Did you know that the highest paid civil servants in Bhutan are teachers and medical staff?
I invite you to read this article: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/web/in-bhutan-teachers-medical-staff-will-now-be-highest-paid-civil-servants-5776604/
There is tremendous long term wisdom in this decision! These are the seeds one must sow for development in its true sense. This is how a society starts evolving in the right direction.
Have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1l75QqRR48
They need to play this on the big screen at every climate meeting just to set the tone. This, to me, is the first collective step we need to take to cut down fossil fuel consumption.
I would absolutely love to see Indian cities taking this up!
I want nothing from you.
Someone praying or going to religious places is no guarantee in itself that they are good and trustworthy.
Observe people. Observe how they treat others. Observe if they are helpful, kind, compassionate.One of the most spiritually elevated statements I have ever heard is simply this:
Here's one of my favorite prayers. Here the Universal Divine Consciousness is addressed as Om. You can address the same as Ishwar, Bhagwaan, God or Allah. There's only one Universal Divine Consciousness and it is beyond all names, forms and classifications.
Anyone talking about "ending socialism" in India is plain cuckoo.
Public healthcare, education and transport cannot go from this country till poverty ends. The government must also maintain a significant stake in food, energy, defense and space.
We talk about the value of exposing ourselves to cultures all over the world, exchanging views, enriching ourselves by absorbing whatever is good.
A whole lot of religious strife in the world would just disappear if parents and teachers told their children this when growing up:
A wise man once remarked:
This is one initiative I'm endlessly proud of 😊: https://www.fabindia.com/
Personal comfort and style preferences aside, to which each of us is obviously entitled, purely on aesthetic merit, I throw an open fashion challenge:
Come, bring as much global fabric and fashion as you can muster. Indian, hand drawn, designs on fabric will match whatever you have :).
What this part of the world has done with fabric is simply nothing short of genius :).
[Food for thought: The Euro-American fashion industry has impacted the whole world. The East, while no less brilliant with fabric, form & color, hasn't responded in proportion, hasn't invested enough in advertising what it has to offer. One doesn't see too many Europeans & Americans wearing Eastern ethnicwear. Isn't this interesting?]
There is absolutely no glory in staying on in abusive relationships / marriages. This holds for either gender.
If you are feeling manipulated, emotionally exploited or abused, or are being physically abused, in your relationship / marriage, and your instinct is telling you to step out of the relationship / marriage, then have the courage to take that step.
Yes, this might bring challenges : specially if you have children. Figure a way out to deal with your challenges.
And if you are worried about what people in the society around you (or maybe your own relatives) will say, just forget about it. Those who actually care about you will be there for you. And those who don't, well, they can very well take a walk. Good for you that you figured out who your real friends are.
[PS: And if *you* manipulate people around you, emotionally exploit them, or are physically abusive : Change. It's possible to change for the better and I don't see why you should not be the best human being you can be. Everyone deserves this opportunity.]
I sometimes come across notions such as:
1) One should go to a college "near home" (particularly women!) so that one stays close to one's folks even if one needs to compromise on pursuing one's interests or the quality of education.
2) One should seek career opportunities "near parents" so that they don't have to relocate even if one has to compromise on working in a field of interest or be in a work environment that doesn't allow you to express your talents fully or exploits / frustrates you.
All this is nonsensical flubber!
Schooling near home is (generally) sensible but college education, regardless of gender, firmly needs to be about studying what you want to study and in the best possible institute you can.
And when it's time to pursue your career, unless your parents are unable to get a visa during old age and/or a serious extended illness, please, please, do what you are passionate about and find yourself the best possible work environment you can. If this means that your parents need to relocate, then that's fine. No one gains anything if you waste your talents and pursue a listless mediocre career.
And here's some more nonsensical flubber that you'll hear from time to time:
3. Sons should be taking up the same profession as their fathers, women should follow their mothers' footsteps (and stay home!), etc . Worse, phrases like "our tradition", "Indian system", "sanskaar sanskriti" are used to justify such notions.
[I also invite you to read the following posts:
1. Strike a Pause: Your Blossoming Is As Important As Anything Else! (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)
2. Strike a Pause: Choosing A Career Path After 12th Grade (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)
3. Strike a Pause: On Changing Career Paths And Academic Directions (strike-a-pause.blogspot.com)]
I've often wondered about the reasons that lead to a reduced capacity for independent thinking and/or intellectual and emotional immaturity in people as they grow up. And I think the seeds for such problems get sown early in life.
Here's an example:
Instruction: Always respect your parents.
Question: Well, what about parents who are corrupt in their daily life (or even criminal), or parents who are abusive to each other (examples abound of men as well as women being physically or emotionally abusive with their spouses)? Do such parents also deserve respect?
So the instruction is incorrect! The correct instruction
ought to be: Observe your parents, and respect them if they conduct themselves
in a manner that deserves respect.
This has multiple implications:
1) Parents will have to earn their respect, as they ought to. I cannot accept
the proposition that two people sleep together --> lady gets pregnant -->
parenthood --> get respect. This means nothing. Parenting is much more than
that. The mother and father are obliged to create a positive atmosphere at
home, conduct themselves honorably in society and at work, and bring up a child well!
2) Children will learn to observe and question honestly. They will think about
what deserves respect and what doesn't. They will develop the courage to speak
up when needed. I'm not encouraging misbehavior and arrogant disobedience. But
a child always cowering in fear and servility cannot possibly grow up into an
emotionally and intellectually healthy and mature individual.
3) Parents insisting on discipline is obviously a good thing (if they set a
good example to start with!) and obedience up to a certain age certainly has a
place. But at a certain stage (~ Class 10) parents need to sit down and ask
their children what they want to do with their lives and help them pursue their
aspirations. 70-80% parents I have met never ask their children what they want
to do with their lives! It's just one long exercise in control and dominance -
all the way even to what they study, the profession they choose, and who they
marry! This is not parenting! Parenting means nurturing children and helping
them blossom and flower into intellectually and emotionally mature adults who
are capable of thinking and living independently.
Are you seeing what I'm saying? We have created value systems that encourage blind obedience and servility, and then we expect a society that is intellectually and emotionally mature and honest. It can't happen this way!
And then there's the politics of it!
You either have patriarchy, where the male species is adjudged to be the wiser guides of families and societies simply because they can physically overpower women. Just look at the utter lack of logic in that statement! And we have generations of children growing up in such twisted houses and communities and imbibing this distorted value system. Girl children who eventually accept being made to submit to a servile existence as their lot, or face a continuous threat of violence. And "boys of the family" who learn to bask in that sense of enlightenment bestowed on them simply by the chromosomes they carry. Now they have the first unquestioned unearned right to food, the first unquestioned unearned right to education, the first unquestioned unearned right to money, to independence. And when their time comes, they have to propagate this nonsense to the next generation. Their "family" will live where they want them to, how they want them to, they will be the "heads of their families" : just like that, simply by accident of birth in being born male.
Young children are innocent, they can see the nonsense of all this. Yet, they are to respect all of this till they get cast in the same rotten mold.
Or you have matriarchy, which, to me, is the same degraded imbalance in the other direction, the other side of the same dirty coin that no longer ought to have currency in any civilized society.
Why would children respect this either? Societal imbalance is fundamentally undeserving of respect.
I have tired myself asking couples this simple question: You live together, you sleep together, you are able to perceive each other in some depth, there is intimacy, all barriers have dropped, and you can't let go of this power play, this politics? What's the need for it? It's so ugly! Just trust each other, be equals in your relationship, raise your children with that sense of equality, bring about a balanced society that is free of all this oppression, all this violence, all this anguish.
It's specially strange to be having this conversation in India. In our tradition, the wife is referred to as Ardhaangini : literally, half the husband's being. And the man immediately becomes Ardhaang : half the wife's being. Perfect equality. Perfect balance. Nay! One step further! The two become one - period! No scope for disrespect from either side. No scope of oppression from either side.
That's the starting point. Step zero. Then comes sensible, conscious, parenting directed at raising children into intellectually and emotionally mature adults capable of engaging with the world with intelligence and empathy and thinking and living independently.
Be such parents, and you would have earned your right to be respected. Else, no.
