The Scribbling Eccentric

We often come across satirical statements and messages on various social networking sites about how children in Indian societies are compared to their friends or neighbours in terms of their studies. All of us have had this experience throughout our childhood and have unwittingly hated the other kids with whom we were being compared with. I guess some of us are still searching for those “CHAAR LOG” (Four People) who are always interested in our lives and would say something dreadful if we try to do something that is not acceptable to widely accepted societal norms. It is rather obvious today that all parents are in some form of the rat race to get their kids to do post-graduation and get a well-paying MNC job. It doesn’t matter what the child desires or whether the child has an aptitude for higher learning. Recently I came across a video on Facebook summarizing HSBC's Value for Education Report 2016, which claimed that Indian parents are the most generous in the world. We rank...

Recently during one of my bookish indulgences, I came across the cliched, used and abused anecdote from Mahabharata. Guru Drona, the teacher of all Pandavas and Kauravas, tested all his students by asking them individually to shoot a dummy bird’s eye and before shooting did so they were to describe what they saw. Obviously, what followed is known to all of us. We all have been fed with this story since childhood by our elders, teachers and even those storybooks and Tinkle comics. Even Mr Ramanand Sagar reiterated this in his televised creations. We were taught to be focused like Arjuna, who was the only student to reply that he only saw the eye and received adulation from his guru. The book in my hand however was not talking about it in the same manner as the aforementioned sources were. Here the author mentioned that Karna, the tragic hero of the epic, was studying in the same school as Pandavas and Kauravas, but was never acknowledged by Drona. He, therefore, embraced the Sun ...

I was told as a kid that in Hinduism (the religion I was born into), there are 330 million Gods. Yes, you heard it right..... 330 MILLION!!! I was told this by my father when I was a small boy of maybe 7 or 8 years, but even today the number seems unreal. Quite recently I looked up for the authenticity of this information and I found that even Wikipedia mentioned this as a fact. It was said that among the commonly known Gods that we are used to seeing in temples and more fondly on TV, there are others who were declared Gods. These were court poets, scholars, warriors and people who did something beyond their call of duty for the betterment of society. One does not need a PhD in mythology or history, but just common sense to understand that people were given titles for their good deeds and contributions. They were called Lords or Gods as an appreciation for their good work. These titles were supposed to invoke a sense of respect and not worship. This is where most of us lose out o...