It was really pleasant experience to meet Saroo on the screen, the main protagonist of the film "Lion", and look for many things that I lost in my childhood. Many a time like Saroo, (who later learned that he had been mispronouncing his own name, which was actually Sheru, a diminutive for sher, the Hindi word for "lion") we also seek for many things in life which may help us to connect with the roots, which we belong to. 

In 1986, Saroo, a five year old boy, lives with his elder brother Guddu, his mother and his younger sister in a remote village of India. He was born to a very poor family of a single mother, who finds it difficult to make both ends meet. Both teh borthers used to steal coal from freight trains to trade for milk and food. One day Saroo gets into a wrong train which changed his course of life and landed him with an Australian couple far away from India through adoptation. Saroo, under the care of Sue and John Brierley, started to settle in. Saroo was fond of jalebi, a delicacy that he wanted to have always in his life. This jalebi ultimately reconnects him to his family in India and the rest is the story beautifully shown in the movie. At last he returns to his hometown, where he has an emotional reunion with his biological mother and sister, but learns that Guddu is dead. The film ends with captions about the real Saroo's return to India in February 2012.

The most important point that I liked in the film, which gave me hope of unconditional love in this world, when Saroo learned that Sue Brierly, who adopted her is not infertile, but had chosen to help others in need through adoption, believing that there were already too many people on Earth. 

The film for me was really fascinating as it showed the power of hope. The hope that everything is possible if we seek from our heart - Seek and you will find; Know and it will open. 

In life we all seek for better life, better partner, better children and so forth and so on... but life is hard and harsh only to see that you reach your destiny. Through our life journey we learn whole gamete of wisdom, which makes us a better human. This is only possible when we consciously and deliberately take decisions in our life. It is also true that many a time we have no other ways rather than to accept life as it comes. But in those occasions, we should like Saroo listen to our inner conscious. 

While travelling the path with Saroo, it is obvious that destiny plays a great role in shaping our own course of life. And that thought brings to me in one of the contradictions that I always go through, that is, is God discriminatory? The orphanage that we saw with Saroo in Kolkata is the depiction of the misery that a child goes through when he or she is lost. What all hardship a child goes through in the orphanage is left to everybody's imagination and perception. But should it be the fate of any child after all. How many of them can land up in the midst of a good family. Why is the world so insensitive of the children?

I have seen people who want to marry only because they want to see their hope in their child/children. But very few are like Brierly. So many children get missing everyday in India. We never try to find them beyond the numbers. They get confined in the statistical data and people like us get immune and insensitive after sometime. Government's apathy on the missing children is really scary. For the officials or ministers these children are not more than meager numbers. Their interventions get confined only through some welfare schemes, laws and Acts for the children. Isn't it sad? 

After watching the film, when I was walking back to my room through the big park adjacent to where I stay in Delhi, I was feeling very lonely. Few questions suddenly propped in my mind, What if I get lost? Who will be there to look for me? If my friends and family members read this they will abruptly come up with suggestions of getting married. May be my parents will look for me. May be my good old friends will look for me. But suppose some one who has no one will be forgotten and will find himself/herself as the numbers of missing people. 

Missing children and missing adult in India is not seen seriously. 

Religion Vs Spirituality 

It was great to have a Hindu mother and Christian father. It really helped me to understand the different religious perspectives. I was much influenced by the Institutional church from my childhood. At one point of my life I was so influenced by the christian missionaries that I was about to become a catholic priests. But it was my mother who intelligently asked me to reflect on my decision and then take final call to join or not to join. I found the suggestion from my mother to be appropriate. So I started getting myself engaged with catholic church more consciously to know it through and through. It really helped me to know the institution better and finally take a decision not to be the priest. I will share the reasons for this decision in this blog of mine. Before I explain it let me explain what is institutional religion for me.

Religion for me is the "opium of the people". It is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. The full quote from Karl Marx translates as: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". I was always confused with religion and spirituality. It was just few years back I understood the difference. According to me religion is the institutional arrangements to manage the congregation of people on the basis of biases, prejudices, fears and rewards. It is to organize the rituals to reinforce the majoritarian ideals to manipulate things to establish a hierarchical system. I always felt that the managers in this institutions firmly believe that there is "No God" and hence they become heartless and soulless. Its because of this believe, I suppose, that they can allow any kind of violence and bigotry ideas to be percolated down among the people. Religion, according to me makes people really narrow minded and look through specific coloured glasses. Religious people always try to establish their ideals as rights over the other ideas. Actually the institutions of religion survive because of the insecurity that prevails among the people.The greed among the people grease it's tools. The fundamentalist attitude among the people is the fruit that these religious institution helps to bear at the end of the day. Its obvious that people cannot stay in vacuum. Where as Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a deep sense of aliveness and inter connectedness. Some may find that their spiritual life is intricately linked to their association with a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. Others may pray or find comfort in a personal relationship with God or a higher power. Still others seek meaning through their connections to nature or art.

Tradition and Pride

Jallikattu is a traditional spectacle in which a Bos indicus bull, commonly of the Kangayam breed, is released into a crowd of people and multiple human participants attempt to grab the large hump of the bull with both arms and hang on to it while the bull attempts to escape. In January 2017, occupy marina protest, the protestor’s claims that Jallikattu is promoted as bull taming, however, others suggest it exploits the bulls. The human associated in this game suffer serious injuries and fatalities. The bulls themselves sometimes sustain injuries or die, which people may interpret as a bad omen for the village. An investigation by the Animal Welfare Board of India concluded that "jallikattu is inherently cruel to animals".[1] Animal welfare organisations, the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO)[2] and PETA India have protested against the practice.[3] The sport was banned by the Supreme Court in a decision citing animal cruelty based on a lawsuit filed by the animal rights activists group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which asserted that the tradition violates the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA).[4] Occupy Marina protest by enthusiastic Tamil youths associated the ban with Tamil pride and the government had to come up first with an ordinance to lift the ban followed with an Act in the state. With this incident in the back ground I reflect back few questions and my independent thought from a bird view perspective in this blog.  

Should “Jallikattu” be associated with Tamil pride? Should any activity that is cruel to animals or humans, in any forms, be protected and made legal in the name of tradition? If the answer is yes, then caste system, dowry, sati, killing of girl child, khap panchayat etc., can also be made legal in the name of Indian pride. Where were these youths when poor fishermen were crying aloud for their support when the nuclear plant was destabilising their livelihood and above all existence at Kudankulam? Why these organised spontaneous youths were invisible when a couple were killed at day light only because they took the courage to love and get married even though they come from different caste? Where does one locate Tamil pride when Dalits people were denied of recent flood relief in and around Chennai? Is this the same land of Periyar, who once challenged the traditions, because they oppressed and discriminated people? Isn’t these youth’s hypocrites? Or are they puppets in the hands of the politicians?

But the larger question that we face today, is that whether it is rig appropriate to rigorously hold on to any culture or traditions if they are really harmful? For the sake of our regional or religion pride do we need to endorse and safeguard our culture or tradition? This is the most important context that needs to be analysed from the recent debate around Jallikattu.  

Has our country and the world at large accepted globalisation and liberalisation in true sense? (When I say true sense, I mean beyond economical gain). But when I see around and specially after the jallikattu protest, I am very much sure that the world is just making its U-turn towards fascism, traditionalism and fatalism. The world is ruled by people who are staunch supporter of protecting traditions and culture which was thought to obsolete unanimously by the world a century back. The world had agreed on human rights and protection of nature, which includes animals too. But today with the mediocre leaders leading powerful nations we seem to fuelling the dark age mentality of the people to erupt like volcano and engulf the whole world with its lava of hatred, hyper nationalism, brahmanical thoughts and concentration of wealth by few.

I think the world is becoming cynical. The country which voted Obama four years back has now voted Trumph. Isn’t that irony and cynical? The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos "for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people."[5] But the same country rejected that same peace deal in the national referendum on October 2. The country India, where we had one of the biggest messenger of peace Gandhi leading the country for Independence, voted for Modi as its Prime Minister who has to be accountable for the Godhra  carnage, where thousands of Muslims and Hindus were killed mercilessly. Where is this world heading towards?

People will stand for national anthem in cinema hall and cry out the lyrics with deep feeling of nationalism but alas the same person will go out of the cinema hall and tease, stalk or may rape their own country women. Is this the narrow minded nationalism that we want? We may fast, fight and shout to bring ordinance or law to legalise Jallikattu even though Supreme Court of the country banned it but the same general public is silent on section 377. We are all hypocrites. We are not guided by our consciousness but with narrow mindedness and selfishness. 

I see Jallikattu agitation not as Tamil pride but as insane of Tamil youths. There are many things that have demean your pride. When the fisher folk was affected due to nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, your pride was affected. Every day when a Dalit women or men is discriminated, your pride is demeaned. When every day a marriage is planned on the basis of the amount of dowry, your pride is demeaned. When couple have to give their life due to inter caste marriage, your pride is demeaned. When your politicians loot your money and still you vote them, your pride is demeaned. When a bull or a person die in Jallikattu your pride is demeaned.

Tamil population have always been vulnerable in the hands of identity politics played by their politician. They are aware of that but still fall in its prey. Tamil is a rich culture. A culture that speaks of Dravidian empowerment. It conveys me the message of standing head held high even when Aryan influence was galloping the country. Tamil pride is in its intellectuality. Tamil’s pride is in Periyar’s vision. Tamil’s pride is in their hospitality, integrity and hardworking. Tamil’s pride is in its strength to fight for the voiceless people. But the politicians in Tamil plays with their sentiments and identity, which have brought great loss to them. The same explanation can be true for all culture. If we all become like Trump who see inwardly development of America and not outwardly enlightenment, I think we are all heading towards a cynicism and skeptism.

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[1] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/SC-to-hear-Animal-Welfare-Board%E2%80%99s-petition-challenging-jallikattu-order/article13994379.ece

[2] http://www.firstpost.com/india/jallikattu-bull-taming-is-cruelty-at-its-best-tn-parties-using-it-for-political-gains-2564184.html

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-peta-bulls-idUSSP19914020080118

[4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/supreme-court-turns-down-plea-to-allow-bull-taming-sport-jallikattu-before-pongal/articleshow/56494779.cms

[5]  "The Nobel Peace Prize 2016 - Press Release". Nobel Media AB. Retrieved 7 October 2016.

Life had been a beautiful and fantastic experience till now. With all it's ups and downs, I have traversed 38 years of my life. Today when I am on my late 30's and moving towards the zone of 40's, I feel to reflect back and retreat a bit to pick the life experiences so as to lead a much liberated life beyond 40.

Born in a lower middle class family, it was quite clear to me at a very early age that life will be hard. It will not be a smooth cat walk. At every step of my life I had to work hard to the extreme to achieve the desired goal. But to share frankly, when I reflect back and look into my struggles I feel proud that I could do it and learned a lot from the experiences. Many a time when the struggle was on my face, I used to cry out loud saying, "Why me? Why have you forsaken me O Lord?" But the fragmented power deep within me always used to get charged at right time and get accumulated to give me an infinite strength to go ahead in life with a better perspective. It happened every time I felt myself indulged in a threatened position in my life.

I did many mistakes in my life. All my mistakes are like shinning stars which always guided my direction in life and hope it will do the same in my future too. All the mistakes helped me to pill out the dry scale of my life similar to the onions and make it more and more smoother.

At one point of time I realized that I am different in many ways from the large section of society. It was challenging for me to stand with all that differences. But I stood firm slowly but steadily. I was apologetic for my differences since long. But at one point of time my exposure to life and liberative education (basically during my Masters in Social Work) enlightened me to accept myself and lead a liberative life.

Till date I got everything in my life. I am happy for whatever I am today. I feel really obliged to my parents, sister, friends and my teachers who helped me to reach this phase of my life where my profession and passion is the same. I am happy with my work and with my income. I have become so liberal in my thoughts. I am able to see things from different perspectives. I accept things and let go things as it comes and leaves.

I feel that my life after 40 should be a life that I should enjoy doing what I feel like to do. I want to live a life without any fear. I want to be free. My experience shows that freedom can only be possible with right kind of knowledge and attitude. I will try my best to gain such knowledge which will make me free. One very important thing that I will try my best to do is to live with "truth". I learned that truth only can make you free. At this age I feel that I need to depend fully on "truth". I will see that my mind is not broken up into fragments of any kind of biases and prejudices. I will try to move towards perfection with all my limitations to ensure that I don't thrive to become saint. I will try to look things with more rationale. All the actions of mine will be to restore human dignity within me and outside me. I will see that I am not influenced by any kind or form of institutional religion. I will be critical to everything that I do, I see and I learn. I feel deeply that I need to become more human and that will be my only thirst for henceforth.

One of the quest that I see for myself in near future is to look for some one who will hold me deep within his heart and look on my face to understand me. I feel that a friend in my life is something that will make me more human in future. But if that doesn't happen I don't think that it will make me low or depressed or lonely in any way. I have now slowly learned to live a life of solitude, A life where in I am deeply soaked within me. I have experienced a life where I am drunk with my own wine. I can live a life with myself. Actually I have seen that life with yourself is less complex rather than in any kind of relationship.

When I will reach 39 next year, i.e., in 2017, I will try to go for a long meditation, may be Vipasana, to look into myself in much better way and find some new goal for the life post 40s.

Thanks you each and everyone for my beautiful life.

I celebrated my 38th Birthday in Chennai as well as in New Delhi with my colleagues and good friends respectively. Birthdays come and go but the message that it brings with it many a time goes overlooked. This time my birthday brought in message of love and care. I felt really happy when the participants  (few colleagues of mine and few friends from other organisation) in the training programme in Chennai, suddenly gave me surprise party in the form of cutting cake and wishing me best in my life ahead. Facebook of mine was poured by warm greetings and kind words. My colleagues from Delhi called me and wished me. I felt so glad. I really felt pampered and extremely happy. The message of love came loud and clear. All my friends and acquaintance do love me a lot. They found few minutes for me to pen down their thoughts in Facebook and whatsapp.The participants in the training workshop found some time out of their heavy schedule to plan a tasty as well as beautiful cake for me. I think Birthday is one of the day in our life when people really think of us. My mother called me at night when the clock ticked midnight and wished as well as blessed me for beautiful life ahead. What more you need? But there are much more for me yet...

I was in Chennai in the morning of 20th May 2016 (date of my birth) by evening around 9 pm I was back to Delhi. My two good friends in Delhi picked me up from airport and took me to a restaurant in Caunaught Place, New Delhi. On our way to restaurant they stopped their car on the way and honoured me with lot of gifts followed by cutting the cake ceremony. I was so happy with their warm gesture to make me feel special. I owe to them a lot. Gratitude pour out of my heart for them and I could only thank them from the core of my heart. In Delhi or in any other cities of the world when you stay alone and far from your family members, then these friends out side your professional job, makes you feel very special. On my last birthday both of them made me feel special.

In the restaurant, we had good food and danced few steps on the karaoke that was sang by another group in the restaurant. One of the song was "Happy Birthday to you...."

At night I could sleep happily remembering the attention that I got through out the day. The love and care that I received was really overwhelming.

Life for some of us is lonely. But then friends make you feel special and loved.

I thank all of my friends, colleagues for making

My perception on my government ...

After an exciting election campaign of 2014, BJP came into power with absolute majority giving a hope to India that there will be bang of reforms at economic fronts accelerating the growth rate to double digit number. I remember, the print media and visual media being projecting the good will of the new government to bring about positive change in the country. My friends speaking high about Modi - the man of miracles (as if he has a magic wand to bring about a dazzling change in the country). All were hopeful. To be true, even though I am not Modi fan, I also felt that "Achhe Din ane wale hain".

The new government started with a new zeal by making its intention very very clear that it is here with non-tolerance of "Chalta Hain" attitude in the country. Through Modi's speech from Red Fort, radio and from different political and government platform, the government sound loud enough to bring about strict systems in abolishing crony capitalism. I personally felt that this government will work differently taking everyone - "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikash".

I liked Modi's phrase, "Minimum Government, Maximum Governance". I was slowly creating a positive perception within myself about the new government. I really felt that the new government is here to deliver - deliver fast. But I also could see that the government was getting slowly crystallized  and centralized around PMO - Mr. Modi. A centralized decision making mechanism was getting shaped in a democratic set up. Many people and media was constantly expressing this concern. But people were liking it as they were fade up with weak PM for ten years. They were enjoying the strong PM. After all we cannot forget that we are very young democracy with a long history of monarchy. Hence we all suffer till date from slave mentality.

 Now when I sit to write this blog, I feel alarmed and scared with the way the government is trying to safronise education system, neglect constitutional bodies, choke the civil society and media and favouring corporate by facilitating subtly the death of poor farmers (through land bill), I am not comfortable with the silence of PM in many major issues of development and corruption. Now after one year I feel that the government has two teeths - one for eating and one for showing. Modi's talk and Modi's action is not congruent. The only beneficiary of this government seems to be RSS and its sister organisations as well as corporate. BJP is just waiting to get more seats in Rajya Sabha so that it can be in majority in the house to bring desirable amendments and laws.

Four more years are there for this government. Let us see how it performs.