Category archive for ‘Essays’ 
-
Gandhi’s management mantra
Gandhian views are still relevant for acquiring Management skills and making future managers successful. Sunil Thapliyal reports.
-
Woof! Who let the dogs out?
Have you ever paused to think why the stray dog starts up excitedly whenever your car passes by, bounding alongside and barking as if you were its arch enemy? Or why that other stray near the dustbin barks when you cycle along and makes a lunge for your ankles? It could be “out of affection” or playfullness, in case the stray and you have been neighbours for some years, say vets, or it could be to “protect their territorial rights”.
-
Vedic Environment
The environment means nature, and whose nature is it? It is God’s nature. Did anyone else create it? Did anyone else put it all together so that it operates the way it does? In fact, mankind is still trying to figure out all the intricacies of its functionality.
-
Cold spell of US jobs
Weather may have been the spoilsport this holiday season with an exceptionally cold spell across many parts of America, but there was another major reason why fewer Americans set off on their vacation this time round. It was simply fear of losing their jobs at a time when the US unemployment rate stood at 10 per cent as of December.
-
Right exercise of freewill gives the power to achieve
Nature has followed an expansive course; from the unseen Primordial source it has evolved into the manifest world with all its diversity. Even today, science maintains that the universe has been continuously expanding. It is therefore only natural for human beings, the evolutes of nature, to follow the same course and nurse the inherent urge to grow well in life. Man, therefore, naturally begins life with high hopes and ambitions. However, not all are lucky enough to make it to their aspired destination. Is it then one’s fate which grants success or failure in life? Or, else is it our Karma (efforts) which rules supreme? The normal going is that in the event of failure, it rather suits one’s ego to take refuge in the unforeseen improbable which came his way, and if no other justifiable reason could be assigned to the unseen factor, “the devil destiny”, is always there as a cover for all our failures. The few fortunate ones, on the contrary, spare no time in claiming credit for their success. One therefore opts for what suits one from time to time.
-
Conquering Afghanistan: What the West can learn from India
If there’s one thing that really gets me worked up, it is this: the western media keeps peddling the fairy tale that no power – from Alexander 2300 years ago to Britain in the 19th century and Russia 30 years ago – was able to conquer Afghanistan. To me it reeks of ignorance, and reporters in western countries have exhibited a lot of that. Remember, this is the same bunch that devoted reams of newsprint to the lie that al-Qaeda was getting help from Iraq, when in reality Iraq under Saddam Hussein was the most secular in West Asia.
-
Feminine Pain in a Play
Be it Ramayana, Mahabharata, or Odyssey — almost all the major epics consider and judge women as the reason for wars. Even the epic Iliad reveals the reason for Trojan War as womanhood. However, no one talks about the mental trauma and dilemma of woman post war. It’s this phenomenon of womanhood, which Kumaradas TN, theatre director and an alumnus of NSD attempted to explore through his play, Trojan Women, staged recently at the ongoing ninth edition of Bharat Rang Mahotsav. Kumaradas chose historic Trojan War during the World War II as his plot for his latest offering because he wanted to explore the condition of women in a war torn city of Troy.
-
Thinking ahead
I know a Dalit group that says two things at the same time: First, that most Dalits are landless agricultural labourers, and hence, the State ought to carry out land reforms giving every Dalit family sufficient agricultural land; and second, that Dalits should oppose SEZs as big corporate houses are plundering Dalits’ land. Being self-consciously and a sensitive man, I rarely laugh at others. But, since I first came across the above approach of the Dalit group, I couldn’t control and laughed for a while. Chandrabhan Prasad writes more.
-
Kathmandu’s Udupi line-up
In 2008, the Maoist-led Nepal Government sacked three south Indian priests serving at the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu and replaced them with Nepali Brahmins amidst large-scale protests. The Nepal Government later reinstated them but even today they live in a state of fear. They tell Kestur Vasuki that their safety lies in the hands of Bhole Baba.
-
Time Matters
Can a particular moment of time reveal the state of your physical self? It can, finds out Ekatmata Sharma while getting a complete spa treatment.