Tribute to the Animal lover

Just a couple of days ago heartbreaking news shattered any animal lover’s world apart. One of the greatest wild life enthusiasts and animal lovers ‘Steve Irvin’ passed away after getting stung by a stingray barb in the heart. He was studying their group behaviour, where probably he came too close to one of them, which retaliated with the thorns in his tail, one of the most poisonous natural weapon in the world. This incident suggests one thing that even after studying animal behaviour for decades, human being cannot fathom the animal behavioural patterns. They say that no animal would hurt you unless and until you harm it.

So how would you explain this phenomenon? Steve has been studying the animal behaviour for almost his entire life. He has been wandering in jungles and deserts in company of few of the most dangerous and poisonous reptiles in the world. Many a times he had been stung by them, too. Probably he had some questionable methods by which he used to handle them. But his intentions were always good and never in his life he would have intended to hurt any of them. In this background he had a really undeserving end to his life, especially by one of the animals for whom he devoted his entire life. Only satisfactory outcome of the grim story is that he left this world while doing the thing that he loved the most, spending time with the animals! But this cast a big question in youngsters mind, who wish to follow Steve’s footsteps. What makes animals sure of your intentions? How far should one go to save animal’s life and when should one care about one’s own? But alas, the best person who could have answered this question is no more with us. May god bless his soul with peace.

Vande (?) Mataram!

On the day of its centenary celebration whether or not to sing the National song of India is the latest controversy thanks to our politicians. But really isn’t the issue being blown out of proportion? If you are a patriot and you have studied a little bit of Indian history, you are bound to know what the two words ‘Vande Mataram’ (Pray Motherland) mean for India. They are as vital as mere existence of the nation. Due to some reason, this did not become the national anthem of India, but we are not concerned with it at the moment. The issue here is that supposedly these words hurt the Muslim religious feelings, as they are not supposed to pray for no one but Allah. In the Islamic religion praying someone else is an unforgivable sin.

Well to confront a few things from a personal perspective I am a very secular person and respect each and every religion as they all teach tolerance on the basic level. But is there any explanation for the latest controversy where the ‘Darul Ulum’ and the ‘Ulema’ (The Muslim religious leaders) supported by ‘Shariat’ (Muslim law board) standing clearly against singing the venerated song? Especially after 59 years of independence? For so many years Hindus and Muslims have been religiously singing this song with utmost patriotism, what made this lovely inspirational song become a subject of controversy?

To mention the unforgivable nature of this sin, what about one of the best music composer of this era in India, A. R. Rehman? Just a few years ago he recreated the thrill and the aura of the song by a new version of the song for beats-loving youngsters. It just brought more fans for the song, and revitalised the waning love for the nation and the patriotism. Now would the Muslim law consider this act as an unforgivable sin? No religion would! The basic thing that a religion teaches is ‘Love’. How that lesson has got forgotten? Who are the ones responsible for degrading the tolerance of Islam? Just because of some selfish people the whole world has started taking terrorism as a synonym to Islam. As Thomas Friedman says the world is under anti-Islamic doctrine. There are few things on which each and every one of us has to introspect. Why this gap is ever increasing between Islam and non-Islam? Is there any way to bridge it or only Armageddon can give a solution, as we might be nearing one?

SWOT Effectiveness?

I am currently pursuing MBA where we regularly are supposed to apply SWOT (Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat) analysis. Here we study that we have to grab any opportunity that comes our way with our both hands. Even convert threats into potential opportunities. But I have few experiences that certainly cannot be solved by this method. If you can, please let me know.

I believe that I had little opportunities in my Professional life. Especially there was scarcity of opportunities when I need them desperately, which made me flounder for a considerable time. Well I am perfectly satisfied with the conditions I am in, but there was a period where I had ample career opportunities coming my way, but they had little relevance to me, as I had decided my path and they were not concurrent with it. Now if we apply this SWOT analysis to this decision, it could be marked as mistake!

Now tell me something, is it a mistake to know what you want from your life? Is it wrong to reject the opportunities that might send you down the rabbit hole? How would you solve the problem when you don’t get enough opportunities when you need them and you get them when you know that you don’t want them? Is this strength or a weakness? I know there are many people who normally accept such opportunities; that’s how we meet people who say that they never wanted to enter this field in the first place. But they get driven by situations? Is it wrong not to get driven by life and want to have some control on it?

I believe this is just one big Catch 22 situation! I preferred the exit route and started rediscovering my path, but I still have many critics that still believe that I made mistakes; that’s why I didn’t get opportunities and those were bigger mistakes to leave the ones I got. I am on my way to find the answer from life, but if you can offer some insight on it, you are more than welcome! Just answer one question, “Which would give more satisfaction, going the way the life takes you or fighting for things you love and you believe in and trying to achieve them?”

Identification with surrounding

To consider the problems and geopolitical tensions the world is going through, it would be only fair to introspect a little. Why do these conflicts arise? A simple explanation would be that we separate ourselves from the surrounding. There are problems in the world around us, and fact of the matter is that we are part of it – both the world and the problem. Unless there is change in us, there is no hope of any change in the world.

We are too much involved in ourselves and rarely see beyond. We refuse to be part of something greater and keep fighting for smaller things. Considering the tensions in the Middle East, the frequent terrorist attacks on civilised life, it is only clear that there are hurdles created between men, which we could live without. People are separating themselves from others, from society, from their surrounding. If we look at the implications of the terrorist attacks, people are killed irrespective of their background, status, religion and race.

These attacks have given us the opportunity to think that we are not different from each other as we are part of same society. Now the difficult task remains is to convey the same message to those people who believe in terrorism being the answer to their problems. For that we have to reach to the root of the problem. There certainly are huge gaps in society, that force people to feel indignant. The cure is within us. If we stop considering ourselves different from those around us and try and be part of surrounding and not adding the imbalance in the world, it would only help.

It is enough that we have crated physical boundaries on the earth, we can do away with the mental boundaries and be a part of this universe. We only add to the imbalance in the nature when we separate ourselves from it. Identify with nature, try enhancing empathy and most of the problems in this world will be solved. The pain and boundaries will vanish. We all came from the same origin, try and reunite with it and the world will be without conflicts.

Obligations

Are there any obligations for anyone? Not actually, unless you have borrowed money. Really, do we owe anything to anyone? You might say our mother and father. Think, what can you give them back for whatever they have given you, most importantly, birth itself. No matter what you do, there is no way you can pay them back for whatever they did for you. The same goes for the society. We keep receiving things from different people. We cannot keep check on what we received from whom, and hope to pay them back. Neither can we expect anyone to feel obliged for the help that we might have provided.

That clearly shows that there is no way you pay your obligations off. So it surely means that there is no need to pay any obligations at all. In a sense, yes! But there is way to pay these obligations off, by doing things for others. We pay our parents off by becoming a good person, by giving birth to next generation; by passing the values that we received from our parents, by doing the same things for our scions that we feel obliged to our parents for. By remembering the things we received or wanted to receive from our parents and providing them to the next generations.

Similarly, for society, we remember the things we learned from them and try to pass them forward to others. Here we receive things from one and pass it to other. This process is not exactly called paying obligations off. But this is what we have been doing from ages. That’s how we inherited ‘Bhagwadgeeta’, ‘Kuran’, ‘Bible’.

There is one thing though, you cannot force the feelings. You cannot feel like passing anything on, till you have the feeling of possessing something that can be passed on. The feeling of being inherited something good. This feeling can only emerge if you possess modesty in first place. And losing the arrogance and self-centred attitude. All the spiritual gurus say the same thing. When you lose self-possessiveness then you realise that you are here just a means to pass on the values.

The moral of all things is that we are not obliged to anyone in particular, but the values themselves. They need to be passed on! But, in the meantime don’t forget all things that you received from parents and society and also all monetary debt though!

- UMESH SANT