DesiReflections

Lockdown Read : Live Not By Lies  Lockdown has taken away lot of pleasures but has given opportunity to go back to the best habit : Reading. In that continuation, I read Live Not By Lies . It is a work of Rod Dreher , The New York Times bestselling author of The Benedict Option. The author  draws on the wisdom of Christian survivors of Soviet persecution to warn American Christians of approaching dangers. For years, immigrants from the former Soviet bloc have been telling Rod Dreher they see telltale signs of "soft" totalitarianism cropping up in America--something more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four. Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Civil liberties are increasingly seen as a threat to "safety". Progressives marginalize conservative, traditional Christians, and other dissenters. Technology and consumerism hasten the possibility of a corporate surveillance state. And the pandemic, having put millions out of work, leaves ...

हमारी   कहानी   अयाँ   हो   गयी   है   हमारी   कहानी   अयां   हो   गयी   है   पलकें   झुकीं   ओ   बयां   हो   गई   है   जब   से   बने   हो   मेरी   ज़िन्दगी   तुम   मेरी   ज़िन्दगी   गुलिस्ताँ   हो   गयी   है   बचपन   से   जिसको   मैं   सोचता   था   मोहब्बत   मेरी   अब   जवां   हो   गयी   है तुम   आ   गए   हो   चुपके   से   दिल   में   हर   ख़ुशी   मुझपे   मेहरवां   हो   गयी   है कभी   सोचता   हूँ   ये   कहाँ   पे   रुकेगी   क्यों   चाहत   मेरी   आसमां   हो   गयी   है तुम्हारा   तसव्वुर   है   मेरी   हक़ीक़त   मेरी   आशिक़ी   कहकशां     हो   गयी   है तनहा   चलूँगा   कब ...

How World View Can Change a Person                                    - Pradeep Gupta  When I was a kid , my grandmother used to prove that we Hindus are best among all the religions because we eat Kutu Aata during Navratri fasting and no other religion knows about this fasting diet. As a kid I religiously believed it. Cut to the year 2008 I come to know during my US visit that Kutu Aata was available in plenty at Stores and not imported from India but grown locally, and the locals call it Buckwheat.  Surprise of surprise, many African countries use  buckwheat as a part of staple diet . I have enjoyed buckwheat pancakes or cheelas as a part of their course meal at Ethiopian food joints. In fact they spread a big cheela in plate and keep boiled pulses on it.  But the fact remains that Buckwheat or Kutu is native to western China, Tibet and eastern India. And it is equally true th...

Another Nek Chand : Huang of Taiwan  You know little bit about Nek Chand who had created rock garden in Chandigarh single handed secretly with waste material. Story about another such person is from Taiwan. Around  10 years ago, a then-86-year-old Huang Yung-fu faced a dilemma. The Taiwanese government was threatening to knock down his village, as he was the last remaining resident, in attempts to build a more modern apartment complex. He was offered money to pack up his home and move elsewhere, but couldn't bear the thought of leaving the only home he'd ever known in Taiwan. That's when he started painting Huang, now affectionately known as “Rainbow Grandpa,” was born in China. After fighting in the Sino-Japanese War and World War II, he fought for the Nationalist Party over Mao Zedong’s Communist government. When the Nationalists lost, he and 2 million others fled to Taiwan. It was here that he was housed in a makeshift village put together hastily for incoming members of...

Supercycle IPhone : Dial Down 5G Hype Apple’s supercycles have been growing gradually less super. But that hasn’t stopped the stock, as revenue from services and accessories balloons.   The long-awaited iPhone supercycle is here, but it’s no slamdunkercycle, judging by the disagreement among Wall Street forecasters. I can see why. Apple is a world-class wooer, and my iPhone purchase history suggests that I’m with it from the first IPhone handset. But I could go either way on the newly unveiled iPhone 12. Each year’s new top models come with faster chips and cleverer cameras, and some features that aren’t exactly deal closers. Surgical-grade stainless steel? Thanks, but I’m not planning any invasive phone procedures. A LiDAR scanner that can create depth maps to, among other things, “show you how a new sneaker will fit?” It sounds great for George Jetson, but maybe I’ll just stick a foot in one and walk around. Some years, however, Apple brings features so compelling that even fence...

जो   मिट   सके   सहज   ही   नहीं  ...... जो   मिट   सके   सहज   में   वो   इबारत   नहीं   हूँ   मैं  , दिल   धड़कता   है   इधर   भी   अलामत   नहीं   हूँ   मैं   बस   प्रश्न   पूछ   लेता   हूँ   माफ़     करना   मेरे   हुज़ूर   कुछ   भी   समझ   लीजिए   बग़ावत   नहीं   हूँ   मैं   रास्ता   ज़रूर   लम्बा   है   तकलीफ़   भी   बड़ी   है   तुम   अगर     साथ   चलो   तो   थकावट   नहीं   हूँ   मैं   क्यों   इतना   ख़ौफ़   मुझसे ,  मैं   आम   आदमी   हूँ   इक   ख़्वाब   की   ताबीर   हूँ  ,  ख़िलाफ़त   नहीं   हूँ   मैं   मौसम   की   तरह     बदलूँ   आदत   में   नहीं   शामिल...

Lockdown Reading  JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 : Fredrick Logevall Historian Fredrik Logevall is a professor of international affairs and history at Harvard. He wrote about 35th US President John F. Kennedy before, in his Pulitzer-winning “Embers of War,” about the Vietnam era. But it wasn’t until he undertook a two-volume biography of John F Kennedy that he  explored the man and his life in depth. I remember my teen days, when I was fascinated by his sheer charm. In fact he was most charming political persona on global landscape at that part of time. His broad daylight assassination in 1963 not only shook America but the entire world.  The first volume, “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956,” has recently arrived on book shelf’s  this month. It is a marvelous study of the man in context of his times and his family, from his childhood to his decision to seek the presidency. JFK was a colorful politician, he Was plagued with m...

Lockdown Reading : Insanely Simple Apple Story by Ken Segall  Ken Segall, the author of the book, had been an advertising person and had worked as Steve Jobs' agency creative director for 12 years spanning from NeXT to Apple days, and he also served as worldwide creative director at agencies for Dell, Intel and IBM. Ken was responsible for Apple’s branding campaign and "i" naming strategy; keynote speaker; simplicity advocate. Of all of the books jumping on the Steve Jobs bandwagon, Ken’s book is perhaps the one that’s most of value. This is perhaps the one management book which has really resonated with me since Don Peppers and Martha Rogers’ The One-To-One Future. Yes, Steve is mentioned aplenty and is the centre of the many examples given. It touches on many of the facets of Steve’s character which made him so successful, it focuses on one thing which almost anyone can do to improve their business – yet, will find an incredibly difficult and elusive concept to implemen...

What is the most  dangerous trend in Social Media  Hannah Murphy , Financial Times tech correspondent writes that in May this year, Facebook casually invited her to join a conspiracy cult that believes the world is controlled by a Satan-worshipping, baby-eating, deep-state coterie and can only be saved by US president Donald Trump.    The message was  “Join groups to connect with people who share your interests,” the social media network implored in a recommendation email. Below was a suggestion that Hannah had become part of a 135,000-strong Facebook group called “QAnon News & Updates – Intel drops, breadcrumbs, & the war against the Cabal”. The term QAnon is an outlandish far- right conspiracy theory; in essence, an anonymous individual “Q” is drip-feeding believers “classified” information about Trump’s fight against a diabolical collective of Democrats and business elites. As QAnon has ballooned, it has taken on menacing undertones: followers, c...

Buffalo Nation In The Heart of America.   I grew up with Bob Marley music, it seems hard to believe that he  would have turned 75 this year. The king of reggae was only 36 when he succumbed to cancer in 1981. And when you bear in mind that the album that most people associate with him, Exodus, only appeared in 1977, you realise how fleeting his reign really was. Bob Marley :  Portrait of the Legend, is the new book on Bob Marley from  Rizzoli, written by Ziggy one of the Legendary’s sons who is a singer-songwriter in his own right. It spans the action in the life of Marley between 1976 and 1980. It was an extraordinarily prolific phase. And today the music of Bob Marley and the Wailers is everywhere — sometimes in the dreamy, hippyish form of the hit anthem One Love, sometimes in the more uncom- promisingly militant shape of Get Up, Stand Up! Recorded long before the advent of Black Lives Matter, the song will provide the title of an eagerly awaited West End musical ...

Meaning of Nobel Literature Award to Ms Louise Glück Louise Glück has become the first American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature in past 27 years. Louise has always been lauded for “her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.  She is the 16th woman to win the Nobel, and the first American woman since Toni Morrison took the prize in 1993. American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was definitely a surprise winner in 2016. Seventy Seven year-old Louise Glück received the Pulitzer Prize for her collection of poetry The Wild Iris in 1993. The book also received the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Award. Publishers Weekly called it "ambitious and original" and praised its "powerful, muted strangeness.".  She has tackled themes including childhood and family life, often reworking Greek and Roman myths. Glück was born in the city of New York in 1943. She grew up on Long Island and attended Columb...

प्रायोजित वि-लागिंग और पाकिस्तान में होने जा रहे विकास के सच  वि-लागिंग एक तेज़ी से विकसित होती दृश्य-श्रव्य विधा है जिसमें शूस्ट्रिंग बजट में रोमांचक प्रेमी  सैलानी किसी भी कम परिचित दूर दराज  इलाक़े से YouTube जैसे  माध्यम से दुनिया भर के लोगों को परिचित कराते हैं . मैंने एक-दो साहसी भारतीय वि-लागर के वि-लॉग भी देखे हैं जिन्होंने मंगोलिया और चीन जैसे देशों के सर्वथा अपरिचित इलाक़ों को सस्ते यात्रा साधनों के द्वारा घूम घूम लोगों को परिचित कराया.   इस माध्यम की ताक़त देखते हुए बहुत सारे होटल , रिज़ॉर्ट ने वि-लागर के लिए हवाई यात्रा टिकट और आराम दायक आवास की व्यवस्था करनी शुरू कर दी ताकि उनकी प्रॉपर्टी की जानकारी दुनिया भर में बहुत सस्ते में पहुँच सके .  यहाँ तक तो ग़नीमत थी बात और भी आगे बढ़ गयी है  , अब तो ऐसे देश जिनकी दुनिया भर में नकारात्मक छवि बन चुकी है वे वि-लागर की यात्राएँ प्रायोजित करने लगे हैं . पाकिस्तान भी उन चंद देशों में है जिसे दुनिया भर में आतंकवाद की सरज़मीं और प्रयोगशाला माना जाने लगा है . हालात इतने बिगड़े हुए हैं कि पाकिस्तानी...

शेक्सपियर कवि भी थे  1564 में वारविकशायर  के स्ट्रैडफ़ोर्ड अपॉन एवन में जन्मे विलियम शेक्सपियर को लोग एक बेहतरीन  नाटककार के रूप में जानते हैं . उनके जीवन का बड़ा हिस्सा लंदन में टेम्स नदी के किनारे बने ग्लोब थिएटर में रंगमंच करते हुए और नाटक लिखते लिखते कटा . मैं इस थिएटर में उनके द्वारा लिखे  नाटक देख चुका हूँ , वहाँ का अनुभव अद्भुत लगता है क्योंकि ये नाटक निरंतर 400 वर्षों से मंचित हो रहे हैं . यह कम लोगों को पता है कि उन्होंने कविताओं पर भी आज़माइश की है . प्रस्तुत है उनकी दो कविताओं का भावानुवाद , इनसे अंदाज़ा होगा कि उनकी कविता सार्वभौमिक है :  All the World's a Stage /यह संसार एक रंगमंच है  यह संसार एक रंगमंच है , सभी  स्त्री पुरुष मात्र अभिनेता  हैं  सबका अपना अपना आगमन और प्रस्थान नियत है हर व्यक्ति अपने जीवन काल में निबाहता है बहुत सारी भूमिकाएँ उसका काम बँटा है सात चरणों में .  पहला शिशु  जो अपनी दाई की गोद में रो रो कर दूध उलट देता है  और फिर वो स्कूली बच्चे का  रुआंसा प्रलाप , बस्ता लटकाए हुए  सुबह का चमक...

वट्सअप ज्ञान से इतर भी कुछ पढ़ने की कोशिश करें  हिंदी के कवियों में एक सामान्य बीमारी है , अच्छा साहित्य पढ़ने से दूरी और दूसरों को अपनी कविताएँ सुनाने का उतावलापन, अब फ़ेसबुक  ने कवियों की प्रचंड आर्मी तैय्यार कर दी है , रोज़ाना अनगिनित कवि लाइव फ़ेसबुक पर दृष्टिगोचर होते रहते हैं .  अच्छा लिखने के लिए ज़रूरी है कि नियमित रूप से कुछ अच्छा पढ़ा भी जाय. हालात  ऐसे हैं कि हिंदी भाषा जिसके बोलने वाले करोड़ों के तादाद में हैं , लेकिन दस हज़ार  से ऊपर की प्रसार संख्या वाली हिंदी पत्रिकाएँ उँगली पर गिनी जा सकती हैं. जहां समाचार पत्र तो केवल विज्ञापनों के बीच समाचार  छापते हैं उनमें भी ज़्यादातर प्रायोजित होते हैं तो ऐसे में कविताओं या कहानियों के लिए जगह ही नहीं बचती है . फिर अच्छा साहित्य कहाँ से मिलेगा , पुरानी पत्रिकाओं और जाने माने लेखकों और कवियों की  किताबों में उसे ढूँढना पड़ेगा.  पिछले दस दिनों से मैं  स्कॉटलैंड के उपन्यासकार और कवि रॉबर्ट लुई स्टीवेन्सन  की रचनाएँ वापस पढ़ रहा हूँ . दरअसल पहली बार मैंने उनकी रचनाओँ को  अपने अंग्र...