Day 2 Bhagavad Gita – side stories

Drupad, son of king Prishata was the king of Panchal.

He was the father of Draupadi,the Pandavas wife.

Drupada, and Drona studied together in Rishi Baradwaj’s gurukul.He was also Drona’s father.

They became great friends.

While Drupada became a king after the death of his father, Drona lived a life of poverty,he approached Drupada for help. Drupada, now conscious of the status between them, refused to acknowledge Drona’s friendship,saying that a king can only have friend with another king.

Drona was later employed by Bhishma to train the sons of Pandavas and kauravas.

After the gurukul period,Drona asked the princes to defeat and capture Drupada,as Gurudakshina.

Then the Pandavas and Kauravas led by Arjun defeated Drupada,and brought him to Drona.

Drona considering their friend forgave Drupada and set him free, and gave him half of the country to rule so that they are equals.

Drupada felt humiliated.

Drupada performed a great yajna called for a son who could slay Drona.

From the fire of the yajna, twins Dhrishtathyumn and Draupadi, (who married Arjun later) were born.

Drona accepted him as his student and taught him everything.

Later during the Kurukshetra war Drona killed Drupada who fought on Pandavas side.

Dhristathyumn beheaded Drona,when he was meditating.

Walking with Nanak – By Haroon Khalid (Book Review)

I finished reading Walking with Nanak yesterday night. It’s a very beautiful read. The author Haroon Khalid had been fascinated with Nanak since childhood. He wanted to search and know more about his life. He travels across Pakistan wherever Nanak went.

Following his footsteps (as the name says walking with Nanak) Nanak was born in present-day Pakistan. He left his family to find his own truth. He traveled for 24 years on foot all parts of India – east, west, north, and south, with his friend Mardana. Learning more about Hindus and Muslim’s and finding a middle path. And thereby sets the foundation for a new religion. There are 2 stories running parallelly – one Haroon and his friend’s journey visiting places Nanak visited in present-day Pakistan and other of the history of Sikh Gurus in brief. There are references to various gurudwaras in Pakistan connected to Guru Nanak.

In particular, I enjoyed reading about Nanak’s personal life. He was born in a simple Hindu family, educated by Muslim and he founded a new religion called Sikhism. When he left his family to travel and seek his own truth, he had to deal with all the family issues that once could think of. Unhappy father and mother, wife and kids he was leaving hoping he would change his mind. His father remained unhappy with him whole life as instead of focusing on career, he spent time with yogis and spiritual matters.

After nearly 3 decades of traveling when he returns home, he sees lots of complaints and questions in his wife’s eyes. He never spent time with his kids and hence kids are more friendly with their mother. He struggles to be a part now. Though on surface everything is perfect. His wife would cook food, serve him take care of him but there is still an invisible wall. His kids and talking to their mother but when father comes in, they suddenly stop.

His elder son got more inclined towards ascetics and younger son towards business. He was more worried for his elder son because he himself has been preaching since years that don’t be an ascetic believing in superstitions but find your own truth. He also went thru a phase thinking what will society think that this man who is preaching the whole world, can’t teach the same to his own sons. He is a saint god who is worshipped my Sikhs and non-Sikhs also.

This reminded me of a small paragraph I wrote in my book – Men are from Earth, Women are from Earth – A New Scripture for Men and Women:

There are as many combinations possible as there are families in this world. In a nutshell, every human being is a part of this generation’s dysfunction unless one generation chooses to identify and break through it. It is simply inescapable. And it is reflected in all our relationships, be it with the same gender or opposite. If anyone says he or she has not picked from their parents, they are lying to themselves. One may also decide to be extremely opposite of what their parents were. That is also picked-up by many.

Family dysfunction is passed down from generation to generation like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path until one generation has the courage to turn and face the flames. That person brings peace to their ancestors and spares the children that follow. He had the privilege of moving beyond his parents’ limiting beliefs. Beliefs that are formed in response to an injury are always limiting and hinder us from getting what we really want in life. How contradictory and confusing humans’ minds are! One day, we live to make memories and another day, we erase memories to live.

Not just Guru Nanak but even our mythological characters like Kartikeya (son of Shiva), Shani Dev (son of Lord Surya – the Sun God), etc. Even if we take a biblical character like Lucifer a fallen angel condemned to hell by his father (The God).

Nobody is immune to family dysfunction

Overall, Walking with Nanak is a very beautiful book to read.

Taarein hai baarati – Peru Folklore

We all have list of favorite songs. I am sure Taarein hai baarati is in the favorite list of almost everyone. Originally it is an Andean folk music.

Andean music is a group of styles of music from the Andes region in South America.


Original chants and melodies come from the general area inhabited by Quechuas, Aymaras and other peoples who lived roughly in the area of the Inca Empire prior to European contact. This early music then was fused with Spanish music elements. It includes folklore music of parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. Andean music is popular to different degrees across Latin America, having its core public in rural areas and among indigenous populations. The Nueva Canción movement of the 1970s revived the genre across Latin America and brought it to places where it was unknown or forgotten.

Here’s the original folk version and then the 1916 version, then 1970 version, the hindi music version.

The folk music

The 1916 version

The 1970 version

1997 Bollywood music version with Indian musical instruments

El condor pasa is an 18th century Peruvian folk melody. Around 1916, Peruvian composer Daniel Alomias Robles notated this popular traditional melody and used it as the basis for an instrumental suite. The ‘My choice’ words are by Paul Simon!

El Cóndor Pasa (The Condor Goes by or Flies by) is a song from the zarzuela El Cóndor Pasa by the Peruvian composer Daniel Alomía Robles written in 1913 and based on traditional Andean folk tunes.

It is possibly the best-known Peruvian song worldwide due to a cover version by Simon & Garfunkel in 1970 on their Bridge Over Troubled Water album. This cover version is called El Condor Pasa (If I Could).

Mumbai Story 2 – Dabbawalas: Lifeline of Mumbaikars Daily Lunch

About 125 years ago, a Parsi banker wanted to have home-cooked food in his office and hired someone to collect it from his home and bring it to him at work. He was the first ever Dabbawala or tiffin carrier. Many people liked the idea and the demand for Dabba delivery soared.

In the beginning the deliveries were informal, with arrangements being made between workers and Dabbas. But one day an Indian entrepreneur Mahadeo Havaji Bachche saw the opportunity and started the lunch delivery service. He started with a team of 100 Dabbawalas.

As the city grew, the demand for Dabba delivery grew too.

The system has developed and from the original 100 Dabbawalas in 1890 there is today a Mumbai Army of 5,000 Dabbawalas fulfilling the hunger of almost 200,000 workers with home-cooked food brought from their home to their office and back each day and on time.

The people who use the service tend to be middle-class citizens who, for reasons of economy, hygiene, caste and dietary restrictions or simply because they prefer whole-some food from their kitchen, rely on the dabbawala to deliver a home cooked mid-day meal.

Most of them reach work by train, which means they leave home early and may be boarding chaotically packed carriages, making carrying their own tiffin a challenge. The Dabbawalla system provides a welcome solution by collecting meals prepared at home, then getting them to the office and back.

Today let’s see the life of a dabbawala who live in slums and have a just in time delivery record be in summer, winter, floods, rains, etc. 

“People Living in Slums are the one who actually runs the city of MUMBAI”

Life of Dabbawala Vitthalbhai

Life of Shankar

See a day in the life of Shankar — one of 5,000 Dabbawalas in Mumbai responsible for delivering 200,000 fresh home-cooked lunches to Mumbai’s office workers each day. Each day, with 60kg on his head, a Dabbawala travels some 65km. This home-cooked network makes less than 1 mistake per 6 million deliveries.

Life of Dabbawalas

Singapore’s public housing has led to creation of jobs, safer living conditions for residents

From an economically and socially under-developed country to one of the world’s best nations, Singapore has come a long way. Lacking in natural minerals and resources, it drew its strength from being a “stable and progressive economy” to drive more foreign direct investments and private investments. The country and everything that it is today reflects public-private sector partnerships and investment in innovation and security, among other things. During its transformative journey, one of the many challenges that the city-state faced was housing for its people — this was when the government decided to step in. Government housing served two purposes: it gave Singaporeans a sense of ownership towards their country, where their family and friends lived, and also a reason for them to stay in their country and serve it.

In land-scarce Singapore, it can be hard to strike a balance between heritage preservation and necessary urban development. However, the city-state has undertaken long-term strategic planning to optimise depleting resources like land, manpower and energy. What they’ve also achieved by this means, is eradicating homeslessness.

When one hears of public housing, one imagines grimy stairwells, peeling, seepage-infested walls, unloved and uncared for public spaces — but these do not hold true when it comes to Singapore. For over 50 years now, Singapore has been transforming public housing — from basic concrete blocks to shiny and slick high-rises. Singapore started its mass public housing project in the 1940s, led by the Singapore Improvement Trust, which by 1959 had built more than 20,000 flats. When the former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew rose to power towards the end of the 1950s, he built 30,000 more flats in less than three years. And today, the authorities say there are a more than a million.

In 1964, the government introduced the Home Ownership for the People Scheme to give citizens a tangible asset in the country and a stake in nation-building. This push for home ownership also improved the country’s overall economic, social, and political stability. In 1968, to help more citizens become home owners, the government allowed the use of Central Provident Fund (CPF; the equivalent of India’s Employer’s Provident Fund) savings for the down payment, and to service the monthly mortgage loan installments. This, together with other schemes and grants introduced over the years, has made home ownership highly affordable, say officials at the Housing and Development Board in Singapore.

Singapore before Public Housing Project

The government, which owns 90 percent of the land, promoted widespread home ownership to knit together an island-nation populated by ethnic Chinese, Indians and Malays. The vast housing system shocks visitors from every nation — it is clean, peaceful, crime-free and every three to five years undergoes a redesigning drive and at times, re-modelling. The public homes of Singapore use the technology and innovation at their service to build lives around them and remind some of the homes built across the US and Europe in the ’60s.

The Housing and Development Board of Singapore conceptualise towns: an example of this is Toa Payoh. A “mature” residential town located in the northern part of Singapore, Toa Payoh is the granddaddy of the towns in Singapore. Home to at least 1,07,100 residents in 37,358 flats, the Toa Payoh town got Singapore’s first Mass Rapid Transit. “These aren’t just neighbourhoods, they are their own little cities, you see,” said a resident on condition of anonymity. “Super markets, restaurants, banks, drinking holes, schools, gardens, lakes… you name it, you have it. All of that is just a short bus ride away. So, it doesn’t matter how far you live from the Central business district. And there is no crime.”

Singapore After Public Housing Project

Going further north on the Tanjong Punggol peninsula in the North East Region of Singapore, is Punggol, a quiet, green suburb lined with lakes which is now HDB’s newest township. It’s is also touted to be Singapore’s mini Silicon Valley. Punggol will become the heart of digital and cyber-security industries and is set to create 28,000 new jobs in tech and Information Technology.

As of 2018, there are about a million public homes in Singapore largely concentrated in two dozen new towns which helm the city’s coastal zone. All the homes come with a 99-year lease which are sold at lower-than-market prices. Applicants must wait three or four years for the construction to be completed.

Singapore has no homelessness and compared to other rich cities — London, New York, Hong Kong — HDB homes are more affordable, cleaner and safer. The deal works for the state too. According to reports, in 2015-16 the treasury put aside S$1.8 billion, or 2.4 percent of the national budget, for housing, which was enough to cover HDB’s annual deficit. HDB’s budget was $17 billion and it benefits from government loans but also borrows from banks and the bond market. People’s Action Party, which has been running the country for over five decades, has its housing scheme to thank for its political longevity.

Every Singaporean feels the need to play a social role, a resident shopping at the Waterway Point, an upcoming shopping centre in Punggol said. Owning a home, being part of the nation that they help build, supports the government’s agenda of nation built by their own, a great deal. However, strict rules about who can buy a house and government’s use of control to decide how an average Singaporean lives their life, raises several questions. Married couples are granted priority to own a home, a clause justified to raise country’s low birth rate. Those who are single can apply for their own flats but only if they are still unmarried by the age of 35.

This visit was facilitated by The Singapore International Foundation

Original Post link: Firstpost World News

Catch-22 Book Review

Catch-22 is a tragicomic novel specifying the efforts of a man named Yossarian, a captain in the US Army Air Force, to avoid flying any more combat missions. The novel takes place on Pianosa, a small Italian island, during the Second World War.

At first he tries to get medically grounded on the basis of insanity, but Doc Daneeka, the group’s medic, argues that Yossarian cannot be insane if he wants to avoid death by getting out of having to fly. This is termed a Catch-22. Yossarian spends the remainder of the novel trying to combat the Catch-22 and convince the military brass that he should be sent home. Every time a soldier meets his target of flying the number of missions, colonel would increase the target and it becomes a never-ending scenario for each soldier.

Highlight of the novel is its dark comedy. Many characters in Catch-22 undergo moral crises, wherein they must decide between self-interest (a concern for their own safety and wellbeing) or altruism (a concern for the wellbeing of others).

But it is Yossarian’s personal development, his progression from self-interest to altruism that defines the moral arc of Catch-22. In the beginning, Yossarian is content to forge the chaplain’s signature, resist his bombing runs, and otherwise either plan tricks to avoid responsibility or “go with the flow” in his time with the Army. But as his friends—including Clevinger, Orr, Nately, and Dunbar—either die or disappear, Yossarian’s attitude changes. He loses Luciana and Nurse Duckett; he learns that Aarfy has committed rape and murder; he sees scenes of total destruction in Rome, and of great human suffering. He realizes, like Dunbar, that he can no longer bomb innocent civilians for no reason, just to please his superiors.

Yossarian’s personal development reaches a climax in his full recollection of Snowden’s death. The destruction he had seen in Rome – disturbing scenes like including animal abuse, child abuse, rape, and murder, he decides that he doesn’t want anything to do with all these terrible people.  Snowden’s death and Rome make him present to frailty of human beings.

It begins with humor but as the story moves we come across bureaucracy of the Army heads, fears, weaknesses, morality, immoralities, confusion of soldiers.

Characters are really very interesting and they will live in your memories forever – Major Major, Orr, Doc Daneeka and other characters are Milo Minderbinder, Chaplain Tappman, Chief White Halfoat, Flume, Aarfy, Nately, Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn, General Dreedle and Peckem, General Dreedle’s son-in-law, Dunar, Soldier in white, Snowden, Major Danby, Clevinger, Havermeyer, Hungry Joe, McWatt, Nately, Scheisskopf (his craze for parades), Wintergreen, Major ______ de Coverley, Captain Black, Kid Sampson, Piltchard and Wren, Nurses Duckett and Cramer, Corporal Whitcomb, Dobbs (his part is small but very funny), Major Sanderson.

Novel is so brilliant that I can write separate articles for each characters / sub-plots/ humor / morality / human grounds / emotions, etc. But I will not write so much.

MY TAKE: The theme of the novel is to not live by anyone’s laws but your own.

Spoiler ahead: (don’t read next part if you don’t want any spoilers)

At the end of the novel, Yossarian has had a change of heart. He now sees that he can’t be concerned merely with savings himself from war if the means of doing so saves only him. He sees that he has a duty to the other soldiers who are also being killed by the war, and he implicitly condemns all the selfish actions of those in the war—whether Milo’s profiteering or Cathcart’s careerism. He comes to his most important realization. Orr understood it all the whole time: the only way to escape the catch-22 of the military is to run away to neutral territory, to a place where the military can no longer control one’s decisions—can no longer continue trying to kill him by forcing him to fly missions. Yossarian at first hesitated to run, because he felt it would make him a coward, but now he realizes it would be cowardice simply to accept the new orders he is given by Cathcart and Korn, to fly more missions without objection, or to accept their deal and go home.

The novel has many instances of extended metaphors, such as Doc Daneeka. Doc Daneeka is in charge of medical officers, and is reported to be dead, because he was signed up to be flying in a plane that crashed. He actually wasn’t, and was alive, but the Army stopped paying him and no one listened to him because he was “dead”. The whole situation is a metaphor on how the Army wrote the laws back then, and even something as obvious as a man being alive or dead was complicated through the official reports.

Another metaphor is the Soldier in White. The Soldier in White is a soldier who was graphically wounded, and put in a full body cast. He never moved or talked, and eventually dies. Another man in the same condition arrives, and he is regarded as the same person. No one cares. This was criticism to the Army for treating people like commodities and goods instead of people. Nobody cared whether the man lived or died because he was of no use anymore to them.

Mumbai Story 1 – Rani and Wahida

The story of Rani and Wahida

Textile workers in slums


Rani’s family lived in one of the peripheral slums of the Basti called Prem Nagar Slums, one of the most deprived precincts and also the most crowded. The average monthly income of a family there barely exceeds 3000 Rupees. Rani lived with her mother, two unmarried sisters and a married sister and her family in their two rooms arranged one on top of the other. The married sister occupied the top room. Half of the bottom room was occupied by a bed and the remaining floor space at the back was used for cooking, storage and for sitting around. The room had windowless walls on three sides and only opened onto the street in front. Rani’s mother had carved out a small shop selling cigarettes in the front of the room. There was no attached toilet or any piped water supply in this house.

When she was 11 years old, Rani kept a journal for me for a week, recording her day before she went to sleep. This account of her life provides some valuable glimpses about the multiple roles a girl child plays in this community. Rani was responsible for fetching milk for tea for her family every morning from Hasan Bhai’s tea stall. She would meet and chat with friends and neighbours here. In poor families such as hers, food is purchased on a daily basis, as there are no refrigerators for storing groceries.

Rani was a good practising Muslim. She washed herself in the morning and routinely offered all five prayers, or namaz, throughout the day. She called on her friend Meher, who lived around the corner, every morning and walked with her to non-formal school for adolescent girls. Rani performed daily household chores and shopping for the family, fetching cigarettes, snacks and groceries both for her mother’s shop and for home. Rani acted as guardian to her little niece, playing with her, feeding her, looking after her. She was a part-time shopkeeper, and sat in their small house-front shop to relieve her mother of her shopkeeping duties for some time every day.

Rani was a good student; other girls came to her for homework help. She bought sweets with small change, liked to play with domestic pets and with friends in the street in front of her house, in the nearby open spaces including the yard of the public toilet across from her house, in Meher’s back yard, and in the city park that was just outside the wall that separated her street from the park. Rani’s two older unmarried sisters took care of the cooking, cleaning and washing.

Rani had a friend called Wahida – unlike her, an orphan who had grown up in many households. Wahida split her time between the houses of her older siblings, her grandmother and her friend Rani’s family. Her days were filled with household chores, besides attending the non-formal Hope school and evening religious studies. Wahida also attended a vocational training course in tailoring and sewing every afternoon.

Both Rani and Wahida had grown up in severe poverty. Rani’s father had died of a drug overdose after reducing the family to penury. Rani’s mother barely earned a dollar a day from her shop and found it difficult to pay even the two rupees that would have bought Rani a hot lunch at school. Wahida had no one to watch over her and depended on charity for meals and a roof for the night. Yet both girls not only survived but thrived in this slum which represents one of the best examples of social capital in an urban neighborhood. Seven years later, Rani and Wahida have both successfully completed school and are undergoing training as nursery teachers. Wahida is also working as an assistant to a city physiotherapist.

People like Rani and Wahida take vocational training in tailoring, etc and are actually the source workers for your designer clothes.

Connect with 0 Slums Mumbai on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram – @0SlumsMumbai

0 Slums Mumbai – Public Housing Awareness

Public Housing

The terms “affordable housing” and “public housing” are frequently used interchangeably, causing a lot of confusion in the process. They are actually two very different.

Affordable housing refers to housing units that are affordable by that section of society whose income is below the median household income. Houses are owned by the households. Families buy the homes at affordable prices.

The concept of Public Housing was introduced by the United States government to provide housing for low-income families, disabled persons, and the elderly. These families or persons must meet certain eligibility requirements to participate in the program and may be required to pay a nominal amount of rent. The units are considered public because they are funded, owned, and administered by government authorities.

How Public Housing Transformed New York City 1935-67

 

 

Visit Us On TwitterVisit Us On FacebookVisit Us On PinterestVisit Us On YoutubeVisit Us On LinkedinVisit Us On Instagram