Craving Communion

I crave communion.
What is it?
I'm not sure exactly,
But I know I've had it.

Not merging exactly,
But definitely a complex
Almost spiritual closeness.
To feel with the other person
Openness at every level:
Intellectually, Emotionally, Physically, Sexually.

To feel appreciated, Safe.
To feel like
At last, I've come home.
A conversation going on Simultaneously
In words
In feelings
In touch
In trust.
It's not so hard to find Conversation just in words
Or sex without conversation.
Bringing the two together
With feelings
And then trust
Is very rare indeed.
Wanting communion Sometimes keeps me awake at night.
When I notice someone
Demonstrating sensitivity Of body, mind and heart,
My own sensitivity
And desire for communion
Powerfully Draws me to them.

Moments

For some moments
Your happiness is my prime desire
I wish I had the warmth in my embrace
To make you fall asleep
Your face close to my heart
To make you forget everything that makes you sulk

Your ego comes in between
When I try from my side

For some moments
Your smile is my life
I get ready to sacrifice anything
To make that everlasting

I want to listen to you whole night
And make your heart light
In the morning
I wish you to be chirping with joy

Treadmill: Life’s a marathon

by Rahul S. Verghese

Having started running only after turning 40, I realized that there are many similarities in training for and running a marathon, and life itself. The basic fact, of course, is this—one is 26.2 miles and takes between two and six hours to complete and the other can take several decades.

For both, one needs focused training, discipline, and some basic tools. And in both, the biggest prize is the self-esteem of having done something well. To be sure, there are lows and highs. There is no such thing as an easy marathon and the same applies to life. Neither can be coursed through without training.
We need a holistic approach for both. We need to run, stretch, build muscle, manage nutrition, wear the right gear, follow a good training regimen, run in different weather and terrain conditions, etc. to prepare for a marathon. And we need to be well-rounded individuals, with a sharp mind and a large heart, with varied interests and the ability to cope with tough circumstances to ultimately “win” the marathon of life.
• Raise your abilities to the heights of your goals rather than lower your goals based on your abilities.
• Accept that you will never always feel on top of the world.
• Sometimes to do better or run faster, we need to slow down or rest.
• There is no stretch goal that is impossible, it may just be tough, or need a bit more focus.
• The mind is more important than matter for many stretch goals.
• There is no one single solution to a problem. Things have to be viewed holistically and then acted upon individually.
• A unidimensional achievement often undermines achievement in the broader canvas.
All of us, at any stage in life, can run. Budhia Singh has run marathons at six and Fauja Singh ran the London marathon at 94, his sixth after his first at the age of 89. So what’s your excuse today? What insurmountable issues do you have while running or at work? While we are very focused on the latter, we rarely take time to ponder over the former. Running a bit or jogging a bit within your walks can make you fitter, healthier and give you that inner self-confidence.

An ode to the villager who moved a mountain

With a mallet and a chisel in hand, he worked the hill for 22 years and, at last, in 1982, single-handedly managed to cut a 3km road through the mountain

Mrinal पांडे


There is always something surreal about encounters with genuine love in our times. And so, perhaps one should not be surprised that our mainstream media, ever in a hurry to break the most graphic, the most sensational story of the day, paid scant attention to one of the noblest lovers of our times, a poor landless labourer from Bihar, Dashrath Manjhi.
Manjhi belonged to Gehlaur, a poor village in Gaya, one of the most backward districts in Bihar. He was married young to Faguni Devi who, like all other women in their water-scarce village, spent half a day fetching water from a distant river. It was a hard life and frail Faguni, a mother of two, had to leave early in the morning on the tedious errand. The women had to traverse a long and unbelievably treacherous path which involved squeezing through a narrow and dangerous crack in the mountain that separated their village from the rest of the valley and the river.
One day Faguni came home empty-handed, bruised and soaked to the skin, deeply distressed as her pot broke when she slipped on the torturous uphill journey back home. Moved by his wife’s tears, Manjhi vowed he’d create a road through the mountain to make life easier for Faguni.
“I thought afterwards,” he told our correspondent in Patna years later, “will I be able to complete this task, all alone with no one to help me? Maybe I should pray for divine help. Then I thought to myself, had the gods not chosen...to let the mountain stand in the path of the villagers all this while? Why should they help my wife and me now? Let me do what I must. It’s my wife, not a goddess, who needs my help.”
This was in 1960.
The villagers, when word went around, laughed at Manjhi and said he was nuts. Why spoil womenfolk, some said with a wink. After all, hadn’t generations of women fetched water from the other side? What was so special about his wife? Women were made to fetch and carry, weren’t they?
Manjhi was unmoved. With a mallet and a chisel in hand, he worked the hill for 22 years and, at last, in 1982, single-handedly managed to cut a 3km road through the mountain.
Fate had not been kind to Manjhi. Midway through his project, his beloved Faguni was gone, leaving behind a physically challenged son and a daughter. The daughter was later married but lost her husband, and returned to her father with three children. This was Manjhi’s family with whom he lived till he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and brought to Delhi for treatment at the behest of the chief minister. He died a few weeks later.
What made Manjhi so different from the average villager, who is quite incurious about his rights or the state of others in his area? Faced with apathy from his fellow men, with his wife dead and two motherless children by his side, most men would have resorted to raging and ranting, but these were not emotions Manjhi expressed often. A good tarmac road to his village remained his magnificent obsession till the end. In February 1973, having completed the dirt road, he started on foot for Delhi, walking alongside the railway tracks, to meet the President of India and request him to get the road paved and connected with the main road to the valley. He reached Delhi in April 1973 but unfortunately could not meet the President.
A year ago, when Nitish Kumar was sworn in as Bihar’s chief minister, a much older Manjhi was one of the first to call on him. His request was the same, that the road to his valley be connected directly to his village and the forest department be asked to waive its long-standing objections, for the road was to be created through a protected forest zone. The chief minister is said to have issued the orders then and there, but unfortunately Manjhi will not be there to see his dream come true.
All his life, this unassuming villager from Gaya lived through the chaos that is Bihar, but instead of giving way to pessimism like so many others, he dreamt dreams few in his situation would dare to dream. And he sought help only when he could not carry on the work. He was ignored most of the time, yet he never blamed the system. He carried his simple dignity, the first target of all tyrants, like a magnificent robe around him, and did not give up approaching Delhi and Patna till the end of his days, so that the common man may be able to lead a life less troublesome.
In this world, but for men like Dashrath Manjhi, the fabled common man or aam admi would remain just that, a fable. Manjhi worked neither as a donor or a stakeholder, but as a husband, father and a fellow citizen, as someone who does something noble just because he feels he has to.
A year before he died, Manjhi told our man in Patna, “I never thought I was doing something great for which society should honour me...The government gave me land which I have yet to get. But I have no problems with that. I only want a hospital to be built on it, so the villagers can get treatment when they need it. That’s all.”
We do not really know what quality it is that can make genuine love sprout between a man and a woman living in the kind of squalor Manjhi and his wife did. All we know that it was not just hormones. Nor did Manjhi ever abandon his project. He may have had only his own two hands and a crude mallet and chisel for support, but he was capable of a love that can literally move mountains. He lived most of his life in darkness, dwarfed by a mountain, but when he finished, there was light.

Tears

कभी इन आंसुओं को देखा है ?
ये बासी हो गए हैं ...
कई अरसों से आंखो मे छुपे बैठे थे
आज उनकी याद मे छलकने का मन हो आया ।

It's All I Know

I bruise you... You bruise me...
We both bruise so easily...so easily...
So let it show...
I love you...
And thats all I know...

All my plans keep falling through...
All my plans... they depend on you... depend on you...
So help me grow...
I love you...
And thats all...thats really all I know...
It's all I know...

A LOT LIKE LOVE

They are together, but there's no room for the C word. Meet the generation that believes in relationships of convenience

ParuI Abrol

anyone say emotional attachment is a must for a relationship? Not anymore. With career taking priority for GenNext, the tables have turned around. Result? There are many youngsters who in stead of wearing the badge of commitment, are opting for a fun-filled but loveless relationship. Twenty-three-year-old Vaibhav Khanna is a case in point. "I care for my girl and respect her a lot but there is no love. I'm not going to marry her and she knows it," he says. This begs a question. Is his girlfriend comfortable with the relationship? The answer is yes. Adult-rated For people who have just attained adulthood, this is a convenient way of knowing the other sex better without making a serious com- mitment. Such relationships save a person from the trouble of a) making false promises, b) getting pressurised into a commitment at an early age, and c) constant tension from a demanding partner Saurabh Tiwari, an advertising executive echoes a similar view "The time I spend with my friend has helped me have an insight into a woman's mind." Old formula It's not just the younger lot that's smitten by the idea of being in a loveless relationship. Many people in their 40s and 50s see such relationshiDs as escape zones. Sanjay Mehta (46) does not mind if a good friend of his is willing to have a physical relation with him. "At this age, people develop a ma- turity to handle such relationshins that have no strings attached." Women on top Women have a similar approach towards such relationships. Twenty-six-year-old Rinkila Sharma, who works in a call centre puts it succinctly "It is very convenient for me. I work the whole week and meet my partner only on weekends and then spend some time with him." So, what's your call?

Chandrashekhar: End of an Era COUNTERPOINT

At a time when Indian politics was changing, when parties were playing the caste card or the Hindu card and when individual politicians had begun living five-star lives, openly flaunting their wealth, Chandrashekhar was still an old-style politician, anchored to his rural roots

Vir Sanghvi


I DON'T SUPPOSE you cared too much that Chandrashekhar died last weekend - assuming, of course, that you even remembered who he was. Press coverage was grudging and matter-of-fact; the news channels are all run by people who were still in school when he was at his peak; and the few obituaries that appeared were personal tributes written by a succession of yesterday's men, most of whom owed a personal debt to him.
But I have to say that I felt sad and moved by the news of his passing. There was a phase in my life when I knew him reasonably well but it wasn't just the personal connection that accounted for my feelings. It was also a sense that his death marked the end of an era; that it was finally time to say goodbye to an Indian political tradition that many of us believed in - but which withered away and died, its promise never truly fulfilled.
I knew him best during his time at Race Course Road (though he never actually moved in there, preferring his homes on South Avenue Lane and at Bhondsi) and though contemporary historians remember that time differently, I always thought that he made a good Prime Minister, nurturing the office with simplicity and earthiness.
His style derived from his background. Though the obituaries will tell you about his worship of Acharya Narendra Dev, he was essentially a reformist Congressman of the late 1960s. At that time, the party was controlled by a Syndicate of regional bosses, most of who were corrupt and venal. Chandrashekhar and many other young leaders rebelled against the machine politics that dominated the party and tried to get it to focus on India's poor.
When Indira Gandhi split the Congress in 1969 - and then won an electoral landslide in 1971 Chandrashekhar was one of her key allies. He believed in the socialist rhetoric that was fashionable at the time and supported many of the left-wing economic measures that we now know, with the benefit of hindsight, were huge mistakes: the nationalisation of banks, the penal rise in tax rates, the takeover of the grain distribution trade etc.
Obviously, these measures did nothing to benefit the poor and as corruption increased within Mrs Gandhi's Cabinet, Chandrashekhar grew disillusioned with his former mentor. He was among those drawn to another well-intentioned but foolishly ineffectual ideology - Jaiprakash Narain's call for Total Revolution - and became one of Mrs Gandhi's biggest critics. When Emergency was declared, he was thrown into prison and spent time in solitary confinement.
His moment of glory came with the formation of the Janata Party in 1977, after Mrs Gandhi's defeat. Chandrashekhar became party president and because the party was run by a triumvirate of extremely unsavoury old fogeys, he seemed like a refreshing contrast: youngish, dynamic, honest and not motivated by ambition. (The fogeys? The urine-swilling Morarji Desai, the frog-like and dodgy Jagjivan Ram and the petty and medieval-minded Charan Singh.) Janata collapsed under the weight of this triumvirate's ambition and Mrs Gandhi returned. But most people reckoned that when she lost the next election (due to anti-incumbency), Chandrashekhar would be Prime Minister at the head of some avatar of the Janata Party In 1983, when . he went on a Bharat Yatra he received rapturous press coverage and those of us who had never forgiven Mrs Gandhi for the Emergency regarded him as the future of Indian politics.
But of course, it was not to be.
Mrs Gandhi was assassinated and her son, Rajiv held out the irresistible hope of change with continuity. I met Chandrashekhar one evening during the 1984 campaign and told him that I thought Rajiv would sweep the country. To my surprise, he conceded the point. Worse still, he said, he feared he would even lose his own seat in Ballia.
The Congress victory of 1984-85 finished Chandrashekhar and his brand of politics forever. The socialist ideals he had spent his life propagating seemed sadly out of date. Rajiv had a vision of the future. The BJP had a Hindu appeal. But Chandrashekhar and his party had nothing to offer. Their policies were discredited and they were all defined more by the things they loathed (chiefly, the Gandhis and the Congress) than the things they stood for.
It was downhill from then on. His old Janata colleagues elbowed him aside to follow VP Singh (who had enthusiastically supported the Emergency) and even when the Congress lost its majority at the 1987 election, Chandrashekhar stood no chance. Devi Lal and VP Singh tricked him while nominating the next Prime Minister. Chandrashekhar retreated to Bhondsi where he sulked and complained bitterly about VP Singh ("agent of foreign power" was a favourite epithet).
I visited him often in that era and three things struck me about him. The first was that he really had no beliefs left, no vision of India. The second was that he was the worst judge of people I have ever met. All the good politicians had deserted him believing he was finished so he was left with the garbage, with people who had nowhere else to go: shady swamis and Subramaniam Swamy, racketeers, dacoits and dalals. (Plus a few good guys, it must be said: Yashwant Sinha, Digvijay Singh, Gopi Manchanda, Kamal Morarka etc.) But it was the third thing that drew me to him. At a time when Indian politics was changing, when parties were playing the caste card (this was during Mandal) or the Hindu card (the Ayodhya agitation had begun) and when individual politicians had begun living five-star lives, openly flaunting their wealth, he was still an old-style politician, anchored to his rural roots, free from caste or communal politics and with no interest at all in the things that money could buy .
There would be many evenings in his study at South Avenue Lane where he would sit on the floor, wrapped in a blanket (Amitabh Bachchan memorably described him during that period as looking like a man squatting on a railway platform, waiting for the mail train) and we would sit in a circle around him sipping hot tea. He was never mealy-mouthed, said what he believed even if it damaged him and cheerfully used English insults that he did not fully understand: for instance, poor Kuldip Nayyar was called a ‘social climber' (pronounced ‘so-sull climber') for accepting a high commissionership from VP Singh.) Sophisticated journos sneered at his lack of pretension. Shortly after he became Prime Minister, an interviewer from a video magazine taunted him by asking if it was right that the leader of our country should go around without combing his hair or ironing his kurta. Any other Prime Minister would have thrown the journo out but Chandrashekhar was philosophical. "Merely by using harsh words, you do not become a great journalist," he told him.
I was glad when he became Prime Minister after V P Singh's government fell but I knew it couldn't last. Congressmen wanted Rajiv to take over (the Congress, already the largest party in the House, gained a majority when the Janata Dal split). But Rajiv wanted to wait for an electoral mandate. So Chandrashekhar's reign was only a stopgap arrangement till the Congress was ready for an election.
A shrewder man would have recognised this and made arrangements to merge his party with the Congress, hoping to be elevated to Rashtrapati Bhawan eventually But Chandrashekhar .
ran a chaotic shop, where his aides fought with each other and the delicate subject of relations with the Congress was left to Subramaniam Swamy - and of course, the government fell amidst a welter of bad feeling.
For all that, he did a good job of calming passions over Mandal and mandir/masjid. He took the right decisions on the Gulf War (allowing US planes to refuel in India) and he built up a warm relationship with Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif. His economic stewardship remained dodgy (this was when we mortgaged our gold reserves) but given his views, this was probably inevitable.
After the 1991 election and the liberalisation of the economy he , never quite understood India or recognised how wrong he had been on economic policy His . dodgy friends deserted him, he did a series of silly things (including a stint as the world's worst TV interviewer) and became a lonely irrelevance in exile at Bhondsi.
India had moved on. And not only were his policies discredited but his kind of politician had faded. Now, they all carried Mont Blanc pens, rushed off on foreign trips, drove imported cars and stashed millions away in numbered accounts. Even some of his old socialist colleagues become the pimps of crony capitalists.
But I miss him. I miss his sincerity, his warmth and his view that there was a space between the Congress and the BJP. Now, that space has vanished. And Chandrashekhar, too, is gone.

Computing taxable income to file returns

The time to file income tax returns is here. Individuals need to compute total income in accordance with the provisions of the Income Tax Act. Every individual and Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) has to furnish returns if the total income before deductions exceeds the amount not chargeable to income tax (Rs 1 lakh in case of HUF and men below 65 years of age, Rs 1.35 lakhs in case of women below 65 years of age, and Rs 1.85 lakhs in case of individuals who are 65 years of age or more at any time during the financial year 2006-07). It is important to note that losses, if any, cannot be carried forward unless the return has been filed on or before the due date. Here are some relevant points for assessees: Years The 'previous year' is the financial year (April 1 to the following March 31) during which the income in question has been earned. 'Assessment year' is the financial year immediately following the previous year. Computing total income To compute total income, classify all items of income under these heads of income: • Salary • Income from house property • Capital gains • Income from other sources There may be no income under one or more of these heads of income. Computing taxable income Compute taxable income of the current year (i.e., the previous year) under each head of income separately in the schedules as per provisions of the Income Tax Act. The statutory provisions decide what is to be included in income, what one can claim as an expenditure or allowance, and how much, and also what one cannot claim as an expenditure / allowance. Setting off losses Set off current year's headwise losses against current year's head-wise income as per procedures prescribed by the law. A separate schedule is provided for such set off. Also, set off, as per procedures prescribed, losses or allowances of earlier assessment years brought forward. Compute losses and allowances that could be set off in future and is to be carried forward as per procedures prescribed. Gross total income Aggregate the head-wise end results to get gross total income. From the gross total income, subtract, as per procedures prescribed, deductions mentioned in Chapter VIA of the Income Tax Act. The result will be the total income. Arriving at tax liability Then come the computation of income tax, surcharge, education cess and interest on income chargeable to tax. Compute income tax payable on the total income. Special rates of tax are applicable to some specified incomes. You need to include agricultural income for rate purposes, in the tax computation procedure. • Add surcharge on the tax payable • Add education cess on the tax payable, plus surcharge • Claim reliefs as prescribed on account of arrears or advances of salary received during the year or of double taxation, and calculate balance tax and surcharge payable • Add interest payable as prescribed to reach total tax, surcharge and interest payable • Deduct the amount of prepaid taxes, if any, like 'tax deducted at source' The result will be the tax payable (or refundable) by the assessee.

http://delhigovt.nic.in/dtcbusroute/dtc/Find_Route/getroute.asp

Gender Differences

It is true that many husbands are sensitive and affectionate, love their children deeply and are even willing to “help out”. But families make it very clear that such an offer of help is an act of generosity and the woman must be grateful for it, because his real job is his professional work, not raising children. In contrast, if the mother of young children goes back to work, she is suspect in all eyes, most of all in her own. Is she being selfish? Is she going against nature and denying her children their natural rights?
-----Mrinal Pande

Transcending Karma and Retribution

Transcending Karma and Retribution

Free will coupled with intelligent action and thought can, to a large extent, neutralise and make up for the limiting and binding effects of karma and destiny. The Bhagawad Gita (4, 19 and 4, 37) and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (2,16) also assure that intelligence (jnanagni) can quell the impact of all karma whereby difficulties, which would otherwise have ensued, can be preempted.

This intelligence is obtained by assiduous study, practice and application (sadhana) cultivating thus, a dominant free will within. Aeschylus observes how even gods join in when a person is eager and willing, while H W Longfellow sings (Psalm of Life), “Let us then be up and doing/With a heart for any fate”. This is also the application of W E Henley’s concept in his Invictus: “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

ये है अवनीश गौतम का ब्लोग।