Meaning of Life

It's been long time since am writing another blog on Life and its dynamics. Its almost 15months now living in North America and believe me life in western countries can be really depressing and sad. Here life is very independent, people want to live alone, have their space which is good in a sense that you are not dependent on anyone. I  met a 75 year old lady who drives on her own, works in an hospital and was amazing to see that people at this age work. But after meeting her and spending time with her i realised that there is no way out. People here in North america have become so self centred that if one depends upon someone , its not appreciated. The thing which i saw here is that humans have become so formal in relationships. People think twice to help their friends. There is so much formality between friends and blood relations too, people like me who are born and brought up in India also change here in Western civilizations and this process starts from the day we land here. The whole thought process changes , it begins from trying to have that ascent, we desperately want to have that Canadian or american ascent. We change our names so the westerners don't have any problem  to pronounce it. We want to appease them , so we have pseudo names to suit the culture and environment, i came across this south Indian Guy in my class who pissed me off on first day itself. I asked hey , How u doin? and whats ur name? he says its Viiiiiiiiijaay. I said Vijay rite ? .. he says no , its Viiiiiiiijay... this time more emphasis on Viiiii... i said oh gosh .. this is our first day in Toronto and people have adapted to  ascent. I was really laughing at what had happened a minute ago. I met many Indians who were barely 2 weeks old in Canada and were faking an ascent as if they were Canadians, we all have become so wannabes.   Abhay becomes Aby, Jaspreet becomes Jazz so on and so forth. These all name changes actually does not matter until we all change our thoughts and values in order to fit in the system. We then argue that Change is inevitable and its the only thing which is permanent, correct but Change for what. I don't know how many of you will agree but being western does not mean being Modern. Many people feel that having modern names, listening to latest music , having the latest fashion at your doorstep is being modern and progressive. What i have realised and believe is that we can be traditional in our names, clothes and culture. But our thoughts should be progressive.
My Canadian journey was rather smooth then expected, but i had some rude shocks too. One thing I realised and will always keep in mind is that never help someone by going out of the way.This may sound  rude to all of you. I feel bad when i write this down, but that's what i have experienced and learnt in my life. The same people will question your intent of helping them. We as humans have a bad memory and at the same time I came across of this incredible video on Youtube about this African Lion who was brought up in London and then moved to Savannah The incredible Lion still remembered his days as a cub and just could not stop himself from loving his human friends who brought him up..This video moved me so much that i realised that intelligence and ability to think is the quality which hampers our relationships with different people and I realised that life is really strange and weird. This incident reminded me of the old Indian saying that don't expect anything in return and you will be happy always.  One more thing i realised here in canada is that people have become so mechanical. No matter how our country is but relations are far better simple and loving over there.Situations in life force people to do things which under normal conditions they wont do, so you can blame people too. But what i believe is people who don't give upto to temptations and situations in life are real people. They will go long way. The matter of fact is even i have changed to an extent. When i speak to people who know me since long, they can make out changes in me. My loved ones say that Maulik you have changed a lot. change for good or bad that's a secondary issue. The matter of fact is Life can be simple if we communicate with our loved ones and keep the good work on because we have just one life to live in. Who knows what's store in Life. We would live or die, we don't control that.
On this Note I would like to quote what my good friend wrote about Life "Ud ja Panchi ud ja, kitna ud payega, jab suraj dhale ga , apna hi ghar yaad aayega" . Connect to people whom you have lost .. tell them how much you miss them. tell them how much you love them . Coz we just live once ... 

Dynasty Politics

Dynasty Politics

Dynasty Politics generally means that descendants of a particular family have played political roles in autocratic, democratic or republican setup of a system. Dynasty means Dy-nasty. Dy- stands for death of all morals, values and nasty stands for corrupt and vulgar politics. Once the great King Bharata was thinking whom to name the next successor to his throne, and upon thinking for days he found that none of his nine sons deserved to rule India and he came to a conclusion that he would not allow any of his sons to succeed him. He believed that true meaning of life was not birth but karma means action. Thus ignoring his sons he coronate the son of Bharadwaj as his successor. Thus he proved that a man should be judged by his actions and deeds and not by his birth.

It is so rightly said that History repeats itself. Generations later Bhishma and dhitrashtra, the descendants of King Bharata faced the same problem, Dynasty politics showed how ugly it can get. Duryodhana a power crazy prince who was raised under the expectations of his father that he would be the next king of Hastinapur (present day Delhi) proved that dynasty politics can cause a turmoil and civil uprising, which would subsequently lead to death and violence.

There are numerous examples of such stories from history of ancient India were Dynasty politics raised its ugly head from time to time and the whole country had to pay and suffer.

If we talk about modern India i.e. around the Independence era the leadership example which was set-up by Mahatma Gandhi was path breaking, he been the pioneer in leading a change was effective and accepted as a mass leader of a colonized India. The greatness of Mahatma Gandhi doesn’t end here. He been father of four sons could have named any of his son as his successor in Congress but this humble man had the same values which king Bharat had inculcated in minds of Indians.

But it feels like Motilal Nehru was inspired by King Dhitrashtra. His son Pandit Jahawarlal Nehru grew under his expectations that he would make big in Indian Politics just like Duryodhana who desired to be the King of Hastinapur. This Dynasty politics laid to establishment of Nehru-Gandhi family  which is currently ruling India and which has ruled India from Pandit Nehru to Indira Gandhi to Rajiv and sanjay and to Sonia and his son Rahul. This set of the Gandhi family have nothing to do with the Great Mahatma and our Father of Nation.

Some people who worship the Nehru- Gandhi family will ask me what’s wrong in that and I would answer them that the partition of India was because of this dynasty politics. One can draw an analogy from past, the kingdom of Hastinapur was divided in around 3150 BC to accommodate the pandavs and Kauravs both. Our first Prime minister who had expectations to become the first PM was so selfish that he become blind for sake of power. This lust for power and money led him to vote in favor of partition of India, India once which existed from present day Afghanistan, Pakistan , Tibet , Sri lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal now had lost its 40 percent of land.  In 1947 it lost Bangladesh and Pakistan due to divisive politics of Mr Nehru and Mr Jinnah. When I tried to narrate this to Mahabharat what I found was really astonishing, the question being who would become the king of Hastinapur , Yudishtar or Duryodhana, Yudishthar who represented Knowledge, Light, Dharma was also elder, smarter, able, and accepted in masses and was more deserving than Duryodhana who represented evil, ignorance and violence. As we all know Duryodhana was crowned as the successor to his father, history repeated in 1947 again. When the state Congress election took place in all 14 states of India. Nehru lost in 13 of them hence standing no chance to become the First PM. Sardar patel was widely accepted and was more effective between masses. There is a story that Nehru blackmailed Mahatma and Sardar had to step down , what followed was partition of India, Communal riots where 5 million were killed , infinite were displaced, the present state of Kashmir, loss of Tibet to china, Creation of Linguistic based States which further divided India on basis of languages , castes , creeds and religion and rest all is history.

We thought that after Nehru, India would improve and leaders would be chose and elected on basis of their ability and not their bloodline. Shastriji was one of those who were elected on their talent and ability, but was killed due to some cold-blooded politics in the Congress, what followed was series of Dynasty ruling, Indira Gandhi ruled India for 17 long years, this tenure saw some good things like making of Bangladesh and project Tiger, but more or less it was same,no one can forget the emergency of 1971 , after her death what followed was alienation of Sikhs from mainstream. Her son was next in line to rule India, His charm and charisma fetched him affection from millions of Indian people. What we got was Bofors scam then came Sonia and now Rahul and Priyanka. The whole world knows what the Congress and Dynasty politics has given to this country. It seems India’s 73 lakh crore rupees is lying in Swiss banks, I am ashamed that the present day Nehru-Gandhi family is just using the name of the Great Mahatma who earned us freedom. Its not only about the Nehru-Gandhi family, the families of yadavs , scindias, pilots, karunaidhis, abdullahs  have been part of  dynasty politics. Now its up to people to decide whats wrong and what right.

The only thing I want to say is that we don’t have krisna to save this scenario as we had in Mahabharata. So an appeal to all the netizens and citizens of my beloved country India that please vote and vote for a better India. If this continues we would be pushed in to more poverty, corruption, and hatred and vote-bank politics. If you want to see a change, be a part of it.

Jai hind.

maulik