Perpetually Perplexed

I think the problem with us is that we pray to God in a language we do not understand. Does he understand. He must. Or else he may take the help of Google translate. See, all our holy books - we have so many of them, are written in Sanskrit. How many of us can read these books and understand these. To make matters worse many of these are in verse. When our knowledge of Sanskrit does not get beyond gachchati gachchataha gachchanti, how can we read and understand these shlokas? We can not. So we do not read. And tell our swamijis and gurus to tell the gist of the holy books to us. They do tell us. But they tell their own interpretations. In some religions - their scriptures are translated into their own languages. Any one can read and understand. But do we have Vedas in Kannada? Or Hindi? Apparently we do. So says google baba. But google devotees and religious devotees are two different sets who do not intersect. So to come back to the problem. We have too many religious books (ju...

If there is one thing common to all of us, all over the world, it is hatred. French people hate English and  the feeling is mutual and genetic. Americans hate Russians and Russians hate Americans. Indians hate Pakistanis and vice versa. Israelis hate Arabs and Arabs hate Jews. Christians hate Jews. Hindus hate Muslims. Muslims hate Hindus. Bangalore Kannadigas hate Tamilians and all outsiders. Poor hate rich. Villagers hate city people, who have it all so easy. And all of us hate politicians. Once they reach or cross teen-age, children hate parents. But parents do not hate children. They in turn, are unhappy with their own parents. So my list is going to be endless. But the question is, why do we hate. Do we hate people who have power over us - like children hating parents or we hating politicians. Or do we hate people who we think will some how harm our existence? Is hatred a form of phobia? A fear that these people will occupy our nation and we will have to flee or be th...

ಬೀದಿ ಬೀದಿಯ ಅಲೆದು ರಸ್ತೆ ರಸ್ತೆಯ ಸುತ್ತಿ ಅವರಿವರ ಮನೆಯ ಹೊರಗಿರುವ ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ ಕಾರುಗತ್ತಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊರೆವ ಚಳಿಗಳಲಿ ಮಳೆಯ ದಾಳಿಯನೆಲ್ಲ ಸೈರಿಸಿಕೊಂಡು  ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ ಹೂ ಮಾರುವನಲ್ಲಿ ಚೌಕಾಶಿ ಮಾಡಿ ಮೊಳ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಹಾಕಿದನೆಂದು ಜಗಳವನೆ ಮಾಡಿ ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ ಆ ಹುಣಿಮೆ ಈ ಪಾಡ್ಯ ಎಲ್ಲ ಹಬ್ಬವ ಮಾಡಿ ನೂರು ರೂಪಾಯಾದರೂ ಕೊಂಡು ತಂದು ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ

ನಿರಂತರ ನ್ಯೂಸಾದೆ. ತಾಯೆಂದು ಗುರುತಾದೆ ಸೇಡಿಗೆ ಹಗೆತನಕ್ಕೆ ಆಯುಧವಾದೆ ಸತ್ತರೆ....    ಸಮೂಹ ಸನ್ನಿಗೆ ಕಾರಣವಾದೆ ಹರಿ ಹರಿ ಗೋವು ನೀನು

We have all heard and seen social networks being used for assisting people, some times even spreading hate and violence. But here is a completely different case. Mumbai based Ram Subramanian wanted to do some thing about increasing intolerance in the society and spreading of hatred. He posted a message in facebook asking people to write a post it note and take a selfie with it saying they do not hate Pakistan and set it as profile picture. This went viral in both countries thousands of citizens in both countries joined the campaign and spread the message.   To participate, tag your love note selfie with #ProfileForPeace on social media. This proves that we are and will always be peace loving people. Hate politics will not work with us. 

He is living a peaceful life as a magistrate of a small town. His people are peaceful. He knows there are barbarians - or rather nomads beyond the lake some where in the woods. But they visit the town only once a year for trading their goods. But one day all these change. A colonel from the empire (name is not specified in the book. It could be any empire) comes with the news that barbarians are planning a revolt. And the colonel has come to arrest these barbarians and find out more about this revolt. Magistrate tries to convince him, that barbarians do not trouble them at all. And going in search of them in deep forests is very very difficult because nobody has the correct maps. Colonel does not listen and goes in search of barbarians. Thus starts the saga of cruelty, torture of barbarians and even fishermen by the soldiers of the empire. Magistrate is responsible for feeding and watching over the prisoners. He sees one barbarian woman who has lost her eye sight, whose foot has...

My dear fellow citizens, I have few questions and a request for you. The new government has come to power promising us of acche din and sabke saath sabka vikas. Should we not ask about these? We need proper support for the farmers, more so because of deficit rains. We also need electricity for all our work. We need good roads so that our backs are not broken driving on the pot holes. And we need roads in the rural areas. We need drinking water. We also need some control over inflation so that the thought of food does not bring tears instead of saliva. Why are we not asking questions about these? Why are we spending our energy fighting over things which come after the above mentioned things. And fighting over things which may cause more and more violence in the country. Which will certainly stop the growth of the country and individuals. Please friends, let us stop this madness. Or else we may go back to dark ages again.