Inclusive vs exclusive

                                                              Source : Google photo

Synopsis : The world needs to be more inclusive in order to have justice and equality for all irrespective of the race, creed, color , sex or religion so that we can make progress. The concept of exclusivity has no longer any meaning because the word has moved on from the colonial past and is more interconnected than ever.


We see now a days a rise in the xenophobia around the world. It is defined as the intense and irrational fear of people from other countries or people who are not like you. This is seen to influence the rise of certain political parties in Europe, the United States and elsewhere that some politicians are finding easier to galvanize people with xenophobic tendencies to vote them into power.

These tendencies never totally disappear but wait for an opportunity to resurface from time to time with dire consequences in terms of prohibition on freedom for all, freedom of expression, press freedom, basic rights for all, transparency in the government, accountability of the elected officials and free trade and participation in the world community on the basis of fair trade and fair arbitration of disputes based on international rule of law.

We have seen the resurgence of xenophobia in various countries from time to time but often such tendencies are defeated by the force of good and common sense that usually prevail and curtail such tendencies although never totally eliminate them.

I will now try to understand why such hateful tendencies re surface and what makes people xenophobic in the first place.

We should try to understand the reasons first and then analyze the pernicious effects of the rise of such vile feelings in human beings who are otherwise called the normal God fearing people.

I wanted to read Mein kamph by Hitler to understand his point of view and what made his party rise to power that finally led to the Second World War and the destruction of Germany. It is a big book of over 750 pages and a lot of it covers the personal rants and biases of Adolf Hitler but it also mentions the cause of his rise to power.

The First World War was totally devastating to Germany as we all know but we need not get into who started it and why but concentrate on the Versailles treaty that the victors forced Germany to accept that included severe penalties and massive war reparations that Germany had to pay to some countries that were involved in the war.

This led to poverty and joblessness in Germany that reeled under the terms of the treaty and sought a way out but couldn’t. It also created massive discontent in Germany where people thought that the treaty was very unfair to them and they were forced to suffer under it.

Adolf Hitler was shrewd enough to  realize that he had a chance to  mobilize this anger of the German people to his advantage and formed his party .At first very few people showed up at his meetings to listen to his proclamations but that changed when his friends like Hess came to join him and organized the meetings better.

Many likeminded people joined him and took over the management of his party, recruitment of cadres and collection of money needed to fund the activities. There were people who had tremendous skills in propaganda that the new party needed to reach millions of people but everything centered around Adolf Hitler who had the charisma and the oratory skills needed to bring people together at his well organized meetings and vast gatherings at Nuremberg and elsewhere in Germany.

This seething anger of being treated unfairly after the first world war made people join Hitler’s party in millions who saw in Adolf Hitler hope in making a Germany proud again and solve its many problems.  It is of no use going into details of the failed policies of the Nazi Germany and its consequences but we should not neglect to see why a cornered cat fights to death as Hitler did.

We should not also neglect the fact that no country wants a war and considers it the last resort when all else fails because war means the destruction of the country and its people like what happened in Europe. Hitler at first tried to make peace and sent numerous peace proposals to various countries that were allied against him but he failed. His close associates tried to assassinate him many times but failed and his second in command Hess went to England flying his plane to offer peace but we all know what happened to him.

It is fair to say that xenophobia that Hitler espoused against the Jews, the minorities, gypsies and others had their roots in the German psyche that Hitler only needed to provoke to his advantage so ordinary Germans like clerks, accountants and office workers became the ruthless killers who ran the concentration camps gunning down innocent people while smoking and laughing.

We know that Hitler came to power by organizing his party base and through legal means of elections and winning a large number of seats in the German parliament because German people felt that the elected officials had failed them so they wanted change.

The modern day scenario:  

We now come to the modern age of politics in many countries where we see the rise of political parties that reminds me of the Hitlerian days when he was able to rouse the rabble into a frenzy with his hate speeches and ranting against almost everybody with his real or imaginary complaints and offered solutions that were outlandish and perhaps unworkable in the short or long run. But enough people believed in him to make him a dictator that he became.

One must not underestimate the power the unwashed, lowly educated and poorly informed people have when their votes are counted and found to be a force to be reckoned with. They feel that the government has passed them by and has given unfair advantages to immigrants and foreigners who have benefited from the government largesse so they show their anger through their votes for a person who promises to correct all wrongs done to them.

This eruption of xenophobia among a certain class of people in the United States and in Europe is a reaction to how they feel they are treated and how they are ignored by their government although this reaction is not totally based on reality but rather based on dark bias based emotions that hinder clarity of view.

They do not understand that their poverty and deterioration of their standard of living has less to do with the inept government and more to do with the advent of modern era of free trade under ILO rules and high educational levels of the younger generation and immigrants, high degree of volatility in the job market dictated by the worldwide competition in manufacturing etc. and the speed of the new technologies that are making it possible to do outsourcing.

They do not understand that there are forces beyond their control or the control of their elected officials to reverse this tsunami of technological changes that affects every aspect of our lives these days.

The whole world is interdependent now and the trade and commerce do not depend on unilateral decisions made in London or Washington any more like in the old days but rather on bilateral or multilateral agreements that are worked out over long period of time in painstaking details that cannot be abrogated without serious consequences.

They do not understand that blaming everybody else for their woes does not alter anything no matter how many glib talks are made by a populist politician who only makes promises to please a certain voter base but who does not offer concrete plans or solutions.

The xenophobia leads to isolation that leads to more trouble for any country than they can handle. Just ask North Korea what it has gained with its isolation from the rest of the world and what it could potentially gain if they only came out of their isolation and join the rest of the world community.

Ask Albania or East Germany what they gained in all the years they isolated themselves from the rest of the world and what they have gained by becoming free and democratic and taken their rightful place now. So xenophobia does no good to any country or people who blame others for their trouble just because they fail to understand how the modern world works.

All countries look to their self interest which is to promote employment for their people and improve their living standard by exporting manufactured goods to bring in revenues but that cannot be done at the expense of creating trade imbalance in their favor.

Now we see the rise of this tendency of us vs them in the United States and also in Europe that is facing severe pressure due to the incoming refugees fleeing their war devastated homelands. There are severe cross cultural issues as well due to the influx of the refugees who are of different religions and who fail to assimilate into their adopted societies.

At such time people easily forget that immigrants have always been assets to any country that has taken them and where they have added significantly to the economy by paying taxes and creating a solid consumer base that encourages growth of all sectors.

Without the immigrants, the crops rot in their fields, manufacturing jobs suffer and houses remain unbuilt. They build roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. They build dams and airports and maintain them. They teach your children in schools and they look after the sick and disabled through healthcare. They carry your mail and deliver goods in trucks all over the country. Some of these immigrants come legally and others in other ways possible but they all contribute to the economy one way or the other.

So unilateralism has no place in the world we live in now because we all depend on each other. Now more than ever we see the growth of tourism worldwide that injects billions of dollars into the economy of many countries and creates jobs for untold millions. This has given rise to the growth of airlines, hotels and related services worldwide. Medical tourism has been growing rapidly because sick people go to other countries where they get better but cheaper healthcare than in their own country.

The foreign students attending numerous colleges and universities in the United States contribute  billions of dollars to the education sector .It is happening in many countries that offer good education to a rising and more aspiring middle class that can afford to send their children for higher education abroad.

The new world order :   

We have seen the result of the efforts made by the world leaders to promote growth in their economy by making it easier to do business in their country so many foreign companies build factories in those countries where they are given some tax breaks and other facilities. This way they create jobs locally and then export their products.

Many models of cars that are sold here in the Philippines are made in Thailand or in India or other countries that provide them a trained pool of workers and at competitive wages. Similarly many garments sold in Europe are made in Cambodia or Bangladesh where the labor costs are lower and the workers very skilled.

In many African countries you will find massive infrastructure development made possible through aid from China or Japan. In return they get access to minerals they need for their own factories.

Now there is a rail connection from China all the way to Europe on the ancient silk road that is changing the history of trade in the world. The trade is flowing in both directions at a lower cost and faster than before which is bringing in prosperity to all the countries in the route in an unprecedented way.

India is building a highway all the way to Vietnam for the goods to be transported speedily between countries along the way which has tremendous positive impact on the trade between countries. Ethiopia has a new tram system, a new rail link to Djibouti and new hydropower  dams just to name a few , all done by the Chinese who are investing there heavily.

This is the world we live in. This cooperation between the countries will increase and not decrease in the future benefitting all parties concerned. Now just imagine if some politician comes along and says America first or Germany first then all it does is to throw a monkey wrench into the works and the countries retaliate. No one country rich or poor can afford to make such unilateral decisions that affect the economy of other countries.

The only solution is to be a part of the world community and promote growth of the economy at home and aboard through cooperation and not confrontation.

No one can remain exclusive and survive so the word inclusive is the key to success. It has always been so and will remain so


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A dog called Levko

                                                                          Our dog Levko

Synopsis : He was a very good dog who was loyal, protective and took no nonsense from any one or any dog. He was aggressive to anyone he did not like including feral cats. He gave us a lot of joy while he lived. I miss him

Once we had a dog called Levko. He was a German Shepherd and had the personality and temperament of a pure breed meaning he was a good guard dog and did not take any nonsense from any dog in the neighborhood who were terrified of him and gave him wide berth.

He came to us as a puppy but even then he showed the maid who was teasing him that no one should mess with him and promptly bit her hand. We were getting tired of this worthless maid so Levko helped us get rid of her.

Levko did many good things while he was with us . He was kept inside the outhouse  so he could not get out but made plenty of noise when a thief came in one night and stole something by cutting the wire mesh screen of the window. Had he been outside, I am sure the thief would have come to grief.

As Levko grew up , his ears stood up in a true German Shepherd way and his coat got shiny and mottled with gold and black .He was a big dog by now and fearsome to strangers .We had to warn our visitors not to approach Levko because he just did not like anyone and growled from behind the steel gate.

But keeping a dog like Levko meant a lot of work for us. We had to give him a shampoo bath frequently that he loved. I had to prepare his meal by picking all the sharp bones of the chicken head and mix it with rice and warm it up because he liked his meal warm. I had to make sure that he always had a bucketful of clean water to drink and kept the lanai area clean of dog poop and flushed it with water often.

But our maid was lazy and did not prepare his meal properly and did not give him bath so he got a lot of ticks, lost some weight and suffered so one day we sent the maid home and took over the care of Levko, got rid of his ticks and soon his coat became shiny and he rapidly gained weight.

He was a very loving dog and understood many words. When he made a lot of noise, I had to say Levko  go inside  and he would promptly go inside the dog house which is actually an outhouse we never use in the lanai and stayed there until let out. He was always from then on fed on time in the evening but one day we were delayed due to something  so Levko banged his dinner plate to let us know  that it was past his feeding time.

The feral cats that did not take Levko seriously learned to their grief that they should not have messed with him because one day he got a cat up the tree and sat there making sure that the cat stayed there. Now the cat was in big trouble and could not get away for a long time until Levko got tired of the game and wandered away. The result was that the cats stayed away from our house from then on because they never knew what Levko would do to them if he ever got hold of them so they did not like to take any risk.

One day a fellow who had a female German Shepherd brought her to Levko so that he may mate but Levko became so furious that the poor bitch went away with her tail between her legs wondering perhaps if she was not pretty enough.  We often wondered at his lack of interest in any dog male or female and put it down to his aggressive personality. It is a pity because we were sure he could have made very good looking pure breed puppies if giving the bitch half a chance but Levko would have none of it.

The thieves also learned of his ferocious nature and knew that he was a terrific guard dog who was not chained and roamed freely at the backside of our house so they avoided our house.

One day we found him barking but sitting pretty in the lanai so went to see what he was barking at . Levko had cornered a snake about three feet long  and blackish in color who was having a terrible time trying to get away from this monstrous dog. I am sure the poor snake had never seen anything so big and fearsome in her mundane snake life and was terribly afraid. I had to convince Levko with soothing words that he should let the poor snake go who did not mean any harm to him so finally he let the snake go to its great relief and it never ventured into our garden again.

He was not so patient with rats so he gave them a lot of trouble and killed a few to their great surprise because the rats think they can outsmart a dog like Levko  but they were wrong  and learned it the hard way.

On the whole Levko earned his keeps in spades and we were happy with him and maybe he was also happy with us if not with anyone else.

This reminds me of a dog called Sonia that was a pet of my brother in India except that he never had any time to take care of her and the duty fell on us to feed her and brush her long hair. She was a very hairy dog and shed it all over the house that had to be swept up every day. She was a poodle and was more of a show dog than anything else although she could bite some people she did not like. One day she got sick so I put her in the basket in front of my bicycle and pedaled to see the vet who gave her an injection and some medicine but she did not get well and got worse. So one day I brought her to a distant place and let her loose because she was dying and we could do nothing.

Our brother came home that day from his office and inquired about Sonia and when told that Sonia was set free somewhere far from the house, he choked up and could not eat his dinner. A house pet like Sonia or any dog needed a lot of care and grooming but he had no time for her.

Here Levko also demanded a lot of care but we were getting older and my wife felt that perhaps Levko should be given away to a fellow who keeps dogs and knows how to handle them. So this fellow came and rubbed Levko’s chain on his body so that the dog would get used to his smell. Levko like all other dogs had super sensitive nose so he smelled the fellow from a great distance probably suggesting the fellow should take regular shampoo bath like him.

So one day Levko went away with this fellow but looking back at us to know why he was being taken away. He probably thought that he was just going for a walk and would soon be back so he went happily because he loved being taken out for a walk or a free run. Once I made the mistake of taking him out and letting him have a free run but he got into mischief right away and grabbed a fat rooster by its neck because the rooster made the mistake of underestimating Levko .That was a big mistake the rooster made to its grief  but it also taught us a lesson that Levko needs to be confined within our garden.

This fellow failed to take care of Levko the way he had promised so the beautiful and loyal Levko died. We miss him and look at his photos but we have made a promise that we will never get another dog because it is too much work and the dogs may be better off with others.

Now the feral cats are back with vengeance since they know that they face no danger from a dog. They pee in the veranda, poop under the car, in the lawn and fight just near my window creating a lot of ruckus. You should see how they fight with their very sharp claws and teeth and how much damage they inflict on each other but what can we do?

One cat somehow got inside our living room one day but did not know that we do not allow cats or dogs inside the house so I gave it a chase of its life .The poor cat got so scared that it peed all over the house while running  that we had to clean up later. Levko knew that he was not allowed inside the house so he would just sit and not come in even if the door was open.  He was well trained but the feral cats are a different story.

Now  to chase out the mouse, we bring in the cats who make so much mess that we bring in the dogs. To chase out the dogs we bring in the elephant who then trashes the house so the mouse is back. I am open to suggestions on how to get rid of the cats. My wife thinks she knows a way and throws a mug of water on them. May be it will work and they will go away.

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What is friendship?

What is friendship?

                                              Source : Google photo

Synopsis : We all want to know what is friendship and how to get friends and keep them. I share in this blog  what you need to do to get friends and keep them. It is not a secret.We can all try and become friend to someone only if we know how.

One day I ventured out to see the huts of farmers who lived behind our school. It was a Sunday so the school was eerily empty and quiet so being curious about who lived behind our school, I came upon a few children of my age who played near their farm house and were happily surprised to see me. So I joined them and played with them, learned their names and told them mine and had a pretty good time while their parents smiled and looked on. I think I was about seven years old. These children and I never felt a class distinction for a moment and formed a bond.

When the time came for me to go home, all the kids some boys and some girls came with me to the road to say goodbye to me and looked on with hope and love in their eyes and urged me to return soon to play with them again. I too must have felt a pang in leaving them but soon I was back to my world of middle class and alas, I never went back there for one reason or other but after all these years I still remember their tearful but loving and hopeful eyes although I have forgotten their names.

Children playing together form a bond and out of this bond can come a lifelong friendship. At that age we did not worry about our skin color, our middle class or poor parents, our clothes and our material possessions that separated us later because the basis of friendship at that age was our complete innocence.

There was a sheesham tree near our house where as kids we played and used to swing that was an attraction to other kids as well. One of them was a girl of about 9 or 10 who was my neighbor. I will call her Munni. There was another whom I will call Priya. We pushed the swing for each other and had a good time but this too did not last as we were all growing up and into separate ways of life. Munni and Priya would later get married and move to other parts of the country while I left the country for good and settled somewhere else in the world. But the memory of those playful days remain vivid and fresh.

During one of my visits to India, I was surprised to see Munni again who came to see me .We both happened to be visiting our homes so it was a chance meeting. Her eyes still sparkled reminiscing about the days when we were children and played on the swing. That beautiful tree has been cut down but I can still imagine it being there and we swinging and clapping our hands.  

The years had taken their toll on us. I was in my sixties just like Munni but the memory of our younger days made the years vanish. She had trouble hearing because she was deaf in one ear and had a hearing aid but she came to see me because she felt that we had formed a bond during our precious childhood.

Priya too was gone and I never saw her again although once I was able to call her on the phone and wished her health and happiness but she replied that her life was miserable and my good wishes sounded like a curse to her. I was shocked. It is still a mystery to me how life treats each of us in its own way.

But spending time together as children alone does not create the bond so there must be something else. 

I had a classmate from the 3^rd grade to the 10^th who was also my playmate for many years but we never became friends. I met him one day some 50 years later  totally by chance and eagerly asked him how has he been ,what has he been doing all these years to which he replied perfunctorily, looked at his watch and said he had another appointment to go to . Never did he ask about what I was doing and where in the world I lived.

We all go through life and have similar experiences. We get to know many people during our school and college days but rarely do they become friends. If friendship is gained due to shared experiences then we all would have many friends but that is not the case so what creates the bond in the first place and some become lifelong friends and others remain aloof?

It is usually found outside the family. None of my siblings were my friends because they all gave more importance to their own interests first .The age difference did not help either so I remained the errand boy for them and nothing else.  For the friendship to develop, one has to be generous in sharing everything he or she has with someone be it toys, time or stories. A friend is supposed to be totally unselfish and forgiving but this is not necessarily so between siblings.

Nantu was another childhood friend who one day showed up at our house when I was getting ready to leave India. I had no idea what had happened to him all these years because he had simply vanished but he showed up the day my passport arrived. He was surprised to know that I was going to Vietnam but was also very happy. Nantu had become an officer in the army so I too felt happy and reminisced about our days as children playing in the park but he left never to be seen again. Later I heard that he took his life for some reason.

So people like Nantu, Munni or Priya come and go in our lives some leaving a nostalgic void while others leave no impression.

I think the basis of lasting friendship is found in our childhood for some but for others it may be much later in life. It all depends on what we share with whom and when and under what circumstances.  In some countries there is a tradition of class reunion after many years when some join, take photos and exchange gossip. Within such group one can see smaller groups forming who feel no affinity for others outside their group and remain apart because they belonged to different sections of their class. So again the sharing and doing things together creates the bond but never true friendship.

In our system we do not have such class reunions so it is quite rare to run into someone many years later because people disperse all over the country.

Now a days one finds the concept of nuclear homes and communities more prevalent where people live in a community yet do not know their neighbors. It is each to himself where the focus of attention is on the nuclear family, their plans and their activities so the so called friends take a backseat in their scheme of things to do. People live in isolation and a lonely life which become acute when the kids grow up and leave home.

In vast suburbs where the middle class people live in many countries, one sees this phenomenon of isolation and self imposed aloofness because the layout of individual homes is not conducive to meeting others by chance so people tend to stay inside and watch TV. The smaller families mean lesser number of children who do not play with other children in the neighborhood like we used to. Our parents also knew each other and often came to visit over a cup of tea. This pattern of interactive community has vanished to most extent and has made people more aloof.

This has severe social consequences so I will mention a case here to show how important it is for us humans to remain socially active.

There is a case where a Korean American kid brought a gun to his college and abruptly opened fire on students and teachers killing scores of people .He wrote in his facebook that people ignored him just because of his ethnicity or looks and he felt isolated so took revenge. Perhaps if he was treated as a normal kid and invited to be a part of the teen society doing what the teens do, he would have felt less isolated and more useful. So social isolation brings in the worst feelings in people who then go on a shooting rampage and get killed in the process as the Korean kid did.

I have noticed this isolation here in the Philippines due to a totally different reason. Here they will ignore you if you are a foreigner but will stop and chat with your wife who is a native of the country because they feel a barrier due to the language problem.  We have neighbors whom we have never seen in twenty years or so because of this self imposed isolation although some send their maids with a small gift during the Christmas  so we also do the same.

This isolation does not promote friendship so no one misses them when they die or sell their house to move somewhere else because there never is a start of a friendship. It is like a seed that one must plant and nurture to let it grow into a beautiful tree one day. If the seed is never planted, there is no tree later on. The TV and soap opera does not fill the void most people feel so some join various religious groups just to feel that they belong somewhere.

So the fundamental reason why some friendships endure and others don’t is the idea of sharing and coming to the aid of someone in need.  Someone has an accident and is wheel chair bound for the rest of his life. He needs a friend who visits him, talks to him and reads a book to him or does grocery for him. Often it is not money that matters but just the presence of someone who cares and calls and stops by to ask how are you doing.

This comes from empathy for others that is the start of friendship. If you don’t feel any empathy for others, there will never be any friendship.  A true friendship means you never have to make an appointment to visit your friend. It means that you are always ready to come and help if it is needed without asking questions. It means never expecting any return because altruism has its own reward in terms of rich shared experience.

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Mystery of the universe and the aliens

Mystery of the universe and aliens

Source : Google photo of UFO

Synopsis : We are always mystified by what we do not know about the universe and its origin, about distant planets and the new ones that are forming so being curious we have put Hubble telescope in the space to see and observe our universe. We send space probes and satellites to take photos and beam them back to earth in real time. What we want to know most is  if we are the only living beings or if there are others and where.


When I was a child, I remember the night summer sky was so clear and free of pollution that we could see zillions of bright stars, milky ways and comets with long tail of space debris. We did not know much about the planets and various moons that circled them because my knowledge of celestial bodies was very limited at that age so I just marveled at the bright twinkling stars that covered the entire sky. Summer was the time when we slept on the flat roof of our house because it was cooler than the bed rooms below.

Now the times have changed .The sky is no longer so clear as it used to be thanks to the pollution and dust. You are lucky to see a few stars because no one sleeps on the roof there anymore and no one looks up. No one took any interest in stars so no one knew much about them. Astronomy was not taught in our schools although later a planetarium opened up in my home town to teach people about planets and stars. There is one in Kolkata that I have visited twice. Still the mystery of the universe fascinates me to no end.

We are told that there are trillions and trillions of stars and planets and numerous solar systems that some astronomers have detected using very powerful telescopes in many countries and continue to discover new ones daily. NASA has put up a very powerful telescope in the space itself called Hubble that it launched in 1990 that after having some initial technical glitches started sending back zillions of photos of stars and planets that has never stopped. It can see farther into the space than any telescope on earth because the space is free of atmosphere that has pollutants to obscure the view from earth. It can also take photos using different wave lengths of light like infrared that it beams back to earth.

Now the Chinese have put up a giant dish shaped antenna hundred meters in diameter and so sensitive that it can receive radio signals from distant planets while in India they have set up radio telescopes spread out over hundreds of square kilometers and joined together to act as one very super powerful device that can receive distant signals from planets. It is because we as humans are terribly interested in knowing if there are life forms out there in the universe and if they are trying to communicate with us by sending radio messages.

Closer to home, there are daily reports of sighting of UFOs around the world and literally thousands of photos and videos have been taken to prove that UFOs are real and some have even crashed like in Roswell and in Russia just to name a few places.

The NASA astronauts living in the space station have seen and photographed alien crafts near the space station but are forbidden to talk about them. Similarly Chinese and Russian astronauts also claim to have seen and photographed such alien crafts. Numerous pilots both civilian and military have reported seeing UFOs from their planes but the governments in most countries dismiss them as optical illusions or strange cloud formation that may look like an UFO.

Roswell incident:

Back in 1947 there was a crash of an UFO at Roswell, New Mexico in the United States that the military claimed was a weather balloon but hundreds of witnesses claim otherwise. They say that a real spaceship crashed there and there were bodies of aliens that the military recovered in haste so everything was hush hush because this news was very explosive that could upend the natural order of things. Eisenhower was very curious about what had actually happened at Roswell so according to some report the bodies of the aliens were secretly flown to Washington to show him.

Source : Google photo of alien at Roswell

They also claim that the metal parts of the spaceship was not made of any known metal found on earth and was so tough that they failed to drill a hole in it. A nurse who was asked to leave the autopsy room at Roswell said that she saw the bodies of aliens on the table before she was asked to leave. No one knows to this date the truth because the military people are very good at concealing such evidences that were gathered and still insist that it was a weather balloon and there were no aliens or spaceship.

Now each year a horde of alien enthusiasts descend on Roswell and set up a sort of carnival there dressed as aliens and selling all sorts of UFO paraphernalia, make speeches and sell their junk to make money but there are the Bible thumpers in large numbers as well who show up to counter the claims so fisticuffs are not unheard of. On the whole it is all for fun.

Now let us set aside all the talk about aliens visiting us and crashing somewhere just because they could not find a gas station to fill up their tanks or the scared attendant ran away seeing the aliens. No one knows.

However, it is not a stretch of imagination to believe that  there may be many planets where life evolved way ahead of earth and therefore may have developed very advanced  civilization that allow them to make  spacecrafts that can travel at the speed of light ( 299792 kms/second ) and visit other planets for whatever reasons. If their planets have a source of energy like the Sun, then life may have begun there just like here but perhaps millions of years ahead of us. It is foolish to insist that we are alone in the universe and therefore are unique creation of God who took only a few days to make it all.

Now mention this to the Bible thumpers and see their hackles up in a second who claim that it is not possible because the Bible says so and some will give you exact date the world was created ( 4000 years , 8 months and 10 days  etc depending on when you ask them) and to hell with Smithsonian museum showing dinosaurs skeletons tens of millions of years old or actual eggs found in China and in other countries because the Bible does not mention anything about them .

So we will ignore them for the time being and proceed with the hypothesis that Alien may well exist and may be trying to make contact with us  either out of curiosity or for other reasons  that we do not know anything about.

Stephen Hawking has warned us that nothing good will come out of trying to contact the aliens and bad things may happen if we persist. At the rate we are hell bent on degrading the earth by pollution and destroying the Ozone layer and killing off rare animals to make them extinct and cutting down the forests, we may not need the alien help to make the earth uninhabitable. Another war that Nostradamus has predicted will do it for us and wipe us off with the thermo nuclear war so even the aliens will find the planet not worth their visit in the future if we destroy ourselves over some petty argument over sharia laws or whether women should or should not be allowed to drive.

If the aliens exist and there seems to be ample evidence that they do in some form , they may be wondering why humans are so idiotic  that they are fighting over a book written by a so called prophet  1400 years ago  and killing each other every day.

The Irish were also waging a war for a long time over the argument about who is a true Christian and finally came to their senses to make peace but others are still making mischief.  It will be interesting if the Aliens could land their spacecraft at the CNN head quarters and give a live interview on what they think of us and our foolishness of always fighting and quarrelling over petty things and give some sound advice before taking off and leaving no e mail address.  Perhaps they do not use computers and communicate by thought reading millions of miles away.

The alien ships in Afghanistan:

Recently some locals in Afghanistan found a cave and an alien spacecraft stowed deep inside which prompted the US military to investigate the cave. They found some type of craft inside but it was highly radioactive so could not bring it out to examine further.  The experts have decided that the craft is at least 5000 years old meaning the stories in Hindu scripture of Mahabharata and Ramayana were telling the truth after all about people using aircrafts in those days. It could very well be an alien craft but what happened to those aliens and why they decided to stow their craft away deep inside a cave in Afghanistan of all places? No one knows the answers.

The crash of UFO in Siberia:

There is a dossier full of photos of an alien craft shaped like a giant saucer that crash landed in Siberia somewhere and an army brigade was sent to investigate and take photos and films. Some of these photos and films have since been leaked to the U tube and can be seen but Kremlin just sits on this treasure trove of information for reasons of their own so once again it is just like Roswell.

The conspiracy theory:

The conspiracy theorists are plentiful these days and promote the idea there indeed is a conspiracy at the highest level of the Government in the US, Russia and elsewhere to suppress the evidence of the existence of alien crafts and the bodies of aliens found in them because telling the truth will be nothing short of devastating to the Bible or Koran thumpers who are very powerful and hell bent on status quo. Imagine if the truth came out that we are not alone and there are superior and very intelligent beings in the universe who travel at the speed of light or faster and who are more civilized than us and who do not have a religion as we know it. It will upset them to no end because people will start getting ideas and may start doubting all the organized religions and may start joining the religion of the Aliens in droves if the membership is open.

How will the tele evangelists make money if people will not believe them anymore? These people rake in millions so who will kill their goose that lays golden eggs forever? So naturally they are the opponents of the aliens and the UFOs because it will upend all they believe in so that will not do. They have strong influence in the government everywhere and can put pressure on them to deny the existence of aliens and their crafts.

I think Stephen Hawking is right when he warns us of the aliens and says that we should not mess with them and leave them alone.  Even without them we are doomed because bad people will destroy our planet in 1000 years over silly matters like women’s rights or slavery or Kashmir. Now whether or not the aliens will leave us alone is altogether another matter.



Note : My blogs and biography are also published in the links given below.

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Anil’s biography in English.
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The world of LGBTQ

The world of LGBTQ

Source : Google photo

Synopsis : It is true that some people are born with attributes that are different from the rest of us who fall into the category of LGBTQ. They also live a life of their own although in many parts of the world they face discrimination based on religious and other forms of prejudice. Now there is more awareness of their rights and aspirations just like any of us and they are demanding that the world take notice.


Now a days one sees this acronym a lot everywhere. What does it mean and why people talk about it all the time? What it means is lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans sexual and queer which encompasses a whole lot of people who fall under this acronym. I have often wondered why some people are not normal males or females as most people in this world are and why some people are different.

The answer may be found in the hormones specially sex hormones that control our sexuality and make a definitive impact on our body as we grow up one way or the other. The doctors say that when an imbalance occurs meaning the male or female hormones overpower the other the wrong way, the result is what can be termed as the category called LGBTQ. Lesbians are females with sexual affinity for other females, gays are males with affinity for other males previously called homosexuals, bisexuals are people with affinity for both males and females, transsexuals are people who think they belong to the opposite sex like a tom boy girl who behaves like a boy and dresses like one and a transsexual man feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body. The last one is queer which seems to be a general catch all term for anyone else.

In India I have known a Trans sexual fellow who used to act as female in dramas during the Pooja festival and was so natural (with makeup of course) that women were surprised. What we see commonly are people called the Hijras who are men dressed as women and are truly pathetic people. They dance in the streets and beg for money and have a difficult time making a living as they are uneducated and have no skills other than dancing in the streets and mulcting people out of threats of curse if refused money.

They regularly visit the hospitals where the nurses are in cahoots with them to inform them if a male kid is born and find out the address of the parents. They don’t bother if the kid is female. Then they show up at the gate of the parents and dance and create a scandal and a great ruckus if they do not get what they want which is a lot of money and gifts. Often the parents are embarrassed by them and give them what they want just to get rid of them. This because in India a male child is preferred over a female child even today so these hijras do not bother the parents of a girl child. We were spared this scandal when our beautiful baby daughter was born.

In other countries where there is no such preference, they do not have this type of people dancing at your gate for money and cursing if they do not get what they want. I have seen people giving them money just because they are afraid of their curses in India where people are very superstitious and believe that these hijras have special occult power and can indeed make their curses come true. Others may not believe but take the attitude of “just in case” so give them money just to get rid of them because they can be very pesky.

I have been to many countries where LGBTQ people are persecuted especially in Moslem countries and even in some non Moslem countries so they try to hide. In Iran they execute such people and in many other countries they are beaten up or publicly harassed.

In other countries like here in the Philippines, they are not only tolerated, they are given many opportunities like education and jobs that are denied to them elsewhere. They are in movies, in TV programs, in fashion design industries and others work as makeup artists, in hair saloons or massage parlors. Some are educated and teach in universities. Women are quite comfortable with them as most pose no threat to them as sexual predators. This societal acceptance of the LGBTQ people is quite interesting and encouraging that should send a clear message to other countries that persecute them that people who are called LGBTQ are so due to no fault of their own and should be dealt with compassion and understanding. I have seen many school children in Thailand who are boys but wear skirts and lipsticks and who at some point opt for a surgical sex change if their parents can afford.

In India such people are very poor and have no education so the job market is closed to them. They cannot afford the sex change operations so they dance on the streets to beg for money. Now there are societies in big cities like Mumbai where they form an association to help each other out with jobs and shelter but it is not enough. The LGBTQ people who are in the middle class are tolerated but also suffer a silent stigma because they are considered not normal.

Now in a country like Egypt, some women want a girl so badly that they dress up their baby boys in girl’s clothes and make him believe that he is in fact a girl. This may have some effect on the psychology of the boy growing up as girl and may act and behave as one but this is not due to any hormonal imbalance in his body so it is called an acquired behavior. Most will grow out of it later and live a normal life while others may not be lucky so it is very important how parents treat their kids at an early age. This imprint is very important to the child as he or she develops into adulthood later.

The persecution of LGBTQ people at least among the Christians in some countries goes back to the Biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah that the angels destroyed because God considered it a sin not to be normal. The word sodomy comes from it. But the religion is created by man and those who wrote the Bible or other such texts had their own prejudices that are reflected in the texts that they wrote and passed it as the word from God. Jesus never said that he was God but rather a son of God so in that sense we all are children of God. People have always tried to mold their society into a strict form that helped create the religious edicts that are found in many religions.

Let us now leave religion aside for a while and consider the cases of the LGBTQ people purely as a rational human being and see that they are not really responsible for being what they are and should be considered as human beings who need understanding and help in overcoming social stigma or neglect.

We all know that we are born with both male and female hormones in our body but there exists a natural balance between the two at first. When this balance tilts in favor of male hormone ,it makes a man out of the child and a woman when the female hormones are dominant. When the hormones behave in erratic fashion, the result is LGBTQ. Now some doctors offer hormonal treatment to bring back the normal role of hormones but it can be very costly so beyond the reach of most people who may benefit from it. The sex change operations that are available in some countries can also be costly and dangerous if done by incompetent doctors or quacks. So I appreciate the attitude the Filipinos take and who are in fact quite tolerant in general.

Now the argument is raging in the United States about whether or not the toilets should be separate by sex as is mostly the case or should LGBTQ people be given the options to use either male or female toilets. The US army used to discriminate against them but now president Obama has ordered them to stop this practice and treat them fairly which is a good thing he has done.

Chelsea Manning’s case comes to mind. He is serving a long prison term as a whistle blower in a case where he reported the wrongdoings in the army and has now changed his sex to female. There is a huge demand for president Obama to pardon Manning before he leaves office in a few more days and he may still do it. His sex change should not matter and he should be pardoned because he did nothing wrong so goes the argument in his favor.

The LGBTQ people have made some gains in their rights to marry and adopt children and have other rights that have been long denied to them thanks to greater awareness and social clamor for justice to them in the United States but some countries continue to persecute them and treat them unfairly. Definitely more needs to be done in countries like India where there exists a social disapprobation that encourages a passive discrimination.

I think the Filipinos are right in treating the LGBTQ people as  having the same rights as others although I wish they would give them other jobs like script writers or directors than actors in the movies that trivializes their roles as mere clowns. People should not make fun of them but treat them with compassion.


Note : My blogs and biography are also published in the links given below.
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Blogs in Spanish
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Anil’s biography in Japanese
Anil’s biography in French.
Anil’s biography in English.
Anil’s biography in Spanish.
Anil’s biography in German

History of Maha Kumbh Mela

https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulziRAi2q632fxcI-O5

History of Maha Kumbh Mela

Source : Google photo

Synopsis : It is called the greatest religious fair and congregation in the world that takes place in Allahabad in India every 12 years. It is also the oldest religious fair that started thousands of years ago during the Vedic period and has grown to the size of millions of pilgrims who all go to bathe in the holy river Ganga to get Nirvana. The blog traces the ancient history of Maha Kumbh mela.

Kumbh derives its name from the immortal Pot of Nectar, which the Demigods (Devtas) and Demons (Asuras) fought over, described in ancient Vedic scriptures known as the Puranas. It is these Vedic literatures that have stood the test of time, out of which the tradition has evolved into the one that the world now knows as The Kumbh Mela. Legend tells a tale from the bygone days of the universe when the demigods and the demons conjointly produced the nectar of immortality. The demigods, because cursed, were crippled of fear that eventually made them weak. The task being too sturdy for them alone, the demigods made a mutual agreement with the demons to complete it in full and share the nectar of immortality in half. It is said that the demigods and the demons assembled on the shore of the milk ocean that lies in the celestial region. .

For the task of churning the milk ocean, the Mandara Mountain was used as the churning rod, and Vasuki, the king of serpents, became the rope for churning. With the demigods at Vasuki’s tail and the demons at his head, the churning began. At first, the churning of the milk ocean produced a deadly poison which Lord Shiva drank without being affected. As Lord Shiva drank the poison, a few drops fell from his hands which were licked by scorpions, snakes, and similar other deadly creatures. Also, during the churning, the Mandara Mountain began to sink deep into the ocean, seeing which Lord Vishnu incarnated as a great tortoise and supported the mountain on His back. Finally, many hurdles and 1000 years later, Dhanwantari appeared with the Kumbh of immortal nectar in his hands. The demigods, being fearful of the demons' ill intent, forcibly seized the pot with its safety entrusted onto the four Gods - Brahaspati, Surya, Shani, and Chandra.

Demons, after learning that their part of the agreement has not been kept, went after the demigods and for 12 days and 12 nights, the chase continued. Wherever the demigods went with the pot of nectar, fierce fighting ensued. It is believed that during this chase, a few drops from the Kumbh fell at four places - Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nasik. There is also a prevalent legend that it was actually the demons that were being chased by the demigods for 12 days and 12 nights, during which the drops of elixir of immortality fell at these four places. These four places are since believed to have acquired mystical powers. Because 12 days of Gods are equivalent to 12 years for humans; the Kumbh Mela is celebrated once every 12 years in each of the four places - banks of river Godavari in Nasik, river Kshipra in Ujjain, river Ganges in Haridwar, and at the Sangam of Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati in Allahabad, where the drops are believed to have fallen. Millions of devout, come together to partake in ritualistic bathing and ceremonies to cleanse themselves of all sins.  ( source : wikipedia)

My home town of Allahabad ( also known as Prayag  during Vedic period ) is where two mighty rivers of India meet . Ganga and Yamuna meet here and become one river called  Ganga because of its religious significance although technically it is not. The confluence is called Sangam and is of tremendous religious significance to all Hindus. They believe that taking a bath at this confluence during the particular day of the Kumbha Mela held here every 12^th year sets the soul free and it gets Nirvana or freedom from life and death forever.  It is a belief like so many other beliefs but Hindus take it seriously and come to bathe in the river during the Kumbha Mela from all over the world making it the largest congregation of human beings on earth at one time. The sheer number runs into millions. To accommodate them, a vast tent city is created near the river complete with railway station, airstrip, hospitals, vast security network, shops, offices of various services, charity centers, feeding centers and such.

The  sadhus of various  sects  come from all over India in very large numbers and stay in the open or in tents provided for them because most of all it is a religious festival. A group of sadhus called Nagas assemble here in untold numbers. They are totally naked and believe in total renunciation of everything in life including clothes so they smear ashes on their bodies to ward off the winter chill and take pleasure in smoking pot. Marijuana and other drugs are freely available in India to those who wish to smoke pot but it is not socially acceptable so few other than the Naga sadhus smoke it.

The massacre in 1954 :

I was just a small boy when a terrible stampede happened at the fairgrounds in 1954. It was caused by the crowd of Naga sadhus pushing against a very large crowd that overwhelmed them so they stood their ground. The crowd behind did not know what was happening in the front so they kept on coming resulting in a stampede that killed over 5000 people. There was very poor traffic management by the police that year that caused this tragedy so now the traffic is managed in a very efficient way with one way roads and police towers, hovering helicopters and closed circuit TV monitors placed everywhere.  The emergency services have improved with field hospitals and scores of ambulances always ready for any accident.

This vast city of tents is dismantled after a month long celebration so it disappears like magic. The pilgrims head back home and sadhus disappear into the mountains or wherever they came from. The pontoon bridges are disassembled and stored away and life returns to normal. When the rivers rise during the month of August or September rainy season, the entire river banks of several square kilometers is submerged leaving no trace of the immense city that was set up there a few months ago.

The Kumbha Mela is rotated between four cities as written above but Allahabad is the most important one. Here a king called Harshvardhan used to come in ancient times to donate all his wealth to the poor. When he had completely given away all his money, people still kept coming so he gave his ornaments one by one until he was left with his loin cloth that too was given away so he stood naked until he was given a shawl to cover himself up.

So the spirit of Harshvardhan still lives during such times when poor are fed by the charitable people or organizations everyday and are given other assistance. Some are given woolen blankets to ward off freezing weather and others are given medical help freely if needed.

The government spends millions of dollars on Kumbha Mela as a gift to the nation and invests heavily in the development of infrastructure and personnel. If you have a chance to visit Allahabad during the Kumbha Mela , you will have a life long experience that you will never forget.

I will post here a link to the powerpoint that I have put together to show you the majesty and the grandeur of the fair so that you will have an idea of the immensity of the fair. It is the biggest religious fair in the world.

Link to the powerpoint  Maha Kumbha Mela

https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulziRAi2q632fxcI-O5

 Note : My blogs and biography are also published in the links given below.

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Blogs in French

Blogs in German

Blogs in Japanese

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Anil’s biography in Japanese

Anil’s biography in French.

Anil’s biography in English.

Anil’s biography in Spanish.

Anil’s biography in German