Tuesday, September 19, 2017

School of Learning…


                        Where there are no holds barred!

This morning I was touched by a newspaper article I came across on A School For Grannies.

Warmed by the thought of Professor Bangar, The Founder of this innovative school, and the zeal and the burning desire of his real old 30-odd students(one of whom is 92 years), I felt compelled to applaud it.

Age definitely must not be a restraining factor at all when it comes to Learning. Not alone from our environment and experiences but also the academic learning.

So very often we come across young and old people with regrets for not having understood the worth of or not having had the means or money for receiving education at the right time.

Most touching are the very common cases in our country where children have to give up education and take on working instead to support themselves or lend a hand in earning for the family.

And if we talk about women specifically we all know heart of heart, how despite having the Right to equality in education, young girls desirous of studying are made to quit schools for their brothers when family can support education for just one and how girls are instead forced into household chores and not provided even the elementary education.

Many, if not all, such children, irrespective of their gender, grow up into adults feeling lacking and inferior.

And as they grow further mature or old, they have this constant nagging feeling that life could have been different had they received education at the right time.

Yes, you and I can vouch for that it indeed would have been so! But why should they live on with that regret now and forever? Each individual has a right to education and he or she should exploit the right whenever best he can.

While all children, boys or girls, rich or poor, must receive the formal education they are rightful of, at the same time the eager grown-ups and even the elderlies must be encouraged and assisted to pursue education no matter how old they are!

Let the school of learning be open for one and all and let there be no holds barred!

Kudos to this School for Grannies! Let’s have more of those!

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
                                                                                            - Mahatma Gandhi





                                                                                            

Thursday, September 7, 2017

India, Faith and the Babas!

Another Baba down! After a long drama which held the country hostage for more than 72 hours, with more than two states directly affected with the Baba’s followers burning down whatever public property came their way, finally the Baba has been convicted, sentenced and jailed!

An exemplary verdict, which definitely brought justice to the complainants and some sense of relief to the myriad unknown victims, who chose to remain under the cover of anonymity, has also put a big question mark on the belief and faith of the gullible, desperate seekers who are anxious to hold on to anyone who gives them a glimpse of hope, a ray of sunshine in this mad, dark world and a wee bit of mental peace.

Guess, round the world, people have been wired like that. No matter what religion they belong to or which country they are born in, they need something or someone to believe in; someone who instils in them an iota of belief in the existence and accessibility of God!

And it is this incessant subconscious need of the people which various con men take advantage of, appearing under the guise of self-proclaimed Godmen who play with the faith and belief of the people.

Is it really the public that is encouraging these fakes, as claimed by numerous WhatsApp messages doing the rounds, and does the situation really warrant the ban on the Babas or Gurus as demanded by the news channels?

Since times immemorial, India is a land of the Gurus, where the oldest of the theological theories from one and all religions, stress the importance of taking a guru’s ‘sharan’ and reiterate, over and over again, that none gets to enter the heavens unless he has a Master.

It is not Hinduism alone which emphasises on the role of the Gurus. All religions talk about the presence of God’s messengers on earth in some form or the other at any point of time.

Heaven being the destination aimed at after death in all religions, a seeker is not in the wrong if he is looking all around to take the refuge of a Guru. And after all, if there is a God what else better means would he have to use than a man to a man.

The idols are symbolic, the books have the Gurus’ or Masters’ teachings, temples were meant to be a peaceful place to pray, sermons are to remind us of God. But the knowledge of how to reach Him has only been imparted by a few masters to their followers. At the root the original teachings of all the saints from different religions, say the same leaving no doubt in the accessibility of God through the Guru.

It is very sad that there are people who can make a mockery of this pious Guru and shishya bond in a country like India where there have been several revered saints and children grow up listening to the stories of the same.

It is indeed sad that the faith and belief of the people in this beautiful relationship are shaken time and again by such fakes.

May the faith of the people be restored in the Gurus and may this land of the saints be blessed again with wisdom, sense of discrimination and piety.




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