Double Standard World

I wanted to say this since long, but somehow, I kept myself on hold for reasons unknown to frontal me. Most of this world seems to show double standards and a hypocritical style in its treatment of various situations. I felt this many times, but I felt this lot when I was watching the sainthood ceremony of Mother Teresa. The thing that was pinching me most was that this recognition was in return of two approved miracles of healing. In a country where people become saint just by wearing saffron clothes, a lady who worked for downtrodden people with the greatest commitment possible was supposed to do certain miracles to be called a saint by people of her own religion. Interestingly the entire world media was watching, heads of many states or their reps were there. No one dared to say that true sainthood is her deeds and not the two isolated case studies of healing. 

That’s how religious ceremonies are there in all religions. We have a habit of dramatizing things in order to possibly acquire more followers. Ultimately in the race of dramatizing, the urge of proving my drama better than someone else’s drama becomes strong and people start fighting for silly reasons. Some say that the GOD is formless while others argue that a form is a must for common people to allow them the rituals to be performed and be satisfied with that. Formless or Formed, the drama element and rituals are no way less in any of them. 

More than this I won’t say at this moment. Find such dramas around you and think if in some way you can be a contributor to the true cause these concepts were made, rather than being carried away by the paraphernalia. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Religion Politics

Mixing Our society is passing through a phase of dilemma when it comes to mixing religion with politics. When a religious preacher reaches one of the state assemblies to preach his school of thoughts, no law abiding biggies speak a word about it. When an ordinary citizen shows his anger, he is dipped into the pool of guilt. Not only guilt, even the sword of IPC streams are put over him. We as a society are keeping our thought powers aside and are becoming a combination of thoughts that evolve on some social media channels or TV debates. If a person dares to derecognize icons of religion, but is an upright and righteous man, he is still driven away as somebody who is out of this planet. I carefully studied many preachers of our times and I found that at some point in time each one of them have spoken bad words about people who are atheists. Even the most respectable ones have done so. With this trend, politicians have definitely taken a message that since believers are large in numbers, group dynamics of votes works better if religion is used as a hidden agenda while making their strategies. Interestingly the believers also seem to be double minded. On the face of it no body agrees that religion should be mixed with politics, but when it is mixed they are carried away and do not even notice. 

The concept of secularism which is often re-debated many times talks about keeping state to be free of any bias which is based on religious rules and teachings. Is it bad to be biased by religious thoughts if they are good? Some people feel that it is bad because this bias can lead to insecurity amongst those who believe in a different school of thoughts. If we go back in times most religions as they exist today are by-products of rules as framed by a certain group of people who were living together or who expanded their zone of living. Since today we have well defined countries and their geographical, social and economic boundaries, we can safely say that rules today are related to these boundaries. For e.g. if people in India follow the only religion called “Indian”, it can be a sufficient condition to be a believer. Some people will say that, when 8-10 religions in this world are creating such a mess, what will happen if we talk of a concept of more than 200 religions. Just have a re-look at it. Things will be simpler as people will associate to their country only and reasons to fight for different customs within a country will be gone. Customs of a country can be followed by a person with much more ease. With this kind of concept mixing religion and politics will always be fair and acceptable. 

 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Alien Women

Our country could spot only two Alien Women who brought laurels for us in the recently finished olympics at Rio. You may be little surprised or some of you may be annoyed, when you hear this expression ‘Alien’ for these women. I just called them Aliens as we knew a very little about these women when the Olympics started. When none of the celebrity athletes clicked, they performed much beyond their past known skills. Being a married man, I must admit, that women have always been like Aliens to me. Please do not take this on a humorous note or a cut pasted matter from WhatsApp. Earlier also I wrote about a particular school of thought, which believe that life on earth is of Alien origin. 

I believe that women are similar kind of creators. They are not only creators, they are operators as well. After creating us they also live along with us to ensure that their creation keeps ticking. Actually we are no one to protect them, educate them or feed them. They do all this for us in various forms. Sometime back I also used to think that I have studied a lot about human behaviour and I started analysing every person I came across. Later I realised that I very often failed when I did this analysis on the fairer breed. Further analysis yielded me the answer. The creators should never be questioned. Believe me, my intentions are not to flatter a group of my readers. It is the way I have started thinking, when I see the power quotient of Alien Women. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Priorities

We struggle with priorities on day-to-day basis. People have devised various techniques to set priorities to achieve time management, but here I would like to talk about priorities we take to keep us happy and satisfied. Few years back when I was sitting in a meeting of top company executives, discussing about company’s objective, a gentleman from accounts background clearly spelled out that the primary objective of any business organization should be maximizing profits. Obviously the type of meeting it was, almost everyone agreed. People who did not agree kept silent. 

Many years have passed and this sentence, spelling out the primary objectives still reverberates in my mind. The reason is that I often see people, organizations, governments all seem to be running behind this primary objective only. I see government focusing on making larger roads, then inside road of towns. I see local level establishments putting their energies on decorating buildings, rather than finding right garbage disposal mechanisms. At personal levels people keep spending on clothes and electronic gadgets, than taking up a self-development course. People have lot of time on mobile than to talk to their parents. I know that old father of a rich person kept filling his eye drop bottles with water as this person always forgot to bring a fresh eye drop bottle in time. That is how we set priorities. We try to maximize financial gains and end up gaining stress and all sorts of complexities. Setting the right priorities can simplify our life. Let us detoxify our needs. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Old Friends

When you meet your old school friends after a long time, your body and mind systems react in an all together different way. Old memories bring a different kind of nostalgia and even the wrong doings and stressed relationships of the past can bring positive energy in the current days. A man was caught by tribals in a jungle. It was the day of sacrifice. The tribals decided to give sacrifice of this man to please their Idol. When the sacrifice ceremonies started, this man requested the tribal king to give him some time so that he can say a final good bye to his relatives in a nearby village. The king refused, as he could not trust this man. Another man within the tribals came out of the crowd and requested the king to grant him some time and offered himself for the sacrifice if the visitor doesn’t turn up. The visitor returned, met his relatives and started his return journey, during which he fell from the horse. Meanwhile the scheduled time was getting over and the king ordered sacrifice of the man of his tribe. Some how in just nick of the time visitor also returned. Now both these men started offering themselves for the sacrifice and started fighting. When the king tried to get into the details of this fight, he found that they were actually childhood friends who were now ready to give their lives for the other friend. Seeing this the King’s heart also melted and he forgave both the friends. He also announced to stop the tradition of human sacrifice. True friendship like this may not be so easy to find these days, but I can definitely say that a feeling to do something for your good old friends still exists in our society. Let us share it openly if we also have this feeling for our friends. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Thought Virus

While suffering from viral fever last week, I did get some extra time to think and study about viruses. Being a Naturopath and Aromatherapist myself, I usually prepare my own medications. This article is a post viral product when I started comparing the nature of viruses with many real life entities. You may have heard that the virus is lifeless until it is attached to some living entity. For this reason most antibiotics are not able to directly confront the viral diseases. Virus shields itself in the outside world as it is able to pretend that it is a harmless, lifeless cell. There are many people in real life also who pretend to be harmless, but they become devastating when they get the opportunity to find a base. Our political people often provide this base in the urge of getting and holding the power. In the International scenario we can see that fire-arms were supplied consciously to many rebellion groups by the nations which are now most vulnerable against terrorism. Many such viruses take a shelter behind the religious masks to empower themselves and then do all sorts of devastations later on. It is true that without such masks and substrates these viruses are lifeless. An ice-cream distributor finds such a substrate in the instructions of some terror group and he kills hundreds of people on the roads of Nice in France. Some group of viruses found the base in speeches of some self labeled preacher, and they selectively kill many in a restaurant in Bangladesh. Antidote for all kinds of viruses needs to be found. Before the biological virus, we need to do some serious research on this “Thought Virus”. How come some people are able to implant thought viruses so easily? Something in our social systems must have failed in past few years. Governments, legal systems, military forces are not powerful enough to fight this menace. Society need to provide some solutions. History has many examples of social reformers who could make impact in such situations earlier. We know about Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Great Jesus himself. I am getting an intuition as if such a reformer is already born. He will give us light to get rid of all such viruses. But this time he will not embody into one individual. Each one of you will get his powers and will be able to rise against the thought viruses. Are you ready? The power will soon be inside you. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Supreme God Money

For a very long period I had a belief that the ranking of money comes much below than faith, trust, respect etc. I always believed that religious faith is a genuine attribute found in most human beings. I thought that when people pray, they pray for wellness of self and everyone around them. The happenings in our country and globally are forcing me to consider another aspect of faith, which is money. The only faith seems to be money for a very large chunk in the current social system. The so called growing religious fanatism is nothing but a way of earning livelihood for many. Obviously this route does have enough scope of crossing the limits and it becomes a sort of greed which is no more for livelihood alone. A king clad like a normal person, decided to stay in an inn. A priest was also staying in the same inn. By the way the baggage of both king and the priest were of same shape, size and colour. When they checked out in the morning there baggage gets exchanged. When the king thought of changing his clothes while on his way back, he opened the baggage and saw that it was full of cash and two small clay statues of worship idols. He decided to return to the inn for returning this bag to the priest. By the time priest had already returned to the inn with few policemen and with a baggage containing the royal clothes. He had reported to the police regarding the theft of his baggage along with the amount it contained. The policemen also doubted the king, if he had also made a theft in the palace. Finally the king had to come in his royal avatar to prove innocence. He also asked the priest regarding why he had not reported regarding the missing statues. The priest answered, “I can buy many such statues with the cash I had, but statues can’t get me anything”. The king was surprised with this answer from a priest whose job is to make people, believers of religion. This is a simple story is without a great climax, but it does have a message about the realities around us. Now apply these realities to any and every religion, you will discover the same truth, that “Supreme God is Money”. No, No! Please do not reach any conclusion about my personality with this statement. My beliefs are still not shattered, but I must admit that I do see a lot of foundations being broken all around me. Are you feeling a similar pain, please do share your pain with me, it will get reduced by sharing.

 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Spreading Beliefs

We either believe in something or we pretend to believe, but one thing we definitely do is to try convincing others that what we believe in is the ultimate way to solve all problems. Some people specialise in the art of convincing a sufficiently large section of people to believe in their beliefs. Sometimes the commerce of convincing starts taking over the system of beliefs itself. Long ago I heard a story of a lady who was recently married and was about to enter her new house along with her husband. A bride entering her new house is in itself one of the marriage ceremonies and some rituals were getting performed. This bride observed an interesting thing. Her mother-in-law who was approaching her for ceremonies did a very unique act. This bride saw a cat being covered by a bamboo basket. It must have been done with the intention that the cat doesn’t disturb the ceremonies. Interestingly the bride took this episode like a ceremony in itself. When this bride grew old and the great moment of welcoming her daughter-in-law came, she decided to repeat all the ceremonies she was subjected to. She became adamant to find a cat and a bamboo basket before she would welcome the new bride. Her requests were fulfilled; she repeated the custom with lot of pride and allowed to let the new bride in. Before I delve deeper into any sensitive issues, I just believe that the way some political, religious and other leaders are running the commerce of convincing others is like circumstantial customs of olden days are still being carried as a heavy baggage. I am not trying to convince you with my belief; I am just sharing my impression and my own perception. If you share a similar opinion, please do give your feedback. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Beauty, Brain, Benchmarks and Bluffs

Human beings have a racial quality of comparing things. While it is common to compare resources amongst different people, some people have made good comparisons for measuring things like beauty and brains. A famous benchmarking system for beauty comes from none other than the creator of “Monalisa” painting, Leonardo da Vinci and for brain it comes from Alfred Binet, the creator of IQ test scale called the Binet Simon scale. Can there be a scale to find out how much religious a person is. Today the world is full of people doing various things and bluffing people by saying that they are doing everything for religion. People are comparing religious beliefs and are going to the extent of declaring I am more religious than you so I have the right to live and you don’t. Some people have even tried to bring scales to measure religiousity in a personality of a particular Individual, by framing various questions. It is primarily related to faith in certain happenings beyond logic. But what pinches every right minded person is the comparision of one stream of faith with another stream of faith. When I try to discuss these things with youth of today, I clearly find that the aethist nature is growing, but negative instincts still rules the roosts and when situation arises people do depict a confused state of mind. So friends! I urge the “Generation Z’, to ask themselves, whether they are bluffing their beliefs or if there is a solid measureable foundation, similar to measuring beauty and measuring brains. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Unstoppable Speaker

He was the designated head of the organization, where I went to attend a special function. After few initial ceremonies and brief speeches were over, then came the turn for him to speak. It was a simple topic, where he did explain few standard points, some with regular boredom and some with a little humor. Other speakers in the queue thought that okay the talk would be over soon. But the wait for them was far from being over. It went on and on and became repetitive after first few minutes itself. He being the designated head, no body reminded him about the time. Finally after some deliberations between the anchor person and another senior person an indication was passed on to the speaker. After the indication also the repetitive narration continued on. What a great relief! The speaker asked everyone, “Did you understand?”. Everyone in the audience loudly replied in affirmation. “If you still have any doubts, please ask me now”, again reiterated the speaker. Listeners went numb and finally the time to end the talk came. 

Many of you must have seen a similar situation in your lives too. Some speakers are literally, unstoppable. The message of this post for you is simple. If you are a public speaker, do you understand your limits? If you are one such unstoppable speaker, your public speaking days will surely be limited. As much listeners want interesting content, they also want that such content shall be delivered to them in a particular time that can be within the cognitive abilities of common people. 

And if you have not guessed it by now, let me tell you that, I was the next speaker in the above episode. Fortunately, I had a brief and to the point talk and I got the audience attention I needed. Every such small episode gives me the lessons of life which I share with the “Generation Z”. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg 

Advantage First

I know someone, who is a peculiar personality. If anything is told to him for doing, he always asks, “What is the advantage of doing this?”. The answer to this question is always likely to raise a chain of many other questions and advantage of any such queued question becomes rather difficult to explain. So one gets a feeling that why tell him any work at all. I was discussing this problem with my mentor and Guru. He told me that we are living in a age where every action is valued before taking instructions from someone else. Very often this value is in monetary terms. Explaining advantage further complicates the relationship. It is better that let a person is left to understand the advantages himself. Some time we understand as if this problem is a problem of new generation. In my opinion it is a issue related to specific Individuals and is in a way some instinct developed since childhood. It is sometime seen in very experienced persons also. Sometime there is no matured and convincing person around to explain that many actions do not need such elaborate calculation of advantage and disadvantage. Suppose if I ask someone, what is the advantage of Education, answer could be rather long and queued with supplementary questions. So friends, please do not try to find advantage in reading my articles. Just read them and retain whatever is of your liking. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Tool Called Spirituality

GZ 135 150616 Tool Called Spirituality

This understanding just came when I was co-working with a yoga teacher to create an online course on his request. Actually my yoga friend is too religious and some time he pushes so much religious thoughts into his yoga practice that whether the course we are designing will appeal to international audience or not, becomes my concern. One such discussion day he mentioned to me about the choices he had after retirement. He could have either become a spiritual person or could have taken some work assignments in his field. By the way he is a retired engineer from IIT. He told that he opted for spiritual field and started working for yoga. He also established a full-fledged religious ashram with inspiration from his long time religious Guru. Suddenly a sentence came out of my lips, “But I thought spirituality is just a tool to help us do our work better, the way computer is a tool to do my work little more efficiently”. To my surprise, he immediately agreed. My perception of spirituality is to have strong belief in doing welfare of spirits all around us. These spirits could be people, animals, plants or even the so called non-living world. A carpenter shaping a wood piece is spirituality. I see it in a software programmer, a doctor, a lawyer, a politician, a teacher, a farmer on their regular assignments. I smell it in flowers, I taste it in food, I watch it in the rising or setting sun, I sense it on anything I touch, I can hear it all around me. I know it is there even in those things, which I can’t sense. Spirituality is definitely there in the places where I go with my demands, my places of worship. It is as much there where I leave all my demands, the funeral places. Do I need to learn it to practice it? Probably yes, the way any other tool is required to be learnt to use it correctly, spirituality do require some training. The teacher is our intention to do things upright for the welfare of spirits and not for the destruction of other things around thinking that we will win, if others loose. You are intelligent enough to find examples of situations where spiritual winning is possible, without others spirits being on the losing side. Let us learn this tool together. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Better Alternative

Our film industry legend Mr. Amitabh Bachchan had narrated this incidence many times. Whenever he had any problems and wanted advice from his revered father Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan, He always got the advice that, “If it happens according to your wish it is good and if it doesn’t happen the way you wanted, it is even better”. It took Amitabh some time to understand the magic behind this unusual advice. When things don’t go your way, then they are probably going the way things are destined to be happening. It is a good way of consoling oneself that destiny judges and controls the event of things better than we are able to control such things. Some people will say that continuous efforts and being passionate about certain actions can also change the course of destiny. I do agree, but with an over rider, that if prolonged efforts are filling us with negative thoughts, leaving things to destiny might give us a temporary relief. This relief helps us to recollect ourselves, change our strategies and then make new, much more vigorous efforts. Legends do fail. For a small period things are left for someone else to decide and then destiny itself provides a better pathways and alternatives to action takers. Alternatives do come in front of lazy people as well but most of the time they ignore alternatives and drop down their guns. So friends! Keep your guns filled, you will surely get more chances. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Worship Decibels

Some Tuesdays in summers are considered very very auspicious and special in our town, Lucknow. People call them “Bara Mangal”. Incidentally today also when I am keying in this article, it happens to be one of such Tuesday. On previous Tuesday, when our family was strolling around in the nearby market area, we decided to enter a temple to pay respect to the Tuesday idol “Lord Hanuman”. Suddenly the priest and his allies started sounding the temple bells with full force. It was the time of the evening prayer. It was a small temple and the temple bells were rather large. The thumping sound of the bells made me feel uncomfortable and we came out of the temple room. I did remember the famous couplet from Saint Kabir, who objected to sounds from religious places, arguing if the God has become deaf or what? I narrated the same couplet to my son and he also remembered that he read it in his school days. 

That day itself, I decided to share this episode with my readers. Later, I searched the net for knowing the related facts. With the kind of experience I had, I can tell you that the sound we were forced to listen inside the small temple room must have been in the order of 130 to 140 decibels. It was deafening and made all of us feel giddy. More than 90 db we start feeling discomfort and with every 10 db increase the intensity of sound actually doubles. Sometimes I feel that the custom of making high volume sounds along with religious prayers might have been by design a method to hallucinate the people standing there, so that they give more donations and offerings. The minds become so blank after hearing such sounds, that whatever the priests says appears to be true. When I dig deeper into the ancient history, the custom of making sounds might actually be a way to keep jungle animals away from the place of dwellings. Along with evening food that people cooked on fire, they used to sing and dance around the fire, which was a form of God for them. Then they created clay or stone idols and placed it nearby and started worshipping them. A system that was created due to a need actually carried through centuries and today also we are making unreasonably high decibels of noise on daily basis in the name of worship. We have laws, but implementation is definitely challenging. Even few steps like making smaller bell size, controlling PA system volumes and following strict time guidelines can help a lot. God is already listening to us; we don’t have to awake him by our more than 100 db efforts. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

A Lesser Known Indian Polymath

Okay! Most of you would like to know the meaning of “Polymath‟ first. It simply means a person who expertises in significant number of different subjects. One of the greatest polymath in history is well known to all of us. He is none other than Leonardo da Vinci, the great Italian painter, sculptor, engineer, scientist, architect and an anatomist. In India, people like Mahatma Gandhi, Ravindra Nath Tagore, Bhagat Singh were also polymaths. In our times some known names like Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Navjot Singh Siddhu, Farhan Akhtar can be taken. I know you might object to taking some names and not taking some other names, but my point you must have well understood by now. 

Here I am putting forth a story of a lesser known Indian Polymath, Late Lala Har Dayal. He was an Indian freedom fighter and reformer who was a Disciple of Lala Lajpat Rai and was a founder of Ghadar Party in America. Other than being a political activist, freedom fighter not living on Indian soil for most of his lifetime, he also authored some great books on doctrines of religion and life. One of his book “Hints for Self Culture”, I have in my possession since child hood. Four personality aspects like Intellectual aspect, Physical aspect, Aesthetic aspect and Ethical aspect have been discussed for balancing rationalism versus religion. An extremely wide coverage from science, history, psychology, economic, philosophy, religion and from arts to politics has been done along with self development guidance in all aspects. I wrote this post for young generation “Z‟ everywhere around to know that such a brilliant author walked this planet about a century ago. His writings are worth reading as a variation from out day-to-day face book and WhatsApp chats. If curious, try reading this book on Google books itself. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Medico Vs. Medico

Recently two Indian doctors wrote a book about their own community regarding widespread mal practices in the medical eco system. Be it the hospitals, pathology labs and pharma companies. All seems to be involved in minting money by fooling the common man who is taken for granted. Many things about which we just had perceptions, when it comes like a naked proven truth, it definitely comes like a shock to even moderately sensitive people. Sometimes it becomes difficult to decide whether we need to weed out the black sheeps between the white ones or the vice versa. It is difficult to pass a judgment whether such efforts would create a significant impact on diseased working systems. But one thing is definite, that such efforts must be continuously done if any society needs to move forward. History is full of examples where individuals did some revolutionary things which may not have been noted in their life times, but which proved trend setters much later. I meet a lot of young people who are afraid to do any thing which is different from a set path most people around them are taking. Independent, lateral thinkers are a rare breed, but it is definitely a required breed. I will surely say that most interesting games are played when there are some game changing players. Are you ready to find those lateral thoughts in your minds. Come on! Give it a try. May be theme of another best seller is already getting cooked there. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

A Focused Young Boy

I could immediately spot that this boy was different amongst the three other children who were watching the cartoon film on TV while lying on the bed. This boy was different as he was never lying near these children. He was either sitting on the floor or sitting near the edge of the bed. He had a story book in his hand. I asked name of every child. All others replied unwillingly. This boy replied only after I encouraged him to reply. He was too shy. 

Next day, I had another opportunity to meet this boy as he was travelling with her mother. Her mother was telling about this boy that he always asks her to get back to home at night and this boy feels that home is the best place for him. Her mother was actually a house support staff at the place we went. I could now understand that why this boy was different on the first day I met him. He had an element of self pride, while reading the book, while other children were just watching TV. He also knew the distance he needs to keep with other children. I wish this boy to reach heights. Children born to parents with limited resources often face a conflicting situation of being carried away with the money power or stick to their goals. If we can just inculcate this one habit of not getting carried with the glitter of the world at young age, we are definitely going to get a much brighter tomorrow and a better world to live. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Inner Silence

 A friend who is a Yoga buff was explaining to me a new definition of Time as he learnt from his Guru. He says, “Time is defined as the inner silence gap between two thoughts”. The argument went further to explain that during this gap our body doesn‟t age. We know that one such limb of yoga, which is called „Dhyana‟ or Meditation in common language, talks about techniques of silencing your mind to reach your sub-conscious level. As per Albert Einstein, in physical world we can probably stop ageing if we can travel at the speed of light. As per some theories that talk about inner silence period, in the metaphysical world ageing can be stopped if this silence period can be increased. We have heard of ancient sages remaining in Samadhi beneath the ground for very long periods and then they come out fresh after that. Yes! All this is theoretical and beyond official scientific evidence. But what is a matter of experience for everybody to watch that if one can find time to talk to himself, he does feel periods of inner silence where a feeling comes as if nothing was thought. It is said that the period of inner silence, even if it may not be able to increase our age, may still be able to leave us with a chatter free mind, ready to solve problems in a better way. I am definitely going to give this harmless experiment a try without trying to challenge whether it is a scientifically proven fact. I hope many of you must have had experienced similar inner silence periods. Share your experiences if you can. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Tiger’s Lesson

Many times I derive my thoughts after watching some TV shows. This time I would narrate you a thought derived from story of a human trainer who trained two tiger cubs. This trainer helped one of the cubs to care for his wound. After this care the cubs developed a great relationship with their human trainer. Both grew with him. The trainer was worried that the cubs were learning more manly habits than their tiger like habits. He tried to train the cubs to get hold of the prey. The basic problem of these cubs was that they were unable to understand that which prey is right for them. In a scene the young cub was standing near a very large hippo in the hope that he might be able to grab him through his neck. Another time the tiger cub stood behind the zebra and what he got in return was a thumping leg stroke from the zebra. In one another chance the cubs tried to get entangled with elephants. Obvious the elephants drove them away. As the cubs grew into full fledged tigers, it was the daily duty of the trainer to leave these cubs with jungle animals to learn the tricks of the jungles by themselves. He just kept a watch over them from a distance. The lesson of mentorship was what I could catch from this film. A mentor needs to leave his pupil learn with their own experiences. Sometime difficult times will come for the learners. Some lesson’s might be life threatening, ego hurters or may require to be learned many times again and again. It is important to keep a vigil, but the larger share of life’s lessons are one’s own experiences. 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg

Teena and Meena

As the title indicates, this article will definitely begin with a story of two female characters named 'Teena' and 'Meena'. Before you think anything otherwise, let me tell you that these are just names of two pet fishes in my aquarium. I do have some sixth sense of talking and hearing to my pets. One fine morning while having my breakfast on my dining table, I could hear some whispers in the aquarium, which is kept quite nearby. It was 'Teena' calling 'Meena' and telling her about a TV programme she had watched the previous night. I did not turn my head as I wanted this conversation to continue. Teena was talking about the increasing pollution level in the river they used to live earlier. She heard on the TV that government has floated a scheme to clean the river. She also told Meena if she is interested in going back to the river. Meena told Teena, "I would have loved to go back to the natural environment but what if promises made by the government are not met, what will happen." Based on the TV show, Teena had a feeling that this time government looks serious. Meena was still skeptical. She said, "First of all! it is difficult to convince our master, and secondly nothing new is happening this time, which had not happened earlier". Teena said, "Let us at least discuss this issue with our master. May be he knows something more". Hearing this I started preparing myself. I knew that next time I am going to clean my aquarium; I will have a job of talking to these two fishes. 

Next day itself, I was supposed to do routine cleaning of the aquarium. Meanwhile, I had collected sufficient information about the government's plan. I came to know that something is happening, but if it is sufficient for declaring it good enough was not really known to anyone. When it will be declared as clean, was also a difficult question for government officials. When I was posed this question, I told the young fishes that enjoy the environment in the aquarium till you get the news that the river is cleaned up. Since I did not wanted to face the next question, I quickly made distance from the aquarium, as I knew next question would be 'When'. I knew I will not be able to answer this one to them. I knew that in their short life span they will not see the day about which I had given hopes to them. 

I do not know how many more generations of these fishes we will have to avoid talking to till we are able to show the real action. All of you know that whatever I wrote above is Imaginary. Friends! The thought is real. Episode I created in my mind, but it was a sort of helplessness on part of river cleaning programmes we run in our country that let my mind create such a drama. I hope someday I can become answerable to nature.

 

Dr. Sunil Ji Garg