A Response

In response to an article in Time magazine by Fareed Zakaria I wrote to him the following:

http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/14/10-big-ideas/slide/write-a-constitution/

Mr. Fareed Zakaria
Time Magazine
Issue dated March 25^th, 2013
Article: “Write A Constitution” by Fareed Zakaria

Dear Sir,

I recognize and acknowledge the absolute significance of a constitution in a Democracy. But I beg to differ in one aspect. Unless the countries in your article adopt secularism and basic principles of a democracy first free societies cannot prevail. A fair and balanced Constitution can only follow secularism. Here is how I see it.

You say, sir that Arab Spring has not fared well. You also cite the examples of the Eastern Bloc countries of previous Soviet Unions which are either dictatorships or teetering to fail democracies. But you have omitted to mention one of the greatest success stories of twentieth century by name; India. As imperfect a democracy it has, it took roots there. It is functioning. And, it is functioning rather well in many ways. And that is precisely because it was a secular nation then and is now. An Indian may be fervently religious individually but collectively he is secular. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who earned India and Pakistan their freedom understood the politics of religion and the politics of non-violence. After the Partition look, what happened in Pakistan! It has had so many Military rules!

India wrote its Constitution after it earned its self-rule. The basic doctrine of Democracy is, rule “of the people, by the people and for the people, and not “of the people, by the religion and for the religion”. Until the basic credo of Democracy and secularism are adopted I do not believe any of these nations will have true Democracies or balanced Constitutions where State and Religion are considered separate.

By the way, secularism in India flourished only because of its roots in poly-theistic religion of hindus; it makes them tolerant towards a few extra gods; allahs, jesuses, buddhas and mazdas.

Mrs. Charu Gandhi

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Pope Francis

Pope Francis-March 2013-Photo Time Mgazine courtesy

As I had thought Vatican  and the rest of the Christian world is fed up with the arrogance of the USA and the Western Europe. Also, they are fed up with the sex abuse scandals that is raging in USA. So, they selected someone from Latin America.

Time will tell if this was the wise choice for Catholics, Women, and Children.

Of late I am hearing and reading that Priests and Clergies from the USA and the Europe are moving to helm the christendom in third world countries. Is it because they are, perhaps guilty of scandalous behaviour and want to avoid public and legal scrutiny?

Daylight Saving Time

Most of the United States of America sprung forward today by one hour. What is one p.m. today was noon yesterday. Similarly, we will fall back one hour on October 27th of this year.

I thought of something funny; people who die between these two dates, are they cheated out of one hour of their lives?!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Writing Styles-John Le Carre

I finished reading A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre; arguably a master novelist of espionage genre.

After I finished A Perfect Spy I started on Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy the first of the Triology of Quest for Karla. (I saw the mini series of the same name back in 1970s, which I enjoyed thoroughly).

I was struck by the different writing styles of the same author in two books. The first one is meanderingly long in events and people. The events described could be in the present or in the past, in movie lingo it is known as “flash backs”. And the switch from present to past is so sudden that for a moment you need to scratch your head to figure out what did just happen. Too many people are introduced at random and the relationships are not quite established immediately or understandably. Within a paragraph the one may be saying or quoting something in first person and then suddenly it changes into a third person. I was kept on my toes through out the reading.

The second book is relatively short and straight forward, or so it seems so far. I like the plot here so much better than the previous book. I hope it continues into the next two sequels.

Both books use that pure king’s or queen’s English with least amount of embellishments, which I really appreciate. He introduces few spy jargons; moles, mothers and babysitters which have different than commonly understood meanings.

Most books I read are heavily dotted with irrelevances and redundancies which give the novels their length and weight, neither of them I like.  But if I have to choose which I can live with I will opt for irrelevances.  Fortunately Le Carre’s books are speckled with irrelevances but not redundancies. Phew....

I think I will continue with Spy genre only because they are less likely to be superfluous……….. I hope.