Tilak Amitava Chowdhury

Diversity and Inclusion seems to be a topic of discussion everywhere. However, it seems that our forefathers had found solutions to it more than 5000 years ago. The Mahabharata talks about the contribution of Shikhandi, who was born a woman and later became a man, to the war in helping the Pandavas win by slaying Bhishma. The war would not have been won if Shikhandi was not present. The same could be the case with Ghatotkach, the son of Bhima whose mother was Hidimba. If he was not causing enough trouble for Karna to use the gift of Lord Indra on him, Arjuna would have been dead and the war would have been lost. Last but not the least, if Panchali and Amba were not present, the war would have taken a very different form. They both assisted Lord Krishna in helping the word become free of the Kauravas and adharm. When we are struggling today to find answers, may be it would be a good idea to refer the age-old wisdom we have in the form of mythologies, puranas and Upanishads. They may hel...

The last one and half years have been tough on all of us. The pandemic has cost us dearly - financially, physically, emotionally. It has given us scars that will remain for life. Lessons that will change us forever - for good or worse.... My one biggest learning from the pandemic is: surrender to the creator....mankind is nothing infront of nature. We can't survive a second without help from nature. Why are we trying to be God? When we are struggling to be even human? I'm getting tired of human intelligence. The mindless innovations and distractions like the spoilt billionaires who seem hell bent to pollute the space now that earth is almost totally polluted.  Why are we creating more toys? Smarter faster sleeker that makes us even more dependent on them? We need to step back a few decades. Go back to the times when we worked hard on the fields and factories. Spent time socializing with each other. Built communities and laughed together. This virtual world is so suffocating! Ar...