“Kejriwal's Simplicity - Mountain Or Molehill?” – Article by Hari TSV

From

http://tsvhari.blogspot.in/2013/12/kejriwals-simplicity-mountain-or.html

 

Kejriwal's Simplicity - Mountain Or Molehill?

By

Hari TSV

Arvind Kejriwal's Gandhian simplicity is making waves.

 

Gestures like jettisoning the Z-Plus "security" detail, the removal of the red dome light atop his car, giving his phone number publicly to the public and the symbolic trip by the New Delhi Metro [something far, far superior to any public transport I have seen anywhere in India, but not a patch on – say – London's Underground]  are very welcome.

 

I would say all that is indeed good.

 

But, in my opinion, however, they are mere gestures.

 

Let me cite two events about simplicity from the past from personal knowledge.

 

[1]

 

In 1984, I was wandering in the Sachivalaya – or the Bombay secretariat as the elections to Parliament were underway after the gruesome assassination of Indira Gandhi.

 

Security had become a fetish.

 

The legend on a door said, Chief Minister Vasant Dada Patil, CM.

 

I knocked and entered thinking I would encounter a secretary or a security chap.

 

I was shocked to find the 'Dada' seated behind a large desk with a motley crowd of some 20 chaps standing in a queue.

 

A suited gentleman, Kini – then CMD of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd – and his assistants were seated in front of Patil.

 

One seat was vacant and I plunked my behind on it.

 

One of the 'favour seekers' was telling Patil thus:

 

"I am from your hometown Sangli and a Congressman from 1960."

 

"I am in the party since the thirties. So what is great?"

 

Patil seemed irritated and was snapping at him.

 

The chap gave the CM a bunch of papers and wanted the Patil to endorse something.

 

"You have come to me for this? You … [expletive] fraud! Get out!"

 

Despite Patil's command being just a little more than a hoarse whisper – the man had to make a hasty exit.

 

Patil then spotted me.

 

"Who are you?"

 

A journalist from Madras, I told him.

 

"So how do you speak such good Marathi?"

 

"I was born in Bombay," I said.

 

He asked me to come at 5 pm for the interview.

 

When the interview began, Patil's secretary Kale breezed in and told his boss that a message from the Governor Air Chief Marshal [retired] IH Latif had just come and that he wanted the CM at the Raj Bhavan in a jiffy.

 

So the CM began moving.

 

I broached the subject of my interview weakly.

 

"Are you going to sweep the floors of the secretariat or what? Haul your behind and come with me," the CM said with a guffaw.

 

"But, you are going to the Governor's bungalow," I pointed out, keeping protocol, security etc in mind.

 

"Is the Raj Bhavan in Pakistan or what? When I do not have a problem, why should anyone else have one?"

 

Patil did not have a red dome light on his vehicle. It was a single, white, official Ambassador car with a nondescript number plate with the yellow-coloured 'g' letter in the middle. There was no cavalcade or convoy. It was an ordinary white official Ambassador car on the road.

 

It was a somewhat ungainly trip.

 

Seated beside the chauffeur – front left – was a police constable with a 303 rifle that partly jutted out of the car window – facing the Arabian Sea.

 

In the back, the CM sat on the extreme right seat, I was in the middle and his secretary Kale was seated to my left.

 

Worried about my feet touching those of the CM I was trying to wriggle.

 

"Take it easy, young man. Think of this as a Bombay local train, where everyone's feet touches every other person's feet," Patil said.

 

As the interview was underway and I was asking a question concerning his wife Shalini Tai and her brand of politics – I heard Kale telling the driver – "The Governor is called Latif and he chides anyone coming late as Late-Latifs. So switch on the siren and make it snappy."

  

The driver switched on the siren.

 

Patil knocked the poor chap on his head with his walking stick and growled, "Switch off that [expletive] thing, now! The Governor can wait. I am the CM, doing all the work. Governors only eat, sleep and attending ribbon cutting ceremonies."

 

At that precise moment, since the CM's vehicle had crossed the red light at the Vir Nariman Road intersection touching the Marine Drive, a sturdy station wagon zipped in and nearly collided with the CM's car. The driver dexterously took evasive action.

 

"Aren't you taking this simplicity thing too seriously? The PM was assassinated the other day. A vehicle just collided with your car now. You are the Chief Minister … the symbol of the state's well-being. Some silly terrorist could harm you if you continue in this fashion," I remarked.

 

My remark irritated Patil.

 

"You useless flatter-bug journalists pump up the ego of politicians by talking of this [expletive] security. You want me to copy an animal behind a steel cage in a zoo in the name of security, you idiot? As the CM, I am supposed to be the most popular chap here. So why should someone harm me? And if someone takes it upon himself or herself to do so, I must be doing something extremely wrong. I believe in Karma … and if it is ordained that I die a violent death, I will and nothing can stop it. And if I have to die like a dog on the road, so I will. Further, if I do not travel like an ordinary citizen on the roads, how will I know what are the problems of an ordinary Mumbaikar on the roads? So you journalists should stop this flattery nonsense pontification to politicians. The accursed security is nothing but a status symbol. We keep seeing American Presidents shaking hands with ordinary people despite Kennedy having been assassinated. And her own security personnel killed Indira Gandhi. So what are you fellows blabbering about? And do you know something? The red dome light is like a homing signal, someone told me. Someone can take an exact pot shot – and that can prove fatal to the occupants. In other words, I would be target practice to someone. After all, I am paying this security buffalo to tag along. Let him earn his salary. Why should I help him by sitting cooped up like some World War II prisoner in a cell, for God's sake?"

Since I was very highly impressed by what the Dada said, I remember his words almost verbatim and am quoting him from memory.

 

That was pure simplicity with a rustic touch and some very plain speaking.

 

Would Kejriwal be that simple?

 

Frankly, I do not know.

 

[2]

 

In 1985, when I was in Sweden's capital Stockholm, I was overawed by the sheer size of the massive NK department store.

 

It has only 4 floors but is the largest store I have ever seen – with a 800 square feet space reserved just for various varieties of potatoes.

 

Carelessly I bumped into a man with two big carry bags.

 

Both of us apologised and walked on.

 

One of the two burly chaps walking some 10 paces behind – almost twice my size in breadth angrily said, "Why don't you see where you are going?"

 

The remark got my goat.

 

"I apologised, the gentleman apologised … so is the colour of my skin your problem?"

 

"You guys will say this sort of thing to virtually anything. You had bumped into our Prime Minister Olof Palme … who is humble enough to even carry his purchase bags … think of your politicians back home, you stupid oaf!" The Swedes then hurried after their PM.

 

Well, that was simplicity too.

 

To know more about NK – visit https://www.nk.se/en/nk-stockholm/

 

While Patil died of natural causes in 1989, Palme had been shot dead by an unknown assassin in 1986.

 

Palme's murder is still a mystery … because … one Christer Pettersson … charged with the crime was acquitted on appeal. Recently, Peterson died a somewhat violent death.

 

One heard that Pettersson was itching to blow the lid off the suspense over the murder of Palme.

 

I had written about this on February 15 2013.

 

The relevant excerpt:

 

Palme was assassinated February 28 1986.

 

On the night of February 28, 1986, the Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot and killed in Stockholm as he walked home from a cinema with his wife, Lisbet Palme.

 

Christer Pettersson was accused of Palme's murder after an extensive investigation by the Swedish police. He was picked out from a police line-up by Mrs. Palme.

 

The .357-caliber Magnum pistol used to kill Palme was never found.

 

Pettersson was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988.

 

However, in 1989 he was freed after an appeal court cited lack of evidence, including the missing murder weapon.

 

During the appeal, the reliability of Mrs. Lisbet Palme's identification of the accused in a police line-up was seriously questioned.

 

Besides being acquitted, Pettersson was awarded about $50,000 in compensation for defamation by the police and for wrongful imprisonment.

 

He blew the money on alcohol and drugs.

 

In some of the television interviews that supplemented his income – particularly those telecast by TV3 – Pettersson admitted to killing Olof Palme subsequently, but his confession was not treated seriously.

 

In 1998, the Supreme Court rejected a prosecutor's appeal to retry Pettersson citing that evidence was not strong enough to place him at the scene of the shooting.

 

On September 29, 2004 Pettersson died at the Karolinska University Hospital after he supposedly fell and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.

 

He had been in a coma since September 16, 2004 when he underwent emergency surgery for unspecified head injuries.

 

Pettersson had reported being harassed by the police on September 15, the day before he was found with head injuries, with unsubstantiated rumours circulating that he was a victim of police violence.

 

Shortly before Pettersson was taken to hospital, he had contacted the son of Olof Palme, Mårten Palme, explaining he had something to tell the family. Palme said he was willing to meet Pettersson if he was ready to confess to the murder. But the meeting did not take place, and what Pettersson had to tell was never revealed.

 

According to a documentary aired on the Swedish television channel SVT in February 2006, associates of Pettersson claimed that he had confessed to them his role in Olof Palme's murder, but with the explanation that it was a case of mistaken identity.

 

In an op-ed in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter [Sweden's largest circulated newspaper] on February 28, 2006, two senior SVT reporters criticised the TV documentary severely, claiming that the filmmaker had fabricated a number of statements while omitting other contradictory evidence.

 

For more details, kindly download and read the link:

 

http://tsvhari.com/template_article.asp?id=665

 

The inferences?

 

The question to be asked: Is Kejriwal's simplicity and openness in avoiding the red dome light, the security detail, travel by metro etc – being praised to the skies by the media in India – too much?

 

One can take the Patil story and say, too much.

 

But, the Palme murder would force one to do a detailed rethink.

 

Is Vedic astrology derived from Greek astrology? (Part 22) (Masonry and stemmed cup - from Pandyans to Tiryns)

The name Pandion, the eponymous hero of ancient Greece sounds similar to the Pandyan dynasty of ancient Tamils. There was a statue for this Pandion in Tiryns according to Greek traveller Pausanias. Of all the sites of archaeological antiquity of pre- Greek civilisation, Tiryns is the oldest one dating back to 1500 to 1200 BC. The walls of the hill-fort in Tiryns were made of massive stone blocks supposedly built by Cyclopes who had an “eye on the forehead”. In the previous articles, we saw information on them linking them to the Tamil – Vedic culture of Shiva worship. The thrust of these articles and the current one is that Greek Thought owed its existence to the culture and Thought brought to Greece by the people of this period (1500 BC and later). The people of this period bear similarity to the ancient Tamils who occupied the now-submerged regions of Indian Ocean.

 One of the proofs is the massive walls of huge boulders. The techniques and capability of lifting massive boulders to build walls were not exclusive Cyclopean traits but are seen in Australia, Easter Islands and in Peru in South America. It has been found out that New South Wales in Australia is dotted with many pre-historic sites of such walls made of boulders. Take a look at the stone walls in NSW Australia which have come to notice recently.

http://wakeup-world.com/2013/10/28/uncovering-an-ancient-underground-tunnel-entrance-in-nsw-australia/

  

Compare with this with Cyclopean walls shown below.

From New South Wales to Easter Island, not much difficulty is there for this boulder culture to have travelled. The Easter Island may not have had walls made of boulders, but it does have huge monolithic stone carvings which cannot be moved by ordinary muscle power. Take a look. 

http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/archaeological-dig-reveals-that-easter-island-heads-have-bodies-too/story-e6frfqai-1226478668649

The next stop from Easter Island is Peru where exists walls of huge boulders, similar to Cyclopean walls. Take a look at Saksaywaman walls in Peru.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sacsayhuaman_%28pixinn.net%29.jpg

These locations showing massive boulder architecture passes through South Indian Ocean. Take a look at the illustration below. 

 

(click the pic)

The Tamil / Pandyan / Tirayan (Tirayan is another name for Pandyans. It means ‘sea-farer’) had their existence for more than 10,000 years in the scattered islands of Indian Ocean. Those habitats were completely submerged in the last sea- flood that occurred around 1500 BC. The Pandyan  king and some of his subjects managed to survive and shifted to South Indian mainland, though parts of the south Indian mainland were already under the rule of Pandyan Kings. During that catastrophe many people of the Pandyan regions got dispersed. NSW Australia, Easter Island and Peru sector show this stone culture later to this submergence. The Cyclopean walls of Tiryns also are post dated to this submergence, but show signs of immediate migration of some powerful Tirayan lords of the Pandyan clan.

Another important proof of this migration is the presence of Conch shells – an important item of the Vedic culture and which is important to Pandyans too – in the artwork. Take a look at this Mycenaean stemmed cup dated at 1350 to 1300 BC

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=110628

Look at the decoration on the shells. This kind of decorated shells (called as Shanku / Conch) is common in Vedic society. These shells have a special place in worship of deities. Until a century ago, people in Vedic culture were using shells to bath the deities with water or milk in their daily worship. The water or milk was kept in stemmed cups like the one above. Take a look at this painting made in the 19^th century of Hindu life life  "From Mrs. S. C. Belnos's celebrated work "Sundhya," published in London, 1851." (web link here)

Look at the corbelled wall structure behind him. This corbelled structure found in Cyclopean masonry in Tiryns is already found in Mohenjo-Daro 5000 years ago (see here )

Coming to the Mycenaean stemmed cup, the cup with a liquid (water or milk in the Vedic culture) and the conch shell as a vessel to fetch the liquid from that cup for the purpose of bathing the deity is an ancient concept of the Vedic society. These two – stemmed cup and the conch shell – go together. This kind of bathing the deity is known as “Shankabhishekam” – bathing by shell. This concept must have first started in a sea-side habitat of the Vedic society.  The abundant availability of these shells is a pre-requisite for this tradition to come in place.  How was this combination known to the artisans of Greece of 13^th century BC?

Let me show some of the similar  looking decorated shells used in temples in Vedic society.

http://mahaperiyavaa.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/shangabishekam/

The following is the shell covered with silver that is used to bath Lord Skanda in Thiruchendur temple in Tamilnadu. Look at the sharp tips on both the ends. The Mycenaean shell is decorated in a similar way. 

http://kodukkulai.blogspot.in/2011/02/blog-post_16.html

This idea was so ingrained in the Vedci society that babies fed using these shells only. Until a generation ago, the new born babies were fed with this kind of shells in the Hindu society. Even today shell shaped cups called as “Paalaadai” made of metals like silver are used as part of tradition to feed to the new-born babies. This continues in Tamil society even today. Take a look at the “Paalaadai”.

 The image appearing in the stemmed cup goes well with the idea of milk cups from which milk is taken in shells to feed the kids. But there is a larger relevance to this cup having shell designs. Before knowing that let us see whether this kind of shells are native to seas near Greece.

The shape of this shell painted in that stemmed cup shows that it is Indian Ocean variety (Turbinella_pyrum). This variety is in use in India. In contrast, the Atlantic Ocean variety (Busycon contrarium) is blunt on top and not like the above looking shell. Take a look at the Atlantic variety. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Busycon-contrarium.jpg

The Mediterranean Sea is not known to have produced the kind of shells as painted in that cup. The Tamil Pandyans as sea-bound settlers in early Sangam periods, were known for shell-diving. Lord Shiva, their presiding deity was supposed to be adorned with ear ornament made of Shell. Thus these shells were in widespread use among commoners and for religious purposes in South Asia, in the Vedic culture.  Only a sea-bound community which uses this kind of decorated shells could have made the above shown cup with shell- painting.

Coming to the shape of the stemmed cup, it is generally thought that these cups are widely in use in Europe and in Greece. But this is the most common cup of the Vedic society used in temples and for religious and Vedic purposes. These stemmed cups come in three different sizes, namely small earthen cups known as “Paalika”, medium shaped cups known as Kalanji-kamba and huge vessels for filling waters or cooked food in temples. The Mycenaean stemmed cup comes in the medium variety.

That this cup (whatever size it may have) is purely Vedic related, cannot be disputed. The small ones, known as Paalika are used in many Vedic functions, both temple festivals and family functions like marriage or upanayanan (getting initiated into Brahmacharya / wearing sacred thread). They are used for "AnkurArppaNam" which means “growing the sprouts” or sowing the seeds. These stemmed cups can be made of any precious metals or simply mud. Sage Atri has given the details of the shape, size and details of this cup and how seeds must be grown in that.

In all Vedic marriages, seeds are grown in 5  Paalikas. A married woman filling the grains in 5 Paalikas in a marriage is shown below. The cups have a stem and are smaller in size.

http://www.ahobilam.com/Vaideekam/poorvam/ankuram.aspx

There are Veda mantras used to install the 4 directional deities like Indra, Yama etc in four cups and Brahma in the middle Cup (Paalika). The grains grown in the Paalikas would be ceremoniously added into running water after marriage. The Paalika cups cannot be destroyed but kept in safe custody to be used in another occasion. In temple festivals this is a grand part of the Vedic rituals.

The second variety of cups are medium shaped and are used for keeping perfumed or medicated items used for temple puja / worship. They are called as Kalanji-kambha  in Kerala temples.

  

http://southindianhandicrafts.co.in/pooja_items__articles_p1/silver_pooja_items__articles

They are used to store Kumkum for archana in Tamilnadu temples. They are also used to store aromatic water as an offering to deities which was also distributed to the devotees. This stemmed cup was there in every house as a Puja vessel. (for worship). Take a look at this 1851 painting showing Hindu way of worship.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1800_1899/dailylife_drawings/belnos/shivpooja.jpg

Take a look at this stemmed cup used for Goddess Ranganayaki in Srirangam temple, Tamilnadu.

The following photo shows a collection of temple vessels from Central India. The medium shaped stemmed cup can be seen.

This cup is a very common one in most of the South Indian  temples. The following pic shows the deities of the famous Thiruvannamalai temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. Look at the stemmed cups in front of the deity.

The name of these cups sounds similar to Greek names for these stemmed cups. The Greek name for these cups is Kylix. Kylix were popular in the Mycenaean period of 1400 to 1200 BCE. It is believed that these cups were used for drinking wine, an intoxicating item. 

The Malayalam word for these types of cups “Kalanjkambha” is derived from Tamil word “KaLanji + Kambam”.

 KaLanjam means “Intoxicants” and “KaLanjiyam” means “place for things” (mostly edible ones).  Kambam means “pillar”. 

It is used to refer to the stem of the cup. Perfumed things used for Puja and things such as Tulsi (holy leaves) and holy powders such as Kumkum, sandal, turmeric, cardamom powder etc are kept in these cups. Aromatic water (eg- mixed with cardamom power) was kept in this cup and used while offering food to the deity. This water was also distributed to the devotees. 

This idea of the Vedic society had gone to Tiryns / Mycenae as early as 13^th century BC. The use of this cup in successive periods in Europe had centred on drinking intoxicants. But its religious purpose was remembered as seen from its use as Chalice .  

One can see a similar looking stemmed cups to offer perfumed smoke or incense to God in Karnak sun temple of Egypt.

The similar KaLanji cup is used obviously for showing the perfumed / incense smoke to God in Vedic society. This is common sight in South Indian temples too. The usage is in Vedic ritual. The name has been there in Tamil that has a deep antiquity. The Greek name resembling the Tamil name and the usage of these cups in Tiryns period gives another proof of our contention that people had migrated to Greece from Tamil regions in the Indian Ocean.

The 3^rd type of stemmed cup is large and is very much in use in all olden temples in Tamilnadu. Even today one can see it in old temples kept near the deity. The main purpose was to store water. Look at the huge stemmed vessel made of silver belonging to the famous Srirangam temple in the picture below. The conch shaped vessel also is shown with an arrow mark..

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/g/019pho0001008s3u00301000.html

During the bathing ceremony of the deity, water would be filled in the huge stemmed vessel. The Conch shaped vessel would be immersed in that water to fill it and then poured on the deity through the nozzle. This tradition is antiquated and cannot be said that Greek vessels were replicated in Indian temples. May be our opponents would have said so had they known the similarity.  Everything or every practice in the Vedic culture comes with a rationale. Bathing the deity with shanku or conch – known as Shankabhisheka- is a special ritual. The water is collected from holy rivers and tanks for bathing the deity. The huge stemmed vessels are used for storing that water. The stem or Kambam (in Tamil) helps in keeping the vessel elevated so that the priest could easily take the water with the conch vessel and pour it on the deity in quick succession. In olden days they did not use any bench or table inside the sanctum sanctorum to keep the vessels elevated. (Today they do so). The stemmed cup helps in storing water or ritual items within hand’s reach.

The Mycenaean cup with conch design, looking similar to these vessels and their use with conches in temples, shows the connection to the Vedic society and Tamils in particular - in having its name Kylix,  closer to Tamil word KaLanjam! The use of Kylix degenerated in course of time to serve wine and liquor.

KaLanjiyam refers to edible things. The same vessels are in use in temples for storing food items also. The following photograph shows temple cook carrying this vessel. He and others are seen going around the temple with cooked food in their vessels to be offered to all the deities installed in the temple. This is from the famous Srivilliputthur temple in Tamilnadu.

http://anudinam.org/2013/07/31/srivilliputtur-vijaya-varusha-thiruvaadipooram/

Thus we can see specific uses for the stemmed cups in Vedic culture. The usage had been remembered with the associated shells by the Pre-Greek society but got degenerated in course of time into the idea of serving intoxicating beverages in the Greek society.  Later it had a rebirth in Christian faith. Which came first, Vedic or Mycenaean? Who got it from whom?

An item of temple use and Vedic use from small Palikas to huge stemmed vessels, the logical deduction is that many Vedic rituals, Vedic ideas and Vedic deities had gone to Greece along with migrant Tirayans.

As if to show this is true, there stands a testimony in Tiryns in the form of a great hall called in Greek as Megaron. We will analyse that in the next post.

(continued)