knowledge has no horizons

We live in a world of scientific advancements and innovations. Of course, science has played a vital role in changing our lives. We are no longer in the stone age, and everything in the world is almost made to be controlled by codings and programs. But, before taking pride in what science has achieved so far, we have to ask ourselves and answer the question, Whether scientific advancements led, leads and will lead mankind to development or destruction? (I use the word "science" to mean "scientific advancements" in the paragraphs to come.)

The answer, in my standpoint, will not be affirmative, and I am certain to corroborate my points with a number of events evident from the past. Though I agree to the fact that I have already mentioned that science has played a paramount part in changing our lives of every sort, we can find that science takes us on the destructive path, if we look into the so-called "developments" a little bit deeper.

We cannot ignore the fact that the middle of the twentieth century has seen the two World Wars which resulted in the deaths of millions of people and in which science in the form of the atom, the worst enemy of all times until human kind survives on the earth, helped increase the death toll. Hiroshima and Nagasaki recorded themselves in the history as the first victims for atom bombs. Science strengthens the atom bombs in various and sundry forms now. But the world is still to see several wars!

An oft-quoted and almost all the times lauded notion about science that it has increased the longevity of people's lives through innovations in medicines. It should not be forgotten that the advancements in medicines cure us through decorated tablets and pills, but finally result in the so-called side effects. Science heals us to kill!

One of the most important things that troubles the mankind is man’s attempt to making the man himself through cloning. Imagine a man with a face similar to that of your own, sharing your same characteristics, walking around, speaking with you. Even thinking of such thing is disturbing the whole mankind. It is not such a thing that can just be tolerated as this is absolutely against Nature. What is more!

Machine replace men in every filed, and the impact of it is severe in agriculture, especially in countries like India, resulting in the unemployment of several in the villages. The “backbones” (coolies) are now broken with the advent of machines, ever making them remain the same with the innovations in the existing ones. Natural fertilizers are no longer in use, and those who use it, at least in some places, are seen just “illiterates”. We reap the benefit within months, eventually making us eat just junk(s).

The world witness every second an accident, a wreck or a crash, on the land, in the water or over the sky. Science has made not only the things cheaper, but also the human lives. Advancements in transportation decrease the distance to hell. Rapid growth in scientific advancements result the people to lose their lives rapidly. And it will be no exaggeration to say that journeys are undertaken now not with the feeling of enjoyment, but with the fear of saving lives. One cannot be sure to go back home!

I may sound in this essay as against the scientific advancements, which is not true. While agreeing with the fact that science enables our lives and works easier, we cannot just ignore the negatives, which I aimed writing in this essay. Though there is lot more to be discussed over this issue, I have confined myself within limits, trying in this essay to define some of the devastating effects of the so-called scientific advancements.

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Not all born on the Earth earn fame for his name, either in the political world or in the business world. Not all who earned fame in either of these be the source of inspiration for the younger generation. But the essay is about a man whose name hits Google in an unimaginable way 14,000 times, and for whom fame is not a sought-after, instead awards--whether it is India’s Padma Bhushan, or a honorary doctorate in business administration by the Ohio State University, or honorary doctorate in Technology by the Asian Institute of Technology, or honorary doctorate in Science by the University of Warwick--wait in queue and take pride when conferred on him. This is about the name that reigned ever with success the Indian entrepreneurial samraj and that owns the group of companies whose products and services, standing the test of time, serve as the synonym for quality. Yes, the name that requires not even a moment of conjecture and that casts a spell on the young minds is none other than Ratan Tata.

The 69-year-old young man entered the TATA Group in 1962 on returning from the USA. Having graduated in Architecture, he knows the art of building India and makes the Indians proud for being Indians. Though born with silver spoon in his mouth, he didn’t hesitate to work on the floors of Tata Steels along with ordinary workers. No one knew, including Ratan Tata himself at that time, that he is going to make it the fifth largest producer of steel in the world after buying Corus Steel for $12 billion, the largest Indian takeover of a foreign company. Of course, he had the grit to do that.

The sea of change is taking place across the group of companies right from the day he took the charge as the Group Chairman in 1991. Nothing comes for him by magic, nor does he attain the top of the power ladder just with jump. After years of hard work in Tata Steel, he was appointed the Chairman of Tata Industries in 1981 and Deputy Chairman of Tata Motors in 1988. Right from his accession to the Tata samraj, the samrat never sees any major setbacks in his attempts, whether it is the case of acquiring Corus Steel or buying the South Korean truck maker, Daewoo commercial vehicles. He transformed his groups’ national identity to transnational one. For him, ‘promise is a promise’ and this promise make millions of Indian dream of the new 1-lakh car, Nano.

No wonder, Ratan Tata tops the list of India Today’s “High & Mighty Power List” for the past three consecutive years (I am not sure whether he is ranked first before that, too). It took anyone by surprise that this group chairman of 98 operating companies with revenues over crores in lakhs once ‘washed planes at a flying club at Cornell to pay for his flying lessons’. I don’t find it exaggerated to say that this simplicity along with sagacity takes him to the top of entrepreneurship.

Culture is to a nation as heart is to a human being. Have you ever imagined any living creature without a backbone of its own? Certainly not! It would be apt to call culture the backbone of any nation. The word “culture” having its root from the Latin word “Cultura” means "to cultivate". It is the thing which cultivated the stone-age man and turned him to sophisticated man.

Culture is always defined as a set of general customs or belief of a particular group of people or any nation or a part of a nation. To put it in simple terms, it is “the way of life of an entire society”. It is almost always applied to the way people are to behave or to lead their life, to the manners, customs and beliefs, albeit applied to other forms such as art, literature, film, painting, sculpture and theater.

Every nation has its own culture. Among the European nations, Greece traces the history of having a richness of culture right from the antiquities, and the Romans share the respect of the same with the Greeks. In Asia, countries like Egypt and China also had very good culture in ancient times. After all, the fact that should not be forgotten is that India boasts of its culture from the beginning of the world, and it is not hyperbolic to say that India pioneered the world about having a culture of its own.

The Tamils (an ethnic group that form the southern part of India) have a lot of things to admire about their culture, like one for each other in marital life. It is clear and evident from the Tamil epics like Manimekala that it is almost considered a sin for a girl or a woman to make a man have a feel of lust with her luscious eyes or by lascivious appearance. Even thinking of another man’s wife was a cruel and unpardonable thing in ancient times. Kambar, a great poet in Tamil literature, too, described in his Ramayana the character of Lakshmana as a worshipper of his brother Rama and his beloved wife and presented him as he used to talk to her by seeing the fingers in her feet.

Culture has changed a lot nowadays. There is no gender discrimination between people. The advent of science made its impact in the every sphere of people’s lives and also in their culture. Cinema has its devastating effect in making the culture go on the way of wrack and ruin. Cultural dress like sarees and dhotis are replaced by churidhars and pants. T-shirts and jeans become a common thing for both men and women. I am not here to say that such kind of changes should not be welcomed, but not affecting the roots of culture.

Of course, everything in this world is subject to change except the word “change” itself, and it is acceptable that it is ineluctable to have changes in the basics of culture because of the factors like “contact between societies” and “changes in the natural environment”, but not at the cost of culture itself. For, culture, according to a critic, is “the best that has been thought and said in the world”, and it is our duty and responsibility to save it from the so-called fashions of the modern era.

Beauteous to behold is the placid place,
And blessed with bliss is the bird and its race,
That rummages through the ramages of the trees,
To peck the fruits scrumptious in the gentle breeze.

The brook flowing beneath is glowing in gloaming,
Flinging pebbles small slowly on its moving;
And whisper with rustling all through its route,
In the air, the Cuckoo’s poised canorous note.

The well-spring of glee in my weird world,
Winding-down worries from my wearied mind and sad;
Wither you flit, blithe and blissful bird,
Wake I am the ecstatic songs thine to be heard.

No shifts for you to work, ye happy bird,
Nor to meet the evenings ever tired;
No dinner in hungry stomachs to gorge,
Nor have you the peccable minds to forge.

Wake we to work and work, and work till night,
With all our endless efforts and might,
And rest we in beds a little while to make
The tired minds and bodies afresh, Lo! again to wake.

Fly away and bring me into your blissful region,
From the land perilous with farragoes legion;
Or come out to make my dull soul be shone,
From your coppices dark and fully-grown.

Ye, enchorial to the ever ecstatic world,
Take me to live ever in thine joyous shade;
Cos, agonizing is the life here and there,
As the Ten Plagues occurring altogether.


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O, my beloved, be with me forever,
Let us prove to the world
The ecstasies infinite yet undiscovered.
Come my Love, I will get for you
The heavenly apples from the Hesperides.
Or gift you gathering the sands all
Stained with gold from the Pactolus filled.

O, the Helen of the heart of mine,
Let us bid Daedalus to fashion
The feathered-wings to be fixed,
And wander with clouds the world around,
And make those under the sun dumb-found.
Or grab with Athena's harness golden
The Pegasus from the Hippocrene and fly.

O, the walking perennial beauty enviable,
Let us order Apollo to speed up
His day chariot to driving it fast;
And get us hurt from the Cupid's bows
To feel the painful pleasures of nights.
And asking Aurora to be ever at rest
And find we in Love the finest and best.

Hark to me, my honied heart, to the words
Of the willing slave of your winking eyes;
'Come live with me and be my love'.
We shall dine upon the Idunn's apples ever
In the elation-filled Elysian fields,
To be ebullient with eternal youth, and find
The dimwitted Tithonus felt jealous-found.

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