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If one is humble enough, and shrewd enough, one can learn a lot from one's enemies who can be the best of teachers.
In our pre-university English text there was this fascinating prose piece which became my favorite. It was titled:
"Rama learns statecraft from Ravana"
The piece, if I remember right, was taken from the English 'Ramayana' written by the eminent writer and statesman, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the last Governor-General of India, and by the way, one of the earliest winners of Bharat Ratna, a title now open to cricketers and singers and such others. I read that our BJP ex-PM now ailing, and our Congress ex-PM now dead and gone unsung, are popular claimants for this ultimate award.
Anyway, reverting to Ramayana it is said that Hanuman, although he burnt lots of its spires and buildings in pique, as well as Angad who was a visiting peace-emissary of Sri Ramji, were vastly impressed by Sri Lanka and sang its praises to Sri Ramji on their return to the mainland.
They credited most of Sri Lanka's wealth and beauty to its Ruler, Ravanji (I am sorry if you are offended by the 'ji' I conferred on the demon, Ravan, but the context deserves it...unlike the 'ji' conferred on Osama by our loose cannon Congress G Sec Rajaji, of whom more later).
Apparently, the Sri Lanka of Ravanji didn't have any problems with its Current Account Deficit...its golden beaches and swell resorts and swaying palms and kneading spas attracted hordes of tourists from the rich countries to its east and north and west and earned plenty of dollars...to its south, unfortunately, lay the ice-bound Antarctica, now famous for our manned missions.
Neither was there trouble with its Fiscal Deficit...Sri Lanka's streets reportedly were paved with gold and all that Ravanji had to do was to just peel it off and mint coins as and when needed.
And its citizens loved their King to distraction and voted him to power repeatedly...once with as many as 5,70,000 votes.
Ravanji's sister, Surpanakha, was reputed to be one of the beauty queens of her time:
...The Tamil poet Kamban offers a kinder description of Surpanakha than Valmiki's, describing her instead as a very beautiful woman with long, beautiful, fish-shaped eyes (validating her birth name of Minakshi), a slender figure and bewitching personality...
It is a different matter that she wore long polished nails like many Bollywood actresses of my time.
Ravanji was a kind ruler and there was never any problem of unemployment or hunger or thirst...after all his was a tiny island blessed with two copious monsoons unlike Sri Ramji's Ayodhya which suffers from a truant monsoon all the time.
But monsoons alone do not make for riches and glory...it is the Ruler's statecraft that does it.
So Sri Ramji was very impressed by the spy reports of Hanuman and Angad about the love and affection and efficacy of Ravanji as an ideal ruler. And since he was as yet a Prince, like our dimpled one, Sri Ramji didn't know much of statecraft and was eager to learn it but was dubious if Ravanji would be willing to teach him after all that he had done to him...laying him low with the help of his brother's borrowed secrets.
And then arrived Sage Vasishtha, the Kula Guru of Ayodhya, and encouraged Sri Ramji to walk up to the defeated demon on his deathbed and bow to him and praise him and become his research scholar.
And Sri Ramji did as directed.
And Ravanji was immensely flattered and gave out all of TEN tips about statecraft, all the ten of which I had to mug up to get that first class.
As Sri Ramji walked into Sri Lanka he was charmed with its beauty. Seeing the sight of Sri Ramji's fervor, Vibhishan offered to make Sri Ramji the King of Sri Lanka. But of course, Sri Ramji was already homesick and was pining to get back to his comparatively barren Ayodhya saying that after all it was his motherland:
"Janani janmabhumischa swargadapi gariyasi"
meaning, one's motherland is better than even heaven.
Unfortunately the Queen and the Prince of our latest Raam-Ravan Battle for Lok Sabha never bothered to learn statecraft from the Ruler of our modern Sri Lanka-allotrope, viz Gujerat. They were content to demonize him as the rakshas who killed his own subjects.
This, in spite of thousands of reports brought back from the migrants of Ayodhya who went to Gujerat out of hunger. They had said Gujerat has 24-hour power and water even in its villages, and everyone there praised and loved their Ruler returning him with mandate after mandate.
But did our dynasty listen? No...it requires, as I said in the beginning, humility and shrewdness to learn from one's enemy, which they didn't obviously have. With the disastrous result that their MPs now sit huddled in a corner of the Lok Sabha like so many chicks in a coop, fighting to be recognized as a viable opposition.
And the Congress Rajaji I mentioned above has openly said that their Prince lacks ruler's instincts and is averse even to leading his dissipated party from the front in the Parliament, not to talk of learning statecraft from his enemies...
...Posted by Ishani
*************************************************************************************************************
If one is humble enough, and shrewd enough, one can learn a lot from one's enemies who can be the best of teachers.
In our pre-university English text there was this fascinating prose piece which became my favorite. It was titled:
"Rama learns statecraft from Ravana"
The piece, if I remember right, was taken from the English 'Ramayana' written by the eminent writer and statesman, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the last Governor-General of India, and by the way, one of the earliest winners of Bharat Ratna, a title now open to cricketers and singers and such others. I read that our BJP ex-PM now ailing, and our Congress ex-PM now dead and gone unsung, are popular claimants for this ultimate award.
Anyway, reverting to Ramayana it is said that Hanuman, although he burnt lots of its spires and buildings in pique, as well as Angad who was a visiting peace-emissary of Sri Ramji, were vastly impressed by Sri Lanka and sang its praises to Sri Ramji on their return to the mainland.
They credited most of Sri Lanka's wealth and beauty to its Ruler, Ravanji (I am sorry if you are offended by the 'ji' I conferred on the demon, Ravan, but the context deserves it...unlike the 'ji' conferred on Osama by our loose cannon Congress G Sec Rajaji, of whom more later).
Apparently, the Sri Lanka of Ravanji didn't have any problems with its Current Account Deficit...its golden beaches and swell resorts and swaying palms and kneading spas attracted hordes of tourists from the rich countries to its east and north and west and earned plenty of dollars...to its south, unfortunately, lay the ice-bound Antarctica, now famous for our manned missions.
Neither was there trouble with its Fiscal Deficit...Sri Lanka's streets reportedly were paved with gold and all that Ravanji had to do was to just peel it off and mint coins as and when needed.
And its citizens loved their King to distraction and voted him to power repeatedly...once with as many as 5,70,000 votes.
Ravanji's sister, Surpanakha, was reputed to be one of the beauty queens of her time:
...The Tamil poet Kamban offers a kinder description of Surpanakha than Valmiki's, describing her instead as a very beautiful woman with long, beautiful, fish-shaped eyes (validating her birth name of Minakshi), a slender figure and bewitching personality...
It is a different matter that she wore long polished nails like many Bollywood actresses of my time.
Ravanji was a kind ruler and there was never any problem of unemployment or hunger or thirst...after all his was a tiny island blessed with two copious monsoons unlike Sri Ramji's Ayodhya which suffers from a truant monsoon all the time.
But monsoons alone do not make for riches and glory...it is the Ruler's statecraft that does it.
So Sri Ramji was very impressed by the spy reports of Hanuman and Angad about the love and affection and efficacy of Ravanji as an ideal ruler. And since he was as yet a Prince, like our dimpled one, Sri Ramji didn't know much of statecraft and was eager to learn it but was dubious if Ravanji would be willing to teach him after all that he had done to him...laying him low with the help of his brother's borrowed secrets.
And then arrived Sage Vasishtha, the Kula Guru of Ayodhya, and encouraged Sri Ramji to walk up to the defeated demon on his deathbed and bow to him and praise him and become his research scholar.
And Sri Ramji did as directed.
And Ravanji was immensely flattered and gave out all of TEN tips about statecraft, all the ten of which I had to mug up to get that first class.
As Sri Ramji walked into Sri Lanka he was charmed with its beauty. Seeing the sight of Sri Ramji's fervor, Vibhishan offered to make Sri Ramji the King of Sri Lanka. But of course, Sri Ramji was already homesick and was pining to get back to his comparatively barren Ayodhya saying that after all it was his motherland:
"Janani janmabhumischa swargadapi gariyasi"
meaning, one's motherland is better than even heaven.
Unfortunately the Queen and the Prince of our latest Raam-Ravan Battle for Lok Sabha never bothered to learn statecraft from the Ruler of our modern Sri Lanka-allotrope, viz Gujerat. They were content to demonize him as the rakshas who killed his own subjects.
This, in spite of thousands of reports brought back from the migrants of Ayodhya who went to Gujerat out of hunger. They had said Gujerat has 24-hour power and water even in its villages, and everyone there praised and loved their Ruler returning him with mandate after mandate.
But did our dynasty listen? No...it requires, as I said in the beginning, humility and shrewdness to learn from one's enemy, which they didn't obviously have. With the disastrous result that their MPs now sit huddled in a corner of the Lok Sabha like so many chicks in a coop, fighting to be recognized as a viable opposition.
And the Congress Rajaji I mentioned above has openly said that their Prince lacks ruler's instincts and is averse even to leading his dissipated party from the front in the Parliament, not to talk of learning statecraft from his enemies...
...Posted by Ishani
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