory

There was a bhajan which I heard in Radio Sai Global Harmony. It goes like this. It reminded me of Mr Babban Pathak, Bihar state sevadal convener befor e which who had for longtime associated with Sri Sathya Sai Samiti Darbhanga. Why it reminded me of him is that this bhajan I did not hear anybody, other than him, singing this bhajan. The bhajan is below.

Sai Sathya palana
Baba Sathya palana

Hey Shirdipuri vasa Sai sarvesha
Hey Parthipuri vasa hey Shirdipuri vasa sarvesha Sathya palana.

Sai Sathya palana

Akhila nivasa jaya Rishikesha
Mangala kar paavan purusha

Hey Shirdipuri vasa Sai sarvesha
Hey Parthipuri vasa hey Shirdipuri vasa sarvesha Sathya palana.

Skewed Vision

There was a news in Times of India (6/1/11) . It seems there was a case of some humiliation of tribal lady. In their judgment, judges mentioned that act of Dronachaarya was shameful. To quote them:

"This was a shameful act on the part of Dronacharya. He had not even taught Eklavya, so what right had he to demand 'guru dakshina', and that too of the right thumb of Eklavya so that the latter may not become a better archer that his favourite pupil Arjun?"

It looked very funny that judges sit on passing judgment with very skewed vision. He saw there not about the student disciple but tribal and non tribal struggle. I am very interested in going through the responses too. Sometimes they area very interesting. Here are some of them.

So when the judges are convicting pedophiles or forceful marriages of minor girls, I suppose they will also denounce Muhammed's actions as shameful and exploitative amounting to kidnap and rape? (by Sarath, Sydney)

What Dronacharya asked was a punishment for piracy (in current terms) committed by Eklavya...why is SC blind on this aspect? ( by KD, Oz)

Falling Birds

I was reading novel named Kafka Along the Shore a weird novel mixing location time and level of consciousness. There were many weird things in those pages. So much so that weird became a normalcy. One of them was fishes and leeches falling from the sky. Yes fishes and leaches indeed. It was a piece of fiction so it was well taken.
I do remember grand mother telling that fishes fall from sky. That was not a fiction but fact according to her. Many seem to have corroborated her. It was not at all surprising to her. It had reason. I remember the story she told while mentioning this fact.
Sinners go to holy rivers and wash their sin. River becomes loaded with sin. So a person asked river how it gets rids of it. River replied, “I transfer these sins to ocean. It mighty and can absorb that easily.”
The person went to ocean and asked, “O Mighty Ocean, you must have accumulated sins over the ages. It must be quite a burden for you. How do you manage that?”
“I pass them to Indra,” replied the ocean. So the man went to Indra and asked what he does with the amount of sin which he receives.
“I send them back to world in form of fishes in rain, those who eat them bear with sin,” Indra said in the concluding remarks.
The sin cycle was complete so the story ended. But it is starting point of the thought. Sin is indeed coming back to us in vey weird ways. Raining fishes may be solid form of sin that also includes that rain water itself is polluted with our combined sins. And that reminds me of the passage in Anandvalli of Taitareeyopnishat. It says that yajna form cloud, cloud form rain, rain forms vegetation, vegetation forms food and food forms man. So the man is formed of yajna. But we know that cloud is formed from sea. So, how the cloud is formed from yajna? That indicates that clouds have two components. One is physical and another is subtle. Sin is a part of that subtle component. What does yajna do? It sends positive vibration and makes the cloud pure and the cycle continues. So what happens when yajna is not done? The sin comes along with the rain water and enters our cycle.
Why I am telling all these. There was a news that birds are dying in mass. They are falling dead. That rules out epidemic disease. Any such reason would make birds weak and weak bird would not take to flight. Surely there are no terrorist birds who plot against each other like human do. It must be some external force: man made or natural. Let us take both of them one by one. We know that urbanization did not kill so much of birds but surely digital waves have made some changes in environment. Birds have left city in search of safer habitat. They are very sensitive to environment and can sense the change much better than human, who only understands severe reaction and sometimes refuses to understand even that. There have seen some theories being put up for these too. Some weapon of mass destruction is being experimented, may be high frequency weapon. If that is the case we should wait for a stronger wave to come when few of us will be falling down even without realizing anything.
There is another theory which is being put that is of climatic change, like change in magnetic field of earth or the effect of solar spot. We don’t have much control over them. But still we have to ready for them. There have been many predictions about 2011 and 2012. This looks like just glimpse of what can happen. We surely need preparation. The prediction also tells that people with spiritual support system can ride through it.
The news of birds falling will soon be forgotten as they will be over taken by some more sensational news item but it should not make us stop thinking, because it is not the question of some TRP but our own existence.
Remember: birds fell dead in mass when the year started. Who will be the next?

Through Newspapers

I remember going through the pages of ‘Aryavarta’ every morning delivered by an old man. It was reserved for father, who would go through it. It had a characteristic feature which I still remember is the way the letter A was written I could never understand that because it was not the way it was taught to us. It was having pa letter and appendages added below it. Later father told that it is old way of writing. There was another feature of the newspaper that was about typesetting. Letter would be above and below the line and sometimes we had to face a missing word. In such case we had to imagine what the word would have been. That was not a big problem as those were not the days of sensitization and reading between the lines. Media was not very powerful, many of them toeing the line of government and few trying to stick their neck out. My going through newspaper was merely to improve my reading capability. I remember reading it to mother while she was busy with house hold chorus. The pages were having some patches of padded printing. I did not notice but someday it was stopped. I did not see that news paper on the stand even longer.
I think it was replaced by Navabharat for sometime but soon it was replaced by an English daily The Times of India. It was mainly to inculcate English reading among children. It was changed for reason very funny. Neighbors could not share English daily and there was a Vaidyaji (Ayurvedic practitioner) could not enjoy read it. So we changed back to Hindi. Father was still getting TOI and was very found of cutting some important pieces. He would bring and show to us to inspire. By the time I was in Navodya, I regularly used to read news paper which was clamped on the wooden plank. Then the interest was in keeping the general knowledge updated. I should not forget mention of Praveen Kumar Jha who had photographic memory and was one of the stars in GK quizzes. His company drove me pick up the bits and pieces of news paper. That time we had craze of accumulation those information because we had a paper called general knowledge. I can concentrate on that in some other post.
Then I came to JNV Adilabad. For the first time I was introduced to The Hindu. Its style attracted me a lot. I became a regular visitor to reading room where newspaper would be there. I read it mainly to improve my English I remember keenly going through the section of Open Page supplement which came on every Tuesday which had some new words defined. The interest was kept alive due to interaction with Padmanabhan sir.
Then I landed in Puttaparthi. Here only The Hindu was allowed because it was only descent newspaper which could cross the censor the censor board unharmed. Times of India always carried some obscenity. There I became critical reader of Science and technology supplement which came on Thursday. I started keeping cutting of those pages. I don’t know if I again went through them. But I used those cutting to while I made some project. I remember I dumped them in dustbin when I left school. During that period or may be later I got interested in a seris of article which appeared on Harappa civilization. It was nice debate which I always looked forward. It had two sides one represented by Dr Rajaram and David Frawly and there was professor of Sanskrit on other side.
I must mention a little about it because it shaped my thinking and even sharpened my analyzing power. Rajaram and Frawly were of opinion that Indian culture is a continuous and self evolving. They supported the rich tradition of India. They did not fail to mention that the history which is being taught is flawed and needs to be based on scientific facts and non contradicting logic. The other was by Michael Witzel who was of opinion similar to the Aryan invasanists. While I saw the logic going in the article of formers I saw personal attack going in the one of later. I learnt to see through the words. With my opinion I would fall under so called hindutvaaavadis.
Most of the student would take the words of The Hindu for granted but I could feel the bias in articles and its regular columnists. Most of them hailing from JNU and congress stable. Extraordinary proportion of space was provided to leftist ideologues. It was confirmed when I grew up further.
In graduation day I saw another paper coming that was Deccan Herald published from Bangalore but I felt it did not have much weight. It was during my third year that my elder brother subscribed to Outlook magazine. There too I felt bias o editorial to wards congress policies. There I read article of Balbir Punj. It was not that he was not biased. I understood it when I saw his affiliations he was Rajyasabha MP belonging to BJP. That was the alternative source of opinion. There were few more spoke out. Though I did not find any to my satisfaction but I understood that none should be taken as the face value. There is always some hidden agenda. All the shouting and hooliganism is performed by only low level workers the one who moves high maintains very clean appearance.
I must not forget to mention about The Economic Times. It is from the publisher of TOI but it but has different flavor. I think the difference was because its main focus was on economic issues. So it ended up nearer to neutrality. I am not aware of its bias in economic matters.
Till then my new paper exposure was limited to one or maximum two. As it was costing money and time to subscribe while I was still studying. Then I landed in NCL. From there the internet edition of newspaper became available and I had opportunity to go through various new papers and compare them. I came to know of other source like Rediff.com where I had opened my mail. Then The Hindustan time, Navabharat Times (Hindi) and later Dainik Jagaran also included in that. Among weeklies Outlook was only freely available.
Recently there was lot of flurry due to 2G spectrum deals. Every news channel and news papers were trying to show that what they have is exclusive. But it looked like something was wrong. Something was going on for two years and suddenly so much is known. It did not follow logic. I was going through Outlook edition when Vinod Mehta (Editor) wrote the credit should be given to a correspondent of The Pioneer. That was the day I opened site of The Pioneer and there was no looking back.
What I loved is it has pure news. Not much of advertisement. Not much of links here and there. It is not that it is not biased it has a tilt towards BJP and the editor himself is MP on BJP ticket. But they don’t lie about their bias. They respect Bharateeyata, which I too respect a lot. They talked logic. I admired them even in talk shows. They did not go personal. I will be specially admiring Swapan Dasgupta. His cool and calm composure added to his unique voice. I don’t know if he ever looses cool.
Looks like I have found what I was searching. I would have loved this news paper to devote some more space to literature and art. I think its circulation is very low compare to many other but I feel comfortable. Not that I have stopped reading other news papers but I know I will get what I want in editions of The Pioneer. I read its journey through years and passage from one hand to another. I hope it will grow further in Making of Bharat.
Then I came across another news papers in Hindi that is Prabhat Khabar. It has internet edition which is not regularly updated but its editorial looked very impressive. It appears that there is a thinking man with vision behind those words.