The Triology!!

Have not blogged for weeks! Thought of making a hatrick trilogy!!

• Space research: We in IITG had our technical festival few days back. In one of the events, we have organized a student model competition (for school kids). It had a preliminary round and only the selected few had come from all over the country. I was a judge. Many models were on outer space exploration. I remember, in my teenage I also was fascinated by space. So I asked them about ISRO. But to my surprise, none of them knew about any achievements of ISRO. Few even did not know what is ISRO. They all knew what is NASA!! I know its not proper to blow ones own trumpet. But when the world is getting increasingly deaf, we have to blow trumpets. Why is it that media never talks about success of ISRO or the failures of NASA? This makes people think that ISRO has no success and NASA has no failure!

• Kishore Kumar: Its been a habit for me to go to a rickety tea-shop beside the institute campus, almost every evening, for tea and samosa. One day I was alone and there came a guy. From his talks to the shop-keeper I thought he is some gunda! Then I realised its his style! Then he sat beside me and ate something. There was a glass/tubler beside my plate and it was empty. There was also a jug full of water in the table. In India many people like to drink directly from the water jug (it has a different feeling when you are really thirsty!). But mind that they pour the water from a hight so as not to touch the jug with their mouth. Anyway, our friend must have been damn thristy. He took the jug, saw my empty tubler and filled it up and gobbled up the water. This he did as if its the natural way to drink water for human beings, i.e. first feel up the glass of others and then drink yourselves! And I was also not supposed to say any thanks or such after this action. The main show came after that. He was there for almost 15 minutes. In those time he joked and talked with almost everyone in the shop! It reminded me of Kishore-Kumar's movies. May be these are the characters who inspired those filmy characters!

• Natural selection: I was revising some texts on genetic algorithm (GA) few days back. One thing struck me! I have always had this doubt about evolution theory. If its simple "servivial of the fittest" philosophy, then all we should have been left with is a single specis. What then is the cause of diversity in nature? Then I realised that the cost-function in nature (or the fitness curve) is not a smooth one. Rather it has loads of local maximas. And thats why species can settle down at these local maximas and stay for ever in the same state of affairs! These local maximas correspond to niches in natural habitat. So far so good. But then if this is so, then GA should not work. But to my little knowledge GA guides itself by almost all the rules of evolution. Hence, may be the rules of evolution need some finetuning! Bad for GA (that then it wont be able to converge at the global maxima); but we will get a better evolution strategy... more close to nature!
  

India, trend, movies and allies

Just had the chance to view a hilarious song (http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3XCe4e2gc&feature=related). This made me look for other songs from the movie "boot-polish". I came across another touching song (http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=IrSEQpUmq30&NR=1). And this song left me to ponder on many things.

Why do not we see movies like 'boot-polish' now a days? That was an era championed by Raj-Kapoor and his generation. That was an era of the erstwhile USSR and an era of India's tilt towards communist countries. Nehrujee might have preached the philosophy of NATO. But we all know that the USSR was a supporter of India (for whatever reason). May be thats why almost all middle-class family had some books on Communism. Almost all middle class youth had that bleeding heart for the poor. That was an era when seeaigenti (CIE agent) was a foul name to call anyone! That was an era when Bollywood movies professed the moral-strength of the poor, showed half-naked slum dwellers and demonstrated the superiority of the proletarians over the rich.

Has the poverty of the country vanished in these few decades? Have the slums and their dwellers disappeared from the face of earth? Does India now consist of only NRIs and industrialist? Why then I don't see any poor man in any movie from Bollywood? Why all box-office hits in small screen show women with kilograms of golden jewelry on them? Why there is no single movie like "boot-polish" or a TV serial like ham-log? Suddenly it seems everyone has become rich!

I do not know about the reasons. I also don't want to brood on them. But this is what I think its propagating. This is professing market-economy. This is professing all the wealth that you need in a small life. This is professing dis-morality. Lastly if anyone has marked, Indian cinema was based on the poor and suddenly its based on the life of rich. It missed the bridge, i.e. middle class. So this is propagating a race for easy-money!!

PS: And of course in the world portrayed by today's film and media, there is certainly no place for the poor! They are just forgotten, and at the same time all the audience (from inland and abroad) are made to forget them. To think India is shinning!!

First war of Independence!

August 15th is coming. So I thought of blogging again! Over the years I saw dwindling enthusiasm of people in celebrating the day. We used to get so much excited when this day would come. First of all this brings a holiday and with that a toffee distributed by the school-principal! When TV came to our household, with these two things came the added benefit of watching some nice movie. Once I left my home-town the importance of this day has decreased, so has the importance of a free toffee. Today I find that a free toffee is almost of no value for the current generation of kids. The excitement for watching a patriotic movie has also almost vanished. As a matter of fact I dont think many can link to that past. Take for example Sepoy Mutiny, which some historians call the first war of independence.

Once I was thinking about this war. I think it was after the release of the movie "Mangal Pandey". Why should we call this the first war of independence? Who among the leaders understood the meaning of indepedence? When an action is taken, we have to look at the cause and the desired effect. What was the cause for which all those leaders jumped into war? To me it was the simple motive of regaining their kingdoms or zamindaris. Amongst all the leaders were from royal families and have joined the force because of the "Doctrine of Lapse". They had no direct son and hence East-India Company took over their zamindari. So they did not come for independence. Now look at the Sepoys. They were all Indians. They were mainly pissed off my the Enfield Rifle. And when they saw their own Rajahs leading a war their loyalty made them join force. So these to me are the causes of the war. Now lets look at the desired goal. If we observe the happenings in the war, it tells us a lot. People went till Delhi, captured it and declared the poor Nawab as the Nawab of Hind! This shows the lack of any immediate future plans. With all these pitfalls, I don't see why should we call it the first war of Independence? There were wars fought before this, there were sacrifices made before this. So why this one? Just because there were more Nawabs and Rajas involved here? Or just because Delhi came into picture here? I don't know. ..

Hero-worshipping!!

Whenever I watch any good American movie, I cant but appreciate an almost ever-existing under-current in all those movies. There got to be something towards the end of the movie, which shows the manifestation of human will and determination. Certain deed or heroic act by someone whose circumstances may not have possibly permitted him/her to perform the same. I wondered why it has to be like this in all the American movies? Is it that the movie industry there, is extremely benevolent and is single mindedly producing inspirational movies which give Americans the so called American-spirit? I came to realize that industries are same everywhere! For them, their interest and profit is beyond anything and everything.

Then I was listening to a Bollywood song one day. The very tune told me a lot. Most of the Bollywood songs tell you the tone of the hoi-poloi of Indian populace. Most movies target that. Then I remembered how in American theatres, irrespective of how many weeks a movie has run, everyone claps manically when the hero performs that last heroic act. This is the mass-psychology that the industries target. Americans are idol or hero worshippers. They recognize heroes, appreciate them to the point of worshipping. We in India are extremely poor in this aspect. We almost never appreciate all the small heroes living and breathing around us. Its not that such people are in any less number among us; its just that we somehow have developed this odd habit of ignoring our own achievements and achievers. We have stretched humility a bit too far... I think we need to change slightly; we need to be more appreciative; more impressible... more of a hero-worshipper!!

Education

Somedays back, while going through a book in the Discworld series, I came across this statement: "Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on." Very true for the education prevalent in most parts of the country. To this there was this budding desire among some of the students, to do something for the society. This left me thinking of the following:

Many times we think that child labor should be banned. Children should get education as a right. Bit what shall we achieve out of that? Lets say rag pickers or mess boys or hotel boys; we can not give them formal education; evenif we give them a formal education, current educational degrees do not give you life-skills. So can we design a small but effective capsule of lifeskills? Then same course can be given in many platforms, starting from orphanages to our security guards. If it clicks, then it can be listed in a webpage and made into a mass-volunterism activity. Please help us in giving your idea of what should be included into such a course. Some things which i thnk can be included are:

1- spoken english (detailed strcutre needed; may be we can discuss with the eduction dept of any nearby university)

2- useful mathematics!! eg mensuration, interest on money, multiplication tables, time-date-years etc. (again detaield structure to be decided)

3- some moral issues (for this may be panchatantra/fables stories told in english will be fine)

4- life skills and motivation: for this I thnk if we can have a bundle of good movies it will be best; amreican movies mostly say ki u can do it; aau movie dekhu dekhu thy will see western life style and why thy r successful.

Please share your idea, and more importantly some formal and firm structre/idea!!

Breakfast!

Yesterday I went to a small shop beside our campus, for breakfast. Well, to speak the truth that was my "brunch"! Brunch-shoppies in this part of the world are not that hi-fi. They are mostly single hall place with rickety benches to sit upon and a perenial mild stink meandering all around. But the cook in this place would be working just at the entrance of the shop. You pass by the road, you can see all the meticulous effort he was putting into whatever he was trying to make. And in the morning he will make "parathas" or "pratas" (as the Singaporeans call it). To roll one paratha he will take at least 5 minutes. He will fold it in numerous folds, so that finally it will look like some idol of Ganesh. Then he will spread it and roll it properly into a multi-layered round shape. His devotion to his work would draw me near this shop and once a while i will come to this place for a brunch.

Well... coming to the main story, this yesterday I was having my brunch when a lad from the next door shop came. And he started his breakfast. Those from India pretty well know this phenomena. A neighbourhood brunch-shop is like your next home where you can popin anytime. But many times you tend to forget to pay him. Hence, i expected our guy form next-door shop to have a decent breakfast and go without paying. To my first surprise, he took to his heart's fill. And then to my second surprise he out-right paid Rs35!

Rs35 for breakfast for a lad whose income may not be more than Rs1000 per month! Strange??!! This is the spirit I found here. Peopl believe in spending...in living life today... in having all the comfort that can be had. No tension for future no remourse for the good old days. Something we all need to learn. Live life each day!

Problems and solutions

I am fresh from a rewarding tour to my native place. Somehow I always find that in my visits I come to discover certain different angles of viewing the problems of life. Thanks to my parents!

This time me and my father were discussing about certain village school, where the good man who set the school, has employed few destitutes as teachers and care-takers. Everything else in the school was very nice. But the problem was the fact that lot more could be done if the people in the school are a bit more pro-active. There I found the refined defiiton of the problem of our land. Its the lack of "proactiveness".

So the real question of development is how to motivate people to be a bit more proactive!

I found something which seemed to me as a solution. Somehow I laid my hands on a book that has been lying in our home for few years at least. It was the explaination of Gita by Acharya Vinoba, translated by Annapurna Maharana. (PS: Acharya Vinoba is one of the true yogis of our era. Those who have heard the stories of AngurimAlA or Valmiki, Vinoba is man who did the same magic in our era. He went to Chambal (the once-heaven for dreadful dacoits!) emptihanded and made them submit for a better peaceful life! Annapurna Maharana belongs to a family which has given all its wealth, both material and man for the land. And please mark that the discourse was made to an audiance consisting of jail-inmates!)
Reading through the book, I got a strange feeling. May be here lies the solution. If somehow we can melt the ideas a bit further and convince people that its an reward in itself to work endlessly with no expectations,.... if only.......

Hind Swaraj

History is something which always intrigues me. How would things have been in the past. What made Mr.XYZ to take this or that decision. If he or she would not have done this or that, then what would have happened to us. Well... there are many questions in this world without any proper answer.

After hearing again and again from one of my friends about this title (Hing Swaraj) by M.K. Gandhi, I decided to run a google search on the web for this book. Luckily I got a PDF version of the book over Internet. That evening found me reading through the pages of the book.

First thing that astonished me was the date of publication, 1908. And the second thing to astonish me was the style of writing of Gandhi. It was odd and can in no words be termed as interesting. But still, there were certain discoveries that I made through the pages, which made me to trade further.

• First of all, the idea Gandhi had about Swaraj (or freedom) was completely different from what we have got in India now. This implies two possibilities. Either he was overly hypocritical (which I wont accept); or his figure was exploited by the rest of the Congress leaders to accomplish whatever they deemed to be correct.
• He talks many things which may sense null in today's context. Like he shuns railways, the profession of doctors and lawyers etc. In short he shuns almost everything that is adapted form west. In today's world, can we live a life without the western discoveries? I dont know. May be once a year, we can try to live like that for a month or so and try to observe how easy it is or otherwise.

Lastly, he raises two major questions which left me thinking. First of all, if we have a British system, a British governance and a British law without the Brits, can we still claim ourselves as independent? Secondly, if somebody else has fought independence for me, how can that be my independence? Hence unless and otherwise I find my own independence, I will still remain "parAdhin".

Blood donation!

Hold on......I am not going to give you another of those "bhAsans" (oratory) saying that you should donate blood. I will just narrate a story which happened to me yesterday. Yesterday we were having a blood donation camp in our campus. They made me the faculty-in-charge (for the lack of a more fitting faculty [;)] ) So I was wearing a batch showing the same symbol as was there on the pamphlets put up on the notice boards. This was marked by one of our security guards. For those who are not familiar with the security guard system in India, let me inform them that here private security guards are obtained through some agencies. The agencies are paid 3000 rupees per month per guard, whereas they pay just 1800 (~$45) to the guards. From that point of view, these guards are among the least paid employees in IIT.

Anyway, one such guards say me with the batch, and asked what is this thing all about? I told that they are collecting bloods, so that it can be given to some deserving patient. After that I went to my chamber and was resting for a while, when the guy came with one of his friends. And they want to donate blood. They say, till now they have not done any work of merit (as if we have done a lot!), hence let them donate some blood. Moreover, they said they are having a lot of blood which makes them angry sometime, so they should give some blood. Lastly, every evening the wretched mosquitoes suck so much blood, hence let some blood be given for some better cause!!

I contacted my student and arranged a slot for them. So delighted were they that they thanked me in profusion and said they will bring a lot of "laddus" (a sweet dish) from their village, the next time they visit home.

This is not just for blood donation. I think this is becoming the norm of the day. The more we are provided, the less charitable we become!

Dinner at Dhawa!!

For the old readers' information, lemme mention that now I am in one of the most remote parts of the nation, Guwahati, Assam. Not that I have any complains. Things are keeping me on my toes; so that I rarely get any time to miss anything! ...rarely indeed, except for occasions when some of my students mention about a dinner at a dhaba! How can I deny it :)

To cut the long story short, there was nothing exciting or new about the dhaba or the food or the water...even the ThumsUp was tasting exactly the same! But the difference was the way we went there. I would say it is the most adventurous thing I have done till now, after the roller coaster ride in Orlando. Semi-road from our institute gate till the national highway (NH). This path was covered in pitch darkness, which we could cover cutesy Sahus's cell-light (ultimately courtesy LEDs!). Just imagine 7 guys on bicycle, riding by the light of an LED (magic of silicon devices :p)!

Next came NH. NH's in India dont have any bicycle path! Hence you have to ride beside the main road. Dark as hell, and huge trucks coming from both sides. A truck from front is so scary. It will blind you with its bright light for few seconds, and you will realise what real blindness is once its gone. Its like left on the road to ride a bike, with your eyes blind-folded. (Try doing it to get me!) And to add to it all, if you miss the "beside" of the NH by a few inches, you might fall into one of the ponds which keep on repeating themselves on both sides of the NH! With all this, by the time we reaannalched the dhaba, I would have drained at least few pints of adrenalin and my heart beat was touching 200 per minute :p

All said and done, the outing was definitely a memorable experience, which will definitely go in the annals of the IITs! Lastly let me thank my student friends: Circuit, Sahus, Mohit (seen in the snap from left to right), Puns, Neta and Anda!!

Simplicity

How do we define simplicity? Staying with whats bare need! And who will delineate greed from need? What is need for me can be termed as greed for some Mr.X/Y/Z. So how does one qualify for "simple living n high thinking"? By the way, why the heck should I try for "simple living and high thinking"? Whats so wrong about "high living and simple thinking"? Does simplicity brings happiness? I doubt it strongly. Lets take an example of the life style of a village farmer, whose life style we can brand as simple with a good agreement. But does that farmer know about the simplicity in his life? NO. Most of the cases, if the life is simple, then the man might not know that its simple. And if one knows that his life is simple; or in other words, he/she could afford a more luxorious life but still takes a less luxorious life..............then .......well i would say he/she is running behind some mirage. There is nothing great about simplicity. The notion it slef is relative and "one who knows that his life is simple loses the merit of it"!!

memory and consciousness!

Sometime I read something which gave me the feeble feeling that may be our consciousness is due to our memory! May be time also flows just because of memeory? If there is no memory, how does one distinguishes present from past?

Today morning, my slumber was broken suddenly by the noise made by the wings of a fly trapped between the panes of my window. It was a semi-dream semi-deep-sleep state, and somehow my mind wandered in many directions at a time. And as the day is passing I was forgetting the stuffs..........hence I thought of blogging them!

Somehow I felt that the fly does not have much memory. It has a mossaic vision system, may be instantenous memory is all that it needs. Then I imagined my self to be a fly (I was in semi-dream state u remember), and tried to see how it feels. That part I have forgotten. But one thing was sure, I did not felt any inconvenience in my fly-avtar! I just had to flap my wings to get to anything that looked like food. And it was as if my body has been embedded with the art of flying. So that needs no memory. I fly to food, that needs no memry. I had mossaic vision, hece a really wide sense of sight.

But yes, there was no sense of time..................... Are flies conscious being?

Round the Country

I took the lab for the undergrads this year, and one of those students have been travelling in India in summer. From May till September! All alone, and he is a Swiss! Many of us have stayed in the same country for around 1/3rd of our lives, but still have not seen anything near to what this foreigner lad has seen. What he is telling me about his travel is indeed inspiring. Lone traveller, in a new country. I think I gotta do this, and that too as soon as possible.

nAdhame labdhakAmAh!

Ah! i getting bit obssessed with old sanskrit pieces. Sorry, but I thnk this is the season for it! I read this piece while in class-X. The context is like this (this is from the famous "meghadutam" epic by the great poet kALidAs).........There is this demi-god, who did some nonsense stuff and was put in prison in some land in far land in southern India. He was to be there for 1 or 2 years. He was separated form his beloved wife who was in the Himalayas. When monsoon of the year comes, he is so sad, as Mansoon supposed to be the most romantic season in India. So he composes poetry and requests the big clouds to carry his words to his wife. While requesting the clouds, he says "Oh great clouds, you are majestic in all respect. You are humble and benign, and you bring life to earth. Because you are magnanimous, I request thee. As, its better to request someone great and get rebuffed, than requesting some lowly person and even getting your desire!" This final line is the quote "yAnchA moghA-waramadhiguNe; nAdhame labdhakAmAh!" Better to beg from someone nobel and even get rejected, than requesting someone who is lower than you (even if he grants you your wish).

Is the above logic valid in today's world? Lets put aside the fundamental reasoning that no one is better no one is worse. Still we all have our own scales and we measure people as good better best! I have seen people who can change their whole attitude for a moment, just to gain a little favor. And there are those stubborn specis, who would never bow, unless the one they bow is better than themselves (by their standards).

Yatha Dristi!

I have heard a quite often quoted line from Indian literature, "yathA dristih, tathA sristih!" (Creation as per vision.)

I was aware of its deeper meaning, which wants to put that world or creation is in your mind, strictly determined by your perception and sense-organs. I can never determine is the green I see and the green that you see, are exactly the same green! Nor could we ever tell how the world looks to an ape or to a fish or to a bee. We all have our preconditions, prejudices, prenotions, that we have gathered through our life. Hence I can never ideally see your world. We all carry our own views, visions and versions of the creation. But often we feel like what we feel are absolute. Anyway lets not go into that dilemma and make things more confusing.

Second, more obvious version of the line, I came to realise very recently. It might also mean that we tend to see people the way we ourselves are. If I am crooked, I will apprehend that everyone else would be crooked. If I have a tendency to flirt, I can never believe that anyone else can ever do serious love. If I am credulous, I would tend to think everyone else is credulous. One of my friends was one day complaining that he has no love in his life, no-one understands his feelings. His GF never cares to commit anything. Few days after that day, his GF proposed him and slipped a diamond ring in his finger. Now he denied that ring, and the reason he gives for it is, he thinks his GF is only after sex, and hence he is being alert.

Well, where can we put the line between alertness and paranoia! We see ourselves in others. A small line, but big comprehension. We, our own world and our own images in the world. Reminds me of the song, "mad world". Did I just tell anything about myself...;-)

All Happy!

Deepanjali's comment to my last post, made me rethink on one of my pet questions. "Is it possible for all people to be happy for ever?" Can anyone give me the example of any society/community (across four dimensions of space and time; i.e. anywhere in world or at anytime in history), where everyone is happy? I have not come across any. After seeing societies in India, then few in the so-called-developed countries, I saw NO society where everyone is happy. Why? Back in India, its understandable. There is trouble, poverty, struggle-for-life, disease, negiligence etc etc etc. Things whose mere metion can bring you to tears.

But in developed world.....its some dream place for my standard. Where you have no tension, your life is secured, your future is secured. Still, people are unhappy, troubled, depressed, dejected, destituted, neglated, and miserable. Seeing few troubled families during my social works, I could not decide who are more dejected, we in India or they at here?

Somebody once told, "nature has enough resources to make each of us rich!". Still we are poor. Evenif we are rich, we are still miserable.

Is it then the human nature to be miserable? Or as Osho once told, "there is nothing that can satisfy your mind or heart. Riches, properties, family, love, spirituality...nothing. Only thing that can make us free is the realisation that human mind is insatiable!"

But to me, this raises more questions than it answers. Its like a perpetual cycle. We go on trying to change the condition, to make ourselves happy, work for a better society, toil for a happy-state. But this is something impossible to acheive. Still we work. Still we toil, still we long, still we dream..... As I once heard in a TV seriel (Chanakya), "mAnA ki andherA ghanA hei; sahasra suryon ki roshni bhi use khinna karne mein asamarth hei; fir bhi ek nanhA dipak jaltA jAtA hei. kyun ki wohi uskA dharm hei!". (Its accepted that darkness is pitch deep; so deep that even a thousand sun cant eradicate it; still a tiny lamp goes on burning itself emitting a tiny light. Why? May be because thats what is its characteristics/dharma; thats what its destined to do. Thats what it CAN do!)

Gain or Lose!

Can a man be free at his will? Free from social boundaries, from cultural restrictions, from what others say? Can one become like the hero of the book "Fountain Head"? Doing as he like, maverick?

In general its not so possible. However, at certain point in ones life, one can afford to do it. We all are born with certain obligations, certain duties, which we have to perform. Once the basic duties seem to wind up, one can start being independent or start building his/her own web of further duties. Personally I think, if we could be attentive enough to catch ourselves at this juncture, then we can afford to be independent and free.

I have a friend who is tremendously creative. He is a maverick, he is confused. But thankfully, at the junction where he is now, he can start turning maverick in real sense. He can quite his job in IT and go to do farming if he like so! Can he do it? And many crazy things he wanna do. Can he do it?

Why not? He has NOTHING TO LOSE. OK ppl may say things, he might get a bit poorer, he might lose some money. But in absolute scale, he is secure. At the worst case, its the society which might lose, not the maverick.

Feline Love!

I was walking today from my flat to the university, and saw a black cat sitting in the sun. I went near her; she was not at all disturbed. I sat with her, she took the pain to look at who this god-damn fellow is! I patted her on her head. She rose. I knew what the cats like the best, a cuddle beside their neck. I did that and she was ecstactic! She mewed, came closer, straightened her tail, and purred! This love went on for a few minutes. I stoped cuddling, and rose. She immediately went back to her original position in sun. I started to depart. Looked back once or twice, only to find Ms.Cat happily enjoying the sun, as if nothing happened. Levae alone coming behind me, she even did not bother to give me a parting look (the looks that you get from dogs!).

This is feline love......detached, mature, and impersonal. Love that happens and only cares about present! No past acquaintance is needed for this love, nor does it leave any mark for future. Is this what seers describe as pure love? At the moment, as if there is nothing more to it, as if there is nothing above it. Just the very next moment, as if nothing has happened! Something to learn from my black cat, whom I loved for a few minutes???

Causality!

Nothing happens without a cause! Well, thats what most of us tend to believe (explcitely or inside our hearts). OK, let me cite a simple experience of mine. I was baking a pizza in my oven, and was a bit lost in my thoughts. And while taking the pizza out, I burnt my palm! Simple reason, because I was not mindful, was not attentive, I got this burn. But can we put it the other way? Because I had to get this burn, I was not attentive...! Which way the cause-n-effect should go?

Because there was a chick, there comes this egg..........or because this egg is here, there was a chick?

SOunds funny and non-sense............but I am quite puzzled by this thread and direction of this thread.......thread of causality! The rule of Karma. Because I swore at my friend, now I miss the train......or because I had to miss the train, I swore at my friend?

Because I am confused, I am writting this or because I had to write this, I am confused?

Empathy!

One of those nice words, that I like in English! "Empathy", word which says so much,.....well at least to me. Putting oneself into another's position. Putting your foot in another's shoe!

I was watching a French movie (name was something RED). European movies are quite nice, a different world from the American movies! Anyway, in it there is this psychopath retired judge, whose neighbours did not like him, and once a while one of the neighbours would throw a stone at his house. Peacefully he was collecting all the stones, ....there were six of them till that day. He was saying to his friend, "I think they must be hating me like anything. I am sure I would have done the same at their place". His friend gets surprised and asks, "you would have thrown stones??". He answered, "Its so natural; given those conditions, anyone would have behaved exactly the same!".

What we call as ourself, our morales, our principles, none of them actually belong to us. We have picked them up in our journey called life. We are bad or good, its as much natural. Philosphers sometime say, its natural to be happy. Its our nature to be "Anand". Then why are we not? Are "WE", different from nature?

If someone is bad its natural, if someone is good, its equally natural. Put yourself in his/her shoes, you can not become anything else! So where is the reason to be happy that I am good or to be sorry that I am bad (or have bad feelings)?