Say ''No'' to Homeopathy

Homeopathy is nonsense-plain nonsense of the worst kind. Financial greed of some and ignorance of millions has kept this dead field of medicine alive, though people like me are fighting hard to strike the last nail in its coffin and bury this rotting piece of nonsensical hokum. A homeopathy doctor is no better than that shaman or tantrik who sits by the banks of river ganges with ash rubbed all over his body and claims to miraculously cure diseases.

I should confide to my readers that I myself believed in Homeopathy since a few years back. I had an acquaintance whose daughter was suffering from epilepsy. Her parents used to consult a Homeopathic doctor for her ailment. The doctor would give her a set of sugary, white pills and some other red, blue ones at a fees equivalent of a clinical surgery and claim that it would cure her. I remember that the doctor himself would never tell about the pharmaceutical composition of those pills. Instead it was claimed in his bogus advertisements that his medicines were prepared from rare herbs that he gathered from the hearts of the jungles in Himalayas. As a marketing student now, I can understand the trickery that the doctor was playing on our minds.

Tell them - that your medicines are costly because you have prepared them with rare herbs. Your doctor; Mam is a real life Indiana Jones. Don’t be fooled by his pot-belly and shaggy trousers, he has done the hunt for the red orchid and the blue and the white and fought with Bigfoot and Yeti and Cannibalistic tribals to get you this preparation.

James Randi, the famous sceptic and magician has been doing shows all over the world where he pops more than a hundred homeopathy sleeping pills at a time and still stands smiling before his audience. Think about it, have you ever taken Alprazolam (Sleeping pill)? I have a few times and only one pill can make you sleepy. 2-4 can even cause slight memory loss when you wake up. 15 can cause coma and more than 20 can cause...you know, death. That is the effect of standard, scientifically proven medicine, unlike homeopathy that does nothing. You can add those sugary pills in your coffee if you like, that would atleast save some of your money on sugar.

Now, the question arises – Why doesn’t homeopathy works? The answer is that Homeopathy is not real science.  Homeopathy is a system of alternative medicine originated in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann, based on his doctrine of similia similibus curentur. This doctrine says that anything that can cause disease like symptoms in a healthy person can even cure it if given in diluted quantities. Hahneman used to ingest Cinchona barks as a test. The chemicals present in the bark used to give him malaria like symptoms. So he concluded on the basis of his aforementioned “belief” that if cinchona is given in a diluted form to a patient suffering from malaria than it will cure him. It was a belief that had no scientific basis. Now you may ask, how diluted should a chemical be to cure the symptoms of a disease? The weird answer is, the more diluted it is, the more potent its medicinal effect becomes.

Homeopathic remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water, followed by forceful striking on an elastic body, called succussion. Each dilution followed by succussion is said to increase the remedy's potency. Dilution usually continues well past the point where none of the original substance remains.

Let me give you an example.  A popular homeopathic treatment for the flu is a 200C (1C dilution = 1 part in 100) dilution of duck liver, marketed under the name oscillococcinum. As there are only about 10⁸⁰ atoms in the entire observable universe, a dilution of one molecule in the observable universe would be about 40C. Oscillococcinum would thus require 10³²⁰ more universes to simply have one molecule in the final substance. The high dilutions characteristically used are often considered to be the most controversial and implausible aspect of homeopathy.

So, there is offcourse not a single molecule of medicine in the above preparation. Yet, people will buy it for themselves and their children as a cure for Flu. This is not just fraud, but it can be very dangerous too.

Do you know? Many people call the modern scientifically proven field of medicine as Allopathy. This term was coined by Hahneman only. Allopathy according to him was a field of treatment where the effects of the chemicals given to the patient produced reverse effect to his symptoms. So a chemical ‘’X’’ given to a patient would reduce the symptoms of cold rather than produce the same.

Just use your brain. If there was anything that could cure your disease in a cheap and healthy way without any side effects than even a single pharmaceutical MNC like Pfizer would had acquired and patented that medicine. Occasionally I have heard Homeopaths (I would refrain from calling them doctor from now) saying that their medicine is better than Allopathy (Scientifically proved medicine) because it has no side effects. How in the hell is a Homeopathic preparation going to have any side effects when it has no effects at all.

I think that even after reading this, some of you will be unconvinced. You guys have seen some of your friends getting cured by taking homeopathy pills. I myself have seen that. Remember that Homeopaths never say that your ailment will be cured overnight by taking their remedy. They say that the disease would be cured in a few months. Also they prescribe several diet changes or exercise. Most of the times, the diseases like viral fever or boils are cured by their own. In other cases, the disease or its symptom is cured or merely suppressed by placebo effect. Placebo effect is still not clearly understood by science but as we know, it is the body’s own mechanism to cure a person. You can read more about it on internet.

Homeopathy gives you a sugar pill or distilled water. None of that has the ability to do you any harm. Sometimes, you might just get cured with it because of placebo effect. But then, why take the risk? If you know that Homeopathy is nothing but placebo than it will not help you anyways.

Do you know? Homeopathy has not published a single peer reviewed journal in science since the day it has originated. If you have ever sincerely studied science than you must be knowing that publishing a peer reviewed journal is necessary for any theory or scientific discovery to get accepted by the scientific community. Every single drug that you have ever taken in medicine has gone through this process.

So, why is Homeopathy still allowed in India and some (Not all) countries of the world? You will know this when you understand about the history of modern medicine and how it was also similar to alternative medicines like Homeopathy just 150 years ago. This is the same reason why Marijuana is banned in the world today while tobacco and alcohol is allowed. Want to know more, keep checking this space.

On the idea of Free Will

What you do in the dark will reflect of your character in the light. What you do in the light will still be there as invisible hands that shaped your personality, even when you hide in the dark. You cannot run. You cannot hide. The external forces have created you and you cannot escape from that. One can suppress his real self in his most conscious state. One can fake himself in public, wear a mask and fool some people. But the moment you leave that state of consciousness and open the gates of your subconscious, your real self will shout out before everyone. We have all felt that. We see our most pervert desires and most heinous ambitions come true in our dreams. We have seen sane people acting insane when they are drunk. If only men can study themselves in their dreams or in their inebriated states, they will be able to know more about themselves.

The idea of free-will arises from the idea of acausality. It is in some ways like the idea of a supernatural God.  God is the first mover; the first cause and he does not need to have a cause. In the same way people think that their decisions, their everyday actions, even their own ‘’self’’ come from a separate ‘’I’’ which is a free agent. Let me illustrate:

You are given two coloured blocks to choose from, red and blue. Let’s say that you choose red. So why did you make that choice? You would say that ‘’you’’ made a conscious decision to choose red. That means that ‘’you’’ did not choose blue because you decided not to do that. Let me ask, what is ‘’you’’ here?

If you say that ‘’you’’ is your brain than it is actually your brain that decided to choose the red block. But, don’t we make a separate duality between our brain and what ‘’we’’ are?

I asked a sage and thus he replied,

Sage: Tell me Sourabh, who are you?

Me: I am Sourabh Tiwary, a Marketing student.

Sage: But it is just your name, son. Who are you? You call yourself ‘’I’’, what is that ‘’I’’?

Me: I am my body, my hands, my feet, my abdomen...I am my body?

Sage: But if in some accident you lose your hands, won’t you still remain that ‘’I’’ that you like referring yourself with?

Me: But Sir, If I lose my brain someday, i won’t remain the ‘’I’’. I would cease to exist. I will turn into soil and dirt.

Sage: No, my son, you can never cease to exist for you are more than just your body. You are a soul, entrapped in a body.

Me: Evidence for a soul, sir.

[And thus the sage quietly picked his bag of hokum and left]

The idea of soul is based on dualism, meaning that the people are divided in body and soul. While the body is finite and mortal, soul is infinite and immortal. There is no evidence to believe that there is a soul in us. This concept is entirely based on faith. I can understand that religious people will certainly have difficulty understanding this concept but I am writing this article for people that have an open mind for inquiry.

I am soulless, I am not the body, I am the brain and my body’s name is Sourabh. I and the other organs in the body live in an interdependent organ system that has a symbiotic relationship with each other. Sourabh might think that he is someone different from me, but that is just an illusion, an evolutionary benefit that has been created in him through natural selection.

We human beings or I must say, Homo sapiens are highly conscious species. The level of consciousness decreases as we move down the evolutionary ladder. Look at your pet dog. Do you think that he is as conscious about himself as you are? Now look at the insects in your garden. Look at the trees. We refer ourselves as ‘’I’’, ‘’me’’, ‘’Self’’, yet it is only our brain that makes that illusion. This illusion comes with a larger brain in us. Perhaps, a million years back, our ancestors were not as conscious as we are. Perhaps a million years from now, our descendents will be super conscious. What that can mean, can only be imagined in science fiction.

But how does it matter about if I am ‘’the brain’’ OR ‘’the soul’’? It matters because in case of the former, we do not have a free choice. In order to understand that, one must understand what is our brain. Our brain is only a naturally evolved system of response. It responds to external stimulus. In many ways, it is like the CPU of our computers. In the same way that a CPU processes and responds to an external stimulus, so does our brain. Our brain is just a highly developed CPU.

The first digital computers were built in 1940 in United Kingdom. These were spacious machines that required power of up to hundreds of modern day PC, s. The computers of today are billions of times faster and efficient than those. This is 2012 and only in eight decades, we have been able to manufacture super intelligent computers. Currently, many scientists fear that only in a century, computers would be so capable that they would develop self-consciousness just like us. The only hurdle in this road is to find a substitute for silicon micro-chips.

Let me now make an analogy between a computer and a human being:

a.      The human body is analogous to the body of the computer. It protects us and has systems that provide us energy.

b.    There is a memory drive in the computer in the same way that human brain has a memory. Though there is a difference in the way they grasp and store information.

c.   There is processing unit in the computer analogous to the various parts of brain that process information and data.

d.      There are input devices in both, computer and human beings. In case of computer, it is the keyboard, mouse etc. and in human beings, it is the five sensory systems – skin, nose, tongue, ear & eyes.

So, why did you choose the red block again in the above example? Okay, it is not ‘’you’’. It is your brain. Why did it choose that? Perhaps it chooses it randomly. That means there was a 50% chance of choosing any coloured block. If the choice was only because of randomness, where was the choice than.  Let’s say that there was a reason to that. There was a processing in your brain and ultimately the result came out as ‘’the red block’’. But nothing can come out of just thin air because it would imply acausality. When you saw the block and when you heard the command to select one, the stimulus reached your brain and your brain acted accordingly. There must have been some process that occurred in your brain which led it to produce one ‘’specific’’ result to choose a ‘’specific’’ colour – RED.

Now we do not know the process. The process that decides anything in our brain is very, very complex. There are a billion neurons and we cannot yet trace their every action. But from my above arguments, one can safely say that there must have been a process.

Have you ever been chased by a dog? (I was once and that was scary) When you are being chased, you increase your speed and change directions in order to escape from that dog. If you are doing the same with your bike, you know your acceleration and speed but in case of yourself (your brain actually!), you know nothing. The process runs deep in the brain and yet it is able to provide you the exact speed and acceleration at which you should run. You cannot perceive those calculations because your foremost necessity to survive is to run. Your subconscious part of brain does all the mathematical work. In the previous times, in a jungle when you are running to escape from a lion, your conscious brain should have just thought about the danger and not about the precise calculations at which you should run. Natural selection ‘’naturally’’ prefers such species.

Let me give you another analogy:

a.      There is hardware in our computer which decides its memory and processing capacity. In the same way, there is a hardware part in our brain and spinal system which decides our memory and processing capability. Don’t tell me that you haven’t seen some of your classmates struggling with simple math problems in the school. People have different logical and memory capacities and we all have experienced that. Just like computers.

b.    Even if a computer has the best of processing systems, latest graphic cards and advanced microchips, it can’t even do a simple calculation like ‘’2*2” if it does not have the necessary software. Someone needs to programme that computer so that it can function. In the same way, we need our programmers. We humans are programmed by external sources and systems. We are programmed through education, the people we meet, the things we see and hear, everything outside us programmes us.  There is a difference between computers and human being’s memory systems. A computer does not memorise everything. If I watch a movie on my computer, I can always delete it from its memory. On the other hand, the memory system of a human brain remembers everything that it perceives through its five sensory systems. The quality of the memory actually depends on how closely you perceive something.  This is one of the reasons why we shouldn’t strive to live for infinity. In such a condition, our memory would be full only in a century or two and we won’t be able to remember anything after that. 

If we do not have any free-will than it means that whatever we think we do is only a response based on our programming (through external sources) and our internal brain mechanism (our hardware). We are not the conscious agents of our decisions. When I am writing this article, it is just a super advanced self conscious computer (S.A.S.C.C) that is doing that – Think about it. I will discuss the implications of this in my next article. Do you now understand the meaning of my first few lines? (What you do in the dark will reflect of your character in the light. What you do in the light will still be there as invisible hands that shaped your personality, even when you hide in the dark. You cannot run. You cannot hide). Everything that you do in the hiding and in secret programmes you. Everything you do in the morning before everyone programmes you. The external environment shapes you. How can you ever hide or run from yourself.

Collateral Damage: The diary of a young girl

20 October

The night was filled with the noise of panicking people running around to save their lives. I woke up to see but my mother asked me to pull the blanket over my face and sleep. I could hear explosions behind the mountain. In the early springs, I like to go to the mountain and feel the brush of fresh air over my face. I cannot go there anymore.

My friend Sana has got a new born brother. I and my mother are going to see her tomorrow. My father tells that the baby has got olive coloured hair. I want to touch him and play with him.

24 October

My Grandfather came today. He says that twelve people were killed on the mountains by American drones. He knows one of the men that were killed. His name was Jameel and he used to herd sheep. We bought a sheep from him last Eid. It had the softest fur that I had touched.

Father says that Jameel was not a radical. He was a good man. But the drones flying above the air cannot differentiate between the good and the bad.

We went to Sana’s home to see her baby brother. He smiled at me. I smiled back and kissed him.

26 October

America is a big and powerful country on the other side of the globe. My father says that the people in America are very rich. The Americans live a good life compared to us, without any fear or any poverty.

Our beautiful valley has been taken by religious fanatics. They say that we cannot go to school. They say that girls should stay at home and should not wear colourful clothes. But I love reading. When Quran was revealed to our Prophet, the first commandment of Allah was to read.

28 October

American drones killed 7 people yesterday that included 2 women also. The women are not terrorists. They do not wield any guns or bombs. They are housewives and they struggle to meet family needs at home. I feel sad for their death.

Why not the Americans understand? Not everyone here wants to harm them. Some of them are just fathers who have lost their sons in war - The war against Afghanistan in which America helped us. Some are brothers whose sisters were killed in similar drone attacks.

30 October

Nobody will feel better than me if the Taliban are pushed out of our beautiful valleys. I want to study and become a Doctor. I want to heal people like Allah does.

American drones have killed some of those Taliban’s but they have also killed many of our own. They have left many babies without their father. They have left many women without their husbands. Can America feel our pain? Your love hurts us.

2 November

It is getting chilly here. I feel terrible, coughing all night. There were explosions very near to our house. American drones blew my school because some Taliban were hiding in it. It was the only school I had. I can fill a cup with my tears. Sometimes I do not understand about who is our real enemy- America or Taliban?

3 November

My father says that we will have to move to Islamabad from this place. I do not want to leave my beautiful heaven. American drones have killed many Taliban and I feel happy for that. But the drones have also killed many innocent people. My mother was picking firewood in the forest last evening and there was a blast very near to her.

Father says that America is not concerned about us. It is only concerned about its own people. If one American dies, drones will kill a hundred of us. We are not people to them. We are Collateral damage- a damage that was unintentionally done to secure the life of important people. The dreams of our children do not mean anything. Sana’s father has decided to stay back in the valleys. I pray for him and his family to Allah.

[ I am Fiza, the wind over the mountains, the clouds over the sky. I am not and can never be collateral damage. When you kill me, tell everyone that a 14 year old girl who wanted to become a doctor and who liked to pick flowers in spring has died. Please, do not call me Collateral damage. ]

This diary is not real. But the pains reflected in this diary are real. According to the report by Bureau of Investigative Journalism, more than 160 children have been killed in the drone strikes. I understand that Collateral Damage is an unintentional but sad consequence of drone attacks and the real targets in this war are terrorists. But one cannot deny that many terrorists are also created because of such practices. A father whose son is killed in such a strike does not care about who was the real target. For him, America becomes an aggressive and imperialist bully. Sometimes you do not kill a terrorist; you just create two of his replacements. While the war goes on, children die continuously and several dreams are lost.  

A few weeks back, a young angel, Malala Yousaf was shot by Terrorists from the same region for spreading secular values and raising her voice for education. The whole world sympathized with her. She was flown to UK for treatment and her photo appeared in the front page of every newspaper. I want to ask:

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     Where is the first class treatment for the children injured in drone attacks?

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  Where is the international condemnation for the children killed in   drone attacks?

Do not get me wrong, I myself support Malala and I have written a lot against Taliban and radical Islamists. 

I am just raising my voice for the concern of the innocent people that have been affected in this crossfire between USA and Taliban.

Can there be any other method to neutralize the terrorists? You can share your views. I think that investing in schools and jobs in the affected regions of Waziristan and FATA can help. The government of Pakistan has a huge responsibility here. It should start a dialogue with the local people of these areas and try to assimilate them into their country. Guns should always be the last resort. Infact, I would say that a gun with a bullet should be the last resort.

On the Idea of Free Speech

"After all, if freedom of speech means anything, it means a willingness to stand and let people say things with which we disagree, and which do weary us considerably" Zechariah Chaffe

Freedom of expression, what does it means? It means the freedom to say whatever a person wants to - freedom to express your emotions, thoughts, ideas, anything in the way and through any medium that you feel like. The medium changes from person to person, like a painter would draw on canvas, a sculptor would chisel over rock or marble, a writer would write and a film-maker would speak through his camera. We can easily understand that the language of expression depends on the language that a person is experienced in. An Englishmen would express himself in English, French in French and a German in German.

There is one important point here too. Even in a society, there are various differences of social classes. Each individual is unique in some way or the other. An aristocrat would express himself through gentle words, quotations from great poets and with a little bit of honey for every sour idea that he would convey. A politician would be cautious, maybe even two-faced, appreciating a person at his face and slandering him before others. A person born in a slum would talk filthily, swearing and cursing in his stinking breath. We all can logically argue that all of these people would be different in their manners of conversation and expression and still they should have the right to speak whatever they want to in their private circles.

The point about private circles is important here. A person should not enter into the private space of other people to express himself. If he does that than everyone would be allowed to do the same and we wouldn’t be living in a stable, civilized society. A chaotic society where people do not respect the rights and privacy of others would not be in a stage to even discuss such things and negotiate upon the rules that would make a civilized society. Like natural beings, societies and languages too evolve. During the Roman era, we used to have a time when the powerful people in the senate used to decide whether a person should speak something or not. But if we agree that powerful people should suppress the speech and medium of weak people than we will have to agree that when the same weak people become strong by a turn of fate, than they should be allowed to suppress the speech of others.

But however righteous this freedom looks like, words are dangerous weapons. They can break hearts and they can bring down despots. Words can hurt and sometimes their pain is far deeper than the physical ones. Wherever I go and whomever I meet, I would just love to hear good things about myself. But I am a man and thus I am susceptible to errors. If I think that I am walking in the right direction and if I am wrong, my stubbornness to disregard the warnings of others can be fatal to me. Criticism is important for an individual. Anything that is good and beneficial for an individual is also good for the society and the state.

Some people are offended by the criticism of people, things and ideas that they revere. History is littered with instances where regimes have burnt books of other writers, where scientists and philosophers have been burnt at the stake and incarcerated, where dissent has been considered as treason, and where lovely and noble ideas of some people have been corrupted and propagated as hatred and lowly by bourgeois controlled media. Heinrich Heine, the Jewish poet of 19^th century Germany once wrote, “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings”. Is it a mere coincidence that half a century later, Books by Jewish and Communist writers were burned in Nazi Germany and millions of people too were killed and burned in the ovens of different concentration camps.

Some people think that some ideas should be immune to criticism. One idea that always tops this list in every part of the world has always been religion. You cannot criticise religion or the gods and prophets of any religion. The second in the list is nationalism, “the idea of nation” and the national symbols. But if you dare to criticise them, you run the risk of being prosecuted and to fire the emotions of a large number of people. Just take the example of Aseem Trivedi. He is a 25 year old cartoonist in India. As we agreed above, a person should be free to express whatever he wants in the kind of medium that is his profession. A cartoonist’s profession is satire. So, Mr. Trivedi drew a caricature of Indian national emblem. The difference was just that he drew three blood thirsty wolves instead of three lions in his cartoon. The Indian police was swift to book him on the charges of sedition, presumably on the orders of the Congress government that had been shown as wolves in his caricature. This is what happens with censorship. If you allow the censorship of a few ideas than a despotic government or a group of zealots can even ask for the censorship of some other ideas. Censorship thus becomes a tool in the hands of people who want to rule and control others. Therefore it is necessary for a democracy to allow total freedom of expression to its citizens. No idea or symbol should be immune from criticism. “The USA” has perhaps never seen a dictator since its independence on 1776 because of the principles of free speech laid by its founding fathers, like Thomas Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin.

Look at the case of Pakistan. It got freedom in the same year as we did. It had the same military as we had. Still, its military overturned its democratic government three times and India has still to see such a coup. What is the reason? One reason is that Pakistan was never built on the foundations of free speech. In case of Pakistan, it was called as an Islamic republic where according to Penal Code 293; one cannot criticize Prophet Mohammad and Koran. Despots like Yahya Khan and Gen. Zia fuelled the fire of Islamism in Pakistan and continued ruling it. Because Islam couldn’t be criticized and a person professing to instil Sharia in the country could not be criticized, Pakistan went on to become a hub of terrorism and an example of failure for the whole world.

A few days back, American Ambassador to Libya was murdered by some religious zealots at the Libyan embassy. The zealots were angry that an American-Israeli film-maker had made a short-film mocking their Prophet. There was no connection between the Ambassador Chris Stevens and the man who made that movie. But still the religious fundamentalists’ were so angry that they killed that innocent person. This is what I call the “limit of censorship”. In a country controlled by such religious zealots, a person would become a slave under their hands. He would say and act according to the whims of those who held control to the death squads and the bloodthirsty government. Censorship would eventually make him a slave. Freedom of speech would be required to break through this cage.

Freedom of speech means nothing if someone doesn’t has the freedom to offend. Afterall, any idea can offend anyone. Let’s say that I am offended by the suppression of freedom of speech. Let’s say that I am offended by a corporation, a person, a religion, a movie or anything. Should I than go on and kill some people to express my anger? You would say no. The society works through social contract (Thomas Hobbes). If we have a problem with something, we should sit down on the table and debate about it to find a solution that benefits everyone.

Judy Blume said, “It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship”. I want to live in a society where books, even on controversial matters are written. The modern world did not come about in a wink of an eye. It took generations of people to bring this change. Voltaire once said, “Even if I do not believe in your idea, I will fight to death for your right to say it”. John Stuart Mill wrote in his prominent work, “On Liberty”, that a person is free to say anything until it physically harms someone. Mill, went on to say that even if the whole world except one agrees with something, even then the world would be wrong to censor that lone dissenter, in the same way that that one dissenter (if he had the power) would be wrong to censor the whole world.

I know that Ideas and thoughts can hurt - but without allowing absolute freedom of speech, we would never be able to achieve a scientifically and politically progressed world that we yearn for.

On the Idea of Reading

I have always been a loner, choosing solitude over company, silent meditation over joyous evenings with friends. But a man cannot just live by himself. He needs something or someone, an awe inspiring date with nature, a transcendent romance with a piece of music, words, activity or mission, anything that can fill the void of his loneliness.

Far back in my childhood, I remember the brown pages of the ‘’Famous Five’’ novels that I used to borrow from my school library. We used to live a clichéd life in the city of Khetri (Rajasthan). The summers were very hot. I couldn’t go out in the scorching sun, so reading science and litterateur, dreaming and playing with my younger brother were my only time-pass. But somewhere deep inside, I always wanted to run away from that city, I wanted to be born again, reincarnated as Julian, doing adventures at Kirrin Island as he did in the Enid Blyton’s famous series of Novels.

I love reading books. I also like collecting books. At this age, I have a pretty wonderful library that I like to boast about among my friends. I am always very careful in preserving my books. Most of the paperbacks get swollen due to moisture. One idea is to keep it leaf side towards a damp surface, preferably in your book shelf. After you complete a book, keep it pressed under some other books for a few days. This helps to prevent the damage on the cover page of the book.

The first book (fiction) that I bought was ‘’Black Beauty’’ by Anna Sewell. An interesting read, a heartfelt-story about a horse, Black Beauty started a strange urge inside me to read and learn more, understand the world and see the world, as some other people in the past understood and saw it.

Mario Puzo

Is there an end to Imagination? I don’t think so, but if it is, the perimeter of the extent of human imagination is tied with the extent of human experience. Mario Puzo who wrote ‘’Godfather’’ was himself a pulp journalist. His experience into the intricacies of Mafia families of Italian-Americans helped create great characters and an outstanding storyline in his most seminal work, ‘’The Godfather’’. He also got an Oscar for writing the screenplay for the movie based on his novel.

Characters created in the novels must be somewhere linked to the people that a writer meets in his life. Is it strange to note that Thomas Hardy’s Wessex was nothing but a makeover of Dorset where he was born in? Charles Dickens wrote prodigiously about the plight of men in urban, industrialized, warring societies.  He was born in that era and he grew up among the struggling lower class of the early 19^th century England. I remember reading ‘’The Christmas Carols’’ in the sunny winter afternoons in Bhagalpur. That place was so dull. In the winters, it became even duller. I could imagine how Ebenezer Scrooge must have felt when the ghost of Christmas past took him to the house of Bob Cratchit. Bob’s son is ill and he cannot give him a good treatment because Scrooge is unwilling to pay him a decent wage. Only if we could see where our actions are taking us - We speak because we can but we do not care for the words we speak, we do not care about the pain that our words cause on our loved ones. But Dickens’s story is more than that.

It’s a sharp critic on the English bourgeoisie; it is a cry for help and affection for the people that have been suppressed under the boots of the machines of capitalism and greed. It was and still is a socialist movement in itself. Offered with a Christmas cake and a light of hope, this novel is a reminiscence of what litterateur can bring with it.

Words have a huge power. Actions come next. It was the words of Thoreau, Gandhi, and King that brought the revolution for Human rights around the world. I have tried my hands in Non-Fiction, History, Philosophy and my dear sweetheart science. There have been many books in the past that have challenged the notion of God. But none of them come any way closer to the analytical, scientific, logical and even poetic prowess of Richard Dawkin’s, ‘’The God Delusion’’. I think this book can be rightly called the Bible of atheism. I read it for science (After I had read, The Selfish Gene). Faith for me was always like a harlot’s virginity, gone forever an evening and I never even knew about it.  But my favourite author and speaker in the field of atheism is Mr. Christopher Hitchens. I just love him. In a documentary where he said that he had a whole collection of the writings of Orwell, I started collecting them too. I have got 1984 and Animal Farm in my library.

I think Orwell was a prophetic genius. Whatever he predicted in his book is what we can see today in many developed countries. Socialism has failed. Capitalism at its extreme has become the mother and father of that ‘’Big Brother’’ that we all hated and feared off in ‘’1984’’. There was a time when I used to think that God sends these people to warn us and help us in our times of misery, with the accidental discovery of Penicillin by Fleming and prophetic voices of Orwell and Khalil Gibran, I always thought that God had never abandoned us with Jesus and Krishna. He was always with us in the form of these great writers and thinkers.

Book is not only about learning new things. I do not believe in free-will. I think that every experience and feeling that we get from the outside world conditions our brain. We are conditioned due to the sounds we hear, colours we see, things we touch (or things that touch us), our daily experience, just everything around us. When that arrogant friend from my neighbouring room meets me, I know that I am conditioned by his words.

So, I think, why not hang upon the last straws of choice that I have. Why not get conditioned by Scott FitzGerald or J.D Salinger instead of my immature hostel-mate?

“Sea going merchants are right to ensure that dissolute, blasphemous or wicked men do not sail in the same ship with them, believing such company to be unlucky.  That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with and calling on the god for help: ‘’Shut up”, he said, ‘’so that they do not realize that you are here with me”. When Albuquerque, the viceroy of India was in peril from a raging tempest, he took a boy on his shoulders for one reason only: so that by linking their fates together the innocence of that boy might serve him as a warrant and intercession for God’s favour and so bring him to safety.” [Michel de Montaigne, On Solitude]

You can take the analogy from the above words. We steal a part of the person that we live with. So shouldn’t we try to be in the company of wise and rational, aesthetic and revolutionary people?  Life doesn’t provide us a chance to meet so many versatile people but we can still talk to many interesting people and hear their words through their writings.  Harper Lee’s creation, Atticus Finch has been an immense influence on me. Gabriel Garcia gorgeously explores the darkness and moonlight of love and its pain in his momentous work, ‘’Love in the time of Cholera’’.

Reading brings me back my teenage through ‘’Catcher in the Rye’’, a piece of Romance through ‘’Rebecca’’, desolation and tear of a friendship long gone through ‘’Bridge to Terebithia’’.

I have loved reading the works of Larry Collins. He is a brilliant history researcher and story writer. I have read ‘’Freedom at Midnight” and “O Jerusalem” by him and Dominque Lapierre.  Any Indian who has not read Freedom at Midnight should try this book. It is a story that takes us back into the pre-1947 era, in the days of friendship and love between Hindus and Muslims and the time when Lahore was the still the ‘’Paris of the Orient” and still a part of Bharat. I have shuddered and occasionally cried while reading that book. It is a book that has made me closer to India and strangely closer to our lost brothers in Pakistan.

Whenever I write, I mostly write about fantasy. Elves and witches, magic castles and knights, something that we can never achieve, I like to read and travel in their world through books. Harry Potter was my favourite when I was a teenage; Frodo Baggins is now my choice (From Lord of the Rings). Novels like these also tell us what free expression and imagination can achieve. It can take us to strange places, new worlds and make us feel things that we can never feel in the real world.

We are all witnesses of this time and place of the world. Let us read books from the writers of past and become time travellers too. The past without its mobile phones and internet is not boring, it has got its Sherlock Holmes and Camille, Manderlay and Mordor, and the brilliant writers have bequeathed us with a huge treasure. Let us be the treasure hunters in Library and search for books from different times and of different genres.

I am going to start reading D.H Lawrence’s ‘’Lady Chatterley’s lover”... here how it starts..

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened; we are among the ruins...”

                                                   

Corporate Ethics: The Chicken and Gay controversy

American media is abuzz with the Chick-fil-a controversy going on these days. For people who do not know, Chick-fil-a is a fast food restaurant chain that specializes in chicken sandwich. As I have talked to some of my American friends, I can assure you that the chicken sandwiches do taste great at Chick-Fil-A. The business is owned by a Christian family, the Cathy group. Samuel Cathy is the founder and CEO of the 4 Billion $ company. Through its charitable wing, the Winshape Foundation, Chick-Fil-A discourages homosexuality and same sex marriages. This religio-political stance has brought this hugely successful fast-food chain in a controversy with Liberals condemning its stance while conservative Christian groups endorsing its views. COO Dan Cathy has clear-cut views on this issue, ‘’by breaking the norms of the traditional family, America will have to bear God’s justice’’.

So here we have a plain case of a Corporate Giant that endorses homophobic views. Now, holding such views is not illegal in USA. Anyone coming from the Bible belt of the southern states is prone to hold such views. But as a business student, I am more concerned with the point whether a company, firm or industry should propagate such controversial views or not.  

How does it affect the profits?

I don’t have any clear data now to prove anything. Many of the rationalists, liberals and gay people have started protesting against the company. Thomas Merino, the mayor of Boston and Chicago City council has already expressed their intentions to stop the expansion of this company in their respective cities. The Jim Henson Company which had a toy licensing agreement with Chick-Fil-A has said that it would cease its business with the company and instead donate its money to Gay Right Organizations.

One politician, Mike Huckabee called for an ‘Appreciation Day’’ to the Conservative Christians, asking them to visit their local Chick-A –Fil restaurant on August 1. According to the reports, the company has recorded unprecedented sales on that day.

Here, we have a case where a controversy generated by a company has gained both, chances of loss and profits. We still do not know the end results, but chances of profit seem more plausible looking at the large number of Christians in south that are also the customers of Chick-Fil-A.

What if it rains dollars?

What if taking a religious or political stand creates more wealth for a person or company? Would it be then ethical for the company to endorse such views?  

Since the birth of civilization, money has been considered a great evil in the societies. Therefore we see prescriptions against it in every religious book, be it the Bible or Quran. But it is a subject for debate whether money is really the source of all evil. Bhagwad-Gita says that it is the men’s desires which lead him to misery and evil. Because of the immense effect of religions in human societies, we can understand why majority of people see large corporate and rich people as evil and wrong.

I am not going to proceed with this debate with theology in my mind. A business entity can only survive if it earns profits. Every economist will stand with me on this view. Profit can be gained through various ways. They can be ethical and unethical, legal or illegal.

Here I am not endorsing fraud or such means to show inflated market figures and earn profits. Why? It is because such norms can easily lead a successful company to bankruptcy. Anyone who doesn’t understand that should read about the fate of Enron and Satyam.

Philosophers discuss and determine ethics in a society. There is no universal consensus on right and wrong about many issues including Gay marriages. So, how can we expect a company to endorse any one particular view? Also, it is a point of freedom of speech. Chick-Fil-A is not directly harming any individual by making Homophobic views or supporting any such foundations. So, I as a business student will always stand with it.

Should they do anything for profit?

Business is an important part of a free society. Businesses provide jobs and security to millions of people. Many of the vaccines, computer technologies and industries have been created only because of the profit-earning lust of some people. According to economics, people would work harder to achieve anything if there is an incentive attached to it. That’s the same with businesses. The more the profit, the harder and ingenious a business becomes. If it is not, it loses in the race of competition.

This article is about the freedom of a company to hold any views and propagate any views in order to sell its product. I don’t think there is any wrong with that.

If the government or society tries to censor the views of a company regarding a social issue, than how can we be sure that the same government with its power of censoring groups and ideas won’t trample upon our rights and freedom in some later time.

A company can be an individual enterprise and its thoughts represent the freedom of speech of an individual. It should not be suppressed in any way.

So, what if a company talks against black people or women?

I think we can very well allow such company to say what it wants to. There are many people who underestimate the power of free market economics. When a company propagates hatred against a particular segment, it alienates a large part of its potential customers. In a competitive market, any other company would easily take a chance and create a market for the same kind of products for the alienated part of the society.

If Chick-Fil-A hates gays and liberals, atheists and rationalists, it is one of the best times to start your own restaurant that specifically caters to everyone without any discrimination.

My View on Homosexuality

I am no one to pronounce a judgement on anyone’s sexual behaviour. Homosexuality is a natural phenomenon among animals and Homo sapiens are no different. I would love to vote for any proposal that allows any Homosexual to marry his/ her partner and live his life as he wants.

Recommendations:

Henry David Thoreau declined to pay taxes to the American Government because it was indulged in war and slavery. For this, Henry was imprisoned for a day. He used this time to write an essay called, ‘’On Civil Disobedience’’. This article has since motivated many great people like Gandhi, King and Mandela. My friends and readers who oppose the Homophobic views of Chick-Fil-A should stop eating at its restaurants. More gay people should come out and show their intimacy and love publicly near Chick-Fil-A restaurants (As they did on 4th August). Show them that you are better than those corporate people who hate the freedom of other people. Don’t just speak, act!!

Competitors of Chick-Fil-A have got a golden chance to promote themselves. They should seriously use this chance and try to beat the competition.