meethapani

  Rediscovering Gentleness At the end of Craig Foster’s 2020 documentary film “My Octopus Teacher”, he shows his son the wonders of nature along the shore and in the sea. He says the most important thing to learn is a gentleness that thousands of hours in nature can teach a child.   The word gentleness suddenly stood out and   could well be the best description of the film. It is a word rarely used today. One is more likely to hear the words, success, ambition or being tough in an ungiving world. Today, the word gentleness, is more likely to be used as a quality to sell face cream, pampers,   or bedsheets, rather than as a spiritual value.   Once a quality to be nurtured,   gentleness gradually became associated with high birth, and soon lost its value as education and power spread across class.   Today, we rarely hear people being described as gentlemen, and its extension, gentrification,   has acquired a negative connotation of deliberate ex...

  More Than News Switch to any Pakistani cable news channel, and its the same overly busy graphics, split screen, screamingly bright colours, the very rapid ticker tape reminding us of breaking news, while our ears are bombarded with the raised voices of the anchorpersons and the guests out shouting each other. The world’s first 24 hour television news network, CNN , was established in 1980. The dramatic live coverage of the 1991 Gulf War gave it a global presence, and a political influence, creating what has come to be known as the CNN Effect. Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali satirically called it " the sixteenth member of the Security Council". BBC followed with its 24 hour news channel in 1997, and television news changed forever, encouraging other countries to set up their own 24 hour news channels. News as drama was the brainchild of   Joseph Pulitzer in the late 19 th C , who presented newspaper articles as stories with plots, conflict, and vivid...

  What your bookshelves say about you I was recently entrusted with finding new homes for a large personal collection of books, and a more modest one belonging to two Parsi families.   Although I knew neither of the families personally, going through their books I felt I got to know them. One , a doctor, with a deep interest in politics, history, literature , travel and music; the other an avid reader of historical fiction, including war time escapades, and colourful Raj tales.   Personal libraries can be like a diary of one’s life. Serious collectors usually start in their teenage years, with a few well-thumbed books, that grow into larger collections, reflecting the the collector’s changing interests as life unfolds. One cannot but feel an almost overwhelming sadness, when libraries of deceased people are fragmented, however practical or altruistic the reasons may be. Perhaps one should think of it as spreading the ashes of the dead to become part of new lives, new ...

  Rules or Principles? In 1935, President Roosevelt addressing the youth of America said “Rules are not necessarily sacred; principles are”. Rules are such an integral part of our lives from traffic regulation to taxation, from grammar books to sports. Yet rules can also be restrictive, complicated and outdated. Elaborate systems of prevention and punishment have evolved to maintain a manageable society, in order, we are told, to protect the weak and restrain the powerful.   While rules are imposed from outside, principles are internalized values that regulate our behavior more naturally.   In an ideal world if we had strong principles, we would need fewer rules imposed on us. As product manager, Francisco Sáez   says “Working under rules is a source of stress. Working under principles is natural, and requires no effort”.   Rules are formulated to uphold principles, but too often rules become autocratic, negating the very principles they set out to protect. ...

  Mass Culture and Individuality The cult of Individualism can be traced to the emergence of Humanism as a political concept in Europe. Individualism should not be confused with individuality. Individuality is the understanding of who we are, our likes, dislikes, desires and fears. Individualism is a stance that puts our personal needs and ambitions above those of others, and has become synonymous with personal freedom. Current examples would be the refusal in some countries, to wear face masks to stop the spread of Covid 19, or the right to make cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the name of freedom of speech. Humanism has moved far away from the original Greek, humanior , meaning good-natured, amiable, and kindly. Since Roman times, the cultivation of these qualities became associated with a liberal education, still called the humanities. However, in Europe, humanism became a political concept aligned with secularism, as a reaction to the collective trauma experienced in pre...

  The Healing Power of the Arts The Arts are usually valued as aesthetic objects, music, dance or theatrical performances - symbols of the culture of a nation.   Less explored is the transformative emotional and intellectual process experienced   by those creating   works of art and crafts.   People are fascinated to watch artists and artisans transform ordinary materials into beautiful paintings, woven baskets, or compose music from a few simple notes.   Alfred Gell called this fascination “the magic of technology and the technology of magic”. Over the years, Psychologists have proposed various theories to decode the mystery of the creative process. Creativity appears to be a human activity like no other.   A potter sitting at the wheel seems to be in a trance like state of total concentration, as a lump of soggy clay transforms beneath his hands, into a perfectly symmetrical vase.   Most artists, writers, composers and poets will recognize...

  Destroying Heritage One of the traumas of living in Karachi is to discover overnight decisions to cut down a huge banyan tree, or to obliterate the view to the graceful Kothari parade with a network of ugly overpasses. A street with lilac flowered lignum trees is suddenly cut down ruthlessly to make way for new planting of Conocarpus   trees, that in turn are chopped down to ugly stumps. A beautiful building on M A Jinnah Road with its sleepy wrought iron balconies is reduced to rubble to make way for an ugly concrete building to maximise shops and offices. Beautiful pre-partition   Amil residences of Gurumandir are continuously “modernized”. Some decisions are planned quietly behind the scenes while others are whimsical. That familiar trauma and despair was felt by Karachi citizens after a sudden decision to scrape the wooden floors of the 1865 heritage building Frere Hall, and remove nets inviting pigeons to peck at, and nest near Sadeqain’s   painted ceiling...