How many times you weigh yourself in a day?

Yes, seriously, how many times do you weigh yourself in a day? How many times do you get on to the weighing scale to check your weight? Well, if you ask me, not less than ten times a day! Wonder what is wrong with me? Don’t. I find it to be a healthy habit. Whoever said to those aspiring to lose weight, not to check weight often, in my opinion, is totally wrong. By checking your weight often you come to know the progress you are making in losing weight and also learn to correct your food habits, if the weight is not coming down as planned or if it is adamantly stagnant.

My day starts with climbing out of bed and after the visit to the toilet, climbing on to my digital weighing scale, which is kept just next to my bed. My day had started well if I have lost one kilogram (kg) from the weight I had recorded the previous night before going to sleep. One kg less means your bowel movements are good and you have eaten your good share of fiber and fruits and vegetables, cooked or raw.

The next checking is done immediately thereafter, on consuming a fistful of dry fruits, and a hot glass of water in the cold season or water at room temperature during warm and normal weather. I usually add 200 grams on this.

After my morning devotional readings and prayer, I go for my 45 minutes fast morning walk, up to the mini-forest near my home and on return the first thing I do is to check the weight. I just manage to lose 100-200 grams on this exercise. When weather permits, Bangalore being cold, I go for my 45 minutes swim and manage to shed at least 300 grams. So that shows you that exercises like swimming are more strenuous than walking. See, such constant checking help you know how much your body responds to the exercises you are on. In case the result is not much you can always change the exercise to something a little more strenuous.   

Well, next is the energy giving breakfast. I have a sumptuous breakfast with three idlies (rice cakes) taken with dal sambhar (lentil soup) and a mug of nice hot milk. It adds almost 700 grams to my weight. But it is good to have a healthy and good breakfast. Never skip it. You need the energy it gives to go on till after noon.

You might like to take a snack or/and fruit around 11 am to nourish your body with good nutrients and you might just add another 100 gram to your weight, not very much really.

Then comes lunch time.

Does it look as if I am only planning and eating food and not doing much in between? Ah, not true, not true at all. When I was in Service I was working quite hard and missed the midday snack or fruits, but always caught up with lunch. Now that I am retired, I do a lot of reading and writing and counseling and teaching and preaching, but I do have enough time to keep up my schedule.

After a good lunch of a cup of rice with dal (lentil soup), one cooked vegetable, a piece of fish, curds and salad, I add up to 500 grams. A sumptuous lunch is again a must to keep your energy levels up throughout the day until the evening.

Evenings, if I am at home I may take a healthy snack or a fruit and a cup of green tea and this adds just 200 grams. Thereafter I go for my evening walk, which you can call a stroll, for I do it leisurely with my friends, for around 45 minutes. This brings down the weight by another 100 grams or so.

A light supper in the night of just two thin chappaties (like tortillas but made of wheat flour), some vegetable and a piece of fish, one might add another 300 grams.

So you see, now you know how much you have eaten and how much you are expending after exercise and work. A healthy human being with normal working hours would require at least 2000 to 2400 grams of food intake. Of course it has to be healthy food and not junk or sugary or fried stuff. From morning we do lose 1500 or 1750 grams in our daily routines and exercises. Some extra energy is always welcome.

Ah, but you must weigh yourself before hitting the bed, so that you can know how much you have lost in the morning on waking up. You will also notice on days you have gorged on sweets and cakes and fried snacks, though your intake by way of grams is like the normal food intake, mornings the weight will stay and that is the extra weight that makes you gain more weight. So such checks helps you to find out what wrong food you are eating and to cut on that, in case you want to lose weight and want to be healthy.

The same principle applies to taking water also. On taking water you do add 100 grams or so, but on relieving yourself you will lose that. You need to take water as much as you can, as per your thirst requirements.

Well folks, so if someone tells you to check your weight on the scales once in a week or a month, know that it is not scientific. It is better to take your weight before and after each meal, including snacks, so that you will know how much really you are eating and where you are gaining more weight, so that you can cut on that.

If you can do this religiously for a week or a month, then you come to know the pattern of your food habits and how your body responds to it, and thereafter, may be you need not be that meticulous.

So go ahead and check on your weighting scales, even up to 12 times a day. You will lose nothing but gain a lot of information about your own body.

Happy experience with your weighing scale!

Is loneliness your problem?

In case loneliness is your problem, do not worry, for you are in good company. Plenty of 21^st century people are lonely at one time of their life or the other and sometimes forever! Yes, it feels for ever too.

One can be lonely in the midst of people also. You are in a crowded railway station or bus stop or even airport, but still you are just an unknown face in the midst of sea of faces or an insignificant speck in the crowd. People could end up lonely because of various circumstances. It could be divorce or death of the spouse or because one remained unmarried due one’s own choice or due to various reasons. 

Temporary loneliness could stare at people when they move to a new town or city or when students leave home to study abroad, or start school or college at a new place. But I am more concerned about permanent loneliness, which many people face.

The modern Western culture encourages people to be individualistic, self-dependent and self-sufficient. This increasingly makes people self-centered and selfish, creating barriers to meaningful relationships. People feel alienated.

Some people are lonely because they are made that way. They could be introvert, inward-looking people, with personality types like choleric or melancholic. They just can’t help it, for they are not the people-persons. They like to be left alone. It is better to find out your personality type, so that you are able to accept your nature and not feel guilty or depressed about it.  

The deep longing in the human heart to be with someone, to share with someone or even to talk to, is not satisfied when we are alone and we naturally long for such a relationship. After all God created Adam and Eve to keep each other company so that they are not alone in life. That is the ideal situation. 

“Man is by nature a social animal,” said Aristotle the ancient philosopher. We were created for relationship. When we do not get it we feel deprived and lonely and purposeless in life. Sometimes life becomes unbearable that people go and commit suicide.

In practical terms what can be done to combat such loneliness? First thing to do is to face such loneliness squarely in its face. One needs to accept the fact that one is lonely. May be it was due to a person’s decision, to go in for a divorce, or not get married after that, and to remain a bachelor or a single person. Whether it is due to our own decision or due to circumstances forcing such a status on us, we need to accept the fact that one is lonely and face it boldly.

Important thing is not to feel self-pity or ruminate as why this has happened to you or feel inferior to anyone. Remember Mr. Beans? He is always alone and he seems to enjoy it! He never feels sorry for himself, but of course he is out right selfish, taking care of his comforts and needs only. Still, I would say that he is a good model, not to emulate, but to keep at the back of your mind, because it is all in the mind after all.

Once you accept the reality that you are going to be alone, or the fact that you are alone, by choice or by force of circumstances, the next step is to see what you can do about it. The first rule here is to ‘keep busy.’ Take interest in lot of activities – brush up your hobbies, if you did not have any, develop some.

I have made it a point to keep myself actively involved at least in five different activities at any time in my life. Presently it is painting, swimming, reading, writing and bird-watching. Earlier it was some other similar five interests. That can keep you occupied so much that you wonder 24 hours of a day are not sufficient to do all that you want to do in your life. 

Advantages of keeping yourself busy are many. You can develop yourself; improve your qualifications, major in some subjects dear to your heart; you can end up being an all rounder, developing intellectual, mental, spiritual, physical and volitional aspects of your life, so that you would become an integrated personality. You end up as an ‘achiever’ achieving many things which the married or otherwise engaged peers of yours are not able to achieve.

The second rule is to ‘look beyond you.’ By this I mean, instead of thinking about yourself all the time, start thinking of other people who may be in need. The world around us is hurting in many ways. One more pair of hands to help will always be welcome. Engage in activities that help suffering people in any way to put a smile on their face, which will uplift your own spirits and make you feel useful. That will give you a purpose in life, something noble to do.

Third rule is to ‘cherish relationships.’ It could be any relationship, with a close friend, or your children or your siblings or nephews and nieces or aunts and uncles and so on. It could be a women’s group or men’s group with similar interests. We are made for relationship and we need each other. The bigger net work you have the better, for when you stumble, you will be caught safely in the web of relationships you have built around and you will be able to break the fall.

Lastly, you need to have an anchor in your life. It was Blaise Pascal who famously said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the hearts of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.” Having faith in God and accepting our need for such an anchor will remove loneliness from our existence, give us the emotional security, which we vainly look for in human beings. It is He alone who can give us that security and stability. The inner strength one gets from such faith and belief in God is enormous. With that one can face the world without any problem, alone or otherwise.

St. Augustine of Hippo said “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.” Only in God shall we find rest for our souls and the ‘peace that passeth understanding.” Once we establish relationship with Him through Christ, worldly life also becomes heavenly and we have supreme joy and happiness which no one or no circumstances can take away.

Psalmist says thus in Psalm 18:1, 2,

“I will love You, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;

My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;

My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

In a short revelation to Joshua, who after the death of Moses, was to lead Israel into the Promised Land, God encourages him thus in Joshua 1:9,

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

That was a great encouragement to a young leader, who had just been given the responsibility of leading the people in war and settlement.

Jesus, before He was taken in to heaven said the following to His disciples, in Matthew 28:20,

“… and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

What an assurance and what a comfort! That anchor gives you courage to face life whether you are alone or otherwise. No more loneliness, for in addition to emotional security, Christ gives you a purpose in your life, showing you and leading you to what He really wants you to do. Will of God for us at any time is better than what we plan on our own to do, as long as we submit to His Will and obey His commandments.

Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. He will always be with you to the very end of your days. You will never feel lonely or isolated. He will be your friend for ever. 

 

Crime against Humanity: Why do they do it?

A poignant remark about the 13^th November killings by Muslim terrorists, in which 129 French civilian people lost their lives, was that it was “a savage act devoid of humanity.” It is rightly so. But what one wants to know is why do they do it? The obvious answer is in the name of religion. Is that really so? It is worth pondering.

It is often said that the killings sponsored in the name of religion are much more than the secular or non-religious killings in this world, especially keeping Christianity in mind. This accusation is one major reason why the Western people lost their faith in Christianity and Christ, since it was accused to have sponsored violent killings of innocent people.

This led me to analyze killings both by religious and non-religious wars or events, especially so, after visiting Cambodia and learning about the mass killings engineered there not by religious people, but by Communists, who do not believe in any religion.

Let’s first take the casualties of religious wars sponsored mainly by Christians.

                                                                                                                                          30 years war,   Holy Roman Empire   1618-1648     Protestants vs Catholics        3 m French war of religion, France            1562-1598              -do-                                   2m

Crusades, Europe                                   1095-1291     Christians vs Muslims            1m

Spanish Inquisition                                1478-1834   Christians vs Christians    350,000

Witch hunts                                            1400-1800            -do -                          100,000

The major wars sponsored by Christians over the last 4-6 centuries add up only to six and a half millions. Not that this could be justified, but it pales into insignificance when we consider other killings. So why blame it all on Christianity, and why be angry with Christ?

Turning to the secular wars, we have these following figures.

French Revolution, France, Europe     1789-1799           (Napoleon)                     3-4m

First World War,                                      1914-1918                                                    17m

Second World War                                  1939-1945                                                    56m

The secular, worldwide wars took much more lives than the Christian sponsored religious wars, totaling almost 76-77 millions. Then again someone might say Hitler, who started the Second World War, a German and a European, was a Christian. Nothing can be far from truth. Hitler was an atheist and did not believe that there is a God, much less follow one. Hitler was influenced directly by philosophers that Germany had produced like Nietzsche.

Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), to briefly narrate, argued against Christianity, which he thought had emasculated people, by its teachings, especially on forgiveness and obedience. He wanted people to strive hard to become supermen and defy their fate. He famously said ‘God is dead,’ and recommended the void left by God to be filled with philosophy and art, in short, culture. He encouraged people to own up their envy and not suppress it, but use it to become what we envied in the other person – realize our full potential. No wonder Hitler emerged from the same soil, albeit 100 years later, as a man who wanted to be a ‘superman,’ and unleashed terror on the whole world. 

Be that as it may, the twentieth century, mass killings by Communist comrades and their totalitarian regimes, steal the prize.

Stalin,          Russia           Great Purge,                       1936-1938     20-50 million dead 

Mao Zedong,  China       The Great Leap Forward, 1958-1961

                                           Cultural Revolution,          1966-1976      60-70 m 

Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge   Cambodia ,                            1975-1979      2.5 m

Analyzing the wholesale massacre of their own people, amounting to 105-122.5 million, by the Communists, the main reason seems to be, to be in power and exterminate anyone who could be a threat to his power and position in the regime. Stalin’s purges were mainly to remove any opposition to his leadership from within the party and the party cadres. It is after all power gone to their heads that made them heartless and ruthless. Of course they believed in no God, and so no one to give account to. They were free to run the show.  

Coming to Islam, it is a story of its own. From the death of Prophet Mohammed in 632 AD to the next 1400 years or so, Muslims killed anyone who opposed them and their religion and had killed about 270 million people, including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and so on. Here again the main motive is to world-wide domination as a people and not submit to any other culture, all fought of course, in the name of religion, Islam. It is political ambition, masquerading as religion.

Comparisons apart, are there any meanings in such killings? Why do they do it? Is there any method to this madness?

Well, for one, power and unopposed power, reigned supreme in such mass killings. Such Communists showed a method in their madness. In their eagerness to bring in revolution they pushed people like cattle, from cities to rural areas, to work like machines. They were not human beings created in the image of God, as Christians believe, but were inanimate pawns in their game of their power.

They were ruthless, since there was no fear of God. Stalin said let half of the population die, at least the other half can live in better conditions. Pol Pot’s theory was, there were no loss if the people died and no gain if they remained alive. It was ruthless suppression of human nature and humanity. The raw claws of evil inside the fallen man came to the fore.

Systematically learning was discouraged. Schools were closed both by Mao and Pol Pot. They withdrew all the children from high schools and colleges and used them as instruments to kill their own teachers and then their parents. These teenagers were like clean slates on which these leaders could write what they wanted them to do. Not unlike the Islamic terrorist brain washing the youth of today.

Next, they eschew private property, exterminate rich peasants and traders, and even abolish money and trade from the country as Pol Pot did, to do away with any personal ambition that human beings might have. The crux is people are not treated as human beings but as worms, as non-living objects to satisfy and fulfill the dreams of the leaders.

They relentlessly seek to destroy the roots of a culture, the family, God and religion, and knowledge through teachers and schools. In so doing these leaders assume the role of god. When a fallen man elevates himself to the heights of a god, we know what happens, his evil nature comes out and the world suffers. That is what happened under a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mao or a Pol Pot. Bible points out that in the end of times, another such an evil person will raise himself to be god and bring havoc on earth.

Is there a remedy? What could be done to combat these base natures of these leaders?

There is just one answer to all the fallen nature of our leaders and the people, that is, Christ. Forget what Christianity did to its people, because when the State joins hands with religion, people suffer terrible suppression. That is what happened in Europe in the middle ages and the pre-modern era. But the answer is not in throwing the baby with the bathtub. Throw away the dirty water, but keep the baby. That baby is no ordinary baby; he is the Savior of the world, come to earth as a baby.

The world needs a Savior; on our own, we will not be able to bring Utopia to the world. With the fallen nature of human beings that is next to impossible. The only light at the end of the tunnel is Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, today and forever. The earlier we realize this and seek His face, it is better for us and for the world.

Those who have thrown away Christ and his Christianity need to think; have they done the right thing? Or have they just given place to all other phony religions in the place of Christianity, which go by the names Atheism, Scientology, New Age Spirituality, even Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. Isn’t that what has happened to the Western civilization? They have rejected Christianity and now are flooded with all other religions, vying with one another, to capture and occupy the place vacated by Christianity. We need to think.     

Killers let loose on Cambodia

The Post-Angkorian Cambodia was languishing in its traditions without the tradition-setters, the Hindu kings. The capital was shifted from the rice-growing hinterlands of North West Cambodia to the trade-oriented river banks of Phenom Penh. There were increasing incursions from Thailand and Vietnamese and the self-sufficiency and the strength of Angkor was gone. Priestly class and the royal family declined in power and importance, mainly because the kingship failed to protect the population from attacks from the neighbors. Such a scenario continued well into the 19^th century.

Cambodia was poor, depending on subsistence economy. Ethnic Khmer stuck to family-oriented rice farming, where yields were low and irrigation works were almost nothing after the demise of the Angkor kingdom. Marketing and foreign trades were in Chinese and Vietnamese hands; cattle trading and weaving were in the hands of Muslim minorities called Chan; tribal groups survived by collecting forest produce and selling these to the Chinese or Vietnamese traders. Infrastructure, like roads, was conspicuously absent. Most of the people lived in the rural areas.

Society itself was arranged in a hierarchical manner with the King and his entourage at the top, who distributed patronage and titles to the high ranking officials and the elite, who were able to muster strength and followers at times of need, from those under their patronage. Access to rice and manpower meant one was a king-maker, not unlike in India, where such a trend is visibly seen during elections, with caste leaders mustering votes, caste-wise, to whom they extend patronage in return.

But in the 19^th century, there was chaos; king almost ceased to exist. The two neighbors took over. Thailand introduced Theravada Buddhist way of administering things and the Vietnamese the Confucian traditions imported from China. Cambodia was the child to be looked after by the mother Vietnam and the father Thailand. Between the two influences Cambodia just managed to survive by being servile to each in turn.

At this time in history, when the French arrived, Cambodia had no maps, and its borders were marked only by the presence of people, who spoke Khmer language and where leaders received their official titles and seals of office from the King. All people were of ethnic Khmer, rural, occupied in rice cultivation and monastic life, as it was for centuries.

King Duang, restored to the throne in 1848 with the help of Thailand, under the influence of a Catholic priest sought the protection of France by sending gifts to French Emperor Napoleon III. The King perhaps wanted to escape the invasions of the neighboring Vietnam and Thailand, but it was like jumping from frying pan to the fire. Very soon in 1863, France established a protectorate in Cambodia, offering the King protection in exchange of timber concessions and mineral exploration rights. 

Was it the same game being replayed all over again? In the three Carnatic wars in the South India, the local kings and Nawabs sought the help of the French and the British to fight each other and the result was, the British walked away with the British Raj on a platter! African friends have a saying, ‘the Westerners gave us their Bible, but they took away our lands!” During the process of colonization by the West, it was the priests who always went first and then came the troops!

The French rule in Cambodia lasted just 78 years, from 1863 to 1941, much less than the British rule in India, which lasted for almost 200 years, from 1757 to 1947. Still the real and fundamental character of the people and society, whether Khmer or Indian, really did not change, for the hold of tradition was very strong in both the societies.

The French began in full earnest ‘to civilize’ the Cambodians and to make it a rice-making machine. A nation-wide rebellion broke out in 1885 and was put down. French learnt to go slow with their transformation of Cambodia, not unlike the British in India after the First Indian war of Independence of 1857.  King Norodom, great grandfather of the present King in Cambodia, had been weakened considerably and the French supplied him with free opium to keep him out of mischief. By 1897 French Resident took direct control of running the country.

In 1831, French naturalist Henri Mouhat discovered the ruins of Angkor in Siem Reap and started the work of restoration, the only major contribution of French to Cambodia. The first novel in Khmer was published in 1938 and the first Khmer News paper, Nagara Vatta (Angkor Wat) appeared in 1936. Schooling, roads, rail lines slowly made their appearance.

With World War II things changed drastically for Cambodia. King Norodom Sihanouk came to the throne in 1941. Japanese army occupied much of Indochina by 1945. With its surrender, French reoccupied the area. Vietnam War supported by the Soviet, was fought, first against the French and then against USA, who entered the fray to hold the spread of communism at bay during Cold War. The Cambodian Communist Party was started in 1951.

King Sihanouk abdicated and negotiated independence for Cambodia, which arrived in 1953. Elections were held in 1955 and the Prince Sihanouk emerged as the major political actor on the scene and held sway for the next 15 years, treating the country and the people as his personal fiefdom, a fertile ground for the communists to grow and increase in strength. His main contribution was to have kept Cambodia neutral, so that it didn’t get swept into Vietnam War. He was voted out of office by his own party in 1970.

When the Prince tried to purge the Leftists in the country in 1963, Saloth Sar (who will emerge later as Pol Pot), and Ieng Sary, members of Communist party fled the country to Vietnam and were under the protection of Vietnamese Communist troops. Vietnamese advised them to lie low till Vietnam was liberated. Saloth Sar went to China in 1965 and witnessed the Cultural Revolution there and next four years as he spent his days deep in the jungle, he drew up his plans and waited.

By 1970 riots broke out against the presence of Vietnamese communist troops in Phenom Penh. USA and South Vietnam invaded eastern Cambodia to fight the Vietnamese. In 1973, USA is said to have rained 100,000 tons of bombs on Cambodian country side to flush out Vietnamese. On cease fire agreement between USA and Vietnam, North Vietnamese troops withdrew in 1973.

Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), under the leadership of Saloth Sar, massacred civilian Vietnamese living in the capital and also the Cambodians who returned from Vietnam. On April 17^th 1975, Saloth Sar and his colleagues took on Phenom Penh, converging on it from on all sides. The sitting Prime Minister Lon Nol flew out of the country. The Prince was already in China.

The communists commenced their rule naming the country as Democratic Kampuchia (DK). Revolution and drastic transformation of Cambodia began almost immediately with lightening speed. The leaders of CPK who remained hidden in the first few years, believed that family life, individualism, and fondness for feudal institutions like monarchy and religion, stood in the way of progress of Cambodia and began mercilessly to demolish each of these institutions.

It began with the evacuation of the cities and the urban areas. All people, including those in the city hospitals were herded out and given orders to march to the rural areas. It was brutally executed; millions died in the process. The city people were commanded to work in the rural rice fields for long hours to enhance production. City people not used to such hard labor in the sun died like flies.

The idea was to produce excess rice, export it and earn hard currency to import machinery to industrialize the country. The original occupants of the villages, ‘the old people,’ were given preference over the ‘new people’ moved from the city, but everyone had to work hard and long hours in the fields. Many people were moved twice or even thrice to different regions. Many were put to work to construct reservoirs and channels for irrigation. The old people supported the revolution, without knowing what it really stood for.  

By 1976 surplus rice was produced, but it was all removed from the villages to export to China, who gave the Cambodian communists arms and ammunition. The villagers, who worked hard to produce the crop, were left without food. Weakened by hard labor and absence of nourishing food, people perished. CPK famously told them, ‘Keeping you is no profit; losing you is no loss.’ The leaders came out in open now and Saloth Sar assumed the office of the Prime Minister of the country as Comrade Pol Pot. The name could be a shortened form of Politique Potentielle, a French equivalent of Brother Number One, but really had no special meaning. The claws came out.

A constitution was drafted which abolished private property, organized religion, and family-oriented agriculture. By 1977 collectivization of all Cambodian property started and people were asked to eat in common community sheds, including the old residents of the villages. Next, the children were removed from the parents. Schools run by the monks were closed. Monks themselves were defrocked. The old residents resented these moves bitterly. Support to the revolution in the country side waned. Markets and currency were abolished.

By 1977, only rice gruel was served in the communes and taking mismanagement as the cause of malnutrition and death among the population, CPK let loose a severe purge of its own cadre. Confessions from these unfortunate cadres were got under torture and they were put to death. Search for enemies within the party intensified and people who had fought under Lon Nol, Vietnamese, those exposed to foreign countries, teachers, and professionals, all were eliminated.

Offences were mounted on the minorities who were living within Cambodia for generations and scores of Vietnamese, Chinese and Muslim Chans were massacred. CPK armies even crossed the border into Vietnam and massacred Cambodians who had fled there. They were called people with ‘Cambodian bodies and Vietnamese minds,’ dangerous for the success of revolution and had to be eliminated.

By December 1978 Vietnamese attacked Democratic Cambodia on several fronts. Pol Pot abandoned Phenom Penh and escaped in a jeep to Thailand. Cambodians welcomed Vietnamese invasion. And the horrible regime, Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot came to an end. Just within three years, eight months and 20 days, the communist regime in Cambodia managed to kill 2.5 million people. In 1979 and 1980 thousands of Cambodians crisscrossed the country searching for loved ones, dead or alive.

Gradually Buddhist schools were opened; markets and currency were reintroduced; Buddhism thrived again and family farming came back to life. Still there was no crop in 1979 and famine struck the country. Large scale foreign aid by way of grains flowed into the country. Mass graves were dug up and skeletons and skulls were unearthed, the places being named the ‘Killing Fields.’ The horrendous atrocities committed by Pol Pot and his soldiers gradually came to the knowledge of the world. Still CPK managed to find shelter in Thailand.

Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia after 10 long years in 1989. Under International scrutiny, The State of Cambodia was formed in 1991 and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who was in exile, was brought back and instituted as the figure head of the country. In 1993 elections were held and a government was formed and the refugees returned.

Khmer Rouge was outlawed, but still they remained unrepentant, until the support of Thailand faded and fragmentation took place in the leadership. Still they fought against the new government using guerrilla campaign. Most of its cadres defected to the government. Implicated in the murder and liquidation of the Son Sen with 13 members of his family, who was his right hand man during the revolution, Pol Pot fled the country, but was captured and brought to trial by his own organization, Khmer Rouge. He was condemned to life imprisonment and died in deep jungle at the age of 73, on 15 April 1998.

Thus ended Pol Pot’s inglorious Khmer revolution, which tore the country apart, killing millions of innocent people. The country is limping back to normalcy. Still bogged down by poverty, corruption, and deep conservatism, Cambodia has a long way to go, to erase the wounds of the past and to become a healthy nation. What a suffering the people of Cambodia had to face! What a tragedy!

Cambodia touches my heart!

During my short visit to Vietnam and Cambodia, I was quite impressed by both the countries, but there was a perceptible difference between the two. Vietnam is forging ahead in developmental terms, and the place and the people look more prosperous than Cambodia. Not only that, the Vietnamese are more confident and forward looking, but Cambodians on the whole looked placid, submissive and docile. I wanted to probe further.

Then I learned that 90% of the Cambodians were followers of Hinduism up until 15^th century, but by the turn of 17^th century, 90% of the population had become Buddhist! I became further inquisitive. A Hindu kingdom was in place from 9^th century AD onwards, flourishing up to 15^th century AD, for nearly six centuries. I couldn’t contain myself and bought a few books on the history of Cambodia at Siem Reap and started reading these even before landing in Bangalore, in my quest to fathom the historical background of Cambodia and whether any explanation could be found in its history for its present position.

The show piece of Cambodia, the Angkor Wat itself, is a Hindu Vaishnavite Temple and was built by a Hindu King called Suryavarman II in the 12^th century. David Chandler in his “A History of Cambodia,” writes that in the first five centuries of the Christian ere, there was communication between India and Cambodia as Indians went as far as China to trade and used Cambodia as the middle crossover point. India provided Cambodia with a writing system, the alphabet and the script to write on, a Hindu pantheon to worship, temple architecture and a social hierarchy, not dissimilar to the Hindu Caste system. The present day Cambodian script is still that of south Indian, looking more like that of Telugu script. This influence was not forced by India on the Cambodians by colonization or by invasion.

Traditions have that a Brahmana named Kaundinya, from South India, came in a boat to Cambodia, married a dragon prince and started a kingdom called ‘Kambuja,’ which became Cambodia.

The actual rule of Hindu kings commence from 802 AD, with a monarch called Jayavarman II becoming stronger and assuming titles as universal king, united the smaller kingdoms around and the chieftains and extended his borders up to China. This kingdom covered much of Thailand and the southern Vietnam in its hay days. Thus started the Angkorean period of Cambodian history, which will last up to 1431, the 15^th century. It was a period of greatness, with Kambuja–desa ruling high and mighty in South East Asia. Angkor is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘nagara’ for town or city.

His successor Yasovarman II chose Angkor as his royal city. These kings built reservoirs to facilitate rice cultivation, built temples as a place of worship of Siva and also monasteries for sects honoring Buddha. They were tolerant of different religious beliefs and brought in legal code and collected taxes in kind. The king was divine and all the land belonged to him alone. 

Society itself was predominantly rural, people depending on rice cultivation, mainly of subsistence nature. A system of reservoirs and canals guaranteed one harvest a year during dry times and two during periods of adequate rains. Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma were worshiped. Nuclear family was the unit of society and people respected hierarchically placed officials and authorities, with patronage networks predominating relationships. The society elite were the Brahmin priests who hung around the king and conducted the temple rituals, also managed the affairs of the kingdom, including taking care of the education of the people. They were quite powerful. The King and his entourage, including the priests, bureaucrats, armies and temple caretakers, were supported by the people, who paid them a portion of the rice they cultivated, in exchange of protection and security, which the King and the gods he proffered promised to offer. The King also distributed patronage to the people around him. Trade was in the hands of foreigners, like Chinese, Vietnamese and the Chams (Muslim traders). Thousands of them settled in and around the capital and carried on trading. 

Utyadityavarman II in 1060s built a massive Siva temple in Bapuon, housing a huge lingam, the phallus symbol of Siva. Ruins of this could be seen today also. Suryavarman II built the Angkor Wat, but the work itself was completed only by 1150 AD, much after the death of the king. It occupied 500 acres of land with large moots all around with thick tree cover. This is the only temple for Vishnu, with a central idol standing in the centre, which is not there any longer; it is peculiar in the sense it opens to the West; its bas-reliefs are sculptured from counter-clock direction, reverse of normal temples and might indicate it dealt with the dead. It served primarily as a tomb for the king and also as an observatory. The bas-reliefs depict stories from Mahabharata and Ramayana, Indian epics, which are clearly visible even today. This is any day a grand architecture to behold. No wonder it is world famous and modern day Cambodians are naturally proud of this temple and the period when it was built.   

The king Jayavarman VII who ascended the throne in 1182 AD was a Buddhist of Mahayana tradition. Though he brought in Buddhist type of kingship, where the king was not held as divine and worked along with the people for salvation, he was tolerant of Hinduism. The religions underwent syncretism with Buddhism showing many features of Hinduism and vice versa.

By 13^th century, Angkor was well established and was collecting tribute from Thailand, Southern Laos and Champa-central Vietnam. It had 54 provinces, corresponding to the 54 gigantic half smiling faces in the Temple Bayon, each carved in a set of four faces, looking majestically on all the four sides. This is a sight to behold. The bas-reliefs showed the everyday life of the common people of Cambodia, especially in the country side. The same activities could still be found in the lives of the ordinary people in Cambodia. The central image was a Buddha, his head being sheltered by a huge hooded snake (naga). Looks as if Buddha had almost won over the Hindu gods and the population!

Wandering monks and Buddhist missionaries from neighboring Siam, Burma, Ceylon, etc., came and succeeded in converting the populace to Theravada Buddhism by the end of 13^th century. Though Brahminism and Shaivism were given the status of approved religions, they were on the decline. The Brahmins and priests were still in the royal courts, but with diminished importance. The rich mythological literary bases of Indian Hindu literature and iconography declined and very soon Angkor itself was abandoned as the capital city by 1560s. Inscriptions, stone temples, Hindu-oriented royal family, extensive hydraulic works, all faded very soon from the memory of the people and the elite. 

Thai successfully attacked and captured Angkor in 1431 and Cambodians took up Phenom Penh as their capital, which was on the confluence of Mekong River and Tonle Sap River. Maritime trade picked up with China, Laos, Malay, Champs, Indonesian islands and Chinese merchants were primarily involved in such trade.

By the 15^th century the glory of Khmer Raj or Angkor Kingdom was gone and it became weak and exposed to incursions from Thai first and later Vietnam. The idea of Greater Cambodia was no longer in existence. Angkor and its Hindu traditions were no longer strong or relevant. Instead of looking to their Hindu past, Cambodians looked to Thailand for mutual blending of same Theravada Buddhism and culture.

In India itself this was a troubled time. By the 10^th century the strong Hindu kingdoms were almost gone, and the then existing principalities were subjected to repeated attacks by Muslim invaders and marauders, some of whom succeeded in establishing their own kingdoms in India. I suppose India was in no position to support or revive Hindu religion or culture in Cambodia.

The history of Cambodia explained the Hindu influence and its architecture and also the glory of Angkor kingdom and its gradual demise and replacement of Hinduism by Theravada Buddhism. Still I am not done with Cambodia. There was to come a horrible phase in the history of Cambodia, the Pol Pot regime, heinous communist regime, wrecking terrible havoc on the population. More of this I will write in my next blog.