The art of lying .
The easiest way to show yourself as taller than your opponent is to show them down or even better, cut them down . This is an accepted corporate strategy for self advertisement . We have also seen such trashing of competitors and opponents regularly by politicians too , in their game of one-upmanship. Since a lot of brand value , money and power is at stake , both in business as well as politics , we are not surprised , even though we may dislike , such show of silly competitive banters and grudgingly accept them as a part of the package.
But when a man claiming himself to be an apostle of peace and a holy person involved in bettering the lives of millions try to denigrate and trash the efforts and achievements of a young teenaged girl it really sucks . The frustrations of a lifetime gushes forth from the statements of this so called spiritual guru when he talks of not being interested in accepting the Nobel peace prize . As if his claim on it is a natural corollary or a right over some paternal property . The old fable of the fox declaring grapes as sour immediately comes to the mind. It is not clear when or why the Nobel prize committee had approached him to honour the prize by adding his name to the list of recipients. But of course , big things happen to big people only, in a bigger way. One wonders - if his meditation can't control his own frustrations and cure him of his avarice and jealousy, then how will it help the followers ?
What is not clear is why, being such a big shot that he is , he should pick up a young girl as a reference point for his displeasure . Last heard , he tried to broker some peace deal with the ISIS , who rebuffed him in their terse and abominable way by sending the photograph of a severed head . This prompted him to call off his efforts , probably directed towards getting nominated for the Nobel peace prize. Earlier one of his friends had air dropped himself , apparently unannounced, as we have been asked to believe, bang into a fat Pakistani wedding as part of a peace process . That effort to grab the Nobel peace prize had also met with a bad experience . But people may say , there's no harm in trying and rightly so.
This particular gentleman has recently been slapped a fine of Rs 5 Crs for depredation of river banks. To get his work done he paid Rs 25 lacs while promising to pay the remainder later . Till now he has not paid the remaining amount and is now stridently refusing to do so . His claim to fame is the large chain of franchised meditation techniques and feel good gospels for the upwardly mobile middle class and upper class which rakes in large sums of money to him . Like his contemporary who has graduated from being a yoga exponent to an industrialist this self styled holy man has the backing of the highest ranking politicians and industrialists of the country . Their services are often used as power brokers . Of late these people have moved from the fringe to the centre of the national discourses covering a wide range of issues. In short they have their finger in every pie.
The presence of people peddling feel good advices, concepts and physical exercises are necessary and accepted fact of life in this age of stress , particularly in a country like ours which is rapidly modernising . But the sad part is that the feudal and traditional structure of our society is amalgamating the adulation for these peddlers of hope with the age old culture of subservience and dogma in raising them to high pedestals . This gives them the handle to dominate the national narrative by negotiating their influence as power brokers . And excellent platform for networking by the clever among their followers.
Surprisingly, so called education or lack of it has nothing to do with all this . Because most followers of these so called self styled gurus and babas are literate . These god-men thrive on the insecurities of people and the followers are hooked to them on this particular point . Being rational has always been dangerous to the life and sanity for individuals over the ages and across countries .
The success of these fakes prove that the world is just a Maya , A myth where truth and facts are to be seen in the perspective of different dimensions as presented by the conjuror before the beguiled audience. And obliged to clap as the show goes on.
The easiest way to show yourself as taller than your opponent is to show them down or even better, cut them down . This is an accepted corporate strategy for self advertisement . We have also seen such trashing of competitors and opponents regularly by politicians too , in their game of one-upmanship. Since a lot of brand value , money and power is at stake , both in business as well as politics , we are not surprised , even though we may dislike , such show of silly competitive banters and grudgingly accept them as a part of the package.
But when a man claiming himself to be an apostle of peace and a holy person involved in bettering the lives of millions try to denigrate and trash the efforts and achievements of a young teenaged girl it really sucks . The frustrations of a lifetime gushes forth from the statements of this so called spiritual guru when he talks of not being interested in accepting the Nobel peace prize . As if his claim on it is a natural corollary or a right over some paternal property . The old fable of the fox declaring grapes as sour immediately comes to the mind. It is not clear when or why the Nobel prize committee had approached him to honour the prize by adding his name to the list of recipients. But of course , big things happen to big people only, in a bigger way. One wonders - if his meditation can't control his own frustrations and cure him of his avarice and jealousy, then how will it help the followers ?
What is not clear is why, being such a big shot that he is , he should pick up a young girl as a reference point for his displeasure . Last heard , he tried to broker some peace deal with the ISIS , who rebuffed him in their terse and abominable way by sending the photograph of a severed head . This prompted him to call off his efforts , probably directed towards getting nominated for the Nobel peace prize. Earlier one of his friends had air dropped himself , apparently unannounced, as we have been asked to believe, bang into a fat Pakistani wedding as part of a peace process . That effort to grab the Nobel peace prize had also met with a bad experience . But people may say , there's no harm in trying and rightly so.
This particular gentleman has recently been slapped a fine of Rs 5 Crs for depredation of river banks. To get his work done he paid Rs 25 lacs while promising to pay the remainder later . Till now he has not paid the remaining amount and is now stridently refusing to do so . His claim to fame is the large chain of franchised meditation techniques and feel good gospels for the upwardly mobile middle class and upper class which rakes in large sums of money to him . Like his contemporary who has graduated from being a yoga exponent to an industrialist this self styled holy man has the backing of the highest ranking politicians and industrialists of the country . Their services are often used as power brokers . Of late these people have moved from the fringe to the centre of the national discourses covering a wide range of issues. In short they have their finger in every pie.
The presence of people peddling feel good advices, concepts and physical exercises are necessary and accepted fact of life in this age of stress , particularly in a country like ours which is rapidly modernising . But the sad part is that the feudal and traditional structure of our society is amalgamating the adulation for these peddlers of hope with the age old culture of subservience and dogma in raising them to high pedestals . This gives them the handle to dominate the national narrative by negotiating their influence as power brokers . And excellent platform for networking by the clever among their followers.
Surprisingly, so called education or lack of it has nothing to do with all this . Because most followers of these so called self styled gurus and babas are literate . These god-men thrive on the insecurities of people and the followers are hooked to them on this particular point . Being rational has always been dangerous to the life and sanity for individuals over the ages and across countries .
The success of these fakes prove that the world is just a Maya , A myth where truth and facts are to be seen in the perspective of different dimensions as presented by the conjuror before the beguiled audience. And obliged to clap as the show goes on.
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