Places of worship

Lots has happened over the past couple of days. I have travelled to Shirdi by road from Hyderabad and from there to Jamnagar. It’s quite a journey.

All through there have been various thoughts in my head. Since it is my blog, I suppose I can put them out here!

First of all, my fundamental thoughts regarding places of worship - what is their purpose? Do temple authorities (management) have any duties towards the place they are located in (i.e. city/village etc.)?

AFAIK, places of worship are there for primarily two purposes: a) To provide an atmosphere of peace and quiet so that visitors can clear their mind and recharge spiritually.

b) To provide spiritual learning and profess the teachings of the lord of the place.

What I find to be amazingly strange at places of worship now is that neither are achieved. They are not peaceful as hundreds and thousands of people visit these places on a regular basis. They are now surrounded by more security than you would have seen at the average work place and definitely more than is warranted. This is the immediate atmosphere of the temple and the atmosphere outside it, I don’t have to describe. There are hundreds of vendors trying to seek your attention and sell u stuff that is neither needed for your visit nor things that you can use. As a visitor, I find their behavior to be intrusive and I find it to be highly unwelcome. So the first target of achieving peace of mind goes out the window!

The second target of professing the teachings… well that also I must say is barely if at all done. Yes, there are books u can find and read up, but there is literally no one who actually shares any of the teachings. The visit to the temple and surroundings is more like a crowded museum visit (with few artifacts to see) than anything else. One more thing surprised me. That the place could go completely against the teachings of the great person it is dedicated to.

Sai Baba in his avatar on Earth essentially left behind a few lessons for the modern man.

1) Treat everyone as equal cuz in the eyes of God, everyone is. - No favoritism based on financial status!

2) A truly secular belief that “Sab ka maalik ek” - a collectiveness and connectedness to the single entity - God!

3) Give to those who need for sharing is what spreads love, joy and creates more well being.

4) Sai Baba led a very simple life and taught the virtues of simplicity. In fact Baba quite often spoke against excesses!

5) Baba was a man who practiced Yoga (various kinds)

Unfortunately in Shirdi now, we have special Darshan (for those who pay money) and VIP passes to see Aartis, which were not there a few years ago. The temple top and other parts inside the temple are coated in gold (excesses!), there are no community lunches/dinners served (and definitely none for the really poor), did I already mention the intrusive security - ur inability to bring in cell phones whereas even video cameras were allowed just 6-7 years ago. Obviously, the temple authorities are not in conformance with the teachings of Baba himself. It has become more of a commercial place with quite a pull rather than a place of spiritual freedom. There is no one really preaching what lessons Baba left behind, so there is no Yoga, there are no sessions where stories of Baba are read alound, there is no place one can go and learn more about Baba and his teachings. Perhaps the reason I am being so critical is because the place is deviating away from certain core philosophies and needs to be checked!
Unfortunately, this is the case with just about every place of worship (at least Hindu holy places) I know of.

Coming to second question of the role of temple authorities on the city/town village, I believe it has far more bearing than anything else. Rather than just make the town about the temple, developing the town in other ways with the cash that comes in is not just useful, I believe it is very Godly. If we assume the role of providing and creating infrastructure is that of the Govt and private sector, the temple authorities can and should definitely invest in the people. Grow the economic conditions of the people around… Provide basic things like loans, create alternate livelihoods than those purely dependant on the temple, provide healthcare, education etc. The temple should be a place of worship, not the center of commerce and trade! But since so much donation comes in anyway, it is appropriate to use it the same way Baba did! I am sure were he alive, he would have invested in precisely the things I mentioned!

Among all temples, Shirdi can do this because it is in accordance with the teachings of the leader it is built for. I wouldn’t expect this at any other place.

 

Comapring FOSS.in with TIE ISB Connect

Yes, I attended both this year. Incidentally I was there at TIE ISB Connect last year as well. It’s amazing how there is always a really pretty girl dressed very chic, who is the student coordinator for services

There are a myriad differences. Let’s start with the basics:

TIE ISB has lots more suits, better food, more deserts, more people in general and definitely a much higher net worth per head on average, not to mention age.

The event is purely for profit and reeks of it. It is a very honest, straight forward event. The speakers who come in are top notch in their fields. Most speeches/presentations deserve ovations. It’s professional.

The event has lots of people looking for a few VCs, to corner, and talk about their company and things they do. It is purely networking oriented.

The technology talks involve no code but rather a recount of what has happened in the recent past and a few people playing Nostradamus about the field. More often than not, since they are the guys who are putting money where their mouth is (either as VCs or entrepreneurs), it’s true.

I thought FOSS guys were determined, but I have met certain entrepreneurs with such grit and determination, it’s almost insane. There are people who are working without funding for the last 4 years! From what I hear, the VCs are chasing them now.

FOSS.in that way, for a non-programmer was not all that great. Since I have a tech background, I could understand a few things they said, but that’s about it. I could engage in conversations with the contributors of Mozilla and Openoffice but it was more at a level that looked at what is happening and what will happen to the usage, user-friendliness and such of the products.

Very honestly, it seemed that the event had double standards - one of playing the do-good, open-source promoting kind and the other where large and small corporates promote themselves shamelessly. I will not even spare the open source communities who promote themselves shamelessly. While there was an air of contribution going around everywhere, there definitely was an air of marketing going around too! It’s almost like they were hot and cold currents that kept the system going and the people rotating from one place to another!

Some of the talks were fantastic. Some speakers were phenomenal, but on the whole it was a little too dry for me and I definitely could not contribute anything there!

It was an event where I believe every open source product/project was being shamelessly promoted to attract scores of programmers/users to flock to it and contribute. It’s no different from services marketing except these are free services (obviously numbers matter to them too… their funding is linked to it!).

At the TIE ISB connect, people really did want to connect, meet each other. Entrepreneurs wanted to share ideas, build on each others thoughts. At FOSS.in, I really did not find too many people engaged in thought exchange as such. There was more discourse on other general things rather than idea generation and such. Unless the primary contributors of the project (i.e. employees) asked for and were patient enough to listen to feedback and suggestions, there were barely any exchanged. Several talks were more like reports of what had been happening for the past 6 months than anything else.

 

Who should be running the nation? (Part 1)

Yesterday my friends and I were returning from a batchmate’s marriage. It was a four hour drive to and four hour drive back! So obviously we had a lot of time to kill.

On our way back, in order to keep people awake, alive and discussing, I brought up the topic of politics. It is a very touchy topic for all youngsters like me. I have never voted in my life, never taken a voters card. Hell, the fact is, I don’t even know how to! I don’t know if I am eligible or not to vote from where I stay as my permanent address is elsewhere. I have absolutely no clue and I am sure my friends are just as clueless or more clueless than I am!

I guess when it comes to being apathetic, this nation’s youth are the most apathetic to politics I know of. None of the people from any premier institute have shown any inclination to do anything about the political system. Most of us have no clue how the nation’s administration works, how the judiciary wors or for that matter how the electorate works. I don’t think I know any politician in our state apart from the CM and the opposition leader (thanks to TV!) otherwise I would not even know that.

I think the answer to: Why is it so is fairly simple:- The youth of this nation have not had to deal with any national emergency, no major wars which affected the entire country and more importantly, they are all most economically well off. For those who are not, they are struggling to make ends meet - so politics is out of the question. Even the few who are cued in on what is happening, who’s who and what not are just passive onlookers. We are all watching the great Indian Political Circus! No one really wants to do anything significant about it. I guess the main reason is that Politics doesn’t really pinch you - doesn’t affect your daily bread and butter. The only time the youth of this nation get a bit agitated is when there is a clampdown on “the internet” or there are sanctions on premiere institutes like the IIMs.

In the recent past, we have rarely seen any student movement worth mentioning. We have rarely seen any real political change brought on by the students! Unlike other nations where when students go on a protest, the center sits up and bites their nails, our nation is one where the police whip out their lathis!

I was also arguing that none of the premiere institutes in this country has any students who are aware, let alone know how to contribute. Someone mentioned the fact about some IIT junta starting a political party. What makes a bunch of engineers capable to run a nation? What understanding do they have of the system? Who says leadership should be coming from there?

I believe that leaders should be coming from where people really know what is happening - at the grass roots levels, and know what kind of macro policies need to be in place to ensure local implementation! We need the people doing Civics, economics, Political sciences, Commerce etc. to step up.  We need colleges that impart great knowledge in these fields as they are going to affect the very fabric of our nation quite a lot!

In advanced nations people study to become speech writers and campaign managers! These guys are definitely not engineers or MBAs or doctors! They are more often than not, arts or political sciences students.

I guess the question of this post - who should be running the country? is not an easy one to answer. After all India is a huge nation of a billion plus and growing fast! The current set of politicans are those that emerged out of the system in the 70s and 80s when might was right… People with a criminal history, people with no education, people with little or no understanding of how the political system works. Education ministers in certain states have never taken education seriously for themselves - are they the ones who would for the rest of people? The current situation is driven more by globalization and economics! We have moved from Might is Right to Money Matters Majorly!

I suppose this post is going to end with more questions. Perhaps in a later post I can address some of the questions and think of a few things we can start doing immediately to change the scenario! There is a lot of things wrong with the political system starting from the basic question of who should be in it - who should be running the nation? Let’s see if we can address each of them.