In protest the prostitutes of Copenhagen offered free sex to the delegates of the Conference on Climate Change. They knew that nothing else would come off it, so just come and have fun u guys – and since your tax payers paid for all of you to fly down for a sojourn have a few drinks on us too.
What is Copenhagen about ? Posturing ? Politicking ? Individual political profiling ? The whole meaning of the climate conference is lost in meaningless and endless documents and words. The environmental cost of leaders of the world is stunning if nothing comes off it – and it seems nothing will. Meaningless stupidity.
I feel sorry and ashamed that I joined thousands of people around the world to encourage our Prime Minister to go. I did not realize it would have been so easy to subvert the process through such incredible complexity. It is so obvious that not one of the heads of state actually mean what they say.
The planet suffers from over consumption, period. 5 % of the populations consumes 80% of the worlds resources. So we HAVE to learn to live with less. We have to think about everything we do, right from simple things like how much water we expend in a shower, to the environmental cost of packaged food, even to number of clothes we buy, knowing that cotton growing is a hugely water consumptive activity,
We need to reevaluate the way we live.
And yet there is such a contradiction in what we call economic recovery- the so called Stimulus Plans all over the world ! They all work on getting the consumer to go back to consumption levels before the economic meltdown world – wide. The government of the United States is celebrating a a pre – Christmas shopping frenzy in the US as a sign of economic health –
But what about the health of our planet ?
Water Wars again ? Can we turn Bangladesh into a Desert ?
Sir , Now India making a Dam at the river of Barak …Which will cause the North-east part of Bangladesh to become a desert … Would love to know your views about this
For more >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipaimukh_Dam
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/05/27/bangladesh-india-no-to-tipaimukh-dam/
The war Of Water Just been Started By India !!!
-Rajib
A Rahmaniac from Bangladesh
The light of love
let the light of love
shine through
even when
the darkness
of familiarity
begins to cast it’s shadows
From a Michael Jackson Fan
This is from Mariana : MJ was a non-literal artist. And the world has responded to him playing an irrelevant soap opera. There are many levels, messages and expressions of inner search in this gentle soul’s work, this soul from Gary, Indiana. He asked us to look in the mirror and the world turned the mirror around so he would be the only one looking at it. They “rationalized” him but true artists are pure heart and trying to explain this alchemy of artists is also irrelevant – they just are to be felt. I am so glad people are FEELING him now. I came back from Europe and oh, they get Michael!!!! They associate him with Marcel Marceau, the mime!!! We need to grow up and appreciate our artists.
Is Wisdom eternal ?
For me no, it’s a daily battle. One cannot assume one has it and stay with it. The battle between the Ego and compassion is an ongoing, almost daily one. For there is no better way to describe Wisdom but the ability to live, exist and act in a compassionate way.
That was my thought for my birthday yesterday, and I thank everyone for their good wishes.
The ‘Wallah’s’ in my life or when Cate Blanchet kissed Suresh
I saw the woman in glasses (on the left) 25 years ago.. Early in the morning she was running on the Juhu beach in Mumbai, sari and all, balancing the basket of fresh fish on her head that was tilted at a slightly awkward angle – probably the best way to balance the uncertain load on her head. I was told by her later (as she would deliver fish to my doorstep), that she ran to be able to get the fish to her customer in the freshest state possible. But I guess also to beat the competition. Over the years every time I got to the beach in the morning at the right time – I would see her run with the catch that just came off the fishing boats. How does she keep that fit, I thought ? And then a couple of years ago, I would never see her again. I wondered if she now had a different beat. Or something had happened to her.
Then today I saw her again. I asked her why she did not run on the beach any more and she showed me her swollen foot and leg. I asked her what was wrong, and she laughed and said “Age, Baba” something you would not know about yet (as if !). The she introduced me to her daughter (in the picture) who now does the same run. Anyway I wished her well and left. Later this evening she and her daughter turned up at my apartment in Juhu fully dressed up. They had cooked for me ! The most delicious Soorma Fish Curry you could have. And enough to feed me and many of my friends in an impromptu dinner party I quickly arranged.
Pity that we are losing these friends to the Super markets. Over the 20 years I have visited Mumbai off and on, I have had the same Milkman ( who beat me at football on the beach and would drag me to his house every festival for his mother to feed me to extinction), the son of the same fruit seller who’s charming negotiating skills taught me a thing or two of how to negotiate with Studio heads in Hollywood. And the family of the same sabzi wallah. I even have the same Bai who comes searching for me always to see if I am back. She has a bad back so I tell her to stay at home and I pay her salary in any case. But she insists on coming and supervising the cleaning of the house by a new, younger Bai. “This is my house”, she says proudly” Your mother employed me and only she can ask me to stop”. Well, my mother passed away many years ago, so I guess the Bai is here to stay.
And then I have Suresh who follows me around the world insisting that I need someone to look after me. he has been doing that for almost 15 years now. When in London, his cooking skills made me the most popular person in London. Friday nights in my house in London would be famous as Fish Curry nights – where Suresh would cook up the most amazing food for 30/40 people. If you want Suresh to go into deep colours of red, ask him to show you his picture with ‘Cate Memsahib’, where Cate Blanchet has her arms around Suresh and planting a firm kiss on his cheek. As a thank you for all the meals he fed her during the Golden Age shoot.
The other day the son of the Fruit Seller heard I was in town and came to say hello. He told me his story of woe. The police will not let them put out stalls in the street anymore, the shops are too expensive and the supermarkets are eating into their business. But they are now hitting back back with technology. Mobile phones !
Now I have everyone’s mobile phones. And if I am flying back from New York, I can phone my Fish seller, My fruit seller, my Vegetable vendor and my Bai – all of them a day ahead and tell them exactly what I need delivered to my doorstep as I arrive.
I hope the supermarkets do not drive these people out of business. I grew up with them, as I am sure many of you did.
Water : It’s the new Power
Watch this video , and guess what the story of Paani is ? The last statement in the video is a hint. It’s not the money – it’s the Power. That’s where we are heading – a world where Water is power – and Power corrupts. Of course.
President Obama sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
.. and what are they going to achieve that the existing 70,000 foreign troops did not ? President Obama is giving into the hawks within the US armed forces. The promise of withdrawal in 2011 is merely a way of softening the blow by a man that is about to get a Nobel Price for peace, and one of the most promising Messiah’s of international politics in recent times, who is in affect ramping up the war levels in a foreign country.
Problem with fighting in Afghanistan is that there are no goal posts that could define either victory or achievement. Over two centuries of warfare and imperialists games in Afghanistan has left a people unable to create a comprehensive and consolidated Nation state. To impose a centralized government where both loyalties and power actually lie with Tribal leaders is bound to lead to what looks like a corrupt government to us. Government by who’s authority ? For without the support of the tribal leaders no government in Afghanistan can function, and their support has to bought or fought for.
Al Qaeda (if there is a central organizations by that name any more) would actually welcome the additional force. For their target is not Afghanistan but Pakistan. They see both countries as one territory for them to control. And the greater the number of US forces in Afghanistan, the greater their ’cause’ and the ability to recruit in Pakistan.
It’s Pakistan that needs to be protected now. Their army has ambivalent attitudes, many privately supporting the fundamentalist. And the greater the number of US troops, the greater their support. The fall of Pakistan to fundamental forces has huge implications for India, yes. But also to the whole world. A Pakistan with a democratic state and a healthy economy is the biggest bulwark against fundamentalist threats both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
As I have said often in this blog. Pakistan could be turning into President Obama’s Vietnam. And e should take a leaf from the post war history of Vietnam. What ultimately led to conflict resolution is trade and economic growth.
creativity
raging mixed feelings,
giving in
to the schizophrenia of the contradictions
of existence,
of reality, desire, fulfilment and non fulfillment,
of confusion, desperation, and joy,
give into all intellectual and emotional sensation
and then try like hell not to drown
those desperate strokes of survival sometimes –
and then only sometimes
have a pattern
which, if you can
through all this,
recognize
and discipline
in to cogent cohesive thought
is creativity
‘Mental illness” and Conciousness : a personal study
This is a letter from Hugh, please read when you have time :
My short answer to your question about consciousness: Listening to various visionaries and business executives talk about technology and the Internet a few weeks ago reminded me of my earlier – and very different – trip to India when I was looking at the different ways people in India and my own country view mental illness.
We can talk about cultural differences, religious differences, different approaches to science or technology but at the heart there is a fundamental difference in how people view consciousness. In fact, I think it is the fundamental difference shaping our lives and our world.
I want to be careful to avoid broadbrush caricatures: but in the so-called “West” (see my (longer) description below, if you’re so inclined) consciousness seems to be a means to an end, that is: out of consciousness we strive to derive meaning. But in my limited experience in India, contradictions crowd in and jostle side-by-side because consciousness is the end; consciousness is the experience itself. (Joseph Campbell makes an interesting distinction between this sense of (and search for) “meaning” and that of “experience.”)
A theologian here in Chicago talks about pre-Modern thinking before the intellectual rush of (and addiction to) “knowing” was dissected from the sweet savor of “being”. So many in the West seem to fear existing in the chaos that your own email address refers to – and for them it’s a state of profound fear. (And yes, “state” is an intended pun.) To have being and knowing be one-in-the-same seems not only inconceivable, but frightening.
Which leads to my second apology: I know you’re a very busy man but to further explain my own, earlier experience:
My last visit to India was part of my personal research into a program I was working on regarding the stigma of mental illness: www.openthedoors.com. The director of the program and I captured the work done in 20 countries in book form for psychiatrists: http://www.amazon.com/Reducing-Stigma-Mental-Illness-Association/dp/0521549434/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259333016&sr=8-1
But as I say, my trip to India was personal. During the course of my research, I had met a truly remarkable man from Chandigarh. His name is Dr. Narendra Wig and he has done some astonishing work in helping those with mental illness in many countries. I noticed that during the meeting with doctors from other countries he would speak to issues about the need to address spiritual concerns for some patients.
At one of the meals, I asked him about his take on the connection between mental health and spirituality. A broad smile crossed his face: “Oh, I am so glad you asked that question.” And for the next hour, he discussed issues of the human mind in ways I did not hear “Western” doctors speak of. (Even the distinction between “brain” and “mind” is so often glossed over as incidental when in fact I think it’s a critical, fundamental touchstone for understanding.)
At one point he said: “You see, in India even an atheist can be a spiritual person.” While intellectually, I understood what he meant, it wasn’t until I accepted his invitation to come to India on my own that I came to learn a bit more. I visited him in Chandigarh and he took me on a tour of the psychiatric ward of the local hospital where he is revered and his work continues to inspire others…..
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