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.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Politics is to me what war is to a soldier
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.
Piety above motherhood
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.
It isn't my business, or is it?
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.
Friday, December 23, 2011
A PRAYER FROM THE WARRIOR AHEAD OF POLL BATTLES IN PUNJAB
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.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
When those who don't understand you agree with you
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
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
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
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 .......
Saturday, November 19, 2011
On a day like this...
" 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"......
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