NavDharmyug

A new thing exploding today on the media is the charges of the Congress about snooping on WhatsApp of some 1400 accounts using some spyware, Pegasus, from a private Software maker from Israel, NSO. Congress de-facto chief, Rahul Gandhi was on foreign travels, when the campaigning for Maharashtra and Haryana elections started. He was back to oversee the rout of Congress in the two state, and having planned havoc on the nation with country-wide protests on the sinking economy, which as per reports is not able to purchase underwear.  Rahul Gandhi is, in the meantime, on another round of holidays, ostensibly, to meditate. That the Rock gurus from the West would travel to Rishikesh in India to meditate is another matter. However, as is usually the case, I believe absolutely unrelated, when Rahul Gandhi is abroad, which is often, some controversy or another will come up. Earlier it was a message parlour in the UK which, with its three employees also doubled as a news agency, ru...

"From Untrue to the True From Darkness to Light From Death to Immortality" The Right-wing is defined by Oxford Dictionary as a Conservative or reactionary section of a Political Party or System. Merriam-Webster calls it a group of people who support conservative ideas and policies.  The term came into being during the French revolution of 1789, wherein steep divides in position on various fundamental matters raised such situation that those with opposing views were advised to stick to one side to avoid physical violence. Those who were loyal to the king and religion took to the right side of the chair. This physical division continued till 1793 even after French legislative assembly came into being.  From seating arrangement, this term became political and by the beginning of 20th century, spread across the globe. The term on both sides was used as some kind of derogatory way of defining the opposition. The Left technically stood for communism, gro...

Solitude is an essential part of writing life. Writing is a lonely profession. One ought to step on this path if one is able to survive through the long, voluntary spells of solitude. We must not confuse loneliness with solitude. Loneliness throws one down the dark abyss; solitude is the pair of wings that intellect provides to lift the soul out of those depths.  The best of the art emerges out of a certain tranquility of mind, a quietude of being. It borrows wisdom from market-places, it derives truth from the people, but the truth which is visible to the writer, is often not visible to the very people from whose life he derives and distills it. What separates the characters of a story and its writer is the ability of the writer to pull himself back from life, to stand away and apart, to have a distinct vantage points, to watch it with an odd sense of detached empathy. The difference in this vantage point, from one writer to another is the reason stories written about th...

Image Courtesy: GettyImages “ Have you noticed how continually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the decay of democracy. It is simply its fulfillment. ” – Wrote  GK Chesterton  in his acclaimed political satire, “ The Napoleon of Notting Hill” . This is a truth of such great wisdom told in such a simplistic manner.  It doesn’t matter if he wrote it in 1905 (about a world of 1984). Democracy is a great idea but its strength lies in the constant change. You stop the churn and staleness of status quo seeps in, the water gets muddier, the stench rises and toads will croak. A monarchy derives its power from status quo, the lack of change, the permanence of structure. Democracy on the other hand, thrives on chaos, change and transient nature of the political structure. Democracy will throw surprises. It will bring people who are watching from the margins, will name the nameless, and raise them to a point where they start resembling aristocratic mo...

The weather has changed. Skies are clear once again, fog lifted. Azure, cloudless skies; trees bare. The dawn descends with the shy, blush of a fair, newly-wed woman. The days are not yet jaundiced with the pale, bright yellowness of the summers. There is a distinct hint of red in the yellow.  Writing is sporadic, very less. A few intermittent blog post. Unwritten words sit heavily on the soul of a writer. To accept oneself as a writer is to embark on a dangerous path. It is a solitary profession and a hard one at that.  I read to prepare to write. I tell myself. Be at some point, even reading has to make way for writing. Writing is not a quick job. It takes time, time and sitting all agitated inside and all peaceful outside, the incongruous internal and external world pulling one apart, in diverse directions. Writing takes time. One needs to tie that heavy stone to the neck of a reckless, wandering mind and allow it to sink to the depths. Bubbles of air escap...

Intellectuals and scholars like the leaders, at times hold a place of such high reverence in one’s mind that any minor slip, any pettiness on their part, breaks the heart of those who had at one point of time, admired them. I was like most of the Nineties youth was always charmed by Arun Shourie, the Journalist-turned-politician. He, with over-sized half-shirts with pens prominently parked in his pocket was probably the first common man politicians in the post-emergency era, much before Kejriwal turned that uniform into a political attire of Twenty-first century. I was quite young when Shourie came into the political arena and like all young men was quite a fool and romantic. Like Arvind Kejriwal, Shourie moved about with the air of middle-class men, hiding carefully and successfully his background of affluence- like his having been schooled in the elite Modern School and St. Stephen’s in Delhi, and his stint in the world bank, much like Arvind Kejriwal who almost made one believe as...

कहते हैं , जब रही ना मुझे ताक़त ए सुख़न  जानूँ किसी के दिल की मैं क्यों कर कहे बगैर।   This delightful verse comes from Ghalib, which is so meaningful in today's world where truth is being replaced by rhetoric is laden with so many interests. I had once written about it and named it "Responsibility of a Writer- As Per Ghalib. (http://www.saketsuryesh.net/2016/04/responsibility-of-writer-as-per-ghalib.html)"   The couplet means as below: If I am no longer blessed with the Power of my Pen, why should I have access to the recesses of someone's heart.  What Ghalib is essentially saying, in my interpretation is that "unless my pen has the will and the strength to honestly convey the interests and thoughts of those who cannot speak, why should I continue to enjoy their trust and have access their hearts. This takes an important perspective in today's context, where a day ban on NDTV has given an opportunity to Ravish Kumar for making his point...