Live The Mahabharata..........

The size of Mother Earth compared to the Universe is that of a bacteria to the Human eye.Yet, the complexities of human emotions makes us believe that the Earth is huge and a vast area of dark hell.
The Value system of Mankind has degraded to a nadir in the modern era.There is so much negativity around us. Yet we pray to God, and nothing happens despite Offering the most precious gift to the God we pray. Everyone of us has problems in our lives. We all have seen success and failures.This Blog is about how indifferent we are to the success and failures of our lives and how much we have forgotten to live our lives without any value system in it.We are just breathing but we are not living.
                                                                             Personally, I have never believed in having inspired from others.I had never been inspired from Mahatma Gandhi.Neither from Abraham Lincoln nor from Mother Teresa and I would never believe, when a person is inspired by me too.The real inspiration for me is only ME. Because we all have that god gifted inner strength in us and only that we don't recognize this inner potential in us that we look outside for inspiration.This is the dark age, and we all need help and We all face tough questions in our lives and i have always turned the same pages to seek answers.THE MAHABHARATA.
                                                                   The teachings of the great Epic are so powerful and so very much relevant to our times that it completes all my spiritual needs.The emphasis on Karma yoga is in a very true sense a master stroke and nothing can beat this universal truth.The Mahabharata is the book of Peace and also the book of War.
                                                               The thought of writing a blog on the Mahabharata, was on my mind for about 3 months now. I wanted to write it with utmost honesty and sincerity. As well, given the sheer size of the Epic, i genuinely doubted my skills as a blogger. Howerver i have started writing this blog without knowing where to end. With blessings from Lord Krishna.........

The Mahabharat was recited by Sage Ved Vyasa and written by Lord Ganesh.

The entire epic is in the form of 18 parvas or parts.The Mahabharata starts with Sage Vaishampayana performing a Sarpa Yaga for Emperor Janmejaya (The Great grand son of Arjuna) and it is during this yaga that the sage recites to Janmejaya, the story of his ancestors and the entire 18 parvas of the Mahabharata.

The one thing that comes on to our minds, when we think of the Mahabharata, is the great War that took place at the Kurukshetra.Such huge was the War, that one could clearly hear the sound of the Great Arjuna's Pratyancha (thread of the Bow), from miles apart. Lakhs of soldiers were killed during that 18 day War, that the color of the soil is red, even today. However it must be mentioned that Lord Krishna tried many strategies to avoid the War and that peace must be established at all cost.He advised the Pandavas to avoid the War until all other options of establishing Peace have dried up.So much, he tried valiantly, that he himself went to Hastinapur for a Peace talk with the Kauravas.Krishna requested Dhritharashtra for five Villages, in return for Peace but the arrogant Duryodhana refused to offer even with land as much as the point of a needle.Duryodhana Clearly wanted war over peace.
                                                                 Today in our Modern society, seldom, that Peace is given a chance.While the Great Epic War of Kurukshetra was fought for the rights of the Pandavas, the War of the modern societies take place for control over Oil,natural resources and World dominance. Countries are ever increasing their budgets on Defense and Security and there seems to be no end to this scenario.

 There is so much that Humans have degraded over the thousands of years and no wonder that this is the Dark Age beyond any doubt and contemplation.

                                                              Many many years before the Kurukshetra War, Lord Krishna made Ugrasena as the King of Mathura after Killing King Kamsa. Jarasandha, the Father-In-law of Kamsa wanted to take revenge on Krishna for killing Kamsa.Jarasandha was a powerful King of Magadh and swore to kill Krishna and began attacking Mathura from all sides.The Lord made sure that he never did any thing before its time had come.He defeated Jarasandha every time.The Lord decided to move away from mathura and set up a new Land which is safe and secure from all four sides........The Dwaraka.....However, people of Mathura refused to leave .That it would be an act of a coward to leave their lands at Mathura and it would be a submission to Jarasandha, whom they had defeated on many occasions earlier.Krishna explained to his people,that he wouldn't mind being called by any name and that War should be fought only when there is no other option left.Besides Jarasandha was waging a personal battle at Krishna and the lives of thousands of soldiers cannot be put to risk just to satisfy the ego of Jarasandha.
                                                                        Would any country of this era shown such Maturity.It is
unfortunate that most of the Wars of modern era are fought purely to satisfy one's Ego.For instance, the Vietnam War,The Iraq War, hope nobody forgets the 2 World Wars.I fail to recollect any war of the modern era which was fought to establish Peace.It is going to be very hard to justify the death of millions of people.Mother Earth has just become a junk of skeletal remains.

It is often said that the word "Democracy" was invented in INDIA.Though i have not found any proof of it, below are a few examples from the great EPIC.

• Yayati made Puru his heir even though he wasn't the eldest of his sons. 
• Bharat made Bhumanyu ascend to his throne, denying all his nine sons, because he considered them incompetent. 
• Shantanu became king ahead of his elder brother Dhritarashtra

That was the era that Kings gave poeple a serious thought ,that the King was merely a servant of the people and the people were in true sense, the King .Such, were the great Kings of that era.

How can one forget the Krishna/Arjuna friendship or even the Krishna/Sudama friendship or even the Duryodhana/Karna friendship.Not that its impossible in this era,but we hardly try being a true friend.
Numerous examples of pure human emotions that this great Epic offers

One day, when Guru Dronacharya was busy teaching the Pandavas and the kauravas, a small kid by the name Eklavya turned up to seek a meeting with Guru Drona. Dronacharya was very much imperssed with the sheer desire of the Kid to learn Shastra vidya from him.Drona turned the boy away saying that he was already employed by the King of Hastinapur to give his teachings to the Pandavas and the Kauravas and that he could not accept any students who did not belong to the royal dynasty.Eklavya was disappointed.He went home and made a statue of Guru Drona and began practising Archery.His belief that the statue would teach him, kept the boy determined.Over the period of time, with sheer hardwork, Eklavya had become a very good archer and probably the only one who could defeat the great Arjuna.
                                                              One day Dronacharya,the kauravas and the Pandavas  came hunting into the Jungle.In the night, everyone were disturbed by the shouting of a Dog.There was a sound of an arrow whcih hit the Dog's mouth and finally the barking stopped.Drona went out in the dark to see who shot the Dog.He was surprised to see that it was Eklavya.Eklavya touched his Guru's feet and showed the Guru the statue in front of which he practised Dhanur Vidya (Archery).The Guru was moved and he instantly knew that Eklavya was a big threat for Arjuna,cos the great Arjuna was to participate in the Great epic war which was going to come.The Guru knew he had to sop Eklavya  and hence he instantly asked for his thumb as the Guru Dakhshina.The great Eklavya happily cut his thumb and had put it at his Guru's feet.
                                                               This is the reason Mahabharata was made.These are the human values,our culture and our tradition.These are the teachings to the Mankind from the God,from the Lord.

Guru Brahma Gurur Vishnu ,Guru Devo Maheshwaraha

Guru Saakshat Para Brahma , Tasmai Sree Gurave Namaha

Probably one of the biggest lessons from the Mahabharata and this could only Happen during the War
and coming from the great himself,the Gopala,the Giridhara,the Vasudeva,the Krishna and this is the ultimate learning and there can be no other greater learning than this.This is lesson of THE TRUTH.
The Great teachings of the Lord Krishna to Arjuna.Even the great Bheeshma felt jealous Of Arjuna.How Bheeshma cried for the air to carry a small bit of sound what Krishna was saying to Arjuna.The great Bhagawad Gita.
                                                  When you have to choose between Dharma and Adharma,one has to always choose the Dharma and following the Dharma can never be Adharma.Be it the father,grand father or be it the brothers or ones own family members, following the path of Dharma is the primary responsibility of Mankind.That Dharma must be achieved at all cost and hence it is absolutely acceptable that Yudhisthira had to tell the only Lie in his life, during the great War of Kurukshetra.He had to tell Guru Drona that his son Ashwathama had been killed.Ashwathama was immortal and could never be killed but what got killed was an elephant with the same name as Ashwathama . Guru Drona knew that Yudhisthira can never lie and was extremely upset thinking that his son was killed.While laying down his weapons in grief , commander-in-chief of the Pandava army, The Dhrishtadyumna killed Guru Drona from behind separating his head from the body.
                                                  The great Arjuna was so much fond of his Pitamaha Bheeshma, little did he know that one day he would kill Bheeshma for the sake of Dharma. On the 10th day of the 18 day war, Arjuna let Shikandi (the Half man) on his chariot.Knowing that Bheeshma would not fight with Arjuna, as long as Shikandi was on his Chariot, the Great Bheeshma Pitamah could not fight and thus he was lying on the bed of arrows which had pierced his body.
                                                 Arjuna wanted to take revenge on Jayadhrat for killing Abhimanyu in a Chakravyuha. Jayadhrat danced around the dead body of young Abhimanyu. He vowed to kill Jayadhrat the very next day or self immolate.Krishna had to create a solar eclipse with his Sudarshana Chakra , so that Jayadhrat would become complacent and the moment the Solar eclipse ended, Arjuna shot the arrow with his full might and killed Jayadhrat.The Lord had to do this not because he was Arjuna's friend, but because he was on the side of Dharma.
                                                    Even the King of Anga, the eldest brother of Arjuna was killed only by deceit.Arjuna had to kill Karna Knowing that Karna got down from his chariot, since it was stuck in mud.There are numerous instances of breaking the War rules, however it was not the Pandavas who broke the rules first.The Pandavas broke the rules only after the Kauravas broke it first.
Following the path of Dharma can never be Adharma.


Mankind of the modern era has a lot to learn from these teachings.Excitement is the root cause of all the problems in this World.We must learn to be Stithapragya (balanced). We must learn to accept our failures just the way we accept our Succcess.We all owe this to ourselves.When we learn to do that, we are no more afraid of our failures.We are no longer affected by our Failures.We must evolve as a better society.We must bring the value system into our lives.  We must do our Karma without expecting the fruits of it. I am trying to do it every day.I am not a perfect person.
I am just trying to live the Mahabharat, everyday.

Indian Cricket

"If Cricket is a religion, then Sachin is a God".....Iam sure there are millions of cricket lovers in India who have loved the game just because Sachin played it.In a way Sachin united India.The rise of BSE, the growth story of India's GDP post liberalization and Sachin debuting , have almost started off at the same time period.India progressed whenever Sachin made runs.Its a sheer coincidence that the name of 'Dawood' too was making headlines in the same period and all for wrong reasons.So we have a religion , we have a god and the Demon.While Sachin and Cricket remained the same, the list of demons grew in number.But this blog is not about Sachin or his hundreds,nor is it about the D company and its bunch of filthy 'friends'.Its only about where Cricket is today.
                                                      The recent happenings has hurted not only the cricket fans,but every person who is a Nationalist.It has hurted every person who puts the Country first.And not that this has happened for the first time but such things has happened again and again over the past and that there has been no learning from it.That nothing can be done if someone is fixing, says the board, gives us the sum of the entire thing.That nobody is accountable, is a farce and a blatant lie.That the man in question was differentiating between "Stepping Aside" and "Stepping Down" when the shame of Indian Cricket was unrobed yet again after 1999.
                                                      The meeting on Sunday was an eyewash and a big Powerplay of faction and groups running the Indian board and the state boards.Its a fact that i only know with conviction that none protested in that meeting and that participants of that meeting, were all playing the same innings.The major role of the head of board is that of distributing money to all the state associations equally, with/without any prejudice.Administering Cricket is only a very small part.While they can claim to have carried an authentic auditing processes with International standards by a third party like PricewaterhouseCoopers,none is shown the records because its a Private Club and with great sadness they will come out in front of the Media and say that the Board cannot come under RTI.Less said the better,we also Know how the Govt runs Other Sports.
                                                         Cricket never had money in it.Its only when people started watching the game closely and following it. Money only flowed in as long as Cricket is administered privately.Clearly this is the root of all the conflict of interests.Successive govts intention in India has never been revenue maximization which probably saved the day for many other sports while Cricket suffered this disaster.Despite this taint, People will still watch the game.While sipping a Irani tea,they would still debate whether that specific no ball seen on TV was fixed or not.But no one can deny the fact that Indian Cricket has been dented hard.
                                                       On the other hand, Sports/Women Issues have become easy topics for the Media to pick up.They will run a special programme on a Sunday for such issues and None can accuse them of being partial.But no one in the Media will ask the Govt why political parties should not be under RTI.One may be tempted to say that the writing on the wall is clear for the viewers and every person who loves the Nation.At a time when theres nothing around to believe in,people look for smaller ideas of motivation like being simple,being humble,all members of the family having supper together,having a small garden,walking a couple of miles to school and when they see the face of a person like Sachin,they Know there are good people in this World too.
                                                    Way back in the 90's when India toured New Zealand and this was the incident that happened one night before an ODI, The coach (Anshuman Gaekwad) of the Indian cricket team running to Sachin's room in the midnight to tell him that tomorrows match has been fixed by bookies and a few teammates including the captain, and that Sachin must do his best to win the game.Sachin lived to his reputation on many such occasions and won the game sometimes and got out sometimes.The game of Cricket may have produced many greats with respective contributions but its important that the story of Sachin must form the platform and a strong base for Modern Indian Cricket.With huge conviction and pride i can say, Sachin played for INDIA.

THE MEDIA - A Perfect Dilution

With the advent of technology and social media,Indian political scenario is moving faster towards a new set of dynamics.Theres a new game that has unfolded and more than half the indian population don't even know that this has already arrived and probably here to stay for a very very long time.How good or bad this game is or what its going to cost, is a matter of huge debate and speculation.The fact remains that its anything less than a deadly democracy remix.
                     When you look up at the night sky and see the stars twinkling, you feel happy.But the fact is that you are looking at a false image.An image which is not true.In reality you are only seeing the light.The star may have died millions of years ago, yet you see it alive ad twinkling.Truth is the purest form of god.but for govt agencies,media channels,internet giants,corporates, truth is the purest form of business and money making.For a normal Indian who works,earns money for his/her family, its a mountainous task of identifying the truth in its purest and undiluted form. He often depends on the word of mouth,newspapers,internet articles,social media and accepts it as the only available information and tags it as "The Truth" and finally this becomes his belief.Its a sad state of affairs that this version of truth is almost all the time distorted when it flows down the chain from the top.I often wonder why do we have so many political parties when all of them have a single point common agenda namely "DEVELOPMENT"....one simple answer i have is the prospect  of choosing a different party when one does not perform..its a great prospect..if  'x' does not perform ,i can always vote 'y' after 5 years.Every Indian who does not have a political agenda would think the same...But the actual truth is that x=y and that all political parties are the same.That they name this as a 'healthy competition' is a farce.There is a very thin line of  individuality that differs but the general character remains the same.
                     The fact that riots,corruption,religion based politics and all forms of bad governance , took place under both the BJP and Congress governments .The fact that both talk of inclusive development is not worth believing.The BJP portrays an image of being the Hindu representative ,while the congress acts as representatives of Minorities,poor and backward section of the society.
Yet both are brazen enough of an inclusive development rhetoric.Be it Head or a Tail...the end result is the same conclusion.The probability is a 100% of a likely consequence.
                     Media plays a major role in the portrayal of an image of a political party.Let me give you a couple of examples.

1. The recent controversy of Pardon to Sanjay Dutt .NDTV was quick to report "Shiv Sena reverses stand on Sanjay Dutt"....while Times of India reported "Shiv Sena opposes pardon to Sanjay Dutt".If you are of those kind, who read the paper in a local train,you wouldn't notice.But a careful reading of both the headlines give you the difference.
2. The controversy of the Chopper Scam...Times Now reported "Govt dragging feet...11 months after Times Now broke the news of the scam ,there is no action from the govt" while NDTV reported the same news in a different light "Govt threatens to cancel Chopper contract "

Its the same news projected differently and its no secret that Media has its own agenda and its own program.A few other West funded News channels who keep praising the western countries and The Pope.Also true that rich Indian businessmen are said to be major stakeholders in almost all the News channels that a normal Indian watches every day.The Media's only job is to  create,morph,distort and present news to increase TRPs and thereby increase their per second cost of endorsements.With such a huge business turnover, Media is a power to reckon with.This power increases their bargain ability thus creating a strong lobby with political parties and businessmen.Such huge is the power of Media,that they have come up with the term "Sting Operation" to armtwist the government and the party.They repeatedly show a 30 second graphic content of an Member of parliament, taking bribe or slapping,beating or harassing a commoner.Basically, Media is a shop where you can get an Image makeover for anyone in this world and there are no free lunches here.A flop actor can simply get into the shop,strike a deal and he/she is back in business.We are already hearing of news reports that businessmen who are major stakeholders in a news channel influence the stories and reports.A single report can make a killing at the Bombay stock exchange,National Stock Exchange,NASDAQ,Dow Jones.With advent of technology Media now has occupied the internet too.They are everywhere.Twitter handles,Facebook posts,websites,articles,print media.They set the agenda and the people follow it,like it,share it,re tweet it,and tag it.Its also often said but still unofficial though ,that Internet giants and social media like Facebook and Google are tracking your usage and confidential data thus invading your privacy.They sell this data to 3rd party vendors for billions of dollars compromising your privacy and security.The Media even decides which government to vote in.Media even decides policies on National Interest.Media even decides whether to go for a war or sign a peace treaty.
                                        We are in the age where news is being churned on the back of a turtle with gods and demons at each end.With the ever-growing Media , governments are going to be completely overpowered one day.Its often believed that we are all a part of a bigger conspiracy unfolding.Each and every global incident is connected to a common point on the timescale.All the means of attaining Knowledge will have vanished.The doomsday will not fail.Its our own making and it will hit us hard.The 'Truth' is simply gone.No traces of it will be found.Its the Beginning!!!!!