guru shishya parampara

Yesterday's virtue, today's vice

HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED

“Kal ki daulat aaj ki khushiyan
unki mehfil apni galiyan
asli kya hai naqli kya hai
poocho dil se mere”

For us, now in our sixties, it would be fascinating to try and understand the gradual changing of perceptions, ideas, behaviour patterns and cultural moorings over a short span of 40/50 odd years, give or take a few. Just to be clear, I am not trying to be judgmental or snide, just stating the facts as they stand.

Social evils, crime, rape, homosexuality and all those things always existed, but the way we, as a people, as civil society saw all that then and the way we see it now has changed.

Consider this- It was not fashionable to get divorced but there was a social stigma attached. A divorced woman would find it extremely difficult to find a suitable boy for a second time and even if she did, the social stigma would still stick fast. Today, it is as matter of fact as excusing yourself and going for a sh*t in the middle of a party and socially too, the impact is far less.

Then, it was expected for the man to pop the question and the woman doing so was a definite social NO-NO. Today, it is all the same. A woman drinking in public was not at all fashionable although it was not a taboo either. But a woman who did so, was not seen at par with the majority who didn’t.

Disciplining children with the cane was a very common practice and whether it be the parent at home or the teacher at school, both had the uncontested right to do so. Extremities of course, are not examples, but if a student came home crying that the teacher had beaten him in school, the parent would not go to school to fight against the teacher but side with the teacher and in the first place assume that the boy got what he deserved. Today even a mom slapping her son or daughter would be seen as human rights or child rights violation and the matter may well go to court. The famous saying “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was an immortal one as the strong faith and belief was that the guru was next only to God and a respectable figure with every right to use strong arm tactics on the student where he thought fit.

I remember a scene from Deewar, the famous film all of you must have seen, where the mother seeing his poor son becoming rich overnight asks, “I hope you are not doing something you should not be doing”. The sentiment was that the parent is concerned with the methods adopted by the child to acquire wealth and that the mere acquisition of wealth was not enough to whitewash sins committed, if at all, on the way. Today’s mother will probably not even ask.

Homosexuality and lesbianism were seen as extreme depravities and absolutely unacceptable in civil society. Today, there are chest thumping public processions of all that and forget feeling shame, they go around as if they are the greatest reformers in the new world. They get social limelight and some of them feature in talk shows and flaunt their ‘liberalism’ like a badge of honour. Some celebrities are so ‘Out of the closet’ nowadays that they would not even be able to locate their closet if they wanted to in order to get back if ever.

Yesterdays, ‘Wooing’ is modern day ‘Stalking’ so if Raj Kapoor was singing ‘Sangam hoga ki nehi” or Rajendra Kumar removed the ‘Zulf’ from the ‘Chehra’ a mere ‘Gustakhi maaf’ would not do but both would probably end up doing jail time.  Go back to “Tera peechha no main chhodunga soniye, bhej de chahe jail me” was probably prophetic, rather than poetic lyrics given that they were penned some 50 odd years ago.

Surely many more examples may come to mind after reading this, please add to this from your own side and your remarks and thoughts on this article would be most welcome.

 

 

 

www.amitabhroy.xyz

I said it last December

Date: Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 11:26 AM

Subject: Corona-the grenade in you lap

(I wrote this blog last December)

DISASTER MANAGEMENT- A LIVE GRENADE DROPPED ON THE COMMON MAN’S LAP BY CORONA

Amitabh Roy

Disaster Management, Safety and Security and related subjects have acquired newer definitions and meanings in the Covid era. Optimists use the term “Post Covid” to describe the present time, I don’t. A tiredness has set in after half a year and more of virtual house imprisonment for most common folk here in India. I am not roping in the rest of the world right now. But the Corona danger is far from behind us. There are murmurs of newer strains and second waves that we can hardly ignore no matter how tired we are.  

In short,  it is time to educate the common, uninitiated man on the street that if he wants to live a long healthy life he has to learn to protect himself, his family and surrounding right now. Governments, municipalities and safety personnel can only do so much but unless the last man on the street learns the ropes, he is a risk not just to himself but to everyone around him.

Having been engaged somewhat, if not wholly, with the disaster management and exigency (safe exit) industry I can see the change in focus. A famous poetic couplet comes to mind which I would like to quote here to describe the ‘before’ and ‘ongoing’ of the Covid age- Rasm-e-ulfat ko nibhaye to nibhaye kaise, Har taraf aag hai daman ko bachaye kaise, Bojh hota jo ghamo ka to utha bhi lete, zindagi bojh bani ho to uthaye kaise.

The definition of war now has changed, as it has shifted from the frontiers to cities and villages, Senior Superintendent of Police Mathura Gaurav Grover said in his virtual participation. He said every citizen of the country is a "Sepoy" (soldier), who can contribute to the security of the country with his vigil and awareness.  He was speaking in the context of the Mathura refinery but his statement can aptly be superimposed on everything else also.

Wearing masks, using sanitizers and checking temperatures every few hours are becoming habits-which is a good thing- but the beggar on the street, or the unlettered cart puller or even the pompous know-it-all who has his own ideas and thinks that he knows all there is to be known are ticking time bombs all around us. The last are the most dangerous. There is a theory from one such bright spark that’s doing the rounds. It theorizes that the corona virus is much smaller than the pores of cloth masks so why wear a mask if it can get in anyway? Sounds logical. About as logical as saying that if a truck were to run over your head a helmet will not save you so why wear a helmet on a two wheeler?

Then there is doctor who says Corona is a common cold and nothing else, big pharmaceuticals are floating these rumors to sell their products costlier. So all of a sudden people are dying in lakhs and crores due to a rumor or the common cold has purchased stakes in these companies-you take your pick.

All in all, Corona Pandemic is a game changer that has forced mankind to go back into a massive reboot mode.  It has brought heavy penalties to bear on those who do not fall in line and ignorance is certainly no excuse. It’s a grenade dropped right into your lap deal with it

Punish the Covid originator

CORONA DEBATE-HOW ALL OF US ARE STRATEGICALLY MANIPULATED AND BLINDED TO THE ROOT CAUSE

             Amitabh Roy

 

The Corona debate is the single most relevant topic on all fora today. And so it should be. You open any page on any newspaper, and the “C” word will pop up and hit you in the eye. You turn on any news channel in any language 24x7 on TV and the figures, numbers, statistics and details will be about Corona and Corona only. The same goes to social media and take this blog itself. What is it about? Corona obviously. But this is different. Just read on.

 

Human lives have become numbers and statistics in one of the grisliest of chapters in history since we remember. People are dying, oxygen is in short supply, doctors are grappling with a virus that shape shifts and mutates to confound us and kill us with macabre precision.

 

Slaves as we are to the idiot box and social media, we are forced to swallow a narrative that although not entirely untrue, is hugely misleading for sure. Like the sleight of hand that a magician uses to disguise a trick, we are made to look at the bark closely while we ignore the tree. And its not you and me, somehow global politics is being so designed that we remain blinded to the real villain of the piece-China.

 

Somewhere in a lab in China someone, obviously with complicity of the highest, devises a biological weapon to be unleashed upon the world. A hush hush project that is a threat to mankind and with all the dangerous qualities that the virus is expected to possess. It is a hidden project obviously and in 2020, deliberately or accidentally Wuhan releases this upon an unsuspecting world.

 

But notice how nationally and internationally, China is today the least under threat of retaliation from ANY country for this. Beyond some speeches of condemnation, no power, including nuclear armed USA has reacted with action on the ground against China.

 

Law and justice universally calls for harshest punishment for murder. It is a crime unparalleled and the willful taking of one human life calls for life imprisonment or death. Hitler has been damned in history for his murder of Jews in scores and the Nazi terror is second only to Islamist terror in the annals of history as having ‘scored’ the most in terms of numbers of deaths inflicted.

But Corona numbers add up to more than the two put together… and counting ..today.

So If Osma Bin Laden had to be hunted down and killed a decade after 26/11, how come the same resolve is not shown for Xi Jinping? Or for China as a country guilty of mass murder calculated to annhilate mankind?

Coming to India, we have interesting debates on TV to name just one forum. ‘Adi, ‘Mudda’ “We the people” “Awaz Adda” ‘Chakravyuh”, ‘Mahabharat’ are all flush with lively debates on Corona. Here we see doctors, politicians, page 3 celebrities, sportsmen and everyone arguing on the one topic. But have you seen one debate on how to punish China for this? I mean, beyond just banning apps and goods.

 

Has anyone realized, that the world actually needs to come together and wage a war on China and use all the fancy weaponry to good use. And no, it is not blind bias or war mongering by me. World wars one and two were bad indeed, but there were reasons why the world went out and fought them anyway. There comes a time when there is no other option on the table and only then does mankind go to war. The Ramayan and the Mahabharata showed us the ‘Why’ behind all out wars. When there is not enough wood to burn the dead due to corona, no grave space to bury bodies and people around us are dying like flies due to corona what do we do to the culprit responsible? And we blame the governments, the doctors, the common people, the crowds at religious functions, the people out on the road and everyone we can think of but not China.

 

If all those weapons are kept aside for a rainy day.. well its pouring cats and dogs out there.

 

 

 

www.amitabhroy.xyz