The Circle ofL ife and the Twin Arcs of the Past and the Present

                                     The Circle ofL ife and the Twin Arcs of the Past and the Present

I came across two quotes in the last couple of days that struck a chord with the thoughts that had been swirling in my mind for the last few weeks.  The first one is by James Maxwell Coetzee who wrote: “A historical understanding is understanding of the past as a shaping force upon the present “  and the second one is by Aatish Taseer by way of explaining Coetzee’s remark: ”History should inspire a sense of wonder for the past; they should rouse the imagination. The pamphleteer intellectual of the present ruling party does the opposite. He turns the present into a ‘shaping force’ upon the past. “

Today at 75+, I stand at the crossroad of transition from the past that I know well to the present that is distinctly different to the future that is yet to unfold. Talking about the past that we all know fairly well is often criticized as being nostalgic, having a wistful or sentimental longing for the past. It is also at times viewed as an act of cowardice for not being able to endure the much changed present and thereof escaping into the past. William Faulkner defines nostalgia “as a denial of the painful present.” The adjective ‘painful’’ is not a condemnation of all things present, but an acknowledgement of the distress that one experiences in not being able to shape the present in the light of the past. No one can ever wish for life’s movement in perpetuity without a change nor is it a possibility. Change is -what we know- the one unchanging factor in life. It is change that divides the present from the past and has perforce to be accepted. Therefore being nostalgic is not being escapist or cowardly, but to see things in perspective.  "It is useful occasionally to look at the past to gain a perspective on the present" (Fabian Linden).

The critical question is similar to the egg and the chicken question. Not in terms of what comes first, but in a metaphorical sense of whether the past shapes the present or the present shapes the past. To put it in a different way, can the present come without the past or whether the past can exist without the present? If the present does not exist, how can there be a past? If there is no looking back, the past ceases to be an entity. Therefore it is axiomatic -before we start discussing the question about the past and the present with regard to shaping each other- to understand that past and present cannot exist without each other. The past is embedded in our memory and that never gets erased. The present is inhered in the past and gets its identity through making changes in the inherited past. Ezra Pound coined the slogan “Make it New” by way of rejecting the ideology of realism of the past by a new mode of thinking. This effectively translated into new art forms, new music, new theatre,  new literature, new philosophy  by revising, rewriting and reformulating  the older thoughts , ideas and works of art and literature. George Steiner writes that “ the modernist movement which dominated art, music, letters during the first half of the century was, at critical points, a strategy of conservation, of custodianship.” It involved recognizing the source and transforming it into a new idiom while keeping the salient aspects of the original intact. Talking about Picasso, Steiner said that his art was “revision, a seeing again of the classical art forms in the light of technical and cultural shifts.... The new, even at its most scandalous, has been set against an informing background and framework of tradition. “

What is happening now in India?  This is best answered by the quote from Aatish Taseer.WEeare harking back to our past only eulogize our ancestors’ genius in genetic engineering, aeronautical discoveries, surgery and mathematical propositions and formulae. All these are expounded not on any scientific proof but on citation from our mythologies and legends. ‘Mythological’ means “ based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity”. These stories exemplify the inventivenses and creativeness of the human mind in conjuring up a sense of wonder. They use hyperbole, personification of natural phenomena and fantasy to rouse our imagination. They are often allegorical implying moral and behavioural models for the listeners and readers. To look at myths as expounding factual historical events is to turn the imaginary discourse into rational truths that are founded upon modern scientific and technological discoveries.

    The past is the founding stone of the present. We build the present on the strength of the foundation that we have inherited. If that foundation lacks logic and credibility, the present defence of an inherited glory crumbles. The past should not be understood in the light of the present while the present lends itself for measuring the force of the past on all its visible, rational and practical aspects. To read Shakespeare and criticize him  for being anti-feminine, anti-jew etc is to judge him from the standpoint of or modern values. Shakespeare is to be imaginatively read as the chronicler of the Elizabethan period.

    Imagine standing on the seashore with the waves rising high and beating against the land bordering on the sea. The giant waves that are visible recede and merge into the sea and are no more seen. We feel the tingling sensation of the waves touching our feet and as they lose height and withdraw, they leave behind the residue of excitement, pleasure and stimulation that we store for the present and the future. The past, like the waves comes and goes and the reality of experiencing the past is the foundation on which the present is laid. We cannot forever hold fast to the waves, nor can we forever hold to the past. The waves are a part of the sea but the sea is not a part of the waves. The past is a part of life, but life is not a part of the past. The past merges with life to emerge as the present. Let us learn to look at the past not with fanciful eyes but with realistic eyes and turn it into the shaping force of the present. Browning in  Abt Vogler says: “On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.” The past and the present are the broken arcs and enclosing them in a prefect round is life.

To Own and not to Own

                                                          To Own and not to Own

It was a chilly windy day in the capital that made people of all ages scamper home to avoid the biting cold. I also rushed back carrying my vegetable packet along with a bag full of groceries. But at the gate a huge black station wagon was standing crosswise, barring the entrance. The wagon was parked in such a way that not even a two wheeler could vroom through. There was a queue of cars behind and in front of the wagon waiting for their entry into and exit from the colony gate. Obviously the security guard must have gone missing for a short while when the wagon owner sighted that empty space before the gate for his vehicle. When the guard turned up, there was a bedlam as the angry residents shouted at him for allowing the black leviathan to be stationed at the gate. He frantically looked for the missing driver of the wagon without knowing where to look for and then he attempted to heave the vehicle to one side to allow at least the two wheelers to pass but didn’t succeed, causing greater annoyance and frustration to the colony car owners. It was after nearly an hour, the black wagon owner sauntered in, carrying a dozen beer cans and a couple of liquor bottles but before he could open the boot to put them in, the guard stopped him and asked him how he thought he owned the place to park his vehicle there. One of the car owners- obviously an English professor called him Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant in the  Homeric epic The Odyssey who had blocked the entrance to his cave with a huge boulder imprisoning Odysseus and his men within. The guard emboldened by the English professor unleashed a whole lot of expletives at the owner, ending each one of them with an anguished and angry cry ‘Mein kya karoonga apne gaddiyom  ko? Apne gadiyom  bahar na ja sakthe ,na andhar aa sakthe? (What can I do with my cars?  Neither I can take them out nor bring them in). I heard him repeat at least a dozen times”apne gadi” as though he was the owner of all the cars he surveyed in the colony. He felt that his outburst would be bolstered by his rightful claim to the ownership of the 200 odd cars in the colony and his colony sahebs would also appreciate his shared sense of ownership.  The car owners did not object to his claim-rather it assuaged their anger. Finally without much ado, the beer-laden black leviathan moved out and the blood pressure of the car owners came down as they zoomed in and out of the gate. But the guard continued to mumble even after the leviathan had moved beyond hearing his angry shout at being blocked off his ownership rights. The servants , the colony sweepers, the working boys from the kinara shop joined him to express their solidarity with him  saying how such huge black or white or yellow  or green or any other Vibjyor -colured monstrosities can dare to infringe upon their ownership rights over cars, houses and  the neighbourhood  shops where they were employed.

I wondered about the meaning of ownership and the basis of ownership. Ownership does not come free as it carries with it a baggage of rights and duties. In an interesting article on this topic, Lars Bergstrom cites the example of ownership of a car that gives the owner the right to drive the car, the right to prevent others from driving the car, the right to sell the car etc., along with the duty to drive the car without flouting the safety norms and regulations and the duty to pay road taxes and any other taxes issued by the state. The ownership is based on execution of those rights and duties. But in our anxiety to make common cause with those we are closely associated with, we tend to usurp the claim to ownership without the duties and rights involved

The claim to ownership is genetic to all of us and is anchored in all our personal and social relationships. The parents’ claim of ownership of their children is a perennial one. The children remain children for the parents even after the children grow up and have their own children. A child is a child is a child forever for its parents. The saas-bahu clash is a good example of the mother’s insistence to have the ownership of her son that is threatened by the arrival of the bahu. Similarly when the parents get old, they surrender themselves to their children who begin to claim ownership of the elders. The parents get frequently an earful of instructions from their children about  do’s and don’ts and they are often told not to live forever in the past but move on with the times. The children- now grown up adults-tell their parents  what to eat and what not to (no salt, no sugar, no fats, no fries, no pickles etc), what to speak and what not to, what to wear and how to present themselves before guests and visitors who belong to the new generation, how not to reminisce about their glorious past and how to be tuned in with the present culture, what to read and what not to, how not to use the staid vocabulary of their times ,but get set for the use of new lingo and jargons… the list is endless. All these happen as a result of a reversal of the ownership - of parents by children. The oldies are respectfully labeled senior citizens but they have no space of their own unless they move into the homes specially made for them. Their space may be cramped in the Senior Citizens’Homes, but their personal and mental space is not cramped as they walk, talk and breathe the language, culture, trends and fashion of their own generation.

Yet another form of ownership is with thoughts and ideas. Netizens are good at borrowing ideas from the netspace and parading them as their own. Wilson Mizner’s profound statement: “Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from many, it's research.” is another way of claiming ownership of others’ ideas.  The academics have made an art of this borrowed ownership to write their research papers that are sine qua non for their promotion. Music composers lift words from popular songs and claim ownership for the same. We come across clever people who will listen to your views and paraphrase them in their own way to make them appear as their own.

In much the same way politicians claim to innovative policies which are borrowed from others that include the opposition party members and stake their claim to ownership as though they are their own. In today’s politics, there is not much to choose between the ideology of the ruling party and that of the opposition. There is no reversal except name changing of old schemes to make a claim for their ownership. The party in opposition cries  foul on all the policies of the ruling party till it comes to power. When it realizes the dynamics of governance it strategically  retains the same policies albeit  in a different garb.  All sabre rattling prior to elections come to a standstill and old ideas are refurbished to look new with the change in the hands of ownership. When it comes to political ownership, the best way is to ensure family hold on political power. What used to be the ancient law of primogeniture that ensured the right of ownership of the throne to the eldest born is now labeled dynasty rule. The dynasty’s claim is not a right royal claim to ownership as it was the case with Monarchy, but has to be affirmed through the electoral process.  We have examples in Indian politics, however  if the dynasty does not get elected to rule, it still gives the dynasty the right to ownership of the party it represents even in defeat.

The moot question is ownership desirable? Most of us are not saints to say we own nothing and even this physical body belongs to the Almighty. In fact, the truth is we own our genes and no one else can claim to the ownership of the genes we are born with. This ownership of the self is key to self motivation. If we own something, we will try our best to nurture it, sustain it and improve it. Similarly shared ownership means greater engagement by the shared owners with the organization that they are associated with.  This is a principle many companies make to motivate and engage their employees to maintain the competitive edge over other companies. But ownership is to be earned and not usurped and has to be a rightful claim within limits. That is why a husband’s claim to ownership of his wife is fraught with dissent and unhappiness. The vice versa is equally true and the increasing rate of divorce is due to the mutual denial of space. Ownership does not confer any power to dominate over others and infringe upon others’ right to ownership of their thoughts, views, ideas and ways of living. Ownership may be notionally perennial as is the case of parents and children, but the umbilical cord has to be snapped at the right time so as to give free space to both parents and their wards who love to own it. We have to understand, appreciate and accept that every individual has the ownership of his/her self and is motivated to preserve the identity that ownership has conferred on him/her. But to stretch the ownership beyond what is one’s due and appropriate the ownership of power, position, ideas and space that belong to others is undesirable and unethical. Ownership as a desirable concept can be leveraged to motivate us to work hard and raise our bar. What is needed is the feeling of ownership rather than the actual ownership-known as the psychology of ownership that gives one a self-identity to realize and work towards one’s highest potential. The guards’ claim to ownership is an example of positive affectivity, a trait that provides him enthusiasm and desire to be fully engaged in his job. But the leviathan owner’s claim to ownership of the space at the gate is one of appropriation and arrogation, an act of actus reus -claiming ownership of that which is not his. This holds true of everything- whether it is appropriating ideas or ideology, power or leadership, right to dominance or control. With rightful ownership comes honesty, commitment, responsibility, integrity and total involvement. The best example is of the Scottish poet Robert Burns who enriched Scottish songs with his genius. But when he retained the words and the melodic lines of folk songs, and rewrote the rest, he never claimed ownership for them. All claims to ownership of what belongs to others amounts to deceit and falsity.To claim ownership of our authentic self, we need to take ownership of our life, of our tasks, of our  talent, action and also our mistakes.

Freedom for You is freedom for me

                                                 Freedom  for You is freedom for me

The blood curdling news of the massacre of 145 people in Peshawar,that included 135 children,  the fatal hostage drama in Sydney four days later and the brutal killing of 12 journalists and five others in Paris last week are  assertions of the terrorists’ freedom to pull the trigger as and when they want and at any target they desire irrespective of their victims’ culpability in any real or  imaginary crime or insult to them. It is symptomatic of aggressive violence against all they perceive to be ‘the Others’ - those who are alien to their views and perceptions especially related to their religion and its dogma. They assert that their freedom to kill has the sanction of God and hence is justified.

It is a sad but true coincidence that all the three above mentioned killings have been carried out in the name of Islam by a group of fanatics who suffer from lack of true knowledge, understanding and discernment of values inherent in the Quran. The genesis of the word Islam goes back to the Arabic “salema” which means peace, purity, submission and obedience. In the religious sense, Islam means submission or surrender to the will of God in ultimate peace. Almost all religions underline the worth and value of surrender. Hindus believe in submission or surrender to God. One of the main divisions of Hinduism-Vaishnavism- talks about ‘saranagati or prappati’ as the high watermark of one’s devotion or Bhakti to God. The Bible says: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (John 4:7) and   “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (John4:10).  In Judaism, we have these lines: “To stop wittering for a few moments and to declare your faith in God’s power/ is to surrender both your fears- and your entire self to Him.”

The tragedy is those who do not understand their religion- of whatever denomination it may be- demand from all others obedience and submission to them, substituting themselves for God. Who has given them the claim to be God or the representatives of God? Jesus alone is accepted as the Son of God and no one who believes in Christ claims to that status. So is Prophet Muhammad whom the Muslims believe as the last Prophet sent by God to mankind. In which case how can any Muslim claim to act and speak as though he is the messenger of God?  Whether one is born into a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu family, s/he follows the teachings of the Gods the family worships. The prophets of different religions speak in one voice about belief in God, who has sent them as messengers with revelation and guidance for humanity. All of them stress on peace and tolerance as crucial for the survival of humanity.

But all major conflicts have hinged upon violent disagreements between different faiths incited by egoistic religious groups seeking to assert their power in the name of religion. Religion has been the most powerful concept in human minds that has been used and abused to unite as well as divide people.  These bigoted militant groups, intolerant of faiths other than their own appropriate to themselves the license to kill. This is the freedom they enjoy as they go trigger happy at some imaginary provocation. Religion is no longer the opium of the masses; it is the poison that kills thousands of innocents who are least bothered about others who follow different faiths other than their own, leave aside harbouring any animosity towards them

The latest shooting in Paris goes beyond the simple cartoon that featured a weeping Muhammad overwhelmed by fundamentalists saying "C'est dur d'être aimé par des cons" ("it's hard being loved by jerks").- a cartoon that was aimed at Islamic hardliners and not against Islam or its followers. But the cartoon was seen as offensive and provocative resulting in the tragic shooting of a dozen journalists employed in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Everyone has a right to view a cartoon or a statement in his own way; getting offended or hurt is as rightfully valid as enjoying a humorous satire. The Paris tragedy is a deadly debate between freedom of expression and freedom to kill. 

Freedom to kill produces irreversible results while freedom of expression holds out hope or possibility of solution. It is easy to pull the trigger, but not easy to enter into a dialogue with those who have a different point of view. Dialogue demands mental strength, intellectual empathy and humility to accept and appreciate co-existent contraries. Freedom to kill needs only a pistol or an AK 47 without reason, emotion and humaneness. Hand triggers the pistol, the mind directs the dialogue.

What is the outcome of insensate killing? Is it a triumph or just a Pyrrhic victory? Apart from snuffing out hundreds of innocent lives, the killers do not achieve anything. They provoke angry retaliation and counter- violence. History is replete with religious wars from the 11^th century when European Christians waged a war against the Muslims to recover the Holy Land. The ‘holy’ war continues even today between the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East which is viewed as the most intractable conflict. The Second World War was fought between the Jews and the Christians resulting in the decimation of six million Jews. The Partition soon after our independence witnessed Inter-communal violence between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims resulting in between 500,000 to 1 million casualties. The Indo-Pak conflicts continue till date with daily killings in the Kashmir border.

The barbaric killing of thousands in the name of ‘ethnic cleansing’ that was practiced by the German Nazis against the Jews is being replicated now. This has  neither served the cause of the terrorists who constantly burrow themselves in holes and run for safety form one hiding place to another, nor has the backlash against all Muslims,-of whom the majority desires to live in peace and harmony with the rest of the world-  helped to rein in the marauders of humanity. One is not certain about the genuineness of the terrorists adoption of Islam and their Islamic credentials when their actions go contrary to the tenets of Islam. The ISIS idea of re-establishing the Caliphate by aggressive and violent killings has not found acceptance even among the Muslim countries. The venom spewed by these groups and the violence committed by them find no support among a majority of Muslims.  Referring to the recent Paris attacks, a Muslim mother, Zarine Khan said that the terrorists reference to the Quran is completely at odds with our Islamic faith."  "We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms. We condemn the brutal tactics of ISIS and groups like it. And we condemn the brainwashing and recruiting of children through the use of social media and the Internet," she said, adding: "And we have a message for ISIS, [Islamic State leader Sabah] Baghdadi and his fellow Social Media recruiters: Leave Our children alone."

Who is the victor in all these conflicts made in the name of religion? None, except death of innocents. The result is frightening what Samuel Huntington describes as the Clash of Civilizations. Can mankind survive such perennial conflicts fought with guns and weapons of mass destruction? The whole of Europe joined during the Second World War to defeat the Nazis for their inhuman brutality to the Jews and all others who were non-Aryans.  Now in the aftermath of the Paris shooting we see the coming together of people of different nations in protest against the terrible assault on those who believed in the exercise of free expression that their democratic nation had given them. If Muslims felt the cartoons mocked at their religion, there is nothing wrong in it. In a free country, freedom of expression is anchored on freedom of values and opinions.  The paradox is freedom is not free from restrictions. It was Rousseau who said "man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains." While freedom is our birthright, there is a civil freedom enshrined in the civil society we live in. This freedom is built on social contract between citizens for their mutual preservation. Hence the freedom of expression has to stay within the limits of the social contract. What is good for one is not necessarily good for all others.  Even if the cartoon that sparked the gruesome murder of a dozen scribes and a few others had no overt assault on Islam, the possibility of it hurting had to be reckoned with because it gives a handle to the terrorists to pull their guns. They did  not observe the elementary principle of law that a pencil shall not be answered by a pistol. Passion blinds sobriety and reasoning. Anger extinguishes all human feelings.  Once a life is lost, it is lost forever.

A sketch on a magazine can be rightfully and effectively attacked by another sketch satirical in intent and expression. Shooting and destroying innocent lives do not restore humanity. An eye for an eye ends up making the whole world blind.  This is a throwback to a jungle life is a return to dark ages. Gambattista Vicco has described human societies as passing through ages of growth and decay.  The first bestial age was followed by the age of Gods (the aristocratic age), then by the age of heroes( the heroic age) and now the age of Man that encounters the problems of corruption, dissolution, and a possible reversion to primitive barbarism. Can we prevent the return to primitive barbarism and save humanity?

It is possible if we observe the rules that govern freedom of expression and the rules that deny the freedom to kill. Let us learn to live like human beings where freedom for you is freedom for me.

Rags to Riches: a Reality or an empty Dream?

.                                                 Rags to Riches: a Reality or an empty Dream?

One of the subsidiary fallouts of the regime change in India is the veneration of those who exemplify the idea of rags to riches and the illusory hope given to the masses about rising from obscurity to fame, from poverty to wealth, from being a worker to becoming  a leader.  Our Prime Minister is the quintessential archetype of this concept-rising from being a Chai wallah to becoming the  Chai(r)person of all the chairs of the country of which the PM’s chair is the piece de resistance.   He has been proud to announce his professional lineage from the election platforms in India to the frenzied Indian diaspora at Madison Square Gardens in New York and Allphones Arena in Sydney.  To the enthusiastic chanting of “Modi, Modi”, the “up-by-his bootstraps chaiwallah" has flaunted his humble origins to inspire them saying “If I can, you can too” borrowing deftly the Obamaline.

It will be unfair to deny credit to Mani Shankar Iyer who made Modi bigger than he is today by his reference to his Chaiwallah origins. The Cambridge educated Stephanian could never have imagined how his acerbic comment was turned on its head to be a hagiographic term to make Narendra Modi’s spectacular ascendancy a source of inspiration to the aspiring youth and the bourgeois middle class. 

If the PM can make a virtue of his chaiwallah origins can his minions be far behind? They also want a share of the humble pie and it has become a matter of high prestige to wear one’s humble origins on his/her sleeves. Our present Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on Tuesday told a conference of state education ministers that she had washed utensils 15 years back at a hotel in Mumbai. The fact is she does not come from ‘humble’ origins as her father was a courier business owner who loaned her 2 lakhs to contest for the Miss India title and so she cannot claim to have a humble background like her illustrious PM. But not to be left behind in the race for rags to riches, she told the State Education Ministers that she was once a humble employee of a hotel. The fact is in the case of Smritiji she had come down from her status as a Miss India participant to a dish washer and not the other way round of rising up. The Maharashtra CM Phadnis has also claimed his humble status when as a worker he painted walls and stuck promotional posters on them for politicians and now has  risen to become the  star poster boy of BJP in Maharashtra.

Vijay Sampla, the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment is another example of rags to riches story who hailed from a  poor Dalit family and started his life as a plumber before entering politics. There are many more among the ‘humble’ BJP workers who presently make a beeline to be registered under the rags to riches tag to enjoy the celebrity status like that of their Rockstar PM

The concept of rags to riches is true only of a very few exceptionally gifted and fortunate people who have moved themselves up in society by using their talent to its highest potential. PM Modi is one of those gifted articulate persons who has the talent for administration and for projecting himself as a strong leader.  It is not the case with every climber who owes it to his humble origins. By claiming to be a dish washer in her early days to her present job of cleaning the Augean stables of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Smriti Irani is seen to highlight the virtues of low status jobs as a galvanizer to climb higher in life by citing her own example.

The rags to riches concept is a misleading, illusory inspiration what can be in Marxist phrase defined as ‘opium to the masses’. Many social scientists using statistical records have shown how by holding a carrot of progress before persons of humble origin(PHO), the publicity given to this upward mobility helps to keep them from seeking a better alternative. “You can, I can, we can” is more of a dream than a reality. There is a proverb in Tamil that says when the finger gets hurt it can swell according to its size. It cannot swell as large as an elephantiasic foot.  No one can rise beyond his/her potential. This should not be misunderstood that one should not have aspirations, but aspirations should be proportionate to one’s capability. If false hopes are spread, the result will be frustration, despair and anger leading to violence.

There is a lot of talk about skill development. There is certainly a need for more skilled workers and the large number of young men and women who are the future of India has to be harnessed towards nation building. But skill development should go farther towards huan development.

We should bestow thoughts on the vast illiterate, poor and marginalized group of unskilled workers who do menial jobs that are indispensable requirements of the society.  They work on daily wages and their living conditions are pathetic. The rags to riches stories are not for them as their only concern is about the next meal. Instead of feeding this group  on illusory hopes by parading the rags to riches tag, it is essential to provide them with food, shelter and clothing as their rightful share. They have to be given the respect due to them as human beings for they are the essential providers for society’s health and well being.   The definition of a  welfare society is not only  what we find in England, USA  and other developed nations where the government provides free social services such as health and education and gives money to those who do not have work or who cannot work because of old age or sickness, but it should go beyond to provide status to one and all- in particular  to this class of unskilled workers – as human beings and not to treat them as menials. No moralizing and inspiring stories about rags to riches will have a meaning for them. The inspiring words “you can, I can, we can” will work only if they are recognized as human beings whose essential maintenance of cleanliness is the key to the health of the nation.

The Minister’s exhortation about the dignity of labour is to be addressed to this weaker section. The upper classes wielding a broom one day for photo-ops does not add to their dignity. I would like every reader to understand the meaning of this simple song written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross:

I know I'd go from rags to riches
If you would only say you care
and though my pocket may be empty
I'd be a millionaire

My clothes may still be torn and tattered
But in my heart I'd be a king
Your love is all that ever mattered
It's everything

So open your arms and you open the door
To every treasure that I am hoping for
Hold me and kiss me
And tell me you're mine ever more

Must I forever be a beggar
Whose golden dreams would not come true?
Or will I go from rags to riches?
My fate is up to you

In our hands, in our actions, in our attitudes and in our acceptance of the PHOs as human beings lie their dreams of going from rags to riches. They want only to be accepted as human beings, as a part of the society they rightfully belong to for that alone constitutes the riches for them beyond empty pockets, torn and tattered clothes and beggarliness.