Labouring Hands but Stale Minds

Quite often as I would travel on work to different corners around the globe, one thing has always amazed me is the type of jobs that are undertaken by people all around. No work is ever big or small and there is always dignity is attached to every job we undertake.

At my alma mater, we were taught the importance of work with the dictum 'work is worship'. This feeling behind the work always guided us, allowing to put in 100 % percent of our effort while achieving the goal. This feeling no doubt helps you avoid the ego building up within, when enlisted with a important big task; or feeling of embarrassment when enlisted with a menial job.  The work could vary from assisting and sharing space with world leaders/musicians to cleaning campus/hostel premises. 

Carrying out your own work helps you build your own self-confidence and esteem. But imagine if all small jobs done by person himself, then the very service industry could run out of option. I would be very careful in making some poignant observation while travelling across our country. You would invariably see at airport toilets, someone lending you tissue paper, lift-man to press the floor you want to travel, someone to issue you parking ticket on an automated machine. These are very simple observation that anyone would come across our country, I always felt do we really need people for these jobs, aren't we capable of doing all these by ourselves. When we meant that we have to create jobs for the growing population of our country, Its not merely those job, that would require someone to robotically go through the same motion 24 hours, leaving his mind decomposing.  

These jobs in the service industry are to belittle one existence, and I'm sure the individual is always capable of using his limbs for better service than to merely use in conjunction to ease other's daily chores. The pertinent question to ask would be, Is that the person can DO only that much, It's never about empowerment here, since any job an individual gets will surely be financially rewarding based on the economic strata he comes from. 

I'm of the firm opinion that jobs should be rolled out so that unemployment is no more a stigma to our developing country, but jobs just for the heck of it, serving no purpose and more importantly resulting in making his limbs busy, but mind morbid can only result in dormant society.

Heart on Ember

Emotions when flames in your heart, you turn proactive;

But if they burn within, destruction abounds.

When Love flames within, happiness surrounds you all around;

But when love burns within, loneliness is what you feel always.

When Anger flames in your heart, discontent brews;

And if anger burns within, savageness is nearby.

When Lust flames inside you, passion envelops you;

But if it burns within, hedonism is what you become.

When Knowledge flames within, humility grows;

but when it burns within, arrogance booms outside.

When Jealousy flames inside you, extra effort will always abound;

But if your heart burns with jealousy, hurting others is vice you develop.

When Motivation flames in your heart, no goal is ever far;

But if it burns within, failure kisses you at every step.

When Dreams are flamed in you, hope blooms;

But when they are burnt within, disappointment strikes.

So decide what you intend to Flame or Burn within your heart.

Ashamed of our Identity

It’s been ages, since i logged onto my blog-page to express myself. Although my Job and my passion had given me enough opportunity to travel around, lazily i never took to make notes of what i observed and ruminate about what each place, culture and cuisine had to offer for each one of us.

 Living and travelling from Singapore to most of the South East Asian countries, lots of observation strikes me. Most prominent was the presence of Hindu temples and architecture all around. Curiosity got me asking myself what could have been the reason for such a prominent Hindu base being present in SE Asia. Although it was no brainer, since there has been such a lot historian records of Indian traders/sages coming to SE Asia to promote Hindu culture, that it got easily mingled with the local population from SE Asia.

 Reading through one of the historian records, I realized that Hinduism had spread its wings here in SE-Asia already by 200 BC, The present country of Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippine and Thailand had strong Hindu influence on the local ruler. Buddhism reached here around 400 AD and Islam reached only in the 12 century. Although today Hinduism has become the minority population in this region. Each countries local language & culture has a distinct Hindu touch to all of them. 

 What has surprised me a lot is that today these countries have either a very strong Islamic & Buddhist presence, but despite the small rub of Hinduism that had on them, you will be greatly surprised to see temples of Hindu God/Goddess revered all around these region. I personally have seen at Suvarnabhoomi Bangkok airport large statue of Vishnu avatar of ocean churning, at Bali huge statues of Lord Krishna and Arjuna delivering the Bhagvad Gita in the city centre. These are just the few examples that I have cited. The important underlying fact despite being non Hindu country, they proudly display Hindu culture in their city infrastructure, Just because they were influenced by the Hindu culture long time ago. 

 Whereas we being a Hindu dominant country(Secular), Nowhere outside the premises of a temple, Do I see any carvings, painting, statutes of Hindu based culture, forget Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism which all have flourished in our country. Our history, traditions and culture are not merely to be part of the curriculum till we graduate, but also a part of our identity till we breathe our last. I’m not sure what has plagued our country that our administrator have failed to recognize the rich cultural heritage that our nation has, or is it that we have become ashamed of our real identity and would love to display only our pseudo secular image.