...what we pretend to be!

Beware, we're what we pretend to' be!

(Vithal C Nadkarni)

The president of the local dub is a grumpy greybeard. His crankiness could be correlated with increased intelligence according to new research, which says older people with more intelligence tend to be crabbier than those with lesser intelligence. Folks with above-average IQ s tend to be sunnier when they are younger. They're more likely to be open to new situations but with age they turn into curmudgeons.

The moral is that the kinds of openness younger people need to absorb new information may be less meaningful to older and smarter adults, who've been there and done that, and acquired a lot of knowledge. The other possibility may be that the irascible oldies were just plain unlucky: had they been exposed to the dark comic talent of Kurt Vonnegut, who died on Thursday at the age of 84, their souls might have been saved for the Sun! Mr. Vonnegut's self-confessed goal in writing novels was to catch people before they become generals, and senators and presidents just the sort of smart but testy older eminences that we're talking about.

Mr. Vonnegut also said he wanted to poison the minds of these people with potential prickles with humanity and to encourage them to make a better world. For Mr. Vonnegut, who wrote such classics as Slaughter house-5 and Cat's Cradle, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, summed up his philosophy thus: "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Its round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies you've got about hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies, - 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.’

However, he's mostly likely to be remembered for his Zen-like phrase "so it goes". This ran through his books, appearing whenever there was death and dying. (Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died too. So it goes. And every day my government gives me count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam. So it goes.) It became a catchphrase of the antiwar activists every where who treasured Mr. Vonnegut as “the closest thing they had to Voltaire”. Now that he's gone (So it goes), remember to be kind. What if you cannot? Then just pretend. As he said, we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Spiritual journey

"A trip to the holy shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi is an enchanting experience, both for the body and the soul"

(PRERNA KATIYAR)

IT'S EVERYONE'S dream to visit the holy shrine of Vaishno Devi once in lifetime. For the believers, it's a spiritual journey. And surprisingly even non-believers throng the place curious to find out what is it that pulls the masses to its fold every year. Well, for me it was sheer excitement of taking a weekend break and the pleasure to visit a holy place with my family.
In all, it's an l3-km trek from the base station Katra. At a distance of 1 km from Katra is Banganga. To cross this point, you need a registration slip that can be obtained from the Yatri Registration Centre (YRC) near the Katra bus stand. You also have the option to get it online. This slip has to be shown while entering darbar too which determines your number in the queue for darshan.

Vaishno Devi is located in the Trikuta Mountains at a height of 5,200 feet, about 61 km north of Jarnmu city. We chose to cover the trek on foot. If you aren't feeling physically fit, you have the option of covering the winding path via palanquin, the pony or the helicopter.

That's right. You have the option of reaching the darbar via flight (How do you think most VIPs and politicians manage to get to the 'top', on their foot?). It's a delight to see the departure and arrival timing of flights for the shrine which says, departure 11:00am, arrival ll: 05am. But the real adventure lies in taking a little pain and going en-masse on foot.

The enthusiasm-among the devotees is mind blowing. After covering about 9.5 km, there is a place called Sanji Chhat, which is primarily a resting area. Taking a few breaks and not missing a cup of coffee at Cafe Coffee Day (It's even there! In fact, there are two outlets on the way); we hardly felt any pain when we actually got to the 'Bhawan'. And the Shrine Board has done a terrific job by making arrangement for food, cloakroom, accommodation and changing room available at affordable prices.

The instruction in the cave requested devotees not even to mumble when inside, but the crowd, who was so overwhelmingly charged, 'hardly bothered. And in the 'tussle of pushes, came the chants of “Jor se bole (Jai Mata die), aage wale (jai Mata de), peechhe wale (jai Mata de)
And while I was struggling to find the ground beneath my feet, literally, I saw two men on duty standing who turned me to show the real abode of the Devi. I had barely finished paying obei- sance to the Devi, in the form of three pindies on a natural rock, and realising that now I too belong to that 'genre' who have had the Devi Ke Darshan, alas, my turn was over and I was asked to move on as others behind were desperately waiting for their turn. That was fair enough.

Legends say that the Darshan is not complete until you Visit the Bhairon Nath temple which is at a distance of about one and a half km, atop an adjacent hill. So, we too decided to make it the last leg of our visit. Our return journey was a smooth one as we opted to hire pitthus (pony), feeling a bit tired by now. Just one last bit about the trip. Don't miss the langar that is served on your return to the base station and it tastes even better as the satisfaction in your heart of making it to the 'top' makes it a1l the more delectable!

NAVIGATOR

Air Port: Closest to the Vaishno Devi shrine is at Jammu. Indian and Jet Airways operate regu1ar flights to Jammu from Srinagar and Delhi; Indian also has two flights weekly from Leh to Jammu.

Rail: Many trains link Jammu to major Indian cities, including Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bhopal, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Base trek: Base for the trek, up to Vaishno Devi is Katra,50 km from Jammu. Regular buses and taxis are available from Jammu

One can be unhappy while being good

THE Tibetan Buddhist teacher Dudjom Rinpoche narrates the story of a fear¬some bandit from India, who, after a lifetime devoted to looting and pillaging began to repent for all the terrible suffering he had been causing. He began to yearn for atonement, for some way of absolving himself from what he had done. He lay down his arms and went up to the ashram of a renowned rishi and said to him: “All my adult life I've been a killer and I am now in torment. Is there a way of making amends, some way of offering expiation (prayashchitta) for all my past sins?”

The rishi looked the bandit up and down and then asked him what he was good at. After a prolonged silence, the bandit sheepishly admitted that if there was one thing he seemed to have talent for it was for stealing. The rishi replied with a smile that the repenting dacoit's honest answer was perfectly in order, that the skill of the light-fingered fraternity was exactly the sort of expertise he'd need now to save his soul. “Please go to a quiet glade in the Himalaya and try to rob yourself of all your perceptions. While you are at it, steal off all the stars and planets in the sky, “the rishi exhorted: “Steal the mountains and silver-topped forests and the rivers and streams too and" dissolve them all into the belly of emptiness, the all-encompassing space of the nature of mind.

With great humility and one-pointedness of purpose, the bandit did exactly as he was advised and soon realised the true nature of his mind, and eventually came to be regarded as one of the great saints of India. What this means is, like the cat, a bandit too can have many lives and not all of them have to be bad. In fact, we shouldn't also be equating happiness with goodness as many hedonists or utilitarians tend to do. One could be happy being bad as Duryodhana the evil Kaurava prince was. Indeed, for all the 'latter's villainous ways, for the Mahabharata hero Karna, the egotistic prince was a friend worth dying for.

Similarly, one could be unhappy even while being good, as Yudhistira, the Pandava prince was after the Great War. His victory was haunted by the colossal loss of lives and the many compromises the Pandavas had to make with truth and fair play to get back their kingdom. However, as Sri Krishna teaches Arjuna in the Bhagvad Gita, being liberated really goes beyond good and evil, to the root of skilful or enlightened action which stands for righteousness.

Difference between deception lying

When you think of human communication it is rife with deception, says Stephen Nowicki, a biologist at Duke University in the United States. According to him the reason is not far to see. Since the point of communication is to get information across, it presents a great opportunity for liars who may wish to get such information across as would benefit them most. Yet there are some people who attempt to downgrade lying to the level of deception by claiming that a whole lot of animals do it all the time too.Not only does this give it a convenient biological basis but also helps them to shirk a bit of moral responsibility in the bargain.

Yes, there's sham in the animal world. For instance, there are some caterpillars which look exactly like dangerous snakes.It's an example of weaker animal copying a stronger one in order to protect itself. That's hardly dishonesty. But what can be make of the male green frog whose croaks are more like real deception? These animals croak in order to attract females, the lower the pitch of the croak the bigger -- and thus healthier -- the frog. It also serves to drive other male frogs away from the competition. However, it's been observed that some smaller frogs frequently lower the pitch of their croaks too to indicate the same thing.

If that seems a little more deceitful, consider the shrike. These small sparrow - like birds routinely use alarm communication calls to warn others of the presence of predator so that they can fly away. Sometimes though, a shrike uses a false alarm to scare other shrikes away from food which it can then get more of. Now that seems like an outright lie which actually appears to harm others by depriving them of a decent meal.

But is it? Human beings, of course, would like to think so because then they can blame deceit on an animal ancestry. The difference is, a frog that alters its vice does not choose to lower its pitch knowing that doing so will fool other frogs. It's merely an evolved behavioural adaptation.Nor is the shrike deliberately out to starve its companions. Over time, natural selection will ultimately favour those shrikes which are not fooled by the false alarm as they will get enough to eat in the end.

With us that's not the case. Instead it's a well thought out and reasoned deception which fully understands -- and, more importantly, often anticipates -- the consequences such action will have . And then still goes ahead and does it. And damn the consequences. That's the difference.