Hai Ram, Log Kya Kahenge !!!

Since long I have felt that whenever an Indian returns from abroad, after spending a couple of years there. The mind state in which he returns is usually the one in which he had left. It may have been updated with the Bollywood releases, but for a person who has hailed from the middle class back ground, he will usually ignore them to be for the rich and famous. During my flight back home, I came across an article by Shobha De titles "Dancing Queens" featured in The Week, she has talked about a lady from the British Land unable to understand why a Bride's Mother will do a solo dance on the now famous "Kajra Re". To me, still it sounds as pretty far-sighted in my circle, where it may still be a couple of more years away. The NRI lady, who is now baffled about the family traditional values which she has kept so close to her heart and guarded with near jealousy so that she wont be branded with a No-Longer Indian tag.

The question immediately pops up in our mind is that why, in India, we are drifted slowly but steadily towards the western culture and are including them in our rituals, whilst for people living outside the Indian sub-continent, try to be stagnant or worse move backwards and adopt the purer form of our traditions. Trying not to forget our roots and trying to be in touch with the present going trends, our minds are always drawn to that dilemma in making a that all so necessary choice of choosing between what we really want and what our traditions say.

The NRI Lady, in the article, has come up with arguments that are so true and reasonable. Taking one example of the Lady asking the whether it was acceptable conduct coming out of the Bridegroom's future mother-in-law. Go back a few years, I assure you, it would have been a tabboo.

Does walking in pace with time, means to change yourself over time so that it suits the people around you rather than you? There is always an external force that requires us to change. It usually is in the forms of our friends and relatives and that hidden competition between themselves. The fight to always proves who is better. And then the billion dollar question is, what is better. Better can be not forgetting what our elders told us, playing by the rules or better can be not leaving the grip of time and beating it to its pace.

I wonder in which context "Hai Ram, Log kya kahenge" will apply now.

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary
To one without faith, no explanation is possible !!
St. Thomas Aquinas

Hai Ram, Log kya kahenge, hum abhi tak pichdi duniya ke hain or
Hai Ram, Log kya kahenge, hamari sanskriti kahan gayi !!

For us its always been what we are thought of in the society rather than what we are thought of in our mind ourselves. The decisions are usually made by thinking not what we feel is right, but what the general perception of being right is.And that general perception changes with the place you live and the company you keep.

Being Judgemental !!

Its something interesting. Suddenly I am noticing it is everywhere. Before we go into a shop, take our meal, start work or infact start our day itself. The very time we think of something, there is this flow of imagination that is already taking place, and it leads to, no matter how hard we try, we have already perceived in our state of half knowledge, whats it gonna be like.

Approaching a problem, with a pre-meditated mind, results in conclusions based on half knowledge. Allowing us to take a partial view of events around us, just because there is already a mental picture, of how things should or should not be.

The same kind of impression we carry about group of people also. I recently came across an article echoing the same thoughts, though it does goes deep into the whys and becauses. Just because if one has done it, it is suddenly thought which will follow will do the same. Life would be so easy, won't it, if it were so predictable ?? Specially the fact that, once we hear of an African, either sympathy or fear clouds our minds. We expect either the fellow will be a thug or that his life, childhood is so full of hardships that he not deserves our sympathy, but has a right to it.

These sentiments, which we develop wantingly or unwantingly, do have there polarizing affects.