e-firsts

It was during one of the college tours that I found myself in middle of an intriguing experience. Once we had got down from the bus, I thought of first getting a top-up recharge for my cell-phone and ventured out in the nearby market. Even though I had never been to this city, Varanasi, but some of the roads, buildings and shops seemed so familiar that for a moment it seemed like a dream. It was almost unbelievable for a moment that I was roaming around the markets and streets as if I was born there! But the shock was yet to come. In search of a top-up shop, I approached a small-shop at the corner of the street. The shop was a typical kirana-cum-paan shop with items stacked over one another and thought it seemed like a complete mess but none of the items actually spilled over. Since it was morning, the owner was still offering prayers to the deities. He seemed around fifty years of age, grey hair, tilak on forehead and dressed in a saffron dhoti-kurta with a very serene appearance. To keep myself occupied, I started browsing through the various types of rudraksha which were on display.

As his prayers got over, he turned around and to my utter dis-belief; he called my name and asked me how I was! I can not describe what had struck me at that moment. I was completely nonplussed. But what was about to come was even more shocking. I not only replied to him but also referred to him as ‘Shankar Trivedi’ and he just nodded with a gentle smile on his face. All of it seemed like, I had already experienced it earlier (in a dream or otherwise). However baffled I was, with the events of last 1 minute, I got the cell-phone recharged and went straight to the hotel. The rest of the tour went as usual and we returned back after paying a visit to Kashi Vishwanath temple.

I had never been to the city before, forget about going to this shop and forget about meeting this person before. But somehow, I felt that I was revisiting a familiar place! Once I got back home, I googled for possible meanings of such experiences and learnt about ‘Deja-Vu’ experiences for the first time. I don’t know whether this experience exactly qualifies as a déjà-vu or not but I could not think of any other rational explanation.

I also learnt that nearly one-third of us go through such experiences, some of them on a regular basis while some infrequently. As per Wikipedia, the most likely explanation of déjà vu is not that it is an act of "precognition" or "prophecy", but rather that it is an anomaly of memory, giving the false impression that an experience is "being recalled". Also, one of the psychologists, Arthur Funkhouser, defines three types of déjà vu to more clearly differentiate between different neurological experiences. These are déjà vecu (already experienced), déjà senti (already felt) and déjà visité (already visited). Not going into many technicalities, I can just say some of the experiences are just strange. Aren’t they?

Just saw some interesting facts, sharing them! Don’t know about their origin or authenticity but some of them surely seems funny.

1. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. (so every bat in the world turned left since the days of adam & eve?)

2. A monkey's skull wrapped in leather and paper was used as a soccer ball in the very first World's Cup Soccer Championships in Uruguay. (too much daaa!)

3. Ants never sleep in their wholelife. (how long is their life, few hours maybe? )

4. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. (only eyes?)

5. Only humans shed emotional tears. (mostly fake)

6. Men who kiss their wives in the morning live five years longer than those who don't. (wow, so got a panacea for long life :P )

7. 30% of Chinese adults live with their parents. (for Indians, it may touch 90%)

8. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off! (Vinci had quite an eye then!)

9. To sell your home faster, paint it yellow. (that’s why we don’t see many houses painted yellow.. lol )

10. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes. (kickass!!!!!!!!!!!)


(Source: http://www.interestingfacts.org , http://www.funfactz.com)

Few days back, I was casually browsing Youtube when I came across a video of a 4-5 year old toddler escaping unhurt from a speeding train after falling on the rail-tracks at a subway station in US. Thanks to some alert passengers, her life was saved. As soon as her mother took the baby into her arms, she kissed the Cross and uttered “Thanks to the almighty God for showering your blessings on this child”. Normally, there isn’t anything spectacularly different the way she reacted, probably most of us act in similar fashion except for few hardcore atheists. I must confess, m not a complete believer but neither m a complete atheist but personally I find the debate of some-supreme-power, religions and human existence, as pretty fascinating.

In this conundrum, I can recall a quote from Karl Marx, “Die Religion…ist das Opium des Volkes" translated as "Religion is the opiate of the masses" or “"Religion is the opium of the people". Though he expressed these views nearly 170 years back, they seem quite apt in today’s times too irrespective of geography. Nevertheless, he restricted his analysis to class struggle in the socio-political milieu of his times otherwise what could explain the religious bent of masses irrespective of class status (in his as well as current times!). I think he was right in case he saw religion as a kind of comfort blanket for existential queries and hardships of daily life. But probably he was more interested in the practical aspects of religion rather than philosophical or meta-physical aspects. For him, religion is an illusion which eases the pain (of the oppressed) produced by exploitation by rich classes and a series of myths that justify and legitimatize the subordination of subject classes. In some way, religion justifies the social order and a person’s position in it (akin to ‘determinism’). Infact he attempts to trash the following lines from, ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ – a popular Anglican hymn.

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at the gate:
God made them, high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.

For Marx, religion is simply a manifestation of class-struggle. Thoughts of Bronislaw Malinowski are somewhat similar to him. He believes that religious beliefs reinforces social norms & values and reduce anxiety by providing confidence and a feeling of control in times of distress. He goes on to add that “religious rituals surround the events of crisis-of-life like birth, death, marriage etc”. But views of another prominent sociologist, Talcott Parsons, look more acceptable, he says, “religion gives meanings or makes sense of all experiences, no matter how meaningless or contradictory they might appear”. (Enthusiasts can refer to Religion section of Sociology – Themes & Perspectives by Holborn & Haralambos)

As for my own understanding goes, I can relate to Marx and Parsons partially. Religion can be compared to a painkiller, which provides a ‘cure’ to the people related to things like a fear of death/thought of an afterlife for which there are no explanations or right answers. Thus it provides some plausible explanations to seemingly meaningless questions (or very profound – depending on the way one sees) of human existence which has troubled thinkers right from the onset of human civilization. I am sure, these questions won’t be answered anytime soon but I m confident that the baby had her share of luck when she escaped a rampaging train. No doubt, scientists can run probabilistic models with respect to such incidents but I don’t think they can explain the chances of somebody surviving in a similar accident with 100% surety. Maybe visiting a nearby temple is an easier option than blaming human-built complicated mathematical models :)