From ‘Across the Wagah. An Indian's sojourn in Pakistan’ by Maneesha Tikekar

Borders are scratched across the hearts of men

By stranges with a calm, judicial pen,

And when the borders bleed we watch with dread

The lines of ink across the map turn red


- Marya Mannes



Muslims claimed to be a separate nation …….. the demand for a separate Muslim state ……..came primarily from the United Province, Bihar and Hyderabad for fear of being submerged in the Hindu majority. Ironically the Muslim majority provinces of India except Bengal joined the movement almost at it's fag end.



Mohammed Ali Jinnah ………. His oft-quoted Presidential address in the Constituent Assembly ………

You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the state … in the course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense … but in the political sense as citizens of the state.



Pakistani Army ………….its almost mono-ethnic composition …. Is predominantly Punjabi with …… 65 to 70 per cent and Pakhtuns constituting 25 per cent of it's strength



……. At least 69 spoken and living languages in Pakistan out of which 16 could be said to be major. …….. of the 97 per cent Muslim population Sunnis constitute 70 per cent and Shias 20.



I was told that there are also some Hindu and Sikh tribes in Balochistan and most interestingly even a ‘Marhatti’ tribe. ……….. they could be the Maratha soldiers taken as slaves by Ahmad Shah Abdali in the third battle of Panipat in 1761, when he defeated the Maratha forces. Baloch sardars who had assisted Abdali in the battle got most of the slaves as the bounty of war

[Resource http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descendants_of_Maratha_prisoners_of_war_(1761)]



Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, spoken by eight per cent of the country’s population as mother tongue today. But none of the linguistic groups from the region that became Pakistan ever spoke Urdu. It was spoken by the U.P. and Bihari Muslims who were at the forefront in the Pakistan Movement and who came to dominate Pakistani Government and administration after their migration to the new country. The language of barely three per cent of the people in 1947 became the national language overnight and was instantly converted into a symbol of Pakistani patriotism …….. Over the years Urdu had come to be erroneously identified as the language of the Indian Muslims



………. 3.72 per cent of the population ……. Includes Christians and Hindus ………… Christians and Hindus are mostly confined to menial jobs……… there are hardly any prominent Hindus in Pakistan …….. Immediately after partition, Pakistan had nearly 20 per cent Hindus.

From ‘Strands of Eternity’ by Vasant Lad

Fear


…………….

Pay attention as you walk,
as you listen, as you speak.
Each time the fear comes as a rushing automatic act,
let it move slower.

See the gap between two fears,
then fear yields into awareness itself.




Emotional Purification


According to Ayurveda,
the ancient science of self-knowledge,
the emotional body can be purified
by the same methods
which purify the physical body.


Srotomukha vishodhanam is cleansing the passages
through which emotions flow.
If there is fear, anxiety, anger – surrender to it.
That letting go opens the channels of circulation.
Then the emotion can move freely.


Vrudhi means to increase the impurity.
On the psychological level,
the emotions must be provoked
before they can be released.
Encourage crying, see a sad movie,
do anger release work.
This gets the emotion moving,
but doesn’t end it for good.


Abhisyandhan is de-crystalization
or liquefaction of emotion.
It makes the emotion as a fluid
just as salt or sugar melts in the sun.


This can be done with deep tissue work,
vigorous massage
or by reclining the body in a gentle easy posture -
this will help your emotions become liquid.


………………….

To ripen your emotions, bring your total awareness
to your feelings.
The memory of an insult is lodged in your mind -
bring complete awareness to it
and you will no longer be attached to it.
Stay with your grief with total awareness



The flame of awareness will cook your grief
and like a dry leaf it drops to the ground.
Stay near your feelings. Stay near God.



Fast from food. Fast from talking.
Allow the emotion to ripen.
Allow your grief and anger to flower and they will die
their own natural death.
Suppress them and they will fight for their existence.


Deepan means to enkindle the flame of awareness.
Stay in the stops between your breath.
Stay in the gap between your thoughts.
Meditation is the medium through which
the flame of awareness in enkindled.



Mind


……………….


Your mind is caught in a traffic jam,
bumper to bumper with thoughts


………….



Mind makes you sad.
Mind makes you fearful.
Mind makes you happy.
The servant has become the master.



Meditation


Just as there is a space between
the clouds in the sky,
there is a space between your thoughts.
This space is the doorway to the divine.


…………………….


Breathe consciously with total awareness.
Slow down your breathing
until you can see a little space -
a gap.



That gap is most important.
Remain in that gap. It will get wider.
Dive into that space. Dive into the inner abyss.

…………………


You are simply watching the breath.
It goes in and comes out.
And there is a stop behind the belly button.
Stay in that stop for a fraction of a second.


…………….


Like a breeze meditation comes to you.
The sunlight is always there,
you only need to open the door.



Do not expect anything from meditation.
Just sit casually and watch your breath,
stay in the stop.
Soon that stop will stay with you.
When you walk, God walks with you.
And you are walking in God.




The End of Knowledge


……………..

Perception which is learned phenomenon
is knowledge.
Perception which is pure phenomenon
is intelligence.
Unless you renounce knowledge
you cannot attain intelligence.

…………….


Simply observe through
intuition and inner awareness.
This is samadhi in action.
Apply your whole awareness to an object
and gain direct knowledge of that object
This is samyama.
Let your daily operating awareness be your bible.

From ‘Along the Path of Music’ by Prabha Atrre

Text from the book interspersed with videos from youtube. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prabha_Atre


It is common to being a new disciple’s training with raag Yaman. Yaman is like a vast ocean whose limits are beyond sight.…………… Yaman – one of the main raags having all the seven notes – straight, simple, ascending and descending


[Raag Yaman is traditionally sung during the first quarter of the night (Pratham Prahar). From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaman_(raga) See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5wQ3k6UdkY
For Kishori Amonkar’s rendition ]



Hirabai Badodekar………. Blessed are those who have heard it. Hirabai’s khyal presentation was marked by a peaceful elaboration of the raag developed through aalaap note-by-note, a fluent and clear rendering of taans and an appropriate amount of stress on rhythm with neatly sung sthaai and antaraa.



Hirabai’s singing was ascetic, not romantic. Her music did not sing of romantic love, but rather that of divine love…….

















Amir Khan ………. The gaayaki of Kirana gharaanaa is, no doubt, comparatively confined to the middle (madhya) and the higher (taar) octaves, whereas Khansaheb’s gaayaki dwells mostly on the lower (kharj) octave. The terrain of the lower octave notes is, on the whole, somewhat dry and rough. But Khansaheb had made the kharj so smooth like velvety green grass …………… That is why his gaayaki has acquired a three-dimensional form ……….. Deep, soul-searching, introspective, impressive, aristocratic, superlative – these are the many epithets that can be applied to his music …….. had a mystic touch, a resonance (jawaari) ……… Sitting on the stage, Khansaheb’s figure looked like that of a seer of music in deep meditation – calm, seemingly detached from the audience with no body-movement and hardly any flourishes of the hand













Khansaheb’s singing was not what dazzled suddenly. It's hypnotic effect would spread very slowly. One reason why it was so is that his singing was not aggressive and flashy. There was a total surrender, a meditative trance. Khansaheb is one artist who indulged in deep thought, had an artistic vision, carefully preserved the eternal value of music and never ran after popularity or fame.










Bade Ghulam Ali Khan ………… “Kaa karun sajani …….. ”……… That was my first introduction to Khansaheb and his music.

His music had cast a spell on me












Khansaheb’s voice is actually quite masculine, full of weight and expansive; at the same time soft like butter, tender, delicate, fluid, wide ranged; on the whole commanding.









Khansaheb had an extraordinary creativity. One could never predict how he would suddenly slide from one note to another………. Even after half an hour of elaboration he would come up with something ‘new’. To experience that one has to listen to his Pahadi or Sindhubhairavi.


One was always amazed how such delicate notes could emerge from such a massive physique.




Kirana artists have voices that are thin, sharp and high-pitched. But Bhimsenji’s [Bhimsen Joshi] voice is quite the opposite – broad, dense, wide ranging, capable of prolonged spans. And yet it can lay claim to sweetness and melodiousness – the benchmark of the Kirana gharaanaa. Variation in tone is an asset of Bhimsenji’s voice that adds to the enjoyment of this music. When he elongates the taar shadj or weaves a taan in taar saptak in a low tone, it is a source of unique pleasure and invariably elicits spontaneous applause.








Everybody cannot sing thumri because it demands certain versatility in voice modulation, a sensuous emotional expression, suitable temperament and imagination.







[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumri ]



I am very happy that my very first composition in raag Maaru Bihaag ‘Jaagoo main saari raina …….’ Has been immensely popular and when one talks about Maaru Bihaag they refer to my recording.

Ted Talks: Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success - # 2

Truly is it only Bhutan that is concerned about the happiness of its citizens. Shouldnt we be dropping the philosophy of winners v/s losers and adopting more compassionate models of society. Yet another Americanism that should be junked

The talk is not wildly impressive but nevertheless talks a lot of sense

Ted Talks: Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? - # 1

What a nice talk! Great understated British (?) humour and a terrific viewing experience.

‘A Cabinet Secretary looks back. From Poona to the Prime Minister's office’ by B. G. Deshmukh

……… 1962 ………. We were advised to always carry loose cash while travelling by car in New York and offer a $ 5 note to any traffic policeman who stopped us as the New York state police were notorious and corrupt.



We found that the American people were mostly self-centred and inward-looking. They were not concerned about the outside world but only their own town or at most their state capital. By Indian standards their knowledge of the history, economics, and politics of foreign countries was poor.



………. Wankhede Stadium for cricket……… It is said that one rather unflattering remark about Marathi-speaking people made by the president of the Cricket Club of India (CCI) so annoyed Wankhede, who was then the president of the Bombay Cricket Association (BCA), that he decided to have BCA’s own stadium ………. Instead of …… Brabourne Stadium of the CCI. Chief Minister Naik fully supported him, as once he was also reportedly not treated well in the CCI.



……….. I also noticed a curious phenomenon. Many people used to come from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to work. In the beginning one or two men would come alone. Later the would call all their male relatives who would then be followed by the family members. In one case I found that literally a whole village population had shifted from Uttar Pradesh. I noticed that politicians always interfered with the demolition of hutments because they treated them as their vote banks.



But in the ten years between 1977 and 1986, the chief minister changed six times. This political instability naturally affected the quality of governance. To add to it, Antulay played favourites and also bent government machinery to what he wanted to do or undo. The result was there for all to see. Maharashtra administration, which had been known for it's honesty, integrity and efficiency, was badly shaken and infected with the malaise usually seen in some of the northern states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.



Rajiv Gandhi ……… could not master his party’s political machinery and mould it in his own way. No doubt Rajiv Gandhi did try, as exemplified by his famous speech in Bombay in January 1986 at the centenary celebrations of the Indian National Congress, when he warned the powerbrokers in the party to behave or move out of the way. But the party machine was too strong for him.



The two factors that hurt him [Rajiv Gandhi] most were soft communalism and corruption.



The genesis of the Bofors affair lies in the practice initiated by Indira Gandhi and further refined by her son Sanjay for collecting funds for the Congress Party ………. Till the middle of the 1960s, during the regime of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, collection of funds for the party was a more transparent business ……….. Collection of funds for one’s party was then not a highly competitive and corrosive practice corrupting the whole social, economic and political fabric as happened later.



B. K. Nehru writes (page 582 of his autobiography)

The day after the funeral I asked Rajiv whether the money Sanjay had collected allegedly for the Congress was safe. He said all they found in the almirah of the Congress office was Rs 20 lakhs. I asked how much Sanjay had collected. He held his head in his hands and said ‘crores and uncounted crores’.




…….. I can say without any hesitation that neither Rajiv Gandhi nor any member of his family received any amount in the Bofors case. Though his personal integrity was beyond doubt, there was strong circumstantial evidence that he knew the names of the recipients but was reluctant to expose them, maybe because they were of the Congress party or close relations or friends of the family …………. I have no doubt at all that after a few more years of experience in politics he would have put his foot down and exposed and punished those guilty of such misdeeds, even if it was his own party or relation or friend……



I have always felt sorry for Zail Singh. I think he was basically a good man but started having ideas about his importance after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The sycophants around Rajiv Gandhi also unnecessarily raised the pitch ………


[Rajiv Gandhi] …….. was not a very lucky prime minister……… If he had been luckier he would have survived these adverse happenings, as happened in the case of many leaders who were infinitely worse than him but were luckier. If he had not been assassinated, he would have certainly come back to govern the country as a mellowed and mature leader and a better judge of men and events.
His years as prime minister should be judged and surveyed with more sympathy and understanding.



Devi Lal should have remained a district-level politician or, at most, a state-level politician; he was not only a disaster at the national level but turned out to be a destructive force also ……… Favour-seeking officers flocked to him, which aggravated the situation…….. Devi Lal was completely uncouth, used vulgar language uttering the choicest abuses in his mother tongue, Haryanvi.


Vishwanath Pratap Singh ……… was in the habit of adopting causes with missionary zeal some times bordering on mania, and one such cause was his drive to cleanse political life. He could have received widespread support for this if only personal vendetta and ambition were not mixed with it …….. he picked on Rajiv Gandhi as a target and his campaign against him appeared like a personal vendetta……….. St Kitts affair ….was a shameless political act by the previous Congress government to involve him and his son in a shady deal purely for political gains and that too in a most dishonourable way. But he was not vindictive ……… He took extra care that no centre of power …. Developed during his prime ministership …….. what a fine private person he is. I have read some of his poetry and seen two exhibitions of his paintings…..that reveal his sensitivity



Chandrashekhar …….. All the senior officers were highly impressed by his unfailing courtesy ………. As a private person he is a fine man. But some sort of bitterness has crept into his personality. He does not trust people easily and is always on his guard. He feels that senior bureaucrats and well-to-do people look down upon him, perhaps because of his earlier years when he had to struggle against adverse circumstances ……… He wanted to leave his mark in Indian history and be a good prime minister whom people would remember afterwards with pride and affection. …… as a private person he is a gem of a man. However, in his ambition to become prime minister he turned into a typical Indian politician. This made his prime ministership a failure ………


The Sri Lankan affair also created and nurtured a cult of violence in Tamil Nadu. The central government conducted training camps for Sri Lankan militants and liberally equipped them with arms. The state government gave them all help and full freedom …… The militants defiantly imported arms from outside which resulted in their free availability throughout Tamil Nadu. Local youth were attracted to the culture of violence ……… As a result it slowly spread into the adjoining states in southern India …….. This was a heavy price to pay for encouraging and harbouring Sri Lankan militants

From ‘Only love is real. The story of soulmates reunited’. By Dr. Brian Weiss

“My patients tell me the the soul does not enter the body right away. Around the time of conception, a reservation is made by the soul. No other soul can have that body. The soul who has reserved that particular baby’s body can then come into and out of the body, as it wishes ………….. During pregnancy, the soul is gradually more and more attached to the baby’s body ……… but the attachment is not complete until around the time of birth, either shortly before, during, or just afterward. ……… I have had cases where the same soul, after a miscarriage or abortion, comes back to the same parents in their next baby.”


“As the vibrational energy of spirit is slowed down so that more dense environments such as your three-dimensional plane can be experienced, the effect is for spirit to be crystallized and transformed into denser and denser bodies. The densest of all is the physical state. The vibrational rate is the slowest. Time appears faster in this state because it is inversely related to the vibrational rate. As the vibrational rate is increased, time slows down. This is how there can be difficulty in choosing the right body, the right time of re-entry into the physical state. Because of the disparity of time, the opportunity might be missed ….. There are many levels of consciousness, many vibrational states ……….. Humans always think of themselves as the only beings. This is not the case. There are many worlds and many dimensions ……. ” ……. Elizabeth stopped speaking


“The past must be remembered and then forgotten. Let it go. This is true for childhood traumas and past-life traumas. But this is also true for attitudes, misconceptions, belief systems drummed into you …….. How can you see freshly and clearly with all those thoughts? What if you needed to learn something new? With a fresh perspective?

Thoughts create the illusion of separateness and difference. Ego perpetuates this illusion, and this illusion creates fear, anxiety, and tremendous grief. Fear, anxiety, and grief in turn create anger and violence ……….. Stop thinking. Instead, use your intuitive wisdom to experience love again. Meditate. See that everything is interconnected and interdependent. See the unity, not the differences. See your true self. See God.

…………. You have lived in many bodies and in many times. So ask your present self why it is so fearful. Why are you afraid to take reasonable risks? ………..What’s to lose? What is the worst that can happen? Am I content to live the rest of my life this way?

……… Get out of the rut. Remember to hope.