Motivational Quotes

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or
compete, everybody will respect you." - Lao Tsu

# "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you
plant." - Robert Louis Stevenson

# "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of
thought which they avoid." - Soren Kierkegaard

"Instinct is untaught ability." - Alexander Bain

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is
about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the
best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious
ambiguity…” – Gilda Radner

"Worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but
it won't get you anywhere" - Proverb

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing we would literally
astound ourselves" - Thomas Edison

“Into each day. Put in about one teaspoonful of good spirits. A dash
of fun. A pinch of folly. A Sprinkling of play. and a heaping cupful
of good humor!” - H.M.S

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That
will be the beginning." -Louis L'amour

"Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward." - Amar Gopal Bose

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep
moving." - Albert Einstein

"A "No" uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a "Yes"
merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble." - Gandhi

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." - Confucius

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Sometimes the easiest way is the hard way." - John Finn

"It's not what you are that holds you back, it's what you think you
are not." - Denis Waitley

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work." - Mark Twain

"A short saying often contains much wisdom." - Sophocles

"All glory comes from daring to begin." - William Shakespeare

# "One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its
original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

# "Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the
seed on an equal or greater benefit." - Napoleon Hill

# "The most complicated achievements of thought are possible without
the assistance of consciousness." - Sigmund Freud

# "Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time
we fall." - Confucius

# "You have brains in your head. Your feet in your shoes. You can
steer yourself in any direction you choose." - Dr. Seuss

# "Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans." - Max Ehrmann

# "Change is inevitable. Change is constant." - Benjamin Disraeli

# "One always has time enough, if one will apply it well." - Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe

"I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There
is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the
intellect."- Oscar Wilde

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein.

"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or
things." - Albert Einstein

"Be like a postage stamp, stick to one thing until you get there." -
Josh Billings

# "It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our
abilities." - J. K. Rowling.

# "I do not like to repeat successes; I like to go on to other
things." - Walt Disney

# "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a
miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Einstein

# "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." - John F. Kennedy

# "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,
then you win." - Mahatma Gandhi

# "While we are postponing, life speeds by." - Seneca

# "When you come to a roadblock, take a detour." - Mary Kay Ash

# "Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you
really love." - Rumi

# "Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it's enough." -
Robert Heller

# "You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor
without having victims." - Harriet Woods

# "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire."
- William Butler Yeats

# "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them." - Albert Einstein

# "Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow." - Norman
Vincent Peale

# "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -
Albert Einstein

# "Tough times never last, but tough people do." - Dr. Robert Schuller

# "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." -
Albert Einstein

# "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age
eighteen." - Albert Einstein

# "We were born to succeed, not to fail." - Henry David Thoreau

# "The best is yet to be." - Robert Browning

# "Once you choose hope, anything's possible." - Christopher Reeve

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so
long to begin it." - W.M. Lewis

# "The people who matter will recognise who you are." - Alan Cohen

# "Love without action is meaningless and action without love is
irrelevant." - Deepak Chopra

# "Either you deal with what is the reality or you can be sure that
the reality is going to deal with you." - Alex Haley

# "Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already
mastered, you will never grow." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I began learning long ago that those who are happiest are those who
do the most for others." - Booker T. Washington

# "The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his
opportunity when it comes." - Benjamin Disraeli

# "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times" Aeschylus

# "Nothing will come of nothing. Dare for mighty things." - William Shakespeare

# "The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power
to harm us." - Voltaire

# "The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power." -
Mary Pickford

# "Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change
their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw

# "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde

# "Live your life and forget your age." - Norman Vincent Peale

# "There are two ways to spread happiness; either be the light who
shines it or be the mirror who reflects it." - Edith Wharton

# "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." - Mother Teresa

# "I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the
first Jackie Chan." - Jackie Chan

# "It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems
longer ." - Albert Einstein

"Time sets the stage; fate writes the script; but only we may choose
our character." - Liam Thomas Ryder

# "Goodness is the only investment that never fails." - Henry David Thoreau

# "Failure is nature's plan to prepare you for great
responsibilities." - Napoleon Hill

"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." - Henry
David Thoreau

# "Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement." - C. S. Lewis

# "The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone
asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer." - Henry David
Thoreau

# "There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day." -
Alexander Woollcott


# "The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for
doing them." - Benjamin Jowett

# "I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't
accept not trying." - Michael Jordan

# "Take a deep breath, count to ten, and tackle each task one step at
a time." - Linda Shalaway

# "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its
own reason for existing." - Albert Einstein

# "Happiness is inward and not outward; and so it does not depend on
what we have, but on what we are." - Henry Van Dyke

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural
consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals." - Jim
Rohn

# "You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again." -
Bonnie Prudden

# "Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the
way things turn out." - Titus Livius

# "Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." -
H. Jackson Browne

# "Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better." - Albert Camus

# "I can resist anything but temptation." - Oscar Wilde

# "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate
the mind on the present moment." - Buddha

# "Ability is of little account without opportunity." - Napoleon Bonaparte

# "The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live." -
Flora Whittemore

# "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." - Mark Twain

# "Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he
thinks into it." - Ernest Holmes

# "The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be
happy." - Ben Stein

# "Don't hate, it's too big a burden to bear." - Martin Luther King.

# "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist
sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill

# "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the
rest." - Mark Twain

# "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent
perspiration." - Thomas Edison

# "You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as
you don't do too many things wrong." - Warren Buffett

# "The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually
fearing you will make a mistake." - Elbert Hubbard

# "Life is either daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller

# "The only real valuable thing is intuition." - Albert Einstein

# "To change one's life; Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No
exceptions." - William James

# "No pressure, no diamonds." - Mary Case

# "If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all
means paint, and that voice will be silenced." - Vincent Van Gogh

# "Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity. Reduce selfishness, have
few desires." - Lao Tzu

# "Make each day your masterpiece." - John Wooden

# "Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own
sunshine." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

# "An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body." - General George Patton

# "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for
it." - Henry David Thoreau

# "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." - Xenocrates

# "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours." - Richard Bach

# "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix

# "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." - Walt Disney

"Life has no limitations, except the ones you make." - Les Brown

# "I have nothing to declare except my genius." - Oscar Wilde

# "The full use of your powers along lines of excellence." - John F. Kennedy

# "The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing
without work." - Emile Zola

# "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance
to get its pants on." - Sir Winston Churchill

# "To lead the people, walk behind them." - Lao Tzu

# "Don't count the days, make the days count." - Muhammad Ali

# "A year from now you may wish you had started today." - Karen Lamb

# "Light tomorrow with today." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

# "Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain
constant." - Anthony J. D'Angelo

# "Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your
peace of mind." - Christian Larson

# "The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

# "We will either find a way, or make one." - Hannibal

# "If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting." -
Benjamin Franklin

# "Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping,
always makes you less than you are." - Malcolm Forbes

# "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already
tomorrow in Australia." - Charles Schulz

# "Whatever your goal, you can get there if you're willing to work." -
Oprah Winfrey

"The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your
convictions." - William F. Scholavino

"It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and
important matters as important."- Doris Lessing

# "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." - Derek Bok

"Action is the antidote to despair." - Joan Baez

"Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity." - Og Mandino

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." - Benjamin Franklin

# "It always seems impossible until it's done." - Nelson Mandela

# "Either you run the day or e day runs you." - Jim Rohn

# "While we are postponing, life speeds by." - Seneca"

"This world is but a canvas to our imagination." - Henry David Thoreau

"Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment." - Lao Tsu

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving
someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tsu

# "Life's blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the
fire of enthusiasm." - Norman Vincent Peale

# "If you have zest and enthusiasm you attract zest and enthusiasm.
Life does give back in kind." - Norman Vincent Peale

# "The purpose of our lives is to be happy." - Dalai Lama

# "A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination."
- Nelson Mandela

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible
to find itelsewhere." - Agnes Repplier

"Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation,
perspiration and inspiration." - Evan Esar

"The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune." - Plutarch

"Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a
courageous decision." - Peter Drucker

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which
matter least." - Goethe

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away."
- Raymond Hull

# "If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best
teach it to dance." - George Bernard Shaw

"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose
sight of the shore." - Christopher Columbus

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even
touched - they must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller

Take control of your destiny. Believe in yourself. Ignore those who
try to discourage you. Avoid negative sources, people, places, things
and habits. Don't give up and don't give in.
Wanda Carter

Never, never, never give up.
Winston Churchill

Struggle is an opportunity.
Napoleon Hill

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know
that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and
character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has
poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has
given us.
Romans 5:3-5

There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.
Thomas H. Huxley.

“God has been good to me. I had never had any reason to complain”

Seize the day, pull it close (and with it the people you love),
squeeze the juices from it—and savor every sweet drop.

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that
you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them
when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust
no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better
things can fall together."
— Marilyn Monroe

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
— Marilyn Monroe


"We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle."
— Marilyn Monroe

Get a rhythm, when you get the blues.” - Johny Caash

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."
Martin Luther King

"Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope,
too, can be given to one only by other human beings."

Elie Weisel

"Never forget: When you’re just about to give up,
when you feel that life has been
too hard on you,
remember who you are.
Remember your dream."

Road to eternity!

Here's 'road to eternity' by Noni Chawla, a Delhi based photographer. Very humourous. There are lines that make you roll over with laughter. Enjoy!

Delhi roads teach some lessons in spirituality like nothing else can. You are lucky if you stay alive to learn.

Through millennia India has been a magnet for people in pursuit of spirituality, people who have risked life and limb, crossed oceans and mountains to come and sit at the feet of enlightened masters in the hope of attaining a higher consciousness, sometimes helped by a bit of hash or coke. The Beatles, Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere... can't all be wrong! While meditation and yoga are two of the many paths to higher consciousness, and while Delhi roads have the power to drive you over the edge literally, if you have any inclination towards spirituality, driving in Delhi has many lessons for the able student.

For starters, you are convinced that there has to be a higher force in the universe. No physical or natural law can explain why in a city with four million motor vehicles, with road users utterly lacking the self preservation instinct, or any respect for others' life or property, only four or five souls transmigrate from the streets of Delhi every day. Even the most die-hard atheist is likely to start believing there is some divine intervention.

A victim a day

Theoretically only human beings can have driving licenses. However, in Delhi, I wonder if that is true. Are Blue Line bus drivers androids or terrorists or a unique species? Painted on the outside of each bus is the legend: “Propelled by Clean Fuel”. What is not painted is: “Driven by demonic fury”. The decrepit condition of these buses would convince even a dodo that they cannot be controlled mechanically. They must be controlled through psycho kinesis. The android drivers are devoid of any human civility. Their daily prayer seems to be: “Oh Lord, give me this day my daily victim, but deliver me from prosecution!” From a spiritual perspective, this teaches you about paradoxes. Life is full of them. Probably the most recognised is the paradox of good and evil. Some human beings are good, some are evil. Most of us are somewhere in between. This is the basic stuff of life.

Some schools of spirituality believe that if you are not always stretching yourselves to the limit, then you are not evolving as human beings. Motorcyclists in Delhi are hardcore adherents of this school. Like moths, who hurl themselves into flames, they hurl themselves before cars, buses and trucks. Delhi bikers are automatically enrolled in a secret society the objectives of which include running through red lights, cutting across several lanes in front of hurtling traffic, and tempting death as frequently as possible. Like trapeze artists, their aim is to tempt fate but not let the soul separate from the body. But the eternal wheel of life necessitates that some will. Darting through traffic, hitting wing mirrors of as many cars as possible, fatalists one and all, they risk anything to gain that split second advantage. Proving the primacy of mind over matter is important for spiritual development.

Inculcating humility is essential to spiritual growth. However, if one didn't encounter arrogance how would one recognise humility? To teach us humility we have the call centre cab drivers. They are easily recognisable by their battered white Qualises, Taveras and Innovas with yellow plates, usually bearing HR and UP numbers. Most of them also fashion their looks after Bollywood villains. Unmindful of minor irritants like traffic rules, they go haring around the city scraping cars, kerbs and anything else that comes in their way. They are true spiritual masters because they put the fear of God into people.

Immutable rules

Spiritual teaching is also imparted by three-wheeler drivers. Their chariots are painted green, because they drive on CNG, an eco friendly fuel. But their friendliness is limited to their colour. They also have a secret society with some immutable rules. One, you must not drive in one lane, always straddle two. Second, you must not allow anybody to overtake you. Three, you must turn around suddenly, and frequently, in the middle of the busiest road without first looking to see if there is any traffic behind you. Four, you must drive with only one hand (the one on the accelerator) and one foot, the other one is usually tucked under your bum (a new asana?). Five, you must overcharge. Six, thou shall resist going to the destination of the passenger. Seven, you must park three or four abreast on busy roads.

Their rear view mirrors are pointed inwards towards themselves: “Know thyself”, our scriptures remind us! Their ear-shattering engines, and blaring Bollywood music, drown out all other road sounds including the warning horns of other road users. Oblivious of everything except potential passengers, they believe that what they don't see does not exist. Woe betide anybody who comes in their way. They teach us serenity. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Remember, all of God's creatures must have equal rights on earth. India has the largest cattle population in the world, and the second largest human population. Delhi's roads are the natural habitat of both. Being both social and spiritual, our neighbourhood cows have frequent conferences, meditation and cud-chewing sessions in the middle of the busiest roads. Occasionally a cow or a buffalo will step off the kerb, from behind a bush on the road divider, just as you are driving up. If your reflexes are not as good as Schumacher's then instead of spirituality you will attain divinity (heavenly abode). The second category of pedestrians, technically members of the species homo sapiens, are only distinguishable from the four legged variety by their physical features, not by their behaviour. Both species roam the roads freely in the midst of Kafkaesque traffic and believe that the date and time of death are preordained. That is the abiding lesson for the student of spirituality.

In most countries, when going around a rotary, the rule is that the vehicle already on the rotary has the right of way. In this city of high fliers and climbers, we actively promote brinkmanship and risk taking! After all without inner strength how could we ever hope to deal with Pakistan and terrorism? So, the rule is: when you approach a rotary, you sit on the horn and the accelerator, heading for the gap which must appear magically between two vehicles. As divinely ordained, it usually does. However, sometimes the inscrutable cosmic forces are out of synch, and the gap closes. Roads littered with splintered glass bear testimony to the fact that man has still not overcome all cosmic forces. In this sport, the police set the example. After all, as law enforcers, they don't have to observe it. Gods are always above terrestrial laws. “Tu jaanta nahin mai kaun hu-n?” is a spiritual question that erring drivers often put to traffic policemen. “Who am I?” is a question all spiritual seekers ask themselves daily.

For those seeking to understand the mysteries of the universe, there is much to learn here. Somebody once defined spirituality as “the attempt to be in harmony with the unseen order of things”. In Delhi you begin to believe that there must be an unseen order in operation, and that there is harmony in chaos. The Good Book says “the meek shall inherit the earth”. We know that, no matter how powerful or agile your chariot, there is always someone more powerful or more aggressive. Drivers who want to stay healthy in Delhi take the middle path, as recommended by the Buddha. They have realised that excess of striving leads to scrapes and excess of relaxation leads to eternity.

Detachment, we have been told, is an important element of spiritual development. No matter how evolved your driving may be, some time, somewhere some dude is going to hit your beautifully maintained car. At that time, you must remember that you are not your car. You are not even your body. You are only an instrument of God. You must forgive those who know not what they do. Om Shanthi, shanthi, om!


- Noni Chawla

Michael Leunig!

"I want to go to curly beach
And ride the curly sea
And paddle out beyond the reach
Of those who’d straighten me.
I’ll take a little curly shell
And hold it to my ear
And when I hear the distant swell
The gentle distant magic bell
I’ll know the coast is clear."

Happy Birthday to you!

Well, looks like I am not really content with spreading others' words. I seem to like writing my own. So be it. Once again, one of my own.

Happy birthday to you.
Birthdays invariably mean getting older.
Losing the freshness.
But I love you still.
For having stood with me through it all.
All these three years.
Well, to be frank, you were the only one who got to listen in to all my conversations and to see all my texts - the good ones and the not-so.
Through all my fortunes and foibles, pleasantries and slugfests, virtues and vices.
You were there when I jabbered, when I smiled, when I laughed and when I guffawed.
You stood by me, without judging me, through all my silly temper tantrums, and occasionaly when I did break into tears.
And you have this uncanny ability to capture the best moments and frame it for eternity.

I know, during the Jessup troubles, Reshma threw her laptop charger at you and broke your head.
I know, I ignored your injury for a while and took you to the hospice only when you really couldnt take it any longer.
But we both know how much we missed each other when you were away there, waiting for your doctors to mend you back.
And you do know how glad I was to have you back in my life.
I know Vineeth accused us of being in an illicit relationship. Of course he'll never know it all.
I know they say you're a goner, because you're antique.
I know they think I'm silly, for not catching up with the times.

But let us just let them say whatever they want to.
Because, whatever your other failings, I still find you as beautiful as you were on the day we first met.
And with legitimate pride, I say: I've taken care of you - awesomely.

So here we are, three-years of courtship and still in love with each other.
And here's to you on your fourth birthday - a warm hug and a sweet kiss.

Even if I am forced to ditch you and go for another partner, you should never for a moment forget - I'll never have another like you, my first love, no matter how old and cranky you may become.

Happy birthday Susie Derkins, my mobile phone and PR port.

A little of me! Sigh.

Circumstances are such that I desperately want to rant - to my heart's content. I want to write my heart out - now that sounds a little weird. Never mind. I just want to write. Now 'write'? Wrong. Type. Mainly due to the fact that I can type quite fast, without having to search for keys. But more so because I am quite dumb when it comes to writing on a piece of paper with a real pen. We dont have options (keys) to delete or backspace the stupid words - which I profusely produce. Enough of it. I want to write. And why? Because I miss life. Sigh. Really. * I miss waking up in the morning thinking about what to wear today and where I want to go and who I want to meet. Ask me why. Because I dont go anywhere these days. * I miss meeting people, wondering how weird we all are.* I miss going on LTC vacations. I hate to admit this - but I miss the twice-a-year luxury of business class air travel where I get to sit on bigger, wider, comfy seats. * Even worse, I hate having to look at other people jump with joy and pack their bags to leave for vacations when I have, emm, NONE.* I miss the part where I could read whatever I want to. * I sometimes get tired of my real tight schedule. And I then get this urge to jump into a pool of water and just lie there - without sinking, of course - like a yogi.* I hate the part where I lose all energy to do things I loved. Like say watch a movie, do some ghost writing for people, wreck horror in kitchen with my recipes that invariably flounder. * I hate the part where I am constrained to go off facebook, because: [1] people when they remember keep asking if and why I'm still not done with my exams. [2] the same set develops an interest in the result; [3] they put up pictures so full of life that I dont really have. * I hate the part where it rains and all I do is just stare at the rain and not get drenched in it. I hate the part where I begin to miss being out in the rain, with an umbrella that just wouldnt stay put, getting into all the potholes filled with the dirtiest waters in the world. * I truly absolutely loathe the part where I miss people I dont want to even think of - in normal times. * I hate the part where I know there are less than two months to go for the exam, and I need to buck up, or I'll just waste the chance, and despite this, I seem to run out of motivation and patience.* I hate the part I am blogging - in public - about all the little failings on my part, writing little (nothing) about the little things that still do cheer me up, of people who really support me through all this, of my own little self who puts up with myself through this. Well, I know its still a happy self I have with me. Worse, I hate the part where I know nobody's gonna read this. No. I am thankful for that - because I know I'm heaping a lot of shit here. * But this one's true - I dont like the fact that I am missing yoga for writing this. So here we go. I'm off to unfold the yoga mat. :)

Gayathri's Quote Bank - Vol. 7! :)

"Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses." Dale Carnegie"

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content." -- Helen Keller

“We have forgotten the beginning of your harangue; we paid no attention to the middle of it, and nothing has given us pleasure in it except the end.” - Spartans to a visiting mission from the island of Samos.

Gilda Radner quotes

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.”

“I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they are the first to be rescued off of sinking ships.”

“I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.”

“I think dogs are the most amazing creatures;
they give unconditional love.
For me they are the role model for being alive.”

“Dreams are like paper, they tear so easily.”

“I can always be distracted by love, but eventually I get horny for my creativity.”

Modern Proverbs:

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered … not yelled.

Meanness don't just happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about, ain't never gonna happen anyway.

Don't judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good and honorable life, then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't bothering you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, and leave the rest to God.

Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

Gandhi's No To Satyagraha!

My note:

I'm against Anna Hazare's mode of campaign. I totally support the cause, and I am thankful for his team for having awakened our national consciousness on the issue. I'm extremely glad that the usually apathetic populace - the urban youth in particular - have risen up to the cause and is on the streets raising their voice against corruption and graft in public life.

BUT, I am staunchly against his means and methods. Personally speaking, I am disgusted by the fact that they call him and his methods 'Gandhian' and a 'second national movement for freedom'. It betrays an inexcusable ignorance about our freedom struggle and about Gandhiji's ways of doing things. Worse, it smacks of the arrogance of one who knoweth only little! To put it in a phrase, it stinks like a half baked cake!

AND, as Kapil Sibal rightly pointed out, this is an affront to the Parliament. He has lawful means for registering his protests/dissents/suggestions. Now the Bill is the property of the Parliament. He must do it in the civilised, legal manner of doing things. What he does now clearly over steps limits - this has become a kind of wanting to grab mass attention.

Clearly, I did not appoint him to speak on my behalf. I've strong reservations about what he has drafted as the 'jan' lokpal bill. These self-appointed messiahs of the 1.2 billion strong Indian population, claiming to speak their voice, should really take a second look - hey! wake up! You are going delusional!

For God's sake we're living in a DEMOCRACY - not a despotism or MOBOCRACY!!!

Okay, so I present below a very RELEVANT essay by A.G Noorani that came in last issue of Frontline Volume 28 - Issue 17 :: Aug. 13-26, 2011. A well-researched historical perspective, with razor sharp observations written in an awesome style. Particularly riveting are quotes of Ambedkar and Kennan - on civil disobedience in a democracy. Must read for all the anti-Anna Hazares and the pro-Anna Hazares. I'll try to do some highlighting to make things easier for you.

Before we begin, lets also read about A.G Noorani - in brief (this I picked up from some website)- A. G. Noorani, a secular Indian Muslim, is a lawyer and political analyst. He is is an Advocate in the Supreme Court of India and a leading Constitutional expert. His columns appear in The Hindustan Times, Frontline, Economic and Political Weekly and Dainik Bhaskar. He is the author of a number of books including: 'The Kashmir Question', 'Badruddin Tyabji Ministers' Misconduct', 'Brezhnev's Plan for Asian Security', 'The Presidential System', 'The Trial of Bhagat Singh' and 'Constitutional Questions in India'. His most recent book, as of 2003, is 'The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour' (LeftWord 2000).

{I must say I am fast becoming a fan of this man's thinking and writing}

The essay is available at Frontline's website: http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20110826281704700.htm
[there you get the pictures too, which I'm too lazy to copy-paste here]

GANDHI'S NO TO SATYAGRAHA
A.G. NOORANI

The motive of civil disobedience, whatever its type, does not confer immunity for law violation.

ON November 25, 1949, as the Constituent Assembly of India completed its task, the Chairman of its Drafting Committee, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, replied to the general debate and said, “Here I could have ended. But my mind is so full of the future of our country that I feel I ought to take this occasion to give expression to some of my reflections.” What followed was a sustained, deeply felt cri de coeur:

“It is quite possible for this newborn democracy to retain its form but to give place to dictatorship in fact. If there is a landslide, the danger of the second possibility becoming actuality is much greater.

“If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgment we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, noncooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us” ( Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. XI, page 978).

When he made these remarks, devoted followers of Gandhi were present in the House – Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, chiefly; but none contradicted him then or later. Gandhi's programme of civil disobedience or satyagraha was seldom free from violence. K.M. Munshi wrote of the participants in the Quit India Movement: “Truth to tell, what they did was anybody's business. It was certainly not non-violent even at the start.” There was extensive disruption of communications and destruction of public property ( Pilgrimage to Freedom, Vol. I, page 83).

The scholar Neeti Nair points out that “the line between hunger fast as penance, self-purification, and a form of political protest was blurred by Gandhi himself”. In Satyagraha in South Africa, Gandhi defined satyagraha as a “force which is born of truth and love or non-violence”. Neeti Nair establishes that “Gandhi's understanding of satyagraha developed over the years through particular struggles conducted by himself and those who claimed to perform satyagraha in his name”. Indeed “he characterised the hunger-strikes deployed by British women suffragettes in prison in 1909, which elicited forcible feeding, as resorting to physical violence. In 1920 he was alone in his criticism of the Irish leader Terrance MacSurineg's final hunger fast.” (Neeti Nair , Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India, Permanent Black, 2011; pages 126-128. An extremely able work. Emphasis added, throughout.)

It is, therefore, unsafe and also unhistorical to cite the Gandhian precedent before Independence. Curiously, the debate in India more or less stops there with some fleeting references to political developments and debates in more recent years. Particularly instructive is the debate in the United States in the late 1960s during the Vietnam War.

‘Rebels without a programme'

The scholar-diplomat George F. Kennan prepared a speech for the dedication of the new library at Swarthmore College, which was published in The New York Times Sunday Magazine of January 21, 1968, under a provocative title “Rebels without a Programme”. It created a stir on university campuses and drew an unprecedented response from students and teachers. The speech, a selection of the response from campuses, some letters from “the older generation” and Kennan's reply were published in book form (George F. Kennan; Democracy and the Student Left; Hutchinson, London). Later, in May 1968, appeared a piece of incisive analysis by Justice Abe Fortas of the U.S. Supreme Court in a monograph entitled Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience (Signet Books; The New American Library). Together, these writings help a lot in addressing the issue of civil disobedience in a democracy.

Kennan wrote in his seminal article: “If you accept a democratic system, this means that you are prepared to put up with those of its workings, legislative or administrative, with which you do not agree as well as with those that meet with your concurrence. This willingness to accept, in principle, the workings of a system based on the will of the majority, even when you yourself are in the minority, is simply the essence of democracy. Without it there could be no system of representative self-government at all. When you attempt to alter the workings of the system by means of violence or civil disobedience, this, it seems to me, can have only one of two implications; either you do not believe in democracy at all and consider that society ought to be governed by enlightened minorities such as the one to which you, of course, belong; or you consider that the present system is so imperfect that it is not truly representative, that it no longer serves adequately as a vehicle for the will of the majority, and that this leaves to the unsatisfied no adequate means of self-expression other than the primitive one of calling attention to themselves and their emotions by mass demonstrations and mass defiance of established authority.”

Kennan squarely met the argument that people have a right to flout the law so long as they are prepared “as a matter of conscience” to accept the punishment for the breach. “I am sorry; I cannot agree. The violation of law is not, in the moral and philosophic sense, a privilege that lies offered for sale with a given price tag, like an object in a supermarket, available to anyone who has the price and is willing to pay for it. It is not like the privilege of breaking crockery in a tent at the county fair for a quarter a shot. Respect for the law is not an obligation which is exhausted or obliterated by willingness to accept the penalty for breaking it.

“To hold otherwise would be to place the privilege of lawbreaking preferentially in the hands of the affluent, to make respect for law a commercial proposition rather than a civil duty and to deny any authority of law independent of the sanctions established against its violation.”

A graduate student at Princeton University retorted: “Contempt for the law by some of these people is a consequence of ways by which the law has made itself contemptible.” A powerful riposte come from the poet W. H. Auden: “To suggest, as Mr Kennan seems to, that the claim can never be justified is to deny that human history owes anything to its martyrs. Dr Johnson, who was certainly no anarchist, thought otherwise: ‘The magistrate has a right to enforce what he thinks, and he who is conscious of the truth has the right to suffer. I am afraid there is no other way of ascertaining the truth but by persecution on the one hand and enduring it on the other.'”

Kennan replied at length and with considerable feeling and humility: “I am free to admit that I dealt with this subject, as Mr Auden and others pointed out, much too cavalierly…. But I should think – and it was this that I meant to emphasise in my speech – that the dimensions of this problem are not quite the same where the citizen has a part in determining public policy – where the social contract may be said to prevail – as they are where the feelings of the citizen are in no wise consulted in determining the policies of the state. For a Gandhi or a Tolstoy civil disobedience was one thing; for a Thoreau – another. It seems to me that the citizen who lives under a system that assures him not only voting rights but extensive guarantees for the inviolability of his person and property and who accepts the protection of the state in the enjoyment of these rights, owes to the state at least a high measure of respect and forbearance in those instances where he may not find himself in agreement with its policies.

Defiance and lawlessness

“There is obviously a distinction to be made here between defiance by a citizen of an effort on the part of the state to make him perform specific individual actions repugnant to his own conscience and moral feeling, on the one hand, and lawlessness performed by way of protest against general laws or actions of the state conceived by the individual to be unjust, on the other.”

He did not refrain from describing his young critics in these sharp words. They are not inapplicable to some Indian “grown-ups” who have exacted much mileage in publicity in recent days. “He is the product of his national culture and his time. He reflects faithfully, but in expanded, oversized dimensions, like shadows on the wall, the bewilderments and weakness of parents, teachers, employers, moulders of opinion, leaders of government. He comes, often, from a home that is affluent yet insecure. He senses in his parents, and feels in himself, the malaise of material satiety without the balancing influence of any inner security. Imagination, fears, hopes, desires; all these are overstimulated and prematurely stimulated, by exposure to the products of the commercialised mass media [like on TV channels. Ignorant anchors who throw across seeds and invite political weathercocks to fight. They oblige readily, raucously. All in the name of debate.] Yet there are no adequate countervailing sources of strength, confidence and hope. There is no strong and coherent religious faith, no firm foundation of instruction in the nature of individual man, no appreciation for the element of tragedy that unavoidably constitutes a central component of man's predicament, and no understanding for the resulting limitations on the possibilities for social and political achievement.”

Kennan defined precisely where he differed from his student correspondents. “They would try to realise their political aspirations by direct, demonstrative pressure on the administration of the moment, bypassing the electoral and legislative process [ a la Anna Hazare]. I would consider essential to the realisation of my aspirations – and theirs too, for the matter – the creation of a new political party, a party that would differ from the two great existing ones in the fact that it would be content to remain a minority, that it would not consider itself a failure if it did not win national elections and come into power, that it would place ideas and convictions ahead of electoral success, that it would make it its business to educate others, but to do so precisely by means of a vigorous participation in the regular political and electoral process of the country.”

Justice Abe Fortas began by quoting Erich Fromm's aphorism – “Human history began with an act of disobedience, is likely to end with an act of obedience” – and proceeded at once to pose the dilemma: “If I had been a Negro living in Birmingham or Little Rock or Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, I hope I would have disobeyed the state law that said that I might not enter the public waiting room reserved for ‘Whites'. I hope I would have insisted upon going into the parks and swimming pools and schools which state or city law reserved for ‘Whites'. I hope I would have had the courage to disobey, although the segregation ordinances were declared unconstitutional. How then, can I reconcile my profound belief in obedience to law and my equally basic need to disobey these laws?”

Violation of laws as protest

Fortas drew a distinction between violation of a particularly obnoxious law and violation of laws as a protest. In the Supreme Court, he set aside the conviction of peaceful black protesters who staged a sit-in in a segregated library. They had a right to protest by “silent and reproachful presence, in a place where the protestant has every right to be.” It was a narrow victory (5-4). Such were times.

Also – and this is very relevant to our situation – he opposed demonstrations which prevented others from exercising their right to move freely. “If the demonstrators had insisted upon blocking access to the courthouse, or had entered its doors and disrupted the work going on in the courthouse in order to stage a demonstration inside or had refused to march or demonstrate in a way that allowed pedestrian or auto traffic to proceed, the result might have been different. The fact that they were engaged in a protest would not give them immunity from arrest and prosecution for their law violation. … If the right to protest, to dissent, or to assemble peaceably is exercised so as to violate valid laws reasonably designed and administered to avoid interference with others, the Constitution's guarantees will not shield the protester.”

Recalling Joan Baez's refusal to pay federal taxes which were used to finance the war in Vietnam, Fortas wrote:

“The term ‘civil disobedience' has not been limited to protests in the form of refusal to obey a law because of disapproval of that particular law. It has been applied to another kind of civil disobedience. This is the violation of laws which the protester does not challenge because of their own terms or effect. The laws themselves are not the subject of attack or protest. They are violated only as a means of protest, like carrying a picket sign. They are violated in order to publicise a protest and to bring pressure on the public or the government to accomplish purposes which have nothing to do with the law that is breached. The great exponent of this type of civil disobedience was Gandhi. He protested the British rule in India by a general programme of disobedience to the laws governing ordinary civil life….

“…The motive of civil disobedience, whatever its type, does not confer immunity for law violation. Especially if the civil disobedience involves violence or a breach of public order prohibited by statute or ordinance, it is the state's duty to arrest the dissident. If he is properly arrested, charged, and convicted, he should be punished by fine or imprisonment, or both, in accordance with the provisions of law, unless the law is invalid in general or as applied.”

A citizen cannot demand that the state obey the Constitution and the laws and at the same time assert a right to disobey the law. Fortas was among the four dissenting judges who ruled in favour of Martin Luther King, who violated a court injunction against holding a demonstration. Five judges ruled against him.

Fortas draws a distinction between demonstrations designed to register a protest and ones designed to paralyse the community – the bandh, as we call it: “They are characterised by action deliberately designed to paralyse the life of a city by disrupting traffic and the work of government and its citizens – they carry with them extreme danger. The danger of serious national consequences from massive civil disobedience may easily be exaggerated. Our nation is huge and relatively dispersed. It is highly unlikely that protesters can stage a nationwide disruption of our life, comparable to the effects of a general strike such as France and other nations have witnessed. But a programme of widespread mass civil disobedience, involving the disruption of traffic, movement of persons and supplies, and conduct of government business within any of our great cities, would put severe strains on our constitutional system.”

Fortas is not insensitive to the imperatives of one's conscience and quotes Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes' dictum: “When one's belief collides with the power of the State, the latter is supreme within its sphere. …But, in the forum of conscience, duty to a higher moral, higher power than the State has always been maintained.”

Moral issue

A person assumes an awesome responsibility when he makes such a claim. It must be a grave and intrinsically moral issue. Advocacy of a policy on legislation does not justify violation of the law on coercive fasts. In the final analysis: “The state must tolerate the individual's dissent, appropriately expressed. The individual must tolerate the majority's verdict when and as it is settled in accordance with the laws and the procedures that have been established. Dissent and dissenters have no monopoly on freedom. They must tolerate opposition. They must accept dissent from their dissent.”

But would Gandhi himself have approved of satyagraha in a free India? Evidence has come to light which suggests clearly that he would not have. Only last month this writer discovered in the invaluable treasure house of the great institution, the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) in New Delhi, a document which clinches the issue. It was the transcript of an interview in the Oral History Programme of my guru at the Bar, Purshottam Trikamdas. He was secretary to Gandhi in 1919; joint secretary of the Swaraj Party and president of the Socialist Party in 1948 before he became one of the leaders of the Supreme Court Bar. This is what he told the NMML's interviewers K.P. Rangacharya and Hari Dev Sharma on October 9, 1967: “After Gandhiji was released and we had the Poona Conference over which M.S. Aney, who was then the Acting President of the Congress, presided, I tried to meet Gandhiji but his nephew prevented me from meeting him because he knew my views to which I shall refer presently. Anyway, Aney was good enough to invite me to that meeting of Congressmen….

“I went up to Gandhiji at the end of the meeting and I said, ‘I am trying to meet you and your nephew is preventing me from meeting you.' He said, ‘No, no, nobody can do that. You come and see me.' I would like to mention that in my speech I had said, ‘I do not know what card Gandhiji had up his sleeve.' I was amused to find that some people thought this to be disrespectful because Gandhiji never played cards.

“When I went to him the next day, he showed me the letter which he had prepared for being dispatched to the Viceroy. In the letter, he had mentioned that satyagraha must be recognised as a constitutional right. So, I said to Gandhiji with utmost respect, ‘Several views have been expressed for framing our Constitution. Tomorrow, when India is free, would you say that satyagraha is a constitutional right and write it into the Constitution. And, if we do, what does it mean? It means that anybody can break the law with impunity and nothing could be done. Actually, it would be contrary to your own ideas. Satyagraha, you say, means disobeying authority and facing the consequences. Now, if satyagraha is a constitutional right and it is permitted, what are the consequences to face?' It would be said to the credit of the great man that he started thinking and he said, ‘ There is something in what you say.' Next day, he sent for me and said, ‘ You are right. I have decided not to send that letter.' Such was the greatness of the man; he always kept an open mind. After he had actually drafted the letter and finalised it, he said, ‘I am not sending it.'”