Two sides of a coin - conventionality and Unorthodox.This essay aims to address the Importance of conventionality.
An Indian rupee and a US dollar.
I had two coins in my collection, an Indian rupee and a US dollar coin. An Indian coin when flipped vertically in my palm gave an upside view of its head and tail, while the American one gave away a proper view. However, when flipped back, the US coin inverted. Hey! I thought, it was a smart thing by the Americans. The Americans seemed to have always represented themselves logically. On the other hand the Indian thinking reflected their conventionality.
Americans are technically what they are today by virtue of their embrace of rationality. By “technically”, I mean sophistication. America is a rich and beautiful country; it is a superpower and a secure state. It is a world leader. It is that country that bought about the halt of World WAR II by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan.
The twentieth century witnessed two horrific wars and both of them where halted with the intervention of USA. This country was indirectly responsible for the liberalization of many British colonies to their Independence, one among them being India. It is not mere eulogy that I am attributing to the Americans but truths that were witnessed globally in recent history. The American machinery is a juggernaut, be it the judicial system, the administrative system, the Industry and commerce or the foreign policy. America was liberated from imperialism in 1776, until now it has enjoyed its independence for 230 years. In these 230 years of Independence it has mutated to an unrivalled status of nationality. It had been unconventional and reaped huge benefits in all its technical installations and implementations (Constitution, Law, Industry, Commerce, Education, Research & Development etc.). But in the process of being unconventional it had to lose the goodies of conventionality. Even with a history of 230 years it lacks a profound tradition or culture. Today the thinking of the Americans or the west is so broad that they classify relations as an emotional or social need. They classify the intent for development and benevolence as a self-actuating need. There is always a classification for everything adhering to logic and normalizing something important and abstract. Here America is chosen to represent the west as a whole, though may not be apt.
There are times when logic is superseded. Logic fails to explain faith, belief and many moral attributes. Today, moral practices are viewed as ETHICS, set of rules that drive behavior, thinking and behavior are connected with psychology and many more like these. The essence of humanity declassified in the process.
VEDIC ESSENCE in brief
In ancient times as per the HINDU mythology battles were to be fought only during day, the wars never indulged atrocities on women, children and the weak, combats were always conventional, no one was to fight an unarmed man, none was to hit from behind, none was to be injured in the lower abdomen during a duel and all such conventions, sounding more like a protocol. But having broken it, the world has turned in to a daily battlefield that is all the more unfair and gruesome, thanks to aggression, imperialism, terrorism, extremism and again their counter wars. The ancient protocols or call them conventions have a meaning of their own. Breaking them might have endowed advantage but ultimately resulted the aftermath effects. Divergence from conventionality shall be fatal by the doctrines of Dharma. Today the world is at the verge of annihilation……weapons of mass destruction are ambient. Wars are unavoidable, but they are to be fought in a pattern. Crimes are unavoidable and they are to be dealt in a fashion. There is need for discipline in what ever we do and this in itself is a convention.
Today the sacrament of marriage is violated at a large scale thanks to the broader thinking of the west. The practice of a family is steadily culminating. People proudly state the culture of Americans where the children are made to lead Independent lives. The hierarchy of the family is disturbed and the roles of its members smeared. In traditional setup, the father is the head of the family who caters to the material needs of the family, the mother is the engine that propels the family it to its existence, the elders formed the bench for counsel, all in all everything was conventional and glorious. But today everything is preferred nuclear. Even India that has been immune to various cultural invasions so far is crumbling. India may be a place with kaccha roads and potholes no doubt, but was always a backdrop of healthy and happy traditions. Steadily everything seems to be vanishing.
Conventions may not be lucrative in nature but still they enforce a sort of disciple in humanity. Greed is a devastating entity, it can take many forms and one form is inevitably unconventionality.
Wisdom should be the driving force; the path can be either conventional or orthodox.
JAI HIND
