Ramanujan's Ramayana...

Having renounced facebook and other social activities to avoid accumulation of negative energies in me…in little time that I have, I decided to redirect my randomness into some passionate web contents like economic political weekly, livemint.com, information weekly journal and tehelka.com. I considered these options as to keep me alive and abreast of happenings around me in my non-happening world... for coming few months. This will also help my grey cells from succumbing to numbers and logics that my thesis is!

So as expected, when I opened my eclipse IDE, I had this craving for facebooking and posting some arbit and attractive thought coming to my mind (which I am not able to recall now…interestingly). I channelized myself to epw site where I caught up with an article on banning of Ramanujan's essay on 300 versions of Ramayanas by DU. This is an old news I remember. Essay's exact title is "Three Hundred Ramanyanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation". Author of epw article elucidates (in a bit abstract manner… due to lack of space I guess) five examples and three thoughts. Few excerpts from the essay were cited giving hints of an analytical, unbiased and crisp…and very academic language that Ramanujan applied.

Five examples in the article mentioned some interesting differences between versions like that of Valmiki, Thai, Kampan's (Tamil), Jain's etc….differences like those of style of writing (e.g. symbolic meanings of characters), facts (like Sita was Ravana's daughter via some indirect context) etc….and with such differences, reflecting upon different versions of Ramayanas to observe what actual Ramayana could have meant for us. Not having read either the Ramayana or the Ramanujan's essay on first place, I feel incomplete but nonetheless let my bounded rationality reign for now.

Just imagining the merit of such an article I too agree with epw author that banning such piece of analysis is not only a big loss for students but also foe understanding our culture. Culture must be studied, analysed…not with a closed mind and senses. To put it to use….one must dismarry oneself from the rigidities and blind faiths that are side products of a culture which is older than the oldest banyan tree alive….to let the culture understand contemporaries and vice versa and let the new wind blow….otherwise both the new and old beings dwelling on our earth will be lost in their own worlds without accepting and learning from each other...

I think I have started thinking monotonously these days whenever it comes to our culture...but I stand for it...always!

Deny being Dependent

I lived my life in my way
And taught you the same each day
Today as my vitals start to retire
I deny I deny
I deny being dependent for the rest of my way

My eyes are giving up on me, I know
But my vision soars high with every blow
With this energy and experience of years
I deny I deny
I deny being dependent on things I don’t know

When I had life, you were my dream
I lived you and struggled to make you true
But as this night sets on me my Son
I deny I deny
I deny being dependent on the shadows of your light

Like I nurtured the light in you
And loved to see you gleam and glow
Now it is time you cultivate these weakening roots
I will I will
I will live this life for the rest of my way


(with love to my elders)

Preaching Mode and I

There goes a panchtantra tale of maina and a monkey with maina coming in preaching mode and monkey reacting to maina’s undesired pack of advices by destroying her nest. Recently, one zealous gentleman broke my nest of peace when I came in a preaching mode inadvertently. I don’t wish to repeat such an incident in my life as that brings toll to one’s peace of mind. And latter at back of my mind, I kept asking myself what exactly went wrong! Actually many things were wrong! I did come in a preaching mode, at wrong place with wrong people.

I realized that I do come to preaching mode often. And maximum times, that preaching is undesired. I am thankful to my friends’ generosity for bearing such advices, and also for not bearing.

People share their state of affairs, worries or tensions as this is the way some of us like to connect with each other – but it never means that they are seeking our expert advices. And coming in preaching mode is a normal thing for anybody (but getting a destructive reaction may not be that normal …), but it is seldom the right thing to do! We all are packs of experiences and information. When this pack becomes overloaded, we tend to shed our loads here and there – discounting our pack’s value, sometimes irritating sometimes helping others. One may like to do it to boost their egos, or to share superiority of their information and experiences, or to wear an empathetic role if one really feels for it, or to do it as a job¹. It is the last option that makes a striking equilibrium in the world of preachers².
I believe only doctors should come in prescription mode. Why? They advise patients who have faith in them (patient has no other choice when it comes to doctors); they have every right to be well informed about the situation (patient cant hide his/her issues), and most importantly they are getting paid for it. Other groups falling in this category are teachers and consultants.

1. …, or if you are Nana Patekar and you are getting paid for yelling in a movie.
2. Personally, I don't remember myself disliking anybody's advice in my life. It is always a pleasure to know what others have to say on any issue. And for those occasional waste-of-time kinds of preachings – I have big filters; and I do have better methods of avoiding such occasions. This note is, with due respect, for those people whose advices I really loved - no matter right or wrong