Who Controls the Visual Media?

Everyone was looking forward to that moment since past few weeks... That was the day of the interview with that nasty culprit! For the first time hesher was about to shown to the world. For the first time hesher was about to speak in front of the world directly.

The citizen knew himer very well! They have read hiser dreadful stories in newspapers. They have heard several debates on hiser opinion on several things...

'They were very well aware of' hiser attitude towards the world; how hesher used to answer a question. They have read/heard that hesher never say a thing with certainty and will make the listener in a dilemma, that what hesher actually means and hesher is always against to whomever hesher talks to. The list goes on...

The interview began. [Note: Please read '+++' as incomplete sentence such that the statement of the culprit is being interrupted by the interviewer. Vice versa]

Interviewer : Is 1>1 true?

The culprit  : No.

Interviewer : So, are you saying 1<1?

The culprit  : No, but +++

Interviewer : We all know if a coin is tossed and if the upper area is not head then it must be tail. So, if                         1>1 is not true, it must be the other way round that is 1<1.

The culprit  : No, it could be +++

Interviewer : What it could be?

The culprit  : It could be +++

Interviewer : Why you are not even completing the sentence? I'm asking you if 1>1 is not true then are                         you saying 1<1?

The culprit  : Apart from < and > there could exist another +++

Interviewer : Answer my question, I don't want your lecture.

The culprit  : Let me complete, +++

Interviewer : Yes, I also want you to answer the question.

The culprit  : I'm saying +++

Interviewer : Why are you arguing uselessly +++

The culprit  : Please let me +++

Interviewer : (to the audience) You are watching now, hesher can't even answer a simple question and                         hesher argues on nothing! How can you think of such a person to act rationally or morally                       for the society?

And the world became aware of the irrationality and immorality of the culprit and hence why hesher wouldn't act for the society. They know it now, because the witnessed it!!!

Do you agree with the interviewer's opinion? 

I always wanted to write this article but never have got a powerful and hot examples... But here is one now.

You can see and analyse how well written 'script' this debate/interview section has!

0:05:14 - 0:07:38 - The interviewer doesn't even give a chance to Kanhaiya to complete whatever he is about to say;

say he asks 'Do you want freedom? freedom from what?' Kanhaiya answers, 'freedom from poverty,inflation +++ ' then he interrupts...

Look at the interviewer's aggressive and provoking body language!!!

0:07:43 - 0:09:48 - The interviewer never interrupts the person who talks, even for a single time.

This is the trend seen in the above video; selectively the interviewer chose some to answer his questions and he has chosen a certain direction too; you may verify it by yourself. And that is what being telecasted to the public, who doesn't think but just accept whatever they are being told to be true or false... Now, who controls the media? Isn't there any strict censor board for that?

(Let me add 'we' are also a part of the mentioned public!)

What is 'Hinduism'???

The following is not a product of my creativity but a few historic facts that we may be unaware of or intentionally chose to be forgotten... The origin of Hinduism.

We never used to talk in Greek, Persian, or Arabic... Still 'our' religion has got a name from these foreign languages -Hindu-. Greeks and Armenians used to refer people 'Indu/Hindu', who lived besides the river Sindhu. We never have found the usage of the word Hindu in our old literature like Vedas or Manusmriti...

What our religion was called till then? Did it own a name? Or did 'it' exist at all?

History says we didn't have any religion till the arrival and ruling of Muhammadans; around 800AD. But in fact a well established caste system were there, with Brahmans on top of it.

"The Muhammadans called all the non-Muslim inhabitants, without any discrimination, by the common name 'Hindu', which practically meant non-Muslims and nothing more. Indians became 'Hindus', their religion became 'Hinduism' and Brahmans their masters" [1]

- The History of Hindu Imperialism by Swami Dharma Theertha, 1941

If you look any religion, they are alike regardless the place or the era of it's origin. Eg. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism, and Sikhism. They have a single prophet or God, have a set of rules with which the religious people to be lived, have a philosophical concept based on which it was built up and a holy book.

"When we think of the Hindu religion, unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one god; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any on philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion of creed. It may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more" [2]

- Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar,1995

Kashmir is one of the existing oldest Hindu state... It is named after Kashyapa (Kashyapamar) in the ancient times. A highly Hindu populated region, even in 13th century. But by the census 1901 and 1921 it became a Muslim majority place! [3] [4] [5] [6]. The same goes to Travancore and Kochi in Kerala.

"According to the Census of 1901 the Christian population of Travancore was only six lakhs. By 1931 it rose to 17 lakhs or 33% of the total population."
"A large section of the Hindus was preparing to abandon Hinduism and embrace Christianity rather than continue to live as helots of Hindu society. The Maharaja took courage in both hands and prevented the mass conversion by the famous Temple Entru Proclamation." [1] chapter XVI

Why did it happen? How did it happen? Why would people become intolerant to their own 'religion' whereas a religion is claimed to be established for the well being of citizen of that religion.

If there never were a usage of a terminology called 'Hindu' or 'Hinduism' before the Muhammadans invasion, It never possess the properties of a religion, and Hindus were converted their religion massively implying the Hinduism made them insecure,

What really is Hinduism? What it stands for if not for the well being of the people who follow it? What are we shouting for in the name of Hinduism; recalling 1992 Ayodhya and 2002 Godhra... and are we expecting more in the near future?

Ref:

1.https://ia801809.us.archive.org/17/items/HistroyOfHinduImperialism/Histroy%20of%20Hindu%20Imperialism.pdf

2.http://veda.wikidot.com/hindu

3.http://hinduism.about.com/od/history/a/Kashmir-Paradise-Lost.htm

4.http://hinduexistence.org/2011/04/21/kashmiri-hindus-reclaim-5000-years-of-hindu-history-and-hindu-rights/

5.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kashmir#Historical_Demographics_of_Kashmir

6.https://books.google.co.in/books?id=sSn5xuF_ARkC&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=1921+kashmir+hindu+muslim+population&source=bl&ots=aD94azteSf&sig=tYm4-m87j6ayA_UXQ8dq6qvZi2U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBmIGowvzKAhWPno4KHabLDPoQ6AEIMjAE#v=onepage&q=1921%20kashmir%20hindu%20muslim%20population&f=false

A Glance at Children's Literature

As you can read and see, the picture is a cover of a children story book 'Up and Up', one of my favorite before I learn to read. This book does not have a single sentence as a part of story... This is a picture book... a series of pictures will tell us the story and hence will make us 'think', which is quite common nowadays. Today I think of discussing about books -for children (and not about children)-

My childhood was abundant of books. My days started with books... My parents used to either read or tell me stories. I vividly remember my first birthday gift when I learned how to read; it was a Malayalam book with big letters and colorful pictures 'chuvanna kochuvandi' in which two small monkeys were trying to build a vehicle and painting it red. It was fascinating enough so that I tried to build such a one and named after it (it wasn't a working one!). I've been trying to write a few books from my childhood collections but then it went so long making this article boring, so I'm writing the types and a few specialties that would help later in the following part. I used to read fantasies, adventures, biographies, science fiction, pure science, religious books/stories(that includes Christianity, Greek, Islam, Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhism), moral stories, historical stories (of wars or pyramids), geographical books etc. When my collection was over I turned to my parents collection and I even read small translated brief versions of Dracula, Karamazov brothers, Count of monte cristo and Jean valjean, before the age 10!!! and certainly I didn't understand them as I perceive them now, at the age of 23.

I liked everything except moral stories, I found them boring as those books from my parents' collection...because most of the time I didn't understand them or I didn't find meaning in it (moreover we-the human society- have been reading the same moral stories, say Aesop fables since ~BC 600, Bible almost for 2000 years, Bhagavatgita and so on... yet did our society change accordingly-learning them-?! well, we always hear the aged people criticizing the degradation of values among the upcoming generation!!!). I didn't understand why Dantes takes revenge in The count of monte christo as in the case of the story of tailor and elephant, in which tailor hurt the elephant and it takes revenge to him. I used to read a book at least 10 times if I like it and I always found fresh! And whenever I liked a piece of writing, I found it interesting either because it was 'informative and adventures' or because 'I found myself in it'. Say Hoity-Toity goes to the first category, The little prince goes to the second category and Tom Sawyer goes to both (not informative); I wondered how alike our games were when I read it, even though both of us were from different era and continents...

Later as I grew older I began to think why we -Malayalam- do not have much stories for children? Even when people told me Kunjikkoonan and Oru kudayum kunjipengalum are children literature, what I felt was It's about children and NOT for children, because it had several ideas that a child never would understand... Those were stories of cruelty for me... I didn't want kunjikkoonan to suffer so much, it made me nothing but morose. I dumped them along with my moral story books... Why do they belong to children literature? Why there must be moral stories for children? Why don't we let them grow and glide in their imagination and creativity, like 'Up and Up' does to every child?

I grew older... I began to have friends of age 4 who are just beginning to read,way younger than me. We played together we collected and sorted stones or leaves and studied them. We made prisms or Archimedes pulley system, We painted pictures. Along with that I wanted them to read and to enter into a new world. (additionally, I used to ask them so many reasoning questions and I think they are much rational than adults...Because they are unbiased and not prejudiced as the adults. I like their expression when the began to think about something that they never think before.)

One day with one of my young friend, who was lazy to read (because his parents never used to read him stories and make him eager to read and learn) I went to my home library. I tried to attract him with my favorite books. But he was reluctant to read. Finally I read him stories and asked him about it on the next day... a few days later he started forcing me to read for him, then I made a deal that he must read a page per day. After one year he started asking me books to read. Then I began to search for 'the apt one' for him... He wanted stories with plenty of pictures. I owned only a few like that and those were moral stories and not stories like Tom Sawyer or Pinocchio. Then I noticed carefully the fact that most of them were cynical, pessimistic, or filled with contempt and making someone hero some else villain, and inducing fear about the world we live in, portraying the world as a bad place to live in...

In Malayalam I rarely found children literature, say maanikyakkallu by M.T. and majority of the existing are cynical... Still I must mention a few are there published mainly by Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishath. Still we need a lot more...

We need to develop our culture providing more attention and care to children, to make them innovative. or else with not much articles to read and to develop brain how do we dare to expect our children to conquer the wisdom and to be unique? (The same is applicable in the movie/visual media industry too. We do not have much movies/ programs for children. Instead we have quite a lot of visual arts that make use of children as a very good marketing tool... say for sentimental movies or entertaining programs- interviewing children-... I can't help saying it's pathetic to watch them being used as entertaining objects...).

When I look at the world I do see only those nations are wonderfully developing all the time, who have considered children as inevitable and have a world specially for children...

I dream a future where our children will eagerly wait on the road for the bell ring of the person who travels with books instead of Ice creams or Cotton candy as we see around us... as I read in the book 'പാതിരാസൂര്യൻറെ നാട്ടിൽ' by S.K. Pottekkattu

Gravitational Waves and Conscience

Probably this is a diary rather than an article, It's around 2 O'clock in the morning and I'm not able to sleep... I'm just excited about the official announcement; detection of gravitational waves...After a long,deep, enthusiastic quest. That indeed is a big leap for the world. No! I must say big leap for them who love and feel theoretical physics...

A few fractions of a second carried us to a distance 1.3 billion light year from earth... to an event happened about a few hundred millions to around 2 billion years in the past... Answering what happened, the masses of each spinning black holes, the mass after the merger occurred, and so on... That's indeed wonderful. Congratulations LIGO team! Congratulations to the collaboration team from my institute too-IISER TVM-.

I am even excited about the upcoming LIGO India, with which we will be participating in the quest for GW...

I don't care how much money we will be spending on it... It's merely my pleasure or interest as in the case of reading a book. We read a book because we want to know what it talks about. We don't care about the world around us, we don't care how many die out of starvation or any other diseases. For me physics is something similar to this. I never care about the world when I read Quantum Field Theory or String Theory. I don't care if it is useful for the mankind... All that I want to know is what is it? how is it working and what's the story behind it?...

While I come back from my institute around 10:30 pm, as in any grandma story with not much surprising element I heard a familiar voice; it was my conscience. It was asking 'Am I being selfish? Is it moral to live a luxurious life having LIGO when we are surrounded by millions of deprived??? '

We need both social as well as scientific progress. How to prioritize them? How to treat them economically? I do not know now...

A few links on gravitational waves including the paper in PRL are given below.

http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureNews

https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/live/2016/feb/11/gravitational-wave-announcement-latest-physics-einstein-ligo-black-holes-live?CMP=share_btn_tw

http://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Ycv2yYNG8

Are You 'Orthodox'?

The term 'orthodox' is defined as 'Following or conforming to the traditional or generally accepted rules or beliefs of a religion, philosophy, or practice' - Oxford Dictionary

People used to say nothing will work in this bureaucratic system if you don't bribe the officials... In fact we have laws to take action against them, who misuse their official power. From IPC 1860 and prevention of corruption act 1988 up to Right to information act 2005...

Nowadays there are even notices in almost all Govt. offices mentioning helpline phone numbers and asking us to contact, if anyone happen to force us for bribing.

In old days people were uneducated and ignorant about their rights and laws that would stand by them. Hence they did whatever the officials asked them to do. But the era has changed, people do at least know there are laws to help them. They can get help from someone who is educated. Let us take Kerala as example, where the majority are educated comparing to any other states in India.

Yet we have a lot of bribing stories... Why is it so???

If it happens due to the ignorance of the victim, I presume that we -the public- are so selfish that we won't even care about our friends. Are you selfish?

If it happens because the victim wants things to happen within a short time period and the bureaucratic dysfunction stands against it, I presume that our development is slow and we are irresponsible about it. Are you irresponsible?

If it happens because we think 'things won't work in this nation without bribing', I presume we -the public- are ORTHODOX because regardless of our education and awareness of our wonderful Indian penal code we follow the old age practice; that people used to do when they were ignorant-namely bribing Govt. officials-. Are you orthodox?

Credit for the terminology 'orthodox' in the context of bribing- Arya Mohan

Ref:

1.http://www.mcrhrdi.gov.in/Group12012/Anti-Corruption%20Laws%20in%20India.pdf

2.http://www.advocatekhoj.com/library/bareacts/indianpenalcode/index.php?Title=Indian%20Penal%20Code,%201860

3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Penal_Code

Cat Trapped in a Room and Education System!

That was a terrible scream, by my roommates around midnight. As I saw them sitting on their bed I imagined someone with a knife like weapon, about to attack us. I said 'Shhh... be quiet...', that merely was a reflex! within a few microseconds I became conscious and I thought 'what happened?...'. It was an uninvited guest, a cat! who entered into our room and was sleeping with one of my roommate. But it hid somewhere. I got up, switched on the light and opened the door.

We were so cautious since the cat must have been scared by our response and hence it would probably run around and it's claws would hurt us. After searching for a while, the cat was found beneath a table around a corner of our room. The next task was to get it out of the room. We started thinking of frightening it, but it's a bit risky since it's claws...

Then we called on of our batch mate Miss X, who is a cat lover and know how to deal with them. She came and tried to tame the cat. I was counting each second wishing for the cat to come out. A few minutes elapsed, the cat changed it's position; underneath a bed. Miss X kept on calling it. Then with a little bit skeptic steps it moved towards Miss X and made comfortable itself within her hands. She patted and rubbed the cat and it became her friend!

Then while we talking she kept it down on the floor. It's behavior grabbed my attention.

That cat, who was scared a while ago started playing with one of my roommate's school bag! We then dispersed back to sleep. I couldn't sleep for hours, I kept on thinking about it's behavior...

This is not merely a story about a cat intruding into our room instead a chain of thoughts regarding the way of educating a child.

Let us go back to the cat story;

1. We wanted the cat to move out of our room without attacking us.

2. We lacked the knowledge, how to make it behave the way we wanted.

3. The only plan we had was to 'frighten' it, so that it would go out (exploiting the fly or fight 

     mechanism of all living being except plants or trees!). But what if the cat fights back?!

4. Alternative idea; get the help of an expert, who knows how to handle them wisely.

5. 'That intelligence', how to handle a cat wisely made our life easy. Neither the cat made 

     unfair movement nor we hurt it. And everything went as we -including the cat 

     probably- wished.

Now let us consider our children. We -the public- used to say 'we must punish the children in order to make them disciplined, well behaved, to respect elders, to STUDY, to obey etc '

Are we uncivilized human being to think in such a manner that to make the children do something, as we plough with cattle; by physical forces???

When the education board ask us not to hit children we laugh at them thinking 'how fool are they, enforcing stupid laws not knowing how to handle children! Children must be punished hard to make them disciplined...' 

The old school thoughts, old enough that of a caveman...

No one would achieve what hesher wish to, via a system merely based on punishments.

We need to get up from our ignorance and to make our children comfortable as the cat within Miss X's hands, to be well behaved , to be educated and for being much more efficient... For that what we need is a society with a wise parenting techniques, or else none of the innovative education system would help in developing a child.