I: Post partition blues - Are we going to re-write history ?

First, I guess, my prediction on the new "hot" topic went down - damp squib....
It seems to have been overtaken by the BJP issue of the version on national identity, which made me think - what is the identity that we are talking about ?

Historically, I'm told that Md Ali Jinnah took the name "Pakistan" only because he thought Pt Nehru would choose "Bharat" as the name and not "India" ?

India - the name itself (I'm told) comes from variously, Sindhu (river) / Hindu (and therefore Indus). Interestingly, "India" finds no mention in any of Indian script / history and it has always been "Bharata varsha". The Indus meanwhile is out in current Pakistan. So much so, the Aryan heritage post the Mohenjadaro / Harappan settlements are also in current Pakistan ?

Time to think back to the only Emperor who was truly Indian - Ashoka or should I say "Devanampiya" ?

I'm sure that there are tons of "Dravidian" thinkers who'd state that even Ashoka has a "Aryan" heritage that could be foreign ? But, we need to stop at some point and stop re-inventing the history.

IMHO - Ashoka's "DHAMMA" is probably the closest we have to a truly secular, value based community and adoption should get closest to the proverbial "Rama Rajya" ?

The newsweek article : USA :Everyone is a Hindu now

I'm sure this one article is going to create a buzz - atleast in India !
The only reason it probably has not already created a buzz is that no-one in India today has time for anything in the papers except for H1N1 :-)


http://www.newsweek.com/id/212155 is something I'd like you to click on. This actually captures the spirit of Indian hinduism - very benign, follow what you may attitude to religion

I remember talking to people in the midwest of US (YES - in LDS land)
One of them commented about my whiteshirt stating that it reminds them of their preachers. I replied stating that in a way we have a lot more in common !.

Hindus have always believed in re-birth, in the concept that god speaks through humans, in the concept that every living / non-living thing in the world is a manifestation of god and also to NOT believe in all of the above is ALSO a hindu belief !

Let us see how the article gets accepted by the world - that will be a true reflection of the belief ?

Is a long life essential for developing an intelligent being ?

I was reading some material on sea creatures during the weekend and one of the things that struck me was that apparently Octopus is considered a very "intelligent" animal.
This, I found easy to relate to given the size of it's head / brain as a % of body mass. What surprised me was that for me- this was news.

I had heard how the "other" animals in the list eg. Dolphin, Whales etc were smart, but, for some reason Octopii were not in the same classification ? These were generally clumped under the squids etc and seen as best on french cuisine / calamari !

That got me thinking.....

Given that the normal life-span of an Octopus is only 3 years (yes, it is true), maybe, they never get enough time to make it to the intelligent list ? After all, human kids of that age have still had not "learnt" a lot of things ?

So, maybe, if we extended the life-span of a Octopus, we could teach it to sing & dance ?
Hmmm.....