R. Radhakrishnan's Blog, page 27

Harris and the Indian Effect.

Harris and the Indian Effect

I am tired of Kamala, let’s call her Harris, who just happens to be Vice President elect of the US of A.
People in India have been analysing and trying to find something” Indian” in her… She is a graceful black American lady, articulate and able to market herself well.
Now in some groups there are postings that Biden has relatives in Mumbai and Chennai..
All of Malluland is going gaga over a lady New Zealand minister…it is namude Priyanca Radhakrishnan lol I too smile and say my full name.. Radhakrishnan and the other Mallus for a minute are in a bit of awe for a minute.. till the truth dawn’s
The pandemic is increasing and politicians, as usual, are fudging figures. I am sure the Biden and Harris will also be like all politicians…lol Trump alone was different… He did what all politicians do but was not discreet and obnoxiously in your face..lol. At least he had entertainment value…

The History Blog: 1857 Indian War of Independence.

I read a what’s up post recently which said that people in Hong Kong hated Indians. The reason was that Indians were the force that the British depended on to build their Empire. The post went on to talk about Indians firing on Indians at Jallianwallah Bagh and a lot of general negative comments on us. This was written by an Indian circulated widely with many agreeing to the hypothesis put forward.

It set me off thinking why do we flagellate ourselves, the Jallianwala baug was a British atrocity, a failure of their administration, why should we take the blame. But then our so called “intellectuals’ are steeped in western thought processes, a linear one where you have right or left, black or white, hero or villain and nothing in between. This is not their fault as modern education in India still is influenced mostly by British ideas of the last century. We still, sadly, equate white with superiority, beauty and goodness.

Indian thought was original and different, we recognised human frailty and thus our epics are full of “heroes’ with flaws and “villains” with greatness. The characters have goodness and a measure of evil in them and the struggle is within them as to what they will do.

Our Indian epics are like the Sari, that simple yet complex piece of cloth, with multiple variations, richly layered, it conceals, and yet hints at the riches beneath, letting imagination run riot…and the core, difficult to get but always rewarding. Lol

The characters believe totally in their cause and fight brothers, cousins, grandfathers for their beliefs. Then there is the belief in reincarnation, which is so positive a thought, unlike western ideas, here you get a second chance so you tend to treat a life a bit more causally whether its your own or others.

We were never a homogenous entity, there were differences in culture, religion, language, our racial characteristics, all these played a role in our history.

Humans are primates, tribal and territorial in nature and thus the need to belong to a group on a fundamental level. These differences led to us being loyal first to our local identity whether it was language, community religions et.al.

Thus, when the revolt of 1857 happened it started in the Indo gangetic plain and was driven from there. Initially it was the Hindu Sepoys and later the Muslim too mainly of the Bengal army of the East India Company. There were a few attempts to fan the revolt in the south but these were mostly from the Muslim community and mostly civilians. The sepoys in the south did not join the revolt. The general population also did not join in the revolt.

There were the princely states, the large powerful ones like Travancore, Mysore and others in support of the British. They did not think themselves as Indians but as a separate kingdom allied with another power.

The Sikhs were also loyal the British as they had an animosity towards the Bihar and Bengal Sepoys who were part of the British Army which had inflicted a defeat on the Sikhs and brought about an end to the Sikh Empire. The Sikhs also resented that after their defeat these sepoys garrisoned the forts in Punjab and exploited the situation. The declaration of Bahadur Shah Zafar was another factor, the Sikhs did not want the Mughal rule, under which the Sikhs were tormented, to be revived.

The Sepoys in revolt did not have a common cause or a single leader, it was more like a mob with little or no strategy on how to proceed. Thus, the revolt of 1857 was brought down due to a lack of support from the general population and frictions within.

The Sikhs had earned their reputation as loyal to the crown and thus when Dyer went to Jallianwala Baug, he had Sikh and Gurkha Soldiers with him. These soldiers felt no empathy or identification with the people gathered there. As per the belief one has to be true to one’s salt… shades of Dronachrya and Bhishma…, these soldiers followed orders how ever unpalatable they were. So, if we accept that Drona and Bhishma were good people and not at fault, we need to accept these people too.

Namaste till next time.

The Language Block

Language said the Sage is all about communication! Now how you do that is your problem.

Many of us confuse the need or the purpose of language. Instead of communicating we try and use bigger obscure words which masks and covers what we want to convey. This leads to misunderstandings, confusions and chaos.

Why do you need language, what is it? Language is nothing but just a means of communication, but we make it into a big deal. There have been wars fought over language, there are still fights, quarrels and disturbances around the world over language.

Belonging to a country where there is such a diversity of languages, India, I am very much aware of the passion that language causes.

 I myself speak or understand six languages of my country and I find all of them beautiful and my abiding regret is that I am no longer able to pick up languages as easily as I used to as I age.

Maybe it is because the pathways of the mind get inflexible as you travel on the path to become an old curmudgeon J now that’s a big word in these times.

No no don’t look it up… it only means a mean tempered fellow, mostly an old male of the species.

I guess this passion arises as we identify so strongly with the language.  And we poke fun at other languages or even with other accents!

What is writing all about, it’s just communicating your ideas your knowledge to another person in a way he or she understands. But we are so caught up in our own wonder at our knowledge that we forget about this need of communication. 

We happily use jargon, technical terms not bothering whether the other person is in a position to understand what we are trying to say.

When it comes to verbal communication adding to all the above is the accent, the tone and whether the other person is listening.  

We rarely bother whether the other person is listening and when our ideas are not understood we blame it on others.

For the other person to listen, we need to have empathy, we need to put ourselves in their shoes and speak accordingly.

Now this holds true for written communication too.

Compounding all this is the perception in our minds. Many a time we may have labelled and slotted a person into a certain persona and we tend to color our thinking with this labelling or profiling.

So how do we avoid the pitfalls in communicating, transmitting our ideas.

The solution, to my mind is simple, use simpler words, it will be easier on you too, use the minimum of words required to convey; as more the number of words used, the greater the chance of miscommunication.

That’s one reason I keep my blogs short and my poetry so minimalist… not because I am lazy Lol!

All of you who have taken the trouble to read till here, I would love to hear your views of this, please post your comments so that we can have a discussion rather than just a write up…

Namaste till next time.