The Incredible Indian Auto Rickshaw

Photo attribution: verryindia.com
In a dark cosy corner, listening to the patter of rain courtesy Hurricane Nilam, I am thinking up these sacred thoughts about the Incredible Indian Auto Rickshaw. Right now, I think every truly Indian God, Man, and Beast, is blessed to travel in this incredible three-wheeler that has speed, swerve, snazzle, sound, and fury better than Rajni+ShahenShah+Salman combined. It is the truly Indian transport vehicle that rocks. The hand that rocks the cradle of world civilisation and culture called !ncredible !ndia.

Lest I sound simply funny, let me give you the profundity of my respect.

First, the Vehicle:
If you visit the narrow lanes of Varanasi, the capital of ancient India, you will know that the only vehicle that could sneak through those cow-and bull-infested streets of Shiva's temple town is an auto. If you visit the streets today of Bengaluru, Chennai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Pune, Dombivili, Borivili, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad and Bhawanipore, you will know that you will reach your destination only if you take an Auto. It can steer 270 deg. In a 3-ft radius, go forward and reverse, snake in 3 speeds, overtake anyone anywhere any side and ignore No-Entry or Red Light with absolutely NO second thought. Even where donkeys or buffaloes will pause for thought, the Auto will fly through with no qualms. It is the TRULY liberated Indian vehicle. And by the way, it is an all-weather vehicle, and one that needs no all-weather AC.

Second, the Economics:
The only vehicle which can seat from one to nine people without ANY trouble, carry cargo, animals, 15 school children or four fat ladies for Diwali shopping, is an Auto. It costs less than 2000 dollars to buy. It has a road worthiness of over 25 years (or 2 million miles whichever is less). It has three identical wheels. Have you ever seen an Auto with a flat tyre, or an engine that failed to start?
India has decided to finally harness its ancient forms and modern forms of energy in one hybrid technological solution. Both the mounds of current day garbage and ancient animal dung or gobar will be used to generate gas. Each politician, known for his extreme mastery of gas dispensation, will be allotted a CSIR-licenced manufacturing plant, which will generate lots of gobar gas. The only Indian vehicle already capable of running on gobar gas, a green fuel, is the Auto. Eventually it will cost less than 1 cent per kilometre.

Third, the Spiritual Connection:
The word Auto Rickshaw is composed of these Syllables:
A-Tu-A R-Ksha.

A, the first letter in the Sanskrit alphabet, is the symbol of God ("aksharANAM akArOsmi" Bhagavad Gita 10.33), according to our most sacred texts. The letter Tu is a concession to the English Language, and comes from 'to'. That means that according to ancient Indian wisdom, we all come from Godhood or Brahman, and go back finally to Godhood or Brahman. That is the dharma chakra. The combination of syllables Tu+A gives TO (Sandhi rules of Sanskrit grammar). hence Auto. Indians pronounce it correctly as aatO. Foreigners and NRIs say it with an accent.

The syllable R (it is the seventh vowel in Sanskrit or Devanagari) is a sacred symbol of Truth. R stands for the ultimate reality or truth. Which is changeless and eternal. Hence Gandhi made truth the first principle. He made his second principle Non-violence. The symbol for forgiveness, or peace or non-violence in Sanskrit is KSHA. So the word in Sanskrit dictionary for forgiveness is 'Kshama'. It is the highest virtue in relating to others. Hence the second word of Rickshaw stands for Truth and Non-violence or Forgiveness. These two principles come to us from Krishna, Buddha and Gandhi. They are the basis of our national values.

So you have the most sacred name from Indian scriptures, Auto Rickshaw.

Finally, Futurism:
In pre-twentieth century, man travelled on vehicles with multiple wheels and many legs. Most developed countries are stuck in the 20th century, and travel on four wheels. The number 4 is the symbol of death, ask any Chinese or Indian. Hence that century witnessed massacres and two world wars. The future belongs to the number three, or trinity, sacred in all religious thought. Three wheels it shall be, that will carry man forward. Away from the barbarism of four wheels. Future sedans, solar vehicles, and such will all borrow the idea of 3 wheels from the Indian Auto Rikshaw. I am not talking sci-fi here of MagLev and such.

Some people may snigger, saying that the Auto also stands for the Indian socio-economic track record of not getting anywhere ('from A to A'), and a Rickshaw speed of growth. I don't really argue with such people. I want to stick to my noble thoughts on this wet evening, waiting for November, hearing the patter of rain echoing the Nilam hurricane.

God Speed in all your travels. Take an Auto Rickshaw.

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Sitting is killing me

Indian Puranas - Then and Now

If you are a foreigner, or a confused desi, you may be wondering about all our mythology or Puranas. You may not know it, but successful Indians believe in Puranas and even employ Chief Belief Officers, who in their spare time come on TV and write articles.

The reason is that Puranas are timeless and they form the core of our spirituality. They will never die.

This is a 3 minute capsule on Puranas then and now.

THEN
An ambitious man, god or demon would perform penance for thousands of years, and get major boons from a helpless God that he would be 'nearly' immortal.
He would then exploit everyone cruelly and be totally powerful for a few thousand years. The people would suffer untold miseries, but would wait for their saviour.
Rishis like Narada, Durvasa and Bhrigu would  go and advise God that something must be done.
God will slowly decide enough is enough, and take a mighty form, fight a fierce battle, and kill the bad guy. All will be well.
Well, almost. The next one is only a few thousand years away, and Puranas repeat themselves.
Indians believe this to be true, because they have seen it. They have at least seen it in Telugu movies lasting 4-5 hours. So there is total equilibrium.

NOW
An ambitious man, Indian, NRI or foreigner will study in IIT, AIIMS, Harvard or Cambridge. He may also become a movie star or sports-star after years of toil. And get major awards,degrees, bank loans or airlines/IPL franchises, and build an empire like no other, and feel that he is 'nearly' immortal.
He would then exploit everyone cruelly and be totally powerful for a few years. The people would suffer untold miseries, but would wait for their saviour.
People like CAG, CVC, Subramaniam Swamy, Medha Patkar, Anna, and Kejriwal, will go and advise the people to file FIR, PIL, RTI petitions that something must be done. After years of noise without action, a reluctant/newly appointed Govt. or Courts will take note, and start a mighty storm of action, fight a fierce public cleansing campaign, and put the bad guy in Tihar. All will be well.
Well, almost. The next one is only a few days/months/years away, and Puranas repeat themselves.
Indians believe this to be true, because they have seen it. They have at least seen it in a million news channels day and night, lasting 24x7 hours. So there is total equilibrium.



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RIP Jaspal Bhatti - the man who made us laugh at our miseries

Jaspal Bhatti died in a car crash in Punjab, two days before his movie, "Power Cut", was to be released. A man who had an uncanny way of making us laugh at our everyday problems, he will be sorely missed.

Long before India opened up the telecom sector, he made the following episode. It seems incredible that we had all these micro problems, about waiting for telephone connections, excess bills, wrong numbers, and faulty lines. Today our problems are those of excess, with 2G, 3G and LTE problems!



May Bhatti rest in peace. I suspect he will be making a whole bunch of new spoofs about the miseries in heaven!


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I could kill for a piece of pickle

My teenager son was once enrolled into an Art of Living camp many years ago. After 3 days of kriyas and Sattvic (read insipid) food, he emerged saying, "I could kill for a piece of pickle!" Very expressive and unambiguous language of having been denied something!

Knowing how much fondness for chillies etc. is in his blood, I could well understand my son's understated rage at having been subjected to the Sattvic regimen. Just escalate similar emotions, and you have situations like in "No one killed Jessica", wherein the guy would well use his gun to get his way, especially when denied another drink at the bar that he demands as his due. In other words, our intense likes and dislikes drive our behaviour, especially in this case, anger.

Is anger all about attitude or provocation or predisposition? In local parlance, we say "anger is on the tip of that person's nose". We also say that some people are not easily provoked, and wonder how they can keep their cool in the face of "so much".

I think anger becomes a style statement for some. I know people who not only use abusive angry language easily, but claim that "that's who we are". I also know that beyond a point, some people start getting ignored and others then say, "don't take him seriously, he's is wild/goes off the handle easily".
That brings me to provocation. It is interesting that provocation is entirely a function of our own attitudes and predispositions. And beyond a point, it is not our rational choice but almost a personal trait or reflex action to get angry in some situations. It is so internalised. At that point we are helpless.
Arjuna asks Krishna in the Bhagavagita how sometimes, even when we don't want to do something (bad) we feel almost driven to do it, in spite of ourselves. Krishna replies that it is because of our Kama and Krodha! Kama = "intense desires or likes"!!! And then the flipside, of our anger on being denied.

Krishna calls these two traits, attraction and anger, as rooted in Rajas or our "wanting" to get something, no matter what. And he calls them the greatest enemies in our journey to liberation, and that they are like the whirlwind, and hard to overcome. So we have to be mindful always of the twin traps of attraction and anger.

They say that when Prahlada's demonic father Hiranyakashipu drove him to the extreme, Vishnu emerged as the raging Narasimha=man-lion, and tore the demon apart. The man-lion was so full of rage that it took a lot to calm him down. So even God shows us that rage beyond a point is hard to control, and so let's watch out! Of course, Vishnu 'used' rage here, and not the other way around.

(photo: this lovely Narasimha idol is in Wheeling, WV Iskcon temple that I visited in 2009).

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Shyamala Dandakam

Remember Kalidasa is historically dated to have been in the 4th Century AD. His musical poetry here is unmatched.

And Sangeetha Kalanidhi D.K. Pattammal has sung it impeccably, many decades ago.
Happy Navaratri!

Why He called India a Banana Republic

The son-in-law is making some people angry because he called India a banana republic. But I can easily figure out his reasoning. Here are the reasons:
Mahatma Gandhi: Swatantar Bharat banana hai
Nehru: India ko majboot banana hai
Patel: Bharat ko republic banana hai
Indira: India ko world power banana hai
Sanjay: Mujhe ek small car banana hai
Rajiv: India ko modern banana hai
Manmohan: Indian economy ko open banana hai
Vajpayee: Har admi ko poet banana hai
Joshi: Ram Mandir banana hai
Advani: Aap ko mujhe PM banana hai
Sonia: Indian passport banana hai
Kejriwal: Aam admi ko neta banana hai
Neta: Public ko ullu banana hai

Ma: Beta, tumhe doctor ya ingneer banana hai
Papa: nahi, bete ko Indian Idol banana hai
Amitabh: nahi, isko crorepati banana hai

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Rajiv Malhotra: why being dharmic is different

My good friend Vishwa asked me to watch this video:



After seeing it, I am sufficiently impressed to order the book on Flipkart.com. But I won't wait to read the book for me to share the key highlights with you all. The video is long but very interesting. I watched it in 3 sessions. What I found out:

Rajiv Malhotra is an NRI techie who has devoted >20 years, after being inspired by his guru, to crusade for the Hindu Dharma and how to protect ourselves.

He is deeply concerned with about the methods being used by the Abrahamic 'western universalism' movements to conquer and convert Hindu thought and eventually to digest us Hindus into their system so that we lose our identity and individuality.

He says that it all begins with Hindus being confused about our roots and uniqueness. Our gurus being too busy to really understand what is going on.

We do not deeply study and understand other religions' key beliefs and how we are different so we can't even argue when they come to digest us.

We fight over petty differences amongst ourselves, but when it comes to the crunch, we say, 'everything is same, so why argue with other religions?' In the process we are highly vulnerable.

See what happened to Philippines, they lost their roots and became second class human beings to the West.

The concept of tolerance as pushed by western universalists is not the same as MUTUAL RESPECT. When we have mutual respect, we will not destroy the other's language, culture and religion and try to digest them.

Economic prosperity is a lure of the west. And it takes precedence for us Indians over understanding and safeguarding our dharmic roots. In the process we stand to lose all.

The danger is the same whether you live abroad and speak with a cute NRI accent or live in the confused country called India and speak English Vinglish.

The time to understand first, and safeguard next, is NOW.

Watch Rajiv Malhotra in this video. He is well-read, articulate, passionate and focussed.

I am waiting to read the book.

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Steve Jobs: One Year After

Today is one year since the man who put soul into technology took wings. There is a fine write-up in the NDTV website.

 I am writing this on the wonderful iPad3. It came after Steve. but it is something Steve would have been proud of. An iPhone photo I took at Sydney Aquarium:

I quote from the NDTV article:

John Nauhghton, a columnist for The Guardian, UK recalls one of his favourite stories about Jobs. He said, "It is about the moment when the Apple design team presented him with the first version of the iPod. He looked at it for a while, turned it over and over, weighed it in his hand and then said: "It's too big." The engineers protested that it was a miracle of state-of-the-art miniaturisation - 1,000 songs packed into that tiny space. Jobs walked over to the fish tank in the corner of his office and dropped the prototype into the water. He then pointed to the bubbles that floated from it to the surface and said: "That means there's still some space in it. It's too big." End of conversation.

A 3D Map of India

Hi folks,
A good coverage of India and some abiding themes in the last week Economist. This map came in the online version but was blacked out in the print copies for maybe reasons of territory depiction.

I call this a 3D map... it shows the the population, growth rate, GDP per capita, all three so nicely shown per state. And you also have an idea of the geographical size.. hence population & economic density.