I AM WHITE, AND I AM NOT A RACIST!

Now it has been years that I have been working with non Indian people. Years ago when I lived in a small town, I would feel constantly irritated by my fellow citizens’ ignorance about things or people that hailed from outside their culture and/or their place. I knew more than them, thanks to the books I read and the movies I watched. The majority of these outsiders I saw were white and western. There was more than a thing about their culture and lifestyle that I admired and tried to learn. However, much, much later, it would take me just a few months of direct contact to realize that these people were more or less the reason every other kind of human being on the planet suffered. At least in today’s world. Their ideal portrayal of themselves in their books and their movies is quite distinct from the reality that we live in. Years passed, and my distaste for this hypocritical breed of humans increased consistently.

Working in my own country by their side I realized that white people publicize that at one point of time they had tendencies of racism, but more or less after the Second World War it was taken care of. And now in spite of being far superior to the rest of the humans, they are no longer racist. Look at the irony of the previous sentence. That is what the white humans are today. Humbly racist.

Why do I believe them to be racists? Well, because I have suffered them in first person. I have had perhaps millions of first hand experiences that have proved this as a fact to me. If you want to see the racism of a white human, you can see it on many levels. You can interact with them personally and taste the nectar yourself or you can see the macro-racism that war machines like the US and the NATO practice on world scale.

What is, in fact, racism? Racism is a belief that one’s own race is superior. You would say “nah, Americans are not racists anymore! Obama is black.” Oh yeah? And wasn’t that even marked into the history as a great achievement? Why? Obama’s being a president should have been as normal and commonplace as Bush’s being president. But it wasn’t, was it? Everybody was dancing around “aah, a black guy became the president of the US”. Why? Wasn’t it normal? Common? If not, then why not? Because racists don’t let that happen everyday. In the US it is proved every now and then when a white cop shoots an unarmed black citizen blaming him for the crime he most possibly never committed. The poverty and lack of opportunities in the black majority areas are rampant. Come on! We all know the truth. And white Americans are not only racist with the black, but with the hispanic, the native American, and almost every one. How many lead actors in the Hollywood have been native Americans? Why in the whole native American population there is no one who has the talent to play a lead character in a mainstream film? Because the white people won’t be able to identify with such a protagonist. This person won’t be the true American hero. Never. He would just be a native American hero. And there is a very wide trench between a true American and a native American. The true American is -always and without exceptions- white.

Now let’s take a look at Europe. How many European leaders of states have been people of color? Although, you cannot openly make a racist comment in the majority of European circles, you accept the subtle racism on any level. Well, as long as that racism is not against Jews. If you mess with Jews, nobody can predict what will become of you, because, my friend, that is not racism, that is RACISM. Look at the history, the white American came to fight the racist German to protect the Jews and at the same time practiced segregation against the black American back home. Not every year you see a film that injects a new serum of hatred into your mind against the white American for the atrocities he committed, unlike the poor old German who is the justified villain of any period war flick that Hollywood churns out at irregular, but short intervals. How many films have you seen where the Portuguese are portrayed as villains? “Why?” You would wonder… Well, to clear it to you, the portuguese were one of the first colonial powers to sell human beings from Africa as slaves. It is funny that they sleep peacefully in their irrelevant country far from the Hollywood fury against the racists around the world.

Now let’s come to my own country. Here Indians are racist against their own compatriots. However, the Indian racism is a kind of learned racism. India had never been racist. It had been practicing casteism. Now many white western humans will jump and say “Whoa! It’s the same thing!”. Well, it is not. There is one very major difference between casteism and racism (apart from the millions of other differences in the nature of their existence): casteism cannot be practiced at sight. Which means you cannot mistreat a person for belonging to a particular caste just by looking at them. The caste is not visible. Racism is based on the color of skin, and hence, before even knowing the person you begin formulating your prejudice against them. I am not trying to prove that casteism is superior or correct in any way. I am just trying to say that it is a different phenomenon, and racism that Indians practice against other Indians is a learned skill. And could you try guessing who did the Indians learn racism from? Hehe, you guessed right. They learned it from their benevolent British masters.

In India there can be found a number of examples of racism practiced by the few white humans who live here or come here for shorter periods of time, but I would prefer to share the experiences I directly had, because I cannot convey anything else as truthfully and passionately as I can my own experiences.

Let’s go back a few years in time. It is the year 2008. I am hired as an English-Spanish interpreter by the Spanish Commercial Office in India. Along with me they have also hired a super white Colombian colleague of mine. We reach on time. We are stopped on the gate. “No Indians can enter the premises” I am told. I reply “I am the interpreter they have hired. Kindly confirm with them”. Nobody does. “Nothing really matters, Indians can’t come in and that is it”, while I am listening to this, my Colombian colleague who went a few seconds ahead and had entered swiftly returned to check on me. She asks “What’s the matter? Why don’t you come in? We are getting late.” And a mild argument ensues between the guys protecting the premises from Indians after which I am left with no option but to walk out of the premises and leave. My friend follows my suit and as we walk away from the premises, I feel for the first time what does it feel to be treated like a dog in one’s own country. Later on, we receive calls from the Commercial Office scolding us for the no-show, and when we try to explain to them what had happened, they simply choose not to believe us.

Fast forward a few years. It is 2012 now. A white colleague from Spain tells me in a cafeteria full of white people “You should dress more often like this” (I am wearing formals). “You look like a perfect waiter.” Everybody laughs in unison.

Fast forward a few years more. It is 2014. Our new boss has arrived at the Spanish language and culture center that I work at. We have asked for a salary hike. We have forced our unwilling boss into a meeting where he arrives with the mission of stubbing any fire of demands. He enters with the sentence “Entiendo que no se puede vivir como un indio” (I understand that one can’t live like an Indian). Apart from me, two more Indians are present at the meeting. They don’t even notice the words uttered by the boss. I do. When after the meeting was over I protested among my colleagues, my European friends tried to brush it all away saying things like “He meant this in this way” or “He meant that in that way”. All of that was tragically laughable.

There have also been several instances of European teachers letting white students openly cheat in the exams, at the same time strictly monitoring the Indians in the same exams. Also, white people can get out of the gate that is meant for entering, violating every norm, but Indians get insulted every now and then for doing the same, despite being part of the supposed staff of the institution.

There are many, many more examples that I can present here, but they would just increase the length of this text. I am positive that you are intelligent and have got my point.

So, just keep in mind that whenever a white human from the west criticizes racism in any of its forms, he or she is just being a hypocrite like they have always been, and are most probably trying to find a way to tell you how they are superior because they are not racists. Sounds funny? Oh, come on! It sounds exceedingly clever to me.

• Madhuvan Rishiraj

CODE

Every person doesn’t have a code of conduct in their life. It can be argued that one doesn’t need a code of conduct. However, some people do have an inbuilt directive that tells them to live by a code. They rarely violate that code and living by it gives them something that people of our generations usually lack: a personality.

I am, for some unknown reason, one of those persons who live by a set of rules, a code of conduct. Here I share some points from it. It’s not an advice to others, but just a desire of sharing.

1. I don’t get out of my house after 19:00 hrs unless absolutely necessary. I guess this one point has made me infamous among my friends as well as a target of ridicule. Why don’t I do it? Because my body feels insecure if I am not at home after this hour. I don’t really feel comfortable.

2. I never call anybody after 21:00 hrs unless it is absolutely necessary. This one thing irritates me when others do it to me as well. Well, phoning me is anyway irritating enough, do it at a late hour and you lost me as a friend.

3. I try not to be impolite to people. For me the choice of words can be a matter of life or death. In my opinion, people can be physically attacked if they don’t choose the right words at the right time. Hence, I try to be pretty careful with my words.

4. I normally don’t fight anyone, no matter what they are doing, but there are some limits which if crossed can get me in a fight. If I do get in a fight, I prepare myself for death and/or disability, and will never back out.

5. I never correct anyone’s language or pronunciation except for jokingly or when paid for. The habit of the people of my country of correcting others embarrasses me all the time, and hence I try not to do it.

6. I am generally punctual and unpunctual people irritate me.

7. I do everything obsessively and people who do things in a half hearted manner won’t get any respect from me.

8. I never argue. If I realize your world-view is very different from mine, I simply break all contact. We reach our conclusions after living our lives and an argument can never change anyone. And hence, there is no point in arguing.

9. I control myself a lot before making negative personal comments on people. I come across a great deal of people who outwardly and directly call others stupid, ignorant, and what not. I try my best not to do that.

10. I never make any negative comments about anyone’s choice or appearance. This I learned from someone else and the idea behind this is simple: nobody likes to hear that their choice is bad (which means they are idiots) or that they are ugly or badly dressed (which again implies that they are idiots).

11. I don’t give advice unless asked to. Giving advice to others means you are directly telling that you are better than them and that they should act the way you think. The only advices that should be given are the ones that are requested.

There are many more points, but these are some of the most important ones that can be shared. I hope we all find friends who think the way we do, so that our personal codes are respected.

-Madhuvan Rishiraj

LIVING IN THE CREMATORIUM

We all fall in love. But some of us are born with a true disability. A defect that is inbuilt. We are driven by love. And so much so that we keep modifying the whole course of our lives for love. And not a grand melodramatic love that has descended from the classic literature, but the love that lives in such subtlety that it is barely perceptible. Is it worth it? We can’t tell. For us it is, and therefore we do it. For others perhaps not.

I was born plagued by two diseases. One was obvious right from the beginning: ambition. An insurmountable ambition to become something. It governed the first half of my life quite ruthlessly and brought me wherever I have reached. I was about to catch my dreams when the second disease manifested itself: love. It was more powerful than ambition. However, one could not overrule the other. And hence love began modifying ambition, twisting it into other things. And I began playing with the idea of changing my dreams for sake of love. Let us not go into the details as it would make me feel too exposed. But here I was, a modified version of myself, living in a rented house in Delhi with my mother, with a dog one of my friends had adopted (adopted to my place). The place I lived at was pretty ugly. But I wouldn’t paint it, decorate it, change it, leave it or anything else. Why? Because I am averse to change. My dog more so. And, despite loving beauty, I had sacrificed it for the sake of love. Love for the known, and love for my dog. We passed six years at a place I detested, but was comfortable at. A place where I would not invite my friends because of its ugliness. Very few people visited me in those six years.

However, nothing is forever. Rented houses definitely not. Last year our landlords (an elderly couple) finally asked us to leave. They had to give the house to one of their sons before they retired. We tried to postpone the change. But finally this year in January we had to give in and we started looking for a new place. Delhi resembles Manhattan in its prices for property -rented or sold- despite offering you services and cleanliness of the level of Mogadishu (it is the capital of Somalia, and maybe it is cleaner). No neighborhood in Delhi is clean enough, no matter how much you pay to live in it. But one does with what one gets. And I had to live in Delhi, as my hometown is much worse. And I am not one of those people who come to Delhi to work. I came to Delhi to live here. I liked Delhi. After having faced severe regionalism in Mumbai for one year, I liked Delhi for its multiculturalism and its acceptance of people of any origin. The thing got ruined after my Spain trip in 2007. I came across something called cleanliness for the first time. I mean cleanliness in the city. Personal hygiene is acceptable in Delhi, though not always. But no one loves the city. In fact, it is not solely a problem of Delhi. It is a national problem. Indians dirty everything they don’t own. More so if the government owns it. Well, that was something I became aware of after having been to Spain. And I stopped loving Delhi at some point of time. Secretly. All this just to tell you that when I began looking for a new place I had to look in the “affordable” areas. I began with my own neighborhood. We finally saw a place, we paid some money in advance to book it, and we prepared for the move. I am a teacher, so on the day of shifting I was in a class. It wouldn’t matter though, because I hired a company to “pack and move” us. I also asked a friend of mine, Prashant, to help me and be present at my place while I was not there. The friend of mine who had adopted the dog, Myriam, was also there to help. And I was quite tranquil in my class, when suddenly I received a desperate call from my mother “We have to look for a new house, I am on the road, everything is already loaded in the trucks, and the house-owner has denied us the access to his place!” I was shocked. “What?” She said “he wanted you to send your original papers to Australia, he lives there, through traditional mail, and when he sees and verifies them, he would give us the keys.” Her tone became grim “I said that was not possible. And he said that he wouldn’t in any case let us live in his house. And everything, along with me, is already on the road. Thankfully Prashant and Myriam are with me and we are going to look for new house within an hour. It would be great if you could come right away.” I left the class instantly apologizing to my students. Well, I will just fast forward the story a bit. My mother found a house that seemed okay, we moved there and began preparing ourselves to adjust there. The first night passed with my dog crying the whole time. It was unbearable. But “unbearable” is just a word. Nothing is unbearable if you don’t have a choice. You bear it. We did. The next day we discovered that the whole building, and each house in the street had violent dogs. None of those dogs were stray. They were pets. Pets of people who loved to bully us when I used to take my dog out. My dog was bitten several times in the next few days, and hospitalized twice. Prashant and Myriam would come everyday to help us. The problem got so bad that we had to decide in the very first week that we would move from there once the first month was over. We began looking for a new place. After looking for a place everyday and being insulted by several house-owners for being from Bihar we finally found a place. Or so it seemed then. There was a place in the same street as my previous house where I had passed six years. It was very luminous, and big. We checked all. Finally the day came. Prashant was there as always like my shadow, like a true brother. Myriam had left for Colombia to see her mother. We needed somebody else to help us. I called into the scene an old friend I had almost fallen out of contact with, but someone I trusted blindly, Abhay. Abhay was instantly ready to help me. We shifted. We reached our new place around 12:00 midnight. After the “packers and movers” had packed and moved and Prashant had left for his place, Abhay went to the washroom and he came back “There’s no water.” And we went to check. At one touch the whole washroom disintegrated. Everything fell down. We became very nervous. However, the house had two more washrooms. We went into each one by one. The scene repeated itself. Everything fell down. And there was no water at all. We couldn’t do anything at that hour, so we waited till the next day. The next morning we called a plumber, who said the repair would cost around 40,000 rupees. We called the landlord and told him the whole thing. He came. He said “I haven’t sold the house to you, so I am not going to spend a single penny to repair a thing. If you want to live here, you have to repair it.” My mother told him that she didn’t get his argument. He almost put his nose on her nose threateningly and said “Then leave.” I had to pull him away from her and had the circumstances been different I would be writing this text in a jail for having killed him that day. But we did what we could. We began looking for a new place. This time we had only 24 hours. However, we wanted to do it in even less time. Every minute without water was a difficult minute. Prashant came again to help me. Abhay had stayed with us the whole time. And we went looking for a new place. After wandering the whole day we finally came upon a place which was newly constructed, aesthetically acceptable, and had a huge space before it which was empty. It looked very peaceful. My mother made up her mind and we shifted there, thanks to my friends because I was again in a class. Once we shifted, the first thing we noticed was that our dog loved this new place. It was very peaceful and had an air of emptiness which he seemed to like. Finally when my friends left and the night fell, we got a bit scared because the place seemed a bit too empty. The whole neighborhood. The next day I discovered that the empty space around the house was a crematorium. That was the reason very few people lived there. I also discovered that in the crematorium there lived twelve stray dogs who attacked the new comer. However, I have a certain aura that makes the stray dogs fall in love with me. So they soon became friends. I also began giving them cookies. Something I had learned from Myriam.

Now we know that we live within a crematorium. The building I live in is thinly populated. The neighborhood is largely empty apart from some vegetable vendors who live in huts. For the last ten months I take my dog thrice a day into the crematorium to take a walk and to meet his new friends.

Living here is markedly different from living at other places in Delhi. Before this everywhere I lived I witnessed rampant cruelty against animals, specifically against dogs. Here I haven’t seen the poor people once hit any of the stray dogs. There are also many of them who feed the animals.

All the festivals like Holi and Diwali when the city tortures you with scenes you don’t enjoy and sounds you don’t like (if you don’t live on the same wavelength as others) seem distant affairs from here. And all the animals who are scared can seek refuge in the crematorium. Nobody enters there. Nobody celebrates there. Nobody lives there. Almost nobody.

Living in the crematorium has made me so used to living in peace and tranquility that I will have to struggle if I go to live at some other place. Living in the crematorium has restored my faith in humanity. A faith that humanity will always be a plague for the planet. Unless it is dead. Once dead, it is peaceful and tranquil. Like anything else.

-Madhuvan Rishiraj

DOES BEARD MAKE YOU MORE OF A MAN?

Like many “boys”, my father has been the very definition of Man for me. However, more so lately than in the early phases of my life. I remember that when I was a child, one of the thoughts that were deeply rooted in my mind was the fact that I felt that my father could be good-looking if only he didn’t have a beard. Almost always he had it. That never let him be my idol while he was alive and for many years that passed subsequently. Little had I known of what was to come. Little had I known of what was I to go through. Little had I known of what I would come to idolize one day.

Today I am on that day. I look at the mirror and wonder why do I feel nude when I shave. I look at the mirror and wonder what went wrong and where, so that I not only want to carry a beard always, but also feel a lesser being when I have shaved it off.

Voices echo in my head. “He is just a kid”. “Hey, keep quiet!” “A kid shouldn’t speak as much!” “Your mother is a bitch.” “Say a word and we squash you like we squashed your father!” These voices seem to be some kind of a dream. But they are not. They come from a place far more surreal. They come from the past. Then other voices rise. Voices from within that intend to drown out the other ones. “Beef up the body.” “They can’t be cruel to you. You are more cruel.” “You don’t need to fear a thing, because you are insane.” “Get a beard like your father’s”.

The Vikings believed that beards made adversaries afraid in war. I have no reason to doubt what Vikings believed about wars and beards. They had plenty of both.

Women don’t like beards. “You won’t be able to talk to them.” What’s more important? Playing a beautiful melody on a flute or wielding a sword? A flute might give you peace, might get you some suave attention. A sword will help you keep your head on the shoulders. I take the word of the Vikings. I grow a beard. I don’t need attention. Life is too martial for playing flutes.

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a stubble now a days. “You won’t look different.” “You would have the same washed out look of some spoiled brat, some drugged child of some rich man.” “How does that make you look fierce?” I would have a beard that no one wants to have. A beard that everyone has prejudice against. I would have the beard. Not the mustaches. Yes. That is the answer. No one will look at me with any other emotion than prejudice. Or perhaps at times, they will. With fear.

Anyway, the child never liked the mustaches. They were the problem. The beard is a shield that protects. The beard puts one in the line of martyrs. Just like one’s father.

– Madhuvan Rishiraj

PROFESSION, PASSION AND PLEASURE

When you keep telling your inner self why you are doing something and your inner self goes on asking you the same question again and again, what you are doing classifies as your profession.

When your inner self asks you why you are doing something and you do not care, what you are doing classifies as your passion.

Rarely they fuse into one. When they do, what you are doing classifies as pleasure.

-Rishiraj

A SUICIDE NOTE

Life has been beautiful, no doubt, at times. There have been moments of contentment, joy, and even euphoria.

I have always been somewhat of a wonder for people around me for my capacity to remember and recall scenes from my distant past. Something many tend to either forget completely or remember vaguely. I remember, for example, sitting in a garden back to back with my cousin and memorizing rhymes we studied in the kindergarten, or science we studied in the primary school. Those moments were of utter happiness. Well, in those moments I didn’t really understand what happiness was, but later reflections have made me understand that those were some great moments. I remember, then, from my “post-father” life the Saturdays my mother wouldn’t let me go to school because it was just about extra-curricular activities and my now estranged best friend used to come to my home to play with me and we would talk hours about Martial Arts, Bruce Lee or forms of Kung Fu. Now I turn back and see those days as days of contentment. I was happy, though not euphoric. Then I remember some days from my not so distant past riding to Gurgaon with her with the winds making our long hair fly like capes. I remember the music by Kivirick Ali playing in my head all along the ride, and the tides of rum dancing in our eyes. Those moments were euphoric. So, yes I know what it feels like to experience all these emotions.

Also I have seen my moments of clinical depression. Trying exercise and meditation to come out of it, bravely as they would say. And I saw myself coming out of it. Several times. Till the episodes became less and less frequent and almost disappeared.

However, two things that I was either cursed or gifted with brought me to the point where I write this. One was an extremely analytical mind and another was an extremely free line of thoughts. My free line of thoughts made me independent and kept me so from countless forms of conditioning; social, religious, philosophical, educational, cultural and many more. I no longer think of myself with a background of anything. I don’t believe in God or lack of it. I don’t believe much in any philosophy whatsoever. There are things that are logical, but more than that little is there in which I can believe. And hence, my analytical mind takes over. I analyze. I analyze all the time. And my analysis of life on this planet or rather of the life as I know it has taken me to two conclusions: 1. It either has no purpose or the purpose eludes us. 2. It is based on violent transfer of energy.

The most reliable base for analysis that we have is science. It does satisfy some curiosities, yes, and I will have to admit that I have those curiosities as well. However, as Stephen Hawking puts it most of the explanations science gives have to do with “how” not with “why”. And my interest is “why”. It is to know what is the purpose of it all. And science not only fails to answer this, it also fails to ask this question. So, we cannot really rely on science for our analysis of the subject. With science gone we are left with religion and philosophy. Religion is a placebo. I am not saying that it is false. Placebo is not false. It works in some cases, in fact in many cases. However, we don’t know how it works and why it works. Moreover it takes something in order for it to work: faith, which I almost lack completely. Hence religion will not be my tool. Philosophy is something that is heavily biased in many cases and the older philosophical theories fall in the face of newer scientific discoveries. They are in majority of the cases not at par with the modern times. So when all your tools for analyzing the purpose behind it all fail, you conclude that either there is no purpose at all or it is unreachable.

Therefore, after having concluded that there is no purpose for all this let’s come to our second point: the violent transfer of energy. This world has a phenomenon called life. It expresses itself in several forms, but the two most visible forms are plants and animals, the flora and the fauna. In case of plants, they don’t seem violent, however, they are target of several types of violence inflicted by animals and/or by non living phenomena. Although, we don’t really know if plants “suffer” when violence is inflicted upon them, violence it is anyway. And plants are the basic providers of this planet. They are the only “producers”. They are the primary machines of converting minerals and other things into energy through photosynthesis. All other forms of life just rely on the transfer of that energy. Always violently. One life-form has to cease for another to continue its existence. It is the rule. It cannot be violated. It is what life is. Life on this planet and life as I/we know it. Some people find it beautiful. I have never found violence beautiful. So for me the very phenomenon of life is ugly.

Also, thanks to my lack of belief in any religious system I have never been able to give my species any special importance of any kind in the ecosystem. I believe humans are no better than any other animal or plant. In fact they seem to be worse in many ways. For example they are the only species that have something called torture. It is inducing pain for sake of inducing pain. Let’s not get much deeper into it. I trust your intelligence and believe that you got my point. So, here I stand ashamed of being a human living on a planet which is full of ugliness. Well, ugliness and beauty are also quite debatable. What is beauty? Something we are programmed to be pleased after seeing? And ugliness? Is anything really even our decision? Aren’t we programmed for doing almost everything? Appreciating certain things as beautiful, depreciating other things as ugly and more than anything else ensuring the continuation of our existence? For what purpose? Come on, we already talked about it!

Therefore, I do not crave or respect life or give any special importance to it. For me the fact is: I, one fine day, found myself on this planet. I don’t like it. I can leave it anytime. No fuss. Many people relate self euthanasia to cowardice. Or to depression. But it mainly relates them to their own conditioning.

Now, I guess, I have explained why I have decided to leave this planet out of my own wish. And I believe no one has the right to judge me for that. Although you will do. It’s your nature. And see how much I care…

— Madhuvan Rishiraj

Note: This text is not an immediate suicide note. It is more of a programmed suicide note. The day I go you can read it to know why.

REALITY

Do you know what reality is?

If you are not sure there is a simple test to find out. If you close your eyes and can’t reach a point in space/time, an idyll, where you don’t have an ideology, a purpose, a goal, an ambition, a sense of belonging, a name, a past, a future anymore, you are no longer in touch with reality. You need to halt.

–Madhuvan Rishiraj

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ DAY

India, undoubtedly, is a very compassionate society. Today is the first day of May, the International Workers’ Day, normally referred to as “Labor Day” in our country. Today is a day which is supposedly dedicated to all the Leftists of the planet; or so they feel as today all social media is full of posts about construction workers, and street vendors and mechanics and the like. Almost everybody is lamenting about the “laborers” and their conditions and condemning us (precisely everybody who is not a construction worker, mechanic or a street vendor!) for making these poor souls poor (pun intended).

Let me tell you more clearly about our beautiful Indian world view. In India everybody believes that first of May is laborers’ day. In India everybody believes that a “laborer” is a person holding one of the above mentioned professions. Indians believe that the word “laborer” is a synonym of the word “poor”. Ah, you wonder why… Well, not because they are compassionate to the poor. It’s so because they don’t see themselves as laborers. A laborer HAS TO be somebody extremely poor. And I can’t call myself a laborer because that ways everybody will think I am poor. Is it a form of class-ism? You tell me.

Hence, I being a teacher, working twelve hours and  a half a day, am not a laborer because I am educated, I can afford traveling in metro, I can pay my bills and I can eat relatively well. Hence, you can see that “laborer” has nothing to do with “labor”. It has to do with poverty. Instead of calling 1st of May Laborers’ day or Workers’ Day, in India it should be renamed to convey it’s true meaning: “Day of the Illiterate and the Uneducated”. Then it would be more logical to celebrate this day in this country.

In Hindi the day is labeled more rightly “Mazdoor Divas” meaning “Day of the Unskilled Laborer”. Because a person who works hard has to be someone unskilled. Every other person is who is skilled in some way is a tyrant who is responsible for making the unskilled people poor. And our five-star-suites-communists know for sure that one day when the revolution comes we will see the Judgment Day and the “laborers” will unite with their benevolent well-wishers in the lobbies of their palaces and hotels and the world will be a better place. Till then, we can just feel guilty for taking a day off on Laborer’s Day without being a laborer (unskilled worker) and making the true laborers miserable. Although I would conclude saying that I cannot help feeling thankful that the day is called “International Workers’ Day” elsewhere, where everybody who works is a worker.

– Madhuvan Rishiraj

REVOLUTION

Ignorance either goes away here and now or it never does. External factors can just inspire a bit, but personal revolution always begins from within.

Instead of wanting one government or another and instead of expecting that government to bring about some unprecedented changes, if every single individual began contributing at his/her microlevel, the world would be different. If you ask yourself “what change can I effect in myself today to make humans  better habitants of this planet?”, there would be revolutions every second. At least the revolutions that would really work in some way. Otherwise, world is just used to revolutions and counter-revolutions.

Just understand, if you want change try being a contributor even if in some very humble way. Being a consumer is just a fancy term for being a parasite.

— Rishiraj

NOT FOR THE ENLIGHTENED

In my life I have met many enlightened people. Not in the traditional sense of the word. Or possibly, yes! In the the traditional sense of the word. Enlightened, if it has to do with knowing the nature of existence, I am not so sure, but if it means not suffering and living just for the present, they HAVE achieved it. They just don’t think beyond what they are doing. I am not sure why, but as it appears they lack the capacity. And they don’t suffer because the aim of their life is avoidance of suffering by achieving social and/or political rank, by earning enormous amounts of money, or by entertaining themselves. The suffering of others does not affect them because either they have an inbuilt ability or a learned one of not paying any heed to events that don’t affect them directly. Well, all this just to tell you that what follows is not for reading by such enlightened individuals. On we go.

If you have ever thought of life as such (enlightened people, you still have time to stop reading!), you must certainly have wondered what its purpose is. Have you found an answer? If yes, stop reading immediately, you are an enlightened being! If not, then you are like me. The purpose of life, talking abstractly, eludes me. However, I do see two purposes. Concrete ones.

The first purpose of life is making life as comfortable as possible till you die. Ninety nine point nine percent of your endeavors just try to achieve that. The humanity as such is at race with itself in trying to get a remote control that controls another remote control, which in turn controls another one and that another one controls another one and so on and so forth. And by pushing one finger we would like to do all that we do in a day, in a month or in a year.
Everyday some new technology comes up that lets you do something more easily than you could do it yesterday. And you fall for it. Without fail. It is so “user friendly”! You realize that yesterday you moved an arm to achieve something, today you move a finger and tomorrow you will just think and the thing will happen, but you don’t realize that the energy that you saved will have to be spent at a gym because that saved energy is poison. Well, whatever the case, surely it’s a decent purpose. Live in order to make living more easy.

Another purpose of life is getting entertained to death. If you save energy, you also save time, living up to the first purpose of life, as discussed above. You just moved a finger and you went to the moon and came back! Now what? You had two years to do the same thing. What will you do in the time you are left with? Well, obviously be entertained! You have films, books, websites, games, clubs, discotheques, bars, gadgets, applications and many other things (in fact more than half of the things that you see during any given day) are there just to entertain you and keep you entertained. Constantly. This way you have the assurance that you don’t have to do anything because there is technology to help you and that free time that you get won’t be boring because you will be enjoying one of the greatest boons of nature to humanity: entertainment. You know, even our concepts of heaven and paradise are based on constant ease and constant entertainment.

So, now that we have seen two major purposes of life, we can go about our business with the confidence that we too can be or maybe already are enlightened.

Note: the author of this text is not responsible for any damage caused to any enlightened being reading this text. If you read this text and you were already enlightened or were in the belief of being enlightened, you should have paid attention to several warnings offered at the beginning of the text including the esoteric hint hidden in the title of the text.

– Madhuvan Rishiraj