Pursuer

Many Whatsapp posts are defining anyone who is raising questions on the Government statements on the Chinese standoff as Gaddars. This irrespective of whether the posts are sincerely concerned with the welfare of the country & are apolitical or if the intention of   post is just to score a point against the ruling dispensation. Even the dissenting veterans are being called names. This binary further alienates the critics and the divide between the supporters of government and ones questioning is widening. Many of the so called supporters of the government are actually supporters of a leader and are more concerned with the image of the leader than the country. The argument that “During these troubled times it is the responsibility of every citizen to stand behind the leader and not question him.” It definitely is a strong argument and particularly when we have an enemy as strong and cunning as China where every Chinese by force has no right to question the leader.   The pre...

The Difficulty of being Good; a wonderful book by Shri Gurucharan Das, ex CEO Proctor & Gamble raised many questions on how to live. The attempt here is to summarise the book & find answers Almost all of us go through a stage where we ask “What is the meaning of life”, “Is life worth living?”, “What should one aspire to in life to make it worth living?” The author of this book wondered if acts of goodness are one of the very few things of genuine worth in this world, and can being good give meaning to life! Based on these thoughts he selected Mahabharata; the epic to find an answer.   The Mahabharata was selected to find the answers because the characters of Mahabharata are more human and fallible than the characters of other Hindu epic Ramayana. Also the Mahabharata     talks of “Dharma”.   Dharma   refers to ‘balance’ i.e. alignment of moral balance and cosmic balance. So, Dharma is what exactly we should do when we are trying to be good in the world...

Heera - The Maid The lockdown 1 of 3 weeks, first of its kind in country, was to finish in the next 48 hours. The lockdown had forced the support staff at our residence, barring one who stayed with us, to be on leave and be confined to their respective residences. This made me busy with household work for the whole day. The help who stayed with us had to be busy taking care of my senior in laws who are, though independent, yet in need of some support. While cooking food for 7 at home was time consuming the work that I disliked most was cleaning the utensils. My retired husband, who keeps searching for a part time job despite not having any financial needs, was only a moral support. I prayed for the Corona virus to vanish bringing the life back to normal & the one person I awaited most was Heera, my maid. Though I had always complaints with her regularity and quality of work, yet she was the one who was most awaited presently. Alas, no medicine or vaccine was in sight and aut...

UNCLE                                                                                                              The old man, well known in the building as Uncle, stumbled a little and stopped, balanced himself as took the support of the side wall. He took a couple of seconds to feel assured and then walked to the attached bathroom in the adjoining room. The TV in the living room was blaring giving nonstop details of the lockdown situation ...