Sometimes I think, why the word 'why' is used to know the root of any happenings. What is the use of 'what' when we don't know how to use the simple word 'how' to know the process. In the busy life when we forgot to use the word 'when' to think about the society. Where is our intelligence to ask 'where' the world is going, 'which' is the best way to handle the corruption. Will you want to know all the answers ?
The story relating to the different stages and landmarks in the evolution of our national flag is indeed inspiring:
1906: Three colours: Saffron with eight stars across, white with Vande Mataram and green with moon to right and sun to left. This flag was proposed by some Indians in England and France who thought of an 'Indian National Flag'. Not recognised in India.
1916: Two colours: Red and green, with five red and four green stripes. Emblem of Great Bear. Union Jack at top left. In vogue during 'Home rule days'.
1921: Three colours: White, green and red, with Charkha across all colours. Sponsored by Mahatma Gandhi at the Bezwada Session of the Indian National Congress (this flag was informally used at all sessions of the Congress till 1931, though not officially accepted/adopted by the Congress).
March, 1931: One colour: Saffron with Charkha at top left. This flag was proposed by a committee appointed by Working Committee after Karachi Congress. This flag was not approved by Working Committee.
August, 1931:Three colours: Saffron, white and green, Charkha in blue colour in middle across white strip. Length and breadth in proportion of 3:2. Proposed by Congress Working Committee. Form of Flag suggested by Mahatma Gandhi retained with slight changes in order of colours and position of Chakra. Accepted by AICC officially in Bombay in August 1931.
August 15, 1947: The present tricolour National Flag was adopted.
It was almost 9.30pm. I was surfing channels in the idiot box to get something interesting. I got a sms. My colleague (whom I always refer as a kid for her enthusiasm) asked me, 'why BHARAT is INDIA in English? I sat back for a moment as I had no concrete answer for that. From the very childhood I thought as British people ruled us they might have given the name. I started rethinking…….then if they have to give a name then why they chose 'India' as the name? Is there any specific reason behind it? Is there anything worth knowing? This prompted me to google few articles and reports on the current blog.
Browsing through the time line, we can find out so many early civilizations like Persian civilization, Indus valley civilization, Harappa civilization etc. The entire Indus civilization denote to the culture that had developed along its valleys of the seven rivers named Indus, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Jhelum, Beas and the now extinct River Saraswati and the area it covered used to be called Sapta Sindhu i.e. the land of seven rivers (Sindhu means river in Sanskrit).
The Mughals (from Persian civilization) invaded and conquered this valley and kept the name 'INDUS' to identify their conquered region. About 2500 years ago, when the Greeks first reached the river plains of Punjab, they borrowed the name of the region from the Persians and simply modified it to Indos. Indos later morphed into Indus in Latin by which name the river is still known in the West. The Romans began to call the whole land mass after this river and thus the name India came to stay which has been the form used by Europeans over the ages.
The English term is from Greek Indía (Ἰνδία) [About 2500 years ago, when the Greeks first reached the river plains of Punjab, they borrowed the name of the region from the Persians and simply modified it to Indos], via Latin India [Indos later morphed into Indus in Latin by which name the river is still known in the West]. Iindía in Byzantine (Koine Greek) ethnography denotes the region beyond the Indus (Ἰνδός) river, since Herodotus (5th century BC) ἡἸνδική χώρη "Indian land", Ἰνδός "an Indian", from Avestan Hinduš (referring to Sindh, and listed as a conquered territory by Darius I in the Persepolis terrace inscription). The name is derived ultimately from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of the river, but also meaning "river" generically. Latin India is used by Lucian (2nd century).
The name India was known in Anglo-Saxon, and was used in King Alfred's translation of Orosius. In Middle English, the name was, under French influence, replaced by Ynde or Inde, which entered Early Modern English as Indie. The name India then came back to English usage from the 17th century onwards, and may be due to the influence of Latin, or Spanish or Portuguese.
I hope this will help the readers a bit to get a fair overview of the origin of the word INDIA. Please post your views so that I can tell my colleague about the dilemma of India alias Bharat
Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race.
He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare woke up and realized that he'd lost the race.
The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race. This is the version of the story that we've all grown up with.
The Story Continues:
But then recently, someone told me a more interesting version of this story. It continues. The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-searching. He realized that he'd lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there's no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise to another race (doesn't it happen in the boxing world all time...Ali vs. Frazier for instance?). The tortoise agreed.
This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.
The moral of the story?
Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. If you have two people in your organization, one slow, methodical and reliable, and the other fast and still reliable at what he does, the fast and reliable chap will consistently climb the organizational ladder faster than the slow, methodical chap. It's good to be slow and steady; but it's better to be fast and reliable.
But the story doesn't end here
The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realized that there's no way he can beat the hare in a race the way it was currently formatted.
He thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route. The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometers on the other side of the river.
The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.
The moral of the story? First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency. In an organization, if you are a good speaker, make sure you create opportunities to give presentations that enable the senior management to notice you.
If your strength is analysis, make sure you do some sort of research, make a report and send it upstairs. Working to your strengths will not only get you noticed, but will also create opportunities for growth and advancement. The story still hasn't ended.
The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. Both realized that the last race could have been run much better.
So they decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they'd felt earlier. The moral of the story?
It's good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you're able to work in a team and Harness each other’s core competencies, you'll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you'll do poorly and someone else does well.
Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership. There are more lessons to be learnt from this story.
Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard as he could. In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate to work harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriate to change strategy and try something different. And sometimes it is appropriate to do both.
The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stop competing against a rival and instead start competing against the situation, we perform far better.
Continued...Death: I Love you
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