The logic behind Indian rituals

Have you ever wondered what lies behind the various rituals that we perform in our lifetime almost without thinking? Yet we know that there must have been some logic which led to these time honored rituals to have survived for so long in our culture. Here are a few of these and the reason underlying them:

1. Why do we light a lamp? In almost every Indian home a lamp is lit daily before the altar of the Lord. In some houses it is lit at dawn, in some, twice a day – at dawn and dusk – and in a few it is maintained continuously. All auspicious functions commence with the lighting of the lamp, which is often maintained right through the occasion.

Light symbolizes knowledge, and darkness, ignorance. The Lord is the "Knowledge Principle" , who is the source, the enlivener and the illuminator of all knowledge. Hence light is worshiped as the Lord himself. Knowledge removes ignorance just as light removes darkness. Also knowledge is a lasting inner wealth by which all outer achievement can be accomplished. Hence we light the lamp to bow down to knowledge as the greatest of all forms of wealth.

 The traditional oil lamp has a further spiritual significance. The oil or ghee in the lamp symbolizes our negative tendencies and the wick, the ego. When lit by spiritual knowledge, the negative tendencies get slowly exhausted and the ego too finally perishes. The flame of a lamp always burns upwards. Similarly we should acquire such knowledge as to take us towards higher ideals.  

 2. Why do we do namaste ?  Indians greet each other with namaste with the two palms placed together in front of the chest and the head bowed whilst saying the word namaste. This greeting is for all – people younger than us, of our own age, those older than friends, even strangers and us.  

In Sanskrit namah + te = namaste. It means – I bow to you – my greetings, salutations or prostration to you. It has a spiritual significance of negating or reducing one's ego in the presence of another. The real meeting between people is the meeting of their minds. When we greet another, we do so with namaste , which means, "may our minds meet," indicated by the folded palms placed before the chest. The bowing down of the head is a gracious form of extending friendship in love and humility.  

 3. Why do we prostrate before parents and elders?   Indians prostrate before their parents, elders, teachers and noble souls by touching their feet. The elder in turn blesses us by placing his or her hand on or over our heads. Prostration is done  particularly on important occasions like the beginning of a new task, birthdays, festivals etc.

 Touching the feet in prostration is a sign of respect for the age, maturity, nobility and divinity that our elders personify. It symbolizes our recognition of their selfless love for us and the sacrifices they have done for our welfare. It is a way of humbly acknowledging the greatness of another. This tradition reflects the strong family ties, which has been one of India's enduring strengths. The good wishes and blessings of elders are highly valued in India. We prostrate to seek them.  

4. Why do we wear marks (tilak) on the forehead ? The tilak  invokes a feeling of sanctity in the wearer and others. It is recognized as a religious mark. Its form and colour vary according to one's caste, religious sect or the form of the Lord worshipped. In earlier times, the four castes (based on varna or colour) – Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra – applied marks differently. The brahmin applied a white chandan mark signifying purity, as his profession was of a priestly or academic nature. The kshatriya applied a red kumkum mark signifying valour as he belonged to warrior races. The vaishya wore a yellow kesar or turmeric mark signifying prosperity as he was a businessman or trader devoted to creation of wealth. The sudra applied a black bhasma, kasturi or charcoal mark signifying service as he supported the work of the other three divisions.  

The tilak cover the spot between the eyebrows, which is the seat of memory and thinking. The tilak is applied with the prayer – "May I remember the Lord. May this pious feeling pervade all my activities. May I be righteous in my deeds." Even when we temporarily forget this prayerful attitude the mark on another reminds us of our resolve. The tilak is thus a blessing of the Lord and a protection against wrong tendencies and forces.  

 5. Why do we not touch papers, books and people with the feet? To Indians, knowledge is sacred and divine. So it must be given respect at all times. Nowadays we separate subjects as sacred and secular. But in ancient India every subject – academic or spiritual – was considered divine and taught by the guru in the gurukula. 

The custom of not stepping on educational tools is a frequent reminder of the high position accorded to knowledge in Indian culture. From an early age, this wisdom fosters in us a deep reverence for books and education. This is also the reason why we worship books, vehicles and instruments once a year on Saraswathi Pooja  dedicated to the Goddess of Learning.  

 6. Why do we offer food to the Lord before eating it?   Indians make an offering of food to the Lord and later partake of it as prasaada – a holy gift from the Lord.

The Lord is omnipotent and omniscient. Man is a part, while the Lord is the totality. All that we do is by His strength and knowledge alone. Hence what we receive in life as a result of our actions is really His alone. We acknowledge this through the act of offering food to Him. This is exemplified by the Hindi words "tera tujko arpan"– I offer what is Yours to You. Thereafter it is akin to His gift to us, graced by His divine touch.

Before we partake of our daily meals we first sprinkle water around the plate as an act of purification. Five morsels of food are placed on the side of the plate acknowledging the debt owed by us to the Divine for their benign grace and protection, our ancestors for giving us their lineage and a family culture, the sages as our religion and culture have been maintained and handed down to us by them, our fellow beings who constitute society without the support of which we could not live as we do and other living beings for serving us selflessly.

7. Why do we fast?   Most devout Indians fast regularly or on special occasions like festivals. On such days they do not eat at all, eat once or make do with fruits or a special diet of simple food.

Fasting in Sanskrit is called upavaasa. Upa means "near" + vaasa means "to stay". Upavaasa therefore means staying near (the Lord), meaning the attainment of close mental proximity with the Lord.  A lot of our time and energy is spent in procuring food items, preparing, cooking, eating and digesting food. Certain food types make our minds dull and agitated. Hence on certain days man decides to save time and conserve his energy by eating either simple, light food or totally abstaining from eating so that his mind becomes alert and pure. The mind, otherwise pre-occupied by the thought of food, now entertains noble thoughts and stays with the Lord. Since it is a self-imposed form of discipline it is usually adhered to with joy.


8. Why do we do pradakshina (circumambulate)? Many Indian rituals require one to circumambulate?


We cannot draw a circle without a center point. The Lord is the center, source and essence of our lives. Recognizing Him as the focal point in our lives, we go about doing our daily chores. This is the significance of pradakshina. Also every point on the circumference of a circle is equidistant from the center. This means that wherever or whoever we may be, we are equally close to the Lord. His grace flows towards us without partiality.  As we do pradakshina, the Lord is always on our right. In India the right side symbolizes auspiciousness. So as we circumambulate the sanctum sanctorum we remind ourselves to lead an auspicious life of righteousness, with the Lord who is the indispensable source of help and strength, as our guide – the "right hand".              

9. Why do we ring the bell in a temple?   Is it to wake up the Lord? But the Lord never sleeps. Is it to let the Lord know we have come? He does not need to be told, as He is all knowing. Is it a form of seeking permission to enter His precinct? It is a homecoming and therefore entry needs no permission. The Lord welcomes us at all times. Then why do we ring the bell? 

 The ringing of the bell produces what is regarded as an auspicious sound. It produces the sound Om, the universal name of the Lord. There should be auspiciousness within and without, to gain the vision of the Lord who is all-auspiciousness. 

10. Why do we consider the lotus as special?   The lotus is the symbol of truth, auspiciousness and beauty (satyam, shivam, sundaram). The Lord is also that nature and therefore, His various aspects are compared to a lotus ( i.e. lotus-eyes, lotus feet, lotus hands, the lotus of the heart etc.).

The lotus blooms with the rising sun and close at night. Similarly, our minds open up and expand with the light of knowledge. The lotus grows even in slushy areas. It remains beautiful and untainted despite its surroundings, reminding us that we too can and should strive to remain pure and beautiful within, under all circumstances. The lotus leaf never gets wet even though it is always in water. It symbolizes the man of wisdom who remains ever joyous, unaffected by the world of sorrow and change.  

11. Why do we worship tulasi?   In Sanskrit, tulanaa naasti athaiva tulasi - that which is incomparable (in its qualities) is the tulasi . For Indians it is one of the most sacred plants. In fact it is known to be the only thing used in worship, which, once used, can be washed and reused in pooja - as it is regarded so self-purifying.

The tulasi played the vital role of demonstrating to the world that even a small object offered with devotion means more to the Lord than all the wealth in the world.


12. Why do we say shaanti thrice?   Shaanti, meaning "peace", is a natural state of being. Disturbances are created either by others or us. For example, peace already exists in a place until someone makes noise. Everyone without exception desires peace in his/her life. 


We chant shaanti thrice to emphasise our intense desire for peace. All obstacles, problems and sorrows originate from three sources: the unseen divine forces over which we have little or no control like earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions etc. ; the known factors around us like accidents, human contacts, pollution, crime etc. ; and agitations caused by ourselves. We sincerely pray to the Lord that at least while we undertake special tasks or even in our daily lives, there are no problems or that, problems are minimised from the three sources written about above.
It is chanted aloud the first time, addressing the unseen forces. It is chanted softer the second time, directed to our immediate surroundings and those around, and softest the last time as it is addressed to oneself.              

13. Why do we offer a coconut? In India one of the most common offerings in a temple is a coconut. It is also offered on occasions like weddings, festivals, the use of a new vehicle, bridge, house etc.  

The coconut is broken, symbolising the breaking of the ego. The juice within, representing the inner tendencies is offered along with the white kernel - the mind, to the Lord. A mind thus purified by the touch of the Lord is used as prasaada ( a holy gift). The coconut also symbolises selfless service.

14. Why do we chant Om?  Om is one of the most chanted sound symbols in India. It has a profound effect on the body and mind of the one who chants and also on the surroundings. Most mantras and vedic prayers start with Om.

Om is the universal name of the Lord. It is made up of the letters A (phonetically as in "around"), U (phonetically as in "put") and M (phonetically as in "mum"). The sound emerging from the vocal chords starts from the base of the throat as "A". With the coming together of the lips, "U" is formed and when the lips are closed, all sounds end in "M".


The three letters symbolize the three states (waking, dream and deep sleep), the three deities (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva), the three Vedas (Rig, Yajur and Sama) the three worlds (Bhuh, Bhuvah, Suvah) etc. The Lord is all these and beyond. 

                                                                                                                                                                 

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Lust, Lies And Empire: The Fishy Tale Behind Eating Fish on Friday

Leave it to National Public Radio to investigate the fishy tale..... "It sounds like the plot of a Dan Brown thriller: A powerful medieval pope makes a secret pact to prop up the fishing industry that ultimately alters global economics. The result: Millions of Catholics around the world end up eating fish on Fridays as part of a religious observance. This "realpolitik" explanation of why Catholics eat fish on Friday has circulated for so long, many people grew up believing it as fact. Some, myself included, even learned it in Catholic school. It's a humdinger of a tale — the kind conspiracy theorists can really sink their teeth into. But is it true? "Many people have searched the Vatican archives on this, but they have found nothing," says Brian Fagan, a professor emeritus of archeology at the University of California, Santa Barbara whose book, Fish On Friday, explores the impact of this practice on Western culture. The real story behind fish on Fridays turns out to be much better. Let's start with a quick lesson in theology: Jesus died on a Friday, and Christians believe he died to redeem a sinful world. People have written of fasting on Friday to commemorate this sacrifice as early as the first century. Technically, it's the flesh of warm-blooded animals that's off limits — an animal "that, in a sense, sacrificed its life for us, if you will," explains Michael Foley, an associate professor at Baylor University and author of Why Do Catholics Eat Fish On Friday? Fish are cold-blooded, so they're fair game. "If you were inclined to eat a reptile on Friday," Foley tells The Salt, "you could do that, too." Alas, Christendom never really developed a hankering for snake. But fish — well, they'd been associated with sacred holidays even in pre-Christian times. And as the number of meatless days piled up on the medieval Christian calendar — not just Fridays but Wednesdays and Saturdays, Advent and Lent, and other holy days — the hunger for fish grew. Indeed, fish fasting days became central to the growth of the global fishing industry – but not because of a pope and his secret pact. At first, says Fagan, Christians' religious appetite was largely met with herring, a fish that was plentiful but dry and tasteless when smoked or salted. And preservation was a must in medieval times: There was no good way for fresh fish to reach the devout masses. Eventually, cod became all the rage — it tasted better when cured and lasted longer, too. The Vikings were ace at preserving cod — they "used dried and salted cod as a form of beef jerky on their ocean passages," Fagan says. And the route the Vikings took at the end of the first millennium — Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland — matches up with the natural range of the Atlantic cod. It's possible that others may have followed the cod trail to Canada before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Clues suggest that English fishermen from Bristol may have made the voyage by around 1480 but kept mum on the location lest the competition rush in. By some accounts, both Columbus and John Cabot had heard of these adventures when they set off on their own epic journeys west. "Why do people go over the horizon?" Fagan says. "In the case of the North Atlantic after the Norse ... they went looking for cod" to satiate the demands of the faithful. So that's the empire part of our tale. Funny enough, while the pope story is a fish tale, an official leader of the church did make fish fasting the law for purely practical reasons. For that story — and the lust our headline promised — we turn to a monarch known for his carnal cravings: Henry VIII. By the time Henry ascended the throne in 1509, fish dominated the menu for a good part of the year — as one 15th-century English schoolboy lamented in his notebook: "Though wyll not beleve how werey I am off fysshe, and how moch I desir to that flesch were cum in ageyn." But after Henry became smitten with Anne Boleyn, English fish-eating took a nosedive. The king broke off from the Roman Catholic Church, declared himself the head of the Church of England and divorced his wife so he could marry Anne. Suddenly, eating fish had become political. Fish was seen as a "'popish flesh' that lost favour as fast as Anglicism took root," as Kate Colquhoun recounts in her book Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking. Fishermen were hurting. So much so that when Henry's young son, Edward VI, took over in 1547, fast days were reinstated by law — "for worldly and civil policy, to spare flesh, and use fish, for the benefit of the commonwealth, where many be fishers, and use the trade of living." In fact, fish fasting remained surprisingly influential in global economics well into the 20th century. As one economic analysis noted, U.S. fish prices plummeted soon after Pope Paul VI loosened fasting rules in the 1960s. The Friday meat ban, by the way, still applies to the 40 days of the Lenten fast, which ends this Saturday. Also in the '60s, Lou Groen, an enterprising McDonald's franchise owner in a largely Catholic part of Cincinnati, found himself struggling to sell burgers on Fridays. His solution? The Filet-O-Fish. While not exactly the miracle of loaves and fishes, Groen's little battered sandwich has fed millions around the world."

Anyone can travel

Here is a wonderful article by Diya on the joys of travelling.

Diya says " We wanted a break from living the life we should to live the life we want. Watching our kids grow up made us realize life goes by fast. Finding out I had multiple sclerosis made us realize that life also take turns we don’t plan. Too many of us take our responsibilities so seriously that we start forgetting the things that really matter such as health, personal connections, or introspection. Every elderly person we meet on the road compliments us, saying that they have all the time now to travel but have lost either the physical ability or the family ties to make it a reality. Their advice and ours is don’t wait until retirement to travel the world. You may not be able to climb the Himalayas or swim in the bluest oceans if you do. And you certainly wont be able to experience these things with your impressionable children. By making the decision to travel, Sandeep and I actually think that we did the most responsible thing we could for our family. We’re navigating the world together and understanding each other on a level we never did at home. Most importantly we have all the time in the world to truly appreciate each other and what makes us a family. We’re not turning our backs on the conventional paths to responsibility, but travel has given us a renewed focus for why it matters."


And she concludes: " Once we hit the road we immediately realized that we traded in our full lives for richer ones. Instead of setting our alarms to get to work, we set it for things like giving alms to 12,000 monks in Chiang Mai. Instead of limited family time, we have the luxury of lazing together. We’re not saying life on the road is perfect or that we never miss certain comforts of home. Sometimes things don’t work. Other times we just can’t get what we want – the only available diaper brand leaks, the coffee is not strong enough, no one speaks English, nothing on the menu is gluten-free – but we adjust as a family. We spend every day now learning about our world with our children. We’re more connected to each other but also realize how connected we are to the rest of mankind and our natural world. We knew this on a superficial level before our journey and live it every day now. We are  learning what it means to be responsible and adaptable global citizens."

What does Pakistan want?

Steve Coll writes a perceptive piece of the stratagies underlying the military establishment of Pakistan. Even more interesting is the secret document accompanying this piece. Worth a read.

The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs

In a long instructive piece, the biographer of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson, tries to draw out the real lessons from his life and his leadership success.

"His saga is the entrepreneurial creation myth writ large: Steve Jobs cofounded Apple in his parents’ garage in 1976, was ousted in 1985, returned to rescue it from near bankruptcy in 1997, and by the time he died, in October 2011, had built it into the world’s most valuable company. Along the way he helped to transform seven industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. He thus belongs in the pantheon of America’s great innovators, along with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney."

His greatest achievement was making Apple as an enduring company. But what were the real keys to his success?

1. Focus

When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, it was producing a random array of computers and peripherals, including a dozen different versions of the Macintosh. By getting Apple to focus on making just four computers, he saved the company. “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. That’s true for companies, and it’s true for products.” Focus was ingrained in Jobs’s personality and had been honed by his Zen training. He relentlessly filtered out what he considered distractions.

2. Simplify

Jobs’s Zenlike ability to focus was accompanied by the related instinct to simplify things by zeroing in on their essence and eliminating unnecessary components. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” declared Apple’s first marketing brochure. Jobs aimed for the simplicity that comes from conquering, rather than merely ignoring, complexity. Achieving this depth of simplicity, he realized, would produce a machine that felt as if it deferred to users in a friendly way, rather than challenging them. “It takes a lot of hard work,” he said, “to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.”

3. Take Responsibility End to End

Jobs knew that the best way to achieve simplicity was to make sure that hardware, software, and peripheral devices were seamlessly integrated.

4. When Behind, Leapfrog

The mark of an innovative company is not only that it comes up with new ideas first. It also knows how to leapfrog when it finds itself behind. That happened when Jobs built the original iMac. He focused on making it useful for managing a user’s photos and videos, but it was left behind when dealing with music. But instead of merely catching up by upgrading the iMac’s CD drive, he decided to create an integrated system that would transform the music industry. The result was the combination of iTunes, the iTunes Store, and the iPod, which allowed users to buy, share, manage, store, and play music better than they could with any other devices.

5. Put Products Before Profits

When Jobs and his small team designed the original Macintosh, in the early 1980s, his injunction was to make it “insanely great.” He never spoke of profit maximization or cost trade-offs. “Don’t worry about price, just specify the computer’s abilities,” he told the original team leader : Focus on making the product great and the profits will follow.

6. Don’t Be a Slave To Focus Groups

When Jobs took his original Macintosh team on its first retreat, one member asked whether they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. “No,” Jobs replied, “because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” Caring deeply about what customers want is much different from continually asking them what they want; it requires intuition and instinct about desires that have not yet formed. “Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page,” Jobs explained.

7.Bend Reality

Jobs’s (in)famous ability to push people to do the impossible was dubbed by colleagues his Reality Distortion Field, after an episode of Star Trek in which aliens create a convincing alternative reality through sheer mental force.

8. Impute

Jobs’s early mentor Mike Markkula wrote him a memo in 1979 that urged three principles. The first two were “empathy” and “focus.” The third was an awkward word, “impute,” but it became one of Jobs’s key doctrines. He knew that people form an opinion about a product or a company on the basis of how it is presented and packaged. “Mike taught me that people do judge a book by its cover,” he told me.

9. Push for Perfection

During the development of almost every product he ever created, Jobs at a certain point “hit the pause button” and went back to the drawing board because he felt it wasn’t perfect. “Real artists sign their work,” he said.

10. Tolerate Only “A” Players

Jobs was famously impatient, petulant, and tough with the people around him. But his treatment of people, though not laudable, emanated from his passion for perfection and his desire to work with only the best. It was his way of preventing what he called “the bozo explosion,” in which managers are so polite that mediocre people feel comfortable sticking around.

11. Engage Face-to-Face

Despite being a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew all too well its potential to be isolating, Jobs was a strong believer in face-to-face meetings. “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by e-mail and iChat,” he told me. “That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘Wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas. People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”

12. Know Both the Big Picture and the Details.

Some CEOs are great at vision; others are managers who know that God is in the details. Jobs was both. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes says that one of Jobs’s salient traits was his ability and desire to envision overarching strategy while also focusing on the tiniest aspects of design.

13.Combine the Humanities with the Sciences

He connected the humanities to the sciences, creativity to technology, arts to engineering. There were greater technologists (Wozniak, Gates), and certainly better designers and artists. But no one else in our era could better firewire together poetry and processors in a way that jolted innovation. And he did it with an intuitive feel for business strategy. At almost every product launch over the past decade, Jobs ended with a slide that showed a sign at the intersection of Liberal Arts and Technology Streets.

14. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Steve Jobs was a product of the two great social movements that emanated from the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s. The first was the counterculture of hippies and antiwar activists, which was marked by psychedelic drugs, rock music, and antiauthoritarianism. The second was the high-tech and hacker culture of Silicon Valley, filled with engineers, geeks, wireheads, phreakers, cyberpunks, hobbyists, and garage entrepreneurs. Overlying both were various paths to personal enlightenment—Zen and Hinduism, meditation and yoga, primal scream therapy and sensory deprivation, Esalen and est.

 Jobs stayed hungry and foolish throughout his career by making sure that the business and engineering aspect of his personality was always complemented by a hippie nonconformist side from his days as an artistic, acid-dropping, enlightenment-seeking rebel.

 “While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

When we are patients

In the past I have written a great deal about sicknesses, doctors and caregivers that help us deal when we are patients. I realize that I have never written a column about the patients point of view in all this, though I did write a book “ Straight from the Heart” that was entirely from the patients point of view! But it is true that I have never written a blog about it. Anyway I have always wondered what sick patients think about as they lie in their hospital beds and doctors move in and out? What are their thoughts after the relatives and friends have left? Do they ponder their past or worry about the future? What do they worry about ? Money? Who will look after the family? Funeral arrangements? A complete recovery?

Even as I was contemplating this, Fate jumped in with a cruel twist, and I was hit with a triple whammy. A Delhi viral fever weakend me sufficiently to fall victim to the Shingle virus, which in turn infected the bladder to require catherization. In a short space of ten days, I went from a reasonably functioning vertical man to a almost completely dysfunctional horizontal man. 

I could now do my own research, I wryly observed to myself as I lay in bed.

The first thing that happens when you are patient is that your entire universe contracts . It actually shrinks rapidly only to your immediate family. World events leave you cold, even though you may have been an avid follower of the daily news. You tend to ignore newspapers and magazines, and unread books pile up beside your bedside. Your mind is fully concentrated on you and your disease, completely impervious to other more world shaking issues. It is a time of complete narcissism. And you rapidly become the most selfish person in the world.

The reason for this retreat to a different self is the pain that most difficult diseases accompany. A little twinge that you would have dismissed when vertical, become of earthshaking importance when you are laid low. Sometimes you lie still in bed hoping that shafts of pain will somehow miss you. Or when you move,  it is with utmost gingerness lest some parts in your body get displaced. Each little path, even to the nearest bathroom becomes a momentous trek requiring great planning and precise movements. Even when in bed, you turn around with great care lest you let loose some unforeseen and unknown pang of pain.

Not only are your thoughts solely about avoiding any pain, they are completely empty. You lie on the sofa in front of a constantly on TV, yet you hear almost none of the programs. You doze in and out but there are no dreams – only blackness and blankness.

Sometimes when the pain becomes too sharp, you do dream of happier days and times. Or at least you try to, if you want to survive. Other times you may just hug yourself to sleep and cry in solitude bemoaning your fate. A creative time it is not.

And then in your wakeful moments you realize that life is running along- there is food on the table (or served on your bed), the house is clean, somebody is doing the shopping. There is someone tending to your every need, even if your answers are in the monosyllabic. She is beside you when the pain becomes overwhelming and she knows when your depression is unusually deep. She will then quietly organize your children to call you to cheer you up; and stretch her hand to hold yours in the middle of the night.

As you gradually recover and become somewhat human, you begin to notice the courage and fortitude, the thoughfullness and love that underlie this. Yet the sheer burden of carrying the entire load – of nurse, cook, provider, cleaner- is clearly evident even as she sits besides you massaging your back while she hides her own pains from you. As I noted her exhaustion, I  ventured to ask her “ Why?”

Her reply: “ I expect you to do the same for me”

The power of friendships

Some months ago I wrote of high powered women in India who seemed to have everything - a brilliant career, immense wealth, high status in society- but were not married. One of the things I had noted then was how all of them spent considerable time and effort in building and maintaining their network of friends. Here is wonderful piece by Emily Rapp, which makes the same point. Here is her story of the "Wrinklies".

"In 1997 I arrived in Geneva to work for a year at the headquarters of a relief organization. Feeling overwhelmed by my job and lonely in a city of overworked expats passing through for two to three year stints at the United Nations or other organizations with the rather nebulous goal of “changing the world,” I made friends with a group of women. I was 22, and all three women — one American, one German, and one Argentinean – were 30 years older than I and had worked for the same organization in various administrative capacities for the length of time I’d been alive. After one lengthy, boozy dinner of fondue and buckets of white wine, they quickly took me into their friendship fold and jokingly referred to themselves as “the Wrinklies.”

All three women (and myself as well) were unmarried, living alone, and working to assist people in real need in countries around the world.  Despite the fact that I immediately felt accepted, supported, challenged and nurtured by each of them, when I first joined their weekly dinner group, I felt sorry for them. They weren’t married, they weren’t mothers – and at this time, and up until very recently, I clung to the belief that this constituted some failure on their part. They found me equally mystifying. Was I really worried about the size of my ass or trying to finagle a recent date with a man they thought (from my description) was boring and slightly odious? (He was.) Was it a good use of my time, they wondered, to hang out in bars getting smashed and looking to score and by doing this (they were rightfully doubtful) find “the love of my life” when I said I wanted to be a writer? Sure, sure, I said, but I dismissed their concerns, and mourned what I interpreted as their missed opportunities to have a real life, which I assumed would only start for me when I was married and a mother. I loved them, but in my mind I was remembering that old phrase I’d heard for most of my life, in hushed and shameful tones: old maid. I was also keen to make my life look “normal” and “acceptable” in some way because I have a disability; if I didn’t get the body part right, I reasoned (irrationally, although it seemed quite rational at the time), I could get the “what your life looks like” part right.

While I was obsessing about how I looked and who would love me, these women were helping to save the world – not in a way that would win them accolades, certainly – but the work they were doing was important and life-giving. And there I sat, foolishly pitying them. What I realized, sitting there, was that these women had been in these kinds of emotionally challenging situations for over 20 years. Together. They understood, together, as friends, and apart, as individuals in the world, the urgency of compassion, and that it often goes unnoticed but that this doesn’t make it any less important or vital or difficult to sustain and cultivate. And they also understood that you could try as hard as you possibly could, and disaster could still strike – mercilessly. Without warning, without fairness, and with fatal consequences. I wasn’t ready to change my man-chasing, embarrassing ways, but a seed was planted on that afternoon. Nearly fifteen years later I get out of bed each morning and am thankful that I wasn’t so myopically committed to old, tried myths about women’s roles that I couldn’t see what was happening in that room between those three women, or what was happening in my own mind…

The Wrinklies weren’t spinsters or old maids and they were not “failures” in any way. They were free. It was I who failed to see them, until later, for who they really were: educated, hugely intelligent, fascinating, financially independent. Women who led rich lives full of meaningful work, deep and lasting friendship, sex when they wanted it, time with the beloved children of their family and friends, conversations about politics and art and literature, culture, travel to remarkable destinations where they did not journey as unconscious tourists but as guests in people’s homes and hearts. Despite these full lives they owned their own time, they owned their days…

The last time I saw the Wrinklies was in 1999 on a return trip to Geneva. The youngest of the three had had a stroke as a result of a brain tumor. These friends she’d worked and traveled and lived and laughed and loved with for over half her life rented a new ground-floor apartment that would accommodate a wheelchair, took shifts taking care of her, all the while holding down jobs that were about saving other people’s friends, other people’s kids, other people’s lives – not directly, no, but on the sidelines, behind the scenes, booking travel and setting up conference space and directing supplies and networking with people on the ground who were face to face with whatever crisis situation needed to be handled. I was nervous as I sat waiting in a pub to see them all again, afraid of seeing my paralyzed friend. Would my face show a reaction that I didn’t intend? Fear? Disgust? The three of them came in together, smiling. The unaffected two had learned to understand the other’s few words; they wiped her face, helped her eat and made her laugh. This was a snapshot of what my own deep friendships could lead to: transformation. I saw, on that afternoon, that it’s possible to transcend the limits of your skin in a friendship. That a friend can take you out of the boxes you’ve made for yourself and burn them up. This kind of friendship is not a frivolous connection, a supplementary relationship to the ones we’re taught and told are primary – spouses, children, parents. It is love. When the youngest Wrinklie died, I remember getting the news in my apartment in Berkeley, married, already knowing it wouldn’t last, and thinking she was lucky. And she was.”

In praise of sisters

India has a unique festival – Rakhsa Bandhan – literally knot of protection- where a sister ties a “rakhee” around her brothers hand. The rakhi is a symbol of the purity of a relationship between a sister and brother. By it the brother pledges to protect the sister in every birth. Just as the brother is bound by a promise to protect the sister after getting a string tied onto his wrist, so also the sister prays to God for his protection. Rakhi is basically a sacred thread of protection embellished with the love and affection of a sister for her brother.

This traditional Hindu festival 'Raksha Bandhan'  has its origin about 6000 years back when Aryans created first civilization. And there are many legends which have built around this rather unique festival that celebrates the love that a brother has for his sister.

Among these legends is story of Rani Karnavati and Emperor Humayun. During the medieval era, Rajputs were fighting Muslim invasions. When Rani Karnawati, the widowed queen of the king of Chittor realised that she could in no way defend the invasion of the Sultan of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, she sent a rakhi to Emperor Humayun. The Emperor touched by the gesture started off with his troops without wasting any time.

Some claim that this ritual even started earlier with Lord Krishna. In order to protect the good people of Dwarka, Lord Krishna killed the evil King Shishupal but was hurt during the war and left with bleeding finger. Seeing this, Draupathi had torn a strip of cloth from her sari and tied it around his wrist to stop the bleeding. Lord Krishna, realizing her affections and concern about him, declared himself bounded by her sisterly love. He promised her to repay this debt whenever she needed in future and he did when she was being dishonored and he made sure that the saree she wore was endless.

This day epitomizes the love between a sister and her brothers and the sacred thread is proof of this lifelong bond. History is replete with records where women have invoked this rakhee and where men- sometimes even of different religion and origin but who have become “ dharma bhais” or brothers in spirit, have rushed to the help of their sisters.

In modern days, however, the role of the sister has turned – now it is they who have become the protectors of their brothers. While traditionally, sisters adore their older brothers, and remain their lifelong cheerleaders, they dote on their younger brothers. It is to her that younger siblings repair for advice and consolation in times of trouble. She is the first port of call when things become tense in the household and parental pressures mount for when mom and dad don't understand, a sister always will. 
An older sister is a friend and defender - a listener, conspirator, a counsellor and a sharer of delights.  And sorrows too. And when parents are no longer around, it is often she who becomes the glue that holds the family together. She is no longer the one asking for aid and help, instead she has become the dispenser of succor and lifelong affection and support for her brothers.

Some of us are blessed to have such sisters as well as the counterparts of “dharma bhais”, the “ sisters in spirit”. I have come to increasingly appreciate and value the affection that underlie these relationships. A sibling is after all the keeper of one's true identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self.  The pure love and concern that, in ways subtle and unsubtle, tie the siblings together over their lifetimes, is one to be carefully fostered for our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.  She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities.  She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway.  She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark.  She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. It is the most nurturing of relationships but the role of sisters is often left unsung and under appreciated. And it should not.

In recent years, I have been the lucky recipient of this affection from many – from some who chide me when I do not stay with them during my visits to their hometown, to others who provided me a with a safe haven after a tense encounter with the terrorists and made sure it remained peaceful and calm. Or one who regularly scolds me on not staying with her, once irately observing that she would be happy to send me a hotel bill if it would help overcome my old fashioned values of not burdening married younger sisters. Another who constantly sends me clippings of the latest developments in science to cure my various ills, And another who took over my medical support when I fell sick organizing doctors medicines hospitals with a quiet efficiency and loving concern;  to another who cheerfully took leave of her legal practice to massage my aching muscles at a time when my wife was at her wits end in tending to my troubles.

There is a sweetness in these relationships that is hard to capture in simple words. I often ask how do people make it through life without a sister? For sisters are blossoms in the garden of life. There's no other love like their love for a brother. A love that is gentle, calm and full of affection- it is a relationship like none other. It surprises me that this sisterly love has not found a day for it to be honored. Of course, we need not a day but the whole year to properly thank those who provide us with such love and comfort. But a day would at least be a start.

Perhaps a silver rakhee day where brother can tie a gold or silver bracelet around their sisters wrists symbolizing the relationship?

The real battle below- analysing the republicans approach to 2012

In a remarkable piece, Chait analyses the deeper underlying motives of the republican strategies for the election of 2012. A number of disparate actions spread over the past two years begin to make sense when viewed through the prism of a desperate southern white desire to hang on to power despite the changing demographics. It is a battle against history and geography and unveils deep seated fears now swirling around the heads of a party doomed to being a long term minority status.

"Of the various expressions of right-wing hysteria that have flowered over the past three years—goldbuggery, birtherism, death panels at home and imaginary apology tours by President Obama abroad—perhaps the strain that has taken deepest root within mainstream Republican circles is the terror that the achievements of the Obama administration may be irreversible, and that the time remaining to stop permanent nightfall is dwindling away."says Chait.

The Republican Party has increasingly found itself confined to white voters, especially those lacking a college degree and rural whites. Meanwhile, the Democrats have ­increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, particularly the growing share of secular whites, and remained dominant among racial minorities. Every year, the nonwhite proportion of the electorate grows by about half a percentage point—meaning that in every presidential election, the minority share of the vote increases by 2 percent, a huge amount in a closely divided country. These trends favor the democratic coalition, since as a whole the electorate is growing both somewhat better educated and dramatically less white, thus making every successive election less favorable for the GOP.

Faced with this bleak future, the republican leadership , rather than adjust themselves to their slowly weakening position,  have chosen instead to stage a decisive confrontation. If the terms of the fight grow more unfavorable with every passing year, well, all the more reason to have the fight sooner, goes their reasoning. This was the thought process of the antebellum southern states, sizing up the growing population and industrial might of the North. It was the thinking of the leaders of Austria-Hungary, watching their empire deteriorate and deciding they needed a decisive war with Serbia to save themselves. At varying levels of conscious and subconscious thought, this is also the reasoning that has driven Republicans in the Obama era. Surveying the landscape, they have concluded that they must strike quickly and decisively at the opposition before all hope is lost.

And what has been the strategy? Total opposition and complete denial of any credit to the sitting president for any achievment.

- The Republicans’ most audacious choice has been the hyperaggressive position they’ve adopted against Obama to sabotage his chances for a second term. There is a devious brilliance at work in the GOP strategy of legislative obstruction as they have very skillfully ground the legislative gears to a halt for months on end, weakening or killing large chunks of Obama’s agenda, and nurturing public discontent with Washington.

- The Koch brother inspired media campaigns against healthcare- Obama's signature achievement, the sponsoring of tea partiers, the negative response to job act

- Republicans have not ignored the rising tide of younger and browner voters that swamped them at the polls in 2008 either. Instead they have just set about keeping as many of them from the polls as possible in the future. The bulk of this campaign has taken the form of throwing up an endless series of tedious bureaucratic impediments to voting in many states—ending same-day voter registration, imposing onerous requirements upon voter-registration drives, and upon voters themselves.

- the outside funding of republican candidate through anonymous donations to swamp democratic candidates

- the deliberate raising of social inflammatory issues to divide the electrolate

Knowing what drives your opponent is an important tool in devising your own strategy. The question is can Obama's team formulate a countervailing strategy to overcome this?