The Coffee House Conundrum-1
M.Sc., Ph. D
Retired Principal
GUDIVADA-
A.P
yernenivrao@gmail.com
The Coffee House in College Street Calcutta
Intellectuals have instant solutions for
conflict resolution especially when workers are locked up in a struggle against
corporate managements. How they solve this one is bound to be of considerable
interest and import. (The Hindu May 6,
1997)
B1-70
Just as there is a distinction between
Caesar’s wife and others in that the former , by virtue of her being
willy-nilly an object in a critical gazing gallery, should not only be chaste
but should also be above suspicion , so there is a clear distinction between
private citizens and public servants; while it is enough for the former to be
free from the taint of corruption, it is necessary for the latter to be not
only not corrupt but also known to be so.
B1-71
Even the most beautiful humanistic ideals
have a distressing tendency to collapse on their first encounter with reality;
equality, liberty and fraternity, the trinity of ideals that powered the French
Revolution and that still sway the liberal intellectuals of today are a case in
point.
Where equality reigns supreme, liberty and
with it, fraternity falls by the way side because of the ineluctable
restrictions to be imposed on the latter; where liberty blossoms fully which is
possible only in a regime of restricted, or better still, no equality, the
latter together with fraternity withers and wilts. Lack of either or both leads
to social stresses and tensions that will work against the essential
cooperativeness of the society and in the absence of social cohesion,
fraternity will merely be a myth or a figment of imagination having no
foundation/roots in reality.
Fraternity, however, flourishes but only in
the dual company of equality and liberty which is impossible because of their
mutual antagonism. Thus, in practice, the triad of ideals is nothing if not
totally incompatible and mutually exclusive. So ennobling a trio of ideals and
yet so impossible of attainment in actual practice. How very tantalizing!
B1-107
Where fraternity rooted in love and trust
reigns supreme, liberty and equality blossom like flowers and fill the
air/atmosphere with their aroma/fragrance. So it is love and trust radiating
from individual human hearts that can set the process of social transformation
in motion. In other words, without revolutionizing the consciousness of each
individual and without bringing about a genuine change of heart and mind, it is
impossible to ensure the translation of any and every utopia, based, in one way
or the other, on this trinity of values into a concrete reality. The belief
that fundamental changes in society could only occur through the conversion of
people’s hearts was the basis of Gandhiji’s philosophy and the reason for
choosing the human heart as the field for waging all his battles. For where the
causes of disunion are, there the remedies must be sought. We should remember
that love compels love and that strength conciliates strength in the wise words
of Sri Aurobindo.
B1-108
Be it a family or a society, to the extent
to which its members relate to one another on the basis of love and trust as
living truths, as natural feelings and not as mere concepts, ideas or values,
to that extent, it is perfect or happy.
B1-72
Every professional -- be he a lawyer ,
doctor , architect, financial or management consultant or a consulting expert
in any other area of human endeavour, following the golden rule that one should
do as would be done by, should place
himself in the position of his client
and ask himself what is just and right in that situation and the answer he
would get would be ethical. If any professional were to forsake principles of
ethics and follow pecuniary predilections , he would end up converting himself
into a petty trader and his profession into a business, for the latter is
primarily a preoccupation with personal gain.
B1-73
Great teachers like the Upanishadic seers ,
the Buddha , Jesus Christ and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa took recourse to tales,
anecdotes and parables because , for one thing , everyone loves to listen to a
story and for another and for another, tales, straight forward as well as
allegorical, tell and instruct through entertainment while parables and
anecdotes, the former being easy on the ear and multi dimensional in their
penetration and the latter being all too human in scope and captivating by
nature convey abstruse truths and profound verities in a delectable form and
arresting fashion.
The humour-laced tales and parables told by
Ramakrishna, the story teller par excellence and his homely illustrations are
elucidations of one and only thing-how to attain God—how “to strive, to seek ,
to find and not to yield.”
B1-74
Telling truth is so much simpler and easier
than telling untruth , for truth being self evident like the sun and the moon ,
beckons to us whereas falsehood being non existent has to be invented out of
airy nothingness and propped up on a pedestal of plausibility reinforced and
buttressed by further falsehood in order that it be sustained during its
ephemeral existence. Yet strangely, so many so readily take recourse to a mass
of untruth and a farrago of falsehood with the all the attendant perils of
failure and ultimate perdition.
This is so despite the fact that Socrates
as long as 2500 years ago not only declared “that truth is the way that leads
directly to God” but also “pursued the trail of truth like a bloodhound all
through his life.” What is equally noteworthy is the fact that “ falsehood
always falls apart while truth always holds together.” Worse, truth has the
nasty habit of surfacing when we least expect it and that too at the most
unanticipated places.
Even from a practical point of view , if one thinks of all the
labour it takes to first invent and then
sustain untruth , one will realize what an amazing labour saving device truth
is.
With so many obvious advantages in pursuing
truth, why do people shun it and gravitate so readily towards lies, half truths
and untruths? What impels them to do so?
Maybe its the kick one gets out of a creative act or the thrill of being able
to manipulate others albeit fleetingly or both. The kick one gets on seeing the
flowering of one’s creative urge or impulse or the thrill of being able to
influence and control the thinking and behaviour of others even if for a
moment, is not possible if one sticks to truth telling. Additionally, lies runs
sprints spectacularly to their doom whereas the truth runs marathons staidly to
its inevitable triumph and people anyday, plumb for cheering a sprinter than a
marathoner , for they know not the inevitable result of either.
Against this backdrop, isn’t it amazing that people in general and
particularly “ political parties, ideologues, propagandists, spin doctors ,
political hucksters and loose cannons , not to mention astrologers” so readily
and so often resort to the dirty habit of/ addiction to camouflaging the truth
in a mass of , if not burying it under a mound of lies, untruth and downright
falsehood in pursuit of their immediate interests and short range goals only to
rue in the end the disastrous consequences of such a short sighted approach?
B1-75
With all the amazing technological advances
in medical science , which possibly have outpaced the need , often times the
doctors have succeeded not so much in prolonging life as in extending the
process of death, that too, at a cost draining away a fortune or worse still, not allowing one to die in
peace and with dignity , thereby raising ethical questions of urgent nature,
both for medical profession as also the patients and their relatives like “ can
man act God in keeping the heart going for no purpose whatsoever when he is
forbidden from acting God in terminating life for whatever reason?” Alternatively
“ can one benefit the patient as a whole by making him dead?”, as in fact asked
by Prof. Leon Kass of the University
of Chicago
For
a Hindu believing in reincarnation , death is not certainly the end of
everything . At a ‘viable dieable age’ instead of replacing “a suffering human person with an unconscious
organization of animal reflexes” which is what happens when anodynes and
anaesthetics are administered to end pain and suffering—when these invade human
existence consciousness contracts (philosopher Kavace Kallen)—it is better to
euthanasise.
Legal or illegal, personally I would be
grateful to whoever helps terminate my life compassionately, if and when I need
such help in order to escape from the ravages of either an intractable disease
or the “helpless decrepitude of excessive old age” for I would rather die than
live helplessly. Death is over quickly. All this, of course, in the unlikely
event of my missing the kiss of the great leveller despite its definite
possibility—MI , which had a go at me twice already and failed, will I hope
succeed next time, whenever that be—before any such need arises. Just as I am
not afraid to die , I am not eager to embrace death either. I will be happy to
work until I drop. And the only wish I have is I shouldn’t know in advance when
its going to happen. I will be happy to work until I pass through the great
gate to the beyond.
Liberty to seek release from pain in death
when pain becomes unbearable and when there is no possible remedy or redress
deserves to be seriously considered for inclusion of the list of fundamental
rights enshrined in our constitution.
B1-76
Sycophancy, ‘the cult of self inflicted
servility’ , is both small change and big money/bucks little men buy their
admittance with to the portals of the rich and the famous.
B1-77
Sycophancy is a handy tool little men use
with devastating efficacy/efficiency , first to pull themselves up the power
ladder and then to don the mantle of
bigwigs through a time-honoured stratagem : first, they foist/insinuate
themselves into unsuspecting powercentres, next they latch on to a prospective
winner in the power game and then project a larger than life image of their
protagonist by creating a halo around him/her through a cleverly crafted and
adroitly sequenced propaganda consisting of misinformation, hype , drumbeating
and media manipulation with carefully concealed but occasional indulgence in
skilful self publicity and self promotion on the side and finally start
throwing their weight about posing as the power behind the throne which climaxes/culminates
in their becoming real power wielders as their protagonists’ susceptibility to
sycophancy wears him down.
B1-78
Tears and grief are but teardrops; tears in
sympathy are pearls of great price (pearls of rare/ unparalleled beauty) for
they elevate and ennoble life.
B1-79
It is logic that has to conform to life and
not the other way round; what is logical at one level of our being turns out to
be fictitious at another. To the extent it fits into the larger picture of life
, logic has validity. Life, being of the nature of truth, strides on
spontaneously and freely unmindful of – or is it in defiance of ?—logic and its
demands for conformity. This simple/plain fact if not kept in view, can be the
cause of half of our troubles in life.
B1-80
Life, like truth being free from the
compulsions of logic can afford to be as it is and can flow naturally and
effortlessly whereas fiction has to constantly struggle to conform to the
dictates of logic by making adjustments so it may appear plausible. This being
the case , its small wonder that often, life and truth are stranger than
fiction. “Destiny , after all, has more resources than the most imaginative
composer of fiction”, as averred by Frank Frankfurt Moore. Concurs JBS Haldane
, “the universe is not queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we CAN
imagine.”
One whose past acts, present deeds and future designs had better be kept under close wraps is a bloke with a black soul. He can’t stand even the few streaks of silver in his hair that age gifts as a mark of maturity for fear that they may betray him by drawing attention to the contrastive colour of his soul. So he dyes them black.
B1-82
If Goldsmith, according to Dr Johnson, touched nothing which he did not adorn, politicians of India
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