A 90 year old story

The establishment irritates you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight because once they’ve got you violent they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humour. - John Lennon

In school, as we were being mass miss-instructed, we were asked to memorize a few facts – India is a democratic nation. US is a 3oo year old democracy. Today as I begin to understand the word, I realize that none of the so called democratic nations are anywhere close to being a democracy. Let alone the nations, of which I understand very little, I have yet to see families that are not autocratic but purely democratic in nature.

Here is a story of a group of women who added first of the few bricks in the structure of democracy and the price they had to pay for that - a story of women who fought for the right to vote, a right which imbues a more fundamental right, that to be acknowledged as an equal -

It all started on January 10, 1917 when a group of women began a non-violent protest against the White House standing silently by the gates, carrying purple, white and gold banners saying ‘Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?’ They were being lead by Alice Paul who had started National Women’s Party (NWP). The first day 12 women marched in a slow, square movement so passers-by could see the banners. Over the next few months, more women joined the protest.

At first they were politely ignored, but then the signs became more and more pointed. One banner read: ‘Democracy Should Begin at Home.’ Meanwhile World War I had begun. They asked, how could the President fight to help disenfranchised people when he had disenfranchised people at home? They were becoming an embarrassment for the government.

Unable to bear the protest, men began assaulting these women both verbally and physically, while the police did nothing to protect them. Then in June 1917, the police began arresting them on charges of ‘obstructing traffic.’ First they were sentenced to a few days’ jail terms. But the protest kept growing, and the jail terms grew longer. Finally, to try to break their spirit, the police arrested Alice Paul on October 20, 1917, and she was sentenced to seven months in prison. The banner she carried that day said:

‘The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice. We have made it.’ (President Wilson’s words)

Alice was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks and immediately began a hunger strike. Unable to walk on her release from there, she was taken to the prison hospital. Others joined the hunger strike. ‘It was the strongest weapon left with which we could continue our battle” she later said. Then the prison officials put Alice in the ‘psychopathic’ ward, hoping to discredit her as insane. They deprived her of sleep — she had an electric light, directed at her face, turned on briefly every hour, every night. And they continually threatened to transfer her to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a notorious asylum as suffering a ‘mania of persecution’. But she still refused to eat. During the last week of her 22-day hunger strike, the doctors brutally forced a tube into her nose and down her throat, pouring liquids into her stomach, three times a day for three weeks. Despite the pain and illness this caused, Alice refused to end the hunger strike. One physician reported:

‘She has a spirit like Joan of Arc, and it is useless to try to change it. She will die but she will never give up.’

It is jarring to see how Woodrow Wilson and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. But the doctor refused. 

Hundreds of women were arrested, with 33 women convicted and thrown into Occoquan Workhouse. These women suffered unimaginable torture in the prison. They ate rancid food; were denied medical care and refused visitors. The demonstrators applied for political prisoner status. It was denied. Doris Stevens, one of the prisoners, later wrote -

‘No woman there will ever forget the shock and the hot resentment that rushed over her when she was told to undress before the entire company … We silenced our impulse to resist this indignity, which grew more poignant as each woman nakedly walked across the great vacant space to the door less shower’

Viginia Bovee, an officer at the Workhouse, stated in an affidavit after her discharge:

‘The beans, hominy, rice, corn meal … and cereal have all had worms in them. Sometimes the worms float to the top of the soup. Often they are found in the corn bread.’

These women kept resisting and the government grew more and more hostile. Finally on November 15, 1917, (or some say Nov. 14, the date doesn’t matter) became known as the Night of Terror at the Workhouse. 40 prison guards wielding clubs and their wardens blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women, which included one 73 year old woman -

‘As many as forty guards with clubs went on a rampage, brutalizing thirty-three jailed suffragists. They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, and left her there, bleeding, for the night. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed, and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, who believed Mrs. Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. According to affidavits, other women were grabbed, dragged, beaten, choked, slammed, pinched, twisted, and kicked.’

[Barbara Leaming, Katherine Hepburn. New York: Crown Publishers, 1995. Page 182]

By the end of the night the 33 women were barely alive.

It was only 3 years after the incident that women were granted the right to vote and the very first of the very few bricks in the structure of democracy was added proving what Margaret Mead had said was right –  A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Paths are made by walking

This is a transcript of the Baccalaureate address to the University of Pennsylvania’s graduating class of 2012, delivered by Nipun Mehta

Right now each one of you is sitting on the runway of life primed for takeoff. You are some of the world’s most gifted, elite, and driven college graduates – and you are undeniably ready to fly. So what I’m about to say next may sound a bit crazy. I want to urge you, not to fly, but to – walk. Four years ago, you walked into this marvelous laboratory of higher learning. Today, heads held high, you walk to receive your diplomas. Tomorrow, you will walk into a world of infinite possibilities.

But walking, in our high-speed world, has unfortunately fallen out of favor. The word “pedestrian” itself is used to describe something ordinary and commonplace. Yet, walking with intention has deep roots. Australia’s aboriginal youth go on walkabouts as a rite of passage; Native American tribes conduct vision quests in the wilderness; in Europe, for centuries, people have walked the Camino de Santiago, which spans the breadth of Spain. Such pilgrims place one foot firmly in front of the other, to fall in step with the rhythms of the universe and the cadence of their own hearts.

Back in 2005, six months into our marriage, my wife and I decided to “step it up” ourselves and go on a walking pilgrimage. At the peak of our efforts with ServiceSpace, we wondered if we had the capacity to put aside our worldly success and seek higher truths. Have you ever thought of something and then just known that it had to happen? It was one of those things. So we sold all our major belongings, and bought a one-way ticket to India. Our plan was to head to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram, since he had always been an inspiration to us, and then walk South. Between the two of us, we budgeted a dollar a day, mostly for incidentals — which meant that for our survival we had to depend utterly on the kindness of strangers. We ate whatever food was offered and slept wherever place was offered.

Now, I do have to say, such ideas come with a warning: Do not try this at home, because your partner might not exactly welcome this kind of honeymoon.

For us, this walk was a pilgrimage — and our goal was simply to be in a space larger than our egos, and to allow that compassion to guide us in unscripted acts of service along the way. Stripped entirely of our comfort zone and accustomed identities, could we still “keep it real”? That was our challenge.

We ended up walking 1000 kilometers over three months. In that period, we encountered the very best and the very worst of human nature — not just in others, but also within ourselves.

Soon after we ended the pilgrimage, my uncle casually popped the million dollar question at the dinner table: “So, Nipun, what did you learn from this walk?” I didn’t know where to begin. But quite spontaneously, an acronym – W-A-L-K – came to mind, which encompassed the key lessons we had learned, and continue to relearn, even to this day. As you start the next phase of your journey, I want to share those nuggets with the hope that it might illuminate your path in some small way too.

The W in WALK stands for Witness. When you walk, you quite literally see more. Your field of vision is nearly 180 degrees, compared to 40 degrees when you’re traveling at 62 mph. Higher speeds smudge our peripheral vision, whereas walking actually broadens your canvas and dramatically shifts the objects of your attention. For instance, on our pilgrimage, we would notice the sunrise everyday, and how, at sunset, the birds would congregate for a little party of their own. Instead of adding Facebook friends online, we were actually making friends in person, often over a cup of hot “chai”. Life around us came alive in a new way.

A walking pace is the speed of community. Where high speeds facilitate separation, a slower pace gifts us an opportunity to commune.

As we traversed rural India at the speed of a couple of miles per hour, it became clear how much we could learn simply by bearing witness to the villagers’ way of life. Their entire mental model is different — the multiplication of wants is replaced by the basic fulfillment of human needs.When you are no longer preoccupied with asking for more and more stuff; then you just take what is given and give what is taken. Life is simple again. A farmer explained it to us this way: “You cannot make the clouds rain more, you cannot make the sun shine less. They are just nature’s gifts — take it or leave it.”

When the things around you are seen as gifts, they are no longer a means to an end; they are the means and the end. And thus, a cow-herder will tend to his animals with the compassion of a father, a village woman will wait 3 hours for a delayed bus without a trace of anger, a child will spend countless hours fascinated by stars in the galaxy, and finding his place in the vast cosmos.

So with today’s modernized tools at your ready disposal, don’t let yourself zoom obliviously from point A to point B on the highways of life; try walking the backroads of the world, where you will witness a profoundly inextricable connection with all living things.

The A in WALK stands for Accept. When walking in this way, you place yourself in the palm of the universe, and face its realities head on. We walked at the peak of summer, in merciless temperatures hovering above 120 degrees. Sometimes we were hungry, exhausted and even frustrated. Our bodies ached for just that extra drink of water, a few more moments in the shade, or just that little spark of human kindness. Many times we received that extra bit, and our hearts would overflow with gratitude. But sometimes we were abruptly refused, and we had to cultivate the capacity to accept the gifts hidden in even the most challenging of moments.

I remember one such day, when we approached a rest house along a barren highway. As heavy trucks whizzed past, we saw a sign, announcing that guests were hosted at no charge. “Ah, our lucky day,” we thought in delight. I stepped inside eagerly. The man behind the desk looked up and asked sharply, “Are you here to see the temple?” A simple yes from my lips would have instantly granted us a full meal and a room for the night. But it wouldn’t have been the truth. So instead, I said, “Well, technically, no sir. We’re on a walking pilgrimage to become better people. But we would be glad to visit the temple.” Rather abruptly, he retorted: “Um, sorry, we can’t host you.” Something about his curt arrogance triggered a slew of negative emotions. I wanted to make a snide remark in return and slam the door on my way out. Instead, I held my raging ego in check. In that state of physical and mental exhaustion, it felt like a Herculean task– but through the inner turmoil a voice surfaced within, telling me to accept the reality of this moment.

There was a quiet metamorphosis in me. I humbly let go of my defenses, accepted my fate that day, and turned to leave without a murmur. Perhaps the man behind the counter sensed this shift in me, because he yelled out just then, “So what exactly are you doing again?” After my brief explanation he said, “Look, I can’t feed you or host you, because rules are rules. But there are restrooms out in the back. You could sleep outside the male restroom and your wife can sleep outside the female restroom.” Though he was being kind, his offer felt like salt in my wounds. We had no choice but to accept.

That day we fasted and that night, we slept by the bathrooms. A small lie could’ve bought us an upgrade, but that would’ve been no pilgrimage. As I went to sleep with a wall separating me from my wife, I had this beautiful, unbidden vision of a couple climbing to the top of a mountain from two different sides. Midway through this difficult ascent, as the man contemplated giving up, a small sparrow flew by with this counsel, “Don’t quit now, friend. Your wife is eager to see you at the top.” He kept climbing. A few days later, when the wife found herself on the brink of quitting, the little sparrow showed up with the same message. Step by step, their love sustained their journey all the way to the mountaintop. Visited by the timely grace of this vision, I shed a few grateful tears — and this story became a touchstone not only in our relationship, but many other noble friendships as well.

So I encourage you to cultivate equanimity and accept whatever life tosses into your laps — when you do that, you will be blessed with the insight of an inner transformation that is yours to keep for all of time.

The L in WALK stands for Love. The more we learned from nature, and built a kind of inner resilience to external circumstances, the more we fell into our natural state — which was to be loving. In our dominant paradigm, Hollywood has insidiously co-opted the word, but the love I’m talking about here is the kind of love that only knows one thing — to give with no strings attached. Purely. Selflessly.

Most of us believe that to give, we first need to have something to give. The trouble with that is, that when we are taking stock of what we have, we almost always make accounting errors. Oscar Wilde once quipped, “Now-a-days, people know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.” We have forgotten how to value things without a price tag. Hence, when we get to our most abundant gifts — like attention, insight, compassion — we confuse their worth because they’re, well, priceless.

On our walking pilgrimage, we noticed that those who had the least were most readily equipped to honor the priceless. In urban cities, the people we encountered began with an unspoken wariness: “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?” In the countryside, on the other hand, villagers almost always met us with an open-hearted curiosity launching straight in with: “Hey buddy, you don’t look local. What’s your story?”

In the villages, your worth wasn’t assessed by your business card, professional network or your salary. That innate simplicity allowed them to love life and cherish all its connections.

Extremely poor villagers, who couldn’t even afford their own meals, would often borrow food from their neighbors to feed us. When we tried to refuse, they would simply explain: “To us, the guest is God. This is our offering to the divine in you that connects us to each other.” Now, how could one refuse that? Street vendors often gifted us vegetables; in a very touching moment, an armless fruit-seller once insisted on giving us a slice of watermelon. Everyone, no matter how old, would be overjoyed to give us directions, even when they weren’t fully sure of them. And I still remember the woman who generously gave us water when we were extremely thirsty — only to later discover that she had to walk 10 kilometers at 4AM to get that one bucket of water. These people knew how to give, not because they had a lot, but because they knew how to love life. They didn’t need any credit or assurance that you would ever return to pay them back. Rather, they just trusted in the pay-it-forward circle of giving.

When you come alive in this way, you’ll realize that true generosity doesn’t start when you have some thing to give, but rather when there’s nothing in you that’s trying to take. So I hope that you will make all your precious moments an expression of loving life.

And lastly, the K in WALK stands for Know Thyself. Sages have long informed us that when we serve others unconditionally, we shift from the me-to-the-we and connect more deeply with the other. That matrix of inter-connections allows for a profound quality of mental quietude. Like a still lake undisturbed by waves or ripples, we are then able to see clearly into who we are and how we can live in deep harmony with the environment around us.

When one foot walks, the other rests. Doing and being have to be in balance.

Our rational mind wants to rightfully ensure progress, but our intuitive mind also needs space for the emergent, unknown and unplanned to arise. Doing is certainly important, but when we aren’t aware of our internal ecosystem, we get so vested in our plans and actions, that we don’t notice the buildup of mental residue. Over time, that unconscious internal noise starts polluting our motivations, our ethics and our spirit. And so, it is critical to still the mind. A melody, after all, can only be created with the silence in between the notes.

As we walked — witnessed, accepted, loved — our vision of the world indeed grew clearer. That clarity, paradoxically enough, blurred our previous distinctions between me versus we, inner transformation versus external impact, and selfishness versus selflessness. They were inextricably connected. When a poor farmer gave me a tomato as a parting gift, with tears rolling down his eyes, was I receiving or giving? When sat for hours in silent meditation, was the benefit solely mine or would it ripple out into the world? When I lifted the haystack off an old man’s head and carried it for a kilometer, was I serving him or serving myself?

Which is to say, don’t just go through life — grow through life. It will be easy and tempting for you to arrive at reflexive answers — but make it a point, instead, to acknowledge mystery and welcome rich questions … questions that nudge you towards a greater understanding of this world and your place in it.

That’s W-A-L-K. And today, at this momentous milestone of your life, you came in walking and you will go out walking. As you walk on into a world that is increasingly aiming to move beyond the speed of thought, I hope you will each remember the importance of traveling at the speed of thoughtfulness. I hope that you will take time to witness our magnificent interconnections. That you will accept the beautiful gifts of life even when they aren’t pretty, that you will practice loving selflessly and strive to know your deepest nature.

I want to close with a story about my great grandfather. He was a man of little wealth who still managed to give every single day of his life. Each morning, he had a ritual of going on a walk — and as he walked, he diligently fed the ant hills along his path with small pinches of wheat flour. Now that is an act of micro generosity so small that it might seem utterly negligible, in the grand scheme of the universe. How does it matter? It matters in that it changed him inside. And my great grandfather’s goodness shaped the worldview of my grandparents who in turn influenced that of their children — my parents. Today those ants and the ant hills are gone, but my great grandpa’s spirit is very much embedded in all my actions and their future ripples. It is precisely these small, often invisible, acts of inner transformation that mold the stuff of our being, and bend the arc of our shared destiny.

On your walk, today and always, I wish you the eyes to see the anthills and the heart to feed them with joy. May you be blessed. Change yourself — change the world.

The Elephant Whisperer

They were a herd of violent rogue elephants destined to be shot. Lawrence, 59, was asked to save a herd of rogue elephants, he accepted – and found himself fighting a desperate battle for survival. He was their last hope for survival. What happened next was extraordinary.

” … When I heard the news that one of the mothers and her baby had been shot while trying to evade capture. I was devastated, and this killing cemented my determination to save the rest of the herd.

When they arrived, they were thumping the inside of the trailer like a gigantic drum. We sedated them with a pole-sized syringe, and once they had calmed down, the door slid open and the matriarch emerged, followed by her baby bull, three females and an 11-year-old bull. The last one was the 15-year-old son of the dead other. He stared at us, flared his ears and with a trumpet of rage, charged, pulling up just short of the fence in front of us. His mother and baby sister had been shot before his eyes, and here he was, just a teenager, defending his herd.

We had erected a giant enclosure within the reserve to keep them safe until they became calm enough to move out into the reserve proper. Nana, the matriarch, gathered her clan, loped up to the fence and stretched out her trunk, touching the electric wires. The 8,000-volt charge sent a jolt shuddering through her bulk. She backed off. Then, with her family in tow, she strode the entire perimeter of the enclosure, pointing her trunk at the wire to check for vibrations from the electric current.

As I went to bed that night, I noticed the elephants lining up along the fence, facing out towards their former home. It looked ominous. I was woken several hours later by one of the reserve’s rangers, shouting, ‘The elephants have gone! They’ve broken out!’ The two adult elephants had worked as a team to fell a tree, smashing it onto the electric fence and then charging out of the enclosure. I scrambled together a search party and we raced to the border of the game reserve, but we were too late. The fence was down and the animals had broken out. They had somehow found the generator that powered the electric fence around the reserve. After trampling it like a tin can, they had pulled the concrete-embedded fence posts out of the ground like matchsticks, and headed north.

Three miles away, they were spotted by a motorist. But we weren’t the only ones chasing them. We met a group of locals carrying large calibre rifles, who claimed the elephants were ‘fair game’ now. On our radios we heard the wildlife authorities were issuing elephant rifles to staff. It was now a simple race against time. They had to be saved. It took one helicopter, a search party and two days before we found them in open ground. We darted them with sedatives and bought them back to the newly-reinforced enclosure.

But their bid for freedom had, if anything increased their resentment at being kept in captivity. Nana watched my every move, hostility seeping from every pore, her family behind her. There was no doubt that sooner or later they were going to make another break for freedom. I was at a loss. Then, in a flash, came the answer – I would live with the herd. To save their lives, I would stay with them, feed them, talk to them. But, most importantly, be with them day and night. We all had to get to know each other. David agreed to join me in a new home – my Land Rover, which we parked just outside the elephants’ enclosure so we could observe their every move.

I patrolled the fence daily, deliberately speaking loudly so the elephants heard my voice. Sometimes I would even sing. If I caught Nana’s attention I would look directly at her, telling her this was her new home. But each morning, at precisely 4.45am, Nana would line up the herd, facing north. She would tense up, yards from the fence, and for ten adrenaline-soaked minutes I would stand up to her, pleading for their lives. It was always touch and go and my relief as she ghosted back into the bush with her family was absolute.

Just after sunrise one morning, a month after the elephants’ arrival, I glanced up to see Nana and her baby at the fence near where we’d parked the Land Rover. As I stood, Nana lifted her trunk and looked straight at me. Her ears were down and she was calm. Instinctively I decided to go to her. I stopped about three yards from the fence and gazed up at the gigantic form directly in front of me. Then I took a slow step forward. She did not move and, suddenly, I felt sheathed in a sense of contentment. Despite standing just a pace from this previously foul-tempered wild animal who, until now, would have liked nothing better than to kill me, I had never felt safer. I noticed for the first time her wiry eyelashes, the thousands of wrinkles crisscrossing her skin and her broken tusk. Her soft eyes pulled me in. Then, almost in slow motion, she gently reached out to me with her trunk. I watched, hypnotized, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. David’s voice echoed in the background, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ The urgency in his call broke the spell. Suddenly, I realized that if Nana got hold of me it would all be over. I would be yanked through the fence and stomped flat.

I was about to step back, but something made me hold my ground – a strange feeling of mesmeric tranquillity. Once more, Nana reached out with her trunk. She wanted me to come closer and, without thinking, I moved towards the fence. Time was motionless as Nana’s trunk snaked through the fence and reached my body. She gently touched me. I was surprised at the wetness of her trunk’s tip and how musky her smell was. After a few moments I lifted my hand and felt the top of her colossal trunk, briefly touching the bristly hair fibres. Too soon, the moment was over. She slowly withdrew her trunk and looked at me for a few moments before slowly returning to her herd.

Later that day, I decided to let the elephants out of the enclosure and into the rest of the wildlife reserve. For the next 12 hours, Nana toured the boundary fence. Then I discovered her and Frankie heaving up a large tree beside the wire. ’No, Nana, no!’ I shouted. But as I reached the other side of the fence and stopped in front of her, the trunk splintered onto the fence, collapsing the poles and snapping the electric current. I ran to the fence and snatched at the wires. The herd was almost on top of us. I pleaded with the agitated animals. I told Nana again and again that this was her home. She looked at me and, for at least ten minutes, we held eye contact as I kept talking. ’This is your home now,’ I continued. ‘Please don’t do it, girl.’ I felt her eyes boring into me. ‘They’ll kill you all if you break out. This is your home now. You have no need to run anymore.’

Suddenly, as if baffled by the fuss, she turned and backtracked into the bush. I couldn’t explain what had happened between us, but it gave me the first glimmer-of hope since the elephants had first thundered into my life. Weak with relief, I realised that my relationship with the herd had changed – forever. “

(excerpt from his book – The Elephant Whisperer)

The relationship had been established, not with one but all.. a relationship that did not end, even with his death.

Lawrence known to many as the Elephant Whisperer (known for his unique ability to calm traumatized elephants) died on March 7. His family tells of a solemn procession on March 10 that defies human explanation -

Two days after his death they all came to his place – the two herds of the South African wild elephants from nearby forests reached his home. It had been almost a year and a half, since the herd had visited him or come anywhere near his house. However soon after his death, his house was full wild elephants, who hung around his place for about two days before making their way back into the forest. It seems that these elephants had traveled for more than 12 hours through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of this man who had saved their lives.

“A good man died suddenly,” says Rabbi Leila, “and from miles and miles away, two herds of elephants, sensing that they had lost a beloved human friend, moved in a solemn, almost ‘funereal’ procession to make a call on the bereaved family at the deceased man’s home.” How after his death, did the reserve’s elephants — grazing miles away in distant parts of the park — know?
.
.
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The fact that these elephants somehow realized, and then traveled a great distance to mourn the loss of someone they loved and trusted makes me wonder – how so minutely little do we know of the extraordinary love, understanding, intelligence and wondrous ‘interconnectedness’ that all living beings around us carry!

Educating the World

School forcibly snatches away children from a world full of God’s own handiwork… It is a mere method of discipline which refuses to take into account the individual… a manufactory for grinding out uniform results. I was not a creation of the schoolmaster: the Government Board of Education was not consulted when I took birth in the world.

- Tagore

Our schools are, in a sense, factories, in which the raw materials – children – are to be shaped and fashioned into products. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of 20th century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down.

- E. P. Cubberly, Dean, Stanford University School of Education

One the great tragedies of schooling is how it rips people out from nature and lock them up in rooms for 8 hours a day. The profound kind of damage it is doing to us, we would recognize only generations from now and we will look back and say, “How could we have done this to children?”

- Manish Jain, Shikshantar

It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

- Einstein

Education… makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.

- Thoreau

Education is the tendency of one man to make another just like himself… Education is a compulsory, forcible action of one person upon another… Culture is the free relation of people. The difference between education and culture lies only in the compulsion, which education deems itself in the right to exert. Education is culture under restraint, Culture is free.

- Tolstoy

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William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education had stated the ‘great’ purpose of the school pretty clearly -

The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places … It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world.

Not so long ago as America had moved west, thousands of Native American children were forcibly taken from their families and sent to government-run boarding schools. The overt goal was to destroy their way of life, to civilize them, and kill everything Indian within them.

Sadly the same is being emulated all over the world today, for a purpose… 

(taken from the movie Schooling the World)

An hour with ants

I had started to have serious doubts on what compassion really means. My love towards us humans, trees and animals was looking more and more flawed. A few questions stood before me like boulders; questions I had no answer to.

Why is it that I would feel miserable seeing a chicken or goat killed for food but still mercilessly continue to kill mosquitoes and ants? Why is it that my feeling of compassion is limited to a few? We would feel nothing after squashing an ant but would drown in guilt after having done the same with a stray dog. Is it because the compassion and love we have towards a living beings is closely linked to their size, which seems quite amusing? Or is it something else?

The place I am staying in is infested by ants. They would just come out of nowhere and get into sugar bowl, bread packets, almost anything that is left open. There is no easy way to get rid of them. Either one has to keep the sugar/rice bowl out in sun, wherein all the ants would slowly get out, burn and die, or throw the sugar and the ants along with it. I did not want to kill them and so whenever in a soup ended up throwing the stuff (or just giving the whole of it away to the little ants). Was I being caring and compassionate? Not really, I was being guided by a dry principle of non-violence and the feeling of love towards these small beings with life was not coming naturally from within.

And then a few days ago a little of that changed. I had nothing to do and so was sitting and watching a trail of ants going from one place to another. These little ants were taking small rice tidbits to their home. Just to see how they react, I drew a line with water in between to see if the trail would break. It did and a lot commotion was induced in what seemed to be a peaceful journey. The ants would come and then turn and go back. Then I put an onion peal over the line of water, to see if the ants would start using it a bridge to cross the river that had come out of nowhere. After about an hour of struggle, they had found the way and were going over the bridge. Spending an hour with them made me see so much more in these little ants, it changed my relationship with them. They have life and this was a realization. They have intelligence, emotions. Like us even they get fidgety when confronted with a problem, struggling to find a solution. I could see that they are just like you and me, just a little smaller and may be a little smarter.

Last year I had spent some time learning in a monastery. There was this monk who used to come for a walk daily. He would walk slowly and pick any insect that was moving on the road and keep it on a nearby plant. I would be enamored and yet could not see the seed for the motivation to do something like that. But now to a little extent I can feel it. My understanding that we can be as sensitive or insensitive to life in general as we want has grown stronger. We can understand and groom sensitivity and also mercilessly kill it slowly. We can choose to feel no qualm while spending 1000 bucks on a dinner even after seeing an old lady sitting outside and begging for a morsel. Or we can choose to be compassionate to not only her but to little forms of life too.

The one hour with ants made things more clear and made me look at life quite differently. The more I run and disconnect myself from the pain and misery my actions are causing more insensitive I will become. To feel compassionate we need to reconnect with life, with little things happening around us… To connect we need to stop running and slow down… just so that we do not miss out the small child looking for a some food or the lady beetle that is struggling to get off the road… Some of us have gone a long way in the other direction and probably need to come back.

Vedanta: छोटे से गांव की छोटी सी बिन्नो

Hello everyone,

My name does not matter. What matters is Vedanta. I mean what matters is that I work for Vedanta. I studied hard and am now making my loved ones proud. It is a big company and I work as a manager here. But I am a little scared. Scared of a few women. The videos will tell you why. Oh wait! I totally forgot only. I was asked by my boss to go step by step. First step ! Ah yes, Do you know what Vedanta is? Well here, I copied this straight from our website -

We are a globally diversified natural resources group committed to sustainable development, supporting local communities and contributing to the economies of the areas where we operate. Our assets and operations are located in the high growth markets of India, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Liberia, Ireland and Australia. We are primarily engaged in copper, zinc, silver, aluminium, iron ore and power business. Our Group Revenue for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2011 was US$ 11.4 billion.

A billion dollar, he he. So, you can see that I am making a lot of money too. I am enjoying my work here. No, it is not all about money. I am also satisfied that we are doing a lot of good for a lot of people. We do make money but also are into helping people who are impoverished, both physically and mentally. These people, I tell you. I do not know what they would have done if we were not there. They had no school. Anyways let me not get into detail. See it for yourself. Look what we have done to Binno. All you need to do is click on the link below, it is just a minute long video -

Click - Vedanta Creating Happiness

We are creating a million Binnos. I was really moved when I had heard that Binno’s father had no toys to play with. We have give Binno’s brother a marvelous toy to play with. Binno says it works with electricity. Binno continuously smiles. We are not sure if Binno’s mother had ever smiled. She seems a lot sad these days. Binnos parents never went to school (can you even imagine? What a hell of a childhood they would have gone through?). Binno goes to school and is eternally happy. You could see that from the ‘perfectly natural’ video. I feel so proud.

So in short we are also engaged not only in copper, zinc, silver, aluminium but also Binnos.

But like all good things, this does not come easy. It is a lot of hard work. We have a cost to pay for and women to fight with. The only good part is that this cost is not being paid by us but by someone else. The same group of people (the impoverished kind, you know!). But they do not pay it that easily… I tell you! A lot of hungama.. You should see the women, they just come out and are ready to throw us from their (now ours) place.. I am so scared. Thank God the all caring police force is there to protect us from the onslaught. You can see why we want the Binno model to be different from them, why she needs to be schooled. These illiterate buggers.

I mean it. See these 2 videos and you will realize, again both are just a minute long -

Click - Villagers protest Vedanta Red Mud Pond - 2

Click - Villagers protest Vedanta Red Mud Pond - 3

Saw how they are protesting ! Like children ! I am sure Binno’s mother would also have taken part in this protest. Seriously no gratitude they have ! I think everyone in the village should be shown the “Binno video”. We do so much for them and they are not even ready to pay a little price?

हम इन्हें बिजली देते हैं, स्कूल देते हैं, खिलौने देते हैं, हंसी देते हैं, ढेर सारी खुशियाँ देते हैं | और इसके बदले अगर हमारे आदमी इनसे थोड़ी सी इनकी जमीन मांगते हैं, इन्हें थोड़ा सा अपनी जगह से हटने को कहते हैं, तो क्या कोई जुर्म करते हैं ? मैं कहता हूँ कोई जुर्म नहीं करते |

I am not sure why I am writing this to you. May be because I am scared. May be you will understand Vedanta’s position and join the police force to help us. May be you will make them understand that for a plant to remain healthy a little pruning here or there is often necessary.

Thank you.

To Humanity

All that I was ever told by you was the story of your glory and brilliance.
Of how the world was made for you and how you helped shape it
For long I believed it and sang the songs in awe of you.
For long I flew behind you, following the same aspirations.

Let me tell you and tell you clearly, that now no longer I am with you.
No longer do I want to live for you, in awe of you, with you.
No longer do I wish to be bound by your thoughts and beliefs.

Your story is not a story of magnificence or grandeur
It is a story built on your exploits and exploits alone
A story of the spread of your control, greed and power
Of the exchange of lively forests with layers of bricks
Of the replacement of little hens with your morning hamburger
A story of heart blackened by greed and drooling tongue
A story that considers all others as nothing but your resources
It is a story not worth reading or following.

It reads that since the time you started to tame, kill other animals
And all those who were here to share this world with you
And till the time when you burn your own self in the same fire.
You would do nothing but ravage, plunder and kill
Removing a hundred species, a million trees
Every single day from your path to success and glory

What harm did the birds, plants and animals ever do to you?
The more I dwell into the reasons, the more at loss I am
I really wonder why you were sent here in the first place
And why was I sent here to be your part.
Definitely not to live and to let live and to love
That is something you have never done
Instead you used religions to extol your own grandeur
Likening yourself to your God and your Creator
Defining the trees and other animals as ‘lower beings’
These beings who still continue to just love and give

And for years I learned the verses and bought your story
For years I was part of your raging army
But now I wish to withdraw
Withdraw from your story and your definitions
That of success, ambition, life, god, power and even love
I am at peace. The awe has dissolved and disappeared.
Your story is not even worthy of trash

I would rather live and be with the so called ‘lower beings’
With the animals who continue to love unconditionally
With the trees who continue to give unconditionally
For here is an acceptance of all being equal if not same.
For they do not hate and do not wantonly destroy or kill.
For with them Truth no longer is a virtue, it simply is.
For I know I would find more peace, harmony and safety
In midst of them than I could ever find among you

It feels good to turn my back to you and be with everything else.
As I write this and as I lose faith in you, I regain my faith in life.
I realize that your life isn’t worth a penny more than that of a plant
Something that I think I had lost long ago is coming back