Jayaprakash Narayan's Open Letter to Indira Gandhi

Searching through internet on various issue, I came across Jayaprakash Narayan's open letter to Indira Gandhi during the thick of Total Revolution Movement and the Emergency.

Link
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Excerpts-

I have pondered over this riddle: Why did not those (Congress-led state) govern-ments act wisely? The conclusion I have arrived at is that the main hurdle has been corruption. Some-how the governments have been unable to deal with corruption in their ranks, particularly at the top level – the ministerial level itself. The corruption has been the central point of the movement, particularly corruption in the government and the administration.


No one has done more to lower the position and prestige of that great office than yourself. Can you ever think of the Prime Minister of a democratic country who cannot even vote in his Parliament because he has been found guilty of corrupt electoral practices?


a party of self-seekers and spineless opportunists and “jee-huzurs” such as the Congress, alas, has become, can never do anything worthwhile.


Please, do not destroy the foundations that the Father of the Nation, including your noble father, had laid down. There is nothing but strife and suffering along the path that you have taken. You inherited a great tradition, noble values and a working democracy. Do not leave behind a miserable wreck of all that. It would take a long time to put all that together again.

जो भी बुरा भला है...

जो भी बुरा भला है... अल्लाह जानता है

बन्दे के दिल में क्या है... अल्लाह जानता है

किस्मत के नाम को तो... सब जानते हैं लेकिन

किस्मत में क्या लिखा है... अल्लाह जानता है

नेकी- बदी को अपनी... कितना भी तू छिपाए

अल्लाह को पता है... अल्लाह जानता है

(नेकी- बदी: goodness and evil)

- These are few lines I like very much from a Jagjeet Singh ghazal, from his album Sajda.

P.S.: This link gives the whole ghazal.

CVV No. and Credit Card Security

You are safe till your CVV number falls in the wrong hands. The police have stumbled on a credit card racket in which CVV numbers have been misused.

When the customer gives the card for swiping, the card number comes in the receipt with other details. All the person swiping the card has to remember is the CVV number. In restaurants, there's even enough time to note it down, along with other details like validity period.

Click here to read the report

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Remember to do the following with your Credit card Information:

1. Scratch out to invisibility the CVV number from the credit card. There's absolutely no need to keep the CVV no. on the card. Keep it in your memory, diary or mobile.

2. Don't write the credit card no. and the CVV number at one place.

3. Apply for the password for online usage for your credit card, the extra security measure.

Education

"The primary purpose of a school is to guide the child in her discovery of herself and her world, and to identify and nurture the child’s talents. Just as every seed contains the future tree, each child is born with infinite potential. Imagine a school which sees children as seeds to be nurtured – here the teacher is a gardener who helps to bring out the potential already present in the child. This is very different from the current view which sees the child as clay to be moulded – where the teacher and parents are potters deciding what shape the clay should take. There is an old (and forgotten) Chinese saying, “Give a seed to a potter, and you will get a bonsai.”

-Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, in a Times of India article on Education.

Two Sufi Poems

Peak experiences make a man healthy and only a healthy man can have peak experience. Peak experiences are profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, when a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient and yet a part of the world, more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and so o. Self-actualizing people have many such peak experiences. Not only are these his happiest and most thrilling moments, but they are also moments of greatest maturity, individuation, fulfilment - in a word, his healthiest moments. He becomes in these episodes more truly himself, more perfectly actualizing his potentialities, closer to the core of his Being, more fully human.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write. If these needs are not met, the person feels restlessness, on edge, tense, and lacking something. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization. After self actualisation comes transcendence which is to help others find self fulfilment and realize their potential.

-Abraham Maslow.

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The words in the first paragraph above beautifully, though yet not fully, describe the state of the poet in two sufi poems by two great sufi poets, Bulla ki jana main kaun by Bulle Shah, and Naiharwa by Kabeer. These two poems are written in a state of peak-experience, and actually try to describe the state of the poet.

Sufi poetry is surely filled with many more such gems, but these two poems I would say are two of the best of those few I have read till date.

Both these have been sung in recent past by Rabbi and Kailash Kher resp.

घर से बहुत दूर है मस्जिद

घर से बहुत दूर है मस्जिद, चलो यूँ कर लें

किसी रोते हुए बच्चे को हँसाया जाए...

- निदा फाज़ली

निदा फाज़ली साहब जब पाकिस्तान गए और एक मुशायरे में ये शेर पढ़ा तो बकौल उनके "मुशायरा ख़त्म होने के बाद कुछ लम्बी लम्बी दाढियाँ मेरे पास आयीं और घेर कर बोलीं कि आप कहना क्या चाहते हैं... क्या बच्चा मस्जिद से बड़ा हो गया ? मैं बोला कि मुझे ये तो नहीं पता कि मस्जिद बड़ी है या बच्चा, पर इतना ज़रूर जानता हूँ कि मस्जिद को इंसान के हाथों ने बनाया है, और बच्चे को अल्लाह के !"

Unison of minds

He was raised in poetry, and Sufi and classic music. And that’s precisely the reason, he shares “a great rapport with” the likes of Aamir Khan and A.R. Rahman. “When we are together, we don’t discuss the songs of their next film but share our spiritual knowledge, and talk of sur and sangeet, generally.


-From an interview of Prasoon Joshi, a lyricist, poet and adman.

Living a Simple Life

Liked this article sent by a friend, Nitin Varshney...

Heading the other Way - USHA JESUDASAN


Living a simple life like this is not easy. It will not eliminate the complexity of our modern life to which we are all bound to some extent. But if we try, what it will do, is to allow us to live in harmony with all the complexities around us, so that we do not feel fragmented and soulless.

-From the article.

Paintings

A link that has excellent paintings... what I call true art... compared to the paintings of some other 'renowned' artists.

The paintings are just mesmeric... the isometrics of temples/ forts with sun rays create a completely overwhelming effect... and some other paintings have such a beautiful use of colour, they are just awsome!

http://www.ajaygulati.com/

Article on the artist in The Hindu

P.S.: For a while you may not see any painting, the website may take upto 1 minute to show the painting thumbnails. Like the painters, their websites are also sometimes moody, it seems :-)

आवाज़

A R Rahman ने एक बार कहा था की जब कोई artist पूरी सच्चाई और नेक दिली के साथ जीवन जीता है तो वह पवित्रता उसकी कला में भी आ जाती है । ऐसी ही एक creation मुझे, जब भी मैं सुनता हूँ, महसूस होती है music director राम संपत की एल्बम "Sona" । और जिस गाने पर जिस्म रूह को महसूस करने लगता है... "आवाज़" ... उसे गीतकार मुन्ना धीमन ने अपने लिए ही लिखा होगा, क्योंकि commercial चीज़ों के लिए इतने अच्छे गाने नहीं लिखे जा सकते।

मुझको हैरत है...

घास में खेलता है बच्चा, माँ पास बैठी मुस्कुराती है

मुझको हैरत है क्यों दुनिया, काबा-ओ-सोमनाथ जाती है

-निदा फ़ाज़ली

Interesting Facts!

NDTV: Do you think the Sensex might not ever reach the 21,000 mark again?

Shankar Sharma: There is very interesting statistics that no market in the world ever has given you six consecutive up years. It is no brainer that India has had five up years till December 2007 and sixth year had to be a down year. Further interesting statistics is that after five consecutive up years, 90 per cent of the time those market will never see those highs again for a minimum of three years. But I am not ruling out that you may reach close to 21,000 mark if there is sharp fall in oil prices.

Detachment

"If you remember, at the start of the tournament, I had said that I want my team to enjoy the game and express themselves freely on the field. Because when you take the pressure of a big game, and start worrying about the results, it does affect your performance. So, I told my team not to take any pressure, which is what they did."

"I never dreamt of playing for India. I just played the game for the love of it."

-Mahendra Singh Dhoni, in Sunday T.O.I.

Right of expression

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -- Voltaire

Investing at young age

The Benefits of starting early in the Investing game: The first Individual saves only till he is 28 years old while the second starts to save from that age. By the time they retire the first is 250% ahead of the other inspite of having saved for only 8 years, while the other one saved for 33 years!!!!!!

Click here to read the story

You just look

J. Krishnamurti, from Speaking Tree, The Times of India. Excerpt are from the book Freedom from the Known:

There is only you — your relationship with others and with the world — there is nothing else. When you realise this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else are responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity.

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What is important is to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment cleverly put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of life.

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To be able to look at this is all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the whole thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher. Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look. Can you then, seeing this whole picture...easily, spontaneously, transform yourself? That is the real issue. Is it possible to bring about a complete revolution in the psyche?

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Aamir

Last day my friend Raghuveer told me about a TV show in which Aamir Khan gave a special appearance. Though in few words, he talked in-depth about education and the way a child should be nurtured. Also expressed that education was not just passing exams and earning degrees, but something lot more important than that. And also that he was only a class 12th pass, not even a graduate.

I recalled why listening to him in past I always felt that this guy has attained some sort of self-realization. Same was with Shashank Atom, a teacher whom I interacted with during my days in Delhi.

I was later also recalling Aamir’s moves 15 years back, when he decided to do only one film at a time, and that too after reading the whole script, listening to the music and judging the conviction and enthusiasm of the director. What a risky move it was and how it could seemingly have ruined his career, but even then he did what his heart and conviction guided him to, and today what kind of body of work and success the decision has created.

Quality Education

http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome

An open course site, where teachers and professional volunteers upload free material for class 1 to 12.

Liked it...

"And we calculative ones...we don't get an oppurtunity to laugh and cry without personal ends... to be happy without a justified cause... to invest ourselves without reciprocation. ..life seems to be a business."

http://www.vsmpantnagar.org/node/18#comment-42

Books on rental

www.librarywala.com

It's a site to get books on rental. A good concept. But in today's fast moving world, how many people have the intent to read a book?