So little time

So little time

Synopsis : Time has different meaning for different people but we all agree that it passes swiftly for some while slowly for others. I emphasize the value of time in our life no matter who we are and how we can make most use of it by leaving behind something for the next generation.


I often think of human life as a blink in the long history of humanity that dates back to our ancestor Lucy in the Rift valley of Africa millions of years ago. We have come a long way since then and have made progress our ancestors could not even dream of. From simple nomadic life of hunting gathering to the establishment of settled communities to grow food for a stable supply led to the development of civilizations along the source of permanent water of Nile, Indus and Yangtze and elsewhere that have now become a part of the world history.

All along the waterways grew settled communities in many parts of the world where the irrigation led to the development of agriculture and animal husbandry because the nomadic life based on constant hunting for food and water was harsh and very unpredictable so gradually people settled down in places where they could grow their food that led to the development of permanent settlements.

Benares in India is known to be the earliest such city that has been in existence since ancient times mentioned in the Hindu scriptures.

This preamble is necessary to understand that our history as humans is ancient and has been in the making since the time we stood up on our two feet and began the long journey to the present times. But our recorded history whether in parchment, clay tablets, palm leaves or etched in stone like in Angkor Wat is only a few thousand years old that tells us how it evolved although Lucy was born millions of years ago leaving no trace except a small skull fragment or a few bones that were accidentally found in Africa.

So what are a few thousands of years in the long history of mankind that runs to millions of years if not a blink? Before Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa , the settlements along the Tigris and Euphrates or Nile or the rivers in China, very little is known about how our ancestors lived, where they lived and what they did to survive except the cave paintings in some countries, the bone fragments or some tools found during some excavations in various parts of the world.

Because of these excavations that continue even today, we have gathered  some information and artifacts that shed some light on the past that stretches to hundreds of thousands of years and I am sure more knowledge will be gained in the future.
So keeping these facts in mind we can now see how short our life is and how quickly we live through it. It is true that the average lifespan has improved in the last hundred years due to the advances in medicine and science so people live a bit longer than their ancestors now although this varies from country to country and the rate of development there including the healthcare.

I am constantly surprised how fast the time passes for the most of the humanity. A day passes into a week, then month and then year in such a frenzy of speed that we do not realize until we are ready to take our last breath and wonder how quickly our life passes. We all recall our childhood in some detail, our teenage years, our formative years passing through schools and colleges, then perhaps our employment to earn a living, getting married and starting our own family, watch our children grow and pass through the same stages we all passed through to get to where we are now and one day we realize that so much time has passed since our birth that for many pass too quickly depending on how challenging their life was.

For the people who are poor and struggling to survive to meet their basic needs, the days may seem long and never ending so their whole life may seem to be a long stretch of misery that ends only when they die.

In the primitive societies where the struggle to survive is more acute than in the developed societies, they do not seem to keep track of time because time means so little to them. The harder the struggle, the less they are interested in keeping track of time that is kept by those who are not struggling so hard and can indulge in recording time, history and the development of our society.

You cannot develop art, science, technology, history, philosophy, literature, music or anything related to knowledge on empty stomach so our ancestors cannot be blamed for not keeping records or develop the knowledge that we have now because they had other priorities. Most of the knowledge we as humans have gained and developed in agriculture, science and technology are less than 10000 years old which is relatively a very short period of time when seen in the context of when humans appeared first on earth.

So I am essentially writing about those people who value time because they can afford to. Yet even for most of such people who value time, there seems to be a miscomprehension in their minds the real value of time because they did not make full use of the time they had until it was too late. Some realized it on their deathbed and others not even then and passed into oblivion leaving nothing behind to others to ponder on their lives.

Luckily some of our ancestors used their time on earth wisely and went on creating monuments and pyramids that recorded the history in stone but they could afford to and had the power to do so. No one could build a pyramid or the wall of China or Angkor Wat without the sponsorship of rich and powerful people. The kings and queens could desire anything no matter how impossible it may have been and made it happen but it was beyond the means and aspiration of the ordinary.

So what do ordinary people do to understand the value of time and how they can benefit from the short time life provides them? How can we leave behind something for the next generation that they could benefit from?

I have been told by some people that the ordinary people who just live their day to day life and die one day leave no trace of their existence and simply vanish from the collective memories of those who knew them. It happens in every family where the second and the generations to come know little or nothing of their ancestors because they left no records or trace of them. The old photos fade and disintegrate, the old records if kept collect dust and one day someone throws it out as trash, the old houses where so much history was written or made may one day be sold and demolished to make way for a new building and so on.

I have been told that ordinary people just pass through this world leaving no trace because they had achieved nothing and left no legacy worth writing about or preserving but somehow I know that no ordinary person is truly ordinary. We all have stories to tell if someone cares to listen. We all have struggled through our lives in our own way and have gained experience and have seen the world albeit perhaps in a limited fashion that we could share to throw light on a period long past and dimly remembered.

I know that my father once told us about the day he was going to his office pedaling his bicycle past the central park in our home town when he heard gun shots from the park. He was afraid and pedaled on his old bicycle faster to get away not knowing at that time why guns were being fired. It became known only later in the day that he had witnessed a historic event in India when Chandra Shekhar Ajad was surrounded by the British police and was shot dead there in the park that day. ( Read my blog My hero : Chandra Shekhar Ajad here)
He must have seen many historic things and travelled all over India but never really told us anything so all his rich experience of living under the British rule and the freedom struggle for independence movement of Bose and Gandhi that he saw or knew about was lost when he died because he did not write about it or leave something behind for the next generation to read. He had a diary of deaths, births, marriage and some other bits of information in this diary that I brought here and translated and it was great deal more than any other family that kept no such records so I thank my father for leaving something for us to read.

I was inspired by my father and mother who kept some records of their lives and the stories I heard from them in bits and pieces over the long years that made me take up the task of writing my biography and  later the blogs that I write.

I was watching many videos on the life and struggle of Netaji Bose recently on which I just published a blog called  A hero like no other: Bose  when I heard many songs that were included in the Bengali  and Hindi versions of his Biographical movies. These were the songs my father used to sing when we were children because these songs were the patriotic songs written and sung during the struggle for the freedom of India although I have forgotten the lyrics. Netaji himself made some of these songs as the marching songs for his 50000 strong army that went on to liberate parts of India but the later generation  forgot them. They are now being revived through many movies that have now been made on Netaji .

I believe that we all have stories to tell no matter how insignificant they may seem to some but these stories if kept record of shed light on the past that people so soon forget. Only the records kept can enlighten people. We do not build pyramids or the Wall of China but in our own small way we too can keep records of our own experience in life in the form of a diary or a memoir that someday some people may read to know the forgotten chapter of our history.

It is the collective memory of the common people that creates history and keeps record of it. Ask any INA soldier still living what stories he can tell about the freedom struggle and he will tell you about his personal experience of the march for freedom, the bombings by the British planes and deaths of thousands of INA soldiers, their hunger, disease and death through injuries. He will tell you how Bose inspired the army through his speeches and leadership.

I have written about my own experience in Vietnam during the war in my biography where I saw the bombings, death and destruction, mutilated bodies of Vietcongs, explosions and the tragedy with my own eyes. I could relate to the fact that the US soldiers there were on drugs that Netaji advised Ho Chi Minh to send to the Americans to weaken them because I saw one night how intoxicated with drugs a US soldier was guarding a post in Saigon in 1968.

So everybody has some stories to tell. I have been urging my friends who are so rich in their experience to write their stories but I have failed to persuade them. Perhaps they are afraid to put in words their own experiences for some reason or perhaps they just can’t bring themselves to write anything on paper because not everybody is a writer. Yet there are ways to make their stories public if only they take the first step to tell their stories.

One day we all have to die and become ash to be buried or spread as fertilizer but wouldn’t it be nice if we all could leave behind our stories to enrich the world of knowledge?

Some people collect books that they donate later to a library while others collect music that too they donate to some music library. Some collect movies in VHS or CDs, DVDs that someday may become a part of a video library while others leave behind their collection of dolls that delight the future children. Some take photos in black and white or color of historic events that may become a part of the historic archive somewhere. I know that I took a photo of Fidel Castro in Mostaganem, Algeria in 1972 that I still keep to remind me of that day when I met my hero in person. Some people leave behind their paintings they made or other art work they created that may someday be displayed in some art galleries.

Some people leave behind their music and their musical instruments that the future generation can enjoy so there are many ways one can leave behind something for the posterity but the time is too short so make haste and do something while you still can. Human life is too short because it passes like a blink in the collective radar of humanity and disappears soon after it appears. Time is like sand that passes through the hourglass relentlessly.

After all there is so little time.

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A hero like no other : Bose

Source : Google photo of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

Synopsis :  A great man was born in India who came from a well to do family that sent him to England for higher studies. But he saw the British as oppressors in his homeland and vowed to dedicate his life to make India free from the British rule. He suffered jail terms, hunger and privations and was hunted like animals by the British when he escaped from his house arrest one day but they never caught him. He sought help from Hitler and the Japanese and formed the Indian National Army in Singapore that marched through Burma to reach India where he gave the British battle and planted the Indian flag for the first time on Indian soil. Then he mysteriously disappeared. This is the story of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQXNNdeL4q0

A documentary on the life of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose (Source : U tube video)

Link to the video :Bose

When it comes to India and its freedom struggle that led to its independence from Great Britain in 1947, only one name comes forward that is still uttered with great reverence , absolute respect and almost Godlike devotion by hundreds of millions of people in the sub continent . He is none other than Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

I have written about the great heroes of India in  my previous blogs ( Read My heroes: Netaji Bose )where I included Netaji Bose but I felt that mentioning him only in a short blog did not do justice to his story so today I bring you his story in greater detail and four videos that I post here starting with the first one called Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and two other videos called

The forgotten army Part 1 to 3 

https://youtu.be/kcgLbAbzzGY
Source : U Tube video

Forgotten army Part 4 to 6 

https://youtu.be/dOEijhpOFko
Source : U tube video

He was simply known as Netaji Bose meaning leader Bose who single handedly organized the Indian National Army ( INA ) in Singapore and vowed in front of his 50000 strong army that he will fight to the last drop of his blood to make India free from British rule and shameful subjugation of a once proud nation that gave birth to Buddha ,Krishna and Ram. His battle cry was Lets go to Delhi , Give me your blood, I will give you freedom.

Never in the history of freedom struggle in India had a leader like Bose appeared  to challenge the British rule through armed struggle although the history recalls that the freedom struggle started long ago in 1857 when the Queen of Jhansi took on the challenge and gave her life. That revolution that the British disdainfully called the Sepoy mutiny and crushed ruthlessly was a wake up call for them because they had never imagined that such a revolution could take place simultaneously all over India.

They suffered serious losses at first in Lucknow, Meerut , Delhi among others where thousands of British were killed  but they were able to rally the loyal troops  later and defeated the revolutionary army led by the Queen of Jhansi and others.
Thus India slumbered under the heavy yoke of British occupation posing no serious threat to the British until the early 1900s when once again many Indians took up arms to fight the British but they were also crushed and hanged.

Then came a new kind of leader who was charismatic, great orator, of majestic great  personality , educated in England and a great military strategist called Bose. India had never seen someone like him before and neither had the British but they were about to learn some hard lessons that would ultimately force them out of India in 1947.

The fall of Singapore in the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army during the second world war was described by Winston Churchill as the single most devastating defeat of the British army in their long history of Colonial period from which they would never recover to save their empire.

They were taking significant losses in England from Hitler and now in Singapore their defeat by the Japanese seemed cataclysmic because the Japanese army captured over 90000 prisoners that included Indian, British, Australians and New Zealand soldiers in a very short period of time. The Indian soldiers were separated from the rest and were given the choice of joining the newly formed Indian National Army  (INA) that was formed to fight the British in India. They just needed a leader like Bose so his arrival from Germany where he failed to get support from Hitler was the impetus the INA needed to start their military campaign .

Bose had the fearless samurai spirit that galvanized the INA troops as a single lethal fighting machine that would be victorious in many battles and also lose some of them but they were able to conquer Imphal and Kohima and planted the Indian national flag for the  first time in India. The history tells us that these victories  were short lived as their supply of food and ammunitions dwindled in the jungles of Burma and they were forced to retreat after losing some 25000 men and women.

Bose was the first leader to form the Rani Laksmi Bai Brigade of young women and trained them to fight shoulder to shoulder with men. The two videos posted above tell you their stories about the forgotten army called the INA so I do not need to repeat here their stories.
But the demise of the INA and the dissolution of the army had serious repercussions for the now ex soldiers of the INA who could not see a clear future for them because India was still under the British occupation but unknown to them, a wild fire of patriotism had been lit that spread like crazy in India. 

It energized the Indian soldiers serving under the British that caught the British by total surprise . The widespread British Navy uprising that followed the demise of the INA was the last nail in the coffin of the British empire that now shook in its boots . They had underestimated Bose and his victories in Imphal and Kohima that had caused the chain reaction in India now.

Here is the last video with link to show that Netaji Bose and his INA armed struggle and victories in Andaman, Nicobar, Kohima and Imphal  decided the fate of British in India that forced them out. It was definitely not Gandhi and his non violent movement that brought freedom to India.

https://youtu.be/luVkby03xH4

Source : U tube video

The independence of India had nothing to do with Gandhi and his non violence movement to rid India of the British but the Congress party in power since Independence in 1947 made the propaganda that told the whole world the lies and marginalized the great freedom fighter Bose after forcing his resignation as the Congress party chief and then telling all Indians and the world how great Gandhi was.

They paid Richard Attenborough  a great deal of money to make the purely propaganda film calling Gandhi where not a single mention was made of Bose and his efforts to free India which made the Indians angry so the movie was premiered in Manila where the Filipinos did not know anything about Bose and his freedom struggles. Gandhi still remains a popular topic in churches there where the padres repeat the same lies they were fed by the Indian Congress party. If only they knew who and what Gandhi was, they would change their mind.
This narrative continues even today but the Indians have never forgotten their greatest hero and national leader Bose who had stood up to British and had openly challenged their authority in India through armed struggle.

British Prime Minister Attlee had admitted during his visit to Lucknow and Kolkata after Indian  independence that the victories of INA in the north east and the subsequent navy revolt in Mumbai and elsewhere in India made them decide to leave India. They had totally underestimated Bose and his influence in the British army and navy where most soldiers were Indians. They could no longer depend on them to protect their colony that was the crown jewel of their empire.The soldiers of INA were the former members of the British army who had thousands of sympathizers in India who were willing to defect to INA at the opportune time.

Note : The capture of some INA soldiers and their subsequent public trial at the Red Fort, Delhi so incensed the patriotic Indians that it spread to the British Navy officers all over India who revolted .

The Word War II had weakened England to the extent that she needed serious help from the Americans after the war to rebuild their country so they were not at all prepared to face such great challenge from Bose now so they cut their losses and left India.
The Congress party did not stop at marginalizing Bose even after independence and spread more lies about him. They said that Bose had died in the plane crash near Taipei but this is now proved to be false. The recently declassified documents running some 80000 pages suggest that the Indian government knew that Bose had not died in the plane crash but did nothing to contact Russia that said that they had dossier on Bose  that could shed more light on his activities there after the war.

Nehru was mortally afraid of Bose and ordered surveillance on Bose relatives in Kolkata for decades after independence to know the whereabouts of Bose so they intercepted their letters and followed them around. Nehru did not believe that Bose had died in Taipei but did not ask the Soviets to provide the dossier on him so Bose remained unknown and forgotten. This was deliberate.

Then one day an unknown sadhu appeared in a small town of Uttar Pradesh called Faizabad who some people say had a striking resemblance to Bose but with thick white beard and long white hair. Read about this unknown saint in my blog called My heroes- Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose .





The nameless saint  ( L )  and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose  ( R ) Source -Google photo

The nameless saint did not receive visitors except a very few and would speak to them from behind a curtain so no one really saw him except his doctor and nurse or the cook. But few people who had a chance to see him and talk to him came away convinced that he was Netaji Bose himself and no other.

He talked to them in detail about his dealings with Hitler, the Japanese officials, his stay in the  Soviet Russia that had given him asylum, his talks with Ho Chi Minh whom he had advised to make heroin and other drugs freely available in South Vietnam to weaken the Americans. I have seen myself how addicted US soldiers became to drugs when one night I walked up to a soldier who was guarding an important American outpost and found him totally conked out on drugs. He did not have the energy to pull the trigger of his M16 gun. Some say that more than 30 % of the US soldiers were on drugs.

Read this excerpt from wikipedia here ...

"Now that India was free, Netaji Bose turned his attention to make the enemy intelligence weaker, which will protect India indirectly. America could not win any war in South East Asia, thanks to Russian intelligence and Bose’s expertise. He was a master of disguise and using unusual battle tactics to fool the enemy. The Chinese - Ho Chi Minh's pride of 9 generals and a shadow behind them had the “Shadow” of Bose which helped them curb American and British intelligence in middle east and crush American in Vietnam war through Guerrilla fights, information warfare and other cunning methods (more than 30% of American army was on Drugs for example because Bose suggested Chinese to dump Heroine and Cocaine in Vietnam)."

I have written about the drug mule called the Orient express in chapter three of my biography so it may be worth reading about my stay in Vietnam during the war. He  said that he was present in Paris when the US- Vietnam peace treaty was signed on Jan. 27 in 1973 because Ho Chi Minh wanted him to. He talked about many things that only he was privy to about the INA and its officers. It is said that he was instrumental in arranging the escape of Dalai Lama to India from Tibet.

The saint without name also talked about why he wanted to remain obscure even if he gave ample hint that he was Bose. He said that it was not in the national interest for him to come out because it may cause a social upheaval that the country does not need.

It is known that prominent Indian and other people went to see him including Indira Gandhi but no one knows what transpired. Then one day the unknown saint died and his ashes were buried in front of Ram Bhavan in Faizabad where a memorial has been built but without a name as per his last wishes. His devotees put flowers on his samadhi everyday .
After his death a total of 26 trunks were found in his room that were taken away by the government and kept under lock and key at the treasury building until a judge in Allahabad high court ordered the trunks to be opened to find what it contained.

The contents of the trunks surprised everyone. They found numerous family photo graphs of Bose and his family in Kolkata , hand written letters and documents from them to him, his Rolex watch, his reading glasses, his pen, his binoculars from Germany, his pipe that he used to smoke , numerous books, magazines and clippings from numerous news papers where his news and photos had appeared in India and abroad . There are so many personal items that no one other than Bose would keep like this after so many years confirming that he was indeed the man himself.

The two photos posted side by side show a clear resemblance  but the mystery still remains . The items found in 26 trunks will now be placed in a museum somewhere but Bose has made his place in the Indian heart permanent and his statues adorn almost every town square in the country. The Kolkata International airport that was previously called Dum Dum airport is now named after him and his grand statue stands in front of the Red Fort in Delhi  where he had dreamed of arriving one day with his victorious INA army.



Source : The statue of Netaji Bose in front of the Red Fort in Delhi

The Gumnam baba or the saint without name  has now become ash but his dream of independent India came true when he was still alive and went to his eternal sleep knowing that he had done his duty to free his motherland.  A grateful nation agrees.
The samadhi of Gumnam baba ( unknown saint) in Faizabad , India



Source : Google photo of what is believed to be Netaji's last resting place.

Note : The Prime Minister of India Mr. Modi will raise the INA flag on the Red Fort in Delhi for the first time on October 21, 2018 that was the dream of Netaji Bose. Old and feeble INA soldiers in their 80s and 90s some in wheel chairs and others in crutches will attend the ceremony that honors their hero and their sacrifice for the liberation of India.The INA has now been recognized as the legitimate army for the national independence meaning that the surviving members of the INA and their widows will receive pensions and other benefits due to them retroactively. They also receive free medical care and assistance in housing and education for their children.


A national museum displaying the memorabilia of Netaji Bose and that of INA and depicting the history of struggle of INA will soon open in Delhi.



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Empathy and apathy

Synopsis: Empathy is the opposite of apathy that helps people understand each other better. Without empathy, the apathy takes over and creates the barrier between the people that can make people antisocial, selfish and narcissistic . Empathy for others is a virtue while apathy is a weakness many people suffer from.

Source : Google photo of empathy and apathy



These two should not be confused. Apathy comes from indifference and  no empathy or loss of it comes from  a disassociated sense of feelings for others. This loss of empathy can be due to a cumulative negative experiences with the people in the country you live in. These bad experiences  can make a person lose his sympathy for an entire population while apathy comes from total indifference towards others which may or may not be due to bad experiences. Often the two are interlinked but not always.

If you go to Europe and  feel  very alienated ,it is not because people have no empathy for you but because  they are indifferent towards anyone who is not like them. They will avoid eye contact and move on because they think that you are a foreigner and do not speak their language so they will ignore you. This can change if you speak their language.Then you will notice a change in their attitude and behaviour. I have no problem in France because I speak French  but Germany or other countries may pose a problem  as they do not speak English or a very few do.

Only sometimes people will overcome their frigid attitude and warm up to you if you let them .I was very well received in Sicily where I  accidentally wandered into an Italian camp where I played with children ,taught them a few games and their mothers or grand mothers smiled and fixed my shirt with missing buttons. Kids shed tears when it was my time to leave. But I admit ,such instances are rare so I suppose I was lucky.

The apathy and loss of empathy for people can be a barrier to better human relationship anywhere and leads to great misunderstanding between people. It throws up walls that are very hard to bring down and results in isolation. I have noticed that some Europeans and Americans living in very isolated locations in Sudan behaved in very unfriendly manner  as if they were not happy to see any one and preferred their isolation. Others  quickly turned their back on you once they knew that you were not  hiring them.Among the locals only the Syrians and the Egyptians were friendly.

In France the waiters were often unfriendly even if you spoke good French because most of them were Spanish or Portuguese or from non French speaking countries who were culturally different from French but the French people are charming and can become lifelong friends once the language barrier is overcome.

This warmth in people is often a cultural phenomenon. In some countries people are naturally warm and welcoming even if you do not speak their language. I found the Japanese, Taiwanese and people from Hong Kong very nice and friendly. The Thais are also very nice but in your own country you will find very nasty and mean people who will take advantage of you ,cheat you, rob you and let you down big time. The people who tried to harm me were Indians and not foreigners.

Now I will return to the notion of apathy in people. I think apathy leads to ignorance because you can not learn anything about the other person if  you are indifferent to them. This is the root cause of ignorance which in turns leads to prejudices. People show their prejudices by making derogatory jokes about the Sikhs or the Pollacks. The prejudices separate people and it is very hard to overcome. If you only study the American history, you will learn how deep the prejudices were against the Hawaiians as practised by the missionaries or against the native Americans who were abused and ill treated by ignorant, illiterate immigrants who were out to grab their land by any means.

Even today prejudices are rampant against the African Americans,Mexicans and many other people because of ignorance about them, their culture and their history as people. It all comes from apathy and indifference.As I wrote earlier, the apathy is not limited to poor people who have to struggle daily for their existence but it is also found among the middle class who are educated and not exactly poor.

It is true that the internet has opened up the world  in a way that was not possible only a decade ago but it is limited to only those who are computer literate. In India, children are far more computer literate than adults because they have computers in high school now and every one has access to it. They learn how to type by trial and error and soon get proficient. This is not so with adults who are in their 50s or 60s  because most of them never learned how to type, drive a car or do many other things young people do naturally.

The computer penetration is very low in India among the middle class not because they can not afford it but because they do not know how to use them so  they feel no need for it. The entire world of knowledge is at your fingertips but you have to learn how to use your fingers. I tried opening up a Yahoo account for my brother so that we could e mail each other but he does not know how to type. He does not miss what he does not know and has no idea what he is missing but he is among the millions who are like him. The point is that apathy, indifference and lack of empathy for others are somehow inter related that creates vicious cycle that is very hard to break out of.

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Cultural barriers.

Synopsis : People who do not travel or do so very infrequently  always want to live in their own comfort zone that is hard to find elsewhere. Such people have a difficult time to overcome the cultural barrier but it need not be so. One can learn a great deal from others and practice the good values and manners thus learned.

Cultural barriers



Source : Google photo 


One often comes across this topic that is almost universal in nature and exists everywhere yet seldom discussed  to find ways to overcome. Most people do not realize that this barrier exists and can be fun to overcome and is true even for those who travel to various countries and shy away from local culture,food or fashion.

I have often wondered why and after some reflection come to the conclusion that most people are afraid to try something new in another culture or even new to them in their own country. The automatic defense mechanism kicks in when they come across something they are not used to seeing or doing in their own comfort zones and look down on anything strange.

I can understand when it comes to food, most people will not eat what they are not used to eating everyday so brave is the person who tries something new . An American woman asked why Indians do not eat beef which is so delicious  . I answered that  food is what people eat. If something is not considered food , they will not eat it even if it is considered delicious by others. The Cambodians chew fried spiders and say it is wonderful but others may  not agree. Tibetans consider very old eggs buried in snow a delicacy but others will not touch it.

So food is a sensitive subject on which everyone has their own opinion and no two will agree on what is food and what is delicious and what is not.
An American who never had a crab in his life was given one to eat so he chewed on it shell and all and tried to swallow it wondering why people eat it. So it helps to learn from others how to eat a certain food and enjoy it too. The simple solution is to ask or imitate others.It is foolish to look for pork in Moslem countries or beef in a Hindu country because these foods are taboo there.

In Africa If you go to remote rural villages, you will notice that they eat only what they grow and will not eat something new. I brought some potatoes to such a village in Mali where they do not grow potatoes so no one would eat it. Once I fried some shrimp chips in California that a Vietnamese friend had given me and eagerly I offered to my housemates who were all Americans. No one touched it because they had never eaten shrimp chips and were suspicious.

Once in Vietnam I was offered some fried rat meat by the farmers in the delta who were surprised that I could not eat it when to them it was so delicious. So the definition of delicious varies from country to country and even within a country that is as large as India.
But the cultural barrier is not just about food. It is a mindset that finds it hard to accept anything new to them . One girl in India laughed at the rectangular Japanese footwear because she was not used to it therefore it was not right and laughable.

Similarly some Asians will whistle and make cat calls if they see a person wearing a sari or kurta pyjama walking down the street but a woman wearing very tight shorts cut to the crotch will not get a second look. Such a woman will get cat calls or worse in India where women must not show their legs. In Mali a woman may be bare breasted but the legs must be covered.

I have met a lot of people from different countries who are so ill at ease  to overcome the cultural barrier and will not even try. A friend of mine visiting us in the Philippines asked if I knew any Indian here and was very surprised that I did not know anyone.To him it was natural to seek out other Indians from his region in other countries so that he could speak his language . So some people no matter how much they travel abroad , can not overcome the barrier that separates them from the locals. Again it is the mindset more than anything else.

People from the developed world are always told that under developed countries are not clean, not hygienic and the water must not be trusted .While this is true in some countries, it is not universally true. I have seen people urinating in metro stations in New York or sleeping on card boards there while the metro  stations in Mexico city is sparkling clean and the cars are new and shiny yet Americans are told that Mexico is an under developed country and  Tijuana dogs have more fleas than thieves in Los Angeles .

This comes from prejudice that almost everybody has. It is fashionable to think that they are the best so look down on others as a consequence. But the prejudice comes from ignorance  and it is a learned experience. Parents, neighbors, school mates, classmates, teachers, media , they all participate in perpetuating prejudices that children learn at an early age and in turn they teach it to the next generation.

The prejudice against other people, other races of different skin color , who eat different food, speak different languages, wear different clothes and have different body languages all are subject to prejudice that often leads to tragic consequences.

The Sikhs in the US are often mistaken for Moslems and beaten up just because they wear turban and look different but it all comes from prejudice that comes from ignorance. It is not hard to find any information about Sikhs or anyone in the internet  but often the prejudice is practiced by the uneducated grassroots people in most countries although not limited to the grass-roots by any means.

I have often noticed a lack of curiosity or interest about other countries, their culture or people in the so-called educated class. They were not interested in my slide show about other countries and often laughed at the bare breasted Malian women  derisively because to them the women must not be so.

They could not or would not see beyond the breasts what was beautiful about Malians or Haitians  and said that it did not matter to them because they could not relate to the subject as it was beyond their comprehension or outside their comfort zone. While it is surprising that people can be so ignorant in this day and age of internet, it is not surprising if you understand the mind-set of people that develops over a life time and constantly fortified by others who have similar views.

The teacher of our son ridiculed him in the class when he said that  he lived in Haiti and the people are called Haitians. She said  it should be Ha tee an . This was pure ignorance and arrogance because she could not accept that she as a teacher did not know how to pronounce Haitian and could not believe that a five-year old did.

I think all the human problems come from this lack of interest coupled with ignorance that is the root cause of prejudice. The racism   is rooted in it and continues unabated  in spite of people living in a connected world. By racism I do not only mean  racism as practiced by the whites but also as practiced by non whites towards others whom they consider inferior to them. Thus racism exists everywhere in one form or other.

There is a story about a Filipino woman who brought her African-American  friend or boy friend to her village where they all were shocked  until a small boy fell into a well and the American without the slightest hesitation jumped into the well and saved the little boy from drowning. After that people formed a very different opinion of the visitor .

A teenage girl was raped and brutally beaten by a gang of people in a bus late at night in India .She later died of her injuries causing a national uproar but the question to ask was  why she was raped and beaten. Such acts of horrible crime is a manifestation of something else. It is a manifestation of a deep-rooted belief that a young girl should not be out with her boy friend late at night therefore she must be bad, immoral and should be punished .

People always act according to their beliefs right or wrong. Women were hung from lamp posts in Iran just for wearing lipstick and high heels therefore must be immoral and thus punished. A young girl was beaten to death in Pakistan  per order of the village council because she helped her friend elope with her loved one.

Talibans routinely kill girls for going to school because they were taught by mollahs that girls should not be educated. It took a very brave girl like Malala to bring this sort of prejudice to the notice of the world almost at the cost of her own life. If parents teach their children such prejudices then who is to teach the parents and the mollahs?

Such people create their own barriers and justify  them by citing  obsolete  edicts and prehistoric laws that are still practiced by people who have not been able to adjust to the modern world. The consequences are tragic. Anyone who does not agree with them is killed.

In some parts of the world, people have come a long way since the days of lynching the black person just because he looked at a white person. President Obama is a good example of that change  but it does not mean the hate and racism is dead.

As long as people fail to overcome their own fears , hate and prejudices will continue because they fail to understand that the world can be better place when people overcome their own barriers be they cultural, emotional, religious or any other self-created wall.
A person who does not want to be taught can not be taught. You can drag a mule to water but can not make him drink if he does  not want to. It is the same with people.

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

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Anil’s biography in French.
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My heroes : Nelson Mandela

My heroes : Nelson Mandela

Synopsis : He was a great man who spent 28 years in a South African jail because he wanted a free South Africa where all races could live in peace and harmony under a democracy for all. In jail he suffered and did not know when or if they will kill him but he persevered in his belief that one day he will achieve what he had fought for so long and hard. That he did and became a legend.





Source : Google photo


Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/mænˈdɛlə/;[1] 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.

A Xhosa, Mandela was born in Mvezo to the Thembu royal family. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of the Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid—a system of racial segregation that privileged whites—he and the ANC committed themselves to the apartheid government's overthrow.

Mandela was appointed President of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 anti-apartheid Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government. In 1962, he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial.

Mandela served 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island, and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure, and with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk negotiated an end to apartheid and organised the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became President. Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country's racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses.

Economically, Mandela's administration retained its predecessor's liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty, and expand healthcare services. Internationally, he acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a second presidential term and in 1999 was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the radical left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid's supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism. Widely regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours—including the Nobel Peace Prize—and became the subject of a cult of personality. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, and described as the "Father of the Nation".( Source : wikipedia)

No one in the modern history of struggle for freedom evokes as much emotion as the mention of the name Mandela who was imprisoned for 27 years by the apartheid regime. He lost his youth and health in that prison and came out an old man ,frail and suffering from eye illness but with the heart of  a lion. His incarceration for such a long period of time was ignored by the successive US and British governments  out of pure apathy for the cause of freedom in South Africa. This only changed when the South African president  de Klerk negotiated an end to the hated regime of apartheid with Mandela and released him from prison.

The courage of Nelson Mandela to fight on for so long even in prison for the freedom for his country is  not to be under estimated by any one. He gave the world a shining example of what dedication to the cause of freedom means and how much sacrifice he had to make to make it happen. But he will be remembered for his act of reconciliation with his former tormentors  and for his effort to rebuild a non racial post apartheid South Africa where everyone has a fair shake in life. He is definitely my hero.

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

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Blogs in French
Blogs in Spanish
Blogs in German
Blogs in Japanese
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