Necker Cubicle

A hearty 66 th birthday greeting to Mera Bharath Mahan! While we celebrate our independence and the great people who help us attain and remain free, I suspect my patriotism is leaking off. I still get Goosebumps listening to Vande mataram but lately I am considering patriotism more like a religion and even drawing parallels with racism. Still I am not over my patriotic feelings towards India and I take this moment to recall the top 5 patriotic actions from my life. 1. Learning the national anthem and the national pledge was one of my foremost patriotic acts. I can still recite the anthem and the pledge without referring. Try to recite the national pledge without help! 2. Religiously following “The Sword of Tipu Sultan” in Doordarshan. 3. Watching the final of 2003 cricket world cup despite having an exam the next day. 4. Regularly reading the newspaper during the Kargil war. 5. Last but not the least, watching Roja over and over again in DD. I still remember the hair on my ha...

Last year, for the humble ambitions of twisting my body into shapes that resembles Matlab plots, I joined for yoga. I finished 3 basic levels and 2 intermediate levels and it was time for me to decide if I should join the group as a volunteer. The yoga center works with the support of volunteers and they teach it for free. For selfish reasons (mostly) of learning more postures I decided to join as a volunteer. Even though the yoga group says that they don’t promote any religious ideas, talks on chakras, spiritual enlightenment and higher levels of consciences pops up every now and then. The sad part is that the instructor does not even consider this as a promotion of Hinduism (deluded by the age old spiritual but not religious fallacy). Even then, the spiritual aspects are not pushed down to anyone’s throat and are preached only by some instructors and in moderation. After a series of serious thoughts (flipping a coin) last Monday, I joined the basic course as an instructor trainee ...