Abhijith Jayanthi's Blog, page 4

Overstretched Realities

Schedules are more hectic,
finances stretched, and family visits and interactions can stir up old emotions
and baggage from the past that only add to the stress of the Holiday Season.
And this is the time of year when a lot of us seem to revisit neglected issues,
which are often long-standing and deep-seated. It is trying being around people
we are angry with or who have hurt us in the past.




The best prescription for
clearing up issues is finding the road to unfold the truth. Of course, that is
often the last thing we want to hear, but I hold with my belief that those
issues we haven't been able come to terms with can simmer and hurt us, often
far worse than they hurt the other person. You may be surprised to hear me say
that it's okay for them to feel their feelings, because solving an issue starts
with accepting the truth. Denying it only aids the building up, and they can
come out “sideways” onto people who often have nothing to do with our wounds.
Finding an appropriate time and place where you can feel all the grief and
anger surrounding a hurtful experience is what can help you to heal and
forgive.




Life seems to be a collection of
overstretched realities – one needs sort his/her baggage and travel light!

Seance with my Senses

Over the last few years I have had many emotional moments
from the state of being on my own to build the world around me or an increased
number of decision disasters and changing social patterns influencing my every
move. I've noticed that those who have most successfully weathered such storms
and have overcome adversity all seem to share a common belief that something
positive can come out of difficult situations.




Finding
the positive and building on what's important may not be easy, but it is
certainly helpful, when we face serious challenges in our lives. If we only
focus on the negative when challenging things happen to us, we make our
situations even worse. We've all heard stories about people who have lost
everything they own to fire, hurricane or other disaster, but who
surprisingly are able to talk about being grateful. That's because they've
shifted their focus from what they've lost to what they still have — their lives
and that building up is part of living again. As long as there's life, there's
hope. Those who are able to move past the worst of times have discovered how to
accept the fact of a difficult situation and move past it.




One lesson I learnt, acceptance of something doesn't mean
that you are surrendering to it. It just means you are clear about what is
happening around you. Once you accept something, you free yourself to look at
it from all angles, consider your options and take the best course of action.
Even the worst predicaments can be overcome with thought, time and effort. In
the end, you may be surprised at how much better things turned out than you
would ever have expected.




When things are bad, what you've got to do is to be
grateful you're alive, put one foot in front of the other, breathe in, breathe
out, and do the next indicated thing. Look for the good things in a bad
situation and take advantage of them. If you can do that, then you'll walk
right out of the dark tunnel and into the light. I hope you'll take some time
to think about my thoughts and be a soldier from within.




-         
Abhijith Jayanthi

  

13 February 2010

Boston MA, USA

Insomnia of Life

Insomnia of Life is a collection of poems
which speak about human emotions and how one should learn from nature
and her marvels - bonding between nature and her children; trust
equation in a human relation; passion in our expectations from love and
beyond. When we are on a high, emotions keep us happy and grounded; and
when we are low - emotions provide us with warmth and bring back the
smile - that curve which can set any situation straight. It is these
emotions which give us a sense of belonging, help us live happily and
not feel melancholic - a sleepy existence. Every moment is colorful and
joyful, it is we who do not take notice of it, if we can - one can find
happiness in tiny gestures and warm emotions. Life has offered me many
complex emotions and these poems are few of my prized pearls from my
oyster - written during various trysts with my emotions. I hope you will
enjoy reading it!



- Abhijith Jayanthi 




Buy a copy now! 




Available:

On Amazon:     Here

On Flipkart:      Here

On Infibeam:    Here

On Cyberwit:   Here

On Ombooks:  Here

On Alibris:       Here

Omni Displacement Effect

It is often said that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are
getting poorer”. As a general characterization of recent trends in India, this statement
would be hard to substantiate, but there is a common denominator which is deteriorating
faster for both the sections – ethics. There are circumstances when it is a
good description of what is happening – former due to irresponsible freedom and
unwarranted access to money and latter due to their natural instinct to ape the
former set.  The growing affluence of the
middle classes creates enormous pressure to afford responsible training of ethics
on a large scale, even when their social and familial relations costs are enormous.
The scale of displacement rises further (often, much further) when urbanization
quotient is on the greater side.




The inequitable and often brutal trait of nature – forced artificiality is
now fairly well understood, and the victims’ growing reluctance to be pushed
around has even prompted some serious rethinking on this matter. But the “Omni Displacement
Effect”, as I wish to call it (the fact that the growing prosperity of the rich
often encroaches on the attitude of the poor, resulting in a collective collapse of ethical well being of society) also has other manifestations.




For instance in the past, as well-off families got richer, they shifted
their children from government schools to private schools, and this “exit” of
influential people from the public schooling system reduced the accountability
of government schools. Over time, a vicious circle set in, whereby the decay of
government schools and the desertion of well-off families fed on each other.
This phenomenon, illuminatingly discussed many years ago by Albert Hirschmann,
is still an important aspect of the education scenario in India today. One
could, of course, debate to what extent the root of the problem lies in growing
economic inequality, or in the absence of accountability in the schooling
system. The fact remains that in this particular context, some people’s growing
affluence can make this Omni Displacement Effect more prominent.




The Omni Displacement Effect is not a systematic pattern. There are also
many cases where the poor benefit in one way or another from the affluence of
the privileged – for instance, by getting more jobs, purchasing power or better
public services made possible by higher tax revenue. But the Omni Displacement Effect
is quite common, and it helps to explain why life is deteriorating evenly for many
people leading to unhappiness existence, in spite of rapid economic growth.




The rich and the poor, of course, have a common stake in a
well-functioning social setup. But they also compete for space – very limited
space, bearing in mind the levels of overcrowding on any platform. Ecological plunder destroys common property
resources that have critical livelihood value for the society. The lifestyles
of the rich, glamorized by a huge advertisement industry, set burdensome
standards and models for the poor. Last but not least, the lives and priorities
of the well-off absorb an enormous amount of time and attention from the media,
the parliament, the courts, and other institutions that are meant to be geared
to the public interest.




The Omni Displacement Effect is an unattended to component by public
policy, and especially, in an era where things are planned for the rich or the poor
– but never for their influences on the general well being of the social eco-system.
Creating “world-class facilities” in every domain has become an absorbing
concern of Indian policy-makers, but this endeavour, geared as it inevitably is
to the convenience, often ends up undermining the attitude change that is necessary
for appropriate use and proper functioning of such facilities. It is time to address
this Omni Displacement Effect for a bright tomorrow.




- Abhijith Jayanthi 

The Quest for Greatness

I wish to begin by
evoking India’s distant past, and indeed, its past greatness, without indulging
in the nostalgia of an imaginary golden age. To what extent greatness has been
lost or gained in the last few centuries is a matter of perspective. But the
sense of loss, frequently evoked in contemporary public discourse, is not
difficult to understand. Colonial rule did impoverish India in many ways, not
just economically but also in terms of its standing and influence in the world.
From a land at par with the more advanced regions of the world, India was
transformed into a subjugated colony, and attained independence after a long
period of economic stagnation and recurrent famines.




It is, thus, not
surprising that many Indians (particularly among the privileged classes) want
the country to recover its greatness. The country’s recent economic dynamism is
often seen as an opportunity to realise that dream. Indeed, the fixation with
economic growth is as much about India becoming a “world power” as it is about
improving living standards.




There is nothing
wrong in aspiring to greatness, but the real question is – what is greatness?
This is where there is some need for introspection and debate. Indeed, these
aspirations tend to focus on superficial or exclusive symbols of greatness – Olympic
medals, Nobel prizes, bullet trains, expensive wines, long-range missiles, or a
seat in the UN Security Council. The priorities of public policy would be quite
different if policymakers are well trained, universal health care, freedom from
hunger, a clean environment, respect for human rights and social equity were
thought to be essential aspects of a country’s greatness.




It may be argued
that these are not attributes of greatness, because many other countries have
them, and greatness requires distinguishing oneself in some way – being “ahead”
of others. This is quite misleading. In historical perspective and even by
contemporary standards, ensuring freedom from want for everyone, or eradicating
corruption, or protecting the environment are truly great achievements.
Exploding a nuclear bomb is a trivial accomplishment in comparison.




These achievements
also need to be seen in the light of a country’s history and circumstances.
Consider for instance education. India tends to take pride in its institutions
of higher education – its universities, technology centres, scientific
associations, and so on. These are indeed valuable achievements. But
considering the country’s long history of being under the British rule, people
working in policy tend to focus on pleasing their superiors rather than
acquiring necessary knowledge, if corrected will be an enormously greater
achievement – it would represent a more significant breakthrough than many
other countries have achieved in their own transition to well informed policy
fraternity, starting from a less trained base. Similarly, eliminating merit
based inequalities in education, employment, property rights, political
representation and related matters would be an outstanding accomplishment for
India, given the historical burden of extreme subjugation of meritocracy in
South Asia.




Among other
examples of misplaced quest for greatness is India’s pursuit of military power
(if not “super-power”), including the frantic development of nuclear weapons.
India is now the largest weapons importer in the world, aside from producing a
fair amount of lethal equipment on its own. It is hard to think of anything
more ruinous and dangerous for India than military competition with China, or
even Pakistan: there is no precedent in world history of a nuclear arms race
between two countries that are so close to each other and also involved in a
territorial dispute over which they have already fought several wars.




Having said this, there are also possibilities of real achievements in
terms of a more reasoned notion of greatness, even if these achievements have
been, so far, quite limited. Recent experience provides many examples of how
policy priorities can be substantially changed through public activism and
democratic action. The safeguarding of democracy is itself a form of greatness,
often overlooked because it is taken for granted.




Dr. Ambedkar, who
had both greater fears as well as greater hopes for Indian democracy than anyone
else, once defined democracy as “a form and method of Government whereby
revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought
about without bloodshed.” India is yet to live up to this vision, but the
democratic vision is far from over. India is still a relatively young country –
sixty-five years is not a long time to shed the burden of colonialism and
feudalism and to build the institutions and spirit of participatory and
transparent democracy.




When South Africa,
an even younger country, was liberated from apartheid, Nelson Mandela wrote: “The
truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be
free” India has already gone a little beyond “the freedom to be free”, but it
can make much better use of this freedom. It is in the future of the democratic
roadmap, not in nostalgia of a golden past, that there are real prospects for
greatness.






- Abhijith 




Place: Patna - Bihar

Date: 25/7/12