A petition against Competition!

Look around and you will notice constant competition. Competition, which in my opinion, has reached such levels where it hurts. Irrespective of the field you are in, it exists. Beginning from childbirth (Gender?, Weight?, Looks like?, etc.) to school admission (Which board?, Which school?, Activities at school?, Fees? etc.) and the child's grades and further education, so on and so forth. 

It's not just about education, once work life begins, competition seems to increase in intensity. Just a couple of weeks back, we witnessed what competition can do to even established education institutes and to their founders. It creates an atmosphere of anxiety, disappointment and anger.  Businesses competing with each other and employees racing against one another, relatives going through comparisons of various types, the list is endless, isn't it?

As a teacher and a learner, I ask all of you. What should we teach our students? (A) how to survive in this competitive world. (B) how to excel and come out as a winner. Or should we have the wisdom to teach them (C) how not to fall into this trap of competition and comparisons. 

As a parent, what should I inculcate in my kid? Rather what should all of us inculcate in our children? I think we need to incorporate in our children the virtue of competing only with themselves. We must guide them to stay away from this vice of constantly competing with others. The question is - How? 

Remember how the extremely knowledgeable Karna wanted to destroy, kill and defeat Arjuna, just to prove that he was the best archer. Even he was trapped in the vice, wasn't he?

I feel that we parents and teachers need to understand and absorb this first. We must appreciate our individualities first and try not exhibit competition with others. Each parent probably needs to stop comparing kids with siblings, cousins, friends, classmates and the metaphoric "Sharmaji ka beta". It is important to do well in life , no doubt about that. But motivation by comparison and competition is stressful, hurtful and injurious to the body, mind and soul. 

I am sure that we don't want our next generations to be perpetually stressed out. It is time we make conscious efforts to free ourselves from this vice, firstly for ourselves and secondly for the peaceful lives of our children. What do you say? 

Contra view on Leadership

Everytime I read some management quote, I am amazed at the stress laid upon leadership and associated skills. Even self-help books and articles make use of a lot of leadership quotes. 'A leader not only knows the way, but goes the way and also shows the way.' or 'Be the change you wish to see in this world.' or 'Leader leads by example.' the list goes on and on. I got a few on this Republic day as well which got me thinking. 

I wonder if leadership is really so important as it is portrayed. I ask you here 'What is leadership?', 'Who is a leader?' Think of some great leaders you know of or admire, from whatever fields you want to think of. I will mention a few I can think of from various fields. From politics - Sardar Patel, Gandhiji, Modiji; from Indian history - Maharana Pratap, Rani Laxmibai, Shivaji Maharaj; from Cricket - Kapil Dev, Sorav Ganguly, MSD; from the business world - Mr. Ratan Tata, Mrs. Sudha Murthy and Mr. Murthy, and there can be many fields and many more examples...

I urge you to consider the reason why and how these people become great leaders. Is it or was it only about them?  I do not intend to discount any of the exceptional leadership qualities that these extraordinary leaders possessed or still possess. I want to ponder upon and also make you think about the importance of followership. Were your list of awesome leaders not sincere followers first? 

Imagine if each of us literally decided to be a leader, how would the world be then? Would it be paradise on earth or a living hell? I let you decide your answer to that question. After all making correct choices is a leadership skill. Let us explore this thought of followership further. The reason why Gandhiji could become such a phenomenal leader was because people were ready to follow him. We must realise that even the iron man of India was an ardent follower of Gandhiji. History gives you more than enough evidence of the same. Chacha Nehru was also a leader and so was Jinnah. What happened then is an evidence of the side effects of so called 'Leadership'. 

In our life also, we are advised to become leaders. Teach and train our children to be leaders. Are we sure of what we believe in is the correct thing? 'Be the change you want to see in this world.' Think of what happens when some religious fanatics take this seriously. We know how it hurts the world.  Whether it is a school, college, a corporate organisation or a social organisation, a lot of impetus is given to leadership skills. 

I ask you to think of all the great leaders once again. I reiterate, weren't they good, sincere, obedient followers first? For instance - Sardar Patel. He was to be the first PM of India, wasn't he? But he followed his ideals and his idol. I strongly feel that one needs to be an ardent follower first to become a true leader. There is a fine line between leadership and the greed for power and dominance. A true leader understands the difference; example - Sardar Patel. We need to understand that followership is as important as leadership, maybe even more. 

An ideal follower is not the one who inactively and blindly follows orders. Rather she/he is the one who takes directions mindfully, discusses his concerns and then implements wholeheartedly. To make our younger generations true leaders, we need to train them to be ideal followers. To prove my point let us take an example.

Think of Pandavas from Mahabharat. Weren't they ideal followers first? Arjun voiced his concerns to his guide who enlightened him and us with guidance during the war. If Arjun were an inactive, blind follower, the world would would have missed out on so much knowledge and wisdom. By the way, even Duryodhan thought he was a great leader but was he? The difference lay in how they were as followers. 

I choose to try and be an ideal follower and thus train myself to be a true leader for my family and others who think of me as worthy of being a leader. I believe one should Follow First and Lead Later and also leadership follows the one who has been an ideal follower (example - our honourable Prime Minister). I thank you for having followed me in reading my contra opinion and letting me lead you through my thoughts. I welcome your opinions and thoughts on the same. 

School Education and objectives

Being a teacher for more than a decade now, I should be quite clear about the answer to the question "What are the objectives of school education?". The more I teach, the more I study, the more I spend time with my students, the more doubt I suffer regarding that question. 

I feel that education should help students and the educated to make correct choices in life. It should help them to improve their lives (at least) through language literacy, numerical literacy, informed decision making,  ethics, morals, skills that help them being employed, a higher emotional quotient not just higher IQ, financial literacy, a sense of patriotism, a sense of world citizenship, empathy towards nature, etc. 

The reason why I doubt is that I am not sure whether these objectives are actually being achieved especially in secondary and higher secondary sections. By the time a child reaches secondary section, one expects the student to know well at least the basics of Math, Science, Languages and Grammar. Well in my observation, I have seen more uninformed, less knowledgeable students than expected. However, that is okay as the passing marks are only 35% so some candidates may not know so much. 

Owing to the lengthier and complex course curriculum in secondary and higher secondary section, it becomes difficult to achieve those real objectives of education. With the timeline given, education becomes limited to completing the course, learning or memorising and testing. So much is lost here.

Moreover, in today's world of information free flow, students learn from myriad sources. Parents, schools and tuitions are not the only sources of education. Social networking sites, OTT platforms, films, search engines, electronic media, print media (probably in that order), expose one and all to a lot of information and perceived knowledge. The resultant effect is that people have become financially more ambitious (not literate), competitive with one another (unreasonably), materialistic - more than ever, opportunistic - which can be perceived as contrary to EQ and to a large extent immoral and unethical. All this is in stark contrast  to the objectives of education, isn't it?

Education at school, as a whole, must be considered, treated as foundational on which a character would be built. In any case, employment in organised sector relies mainly upon higher education, skills and experience. At school level, the focus should be more on language skills, math functions, speaking skills, better reading exposure, psychology and empathy through history rather than just memorising facts and concepts that generally become useless over time. 

Another major issue that I feel is rampant in our educated youth is that either they are extremely liberal (oxymoron, isn't it?) or extremely strong headed. Shouldn't education help in distinguishing between the right and wrong? Nowadays, there are people who seem to be confused in the grey area. Not everything can be passed as grey; not everything SHOULD be passed as grey that is extremely liberal. Education should teach that anything in extreme quantity is harmful and creates problems. Education should help form informed opinions, promote healthy discussions and respect disagreements. 

As a language teacher, I try to touch upon EQ through the beautiful stories I get to teach in class. My attempt is also to promote opinion forming, expressing opinions, discussions, agreements and disagreements, perspective building, some critical thinking, creative writing, etc though the complex and lengthy course does limit a teacher to explore more. 

I feel that there is a need to teach less chapters but in more detail. Let our education be deeper rather than wider. Whatsay?

Kaabel

That is how the world is.' Kaabel thought to himself.
Not that he had never heard of that before, it was just that he realised it and it went deep down his understanding. Standing alone amidst the woods in late autumn, contemplating, observing nature, this fact dawned on him.

Kaabel was dejected with life and he had multiple reasons to be depressed. Firstly, he had lost his job due to economic turmoil. Secondly, this had spiralled into various other problems, he had become impatient so much so, that his girl friend broke up with him. Friends were few and had distanced a bit owing to their busy schedules. Parents seemed to be sarcastic towards him and his approach to life.

All this was in stark contrast to the time when his career was on a high. Everyone who was a critic now was an admirer then. Kaabel felt lonely. He felt like ending it all. He walked to solitary places searching solace. Once while he was at a place with barren trees around him, he observed that birds flew away from those dry trees. Perhaps the same birds nested in those trees when the trees were green. 'That is how the world is.' Kaabel thought to himself.

He felt one with the lonely, desolated, barren trees. He discovered some solace. He stood there contemplating when he felt a connect with the trees and communication happened. The trees conveyed a message to Kaabel. The largest and the oldest tree said, 'Although we are barren and feel lonely, we stand strong. What you see today as dry and dead will be green, growing and generous to the world again, soon. Kaabel, all you need to do is survive and stand strong.'

Kaabel hugged his saviour and let his emotions flow free. After that motivational session with his new found friends, he stood strong and decided to be generous towards the world rather than being bitter.

First Crush

I had just turned 16 and shifted to a new locality where I saw this cute girl about a year or two younger than me. I realised how sweet sixteen makes you fall in love at first sight.
I used to cycle around, looking at her at the window and occasionally I would dare to smile. I hoped she would smile back, or come down so that we could talk. The best thing about her were her eyes. They were beautiful, they had a certain melancholy to them. I started smiling at her more often. She never returned my smile. I knew she was hard to impress.

One day, she stunned me. She was waiting for me to come out. We looked at each other. Our eyes looked into each others'. She was ready. She flew a paper plane towards me. I went absolutely crazy at God's generosity.
I cycled full speed to pick the best airplane in the world. I unfolded the plane.

It read,
"I am 15 and married to the 51 year old man who you think is my father. I like the way you children play. Stop smiling at me and have no hopes."

I looked up to where she was. Tears rolled down my eyes and she wiped hers. For the first time, she gave me a smile. My heart crushed that day. I realised what freedom was. I wanted to help her.
It was far beyond me....my first crush.

HINDU RASHTRA

There is too much noise around me. I can sense confusion, certainty, agenda, marketing, religion, politics, all at once. No wonder then, there is confusion in the air. There are big words like intolerant, secularism, pseudo-secular, terrorism and its types, divisive politics, religious appeasement, biased media and more. The reason why I consider them big words, is because they're absolutely unfathomable. These words have multiple connotations and are being used in varied contexts by so many influential people, that a common citizen of India gets all muddled up.

Well, it's the election season. Canvassing and anti-canvassing are part and parcel. But I feel that from the past three years or so, there's a lot of noise on a particular topic - 'Hindustan - A Hindu Rashtra!?.' I must say, I was and I am quite intrigued and curious to understand. Now all the words I mentioned above have been used multi-million times everyday around 9:00 PM in almost every household of the country. The members of these families have been passive listeners and active thinkers.

What is the debate?
"India should be a Hindu Rashtra." There are influential people who either go with the motion or against it. I am a common Hindustani. I listened, I read, I thought, I tried, to understand. So to start with, I feel there's a need to understand the word 'HINDU' in 'HINDU Rashtra'. Where does this word come from? Is it only limited to religion? or Is there more depth to the word 'HINDU'?
According to what I have understood, HINDU is the area between Himalayas and Indusagar (Indian Ocean). Therefore, H + Indus becomes Hindus. This means Hindustan is a country which lives between these. SO Hindu is not just a religion. Everybody who was born and brought up here is a Hindu by geography. I am a Hindu by birth(geographically).

I also feel that every country has a culture. American culture means the American way of life. Japanese culture means the Japanese way of life. Similarly Hindu culture means the Hindu/Indian way of life. To understand this point, let us take marriage as an example. According to statistics, nearly 50% of marriages in America end up in divorce. Americans accept divorcees without judging them. They don't see divorce as morally wrong rather they consider it as practically correct.  Whereas in India the divorce rate is as low as around 1%(source - India Today 20 November 2018). Irrespective of any religion one practices in India, divorce is rare. I don't wish to get into what's right and wrong about divorce. That's another debate. But marriages in India exist generally until death separates the two. Everyone in India irrespective of their religion, works upon her/his marriage and divorce is the last and least possibility. This attitude comes from culture. That is an example of Indian (Hindu) culture. The reason why I cite America and India is that both these countries are democratic and both have citizens following various religions. Hence HINDU is a culture. A christian in India is christian by religious following but HINDU by culture(you may replace any other religion with christian). I am  HINDU by culture.

Is there any other reason why we are a HINDU rashtra? YES.
Let me explain with another metaphorical example. India has been known as an agrarian nation even when Agriculture has had lesser contribution to GDP (labour productivity wise and actual contribution). We are agrarian because more than half of Indian employment has been generated by the Primary (Agro-based) sector. When majority of the population is agrarian, we are known as an agrarian nation. In the same way, when nearly 80% population in this country follows Hinduism as a religion, we become a Hindu rashtra. I am a HINDU by my religious following as well.

This HINDU RASHTRA respects each religion, belief and spirituality. It accepts the believer, the athiest and the agnostic as well. Therefore the debate that 'Are we a HINDU Rashtra?' is a no-debate. There is no doubt about it. We are what we are, HINDU - by Geography, by Culture and by majority population's faith.

The Balance

India is a happy nation and more so, today. I can sense a certain satisfaction on the faces around me after how Indian Air Force has avenged the Pulwama attack. Personally, I also feel very calm after what was done. I am an observer and in the process I sense and feel the nerve of people.

After Pulwama, the general nerve amongst the common Indians was that they wanted action, revenge. People easily spoke words like war, mass-killing, cross border activity and what not. Cuss-words, abuse were almost used like prefixes and suffixes.  People were dejected and angry. But they were also hopeful that this government would do something. Surgical strike in Uri had set a certain standard of what Indian army and the current government combined, are capable of.

What transpired yesterday has only been incremental in the set standard. Today, we are a happy and satisfied nation. Thanks to the government and Air force for making things happen.

Having said that, I am happier about something else. I wish to bring to everyone's notice, the true Grace, Dignity and Valour of this current Indian government and Indian Air force.

In the anger that everyone felt, they kept their cool and neutralised only the enemy. None of Pakistan's aam janta has been harmed. We destroyed only the enemy of humanity. The innocent citizen of Pakistan has been untouched and safe. We went deep inside the Pakistan territory, we had tremendous strength and time hence an opportunity to destroy even more. But we didn't. We could have terrified, terrorised them but we didn't. That's the difference.

That's called non-violence. We still have Gandhiji alive within us. But we also have Bhagat Singhji. Therefore the Balance!

I salute my government and my Air Force for not only exhibiting courage but also for the respect they showed towards life, innocense and humanity.

Jai Hind! Vande Mataram!

Karm vs Fate

One thing that has always intrigued me and many others is Karma v/s Fate. A lot of people who are absolute karmayogis don't give much credit to luck or fate. They don't believe that a person meets success or failure due to his fate. On the other hand, there are some who have a simple answer to everything that happens, they say, 'it is destiny.'.

There are others who feel that God or good luck is on the side of someone who is well prepared. For instance, if there's a cricket match between a weak team and a strong team, generally the strong team wins. Strong teams generally prove to be lucky with some umpire's decisions going their way or an unbelievable catch or for that matter a dropped chance.

I agree with this notion that good luck usually favours those who are well prepared. But this doesn't stop here. There's a very popular saying in Hindi " Waqt se pehle aur kismet se zyaada kisi ko nahi milta." which means, No one achieves more than allotted in destiny and earlier than destined.
There are many who believe in this notion as well, the ones I mentioned earlier.

Recently while experiencing all these thoughts, I came across an idea which I felt is worth exploring and sharing. Imagine everyone's destiny being a book. A book in which only some pages are printed whereas many are left blank. We belong to the book and the book belongs to us. All the printed pages are the events that will happen to us, with us, at a prescribed time, as in the book. But the blank pages are for us to fill with actions or in-actions, time used or time wasted, thinking or overthing, being happy or sad, being angry or at peace. These are pages in our control.

I feel the printed pages might not be too many but their impact on our lives must be quite big. There are some things which we just can't explain in life. They just happen for whatsoever reasons. Reasons that might be beyond our reasoning powers. For instance, A person, quite healthy and health conscious, middle aged, fit, a film actress, is suddenly diagnosed with cancer. Or another actress found dead in an unexpected, shocking manner. On the other hand, some old lady surviving a severe heart ailment for years (a true anecdote). These are the printed pages, very impactful. But I am glad we have many blank ones to write on.

So this new year, let us all decide on one thing, that we shall fill in those blank pages constantly with something useful, fruitful, helpful, merry, interesting, relaxing, spiritual, knowledgeable. The rest depends upon destiny!

Mind!

           Too many thoughts, 
Waves flowing through.
              Confusion, frustration, elation, 
Emotions raving through. 

              Money, ambition, career growth? 
Focus drifting through. 
              Personal, social, professional growth?
Importance shifting through. 

              Mornings, noons, evenings, nights
Time flying through! 
              Work, assignments, events,  less quiet, 
Body dying through. 

              Meditate, calm, peace and poise
Noise playing through. 
              Chaos, drama, friends and fiends 
Life sailing through. 

Visit to Thol

                       Visit to THOL Lake

It was a super Sunday!
Turned out to be a fabulous fun day.

We adventured early in the morning,
The cold gave us a real warning.

The morning was chill and dark,
Even the dogs dared not bark.

We were together with our lovely friends,
Driving on village roads with no ends.

It was a drive of only an hour,
But cold made it feel really far.

I was with my friends and my wife,
It was a beautiful phase of my life.

It was still very dark,
No light, not even a spark.

The sky had a little fade,
It looked an excellent shade.

It was the orange mixing with black,
It amazed us, how God has a knack.

Slow and Steady, orange became dominant,
For all our happiness, morning became prominent.

The sky looked purple and blue,
It was an unbelievable hue.

The birds chirping was music to ears,
Anyone would forget his sorrows and fears.

We could listen to the birds waking,
The sound and sight were breath-taking.

Birds could be seen sitting in blocks,
Also watched them flying in flocks.

We were in a small bird sanctuary,
Away from the world's anger and fury.

The place is called Thol lake,
It's a nature's beautiful make.

The world seemed so quite and calm,
It really has its own charm.

The world is a beautiful place 'To Live'.
When does man understand 'Live and Let Live'?