I like West, I like East

We grew up with teachers who told that we used to have a secret formula to make devices that can fly in the sky – as described in Ved and in Ramayan, as a ‘Puspak Biman’. However, it was the Wrights Brothers who made the first real flying plane. They didn’t have the formula to work on and the flying machine was the product of their own imagination. So, the West rules here !

People in the Western world spend billions of dollars on fitness instruments yet, they are more obese than people in the eastern side of the world. Thanks to Yoga, even a penniless can do it with a little knowledge. East rules here !

They hired 200 best engineers for an idea, and invested 200 billion dollars to design a Space Pen, pen to be used in the space. We ask, why didn’t they use graphite pencil for the job? I don’t think “graphite dust, requires sharpening, and is erasable,” is a valid enough reason to spend such a huge resource.

People in our country worship Goddess Laxmi for wealth and Goddess Sarashwoti for knowledge. But, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry page, Warren Buffet should never have cared of Laxmi or Sarashwoti in their lives. Their brilliant minds have created enormous wealth – not only for them individually but also to the overall economy of their country. Do Americans worship those goddesses ?

Pfizer pharmaceuticals, an American drug company, spends billions of dollars to research for a medicine called ‘Viagra’ and we solely depend on natural herbs – hot spices for the same hob. We still have bigger pie of population to contribute to this world: 60% for the world population come from Asia alone.

We have at least one god to worship everyday of the year, in contrast to the Western people most of whom have only one god, Jesus Christ. Yet, millions of gods haven’t helped the people in the East with their poverty and West-dependence. Ever wonder why we have 330 million god and goddess ?

Western culture accepted the idea that school children should be educated on sex, a lot earlier than the East. We, here on the eastern side still go nuts over the idea of educating them on sex. Have you ever imagined what would have been the population of China and India, if they have said ‘yes’ for sex-education in school? May be, it would have been less than the 60% of the world’s population.

Ed's Note : This has already been published in Xnepali.com in January 25, 2011

Shiva Linga – why worship the Shiva phallus?

It really has not been that long, when I came to know, we Hindu worship a Shiva’s Linga (Shiva Lingam); Lord Shiva in the form of a phallus (penis). But, this knowledge made my skin crawl shiver in sheer disgust.

One of my friends, who is devoted to Shiva, tried to make me understand her side of story, a good side to that story. But I was so disgusted; my mind refused to understand the good-good things she was telling me. My mind simply rejected to hear her version of the worship culture. I am a Hindu by birth but, I have lost the respect for the religion due to absurd things like worshiping the Shiva Linga. Going temple every morning to worship somebody’s phallus (who cares even if belongs to a god) is just too much in the name of Dharma. Give me a break. I am not that type.

I don’t care what you do in your bedroom. You are free to explore your wild side but, do me one favor and don’t tell me all about that.

I am not a temple visitor, as it requires me to walk around the temple area on bare feet and temples are not that clean do to so. But, it’s been decades since I have visited a temple.

Wait a minute; do I need to enter temples ?

Most of the time it’s on the roadside to see how clean the area is! Some says Pashupati is cleaner than before. But, I don’t wants to know. After knowing what exactly in the temple, I am not sure about others but, I am least interested to visit it. 

One of my good friends once said about ‘Unmatta Bhairav’ that, it’s image boosted his mood occasionally; and time and again he used to go to see the image just to recharge him.

I am wondering: What does worshiping Shiva Linga teach us? What should we be learning from this worship? Why do thousands of people visit Pashupati Naths’ temple every morning? What’s in their mind ? Why is it so important to visit that place that houses Shiva Linga?

In the Shiva Puran, a book written about lord Shiva, says, ‘The linga of Shiva, cursed by the sages, fell on the earth and burnt everything before it like fire. Parvati took the form of a yoni and calmed it by holding the linga in her yoni’. The shiva linga seen in the first photo is the symbolic sculpture of that procedure. The religious pundits believe it to be the symbol of creation.

It is not only Pashupati Nath Temple that houses Shiva’s Linga. There are many other sexual sculptures in our temples. In fact, the sexual representation in our religious destinations are more than such books we can buy from the Nepali market (Ok, let me admit one thing here, this kind of book is some thing I don’t go for hunting and blue movies do not appeal to me either). There are few explanations on why such erotic images of gods and goddess in the temple like -to ward off the bad intentions in people; don’t make sense.

I wonder, what kind of bad intention people might get while visiting temples? Or, is it an advertisement – so that people visit temples more often?

I wonder, what image comes in those people’s mind when they really cry and need to reach out for the God and kneel down praying ‘Oh God’ !

Just wondering ! 

Note : This article has already been posted on Xnepali.com on January 10, 2011

Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage

Picture downloaded from Internet

I was about 14 years old when my vocational teacher (not from my school) told me this incident: one of her good friends from her office chose to marry a girl just because he did not wanted to disappointed his mother. The love birds broke-up days before his marriage, to marry an unknown woman his mother chose. My teacher had all praise for him for that decision, yet my young mind could not understand his side of story more importantly the hidden reason behind that decision.

During my college days, I had a friend who preferred arranged marriage over Love marriage. She had her parents to look upon, admire and have that strong belief in this institution. But when Diana and Prince Charles divorced, her strong belief towards arranged marriage was terribly shaken.

I have friends who are doing well in arranged marriages and I also have friends who are not doing that well even after a love affair before marriage. When situation turns like that, we tend to analyze the pros and cons of both types of marriages.

Let’s give another twist to this question: in Western world, love marriage is only an option and in my side of the world, arranged marriage is a culture with traditional values. If you go for an arranged marriage, it means you are very family oriented person and will tie the knot at your family’s wish, like the guy who married the girl his mother chose for him.

As for me, the choice of arranged marriage has another angle. This traditional institution is based on the transfer of ancestral property to the offspring. If ancestral property is not transferred from fathers to sons and if the main person in the household is given a choice to give away his /her properties as per his/her wish, this facade of the family oriented decision will have clearer picture: the aspect, some people prefer to ignore.

If people are given choices in choosing their life partners, they would certainly use their intelligence in choosing the right partners and that won’t diminish any family values. There should be no financial matter involved during the decision taking. If the ‘will system’ in passing the ancestral property is implemented in Nepal; there won’t be such thing like Western culture and Eastern culture when marriage is concerned. The culture and traditional values will be a lot more different than what we witness now.

Woman, money and land are not the only reasons leading to war all time; it is also a reason that helps one to decide on the wrong and right.

I am pretty sure; if marriage is not done for money or land, people will definitely go for love marriage instead of an arranged one.

In a different note, love marriage is popular in developed countries and arranged marriage is more popular in developing countries. Does that choice has anything to do with being rich or poor based on the marriage tradition ?

Eds' Note : This article has already been Posted on December 24, 2010 on Xnepali.com.

Battle of sex: women’s side

“Do you hate men?” An innocent looking lady who works with me asked.

“No!”, I replied.

“Then, why don’t you marry ?”

She doesn’t stop asking the same question even after my repeated request not to ask it again. I don’t want any more questions in the topic.

This question makes me feel uncomfortable, and it also freezes me. I am not interested in this institution. My concern is, if I am free from this question in my family circle, why are the outsider even bother? But, they never stop bothering me.

So, I have to answer her question to make sure that she won’t keep asking the question again.

“I am not buying the concept that men are superior to women and that, I can’t live with a man who strongly believes that they are superior creatures on earth.” I added, “In our society, men are brought up with this belief and I look at them with a question in my eyes.”

She told that, she understands what I was talking about. Her own daughter, who is gender specialist and works in china (what a paradox a gender specialist is a gender biased), is also uninterested in marriage and thinks men are chauvinist.

Some years ago, when my boyfriend asked me “do you think men are pig ?”

My prompt answer was “No !”

But in my mind, I was thinking, “Why is he dragging the innocent creature, and what fault did the pig had to be compared with an arrogant man ?”

He was the same guy who had problem with me watching Oprah Winfrey show. I am a huge fan of Oprah as she is a single woman institute in the whole world who has done a lot to empower women all around the world.

The idea that male are superior sex compared to female is being injected in our mind for their own benefit. The truth is, physically there may be a vast difference between men and women, and one thing that is truly equal is brain. To illustrate the physical difference in a comical way, a Hindi movie explained the difference: men can bare their top in public and women can’t. Leaving alone the physical difference, we can’t difference between the two sexes by the intellectual strength they can possess. That might be one of the reasons Harvard University enrolls more women than men.

Yes, we think in a different way than men and as the saying goes, “Man thinks with his head and woman thinks with her heart”. Different ways of thinking don’t mean that one is smarter and the other is not, it is just that we think differently.

My experience says that men can do only one task at a time but, women can multitask. Shouldn’t it make us a superior sex?

I have read of a English teachers who once wrote, “Woman without her man is nothing”, on the black board and called a boy and a girl in the class to put the punctuation mark on the sentence. The outcome was:

Woman, without her; man is nothing.

Woman, without her man; is nothing.

Interesting lines, aren’t they ?

Now you tell me which of the two lines was the the touch-up of the boy and which one that of the girl?

Ed's Note : This post has already been published on December 16, 2010 on Xnepali.com

Indian spices & English Cities

The other day, I accompanied one of my good friends to a financial institute to sell a concept for a television commercial (TVC). The client suggested showing money or gems as a part of the concept. My friend’s logic was not to show money in the advertisements of banks or financial companies. He said, that will have negative impact on the mass and will not generate result, as expected. This got me thinking. Why not? After all, it is all about money.

In the eastern side of the world, people are shy to talk about sex but, at the same time, they are busy generating more babies compared to the western world. Asia has more than 60% contribution to the world’s 6 billion plus population out of which, China and India combined contribute 2.5 billion. People in the western world are open and freely talk on sex and ideas associated with it. How come their population is a lot less compared to those who believe that sex is a taboo?

One common example – lets think about the name of cites in England – Essex, Sussex, and Middlesex. They are the names of the towns over there. In a different note, Clove, Cardamom and Cinnamon are also the name of places, in some part of India. It should be mentioned that, those cities have nothing to do with the production of the spice they represent. Do you have any idea on what the heck they were thinking, when naming the cities?

People in western world wear such revealing dresses that sometimes cause road accidents. Cities are plastered with the billboards and posters of enticing, sultry, suggestive and seductively posing models. TVs carry sexy commercials to arouse the sexual desire on the viewers. But in South Asia, similar suggestive billboards, posters, TV commercials are detested and banned in most of the cases. Wearing reveling dresses in the public is a definitive no-no and is known to create huge bruhaha.

I believe naming a city with a “sex” word in it and naming cities with suggestive meanings are same, and the only difference is the ‘mode of presentation’. Cardamom is considered to enhance sexuality in a female while cinnamon does the same to men (although not to the level of commercial products, like Viagra). Clove is good enough for both genders. Hence, the three main ingredients of the traditional five-spices to tantalize the gourmets tongue mean more that what they sound. So, motive behind the UK cities and Indian cities are same but Indians acted smart in choosing the words; making it more effective. Many still wrongly believe that the UK cities ‘sex’ names represent the places of Saxons tribe (Middle, South, and East Saxons).

It is to be noted, a young widow is suggested to stay away from spicy foods, to control her natural desire of sex. People in the eastern part of the world believe staying away from the spicy foods helps in controlling excessive sexual desire.

Going back to the TVC, we were talking about : now, I could see my friend’s point of view; the docile suggestion has more impact on the bigger mass compared to the direct suggestion.

Ed's Note : This article has already been Posted on December 12, 2010 in Xnepali.com

Is it all in the blood !

It’s a common phrase and everybody must have heard it – “it’s all in the blood”. You are born with it, wealth, name, fame acting etc. My question is, is it ?

Whoever said this line must be the one who was not paying much attention to the surrounding or, may be living in a very narrow circle and does not know what the real truth is.

Let’s talk about acting here. Let’s talk about Bollywood and pick one top actor of the 70s – Hema Malini and Dharmendra. Both were the superstars of their time. Their daughter Easha is not doing that well in the movie industry as her mother did in her time. Hema Malani was raw in the industry and was not trained and polished to enter this line and she was not from the movie family background either. Easha should be doing a lot better than her parents because she has blood with good gene running on her body not only from one superstar but superstar parents. They were well known for their good work on the screen. Lookwise, Esha is also identical to her mother.

If you take a deeper look on this family, you will find out that Dharmendra alone got higher share of name and fame in the industry compared to the combined efforts of his children. Hema Malini also enjoys the similar share of fame.

Hema Malini, still is a dream-girl to many people, not only in India but all around the world. Dharmenda is also considered the living legend of Bollywood. Some years down the line, people might ask, “Esha? who is Esha ?”

Do you know the name of the parents of Abraham Lincoln? His parents had the same kind of blood, red blood, that ran in his vein, the same kind which runs in your body and my body and our parents’ body.

So tell me do you still believe, it’s all in the blood?

If you do, then think, think again !

Ed's Note : this article has already been Posted on December 12, 2010 in Xnepali.com

Freedom of Expression

Picture from Internet

Of all the people on earth, journalist are among those who would like to practice freedom of expression more than anyone. No doubt, they advocate, practice, fight the concept of freedom of expression. But lets see how much they have got what they fight and stand for for fiercely.

May the corrupt rot :  Couple of years ago this is the slogan popularized by BBC journalist Rabindra Mishra. Mishra is famous for his scoop that gives him 15 minutes popularity was sporting T-shirt that read the slogan “may the corrupt rot.” He is that kind of journalist who always picks the topic that angers the public. It's not this easiest way to win the likeness for his choice ? But I would like to ask Mr Mishra  is practicing cursing to those who are in power position is freedom of expression ? There has to be someone in our society with clear conscience to tell  him, you got the concept totally wrong.

Let me be honest I started liking the eloquent Mr. Laxmi Guragai, Ex-editor of Gorkhapatra and his series of articles in Samhita that was published in 2072 - 2073. I enjoyed reading all of it and still even after reading Mr. Krisha Shrestha, another ex-editor of Gorkhapatra who exposed the lies of Mr Guragai with sufficient evidence. In the issue of 2073 Ashoj senior journalist lies, Mr Shrestha colleague of Mr Guragai helped us to see the real side of veteran journalist and the truth in his posted materials in Samhita. Mr. Guragain scuffed too much and tried to bend the news in his favor when the reality was different. Thank God, Samhita gave space for other veteran to cut the lies of veteran who misused the space provided by Samhita. This reminded me of a  movie the glass shattered. Here in this movie they talk about a guy who fabricated the news to be popular and enjoyed the name and fame until somebody busted his lies. I think Guragain had not seen than movie. How long you can soak in the pride of lies ?

We all know about how the journalist of charlie Hebdo was killed in 2015 April by some irate and irrational Muslim brothers. What the young Muslim did was very barbaric and irrational. There is no doubt. However, no one should provoke anyone to that extent that they would like to end the matter with gun. There are some opinions that better be kept unexpressed in the head, if it do not do greater good for the society. Freedom of Expression should not be [practiced if it may cause tragic accident. We should be sensitive to others views and believe also. And if such views and beliefs matter to a greater mass than practicing such expression may be avoided.  What Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists did can not be viewed as freedom of expression but it's the malpractice in the name of freedom of expression.

In the name of freedom of expression there should not be war or crime in our society. Instead we must use our pen and brain to end the war and crime from our society. If such barbarism can be stopped then that would be wise decision than the freedom of expression.

Many of our journalists have habit of filling whole pages without naming a single person or organization. As if what he knows whole nation knows about it.  Such journalist lives in small society. One such example is Darshan Sharma on Samhita 2073 Ashoj issue. He is talking about a mal practice in our media but he did not mention the name of media house he is talking about. Spilling beans is also not the work of journalist, they should go and write suspense novel. Because we don't like fiction or suspense but like to read bold media men who would tell us story that happened in our society.  Freedom of expression is more than art of oratory more than captivating way of taking and filling pages, it is not the loud opinion. All the expression in media men must have conscience, authenticity and sense of responsibility backed by audacity. The written thing must have direct and positive impact in our society also. If the practice of freedom of expression is chaos, crime or barbarism then I would keep a loud mum if some come forward with a gun and then crush such strong pen managed by journalists like Sarb and Riss.