Thursday, November 26, 2015

#SRK retweets Dr Jawahar Surisetti article "Hypocrisy"


Hypocrisy 

Today is 26/11, the day we were attacked by a motley group of Pakistani terrorists , who had laid siege on the city, barbarically killed people, disturbed the whole country and mocked humanity. 
Incidentally, we have reached the peak of the "intolerance" debate , with Aamir Khan taking centrestage. It was initiated by the returning of awards, then taken ahead by Shahrukh Khan's words and now Aamir and Rahman. And the whole fuss about this intolerance is not to the understanding of sane minds. 
There have been rants about beef and Bangladesh since time immemorial. Fatwas have been issued on films, Tasleema Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, MF Hussain and many more years ago. Shiv Sena has been against Pakistani artistes since very long . They have been against Pakistani Cricketeers too and have dug up pitches in the past. So " intolerance " is not a current phenomenon. 
Shahrukh himself had protested when he was detained in international airports and whisked. Rahman has been at the wrong end many a times. So why now ?
But I am concerned about something else. The ISIS is not finding recruits elsewhere in the world and is looking for Muslim youth in India . This news is well known in the Intel circuits. At this point of time , if Shahrukh and Aamir , two of the cult Indian stars cry intolerance , I am afraid of the large followings they have in the youth . Even out of the millions of fans , if a hundred go the wrong way, and practice terrorism taking the Indian intolerance story seriously, the job of ISIS becomes easier. We have seen the influence of stars and movies in the past. Crazy fans have broken laws and committed crimes watching and emulating their stars.

Our Bollywood fixation makes it all the more dangerous if these stars speak anything that is construed or will be contorted by the opposition as something anti national, it will have disastrous effects. This bothers me. The psyche of the youth is vulnerable to the words and actions of these stars. So one one side , it is upon the star to restrain from using words that will have a cause and effect  on millions of fans . 
On the other hand , it is upon the political class, both in the ruling and opposition not to fan these statements of the stars with political air because of their own vested interests . The stars are also human beings and speak their heart out. But if we use their statement to reach out to their fans and gain mileage it is not in national interest .
So in the fight for the mindspace of the people of the country, utterances of stars and politicians without restraint and the fanning of emotions of the political class, we portray our country as being backward and issueless in the world community. These gossips and trivia are the domain of people and nations without work. Whether we wish to show our fast progressing nation in bad light for our vested interests is for us to think.
But for me it's Nation First ! And that the example set by the martyrs of 26/11 .

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Indranization of relations arrives in India- imported from the west

Sep 10, 2015

Indranization of relations arrives in India- imported from the west

Blog by Dr.jawahar Surisetti

143 
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COMMENT

Last week witnessed the largest spectrum of emotions that I have witnessed in the 50 years of my life. It was a landmark because I had completed 25 years of my marriage , my elder son became self sufficient after his stint at IIM and left home to build his career. My younger son too went for his college education leaving the sage precincts of home in his quest for quantum physics.

I live in a flat with 2 toilets which were used by 4 people but suddenly found myself last week that the two people left at home ( me and my wife ) were left with on e toilet each to use. The angst of both the children leaving home at the same time has left us in a world bereft of smiles. The clamour of the XBox, or the strings of the guitar or the laughs of the TV show Big Bang theory have suddenly gone out of our drawing rooms. We try and explain to ourselves that the young ones have gone out in search of greener pastures but tears don't listen and the heart aches. This is because we have nurtured the relationships at home and the growing up process for the children and the parenting process for us has been a very joyful and satisfying one. We have given the freedom to choose, implement and achieve and the children have flourished in this wholesome give and take relationship of love and fun.

So now, when they left ,we feel lonely and the home that we have built with them suddenly finds itself desolate and eerie in their absence . We are not used to this . We have all grown together from poverty to the state we are in today but have adjusted ourselves with whatever we have - content. That is life. We are ready to share toilets , we don't want the luxury of owning one toilet each. A new journey has begun and we have to live with it.

The other side of the spectrum Is the much touted Indrani Mukherjee case popularly known as the Sheena murder case . Indrani's daughter through her first husband ,Sheena, has an affair with her third husband's son. So she allegedly murdered her daughter Sheena with the help of her second husband and driver and her third husband can't believe it. The daughter has disappeared for the past two years and nobody cares to know where she is . Moreover the third husband does not know whether Sheena is his sister-in-law or step daughter till the police tells him. This I call as the INDRANIZATION OF RELATIONS and it seems to have arrived. Indrani lived in a mansion as TV reports show of her misdeeds in the garage of the home . I presume this mansion had many toilets and they did not need to share them. In this mansion the dark deeds and the strange story of murder , intrigue and the two people staying there not knowing each other well enough is the story that stands in contrast of the closely knit family of Surisettis with sharing toilets and knowing each other inside out. That's the reason I conclude that I would rather prefer my flat filled with love rather this bizarre relationship status in a huge mansion . But we will have to face the fact that slowly we are losing the value of relations that is the foundation of Indianness . I pray to God that the INDRANIZATION of relationships does not arrive and we remain Indians in our values and not ape the west. This is one area we are far ahead of them and I am proud of my family and the togetherness we share. I will strongly resist INDRANIZATION .

Saturday, March 7, 2015

International Women's Day 2015 tribute

Introspect today- not just pray


Everywhere today,We pray 

That women be safe,Day after day.

Religions we believe,say something 

Our actions we do, show the opposite.


Bible says "she opens her mouth

With wisdom,

And the teaching of kindness

Is on her tongue" ( Proverbs 31:26 )


All these kindness is in vain

Because 700 million women in all nation

Have no food , water, sanitation ,

Healthcare and education. 


Islam professes " Men are protectors 

And maintainers of women,

Because Allah has made one of them

To excel the other" (An-Nisaa’ 4:34)


On a cold winter night,In a bus in the capital,

The driver and the helper, molest Nirbhaya 

Barbaric and gruesome ,torture her 

And dispose. The Protectors.


Nanak preaches " From woman, man is born;

Within woman, man is conceived;

To woman he is engaged and married.

Through woman, future gens come" ( Raag Aasaa Mehal 1, Page 473)


A fine school day, the corridors ringing 

Children in the classrooms, teachers on job.

Terrorists gun the children, mothers wailing.

Were these gunmen not born to mothers ?


Hinduism goes like this on women

" Where women are honoured, Gods are pleased.

But where they are not honoured ,

No sacred rite yields rewards." (Manu Smriti 3.56)


Half the world is women,

Mothers, daughters and  sisters.

Religion if we practice and pray, understand

Women are here to stay.


Preach something , practice something 

Is the order of the day.

Not just today, day after day

Respect, support women, come what may.



 
Dr. Jawahar Surisetti is a renowned educationist and psychologist. He has been leading a campaign to improve the quality of the education system, and to encourage a change which emphasizes on thinking and moves away from the rote method. His programme - Think! Curriculum, which is a new learning methodology for students - is aimed at encouraging thinking, participation and questioning. Dr. Surisetti has hosted 1310 seminars across the globe on various education and corporate issues with leading media houses and the UNO. He is also the author of the best-selling international parenting guide 'Mama and Me' that has sold more than 1.7 million copies in the U.S. and Europe


Monday, January 5, 2015

PK and the Chhattisgarh Municipal elections


Chhattisgarh Municipal elections are important for the reason that since Prime Minister Narendra Modi started his Lok Sabha Election Campaign and the Modi wave that ensued , this is the first time that the high riding BJP has encountered a dampener. Almost at the same time , PK is riding a wave of adulation and has crossed the 544 crore mark and is inching towards the 600 Cr elusive figure never before achieved in the history of Indian cinema.
While there are many detractors for PK, the basic theme of an alien showing through his antics to the whole country , what the crux of religion is , is a wake up call for the society at large. We fanatically follow Bapus who later turn out to be villains, but by then we have fallen prey to them.
Coming back to the Chhattisgarh Municipal Elections, the BJP with a 3rd term in Assembly elections also required an alien figure to come and give a wake up call. All that Prime Minister Modi practices and preaches does not happen in Chhattisgarh. The state is cash rich due to minerals and power resources so development is a natural outcome whichever party is in power. But the industries that had signed MOUs are in a limbo due to inaction and find greener pastures in other states where action is faster. This fast action is what made Modi and Gujarat what it is today. So the policy paralysis much touted in the Lok Sabha elections is what ails the state today. Development is a prime term in the Modi Agenda. But in Chhattisgarh, subsidies and freebies and not development is used to win elections. But the game seems to be up. A drubbing in the elections gave a chance for the Congress to see some sunshine.
So like PK, where winnability was the name of the game and Rajkumar Hirani put up a show that touched issues like two god theory- one god that created us and the second god whom we created. Such sensitive issues were raised in good humour and raised by an alien to see that winnability of the movie is not effected by undue controversy. Modi also saw during his election that the selection of candidates was solely based on merit and winnability.
This did not happen in Chhattisgarh. The ugly face of groupism took over and winnable candidates were compromised. In the case of Raipur, while congress fielded a known face of Pramod Dubey and won half the battle , it was needed to let the game of my candidate- your candidate subside and field a candidate who could score over Pramod Dubey. There were only two candidates who could do this – either ex Mayor Sunil Soni or the current President of Raipur Municipal Corporation Sanjay Shrivastava. Just because they belonged to two warring factions , a compromise candidate Sachchidanand Upasane was fielded , who was no match for Pramod Dubey. In civic elections , local faces matter and compromise candidates do not win especially with a strong opposition. The nasha of power is so high that the current set up in Chhattisgarh seems to have become a replica of Congress where the warring Jogi and Baghel factions are out in the open. So winnability took the last seat and the result ensues.
The inference is as in PK an alien teaches us what is right and what is wrong, we need an external force to come and set things right on an urgent basis in the state and see that merit and winnability is not sidelined for sycophancy in the state. Good for the state and good for the nation.