AN OPEN LETTER TO NIRBHAYA

An open letter to my departed sister

Dearest sister,
 I do not know if you would be able to read this in any way by any means but if you do, please do feel privileged to be living in a world much better than mine.

I am writing this to you with a sombre expression on my face, a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I just finished watching the documentary which the BBC news channel made on you on international women's day. I am filled with both pride and shame on watching it. Pride, needless to say being you and shame, those inhuman species who took you away from us.

16th DEC 2012, the entire country stood in shock resulting from the horrendous and barbaric cruelty meted out to you and your friend. Although, in a country like ours which has become habituated to crimes against women, the sad news about you wasn't really a bolt from the blue, it still had the entire nation rooted to the spot. Such was the intensity of the crime, dear sister, I understand. I failed to even imagine the pain you must have felt for even a cursory glance from a stranger makes my blood run cold.

While you were battling between life and death, shock and shame, an unprecedented and tumultuous uproar in the form of protests was carried out at every corner of the country. You, dear sister, were the reason the entire nation was in solidarity. We couldn't take this anymore.  Seeing such outrage of extreme emotions from people I had high hopes from the law to do its best to reduce, if not totally eliminate crimes against women but sadly, sister, the scenario still remains unchanged. Every twenty minutes a woman is raped in India. Even As I write this to you, somewhere a woman is being bullied, harassed and raped while the perpetrators of your ghastly crime are probably enjoying a hearty meal in imprisonment.

Often when me and my friends walk to and from college, there are always those few pairs of eyes gazing at us lecherously. Sometimes, they purposely push us, other times they speed up their bikes to scare us. All because, we are girls. I have been punished to be a girl. I have had to curb my dreams and passions because I am a girl. I love to travel and explore new places. I want to go on trips with my friends but I must remember i am a girl, a flower that needs protection and hence I must stay home and enroll myself in household chores. I must not dare to step out of the house alone, especially after sunset, otherwise the thorn might harm the flower. I want to go to parties and have fun just like my male friends but I must not forget that I am a girl, the one who is considered more  responsible in any case with a man. Sister, I want to break free from the shackles of codes and conducts, dos and don'ts, but I must abide by them because I am a girl.

Dearest sister, I would like to make a number of  heartfelt apologies to you.

Apology on behalf of our financially handicapped govt which otherwise has a lot of fund to shell out just to be in the good books of a certain visitor from the States or to garnish sportsmen with handsome cheques. But when it comes to improving the standard of security for women in our country, their pockets are empty

Apology on behalf of our legislature and judiciary which has always failed to deliver prompt justice to the victim. Apology on behalf of the so called guardians of the people,  the police officers, for their lackadaisical attitude, for being so classless and disinterested in our matters, for supporting the false when offered money

Apology on behalf of all those selfish, self-centered people, who would make no move in helping a woman knowing she is in trouble. Of course, why would they invite trouble for themselves?

Apology on behalf of Mr Honey Singh, the blatantly sexist singer who has so conveniently made a future for himself by caricaturing women, still being a favourite son.

Apology on behalf of the masterminds behind TV soaps for always depicting women to be inferior to men.

But above all,  I owe you an excruciating and shameful apology for being unable to do anything to bring you justice.

But you have come to me and every other woman as a great inspiration. Your determination to achieve your goals against all odds is very galvanizing. I wish with all my heart that someday your dream of opening a hospital in your village is realised. 

With the shallow , shameless, adamant mindsets of a part of the male fraternity, there is  indeed a good male majority, which needs to be become more pro active in this country, it is than only that we will have  hope to live in a crime free India. On women's day I woke up to the news of a 6 year old being brutally raped in Ahmedabad.

Tomorrow again I might wake up to the news of yet another rape, if only its reported. Tomorrow again I will notice someone giving me licentious looks. The age of chivalry is dead sister. Humanity has failed.  Dearest sister, like I said, please do feel privileged to be living in a world much better than mine. You might not be the nearest to us but you are definitely the dearest. You are not just a daughter to your parents, you are "India's Daughter"

- From a helpless younger sister

UMAIMA SAEED - KOLKATA

E Mail : umaima.ak@gmail.com

BANNED BBC DOCUMENTARY ON NIRBHAYA

Having heard so much uproar on the Documentary, I pushed the play button with much trepidation, thinking of seeing gut wrenching narration, and graphics, but I found the Documentary to be well made covering all aspects of the Nirbhaya incident. No prolonged wails and dramatic outbursts. I am wondering why the Indian Govt has to ban it ? The opinions of the experts and all connected with the incident, is laid out before the public in a very decent format minus theatricals. Some of the Hindi soap that are dished out on TV has more wailing and more gut wrenching scenes. Prolonged cries and hearty laughter of the goons.

Let me share with you a personal experience. I went to the Barbers for a shave around noon, the ideal time for family Hindi soaps on TV. One was playing out above my head,and although I was not able to watch it, as I had surrendered my face to the barber, I could hear the audio.

From the audio I surmised that a villain was acting tough and was in the act of  ruining the modesty of the lady protagonist, and for more than 5 minutes she was pleading, begging to let her go, and amid continuous loud wailing. I was feeling so disgusted, the wails and the cries were unbearable, so as the first part of the shave was over, I requested the barber to change the channel forthwith.

Now these type of soaps need to be banned, not this Documentary, which has a very understated tone, and tries to portray the thoughts of all those associated with the case.


At the end of the Documentary, the grieved father reflects on her Jyoti who has become a symbol - he makes a profound observation by stating ' a storm arose, and has passed, but what is important, is what is left after the storm' now that is very important. If her sacrifice has not been able to change the mindset of the country, her sacrifice is in vain, no lesson has been learnt. I was aghast to read the report that out of 10,000 foetus found in a hospital 9900 plus ( forget the exact number) were of girl child. Shocking indeed. Banning the Documentary shows the mindset still needs to be changed.

HYPERSPACE - DR. MICHIO KAKU

'THE ONLY IMPORTANT THING IN A BOOK IS THE MEANING IT HAS FOR YOU'
W.SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Book Reference : Hyperspace – A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes – Dr. Michio Kaku.

This book is about a scientific revolution created by the theory of hyperspace, which states that dimensions exist beyond the commonly accepted four of space and time. There is a growing acknowledgement among physicist, that the universe may actually exist in higher dimension space.

For me personally although not a student of science, the Book provided deep insights into my religious belief, science seems to be finally starting to accept long held spiritual truths.

At the very onset of the Book in Chapter 1 Dr. Kaku gives a brilliant example from his childhood days, when he used to watch the carps, in the shallow pond in a Japanese garden.

‘Living their entire lives in the shallow pond, the carp would believe that their ‘universe’ consisted of the murky water and the lilies. Spending most of their time foraging on the bottom of the pond, they would be dimly aware that an alien world could exist above the surface. The nature of my world was beyond their comprehension. I was intrigued that I could sit only a few inches from the carp, yet separated from them by an immense chasm. The carp and I spent our lives in two distinct universes, never entering each other’s world, yet were separated by only the thinnest barrier, the water’s surface.

I often think that we are like carp swimming contentedly in our pond. We live out our lives in our own “pond”. We smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or dimensions can exist next to ours, just beyond our grasp. (Great Spiritual Masters and mystics have experienced and visualised, and some have tried to convey the unseen dimensions and universes. Now scientists are accepting in theory )

Another striking example is given by Peter Freund, who has stated that laws of nature become simpler and elegant, when expressed in higher dimensions, which is their natural home (A’lam al Ibda – ten dimensional A’lam al Amr which came into existence by the Command ‘kun fayakun’ )

Freund, in explaining why higher dimensions are exiting the imagination of the scientific world, uses the following analogy. 

‘Think for a moment of a cheetah, a sleek beautiful animal, one of the fastest on the earth, which roams freely on the savannas of Africa. In its natural habitat, it is a magnificent animal. Almost a work of art, unsurpassed in speed or grace.

Now think of a cheetah that has been captured and thrown into a miserable cage in a zoo. It has lost its original grace and beauty, and is put in the cage for our amusement. We only see the broken spirit of the cheetah, not its original power and elegance. The cheetah likewise can be compared to the laws of physics, which are beautiful in the higher dimensions. However, because of human limitation, we can only measure the laws of physics, when they are broken and placed on display in a cage, which is our three dimensional laboratory. We only see the cheetah when its grace and beauty have been stripped away.

(From this I infer how the Spiritual Masters are able to experience the Higher Truths, as they can ‘home in’ to the higher dimensions, and be able to comprehend, whereas we laymen, miss the bus, as we have not the knowledge to comprehend, as we are used to seeing and understanding at our own level )

The advantage of ten dimensional space is that we have enough room in which to accommodate all the four fundamental forces.

The leading scientists like  Alan Guth and Freund are of the opinion that the energy scale necessary to investigate the higher dimensions is far beyond anything available on earth. The energy necessary to probe the tenth dimension is a quadrillion times larger than the energy that can be produced by our largest atom smasher!!

Introducing higher dimensions may be essential for prying loose the secrets of Creation. According to this theory, before the Big Bang, our cosmos was actually a perfect ten dimensional universe. (Is Dr. Kaku inadvertently referring to A’lam al Ibda)

However, this ten dimensional world was unstable, ( Interesting if one has read Sayedi Sadikali sahib Nashihat) and eventually it ‘cracked’ in two, creating two separate universes; a four and six dimensional Universe. The Universe in which we live was born in that cosmic cataclysm. Our four dimensional Universe expanded explosively (‘huboot’ tenebrosity according to our belief ) while our twin six dimensional universe contracted violently, until it shrank to almost infinitesimal... this six dimensional universe may ultimately be our salvation !! There you go

(Reading this made me wonder is this some theoretical physicist talking or a Spiritual savant. Science and Spirituality are coming so close. Hope in near future with the help of both, we will be able to understand Tawheed – ONENESS )

How fortunate are we in this internet age. Information on practically all topics under the Sun, for ordinary guys like me is so very easy to acquire. Just Google it – and hey presto! It is there.

Let me share with you an interesting story. How difficult it was for the best of minds in the bygone era. They had to sweat and burn midnight oil just to crave for information. But still the bottom line is that, they were original thinkers, and torch bearers.

Let me share with you an interesting story. Dr. Albert Einstein’s proudest piece of work, even more than is celebrated equation E = mc2 was the simple yet profound equation ‘ Matter – energy determines curvature of space- time’

This deceptively short equation is one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind. From it emerge the principles behind the motions of stars and galaxies, black holes, the Big Bang and perhaps the fate of the Universe itself.

Nevertheless Einstein was still missing the piece of the puzzle. He had discovered the correct physical principle, but lacked a rigorous mathematical formula powerful enough to express this principle. He spent 3 long frustrating years, from 1912 to 1915 in a desperate search for mathematical formula powerful enough to express the principle.

The world’s most powerful mind was in search for 3 long years. How I wish Google was there during his time, it would have made it a child’s play, and would have given him space to  concentrate on other weighty problems.

Einstein in desperation wrote to his close friend and mathematician Marcel Grossman, pleading “ you must help me or else I’ll go crazy !” Poor soul !

Fortunately Grossman, to help his friend, combed through library for clues to Einstein’s problem, and fortunately accidently stumbled upon the work of Riemann. His work had been ignored by physicist for over 60 years, but to Einstein joy he found the mathematical formula that was long evading him. The celebrated 1854 lecture by Riemann was the key to the problem.

He found that he could incorporate the entire body of Riemann’s work in the reformulation of his principle. Almost line for line, the great work of Riemann found its true home in Einstein’s principle.

Riemann’s great contribution was that he introduced the concept of metric tensor, a field that is defined at all points in space. The metric tensor is not a single number. At each point in space, it consists of ten numbers !! Now this piece of science  is exiting for me – ten numbers in all points of space. (The Tenth Intellect – Sayedi Sadik ali sahib in his Nashihat says “ aa duniya na A’shir ne havala chhe” )

Now let us look back on little Albert while he was growing up. The life of Albert Einstein appears to be one long series of failures. His mother was distressed at how slowly he learnt to talk. His elementary school teacher thought of him as a foolish dreamer. They complained that he was constantly disrupting classroom discipline with silly questions. He had few friends, and dropped out of high school.

He took special exam to enter College but he flunked and had to take it the second time. On graduation he applied for teaching jobs, but was rejected several times. Finally with the help of a friend, he landed a clerical job at the Swiss Patent office and the rest is history.

Likewise, the life struggle of Georg Riemann who gave the world the theory of higher dimensions, which Albert Einstein would use after six decades to explain the creation of Universe, also makes an interesting reading.

The core of Riemann’s work was the realization that physical laws simplify in higher dimensional space, the very theme of this book.

Riemann was born in 1826 at Hanover, Germany, the son of a poor Lutheran pastor, the second of his six children. Life was a day to day struggle.

At the very early age, Riemann exhibited his famous traits, fantastic calculation ability, coupled with timidity and life long horror of public speaking. He set out to become a student of Theology, but his thoughts always drifted back to mathematics.

He was an avid reader and he completed reading of a ponderous 859 page masterpiece Theory of Numbers in just under 6 days.

Beset by daily struggle to put food on the table, Riemann’s father might have sent the boy to do menial jobs and help the family finances. Instead he scraped together enough funds to send the 19 year to the renowned University of Gottingen, where he met and befriended the acclaimed Mathematician Carl Gauss.

Life for Riemann, however, was an endless series of setbacks and hardships, coupled with frail health. Eventually, Riemann was able to give his famous lecture on June 10, 1854 before the faculty of University of Gottingen and a new Geometry was born.

Riemann’s lecture exposed the world to the dazzling properties of higher dimensional space.