World is changing...

This world is changing...this air bits and bytes..outsoucing has mixed and migrated many cultures together. It had been a long and gradual process I am just part of it. My awareness has woken up recently.

Great Britain has become the land of opportunities for 'sensible people' who can speak English. This country has lost their younger generation to hip hop culture. Year and year population is decreasing. What is the reason? Is it the adverse weather? No! it is the freedom. The freedom has backfired these western countries. America and Great Britain are just examples.

In GB by law boy or a girl who are 16 years and above are considered as adults versus 18 years in India. Countries are technological advanced. 'You don't need your parents to grow up' is the philosophy of a boy who met me on new year's eve on London Tube. smoking, drinking alcohols, adultery, gluttony and thwarting religion are the rules of this young generation. They are just eating the fruits of the prosperity that their uncensored brought to them.

There is no control over younger generation. For a child to have both his blood parents living together in a same house is a luxury. Years have passed and now they facing the problems.

Around one third of the population here smokes. (for accurate results visit http://www.statistics.gov.uk/) Women smoke more than men. This is one of the cause of decreasing the fertility rate. It was shocking to know about my British colleague here. He said he quit smoking after his wife got pregnant ...Feels good to hear this now hear this ... And his wife reduced to 20 cigarettes per day after being pregnant.

Majority of the youths in this country have lost there senses. Girls are more aggressive than boys...Girls hook boys up. There is weird law of all these EH countries. You cannot harm anybody not event as a act of self defense who is below 16yrs of age. Even police cannot do any thing to such vandalizes caused by young people who are less than 16 yrs of age. They have give sweet name to this law...'Human Rights'. Parents cannot beat their children by law. undersixteen feel that they have freedom. They do whatever they like. They can even kill you but if you retaliate then by law you are the criminal.

These young people are racist too. They attack, threat even beat non white people. but they don't appeared the fact that their country is being run by most of the Non-white people or migrants who are now citizens of this country. 45% of NHS doctors ( National Health Service) of this country are migrants.

NHS is already backrupt. Government has no funds to sustain NHS. No fund for pension schemes. No work force is generated within the country. Falling population, youths dieing at younger age. More and more jobs and less man power. Increased inflation and increasing cost of everything in the economy.

But hey..wait...there are some countries in the east who offers services at economical rates. So why not outsourcing? Outsourcing is triggered as solution for this chronic problems. Government has opened the door for migrants. Wherever possibles services are exported and migrants are welcome. Migrants give more taxes to government funds are waxing again.

What does this mean to all of us. More opportunities to work with this country. More chances to earn money and more chances to reap the benefits of currency difference. One can say it as a pay back time... It is the time to take back what our ancestors lost 100 years ago. Times are such that they cannot survive without us.

So, I was not surprised to see a young Japanese or Chinese or simply Asian girl who greeted me at Lord's the home of cricket.

Finally,

The cost of schooling in international schools in India for 10 years including air trips twice a year to and fro from India and UK, is less than the cost of schooling in UK... think about it..:-)

Religion

Yesterday,I saw a movie 'Miracle Maker'. It is a story of Jesus Christ. A simple story triggered many thoughts in my mind. Everyone talks about his or her own religion and boast how best it is. Let's not get in to that. That will be an un-ending discussion.

There are many differences amongst all the religions and there are similarities too. Jesus is considered as Son of God. In Christianity God is considered in three forms. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Which is very similar to Hindutva, 'Atma' 'Paramatma' which is analogous to the Father and Son concept. 'Paramatma' is 'Ishwar' or the God and we all humans are 'atma' which is a part of the 'Parmatma' ( को अहं...अहं ब्रह्मास्मि..) (Ko Aham ?.. Aham Bramha-asmi.. Who am I ? I am God) Let's try to fit the concept of Son more perfectly. Son is nothing but another 'Avtar' of God. 'Srikrishna' is Son of God.

Going ahead 'Gita' says, Every 'Atma' is a smallest conceivable part of 'Paramatma' and it is duty of every human being is to worship God and purify one's soul or spirit so that his 'atma' joins the 'parmatma' and 'moksha' is achieved.

The concept of Father, Son and Holy spirit is as confusing as the concept of 'Atma' 'Paramatma'
'Chaitanya'. There is one more concept in Christianity that is: 'Trinity' or union of three forms of God, Father, Son and Holy spirit. Which also resembles with 'Bramha' 'Vishnu' and 'Mahesh'. Geeta says that, ultimately Vishnu is the only God rest all various forms of God which are originated from Vishnu. Trinity: It sees these persons as constituted by their mutual relations, yet does not mean that God in his essence is Father, or a male deity. Jesus spoke of a relation of mutual giving and love with the Father, which believers could also enjoy through the Spirit.

Jesus was God in the form of human being, So all the rules of the human life are applied to him as well. When he was traveling though the deserts, he was hungry for days and there was no food for him to eat. Being God he could have converted the stones and sand into bread and water could have quenched his hunger and thirst. Even Satan tempted him to do so, but Jesus had to control his mind and move away form Satan's temptation. Satan is nothing but a nonconformist. Nonconformist is personified as Satan. One who always contradicts Jesus and his sayings. As a normal human being Jesus feared pain, the pain of crucification, he knew beforehand that he was going to get crucified. So he asked God, "Father! Is this the way! Isn't there any other way...?" and again Satan tempted Jesus to run away as he was a god and a powers of his own. he could have prevented his death. This shows that Jesus was normal human being like you and me who had to overcome temptation, fear. On similar lines Geeta also talks about 'Shadripoo' and what is called as 'Prakriti' who try to control human mind with lust, fear, in short 'Maaya' which will keep you away from God. This is personified as Satan in Christianity. Then further ahead Geeta talks about 'KarmaYoga' 'BhaktiYoga' and 'DnyanaYoga'. Three different ways to reach God.

The essence is the same, one has to worship God and purify one's soul by thinking about the God and imbibing his holy name his spirit in oneself. - Hindutva.

Where as Christian's follow a ritual called as holy communion where they obey what Jesus said at the last supper. "This bread is my flesh and this wine is my blood. Eat my flesh and drink my blood. Imbibe the spirit of God in thyself."

This is quite interesting...after all religion is interpreted by many ways hence there are different beliefs in the same religion as well, there are different followers of same religion who keep fighting saying there belief their interpretation is the best and the most correct one. In all these fights actual religion and the God always ignored by us all.

King Lear

Hi allThis Saturday was a great day for me. I saw the Shakespeare's play, 'King Lear' . It was a classic experience. Actually I spoke to Esther long time ago that I want to watch a Shakespeare play or a ballet or Opera... One good thing to learn from British or rather western people is, if they commit anything...they will do it. You will come to know what I mean after a while. Esther said yes for going the play. And then one day when few weeks ago I went to see the oxford city on the same day evening we decided to go for the play. I spend whole day sight seeing the oxford. Esther was in Oxford. She was attending the annual quiz that takes place between Cambridge and Oxford, ( Cambridge won ! She is from Cambridge) well, Then in the evening we met and decided to go for the play and caught the bus that to go to the theatre. As we were on the bus we realized that the last train to Didcot from Oxford is 11:55 p.m. and show ends at 12:15 at night. We had to dump the plan and return home.I forgot about the play after that, as we decided to go for some other time as we do many times with the movies. Several weeks after that Esther told me that there is one show in the afternoon at 2:15 on Saturday and we can go for the same. She called up the theatre and booked the 3 tickets. One for me, one for her and one for Anna her friend. Anna is her friend who has read and studied all Shakespeare and Esther thought she will be of great help to understand the play. I have been told that Shakespeare's English is difficult to understand even for an adult British in-spite of English being their mother tongue. Another advantage of Anna was: she had a car so we would have got a pickup and drop.But.... she couldn't make it at the final moment so Esther called her parents to join us. So, Instead of going in Anna's car we went to show with Richard ( Esther's father ) Christine (Esther's mother). I had to call them Richard and Christine as here elder people are called by there names only. I was pleased to meet them and they are quite friendly. Richard, white skinny personality, round face with round spectacles and long nose. He appears quiet until he starts talking about drama, play and Shakespeare and Bible. :-) Christine is short white lady with curly hair and has big smile on her face all the time. I don't make any attempt here to guess their ages as all my previous attempts to guess people's ages have failed. so assume that they are quite old as Esther is the youngest of their four children.Richard was pleased to know about my interest in Shakespeare. He told me many things about the plays ballets and operas and he was constantly talking after the initial enquiries where I come from and what I am doing in England. He reiterated about the difficulties in understanding the Shakespeare English, So for my understanding he said that he would sit beside me while watching the play and whisper in my ears whenever there in any difficulty in understanding.. I was impressed by this willingness...Then he told me the plot in brief so that I can understand the play. He has taken enough care that he won't spoil the entire show, he didn't reveal the entire plot. We went to the theatre and to my surprise this show was held not in the theatre but was in the BMW showroom's basement. The basement was converted temporarily in to theatre. There were some chairs around 50 of them on each side of the staircase. The was a temporary stage at the centre and the huge basement behind. So it was kind of big hall ... There were some poly-ethene blinds for actors to changes the drapes. So no curtains, no costumes, no microphones. Good thing was there were light and sound effects. So, as the play started I couldn't make anything out that old english full of thou, thee,thine,thy and thou shalt diest kind of sentences... But the actors were acting very well. There was lots of shouting in the play and since it was not the proper theatre the sound was getting echoed and reverberation was not proper so I couldn't catch the words and even the lip movement, as I was sitting far behind. So, after every five minutes Esther used to tell me the plot.The King Lear is Shakespeare's one of the greatest plays. It is tragic story of a king Lear who was growing old and decides to divide his kingdom in to 3 parts and give it to his daughters. So, he calls these daughters and asks them how much each of them love him. Eldest and the middle one say many sugar coated words for the king and the get their shares of the kingdom and the youngest one who is quite honest says that she doesn't say anything about the king. King gets angry and says 'Nothing comes for nothing' and he doesn't give anything to the third daughter. This is the start of the play and there are many plots and sub plots ahead in the play. Both the kings daughters are married to Dukes, and they try to make conspiracies against the king. There is another king, King of Gloucester who is loyal to the king Lear. but he has two sons. One is Edger and the other is Edmund. Edger is son and Edmund is a bastard. So Edmund makes another plot and tells his father ( King of Gloucester ) that Edgar is trying to kill him. Edger runs away in the jungle to save himself. Mean time King Lear with one of his loyal servant and another character call Fool starts his journey in to the jungle. Fool is another interesting character shown in the play. I think it is king Lear's mind that is personified. I asked Richard about the fool. He said that is the mystery that nobody knows what happens to the fool as This characters disappears from the play in the second half....anyways the story continues with many twists and turns and ends very tragically. There is rise and fall of the kingdoms... Kings daughters try to find their father and kill them. They try to kill King of Gloucester who comes know about the plot. Meanwhile king Lear in the jungle finds a mad man who is Edger. It is very interesting to watch the play the see the actors hear their dialogues. Since there were no microphones they used to shout ....It amazing to hear so loud voice.So after the interval both of us, myself and Esther were frustrated as couldn't understand much out of the play. Esther being British couldn't understand the play...This english is true Tigress' milk. What we speak is probably the skimmed milk.. :-) Well, since the tickets were booked at different times we got the seats at different location, So in that 20 minutes of interval Richard helped us. We all heard the entire plot with a cup of coffee. Then Christine went and complained to the theatre manager about the poor sound quality and she also told that her guest ( that is me) has come from India to watch this play. The manager apologized and she offered us the seat in the front row. Now Richard sat in the middle and Esther and myself sat on the either side of Richard, we all are set to understand the remaining part of the play. It was good to move to the first row, now I was able to understand the much better but still it was old english and with that kind of voice modulation and fast pace it was difficult to catch the words. Anyways it was a good experience to watch the Shakespeare's great play with a British family in a theatre at Oxford in the cultural capital of England. It is an honor ...I am felt lucky for myself. On our back home we were discussing about the play. One more thing I noticed about the play which pointed out to Richard. These plays are modernized that is the king in the play wears simple formal clothes ...I was expecting the king with King like costume. may this production of the play was small hence they didn't think about the drapery and costume. Even the swords in the play were small knives...So that way even smallest theatre in India is much better presented than this British theatre...Well then on our our way back we went to Richard and Christine's house or rather Esther's parent's house. It is between Didcot and Oxford. It is small is village...Their house was a big house. white in colour. There was a small nice garden ....Let me not describe this here as I will get some photos. I received a warm welcome at their house. Richard straightaway took me to his study. where on section was full of DVDs. He gave all the Shakespeare's DVDs...I was surprised and I have no words to explain what I felt at that moment. He told me watch all these DVDs with subtitles on. Then we discussed about India..and then I told him about indian cinema and Indian theatre...talked about Janata Raja... He also said the We focus more on hollywood. He said that he saw on historical serial on TV it was about Indian king and he liked it. He appreciated the fact that people only concentrate on hollywood and ignore rest of the world.. Then I started taking about mahakavi Kalidasa...though I didn't know much about him. Then Richard showed more interest and he wanted to see the work of Kalidasa and wanted to see indian ballets, Operas and theatre...He asked me about internet sites where he can buy some DVDs..I promised that I will look for him and let him know..The Christine took me to the kitchen and introduced me to their big family. The kitchen was beautifully decorated with lots of pots and crockery. There were photos of entire family were pasted on Kitchen wall.. They have a big family. Richard and Christine have one son and three daughters. eldest two are married. They have grand sons too... They have a big family. Second last daughter is getting married end of this summer in July. So all this was too much for me.. I didn't expect a grand welcome from a British family..I told that this is a pleasant surprise for me. Christine said, she works a councilor at Church and she has seen people from many cultures and she know how good one feels if one is welcomed in foreign country....So all my pre conceptions about British changed at that moment... So, the point to be noted is: Don't rely on what people say...People say that British have stiff upper lip...they are rude....my friend...your experience will tell you something different...let me digress here a little bit....There is racism. There are some rude people in Britain but all of them are not like that...wherever I went till now I have received warm welcome. People talk sweetly they admire Indians....They talk about Indians as very industrious people. I met many Americans, I met Polish people..I met Bangladeshi, Pakistatni people everybody is different...only at 1% times I felt unsafe here and that too in london....Some boys threw empty bottles at me. but I think British are very quiet people and they speak and talk if you approach them...They won't come to you to talk ...they will respond if you approach...this world is changing...anyways...then Richard was about to drop us back to our house. Christine stayed back and started cooking for their dinner...and as expected she pulled out gunny bag of potatoes and started baking them in the oven...my God they eat potatoes and potatoes all the time.Well on our way back home Richard and I talked about Kalidasa and Shivaji and other about Indian culture...We reached home. I said good bye to Esther and Richard. Hmm I forgot to tell you that I am invited on Easter Sunday for lunch by Christine at their house. So, I will be able experience the Easter Celebration at Millers...I early waiting for the long weekend from Good Friday to Easter Monday to celebrate Easter....and Ofcourse I am looking forward to celebrate Easter at Millers' on Easter Sunday.... with the entire Miller family....

Sunday

I woke up late as I was watching cartoon film saturday night that Esther gave me... I woke up at 8:00 and started typing this huge letter and my experience about saturday....then I had called up Maciek my polish freind...He said he will visit me by midday...I cooked rice and spinach potato soup and was waiting for Maciek...my laptop clock showed me 11:30 and stared reading the Richard Branson that I got from the library....after a while I though I should finish my lunch before Maciek comes, so that we can straight go out somewhere. well the I saw my wrist watch it showed my 10:45 I didn't notice problem with the times....I waited 15 minutes till 11 and went to Microwave to heat my food. the Microwave clock was showing 12...I was mad...I though my watch is slow. Still I didn't do anything...I had my food and maciek came at 12:00 it was 12:00 in my wrist watch... he came and apologized for the 1 hour delay...then it ocurred to me that something is terribly wrong with the time.... so then Maciek told me about the Summer time... today the clocks are to be advanced by one hour as this is start of spring....So my laptop and Microwave clocks were intelligent enough to advance themselves by 1 hour on 26th march 2006. I think on the last week of March they advance the clocks by an hour. so that is good thing so there going be more overlap with indian time....I am now 4:30 hours behind India. one hour is reduced. all these things are funny for me..anyways then Maciek and I went for walk....we walked walked and walked we must have walked about from 1 to 5 we went to many villages we walked through fields my photos will speak better than me....It was amazing...next week end we have planned a cycle trip via national cycle network....I am tired today...Talking to Maciek is fun...he is polish...he thinks he can't speak better english but he speaks...better and we talk about his country my country...we think alike....only thing differs is culture....we exchange many views and it is fun talking...we visited 3 villages on foot and visited a church...all these villages are dull and sleepy villages on sundays...constant rain made them even silent and deserted. but It was fun walking through platues and fields and see horse and sheep grazing down the hill side... here in Britain man is very close to the nature....with that note I end my huge letter...see you in next huge letter....bye for now....Mandar

Test Blog