Tradition means ..

Today I had a very good conversation with Br.Basil, a theological student from STOTS, Nagpur. We discussed about a variety of matters and one thing that caught my attention was about tradition.

In this changing world there are a lot of people who are orthodox in their way of life, in their thought process or even in their dress codes. They follow a ‘tradition’ which was formulated by some great personalities. They follow it because that is the way of life that made the great person a Great Personality. But think! That was relevant at their period of time. But is that relevant now?

We are strictly imposing some rules and regulations, or some traditions, on others. What is the use? Why are we doing so? The world around us is not the same as the world some years ago. If you force a person to follow a traditional way, it is same as putting pressure on an isolated object which has in no way connection to the external environment, hoping that it will change. It may change. But how much successful will that be is a question. There is no use in changing a person without setting the proper environment for a person to get changed. Put it in the other way, that a person has to be changed if the environment around that person has already changed. Otherwise the person is considered as ‘outdated’, just like a medicine after its expiry date and of course no use to others.

Tradition means not strictly holding to what we received from our forefathers as it is, but making changes to what we received from our forefathers according to the present external environment and passing it on to the next generation. In Br. Basil’s words, tradition is like a gift that we received from our previous generation. We should not pass the gift to the next generation blindly. But open our eyes. Check the gift whether it is properly wrapped or whether it is covered with dust. Clean it up, Make changes if required and Wrap it with nice gift wraps so that it will be pleasing and useful for the whole world. Then pass it on. This is what tradition is.

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Social Responsibilty of IPL

Indian Premier League (IPL) is the one which shares the first page of every news paper with terror attack and other crime news. After a month, when four teams are entering into semis, it is clear that the initial hype and the publicity is reducing. But the sponsors do not want to lose even a small target customers. IPL is definitely a success in reaching the mass audience.

Coming to the finance aspect of IPL, it is clear that IPL is creating a huge power distance in terms of money. Those who have money are ‘investing’ to get it multiplied. But it is the medium- and low-income people who constitute 80% of the audience. These people are being exploited, directly through tickets and indirectly through advertisements.

The impact is rich people are getting more and more rich; and the poor, medium people make their case even worst. The only justification of those who are ‘investing’ is they are taking chances. But as long as sponsors are there, the risk of taking risk is negligible.

Does IPL has a social impact other than the entertainment value? The cheer leaders may or may not have an impact on the public. But I am not talking about it right now. I am focusing on the finance aspect – return on investment; to be precise, the social return on the investment made. Many are those who talk about Social Responsibility these days. IPL can be treated as a business. A small portion of its profit should be taxed and will be kept separately for rural development. This not only helps IPL by getting more publicity, but also the development of rural India.

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