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Boss before God

Boss died. "Why are you sending me to Hell?" he demanded of God.  "Didn't I recite prayers everyday, morning, afternoon and evening?" God said, "Yes, Boss, you recited all the prayers.  But you were only bothered about the pronunciations.  You were not bothered about me." "But..." said Boss with his characteristic diplomacy, 'you are God.  You should not be so egoistic." "God is the surrender of the Ego, Boss," said God.  "Since you are still trying to be the Boss, go to Hell and learn to be the servant.  When you learn to serve, you will also learn to recite the prayers with some pronunciation mistakes.  Then I will accept you in Heaven."  

Homosexuality

In 2009, when the Supreme Court of India wished to legalise homosexuality there arose a controversy.  The following is adapted from what I wrote in my blog at that time. I agree with the editorial of The Hindu that the present decision of the Supreme Court to consider homosexuality a legal offence is “a retrograde decision.” Bruce Bagemihl, a biologist from Seattle, WA, found that in zoos, at least 5% of Humboldt penguin pairs are gay. He prepared an encyclopaedic survey of homosexual or transgender behaviour among more than 190 species, including butterflies and other insects.  Homosexuality, according to that voluminous study, is not rare among animals. When it comes to human beings, "Research suggests that the homosexual orientation is in place very early in the life cycle, possibly even before birth. It is found in about ten percent of the population, a figure which is surprisingly constant across cultures, irrespective of the different moral values and standards o

Boss

An anecdote and an afterthought Every Monday the staff had to stay back for an hour after office for the Weekly Assessment Meeting.  Boss would speak out his Scrutiny Report.  He blamed each member of the staff for one failure or another.  “Sir,” one of the staff dared to ask one day, “don’t you ever find anything good in any of us?  We complete all the tasks in time, bring in huge profits, and the company is running well.” “Whoever said the company is not running well?” thundered Boss.  “This is your problem.  You are a thoroughly negative person and hence you see everything negatively.” The staff responded with a positive silence.  After Boss had taken charge, over a dozen staff had lost their jobs for crimes far less serious than questioning Boss. Afterthought A docile worker who does as ordered without question is the ideal worker in the corporate world.  Famous French intellectual, Foucault, said that.  The perfect fodder for the Capitalist factory

Astrology and Opinion

Copyright for the above: The Hindu Just analyse the above statistics. Statistics is like the bikini.  Conceals more than reveals. Forget that old saying. Naya Chanakya says: manipulate the bikini.  Make it look like promising the paradise.

Great Expectations

Material success and career advancement need not necessarily bring happiness.  Genuine happiness radiates from the core of one’s heart.  It implies that one should discover it at the core of one’s heart.  Possessions and achievements have little to do with real contentment.  They remain at the superficial level of existence.  They boost the ego. Pip, Charles Dickens’ protagonist in the novel Great Expectations (1861), is an example of this great lesson in happiness.  Pip is born in a poor family in the English countryside and he soon loses his parents.  His sister, married to Joe, looks after Pip.  Joe becomes Pip’s foster father.  As a young boy Pip is sent to the house of Miss Havisham to carry out certain works and he is enchanted by the beauty of Estella whom he meets there.  Miss Havisham is an eccentric woman who has c called a halt on her life because the man whom she had loved ditcher her.  She continues to wear her bridal dress, has stopped all the clocks in the h

Empowerment

 Fiction Prabhu’s Apartments was a three storey building on the outskirts of the city.  It housed a dozen families including Prabhu’s own.  The open area in front and on the sides was meant for parking the vehicles of the owners of the flats that Prabhu had constructed and sold.  Prabhu took a personal interest in the welfare of the inmates.  The interest was his passion.  Prabhu was reading an article in the day’s newspaper on women’s empowerment when Raja, the caretaker, announced himself. “There’s a lady who insists on parking her car in our front yard,” said Raja.  He had told the lady time and again that the space was private and meant exclusively for the flat owners.  But she came every week, parked her car in the yard, and walked majestically to the beauty parlour on the other side of the road, without caring two hoots for Raja’s request. Fairness and justice was Prabhu’s predominant passion.  How can people do such a thing?  He asked himself.  How can people j

Sin and Redemption

Religion can make one a devil.  Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter (1850), shows how. Roger Chillingworth, a sombre scholar, marries a pretty woman, Hester, much younger in age.  During his long absence she develops an affair with Arthur Dimmesdale, a pastor.  When a child is born to Hester in the protracted absence of her husband, she is labelled an adulteress and punished. All this happens in the 17 th century Boston, then a Puritan colony.  The Puritans were a kind of religious fundamentalists.  They followed the letter of the law.  Love, mercy and other such tender feelings had no place in the Puritan worldview.  People should abide by the law at any cost. Hester is punished to wear “the scarlet letter” on her bosom throughout her life.  The letter A, for Adulteress, is emblazoned on her chest, and she has to spend some time on the pillory everyday displaying herself for the edification of the public.   Dimmesdale is struck with guilt feeling