I am a fundamentalist....

"fundamentalism - a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles" Islamic fundamentalism, political fundamentalism [ As quoted from online Meriam-Webster dictionary ].


Is there a problem with "fundamentalism" ? I am sure all of us will immediately say "Yes". Our chorus is as follows: "In a democratic society, there is no place for 'fundamentalism' ". Even more, when attached with "Islamic"; then there is no second thought.

May we revisit the definition of "fundamentalism" again ? - A movement or attitude ( i.e., Democracy ) stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles ( i.e., no place for fundamentalism). OOPS!!!! suddenly democracy itself became a "fundamentalism". How could we accept this paradigm ? Is it only a word game ?

Despite the evolution of mankind, the human tendency is to be quick to the principles one has accepted. We believe in what we believe - no matter what is the reality.


The first trigger of this thought sparked when I was watching a conversation in CNN. I think it was "Larry King Live". The discussion topic was "Islamic Fundamentalism". One of the participant was presenting a kind of opinion that "Biblical religion is based on tolerance. Tolerance to other streams of faith. Whereas, Islam as a religion is not based on such postulate."


My controversial mentality started the thinking. There are a few questions to be checked that was put by the conversant. Are biblical religions (Judaism and Christianity - if I would interpret them) based on tolerance ? Is Islam does not propagate tolerance ? In my own opinion, Judaism - at least the way it is interpreted by its followers - is really intimidating. To say that "a set of people" are chosen by God - does not sound an "inclusive" religion. A religion which is not inclusive cannot be tolerant. Jesus Christ - the non-christian Jew - of course was an inclusive prophet. He had said that "the kingdom of God is welcome everywhere. It is also for Romans/Peagans". Let me not get into deep arguments on this subject. I leave it to readers subjudication.

For argument sake, let us accept that biblical religions are tolerant. The counter argument is that "supposing the biblical religions are not tolerant by their nature, what would be the state of their followers ? meaning, if Bible would say that "Those who are not believing in Christ are unbelievers and killing them is not a sin rather a good thing for society and the killer" - what will be the stand by Christians. Will logic prevail and Christian fundamentalists will not promote killing of non-christians OR will we have another variety of "Jihad" ?


The paradigm of right and wrong, accusation and justification, crime and penalty are have been the fundamentals almost in all societies/religions. We all know that the definition for these are very much subjective and cannot encompass all individuals. From that perspective, everyone is a fundamentalist of his own accepted dogma.

I want to be a fundamentalist of a different kind. Not in the same sense of definition from webster. But as a person who seeks to understand the fundamentals of dogmas.

Arivinal Aguvathundo - Thiruvalluvar

Philanthropy - The word has been interpreted as below in "wikipedia" as on the date of this posting.

"Philanthropy derives from Ancient Greek, meaning "to love people". Philanthropy is the act of donating money, goods, services, time and/or effort to support a socially beneficial cause, with a defined objective and with no financial or material reward to the donor."

Many a times I have wondered the evolution of humanity. Probably, the industrial revolution, modernization, automation, advancement of science and technology - all seem to be as external as they are perceived. While this can be observed as the evolution of human understanding of science, evolution of the technology, this has as much relevance to evolution of human being itself as age to do with intelligence.

The evolution of human being very much lies in evolution of human society. The very fundamental indicator for a mature human society, in my opinion, is the oneness, the ability of individuals to feel the responsibility for others regardless of the relationships between one another; regardless of the cause; regardless of the social structure and so on so forth. The "ability" of the individual can be derived from education, skill, position and the social structure itself. It is possible that not everyone is blessed with all the armours needed to respond to need of hour. However, higher the commitment and willingness of the individuals, even more in the way of life in a society, stronger is the evolution of humanity.

From this perspective, I believe, the theoretical fundamentals have been philosophized long ago before the "modern society". However, the realization of this philosophy has been hardly achieved and on the way probably lost its due attention from the "world powers". The resultant is continuing chaos created by humanity to humanity.

This reminds me a simple story parable to me when I was on my 4th standard. The parable is as follows:
God appeared in one man's dream. The man asked God, "if you were so nice, why did you create hell and heaven ?". God replied, "Hell and Heaven are made by men and not by me". God took the man to a place.

It was a big dining room, with all kind of tasteful food served in plenty and unlimited. There were all kinds of people. The hands of the people were tied behind them. Every individual was hungry and everyone tried hard to take the food and eat. As they were not allowed to eat directly by mouth, they tried to throw the food up by hand and to catch the food. The place had soon become messy and hunger remained. God said, "This is Hell".

Then He took the man to another place. This was much similar to the previous one. Same arrangement, all food, people tied their hands behind, same rule. However, this place was very calm and people were content and happy. The reason for the difference was that instead of trying to eat by self, everyone fed other person what they wanted. God said "This is Heaven".
The parable had registered in my mind very strongly, after grown up - don't ask from when, I had always wondered, if this could be a practical resemblance of problems of this world. Many a times, I think yes. Except for natural calamities and challenges, all man made challenges can be tied as a parallel, albeit logistically the complexity of the world is far greater than the dining room in the story.

The thought process also makes the below "Kural" one of my favourites.
௮றிவினால் ஆகுவ துண்டோ பிறிதின்நோய்
தந்நோய்போல் போற்றாக் கடை.
I think the meaning is straightforward. Just in case, if you do not know to read Tamil, the verse says "What does one's wisdom achieve, if it cannot recognize other's pain as pain of the self".

Big is "bigger" than small

The title might sound a little "redundant" or for a few a pun. The essence of the title, hopefully, will be understood from the narration.

The trigger for this article was an insurance advertisement. The essence of the advertisement is this: At your young age, as a boy you restricted your desires to be obedient to your parent; at youth you tolerated the nusances at your work place for your family, in middle age you gave up your preferences for your kids, now that you are retired live your life freely, for yourself and not for others. That threw a fundamental quesiton in my mind. As a person, am I not choosing my options ?


In life, we are always left with quesitons of 'importance' , 'priority', 'weightage' - call it by any
name. I believe, if everyone shall have infinite availability of everything - material, time, age, ability, energy - ooph I could complete the list only if I shall have infinte resources - probably then we do not have to prioritize. We might learn to develop some kind of patience to wait for our things done. But naturally it is not the case.


In life, everyone is subjected to choose his priority. Recently I was reading an interview from Sachin Tendulkar. He had been practising cricket from the age of 4. He had mentioned that there had been times when he wanted to play with neighbourhood children but could not do as he had to go for "net practice". Had he lost his childhood freedom ? Probably currently also his stardom will not allow him to live a normal life. Had he lost his enjoyment of life ? The answers for such questions are probably in affirmative if not totally, at least partially. But what it results is - not only for Sachin, but for many ordinent cricket lovers - is Sachin!!!!

One cannot have the cake and eat it too. In life, one has to set priorities on his own way - and like any other learning, during childhood these prirorities are set by elders - and enjoy the outcome of it. To achieve "big" tomorrow, one has to forego some "small" today. Now, it is upto individuals to decide what is "big" and what is "small".

The one who denies to realize the fact that today is yesterday's tomorrow is a fool for he does not realize that his actions today is the seed for results tomorrow. Thus he might never create "the future".

The one does not recognise the fact that tomorrow will be today tomorrow is also a fool for he has not recognized the results today are due to the actions of yesterday. Thus he might never relish "the present". Probably only in this context, Jesus had said - "Tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble".

Law and Justice

I was just watching a 20-20 cricket match of IPL. The match was between "Chennai Super Kings" and "Kolkatta Knight Riders". Dhoni's CSK had already done enough damage on the batting on Ganguly's KKR. It was the penultimate ball of the last over. Laxmi Shukla - the in form batsman who had scored 42 of 30 balls in that innings - played the ball straight to the fielder. Runner Ishant Sharma had started already. Usual scene of ball on bowler's hand near the runner's stumps and both batsman almost on the other end. Bowler did not take the bail off yet from the runner's wicket. But not being aware of this minute detail, Ishant already started walking towards the pavilion in that course crossed Laxmi Shukla. Dhoni then urged the runners bail be taken off and appealed to the umpire that it should be Laxmi Shukla who should be given out. That is because the batsman had crossed!!!!!. It was given so.

Sometime back, in another ODI between Srilanka and India, Sehwag steered the ball to third man. As one might observe in any match, Sehwag walked the run and on reaching runner end, he took the position like batsman and started to "practice" the shot. However, he did not realize that he had not grounded his bat on runner's crease. Sangakara was keen to observe this and hit the ball at runner's stumps and appealed for out. Sehwag was given out.

I think in both occasions, the spirit of the game has been undermined against the success by the players ( Dhoni and Sangakara in the above example). Moreover, I was just wondering the need of the "relevant" rules and their applicability. In my young days, when we used to play in the village - local form of cricket, with big stones as stump and sometimes ball made of cycle tube - we had a peculiar rule. If for some reason, the bat will slip away from the batsman, he will be declared out. A variant of the above rule is the batsman is out only if a member of the opponent team takes the bat in the above situation.

The rules are in place to make some order to the game and not to "apply tricks". But in both above occasion, the rules have been applied "blindly" ignoring the spirit of the game by the umpires. In the first occasion, Ishant would not have crossed Laxmi Shukla if the pavilion was on the other side. Bottom line, the cross over happened not when the batsman was taking a run, which I suppose is the basic assumption underlying the rule. On the second occasion, the batsman had demonstrated his ability to cover the stipulated distance,which I believe the reason for imposing the rule - batsman should have landed on the crease - and still left with plenty of time. However, in both occasions, umpires have upheld the applicability of the law over the spirit of the game.

In our day-to-day life as well, we step across many times situations where people argue on applicability of law without realizing the "justice" which is to more address the human side of the issue. That reminds me the dialogue from Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus says: " The law is not just to be scultptured on the stone. It has a life. As long as we do not understand it, it will remain only as a stone". Well, that way the ICC rules are well written in books. NEverthless these are not singled out instances in history. One famous example I can think of is the story of "Ambikapathi - Amaravathi". The former was killed because he had counted the "Prayer song" as part of the 100 songs he was supposed to sing before seeing is beloved!!!!!

The rails of life.....

A normal working day. My wife had left to office before me. The responsibility of dropping my two year old son to the "day care" lied with me. I had a training on that day on innovation!!! Well, I could not innovate a way to wake my son who was sleeping wild until 9.45 a.m. He had woken up in the middle of night and slept only at 5.00 a.m. I played " a good dad ". I had done all preparation for myself to go to office. Finally once my son woke up, I could successfully ready him up without making him cry. I leave him at day care. 10.10 a.m. The Innovation Training would have started at 9.30 a.m.

Not relating to any of the above context, my mind was recapping on totally a different incident - on my way to office from the day-care. That happened during my vacation at home town a few weeks before. A poor boy, of age around 10, was begging money on the street. I was overwhelmed. I asked the boy, "don;t you go to school"? "I was going to one. But my parents had pulled me out. On their insistence, I am begging.", a soft reply. Sometimes, it is better we don't ask questions, for which we can do nothing when the answer is known. That was the situation of mine. I had just got him a fruit juice to drink and gave him 5 Rupees. Obviously, I did not have to ask question about the school to show this gesture.....

The thought process continued now. What could have been done in that situation ? I should have put him in a school and should have taken the responsibility to pay the school fees(including that of his hostel stay!). I spend at least 60,000 Rs every month. The study would cost a max of 1000 Rs. 1/60Th of my monthly expense - big deal!!!!. The thinking rolls further. It is not just this boy. There are numerous such boys. I see many babies, boys, girls on the roadside - begging, rolling on the mud, doing trick in front of the traffic waiting for signal...so many!!!!. When will the day come, that each and every human being on this earth is assured - with a little effort of its own - of food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education... The basic needs of life. Is it not an irony that the world has seen so many great people.... philosophers, politicians, philanthropists, scientists, administrators.... what not. Why has it not happened ? Just could not find an answer. The mind continues the search, but my scooter had already reached office. The intensity of search slows down internally. The routines at the entrance gate is done. Finally, I enter the training room with a session's delay.

The training room is silent. It's dark. I realize that everyone is set for a video clip as part of the training. Boom....boom......Music starts. A 30 year old is on his daily jogging routine, with all weird electronics gadgets on him. "Paul, I am reaching the office earlier than we planned. i.e. I will be in office ate 8.00 a.m. Can we reschedule our discussion early by an hour ?". The technology revolution of wireless network, transferring the email arrived to a man who is jogging on his morning routine in voice form over his ear phone!!!!. Paul shortens the jogging and comes back early. On entering the house, he just switches on the TV. Starts giving instructions - to open his mail box, to choose his dress colour, to prepare a printout for the discussion rescheduled.... The message is loud and clear. The future living is going to be on a different plane of technology.

I could understand the context. Working in a software solution company for communication business, the objective of the movie clip is to present the revolution that is expected on the industry. To stay ahead, we needed to innovate. Innovate - in view of our future customer needs!!!

The time is passing in the same direction, same pace, same units; for the poor - for the rich; for the one who is looking for salvation - for the one who is looking for satisfaction of fantasy. It is not realistic expectation to solve the problem of the needy before satisfying the fantasy; because that would mean the later giving up his time for the former. Why should he do so ? May be this is how the life on earth is destined to be.....

The poor and others (I don't want to call the "others" as rich. Richness is a state of less need. The needs of the non-poor, in the current world, seem to be no less than of the poor) run in parallel. The only link between them is that both are tied to the same context given by time. However, they will never meet, never unite. It has not happened for years - from the time of civilization to now.