REFLECTIONS

  THE FAMILY THAT RUNS TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER                    This article was written   in 2016 and published in the Hindustan Times , Chandigarh edition.                                                                                                                                                   

  OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY EXPERIMENT          Stanley Milgram, professor of psychology at Yale University, got interested in the topic ‘obedience’ during the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann who was one of the architects of the Nazis “Final Solution” which oversaw the systematic execution of 6 million innocent jews. Like other high -profile war criminals, he too defended his actions as, ‘merely following orders of superiors.’   Milgram also, was intrigued by the acquiesce of normal German population to these mass killings. The agenda could have been set at top but the actual killings were carried out by officials down below and local population would have been aware and acceptable of such mass killings. Were they all demons or psychopaths? What conditions led people to become partner in such mass scale killings? These were the questions which Milgram wanted to test. The experiment had three participants. The ‘experimen...

  The following article was published in HT on 26Sep 2017. CHILD IS FATHER OF MAN Child is the mother of all reforms, at least for me. It is my closely guarded secret, but I grew up cheating frequently on the morning ritual of brushing teeth. The habit continued even after marriage till my daughter was two years and we thought of introducing her to dental hygiene. This simple task sent me into lot of soul searching. My conscience did not permit me to start the lesson till I pass the test of being a worthy teacher in my own eyes. It turned into my nirvana moment and I vowed to be sincere and regular in brushing. I do not know in what context Wordsworth wrote the famous line “Child is father of man”, but for me it means that whatever has not been learnt by you would be forced taught by your children. Like all parents we too wanted our kids to grow into responsible adults with good and healthy life style. The only way to achieve that, I discovered after running through multiple books ...

  ENGAGING IN SAREE DIPLOMACY IN BRAZIL      Diplomatic assignments abroad for Defence personnel are far few and elusive and hence considered prized. The tenure, though, has its own challenges professionally as well as socially. Hosting frequent parties for visiting delegations and diplomatic community is an essential part of such assignments which require considerable planning and effort. We however soon learnt tricks of trade and were doing well after completing 6 months and successfully hosting few such gatherings. Ladies group too was active and they conducted a regular event exclusively for ladies, café da manhã (Portuguese for Breakfast) hosted in turn by spouses of all Military Attaches. A typical such event would have as many as 40 ladies from as many countries. My wife’s turn came sooner than anticipated. While the menu was worked out after lot of brain scratching there was one aspect needing more ingenuity.       By convention such event...

  RASHOMON EFFECT.        A video emerged, post the Mayor elections in Chandigarh where the returning officer is seen surreptitiously writing more than he is required (he has to only sign the paper) on the ballot papers indicating that probably he is purposely trying to deface the ballots to make them invalid. The matter is being heard in the Supreme Court of India.       The results of the elections for the Mayor of Chandigarh were announced on 30th Jan. The results were in favour of BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar who secured 16 votes while the Congress-AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar got 12 votes.  Congress AAP side charged that there was something wrong with the process as 8 votes were declared as invalid which had made all the difference to the results. The matter reached the High Court for annulling the elections saying that the fraud and forgery has been committed . The High court refused to stay but sought response from from UT administ...

  THE MISSING CLASS Ours was the first batch of 10+2 system which replaced higher secondary pattern. For us the board exams meant that there would be no internal assessment and thus riddance from maintaining class and homework note books for good. This freedom was somewhat subdued by the lurking fear of the board exam as also the pressure from teachers and parents who projected it as a matter of life and death. The pressure to do well was all too evident. We took full advantage of it and took to skipping classes to self-study on the pretext that it would help us score more marks. However, soon such exercise turned into playing and movie sessions. Our easy life was broken by the sudden visit of the Board team to inspect the school. The focus could be on our class, being the first batch of 10+2 system. The teachers were under pressure and warned us to come lanced with class and homework assignments. With only one month left for the board exam most of us had tossed our note books re...

  BAGHPAT COURT DISMISSES DECADES-OLD PLEA OVER MAHABHARAT-ERA SITE . A court in Baghpat has dismissed a decades-old plea filed by a Muslim side over a site in village Barnawa,  that Hindu devotees claim to be the Mahabharat-era-Lakshagriha. The Muslim side had claimed that the site was a graveyard and Dargah of Sufi Saint Sheikh Badruddin. The above news dated 06 Feb 2024 captured my imagination instantly for multiple reasons. My village Dolcha, is in Baghpat and the name of the contested site, Barnawa, appeared familiar. The disputed structure ‘Lakshagriha’ also alerted some memory cells in my brain. It did not take much effort for me to reconnect with the source of these vibrations. It was the book,‘The Man From Dolcha’, written by my elder brother Dr. Bir Singh Yadav. It was there, right in the beginning of the book. 'Barnawa has underground tunnels which the Pandawas built to escape from the inflammable house (Lakshagrah)'. The book also chronicles the connection of Mahab...

     The following article was published in the news paper 'Hindustan Times' on 19 Dec 2017. That time I was working as Simulator Instructor in Gurugram (also known as Gurgaon) after taking PR (Premature Retirement) from the Indian Air Force in Aug 2016.  THE ART OF BEING POPULAR   I could never master the craft of mustering multiple likes and comments on social sites and secretly envied those who would elicit hundreds of clicks on the drop of their post. The few likes which I scored were from immediate family members who, I was pretty sure, did that out of sheer sympathy. Never to give up, I did some self styled research and went on a maddening spree to add as many friends as possible and liking any post which showed up on the screen. ‘Like begets like’ and ‘more the friends more the likes’ was the logic behind this. This phase lasted for about four months during which I tripled my friend list and scored innumerable clicks on the like button. I resisted from ...

           My mother suffered with dementia for a long time. It took us few years to fully understand her condition and the disease. It was a daily struggle for all of us as we expected her to behave normally, which was impossible for her. I undertook a short capsule from NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences), Bangalore (now Bengaluru) on dementia and read books and articles to understand the nature of disease. This changed my perspective and I realized that ignorance of the disease was the cause of our misery. The happenings which went beyond my understanding suddenly started making sense to me. Her conduct which looked so irritating, now, started looking natural, normal and in-fact pleasing and at times amusing. She was behaving exactly the way a dementia patient was expected to behave. The realization that we as care giver were to adapt to her requirement and not vice versa as we were trying to do till than, leading to fre...

       On retirement I gleefully joined all social networking sites which were out of bounds in service. Soon I got flooded with tsunami of comments and posts. I tried to catch some threads but was puzzled by the pattern of discussion. Though it was not new for me as the political debates which I had often heard on TV were being made on the same lines. I grew up hearing about the rich tradition of philosophical thought and debate in ancient Indian philosophy. Gargi Vachaknavi (Delhi University college Gargi is named after her) is believed to be the first female philosopher. She was famous for her intellectual debates with other philosophers. Her philosophical debate with the renowned sage Yagnavalkya about ‘nature of reality’ is documented in the Brhadarankyaka Upanishad.   After a long and intense debate Gargi humbly accepted her defeat in front of the knowledge of the great saint. The unpretentious acceptance of her defeat showed that debate was to genuinely p...