Sunnycaves

ignoring the vidence is wise?

2012-01-06T23:18:00.000-08:00

Ignoring the evidence is always wise?

Yes it is. And it needs a certain kind of madness to understand and value the courage needed to do it.

Never fall in love with death, but love it anyway

2012-01-06T23:16:00.001-08:00

‎" Never fall in love with death, but love it anyway and use that love to challenge yourself to live more fully, more meaningfully and more joyfully. The refusal to recognize the beauty of life, the refusal to dream the dreams even knowing them to be dreams only, the tendency to wallow in chronic despair and cynicism -- what else is death? Don't love this face of death, but death has other faces that will fascinate you.There is a romance about death, a mystery, a wonderment that it inspires like nothing else does, investing life with a glow it would otherwise never have.All the urgency about life, all the intensity it packs into each moment we experience, all the attachment to things we value-- all these draw their life from the presence of death at the end of it all. Without that, life would really be such a drab, uninteresting and meaningless tale."

Cynicism as an intellectual fashion

2012-01-06T20:12:00.001-08:00

Cynicism as an intellectual fashion is the safest hat to wear; we just love being told how bad everything is and is going to be. Saints and lovers however defy the trend as they have too much faith in them to care for the evidence. They are not quarreling with reality; they just know they are stronger than it.

Debate on NRIs and Dr. Kalam's letter From Facebook

2011-12-28T10:59:00.000-08:00

I and the NR in I : All my brothers, their wives and children, one of my two sisters and her family, my in laws, my wife and my only son --in fact everyone except me in my family is an NRI. And yet, this is what I have to say to NRIs: Your families - your parents and others included - did you no favour or disfavour by helping you settle down abroad. You did us a favour by doing well wherever you are. You are fighting your battles wherever you are without our help, and we are happy about it. We are fighting our battles wherever we are, without your help - thank you. We know you live in countries and with people with whom we do not dare compare ourselves - neither in terms of material progress nor in terms of mental caliber or civic sense or self-effacing commitment to their respective countries and societies. But we are doing our best to get by in this world, and hope, one day, to be proud of ourselves. But my request to you: please stop behaving like the proverbial rural boy who turns urban after the rest of the family sent him, at considerable cost to others in the family, to a city for a better future, and he suddenly discovers that almost everything about his village is filthy. I am sure none of you NRI guys, members of my own famliy included, likes to look a little like the guy played by Pran Chopra in Manoj Kumar's classic, Upkar. .Its about time you stopped preaching down to your poor rustic , illiterate and ill-bhaved cousins back in the village and its about too that we stopped complaining about your groundless arrogant self righteousness. If you are serious about changing whatever you believe is going wrong with your state, then please stop being a part-time Punjabi and come and fight the battles the hard way in the dusty fields and by-lanes of Punjab - like others have done before you (Kamagata Maru etc.) Motherland begs for either more than advice and constant grouses from its estranged children or just to be left alone to live with pride, though in poverty. ( Mannia main haan jungle, jammia vich jahaalat de/ Tenu maan bahut ne tarak, daleel, vakaalat de..) And I can only offer a doomed prayer that this is not seen to be linked to the elections in Punjab. I have said all these things before before and I will say these again, once the elections are over.)
· · Share · 12 hours ago

An NRI`s message to Punjabis:

Respected Punjabi voters,

Elections have been announced and you might be wondering why NRIs are so obsessed with Manpreet Badal and his PPP. We, the NRIs have lived in and analyzed political systems in both Punjab and USA/Canada/UK. I have personally experienced every part of our system in Canada and USA in the last 15 years and enjoyed every bit of it, in spite of getting punished a few times. I have gone through hell in Punjab, India during the first 30 years of my life. I do not need to write about my negative experiences about 'your system' as you can imagine this system was the only reason for me to quit as a class-I officer and migrate to Canada to work as a security guard. Fortunately, I got into the veterinary profession within 2 years, but even if I had to work as security guard for the rest of my life, I would not have returned to Punjab. There is nothing common between these two systems whether it involves opening a bank account, getting any license, calling the police in case of an emergency, or dealing with a complicated case in court. Here is my view about my country Canada as compared to yours:

Canada is a democratic country, not a pseudo democratic one like yours.

We have the Rule of Law, not Rule of Mighty like you.

Here justice is delivered, not delayed, denied and sold like in your country.

Our police is professional, not mercenaries of a ruling party like yours.

Here opportunities are for everybody, not only for a few from ruling classes like in yours.

Our minorities are protected, not killed like yours.

Our bureaucracy is to help, not harass like yours.

Our human right activists are honored, not killed by police like yours.

Here fallen soldiers are given the highest honor, not forgotten like yours.

Our tax money is spent for tax payers, not kept in Swiss banks like yours.

Here politics is a profession, not a business like in your country.

Protesters here are listened to, not beaten up like yours.

Our dreams do come true, not shattered like yours.

Our problems are solved, not only used for political benefit like yours.

Our media is free, not muzzled like yours.

Our elections are free and fair, not rigged like yours.

Though there lie many differences between the two systems, there is only one root cause of all of the differences and that is the Rule of Law. When talking about politicians, I have not found even a single politician in Punjab who bears any slight resemblance to the politicians here. Manpreet Badal is the only one who not only resembles them, but also holds a vision to implement Rule of Law, which is exactly what we enjoy here in these countries. You have been promised by both major political parties to turn Punjab into another Paris or California, but I only see it becoming Afghanistan. Implementing the Rule of Law is the only way forward and the first step to put Punjab back on track of progress and prosperity. Both Congress and SAD had the opportunity to do that, however their lust for the VIP status, power, and money did not let them do anything in the right direction. Furthermore, the chances of them doing anything in the future are not greater than zero. If it was up to NRIs like us, we would have chosen Manpreet Badal as the CM unanimously. I wish you would try to analyze the situation at hand yourself and use your conscious to decide for whom to vote. Though it is very very difficult for the majority of NRIs to spare a few weeks out of our extremely busy life style to come to Punjab, I am sure lacs of NRIs are ready to sacrifice their time and money in order to come to Punjab to support Manpreet Badal during the election. Please spare your valuable time to listen to NRIs and vote for the PPP, if you are convinced after reading this article and listening to NRIs.

Thanks

Dr. Bhan Garg

· · · 18 hours ago

Sammy Gill, Jugraj Dhillon Sohi, Vigilante Punjab and 11 others like this.
- Kultar Brar Nice Post. People should really read this once. Good job Sir.
  14 hours ago ·
- MohanPal Randhawa
  Dr kalam's Message to You & Me I appeal to all my fellow Indian to think about this seriously and make it a practice. Give your mother India the respect she deserves.
  
  Why is the media here so negative?
  Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements?
  We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
  We are the first in milk production.
  We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
  We are the second largest producer of wheat.
  We are the second largest producer of rice.
  
  Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.
  I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.
  
  In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T.Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.
  Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is.. She replied: I want to live in a developed India . For her, you and I will have to build this developed India . You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.
  
  ..YOU say that our government is inefficient.
  YOU say that our laws are too old.
  YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
  YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke. The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
  YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
  YOU say, say and say.. What do YOU do about it?
  
  Take a person on his way to Singapore . Give him a name - 'YOURS'. Give him a face - 'YOURS'. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are.. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity… In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai .. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.
  
  YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs..650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.'YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost.' YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand ..
  
  Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ? Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ??? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan .Will the Indian citizen do that here?' He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.
  
  We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.
  We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.
  
  This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.
  When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? 'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system?
  
  What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.
  
  Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England . When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
  
  Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too….. I am echoing J. F. Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians…..
  
  'ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'
  Lets do what India needs from us.
  13 hours ago · · 5
- MohanPal Randhawa Stop belittling your country Mr Garg if you had left it for green pastures
  13 hours ago · · 4
- Balwinder Dhall
  such posts would help enlighten those stuck up in india to have a feel of the manner in which democracy is practised as a form of govt. and as a way of life in different parts of the word. let some nri's living in central asia, middle east, australia, africa, australia also write to let their indian brethren to have a glimpse of what the interest groups, pressure groups, political parties and the ruling elite are like in these regions.
  13 hours ago · · 3
- MohanPal Randhawa This protesters are you talking about in wester world
  12 hours ago ·
- MohanPal Randhawa http://www.observer.com/2011/10/over-800-occupy-protesters-charged-but-how-many-will-go-to-court/
  Over 800 Occupy Protesters Charged, But How Many Will Go to Court?
  www.observer.com
  This must be the district attorney’s worst nightmare: since September 17th, there have been 800 people arrested and charged in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street protests. The majority of these arrests come from the mass Brooklyn Bridge confrontation on October 1st, when over 750 individuals (i...
  12 hours ago · · 1
- Balwinder Dhall uk has witnessed riots recently reminding one of riots in india.
  12 hours ago ·
- MohanPal Randhawa And what about Injustice to Natives in Canada Mr Bhan Garg
  12 hours ago ·
- Balwinder Dhall it is a coincidence that the elections are being held at a time when lot of nri's come to india every year.
  12 hours ago ·
- MohanPal Randhawa which justice where you bomb other countries for oil ??
  12 hours ago · · 1
- Balwinder Dhall usa's history shows that they have been killing red indians who were the original inhabitants of the americas.
  12 hours ago · · 1
- Bhan Garg
  Well, there are two kinds of people in Punjab, one who gets benefited because of current system of corruption,favoritism and political interference and the other who suffers due to the same reasons. If DGP, senior IAS officer or a politician is arrested for any reason, he is taken to the best hospital and gets health check by panel of senior doctors but when farmers are arrested for protesting for their right to keep their land, they are shoved in jails and not even allowed to tale their existing medicine they were on. No country is perfect, but the question is whether there is Rule of Law in Punjab or not. India clearly has two sets or rules, one for rich and influencial 'VIPs' and other for commoners.
  4 hours ago · · 1
- MohanPal Randhawa
  So do have western world what happened to CASE of IMF chief in USA . You left India because you were weak and were selfish .So was I. Stop blaming your country back home and preaching. Stop comparing. When you are kicked there then you want indian govt;s to intervene. You want to create gettos everywhere you go and then want to preach.If you have left the country and ditched your motherland it was not for country it was only for you .so take the blame and move on.Only cowards and weak do not take blame and try to blame things on others
  about an hour ago · · 1
- Sammy Gill ‎@ Bhan Garg...very well said and I second your views. My only humble request ...is not to use word 'yours' . This makes you separate from us....we dont feel and even you might nor feel this way !
  about an hour ago ·
- DrNirmal S Dhallu
  ‎MohanPal Randhawa - I have to disagree that everyone left India coz they were weak. China now has net repatriation. When those conditions are available in India, may be we will do so too. If we are all talking here cos we have some fundamental feelings for the place where we were born. Your observation about Canada is correct to some extent. It is not so in other countries where their own institutions are more established. I don't mean this in negative sense.
  about an hour ago · · 1
- MohanPal Randhawa
  I agree DrNirmal S Dhallu . The amount of money spent on making a doctor or IITian is in lakhs for each individual from where does that money come from? taxpayers money .we get education and move abroad because we get better wages abroad and when economies go slow down in western world . we return to india to bask in its glory. when some indian are treated unfairly or beaten up abroad we want Indian government to intervene. All i say is every country has its positive and negatives. If you go higher in ladder in these countries there is discrimination everywhere . Take the case of Bobby jindal or Nicky halley Randhawa they have to change religion to be at post of Governship and I dont say that their law required them to do so but to survive in that political environment they had to do it. Today India as economy don't need funds from NRI's abroad ,NRI's need Indian government more for various interventions when they have problems . There is no denial that we have some problems back home but than you cannot deny that fact India today is different from indian 20 years back. Today when you tell on world forum that you represent India you are respected more
  about an hour ago · · 1
- Tarun Goswami garg saab...this rich vs poor divide is there everywhere....perhaps more in India than western countries....even in US....the elite who can afford medical insurance get better treatment as compared to economically deprived ones who happen to live on welfare or social security...it is just that Indian immigrants generally do well and dont get to see the other side here....
  about an hour ago ·
- MohanPal Randhawa I would never vote for PPP if it ask me to vote on argument given by DrBHan garg . I stand for party which respects my country more and do not belittle it while comparing with western world
  about an hour ago · · 2
- DrNirmal S Dhallu It is a fact India today is different from indian 20 years back. sure but socially and morally heading the wrong way ................
  about an hour ago · · 1
- Kultar Brar ‎@MohanPal which party respected ur country mroe Congress? u forgot 1984... memory is short... and akali dal isnt better either they just used that 1984 to cash in votes....
  59 minutes ago · · 1
- MohanPal Randhawa Lets not get into who did 84 or not. Manpreet Badal was in SAD for good 15 years how many times he raised voice for 1984 victims.Lets not do politics over that.He was shifted abroad when punjab was burning and returned when there was normalcy .
  55 minutes ago ·
- Sammy Gill ‎@Kultar Brar----GULL KHATAM---------------------
  45 minutes ago · · 1
- Sammy Gill
  ‎@ MohanPal Randhawa ..if your gooself want to say that MB did not did anything or any other leader did not stand for 84 thus 84 is justified and not a big deal....then I would say....THE END of all talks. Above all....this is our status that it took 26 years and still there is no justice !! And here on FB we are holding forts.....gunning...doing every possible act to have a virtual war with each other, for our own state.....Wow !! kalmaaal Hai........accusing....blaming....cursing....and holier than thou...this is what fe friends are into.......but is this going to help ? I think we are doomed to go down.....and very soon its going to happen- sooner than we think !!
  40 minutes ago · · 1
- MohanPal Randhawa true Sammy Gill !! I invited both jojo and HS bains to debate their policies here on forum and both were online then but they did not debate because leaders know they have their supporters for pig fighting
  38 minutes ago ·
- MohanPal Randhawa ‎Sammy Gill and I do not justify 1984 at all and I hate Manmohan singh when he did not give sikhs fair chance from CBI but what I meant is none of parties are interested in justice
  34 minutes ago ·
- Kultar Brar
  well... i agree with u their... but u also have to realise... what could have manpreet done by himself in Akali Dal. When he did try to raise his voice he was thrown out.... at least now he is known to people and has a chance to win by ...See More
  30 minutes ago ·
- Bhan Garg
  USA: On September 15, 2001, Frank Roque shot Sodhi five times, killing him instantly. Roque, who apparently wanted revenge for September 11, mistook him for an Arab because of the clothes he wore, his turban, and his beard. On September 30, 2003 he was found guilty of first degree murder, and was sentenced to death nine days later. India 1984: Government of India reported 2,700 deaths (lot more in reality) 27 years later no body found guilty!!!!!!!! MohanPal Randhawa Sabb, "you are saying, Lets not get into who did 84 or not !", Why? I am just a human being (neither Hindu nor Sikh), I can not forget those scenes, I watched on TV, I wish I did not. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about it (including as I write these lines) and you are saying let us not get into it??? Whole world knows Congress did it.
  26 minutes ago · · 2
- Bhan Garg
  About me, I agree that I was weak and alone, could not fight and ran away. I consider myself traitor, but who made me traitor?--Cong 1992-1996 and the system. I was waiting for some body strong enough to fight with, challenge and change thesystem. I saw Manpreet Badal fit for that cause and I joined him. I am proud of my decision as this is my way of taking revenge. I waited for right time and that time has come. I am also supporting Anna Hazare movement and I know now I will be branded as RSS!!! so is Anna.
  20 minutes ago ·
- Bhan Garg Forget about being Sikh, I think who ever supports Congress after watching 1984 and waiting for 27 years for justice, is not even a human being. Sorry Congress supporters, nothing personal, that is just my feeling as human being, not as PPP supporter.
  9 minutes ago ·
- Sunnymindcaves Caves ‎Bhan Garg, Kultar Brar, MohanPal Randhawa, Sammy Gill, DrNirmal DrNirmal S Dhallu friends: Bhan Garg's diagnosis is impeecable; his prescription is questionable. And that seems to be the whole problem. e all have the right diagnosis and wrong prescription. Plus, we seem to approach the patient with avoidable anger. Only Dr Kalam' seems to have the right physician's approach: he may not be elling the patient how serious his disease is but then all good doctors use this placebo effect. It is far better than killing the patient by demoralising him. I find nothing wrong with all the arguments advanced -- for and against. I would only pray for a little more patience and respect for each other's opinions than we seem to exercise on Fb generally. And I am going to copy this whole debate and preserve it for later reference. It carries a lot of perceptive observations. And as for Bhan Garg's prescription, I respect him for that too: it is better to be err on the side of dreaming than on the side of cynicism.....I may not agree with him but I see nothing wrong with his eventual idealism. But he could afford to be a little less angry with us . Nevertheless, he seems to care. As for Sammy, as usual, -- Gall Khattam --

Politics is to me what war is to a soldier

2011-12-26T12:33:00.000-08:00

Politics is to me what war is to a soldier. A soldier must be a perfect swordsman on the battle-field but a perfect gentleman off it. He must wield his sword in war with the same finesse as he has when he goes down on one knee to offer a rose to his love and kiss the back of her hand. A man must be ruthless warrior in battle but a caring statesman outside of it. And in life, wars occupy such a brief span; its in being a statesman or a gentleman that we truly express ourselves.

There are so many ugly things about politics and so many nice things about so many politicians. There are so many ugly things about wars but so many good things about soldiers who conduct the war.

Piety above motherhood

2011-12-26T12:28:00.000-08:00

There is a mother in every woman and that fact is enough for you to forgive her a million sins, if one of these was committed in her role as a mother. But if your mother also puts her piety above her motherhood and refuses to side with you in the wrongs you do to others, then you better be a god to deserve such a mother.

You only have to speak the word "MOTHER" to get my undivided attention, even if God Himself vied with you on the other side.

esire to have the last word is at the root of most refusals to learn.

2011-12-26T12:23:00.001-08:00

The last word

It isn't my business, or is it?

2011-12-26T12:15:00.001-08:00

Whenever you find fault with someone, just ask yourself: "Is it my business?" And if the answer is "yes", follow it up with the next question: "What am I going to do to help in this?" If your answer is ,"Its not for me to do anything about it?", return to the first question.

A PRAYER FROM THE WARRIOR AHEAD OF POLL BATTLES IN PUNJAB

2011-12-23T03:31:00.000-08:00

I happen to be right in the middle of political crossfire as I happen to be heading the media campaign of one of the two main contenders in the forthcoming elections in Punjab. Every morning I get up early and start the day with some quiet introspection and a silent prayer:" May I not shirk battle but may I not belittle myself as a warrior with petty thoughts and feelings of bitterness towards the opponent. Let me play the best and let the best player win. And no matter who wins, let me have the wisdom and the large heartedness to accept that the man who wins is better than me in some respect. but may I do enough to be that man myself. Let me not be provoked by what may appear to be lowly or even spiteful attacks. And no matter who is on the other side of the fence, Captain Sahib or Manpreet or whoever, let my heart not harbour any bitterness towards them. May I be able to love them all during and after the battle is won or lost. May I never lose what makes me who I am. And let me be guided by just one thing: do my best in what I think is right. And may I have the wisdom always to know what is right, and when I don't have that wisdom, may I have the humility and honesty to accept that I am wrong. With all this, may I also have the resolve to fight with all my heart and win. And having won, may I take my all my opponents in an embrace of love and forgiveness. But if for some reason I do not win, I may still have that love and forgiveness in my heart. And I pray that my opponents too may be freed from the bondage of petty hatred and greed. May I fight the battle not out of greed for reward but because I seriously believe that its worth a fight. And when and if I win, I may have the will to take everyone along so that we may unitedly achieve the goals for which everyone fought. And may my people always stay together after it has been decided who will play what role during the next five years. And may the Generals on whose side I fight always have the graciousness and large heartedness which they have shown up to now to allow me to love the people I fight. It is this graciousness which makes me choose them above others, but I pray that others may also have the same graciousness towards their soldiers and allow them to love our generals and our soldiers. " ------This prayer is addressed to no God but only to the spirit of life and to myself.

· · · Share · Delete

Anuradha Zutshi, Jaswant Singh Aman, Madan Gandhi and 2 others like this.
- Sanjeev Ahluwalia Best wishes for the tough electoral battle ahead.
  3 hours ago · · 1
- Parveen Sethi Amen!!!
  2 hours ago ·
- DrNirmal S Dhallu BIG ask but I am sure you do well as always. This is a sociopolitical battle and as a result should be about individual's collective policies (good and bad) and not about person.
  2 hours ago · · 1
- Jaswant Singh Aman Difficult take but stil.....तथास्तु!
  about an hour ago ·
- Pavittar Bhinder
  Sir this note being related to politics, i would be honest and straight with my comments(in political context only) about it.
  
  I have noticed a gradual change in your words/color/tone on political issues and your opponents. From challenging S. Manpreet Badal for a debate and then in direct election from gidderbaha constituency to labelling his NRI supportes as extremists you have travelled a long distance.
  Now your tone/vocublary/color is quite opposite... calm..subtle and indirect.. earlier you were quite direct(challenge to fight MSB in election) and now you claim to be just doing your job as media advisor.
  
  I assume two things/reasons from this pleasant change:
  1. Either, you have realised govt. change around the corner so you prefer to be mild now... (may be even contemplating of working for a different person in future).
  2. Or, now with time and your past experience on social media you have mellowed down or seasoned well.... and prefer to be soft with your opponents.
  
  i welcome this pleasant and positive change(political) irrespective of the reasons 1 or 2 mentioned above.
  
  Statesmen should always behave in this manner.
  Already said this before but I reiterate, "i wish punjab that gets just one statesman which it so desperately needs."
  -regards.
  52 minutes ago · · 1
- Rajiv Mudgil As a prayer, just, "May I never lose what makes me who I am" is enough. The rest is a journey of one's own evolution which must derive from deep thinking rather than prayer. We propel our own progress; we do not wait upon an external source to bestow it upon us.
  34 minutes ago · · 2
- Sunnymindcaves Caves
  Pavittar Bhinder: To be honest, I was half afraid myself of being misunderstood . No one these days likes to believe that someone would want to be nice without fear or greed of favour. But in response to all your points, this is all I cansay: 1. My challenge to Manpreet Singh Badal or -- since he thinks he is too high and mighty -- to any of his chosen spokespersons -- stills stands and my view of what happened in October 2010 is exactly as it was. And I have always -- always -- pleaded for decency, decorum and dignity in public discourse.. 2. Till my last day on this planet, I will be with Mr. Parkash Singh Badal. Over the past thirty five years, neither fear during the days of militancy nor greed ( I had an official written offer from Sardar Beant SIngh to join him with a cabinet rank and I politely turned it down to remain loyal to Mr. Badal) have succeeded in luring me away from my beliefs. .....I lost my university job and was thrown out of a decent government house in Chandigarh and could easily have retained both by simply becoming neutral under Captain Amaridner Singh . I thought Captain Sahib was wrong and I said so and chose to pay the price. .....But I ahve been trying very hard, without compromising on my beliefs, to inject an element of civility and decorum in political discourse in Punjab. That I haven't succeeded has not discouraged me. That said, let me reiterate. in my honest view, there is no match today in Punjab or national politics for a man of Parkash Singh Badal's stature and intrinsic human values. he is a class apart and sixty years of relentless struggle has not robbed him of his humility and warmth, Lot of lesser players become bitter simply because they don't get their way in everything and form new parties. Others leave those parties when the new leader behaves with insolence. This man has just stuck to one line and has gone on and on and on......Yout get a Parkash Singh Badal only once in life. But having said that, let me reiterate that I have learnt it from him that one can be competitive without being bitter, fight without hatred in your mind, hold on to yuur faiths without ridiculing others, be brave with ex[ressing your beliefs without a resort to language of hate. But before Mr. Badal came into my life, i had someone in m life -- my mother -- who set high standards for me : " If you can't get along with someone,” she said, "then be more concerned with how you conduct yourself....Dignified, without being discourteous, remote without being rude, indifferent without being insulting, aloof without being arrogant. Differ but don't disrespect." Her favourite: Jab lag duniya rahiye Nanak, kichhu suniye kuchh kahiye" ... but first " suniye.....
  18 minutes ago · · 2
- Sunnymindcaves Caves Rajiv Mudgil: Thanks Rajiv for surfacing. Yes, We propel our own progress; we do not wait upon an external source to bestow it upon us.....And " -This prayer is addressed to no God but only to the spirit of life and to myself."

When those who don't understand you agree with you

2011-11-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

Being brutally criticised by people who do not understand you is bad enough. But what is even worse are loud endorsements from those who can not understand you -- would in fact kill you if they did . I sometimes wonder how would Einstein have felt if someone like me had gone across to him immediately after his Theory of Relativity had been published, and had shaken his hands with, "Don't worry about those critics, Mr. Einstein. I know what you are saying is right!!!" Einstein or may be Guru Nanak !!!

Hell hath no death colder than a woman turned cold

2011-11-23T12:21:00.000-08:00

A man must understand that when his woman fights with him over perceived neglect, she is not necessarily telling him she doesn't love him. In fact, quite often she is quarreling BECAUSE she loves the man, though she does take the quarrel to a point where such a conclusion would be impossible to sustain. But wait. Even a girl who might be about to bleed you with her nails or tear your clothes apart might be trying to tell you something different from what you see in her actions.And don't be surprised if she spurns your conclusion that she hates you and turns around in anger again to tell, "That's all you see in my throwing myself at you, idiot? You must be the most insensitive man I would ever know. You can hear my swearing and you can see my scratches on your body, but you cant see anything else. You can't see how much someone wants to be loved? What a waste? What I a man I have staked such precious sentiments on? Go, please, go." But don't go. She doesn't want you to. She wants you to know why she is angry. She is angry-- too angry -- but she cares.

The only time a man should believe his woman doesn't want him is when she meets him with lethal indifference.Suddenly that shoulder would be death cold, that voice a distant drawl, that look a non-serious gaze into nothing, or perhaps interested more in reading a newspaper she has never cared to look at than in seeing the pain in your eye. It doesn't matter then and , for all one knows, you may be on your death bed: women simply don't care when they don't love.

Its different with men: they care a lot even when they are not in love. Generally speaking, of course. A woman in wrath is only half the fury that she is when she turns cold. Don't dread a woman's fury - that can be handled with love. But woman's indifference? You are a dead man,brother, if that what you are battling to remove. And I have seen some idiots lose a woman's love by neglecting her anger for too long -- only to reach a point where they wished the woman would at least slap them ! Once that point is reached, its no use regretting your blunders: once a woman is lost to the point of her indifference, she is lost.Period. The worst thing that can happen to a man is that a woman should deem him not even worth a quarrel.

And this today? I just went over some old stuff lying with me about a period in which a girl, a brilliant but simple ( read golden) hearted journalist, had fallen madly in love with a man, known to me.The idiot did not realise what had fallen in his lap and kept misbehaving. I kept telling the girl that a day would come when she would grow out of her 'passionate attachment'. She didn't believe me. Like Scarlet O'Hara , she kept saying she was going to love him all her life. I told her that that was the kind of love I believed in -- and thought myself capable of -- but that was notthe kind of love she was born for.

And the reason why I thought it worth a write here is the sudden awareness that I haven't heard from the for almost a year now --earlier, she would call me and talk to me for long hours almost everyday. The last I heard was that the girl is "too engrossed in her life to talk about such silly things." She has found a man whom she does n't love but whom she definitely finds a nice man'. ( I would never want to be a nice man to a girl of her fiery passions. i would either be the object of those passions or dead, never a nice man. Yes, I would be nice to all other women.

Moral: Never push a girl you love to the point of her indifference. When she is angry with you enough to say that she could killl you, tell her you love her and wouldn't mind dying at her hands. That's generally all she wants to hear. But don't say it if you can't be equal to your words later; that will not only dangerous - that will be downright mean.( Plus dangerous too: the girl could really kill you before she decides to turn indifferent.)

voice of battle scarred warrior of love

2011-11-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

No one cries in love -- except in very extreme situations like the physical loss of the dearest one. Desire is pain, we generally cry not in love but in 'desire'. in love we always laugh because love actually means being happy to give -- always. i have been through intense agony and sublime happiness , through consuming desire and sublimely uplifting love ... I think I know a little bit. Once we have a crossed a certain ego and desire barrier, love is really all about giving -- even in active relationship. The happiness one seeks in being near one's loved one soon refines into a sentiment in which sings forth .." khilaao phool kissi ke, kissi chaman main raho -- jo dil ki raahon se guzri hai wo bahar ho tum......And please keep in mind, this is not the voice of a teenaer in love but a mature battle scarred warrior of love ...

I battle as a warrior but smile as a lover and then play and laugh like a little child

2011-11-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

I like keeping myself happy with such child-like innocent little indulgences, generally resisting the temptation to look for conspiracies or negative trends in everything around me... there is something about life and nature which compels an attitude of simplicity - taking things on their face value and laughing with every little leaf and petal that flutters on the way .. you may call it a lack of sufficient seriousness or of social responsibility in me, but I am amused even by the so called profound political issues and developments that I am generally at the center of -- I am enjoying being in the middle of dense cross fires everyday, and yet refusing to lose my capacity for fun. I battle as a warrior but smile as a lover and then play and laugh like a little child even with my opponents. Rarely do i make an effort to study closely what our political rivals are doing, but when I have to as a part of my job, then too I find them and heir obsessions quite entertaining, and I am able to laugh both with and at them in the manner of a complete outsider. you might have noticed that even when storms are raging around me, and many of those storms I have to meet head on, I keep myself occupied with issues that have nothing to do with these things. Sometime later, I might write about all this but right now, I am studiously refusing to use any of my personal and social activities such as FB in promoting my own, my government's or my party's interests. It was like this even when I was engaged in those hectic FB discussions -- which I did out of my intellectual convictions rather than my professional compulsions; but I know there will be very few takers for this claim. Neither do i need takers - I enjoyed that phase, and having enjoyed it thoroughly, i have moved on. To do tht now would seem pretty vacuous. You could say that I am in the thick of politics and am yet an outsider: it is a question of how I feel about and conduct myself in my worka nd environ. (In a lighter vien and only if u don't mind, I may be gliding/hrtling (??) towards Lord Krishan's ideal of detached involvement. When i see many of my ex-detractors fretting and fuming with one another and with others, I feel a sense of loss even regarding them, though they may neither realise it nor agree with me on this. I brought it up only because i know you will understnd this, and that matters a lot to me. Our own equation has been a major gain for me personally over the past couple of years or so......we will talk sometime later, got to attend to some routine issue that jut cropped up at work (Yes, sir, we are at work still.) Love and regards...

about an hour ago · Like · 1

DrNirmal S Dhallu I agree that one has to keep the balance in life. For me also FB provides welcome stress relief from high risk environment of futures trading. Most of the time my comments are on the lighter side of life than the serious .......

On a day like this...

2011-11-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

" It was on a day like this. And I hadn't expected it to be any different from other November days. But the mist that hung across the early morning eastern horizon held something sinister beneath its frozen indifference. All these years, every single day of those years, I had seen my mother up very close. She had lived a long and tragic life but I had seen her square up dark adversity with fortitude that often reminded me of Synge's Maurya. There was no bitterness in her. In fact, the more she battled against adversity, the more was the love she shared with others -- everyone in the family, everyone in the village -- even those who were the cause of much that she had to suffer in life. I never heard my mother utter a single unpleasant word against anyone in her life.The poorest of the poor, the so called 'low caste'', their elders, youngsters, children, ladies -- everyone could and did come to her for warmth. And mother never ran out of it. No one else in the village too could recall if she had ever been seen upset with anyone. And yet, there was this private ghost I was fighting all my life with her. I had stayed very close to her - physically, emotionally, every which way every single day of my life. All this while, even when we laughed together, there was one thing that weighed on me like lead. And I believed it weighed on her mind too though she never allowed a trace of it to appear on her face. I knew that despite her courage and adorable strength, there was one blow she wouldn't be able to take. She could withstand everything. She had withstood everything. And with quiet courage. But this one? Every time I thought deeply about how it would affect her, I was filled with even greater dread. The more I dreaded the blow, the more real it became. And more inevitable.I knew that if that happened, mother would quietly turn towards us and say, "I have seen it all. Its time to go." And it happened. And she went -- as quietly as she had lived. Even after the blow fell, she stayed in control-- till her last responsibility as mother towards my eldest brother had been performed. And then, in a single moment of unspeakable pain, she made the announcement. There was nothing dramatic about it. It was as if she was telling us she is going for a little nap. Within hours, we lost her. Life has never been the same after that"......

Girls are stronger than boys, and possess a more steely spirit than most of our famed male icons of strength do.

2011-11-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

On an average, Girls are stronger than boys, and possess a more steely spirit than most of our famed male icons of strength do. But this comes out mostly when they are confronted with a challenge. Generally speaking, even the strongest, toughest and most successful of girls secretly crave for some pampering, patronizing and loving male presence in their lives -- the warm security of assurance of two strong and genuinely caring arms around them. This does not speak of any emotional weakness in them; it is just how they look at life and how much more store they lay by deep and secure human relations than we menfolk generally do. Men generally mistake this emotional preference in women to mean a certain weakness in them. How wrong !

Any man incapable of instilling that quiet assurance, trust and calm security in a woman's heart has some serious problem with his being a man. Any man who does not enjoy loving and pampering a woman like she was at once his queen and his child, any man who does not value a woman's profound strength without making her depend on it is, in my books, not a man. Its good to know that a woman has in her those cool reservoirs of indefatigable strength, but its better to ensure that she does not have to draw on them.

Sabba: That only further proves the point...with or without men, women deserve respect -- and love. The ability of men and women to do without each other is not the subject here, though. Nor is the gender race. In fact, it calls for greater strength of character for both to live together than to live apart, but then the rewards are also greater -- or so I believe. I doubt Sabba ji if even you do not enjoy your femininity and the subtle joys of being a woman - with or without men. And no, I am not talking about gender differences here but only of the beauty that a man and a woman can vest on a relationship. That many of us don't actually end up doing so is no argument against that beauty. If anything, its an argument against our failure. Bad marksmanship does not prove a goal wrong. That said, you occupy a very special place on my wall as in my esteem.

Advice to your children

2011-11-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

The best advice you can give to your child is:" Consult your heart a hundred times in thirty days about what you want to achieve in life: then follow what it says, and don't let it down." The best help you can lend your child is making sure he does not have to do something he would not enjoy doing over a long period. Muffled ambitions are as bad thwarted ambitions, and parents can do a lot to help their children in avoiding both. The trouble with most parents is that they want their children to help them achieve what they ( parents) want rather than helping children achieve what children want."

About media query on change of facebook name

2011-11-19T11:15:00.002-08:00

You just can't have peace these days. Consider this: A correspondent of a major national daily today called me an demanded the REASON why I had discontinued my previous account on Facebook and changed my name to sunnymindcaves. He then rejected as "no reason " the reason I gave -- that I wanted to improve the visibility of my blog name, sunnymindcaves, and to carry my blog and Facebook activity under one name. I was "informed" that the real reason was that I had been "cornered" by separatists (Khalistanis) on my earlier wall. My pleas that most of those who allegedly cornered me there continued to be my friends on sunnymindcaves also and that everyone knew that it was my account failed to convince him that I was not running way from anyone, especially since everyone knew of my identity both with the old and the new names. He read fear in my pleas, which I had repeated a thousand times over, that --as far as possible -- I would like to keep political issues to be off my wall. I had also stated that it did not mean a blanket refusal. He also quoted from one of my posts in which I had said that everyone who once supported Khalistan was now supporting their then hero - Manpreet . The reproter said that this was 'slanderous'. I did not know till then that separatists considered it a slander to be called a separatists. Nearly half an hour into our telephonic conversation, he told me that it was being recorded, and saw nothing unethical in recording it without my knowing of it in advance. The REASONS why I mention it here are two: one: should I reactivate my previous account, which the reporter almost "challenged" me to do ? And two, should I withdraw my request that as far as possible,issues of political acrimony should be avoided on my wall ( no blanket ban , however)? Advice solicited from friends, including those who had "cornered" me . Is someone listening ? ( By the way, the call I took was at a time when I was going through some deep emotional turmoil, not related to politics.

stray thoughts on bondage of desire

2011-11-19T11:15:00.001-08:00

Desire is the mother not only of bondage but also of pain: nothing turns us into slaves more quickly than does desire. A constant vigil against desire is the only guarantee that we won't allow ourselves to suffer indignities and pain and disappointments. If you want to know what freedom really means, spend at least one hour daily, reflecting on whether all that you desire is really something you won't be able to live without. Slowly and slowly, your circle of desire would narrow down, and the burden of care and anxiety would correspondingly lessen. That is what makes a saint a true sovereign and perhaps the only truly free person. I went to sleep with some desires and woke up with a few more. The in a single moment, I imagined myself without those, and felt so light. Not to be misled, these are fleeting moments of freedom, till we we seriously begin to move towards saint-hood -- which incidentally has nothing to do with God. ( THIS OF COURSE IS A MERE REWORDING OF OFT-REPEATED IDEAS) Good Morning everyone -- everyone out there on this side of sunrise.

हूँ सभी का मैं जो हर कोई बेगाना है तो क्या/

2011-11-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

ये जो झरनों की , ये जो झूलों की /
दहकते गालों की , चहकते फूलों की /
महकी हवाओं की , रसीली घटाओं की /
सरसराते पत्तों की , मुस्कुराते बच्चों की /
बे-वजह मुस्कान की , ये तोतली ज़ुबान की /
छोटी छोटी बातों की , सुबहा-ओ-शाम और रातों की /
रूठे मनाने की , बहाने बनाने की /
अपने बेगानों में , जाने अनजानों में /
ये कैसे रिश्ते उभरे हैं , ये कैसे दर्पण निखरे हैं /
कुछ कहने की , कुछ सुनने की /
कुछ शब्द ओ निशब्द बुनने की /
हर पल,हर दिन,और हर रात , चलती है मासूम बात/
कुछ नई दुनिया की पूर्व में जो लाली छा रही/
कुछ नए मासूम रिश्तों की जो रिमझिम गा रही/
है नई दुनिया की हलचल , घर पुराना है तो क्या/
हूँ सभी का मैं जो हर कोई बेगाना है तो क्या/ --- ( Hindi transcription by none other than Harman. Thanks, Harman )

Facebook wisecracks -The only way you can expect some people to say something nice about anything is through an oversight.

2011-11-19T11:09:00.000-08:00

Let's always be grateful to our enemies; they are the only excuse we have for our own refusal to be good.

The best hope for the common man is now in a spat
Among the politician, the press and the bureaucrat.

The only way you can expect some people to say something nice about anything is through an oversight.

Everything exists without bothering to mean anything. Things do not mean; they just are.

2011-11-19T11:03:00.000-08:00

‎"We are like motes carried on some kind of an invisible convener belt of life and time, emerging slowly from a dense dark on one end through dim zones into a bright spotlight for a fleeting walk on the ramp before we fade away on the same belt into the same dense dark from the opposite end. To the viewer it appears that for a brief while, an inter- galactic panorama of is lighted up, made visible, moved in front of him/her and then slowly rolled away. From either perspective, nothing emerges from a beginning nor fades into an end. The play of motion of the mote and of the panoramic stage goes endlessly on like some cosmic dance, creating rapidly shifting kaleidoscopic patterns before the spot light, the zone which we call life. The dense dark, the dim glow tapering into the bright zones and the bright zones themselves are all but a continuum, and immortality has no other meaning. Everything is always present in some form somewhere. Birth and death and the seemingly speeding or slow-motion zones of life are patterns in an optical play. And yet all this means nothing because nothing means anything here. Everything exists without bothering to mean anything. Things do not mean; they are."

and i do not see why this obsession with immortality or preventing death.. why ... what so great about immortality or the desire to attain one....on another level, all things in any case are immortal. even science says nothing can be destroyed; things only change form at its core, religion also says the same thing... only, the idiom of religion differs somewhat from the scientific idiom, but what difference does that make. both science and religion are human attempts at making sense of this universe, but even w e the humans did not make sense of it, the universe would still be glad to exist as it does.

Suzanne: very good question.and a very difficult one to answer. for the moment , let me just say that meaning is purely a human response to reality which is glad to just exist with not a care in the world as to what it means or whether it means anything at all or not. seems like seeking a meaning in or imposing a meaning are more or less one and the same thing - and both are essentially human obsessions. reality, god, nature and nature of things are just happy to be --and we will be happy to be too if we could accept things for what they are rather than for what they mean ( to us). and, madam, is it possible that this could also be what some of our religions mean when they ask us to "accept" life and things. I am tempted to believe that it is, but please let me have your take. Madan JI: May I also request you to consider this and enlighten us. Will be grateful.
Friday at 6:58pm · · 2
And Madan ji a furthe quesion: I have often wondered if there indeed such a thing as "a riddle' of life or cosmos . Is there a riddle really if we accpet things as these are rather then trying to seek a further meaning which, for all we know, may not even be there. is the riddle then merely a riddle about the meaning that we are keen to impose on things which are quite glad to be as they are. i am losing track......must discontinue

.

I have said so many times that I find the concept of God an entity so completely laughable. I don't consider that even worth a denial. however, i do believe in God. If you don't see God in me or the next man or creature or thing standing by you, then you are never likely to him anywhere....Budhha called it "suchness", others called it the spirit of acceptance....in my two cents, I have tried to suggest things just are and must be accepted as such, and any 'meaning' we put on them is our own and ahs nothing to do with things themselves. let me put it this way. harpreet singh just is and exists and will exist without regard to any meaning i give to his existence.

and i do not see why this obsession with immortality or preventing death.. why ... what so great about immortality or the desire to attain one....on another level, all things in any case are immortal. even science says nothing can be destroyed; things only change form at its core, religion also says the same thing... only, the idiom of religion differs somewhat from the scientific idiom, but what difference does that make. both science and religion are human attempts at making sense of this universe, but even w e the humans did not make sense of it, the universe would still be glad to exist as it does.

Harman presents an opportunity to Punjabi

2011-11-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

In the Young poet, Harman, I see a rare opportunity when someone in my mother tongue has a chance to emerge as the best in the world. i don't want that opportunity to be lost. It will be massive loss for my beloved Punjabi language -- as alss for the whole mankind. I don't know what I should do to help him to move to the next level now, but there are many who can help. Surjit Patar, for example. Patar is a gem both as a poet and as a human being. he is certain to love Harman. I am already having visions of Harman sitting at Patar's home, learning at his feet. Anyone else who takes pride in Punjabi language should also come forward to do his bit. Harman is a rare diamond that Punjabi language and mankind has stumbled upon. We owe it to posterity to value it. And those who can refine it should deem it their religion to do that.

what is there in a name? especially if it is Floccinaucinihilipilification

2011-11-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

As a teacher, I kept telling my students that words are neither simple nor difficult ; they are appropriate or inappropriate.

What is there in a name. A rose by anTy other name would smell just as sweet but chrysthamum by any oher name would be a lot easier to spell. But not if that name is Floccinaucinihilipilification, a word that was the cause of much mirth in our student days. The word means the act of deeming and describing something something as completely value-less. Its verb form, flo-ccinau-cini-hil- ipili-ficate " was actually used by some writers but only to make fun of the word. As for its etymology, the term flocci means a wooly tuft , and has a Latin origin. Pili is from 'pilius, meaning 'hair' but figuratively meaning insiginficant. The third part nihil" is more common in English and it means nothing. We see it in words like " annihilate ( to reduce to nothing) or nihilism ( the philisophy of destructrion) or nihilist, one who believes in such destructive philosophy. Fication was a later addition just to increase its linguistic acceptability. The word together means.. " nothing. and of little significance and useless and trifle -- obviously repetitive in concept and expression. So the word is used more in fun than seriously these days. ...Funnily, this is not the longest word in the English language. That "honour" belongs to "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" (( I am not sure if I got that right. And I am glad that our politicians have not heard of it. Otherwise their speeches would last days rather than hours. And would be many times more incomprehensible. ....And I would certainly not tell my students to even touch these words with a barge-pole. In any case, my students had trouble spelling even a simple word like "together", which they kept writing as " togather", till I told them that the word should be written as " to -- get - her". After that the boys at least never mis-spelt it.

unused fragment from a punjabi poem

2011-11-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

ਇਕ ਚੋਲਾ ਰਤੜਾ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਦਾ , ਤੂ ਪਾ ਕੇ ਚਲ ਬਜ਼ਾਰ

ਦੋ ਮੁੰਦਰਾਂ ਪ੍ਰੀਤ ਸ੍ਨ੍ਯੋਈਆਂ ਤੇਰੇ ਕੰਨਾਂ ਦਾ ਸ਼ਿੰਗਾਰ

ਆ ਪੰਥ ਚਲਾਈਏ ਜਗਤ ਵਿੱਚ , ਇੱਕ ਤਾਜ਼ਾ ਅਤੇ ਤਰੀਨ

2011-11-19T10:50:00.001-08:00

ਮੈਨੂੰ ਕੁਦਰਤ ਨੇ ਹੀ ਬਖਸ਼ 'ਤੀ , ਸੀ ਇੱਕ ਅੱਖ ਰੰਗੀਨ /

ਚੋਲਾ ਸੱਤ ਰੰਗਾ ਪੀਂਘ ਜਿਓਂ , ਕੋਈ ਝੂਟੇ ਸਾਉਣ ਮਹੀਨ /

ਓਹਨੂੰ ਪਹਿਨ ਪਹਿਨ ਨਹੀਂ ਰੱਜਦਾ , ਦਿਲ ਡਾਢਾ ਮੇਰਾ ਸ਼ੌਕੀਨ /

ਹੈ ਇਸ਼ਕੇ ਦਾ ਰੰਗ ਚਾੜ੍ਹਿਆ , ਅਸੀਂ ਸਾਹਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਪਰਵੀਨ /

ਘਿਰੀ ਰੰਗ ਰੰਗੀਲੇ ਚਿਹਰਿਆਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਧਰਤੀ ਅੱਜ ਹਸੀਨ /

ਆ ਤੂੰ ਵੀ ਸਾਨੂੰ ਬਖਸ਼ ਦੇ ਕੋਈ ਆਪਣਾ ਰੰਗ ਨਵੀਨ /

ਜਾ ਨਾਨਕ ਦੇ ਮੇਚ ਦੀ ਕੋਈ ਰੰਗਲੀ ਅਕਲ ਬੀਨ /

ਜੀਹਨੂੰ ਸੁਣ ਕੇ ਸ਼ੇਹਿਨਸ਼ਾਹ ਵੀ ਚੱਕ ਲਏ ਆਸ਼ਿਕ਼ੀ ਬੀਨ /

ਸਾਹਾਂ ਦੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਘੋਲ ਕੇ ਕੋਈ ਬ੍ਰਿੰਦਾਵਨ ਹਸੀਨ /

ਬੁੱਲ੍ਹਾਂ 'ਤੇ ਰੱਖ ਵੰਝਲੀ ਜਾਂ ਜੋਗੀ ਦੀ ਬੀਨ /

ਤੇ ਚੱਲ ਪਏ ਤਖ਼ਤ ਹਜ਼ਾਰਿਓਂ ਇੱਕ ਨਵਾਂ ਇਲਾਹੀ ਦੀਨ /

ਹਰ ਗਾਜ਼ੀ ਗੋਹਰ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਦਾ , ਮਾਸ਼ੂਕਾ ਹਰ ਨਗੀਨ /

ਆ ਪੰਥ ਚਲਾਈਏ ਜਗਤ ਵਿੱਚ , ਇੱਕ ਤਾਜ਼ਾ ਅਤੇ ਤਰੀਨ /

ਆਗਿਆ ਲੈ ਅਕਾਲ ਤੋਂ , ਇਹਦਾ ਪਰਚਮ ਰੰਗ ਰੰਗੀਨ /

ਰੰਗ ਹੋਵੇ ਹਰ ਇੱਕ ਚਸ਼ਮ ਦਾ , ਜੇ ਐਸਾ ਮਸਤ ਹਸੀਨ /

ਤਾਂ ਹਰ ਦਿਨ ਹੋਵੇ ਰੰਗਲਾ , ਹਰ ਰਾਤ ਹੋਵੇ ਰੰਗੀਨ /

ਇੱਕ ਦੂਰ ਰਬਾਬ ਪਈ ਵੱਜਦੀ , ਕੋਈ ਗਾਉਂਦਾ ਆਸ਼ਿਕ ਪੀਰ /

ਓਹਦੀ ਅੱਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਮਦਮਸਤੀ , ਤੈਨੂੰ 'ਵਾਜਾਂ ਮਾਰੇ ਹੀਰ /

ਓਹਦੇ ਨੈਣੀਂ ਸਰਵਰ ਤੈਰਦੇ , ਤੂੰ ਸੋਹਣੀਏ ਬੰਨ੍ਹ ਲੈ ਧੀਰ /

ਓਹਦੇ ਅੱਖ ਦੀ ਕਿਰਨ ਹੈ ਸਾਹਿਬਾ , ਮਿਰਜ਼ੇ ਦਾ ਅੰਬਰੀਂ ਤੀਰ /

ਤੂੰ ਕਮਲੀ ਬਣ 'ਜਾ ਓਸਦੀ , ਅੱਜ ਹੋ ਕੇ ਬੇਪਰਵਾਹ /

ਫਿਰ ਏਕ ਓਂਕਾਰੀ ਅੱਖ ਨਾਲ ਤੂੰ ਝਲਕ ਰਾਂਝਣ ਦੀ ਪਾ /

ਹੇ ਨੂਰਾਂ, ਹੇ ਧਰਤੀ ਜਾਈ , ਭਰ ਜੋਬਨ ਮੁਟਿਆਰ /

ਹੇ ਅੰਬਰੀਨਾ, ਗਗਨ ਪਰੀ, ਹੇ ਹੰਸਾਂ ਦੀ ਡਾਰ /

ਹੇ ਮਾਂ ਦੇ ਸੀਨੇ ਦੀ ਧੜਕਨ , ਹੇ ਇਸ਼ਕੇ ਦੀ ਤਾਰ /

ਹੇ ਬਾਬੇ ਦੀ ਬਾਣੀ ਦੀ ਰੂਹ, ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਦੀ ਤਲਵਾਰ /

ਸੰਖ ਨਾਦ ਕਾਂਸੀ ਮਥੁਰਾ ਦਾ , ਕਾਬੇ ਦੀ ਕੋਈ ਅਜ਼ਾਨ /

ਪਰਬਤ ਤੇ ਉਪਦੇਸ਼ ਉਚਰਿਆ , ਜਾਂ ਗੀਤਾ ਦਾ ਗਿਆਨ /

ਜ਼ਹਿਰ ਪਿਆਲੇ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਵਗਦਾ ਇਸ਼ਕੇ ਦਾ ਪ੍ਰਵਾਹ /

ਜੀਹਨੂੰ ਪੀ ਕੇ ਨੂਰਾਂ ਸੋਹਣੀਏ , ਤੂੰ ਹੋ ਜਾ ਬੇ-ਪ੍ਰਵਾਹ /

ਸੋ ਰੰਗਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਡੁੱਬ ਕੇ ਇਕ ਨਵਾਂ ਰੰਗ ਬਣ ਜਾ /

ਕੋਈ ਨਵਾਂ ਸੰਖ ਬਣ ਜਾ , ਕੋਈ ਨਵਾਂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਬਣ ਜਾ /

Only one way to convince a girl: agree with her

2011-11-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

I know of one way to convince every girl or woman that she is wrong: agree with her quickly. There is only one other way that works quicker: telling her, "The woman next door thinks exactly like you do."

Equality is the insignia of the grave yard

2011-11-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

Once dead, we are all equal. Equality is the insignia of the grave yard.

Romance of death versus death wish

2011-11-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

Death is a subject most dear to those who are most in love with life. Not because they are afraid of death but because they are fascinated by it and regard it as a part of life. Those who fear death or wish for it to disappear will never drink at the sumptuous springs of life. And they are even unfair to life. There is a romance about death, a mystery, a wonderment that it inspires like nothing does, investing life with a glow it would otherwise never have.All the urgency about life, all the intensity it packs into each moment we experience, all the attachment to things we value-- all these draw their life from the presence of death at the end of it all. Life would really be such a drab, uninteresting and meaningless tale if death did not force us to treasure the beauty in each of the moments before it. There is no better way to understand this than the thought of what one would like to do if one knew that one had only, say, three days left to go. This is not an invitation to a life-long obsession with death or, worse, to its glorification. On the contrary.This is an open plea for more and more of life, and more value for that more of life. Never fall in love with death, but use it to challenge yourself to live more fully, more meaningfully and more joyfully. Never , never fall in love with death. The refusal to recognsie the beauty of life, the refusal to dream the dreams even knowing them to be dreams only, the tendency to wallow in chronic despair and cynicism --all these are the evidence of our love for death. The popularity of cynicism as an intellectual fashion is evidence not of our love for life but of our morbid and compulsive indulgence in a pathetic and sickly death-wish.

2011-11-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

By MONA SIMPSON

Published: October 30, 2011 (NYT)

REPRINTS

I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I’d met my father, I tried to believe he’d changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.

Opinion: The Genius of Jobs(October 30, 2011)

Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.

By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.

When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.

We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don’t remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I’d pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.

I didn’t know much about computers. I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.

I told Steve I’d recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.

Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.

I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.

Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.

That’s incredibly simple, but true.

He was the opposite of absent-minded.

He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn’t have to be.

When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited.

He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.

Novelty was not Steve’s highest value. Beauty was.

For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.

He didn’t favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.

His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”

Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.

He was willing to be misunderstood.

Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.

Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him.

Whenever he saw a man he thought a woman might find dashing, he called out, “Hey are you single? Do you wanna come to dinner with my sister?”

I remember when he phoned the day he met Laurene. “There’s this beautiful woman and she’s really smart and she has this dog and I’m going to marry her.”

When Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa’s boyfriends and Erin’s travel and skirt lengths and Eve’s safety around the horses she adored.

None of us who attended Reed’s graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing.

His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic. I try to learn from that, still.

Steve had been successful at a young age, and he felt that had isolated him. Most of the choices he made from the time I knew him were designed to dissolve the walls around him. A middle-class boy from Los Altos, he fell in love with a middle-class girl from New Jersey. It was important to both of them to raise Lisa, Reed, Erin and Eve as grounded, normal children. Their house didn’t intimidate with art or polish; in fact, for many of the first years I knew Steve and Lo together, dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.

Even as a young millionaire, Steve always picked me up at the airport. He’d be standing there in his jeans.

When a family member called him at work, his secretary Linetta answered, “Your dad’s in a meeting. Would you like me to interrupt him?”

When Reed insisted on dressing up as a witch every Halloween, Steve, Laurene, Erin and Eve all went wiccan.

They once embarked on a kitchen remodel; it took years. They cooked on a hotplate in the garage. The Pixar building, under construction during the same period, finished in half the time. And that was it for the Palo Alto house. The bathrooms stayed old. But — and this was a crucial distinction — it had been a great house to start with; Steve saw to that.

This is not to say that he didn’t enjoy his success: he enjoyed his success a lot, just minus a few zeros. He told me how much he loved going to the Palo Alto bike store and gleefully realizing he could afford to buy the best bike there.

And he did.

Steve was humble. Steve liked to keep learning.

Once, he told me if he’d grown up differently, he might have become a mathematician. He spoke reverently about colleges and loved walking around the Stanford campus. In the last year of his life, he studied a book of paintings by Mark Rothko, an artist he hadn’t known about before, thinking of what could inspire people on the walls of a future Apple campus.

Steve cultivated whimsy. What other C.E.O. knows the history of English and Chinese tea roses and has a favorite David Austin rose?

He had surprises tucked in all his pockets. I’ll venture that Laurene will discover treats — songs he loved, a poem he cut out and put in a drawer — even after 20 years of an exceptionally close marriage. I spoke to him every other day or so, but when I opened The New York Times and saw a feature on the company’s patents, I was still surprised and delighted to see a sketch for a perfect staircase.

With his four children, with his wife, with all of us, Steve had a lot of fun.

He treasured happiness.

Then, Steve became ill and we watched his life compress into a smaller circle. Once, he’d loved walking through Paris. He’d discovered a small handmade soba shop in Kyoto. He downhill skied gracefully. He cross-country skied clumsily. No more.

Eventually, even ordinary pleasures, like a good peach, no longer appealed to him.

Yet, what amazed me, and what I learned from his illness, was how much was still left after so much had been taken away.

I remember my brother learning to walk again, with a chair. After his liver transplant, once a day he would get up on legs that seemed too thin to bear him, arms pitched to the chair back. He’d push that chair down the Memphis hospital corridor towards the nursing station and then he’d sit down on the chair, rest, turn around and walk back again. He counted his steps and, each day, pressed a little farther.

Laurene got down on her knees and looked into his eyes.

“You can do this, Steve,” she said. His eyes widened. His lips pressed into each other.

He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man.

I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself. He set destinations: his son Reed’s graduation from high school, his daughter Erin’s trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.

Even ill, his taste, his discrimination and his judgment held. He went through 67 nurses before finding kindred spirits and then he completely trusted the three who stayed with him to the end. Tracy. Arturo. Elham.

One time when Steve had contracted a tenacious pneumonia his doctor forbid everything — even ice. We were in a standard I.C.U. unit. Steve, who generally disliked cutting in line or dropping his own name, confessed that this once, he’d like to be treated a little specially.

I told him: Steve, this is special treatment.

He leaned over to me, and said: “I want it to be a little more special.”

Intubated, when he couldn’t talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed. He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face.

For the really big, big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on his sketchpad. He looked up. You have to.

By that, he meant that we should disobey the doctors and give him a piece of ice.

None of us knows for certain how long we’ll be here. On Steve’s better days, even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them. Some boat builders in the Netherlands have a gorgeous stainless steel hull ready to be covered with the finishing wood. His three daughters remain unmarried, his two youngest still girls, and he’d wanted to walk them down the aisle as he’d walked me the day of my wedding.

We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I suppose it’s not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve’s death was unexpected for us.

What I learned from my brother’s death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died.

Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us.

He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, “Wait. I’m coming. I’m in a taxi to the airport. I’ll be there.”

“I’m telling you now because I’m afraid you won’t make it on time, honey.”

When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who’d lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze.

Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple.

Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us.

His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.

This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.

Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night.

He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again.

This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.

He seemed to be climbing.

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

Mona Simpson is a novelist and a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. She delivered this eulogy for her brother, Steve Jobs, on Oct. 16 at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University.