Saturday, November 26, 2011

Can an Epic be a true story ?


"It is this critical study that led to the conclusion that there was no "Ramayana age" or a particular time in which the "Ramayana" was written. The Valmiki Ramayana continued to change and acquire new passages over a long period. Like Homer's epics Ramayana was composed floating oral legends and ballads which were given the shape of an epic by the genius of a great poet. There has never been historical evidence that the events narrated ever happened in reality.

But for the Hindu right, Ramayana rather than being a mythological poem becomes a fact whose history cannot be questioned

The supremacy of rational inquiry is a fundamental basis of all academic endeavors and undermining that destroys the basis of a university. If the logic of the criticism of Ramanujan's essay is extended, then historical studies will be transformed into theological works that discuss religion only from theological rather than secular standpoint".


Reference-
Ashwin Anshu, 2011. Economic and Political Weekly. No. 46. Ramakatha, Rambhakts and the University.
The writer is doctoral student in Delhi University working on the "Ramkatha and the Construction of Hindu Identity".

Sunday, November 13, 2011

To a Culture Called APU*


To a culture called APU..
Delhi, UP, AP, Assam, Rajasthan, Kerala, Manipur...
18 states are here...
what's happening !!

Adventure trips...
strait to work...huh !!
here become social makers in APU,
Doesn't that look like heaven ?
Its in APU !!!

Cold study here, Na !
Educationist and Social Development students…

...They all hang out here !
Good Actor! ...Food doesn't cost so much here !

If you live in place like this ...
No problem studying !
*Development students love walking around their conference halls*
...oops! Spare time to meet, hear and talked with global scientists every week!

Some of them also play the Guitar...
Not Basketball... ha! ha!
Don't you wish to studied here !

These guys work on some real...
world class facilities..
so much to do..
so little time !!

library has world online books with 3G wi.fi connections...
So books never fall from hand…

This is not Mauritius  !...
...this is a few kms. from Bangalore malls.
studying here too, na!
Cool weather !
 oops! tender coconuts
I 'ld never miss home...
...if I am studying here !

Here in Monsoon...
Its pours ...
... It's lovely here !

Send a postcard back home !
"TIME JUST FLIES ...in APU !

And you quite a bit ....
not only form books ...
not only from classes..
... and two years have passed !!!

you are going back home..
you became a social maker...
....AND YOU DON'T WANT TO GO HOME…

YOU WILL WANT TO COME BACK AGAIN...
...GOD KNOWS WHEN !!!
...LIKE OVER A HUNDRED STUDENTS

Who have learnt so much at APU
... and given APU, so much
THAT IS THE CULTURE AT APU...



* APU- Azim Premji University

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Neither to be Buddha nor a Pig.


One of my friend asked me now a days why you updating your Facebook posts based on girls/ love / sex? I answered unwillingly, "it's just today's trend as you know". 

What I want to question is why artist, painter/ writer express their feelings through sexual figurines. They seem to indulge in it. I went to Ellora Cave, Maharashtra in 2010, inside the cave wall stone figurines are all stories of perhaps Kamasutra in many places, and rest figurines are also symbols of sex. You can see one photo in my album "My Ugly Clips" in my Facebook. Next time I can't go there with anyone other than my girlfriend or boyfriend, never with family. 

In India some temples have banned from children entry, and in UK all street Bra shops has been banned recently due to increasing indulgence of young youths into sex. I question myself why passing all these new laws and regulations against sex. Let it go if it is started and accepted by the followers from the beginning. 

But Quran kept all these unopened as such ways of expressions are worthless stuffs of the means for the purpose of a living. But it doesn't mean that Quran never talk anything about it, it tells the best of Kamasutra. But Quran never talks either to be Buddha or a Pig.

Medical Benefits of Islamic Way of Fasting (Ramadan)


Muslims from across the world stay ordained to the Quran and fast for the whole of Ramadan month. Fasting is a part of pleasing God, in almost all religions. Probably, the health benefits of fasting were known to our forefathers several centuries ago.


Though the primary aim of fasting by Muslims is to conform to religious norms, fasting brings in several health benefits too. While considering health benefits, there are also a few problems to consider and precautions to take while fasting.

Those who suffer from medical conditions like coronary artery disease, kidney stones, etc. are exempt from fasting. The negative effects of total fasting include hypokalemia (drastic drop of blood potassium levels), cardiac arrhythmia (abnormal heart beat), etc. Ramadan fasting is not total fasting and believers take nutrients needed for the body, through the systematically planned early morning and evening food.Lowering of blood sugar levels, cholesterol and blood pressure are the first notable physiological changes.

Diabetes patients need to take extra care while fasting. Hypoglycaemia, a condition characterized by abnormal drop of blood sugar levels can cause health problems. Diabetic patients should reduce intake of medicines or insulin injection during fasting. Monitoring of blood sugar levels is also desirable. Conditions like tiredness, sweating, headaches, unconsciousness, etc. are the symptoms of abnormally low levels of blood sugar levels.

Hyperglycaemia- this is the reverse of hypoglycaemia, characterised by increase of blood sugar levels. This is mainly due to the medicines you take to sustain blood sugar levels. Increase in blood sugar levels can cause problems to kidney and eyes.

Problems of Acidity and Ulcer รข€“bile can get filled up in stomach, which causes acidity and ulcer. Healthy individuals have considerable health benefits from Ramadan fasting. It is an effective detoxification therapy. Toxins accumulated in the body break down and pass out of the body.

Fasting is ideal for both overweight and underweight persons. It is commonsense how fasting works to reduce weight. During fasting, deposited fat gets used and burns down and facilitates weight loss.

Fasting also normalizes the digestive system of underweight persons, and equips body to digest and assimilate nutrients from the food they eat.

Fasting can also clear many skin problems. This is because of the elimination of toxic materials from the body and generally cleansing the blood.

Fasting has advantages in getting rid of addictions and unhealthy habits like smoking and taking alcohol. Ramadan fasting improves the health condition of healthy people. But for people who suffer from any medical condition should monitor their body and physiology more closely.

Pregnant and feeding women are exempted from fasting and they shall not attempt fasting, as it can deprive nutrition to both mother and child.

Most Submitters (Muslims) do not fast because of medical benefits but because it has been ordained to them in the Quran. The medical benefits of fasting are as a result of fasting. Fasting in general has been used in medicine for medical reasons including weight management, for rest of the digestive tract and for lowering lipids.

There are many adverse effects of total fasting as well as so-called crash diets. Islamic fasting is different from such diet plans because in Ramadan fasting, there is no malnutrition or inadequate calorie intake.

The caloric intake of Muslims during Ramadan is at or slightly below the national requirement guidelines. In addition, the fasting in Ramadan is voluntarily taken and is not a prescribed imposition from the physician.

Ramadan is a month of self-regulation and self-training, with the hope that this training will last beyond the end of Ramadan. If the lessons learned during Ramadan, whether in terms of dietary intake or righteousness, are carried on after Ramadan, it is beneficial for one’s entire life. Moreover, the type of food taken during Ramadan does not have any selective criteria of crash diets such as those which are protein only or fruit only type diets. Everything that is permissible is taken in moderate quantities.

The only difference between Ramadan and total fasting is the timing of the food; during Ramadan, we basically miss lunch and take an early breakfast and do not eat until dusk. Abstinence from water during this period is not bad at all and in fact, it causes concentration of all fluids within the body, producing slight dehydration. The body has its own water conservation mechanism; in fact, it has been shown that slight dehydration and water conservation, at least in plant life, improve their longevity.

The physiological effect of fasting includes lower of blood sugar, lowering of cholesterol and lowering of the systolic blood pressure. In fact, Ramadan fasting would be an ideal recommendation for treatment of mild to moderate, stable, non-insulin diabetes, obesity and essential hypertension.

In 1994 the first International Congress on "Health and Ramadan," held in Casablanca, entered 50 research papers from all over the world, from Muslim and non-Muslim researchers who have done extensive studies on the medical ethics of fasting. While improvement in many medical conditions was noted; however, in no way did fasting worsen any patients’ health or baseline medical condition. On the other hand, patients who are suffering from severe diseases, whether diabetes or coronary artery disease, kidney stones, etc., are exempt from fasting and should not try to fast.

There are psychological effects of fasting as well. There is a peace and tranquility for those who fast during the month of Ramadan. Personal hostility is at a minimum, and the crime rate decreases. This psychological improvement could be related to better stabilization of blood glucose during fasting as hypoglycemia after eating, aggravates behavior changes.

Recitation of the Quran not only produces a tranquility of heart and mind, but improves the memory. Therefore, I encourage my Muslim patients to fast in the month of Ramadan, but they must do it under medical supervision. Healthy adult Muslims should not fear becoming weak by fasting, but instead it should improve their health and stamina.



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Is Fish purer than meat in Hinduism...!?


In the way back from Beed to Sollapur Railway Station, Maharashtra (10th of Oct, 2011) for Banglore after my field work, our team  stopped our vehicle at a place where it is somewhat considered to be famous for fish hotels. And, where just within few steps there is a bigger temple also.

I am not confirm that the business inertia of the hotels are because of Fish availability or because of nearness to the temple, or it was in the junction of road-cross, or because of all these factors. I and some of other my team members got into an Islamic hotel as I am Islamic, in motive to get some lawful (halal, there is scientific reason why I take only halal)meats.

Unfortunately we came to know that meats are not available in all of the hotels there, which is an unusual for an Islamic hotel not to available meats. I asked why is that….? The answer was simple-This place is quite near to a temple so meat is not allowed here.  I was speechless with the reason.

I thought suddenly, are the fishes not moving animal like terrestrial birds and animals. Here lets compromise their unreasonability over plants if they think animal feels more pain than plant, which is not truth that science has already proved that plants also feels the same pain as that of animals, then do the fishes not feel pain as that of terrestrial animals.

Or, if it is the motive to arrest the consumption of animals, as same reason of the myth of considering cow as a part of god to worship, does the number of fishes not dwindling?, are the fishes not never endanger because they are in sea?, which is not a truth at all.

In the movie "Indians Untouchables" one saint mentioned that man becomes impure if he eat meat. What is the purity of a man. Why we are given with Canine teeth and stomach which can digest meat, which all these are not given in herbivores like Cow, Goat and so on...god has created us with all these equipment's which means we are allowed to take meat but it doesn't meant to eat all kinds of living creatures.

Hindu scripts has clearly mentioned about non-prohibition of eating meat. Such an unreasonability / misperception should be attack first to stop unreasonability which is rooted (its not the intention to let veg-people eat meat, but the unreasonability of people at mass which affect other sectors of living) in their religion.

I don't know why Shri Shri Shiv Shankar, a globally know in Hinduism for his "Art of Living" never speak anything about caste and Untouchability which is rooted in Hinduism. It doesn't mean that Muslims community do not have untouchability, it do have but it never practice inside a mosque.

Many Hindu Dalits converted to Islam to find some equality in the society, they do get equality but in some places of India it does happen to discriminate still, between Muslim higher caste and lower caste but never inside  mosque, it is found in Bihar so far I have seen. Here, the concern is for the majority community (Hindus) which is practicing untouchability at mass.

Such an unreasonability cannot be uprooted using coercion like Police rather need to attack their minds intellectually, through preaching by religious persons. Because Police itself is rooted with such unreasonability of untouchability.

Indians take religious persons as value as god, then why people will not consider the words of those religious persons. So, we need highly educated, contemporary and scientific temper minded religious persons to preach the unreasonability or the misperceptions of Hinduism.

Otherwise it will take, as per my exaggerated assumption, another century to let people internalize the our constitutional ideology (which many religious and highly educated person still  not accepting, like equality of one's value), or to bring Indians at the level of Europeans, Americans, Koreans or Japanese or likes. But I don't mean Europe and Western and Eastern developed nations do not have any kind of discrimination,  they also do have discrimination but not up to that level of Indians.



--
# Yasin Kh .
http://www.google.com/profiles/ansary.shent

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Hinduism

Hinduism is not a name of religion. It's a geographical name derived from the river Indus. I would not spare to blame Hinduism which is decorated with Mahabharata and Ramayana, which generated the upper class and lower class mind set to the peoples which is now resulted to engrave an inborn mind set of great inequality in terms of one's prestige and value, no matter of economic status, just within the same race of people, result of which is now poverty, bagger and so on…

--
# Yasin Kh .
http://www.google.com/profiles/ansary.shent

India's culture of respecting feminine hood

A girl asked me to give her my seat in Bus in the way to Sikandrabad, UP in May 2007. I made some arguments like "kya hua aapko, kya apki tabiyat kharab hei?", then my Dad asked me to give her the seat, don't know he knows the culture or not, so as I.

Little bit later of the moment I came to know that was a culture of respecting feminine hood. I also respect it, I am proud of it. That was my first and surprising I experienced here in Capital.

Every Indian society respects their females since history even if Indian is notorious of hatred to female, because of which Sex Ration is running very low. And there is great variation in the extent of respect and way of respect is made from region to region within India itself.

Although, whatever may be, it's India's pride for respecting females in public place, raping in lonely place and killing birth place. It's equality in inequality within 'unity in diversity'.


--
# Yasin Kh .
http://www.google.com/profiles/ansary.shent