Rumi Nations

Death is a good thing not merely because, as Mr. Jobs put it, “It’s probably the single best invention of life,” or “it’s life’s change agent,” but also because men of hubris are at last brought down to Earth (and indeed below the Earth) by the phenomenon of death. It’s a fate that no hubristic billionaire can escape … yet. The ordinary person can look at a hubris-laden individual engaged in some megalomaniacal activity and take some satisfaction out of this knowledge that death will conquer this villain as well just as it has claimed many other villains through history. What other areas of human activity can you think of where there’s virtual equality between all? Some path breaking inventions of medical science qualify. When a vaccine is available for polio, EVERYONE is suddenly safe from this scourge — street dwellers and penthouse dwellers. But they are few and far between. Technology seems to be one arena where this occurs more frequently. Consumer devices are at once cutt...

The other day, my boss referenced a speech by Prince Charles wherein he talked about 'cabuncles.' That was a speech the Prince had made in 1984 - as I later found out. I didn't know about that speech. I have fascination for the decade of the sixties. The reason for that being that the 60s were a tumultuous decade. That decade saw a lot of turbulence but turbulence is often the fountainhead for human creativity. People need to have tumult in their lives for them to question conventinal wisdom and accepted truths. Every generation should try to 'reinvent the wheel'; indeed, think of it as a sacred duty to do that. I am thinking of the values of life or what is handed down to us as revealed truth. In the India that we live in today, there's too little of the kind of questioning that took place in the United States during the decade of the sixties. So, we see this younger generation of Indians so at ease with their cellphones clinging on to some very old and meaning...