I ended 2010 by doing what I hate the most, something I’d give my life not to do! And I began 2011 by doing exactly the same thing. We were at a disco and I was dancing away amid the lights and the sound. And I lost myself in the crowd, not really bothered what the world thinks of me, not conscious of whether they’d think I was being crazy. It all changed less than a couple of months ago, when I got drunk at a friend’s birthday party, and danced away, realising that I did it better than most others who don’t hesitate doing it. And I did it again today, and it was to become a habit.
My leadership guide always tells me to do something that you wouldn’t normally do; that helps in stoking your creativity, she says. I once said I’m not good at picking up languages and that I didn’t have a flair for languages, and she insisted I learn French. I still haven’t tried it, nor have I succeeded in anything like this, but that’s not the point, she says. It only matters how your attempt changes you. And the last thing you should be bothered about is how the world views you. It doesn’t matter, not to anybody of consequence. So here I go... to live the moment... and get on with life.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Monday, October 11, 2010
Commonplace philosophy
Sometimes you can find philosophy at the most unlikely of places. I heard it from a taxi driver recently. I was on the way to the airport on Sunday afternoon and struck a conversation with a Meru Cab driver.
He questioned the extra police bandobast near our area and I mentioned to him that recently a wall of a place of worship had fallen and that members of the community had expressed their anger by assaulting whoever they could place blame on, even if those unfortunate souls had no clue of what hit them and why, just like so many of our countrymen who don't know what they're fighting for.
This was in the backdrop of the impending judgment in the Ayodhya title suit.
He gave his philosophy of how God resides in every person and not in mandirs or masjids. We've heard of this before. He added a new aspect to this explanation which I've not had occasion to ponder over, and hence refrain from agreeing or disagreeing.
He said that before a person is born, he/she has darshan of God every day, and he requests God to release him out of this bondage, not knowing what awaits him in this world, with the promise that he/she would pray and salute the Lord everyday for the rest of his/her life. God has subjected the person to a tapasya which he has to break in order to take birth and experience the world. But once a child is born it forgets this promise, and gets entangled in worldly prejudices. Our true purpose is to find our promise and the earlier we find it, the better.
We could argue about this forever, as to whether what he said was right or wrong, but we shouldn't miss the point. Philosophy is found in the most unlikely of places, and has nothing to do with what strata of society one belongs to or which school one attended.
He also added later that our humilty and politeness define us as human beings. For this he told of a time when he had cancelled a booking of a person who addressed him disrespecfully. It was good to hear a person who was so sure of himself and knew exactly what he is! I have a recording of what he said, which I'd preserve. I can say its no less than what modern-day babas rant about!
He questioned the extra police bandobast near our area and I mentioned to him that recently a wall of a place of worship had fallen and that members of the community had expressed their anger by assaulting whoever they could place blame on, even if those unfortunate souls had no clue of what hit them and why, just like so many of our countrymen who don't know what they're fighting for.
This was in the backdrop of the impending judgment in the Ayodhya title suit.
He gave his philosophy of how God resides in every person and not in mandirs or masjids. We've heard of this before. He added a new aspect to this explanation which I've not had occasion to ponder over, and hence refrain from agreeing or disagreeing.
He said that before a person is born, he/she has darshan of God every day, and he requests God to release him out of this bondage, not knowing what awaits him in this world, with the promise that he/she would pray and salute the Lord everyday for the rest of his/her life. God has subjected the person to a tapasya which he has to break in order to take birth and experience the world. But once a child is born it forgets this promise, and gets entangled in worldly prejudices. Our true purpose is to find our promise and the earlier we find it, the better.
We could argue about this forever, as to whether what he said was right or wrong, but we shouldn't miss the point. Philosophy is found in the most unlikely of places, and has nothing to do with what strata of society one belongs to or which school one attended.
He also added later that our humilty and politeness define us as human beings. For this he told of a time when he had cancelled a booking of a person who addressed him disrespecfully. It was good to hear a person who was so sure of himself and knew exactly what he is! I have a recording of what he said, which I'd preserve. I can say its no less than what modern-day babas rant about!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
More than just abandoned machinery
...a piece of machinery, abandoned in a corner.... it had not been worn out, it had been rotted by neglect, eaten by rust... I feel a scream of protest against injustice... this is beyond just an old piece of machinery.... Ayn Rand
Friday, July 16, 2010
God must be an artist!
God must be an artist, to come up with countless variations of morning, with only a few tools at his disposal, the sun, the clouds, a little rain, on a canvas of nothingness... These are images from my window over the last week or so....
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Every moment has its music
Every moment has its music. Bombay is experiencing rains of the season since the past few days. This certainly is a good spell.
Saturday mornings are relaxed, since it signals the beginning of the weekend, and despite any trouble that one may otherwise be in, there is a certain ease that takes over. I walked to the station to board the train to office. And there was a light drizzle.
I had Hosana from Vinnathandi Varuvaaya, playing on my Sony Walkman, and something prompted me to not open the umbrella. With the light rain falling on my face as I looked up, I felt the music take over, and Rahman weave magic.
Somehow, life felt good, meant more.
Every moment has its music - line borrowed from Sony Walkman
Saturday mornings are relaxed, since it signals the beginning of the weekend, and despite any trouble that one may otherwise be in, there is a certain ease that takes over. I walked to the station to board the train to office. And there was a light drizzle.
I had Hosana from Vinnathandi Varuvaaya, playing on my Sony Walkman, and something prompted me to not open the umbrella. With the light rain falling on my face as I looked up, I felt the music take over, and Rahman weave magic.
En meedu anbu kolla, ennodu serndu sella
Hmm endru sollu podhum, Hosanna
Somehow, life felt good, meant more.
Every moment has its music - line borrowed from Sony Walkman
Saturday, July 10, 2010
A lovely morning
I woke up to a lovely morning. The beginning of the weekend, despite the fact that I have to attend office today, somehow felt good. I could see the sun's shape, like the moon, through a cloudy sky, as if the clouds were filtering out the harsh rays and giving us a view of the sun as we saw in our school drawing book.
Swami and his 'fiends'
Self-styled Swami Nithyananda (Swami is just a name, like it was in Malgudi days; its not a title and there's nothing divine about it in this case) has been permitted by the court to preach! There's no use in not allowing him to speak or preach, as he will anyway have some work to do to regain his audience. But I'm amused by the fact that he actually petitioned that his freedom of speech was being curbed. After going through so much, see the man's pluck!
Anyway, its a pity that learned judges, the judicial system has to waste its time on this despicable being. The judges have considered separately whether he could be allowed to preach and whether he could be allowed to conduct yoga and meditation classes. And the system has to be seen to be hearing him out! We've done this with Kasab, so why not with Nithyananda! But the guy seems to be unmoved. He has the arrogance of suggesting that the police visit his ashram every 15 days for verification, instead of he reporting! And he has also petitioned for his belongings to be returned to him, his laptop and his work! After all, so much effort has gone into this! I admire the guy's record keeping, something that even corporates fall short in. He has all the underlying paperwork in place!
On this issue, there are two parties affected, his devotees and himself. I'm wondering what his devotees must be going through. Those who have given up all of what they had, could have, or could not have and followed him, those who read what he wrote and were influenced and in awe, those who served under him - what must be on their mind now! After the usual denial, the hope that all of this is false, somewhere they must be thinking their faith has been compromised. We are not here to judge what happened, and the jury is still out on this, but faith once shaken, is difficult to restore. Also look at this from his point of view. After all of this, when he comes forward to give his first lecture, what will he say? And how must he position his future discourses, to win back the trust people placed in him. I'm sure of one thing, his job is easier!
As always, the system is to be blamed! The place that religion has in society today is the reason why such godmen thrive. Pain will never end in the world, if any - there'll be more of it in the years to come. This is going by how humanity is on the path of degeneration, if you believe in evolution! And if you believe in the machinations of the yugas, then we will have more negatives in this yuga to maintain the balance required by nature. So pain is not going to end. At such times, religion offers the only solace, and more so if it comes with perks of power.
Obama was not wrong when he spoke about people clinging to guns and religion. In our case, it definitely is true with religion. So with more pain, godmen will gain! They give you what you ask for: escape from responsibility, to give up your duty! But as God said in Bruce Almighty 'since when did people know what they wanted'. So it pays for them to keep the troubled class under ignorance, in the dark. And telling them its ok to not do your job, to ask for submission, allowing them an escape.
And who will tell them that such self-styled godmen have a very limited understanding of what life. They haven't read enough, and they certainly haven't introspected enough, to be able to fathom the depths of human nature and the universe we live in. Such thinkers come far and few - there's only one Bertrand Russell, and only one Swami Vivekananda!
I feel pain at this: when I search for swami on google, Google Suggest throws up Swami Nityananda before Swami Vivekananda!
Anyway, its a pity that learned judges, the judicial system has to waste its time on this despicable being. The judges have considered separately whether he could be allowed to preach and whether he could be allowed to conduct yoga and meditation classes. And the system has to be seen to be hearing him out! We've done this with Kasab, so why not with Nithyananda! But the guy seems to be unmoved. He has the arrogance of suggesting that the police visit his ashram every 15 days for verification, instead of he reporting! And he has also petitioned for his belongings to be returned to him, his laptop and his work! After all, so much effort has gone into this! I admire the guy's record keeping, something that even corporates fall short in. He has all the underlying paperwork in place!
On this issue, there are two parties affected, his devotees and himself. I'm wondering what his devotees must be going through. Those who have given up all of what they had, could have, or could not have and followed him, those who read what he wrote and were influenced and in awe, those who served under him - what must be on their mind now! After the usual denial, the hope that all of this is false, somewhere they must be thinking their faith has been compromised. We are not here to judge what happened, and the jury is still out on this, but faith once shaken, is difficult to restore. Also look at this from his point of view. After all of this, when he comes forward to give his first lecture, what will he say? And how must he position his future discourses, to win back the trust people placed in him. I'm sure of one thing, his job is easier!
As always, the system is to be blamed! The place that religion has in society today is the reason why such godmen thrive. Pain will never end in the world, if any - there'll be more of it in the years to come. This is going by how humanity is on the path of degeneration, if you believe in evolution! And if you believe in the machinations of the yugas, then we will have more negatives in this yuga to maintain the balance required by nature. So pain is not going to end. At such times, religion offers the only solace, and more so if it comes with perks of power.
Obama was not wrong when he spoke about people clinging to guns and religion. In our case, it definitely is true with religion. So with more pain, godmen will gain! They give you what you ask for: escape from responsibility, to give up your duty! But as God said in Bruce Almighty 'since when did people know what they wanted'. So it pays for them to keep the troubled class under ignorance, in the dark. And telling them its ok to not do your job, to ask for submission, allowing them an escape.
And who will tell them that such self-styled godmen have a very limited understanding of what life. They haven't read enough, and they certainly haven't introspected enough, to be able to fathom the depths of human nature and the universe we live in. Such thinkers come far and few - there's only one Bertrand Russell, and only one Swami Vivekananda!
I feel pain at this: when I search for swami on google, Google Suggest throws up Swami Nityananda before Swami Vivekananda!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Lie and succeed
Reinforcing what we all knew for so long, BBC has reported that a new study in Canada that suggests that toddlers who tell lies early on are more likely to do well later in life.The complex brain processes involved in formulating a lie are an indicator of a child's early intelligence. Their children are not going to turn out to be pathological liars. Almost all children lie. It is a sign that they have reached a new developmental milestone. Those who have better cognitive development lie because they can cover up their tracks. This was because they had developed the ability to carry out a complex juggling act which involves keeping the truth at the back of their brains. A researcher added: "They even make bankers in later life."
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Astronomers have announced that they have found a massive star that has been flung out of the cluster in which it was born. The star is huge — 90 times the mass of the Sun — and is screaming away at 400,000 kilometers per hour.
This incredible image is from the ESO’s 2.2 meter telescope in Chile. It shows an overview of the sprawling 30 Doradus star-forming cloud, located about 180,000 light years away in the satellite galaxy to the Milky Way called the Large Magellanic Cloud.
In the center of 30 Dor sits a vast cluster of stars called R136. The total combined mass of all the stars in R136 is unclear, but it has several that tip the cosmic scale at 100 times the mass of the Sun, which is the upper limit of how big a star can get without tearing itself apart.
The inset image is from Hubble, and shows the runaway star, named 30 Dor 016.
If you don’t think that’s a big deal, I’ll note that this equals 180 octillion tons — that’s 180,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The UV observations also confirm that the star is plowing through the gas that lies in interstellar space in the LMC. Here is a closeup of the star:
The new observations, using Hubble’s new ultraviolet camera called the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, confirm that this is a single star (and not, say, a binary with two members each with 45 solar masses), making it one of the most massive stars ever seen. This kind of star is extremely rare!
Amazingly, the star is 375 light years from the cluster! A star this massive can’t live very long, a few million years at most. At 400,000 kph, it takes about a million years to travel that distance.
How small we are! I'm reminded of what Carl Sagan once said. I found a visual on the net which I'm reproducing below:
See this link for the complete story - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1008a/
Image credit: Hubble: NASA, ESA, J. Walsh (ST-ECF) Acknowledgment: Z. Levay (STScI). ESO image: ESO Acknowledgments: J. Alves (Calar Alto, Spain), B. Vandame, and Y. Beletski (ESO), processing by B. Fosbury (ST-ECF).
This incredible image is from the ESO’s 2.2 meter telescope in Chile. It shows an overview of the sprawling 30 Doradus star-forming cloud, located about 180,000 light years away in the satellite galaxy to the Milky Way called the Large Magellanic Cloud.
In the center of 30 Dor sits a vast cluster of stars called R136. The total combined mass of all the stars in R136 is unclear, but it has several that tip the cosmic scale at 100 times the mass of the Sun, which is the upper limit of how big a star can get without tearing itself apart.
The inset image is from Hubble, and shows the runaway star, named 30 Dor 016.
If you don’t think that’s a big deal, I’ll note that this equals 180 octillion tons — that’s 180,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The UV observations also confirm that the star is plowing through the gas that lies in interstellar space in the LMC. Here is a closeup of the star:
The new observations, using Hubble’s new ultraviolet camera called the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, confirm that this is a single star (and not, say, a binary with two members each with 45 solar masses), making it one of the most massive stars ever seen. This kind of star is extremely rare!
Amazingly, the star is 375 light years from the cluster! A star this massive can’t live very long, a few million years at most. At 400,000 kph, it takes about a million years to travel that distance.
How small we are! I'm reminded of what Carl Sagan once said. I found a visual on the net which I'm reproducing below:
See this link for the complete story - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1008a/
Image credit: Hubble: NASA, ESA, J. Walsh (ST-ECF) Acknowledgment: Z. Levay (STScI). ESO image: ESO Acknowledgments: J. Alves (Calar Alto, Spain), B. Vandame, and Y. Beletski (ESO), processing by B. Fosbury (ST-ECF).
Boys don't cry, but speakers do!
IBNLive reports that the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani broke down and cried in the House on Wednesday after learning that Congress MLAs had allegedly taunted a BJP woman MLA.
Congress MLAs allegedly told the woman MLA she was late because she must have been busy at a beauty parlour.
Rohani was so moved to tears after learning about the incident, he refused to give any ruling on the Congress’ boycott of the Assembly. He said that he considers the Congress’ protest unconstitutional, but the party had a right to express its opinion. The Speaker said he will not recognise their protest, but he will not give any ruling on the issue either.
I consider it incredibly silly. Both, the Congress MLAs alleging that the lady was at a beauty parlour and that the speaker cried! Was it so serious a remark that warranted such a wet response? I'm sure there are a whole lot of other important and pertinent issues relating to working of the government. Was he moved enough to cry when the innocent were murdered or the poor died of hunger?
And to top it all, the Congress is holding a parallel session since last evening by organising a Symposium to corner the government on the issue of corruption, power and water crisis and to highlight the problems of the people!!!!
Congress MLAs allegedly told the woman MLA she was late because she must have been busy at a beauty parlour.
Rohani was so moved to tears after learning about the incident, he refused to give any ruling on the Congress’ boycott of the Assembly. He said that he considers the Congress’ protest unconstitutional, but the party had a right to express its opinion. The Speaker said he will not recognise their protest, but he will not give any ruling on the issue either.
I consider it incredibly silly. Both, the Congress MLAs alleging that the lady was at a beauty parlour and that the speaker cried! Was it so serious a remark that warranted such a wet response? I'm sure there are a whole lot of other important and pertinent issues relating to working of the government. Was he moved enough to cry when the innocent were murdered or the poor died of hunger?
And to top it all, the Congress is holding a parallel session since last evening by organising a Symposium to corner the government on the issue of corruption, power and water crisis and to highlight the problems of the people!!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)