Some issues

[Srinivas Sista]

Ravi Mayavaram wrote:
>
> 2) Reverence/Irreverence issues
>
> Few weeks back I sent a request asking members to avoid rude and
> offensive postings[1]. In fact as a response to that mail,
> Ramakrishnan Balasubramaniam signed out of the list. I requested him
> personally to join back again as I thought his contributions are
> important. He accepted my request and subscribed in again.  Last week
> some of the members protested personally to me about the rude language
> used by  Ramakrishnan Balasubramaniam. Since Ramakrishnan is no
> longer in the list and has signed out, I did not bring up those
> protests to the list. But if I receive a subscription request from
> Ramakrishan I will request him to withdraw it. If you disagree with my
> decision please let me know.
>

I would like to take the liberty of expressing my feeling about the
language occasionally used by Ramakrishnan Balasubramaniam (Rama).
I was a room mate of Rama for the past 3 years. I am sure people
who know him personally agree with me that he has a unique way of
expressing his opinions. He is not the one who goes for euphemisms,
politeness or even being silent at the expense of diluting or
misrepresenting the content. I can understand that the list members
do not have any idea regarding the humorous/jovial side of Rama and
his insistence on the `no nonsense' approach. So it is very easy for
people who dont know him to construe that he is being rude when he
OCCASIONALLY expresses certain opinions in the way he does. He is not
the kind of person who wants to hurt others verbally.

I personally feel that a person should be able to separate the content
from structure for any intelligent debate to occur. Especially in a list
like the current one, where we are not only exploring the knowledge
passed on by the great teachers, but also our own personal stupidities,
narrowness and prejudices. Also it is worthwhile to do some self
examination to separate out the ego based reactions when evaluating
the statements made by others; to examine the hidden assumptions we
make in deciding what we think the other person is saying.

Asking Rama not to join the list will only be a loss to the list. So
if my opinion matters, it is not a wise decision to ask Rama to
withdraw from the list if he wants to join.

with sincere regards,
Srinivas Sista.