Importance of Criticism

Recently I read an article in the Hindu editorial , written by Jaswant Singh. The main idea of the article was to defend BJP's actions in the parliament, which led to the total disruption of the Lok Sabha's winter session. What caught my attention in it were his views on democracy and how dissent is such an important part of a democratic setup. The exact text of the article is pasted.

"Why such profound failures? Perhaps, because our grievance redressal systems have ground to a halt; also because we have lost regard for each other, we have abandoned our sense of kinship and fraternity without which no parliamentary democracy can function. We have forgotten how to accommodate dissent, and the less we do so, the harsher it becomes. We no longer consider the alternative view-point as being even remotely relevant; instead, we now treat disagreement as a disservice, a rebellious challenge, which must either be totally rejected, or then crushed. The tone, tenor and the content of our language, of mutual address, government to opposition, or the other way round has become dryly ritualised, patronisingly rejectionist, emptied totally of the spirit of parliamentary democracy. The hierarchy of our concerns no longer harmonise; courtesy and accommodation to the opposing view point is treated as being ‘soft', a weakness. We no longer recognise the great relevance of the ‘intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of parliamentary debates'. Perhaps, the Hon'ble Prime Minister no longer recognises, or accepts, that it is this ‘passion' which constitutes the personality and the heartbeat of our (or any other) Parliament. This ‘passion' occasionally obscures, but often illuminates, too; it distracts, yes, but this then is both it's strength and its weakness. Parliament is an assembly of human beings; it must have human virtues, and vices and failings, it is not, must not ever be, just a container of ritualised nothingness. " -Jaswant Singh

What striked me the most is the relevance of this in our daily lives. How we need to lend a ear to what the other person has to say. The importance of true and honest criticism from friends and peers is something which is very rare to come by these days. The sad part is that often such criticism is treated just like Jaswant Singh said. Most people(which includes me) dont take it as a god given opportunity to mend our ways. In fact some people simply start hating the person who criticizes him or her. It is such an easy job to actually tell nice and flowery stuff about people , it is to criticize people that one needs some guts. Just like Jhonny Depp said in the Pirates of the Carribean "Honestly its the the guys who flatter that you must beware of"

The Trip to Tada

The trip to Tada, which we(Adith,Anand,Charu and yours faithfully) made after six months of contemplation and several false starts, was our first tryst with adventurism (however small it might be on the scale of adventurism ) . The trekking bug bite me after my trip to Sar Pass. The dudes', with whom I went to Sar Pass, never ending stories about Tada made me determined to vsit that place once atleast. It finally happened on the 1st of Jan of 2011 , a day which I will always remember.

We started from our homes at exactly 6:30 Am. After the usual set of wrong turns (which always happens with Adith) we managed to get into NH5. After that it was a straight road till Tada. Once we took a left at Tada and managed to ask our way to the falls. The road to the checkpost (to the falls) was quite good except for the final one kilometer which was more like a dirt track. We payed the toll for the cars and the cameras and proceeded to the parking space which is close to 2-3 kms from the check post. There was a security guard at the check post to take care of the cars. We took our bags (which had nothing but a spare set of clothes , chow and the cameras) and started our trek in high spirits. The initial distance (abt a coupla kms) was a flat dirt track. It was a really nice walk. Anand lost his glasses in one of the strams and managed to tear his shoes, which was repaired due to Adith ingenious idea(he wanted me to write this) Apart from this and a few other minor mishaps like Adith trying to push me while crossing one of the streams, we made it to the Sivan temple in good time (abt 45 mins). After this the trek started. There was no clear cut route after this point. We simply had to follow the stream. We were jumping from one rock to another like monkeys. The rain and the stream had made the rocks extremely slippery making it very very difficult to walk. I made the mistake of wearing the shoes which I had used for my Himalayan trek. The shoe was one of the major liability in this trek. I would say the best footwear for this trek would be your bear foot if it had not been for those numerous glass bottles generously strewn across the place. Anyways we made it after several slips into the stream (especially me. i fell into the water so many times that my clothes were wet even before we reached the falls) After a pretty tiring but short trek (more like amateur rock climbing) we manged to reach a small falls. People said that there was a bigger falls if we were ready to climb higher. Buddhist as we were, we decided to be contended with what we had. We goofed arnd in the small but extremely awesome falls for half an hour and decided to pack back home once we saw truck loads of people approaching the falls (with a lot of booze) . We carefully made our way back to the car park and returned home by 1730 hrs.

That was one real heck of a way to start the new year with friends. I felt the falls totally justified the trek.

Advisory

Never wear Hi funda sport or trekking shoes. Sandals would be more than enough.

Never go in the weekends it happens to be the boozing spot for lots of ppl.

Dont go wearing jeans ,you will get wet and end up carrying very heavy stuff back when u return. Wear simple shorts.

You wont get a morsel of food there so carry your own chow.

dont take too many cameras it will be a pain trying to protect them from the elements and the anti-socials (ya they will be there) just take one and keep it safe.