Kriya and Karma...

A lot of us are conditioned since childhood with a particular notion of karma but in different forms -
reap what you sow,
जैसी करनी वैसी भरनी,
every action has an equal and opposite reaction,
do unto others.. etc.

We are made to believe that if we do good karma, we accumulate पुण्य, which delivers peace, happiness and ultimately, मोक्ष. If you thought that Geeta says so, then that's probably an oversimplified understanding if not a shallow one.

For a better exploration of karma, Hinduism actually offers a differentiation between karma and kriya. Not sure if I still understand it well enough myself, but thinking about the difference between the two in itself is a thought provoking exercise.

The first time I read about kriya and karma, I understood that kriya refers to actions that one is anyways supposed to do including his/her profession. Karma is what creates an impact on others, but with no selfish motive. I was disappointed with myself for a moment on hearing this. Read further and see if you can figure out why...

Let me first share my understanding of the two. If let's say, you run a business with the prime objective of wealth creation and in the process you generate employment, you can't simply claim good karma for giving your employees jobs & wages. You are just doing a kriya. Even if you give them allowances, HRA, bonus, increments, you're doing what you're anyways supposed to do - your kriya. You start growing your karma accout only if you do something for them with no expectations or selfish interests. E.g. I know of a person who financially supported a colleague suffering from cancer with slim chances of survival. Then, there was a promoter who even in the tightest of financial conditions did not discontinue canteens serving free lunch to employees across all levels. Examples of such karma in the world are infinite. But that's not the interesting part.

It gets intriguing when the line between kriya and karma starts to blur. E.g. if you think you have been a good son/daughter/parent/sibling just by adhering to family's value systems, taking care of them as your duty and contributing to household chores inside or outside the house , then being just compliant is not enough for good karma. You are just doing your kriya! In fact, even caring for a family member's well being with the intention that you (will) 'need' them is also just kriya and not karma. That self-interest behind an action is perhaps what distinguishes kriya from karma.

Now, juxtapose this with the most popular shlok from Geeta - कर्मणये वाधिकारस्ते मां फलेषु कदाचन। To me, this now means that we should keep doing our karma keeping aside all expectations. The usual interpretation that we should carry out our actions and not desire results is no more valid. We can always desire results, but then its no more karma. It becomes our kriya. And Geeta encourages us to do karma, not just kriya.

Here's another perspective - if you feel you have done good karma yet you have been wronged by the world, does that thought itself of expecting a certain recognition convert your karma into kriya? What if there was no self-interest at the time of carrying out an action and at a much later point in time, you started wishing something in return for it? Is it still karma or it has now turned into kriya? I don't know and maybe I will figure that out someday.

Even more fundamental question is who will judge whether its kriya or karma? Does God have the time and interest to judge each and every action of every living being across the universe? I doubt that. I think there are enough pointers in our philosophy to tell us that the best judge is we ourselves. And no, it's not the shallow and selfish mind which is the judge. It's probably what we call our consciousness that will judge us. It's the most honest and purest form of us. It will tell us the truth and not find excuses to justify our actions. It's our ज़मीर which won't allow us to commit a sin. That's probably why spiritual gurus stress on medidation so that we talk to our consciousness. It's this supreme consciousness of all living beings that has been referred to as the Universal God.

If you belive in karma and desire emancipation, you might want to keep re-evaluating yourselves on kriya and karma. What you decide to do after the re-evaluation can be anything but the exercise in itself is a humbling one.

PS: I am no expert on Geeta or any philosophy. All I know is that Geeta is so deep in its wisdom that every shlok has multiple dimensions and gives us the freedom to interpret in our way or the way our guru tells us to. 

My first bird hit, or was it really so?

A fear of bird hits had been registered at the back of my mind having watched the movie Sully – a depiction of a real life bird hit that led to emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in January 2009. The flight faced a bird hit a few minutes after takeoff leading to severe damage to both the engines, forcing pilot Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger to land the aircraft right into Hudson river. Had Sully not decided to do so, lives would have been lost; but he managed to save every single soul on the aircraft. Watch the movie for more details.

Just a few minutes after take-off, I saw a series of blasts from the left hand side engine of the Indigo flight 6E 395 out of Mumbai on 1^st March 2018. The blasts, which I could compare to a Sindri (King Kong) bomb blast in magnitude, would have lasted for any time between 30 seconds to a minute. In the air, that’s a very long duration if you ask me. I was anticipating the engines to explode anytime. Immediate and natural thought that occurred to me was that there will be an emergency landing and we may or may not survive. I assumed this was a bird hit and even if I had the awareness of good survival rates in case of bird hits, those blasts were still scary!

I was seated on the aisle seat and my parents on the inner seats. We looked at each other and the faces asked the same question – is this it? We uttered nothing for the first couple of minutes, because we all were possibly thinking about the same thing – what will happen after us? What about our loved ones?

Several thoughts, mostly about my siblings and my wife kept zig-zagging in the mind in less than 60 seconds. What would they do on hearing the news? How will they come to know? By when will they come to know? How will they react and face the loss? What will they do when they need us? Will my insurance guys give them the dues? What will happen to family assets – physical and financial? What about the close friends? How will those friends who aren’t in touch get to know? What about the other important people in my life?

Just for a moment, not for too long, a passing thought did cross my mind - what about the job and the company I work for? A few people might shed a tear for me – faces of those who might flashed in front of me. I realized most will move on fast enough. I realized there was no point in thinking about these in that particular moment. Even if you hold a critical position, even if you have great personal relationships at office, you’re never indispensable.

By this time, my rational mind had taken over the emotional one. I reasoned, nothing will be in my control if this was the end of my life. Nothing. All I have is those few minutes. I had to live through these minutes positively. I’m not religious, but not an atheist either. I said a few prayers, thanked the God for all he’s given me in this life and asked him to take care of my dear ones if we don’t survive.

Meanwhile, the blasts had stopped. The engine had been giving resistance and we felt the aircraft jittering – the way a car does when put in the wrong gear. This was also brief. Much later, after the pilot announced, I realized the engine had stalled at this moment.

I decided to focus on my parents. I told them that this could be just a bird hit and it’s far from being all over. I pointed to them that the aircraft seems to be in control (and it was after the jitters). I opined that the engine hadn’t blasted, the pilot will be taking action and in all likelihood we’ll land back safely. I bluffed that bird hits keep happening daily (to realize later that I was right) and that there’s nothing to worry. My mother acted strong, echoing what I said and focusing on the positives. Pappa was calm and quiet and inquiring on what’s happening.

Murmurs from other passengers had started growing louder. But no one had shrieked or shown any panic, yet. Their anxiety got out of hands when the cabin crew was sent by the pilots to check and report back if they saw anything alarming.

A few people vocally sought answers from the crew to questions everyone had kept to themselves so far. They wanted to know what exactly happened and the future course of action. They wanted the pilot to immediately announce and update all passengers. While the crew was shouting on top of their voices to remain calm and seated, some smart and/or anxious passengers wanted a personal briefing from the crew. Amid the brief chaos, one flight attendant had to shout that it is probably a bird hit and such incidents keep happening and there’s nothing to panic. She pleaded people to let the captain focus on taking stock of the situation and decide, post which he will provide an update. But that also wasn’t enough to calm some people down. All of these anxious people were educated as they were speaking in English. Kudos to the crew for remaining calm and not mistreating any passenger.

People who know me have rarely heard me shout. I don’t know what happened, but I heard a loud voice coming out from my mouth - “GUYS, PLEASE LET THE PILOT DO HIS JOB. PLEASE LET HIM DO HIS JOB. WE ARE BETTER OFF WITH HIM RESCUING THE PLANE THAN UPDATING US!” To my surprise, this helped! A few other passengers supported me and eventually better sense prevailed. The cabin crew took over from there and finally, there was some calm.

What followed were several minutes of uncomfortable calmness. Nervous faces looking at each other, folded hands praying to their respective gods. The aircraft seemed to have taken a couple of right turns but seemed to be flying at the same altitude with no danger visible to the passengers. Assuming the pilots had decided to continue with the journey, a few voices demanded the cabin crew to land the aircraft instead. The crew had however occupied their seats and hence were unavailable for any response to these demands.

After those long five or so minutes, it was a bit of relief to hear the captain announce, “Cabin crew, be seated for landing”. But then, a realization struck that the engine might be damaged and what if landing failed? I wasn’t the only one with this fear. As the aircraft began its descent, prayers intensified and people set their eyes at the window. The landing at Mumbai airport was as normal as it usually is. But the instant applause that the passengers gave was no less melodramatic than climax of a movie.

As the aircraft taxied in, people finally started smiling and joking. The captain made an announcement once the plane was parked, first apologizing for his late update and then sharing that a possible bird hit at an altitude of around 7000 feet had stalled the left hand side engine and hence they decided to go for emergency landing, safety being most important. The fire brigade had immediately positioned themselves around the aircraft, much to people’s anxiety for a few more minutes. The engineering team swiftly arrived to do their checks and investigation. No further announcements were given about what happened. After around 45 minutes, we were shifted to another aircraft to be flown to our destination, where the landing was once again applauded by the passengers.

As I was disembarking from the aircraft, I stopped by at the exit to express my gratitude to the cabin crew. I asked them if this was their first bird hit experience. Neither of the 2 attendants replied in an affirmative.

Some twist in the tale:

It took me a week to get access to a laptop and blog this experience as I was on a hectic tour. Just yesterday, on 12^th March 2018, an Indigo flight had to land back in Ahmedabad within 40 minutes of take-off due to a mid-air engine failure on Monday. Today, the DGCA grounded Indigo’s eight A320 Neo planes with faulty Pratt & Whitney engines. This prompted me to re-confirm what was the issue with the flight 6E 395. And this is what I see:

Click here for a link for the above news bit.

So, what we assumed was a bird hit, was actually an engine failure. Ok!

What's interesting is that the captain in his announcement didn’t once mention that there is a possible engine failure and chose to blame this on a bird-hit. On the other hand, Indigo in its official statement hasn’t mentioned a bird-hit at all.

Nevertheless, some simple takeaways from the experience:

• Don’t panic. It helps no one. Keep calm. It does wonders.
• Share your flight details with your closest folks every time you fly / travel.
• Ensure you have nominated someone on all your assets and insurance policies. Also, share these details with the nominated person(s). If possible, keep sharing an updated list of assets and nominations with a trusted person or your lawyer if you have one.

There are some other philosophical lessons also which I took away from the experience. I think I’ve given some material for you to take your own!

Likelihood of a bird hit

Before I came to know this was engine failure, I did some googling and mini-research on bird hits in India. I thought I’d share it just to share a perspective.

On an average, 60 to 70 bird hits are reported every month in India¹. With around 97,000 flights per month², that’s a 0.07% probability (1 in 1386 chance) of a bird hit if you’re flying out of or into Indian airports.

These numbers may mean that most air transport professionals - both DGCA and airline staff at almost every major airport are likely to have handled a bird hit. Also, the probability of a passenger taking (let’s say) 12 flights a year and facing at least one bird hit in a year is still less than 1% (around 0.86%). I am not aware of any plane crashes or casualties because of bird hits over the past few years (do correct me if I’m wrong). So, while bird hits pose a risk to air travel, numbers show that they rarely lead to fatal accidents.

PS: Boria Majumdar was also on the same flight. Click here for Boria's tweet about the bird hit.

Sources:

1: News report (On average two birdhits reported from Indian airports every day)

2: DGCA website (http://dgca.nic.in/reports/Traffic-ind.htm)

Modi & Co. couldn't bring Gujarat to Bihar. Will Nitish & Co. bring Bihar to Gujarat and rest of India?

The dust has just began to settle over the Bihar 2015 Assembly poll verdict. There have been a number of opeds as you'd expect after every election from journalists and commentators on what made Nitish & Lalu the winners and what brought the Modi juggernaut to its knees. I don't intend to write one of those columns here, because to me, the fate of these elections was sealed when the seat sharing for Bihar was arrived at. Whatever these opeds say about Modi wave ebbing, or rising intolerance hurting BJP, or fringe elements damaging BJP's cause with their big mouths or Nitish magic working, or the Lalu factor or positive & negative politics, etc. is really not so impactful.

The real reason for NDA's loss can be depicted in the 2 charts in Livemint's article: "Three electoral lessons from the Bihar verdict" (Link to article) here:

   

In Lok Sabha 2014 elections, the NDA was fighting a divided 45.06% vote share of JDU, RJD and Congress, etc. with its own 39.46% vote share. Whereas in Assembly 2015 elections, its reduced vote share of 34.1% was against a united share of 44.05%. NDA needed a more than 5% swing of votes in its favor, which even the triumphant Nitish or Laloo has not able to achieve. Yes, there is erosion in BJP's vote share as well as in those of its allies and BJP needs to introspect why it went down. But they knew getting the seat share arithmetic was nearly impossible without this 5% positive swing that was required.

Though I can't claim to understand Bihari people's psyche that well, it would be foolish to claim development agenda won over casteism or communalism. Nitish Kumar might have been a beneficiary of pro-development politics, but perhaps not as much as BJP. MGB however played the caste angle so smartly, that they managed to steal any upswing that BJP could have got. There were several other traps laid down by MGB besides caste, in which the BJP happily got itself entangled in thinking it'll help them. Intolerance, Dadri, etc. were just some of them.

I just want to share my concerns on one of those moves as it worries me a lot because I hate casteism and because it poses a grave threat to development agenda in electoral politics.

This move was actually a master stroke and concerns this chap called Hardik Patel and the Patidar movement in Gujarat.

As it is unfolding day by day, the movement seems to be a well thought out social experimentation by the MGB to weaken BJP in its stronghold, i.e. Gujarat. If you read about the discrete support from Nitish Kumar, Kejriwal, and now open support from Congress to this movement, and then join all the dots, you'll see a master plan emerging. I won't be surprised if Prashant Kishore, who must have understood Gujarat dynamics quite well by now, would be the master mind behind this, possibly along with Ahmed Patel. But I admit, this is just my guess. Earlier, I thought this might just be a plan to distract Modi and Shah from Bihar elections so that they get busy in protecting their home turf.

But now, I feel the plot is even more sinister.

What Modi had successfully done in Gujarat was to weaken the caste based politics. No one can erase casteism yet, not even in Gujarat, but he was successful in giving a stronger voice to the non-Patel public.

Anyone who has stayed in Gujarat for long enough and worked here would know how prosperous and well placed the Patidar community is. You'd know how difficult it is to rise professionally in your field if you are pitted against a Patel (or Patidar), be it in private or public institutions. They are resourceful and united for each other's cause and well being. I may be generalizing, but Patels are the most enterprising lot from Gujarat and "naukari" (service) doesn't appeal to a large section of them. You might actually wonder why would they need reservations in education now. They have set an example of how to set up businesses and grow as a community with a progressive mindset, all the while lending a hand to someone of their own.

I see absolutely no harm in being a well bonded community. But the Patidars go to an extent where the community feeling is discriminatory to others. Power and positions have been misused by them. I will neither elaborate on this, nor won't blame them because any other community in their place would have done the same. We humans (and not just Indians) are like that only.

To Modi's credit, he replaced the Patel bonhomie with a sense of pride for Gujarat. The cause of Gujarat, the need for development and to raise a united voice against Gujarat's insult following Godhra became a stronger voice replacing caste based internal concerns. The Gujarat youth, including the Patels related more to this calling than that of helping just their individual castes and communities. The Patel bonhomie wasn't dead though. It just got superseded by some other cause.

With the Patidar campaign getting stronger just before Bihar elections, the BJP found itself in a tricky position. On one hand, it had to cautiously support Patidars and voice its opposition to reservations to calm down the movement in Gujarat. And on the other hand, BJP's intended 5% upswing had to come from the Dalit or Mahadalit votes, which thanks to these new circumstances, was at severe risk. As if all this was not enough, Mr. Bhagwat voluntarily complied with his remark on reservations. To be fair, given the number of big mouths in BJP, if not Mr. Bhagwat, someone else would have done the honors. The media and the opposition were more than happy to pick up anything on these lines and blow it out of proportion. Well played Mr. Nitish Kumar, Mr. Prashant Kishore and Mr. Ahmed Patel, or whoever planned this! So far, so good.

What upsets me however, is that instead of developmental politics entering into Bihar from Gujarat, the reverse is happening now. The Patidar campaign is getting stronger day by day. To quote Indian Express verbatim, "After Bihar poll results, Patidars vow to ensure BJP rout in Gujarat civic polls". As I write, media is reporting that Prashant Kishore will be actively involved in civic polls slated to happen post Diwali in Gujarat. I saw one Patel leader claiming that BJP has done injustice to his community. Some other Patel said, BJP has committed atrocities on Patidars. Obviously, all these claims are outright false and bunkum. There is no substantiation to any of these claims if one thinks objectively, but hyperbole meets hyperbole now.

And guess what, this is smart politics. Congress couldn't break the Hindu vote supporting BJP in Gujarat. They couldn't plan a come back with a development agenda. So what was their way out? Bring Bihar to Gujarat. Divide the society on caste again. Take it back to the old ages. Being in power is more important than undoing a forward step taken. Not surprisingly, the media will be gloating over an opportunity like this the way they loved discussing Bihar election on caste lines.

I had hoped the Patidar community wouldn't fall into this trap. The economic package offered by the Gujarat Government would have been sufficient to meet their demands. But then, why would they stop themselves here? They were losing their dominance and influence in state politics. They couldn't digest the other castes rubbing shoulders with them. I am not painting all Patels with the same brush, but if a majority of Patidar community hadn't joined the movement, there wouldn't have been a cause for worry for anyone. Now, there indeed is a cause for concern - first for Gujarat, and later for other states as well.

I am not at all wishing the Patels would support Modi. I am also not speaking in favour of BJP, which itself is not innocent in playing communal or caste games. But I am hopelessly wishing people would stop adding fuel to a movement that will ruin the state and eventually other states. I hope they don't fall into this trap laid down by Congress & MGB. I hope they continue insisting for progress and development as they did in the past.

I agree the anti-reservation voice had to rise one day. I myself have been a victim of reservation, but I, like many other fellow Gujaratis and Indians, didn't choose the path taken by Mr. Hardik Patel. I worked harder, like many other Patels did.

Myself being a nobody, this blog is not intended to change the tide, but I hope a few Patidars would see through the damage this movement is doing to the fabric and progress of the nation and that they would decide to stop supporting it. By doing so, they will help avoid bringing Bihar to Gujarat. In fact, they will eventually do immense service to the nation by stopping Congress and the MGB from taking Bihar to the rest of India.

Disclaimer: There are several things good about Bihar. Caste politics is not one of them. In all comments above where I fear taking Bihar to Gujarat and elsewhere, I am referring to only caste politics. I have no disrespect for any one from Bihar. In fact, I have some very good friends belonging to the state, and I respect them a lot. I hope we keep bringing such good people, their intelligence and their ethos to the nation than caste politics.

Don't Bring Home the Ganesh...

Here's some data I picked up from a news clip in a vernacular Mumbai newspaper dated 1st September 2014:

• On the 1.5th day of Ganpati Visarjan, a total of 69,833 Ganesh Idols were immersed
• Of these, only 10,448 (15%) were immersed in artificial water bodies / ponds
• 72 natural and 27 articial ponds utilized
• Only 190 of the idols were from a cooperative organizations. Of these, 52 were immersed in artificial ponds
• Rest of the idols were household idols.

As a very conservative estimate, this is close to 150 Tons of PoP getting dumped into the water bodies on a single day from household Ganpatis alone. At the moment, I don't have the statistics on how the number of household Ganpati Visarjans has been trending for the last few years, but my sense from how I have seen the festival over the years is that, the number is increasing at a rapid pace. At least in Mumbai. To me, there are more reasons to see this as a disturbing trend than a positive one.

In a way, it's good that more and more people are discovering faith and love for one of the cutest Hindu Gods around. With every new idol being brought to the household, an artist, a fruit vendor, a priest, a drummer or a DJ and a few others get additional income. So, there is consumption, income generation, and also a bit more circulation of money; all of which add to the health of the economy.

However, the impact this trend is having on noise and water pollution is quite alarming. With every one more household Ganesh idol getting added every year, we add atleast 5 hours of noise pollution (thanks to the noisy drums and DJ's employed during the welcoming and departing processions). We add another 3-4 kg. of PoP into our waters. We add more minutes or maybe a few more hours to the commute time of people working on Visarjan days and hence added fuel consumption. We also add to the headache of the traffic police which has to manage not just the undisciplined but also the frustrated drivers on the road.

I can't claim to know what the Hindu religious texts prescribed for worshipping Ganesh during these days of the year. But I am sure beating cacophonic drums for hours, firing noisy crackers, hiring DJs playing music at high decibels, holding up traffic and dumping (not immersing) PoP idols into water has never even been a Hindu tradition or a necessary custom during the Visarjan festival.

And suppose, if we as devout Hindus out of our faith want to celebrate Ganapati, can't we do it in a way that doesn't harm the environment?
Can't we make home-made Ganeshas and immerse them in a bucket of water in the house itself? Or create a small pond within the housing society instead?
Can't we realise that festivals are for personal enjoyment but not at the cost of peace of other humans and flora & fauna in the neighbourhood?
Can't we instead sing in chorus and dance to the milder music of dholaks while taking out our processions?
Can't we use other means to unleash our desires to shake a leg here and there and let our dancing feet loose?
Can't we realise that if Ganesh is a God, he's got really large ears to hear our faintest prayers and doesn't need us to shout through loudspeakers to get us heard?

A cliched answer to all these questions is: Yes, We Can. My sincere request to you, is to do it and also spread the word so that others can also do it.

Whosoever reads this blog, if you follow the tradition of bringing home a Ganesh every year, or know anyone in your social circle doing so, please try to convince yourself or them to avoid damaging the environment and peace of the already strained Mumbai city. There is a better way to worshipping Ganesh than shaming him with practices that harm God's own creations and creatures.

One way is to worship but not bring home the Ganesh...

Ye din, ye zindagi...

सुबह की निंद से बचपन की नादानी ऊठ जाती है,

खुद चाय बनाते हुए माँ की टकोर याद आ जाती है

कमसीन पलों की याद में आँखों में नमी सी आ जाती है,

चंद दबे अश्कों से ज़हन में जवानी कदम कर जाती है. 

जवां दिल की दुनियादारी में कुछ दोस्ती-यारी बन जाती है,

दोस्तों की खुदगर्ज़ी से मिले तो दोस्ती की खिलवट सताती है,

इंसानियत की उलजने  खाकर दोपहर की निंद आ जाती है, 

जुट जाये जब इरफ़ानी तो उलजने की ताकत फिर आ जाती है. 

जो दिल से खेले थे उनको खेल दिखाने की होशियारी आ जाती है,

जिसने शायर बनाया उसी को शायरी सुनाने की अदा आ जाती है.

इन मुनाफिक मेहफिलों की गुफ्तगू जब शोर बन जाती है,

घर वापस आकर खुदा से बात करने की आरज़ू खिल जाती है. 

कल का दिन बेहतर गुज़रे ये दुआएं लब पे आ जाती है,

हसरतो से थकी सपनो में डूबी आँखें अब बंद हो जाती है. 

कभी सोचता हूँ एक ही दिन में सारी ज़िन्दगी गुज़र जाती है,

कभी दिन ज़िन्दगी में तो कभी ज़िन्दगी दिन में सिमट जाती है.