Destiny

[Sriram]

Thanks Trent and torridon.

India is definitely different in many ways compared to a few decades ago. Of course, all change is not necessarily an improvement. In many ways I prefer the India of the 1960's. But 90% of the people were in abject poverty at that time.

In recent decades we have managed to bring about 50% (600 million people - population has quadrupled during this time) out of poverty. Only another 600 million to go!     Hopefully it will happen in the coming decades.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Brownie]

Sriram:  3. Cafe culture is everywhere but they don't seem to welcome tourists or coloured people in such places.


Sririam, that can't be true in London or Greater London, nor lots of other places in England!
What colour were the people who were not welcome?  Purple, green or kaleidoscopic?
We don't say, "Coloured" any more, naughty you.  Smacks of SA apartheid and American slavery.

Very glad you had such a good time and nice to see you back here - a place where you are destined to post.

(Torridon, I envy you your trip to India.  I've been to Indian and Pakistani weddings here in London but they must be even more spectacular there.)

[Sriram]

Sriram:  3. Cafe culture is everywhere but they don't seem to welcome tourists or coloured people in such places.


Sririam, that can't be true in London or Greater London, nor lots of other places in England!
What colour were the people who were not welcome?  Purple, green or kaleidoscopic?
We don't say, "Coloured" any more, naughty you.  Smacks of SA apartheid and American slavery.

Very glad you had such a good time and nice to see you back here - a place where you are destined to post.

(Torridon, I envy you your trip to India.  I've been to Indian and Pakistani weddings here in London but they must be even more spectacular there.)

Hi Brownie......I don't know about England....but in the whole of Europe we found a cafe almost every hundred yards.....but not a single brown or black or Japanese person sitting in it.  Quite odd.  In fact we four tried to eat in a cafe in France (near the Louvre)...and the manager said something in French...and something about his manner... that didn't seem welcoming. So we moved on.

Anyway, we had a great time! 

[Brownie]

You'd be welcome in cafes here Sririam but never mind, too late now.  Next time. 

[SweetPea]

Hi everyone,

I am back in India after a wonderful but hectic two weeks. Covered most of Europe from London, north sea to Rome.

Europe is very different (as is to be expected) from what I saw in 1971. And even London is somewhat different from what I saw in 1995.

They are still wonderful and beautiful places and we had lots of fun. People generally were very good and warm. Great infrastructure and facilities. No noise, no pollution.  Not a single hitch in the whole trip. People have lot of pride and respect for history.

You guys started off with great facilities and  infrastructure more than 100 years back...which is truly amazing! We in India are only now trying to catch up.

However, what struck me was that India has now become very similar to these places in the past few decades. When I came back I  didn't really find India to be very different. It is of course, much more densely populated, dirtier and chaotic with lot more poverty.....but lots of things are now more or less similar.

1. European cities are now dirtier than what I remember. Paris in particular was filthy in some parts. Lots of poor people hanging around. Heathrow airport is surely dirtier than I remember it.

2. Small towns like Eindhoven, Volendam, Cologne, Black forest, Lucerne  etc. were beautiful little places. Almost pristine.

3. Cafe culture is everywhere but they don't seem to welcome tourists or coloured people in such places.

4. Indian food (veg) is available EVERYWHERE.  We had great Indian food for lunch and dinner all the 15 days all across Europe.....imagine that!!  Many Indian restaurants in Netherlands, Florence, Pisa and even up Mount Titlis and Jungfrau in Switzerland. Great!

5. We also tried lots of European food but it was disappointing. We get better crepes, waffles, pizzas, pasta, French fries etc. where I live. Cheese is not something I enjoy much anyway.

6. What was surprising compared to my earlier visits, was that pornography was  conspicuous by its absence. Completely nil! Not a single magazine or paper anywhere. The only nude we saw was David by Michaelangelo (ans other sundry chaps)!  This is a great development. And this is true even in Netherlands(Amsterdam), France, Germany, Swiss and Italy. Very surprising!!  Internet has been largely responsible for that I suppose.

7. Smoking seems to be very common in Europe while in India we have banned it in all public places including streets. Drinking is also very common of course in all cafes in every street corner. 

8. Bollywood seems to be more prominent in Madame Tussaud's than Hollywood, quite surprisingly.  (I even took a selfie with my favorite heroine Katrina - my sister in law says we look like father/daughter, which is besides the point ....... ).

9. Lots of Chinese/Korean/Japanese tourists everywhere. 

10. Brexit or even the recession doesn't seem to have done much damage. Everything looks wonderful (at least to a tourist).

You guys have a great country and have managed to maintain it well over the centuries. All credit to you guys.  Keep it that way.

Just some random comments. 

Cheers.

Sriram

Hi Sriram

I missed your original post..... not around here so much now, due to one thing and another; so had no idea you were travelling over our way!

Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip. Looks as though you covered a lot of ground in a relatively short time. Perhaps you're back home now relaxing!

[Sriram]

Hi Sriram

I missed your original post..... not around here so much now, due to one thing and another; so had no idea you were travelling over our way!

Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip. Looks as though you covered a lot of ground in a relatively short time. Perhaps you're back home now relaxing!

Hi SweetPea,

Nice to hear from you. Yes....I am back home.

The trip was tight but surprisingly not at all tiring. It was so well organized by the tour operator that things worked like clock work. Very comfortable and yet quite extensive.

Almost thinking of repeating it after a few years. 

Cheers.

Sriram

[Brownie]

You mentioned widespread smoking in Europe, Sririam.  Smoking has been banned in public places here for goodness knows how long, there are very few places that people can smoke, it's even banned sitting at a table outside a cafe.  Some pubs have designated smoking areas outdoors.  Your posts make me think you hardly visited England  .

In France smoking has always been deeply embedded culturally so maybe you see more of it there.  Not in restaurants though, surely.  When I visited France and Belgium not that long ago, all hotel rooms were officially non-smoking - but there were ashtrays in every one  .

[Harrowby Hall]

Hi Sriram

Pleased that you enjoyed your trip.

Re: Café culture comments - much of Europe currently is very frightened of brown faces due to fear of random assaults by supposed supporters of IS. And some countries (certainly France, where I am now) do not have the benefit of the associations with India that the UK has. To the French, in general, a brown face means Maghreb - north Africa and Islam. in the UK we generally are aware of the differing cultures of India.

There are many areas of British life that the descendents of Indian immigrants seem to have made their own - professions associated with health such as pharmacy and optometry being notable. It is difficult to find a chemist's shop now where the pharmacist will not be of Indian origin.

People from your country have added to the cultural richness of mine. I hope that you will visit us again.

[torridon]

Hi Brownie......I don't know about England....but in the whole of Europe we found a cafe almost every hundred yards.....but not a single brown or black or Japanese person sitting in it.  Quite odd.  In fact we four tried to eat in a cafe in France (near the Louvre)...and the manager said something in French...and something about his manner... that didn't seem welcoming. So we moved on.

Anyway, we had a great time!

Maybe he mistook you for a muslim.  I think there is a lot of mistrust between the French state and its muslim community now.

Then there's always the old French chip on the shoulder about language - I've seen it before in Paris, not so much in rural France, that public facing people can be quite rude to English speaking tourists, affecting incomprehension to cause embarrassment to people who can't or won't speak their language.

[Aruntraveller]

Interesting about smoking - I wasn't aware India had banned it so extensively - mind you it is now many years since I visited. 1992 was the last time!

Brownie, is largely correct though. In England compared to say France and certainly Germany we take a much more strict approach to the issue of smoking. But even in Germany I noticed on my visit in August that they have also tightened up on the issue.

Sorry to hear about your issue with café culture - we found no such problem with it in the part of Germany we were in this summer (Koblenz, Boppard, Rhine) my partner is Indian, although as he points out from time to time there is Indian and then there is Indian, Indian. He is very good at spotting people who are from the sub-continent now, rather than being descendants of peoples from the sub-continent. Its in the way you dress apparently. Maybe others pick up on that as well - I'm not saying its an excuse for any standoffishness just an explanation for our differing experiences.

[Harrowby Hall]

In France smoking has always been deeply embedded culturally so maybe you see more of it there.  Not in restaurants though, surely.  When I visited France and Belgium not that long ago, all hotel rooms were officially non-smoking - but there were ashtrays in every one  .

Smoking is much, much less common than it used to be. When I first visited France, 50 years ago, my abiding memory od Paris was the universal lingering smell of Gitaines. That has now long gone. Over the last 20 years the number of fields devoted to tobacco has dwindled to almost none. The number of public smokers is still greater than you will find in England, but even that is much reduced.

I'm pleased to know that public smoking is banned in India.

[floo]

As is obvious I am very much an anti-smoker.

No one these days has any excuse for not knowing how damaging smoking can be for the health of the smoker and passive smokers. I believe a law has come into force banning smoking in car in which children are travelling. I think a law banning smoking in homes where there are children should be brought in too. I realise that would be hard to enforce, but it would be a step in the right direction, imo.

[Sriram]

Well...about smoking.... I think I saw quite a few people smoking in most of the places we visited including London. Maybe many of them were Chinese or other nationalities.....can't remember.  In Germany and Italy in particular I remember the sidewalks were littered with cigarette butts. I smoked a few too.....after many years.   

[jeremyp]

In fact we four tried to eat in a cafe in France (near the Louvre)...and the manager said something in French...and something about his manner... that didn't seem welcoming. So we moved on.

Parisian restaurant people are notorious for not being welcoming to people who make no effort to speak French. It may not have been your colour that was the problem. If you ever go back, you should do what I do: speak French to the best of your ability (which in my case is very poor) and the waiter will immediately switch to English and be as friendly as anything because you at least made the effort.

[Sriram]

Yeah...maybe we should have tried some of the 'Bonjour' thing.    Maybe next time.

Come to think of it...my son was trying out some French and Italian words through the internet, before we started. Doesn't seem to have come in very useful though!! 

[Sriram]

Coming back to 'destiny'......

I think life is pretty much predetermined, though our ego does not like to believe that.  The ego wants to believe that it is in control and that it can independently decide the course of our individual lives and that of others. 

Unfortunately for the ego....things never work out as it wants. As life unfolds....our mind keeps adjusting and adapting while all the time believing that things are in control.  If we think back to what we wanted life to be ..say five years ago (let alone ten,fifteen,twenty years ago)...and what it is now...we will realize  that we don't have much control.
 
My belief that some form of a Common Consciousness decides the course of life, is another matter altogether.  I can't prove it but I am convinced that it is so.

[Nearly Sane]

But since in that case your believe is pre determined, it isn't if much use.

[Sriram]

But since in that case your believe is pre determined, it isn't if much use.

And so is your response....!    We just can't help being what we are. We can't be anything else.....given the circumstances in which we have been born and in which we have grown. 

[torridon]

Coming back to 'destiny'......

I think life is pretty much predetermined, though our ego does not like to believe that.  The ego wants to believe that it is in control and that it can independently decide the course of our individual lives and that of others. 

Unfortunately for the ego....things never work out as it wants. As life unfolds....our mind keeps adjusting and adapting while all the time believing that things are in control.  If we think back to what we wanted life to be ..say five years ago (let alone ten,fifteen,twenty years ago)...and what it is now...we will realize  that we don't have much control.
 
My belief that some form of a Common Consciousness decides the course of life, is another matter altogether.  I can't prove it but I am convinced that it is so.

First two paras are right on the money.  The nature of self I think is all about an illusion of autonomy and control in which we are empowered, feeling purposeful and decisive when in reality we are merely reacting to external change.
Para 3 I think is an unjustified leap into fantasyland.  Invoking some 'other', vague, or mystical notions to explain stuff loses sight of the actual evidence that we already have to hand and can work with.  We have the laws of nature describing how things interact at all levels, and this understanding has been hard won, I don't see the virtue in ignoring it in favour of some woolly mystical notion.

[Sriram]

First two paras are right on the money.  The nature of self I think is all about an illusion of autonomy and control in which we are empowered, feeling purposeful and decisive when in reality we are merely reacting to external change.
Para 3 I think is an unjustified leap into fantasyland.  Invoking some 'other', vague, or mystical notions to explain stuff loses sight of the actual evidence that we already have to hand and can work with.  We have the laws of nature describing how things interact at all levels, and this understanding has been hard won, I don't see the virtue in ignoring it in favour of some woolly mystical notion.

What has it got to do with the laws of physics? I am certainly not denying these laws. I am talking about something beyond that.

You don't KNOW that there is no Common Consciousness....you only believe that there is no such thing, whereas I believe in it. 

[torridon]

What has it got to do with the laws of physics? I am certainly not denying these laws. I am talking about something beyond that.

You don't KNOW that there is no Common Consciousness....you only believe that there is no such thing, whereas I believe in it.

We don't KNOW there is no magic pixie called Kevin secretly pulling all the strings.  That's the problem with magic beliefs, anything goes.

[Sriram]

We don't KNOW there is no magic pixie called Kevin secretly pulling all the strings.  That's the problem with magic beliefs, anything goes.

A common consciousness is not quite the same as Kevin the magic pixie!!    Its not a belief in magic or something supernatural. 

Goodnight!

[jeremyp]

We don't KNOW there is no magic pixie called Kevin secretly pulling all the strings.  That's the problem with magic beliefs, anything goes.

I thought Kevin was a leprechaun.

[Nearly Sane]

I thought Kevin was a leprechaun.

he is both pixie and leprechaun, and indeed a boggart as well. Three in one!

[ippy]

What is your definition of:
(a) pre-determination
(b) destiny

My death is pre-determined, i,e. that it will happen but the actual cause and date are not pre-determined.

You were asked to show HH an atheist who believes in pre-determination. You think 'many' atheists on this board believe in destiny? Name them!! Or did you accidentally on purpose confuse that term with pre-determination, or your version of it?

Maybe it's the atheists destiny to sort out these destiny headed dreamers and deluded faith heads.

S D, I'll bet you hadn't thought of that. (Looks like it's my destiny to sort out the atheists too now).

ippy