US votes for President 2025. Trump gets home, for a second stint, with ease, defying exit polls. Crossed 270/538. Landslide. Kamala is trailing. World is congratulating Trump. Trump and his running mate JD Vance claimed victory. Victory Speech. He is talking: peace through strength; no illegal migrants, only legal entry. ‘Every ounce of energy, spirit, and fight that I have in my soul to the job that you have entrusted to me’. Hope he lives up to this announcement over the next 4 years. Kamala has not yet conceded defeat. Trump would take oath as President on 20 January. Till then, Biden is President and Kamala is Vice President. The USA makes women wait longer to become POTUS. Trump won over Hillary earlier, now Kamala. He lost to Biden, in between. Interesting.
Can the State take charge – education – 20 years, mandatory residential education from Class 5/8; health – preventive, primary health, health insurance; pensions – for minimum decent survival, existence; employment – 50% of days a year at decent minimum wage level, for skilled? Free public transport?
Krsna was my brother after Venkat. He succumbed to road accident. A lorry hit him when he was 6, just opposite our house. My mother was at the door watching him cross the road. The lorry went onto the right, maybe onto the footpath and outside the road, hit him. Bumper hit his head. And collapsed and rested more or less immediately. I was brought to the village very quickly from school (Gurukulam). I was in Class 8. We lost a very bright human being, too early. A huge possibility was lost. He was more than a brother to me. I missed a young friend, and it took a long time to recover. Mother lost herself and she could not come to terms with it for a long time. We opened a medical store in the village in his name, for a decade or so. We moved inside the village, vacating the roadside house.
I joined school in Class 2 only. Krishna Rao, tuition master, brought me up to level, before joining. Even then, I failed. Then the school promoted me to Class 3 although I failed. After this, I was not doing badly, doing rather well, in the school through Class 3 to Class 7. I picked up the habit of reading whatever comes my way very early. Maybe from seeing my father, or genes. Some of the teachers and friends had a knack to discover students with differential abilities, talents, aptitude, and nurtured them. I was fortunately one of them. These special teachers, Gurus, masters included: Damodar Reddy sir, Ramana Murthy sir. VVSN Rao sir. Srinivasa Reddy sir. School gave me reading-writing language(s) and appreciating numbers, logic. Social sciences. Moral, ethical compass. Time accountability. Becoming a social being, extrovert.
Grown up, schooled in patriarchal situations. Largely non co-ed classes. Probably, we did not talk to girls in school at all. Our social conditioning and interactions were in family, village situations. When I reached graduation, social schooling was required. Fortunately, some of my classmates ensured this for me, over the next 7-8 years, culminating at IRMA. Engendering, agency of the marginalized, localizing, collectivizing, communitizing, being useful, and paying back were seeded in there. Deliberate first steps towards livelihoods, poverty reduction, and development domain lifework were taken up. Hybrid introvert-extrovert social being emerged.
Can we persist in this lifework? With more intensity, more usefulness, more effectiveness, on scale, joyous. Can we lead ourselves?
Yes, we can. If we coexist, keep flowing, with more and more. In N? saamaajikayoga for 7L.
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