INDIAN FOOT SOLDIERS

* Who built Taj Mahal? Shah Jahan

* Who built Mumbai? Parsees

* Who achieved green revolution? Dr Swaminathan

* Who built Golden Quadrilateral? Vajpayee

But what about the thousands of poor wretched workers (many perished in work)who really performed the act of the construction or the cultivation? Who knows them? 

A majority of them were migrants, living in inhuman conditions, so that they could earn the 2 rupaye (metaphorical) that would keep many souls at home located in the interior unreachable villages of india, from dying of poverty!

No one is bothered about them. How could that be? The Congress & the BJP are fundamentally feudal parties, run by the kings and later by Zamindars (and the Savarna Parivar). Will they ever worry about the wretched souls? 

What about the Socialists and the Communists? These parties grew autocratic leaders/rulers within, who took care of themselves, leaving the cadre behind, into abject poverty. 

What independence and achievements are we talking about? We could call us BHARAT one only when it is ensured that every human being in the country has no hunger, has her dignity intact and her & family’s life is secured.

How long will it take?

THE FOUR WOMEN IN MY LIFE!

Of many things that God gave the humans, two are very precious, one is woman and the other is colour! You combine them and that makes colourful women. And, sans the colourful women, the  planet would have been a boring place! Thank you God! 

There are four women in my life and don’t tell me, that is too much! They are my mother, wife, daughter and granddaughter respectively. See, I am a blessed man! 

In those days without phone, radio, TV, computer, internet and mobile phones, my teacher mother was my doctor, my counselor, my mentor, my google and my anchor. I had never stopped asking questions and I remember her telling me that I did start speaking from my 11th month onwards - and she was never tired of answering  and even now, I continue the habit, making my children crib, saying, “dad you ask too many questions”! My mother was a formidable woman, never accepting no for an answer, always progressive in mind and hardworking; living only for  her own children, even at the cost of her health and welfare. Without her, I would have been a nobody, for sure. 

I almost hit thirty years for the second woman to come to my life. She is strong in mind but patient, high on values, generally shy but demanding equal footing, I learnt to respect individuals from her and she has been the world’s best mother to my children, she more than made up my absence due to business and travels. Result, we have two brilliant, well behaved progeny, one an award winning teacher and the other doing exemplary science research. Also, in the the tough times of my business, my wife was the solid rock behind me and without her, I would have withered. 

Like any father, my daughter is the apple of my eye. I never wanted to see her cry (though she had, on several occasions, many times, genuinely). Chirpy, talkative but wanting her own space, she taught me never to compare children and make judgements. When she is on her elements, even today she brings down the home with laughter. She did imbibe my love for letters and I am waiting her to blossom into an exceptional writer. 

And there comes the granddaughter, only four years old, calls me “appu”, but she needs two people to manage her. Bundle of energy, gyrating to music at times or wanting to do her own selfies, never do you see her at rest. I consider her as the true manifestation of Gen-I behaviour and I am sure, future will move fast through their multitasking hands! 

I must admit again, what a dreadful way man would have lived, but for the lovely ladies around......

THE RELEVANCE OF ONLINE DIGITAL LEARNING

Online digital learning is all about the teacher engaging students without a classroom where he would precisely understand the needs and preferred learning methods of the student and deliver the content in the personalised manner. 

All learners do not come with the same type of intelligence. In a world of multiple intelligences such as visual, verbal, logical, kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intra personal, natural & existential (ref: “Frames of mind - The Theory of Multiple intelligences by Prof. Howard Gardner), one size shirt does not fit for the students learning mode. 

And, knowledge and content is is transmitted through 6 media (text, graphics, image, audio, video and animation, called multimedia now). Depending upon the dominant  intelligence of the student, his preference of media in assimilating, comprehending and retaining the information vary. 

Finally, the five sense organs come into play for receiving the content and depending upon the learning preferences, various sense organs play out differently in doing so.

So digitalised learning allows the interplay between multiple intelligences, multimedia and the multi sense organs. Having tremendous advantages over pedagogical learning, digital learning will come into the fore, for millennials, Gen.Z and Gen.I

SOME HUMANITARIAN THOUGHTS

As per the discoveries made by archeologists, lithologists, anthropologists, geneticists, scientists and historians, and by analysing the findings, it had come to establish that about seven thousand  years back, some Homo Sapiens (the first of whom having got out of Africa approx. seventy millennium ago), have been moving on as hunter-gatherers across the planet and some, as pastoralists, having got settled, domesticating animals and going into agriculture. Eventually the Sapiens settled down and group dynamics started coming into play as sects, societies and later religion, caste and countries. 

While all these were happening, from the beginning, by evolution, earth’s tectonic plates were moving slowly but continuously, and the land mass was also moving apart and re forming into continents. The weather was playing upon it and making its impacts on the inhabitants accordingly, depending upon which side of the globe the land had come into being. 

As per the findings and studies, on the subcontinent land mass now called India, from 3500 till 1500 BCE, the Harappan civilisation (also called Indus Valley) flourished and it was joined by huge mass of hunter gathers moving across from east Europe and Central Asia (which wasn’t called so then but identified as ‘Steppe’) and scientists confirm the mix as the present Indian (also later joined by austrolasians but in lesser proportions). The Vedas, Upanishad, the Sutras and the Gita developed thereafter, of course, based on the accumulated knowledge of these three distinct  groups from the past many millennia. Some of the finest humanitarian thoughts were established by this joint culture as, “vasudaiva kutumbakam” (world is a family), “Loka samasta sukhino bhavantu” (may all being be happy and free),  “aano bhadra krtavo yanthu vishwataha” (let noble thoughts come from all directions) and many similar empathetical human considerations of global relevance. Such was the approach of the civilisation that existed here which continued being so to the current era (CE), accepting and tolerating the differences that came on its way.

The erstwhile subcontinent India, originally addressed in its folklore as “Bharatvarsh” is today 8 different nations, most of which coming into being only in the last hundred years. Each of these countries now go by its own hard-core parochial, nationalistic feelings, completely forgetting the earlier emotions of acceptance and tolerance which made its people in the first place. And they do not blink an eye to annihilate each other (and that include it’s own citizens) at the slightest provocation, in the name of very narrow minded philosophies and ‘isms’ that had developed lately and merciless acts are heaved upon the people of Kandahar, Baluchistan, Kashmir, Assam, Bastar, Madhes, Chittagong, Rakhine, Jaffna; to name a few; in the form of intra and inter country conflicts. 

So, today, we humans are getting devoid of any global humanitarian considerations in us. We are discriminating each other based on religion, caste, place of birth, language, colour of skin etc. Our scriptures of the yore that propagated ‘vasudaiva kutumbakam’ that was followed throughout the subcontinent once, is totally forgotten or new meanings are taken out of of them to behave the way as we do now. And, we are forced to spend disproportionate amounts to protect such uninhabitable terrains as Siachen, Ladakh, Doklam & Tawang as these areas have developed into strategic locations for the safely of the country. 

A less than hundred year old thought on nationalism influencing all these nations, is splitting us, killing us and disintegrating the huge legacy of global village concept that we held once. All the commonalities that we have had, that kept us together, is being given up for discriminating each other. If history is any proof, going by the trend, all these emotions could go down to split the cultures that hold each of our geographies together as one entity. 

I dread imagining such a state of affair! 

THE STORY OF 2 HASHTAGS

For many of the oppressed and the underprivileged, social media has been a great boon. Otherwise quelled as soon as starts, by the powers that be, many important movements and protests never used to  take off in the physical world. Then came the online and virtual world, the power of of the social media and platforms such as YouTube, FB, Instagram, Twitter etc. that profoundly assisted many protests, particularly those on gender and racial violence. These had now spread across the world, touching even people belonging to different cultures. Two such pertinent movements are: 

#MeToo

The #MeToo is a movement against sexual harassment and abuse where women come out in the open with their allegations of the sex crimes committed by powerful and prominent men. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in 2006 on the social media platform, Myspace, by the sexual harassment survivor and activist Tarana Burke and later in 2015 by Italian model Ambra Gutierrez alleging sexual violations by the Hollywood Moghul, Weinstein. 

The way it caught on and the courage displayed by those women who otherwise had kept quiet for so many years due to the impossibility of fighting powerful men, was phenomenal. Every such incident that happened in the past and that is happening now, is brought to open. The movement had gone universal and so many powerful deities had fallen wayside with it. It is still going on. 

#BlackLifeMatters

It all started on 25th May 2020 when the brute force displayed a white cop on George Floyd in Minneapolis, USA for about Eight minutes, 46 seconds, killing him by asphyxiating him, after having him handcuffed for an alleged crime of vending a counterfeit 20 dollar bill (which later turned out to be genuine currency)  

Floyd’s death just triggered the pent-up fury of the black and coloured across USA and all over the world, on the intense racist attitude of the whites against them, that has going on for ages. Even the post event  communication from white American leaders, including its President, needed a lot to be desired. For the so called ‘20 dollar’ crime, the whole of US went up in riots and flames, and it is yet to subside. Surely #BlackLifeMatters, as a movement  against a racial oppression will continue and George Floyd hasn’t lost his life for nothing. 

Look at the way technology and devices are impacting our lives in ways we had never thought! 

LEARNINGS IN LIFE

This narrative is a personal experience that happened to me pretty long back, in 1981, yes, almost forty years back! Certain learnings of our experience stays good with us, forever! 

In those days, I was working in Century Instruments Pvt. Ltd.,  Chandigarh as a travelling Sales Engineer (?), promoting the company’s test and measuring instruments, across the northern part of India. 

Once a month I have a travel to do to Dehradun, some 6 hours away from Chandigarh. It was a picturesque route, via Nahan and Ponta Saheb, lovely hill terrain!  Whenever I go, I stay at Dehradun for minimum 2 days, visiting the CSIR Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP), ONGC, Institute of Petroleum Exploration, Forest Research Institute etc., of which IIP was the most potential client to us. 

In winter times, travels are not easy. Piercing cold hits you while travelling, the not so good hotel rooms and tough local conveyance (mostly used to be the long Vikram, a three wheeled long automobile that could accommodate about 10-12 people and ply a distance of 10-15 kms, working as public transport system, within the city and also connecting the suburbs); all of which had been major challenges. 

My regular visits to IIP had got me so many acquaintances within the institute both among scientists and the administrative staff. The process is that we meet scientists at all departments and introduce products and get them interested to indent it to their purchase dept’ and then go through the process of quoting and winning deals (not all, some you win, some you lose). The more connected you are the higher your wins, that has always been the dictum in sales function. With some of the scientists, my relationship went deeper, for e.g. was Dr S at this particular lab (sorry, no remembrance of the name of the lab), a very down to earth person, a doctorate from  IIT Madras, in his late 30's. Since he had lived in Chennai (called Madras then), he was more empathetic to me, a South Indian.

In those winter times, (where professional productivity is lower and reproduction rate is higher!), people take multiple breaks from their workbench. They often come out to get the sun or go to the canteen or the chai-wallah out of the campus for a glass of ‘garam chai’. So after reaching IIP early that day and after visiting some depts’, I came out to have a hot tea for invigoration. 

The chai-wallah was Ram Avtar, a Garhwali in his mid 40s. What he had was a ramshackle of a tea shop in a tent, with some bamboo stools scattered around it for the clients to sit. He used to make the tea himself, doing so in the sitting posture. Meeting him often, I had built up a good relationship with him. He knew that I am a ‘Madrasi’ that he caught from the way I speak Hindi. While making tea, he used to ask me about my native land and my folks and we used to converse. He has been a big advisor often and he used enjoy giving it. This time too, the conversation went into him advising me about my career saying, “tumko to isee naukri nahin karna chahiye, koi factory mein kaam karna iss se achcha hoga” (you shouldn’t be doing this job, instead you should be working in some factory). “Achcha”, I said and then hearing a rustle behind, I looked back and there stood Dr.S. He too had come out to have a hot tea. 

Dr S wasn’t looking happy as he addressed Ram Avtar, “tu to apna kaam kar Ram Avtar” he said “isee tehdi mehdi salah kyon dete ho? Tujhe kya maloom inke career ke baare mein? (You do your work Ram Avtar. Why do you want to give such zigzag advices? What do you know about his career?) Ram Avtar knew he went too far and said to both of us, “galti ho gaya Saab, maafi mangta hoon”

I returned to the Lab along with Dr S after the tea outside. He said to me seriously, “Nair, do you think Ram Avtar is the right person to give you career advise? He is just a chai-wallah, with very low education, hasn’t seen the world outside his ramshackle, still thinking that he knows everything, a fool! Be careful not to discuss serious life matters with chai-wallahs, and if you want, please talk to educated  and experienced people and to you I would say, work hard and follow your heart”. I said sorry and thanked him for such a sane advice.  

I still keep the word and I don’t take guidance from chai-wallahs any longer

XI JINPING & HIS WORRIES

World leaders may not envy Xi Jinping’s position now! 

Though he had consolidated within the CCP and got the amendments done to rule the nation as long as he can, he must be under stress due to:

1. The Global Covid aftermath. The mercantile colonialism that It pursued for the last 5/6 years (BRI, Soft loans) at many nations is boomeranging and they are taking sovereign decision to disengage China. 

2. Its position as the manufacturing hub of the world is shaken and nations are advising their corporates to get out of the country 

3. Trade wars with USA & nations, including the upfront it had caused to the US $ will flare up again. US is in an unforgiving mode. 

4. L’affaire Hong Kong, enacting and implementing the Gag laws may not be followed by the Island’s denizens and HongKong stands at the threshold of being declared as a unfavourable finance post of the world and that would be history reversed! 

5. The border standoff with India in Arunachal & Sikkim is still on..

6. The South Sea challenges, led by US Fleets 

The only thing that is going for Xi is the fearful obedience of of his people and their gratitude of having had good times over last 3 decades.

Xi maybe able to handle the internals but not all the externals. Will the stars favour Xi and China? Wait & See!