Death

I always wondered why Prahalladh is such an admired character in the Indian mythology. Recently one of my uncles passed away. He was like my Godfather. And i still cant come in terms with the fact that he's no more as a physical entity.

I went and met aunt and during the ceremonies i realised how strong a lady she was. She held her up so strongly and positively, never looking unfaced and ever defiant, although sad still.

It made me wonder what is death after all?And why should one suffer from it? How does one define death?

A state of inexistence? Oh but he’s still there in our minds. Only he doesn’t add more to the existing memories of the character. He’s physically inexistent but what is it that’s gone out from the person that makes us feel bad?

Aunt told me this once , “The soul is what we are, and that’s why the person is no more called by his name when he’s lying after death, it is but called just a body? Till the soul is there you call him by his name. Once he’s dead he becomes a “body”. It’s the soul that you address as the person’s name every time you call that person.

Ramana Maharshi always told “Me and my body are two different entities.”. I never realised the weight of the statement until this conversation with aunt.

Its intriguing as to what happens to the person and the soul in him after he’s no more.

Difficult to realise how we all adjust with the absence of that entity/person we remain associated to for such major percentage of our lives. That you no more call up that person, that you no more feed the person, no more hear his voice or his presence in the house, or share a light conversation or a heated argument with him anymore. You don’t have his experience to look at or refer to for guidance. Where does all that go?? How can things just kinda vanish from the very face of the earth. And a single man’s death affects so many lives altogether is so overwhelming to know.

There were visitors for 10 days on a trot morning and evening after my uncle died. I realise how easily we guys state that 500 people got killed in so and so accidents. Imagine the number of lives that get affected eveytime a person leaves us and goes off into oblivion. The world and its people are so deeply interconnected and intertwined with the other’s lives you barely realise the dependency, the caring, love and affection that every person showers on you in the course of meeting you or in the period of any restricted association with you. While you make an impact on some of them you hardly affect the others.

Death is so sudden, you hardly ever realise when it came and took you away by storm and left nothing back. And by the time you realise you’ve lost someone, it’s too late to act upon the mistakes you committed or the other person did.

I don’t understand the need and stress given on suffering by most religions. Isn’t there enough suffering on this earth to prevent you from forcing more suffering. I believe the only way to mokhsha is happiness. Coz only if you are happy meaning your soul is happy can your soul go free and not latch onto another body (as they say) and come on the earth to lead the same sorrowful life all over again.

I therefore request anyone who’s reading this post to strive toward achieving inner happiness and satisfaction and a sense of achievement of having given this world something and leaving it in a better state that what you came into.

Taxes

I always wondered why taxes were such an issue with the public. My mom would literally cat scan the paper on the day after the budget and then curse the finance minister with all the words one can think of from an educated lady(no pun intended for good reasons). And i'd be like " why the hell is she so wild.. everyone pays taxes so wats the big deal.

Only now at the age of 23 years i come to realise the reason.

Two days ago i went and bought a pop-up toaster and came back home all happy about having to get some good bread and jam in the morning without having to light up the gas and go on to toss the bread over and over on the pan..

I got back from the office today and put a couple of slices in the toaster and off i wen to freshen up a bit. Five minutes later when i got back to my room, i see the toaster throwing up some smoke only to discover that the pop-up mechanism had failed to function and the bread kept getting heater and so did the filament.

I immediately took the toaster to the shop and asked him to repair it. While he was at it i remembered that i'd forgotten to collect the bill the other day, so i asked him to give me th bill.

He comes up with "you'll have to pay 12.5% tax to get a bill"... i argued with him on the reason for me to get proof of the fact that i bought the product from him and not from any other place lest he should deny having sold it to me at a later stage.

He stuck on to his argument and refused to give me the bill.

I was furious at his refusal to give me the bill and at my inablility to convince me otherwise. So i got back home and did a google on "consumer code India", only to discover that there exists no site where you can register your complaints regarding the consumer related problems and issues. or some page which lists the details of the specifications of VAT and othe taxes involved in purchase of various items. I'm surprised at what lack of information the country and its infrastructure suffers from. The government puts ads on the TV regarding the various benefits the consumer has and how the consumer code is benefitial to the consumer in resolving the issues.

When i had failed to get any information on the issue, I called up my dad to enquire about the same. He explained that Value Added Tax is what it is called and that the shopkeeper has to pay the tax when he documents the sale of any product from his shop. Now these shopkeepers charge the customers an amount equal to the tax and avoid paynig the taxes while still makin the same profit that they were making before the rule was applied.

Thus the rule only increases the consumer's burden and not change anything else. finally what i realise is that i pay tax on my income, on the water that i drink, on the food that i eat, on the road that i walk on, on the house that i live in, on the vehicles that i own and on all the commodities i own. The only thing i dont pay tax for the D*** i have and on the air that i breathe. Bloody government that gives us middle class no choice but to live the same as we always have lived. you can hardly imagine going up the financial ladder working in such conditions.

No wonder people want to escape this bloody nation where half of your money goes in paying taxes and not one penny of all that money is used in the development of the nation or the improvement of the lives of the millions of poor dying on a daily basis.

Jai Ho!!! and India Shining!!! they say....

Introduction...

Ah... there are some issues that all of us wanna express our views on, someway or the other.. and we wanna make things public if they concern the whole people of your country, hoping that someday someone might stmble upon your writings and you know, recognise them, publish them in the daily and then slowly you become an icon and then you reach the stardom and then you find yourself sitting right next to the King Khan one day... then you start dreaming or repairing this world and cleaning it of all its dirt by doing a tehelka like probe someday somewhere and then get back on the channels... you suddenly find yourself owning a TV channel and hosting a host of celebrities, politicians, high authority people from accross the coutry and discussing important, not so important and some completely rubbish stuff..
you slowly get so much involved into probing things that you are chosen as the prime miniister of the country one day unanimously by the whole country an then you start bringing in more and more ideas to eradicate poverty, corruption and other so called ills of the society, management and the government... one day you are going for an important meeting and you are shot at following which there's a bomb blast and you are killed and you find yourself sleeping on you bed with the laptop screen glowing and the blogspot's 'New Post' page open with Kenny G playing on the Window media player and your roommate sleeping next to you... you suddenly wake up, sign out and close the window, shut down the lappy and put it back in the bag and go to sleep....
Here's where i wake up and start writing all i thought about correcting the world and the various possible methods to handle things and start making progress one by one... to make this country a better place to live in and one where the world would like to come and see things and enjoy the beauty, splendor of the nature and the professionalism of the people in the working environment...
So start following the blog and start putting in your views too in your blogs or thru comments in mine and lets all join hands to make this holy shit of a world a beautiful lotus...
ROCK ON!!!