Rumi Nations

Scandalous! Is how the right wingers would describe these pics from 1962. Usually, these pics would be trotted out on November 14, Jawaharlal Nehru's birthday.

I put in a rather long comment on this article in Livemint. So, obviously I have to paste that comment on my blog and make a blog post out of it! 1) Who's that Duncan Fletcher guy pictured with Dhoni? Anyway, neither do I know nor do  I wish to know. I just wish people of India would stop making Gods out of silly young men that cricketers are. Even compared to the cricket that I grew up with, the days of Srikanth, Amarnath, Vengsarkar, Azhar, Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, and Dravid, now the game is all too commercialized. Too much cricket, too much money, too many crores (and girls) dangling in front of talent-less young men. 2) What a fall when you consider that we started with "Yug-purush" such as Nehru to today's "half-purush" such as Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. Why did the people of India elect these jokers in 2004? And re-elect in 2009? But then again, what is the alternative before the billion poor of this country? No, Modi is certainly not who...

Honestly, I got thinking about this after reading this article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html? So we make friends when we are younger. Well may be we are less choosy and have more time. Let's face it, we are not very smart when we are just KIDS! We do not choose our school or classmates. Our parents decide those based on their economic circumstance or their religion or whatever. We do not choose our relations, our cousins. If even after we grow up, we continue to confine our lives to a small circle of family relations, we prove that we are pretty antiquated in our mindsets. As we grow older, we have less time. We do less exploring. I think that's our loss. And how do you RETAIN those old friendships if and/or when you discover that the paths you have chosen in life diverge rather than converge. Just because you happen to have studied in school together, you cannot ov...

It isn't as absurd an idea as it might appear at first sight. Which is to say, it would be easy to find folks who might peddle this idea or believe in it. Of course, you better just listen to such ideas without your jaws hitting the floor and not try to argue or anything. Others blame Gandhi for the partition of India. I don't know what they wish for ... a Great India encompassing present day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh perhaps. Which would translate to a current population of a cool billion and a  half  people. Some people praise the great deed of the great hero Godse. They do not see him as a killer or a murderer. They see him as a great scholar intellectual who had authored Great Books. So, with a few million published books out there to choose from, people seek out Godse's book to read.

I thought to jot down a few thoughts on some of the folks I admire ... Jawaharlal Nehru — Some people are skeptical about Nehru. They say: “what did Nehru do?” Often, of course, they tend to have minimal knowledge of history. I happen to be truly a ‘student’ of history as I never studied it as part of a curriculum but have tried to read some of it as an adult. As I try to learn a little more about the man, I realize how ignorant I was and my admiration for his increases by leaps and bounds. It’s easy to be skeptical … particularly in the modern Indian context where people in public life are so mired in corruption and all sorts of unethical practices. But one should not take one’s skepticism too far and latch on to some minor human imperfection of a man like Nehru and proceed to pass judgment on him on the basis of that slight imperfection. Well, I don’t know if I ever will get the time to get to read enough about Nehru and by Nehru (remembering that he was a prolific writer as well) t...

I happen to be reading Nehru's biography by M. J. Nehru at the moment ... at least, I try to. And my respect and admiration for him grows. I wish Indians would imbibe more of the character and characteristics of Jawaharlal Nehru. Today is his birthday. When you compare the amount of media coverage provided to Sachin's 'anniversary' vis-a-vis that provided to Nehru's birthday, one would think that Sachin has contributed more to building modern India than Chacha Nehru. Of course, one guy is dead while the other is a contemporary. But having some sense of history helps when one is taking steps into the future.

This is not a question but a statement. I was just thinking about Nehru's famous last will and testament where he poetically talks about wanting some of his ashes to be mixed with the Ganga river at Allahbad — something a traditional, ritualistic Hindu would dearly love to do. And this was the "agnostic visionary of modern India" who expressed this wish. And of course he opted for a typical Hindu cremation and nothing else. When I think of myself, I too find that cremating a dead body is a logical thing to do rather than burying it like Christians. And I am supposed to be a staunch atheist. I am wondering how much of my thinking is ultimately colored by the fact that I was born a 'Hindu' and how much by pure logic. The only logic that I can see to burning a dead body rather than burying it is this: when you bury a dead body, you are basically occupying a piece of ground for ever ... and to think that our time on this planet began when we were born ... we didn'...

The story of Jawaharlal Nehru's relations with Edwina Mountbatten continues to be an issue in contemporary India. This is of course reflective of how primitive a society India is. People tend to be morons when it comes to issues of sex or anything that even seems to suggest any "physical relations." I think this is because most people lead very unfillfiled lives sexually and they are envious of those who get such "opportunites" in life. I wish Indians would grow up. It would be so childish to pass judgment on Nehru on the basis of whatever relations he might or might not have had with Edwina and Padmaja Naidu and anyone else for that matter. One has to look at the broad sweep of his life and the vastness of his influences on the course of modern India and find fault, if any, with the policy decisions that he took. People tend to blame Nehru for the partition of India and that's of course a fair debate to have. People blame Nehru for the festering Kashmir iss...

Today the news pages report that Aamir Khan is going to have a baby. Today also marks the end of a life — Habib Tanvir. And a celebrity has been arrested for carrying declared jewellery into the country. The stock markets continue their see-saw movements. dead bodies continue to be found from the Air France plane crash. Some trifling developments from the T20 World Cup. Federer of course has equalled Pete Sampras' career Grand Slam wins. A random day in the life of India. "The Perils of Tradition" basically references the fact that Indians tend to be happy to live their everyday lives. People basically don't like upheavals in their lives. Even the young generation isn't necessarily designed to seek out revolutions. That's a sad fact that I've discovered recently. Perhaps, someone like Jawaharlal Nehru who lived almost a century ago was more progressive than most Indians who are alive today. Come to think of that!!!

There was an interesting debate/discussion on TV a month or two ago on the subject of whether India needed an Obama ... I realized some time later as I was thinking about the topic that India has had a few leaders in its recent history who have been Obama-like in many ways ... Who would dispute the fact that Nehru was an ideal kind of leader — someone who combined democratic thinking with a rational/scientific spirit and great intellect/intelligence. Nehru was a great writer and a good orator as well ... So, do we need an Obama? Well, one could rephrase that and say: Do we need a Nehru for the 21st century? And the answer to that would certainly be 'Yes.' Nehru was probably more 'progressive' in his thoughts and beliefs and actions than most Indians living today. Nehru was famously an 'agnostic' — perhaps that was more of a nod to the age and the country that he lived in ... if he didn't have to make allowances for the fact that he was a public person in a b...