How to bring a city to it’s knees!

Last Wednesday was a fateful day for Kannadigas & Bangaloreans. Dr.Rajkumar, the ever-green super star of Kannada filmdom (Sandalwood!) passed away peacefully. But the rest of the story was far from peaceful. People turned up in large numbers to bid adieu to their idol and on the way decided to have some sadistic fun. What followed was total chaos, death and destruction. The sense of security of people used to living in cocoons was shattered. The entire incident is just a huge magnification of the chaos and destruction that happens daily in the city, though not in a collected fashion. While the barbaric acts are certainly not to be condoned, it is time the causes are understood more clearly, rather than focusing entirely on the trigger. There will be more such incidents in the future since the causes lie dormant, like a volcano waiting for a small fissure to erupt in all it’s fury.

The city of Bangalore is like a huge system that needs many functional sub-units to keep it going. It is similar to a living being, albeit one diseased in body & depressed in mind. Imagine snatching a favorite toy permanently away from a possessive & depressed child of great strength. Toys come and go & snatching keeps happening, but a permanent cure is to uproot the disease itself! What ails the city? That’s the easiest question that the auto-driver can answer as well as the Harvard educated businessman! There is deep-rooted simmering discontent about what the unplanned growth (IT or otherwise) has done to the city. The quality of life has decayed terribly. There is a wide chasm between the haves and the have-nots. The haves take home tens of thousands of rupees every month & are rarely exposed to the atmosphere, while the have-nots take home tens of thousands of rupees over the course of a decade & toil from the mid-day sun to the midnight moon for a simple meal. Kannada has taken a back seat so much so that speaking the language is considered shameful in many posh settings. There is also the larger issue of lack of public idols. The masses rarely have an individual in a position of power that they can look up to and aspire to emulate. This is a direct fallout of the corrupt system entrenched with money laundering politicians.

Well, what can be done then? Proactive and wise developmental plans have to be set in motion and completed on time. Reservation and such hare-brained ideas have to be shelved. Judicial system with corrupt rotten judges has to be revamped. Focus has to shift on improving the life of common people without neglecting high-end development. There is a long wish list that’s easier said than done. While my complete sympathies rest with the people affected adversely, this sort of thing will continue to happen. The system gets what it gives. The law of karma is brutal and operates collectively too. As such, I have no sympathies for the system, of which I too am a part, but not in a position of influence or power to do much about it!

A trip divine

Suddenly on a Thursday afternoon I decided to make a trip all alone for 2 days to Sringeri. There was vehement opposition from home - perhaps they suspected, as they have in the past that I might get swayed away from the so called 'normal' accepted life that humans live. When I informed my friends while on the trip that I had gone alone, sympathies poured in from all over. It was considered unthinkable that a person would travel alone. This is attributed to the confusion most people have between being alone and being lonely. Alone & not feeling lonely is the most wonderful state of being, especially in silence & contemplation. Lonely is the worst state known to the human mind & affects a large number of people especially in advanced countries. If you cannot enjoy being alone, you'll never enjoy with anybody else, be it humans or pets or in exotic locations. On the other hand, one can be lonely even in the midst of a bustling crowd, lots of friends & relatives and so on. Being comfortably alone arises from a state of compeleteness, of oneness with all of existence. Being lonely arises from the ego, from the sake of wanting someone or something to feel complete & this is totally natural since ignorance hides the real nature of the self that includes all.

Coming back to the subject, Sringeri is one of the four mutts founded by none other than Adi Shankaracharya. Take a look at their website at
http://jagadgurus.org/ . Since then, the unbroken lineage of Jagadgurus have drawn scores of people who come in search of solace or just to witness a confirmed jnani! The whole place appeals so much since it has temples, a river, some forests, plenty of space to sit in silence and is rarely crowded except on special occasions. This becomes especially important, since most temples these days are heavily crowded and noisy. To get to a silent place, you need to travel far away & get into one of the upper-class resorts in the jungle. But here, one need not fork out princely sums and book months in advance to have a decent roof over the head. One need not go in search of exotic restaurants for some great piping hot food. There is even a patha-shaala (vedic school) in the traditional Gurukula mode imparting Vedic education to many enthusiastic disciples of all ages. In the evenings, one can listen to the melodious strains of Karnatic classical music. The puja, chanting and the whole atmosphere transports one to the mythical times that we've only heard or read about, provided you keep the mind calm & free of worries about what's happening back home!

All in all, an amazing experience. I wouldn't want to go there with anybody but my self :-). I wouldn’t want to listen to anybody, but the silence of my heart.