What Globalisation ....?

The other day my sister Meera forwarded to me an e mail received by her on an interesting piece written by the veteran journalist Mr Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer about himself and his big and well spread out family all over the world.

The article written by him was published in The times of India, which i am appending below as it is to enable the reader to have an insight and a perception of his/her own:

" In 1992, I wrote a book titled Towards Globalisation. I did not realize at the time that this was going to be the history of my family.

Last week, we celebrated the wedding of my daughter, Pallavi. A brilliant student, she had won scholarships to Oxford University and the London School of Economics. In London, she met Julio, a young man from Spain. The two decided to take up jobs in Beijing, China. Last week, they came over from Beijing to Delhi to get married.

The wedding guests included 70 friends from North America, Europe and China. That may sound totally global, but arguably my elder son Shekhar has gone further. He too won a scholarship to Oxford University, and then taught for a year at a school in Colombo. Next he went to Toronto, Canada, for higher studies. There he met a German girl, Franziska. They both got jobs with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, USA. This meant that they constantly travelled on IMF business to disparate countries. Shekhar advised and went on missions to Sierra Leone, Seychelles, Kyrgyzstan and Laos. Franziska went to Rwanda, Tajikistan, and Russia. They interrupted these perambulations to get married in late 2003.

My younger son, Rustam, is only 15. Presumably he will study in Australia, marry a Nigerian girl, and settle in Peru.

Readers might think that my family was born and bred in a jet plane. The truth is more prosaic. Our ancestral home is Kargudi, a humble, obscure village in Tanjore district, Tamil Nadu. My earliest memories of it are as a house with no toilets, running water, or pukka road. When we visited, we disembarked from the train at Tanjore, and then travelled 45 minutes by bullock cart to reach the ancestral home. My father was one of six children, all of whom produced many children (I myself had three siblings). So, two generations later, the size of the Kargudi extended family (including spouses) is over 200. Of these, only three still live in the village. The rest have moved across India and across the whole world, from China to Arabia to Europe to America. This one Kargudi house has already produced 50 American citizens. So, dismiss the mutterings of those who claim that globalisation means westernisation. It looks more like Aiyarisation, viewed from Kargudi. What does this imply for our sense of identity? I cannot speak for the whole Kargudi clan, which ranges from rigid Tamil Brahmins to beef-eating, pizza-guzzling, hip-hop dancers. But for me, the Aiyarisation of the world does not mean Aiyar domination. Nor does it mean Aiyar submergence in a global sea. It means acquiring multiple identities, and moving closer to the ideal of a brotherhood of all humanity. I remain quite at home sitting on the floor of the Kargudi house on a mat of reeds, eating from a banana leaf with my hands. I feel just as much at home eating noodles in China, steak in Spain, teriyaki in Japan and cous-cous in Morocco. I am a Kargudi villager, a Tamilian, a Delhi-wallah, an Indian, a Washington Redskins fan, and a citizen of the world, all at the same time and with no sense of tension or contradiction.

When I see the Brihadeeswara Temple in Tanjore, my heart swells and I say to myself "This is mine." I feel exactly the same way when I see the Church of Bom Jesus in Goa, or the Jewish synagogue in Cochin, or the Siddi Sayed mosque in Ahmedabad: these too are mine. I have strolled so often through the Parks at Oxford University and along the canal in Washington, DC, that they feel part of me. As my family multiplies and intermarries, I hope one day to look at the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona and Rhine river in Germany and think, "These too are mine."

We Aiyars have a taken a step toward the vision of John Lennon. Imagine there's no country, It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too.

My father's generation was the first to leave the village, and loosen its regional shackles. My father became a chartered accountant in Lahore, an uncle became a hotel manager in Karachi, and we had an aunt in Rangoon.

My generation loosened the shackles of religion. My elder brother married a Sikh, my younger brother married a Christian, and I married a Parsi. The next generation has gone a step further, marrying across the globe. Globalisation for me is not just the movement of goods and capital, or even of Aiyars. It is a step towards Lennon's vision of no country.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope one day you'll join us. And the world will be one."

>> After going through Mr Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer's piece, i could not resist expressing my thoughts on the globalisation , not purely in the context of trade and economy (!), but  in the context of the contents expressed by him:

The truth is that the planet we all of us are dwelling in 'originated' with NO BORDER, NO CASTE, NO CREED, NO RELIGION, NO LANGAUGEs..... and 'NO CLOTHES' ( to emphasise 'NOTHINGNESS'.. ) to say the least that all are man made ! If it is man made, why it is so complex to realise the truth... that is a billion or a trillion dollar question ( you cannot put a price tag ! ).

There is a mind of an individual, a mind of a family, a mind of a neighbor and a society, a mind of a region, a mind of a zone, a mind of a nation, a mind of nations , a mind of continent and a mind of the planet itself ( ex: earth warming/ nuclear proliferation). You need not have to have a high IQ to realise that all these minds are certainly conditioned for sure and most of them ( 99.99999...%) are impure , corrupt , polluted, highly prejudiced, with lot of grey stuff in swollen heads( shall we say misplaced ego complex).

Mr S S A Aiyer seems to have realised the simple cosmic and absolute truth through a series of wonderful experiences and exposure in his personal life. He is blessed one... and more so to realise THE TRUTH and, therefore, talks of John Lennon's vision !

The world ( i mean  earth planet in the context.. ) was born one and will extinguish as one( as and when it happens.. you cannot prescribe a lifespan... at least in our life times.. but it will happen just because it has to happen.. one or the other day !) like it is bound to happen with each and every individual living species on the earth.

If only people become as broad minded as Aiyer and his family...by choice and BY CHOICE ONLY(!).. Lennon's vision of no country ( borderless world to be more appropriate ) and no religion ( universal religion - in the broadest sense - and that can be the best religion for mankind) will be hastened.

The planet is one and the world is one ( you cannot change the overall physical outfit or the constitution of cosmic universe ) but it has been fragmented by fragmented minds.

The concept of Globalisation ( on the trade front and otherwise as well ) and that the world is one is in us.. within us...( you need not have to be blessed one to go through what Mr Aiyer has gone through to realise) ... just explore to realise the simple and absolute truth....

-Mohan Pujar