Tuesday, January 10, 2017

As children, when we asked questions about some customs followed at home, not all of them were entertained. Grandmother had a way of saying, “That is how it is. And that is what you have to follow.“ If grandfather tried to make me understand, what he said was, “These are traditions that our elders have followed and so we too should do the same. Ours is not to ask why.“The mystery made us feel that it was all so esoteric and it could not be shared with children. For that reason alone, even inane acts like not crossing over a sleeping person, or not walking under a ladder or not touching what was `pure' or `cleansed' clothes, or wearing a bindi, were followed, albeit reluctantly .
Growing up, one realised there was nothing esoteric about these beliefs; they were dismissed as superstitions by most. To me, they and many other acts of ours on which we base our daily lives, form an integral part of who we are. They build our belief system.I also realised many reasons that were given to me by my grandparents probably did not have a logical basis.
We created myths, told stories and thereby developed an alternative reality . In order to find explanations to our lives, so impermanent, so full of surprises, we developed ideas that explain them. The ideas developed in relation to the milieu within which we grew; others became pan-world.Like the idea of love. Mythology talks of infatuations and lust but does not dwell at length on “relationships“ and what we understand today as love. But we have built a bubble and fed it with romantic songs and created a comfort zone in which we would like to live. If that does not happen, we get depressed, unhappy .This is just an example. Yuval Harari, an Israeli historian and author of the book, `Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind', says that our imagination and our capacity to tell stories combined with our ability to work together, co-operate on any single theme, is the short of our long story of evolution. For instance, if you visit any ashram today, the followers form a cohesive and even loving group. They all believe in their Guru. So they can all come together.
This is also called alternative reality.The alternative reality could come from any philosophy... atheistic or theistic.Literary or sportive. Any activity where you are with yourself, pursuing a goal that you think is very engaging and you lose yourself, is an alternative reality that you are creating for yourself.
What then is real? Difficult to articulate, reality gives us a glimpse with the idea that Yama or Death finds no point of time inaccessible; that we do not know what lies ahead of this life or what lay before. Reality asks us why we are here in this world and laughs when you say you love a person more than life.
Reality is. That is all seekers like us can say about it. One can also however say it is the alternative reality within which we live that Shankara called `maya'. He did not say this world is a lie.He said the world we have created with our minds and intellect not necessarily in our lifetime but over our evolution is maya.

Monday, January 09, 2017

Death of a naturalist

Jairam Ramesh

Peter Jackson was instrumental in nature and tiger conservation in India

Peter Jackson’s death last month in England after a prolonged and sad illness went virtually unnoticed in this country. This is a pity given his lifelong association with India and his two signal contributions to nature conservation, one in Haryana and the other in Gujarat.
Jackson came out to India in the early fifties as a correspondent for Reuters and was among the first to report the ascent of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in May 1953. Subsequently he became Secretary of the Delhi Bird Watching Society, which hadbeen established in May 1950 under the chairmanship of Mahatma Gandhi’s close associate Horace Alexander, with Indira Gandhi as one of the founder-members. She had got interested in birdwatching while jailed in Naini between September 1942 and May 1943. Her father, who was himself then in Ahmadnagar Prison, had sent her the second edition of Salim Ali’s The Book of Indian Birds which she read and used both in prison and after.

Protecting the Sultanpur jheel

In November-December 1969, the International Union for Conservation of Nature held its Tenth General Assembly in New Delhi. Over 300 of the world’s biggest names in conservation congregated for the event. Indira Gandhi had made a forceful inaugural address on November 24, 1969. Thereafter, Peter Jackson wrote to her on March 29, 1970: “During the IUCN Conference, I took a number of distinguished wildlife experts and ornithologists to the jheels at Sultanpur in Gurgaon district, about 25 miles from Delhi. They were astonished at the wealth of wildlife and decided on the spot that efforts should be made to have the jheels protected...
All of us interested in the Sultanpur jheels feel that your interest would add immense impetus to the creation of this Nature Reserve of a kind which few, if any, capitals in the world boast within a short distance.
“We know the heavy demands on your time, but, as you are a founder-member of the Delhi Bird Watching Society, we wondered if you would like to slip away for about three hours one morning to see the Sultanpur jheels...”
Two days later, Indira Gandhi noted on his letter: “I could. How long will the birds be there?”
On April 1, 1970, Moni Malhoutra, her undersecretary and aide on environmental matters, after speaking to Jackson, informed her that the flamingos and pelicans would be around for a few more weeks though the ducks were already beginning to migrate. He suggested that the Prime Minister visit the Sultanpur jheel on Sunday, April 5, 1970, to which she responded the same day in her own hand: “US [undersecretary] seems be innocent so far as security arranged are concerned. I am very much afraid that the sanctuary may be ruined.”
Subsequently, Indira Gandhi sent Malhoutra to visit Sultanpur and brief her. The papers that Jackson had sent her were passed on to the Chief Minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal, who wrote to her on September 25, 1970 that he had initiated action to develop the jheel into a bird sanctuary and a tourist destination. Four days later, she complimented the Chief Minister for the steps he had taken, adding: “I hope one day to visit them [the jheels] myself, quietly and without fuss.”The sanctuary was notified on April 2, 1971 and the formal inauguration took place on February 6, 1972. Indira Gandhi sent a message: “The development of the Sultanpur jheel as a bird sanctuary will be widely welcomed by all lovers of wildlife and conservationists. The potentiality of the jheel, which attracts a large variety of birds, was first noticed during the IUCN Conference in Delhi. I congratulate the Government of Haryana for having acted so quickly to preserve and develop this great natural asset. The proximity of the sanctuary to our capital city will make it an obvious tourist attraction for all who are interested in our natural heritage. To the people of Delhi in particular, it will afford easy escape from the monotony of urban life, and the joy of observing some of nature’s most beautiful creatures in their own habitat.”

Abandoning the park plan

Peter Jackson left India in mid-1970 and joined the World Wildlife Fund in Switzerland. But he kept up with India regularly. He visited Porbwhere over 4,000 Lesser Flamingos were gathered”. When he was told that that the lake’s days were numbered and it was soon going to be filled up to construct a park, he approached Indira Gandhi. The Prime Minister immediately spoke to Madhavsinh Solanki, the Gujarat Chief Minister, who assured her that the park plan would be abandoned. This paved the way for the notification of the bird sanctuary in the Mahatma’s birthplace in November 1988.Jackson was also closely associated with WWF’s Operation Tiger, which was launched to support India’s own Project Tiger launched on April 1, 1973. It is generally believed that in the seventies, tiger conservation in India was due to the WWF’s efforts. In part, Peter Jackson’s communications skills helped create this impression. The WWF certainly helped raise the international profile of India’s programme but in the first six years of Project Tiger covering nine reserves, the total investment was about Rs.6 crore, of which just about 13 per cent came from WWF. That such an amount was set aside when the finances of the Centre were in a precarious position was entirely due to the Prime Minister herself.

Jairam Ramesh’s ‘Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature’ will be published by Simon and Schuster India in mid-2017.

Source: The Hindu, 4-01-2017

andar a decade later. During that trip, according to his own account, he “spotted a small lake

Trapped by Emotions?

Each of us has been given the gift of life fuelled by the life force, or prana. Why does this precious resource dwindle, sometimes to desperately low levels? Take a look at the following energy guzzlers: Worry: We worry about things that we are convinced are doomed to happen: that those who are ill will not recover; others who aren't, will fall ill; bad times will remain bad; good ones will take a turn for the worse, and so on. As a worrier can tell you with conviction, nothing in life is certain, so there is much to worry about.
Resentment: If worry drains you with fears of the future, then hurt, resentment and regret keep you chained to the past. Think about it: somebody said something hurtful to you years ago. The person, meanwhile, is no longer a part of your life; he may even have passed on, but you continue to leak energy to this thought.No wonder you wake up feeling life is unfair and joyless; a burden rather than a gift.
Guilt: This is one of the heaviest emotions that wears you down as you continue to carry it. We all make mistakes, feel regret or remorse over situations in our lives; commit acts of omission or commission.But we cannot let go; we believe it would be irresponsible to forgive. It is much like climbing a mountain with a heavy trunk tied to your back. How

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Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents