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Normal vs Differently normal

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by satchitananda, Nov 22, 2011.

  1. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Mindi,

     
  2. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

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    Thanks Aspire. Yes, I used to love the tales from the Panchatantra. You are right, the characters used to be endowed with qualities based on the perspective of human beings. We always see the world as a mirror image of ourselves.
     
  3. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

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    Hi Manju,

    So happy that your little son gave your mil the answer she really needed. And it was better coming from him. She kept quiet and hopefully gave a thought to what he said. If you had said the same thing, all hell would probably broken loose. As they say child is the father of man. :)
     
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  4. vidchakra

    vidchakra Platinum IL'ite

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    Satchi, Very well written!

    Something happened to me very recently... A cat gave birth to kittens in our house compound... We let them be for some days... then they started dirtying the place by dropping rats in the compound... there was no choice but to shooo them away... The cats were then shuttling from one house to another trying to find a place for itself... And from past two days I dont see them around... Have we encroached their place?
    Oh... did I go out of the context of the topic.. :)
     
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  5. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

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    Vid, they did not come back and demand their place back. They quietly went away to look for another place. You think human squatters would have moved out so easily? That is the difference between them and us.
     
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  6. vidchakra

    vidchakra Platinum IL'ite

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    Thats good analysis Satchi... This shows who is more civilized :)
     
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  7. ambika04

    ambika04 Gold IL'ite

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    Dear Satchi,
    Your post reminds me of my dear friend stating that our mindset is trained or tuned in such a way that we ought to see well groomed fair complexed people only in ads & in other medias.When we seek help,when we need blood,when we find solace among friends we dont bother to see the color or complexion but only when it comes to marriage we very openly state "needed fair comlexed,good looking girl/boy.What differentiates us from animals & beast is not just civilasation but the knack to be selfish in favorable situation.It may sound harsh but in reality I have come across such different feelings.Wonderful post satchi.
     
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  8. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

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    You are absolutely right Ambila. Do we care to find out whose blood we are accepting when we need transfusion?
     
  9. kkrish

    kkrish IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Sats
    I have been thinking deeply about your topic. I apologize if I sound convoluted…I am unable to organize my thoughts more clearly.

    My initial reaction to your thread was “how true that the creatures endowed with 5 senses have more class than us humans who are endowed with six”

    But then I did some research on animal behavior. Animals also exhibit groupism and they fight each other for mate and habitat. What you saw in that documentary may have been exceptions.

    As I do not like comparisons let me focus on just us, humans.

    I too am a sad witness to the mindless discrimination that exists in the human society. Sometimes I wonder if we are evolving into better people at all.

    There appears to be no dearth of reasons for this discrimination, profiling, and intolerance.

    A person’s skin color, caste, religion, eating habits, education, job, physical handicap, mental handicap, money, and now being judgemental:
    ·if you have an iPhone you are materialistic,
    ·if you have a Benz car you are flaunting your wealth, if you live in a modest house you are stingy,
    ·if you have a credit card you are a spendthrift, you don’t have one you are a scrooge,
    ·if you wear a sari you are old-fashioned, if you wear jeans you ape the west,
    ·if you like classical music you need a life, if you like western music you are disrespecting your culture,
    ·you can leave Chennai and live in North India far from family but if you live abroad you are a traitor, don’t care about your parents, money-minded
    ·Only English spoken by the Indians is good, the British and Americans speak their mother-tongue with marbles in their mouth
    …..I can go on…
    And then there is this attitude that handicapped persons are stupid, are good for nothing, and are fit only to beg….

    Basically what I observed is this, “what I am and what I do is the best; what you are and what you do is the worst”.
    Is discrimination found in the western society? Yes, in varying degrees of intensity and in various other aspects.

    Is this new? Absolutely not. In this song by Sri Annamacharya who lived in the 15th century, “Bhramam Okate” given below, you can see that discrimination has existed for ages.
    Meaning:
    caraNam1: There are no differences of low & high. "Srihari" (A name of Vishnu. Vishnu is the form of God who is in charge of maintenance, protection of the good & destruction of the bad. In this context, Srihari is the Supreme Spirit) is the indwelling Spirit to one and all. All the beings in creation are one because the indwelling spirit in every creature is one and the same.

    caraNam 2: Sleep is same to all, be it a king or a servant. Be it a "Brahmin" (man of the highest caste) or "Chandala" (man of the lowest caste), the earth they live on is the one and the same.

    caraNam 3: The sensual pleasure is one and the same either for angels or for the insects and animals. The day and night are equal to the rich as well as to the poor.

    caraNam 4: One could afford to eat tasty food and the other the condemned food. But the tongues that taste the food are alike. An object of fragrance or an object of foul smell, the air that carries the smell is one and the same.

    caraNam 5: Be it an elephant or a dog, the sun shines alike on both of them. For the good and the bad, Lord Venkateshwara alone is "The Savior".
    Courtesy: Lakshman Ragde.

    On the positive side many amongst us humans have risen above and beyond and shown the world how we can live in harmony by mutual respect.

    As Mindi said, folks have adopted children, have adopted other species too and protected them. Take our protected forests, the Whitakers who have tortoise, crocodile, and snake farms, and numerous organizations throughout the world where the almost extinct species are nurtured and sent back to the wild.

    There are intercaste marriages, inter religious marriages, and inter-racial marriages.

    Social reform is the slowest and will take many centuries to be accepted and adopted because it changes ever so slowly with each generation.

    With that hope I continue to watch and move along my fellow human beings because there are both the negative and positive side to every issue.

    I apologize for this long feedback and if I have digressed from the point you wanted to make.
    Good article.
     
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  10. Sudha Kailas

    Sudha Kailas IL Hall of Fame

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    Your article brings back memories of my recent trip to Manas National Park, Assam.
    There was this mother elephant who nursed not only her baby but also fed another baby of another mother since the actual mother could not feed her own due to lack of milk......it was so touching and when the mahout gave the story we were all so impressed by nature and god's laws and had me thinking.....@why dont we see kindness amongst humans......
     
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