Benefits of Fasting in India

Fasting, an act which has religious connections as well in which people don't have even a single grain of food (an even stricter form of fasting requires the person not even drink a drop of water) has many benefits. It has always had spiritual benefits as in one feels more connected to the almighty and it helps him restore the faith. In addition to that, it also has medical benefits. In today's sedentary lifestyle, it is often advised to skip a meal on weekends.
Apart from all this, there is a totally new face of fasting that has been revealed by a certain politician recently, a completely new benefit: to have your own state. The very people chosen by the masses to act in a responsible manner towards the welfare of the state and the people often act in the most childish manner possible. Tell me Mr KCR, how would having a different state help the people of the state you are fighting for. Having Jharkhand separate from Bihar did not help Jharkhand as much as it helped Madhu Koda.
If you really had the benefit of the state in mind, I challenge you to step down and not accept the post of the CM even if it is offered to you!!
I really fail to understand how having 250 different states would help us grow better as a nation. I might be missing something very important that out leaders and their blind followers who are ready to start a riot anytime are seeing. We are leading ourselves to the exact same situation the British left us with and out freedom fighters fought hard to fix. The British must be laughing hard now seeing the situation we have put ourselves in.
This is not something which is new, it has always been there in India. Ever since we achieved Independence, the lust of power has always kept tearing up India. Be it the infamous India-Pakistan partition, or the split of Jharkhand from Bihar or the most recent Telengana-AP debacle. Some say these were based on regional factors, linguistic considerations, and for the benefit of people. I say, that is the most stinking way of putting 2 and 2 together, it is nothing but the lust of power which drives such decisions.
Even the central govt proved that India might be marketed as a superpower in the global market, but when it comes to setting internal disputes, the government is as toothless as it can be. Tell me Mr Prime Minister, will you give away Arunachal if Mr Wen Jiabao threatens with a fast until death or will you give away Kashmir if Mr Gilani threatens you with similar measures?
I dont follow Indian politics that closely to comment on the outcomes of this decision or to be able to see the far-sighted pros and cons of it, but to a layman like me, it sure seems like a hasty decision which would invite nothing but disaster.

Morality: Democracy Desguised?

Morality, what does it actually mean. Since our early education, we are led to believe that morality is the sense of being right, doing right and all the good things. But the question which is more basic than that is how do we define what is right and what is not? Is it on a subjective basis, does the view differ from person to person, from place to place, if yes, does every person have a different definition of morality and can these definitions clash? Could an act which is perfectly sound on the terms of morality by one human being be completely immoral by someone else's standards?

These were just some of the questions that were pondering in my mind yesterday and which resulted in a huge chain of thoughts. I decided to put them all down here.

Morality as I believe is not the sense of being right, it is what is majority of society believes to be right. The definitions of morality are bound to change as the society metamorphoses into a newer one and forms newer definitions and beliefs about what is right and what is not.

The first example that comes to my mind is Raja RamMohan Rai from India, the visionary who was instrumental in getting the 'Sati Pratha' banned from the Indian society. Now, just for the reference, 'Sati Pratha' was very much in practice in Indian society in the past and it is an act where the wife sits on the pyre of her husband and lays out her life. This act was very much moral in the Indian society which practiced it, it was not humane or justified in any manner by today's standards, but it was very moral according to that society. So, does this mean that Raja RamMohan Rai by getting this act banned performed a very immoral act? Well, in fact he did. He did the humane thing, but not moral by that society's standards. It is a different discussion that his future society saw and appreciated his visions. The society which introduced this pratha in the first place was also doing the moral thing by its beliefs.

So again, does this mean that morality is just 'Democracy in Disguise', ie, the society gets together to vote on certain practices and decides what is right and what is not. I believe it completely is. The society then enforces these moral values and gives a hard time to anyone who does not confirm to them.

This does not mean there wont be people like Raja RamMohan Rai who see through the fallacies in society's norms and are not afraid to go against it to bring about progressive change. There will always be people brave enough to stand up against the society and do all kinds of immoral acts, if that is what it takes for them to shake up the society and show it its own shortcomings. Society does need to be shaken and shaken pretty hard at times, because society by itself is a dumb and very deaf individual, it does not hear most of things you say to it unless you shake it up hard enough.

Well Begun is Half Done

So, finally, after much persuasion from some of my friends, I finally decided to jump on to the Blogging Bandwagon hoping to materialize at least some of the benefits of blogging that I was promised.

I am really thankful to those people that they did not give up and finally succeeded in making be believe that this indeed is worth putting some effort to, believe me , I know it is not easy to make me do something which requires substantial effort from my side and is not in my extremely selective 'Interest list'. I always had an inner desire to pen down my thoughts, and yes I have lots of them, as any other person who does not talk much, but never found the motivation which was powerful enough to overcome my laziness.

Now that I had decided to start blogging, the first question was "About what?".

Most of my friends/colleagues think of me as a computer geek, so the their first guess would obviously have been a technical blog, wherein I would share my knowledge about the technologies that I know and work with, let the people know about various tools and tricks available on the internet which are very much usable but often go unnoticed by the not-so-technical crowd. But, owing to my love to always trying to surprise people, I decided to go ahead with a completely non-technical blog, which would challenge me in ways as simple as vocabulary (I have a much more comfortable technical vocabulary, of course!!). I will try to start another technical blog as well, to keep up with the promises I already made that might have raised your hopes and expectations but this blog is something which I will always try to keep at a higher priority than that.

All this thought-process resulted in the creation of this blog that you are reading at the moment.

Coming to the title of this particular post, 'Well Begun is Half Done', I chose it as I really believe in it. To complete any act, you need just two conditions, the motivation to start and the courage to continue. If these two are met, everything else is bound to just fall in place.

I'll end this post now as it is always better to have a crisp start.

Stay tuned for the next post .... or even if you don't, I'll make sure you come to know of the next post ;)