“Religious Views: I’m spiritual”

Most profile pages on social networking sites these days carry this particular response, to an admittedly personal question. ‘I’m spiritual’ seems to be the hep thing to say, the politically correct thing too. Most ‘secular’ people would rather be called spiritual than assert any inclinations towards religion. Perhaps in these times of religious fanaticism and the skepticism any religious identity is subjected to, being ‘spiritual’ and not ‘religious’ is a clever standpoint. It conveys a secular orientation that steers clear of any leanings towards religion as an institution. One wonders then, whether this situation is snowballing into a phobia, an unfounded aversion to religion altogether. Spirituality is of course believed to be linked to a healthy, wholesome living. For many who live life in the fast lane, it is a make-believe source of comfort, one step to ‘save the soul’ in this stampede called life.
Religion in this scenario is relegated to a position of an unwanted tag of identification. Worse still, in this process it is left to be distorted and manipulated by a handful of fanatics who then claim a monopoly over it. Religion thus turns into an overpowering force beyond the control of ordinary, normal people. It is used as a tool to serve the personal ends of a small group. Quite a potent tool, too.
Given such distortions that the concept is subjected to, it is hard to recognize religion as a potentially positive force in one’s life. Setting aside the common markers of religiosity like praying and fasting (which do lend a certain kind of order and discipline necessary to life, but never mind), religion is a system beyond these tokenistic features. It is a whole way of life, if perceived in its holistic sense. It is a system that is not limited to abstract notions of love, harmony and piety, it goes on to provide a clear roadmap, answering all those ‘how to’s and ‘where from’s. For instance, it takes care of every aspect of one’s daily life- right from personal care, relationships, eating habits to communal living and even civic sense. As a system of values, religion provides a positive context for an individual’s life, prescribing the protocol for the individual’s interactions and for the society as a whole. Compared to these features of religion, spirituality appears to be slightly more abstract, though it is a necessary part of religion itself. Claims to piety and religiosity have been subjected to skepticism in this age of critical thinking, and rightly so. All institutions need to be revised over a period of time, to check unwanted elements that seem to get attached to them. Religion, like civilizations, evolves with time. It must be given its fair chance to survive in its true form.
The new age idea of spirituality fulfills certain purposes today, but at the same time, religion might also hold solutions. Instead of the off hand ‘I’m spiritual’, a chance should be given to ‘I’m spiritual and religious’. Religion has undoubtedly been the most inflammable issue in world history. It is one institution that is tainted with the blood of millions killed in its name. But that divisive force masquerading as religion must be shunned and disposed of. There might just be a religion beyond the politics of power that the world has seen for centuries. It must be given a life rope to hold on to, because it might just hold the key to many of the problems that societies today are grappling with.

Jagged Pieces

Tonight I am this sky
Darker than the inky sea
Not seen, not heard in a million years.
Darker than this emptiness
This hollow, shriveled self.
I am all the stillness outside
I am all the darkness in my veins

Groping to hold on to something
My fingers clutch the bitterness, so cold
It swallows me whole, yet it is elusive.
Now one image to behold, just this once?
No! A million shards it is.
Jagged pieces, each one a souvenir of an affliction
One failure after another,
Despair leading on to despair.
Hacking my soul with the sharp edges
Clawing at this self I had made
Piece by piece,
Illusion leading on to illusion.
I’m wretched now, bleeding a black blood
That runs in a burning river
Viscous, acid, poisoned.

I sit in this hell,
Is it the darkness or am I gone blind?
A hell beyond any hell.
And I wait.
Maybe I’ve been waiting all along
Maybe everything, everyone is waiting for that End
Some more deceived than the others,
But all like me, worthless dust
Raised to selfhood, yes, but dust nontheless.

Reserving Equality

‘Reservations’ has become a controversial word in the past few years in India. It doesn’t just concern the haves and the have-nots; it has much to do with power and politics. To put a complex phenomenon in simple words, reservations is not just allotment of seats to some people and blocking others from accessing them. There is a cycle that includes minorities, national integrity, vote banks and the development policy of the country.
This issue has been hotly debated on the national level and a crushing opposition has risen against it. Political parties have risen in protest of the bill on the grounds that it is ‘un democratic’ and it promotes ‘gender bias in favor of women’. There is also a sudden concern about voters being forced to elect ‘undeserving candidates’. These arguments may sound valid to some, but on a closer look, things aren’t so simple. Despite claims of ‘equal rights and opportunities’, the ratio of women parliamentarians to their male counterparts has been pitiably low. When half of the country’s population is comprised of women, reservation of 33% of parliamentary seats for them hardly seems like ‘gender bias in favor of women’.
Agreed, mere representation in the Parliament is not ‘The Solution’, but it is a good starting point for many reasons. To begin with, a minimum level of representation, even if tokenistic, at least puts across a message that half of India’s population does have a voice on the political stage, and has its representatives in the Parliament. As far as the question of ‘undeserving candidates’ is concerned, there are ways to counter such problems. There is always a possibility of ‘undeserving people’ enjoying power, and it is not restricted to the case of women alone. It is the responsibility of the legislators to ensure that no undeserving persons gain access to positions of power- be it men or women.
As Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje Scindia has recently informed the media, Rajasthan has successfully implemented such measures within the state and its administrative structure today has a strong representation of women. Reservations and special benefits for the girl child and for women in education and employment sectors, has yielded fruit in the past. So why not go a step further and include them in the legislative processes of the country? The proposed ‘quota within quota’ is an excellent means to ensure a more equitable representation. If women from minority communities get opportunities to access lawmaking, it would definitely be a laudable achievement for India.
Women’s reservation is needed today for many reasons. Its not because women are inferior than men in terms of education, skill or intellect. It’s just that they have not had sufficient opportunities to display and utilize these talents. Indian women do not need reservations to reach the parliament because they would otherwise be inept to do so, but because they have not had the means and resources to reach those heights. Its high time the law making body recognized these facts. It is my strong conviction that women do not seek the sympathy or the crutches of gender politics. What they seek is the recognition of their potential and a chance to use it to empower themselves. Those seats in the parliament are deserved equally by men and women, it is just the difference of who actually gets the chance to access them and prove their worth.

5 Things I Really, Really Aspire To

1. The sort of intellect and charisma I've seen in a certain teacher of mine.
2. The ability to sound scary sometimes. This is something I've got to get.
3. The ability to recognize people for who they are, preferably by the first two meetings. I've misjudged people plenty of times- and paid for it.
4. More self reflexivity and a better ability to introspect.
5. Less of dependence upon the opinion of others.

Shipwreck

Like broken pieces of glass
Gathered in bleeding palms
Life sobbed in silent corners
Unwanted, unseen, lost.
Pieces of sunny dreams
Pieces of bright colors
Pieces of lonely ramblings
Of unrequited hopes
Pieces of haunting laughter
Pieces of preserved tokens
Pieces of broken promises
Of painful old memories
It bleeds in anguish, it cries in vain
Arms outstretched, never to be reached
Sinking in the vast abyss
My shipwreck of a life.

Under the Scanner

This can be read as a sequel to my article on narcissism. But this is not just about the rampant self-obsession that seems to have taken over everyone. With all that social networking and publishing and putting yourself up for the whole world to see, comes a dangerous fact- you're more vulnerable than you think. I was hit by this fact by a recent experience, come to think of this- anyone who sees me and just knows which college or university i belong to, can within a couple of hours get all my personal details. Just by a few clicks of a mouse or just a couple of phone calls. Isn't it scary to know the whole world has access to your privacy, so quickly, with no security hassles to face and without you knowing any of their details, unless they want you to know?
Believe me, I'm one of those people who are really, really particular about their privacy. I may not have much to hide from the world, but I happen to be really fussy about how many people know even my real name! Let alone my e-mail ID and my cell/land line number. I take all possible measures to secure my personal information, be it at social networking sites (this is one of the reasons I've permanently logged out of all these) or be it the info I give at my college or workplace. And yet, people are able find out any information about me that they require! This fact leaves me so vulnerable and insecure.
Websites and databases may promise you any amount of security and privacy, but there are always methods to counter these ‘security’ measures, you know! I do not know if I’m part of a minuscule minority who feel this way, or maybe I’m the only one in this world who sounds so paranoid about their privacy, but this is something that really concerns me now. There are people who freely broadcast their lives on the internet or public spaces, and it’s their right to do what they want. But there are people like me who are simply not fine with it, and therefore we find survival on the internet a rather challenging prospect! Of course I cannot live without my e-mail ID and my blog; this is the only way in which I can stay in touch with certain people I know. No one can refuse to give their personal information at institutions or workplaces either, its so much of a necessity now. But it forces one to think what impact this will have on our society in future. I know that so much of free and easy access to information is good in one sense, but what if its endangering individual security? Are we then going to build up even more complex systems of security, and then are the hackers going build up even more sophisticated software to counter these measures? So where are we exactly heading, especially at a time when we spend around as much of our time in the virtual world as in the real one? Are both these identities inevitably going to clash and affect even those who want to keep away from them? These are questions that must be pondered upon by all virtual world, and also real world, individuals who presume they are safe and secure, while they are under an unknown gaze 24X7, where a scanner can track down their life history and details of their every day lives with a single press of a button.

Unexplained

There lives a man who
On freezing winter mornings
Or searing hot afternoons
Seems so engrossed
With no care in this world
But with a piece of chalk
Or a rusted stone
He writes.
Writes with a yearning
On the streets, the black charcoal road
On the outer walls of houses,
On railings, on dustbins,
He writes.
A story? Some tale long lost?
No, just crumbs of knowledge
The alphabet, or just numbers.
Undecipherable, unexplained
No beginning, no end.
They call him ‘mad’.
But he writes still-
“one, two, three, four…”
A count that goes on
Inexplicable, unstoppable...

"Excuse me bhaisaab, you forgot your manners behind"

Agreed, early childhood and adulthood are far apart. Too many years in between, but that certainly is no excuse to forget two or three simple words- excuse me, please and sorry. Yeah, our daily lives are busy, majority of our population struggle to keep up their hand to mouth existence, but honestly, how much does it take to be polite? How much does it take not to push women on a street, to step on people’s toes on the bus (and not even say sorry, while the poor thing yelps with pain) and what exactly does it take not to swear at the top of your voice in public?

The lack of civic sense is common knowledge, but on Delhi roads, its absence hits you hard in the face! You have to constantly look out to dodge people’s spit flying through the air like some extraterrestrial insect, and have to face the embarrassment of the background music of multi lingual swear words while taking an important call on your cell phone. Bus rides are the worst hit situations- Fights over the ‘Ladies’ seats’ are outrageous. Women lugging their children and bags get onto the bus and begin asking men to vacate seats for them, and more often than not, young and middle aged men simply ignore them. Then begins a round of bickering and abuse. In fact many a times it is elderly men who vacate seats for women. You wonder what’s wrong with these young guys who refuse to vacate seats even when they’re being given an earful for that. Not just anyone, even college students around my age, who look like they’ve been trained in manners, do that. Then comes the politeness bit. It seems most people assume that the bus conductors and drivers don’t deserve politeness. Even while asking for change, I saw this gentleman apparently on the way to a decent office, swear at the conductor loudly. And yeah, we Delhiites have a penchant for swearing even to joke with buddies. Sample this- “Arre kahan tha ab tak *$#%@ $# ?” and a hearty reunion of two guys follows. People fail to realize that their rather unruly reunion has an audience of around 70 people on a bus, including children. God knows what those poor kids make of it!

If I’m sounding like an uppity city girl who wrinkles her nose at others for some reason or the other, I apologize. But the point I’m trying to make is, our public places need to be a bit cleaner- not only the physical surroundings but also in terms of our manners and courtesy. You can clean and scrub Delhi’s face all you want for the Commonwealth Games, but if the common citizens refuse to make an effort to match up to this image makeover, I think it’s all pointless in the end. In fact this makes me think of rather bleak possibilities in terms of the after-effects of the Games. I hope we don't end up ravaging the city's resources for something that won't last lon enough to make it worthwhile. Here’s hoping for a better Delhi, AND better Delhiites!

The Negligent Blogger

Yeah, this is not ignorance, nor reluctance or anything in that league. A bit of negligence, and maybe, i confess, laziness on my part, that this blog hasn't been used in a loooong time. So I'm here to make amends. I've been missing not because there eren't things to write about- I just didn't squeeze out time and maybe I was procrastinating too much. So things accumulated for a long while, piling one on top of the other like sediments on a river bed, that sort of strated weighing heavily on my mind recetly. But since my other preoccupations took a back seat, (read: no SNSes anymore in my life) I think i'll manage to be fairly regular here. So hang on, my readers! I'm coming up with some interesting stuff soon! Catch you!