Makar Sankranti

Often we wonder sitting in India, which is a land of festivals, what actually is the meaning of the numerous festivals that we celebrate. Some national, some regional and some universal; these festivals are actually the small elements that bind our country in a single cultural fabric. One of the many festivals that actually exist in this country is Makar Sankranti. I have heard a lot about this festival, and tried to find its meaning, however most of the times I only realize this festival either as a harvest festival and a festival to fly kites. Today as I went to the Jholi Parv of BAPS in Mumbai I had the chance to listen to the exact meaning of this festival and today I would like to present to you some very good words of HDH Shri Viveksagar Swami of BAPS.


Literal Meaning of the Festival:

Makar Sankranti in the literal meaning is the movement of the sun from the Sagittarius constellation (Dhanur) to the Capricorn Constellation. In other words it is the “Sankraman of Lord Surya from Dhanur to Makar” and that is the reason why we call it Makar Sankranti. The festival is also called as Uttarayan in many parts and this is because of the fact that from this day the Sun actually traverses from the Southern Hemisphere to the North. So it is a journey of the Sun towards Uttar and thus called as Uttarayan. Days start to become longer and nights become shorter from now on and this marks the beginning of a new year. Technically speaking Makar Sankranti is the actual beginning of the New Year for Hindus and all the auspicious works start from this day on.

Metaphorical Interpretation:

The rise of the sun from the southern hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere is actually a sign of progress or “Unnati” as we call it in Hindi. This is the reason why all the auspicious works are done after the onset of Makar Sankranti. The rise of the sun actually indicates the start of a new beginning, and inspires people to go ahead towards the rise of character and content. It is said that the rise of the sun towards the north indicates the rise of spiritualism in one’s life. It is very important to have a spiritual growth with the materialistic growth that one strives for. A person without a spiritual growth is somewhat like an envelope that is decorative in nature (with lots of embellishments) but then inside it has no content or no good news to bring in. The content of a human being depends on the spiritual growth and as long as this doesn’t happen we will not be able to traverse the knowledge era in full form. The message of Uttarayan is actually to usher in this spiritual growth in one’s self and to actually make people believe in the essence of inner growth.

Today the whole country is talking about inclusive growth but then to see it in its entirety where is it? India is moving from one decade to another and telling new stories of success. However, to think about it, only 22% of India is under this influence of economic development and is not totally sound. This is a fact that actually relates to the fact that there is a superficial growth and no growth in substance. The growth of a country is to be measured by the index of happiness and peace rather than actually how many people can actually go to McDonalds’ and have a burger or ride on a Mercedes. Unnati (progress), as we call it comes from Unnayan, or good sight, which cannot be developed until the soul is purified of its own inhibitions. After all if you have more money you can probably buy a good bed but then does it actually guarantee you sleep?

Talking about Money Vs Happiness is really cliché and today I really don’t want to rake up this topic, because me as a human being always needs money and happiness both. Today my point of contention is not about that, however it is about what is superficial and what is spiritual and full of content. We have many educational institutions in India, IIMs, IITs, AIIMS, but how many Dhirubhai Ambanis have come out of the IIMs; or how many Einsteins have actually emerged from IIT’s? How many Nobel laureates have actually emerged from these institutions? None, if I can count. So, these institutions, as they stand tall today with huge salary packages to talk about (embellished envelopes) don’t actually contribute towards the growth of the country as a whole. To talk the least, most of the alumni actually reside abroad, slaving it out for dollar dreams. Can this really be called development?


Makar Sankranti is actually a festival that indicates breaking the shackles of superficial development and rise towards development that is more stable and more contentious in nature. Today, the importance of this festival is even more important as everybody is having a world war inside their hearts.
Let us now see how different regions celebrate this festival.

My Gujarati fellow Indians go for flying kites. Flying of kites indicates the urge for progress, the urge to rise high in life.

In Maharastra, there is distribution of “Til Laddoos”, sweet dish made from sesame seeds to mark the start of the new festive season.

In Southern India, this festival is called as Pongal, and this marks the start of the new sowing season for the farmers hoping for a better crop.

In Bengal where this festival is called as Posh Parbon marks the beginning of every auspicious occasion by distributing Pithes or sweet-meat made of new rice.

In Punjab, the day before Makar Sankranti you have Lohri, where people actually make a bonfire indicating the burning of all old inhibitions in the fire and hence beginning the new year with a new hope.

Likewise is all parts of India this festival has its own meaning.

Today “Damn Common Man” wishes in advance all its readers a very happy Makar Sankranti and wishes lots of progress (real progress) in all of your lives.

Air India.....More Content than others

I was coming on Thursday, 9th of September, from Delhi to Mumbai, by the IC 602 flight of Air-India. Normally, these days, when you are travelling the national carrier, you don’t feel really a sense of pride. Nowadays it is more about packaging. People love to see the attractive air-hostesses of the private carriers and like to convince themselves that they have had a wonderful journey through. I feel that somewhere our mentality has become cynical, and we always tend to look critically towards anything that is labeled as government. While I would not call this entirely fault of the Indian people but definitely this is an issue that needs to be handled.

I went into the terminal 1A of the IGI airport domestic section. The terminal 1A is not a much modernized terminal like the terminal 1D in the IGI airport, but nevertheless I had one thing in mind and that was to make my trip back to Mumbai to join my family for the weekend. I and my colleague both were around one hour early to the airport and we checked in properly. We were allotted seats 31 E and 31 F, the last row seats which did not recline. The start was horrible. We waited in the terminal after the security was done and had some snacks. Contrary to the feeling that people may have the IC fight started boarding at the right time. Just about when it was 20:30 hrs, half an hour before the take off the boarding started. The process was very organized unlike the other private airlines where they make you stand in the queue even when the flight has not arrived in the parking. There was no rush of the people although the flight was full. There were ample amount of buses that took us to the aircraft.



Inside the aircraft it was a lavish affair. Although we were the unlucky bearers of the non-reclining last row seats, but to my surprise there was enough leg-room, unlike private carriers and there was a fully operational in-flight entertainment system. The crew was the most courteous. The in-flight system had number of options and there was no announcement, unlike kingfisher, that the system was not available for this flight. There were good choices of movies and audio entertainments. The dinner was just served right on time and it was far better than any other airlines like JET or KINGFISHER. The take-off and landing was all smooth.


Seeing this good experience, I often wonder, why our national carrier is in such a bad shape as it is made out to be in the media. Why is there negative media propagation towards the national carrier? Why do the people in general put the brand Air-India, despite the good service they get, at a recognizable position? The reason is our biased attitude towards anything that is government and our flare for private company glares. In all my life I have had the worst service experience from the private sectors. This is because the customer support (that they claim to have) is totally untrained and naïve. If you excuse me, some of them are not even worthy of staying in a city and attending a phone-call. On the contrary the customer support cell of any government outfit may not be flashy, but yes there is content. Just like you have in the Air India flights; there is more content and less display.


Think about it.

MNS ......sometimes they are right!!!!

Over the years there has been a brow-ha-ha over the acts and means of MNS (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena). While I feel that there is some kind of depth in the opposition that the people are doing for the MNS but it is only the one side of the story. There are many people who might find the ways of MNS to be a little on the assertive side or probably un-constitutional. However, having said that there is a bit of logic or sanity towards the objective of MNS however. This, I even say, being a migrant to Mumbai and staying in this great city for a long long time. So, why am I saying this? Why today when the whole of the nation and especially the educated lot is being censure about the ways and means of the MNS, why all of a sudden I am trying to focus them as sacrosanct? This would be one of the major questions that anybody and everybody would ask.

Let us address this issue then step by step.

MNS doesn’t target the educated migrant class unless provoked:
What I see from the history of the agitations that the MNS has been doing so far that they have seldom targeted the educated migrant class unless provoked. I am a migrant, working in Mumbai for my living. Honestly speaking over the years I am over here and being here since the inception of this political outfit, I have not seen the party posing threat on my existence in this city. Yes, I do get a bit disturbed when public property is vandalized and the processes are sent helter-skelter, however this doesn’t in anyway affect my personal existence and to be very honest, this is not the only party that is doing these things. There are parties, who appear to be very disciplined but are actually perpetrating more insecurity among the people in this city and trying to jeopardize public peace at the cost of public money. My comments are not reserved for them in any ways.

MNS is not against the migrants they are against the people who are creating a political imbalance:
Let us take an example for this. You are staying in a house and the guest comes in; you are happy to entertain him and shower your hospitalities on him. If this is not a guest and is a tenant you are very kind enough to give him shelter in lieu of money. However, you feel really intimidated when the tenant actually wants to be a part of your house-hold and tries to involve in all the aspects and decision of your house which is your own. Today this is what is happening in Mumbai. A part of the political lobby is bringing people from some part of the country promising them rickshaws and taxis and then immediately getting their votes and thus seats. This policy is creating a political imbalance in a city which is essentially a part of Maharashtra. Of course the actions taken by MNS may be regarded as un-constitutional, but so were the actions taken by freedom fighters regarded when the freedom struggle was on.

Let us understand one thing that we have unity in diversity, so what needs to be respected is both the unity and also the diversity that we have. It is perfectly ok for a non maharashtrian to setup base in Maharashtra and strive for self growth, but what is not ok is the fact that a lobby of migrants encroaching the political space of Maharashtra. This definitely creates a sense of insecurity which is prevalent especially in Mumbai and not in other metros. Let is keep this thing also in mind that in other cities like Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad etc though there is enough space for cosmopolitan thoughts to germinate the essence of the political sphere is very local and very resident. There the politician lobby doesn’t consist of a huge migrant population, which is prevalent in Mumbai.

The very essence of having different states was actually to respect the kind of diversity India has and thus to maintain the regional representations for different provinces. Any party that sees this basic thought process being violated by some loop-holes in our constitution is ought to raise its voice against this and so it is being done by the MNS. Having said that; I also agree that the medium of protest should be tactical and within the framework of the constitution so that there is a solution to this problem by amicable means. Beating up people and damaging public property is definitely not the option.

If there were more like Ratan Tata

My Grandfather told me once that it takes ages to earn respect and it takes minutes to actually lose it. One of the most important aspects in our lives is actually not the process of living but the inculcation of values inside the living process. What is born is a living being, but what actually makes this living object a human is actually the character that it adorns. I was very young probably 11 or so, but his words later found their own meaning in my life and I realized that this was told by a person who probably devoted half of his life to the most respected corporate houses of India, TATAS.

I could never understand as to why a business house could be synonymous with heavy words like values, principles and so on. My understanding for business was the mere fact where it is a process in which money is used to make more money. Money brings power brings more money brings more power. The bottom-line of any business house was profit and nothing else than that. Yes there was a kind of social display of this power but that was probably to make people like me and you aware of the fact that these corporate giants also have a kind of social responsibility which they actually fulfill. I was wrong. I was really wrong about this for one business house, the TATAS. Many people told me about the value practices of the TATAS but then I would not believe such high standards of honesty and ethics being practiced in one of the largest business houses of India. I was wrong. So what made me change my mind? Which was the incident that actually led me to take a complete rethinking on my opinion of business houses?

None of us could forget the bruises of 26/11 Mumbai attacks. At least not who stay in Mumbai and had to go through those horrific 3 days when the whole city was held hostage. The drama ended for many of us after the 3 days. The news channel stopped reporting because the show was over, politicians shouted for some days and declared compensation, which is actually the regular practice after any kind of attacks in this country, and life, as they say, was back on track displaying the true Mumbai spirit. Life however had changed for two people, one coming from the lowest income group and one coming from the most élite strata of the society. This is a story of the two. A hawker who sat opposite the Taj Hotel and the owner of the Taj Group Shree Ratan Tata were both affected in that horrific attack.

The TAJ hotel had seen the worst kind of combat over the three days and there was immense loss to life and property. A businessman’s’ nightmare is a loss to the property especially if it has a heritage value like the TAJ has. The property required a renovation worth hundreds of crores of rupees and some of the part of the property that was damaged had antique value which was not available any more. Ratan Tata had one of the biggest challenges in front of him and that was to restore the TAJ. This however, did not make him wary. The entrepreneur thought about the lives that were lost. Not only of those who were inside the hotel but also of those who were in the vicinity among which was also the injured hawker. Tata made sure that those injured were properly nursed in the hospitals and full funding was given from his organization. The hawker also benefitted from it and is today healthy enough to again look after his family. The employees of TAJ who had lost business were not retrenched, as it would happen in any BPO or any kind of corporate houses if one of the units would have gone sick.

On the contrary they were given additional benefits and salaries did not stop for the TAJ employees. Tata probably knew that business is not all about process it is about people, which very less people in India or in fact the world knows of. Tata knew that Human Resource Development (HRD) is probably more important than the contemporary idea of Human Resource Management (HRM). He also helped every family who were in any ways directly or indirectly affected due to the TAJ attacks not caring about the fact that he had a hotel to restore that demanded more than hundred crore rupees to spare. Where contemporary business houses would actually shut shop, TATA went ahead nurturing the employees of the sick household.

Results of these good works followed. In a span of less than two years the TAJ was back to its glory. The employees who were not deserted by the corporate house put in their best to restore this magnificent structure back to its own glory. It was a slap on the face of terrorism by peace, it was a victory of hard work and more-over victory of values exhibited by one of the most valuable person this country had Ratan Tata. The utter humility came at that instant when the Taj was re-inaugurated and in the advertisement you had the picture of all employees of the TAJ but Ratan Tata. He never wanted to come to the fore-front. This gesture probably was not covered by any kind of media houses.

For me, from that time Rata Tata is the candidate for the Nobel Prize. I may be a bit unjustified for that but then if a person can restore life, restore faith, command respect and still win a battle against terrorism with all peaceful means then he and only he can deserve the Nobel peace prize. I came to know about earning respect and still being rich. Ratan Tata is definitely the Model Millionaire of India and the face of India for the 21st Century.

The Damn Common Man today salutes this incarnate called Ratan “NOBLE” Tata.

Why has the institution of marriage lost significance?????

First of all let us analyze why we actually have a question like this. What happened to the eternal or assumed to be eternal institution of marriage? What is going so wrong with this institution, and where are the actual lacunae that are making this age old institution nothing more than an archaic philosophy?
I gave this lot of thought and came to some inferences, I would not call them as conclusions because for such a grave and such a time tested social practice, nothing can conclusively determine its end of life or its virtual extinction in metaphorical sense. What I really have inferred I just wanted to Jot down.

Financial Obligations of Marriage VS Emotional quotient:

It may seem to be a bit absurd but marriage has a direct variance with the financial obligations that it actually brings upon. Marriage, in its traditional sense, is more of a responsibility intake for the masculine counterpart than for the feminine instance. More of the financial responsibilities after marriage are on the shoulders of the male and the female is more of an emotional pillar that binds the family together. This concept, however is very suitable and very amicable in a deflated economy scenario, however an economy where inflation is at 11% or even more, where price rise is now a daily news bulletin, this balance of economic responsibility and emotional load sharing is a bit imbalanced. I don’t mean to hurt the fairer sex by making such a comment, and with due respect to them, it may also be noted that emotionally binding a family takes a lot of guts and courage, which is not a task that a man can do. This essentially is the crux of the problem.

Now because of a huge financial requirement both the husband and the wife have to share the financial obligations in the family. There is nobody called as the bread-earner and the home-maker. Now bread-earning is the portfolio that both the counterparts have to take care of. When such a thing happens there is a kind of void created in the emotional space. This is plainly due to the fact that the person who is actually an expert in filling that void is now sharing the financial responsibility and not able to devote time or energy to fill up the void. Also it would be inhuman for the male counterpart to actually expect her to also discharge her emotional duties even after being a critical element in the bread-earning process. However, in some families this is also happening to a great deal and this puts the women under immense pressure and under the onslaught of unrealistic expectations that need to be fulfilled.

This principle of the woman now being an active part of the financial stability and also the only part of the emotional stability of the family now takes a toll on her, and this destabilizes herself. She now has no time for herself or for her own upliftment. This makes her life miserable, even more miserable than the lives of various women who are actually being sympathized for their miseries that they actually face.


Man can never fulfill the emotional necessities:

By this I may be de-favoring the masculine gender, but somehow it is true. The male side is more logical and less emotive in nature. It is the identity of a man that emotive splurges are a representation of weakness and feeble confidence, which by the way is wrong, but then this is how it is. So it is very difficult and almost impossible for the man to emulate the emotional self that a woman actually carries. You can say that when God created the human being, there was a kind of a reverse psychology God used. I believe while creating human beings God never wanted to create them like animals. So if we see the animal kingdom or the avian architecture, it is basically the male species which is more refined and polished; e.g. a Lion is more of an attraction than the lioness because of the hair, a peacock is more of an attraction than the pea-hen because peacock is more colorful and so on. However, in the case of human beings the male species was the blue-print and the female incumbent was actually the optimized version. So probably, God forgot to put an enhanced hypothalamus in the legacy prototype and this makes the man less emotive and less prone to multi-tasking.
A female brain is always able to think in different ways at different times, and that is probably the reason that men never understand them. However, in case of males, being a more legacy and raw prototype their brains always go in one direction at a time, and this makes them more predictable and less emotional. Combining all these limitations it becomes impossible for the man to actually optimize the professional obligations and the emotional necessities of a family.

So in a marriage where initially the emotional domains were controlled by the female and the financial responsibilities were actually with the male, these imbalances lead to conflicts. This results to a paranoid response, especially from the female side, towards marriage. This is because it is the female side that is more emotionally oppressed after an urban marriage. Marriage for her becomes only a social sanctity for a relationship, which loses its significance as time progresses.

Fantasizing the Mafia

I was seeing the promos of the film “Once upon a time in Mumbai”. It reminded me of the smuggling flicks that rose to the charts of popularity in the 1970s and the 1980s. In those days people use the fantasize Gold Smuggling as a lucrative proposition for an alternate profession. Glamorous, filled with thrill and you get opportunities to deliver lines like “ye jung tumne shuru kiya hai aur khatam main karoonga” (this war was started by you but will be ended by me. Strong punch-lines and stronger impacts on the minds of people who looked for inspiration with entertainment in the movies and also wanted to be a part of this lucrative bandwagon were the news every Friday. There were English flicks like Godfather and Mafia to add more fuel to the fire and also lure the elites to have a consideration about smuggling as a profession.

Honestly speaking even I was not away from it. Although, I started watching these movies in the late nineties, when they had already overshot their prime times but I developed a kind of fantasy towards the life of a smuggler. I always used to believe that these people in flashy suites have their way in life, for them spending money was like throwing water in the toilet or even trivial than that. They never used to talk less than millions and would always have their ways even with the law and the system. It was so surprising to see a so called anti-social element being also revered by the society at large and feared by the system which was in place. Smuggling heroes like Rana (marte dam tak), Vijay (Dewaar) and Dharmatma (Dharmatma) were the inspirations of various young minds that were watching these movies.


I also used to imagine myself growing up to be a smuggler of Gold, who dons all sorts of attires (designer ones) and then leads a luxurious life. He only has his dinners in five stars and has more female admirers than one can ever imagine. He only uses the telephone to make deals worth billions of bucks and doesn’t worry to spend millions on his security. He always carries a gun, which is always loaded with lots of bullets. He has rivalry with a gang that is always trying to catch up with him but is never able to be as gritty as he is. He always wins in a gun-battle and is never defeated unless he is in love with this girl who tries to bring about a conscious change in him to turn him towards the path of honesty (how I hate such girls!!!!!!).


Such movies are really not made these days. These days we have stupid love stories and some really off the hook subjects with some sleazy doses of steamy scenes. We no more have dialogues that are spoken over the roof-top like “Bhagwaan ko yaad karle zaalim singh” (recall your God Zalim Singh) or dialogues like “Kam se kam apne honewale bachche ke liye to yeh rasta chhod do” (leave this path of crime at least for the sake of your kid to be born). We only have some hard hitting lines that hardly make any impact. I am really looking forward towards watching this movie.

Racism at its worst in India!!!!!

In India the word racism has a different meaning. Most of the time racism is actually favoring the citizens of a particular country, which is also a wrong way of interpreting it, but a very logical way of assessing racism. However, in India it is the other way round. In India racism is more against the Indians than the foreigners who are actually coming to visit India. Of course Indians believe in the concept of “Atithi Devo Bhava” (treat your guests just like God), however having said that, worship should not be at the cost of debasing your fellowmen. This is what I want to highlight in this article of mine.

There are many places in India that actually practice this habit of discrimination, especially joints where you see more foreigners entering and enjoying, in those joints the Indian counterparts are always given a measly treatment. To give an example let me tell you about Leopold Café in Mumbai. The café came to highlight in the recent 26/11 attacks. However, apart from the gruesome and condemning act that happened in the café that night there is a dark side to this place which I want to share. By this article I nowhere want to prosecute any foreigner who may be visiting our country. India is always a country that accepts everybody with warmth and affection; however I just want to highlight the amount of mental discrimination that an Indian actually does with another Indian.

It was a Sunday afternoon when I and one of my friends paid a visit to this café once. I had been a regular visitor in the café and a real admirer of the food and beverages that is served in the café. That day too like other days I went with my friend to have a good time in the place. We also planned to watch the formula one race on the LCD screen that is on the upper first floor of Leopold. In the afternoon there is not much rush so I just went ahead and we entered the first floor. We were given a table near the LCD as there were not many people to watch out for. There was this usual crowd of foreigners in the café who had also come to have a good time. We ordered our food and beverages and waited. First of all it took a long time for the waiter to attend to us. He was always engrossed in attending the visitors from outside India and didn’t even bother to listen to us. When he was free, thankfully we could order our things. Then it took him more than half an hour to deliver our order on our table whereas the foreigners got an express service within 5 to 10 minutes. We didn’t bother about this as we were keen on seeing the formula one race and were enjoying it.

The climax came at around an hour later when the café was virtually filled with people. We were enjoying our food and the race near the LCD. Now suddenly the waiter comes to us and urges us to sit in a separate table which we had to share with some other people. This was because there was a group of four people, from west, who wanted to have a seat near the LCD. I was furious at this request. It was as if we were eating there for free and were unlikely to be billed, or as if the other “guests” were going to pay them double the amount. It was racism at its worst done to an Indian by and Indian on Indian soil.

Sometimes I feel that the country has still not been able to come out of the foreign rule that was there in this country for 200 long years. We still have people who would rather prefer a foreign rule in this country than a sovereign democratic republic. The proprietors of Leopold Café are definitely one of them. I don’t blame the waiters because at that position you are more commanded upon than asked to take your own decisions. The waiters were just probably following the dictum set by the Leopold proprietors of just ignoring countrymen to foreigners or even insulting them at their cost.

The café boasts of being in existence since 1871, however it has just forgotten that this is not the 19th century India where locals were treated equal to dogs. Today India is one of the forces that is shaping the world economy and politics. It is a country of billion people with billion ideas that are capable to changing the face of the world and influencing decisions on a global scale. It is a country, where businessmen, just like me have proved to be competent enough with the international business scene. Despite all these the racist proprietors of Leopold only feel that we are a country still struggling with our existence. They dare to deny the law of the land and carry out their open discriminatory policies against Indian guests that too on the Indian soil.

My question is, how long can this go on? Are the torch bearers of this society not seeing this? Where are the organizations who are more interested in lifting the national spirit high? Why are they ignoring such activities that are happening in the most happening place in India? Will there ever be an end to this racial nonsense that Leopold is carrying out? How can Indians be treated like second class citizens in their own country? What about the constitution? What about equality in the country itself? Should we allow such racial joints to even operate in India?