.......but are we really cultured?

Few countries in the world have such an ancient and diverse culture as India's. It is cultural variety which is a special hallmark of India. Its physical, religious and racial variety is as immense as its linguistic diversity. In India, religion is a way of life. It is an integral part of the entire Indian tradition. For the majority of Indians, religion permeates every aspect of life, from common-place daily chores to education and politics. Common practices have crept into most religious faiths in India and many of the festivals that mark each year with music, dance and feasting are shared by all communities. Each has its own pilgrimage sites, heroes, legends and even culinary specialties, mingling in a unique diversity that is the very pulse of society.

So what one has learned about the meaning of our religion, our various festivals or our social structure? Did not it teach us about the honesty, maturity in thinking, the way to behave in this society having best social structure since decades? I find an urge to ask such questions when I try to have a look at overall modification that our culture and our society has undergone till date.

We as an Indian try to preach the value and importance of our culture to the entire world and at the same time every now and then we read the news on the rape with foreign tourists.

We as an Indian shout about the integration of different religions within a same county and on other hand we are cruel enough to chop each other heads during community riots.

We as an Indian blame American youths being uncultured when our own kids spend days and nights in pubs and hukka parlors.

We as an Indian claim to be the largest democratic country in the world when press personals are being killed openly in public.

However among all these situations the worst among all is the suffering of Indian women even in its 21st century. We as an Indian have to respect women in our society and at the same time we try to find each and every chance to misbehave with girls and women at public places, at workplace and everywhere. The overall vision of Indian men towards the girls has change drastically in due course of time. One can see girls being frequently taunted, disrespected, pushed or abused in crowded places, tortured or being misbehaved in day to day life right on streets to trains very openly. Is this our culture?

As great as our culture is, even our great government had felt a necessity to implement an act against husband having extramarital affairs but why suddenly government is also feeling a necessity to apply the same law against married women. Why so in India?

In my opinion Indian culture has changed drastically since decades but we are still overlooking it or unable to accept the bitter truth behind it. Today’s Indian doing same thing, behaving in same manner as Americans or Africans do but he or she tries to do that behind a curtain only because our traditional culture doesn’t permit that. We have live in relation ships in India, our husbands do kill their wives, there are uncountable examples of man and women having extramarital affairs, we do have rave parties here, we do all kinds of socially unacceptable acts but only one thing we don’t do is that we don’t speak about them. We try to mould dirty shapes in divine colours. Because our culture is still great.

Indian marriage system and a belief of common man on this system are among the most admirable thing in the world and marriage is a part of our religious guidelines. But are we able to live up to this belief. In our culture love marriage is still looked with some kind of hostility. But for inconvenience love marriages are termed as love cum arrange marriage only for our society to accept it.

So why to blame american culture if they are also doing the same but under some other titles. If we ask American about arrange marriage and live in relationship he or she will say that how can a couple live together with out a formal bonding like marriage. It’s absolutely crazy. Where is the commitment?

We strongly believe our culture, values and procedures are completely right. And so do americans. In my opinion we don’t have to say some culture is right or otherwise. If we clearly observe, we can sense every culture is well balanced and they enjoy few things at the cost of few other. In western countries, they have individual freedom at the peak. We can see maturity of life and discipline within people even at the age of twelve.

So guys lets not try to hide ourselves behind the beautiful tree of Indian culture and lets not make ourselves fool being under wrong impression that whatever we are doing is great just because we are the sweat fruits of our great culture. Let’s do kind of self appraisal about our behavior in this society and our commitment towards others if we really want to feel proud of being an Indian.

Life is like a bird

Here are few pics of earth's one of the most exquisite creations of birds captured by me as an amateur photographer.

Make yourself free to takeoff often in life like these birds. Never sit and watch the things to happen. As you fly high you will feel the world below very small which you had thought of being larger than life. So learn from these birds and try to look at every thing which is small and manageable in a real sense. Everybody is blessed with some kind of beautiful colours or qualities within themselves like these birds have. The only efforts one needs to take are spread or broaden their wings, the wings of knowledge, the wings of graciousness, the wings of kindness. Once you broaden these wings you can easily fly and cross all hurdles like rivers and huge mountains.

So just fly and try exploring every bit of world, every bit of life in every possible way which has been created on the planet earth.

God blesses his creation (birds) not only with sacred colours but also endows it with power to change colours of things it touch upon.

-Kedar Birid



We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.

- John Webster

You know that if I were reincarnated, I'd want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates or envies him, or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered and he can eat anything.

-Willam Faulkner



It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.

-aesop

    

Seagulls... slim yachts of the element.

-Robinson Jeffers

 

Use the talents you possess - for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best.

- Henry Van Dyke

 

Why do birds sing in the morning? It's the triumphant shout: "We got through another night!"

-Enid Bagnold

moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. -Eric Berne

 

The bird thinks it a favor to give the fish a lift in the air.

-Rabindranath Tagore

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. 

-Chinese Proverb

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird . . . So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing - that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

- Richard P. Feynman

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
-Dale Carnegie

  

Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.
-Bernard Meltzer

When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast.

-John Burroughs

 

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. 

-Jacques Deval



Even when a bird walks, one feels it has wings.

-Antoine-Marin Lemierre

  

"What kind of bird are you, if you can't fly?" said he. To this the duck replied, "What kind of bird are you if you can't swim?" and dived into the pond.

-Sergei Prokofiev

We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
-C. Archie Danielson

But calm, white calm, was born into a swan. 

-Elizabeth Coatsworth

You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren (sparrow)
-William Henry Hudson