Why Young India Needs Yoga

With advances in medical sciences the mind-body dichotomy seems to be fading away and its now realized that they comprise one entity albeit two different forms. Which impacts the other more may still be a matter of research, but, that the two impact one another significantly cannot be doubted. Firmly entrenched in the knowledge era young India, the teaming millions that comprise generation Y, need to understand this given the kind of pressure their minds have to bear with. Recent statistics doing rounds in the news stories these days bear testimony to the fact that all is not well as coping with this pressure is taking its toll on the young and promising minds.
In the popular Bollywood blockbuster of the year 2009, Three Idiots, there was a very touching episode. It is the funeral scene of an engineering student ‘Joe’ who has committed suicide by hanging himself because he was not able to complete his project and was facing dismissal from the institute. Rancho, the protagonist played by famous star Aamir Khan is shown standing behind the Director of the institute. The Director, played by the actor Boman Irani is known for his abnormally tough and no nonsense approach and perhaps his this toughness compelled Joe to end his life. Rancho is shown murmuring the contents of the postmortem report of the deceased, ‘Everyone thinks this is suicide. In the post mortem report, cause of death is given as an intense pressure on windpipe resulting in choking… What about the mental pressure of the last four years the student underwent due to the unnecessary rigorous ways of the college, that’s missing in the report. This is not suicide, it is murder’. Suicide or murder the fact remains that mental pressures are capable of forcing people to take extreme steps. And there are myriad of reasons, from trivial to serious, that create mental pressure in this present century. Handling this is perhaps the real issue.
Three Idiots may be just one film. But it mirrors the contemporary Indian society that is becoming more demanding and the youth are finding it difficult to cope with those demands. Against this backdrop yoga as a way out can be thought of and is being rightly patronized by the Government of India and the United Nations. The youth not only in India, but the world over have more or less similar mindsets. Controversies surrounding the nature, origin and potential of yoga as panacea notwithstanding, there are reasons to believe yoga is good for both mental and physical health. Little wonder, yoga in the US has become the in thing. From Hollywood stars to even ordinary Americans, all are seeking solace in this ancient Indian path to health and enlightenment. Yoga that was largely surrounded by a mystical aura also gives benefits which the scientific medical community is now ready to believe. It has come a long way since the time it was largely synonymous with transcendental meditation. As a high percentage of maladies that afflict people are in some way related to stress and yoga being useful in stress management, the medical science is now recommending the practice as a part of the larger package of holistic medicine. And yes, if nothing else yoga at least can give an engagement with the body and mind for some time every day. This is no bad bargain.

Making Humans Human

The world is full of problems. The world is full of prospects of solutions. Then where is the problem? Francis Bacon, noted American thinker, had once said: “If you go deep into any problem you will find people. People are the problem.” True, only people can give the solution to problems of this world also. But that is possible only if they want to. Let us consider this. Statistics suggests that every seventh person is illiterate. Around six crore children have never been to school and around twice this number were forced to drop out. Even those who attend schools, their literacy levels are abysmally poor.

Some of the recent studies have suggested that around one quarter of a billion fail at basic tests of language and mathematics. These were discussed at the recently held World Education Forum (WEF) in South Korea. We go on setting goals and formulating objectives, but to what effect? The question is not only education. There are other goals too. The famous Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have failed to achieve much as we go on shifting dates from one decade to another. It is for want of resolve and character.

As expenditure on military wares and muscle is increasing, the allocation on education is decreasing. Look what has happened. We go on increasing spending on arms and ammunition and are feeling the need to spend more and more. Isn’t it ironic? If only around five days of annual military expenditure is diverted to education, there will be no child without a school. But despite this knowledge, it is not happening. This is not just one of the issues, it is the vital issue. If education is taken care of, we may hope for a better world. The simple reason is that the bestiality in human beings is both inborn and acquired.

Love, hate and rage are the basic emotions man is born with; love being the positive and the other two negative. Only love can be the antidote to hate and rage. And the way to achieve this is through education. Education that can transform humans into better beings. It is worthwhile to draw clues from what Aristotle had said ages ago. To quote: “Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. If he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, is the principle of order in political society.”

The question is to bring that perfection in man. Education may be the answer. But for this the thinking has to change. Spending on arms is increasing as the faith in goodness of mankind is declining. But is spending on arms going to help the cause of humanity? As the new threat of ISIS looms large over the world, a disturbed global community needs to ponder over the issue. Arms and ammunition only flare hate and rage. It is only love that can do the trick and education can promote love. Because Vidya Dadati Vinyam.

Before We Boil to Death

Even as we celebrate June 5 as the Wold Environment Day religiously every year, the threat of global warming continues to loom large. With every passing year the warming warns of an impending disaster if environment issues are not properly addressed to. In fact this June the writing was very much on the wall with Telangana reeling under intense heat as also many parts of the plains of India. Scientists at the Indian Meteorological Department warn that India has turned hotter in the last two decades, heat waves are projected to be more intense, have longer durations and greater frequency. The rising temperatures across North and South have already resulted in some 1400 deaths and the toll may be higher given the fact that many causalities due to heat stroke and dehydration go unreported. It is now being foretold that in the next three decades most part of the plains of India will face the same plight that Telangana is facing this year. Not only will the temperatures rise but even the summer season will be extended. A research agency has claimed in its recent report on Heat Stress Index that the future is going to be hot and painful. While the indices indicate a gloomy picture of the years to come the question that stares at our face us – will we take note of all these? Given the human nature and experiences of the past, it seems unlikely. More so, in India where people suffer from a certain kind of selective amnesia which makes them forget the unpleasant things rather easily. But this short term memory loss notwithstanding the fact is that in terms of heat stress we are among the more vulnerable natures of the world. While these warming signals are still not very clear as enough supporting evidence is yet to come, two things are established beyond doubt. First, that the climate change is making the mean temperatures rise across a large part of the country, and second that we are still not ready to accept the reality. Whether this is due to callousness or ignorance may not be easy to conclude, but things are certainly going to go out of hand if we do not see the writing on the wall. The predicament is something like the metaphor of the boiling frogs that environmentalist author Daniel Quinn illustrated in his 1996 novel ‘The Story of B’. He wrote that if a frog is dropped in boiling water, it will immediately try to jump out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on very gradually, it will float there quite placidly, fully unmindful of the impending danger. And as the water slowly heats up the frog will sink in further comfortably, in a stupor, just as we do in a hot bath and will unwittingly get boiled to death. Scientifically, this story can be refuted on many counts, but that does not make it completely irrelevant. The story sounds similar to the metaphor of the ostrich that buries its head in sand on the face of a threat as if not seeing the danger will ward off the threat. But that hardly helps. Human actions is degrading the environment and only human action can upgrade it. And the time for that action is right now. The climate change is a wakeup call that must be heeded to.

Revisiting Varanasi

For anyone having lived in Varanasi for over two decades a recent visit to the city may come as a surprise. Varanasi the ancient, Varanasi the spiritual, Varanasi the cultural, is changing. While travelling through the city on a manually driven rickshaw, one would find that Varanasi has grown. Grown in reach, grown in size, grown in population. And of late, grown in reputation as the city with maximum political clout after Delhi. But amidst all these changes, in terms of infrastructure, some beautification at select crossings and some modern looking structures, one thing can be noticed. Between widening roads and those high rise buildings. Varanasi is no longer the same experience that used to be. The cycle rickshaws of the city have been replaced by auto rickshaws and the tongas (horse driven carts) are a rarity. And the ‘Banarasi’, the typical resident, who used to laugh at his loudest on the main squares like Godowlia is diificult to find. As tradition gives way to modernity, it seems the spiritual capital of India, the city of Lord Vishwanath is gradually losing its soul in the cacophony of so called development. In the Rig Veda times the city was referred to as ‘Kashi’ the seat of learning, Kashi the city of light. Varanasi is one of the oldest continually inhabited city according to archaeological evidence. As efforts to make Varanasi a smart city pick up, efforts to retain the classical Varanasi also need to go simultaneously. Varanasi has a special place in the spiritual and cultural history of India.

As glitzy malls and four lanes change the shopping and driving experience of the city dwellers this religious city is struggling to find its soul. The city has become a medical hub catering to the health needs of eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar and private health care centres are coming up in a big way. But all these developments are relegating Kashi, the city of liberation to the back seat. The Ghats on the banks of the holy Ganga that housed seekers of Moksha are losing their original character. The spiritual abode is slowly becoming a place for pleasure seeking rather than soul searching. The threat to the essence of Varanasi is an issue that also needs to be addressed.

Though it is good to see that the cleaning of the ghats is being taken up after the Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan and initiatives like Jal Shav Vahini (Boats to carry dead body through the river Ganges) making things convenient, yet there is a need to package the Varanasi heritage which is gradually fading into oblivion. The spirit of Varanasi lies in its ethos which can be very neatly summed up in the colloquial saying:
Chana chabena, gang jal jo purbey kartar, Kashi kabahu na chadiye, Vishwanath darbar.
That is ‘If the lord provides roasted grams to subsist and the holy Ganges to bathe, there is no need to leave Kashi, the abode of Shiva.’ Special efforts to make this holy city a global spiritual centre, repositioning it as world’s biggest seat of Hinduism are needed.