Encounters with Reality

If I search for activities happening around me, I can trace roots of these activities. There are many institutions and professions whose function and emergence in social structure can be thought. I can think how engineering had evolved. I can trace how animal husbandry had evolved. I see evolution of medical sciences. I see emergence of chemists. And, then I wonder why philosophers got any place in social structure. I have very destructive hypothesis in mind. But before that let me put what I have in mind about emergence of streams of knowledge and professions. If we see society or human groupings as self-evolving sphere, then it becomes easier to understand the emergence of institutions. I am using few words little carelessly here like institutions, professions and streams of knowledge. What I want to stress is emergence of these things and hence I am accepting little casual approach towards semantic specifications for the sake of simplicity. In this self-evolving sphere, there a...

Past is difficult thing to leave. It becomes even more difficult if past that you are trying to forget was what your identity for all years passed. The memories you are trying to erase are what your habits and words for all time passed. It is difficult burden to throw away and more difficult if you know what you are throwing away is still dearer to you. I never made peace with the fact that I worked for RSS. What kept me there are persons who designed the organizations, curtailed and fitted themselves to any task and impulsive responses whenever any social catastrophe happened. What made me to withdraw myself is restricted view towards human being. Sketching human being as religious entity, putting unnecessary benevolence or cruelty on him or holding concepts about humanity much more worth than humanity which created them are not my cup of teas. But even though I fragmented in my attachments, what never changed is my respect and attraction for creative organization of human beings ...

I have written before about being selfish. There is visual interpretation of words which we use. What comes to my mind when I say ‘selfish’ is someone chasing wealth? It is not image, I agree. But, what comes to my mind is person with measured, tailor made talks, behavior in which there is no contradiction and chase of opulence or some sort of gain evident in every action. There is nothing done without visible intention of gaining something out of it and rarely that gain is non-materialistic. There may be different, polar opposite visuals coming to mind of different persons. There is connotation every word carries. This connotation is made up some average meaning which is present in everybody’s mind, with few exceptions. The connotation for ‘selfish’ is tilted to negative, towards region of characteristics which we do not want to see or we are taught not to see in ‘ideal’ human being. If this ideal human picture is removed, selfishness is what will remain, in different orders. It i...

Leading life logically is what philosopher tried to do for many years. It doesn’t mean they actually lived so. But, somehow, through all their works, they tried to establish some or other cage of thoughts and presented life as some wild but tamed animal inside. How that animal got inside the cage was what not they tried to explain. They elegantly, skillfully and precisely described what to do it once it is caged. But, somehow what matters to most of the living mortals, like me, is how to cage it or whether is it possible at all to cage it. They keep mum, a sacrosanct silence. What is problem in perceiving life system with some tailor made premises? And, if one does not do so, then what is the way to explain social organization? What do we mean by ‘explain’? ‘Explanation’ is bringing something unknown into known. We bring it by various means. One uses analogies, examples, anecdotes or any part of known information to put a frame around unknown. If this frame fits, one ‘knows’. I...

About the day? When did it start? When did it end? Did I learn anything or was it just remembering rush of adrenalin that I feel time to time? Is it about scenes of hills, ranges of mountains, skies, sunrise and sunset, roads and fields? Is it about people who are still searching different sort of happiness? Is it about women, who are cheerful and willing to work despite drunkard husbands, displaced homes and non-existent support structure? Is it about mix of it whole, which we chalk as problematic? Is it about urban arrogance that I encountered at the start? Is it about anything, except whirlpool of thoughts inside me? There is one thing for sure. There is a side, which I do not know. To every sorrow defined, there is hope undefined and challenging it. To every success celebrated, there is weak but constant stream which flows in opposite and yet, happy. Leaders are not just those who preach and forget. There are few who lead their life and others’ with small but constant steps o...

Consciousness is gift, is it? I don’t think so. Especially when one is aware of being aware, conscious of being conscious. Knowledge, after threshold of being aware is dangerous. It ruins happiness and it can take person to ends where it will challenge survival. Last day I was reading about consciousness. I am curious about how do I understand. The simplest answer is I understand due to my consciousness. If one studies brain, there are partial answers about what happens in memory and other signals when this cognition happens. But this neural-biotic system is so delicately arranged, every small part fits every other tiny part so well, coordination among them which is chief ingredient of ‘conscience’ make me think who runs this system. There is one simple answer is this system runs itself. This circular logic is what we avoid in any logical system. When we understand that there are millions and millions of particles called ‘neurons’ that makes us conscious and there are varieties of...

We form beliefs. And, they are useful. They provide us initial set of judgments for any choice. It is human system to reduce uncertainty to set of possible and then most possible alternatives. Somehow, in courses with less creative exercises, like Philosophy or Development Studies, where most of the times bored with life souls put light on issues which are useless for working world, an argument is made about pluralist concerns. They debate about End and Means. They debate about happiness and what gives us that Happiness. They criticize pursuit of wealth. And, to exhibit that they are no less intelligent than wonder working Physicists or Engineers, they create moral dilemmas and prove how unsolvable they are, even by them. So they take this un-solvability of their ‘discipline’ as flag of intellectual victory on enemy which is never there(who will fight with this intellectual samurais, fighting for all mortals who do not understand that all their decisions are ‘monoconcentretic’ while t...

शहर उजळून निघता समृद्धीच्या दिवांच्या वैभवी प्रकाशात आनंदाचे रंग अवघा आसमंत भरून टाकतात दुख नावाचा शब्दही उमटत नसताना एक म्हातारा, असलेला एकुलता एक पाय आणि त्याच्या जोडीची कुबडी हातात घेवून चालत असतो रात्रीच्या जेवणाचे जिन्नस उत्साहाच्या उर्जेने वाहत्या रस्त्यात त्याची चाल कोणाच्या खिजगणतीत नाही घरी असेल त्याच्या खचलेपण तोलणारी पिचलेली बायको का अपंग आयुष्याला झाकणारा एकटा अंधार? पणती तरी ठेवली असेल का त्याने आशाहीन भविष्यापुढे उमेदीचा अंकुर म्हणून? अंधाराच्या मुळांवर तोललेला प्रकाशाचा डोलारा देखण्या मंदिरातला वांझोटा गाभारा

Aesthetics had lot to say about what is in the story that makes it story. Experts of literature might show some trends augmented with hefty names to indicate how stories have evolved over time. Story might be mirror image description of day to day life. it might be horror story, suspense story or romantic one. Considering all this variations, the soul of story which has impresses story tellers and listeners right from the ages is ‘GOOD against BAD’ with difficult but sure triumph of win. After watching 3-D AVATAR, the huge feeling for leap of humanity, near impossible happening in front your eyes and simulated yet believable actions, I wonder what was new in those techno-packed, perfectly managed 3 hours. Nothing. The good old ‘triumph of GOOD over BAD’ wrapped in state of the art or futuristic manner. PAISA WASOOL!! If stories of GOOD defeating BAD are ubiquitous, through time, through space, why reality seems contrasting? Do we want stories telling about situations which will...

Why it is so, impulse to converse, to tell what last moment told me… Was it worth, was it enough to move inch ahead in path… Do I want to talk to you, the one whom I know… Or I want you, stranger with familiar anonymity.. Why do I speak when real conversation is done without anything outward… What is there to be known will be known… What is the difference if I say it or someone else or no one… Conversation, is it naturally in my veins, but then also the silence Is it just habit I took on or is it substitution for time that I spent with myself… Can I drink my own words when solitude is eager to speak? Can I touch to my own carvings when I do not recognize myself? Can I gift myself a world woven and created by my own, when I deny any signal from the world? If I leave myself here, and, Swim by this current of my words, Walk along shores of these poems, Travel by road of selfless search, Will I reach to a man, who lives in me, yet so stranger to me?

And I was in front of movie screen. I needed 15 minutes to reach to one of the old movie theaters in my city and 20 rupees (!) to get in. Fans running with limited electric supply, dress circle people sitting on the chairs as they are on the sofas in their bungalows, words flowing around me about anything under this sun and then suddenly screen lit, names flash without troubling much and the song which I expected to encounter somewhere later in the movie, starts, theater, full with whistles, theater full with cries, at a times vulgar, city with rural heart, is full on…. The movie was Natarang’. Atul Kulkarni has performed role of his lifetime. He gained weight and then lost it more miraculously. He expresses what an artist living in the worst suited conditions for can feel. He expressed what a person trying to live in the situation where mere subsistence is worth. But. More than it, above from all, he made me feel the shift an artist can face, when he is made to perform the role he ...