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India is a colorful country...also smelly.
I love India as she is, and am scared that I would one day wake up and find myself in an advanced country.
My case is like that of the dung beetle (gobarer poka), cited by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, which when placed in a fruit basket would instantly choke and die (chat phat morey jaabey). Or that of the fisherwoman (matsyagandhi) of my Father's story who couldn't go to sleep in that florist's shop till she fetched her fish basket and placed it under her head (odomaach).
Mine is a country where anything and everything can happen and happens.
Here the opposite of 'secular' is 'communal' but the opposite of 'communal' is 'pseudosecular'. The opposite of 'science' is not 'superstition' but 'pseudoscience'. And the opposite of 'communism' is not 'capitalism' but 'trinamoolism' (I have no clear idea of its manifesto and have to ask Sant Kabir).
This is a country where the head of her NASA visits the temple hill before every launch to seek the blessings of the Lord even if it is the next in the series of 22 consecutive textbook launches. And revisits the Lord after every launch for thanksgiving. I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if the date of the launch is set not only by the weather but also by planetary movements and auspicious muhurats. I have to check if any of the previous launches took place on the forbidden Tuesdays and Saturdays.
But now the launches do not find more than a few lines in the newspapers, and that too since the PM or the President oversees them. Time was when every successful launch made front page screaming headlines.
The impending cricket test win over the Aussies is relegated to the sports page. If such a thing like the wicket-keeper hitting a double ton against the so-called 'kangaroos' (a jargon no longer in vogue) happened in my time, the whole front page would be covered by his photos.
The inevitable front page political cartoon is now often not found there...the front page is reserved for rape, loot and gore. And ads for lakefront villas.
But the more this country changes, the more it remains the same as the wag would put it.
The first time I met with 'secular' was in the 'secular perturbations' of planets like Mercury whose orbit doesn't close but loops in a rosette.
The second time was in the 'secular determinant' of a matrix whose diagonal elements have an additional (- lambda) in them.
It was only during the Indira Gandhi rule during her Emergency that the word 'secular' was added to the preamble of our Constitution. That was after the 'communal' elements were properly jailed.
'Secular' in India does not mean that the State has no religion but that it has all conceivable religions. In practice it means that even the so-called 'communal' elements, when elections are approaching, have to don the robes of all religions that matter. For instance, there was a news item that their current president has promised to mold and instal a statue of Lord Buddha of a size exceeding his deconstructed Bamiyan cousin (if his party is voted to power).
When I was a kid I thought America was a country of science and technology that didn't care for religion. But later I learned of the Bible Belt and that 'In God We Trust' slogan.
I love Lincoln absolutely and appreciate his quote above. I wonder if Churchill would have said anything like it through his havana mouth during his worst crises of WWII. I guess England is different. Although, as far as imperialism went, the two were like the Walrus and the Carpenter.
I wonder whose statue would Didi instal if Bengal returns all her candidates to its 40-odd Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming elections...
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Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
In God we trust (rest in cash)
India is a colorful country...also smelly.
I love India as she is, and am scared that I would one day wake up and find myself in an advanced country.
My case is like that of the dung beetle (gobarer poka), cited by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, which when placed in a fruit basket would instantly choke and die (chat phat morey jaabey). Or that of the fisherwoman (matsyagandhi) of my Father's story who couldn't go to sleep in that florist's shop till she fetched her fish basket and placed it under her head (odomaach).
Mine is a country where anything and everything can happen and happens.
Here the opposite of 'secular' is 'communal' but the opposite of 'communal' is 'pseudosecular'. The opposite of 'science' is not 'superstition' but 'pseudoscience'. And the opposite of 'communism' is not 'capitalism' but 'trinamoolism' (I have no clear idea of its manifesto and have to ask Sant Kabir).
This is a country where the head of her NASA visits the temple hill before every launch to seek the blessings of the Lord even if it is the next in the series of 22 consecutive textbook launches. And revisits the Lord after every launch for thanksgiving. I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if the date of the launch is set not only by the weather but also by planetary movements and auspicious muhurats. I have to check if any of the previous launches took place on the forbidden Tuesdays and Saturdays.
But now the launches do not find more than a few lines in the newspapers, and that too since the PM or the President oversees them. Time was when every successful launch made front page screaming headlines.
The impending cricket test win over the Aussies is relegated to the sports page. If such a thing like the wicket-keeper hitting a double ton against the so-called 'kangaroos' (a jargon no longer in vogue) happened in my time, the whole front page would be covered by his photos.
The inevitable front page political cartoon is now often not found there...the front page is reserved for rape, loot and gore. And ads for lakefront villas.
But the more this country changes, the more it remains the same as the wag would put it.
The first time I met with 'secular' was in the 'secular perturbations' of planets like Mercury whose orbit doesn't close but loops in a rosette.
The second time was in the 'secular determinant' of a matrix whose diagonal elements have an additional (- lambda) in them.
It was only during the Indira Gandhi rule during her Emergency that the word 'secular' was added to the preamble of our Constitution. That was after the 'communal' elements were properly jailed.
'Secular' in India does not mean that the State has no religion but that it has all conceivable religions. In practice it means that even the so-called 'communal' elements, when elections are approaching, have to don the robes of all religions that matter. For instance, there was a news item that their current president has promised to mold and instal a statue of Lord Buddha of a size exceeding his deconstructed Bamiyan cousin (if his party is voted to power).
When I was a kid I thought America was a country of science and technology that didn't care for religion. But later I learned of the Bible Belt and that 'In God We Trust' slogan.
I love Lincoln absolutely and appreciate his quote above. I wonder if Churchill would have said anything like it through his havana mouth during his worst crises of WWII. I guess England is different. Although, as far as imperialism went, the two were like the Walrus and the Carpenter.
I wonder whose statue would Didi instal if Bengal returns all her candidates to its 40-odd Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming elections...
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DC Page 12 Tuesday 26 February 2013
New York Feb 25: A potential Higgs Boson particle discovered last year could spell doom for our universe...researchers claim.
The mass of the so-called 'God particle', uncovered at the Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, is a key ingredient in a calculation that signals the future of space and time.
"This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there will be a catastrophe,"....
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