New post (223) : Kashmir perspectives : By "a migrant".
Reproduced below in support [but without the author's permission.]
Here >>>
HOPE VS HOPE
OUR’S ALIVE, THEIR’S LOST
Alka Lahori
We are into 23rd year of exile where pain has turned panacea and wait for return longer, yet slender thread of Hope keep the memories of home alive. Home is where heart is and heart is where Hope is-- Hope of a sweet reunion with Home, or with own self, the ‘soul’ which refused to ‘migrate’ and has since remained trapped within the four walls, and every night, when conscious self goes to sleep, is wandering from corner to corner, meadows and cowsheds, as if looking for its lost nears and dears.
Exodus Day ( Jan 20th) brings alive the horror of that fateful night when loudspeakers perched atop mosques blared ominous messages for us ‘ Merge or Purge’, ‘we want Pakistan, with your women folk but not you’, ‘ we want Nizam-e-Mustafa’ etc. How I wish I were a painter, I would have recreated and frozen the pathos of the situation like this—Fleeing KP men, harried and dumbfound, barely holding the loosening turbans on to their heads, and tail end of KP women’s upper layer of long traditional head gear ‘Tarang’ flying in the air clutching girls tightly to the waist, frantically waving and imploring unresponsive bus driver and passing vehicles to take them to next safe destination; and gun toting Muslim neighbours cheering, jeering and spouting ... ‘final nail in your coffin’.
Indeed, final nail in the coffin it was meant to be. As a matter of fact they had been at this ‘hammering’ job for quite a long time— 1931, ‘51,’75 till the final push of 90’s, creating the Great Divide and turning it into between Them and Us.
Perhaps (mis)led by the theory that everything is fair in love and war, but the situation neither fitted in the bill of strict love nor war. It was outright brutal, it was treacherous and it was betrayal, which goes against the norms of the game of love and war. Almost every KP, who fled under the dark cover of that fateful night has a ‘Brutus, Yee too” story to tell. Blindfolded and gang-raped, Mrs. Ganjoo could recognize the voice of her neighbour as one among the culprits; it was the female neighbour who pointed Bal Krishen Ganjoo to militants hiding in a rice bin on his attic; it was again at the instance of their neighbours that militants came calling at Pt. Sarwanand Kaul Premi’s house only to create bloody mayhem later. It was either a neighbour, a close friend, a confidante or an office colleague who acted a la ‘Brutus’ to drill the ‘final nail’.
The night saw the murder of all that existed between Them and Us-- goodwill and trust, built over centuries of bonhomie and togetherness. After all the hapless community living on social fringes had yielded all the space, economic and political, in return for an unspoken and unwritten bond for a security cover if anything untoward happened. But the ‘Brutus’ act had undone that bond and broken the trust, and both went their separate ways.
But dead do resurrect from gave, as do the living dig a grave for themselves. For us these 23 years have been the journey of re-awakening and self-discovery, of rekindling faith in self and moving from despair to hope, from strength to strength and regaining self-esteem, we so carelessly had given up at the altar of communal harmony and India’s secularism. It has been a journey of great realization that we still have it in us to turn adversity into opportunity and write big success stories while in a state of exile. So in more than one ways we have turned tables on our coffin makers and doomsayers, who had written us off as people who would not survive the scorching heat of plains and melt away into dark corners of history.
And 23 years down the line, for them, as people, it has been a case of Situation Lost, where most of their dreams have come unstuck, hopes dashed and credibility down to dumps. The ‘movement’ they flagged off with gun-salutes has fizzled out midway, the gung-ho about a tango dance with Pakistan has gone awry, war cry for Azadi is non-starter; even unofficial partial Islamic system has brought more social malaises and miseries in its wake-- thrown up an ultra elite Upper Middle Class who merrily defy its code of conduct and rural poor following extremist ideology. Kashmir today is riven in middle and many layers down on economic and class lines-- a short distance away from what Pakistan is today, ready to explode.
END
The "tormented" have - arisen from the proverbial ashes !
While the "tormentors" are clutching at straws blowing in the wind.........
Charlie Brown
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Nonsensical judgment by the idle.
New post (222): Nonsensical judgment by the idle.
A (very sad) case of different yardsticks…
A nun is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent.
The term "nun" is applicable to the Roman Catholics, Eastern Christians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Jains, Buddhists, and Taoists.
While in common usage the terms nun and sister are often used interchangeably, properly speaking a nun is a female religious who lives a contemplative life of prayer and meditation within a monastery while a sister (in the Christian religions) lives an active vocation of service to the needy, sick, poor, and uneducated.
Becoming a nun is a very devoted and vigorous process. It's about full surrender of yourself to God and his teachings.
When our nuns wear head cover and cover their bodies why then do we find that strange for Muslim women?
I am curious to know why we are talking about covered women in the Muslim community as if they are from planet-X while our nuns are covered exactly the same way.
All of this nonsensical judgment by the idle is…………nonsense.
Judge not for you too will be judged.
Live and let live.
Charlie Brown
A (very sad) case of different yardsticks…
A nun is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent.
The term "nun" is applicable to the Roman Catholics, Eastern Christians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Jains, Buddhists, and Taoists.
While in common usage the terms nun and sister are often used interchangeably, properly speaking a nun is a female religious who lives a contemplative life of prayer and meditation within a monastery while a sister (in the Christian religions) lives an active vocation of service to the needy, sick, poor, and uneducated.
Becoming a nun is a very devoted and vigorous process. It's about full surrender of yourself to God and his teachings.
When our nuns wear head cover and cover their bodies why then do we find that strange for Muslim women?
I am curious to know why we are talking about covered women in the Muslim community as if they are from planet-X while our nuns are covered exactly the same way.
All of this nonsensical judgment by the idle is…………nonsense.
Judge not for you too will be judged.
Live and let live.
Charlie Brown
Friday, February 24, 2012
Syrial killings !
New post (221) : Syrial killings !
Quote Open
A serial killer is typically defined as an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time (a "cooling off period") between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification. Some sources disregard the "three or more" criteria, and define the term as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone" or, including the vital characteristics, a minimum of at least two murders. Often, a sexual element is involved in the killings, but the FBI states that motives for serial murder include "anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking." The murders may have been attempted or completed in a similar fashion and the victims may have had something in common, for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group.
[[[***Serial killers are not the same as mass murderers, nor are they spree killers, who commit murders in two or more locations with virtually no break in between.]]]
Quote Close.
I am struggling to understand what all of this means in the context of the current “complex” situation in SYRIA…………..where all sides on the “inside” are indulging in serial killings and those on the “outside” are threatening serial killings………….a FREE for ALL.
Whatever happened to sanity and dialogue.
Charlie Brown
Quote Open
A serial killer is typically defined as an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time (a "cooling off period") between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification. Some sources disregard the "three or more" criteria, and define the term as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone" or, including the vital characteristics, a minimum of at least two murders. Often, a sexual element is involved in the killings, but the FBI states that motives for serial murder include "anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking." The murders may have been attempted or completed in a similar fashion and the victims may have had something in common, for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group.
[[[***Serial killers are not the same as mass murderers, nor are they spree killers, who commit murders in two or more locations with virtually no break in between.]]]
Quote Close.
I am struggling to understand what all of this means in the context of the current “complex” situation in SYRIA…………..where all sides on the “inside” are indulging in serial killings and those on the “outside” are threatening serial killings………….a FREE for ALL.
Whatever happened to sanity and dialogue.
Charlie Brown
Monday, February 20, 2012
Thought Leadership – a new flirtation?
New post(220) : Thought Leadership – a new flirtation?
Before indulging in a flirtation with institutionalizing a thought leadership program in your company, remember---------that---------
"Most smart people in the world don't work for your company".
Thought leader ship is more about thought than about leadership.
No game changer thoughts, no leadership.
If you get your thought leadership strategy right, customers will sniff you out as a fountain head of expertise.
Your new products or incremental improvements will find easier acceptance.
Then, you'll [also] stand a good chance of attracting talent more readily.
Mistakenly so - content strategy is a relatively new flirtation for companies that want to improve their visibility and connections online in ways that prompt sales leads to come to them.
But thought leadership is, much more than content strategy.
Assuming that a regular supply of content is a leadership strategy is a blunder in thought leadership strategy.
Thought leadership is not all about - press releases, interviews, whitepapers, blogs.
A core attribute of thought leadership is that it must feed into product strategy. Successfully so.
Your thought leadership and your product innovations must be genuinely iterative.
Thought leadership has to lead in some tangible way, and it has to relate closely to what your company sells.
Thought leadership has to do with what you are changing or how you are pioneering a critical element of change.
Without this, you will eventually find [even] yourself asking the question - What exactly is it that your strategy “actually” leads?
Thought leadership is first and foremost about - path breaking “doing”. The “communication” of what you are doing can only then follow. Not the other way around.
Ironically your consumers can tell the difference.
Charlie Brown
Before indulging in a flirtation with institutionalizing a thought leadership program in your company, remember---------that---------
"Most smart people in the world don't work for your company".
Thought leader ship is more about thought than about leadership.
No game changer thoughts, no leadership.
If you get your thought leadership strategy right, customers will sniff you out as a fountain head of expertise.
Your new products or incremental improvements will find easier acceptance.
Then, you'll [also] stand a good chance of attracting talent more readily.
Mistakenly so - content strategy is a relatively new flirtation for companies that want to improve their visibility and connections online in ways that prompt sales leads to come to them.
But thought leadership is, much more than content strategy.
Assuming that a regular supply of content is a leadership strategy is a blunder in thought leadership strategy.
Thought leadership is not all about - press releases, interviews, whitepapers, blogs.
A core attribute of thought leadership is that it must feed into product strategy. Successfully so.
Your thought leadership and your product innovations must be genuinely iterative.
Thought leadership has to lead in some tangible way, and it has to relate closely to what your company sells.
Thought leadership has to do with what you are changing or how you are pioneering a critical element of change.
Without this, you will eventually find [even] yourself asking the question - What exactly is it that your strategy “actually” leads?
Thought leadership is first and foremost about - path breaking “doing”. The “communication” of what you are doing can only then follow. Not the other way around.
Ironically your consumers can tell the difference.
Charlie Brown
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Anti Aging - The Secrets of the Abkhazians
New post (219): Anti Aging - The Secrets of the Abkhazians
The lifestyle and traditions of 4 societies are worthy of study & emulation:
Abkhazia in South Russia, Vilcabamba in South America, Hunza in Central Asia, and Okinawa in Japan.
Those communities are known to produce people who live amazingly well beyond the 100 year mark.
The secret is really no secret.
People in those societies live well and continue to grow even at old age. Interestingly, aside from a balanced diet and daily exercise, the significance of --- strong personal bonds has been singled out.
One of the keys to people’s long life is --- the quality of relationships they are able to build.
There is strong medical evidence that links a person’s healthy interactions with others with his lifespan. Beware, because, loneliness can make you look and feel old early.
Among the popular regions that are believed to host the healthiest and happiest elder population, Abkhazia in the Caucasus, Southern Russia stands out.
The facts presented show off how the elders in those cultures aged in beauty. They are happy and cheerful and charming and healthy.
Old age has long been feared. It is not merely about the years that add up to one's age but the effects of it to one’s physical, mental, and emotional well being.
There are two ways to age: aging happily and aging sadly. Your choice will reflect how well you will enjoy the process.
Yes, the power to choose between aging gracefully and aging miserably is in your hands. It cannot be stressed enough that you need to make the choice early in life to enjoy the full benefits in the long run.
There is a powerful link between environment and health, culture and vitality and how they are significant to the aging process.
We can improve not just our lifespan but --- more importantly, our health span.
Charlie Brown
The lifestyle and traditions of 4 societies are worthy of study & emulation:
Abkhazia in South Russia, Vilcabamba in South America, Hunza in Central Asia, and Okinawa in Japan.
Those communities are known to produce people who live amazingly well beyond the 100 year mark.
The secret is really no secret.
People in those societies live well and continue to grow even at old age. Interestingly, aside from a balanced diet and daily exercise, the significance of --- strong personal bonds has been singled out.
One of the keys to people’s long life is --- the quality of relationships they are able to build.
There is strong medical evidence that links a person’s healthy interactions with others with his lifespan. Beware, because, loneliness can make you look and feel old early.
Among the popular regions that are believed to host the healthiest and happiest elder population, Abkhazia in the Caucasus, Southern Russia stands out.
The facts presented show off how the elders in those cultures aged in beauty. They are happy and cheerful and charming and healthy.
Old age has long been feared. It is not merely about the years that add up to one's age but the effects of it to one’s physical, mental, and emotional well being.
There are two ways to age: aging happily and aging sadly. Your choice will reflect how well you will enjoy the process.
Yes, the power to choose between aging gracefully and aging miserably is in your hands. It cannot be stressed enough that you need to make the choice early in life to enjoy the full benefits in the long run.
There is a powerful link between environment and health, culture and vitality and how they are significant to the aging process.
We can improve not just our lifespan but --- more importantly, our health span.
Charlie Brown
Frying pan art
New post (218): Frying pan art
I refer here not to the Food kind of art that is created in the frying pan.
Rather to what one artist saw at the bottom of well used and scrapped frying pans.
Take a good look at the bottom of any well used frying in your own home.
When a well used frying pan’s scratched, scrapped, burnt up bottom, is photographed on a black background …the image is one of – a celestial body suspended in the darkness of nightly space.
What differentiates an artist from most of us is the ability to see beyond the mundane.
After being exposed to his works, I have begun looking at objects lying around the home with a curious eye.
The images could well be placed in a scientific journal and one could not tell the difference between them and the real.
One man’s scrap is another man’s art.
Charlie Brown
I refer here not to the Food kind of art that is created in the frying pan.
Rather to what one artist saw at the bottom of well used and scrapped frying pans.
Take a good look at the bottom of any well used frying in your own home.
When a well used frying pan’s scratched, scrapped, burnt up bottom, is photographed on a black background …the image is one of – a celestial body suspended in the darkness of nightly space.
What differentiates an artist from most of us is the ability to see beyond the mundane.
After being exposed to his works, I have begun looking at objects lying around the home with a curious eye.
The images could well be placed in a scientific journal and one could not tell the difference between them and the real.
One man’s scrap is another man’s art.
Charlie Brown
Friday, February 10, 2012
Debunking - “The demise of the USA.”
New Post (217): Debunking - “The demise of the USA.”
Here’s a sampling of the opinions of some of the “idle” myth perpetuators:
---“The USA faces imminent demise due to three considerations. One and two are: its internal economic policies and the external certainties of Islamic terrorism.
---“Academic who has long predicted that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S.
---"There's less than 50% chance that the United States will exist by the ... of Warning U.S. Economic Collapse ...
---Four scenarios that could spell the end of the United States as we know it -- in the very near future.
………………………………………………………
The question I ask is:
“Why then are the brightest and the best educated youth from all countries continuing to migrate unabated to the USA in the droves”?
Reason: The USA is the most powerful brain magnet that there is.
The predictors of the demise of the USA are woefully wrong. These doomsday predictors have no idea whatsoever of – “what made the USA a super power”… (and) I am not going to give them a free education on this.
The return of the USA to the global centre stage and in a position of uncontested supremacy – will not surprise me --- at all.
Charlie Brown
Here’s a sampling of the opinions of some of the “idle” myth perpetuators:
---“The USA faces imminent demise due to three considerations. One and two are: its internal economic policies and the external certainties of Islamic terrorism.
---“Academic who has long predicted that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S.
---"There's less than 50% chance that the United States will exist by the ... of Warning U.S. Economic Collapse ...
---Four scenarios that could spell the end of the United States as we know it -- in the very near future.
………………………………………………………
The question I ask is:
“Why then are the brightest and the best educated youth from all countries continuing to migrate unabated to the USA in the droves”?
Reason: The USA is the most powerful brain magnet that there is.
The predictors of the demise of the USA are woefully wrong. These doomsday predictors have no idea whatsoever of – “what made the USA a super power”… (and) I am not going to give them a free education on this.
The return of the USA to the global centre stage and in a position of uncontested supremacy – will not surprise me --- at all.
Charlie Brown
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