The coexistence of Conflicting opposites

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

The term Contradiction is not something of a rarity in the Universe. The way Universe has come to be, as far as our understanding spans, is a consequence of conflicting opposites, coexisting at every instant of, all the time that has passed; Let us for example consider the naturally occurring,
Nuclear Fusion vs Nuclear Fission.

Avoiding the debate of the Big Bang and the subsequent immediate speculations, allow me to start from The virtually eternal hydrogen cloud that there was: Simplistically put, Fission produces sufficient energy to trigger Fusion. Then Fusion has/is converting the hydrogen to become all the elements known to us today. Fission and Fusion are conflicting opposites -One breaks, while the other makes. But, both together struggle and coexist, synthesizing all that is we are and we see today across the Universe.

If analysed thoroughly, there is for everything that exists: A thesis and an antithesis. The sedimentation of existence is the Synthesis of the conflicting Thesis and anti-thesis.

Let us consider further such ubiquitous, universally true and coexisting but conflicting opposites depicted in the graphic below.

And at personal levels, each and every decision we take at every instant of our lives is a synthesis of choosing between two coexisting choices. At this instant, I am faced with the choice of either continuing this argument or to Stop.
The synthesis of this dilemma is for you to see, as I complete this post.

The concept of the coexistence of conflicting opposites is something that can be observed ubiquitously, and scrutinized thoroughly at every walk of our lives, and every interaction in the Universe.

There perpetuates an infinite struggle between the coexisting opposites (thesis and anti-thesis) to leave behind sediments (synthesis), which might appear as cognizance, impact, logic or change to us.

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Resuscitate the dying Democracy!

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

First the facts:

At the Centre:

  •  The 2G spectrum licensing scam by the Telecom Minister amounting to 1,73,000 crore rupees! An unrelenting and defiant minister playing his dirty politics tricks in the safe haven of coalition government.
  • Common Wealth Games embezzlement, nepotism and other corruptions which cost the mediocre infrastructure for the games a whooping 70,000 crore rupees. This scam seems to be at the verge of oblivion, for there have been newer, bigger and better scams surfacing up, for the media to chew on.
  •  As a crowning notoriety to all the scams hitherto, comes the Adarsh Housing Society scam, where the land alloted for the widows and family members of war martyrs has been grabbed by the influentials, to convert it into a posh apartment with flats for all the accomplices. What a shame!

In Karnataka, here:

  •  The never ending saga of the horse-trade of MLA’s;  An over-expanding cabinet where the ruling party is at the fix of handing out minister posts to all their legislators!
  •  The false majority at the Legislative Houses, which has been successfully manipulated by luring and enticing the legislators with the raw power of money!
  • Another mega-scam at the verge of oblivion – The Illegal Mining Mafia ( remember the tussle between Lokayukta vs the State Govt.?) Studies show that this scam has cost the state of Karnataka nothing less than 23,000 crore rupees!

With a discomfortingly revelatory prologue such as this, and with the facts about the deep rooted corruption plaguing everywhere, there is a strong requirement for all the responsible and sensible citizens to take a call and cleanse this sickening, parasitic trend of politics, which is eating into the country, feeding on its people, ultimately nullifying the revered ideology of Democracy-By,Of and For the People!

I apprehend, if there is any hope at all for the citizens to expect anything for their good in this rotten system! Corruption has come to be a mandatory prerequisite to become a politician, and in the real sense of it.
Is there a chance that these leaders could give any heed to the real and basic needs of people?
They are super busy spending all their time and all our resources either in filling their personal treasuries, or saving their arses from the fire behind them!

Political morality, if there is anything like it, has to be inculcated/reinvigorated in this chaotic system filled with corrupt highfalutins. This sorry state of the state and the country, with the not-so sorry politicians making people feel sorry by the day has to be rectified.

People have to regain their conviction: They must demand and work towards resurrecting the miserably failing ideology of democracy here in India – The world’s largest Democracy!

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Miracles, we are

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu
There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle
-The genius of Albert Einstein
I do realize this is a clichéd quote, but, how many of us have really got to feel the essence of this statement? 
Haven’t we all started living the first way, with no awe and admiration for all the small, little, important things in life?
If you ask me, I’d stick to the latter ideology. 
Everything is a Miracle!
Forever, until this moment, the simplicity and the grandeur; the scale and the variety; the comprehension and the obscurity; the beauty and the serenity, pertaining to each and every, small and big creation and manifestation of Nature, coupled with the interaction and interference of us humans has kept me at the zenith of awe and admiration, or at least I hope to be there soon. 
Every simple facet of existence exhibited by Mother Nature and Father Time is attributable to nothing less than miracles.Without digressing into the obvious miracles, like the vastness and eternity of the Universe, or the existence of life on the Earth, let us unleash the subtle ones. 
Personally, The Clouds still remain the most fascinating and intriguing manifestation of the exact quality we are discussing about. I can never stop wondering about the indefinite patterns spread over the blue canvas of the sky. This is just one of the marvels, which despite the science, logic and reasoning gives a kind of incomprehensible bliss to the other marvelous existence in the Universe, i.e.,Our Minds, projected by the NNN-Natural Neural Networks headed by the Human Brain. 
Although the brain is what is prompting me to jot this down, I do not think it is a narcissist, for, it promptly attributes these qualities not to itself but the culmination of millions of years of trillions of small changes as directed by Time. 
The boundless imagination, the seamless creativity, the never depleting resource of thoughts and ideas, the vivid world visualized within the mind are the things which we seldom stop to savor and be awed with. 
So near, yet so far…
Often, if not always, it is imperative we stop and look at everything around, including ourselves and recognize the miracles that we have come to be, and celebrate in the spirit of Nature by trying to emulate her with a polite mimicking of her manifestations. 
Imagine, Ideate and Create:-)
Wonder, Awe and Admiration will keep us inspired to do more than what our un-instigated mind would usually want to.
As a final thought, isn’t it marvelous that the scattered and scrambled thoughts emanating from my mind have been communicated to you, and that my mind has just now touched yours?
Miracle, it is:Miracles, we are;
PS: imagine, ideate and create
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The Liberation Triad

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Music does convey all emotions in the most efficient way. But, as a listener I have until now been dependent on music instruments coupled with vocals to enjoy the tracks, irrespective of the artist or the genre.

Instrumentals haven’t been the most appealing pieces of music in terms of emotional conveyance to me, as is the case for a lot of audience. There have been a few extraordinary pieces of music which would stick to my mind and linger forever, such as the Bombay Theme by A R Rahman.

Now again, one other masterpiece by A R Rahman for 127 Hours is on the verge of becoming one such musical mind-block. With my amateur guitar experience, I seem to connect with this piece of music very well.

Liberation triad from the Danny Boyle movie by A R Rahman is one of his recently composed defining pieces of music. With “Liberation Begins“, “Liberation in a dream” and the crescendo “Liberation“, he transcends into different levels of emotions progressively and hits the right chords, stimulating all the emotions as intended. When these three tracks are listened sequentially until the crescendo,they manifest the increasing power of each guitar chord being played.

Yet again, I am being taken into the deeper realms of music by A R Rahman 🙂

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Festivals, to the ones like me ;-)

Posted on November 4, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu
What could be better than a day’s off from work, substituted by relaxing at home, with lots to eat and feast on, while watching some special TV, apart from the warmth of the togetherness, with the added amusement provided by the skeptical participation in prayers and rituals?
A friend had raised a question if rationalists and atheists should be celebrating festivals at all!
And, as I am privileged enough to be a novice of both these elite classes (ignore the jargons;), I strongly feel even rationalism and atheism cannot prevent one from getting together with family and friends, to eat and celebrate the togetherness. That is what any Festival is meant to be, more than emulating any ancient traditions which make little sense in the contemporary world.
As I intend to keep this post positive as a whole, I shall save the critique on the customs and traditions of all religions for elaborations in future posts. 
So, ‘Festivals minus Rituals’ is a must have for everybody to feel the power of celebration in the spirit of life, to increase joy, happiness and to savor the periodic special days.



With Deepavali/Diwali at the horizon, let this Festival of Lights,
enlighten the minds of people, fill it with sparkling ideas, blasting off prejudices and ignorance. Hope there is lesser pollution this time, as the trend has been off late.

Happy Eco and Future friendly Deepavali

ದೀಪಾವಳಿ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಹಾರ್ದಿಕ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು

दीपावली त्यौहार   के शुभकामनाएं

தீபாவளி பண்டிகையின் மனமார்ந்த வாழுத்துக்கள் 

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ಕನ್ನಡ, kannada :-)

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

I would have wanted to write this post entirely in Kannada, to symbolize Kannada Raajyotsava. But, I wanted to mention some interesting facts about Kannada, which I wanted the non-Kannadigas to know as well. More than the non-Kannadigas, there is an urgent necessity for the Kanndigas themselves to refresh some facts such as these, and reclaim the pride in the language and heritage, which seems to be depleting these days.

  1. Kannada language has a script known as the ‘Brahmi Script’. It comprises of 35 consonants and 14 vowels. Each written symbol in the Kannada script corresponds with one syllable, as opposed to one phoneme in languages like English.
  2. All Indian languages are phonetic when compared to other world languages. And, Kannada is the most phonetic amongst these. Both spoken Kannada and the script comprise of all the syllables. With its 49 characters Kannada is the most phonetic language in India able to produce vocal sounds of all forms used for communication.
  3. Kannada is one of the oldest languages in the world still in use. In India, with the exception of Tamil and Telugu, there is no other language older than Kannada in use. The Halmidi inscriptions date back to 450 AD, whereas the oldest existing literary work in Kannada- Kaviraajamarga (The name means literally “Royal Path for Poets” and was used as a guide book for poets and scholars) by King Nrupathunga dates back to 850 AD.
  4. English has absorbed some bit of Kannada. For example, the word ‘Market’. Etymology experts attribute this word to have been derived from the Latin word ‘mercatus(buying and selling)’,but, we cannot ignore that in Kannada “Maarukatte” means precisely what the word market stands for.
  5. Kannada script is also used by two other languages spoken in Karnataka -Tulu and Konkani. Kannada and Telugu share almost an identical script.

The rest will be in Kannada 🙂

ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವಕ್ಕೆ ಹೇಳಬೇಕಾದ ಸಂಗತಿಯನ್ನು ಆಂಗ್ಲದಲ್ಲೇ ಹೇಳಿಬಿಟ್ಟೆ. .ಈಗ ನಮ್ಮ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯದ ಇಬ್ಬರು ಮುಖ್ಯ ವಚನಕಾರರ, ನನಗೆ ಹಿಡಿಸಿದೆ ಒಂದೆರಡು ವಚನವನ್ನು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ನೆನಪಿಸುತ್ತಿದೇನೆ.
ಸರ್ವಜ್ಞ :

ನಿತ್ಯ ನೇಮಗಳೇಕೆ | ಮತ್ತೆ ಪೂಜೆಗಳೇಕೆ ?
ನೆತ್ತಿ ಬೋಳೇಕೆ? | ಜಡೆ ಏಕೆ ಮನದಲಿ 
ಸತ್ಯವುಳ್ಳವನಿಗೆ ಸರ್ವಜ್ಞ ||


ಗುರು ಇಲ್ಲದ ಮಠವು| ಹಿರಿಯರಿಲ್ಲದ ಮನೆಯು |
ಅರಸರಿಲ್ಲದೂರು ಇವು ಮೂವರು ನುಲಿಹರಿದ |
ಹೊರೆಸಿನಂತಕ್ಕು ಸರ್ವಜ್ಞ ||


ಬಸವಣ್ಣ :

 


ನಿಮಿಷದ ನಿಮಿಷಂ ಬೋ, ಕ್ಷಣದೊಳಗರ್ಥಂ ಬೋ !
ಕಣ್ಣು ಮುಚ್ಚಿ ಬಿಚ್ಚುವೈಸುಬೇಗಂ ಬೋ :
ಸಂಸಾರದಾಗುಂ ಬೋ ! ಸಂಸಾರದ ಹೋಗುಂ ಬೋ !
ಸಂಸಾರದೊಪ್ಪಂ ಬೋ !
ಕೂಡಲ ಸಂಗಮದೇವಾ,
ನೀ ಮಾಡಿದ ಮಾಯೆಯೇಂ ಬೋ, ಅಭ್ರಚ್ಚ್ಹಾ ಯೇಂ ಬೋ !

ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವದ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು… 🙂
The Halmidi scripture
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Let’s talk Irony

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

We grow up amongst people who never grew up;
We learn to study, but never study to learn;
We pretend to be someone else, even to a mirror;
We seek freedom, but get bound by the same;
We talk, talk, and only talk;
We call out an ‘A’, while meaning it to be ‘Z’;
We can do, but we wouldn’t do;
We pursue the next, without holding onto the first;
We work hard, but are ever lazy to think;
We greatly value things, but all done wrongly;
We want the one, but ask for the other;
We love this other, while seeking some other;
We believe in the unknown, without trying to know our own;
We pray, but forget to back it up with efforts;
We know we’re wrong, but would still go on to fight against the right;
We call it to have lived, whereas what it is is mere survival;
We call all of this irony, while these are simply true facts;

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The Definitely Detached Diaspora

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Urban life these days has turned out to be a haven for all of us, who are deeply engrossed in our own hectic schedules and overtime slogging at work, with almost zero concern towards all the other crucial proceedings in the society.

When I say the other crucial proceedings, I do not point at that the ‘Breaking News’ of the urban paparazzi; But, about the section of population that is beyond the margin of the elite vision, or the press and media, in the words of P.Sainath. I mean the real lot of people who are below all possible lines the elite could describe including the Poverty line.

The present state of our personal well being, as individuals is mostly a matter of chance – Circumstantially favored to have born in our families and in the amicable conditions of society that we are in. Imagine yourself in one rural corner of India, or in a tribe on a remote forest edge; I bet it would have taken a couple of lifetimes to struggle and reach the state we are in, in an upstream struggle also against the perfectly imperfect system.

When we do visualize scenarios such as these, it becomes important to place ourselves in these frames of reference and choose the roles we would want to play – Whether we would want to aggravate or neutralize the growing discontent and disparity.

We are that small diaspora of Indians who have had decent education, other basic and not so basic facilities at our disposal. Happy as we are in this kind of a secluded ambiance, it is also of prime importance that we should be the ones who will work and make the society grow even. We have the tools at our disposal- education, cognizance and a human network waiting to be used. These are the tools,which we can use with a little added effort and increased consciousness to bring some change in the conditions of the sections we have secluded ourselves from.

We have our excuses of being exhaustively utilized at our jobs and careers; And that is what the system wants you to do, so that you do not interfere with the flowing mechanisms of exploitations it has ployed around you, using you as a collaborator. By breaking out of the carapace of this seclusion, we can do small wonders if not major changes in the society as it is today.

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Instincts vs Inhibitions

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

We can consciously ignore the fact that, there is still a lot of suppressed carnal instincts in us humans which have been, and will remain unquenched, or, we can deny it altogether under the mask of civilization.

By carnal instincts I refer to all the traits which are natural to the human beings, and of all of which only a few are openly given sanctity in the society, and by the society. The rest are suppressed as much as possible by placing the heavy weight of prejudices and superficial morality practiced by the society as a whole.

The constant and ubiquitous suppression of the natural human instincts, subsequently culminate to become a strong negative force from within the individual, increasing the animosity between the self and the rest of the world. When such is the case with respect to each of the individual, who is part of the society as a whole, the entire synergy between the two is lost.

At this verge, the individual and the society are facing each other in a diametrically opposite perception levels.

In almost every encounter of this kind the Individual has succumbed to the mounting pressure from the rest of all, and is subdued to live in an Inhibited state, without the gratification of having lived the way he/she wanted to!

But, there have been a few rare humans, who have stood up and against the system to claim that which the rest of the society has become consciously oblivious about. And when we do find such rarities we tend to disparage their worth and claim our cowardice to be superior than theirs.

In this struggle between the Real humans and the Pseudo humans, the pseudoers are left inexplicable and unattended, as the tribe of the Real heroes go surpassing in their journey, which is beyond the realms of comprehension of all the rest who are left behind….

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Let’s Talk Ideas

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

The title of this post emanated out of my Sunday’s activities, throughout the day. I’ve been talking and doing the talking of the kind one yearns for – profound, true, motivating, sweet, sensible and balanced with a tinge of responsibility.

Now, let me assure you, this has of course become a rarity these days: Conversations which make sense, and which convey something at the end of it ?
Not very often you hear about such rarities.
What we do get to hear is bundles of blabber, futility of monologues and noisy rumblings, in the 4-D Universe!

It is of utmost import for a sensible mind to have a decently sensible talk once a while, if not always. The quality of the conversations have dipped to the lowest ebbs, with most of it concentrating on the rest of the irrelevant topics of the world, than the important ones concerning the self.

Talking ideas: Or popularly Brainstorming is that one ecstatic exercise each of us should undergo to rejuvenate our perceptions and the agility of the mind. Unfortunate that, this isn’t a culture anymore amongst the lot many of us.  But, I have consciously perpetuated an exclusive set of like minded individuals with whom I can have two levels of brainstorming, in a symbiotic manner.

Firstly, the one where it is more of a barter trade of ideas, where we share and grow ideas; Improvise on the perceptions each has come to arrive at and churn sense out of it.
Secondly, a more selfish level, where each of us has already frozen on the framework of ideas, but is seeking refinement of the same by interaction.

One of the best things of being the Homo sapiens we are: Thinking and communication; the latter of these essentials has become scant, but not as much in scant as the former itself !

PS: If you aren’t a part of the elite club I’ve mentioned about, and would want to be a part of it, contact me offline and convince me 😉

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