15th August - Independence

India’s independence day and MK Gandhi, one is not complete without the other. Incidentally, I am reading this book - “The Story of My Experiments with Truth”, an autobiography by MK Gandhi. I must admit I have been hooked to this book from the day I bought it. Though I haven’t had enough relaxed time to enjoy reading his interesting and candid memoirs but thus far it’s been a wonderful reading. I must say that every educated Indian should read this autobiography by the man who was regarded so highly in the world at his time and is even today.

Gandhiji, as I understand, had an open mind and used to read a lot on all possible subjects and he had a firm conviction on some of the fundamental human values which are as old as the hills; infact timeless. The world, as I can see, has now come to realize those values and their importance more so in today’s world.

Independence in another sense. An excerpt from Sir. Edwin Arnold’s translation of the Gita as mentioned by Gandhiji in his book:

“If one
Ponders on objects of sense, there springs
Atrraction; from attraction grows desire,
Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds
Recklessness; then the memory - all betrayed -
Lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind,
Till purpose, mind, and man are all undone.”

As Gandhiji admits, the above verse made a deep impression on him and they used to ring in his ears even much later.

To me it’s independence from our instinctive desires by our conscious and rational decision. This only human beings are capable of.

What makes a man a man?

A message at the end of a movie whose name I do not remember now.

"What makes a man a man. It's not his background or the place he comes from. It's the choices he makes. It's not how he decides to start the things. It's how he decides to end the things."

Let's start

What do you do when you are bored in the office. When you have nothing official to do. Actually when you are not in a state to do anything also. I think today is the day - 14 August (day before India's Independence Day). Today I think of blogging.