The age of too much information

It is often said that this is the age of information. You may be sitting in a remote village, without running water, electricity or decent road system, in India, but you could be connecting to internet through a mobile phone and knowing what is happening in Kenya or Argentina. Now it is a different matter that most of the time, unless it is a nuclear catastrophe, you really have no real need to know what is happening in Argentina, if you are in a continent 10000 miles away from it.

Our forefathers lived in a age of information vacuum. They did not even have newspapers, let alone Internet. But it is quite possible they were more happy individuals than people of today who are constantly being fed with information from ever increasing news media.

On the other hand it is possible that if they had access to information, they would have known in real time all the threats developing to their way of living in any part of the world. They might have known that some desert religions are forming somewhere with over zealousness and they will try to spread themselves to our part of the world. And as a consequence they might have been better prepared for such future attacks on our culture.

So to conclude: Is having too much information always good ? May be not. But having a choice of getting information is always better than having no choice.

Fantasy: A silent killer

Bhagavat Gita says karmayogi is the best person. I used to study Gita in my teenage years but having a lack of experience in those early days, I did not make much sense of it. Now I do not read any spiritual historical documents, though I like to think that I am a very spritual person. I belive in the right of the individual to find and seek their own version of God or finding their own path to spirituality. Vivekananda said like all rivers lead to the ocean, different forms of worship eventually lead to one God.

Anyways let me come back to the main theme of this essay which is fantasy. My main thesis is that fantasy is a bad thing. It diverts your attention from reality. It makes you inward looking and egotistic. People who fantasize a lot also tend to be egotistic. A parent can see outside signs of good behaviour in a child, but they can not see if his or her mind is healthy. For a healthy mind is the one that is devoid of fantasies. Healthy mind sees reality and tries to make the best of it. Fantasizing mind tries to escape to fantasies and miss reality. That is why I think we need to focus and bring to attention the destructive nature of fantasizing. When you fantasize or brood, you are becoming the Arjuna of Gita who thinks too much before doing his duty. Krishna's chief message to him is that he should stop thinking and start acting.

France has spine

Even though I have come across few rude french people in France, I also met some helping French people in Paris. But anyways point here is not what kind of people French are but that I do think that France as a country has spine. Recent ruling by a French court to deny a muslim woman citizenship on the basis that her lifestyle is in contrast with secularists traditions of France, highlights the fact that France would do whatever it takes to maintain its secularist traditions. Contrast this with Indian attitude that emphasizes getting along at the cost of truth. Gandhi's book, "My experiments with truth" might as well have been renamed "My experiments with lies" as Gandhi totally failed to come to terms with muslim problem in India. He could never understand that Islam is a exclusivist religion and it denounces all other forms of worship. To let Muslims continue to live in India is to invite another partition of India on the basis of religion.

Please read the French court ruling here:
France denies citizenship to a muslim woman.

Being Smart

If you think, being evil is being smart, then I would prefer to be called dumb. This basically sums up my thinking on being smart. In the world we live and work, it has become very imperative to be smart. We hear all the time from colleagues and friends that such a such person is smart and hence they succeeded in being what they are.

Smart people tend to hide their true intentions from their casual colleagues and friends. They keep their ambitions to themselves while working hard to attain them. Being smart does not mean being truthful or innocent at heart,
being smart means doing things which are in one's own interest. Being smart means not highlighting your bad traits, but singings songs about your good traits. Being smart means thinking if an action has any benefit to oneself, before embarking on that action. Just because something is right does not mean it is smart to espouse the right. Being smart means doing things which are in one's self interest. To say that being smart and being selfish have become synonymous these days will not be stretching the truth.

Most of my simple at heart colleague are nowhere in terms of their careers.
On the other hand some smart people that I worked with have advanced a lot in their professional careers. The smart people have ascended the corporate ladder very well. They do not just work hard, they work smart.

What is wrong with Microsoft ?

After killing all competition in Desktop OS and applications market, they are now whining that Google Yahoo alliance will have 90% share of online ad market. What a shame MS and Bill Gates. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others.

Is capitalism a rat race ?

It looks to me that capitalism is a rat race in which the person who makes most money wins. Only way to win, in my opinion, is to refuge to participate in this race.

Who created Pakistan and why it will never be a secular democracy ?

Everyday in western media you are exposed to the propaganda that either intentionally or unintentionally tries to project what a peaceful, secular country Pakistan was before radical islamic groups took control of the country. For the latest such attempt, please take a look at current Economist magazine article titled - Pakistan: Most dangerous country on the planet.

In fact the truth cannot be farther than this. Pakistan was created by radical islam which was assisted by divide-and-conquer policy of perversely smart British.

British thinking at the time was to leave India but divide it before leaving between Hindus and Muslims. This would ensure a constant obstacle to India and would never let it focus on peace, economic growth and prosperity. British were being "smart". Only in hindsight, they would now realize what they did. Basically rather than suppressing and fighting radical fanatic muslims, British wanted to use them to fight Hindus and keep India week. In the retrospect, they would have been wiser to not accept fanatic muslim request for the partition of India and supress them then.

The remaining part of India chose to be a secular democracy and has more muslims than Pakistan anyways. So what benefit was derived by helping fanatic muslims in their quest for pakistan.

Those in the west who think pakistan can be a secular democracy fail to focus on the basic idea behind the creation of pakistan. And this idea was basically fanatic radical islamists thinking that did not want secularism and democracy. If they wanted secular democracy, then there was little reason for the demand for pakistan. After all India already has had 3 muslim presidents, so in fact Indian muslims who chose to remain in India are enjoying much better quality of life in a peaceful country.

The day pakistan will become a peaceful and secular democracy, their raison detre would cease to exist.