TADOBA FOREST AND TIGER AND TOURISM

In today’s world, development has taken varied hues and forms. Most of the time we see human beings distorting and destroying nature to build a lifestyle for himself. Most of this development efforts are artificial, has a counter-productive impact on our lives and primarily harmful to nature itself since it is non-regenerative. However there is another sector where development is being tested through the protection of nature and natural conditions. One such segment is the national reserve forest.

Tadoba forest in Vidarbha Maharashtra is one of the several but dwindling numbers of pristine natural forests that have survived the human onslaught. In the past it belonged to the Gond tribals and local villagers inhabiting the area were primarily forest gatherers and agriculturists but several villages have since been relocated. The core forest area at present does not have any residential human presence and it is left entirely to the wild animals, birds and reptiles to prosper. Progressively over the years the protection measures have expanded with hunting being banned in 1935 and two decades later, in 1955, about 116.54 square kilometers of Tadoba forest area being declared a national park. The Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary was created in the adjacent forests in 1986 and finally in 1995, the park and the sanctuary were merged to establish the present tiger reserve of about the total area of the reserve is 625.4 square kilometer.

Tadoba the name has an interesting antecedent. Tadu/Taru was the name of a village chieftain in the region. In an encounter with the wild tiger he lost his life. The very fact that he got face to face with a tiger suggests that he was a very brave man. The villagers then built a shrine for him on the banks of Tadoba Lake which also speaks about the love, respect and regard that he commanded from his people. The suffix ‘ba’ to his name could either be an expression of endearment, or an expression of elevation to the stature of God (like Vithoba) or it could also be an expression of respect like a shortened version of ‘baba’ or elder. Incidentally the Tadoba Lake has crocodiles inhabiting its waters and is not meant for casual visit to Tadu Deo’s shrine. The crocodiles were introduced into the lake from a breeding center which was then dismantled. This has added to the vast list of fauna of the area.  

 The rich flora and fauna of Tadoba has to be experienced to be believed. The 600 odd sq. km. even though threatened by ever increasing human impact at its seams, is dense with vegetation and wildlife of different and rather innumerable hues and colours. Its 100 odd tigers are definitely the showpiece of this forest but anyone interested in wildlife and natural environment would never be disappointed. Those tiger tourists also avoid this forest in the rainy and winter season because sighting of the tiger becomes difficult. It is only in the summers when temperatures rise to 47-49 degrees Celsius that the royal beasts can be sighted easily resting at water holes.   

Tiger tourism has become the USP of this area. From right outside the buffer zone of the forest, hotels from budget to luxury have mushroomed up, catering to the unending number of visitors from across the world. In the year 2011, National Geographic made a series of documentary films on Indian Wildlife and one of it, the second documentary of this series “Tiger Jungles” featured Tadoba. That was the watershed year and since then Tadoba has become a very popular international wildlife destination. The hotels that cater to these visitors are a sight themselves. Right in the middle of rustic lifestyle of rural India, one can find and experience hospitality of urban lifestyle with very modern facilities. These hotels are managed by city dwellers but the work force is entirely local. Local boys and girls from villages who have been trained in hotel management take care of housekeeping and laundry, restaurant and food, swimming pool and playground, electricity and water, landscaping and decoration, etc. Certainly none of the village stores would be capable of providing the supplies and provisions that are required daily by these hotels and everything would have to be sourced from either Nagpur, Chandrapur or further, however this coexistence between the pastoral and the metropolitan at such close quarters is a sight indeed. The native idyllic life would slowly over time give way to the fast urban restless life in this forest. However I am not sure whether this is a welcome indication, even though the local boys and girls (some of whom were displaced from the forest) are getting gainful employment and possibly improving their lives. The one definite affect is that those locals who are employed by these hotels may not return to work on the farms, which could either be a positive or negative implication.   

May 2019 was my second visit to the Tadoba forest reserve and I visited once again in July 2019. Getting into the forest guards gypsy car always fills me with thrill and anticipation. The forest officials regulate the several gates to get into the reserve forest, the number of vehicles is regulated, and their routes inside the reserve are scheduled. Tigers are extremely possessive about their territories and females, and since their hunts are known to the forest guards they move traffic to such known and easy tiger sighting locations. About 40 Maruti Gypsy cars crisscross the terrain once in the morning and once in the evening in search of the tigers. Normally these forest officials’ cars stay on assessable roads and don’t venture into rocky and uneven paths inside the core area. Therefore even though there are over 100 tigers, merely a dozen are frequently seen. Currently Maya a female tiger is the connoisseur of all eyes.  Stories of Maya have become folklores, of her attitude, her many mates and her cubs. Animal sighting of is never guaranteed, and thus everyone classifies their trips inside the forests into success or failure in terms of seeing a tiger. Undoubtedly sighting the tiger makes the visit a fruitful one. I wonder, do other animals and birds feel snubbed or happy about the lack of attention.

Therefore even though finding myself under a massive tree fills me up with immeasurable awe and an overwhelming feeling, I can say with a degree of pride that my trip was successful after sighting Chota Madkasur.  Chota Madkasur is a collared tiger, a fully grown male. He was lying quietly at a water hole, one of the several water holes supported by the forest department with electricity from solar panels and remotely operated to pump the underground water. Chota Madkasur sensed a few Sambar deer’s walking towards the water hole that he was occupying and slyly got up, exited towards the back to rush and hide behind the bamboo bushes. The deer’s arrived within 25 meters of the water hole, they sensed him too and one of them let out a sharp call almost like a bark. That stopped all of them on their track. Slowly they backed out and forfeited their desire to drink water, even though it was height of summer.  After a while Chota Madkasur realizing that these folks don’t want the water after all,  came out of his hiding and sat near the water hole in full sight of everybody. This entire episode intrigued me. Did the king of this part of the forest abandon the water hole and hide because he wanted his subjects also to quench their thirst. Did he display maturity of the burden of a leader to take care, at best of the wellbeing of other animals sharing his territory or at worst the growth to full size of his future food supply? Or was it a cunning move to launch a guerilla attack on an innocent prey? I guess I would never come to know the answers. Never the less, what was in full display was that every creature preys on the other, stay near their prey, and fight each other for mate, food and water. There is an ecological balance in play in nature.

FROM SOMEWHERE ON THE INDO PAK BORDER

I hadn’t seen the international border between India and Pakistan before. Until then, an Indo-Pak border evoked two distinct images in my mind, undoubtedly implanted by Hindi movies. One during peacetime is a lonely isolated place, a no-man’s land, a desert with soldiers wearing broad solo-hats while riding slow camels, on the lookout for fully draped intruders who are supposed to be carrying guns and drugs. The other is a typical war zone with guns and cannons blasting across a barbed wire fence, soldiers running helter-skelter for cover, with radio transmitters passing quick messages and of course the quintessential loudspeakers blaring towards the opposite army. Both images until now had held a rugged charm in my mind; that this was a dangerous place and therefore justifying a desire to flirt with it. Foolhardy as it may sound, the joke turned on me. I saw unfold in front of my eyes another image of a border which involved tractors tilling the land within meters of the barbed wire fence (thankfully the fence from my image was present as the essential commonality representing the border) and a typical village with human and animal habitation, with a school hospital and motor vehicles. Yeah, the soldiers of the BSF were also there in the middle of this normal milieu. It was a classic so near and yet so far moment for me that there was no other option but to became wiser.

It was obvious that people had been living all along the border before the fence was constructed and long before the border was decided. Politics intruded on them, upsetting their regular lives and they have just accepted the new situation as always. Infact below the surface, I could sense that politics had to take a back seat and accommodate the will of the local population living on the border who would not give up on their land even for lofty idea like national security nor for ordinary idea like protecting themselves from gunfire. Though some people have been displaced others have taken their place. It seemed to me that the human spirit had triumphed over some narrow-minded considerations. It has always been intriguing how various lifeforms have been drawing lines on this planet calling something as their personal space. We humans take it a bit further. Not only do we have personal space but beyond that we also have community space and then national space. It highlights and celebrates our differences. We have gamed our psyche to accept that marking lines on the land would secure us our future.

I was in Rajasthan this month and wanted to visit the Naggi War Memorial. It was a first for me in terms of visiting borders. On way to Naggi my driver stopped at Bhullars place to take some local person along so that our visit could be fruitful. Bhullar is a VIP of the place, huge and burly with handle bar mustaches, who happens to be a big time farmer and at the same time a construction contractor as well as a construction material supplier.  There is a huge framed picture of his along with the previous Chief Minister of the state in his home office. It so happened that over the past couple of days some drug movement had been detected and confiscated on the border and therefore the BSF were not too keen with strangers. Bhullar diverted me to another village a little further away but right on the border and called up a resident of the village to be with me. That was a boon. A local resident is known face and worked like a charm in getting conversation rolling with the BSF. I spent an hour at the BSF camp and border fence. I wanted to write in detail about my visit to the border but the words of two wonderful BSF jawans requesting me not to go on social media with specifics ring in my ears. That they were Bengalis also weighs-in its appropriate share. They were extremely courteous and helpful to me but were worried about adverse impact from publicizing. The border at certain places like Wagah have become a tourist destination however respecting the wishes of my BSF jawans I shall try to go into a few facts without divulging anything which they wouldn’t appreciate.   

  

Here are a few nuggets from the fence;

-               - The Zero line or the Radcliffe line is a trench and represented by pillars of 4 - 5 feet each placed every few kilometers. The maintenance of these pillars is done by both the sides. The pillars are numbered, while one side looks after the even pillars the other side looks after the odd ones.

-          - The barbed wire fence is placed within 100 meters from the zero line on the Indian side with farming permitted upto the Zero line. The fence runs through farmers land but they have been compensated. While the farmers on the Indian side are not permitted to grow tall crops in excess of two feet near the fence the farmers on the Pakistan side have no such restrictions. There are no trees on the Indian side of the Zero line too.

-              - A BSF camps placed every 5 kms on the border with its watch towers has an intense patrolling schedule all around the clock. The BSF uses night vision equipments and flood lights all long the fence during the nights, the light from which is used by the Pakistani farmers to work on their farms during the night. Previously services of horses and camels were utilised but now it is motorized. The intensity on the Pakistan side isn’t visible atleast in Rajasthan. Their presence on the border is minimal though I learnt that they have a huge army base about 5 to 10 kms inside their territory.

-             - The BSF camps keep their portion of the fence well maintained and employ locals for grass and shrubs cutting mainly through the NREGA scheme. They inspect the Zero line frequently for telltale footprints of infiltrators and meet up with their Pakistani counterparts regularly over civilized conversation.  

-         - Our conversation threw up an interesting comparison between the borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Bangladesh border has Muslim population on both sides while on the Pakistan side it is so only in Kashmir. That makes the borders in Bangladesh an unfriendly place while on the Pakistan side barring Kashmir the rest of the Border States is friendly and co-operative. On the Bangladesh side the population on both sides of the border are related to each other through family ties while this isn’t so on the Pakistan side barring Kashmir. On the Bangladesh side the border infringement is mainly on account of cattle, textile and human while on the Pakistan side it is drugs, arms and terrorists.

-             -  The BSF watch tower near the fence is a two storied structure which offers unrestricted panoramic view on all sides to detect and monitor every type of movement near the fence on both sides.

      

       

      Returning from the border a few more interesting things struck me.

Some of the villages near the border in Rajasthan have alpha-numeric names like 5 SA, 11 FA, 9 FD, etc. The villagers call themselves by such alpha-numeric names and it comes as a surprise initially. It is as if the original names were coded and the person who coded them couldn’t retrieve their real names.  The reason for such alpha-numeric names was not clear to me and someday I hope to understand this.

Rajasthan is an extremely arid and dry place with little rains and extreme weather. However in Shri Ganganagar agriculture is the major occupation and every inch of land is utilised. The soil here is almost powdery and clayish. Bhullar tells me that the nature of the soil is such that it has a great capacity to retain moisture. Agriculture in Shri Ganganagar being all canal fed, the farmers are able to take four crops in a year. Wheat needs to be watered only twice before harvesting, cotton only once and mustard needs no water at all. I found that to be amazing and it is no wonder that farmers prize this land and are unwilling to let go inspite of strained relationships between the two countries.

Kalibangan is a small town near Shri Ganganagar and is an archeological site belonging to the Indus civilisation about 4000 to 5000 years ago. The ASI Museum at Kalibangan possesses some jaw dropping exhibits collected during excavation. The Saraswati River mentioned in the Vedas used to flow near Kalibangan before it was disrupted. The entire region was also rain fed and supported a huge and rich civilisation which traded with Mesopotamia and Egypt. The river basins of the past fed and supported the population and contributed majorly to the richness of the soil.  

Due to the river system and strong flow, the excellent properties of the soil go a couple of meters below the surface as well. One can see farmers selling a couple of feet of their top soil to brick kilns in the region who are several in numbers and baking bricks in huge quantities. Bricks have been the basic construction material for over thousands of years all across the Indus civilisation as can be seen from Lothal, Dholavira and Mohenjo-Daro.

A NATURALISTS VIEW ON INEQUALITY

For starters I am restricting this discussion on inequality only within the human species without including all other life forms. If I do include every natural being under the sun then this would be an opaque exercise leading to a vague nothingness because there is too much inequality around. Now amongst the human beings too, there are a lot of natural inequalities. Some inequalities are visible like colour, height, weight, hair, bone structure, etc., and some inequalities are invisible like intelligence, understanding, creativity, etc. Normal natural life is made unequal. However when we pick a backdrop subject like socio-economics as our canvas, and plot human beings on it as colours and lines, then we begin to believe that we can force a conceptual idea like inequality of income and wealth distribution into our minds and discussions.

Economic inequality has become a vastly popular topic. Everyone loves it because the argument is always a one-way street. It suits all of us; everyone wants to see inequality reduced on this planet since each one of us feels or experiences depravity in some or other manner. Every economist worth his salt right from Sir William Petty (17^th century) to the latest Thomas Piketty have rendered yeoman service to the idea arguing against inequality and have almost succeeded in brainwashing the world against the rich capitalists. The United Nations promotes it vociferously, the underdeveloped countries crave for it, and even the developed countries have joined the band wagon because they too have poor people living within their borders. We hear increasingly about governmental initiatives like additional taxes on the rich and corporate social responsibility in India, and also private voluntary declarations of philanthropy by the rich across the world. Being rich is viewed negatively and sometimes when the rich alienate themselves then it leads to situations like the French revolution. The biggest offence of the rich is that they are minority in numbers and the biggest paradox of the poor is that they all want to become rich.  We all love to hate the rich but aspire to become rich ourselves. Evidently clownish! Had being rich been the crime then laws could have been framed dissuading everyone from treading on such a heinous path. Incidentally and rather ironically we do realise the aspirational potential of financial soundness, it pumps the urge to industry, it fuels the desire to exert efforts, and it is the mother of creativity and inventions, all of which are the basic ingredients of growth and prosperity. Nevertheless in an absurd yet intellectual way we want the capable to generously sacrifice their benefits for the sake of their incapable brothers. We risk the capable getting demotivated and the poor getting lazy, a lose-lose situation. Anyway, this isn’t the disagreement that I wish to put forth. Let me take the deliberations a little further.

Is inequality desirable; not really. Inequality breeds exploitation where the capable exploits the incapable. Exploitation dehumanizes. Exploitation has its roots in greed and fear and is a vastly negative feeling. Not only do the exploited suffer but even those who are unfortunate to view the exploitation go through agony and emotional pain. This probably is the basic cause behind all international appeals and drive against inequality over the past two centuries. Correctly the target has been exploitation by the rich of the poor; wherein economic concept of socialism was propounded and legal frameworks were laid down to protect the rights of labour. However this has made the problem take another ugly turn. Let me explain.

Is equality desirable; my answer is a flat ‘No’. The focus and drive towards equality in income and sharing of wealth is showing solid and positive results across all countries. As more and more human beings across the planet are being pulled above some inconsistent poverty levels, it is having a grave consequence on the planet. Better health conditions, better education, better earnings are all leading to increase in population and purchasing power of the human species. Since the past hundred years as we have started living a better life condition, we have exponentially exploded in numbers. All of us together are demanding more grains, more meat, more clothing, more electricity, more petrol and diesel, more cement concrete housing. Our governments take pride in being able to provide it to all of us because being unable to do so, they face international condemnation. We have reduced on exploiting the human species but instead have started increasingly exploiting the natural resources. We have as a consequence increased the levels of greenhouse gases and global temperatures, shrunk the polar ice tables, are in the process of sinking coastal settlements, and have made global weather erratic and unpredictable in terms of high summer heat waves, dry forest fires, colder winters and frequent cyclonic storms across the planet. We need to pause and rethink about where this is leading to. Has our insistence on equality which incidentally was neither the intent nor condition of the natural world, made life on this planet unsustainable?

Differences or rather inequalities between the various life forms are bound to continue. Inequalities between human beings also are bound to continue and it should. That is the natural order of life energy. This planet has its own scale for balancing its energies. Any effort at disturbing the balance is dealt with severely and in the interaction of energies a new balance gets established. This planet has seen several ice ages sandwiched intermittently with meltdowns. Several species have walked on this planet only to be eradicated and replaced with another different species. Like every other life forms we humans also are insignificant and inconsequential. This cycle will continue as long as our sun continues to burn whether we like it or not. This does not mean that we open the doors for exploitation of the weak. Since ages, people from India have been trading with the Romans, the Egyptians and the Chinese, and these businessmen were always encouraged through religion and through their kings to donate generously towards the welfare of the common people. They did and should continue to do so.   

Finally it brings us to our eternal enquiry ‘what can we do’. Progress is fundamental to our lives. We all should work to live better. But the right question to ask ourselves is ‘progress towards what’. And my answer is happy sustainable living. Unassuming as it may sound; progress in life depends on (i) efforts (ii) attitude (iii) intelligence and most importantly (iv) divine grace.  Progress is impossible without all the four elements in good measures. However my insistence on divine grace is unequivocal because even if several of us exert equally hard and are equally educated, our results are widely dissimilar. On the other hand someone with little efforts walks away with fantastic results.  Better efforts, attitude and grace would definitely lead to better progress and they feed on each other, like a cyclic effect. The problem started arising when progress got measured in material terms. The ostentatious hoarding and display of material good is downright immoral, self-indulgent and counter-productive. One can argue that it has served to motivate others to emulate the efforts required thereby giving rise to a hard working society. But to my mind the long term result where everyone has the capacity to demand more materialistic stuff is very damaging to the environment. Maybe we humans need to wake up to the reality that we have peaked optimum progress and any further progress would work against our survival. Today progress has necessarily to be nudged towards general good, general happiness and towards a sustainable planet.

We have a couple of hard choices in front of us. One is where we restrain ourselves, and channelize our efforts towards progress in certain areas while stopping or reversing it in other areas thereby leading all our efforts to a sustainable path. Material goals should be shunned and replaced with planet sustaining goals. We have to reward the successes of individual efforts in new and unique ways other than monetary terms. Primarily it is hunger and insecurity or in other words survival which drives humans towards efforts to overcome them. Strong message has to be developed and percolated that our survival as a species into the future would depend on forfeiting certain privileges and confirming ourselves to a deliberate pick and choose of bare planet sustainable acts. Possibly some complacency and sacrifice would be called for from our lofty but impractical goal of equality for all humans.

The other option is to continue the way we are going. Absurdly developing natural conditions will give birth to unique bacterial epidemics which could prey on humans for its own survival and growth. That would expose the inequality amongst us since the weaker amongst us will fall prey first. We may or may not survive into the future but if we do surely we would share this planet with a few new species and with continued inequalities between us. Escaping this planet to colonize a similar planet would also mean the same thing. First of all only a privileged few amongst us would get that chance contrary to the concept of equality. Secondly for arguments sake even if some of us do escape and survive, our cells would mutate given the new environment where they find themselves and they may not mutate in a common similar manner. But then those differences would be pure science fiction to speculate.

F.I.R.E. Financially Independent Retire Early

A curious and rare quest, which all of us have always fantasized about, which a handful few have been fortunate enough to accomplish in history, today is being transformed into a ground gaining trend in everybody’s imagination of possibilities, and that is to earn loads of money quickly and then move out from the job market. There are arguments both for and against this objective and while it is difficult arguing the worthiness of this objective, the inclination towards this needs to be studied and understood.

Factually speaking, the quitting of job market without adequate funds stacked away has always been there as an option. People for their own reasons have always taken to being an ascetic or hermit since the history of mankind. All across the world since ages we have monasteries for such people. For them financial independence was never a constraint and therefore they remain outside the purview of our discussion. Nevertheless in the modern age of consumerism based economies of countries, losing a pair of working hands impacts the economy negatively. That person ceases to be an active producer and consumer. The burden of producing his food and clothing falls on others and that person becomes a free-loader without contributing anything in return. The other loss is of the industry and organisation which employed that person. The industry would have spent sizable resources on training and developing necessary skills in such a person and becomes a major loser right when during the best years in the life of that person to return favours; he/she chooses to walk away.      

As a concept financial independence and early retirement categorizes people into two major visible groups of persons based on age and responsibilities. One is that this has potential appeal mostly for all middle aged persons across the globe irrespective of whether they are employers or employees. The youngsters and the seniors also do contemplate becoming financially independent but the inclination isn’t as severe. While the youngsters have a long way ahead with unfulfilled ambitions in front of them, for the elders it is all about left over time for reaching their goal post at the earliest. The other is that this concept remains beyond the grasps of most of us because we have too many unrealized responsibilities to take the plunge into this unchartered risky domain. Undeniably since this concept is gaining popularity, it is apparent that people are getting straight-jacketed into chasing economic goals which is not their interest area anymore, or they are getting distracted and losing focus from their jobs because of the cacophony caused by the information explosion in the modern world and the irresistible lure of gaged personal dreams. In the modern world the demands of the job makes life rather sterile, bland, routine and uninteresting and it is relatively easy to locate information regarding the availability to learn and pursue a basket of other options.

There are a few other angles contributing to the spread of the early retirement with financial security option. There are special kinds of people who shadow this option, one of them being the most talented. The talented employee always wishes to quit because of two reasons. One is that the talented have multiple interests in life and the ability to crystalize them. Secondly the salaries for talented people have increased to such major levels that they are able to contemplate early retirement. Then there is another kind, individual who dislike working for someone else all through life. They would rather focus on personal passions since life is limited. All said and done, it is apparent that the outdated cultural principle of security of a life-long job is dead. While job jumping which is yet another matter altogether is quite common in every industry and economy today, the concept of not having to do a job at all for life has also taken firm roots.  Further with capitalism spreading and becoming intensely cut-throat, the work pressure in job life is extremely painful and telling. Though salaries are higher than before, employees want respite from the fierce competitive market place, the ever unhappy and dissatisfied boss, the late hours, the invariably 24X7 availability approach, the multi-tasking and the infamous ‘no time to enjoy life’ syndrome.

The amazing part is that early retirement with financial security is possible and people are actually doing it. The numbers are still low but the trend has begun. A new consultancy field has developed to help people plan their early retirement with financial security together with accurate future return on investments, future inflation, future expenses and a fair assessment of life expectancy. However it is a misnomer of sorts because a lot of sacrifice from the current lifestyle is involved wherein it has to be scaled down. The focus becomes to take life easy, slow down, avoid unnecessary expenditure and live in a simple manner. The essentially commonsense idea is to have an adequate corpus from where one can withdraw a regular monthly cost of living expenses for the rest of ones life, plus a shelter which is a prerequisite and plus separate adequate funds kept aside for health care, children’s marriage and any other responsibility. A residential accommodation is a dead investment but which is expected to outlast the persons own life. Health always remain the unpredictable angle and the person is expected to do everything possible to take care of own health. Exigencies like war and natural calamities affect everyone alike and are therefore neutral to this discussion. It of course goes without saying that provision for a minor source of income based on interest and time availability becomes helpful. Another basic and fundamental idea is that there is no need to leave an inheritance for the next generation and the person (along with spouse possibly) is expected to finish his/her personal life as he finishes his/her accumulated personal wealth.

The rather more difficult part of this early retirement with financial security exercise is to manage ones individual emotional and psychological health. Since it involves pulling forth the mindset of retired life a couple of decades earlier, careful handling of emotional and psychological needs becomes imperative. It is most essential to have an interesting thing to do with your time and energy so as to satisfy your own mental demands because not doing anything useful negatively impacts physical health. Each one of us being a social animal, always seek feedback and assurances from society about we being useful and necessary part of the society, which contributes to our emotional and psychological stability. One has to ensure that they do not bend into a defensive mental mode which could erode self-respect and self-worth. Further managing a healthy emotional state of mind is not so easily predictable and sometimes our thoughts and memories pull us down. Having a useful occupation helps to divert the mind from spiraling negativity and works as an outlet for pent up emotions.

PURSUIT OF WEALTH - BALANCING ABILITY AGAINST DESIRES

Economic growth and decay has been happening across the globe from place to place, from region to region, from country to country. Economic wealth and power has been shifting like sand over the land, settling at different places at its own rhyme and reason. Based on the limited known history of the past couple of thousand years and not necessarily in the correct sequence of time, we have seen that; once upon a time the civilisation in the Euphrates - Tigris held sway, the people in the Indus – Saraswati river basin held the envy of the world, the Egyptians and also the Chinese took over, the Middle East Muslims too became powerful, for a while the Mongols held the reins, and post that the Romans, the Greeks, the British and finally the Europeans and the Americans have held and lost power.

When we look at it from a philosophical point of view the positives that emerge seems to suggest that wealth and power is the biggest equiliser in the world and doesn’t remain the mainstay of any region or race nor individual for a very long time. Everybody gets a shot at it, everybody gets the opportunity to hold it and then pass it on. It appears like a supremely justifiable democratic idea where everybody is considered equal and the strongest or most capable person or group or race or region at any particular point of time gets recognised as the leader. It has become like a game of pass-the-ball around the globe and we humans dimwits at worse or unwittingly at best are being played with. Obviously I do sound negative about this grossly harmless phenomenon; my objection could be overly estimated but not unnecessary though. The pursuit of wealth and power has undoubtedly brought in material progress and it has fueled innovation and development, across the globe.  My complaint against this natural spectacle is both at the macro and micro levels.  

It has caused too much destruction: The known history of the world is fraught with wars and killings for the sole motive of seizing land, power and wealth. Humans either in regional or ethnic groups have fought each other, coveting or usurping from one another. Quite possibly the very first migration of the human species had taken place to seek independent power and wealth. The most initial motives could have been unhindered power or access over land for hunting, grazing and cultivation. With the increase in agricultural and animal production came trading, which further evolved into the exchange value of goods and the needs for common exchange standard using gold and such other precious metals and gems. The accumulations of such universally exchangeable commodity lead to the concept of financial wealth. Predictably this wealth got accumulated in the hands of a capable few which fueled greed and envy in others who were deprived, and the practice of appropriating and grabbing by hook or crook took roots. Humans when seized by negative emotions have never stopped to stoop to the lowest levels. Every action to acquire the power and wealth very soon became acceptable to the species and was very easily considered reasonable. Over time, wealth and power came to be treated as a commodity to be defended and all fighting skills developed by the species to be used against nature and wild animals, were required to be unleashed against its own kind. Most of the times, large scale wars erupted, giving a free rein to mass killing, wherein the pain and sufferings let loose on the population was accepted as a part of the game plan and justified under ‘no pain no gain’ ideology. Soldiers, weaponry and destructive skills too got appreciated in society. Even today we can see that there is destruction and suffering on this planet for the sake of power and wealth. Countries even if not directly related to the local issues of fighting, end up taking sides for strategic interests and supply arms and ammunitions to ensure that fighting goes on. Countries have also calibrated themselves and sometimes their strategy has been to issue threats of wars which also serve the purpose of bringing their targets to their knees. At the individual levels too, theft and looting continues unabated, and the scene has moved on into the internet as well.   

It has not brought universal dignified living: The pursuit and achievement of wealth and power has become esoteric in its application, in a sense that only a few accomplish success, are able to understand it and are capable of managing or manipulating it. The curse of unequal distribution of wealth has been with humans since the beginning. The disparity in the ownership or spread of wealth is extremely glaring.  Today by and large, it is commonly seen that less than 1 % of the global population whom we designate the rich class owns upto 50% of the global wealth (Oxfam 2015). It seems farcical that a handful (8 of them) of billionaires own assets equal to the bottom 50% of the world’s population (Oxfam 2017). The bottom of the population does not seem to have enough money to even scratch out a reasonably respectable living. They cannot have one dignified meal in a day, they do not have a roof over their heads, they are not protected against illness, and they do not have a regular earning work. We write about this, we discuss and debate it, governments try to reach out to the poor through poverty elevation programs, the rich take pride in philanthropy, but truth be told, we humans are not ashamed of this inequality. That is because of the philosophy behind wealth creation, that nobody has permanent rights over it, wealth changes hands irrespective of colour creed and ethnicity, everybody can have a go at it and illegal methods to acquire wealth are not unheard of. Such thinking legitimizes depravity, permits poverty and applauds hoarding. Supporters advocate that it is meant to encourage humans to work more and work smarter. We should however also try to rationalize that while over the millenniums the volumes of wealth in human hands has increased but we have not been able to eradicate poverty from human existence. We humans have entrapped ourselves in vague inhuman philosophies that we do not feel an iota of remorse when we see another human dying of hunger, illness, weather and war.

It increases stress and ego problems: I think we were very happy and possibly we congratulated ourselves about our ingenuity and wisdom when we conceived the thought of pursuit of wealth for each one of us as an enterprise to do with all our might. Probably we thought that our body and mind were mere machines which could be made to do almost about anything in this world. When we humans endorsed the pursuit of wealth we dehumanized ourselves. Undoubtedly our body and mind is capable of extra-ordinary feats and sometimes beyond our imaginations and belief. However each one of us has our own physical and mental limitations, both internal and external. We are not similar in our capabilities even though we may have similar dreams and aspirations. Each one of us is unique and quite possibly we may have talents which are special, however all of us may not be good enough to pursue the cut-throat world of wealth and power. It is a human tragedy and of our own creation that the chase of economic bounty has become the topmost sought after profession right from the moment we start our schooling. We have magnificently succeeded in putting the poet, the painter, the cook, the soldier, the cleaner, all into the same basket along with the commercial genius. Everybody has to go through the same grind, same goals and same learnings. We want all of them to earn immense wealth during their life time. While the commercial genius succeeds easily, the rest do not. This outcome makes someone extremely arrogant and conceited while the rest suffer from stress related health problems. As a species we have to do much more in building parallel avenues in life, unrelated to wealth and power, where the special talents within us are encouraged, highlighted and appreciated, wherein those who do not value wealth and power also enjoy the same status as those that do, where a human being is feted and not the ego, where life in its diversity is celebrated instead of wealth and power.

Conclusion: I would like to close with a thought that is very close to my heart, “can we be more than mere human beings?” We are not just individual persons. We may hold individual personal freedom and privacy very primary and dear to our hearts, but yet our policies and practices, our philosophies and strategies cannot and should not be individual centric. We need to balance our abilities and our desires for the sake of universal benefit and advantage. Can we rise above our parochial myopic interests, can we embrace life and all its dimensions, can we be sensitive towards the needs of this environment that sustains us, can we love and take care of everything around us? Can we?

THE LAST WORD (PART 5)

Over the past 13,000 years during the time humans learnt to take-over the reins of this planet, the two concepts that he has relied upon to stabilize himself are materialism and religion. Both these concepts are similar philosophically. The foundations of both are based on the understanding that nothing is more important than matter, and its movement, modification, exchange, for the betterment of living. Though there are other concepts like socialism, spirituality, etc., however they have been tried, tested and finally relegated to the sidelines because such concepts were considered failures in giving a meaning to and objective for living. Materialism on the other hand comprehensively objectifies living in a manner in which the human mind can easily comprehend. The importance that it gives to material possession, its acquisition and exchange, simplifies the process of living into achievable goals, into journeys towards those marked goals, and then share the experience which motivates others to move forward similarly. Whatever remaining beyond material possessions that humans cannot comprehend, he has bundled together into another material set of ideas called religion, where a God (or Gods) is created who is represented as the owner of everything which is not understood. Over the millenniums the field of influence of God has been diminishing because of the onslaught of science, however still a fairly large area remains under Gods control and suzerainty.  This God is also made out to be a material concept and along with being a benign personality God is supposed to be master of everything in this universe, omnipresent, onmiscient, omnipotent, and keeps track of events since the beginning of time, knows the reasons and can justify everything that is happening around today. God is thus an entity worthy of fear and worship. Rituals are worked out with the intention of keeping God happy and satisfied, so as to make human living easy in a transactional manner.  To make the concept more palatable, God is also personalized to suit the thought processes of certain communities and also regions. 

Today when we view the mess that we have created in and around our lives, we find that the cause has been materialism and religion. Materialism has failed us because we never visualized that in the course of our consumption spree we would be scrapping at the bottom of the barrel and also that every unit of our consumption would carry an environmental consequence. Materialism never trained us for such situations. Materialism doesn’t believe in the spiritual world, it simply rests on the groundwork that physical comfort at whatever costs is more important than spiritual values. It is time that we reassessed the reality around us and reengineered the living experience. To this end I have already argued for sustainable economic policies which can curb the unchecked consumerism and bring a balance between the availability of resources and the impact of its consumption. There are a couple of other topics that I wish to deliberate upon.

Let us bring the focus on spirituality:

Physics lays bare the fact that all objects that seem to look tangible are infact not. All elements contain atoms which in tern consist of of neutrons and protons, which when drilled down further are known to be mere waves without mass. These are held together by some energy which infact has a mass. At a nanoscience level these are intangible concepts and which have not yet been completely explored and explained. As and when more light is thrown on this subject all our religious concepts would have to be debunked one by one and God would have to be shifted to a smaller table along with his limited remaining contractors and followers. However the more we decipher the universe around us, the cause and scale of facts about the varied phenomenon in the universe would continue remain a mystery.

Spirituality concerns itself with universal life and all universal phenomenon as we observe it, trying to make sense of the universe at the level of the spirit, considering life and time in its entirety, embracing all forms of life, while at the same time acknowledging the unknown facts. All spiritual thought leaders lay tremendous emphasis on being aware and urge everyone for insignificant prominence to individual ego. Ego is an intangible sense of self that seeks and worships materialism. Spiritualism is more aligned with science and with increased knowledge through research is going to be of much prominence in the future. We humans have to move towards a better understanding of our lives and of the universe around us which religion does not cater to. Religion is dogmatic while spirituality is uplifting. Religion is narrow while spirituality is broad. Religion is based on fear while spirituality is based on freedom. It will reduce the single-minded devotion towards materialistic approach. It will bring about an embrace of all life forms in our thoughts and actions. It will guide in crafting sustainable development models for the planet.

Physicists also claim that energy in this universe merely gets converted from one form to another and cannot be destroyed. The equivalent theory in spiritual terms is that whatever goes around comes around. Whatever we give around, would come around back to us. If we pass around destruction, we will get back destruction. If we pass peace around, we will get back peace. Thus our life on this planet is grossly dependent on our deeds. At a macro level we can witness that our environment changes and hits back at us because of our deeds. At a micro level our personal situation our abilities, our health condition, our mental strength, the people around us are all a direct result and consequence of our deeds. We should call this as karmanomics theory.

Let us focus on a Happiness Index:

Happiness is a fleeting notion and a subjective concept. It is most complex, unstable and unpredictable. Because of the illusive real nature of happiness, it has always been defined in relation to other concepts for example a definition which I have liked amongst the several that I have come across is by Jennifer Moss, “Happiness includes contentment, well-being, and the emotional flexibility to experience a full range of emotions”. When happiness is linked to contentment, it is either ignored or rejected by the materialists because then it goes against their fundamental thought process.

Since it has defied a logical standalone definition as a phenomenon, happiness has stayed in the hands of philosophers, spiritual leaders, and religious contractors, all outside the purview of science.   However of late happiness has become important to several groups. Borrowing from the words of Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University, “Psychologists want to understand what people feel, economists want to know what people value and neuroscientists want to know how people’s brain responds to rewards. Having three separate disciplines all interested in a single topic has put that topic on the scientific map. Governments all over the world are rushing to figure out how to measure and increase the happiness of their citizens”.

Life on this planet is made up of temporary elements, temporary circumstances and a temporary environment; therefore there is a constant struggle to survive merely for the sake of existence. Happiness is a moment of balance in between the temporariness surrounding us and the desire of a continued and meaningful presence. The basic idea of happiness is deeply complicated but then all spiritual leaders say that the basic purpose of life itself is just to be happy. Due to its inherent complexities, we have been ignoring it for far too long and permitting decay in our lives in the pursuit of false and disastrous objectives.

It is most necessary to measure happiness, and we should think in terms of letting governments make rules to promote happiness in society. Let us continue with individual growth, let every individual try to be better, let every individual compete but at being happy. Let us give more importance to peace within our own mind, peace with personal situation, peace with the environment, peace with every life form and peace with other individuals. Let individuals with similar levels of happiness stay together. We need to recalibrate our lifestyles so that money can continue merely as a form of exchange, not as a form of social status. Let us engage in having a meaningful vision about our future on this planet, let us engage in creating a sense of purpose within our lives to move towards that vision, and let us engage in generating strong relationships within us humans and all other life forms on this planet to be fully happy.

Unfortunately like every other idea, happiness too has its opposition. People misinterpret that happiness is an end and not a means forgetting that what’s really important is the journey. Happiness is imagined to being cheerful, joyous and content all the time and always having a smile on your face but happiness is not the absence of suffering, but the ability to handle it and bounce back from it.

Concluding lines: We have to learn to love life in all its facets and forms, it is the only solution. We have to focus on the true meaning of love. We should love all life forms, love the planet, love and respect existence. Love flowers when there is respect. It is time for a spiritual awakening.

CAN WE TAKE A U-TURN (PART 4)

The history of the human species, while living on this planet, has taken several twists and turns. Our curiosity to understand and make a sense of our lives within and without is astoundingly enormous. We have experimented on so many fronts, starting with tools for hunting of wild animals, gathering of various forest produce for food to cultivating trees and plants, managing and using fire, winning and losing wars, staying in communities, systems of governance, creating economic policies, developing medicinal drugs, the list is unending. While we have deciphered quite a lot, yet when we look at the rest of what is around us, we realise that what we know is only a miniscule portion of the entire knowledge which the universe holds in its embrace. As a species we continue to make marginal progress on several fronts even though it may appear that we have come a very long way since the time we were cave dwellers. In this and the following chapter, it is my intention to flag certain facts, highlight them in a way so that we ponder over them, and which would show us that the path which we have taken is wrought with blunders.

We desperately need Sustainable Economic Solutions:

Economics is the field of knowledge which studies and predicts human behaviour in relation to generation of income, utilisation of resources and creation of wealth. It talks of humanity as a single unit and not each individual per-se. Therefore while every individual is permitted to behave in a slightly different manner, a study of their combined movement would depict a certain specific trend. When such known trends are mapped to prodding and specific stimulus the resultant predictions take the form of economic theories. Unfortunately all our combined human wisdom over the millennium has never considered or evaluated sustainable existence. When economists discuss sustainable economics, they imagine and take for granted that materialistic growth can be sustained indefinitely provided certain criteria are constant available and matched for example the rate of inflation, perineal availability of resources and perineal desire for wealth. Some very common understandings are ignored like the exploitation of certain resources causes imbalance in the environment adversely impacting living conditions, that the pursuit of wealth is merely greed and does not result in happiness.  Our materialistic economic policies have to change. We need to wade away from current policies that exploit. Discard them. Why are we juggling with fanciful ideas of growth and GDP, trade and commerce, financial and military strength, when we continue to have people struggling below the poverty line, homeless and hungry, tired and depressed, unhappy and stressed out? Why is it that even the most developed country cannot get itself rid of its poor? Mind well that I am not referring to the poor migrants. Why is it that in every country the rich continue to become richer and the wedge between the poor and the rich continues to widen? We humans have become insensitive to the point of selfishness that we equate the weak and the helpless to lazy and unimaginative. We humans consider that poverty is the deserved end result of being non-productive, ignoring the truth that our policies are bent to favour the cunning opportunist, the sharp corrupter, and those fortunate to be born into facilities. We humans are under the impression that there no limit to growing rich, but where do we find wealth making us happy. We humans encourage desires and dreams which are specifically focused towards exploitation of other humans and the natural resources that support us, but we have never stopped to acknowledge that we are cutting at own feet. We are all sabotaging our existence, marching towards self-destruction. The entire definition of development needs a shift from materialistic objectives to sustainable living objectives.

The right wing view point subscribers across the world are on the rise currently, nationalism and protectionism of small groups is a fear induced theory which is steeped in nostalgia of the past. Their time under the sun could be short lived. The future is going to be held by those subscribers who would look at humanity as a whole and try to work solutions for the planet instead of continents. They would have to soon take over.

Our immediate concern is that our economists should develop economic theories that maps unending human desires against scarce and limited resources, that maps all human desires to sustainable – non-sustainable categories and discourages the latter, that maps exceptional individual talent and capability to a respectable living conditions for all, that maps the cost-benefit of human activity to its impact on the environment, that stimulate and encourage enthusiastic sharing instead of forceful taxes, that prize and reward happiness instead of wealth.

Let us be more than individuals:

Each one of us needs to ask ourselves a simple rational question, why do we consider ourselves independent and individual, why are we not thinking about ourselves collectively as a species? Why do we assume that individually we can survive and it is not necessary to imagine a collective existence? If that had been correct, we could have atleast had a few dinosaurs walking with us today. Each one of us have become a narcissist and extremely narrow-minded. This has made us irresponsible in the pursuit of our desires, we have scant respect for the environment that sustains us, and it has become inconsequential for us that our individual actions impacts the environment and all other life forms directly and indirectly. Honestly and yet sadly, our behaviour on this planet has become like that of an alien coloniser, a foreigner from outer space who expects to go back home after mining this planet of all its resources.

Even if we don’t realise it we have to acknowledge that this planet is not our personal property. Infact the concept of ownership of land has misled us into believing that we can do anything we want with it. We need to accept that we share this planet with scores of other species lining on the land, in the sea and in the air. We are responsible to keep this planet intact and viable for other creatures, like the insects, animals, birds, fishes, plants, trees and also micro-organisms like bacteria, to survive.  Over the ages we have never given any major importance to such a thought. We fight with animals over forest land and easily dispose them off instead of curtailing our needs. We have cut and destroyed trees to make furniture and paper instead of restricting our needs. We have breed birds and animals to kill them just to feed ourselves instead of curbing our appetite.  We have polluted the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel instead of limiting our desires.

We give so much of prominence to the satisfaction and fulfilment of our individual desires that we have waged war with our own kind over land, power and gold. Such has been the strength of our irresponsible attitude that it isn’t too hard to imagine that in the immediate future we could be once again going to war against ourselves over shortage of liveable habitats and water just to survive. When it comes to gratification of our desires, there are no full-stops. Our recklessness and arrogance has brought about situations where our survival is at stake, and when it comes to survival we think very individualistically. Today we can witness our narrowmindedness which has brought forth protectionism and the refusal to accept migrants, building up tension internationally.

There is a desperate need to consider a U-turn on our thinking and our policies. Let each one of us aspire to be a better human, willing to sacrifice our personal cravings for the common good of all creatures partaking this planet with us.

Understand nature, understand the nature of energy.

Primarily we humans need to markdown ourselves, our self-importance and ego. We need to scale down our pomposity.  We consider ourselves as all powerful on this planet. It could come as a shock to an average human if he is explained that at the micro level all his physicality consists of mere waves and nothing solid. Scientists are clear that all particles on this planet can be broken down into atoms and at the minutest level these are waves bound together by some energy which give them certain characteristics. Scientists say that they have been able to understand a miniscule 5% of what life and its surroundings are. This makes us insignificant to the scheme of the universe and if truth is to be told then it is that ‘we hardly matter’. Yet we humans remain happily ignorant and indifferent to this reality. Spiritual thought leaders have also been saying the same things that life has no essential meaning but we humans chose to align ourselves towards religion which gives us an artificial purpose for living.

Everything on this planet is purely energy. This energy changes from one form to another but cannot be destroyed and doesn’t disappear. Change in energies is sometimes a normal process for example the eating and digestion of food inside the body, or the evaporation of water and its downpour as rain. During changes certain energies can coexist for example plants using water and sunlight to grow while other end up destroying each other for example fire burns the forest into ashes. When we humans in the quest of our satisfying our desires, go about mindlessly and quickly converting energies without assessing the impact that it has on the planet and over our life and lives of all creatures sharing this planet with us, we carry a great risk of bringing about situations which are non-reversible in nature and the resultant form of energy won’t accept us nor permit us to coexist. The life energy around and within us would then mutate itself, giving rise to new species and quite possibly we humans may cease to exist. We therefore need to balance. Balance our needs and desires, balance the energies and their compatibilities, and balance our comforts and our well-being, our existence along with those of other species on this planet. This is the only planet and the only environment where we can exist and survive, because the design of life and living organisms on this planet is unique, which is dependent on the environment available. Even if we humans wish to colonise another planet then we won’t continue to remain the same and rather the energy within us would mutate to become compatible with the environment of the other planet.


(To be continued)

THE GOOD THAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED (PART 3)

Having discussed the adverse fallouts of our precipitous existence on this planet let us now look at whatever can be considered as positive impacts or consequences of our prodigious evolution. When we consider a broad birds-eye view of human presence on Earth one thing is very clear that all through time humans have always been living for the present moment, innocently albeit rather irrationally. Assuming (since there is no evidence) that there were no equal or more intelligent life forms who walked this planet before us, who could visualise about the future and could plan for a sustainable survival, it is very apparent that every life forms were created and destroyed by the forces of nature and the predatory behaviour of other life forms.  We humans too do not deserve to suffer a different fate. As long as we survive, we would continue to focus on satisfying our immediate needs with all our might. 

Notwithstanding the collateral damage that such a narrow, imprudent, single-minded endeavour generates, we humans have also managed to pull off certain extraordinary feats which have helped us to pull along for over 13,000 years. These features have developed slowly over the millenniums and we definitely deserve to take credit and a bow.

Getting better at Synchronized-Living

Controversial though it may sound, I consider that we humans have been evolving from being selfish freaks. Let us look at this from the aspect of urbanization. From the time when we were hunters-gatherers-cave dwellers to the time when we learnt to live in nomadic small groups, onward to vagabond communities, then with the advent of agriculture into villages and subsequently with trade commerce into towns and finally with industrialization we developed metropolitan cities, we have gradually and in a subtle manner been learning that more we help each other the more we make our personal lives better. The common narrative is a lamentation that smaller societies of villages and towns have a more personal touch; folks knew each other and were eager to help in times of need. It follows that in cities people have become impersonal, out of touch with each other, and after the invention of smart phone with internet people have gone into their individual personal cocoons, oblivious to the plight of his fellow citizen. However I see it differently. No community, village, town or metro city can survive without a major arrangement for things like water supply, sewage handling, roads, cleanliness, etc. All these tasks need to be organised. A governing body becomes essential, elections become essential. Even during the early days of human evolution, say 6000 – 8000 years ago, during the times Mesopotamian and Indus civilisations flourished and traded with each other through land and sea, and much later even before the dawn of electricity, towns had their common cultural practices, place of worship and religious practices, people who were skilled in different tasks, production and distribution of food produce, taxes, etc., we humans were evolving slowly to coexist better. Collective living is a creature, a wild animal, which needs planning, handling and care. Today considering the size of cities and the volumes of population which they cater to, doesn’t make the administration any simpler, rather with varied heightened needs, demands and the enormous scale, it has become extremely complex. And yet cities survive and attract more and more population. This, what we call urbanization one such feat and it cannot be achieved through selfishness. Sharing of work, making individual compromises for a common good, shouldering responsibilities and becoming accountable is a must. Of course we have had monarchies, we had individuals with gigantic egos, we have seen wars, we have seen rage and rampage, invasion and destruction for satisfaction of personal ego, but such behavior has been reducing in proportion though not wiped out. By and large, we are witness to the fact that majority people are peace loving, compassionate, willing to compromise, and the proportion of such people has been increasing over the ages.

Insatiable urge for Innovation

Innovation is the discovery of a better or refined process, product or thought aimed at making living easier, and whose primary intent is enabling ease of achieving ones desires. Innovation is the fruit from the churning of intelligence, the crown of human endeavor. The earliest innovations could be identified as fire, use of colour in cave hieroglyphs, sharpening stone tools, the wheel and the concept of God and religion. Later on innovations came in the form of came spoken language, agriculture, molding various metals into tools, gourmet culinary, garment clothing, two-storied buildings, barter system, herbal medicines and medical procedures, and also the concept of marriage. Much later originated the written languages, medicinal drugs, telephone, electricity, steam and combustion engine, widespread use of plastic, etc. The striving for innovation continues and we have seen how the modern internet has changed life on this planet.  

Once upon a time innovation was an innocent advancement of ideas meant undoubtedly to make human life easier, however over the past couple of centuries especially post the industrial revolution, innovation has adopted a pseudonym and is disguised in two different ways; it has now become synonymous with Science and it is fashionably undertaken to exploit some commercial value. This makes it counterproductive and instead of making life easier it is become a tool for exploitation and to stifle a sustainable lifestyle. Further we waste a lot of resources in the pursuit of innovation. Some of the innovations are unhealthy but their ill effects are known only in the long run and not immediately.

Nevertheless we have to acknowledge that innovation and technology advancements has led to increase in production and therefore also the reduction in prices, thus enabling consumption by waste majority of human population. Producers taking advantage under monopolistic conditions find it difficult. Innovation in the field of health care has helped several of us to lead a better life. Education has spread widely and we humans have become more aware of our surroundings and what it takes to develop a new product or process.

A rather strange spectacle that can be seen on our planet is that all kinds of development spread out pretty fast across to all continents. It is naïve to assume that innovations took root simultaneously at several places. But it is quite apparent that all new ideas were and are being used in every corner of Earth. Let us take the example of large scale farming of a particular produce or crop. It is irrelevant whether it was the Neanderthals or the Humanoids who first practiced this, but cropping based agriculture did not remain contained to one single region.

Spread of Material Prosperity

An overwhelming majority of us human live for and swear by materialistic conditions. Progress for us means unadulterated materialism. All our efforts right from the time we learn to handle ourselves is directed towards improving the material conditions of our lives and those around us. We call ourselves prosperous by the amount of money we earn, and have managed to put away, by the size of our houses, cars, and other gadgets, by the texture and quantity of our clothing and food. We value monetary abundance as richness and the sole purpose of living.  To that extent we can say that money is a great leveler. It reaches every person who wishes to pursue it and do not remain the domain of a few.

From such a perspective, post the WW2, on a very general and generous scale, it can be said that the human population has grown in wealth and become healthy and are living longer. Notwithstanding the fact that there are still pockets of poverty widespread on this planet, the number of people living a reasonably good quality of life is much more than ever. The general levels of money in circulation have increased across most territories and the people living in isolation and in destitute conditions are proportionately less. We critically analyze the rate of growth in each country, but we overlook the fact that the size of GDP has been increasing along with and inspite of the increase in population. Obviously the GDP is owned by the people and it is they who are contributing towards it.

Even when we look at the economically weaker sections of society, there is a fairly decent public distribution system in place for food and health in most countries today. Food, medicine and health reach all those who cannot afford to spend a lot of money. Of course there is a handsome level of corruption which goes hand in hand, but for the moment let us chose to keep that aside. Avoidance of death of a human being due to hunger and lack of medical facilities has been a major cherished governmental aim across the continents. How so much ever we may argue about the manner and extent of these goals, and undoubtedly there is immense scope for improvement, but their utility and achievement cannot be denied.


                                                                            To be continued...........