Reflections from the Village Bard
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The connection we feel to our birth place is universal but this connection depends on the link we maintained with the people we knew there. When this link is broken due to reasons beyond our control, the connection weakens and in some cases disappears. Still a feeling for our roots persists even after a…
The fading traditions due to social and demographic changes come at the cost of greater isolation of people from each other and loneliness. The traditions connected us to our past in a joyful way that has now given way to what some people call practicality. This looks at the reasons and the…
The era of Rudyard Kiplings trains are vanishing under the onslaught of modern trains in India but something still remains that brings people together, makes new friends and reconnect with the old ones.This explores the evolution of trains. Once I was in Paris and had to reach the Gare de Lyon during the evening…
She was a young teenager during the war in Vietnam who sang the songs of war and tragedy, of yearning for peace and mourned all the death and destruction through her soulful songs that made her famous in Vietnam so I thought of introducing her to the world and present to you one…
When people have a feeling that they belong to a superior culture, they tend to clash with others who come from other cultures and have their own superior feelings about it. The result is a clash that can be avoided if only people accept that no one culture is better than any other and…
The politicians and other aspirants to higher office often use the politics of hate to appeal to certain voters that sows discord among people and often causes violent clashes. Hate has no place in any society no matter how divided they are politically so the only way a country can move forward is by promoting…
There are some universal good habits and manners while there are also universal bad habits and manners that become a part of the culture where they are practiced. I look at some of these habits and manners critically here. I have been told that habits and manners vary from country to country so there…
A habit is always acquired because no one is born with it. It can be a good habit or a bad habit that one learns from others.Collectively it then becomes a part of the culture of people like drinking tea or chewing pan. When such habits are practiced in private, it is no ones…
One of the most wonderful artists of his period, Etienne Dinet loved to paint the common people of North Africa especially in Algeria where he spent most of his life. Nasreddine Dinet (born as Alphonse-tienne Dinet on 28 March 1861 24 December 1929, Paris) was a French orientalist painter and was one…
Every country has its tyranny of traditions. In Africa it can be welts and enlargement of lips while in others it may be making the necks long with brass rings. The Indian traditions also call for the anointment of a Brahmin at a certain age with strict Hindu rituals that I had to undergo.…
Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder as the clich goes but true beauty is universal as exemplified by Miss Spain who was judged to be Miss World. However different people have their own ideas about beauty and will go any length to promote it so I explore the notion of…
A time comes when all tyrants and looters fall and start to fade away when people get the courage to say no to them. This is what is happening now in Africa. It is a start to a brighter future for all Africans that will uplift the poor and downtrodden who have long aspired to…
Sudanese protesters in Khartoum People everywhere want freedom. They want freedom to practice their faith, to choose their government through free and fair elections and to live the way they want. Most of all they want a stake in the development of their country into a free and a fair society where all people…
There is a beautiful country where a struggle continues to gain their independence and where people wait and suffer since 1948 when the State of Israel came into being and occupied a part of Palestine forcing millions into exile. They all want to return home and live in peace and prosperity but it is…
This is a post about wishful thinking of an incorrigible romantic who sees all the problems facing the world with solutions if only the people have the will to solve them and wishes that daring and audacious people step forward to solve them. Sometimes I feel like doing something drastic that would have a…
There are many countries that go through a greater share of misfortune than the others, Haiti being one of them. They have suffered and continue to suffer from poverty, corruption, ineffective government, international apathy, lack of jobs and very little foreign investment. Just one family kept an iron grip on them through mass murder…
When I was 22, I went to Vietnam to serve as a volunteer agronomist to work with the farmers and try to improve their agricultural practices and introduce new high yielding rice varieties developed in other countries. That was in 1967 when the country was being devastated by the never ending war imposed on…
The white supremacists in many countries spread hate campaigns and beat up immigrants from many countries because they push their agenda of supremacy over all other races which is a very outdated idea that the whole world repudiates. I focus on the fallacy and its shameful place in human history . This is a…
People who do not travel or do so very infrequently always want to live in their own comfort zone that is hard to find elsewhere. Such people have a difficult time overcoming the cultural barrier but it need not be so. One can learn a great deal from others and practice the good values…
We see the degeneration of culture in many parts of the world due to outside influence that diminishes the values in any culture that was traditionally held dear. It is a phenomenon that needs countermeasures so that the cultures are kept intact and passed on to the next generation. All over the world I…