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Swamy and his enemies

I am no lawyer, but the responses and reactions of the central government coming out in the media in the ‘permission to prosecute Raja case’ are laughable and pathetic.

First was the kneejerk reaction of booting out the solicitor general for not having represented the PM’s case properly, followed by the drafting of the attorney general.

Then came the pathetic certificate given by law minister Moily that solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam was a brilliant lawyer nonetheless (then why was the media constantly being fed reports about the dissatisfaction of the PMO with the defence he had put up).

Finally emerged the pooh-poohing of Subramaniam Swamy. ‘He has no locus standi’. ‘Manmohan need not have replied to him at all’. ‘He could have simply dispatch Swamy’s missives to the WPB’.

If indeed Swamy was nobody why was the supreme court seized of the matter? Why were the SC judges passing unprecedented comments?

One only sees varying levels of hardheartedness and calculation. There is no inspiration in any of the responses.

Belief in books and belief in oneself

Morari Bapu live at Grishneshwar….(one of the jyotir lingas of Shiva, near Aurangabad, Maharashtra)

Hindu philosophical thinking recognises direct perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumana) and sastraic testimony (shabda) as the means of knowing.

When it comes to God, our sight is weak.

When it comes to God, our means of reasoning and inference are feeble.

So most of us have to depend on religious texts or the testimony of sages….

Vamanan reflection:

Believe in any book, but don’t disbelieve your humanity…don’t hate your fellow men on the basis of religion, nationality, language, region or caste… ‘‘Man..Stand Up…There is no book bigger than ye!’’

The problem of believing in one particular book is the problem of religious bigotry.

I have great regard for Morari Bapu for his true spiritual feeling, humility and great music.

Superglue kept A. Raja in the telecom seat

Political forensic experts are closely scrutinizing ‘resigned’ telecom minister A. Raja’s ministerial chair to figure out the extraordinary adhesion he achieved with it.

Their preliminary studies have found that the impugned bonding agent was a many layered super-glue that consisted of scam kickbacks, goondagiri, loopholes of coalition politics, Dravidian sloganeering, Dalit positioning and tangled personal relationships.

Though much of the super adhesive had stuck to Raja’s spotless dhoti as well as ample posterior when he prised himself out of the chair for good last Sunday, the experts gleaned vestiges of the substance and quickly sent it for tests including DNA fingerprinting.

The above scrappy report is based on initial findings. They only go to strengthen general public perceptions about the telecom scam.

Barkha Dutt leaves out Jayalalitha factor

Speaking about the factors that led to Telecom minister A Raja’s quitting, ND TV’s Barkha Dutt, enumerates the following reasons :

1. CAG report indictment
2. former DoT secretary Mathur coming out against Raja
3. the relentless opposition pressure.

She deliberately leaves out AIADMK leader Jayalalitha’s offer to the Cong-I to support the UPA government in case the DMK withdraws the support of its 28 MPs over action against Raja. This did play a crucial role in bringing the Raja case to a head.

DID Barkha leave out this important factor because Jayalalalitha made her offer over ND TV rival Times Now?

Should media competition make journalists hide facts?

Jayalalitha lets loose Brahmastra

From Poes Garden, Jayalalitha has quietly fired a Brahmastra on the DMK through her favourite channel Times Now (except Jaya TV of course).

One has to wait to see all its effects, but it will hit at least 2G Raja. Already, his party leader is saying that he will go through the CAG report! For politicians discretion is always the better part of valour.

Whether Jayalalitha’s offer of support to the Congress will heal the wounds created by earlier astras fired at the Congress president, one cannot say. I always wonder whether there is space at the top for two women.

But whatever the result, Jaya can claim to have scalped a Mega scam. If risk-taking is one of the qualities of a winner, she indeed has shown she can take risks.

Let the inner light illuminate our lives

On a day of celebration and enjoyment like Deepavali, when people pamper themselves with new clothes and sweets, I would like to emphasise an aspect of Indian culture called ‘denial’ (or self-denial).

Of course it has nothing to do with the denials that come from politicians and corrupt bureaucrats and (now alas) army generals about their culpability till they are caught red-handed.

I am talking about the denial which India has been famous for since time immemorial.

The denial that made the father of the nation trek in Noakhali when Nehru was on Red fort…the denial that made prosperous lawyers like Rajaji live in huts in nondescript villages. The denial that made the one and only Indian governor general of India wash his own clothes.

I am talking of the denial that made thousands of poorly paid teachers give off their best for their students.

This is the denial that is implied in the cliché plain living and high thinking.

There is a space within us that grows with denial.

There is a space inside us that cannot be filled with things.

The more this space expands the more we realize that worldly things cannot fill it.

It is this space in which the worlds swim…it is this space that fills all the worlds!

And there is only one way you can expand that space…by realizing that new cars and new gadgets and new women cannot fill it…they might end up shrivelling it!

One of the names of the earth is Vasumathi…she who is full of treasures. And especially in times of economic upswing, she releases great riches.

Brutish natures don’t know what to do with plenty…they gorge themselves to their own detriment. They sell their lives for lucre and wander like lost souls in the glistening garbage dumps of false values.

What does one do when one is amidst plenty? Realise at least the principle of diminishing returns that works in our lives. The more you switch on the AC, the less you come to feel it!

With denying oneself of things that don’t belong to us, comes the sense of responsibility.

Know that the city that nourishes you has to be nourished and protected not only for the present but for the future.

The wisdom of India talked of the responsibilities that rest on every man…his duty to his ancestors (read heritage), his duty to the gods (read environment), his duty to his brethren, and his duty to himself.

There is a great deal to be done other than sharing the spoils of ill-begotten wealth.

Self-denial is the pivotal Ashoka chakra that will take our lives forward. It is the secret talisman for the future India…because it was the secret mantra that made India realize the immortality of life…Mrityor ma armritam gamaya…

Those who thus enter the world of denial know that denial is in fact not denial, but the greatest affirmation of the infinite possibilities of man.

On the day of lights, let this realization dawn upon my countrymen that it is they who have to illuminate the lights…the lights outside are only of the symbol of the lights within.

The goddess of small things….

‘Pour me another small…’ Arundhati to bartender.

‘….Shall I make it large…you have been drinking umpteen smalls’.

She gives him an icy stare…(which he cannot see in the semi darkness)…but when she crushes the glass and it crumbles to pieces….he is shocked.

‘Did nobody tell you that I hate large things? That is why I am and wrote the god(ddess) of small things’

Thankfully the bartender has another customer he has to tend to and so does not have to answer or mull over crap.

As Arundhati drains the small on the rocks and awaits her next small hungrily….her inner demons issue out of her and begin their rock dance.

‘I hate large things…and the largest thing around me is India…how big…how dirty…I will smash it to a million pieces…I will keep smashing it with naxalite rockets, secessionist drone attacks…with paper tigers…I will smash it to such tiny bits that the last bit will be smaller than…than…me…and I will be the goddess of all small things…Goddess..Goddess…small…small…’

The bartender heard the small one slouching across and hurriedly poured the small…and dropped some ice into the glass…(better to keep this one cool…one cannot say what these puny monster will do next…perhaps ring up the proprietor and say something in a small husky intimate voice against him…could be fatal).

‘I hate everything big…big dams…for instance…and when I stand in front of one and raise my voice it echoes all over and I feel big…as big as a dam……(at the bartender). damn..you…don’t pour the small all over me’

‘I love Pakistan because it is small…and I love it when elite Indians…—a small section and I love them for it…loveable traitors they are – make me their goddess. I am small… I love small…small…small…’

It was time for the goddess of small things…to see the bill. She almost faints when she sees it.…it is big.

But when she thinks of the moolah she will make spewing venom at India with her small but infinitely crooked mouth, a warm feeling tingles all across her small heart.

‘The West will love me…hail me as the Katherine Mayo of the 21st century…..and my fame will be large large….so large that it will fill the world…and I will be the goddess of small things…but large…large..and larger…’

As the bartender poured out another large….he wondered what hat gotten into the puny creature that was jabbing at the air with thrusts of an imagined sword as it went..

As he saw the small thing exiting, he had the feeling that the bar had suddenly grown large. How much space some small things occupy, he thought..

Yoga is indeed demonic, it frees you of the demons of anger and greed

Yoga is demonic, a pastor (Seattle Mars Hill Church’s Mark Driscoll) in the US has declared.

He has drawn a lot of flak for this statement, but in my view this could be the first true statement he is making.

Yoga can surely be construed as demonic, because it helps a person, whatever his creed or country, to gain mastery over the demons that bedevil humanity.

Yoga does not ask anyone to believe in any outside force…Yoga does not make a flock or sheep of people…it makes them masters of themselves. Can there be anything more demoniacal than that? What would happen to churches and other spiritual authorities if a man became a light to himself? Dangerous demonology isn’t it?

Another church head (R Albert Mohler Jr, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky) has declared that yoga is against Christianity.

I however don’t see it as such….in fact in my neighbourhood in Chennai I know of a Christian near a Catholic church who runs yoga classes!

So which Christianity is the church head talking about?

I suggest that both the pastor and church head meet the Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi to conquer their own demons.

A known and self-declared enemy of Hinduism (the only religion he has attacked all his long life), he is a self-confessed practitioner of yoga asanas and pranayama.

Once the demoniacal churchmen (that is the churchmen who allege that yoga is demonic) meet the most honourable chief minister they will be freed of the demons tormenting them.

It may also help the chief minister garner some ‘Christian’ votes in the coming elections.

The chief minister is at present beset by the demons of family strife. Some people are suggesting yoga for this problem too. So yoga is demonic on this score also.

Three cheers to yoga…the greatest demoniacal challenge to dogmatic religions!

Vamanan’s Thirai Isai Alaigal – a trove of gems – T. K. Pugazhendhi

Music Director T. K. Pugazhendi’s
foreward to Vamanan’s
Thirai Isai Alagal (Volume one)

I find many details in ‘Thirai Isai Alaigal’ that people like me should have known but have not. It is a work that shows up the calibre, individuality and efforts of the great masters and achievers of Tamil film music.

I wonder at the turn of events that have bestowed the honour of writing the foreword to a work in which the author has met people involved in film music and conveyed to the public the knowledge he has gained.

(I feel so honoured that I think of this opportunity) as the blooming of a rare flower. (Or should I say that such a thing can happen to me) only when the ever-agitated oceans come to rest. Or should I say that it is it the grace of Mother Parasakthi who showed the full moon on the new moon day to prove Abhirama Battar right?

Even though times have changed and situations have changed there are certain things that have indelibly become part of (my) consciousness (that one is unable to forget them).

The films of the first stage of the Tamil talkie had music, story and histrionics in that order of importance. In that period, it was the respected Papanasam Sivam, who deserved the title of the ‘parent of film music’ and our tribute and reverence, who gave us songs that should be treasured and preserved.

This box of gems that we have with us in the form of a book refers to Papanasam Sivan indirectly * . To pay tribute to that confluence of Muthamizh (literature, music and histrionics) in whom letters, music and acting commingled, ‘one must lisp the name Sivan at least once every day and hour’ (Oru Naal Oru Pozhudhaaginum Sivan Naamam Ucharikka Vendum’.

Don’t those who know Carnatic music know about Tiruvaiyaaru Thyagarajar? (In the same way, can lovers of film music) forget Thiagaraja Bhagavathar. As for Chinnappa, I would call him him Appa (father) my Ayya (master).

Such milestones in the history of Tamil film music are not just some stones of the past..they are priceless jewels. They are wish-fullfilling trees for those who learn them..very productive feasts to the creative imagination. I think of this when time travels from Kattrinile Varum Geetham to Gangai Karai Thottam!

…….In this way, film music down the decades has become an ocean-like immensity…Thirai Isai Alaigal engages itself in showing what it is to future generations…It has done this task with culture and humility, love and depth.

I see that the author of Thirai Isai Alagal has put his heart and soul into the work. Music lovers and researchers will heartily welcome this book. I believe that music colleges and universities will also benefit by it.

May Vamanan’s Thirai Isai Alaigal which gives a map of the musical stars shining in the heavens, triumph….paving the way for the birth of wisdom, culture and devotion.

(* In Thirai Isai Alaigal Vol. 2 , I have written as extensive article on Papanasam Sivan. My culling of Papanasam Sivan’s film songs ‘Papanasam Sivan Thiraippaadalgal’ (out of print now) also has an extensive introduction).

(The above is a gist of music director T. K. Pugazhendi’s foreward. He took part in the release function of the second volume of Thirai Isai Alaigal…and said… ‘I can imagine the forests and dales that he must have trudged through to all this’…
Vamanan :Today…I myself wonder at what madness got into me.)