Random Thoughts - Pattabhi Sitaraman

On this independence day, let me take a look at what is happening in the country.  The intelligentsia is divided along political fault line into two camps; one the perceived right wing and HIndu supporters and the other the perceived left of center and secular. The secular brigade is going around crying hoarse that the right wing fringe elements are a danger to the society and it gets a tacit support from the ruling party.  For every ill that is befalling the country, the secular brigade has made it a point to blame the ruling party in general and the prime minister in particular.  The recent nose diving of the rupee against USD has also been blamed squarely on the policies of the government and inept handling of the currency and economy by the PM.  It is apparent that they seem to forget the Indian currency is no longer insulated from the global tremors in the financial and currency markets.  With the Turkish Currency falling by almost 70% in a few weeks and ...

There had been any number of attacks on the religion followed by majority in the country in past three to four thousand years. First there was Budhism and later Jainism both of which were offshoots of the majority religion in the country. Though the religions were started by deeply religious people of Hindu faith, they propagated religions which were more towards salvation through the path of bakthi and self realisation than through the route of rituals which was becoming more and more pronounced in the years following the the great war of Mahabharatha.  It took the caliber and intelligence of a person like Adhi Shankara to lift the religion from the abysmal low it had fallen and remove the cob-webs associated with the religion.  Though he started spreading the concept of Advaitha (non duality) during his early years, in his later years (of the total 32 years he remained in the mortal body) he sang to spread the Bakthi path to salvation.  This is amply illustrated in hi...

Sidhdhartha was a born prince.  On his birth, the court astrologers predicted that he would take up sanyas renouncing this worldly pleasures in search of truth.  The king therefore forbade him from leaving the palace and provided all the creature comforts within the palace.  He was married to Yashoda and had a son Rahul.  One day, as he was playing near the high ramparts of the palace he heard some one crying.  He had not heard such noise earlier and hence asked the soldier accompanying him as to what it was.  On hearing the answer, he wanted to see for himself the reason for the same.  He ordered that he be taken out of the palace to the streets of the town; where he saw misery, hunger, death and poverty.  He was taken aback with what he saw and when he returned to the palace, he decided to find what is death and the truth.  He left his young wife and son in the dead of the night and went in search of the truth.  He was enlightened un...

With the Iraq getting bombed out of the earth by the American forces for what was believed to be the hiding place of all the weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein, Syria getting the stick from the US of A for its leader being an anti American local hero, the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria (ISIS) was like the outcome of a bio-chemical experiment that had gone horribly wrong leading to a monster arising out of the lab. ISIS has brought all the renegades of all nations together under one umbrella and is fighting the government forces and started spreading terror across the places in different countries.  The refugees who were pouring into European countries, some of them being sympathisers of ISIS made the living for the citizens of those countries a hellish experience with frequent bomb blast, ploughing truck into crowded places, shooting at crowd etc.  There is a report that white Brits may become a minority or non-existent in Birmingham in UK. The...

The fight for freedom was spearheaded by the Indian National Congress and on British leaving the country after a brutal partitioning of the same, the INC took it as their rightful place to be the ruling party and to form the government. M K Gandhi though advised the party leaders to disband the congress, proposed Jawaharlal Nehru to be the first prime minister.  It is not clear that whether he was thinking of a national government with people drawn from different political ideologies who participated in the freedom struggle but parted ways with the Congress.  However, in the next decades, the Indian National Congress became the undisputed party to form the government. Many tall leaders of the party left the congress after Indira Gandhi became the prime minister and started asserting her place in the party and the government.  The party was split between the old guard and those who were loyal to Indira Gandhi.  The party with the old guard slowly had its natural dea...

I had to suddenly leave for Chennai last week to attend to a bereavement and consequent cremation of a relative in the extended family.  While waiting in the crematorium for the ashes, the talk among the people veered to the concept of sin, righteous deeds, heaven, hell etc.  One of the persons present there talked about the Garuda Purana and the punishment detailed therein for the sinful soul for various sins committed by the same while alive on the earth.  The discussion went on for about half an hour and finally we agreed to disagree and part as friends.  My take on the various sins and consequent punishments as reportedly detailed in Garuda Purana (I have not read this). In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, when the concept of death and the travel of the atma (soul) is explained, it is said it will take either the lighted path or the smokey path.  It will reach the world of the ancestors who died earlier or the specific world depending on the karma while t...

When K Kamaraj was the Chief Minister of the state of Tamilnadu, the DMK was the opposition party  who had only five seats in the assembly.  The leader of the party was C N Annadurai.  Once when he rose to speak, the congress members were making such a racket in the house that his was voice was drowned. Kamaraj got up and shouted at his party members to keep quiet and listen to what Annadurai had to say. He said that was the way to develop the leaders in the parties in a healthy democracy.   In UK when Gladstone was the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli was in the opposition. Gladstone in the parliament mockingly told Disraeli that either he would die of madness or of a sexually transmitted disease.  Disrareli was known for his high morals and very hard work. Disraeli immediately retorted, "It may be because I either embrace your policies or your mistress."  Such bonhomie or repartee is hard to find among the politicians of the country either...