On Water and Dam Building

Disturbed by the Indian Government's repeated purusal of the inter-linking of rivers at the cost of much of the forest area and dislocation of many communities, an environmental activist approached one of the leading Hindu Guru. When he enquired whether it is correct on the part of the government to build large dams to generate electricity. The Guru made a brief observation, "One of the fundamental principles of the Indian civilisation is outlined in the saying, "jalam dharyena veeryasi", i.e., water is potent only when it flows". Implying that any move on the contrary would be against one of the fundamental precepts of the Indian civilisation. This conversation took place when the government of India was all out to promote the inter-linking of rivers (sometime early 2003).

In November 2004, Pawan Gupta of SIDH(www.sidhsri.org), Mussorie narrated an anecdote which he said gave him an insight into the thinking of the ordinary people of India. He said how during the early days of establishing the SIDH centre in Gharwal Himalayas (this is a beautiful centre promoting a beautiful concept of localised form of education, more about it some other time), how he had to walk to the centre from the village as there were no good roads. During his walks he always used to find that the public tap was always found to be open and water running down. He used to make it a point to turn it off. Once during an interaction with the local villagers, he enquired about the reason why they don't close down the water once they take water for their homes. A village women replied, "but, water is meant to flow, not stopped/curtailed". Though one may dismiss this as an attitude which could result in wastage of an increasingly valuable resource, Pawan points out how that this provides an insight into the Indian way of thinking.

Couple of years before that a Japanese scientist had released a group of pictures with water's micro-structure photographed after being subjected to different forms of human intervention including that of flowing river water and dammed water. His analysis (to be found on the web in references to Masaro Emato, www.masaru-emato.net) is interesting and seems to be in line with what the Guru claims and what the village women feels is fundamental.

from notes: Dec 2004

Notes from Classes with a Hindu Monk

The following 2 extracts are from the notes recorded during classes with a Hindu Monk, early 2000

'Ajara Amara' (death and immortality) – when in search of knowledge or prosperity think that you would never have death, or disease. When worshipping god (i.e., in spiritual practice) think that death's hand is in your head already.

‘Devo bhutva, devam ejeat’ (becoming God, we worship God). This is true on he methods of pooja ritual followed by certain sects (inluding the Ramakrishna Math), where the poojari attains a spiritual state through self-purification and only then can perform the pooja prescribed

Education - as viewed by a community educationist

Recently, while talking to an elderly traditional community based educationist, he gave a very simple yet beautiful definition for intelligence and education using Thirukkural, a famous tamil composition in 1330 couplets.

He asked, “What is Intelligence?” and proceeded to answer quoting from the Kural, “Epporul Yaar Yaar vaai ketpinum apporul meipporul kaanbadhu arivu – Regardless of who is saying it, if you can listen and perceive the truth behind any information, that is Intelligence”.

“What is the role of education in developing this Intelligence?” the elder queried. “Thottanai thoorum manarkeni, maandharkku katranai thoorum arivu – The way you gain water through digging, similarly, you gain intelligence through education”.

And his last question was, “How should you do this education?”, for which again he answered from the Kural, “Karka kasadara katravai katrapin nirkha adharkku thaga – Educate yourself thoroughly (without any diversion – we can say getting caught up with the survival ethics is part of the diversion) and after getting educated, stand by what you have gained through the education”.

In such definitions of education, there is neither stress on the practical nature of things nor on the subjective human development, what is concentrated is on the discipline one undergoes and this is supposed to build the humans.

This was written in Sept 03

Indian Quotes

Many times the views expressed in unlikely places represents a deep-rooted conviction of the people, their value.

Noticed on Truck with Punjabi registration:
"Kar bahal to ho bhala"
- If you do good, things will happen good (to you)"

Why Indian World View?

Well, because it is time that one starts to record all instances of Indian world view one encounters through its culture, people and institutions.

That a technology is available through which one can share this with those interested and friends is too tempting to pass by.

Hence this page.