My Kanyon

 It was a day in May 2019 when my daughter Ishna came to me and said-dad I want to get him home, he is so cute. Not that, that excited me. I had been mowing the lawn and tiringly wanted to get by it without paying any distraction a lot of attention. Anyway we had already put down the deposit on a pet and would get it before winter.

Ishna has always been fond of dogs. She would recognize a dog's breed just by looking at it/it's picture and rattle off it's traits, health concerns, whether it would make for a good pet or not .etc. She had been insisting on a pet dog since she was six years old and now she was twelve. It was getting harder by the day to contain her. I was about to gibe in and yield to het. Glad for my life that I did.

I, coming from a house-hold where cleanliness nd order stood above everything else and never having had a pet in my house earlier, was quite reluctant at the prospect of sharing space with a dog. It is just that there were so many unknowns which I did not know how to handle. What about the fur that would be everywhere? How would I protect my nicely polished wood floor, what about the furniture, the couches and the lamps? Al types of people who has never owned a dog would offer their unsolicited advice. They would say-"Oh you should cover your floor with plastic, don't give it access to every room in your house(Kanyon lords over the entire house-it being his home). Even the lady at the shelter from where we ended up getting Kanyon advised me against giving hi access to all the rooms in the house.

Coming back to that fateful day (I think it was a weekend), we sought an appointment with the shelter (Lynnwood Paws to be exact) to see this beauty. I have to confess-I fell immediately in love with him. And as did my wife Pooja who had previously seen him. And how could you not with his drooling gaze following you everywhere imploring you to take him home. After cuddling and playing with him, we were doing the paperwork to take him home. On way back home, I brought his food, feeding bowls and crate for him to sleep in. Little did I realize that that would be the only night he would sleep in the crate as soon the whole house was his for taking. Soon the crate was up for resale on Craigslist and it was gone. 

Rest as they say is history and I am sure the words are not going to do any justice to the emotion, the bond, the pace he has in our lives. Very soon we would find him becoming an integral part of our lives. When we would go camping, he would sleep on top of me or my wife's bed, keen to squeeze in the tiny 4 person tent.

Soon I would be seeing him following me everywhere in the house or if I would stop out to work in the yard, he would start weeping at the prospect of being left alone and I would have to invite him to sit with me on the porch. He is my companion on my hikes and loves to hike all the way to those beautiful alpine lakes that this state is blessed with. One beauty meeting other beauty. 

He can not bear the prospect of having to share me with anyone. He would wait for Pooja to feed him any snacks before coming up to retire in the bed with me. His favorite spot being the one between my wife and me. If I attempt to hug Ishna sometimes, he would come up o his hind legs, give a lowly growl as if saying that he too wants a hug. I can bore you with stories of my son. Such is my son, Kanyon. 

3 Wise Monkeys

 I am sure the title itself gave up the intent of the essay, I am not good at keeping surprises. In a way that is good as it saves me from having to give a lengthy introduction to something that has attained a folk-lore stardom in India (err Bharat)-"Gandhi ji key teen Bandar."

The 3 monkeys where one is holding his hands to his eyes. the other to his ears and the 3rd to his mouth translate into "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." The statue of 3 monkeys made of China clay was gifted to Gandhi by a Japanese monk named Nishidatsu Fuji and are famous in Japan as Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil ; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil. Gandhi names these 3 monkeys as Bapu, Ketan and Bandar and this statue is prominently displayed at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

This concept has been attributed to be developed by Confucius and then adopted by the Japanese. They were the first to use monkeys to explain this philosophy. But then the question that begs to be answered is -Why monkeys???

In Chinese (or Mandarin to be precise), two similar phrases exist; one in the Analects of Confucius (4th-2nd century B.C.) that reads "Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety. The other is in the book Xunzi (3rd century B.C.)  which reads "The gentleman makes his eyes not want to see what is not right, makes his ears not want to hear what is not right, makes his mouth not want to speak what is not right, and makes his heart not want to deliberate over what is not right."

Again we will come back to the question of why monkeys??? and explore if we find anything resembling this thought emerging from these lands, from the laboratories of Brahmrishis and Rajrishis or does it qualify as imported wisdom as we are taught.

In the Upanishads, the mind is compared to an inebriated monkey that has drunk wine, then bitten by a scorpion and has been assaulted by a hive of bees. And so the famous connotation-Monkey Mind. So it is only natural to use the analogy of a monkey to tame some of the basal animal instincts. 

May I refer to the Shanti Mantra found in many Upanishads-Maandukya Upanishad, Prashna Upanishad, & Kaivalya Upanishad and so on. The first part of the Shanti Mantra which is relevant here goes as -

"Om Bhadram Karnebhih Shrnnuyaama Devaah, Bhadram Pashyema-Akssabhir-Yajatraah,

 Sthirair-Anggais-Tussttuvaamsas-Tanuubhih, Vyashema Deva-Hitam Yad-Aayuh"

 meaning "O Devas-May we hear with our ears what is auspicious, O Devas(who are worthy of worship), may we see with our eyes what is auspicious, with sense organs steady and body praying (due to hearing and seeing the auspicious), may we attain the lifespan allotted by the devas(thus finding fulfillment in our lives).

Thus we see a difference in this shanti mantra at not stopping at some body actions only but also answering the causal action as to what will result from that which the 3 monkeys never told us. We see how how our bodies and sense organs will be stable due to seeing and hearing the auspicious (that is why great stress is placed on participating and hearing the good word in Satsang and kirtan in Sanatan). And we also see how that is invoked to finding the fulfillment in our lives. 

It is hard to resist one more difference where the Shanti Mantra trumps over the 3 monkeys. Did you see a negative word like "NO" or "EVIL" in the Santi Mantra? Ask yourself-does the mere mention of a negative word not conjure up negative emotions, feelings in you. I will leave the answer with you.

Not that I am trying to take the credit away from Japanese or Confucius or Shintoism. etc. No, that would be very childish. Yes different people can reach the same conclusion following paths independent of each other. As the famous Rig Vedic phrase goes "Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vaddanti" (lest it also be hijacked by a pseudo liberal foreign impostor, but that is for another day).

Then why do I make you read all this. I will still have to yield to the person who conquered the summit first, listen to his anecdotes, pay heed to which path he wants me to take and which to avoid so that there are no potholes in it and I may reach my destination safely.

And then there is also a stage in your evolution when you can claim-"I don't care where the news came from as long as it added value to my life." For a realized being, it really won't matter. But for all us ordinary souls, let us not try to feign realization without having arrived and let us bask in the glory of ordinariness.

And (they tell me not to start a sentence with an "and" and when did I oblige) also it is highly improbable that a person of the caliber of Gandhi; like him or not; with a seemingly good knowledge of Sanatani precepts (it is another topic that he tweaked much of it to further his political ambitions in a bid to become the Mahatma) did not know that the same philosophy is embedded in a Shanti Mantra. He could have and should have given it its due credit lest he be accused of plagiarism. 

Clearing the smokescreen makes more sense in view of the constructs, narratives that are out there blurring the real picture.

Swastik and Hakenkreuz

 Sanatani swastik has become a very efficient hate symbol exercised by the vested powers/illiterate hoodlums in west to raise a frenzy against the Hindus, a source of perpetual harassment and embarrassment to the Hindus-as we Sanatanis are rereferred to thanks to the Greek and Persian lisp of tongue.

Let us get down to the basics a bit. Not that I want to get pedantic about what swastik stands for. All of the Sanatani readers know that. But I owe it to the western reader before he jumps to a conclusion with unfortunate results.

It is an ancient symbol used in Hindu culture signifying well-being. Just the meaning of the Samskrit word "swastik" means "conducive to well-being". Then how come such a positive symbol of love came to represent hate or at least that is what is being tried to be shovelled down our throat.

We have allowed the word to be hijacked and incorporating mischievously into Hitler's autobiography-"Mein Kampf". Hitler being raised in an orthodox Christian atmosphere was deeply impressed by the hooked cross which he would see during growing up at several places including the Abbot's statue's coat of arms in Benedictine monastery in Lambach Austria. He details this thought process as to how he implemented it while designing the Nazi flag, Nazi arm-bands (you will ubiquitously see it on those) and all other paraphernalia. He was looking for a symbol that would invoke a hyper German pride among Germans. And what better symbol to use than something that has  a deep religious/Christian connotation. For a devoutly Christian country such as Germany, nothing would resonate more than a symbol connected to their roots and religious beliefs. Someone explain to me why he would use a "Hindu" symbol? What good would it get him?

Hitler has used the word "Hakenkreuz" extensively in his autobiography. It was only an Irish Catholic priest and journalist by the name of James Vincent Murphy (who published the first complete translation of Mein Kampf in 1939) who advertently did all the mischief while translating the word Hakenkreuz. This mischief would come to have very adverse repercussions on present day Hindu population and that too those living in the Western hemisphere where exposure to Vedic scriptures, philosophy, symbols etc is very limited. Murphy deliberately mistranslated Hakenkreuz into Swastika while leaving all other German words in original form or translating them properly in English.

It is evident that Murphy was familiar with native German words that didn't really have English equivalents. Furthermore if there were no English equivalents to these words, I can never for the life of me understand how come "Swastika" became the English translation to "Hakenkreuz". 

Our dear google also got it wrong. If you use google German to English translator and you enter Haken in, it rightly gives you the English translation as Hook. Enter "Kreuz" and you get Cross. Now enter the combined word "Hakenkreuz" and see magic happen. Instead of returning the combined English word HookedCross, which you would have been expecting  it returns Swastika or Nazi swastika.I keep on wondering how Hakenkreuz became Swastika. Even the back page search engine has been corrupted with the virus of political correctness.

I can see some of my politically correct friends smirking in their couches by now and frowning-but it is only a name? Why make such a big fuss about it. Let it go. It may suffice here to say that a lot of hate crime is targeted in this country (U.S.A) on Hindus because of this one mischief in translation done by one Mr. Murphy. 

Here we see a particular Home Owner's Association advising an apartment resident in Boston not to display swastika outside his door and to take it down immediately or otherwise vacate the premises, we see a new car being vandalized because it had been worshipped at the local temple and had "swastik" emblazoned on it. We see "Office for the prevention of hate crime in NY" list swastika as a hate symbol. What a travesty of justice! Shame on them for not having done their home work properly and then not having the guts to call it by its real name-Hakenkreuz or in plain English (if the German word comes cross as a tongue twister)-Hooked Cross. Education and awareness on many fronts is the need of the hour. 

Hitler did misappropriate a religious symbol to further his political career. But that religious symbol was the Christian hooked cross and not the Sanatani swastika.

Selfishness

 Selfishness, though a word with negative connotations can easily be ascribed as the motive behind all human endeavor. Before moving ahead, lest I be accused of spreading perversion and expose myself to misinterpretation, it is very important to explain what I mean by selfishness here, not to give a holistic definition of the term. If one googles "selfishness" for a quick definition, the following come up:

-concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself; seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure or well being, without regard for others.

Now, this is definitely bad. We, as social animals have to have a regard for others. Altruism or selflessness on the other hand is the principle and practice of concern for the well-being of other humans or animals. It may even border on extreme by abnegating self but won't that tantamount to insulting the best creation of God i.e. human himself.  

The core of the word here is "self" occurring in both Self-ish and Self-less. Humans have been trained since times immemorial (the western education particularly lays emphasis on it when it comes to preaching about morals) to see things from a binary lens-only good or bad, white or black, in or out etc. It seems as if the world is a binary switch waiting to be flipped. In practice, you see degrees to which a person may be evolved and may be sensitive to, in different domains of human endeavor. I may be more sensitive towards some particular pursuit of life than my neighbor, but that does not grant me the privilege of judging him/her. That borders on radicalism. At the same time though, letting everything pass under the garb of liberalism and all that also is not the wont of the gentleman. Life remains beautiful and worthy of living only if it is lived within certain norms. 

Back to the point of selfishness-

If I identify this self as only my body with complete disregard to how my decisions regarding furtherance of its appearance or my indulgence in carnal pleasures does to those around me, then I stand trial at the altar for being selfish.

Now if I increase the scope of my self to include my wife I become a good husband or include my family, keep their well-being close to my heart, put food on the table (may be because it is cheaper than eating out in a restaurant) and pay my bills, I suddenly transform into a family man and may not be so deplorable in the eyes of the law. Remember I am doing all this from a self ish perspective.

- If I don't care for my wife, she will walk away and I will be miserable

- If I don't care for my family, I will have raised brutes and not civil/thinking human beings that will only come to bite me in future.

- If I don't pay my bills/taxes in time, I will be forced not only to pay huge fines (which no-body in the first place wants to pay) but forgo many of my liberties which hitherto I enjoyed without any restriction. Hence the quality of my life will take a hit.

-Again if I am being good to my neighbor, it may not flow from the goodness of my heart but the self ishness of the gesture being reciprocated. 

Now if you align you interests with the greater good of the people of your country, suddenly flowery words like "patriot" make your way whereas it may just be stemming from a self preservation motive of you having to spend less energy if you are flowing with the current rather than against it. Or your chances of success are magnified manifold if one is surrounded by people who understand where you come from rather than by an alien people.

We don't do anything just for its sake. Every action that we do has to have something in it for me in return. We don't water the thorny weeds for the life in them when we are watering the flower or fruit trees. Instead we weed them out because that is beneficial to us.

We like trees not because they are majestic or create a beautiful scenery or this and that. While that also is true, the ultimate thing is that they take in something that we exhale (CO2) and in return give us something that everybody on this planet (unless you are an extra-terrestrial) needs i.e. O2. There can't be a better deal than that.

Now someone may argue that what I am propounding is a utilitarian point of view and not everything in this world is garnered for its utility. And I whole heartedly agree with that. Utility is a basic human instinct and should be catered for first, but after the material utility is taken care of, other forms of utility-may be more abstract, somewhat philosophical will have to be satiated.  

Koshur Battu

Kashmiri Hindus have a unique mind-set. We want others to fight our battles and will even find otherwise seemingly logical issues why others don’t pick up cudgels for us. I can say it with a degree of confidence-I being one of them-having grown in a KP (as Kashmiri Hindus are called) family with all the hall-marks of a typical Kashmiri batta.

We would discuss it at the drop of a hat why a particular party or an organization didn’t come to our help in our hour of need and how by not doing so they had exposed their sinister agenda. As if somebody owed something to us. We have the unique “VICTIM MENTALITY”. We never teach our children- “Go out and face the world on your own”. Perhaps it is a part of our DNA having seeped into our genome by centuries of KM domination and never asserting ourselves.

I can understand that in the aftermath of our forced exodus from the vale in 1989 you would expect your countrymen to stand by your side (at least a critical number). But if they didn’t what can you do? Crib and complain about it and spend your life like a loser. You have got people in this country shouting “Bharat tere tukde honge” from the pulpits of an educational institution as hallowed (at least till then it was) like JNU. May be the initials themselves didn’t bode well for the country but that is a different discussion for a different occasion.

Let us introspect for a while as to what we have done to correct the wrongs perpetrated on us. In my personal view we haven’t done anything though I will be more than glad to be proven wrong. We started with a very good war cry of HOME_LAND under PK but since then it has been reduced to a pipe dream-what with PK splinters in almost every other KP household. Does anybody even give a serious thought about PK? Some people say it was propped up by GOI as it helped them counter the separatist narrative. But are we reduced to only countering some-one’s narrative? Don’t we have brains sound enough to have our own pro-active strategy? Normally we would hold our noses very high but I feel we have failed (or not attempted at all) bitterly here. How do you expect to pass an examination when you don’t show up at all???

What do we do when Aurangzeb asks us to convert to Islam? Ask Guru Teg Bahadur for help (normally we won’t refrain from cracking jokes at Sikhs). It was ok if it was stopped at pleading for help only but we didn’t stop the revered soul when he offered his own head in return for Islamization. So selfish are we. And then future generation of KPs were never taught to be indebted to Sikhs which we should be.

We have traits highly despicable of civil human beings while thinking we are at the top of the ladder among the civilized crowd-

-we frown upon others’ successes. We are never happy if the other person scores a home run. In fact we have never been taught or programmed to be that way.

-we find faults with others whereas my way of doing things is always right. There can’t be two distinct ways of skinning a cat as per Batta way of thinking. It has to be my way or highway.

- If a common adversity/foe couldn’t unite us, then nothing can. Even animals sensing a potent imminent threat would display a remarkable level of camaraderie to thwart off that threat. This trait is particularly missing from KPs (as Kashmiri Hindus are called) though ironically the absence has given rise to a unique trait because of which we are surviving i.e. “INDIVIDUALISM”.

-

There are others but I am not trying to list them here in order to shame anyone-least of all myself. In fact I am sorry if someone got offended (though he shouldn’t) but I would like to hear otherwise to prove myself wrong.

Yes there are many positive traits also but that is for someone else to brag about those as I am not good at that.

If Only

If only life would have taught me-

not to feel used when someone deserted me,

If only life would have taught me-

not to feel sad when someone walking slower than me won the race,

If only life would have taught me-

not to expect anything from friends when your expectations weren’t met

If only life would have taught me-

not to get bothered by the nitty-gritty of things and instead focus on the big picture,

If only life would have taught me-

to pay attention to details when it mattered the most,

If only life would have taught me-

not to grieve over the loss of loved ones, but instead enjoy the company of those still around,

If only life would have taught me-

to live in the present and not brood over past or worry about future,

If only life would have taught me-

to treat bygones as bygones and not hold any grudges,

If only life would have taught me-

to be at peace with what I have got while striving for more,

If only life would have taught me-

not to get bullied in but to put up a fight for a just cause,

I would be a happier and wiser man today

But if life would have taught me all this what would I have taught myself?????

Potential

Lately it occurred to me that I have grown lazy and rusty with age and so decided to put pen to paper only to find to my great consternation that I simply had lost the knack of conveying my thoughts. May be I was running out of ideas, may be I was getting sucked into the usual grind of going through the motions or may be I had placed my priorities in the place where they should not have been in the first place. I don't know. Thank God I realized it now rather than tomorrow. It would have been wonderful to have realized it yesterday as some of the damage could have been averted but anyway we can't change history.

Anyway without bemoaning over a sense of personal loss for too long, let us come to the main point directly. Mozart had once remarked "It is a pity that so many of us die with so  much of music left in us." So let us play all the music within us before we leave this planet and also learn some new notes along the way. Let no one bog you down with castigating remarks like you don't have the potential to handle this etc.

I am not going to bore anybody with the examples of people who were sneered at once and then went on to become champions in their respective fields of vocation by sheer will power and unwavering discipline and dedication. You can get that list on Facebook or just google it. But do that anyway. Will make for an interesting reading.

Don't give too much latitude to others to  make decisions on your behalf. Take charge of your life before someone else does that for you. There are chances that he will mess around without any repercussions. Know where to take your life to and act in consonance with your thoughts. Most of the people wish for something and then get dejected when life doesn't turn out that way. Don't wish. Think and act.

Pursue your goal with unwavering faith. If you want to be a good nurse, learn how to heal and don't care about people judging you. If you want to be a good teacher, learn how to teach and if you want to be a good businessman learn how to create value.

Now here is where it gets slightly controversial. People say you should be satisfied with what you have and Thank God for that. I too say you should be satisfied but only to an extent. There is a dangerous thin line separating "satisfaction" and "complacence". NEVER GET COMPLACENT and start basking in the glory of your achievements because soon you may have none. You may turn out to be like the quick hare who lost the race to a slow but steady tortoise because he got complacent with his pace and took a nap along the way. Always be on the prowl for the next best meal without snatching it from somebody's mouth.

Cultivating above mind-set and practicing it is a bit hard if not outright difficult given that we live amid societal/peer pressures where we at times have to fake things that we otherwise won't have done and are made to give up on things that we personally like because they don't have a social stamp on them. But then life comes with a premium. I am not advocating developing a "rebel without a cause" mentality where people would resort to "It is my life" type catch phrases at the slightest provocation lest it be confused with that. As Mozart said "let the music play."