India is not just Hindi

Two days ago I was talking with a few of my friends and they asked me if my mother tongue was Hindi. I told them that Hindi is not my mother tongue. They were confused and asked me that since I am from India, the language I speak should be Hindi. It was then I realized that most people think that Hindi is the language of India. I decided that I should explain to all about what India is. Hindi is the largest spoken language of India, but it is spoken by only 250 million people of the 1.2 billion people of India. There are other languages like Bengali, Marathi, Gujarathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Urdu, Parsi, Punjabi, Assamese, Manipuri, Konkani, etc. There are 30 official languages but there are more than 1000 dialects. So for example if you move from one state to another you cannot expect people to speak the language you speak. It is like this you move from Virginia to West Virginia or North Carolina, people will be speaking different languages. The same way most people think that India is a Hindu country. Again this is totally wrong. India is predominantly a Hindu nation. But you still have a lot of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, some local native religions, Jews, etc. So you meet a lot of people from other faith too. So, to give you an example, we had a Muslim President with a Sikh Prime Minister, a Christian Defense Minister in a nation of predominantly Hindus. The dance forms also vary from state to state as languages differ. So what is unifying India? To be frank there is no unifying or common thing in India other than the feeling of Indian among the people. This characteristic of India is unique. The thing that unified Germany was their race and language, the French their language, and each country has always had its own unifying feature except India.

Ashoka the great

Everyone knows Alexander the great for his wars and the extent of land he had conquered. Ashoka on the other hand was a very different person. Ashoka was the third Mauryan emperor. His reign was from 268 to 238 B.C.  His capital was so beautiful that Megasthenes, the greek ambassador to the Mauryan court said that, no such place can be compared to its beauty and the great greek cities humbled before its magnificence.  He ruled the whole of India and also the parts of present day Pakistan. He defeated some of the Alexander’s successors and killed them. He was a cruel man. He constantly tested the loyalty of his ministers and killed anyone, he doubted. He fought many fierce battles and was ruthless. He even built a torture chamber called “Paradise of Hell” to torture anyone and everyone, he disliked or who opposed him.

There was a small kingdom called “Kalinga” to the east of his empire. He wanted to annex that small kingdom to his empire. He waged a war against them. The people of Kalinga were very proud people. They did not want to lose their independence. Everyone in the empire fought, men and women alike. Young kids were sent to the battlefield and even they died. At the end of the war, Ashoka won the battle. But, all he was left to rule were dead bodies. There was no living soul in Kalinga after the battle.

This was when Ashoka realized that all these deaths were for no good reason. He cried in the battlefield. As he moved into the city he saw how barren it looked without anyone living there. There he met a Buddhist monk, who advised him to give up his pleasure of killing people and adopt non-violence. Ashoka converted to Buddhism, he built Buddhist stupa’s all over the country. He built roads, planted trees, helped the poor, etc. He sent his son and daughter to spread Buddhism to the world. He sent his daughter to Sri Lanka, while his son to China, Japan,etc. After the battle of Kalinga, he did not fight a single battle. He closed down his “Paradise of Hell” and died a peaceful man. This transformation in him resulted in everyone calling him Ashoka the great.      

US Shutdown

The U.S shutdown?

The United States of America’s government is shutdown. What does this mean? The government doesn’t have enough money to fund itself, apart from highly essential services like defense, white house security and the pay for senators and congressmen. What is the reason for the shutdown? The Republicans want the Obamacare to be postponed and no funds should be allocated for that. The Democrats are staunchly against the Republican stand. So the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats, passes a bill, but fails in the Congress because Republicans control the Congress. Both the sides have been negotiating to reach the middle ground. This has been nothing but failure in these talks. Now, the Republicans are planning to pass bills with specific funding to certain activities like veteran services, etc. The Democrats have decided to vote against this. So again a deadlock.

The result of this is 800,000 federal workers have not received their pay. Tourists can’t go to national parks, buildings or sightseeing. Tourism Industry is the second worst affected. Dollar is losing its value in the international market. I do not see an end to this unless Republicans accept Obamacare or Democrats forget it. Hope it doesn't last as long as Clinton's shutdown did.