Indian Culture and Tradition - Gone or Going?

Has India lost its culture and tradition to go more western? or is it losing? Is more Indian culture-tradition followed in US? I was at my relative's house last weekend and this was one of the topics we were discussing on the auspicious festive day of Krishna Janmashtami. I was probably the youngest involved in the conversation, ofcourse there were kids but other than them. On my previous two visits to India, I myself felt more Indian than people who are living there. So you can imagine what would have happened to people in their 40's, 50's and 60+'s.. the phrase "we are frozen in time" kept coming up again and again in the whole discussion. I was wondering whether I was frozen too (but in a different time zone than them). On my way to work this morning I remembered my father's birth year for some reason which is 1947. I tried to go through all those years from 47-08 and felt what an experience it must have been to go through these generations. So I told myself, before I get frustrated next time on him for not understanding something related to our generation, I should try and remember which generation he comes from (lets say the gen. of B&W). So Indians who came to this country say 10 years back having an idea of getting back once they accomplish what they came here for (money, success, whatever) are now facing a major dilemma. Now that they have children, the dreaded question of where to bring them up is beginning to haunt them. They had thought, once kids reach 4th or 5th grade, they would take them back, educate them there and since they are already citizens here (by birth) they would have a choice to get back. Well, now there's complications... on their recent visits, they realized what the booming economy has done to our culture. No longer can someone staying here for say 10 years can think of seeing the same India that they saw back then. Neither should they expect to according to me. After all development comes as a package, one can't ignore certain things and accept others.. Kids are growing up in a whole different world - the world of media, video games and what not! With zillion channels, the haze of bollywood and hollywood, video games covering young brains .. one can no longer say this is the same old place we grew up. I keep thinking even now how I used to spend my summer holidays (playing outside from 10-6 or 7 every day), watching a movie occasionally, no video games, spending time with friends. I can't imagine what kids do these days. After all even my community decided to turn a play ground into a park!!! where the hell are kids to go if they want to play?? Oh well.. my story about my favorite ground in another blog.

So I thought to myself, is it right to expect that from our country? or is it just too much to ask for? Be it dressing or cell phones or tv or even food, things have changed so much. But ofcourse there's disadvantages to bringing up children here too.. It will be very interesting to see what happens next..

Well, for me.. I am not even married yet, so as of now I can stand and watch what happens and may be in a few years be in a better position to decide ;-) !!

Life is all about Balance!

We are all a part of this balancing act.. day in and day out we are acting knowingly or unknowingly. Imagine a world full of non-vegetarians or a world full of vegetarians, neither could have existed for long. Why do we blame people for eating meat in that case? If all meat eating people turned vegetarian, there would be a shortage of food and the other way is true too. Similarly we need to learn to value other's beliefs and not try to force on them what we think is right. It is by the absence of something that another thing gets its meaning (light from dark, day from night, joy from sorrow, happiness from sadness, etc). We give more importance to things that make us happy than that make us sad.. why? is that because we are all hard wired for happiness? or is it because emotions play such an important role that it changes the way we think and that we are too weak to face tough times in life? Speaking of emotions, I was reading Chetan Bhagat's "3 mistakes of my life" - an interesting and a different kind of read. Didnt expect that after reading an excerpt on the web. The tale is about 3 friends (in Ahmedabad) one a pujari's son, another a gujarati, and another a die hard cricket fan. He brings out some intrinsic characters and values of all three which was interesting to read and link to real life to people whom I have come across. The gujarati mindset is all about business and emotion takes the last seat (if available) whereas for me it's quite the opposite. I was speaking to a friend of mine over the weekend who is from Ahmedabad as well. He works for a finance company and we got talking about accounting, finance in general and he was so enthu about it and was like "aasaan hai.. accha hai" about finance and i was like thinking - damn.. why dont i feel that way?? for me its more so to gain knowledge rather than liking it, for him its liking it and being good at it.. I read this somewhere "Toughness is when you have slogged your ass off and give your best and be able to take that someone out there is better than you!" .... Should one slog so much just to find out someone out there can do it as if they are drinking water?? Coming back to the story, The gujurati is of the same mindset as my friend and this reinstated my belief that they like numbers and they are good at it!.. Barring some rough language the book was a good read...

Going back to balance in life, we are all trying to make ends meet and when we are successful, we would already have created new ends to meet.. and so life goes on... The normal tendency of human mind is to think about future... people might say they live one day at a time, but do they??

As my friend rightly put it "Everyone Dies ... But Not Everyone Lives" ... I will try to LIVE from now on!!!

Wish me luck!

To strive or not to strive

So the question thats been on and off on my mind is "Should an individual strive too hard to achieve success or should he start enjoying life and take things as it comes?"

Two extreme scenarios that come to my mind are:

1. Michael Phelps: Probably the most searched on google for the past few days. He is even being considered as the greatest sportsman ever! not sure what criteria one would use for that but anyways, I read a few articles about him on BBC and other places. Here are a couple:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7562840.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olympics/2008/08/can_anyone_spoil_phelps_pool_p.html

So after reading his routine, I was like no way would I be able to do something like that unless I am motivated so much by the fact of winning medals at olympics or becoming famous or whatever motivates him. Plus for those who consider perseverence trumps talent, check out his physical structure, thats in born - I dont think perseverence can trump something like that. He was probably trained right from young age to be what he is today. All he does is eat, sleep, swim. Can you imagine not being able to eat when you want, what you want, have no routine, take one day at a time. I can't imagine training like that most of the year or even more than a year leading up to the olympics or whichever other event he is taking part in.

This was just one such extreme example, but I guess it applies to a lot others in various other fields. To be really famous, one has to be extremely dedicated, determined and disciplined + has to have the talent.

2. A friend of mine who has been working for the past 15-20 years at the same place doing pretty much similar work. Grew up in the same neighborhood where he works, has his year planned out to do different things at specific time in year. He is married with kids, hopefully enjoying his life with all the +'s and -'s it comes with. Should he have strived harder to become something more than what he is today? Should he regret as to why he didn't push himself enough? should someone else have pushed him more? was it circumstantial that he would not have been able to? Or he is just happy the way he is and has nothing to complain about enjoying the little things in life!

I guess where I am heading with this argument is at what point in life does one decide how much to strive for and what to strive for? Is there an end? a limit may be? Should one be concerned about the society he/she lives in and strive accordingly to live and match up to it, if he doesn't can he/she still survive? with ever rising prices of everything, should one be considered as to how much is enough? is there a target? Would I be regretting if I didnt lead a company one day? would I regret of not giving my best if I just keep chugging along as I am now? Each day passing by is telling me "there goes one more day and not much has changed!..." should each day really change from the previous day? should I just give it time, put my best foot forward and leave the rest? if so, how do I know whats my best?...........................

Sports and India!

So finally the first "Individual" Gold Medal for India. Abhinav Bindra finally breaks the jinx!! will this be the beginning or the beginning of the end??? Have been watching Olympics every night.. and see USA, China bag medals after medals... Michael Phelps gets his 9th today winning the 100 m free style. USA also bag the 100 m backstroke womens and mens (gold and silver). Damn i said to myself.. where the hell are Indians??? dont we seriously have talent?? are Indians just too submerged in books that there's nothing to life other than that??? Is Cricket the only sport??? Wish I was trained like one right from age of 5! I would have been in Beijing making my country proud instead of working my ass off for a US company.. phew! thats called fate yeah??? or destiny??? or the price of following the norm??? Dont we have technology?? Dont we have money?? Monika gets banned for testing positive on drug test and then gets cleared??? what the hell is going on.... Politics is just killing everything in India... I just F****** can't believe this.. I hate it... talk about perseverence and talent... BS!!!! I am totally irritated and frustrated with everything !

Change your Mind -> Change your Life??

I was watching Larry King Live at my uncle's place this past weekend and saw this interview he held with 4 psychologists and some were scientists too i guess. I dont remember their names since they looked nerdy and so were their names. One familiar person who appeared later in the show was Dr. Sanjay Gupta - Senior Medical Correspondent on CNN. He was the scapegoat for a test to find how mind works and if we can control it. The jist that I got of the interview was this - Mind is a process, non-existential while Brain is. Can you control your mind? mixed answers on that one - one theme was common though - If you can control your thought process, then you could probably make some progress in controlling your mind. Well one of the interviewee went on to say one could cure a disease like Cancer if they made up their mind!$#@& .. baffles me but nothing is impossible (as my friend puts it the word itself says i m possible) .. what intrigued me more was what the other person said on the show - Humans are wired for Happiness!! got me thinking deeply on this one -- I guess thats so true... everything we do, every action we take is linked to happiness in one way or the other, be it for happiness or against. Human brain definitely is the most complicated system designed yet ! Well after seeing this, I started to think if a person really can change his mind, can he possibly achieve anything?? For now, if I can motivate my own self to study a little harder for the exam coming up in December, I will be happy to say I changed my mind :-) ....

In between the interview, me and my uncle got onto the topic of telepathy. We were debating as to whether it really existed. Apparently he has experienced it as well as one of my other friend too mentioned a similar instance. Its all eerie but I guess there's no science to disprove this theory.