Living is an Art-1

                There is definitely a need to explain the difference between Living and Surviving . Lot many of us do Survive but, people who Live are very few. On one of the weekends, I had an opportunity to know How to Live. I have many times heard about Art of Living Ashram, which is located in the outskirts of Bangalore. It is an amazing construction. In fact, a decade ago, for many people including me, the Name Ravi Shankar meant the Famous Sitar Maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar. The founder of Art of Living, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was introduced to the world as a leading humanist. People call him as 'Guruji'.

 

                Firstly I thought, what would these people teach me how to Live? Don't I know? Am I not living since two decades? Until few days ago, I had an opinion that I don't need to go for all the marketing techniques they play. Later, I observed some change in behavior of some persons, who attended some programs or had done some basic course. Then I felt There might be something good in that. Then I realized that I was not Living, but just Surviving in the society. In addition to that when you ask those people they calmly respond, "It is a wonderful experience, You have to know it yourself, we can't say it in words!". Even in the internet I didn't find much information on what they teach in Ashram. Professionally, though I am diligent and well prepared for whatever the discussions or  seminars I have, I didn't have any idea about what they teach? what they preach? With lot many unanswered questions, I reached Ashram late evening on Friday.

                Registration Process at help desk was quickly done. I was already tired of travelling from Chennai to Bangalore. It was around 10 'O' Clock in the night, I began to walk slowly towards my allotted accommodation with a backpack and a cabin baggage. Ambience was so pleasant with greenery, cool breeze and quiet atmosphere, that fatigue was not known at all.

                 I was walking through, I could see a building on the right. Colorful lights adorned that building. It is called Visalakshi Mantapam as per the map given at the help desk. The accommodation allotted reminded me of Osmania University Hostels. I was back into my Olden and Golden days of Engineering. The room was triple shared and furnished with beds, rugs and an attached bathroom. All seemed to be very comfortable and looked fine. Might be due to new location or I being Insomniac, even though I was tired, I was unable to sleep. Those drizzles, cool breezes, Gibbous Moon and sparkling stars Welcomed me with honor.

To be Continued..

Bite !!!

        Most of us are familiar with mosquito bites. If you had the opportunity to travel abroad, you might have heard about bed bug bites. If you had the experience with bed bugs, you would agree that they are even more dreadful than the mosquito bites. In this post, a more powerful, subtle, prejudice-directed, untraceable bite is explored. The dictionary says it is

backbite (v): To speak spitefully or slanderously about (another).

        As you noticed, it is a verb. That means anyone of us can actually backbite our fellow colleague or friends or even relatives. The tendency is with everyone. Since everyone is imperfect, we make mistakes. When they are pointed out, exclusively associated to a person, spoken about in a repetitive manner, laughed about, the result is an irreversible damage to a person’s reputation. If we look at it honestly, we have to agree that, if we have a practice of backbiting, we are displaying multiple personality. We behave in a certain way in front of a person, and we behave in another way behind that person. We see that mosquitoes or bed bugs are not partial, they bite us whether we are awake or sleeping irrespective of skin color or racial background. But a backbiter is highly unpredictable, because he/she bites behind the back.

What is the solution?

Well !! We cannot avoid others from biting behind our back, but we can try not to backbite ourselves. We might be able to atleast reduce the frequency. Best thing to have respect for everyone, irrespective of whether they are older or younger, north or south, white or Black. I don't know how to earn respect, but I'm sure

If we respect others, then others will respect you.

After all we are all humans!

Children's Day

When I was Child,

Once choosing the colour of a sketch pen was a tough task.

Occupying the window seat in the school bus was called obsession.

Getting a toffee as a birthday treat from a friend made our day.

Being the first one to finish copying from the blackboard was the ultimate moment of pride.

Hiding the answers from a bench partner during exams was not called selfishness.

When homework was the only torture & finished it soon, 

so could get some extra time to play.

Early to bed, early to rise,

was life's mantra, but how we loved sleeping late and having some extra TV time!

Owning a cycle was owning BMW.

To look good was only to wear our fav dress frocks for girls n half pants for boys.

We didn't need FB or a phone to keep in touch!

We thought all elders are ideal, when Daddy was the only hero and Mom was the only Best friend.

So what they say is right. 

"Everybody dies twice. Once when their childhood ends."

\m/ Happy Children's Day \m/

Krrish-3

The most-awaited movie for Diwali was an entertaining film and disappointing as well.

For the superhero movie lovers, it is a Diwali Dhamaaka movie. It would be awesome and superb movie for the bacchha parties, though it didn't attract the adults much.

There's
Lack of melodious Music - Even Shaktiman theme track was far better than Krrish 3 songs.
Lack of Dance - By which Hrithik is popular.
Lack of Originality/Creativity - The concept of spreading virus was old.

Blatant Plagiarism from many superhero films. Though there were very few twists, we could predict them and there was a surprise element in the film - Maanwars (Maanav+Jaanwars) who were minions of the Villain - Kaal, Vivek Oberoi.

 

Hrithik Roshan, who is usually amazing by his action in the memorable movies like Zindagi na milegi Dubara and Guzaarish. I feel he has done justice to his action by his dual role appearances, Dressings, physique, accent in the two roles. He seemed to be too energitic.

 

Priyanka Chopra, a charming and pretty actress, who acted pretty well in Barfi had less scenes and her action was not up to the expectation. Priya, who kept insisting that she's the heroine of the film, seemed to exist to be in trouble and crying out for help.

 

 

Vivek Oberoi, villain, as Kaal in the movie,though he put his mark where audience could never forget his act, His acting prowess is only second to Kagana, because, i have seen that Vivek does a lot better.

 

 

Kangana Ranaut, as kaya, acted pretty well than what i expected, with her weird haircuts and clothings. she perhaps delivered her best performance in this film, and that says a lot.

Movie makers could have renamed this movie as Krrash-3/ Krrush-3.

Patriotism - A Forced Emotion

          I once happened to participate in a session of group discussion on this topic at an orators club on the eve of Independence Day. This club is an organization formed by a group of volunteers who are keenly interested in public speaking and they made it a practice to conduct sessions on public speaking every Saturday evening. Non-members are also welcome to attend and take part in these sessions. My personal interest in public speaking drove me to that session and it’s only after this session that I realized the need to act with a broad sense of thought. It is then on that, I started relating every experience to a pragmatic basis.

 

        Now that I experienced such change in my course of thinking, I finally gathered views worth sharing. Patriotism is an intense human emotion. Human emotions are not devoid of logic, social, and clinical psychologies are such domains that evolved over times to explain this fact in an organized fashion. As a common civilian, I need to have a justification to feel patriotic. If someone questions me on what if every soldier on the nation’s boarder demands such justification then the only answer I can come up with is to boldly agree that I do not have the strong heart of a solider. I unabashedly agree that I’m a common civilian and I’m in no comparison to such people who sacrificed their comfort and dedicated their lives to the nation’s defense. 

       By a generic essence, if emotions are not justified they could act on obscuring our intuition for instance when I participated in a college level debate on the issue “Can India host Olympics?” most people went on to speak in favour of the topic. This is because they all regarded it as a question of national esteem they simply resorted to support their views by answering the question “Why can’t we?” in their own terms. But I wanted to emphasize my views by choosing to answer the “Why shouldn’t we?” question in this context. If we step out of the dogma to take pride in being patriotic and look into the reality, then it turns evident that hosting Olympics involves significant finance and as of now it is advisable to divert such finance into more productive routes so as to attain self-sustenance in many aspects for instance that could be used to improve medical facilities in a remote village, to support some small scale industries, to support primary education in rural areas etc.., may be down the line we could also think of hosting Olympics but when the right time pops out and this depends on the progress we register in terms of resolving or at least regulating the other problems that are a priority. By the way keeping off from hosting Olympics doesn’t mean that we should stop encouraging our players and these are two different aspects not to be mixed. 

       So during my schooling I was taught that India has a rich and varied heritage, India is the only sub-continent in the world and also that India stands by the philosophy of unity in diversity and that India has its roots of civilization dating back to the B.C periods. However the reality that I encountered later on, taught me more. 

         To be precise, though our unity in diversity concept seems so idealistic to a non-Indian the fact that we all as Indians know of is that it is barely capable of disturbing some extremists to act anti-social and this diversity is a significant factor that holds back our progress. I’m referring here to the scope this diversity implies to an extremist mindset and it is practically impossible to have no extremist opinions in a diversified society. What if India is the only sub-continent in the world are we making out the right advantage of that I mean since we host such varied climatic conditions for instance encouraging research of climatology could gain us international fame besides fetching economically so that is then an aspect to take pride in. Even though our civilization dates back to the early B.C periods, there is no efficient dissipation of that knowledge and wisdom to the current generation. If India has a rich heritage, then it needs to be efficiently used to attract tourist attention and then that shall surely be an aspect to take pride in. 

        Eventually I’d like to make it clear that patriotism as a human emotion needs to be looked upon with a pragmatic basis. So patriotism to me is not to react towards upholding the esteem of the nation but rather to regard the true picture and learn what is indeed good for our nation and there by deduce ways of reforming the worst part of any scenario associated with the national interests. This new perspective is definitely better fetching than the dogma of looking and feeling patriotic by some ideologies.

Chennai Express

   This is not about the SRK's movie but about my recent journey in Chennai Express.
 

    As I had an unplanned travel to Hyderabad, I was in RAC list. So I had to share a berth with someone. As I was wise enough to know the person's name from the passengers list available outside the compartment with whom I was going to travel. Her name was Preeti.

Likely as in Indian Cinema, a pretty young lady was in search of her berth.

I inquired (Ladka hu na) her, "Are you Ms.Preeti?"

She responded Doubtfully (Ladki hai na), "How come you kn..."

I interrupted "I saw your name in the passengers list".
 

Preeti: "Oh! I see. Is yours RAC 47?"

Me: "Yes!"
 

I was busy listening to My favorite songs by Kishore Kumar. She was busy speaking over phone. We both went silent for some time. Later, She broke the ice between us and asked

Preeti: "Your Good name?"

Me: "I am Vidyanath."

Preeti: "Till Secunderabad?"

Me: "Yes! and you?"

Preeti: "Yeah! Me too.."

For a moment I thought "Meri Band bajne waali hai, sitting and travelling for 12-13 hours. Teek hai chalta, aisi pyari ladki hai toh time aaraam se guzar jaayega.. ;)"

Me: "Are you going to Hyderabad for the first time?"

Preeti: (Smiling and Surprisingly) "Yes, but .. How do you know?"

Me: "You are from Karnataka Right?"

Preeti: (Again Shocked) "Hey! are you an Astrologer or what?"

Me: (Smiling) "No, I heard you asking Hyderabad address over phone in Kannada. that was a blind guess. Need not be an astrologer."

Preeti: "Oh! so u know kannada?"

Me: "Not really. Svalpa guthaithu. because of diversity in the work environment, I understand few words..:P"

Preeti: "Tum bahut chamatkaar banthe ho aur banathe ho."

Me: "Did you just now praise me?"

We went on our discussions on career, personals, and lot more.
 

    Later after an hour or so, the other co-passengers were into a real group discussion about Separation of Andhra Pradesh, then politics, society's development, education system, ETC (End of Thinking Capacity).

     At first I thought "Yeh log kya ukhaadne waale hai?", then I thought "Atleast I could gain some knowledge. Information is wealth right?" so, we too joined them.

     As the discussion went on, I got to know that the person is a journalist. He is a knowledge bank. He held some statistical data on illiteracy, and some political stuff which were shocking and surprising.

    As the part of discussion he raised a simple question "How many states are there in East India?"
Everybody is born intelligent na.. so all started saying "Assam, Sikkim, Nagaland, etc, etc."

    The journalist replied (sarcastically) "Very good, the answers which you gave are north Eastern states. Eastern states are Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. This was the homework given to my child studying 1st standard. I was shocked when I saw the standard of questions they ask to children who doesn't know the spelling of India properly. This is how our education system is."

    He gave few more examples. which led me to respect journalism. Discussion went on till 1 O'clock in the midnight. When people from other blocks repeatedly asked us to stop talking and to sleep, we bid good night. others slept and we sat and watched the movie Chennai Express in Chennai Express :)

The Lost Lesson

          In a fierce battle with Ram, Ravan the demon collapsed down and he was about to let off his last breath. Just then Lakshman, brother of Ram spoke with emotions filled in great angst,

"Oh brother! I see this moment as a profound proof of the persistence and victory of Dharma over the evil. I proclaim that this gets manifested for the generations to come as a great source to carve in a right path of living, I’m glad to see the demon pay for his deeds."

Ram the divine incarnation then responded with all his compassion -

"I suggest that you seek the advice of Ravan and ask him for any valuable information that he could perhaps pass on to you as a teaching at this moment."

and then he continued uninterrupted by the gestures of Lakshman,

"while it is true that Ravan incurred this ill fate as a consequence of his wrong deeds, it is equally true that he is a great musician, a great disciple of lord Shiva unparalleled for his devotion and a great warrior for if it weren’t for the eventual hint from his own brother Vibhishan, I wonder if he would have had an upper hand in this battle and now if you are wise immerse yourself in a quest for knowledge and never ever let down any instance that could otherwise enlighten you."

Taking upon the words of Ram, Lakshman relented to approach Ravan. He went upon and whispered in the ears of Ravan –

"I have come to you upon the advice of my brother, Do you have any valuable information to pass on to me as a teaching at this moment may be a mantra, may be a war-skill or so. I have come to offer myself as a disciple and I request your patronage as a Guru."

"You are unfit to be a good disciple and so I cannot teach you. This doesn’t mean that I’m intentionally reluctant towards you but I’m indeed appalled by the approach you took up to seek my teaching. You say so that you have come to me upon the advice of your brother which implies that you are adamantly disinterested in hearing anything from me and secondly you are supposed to request a Guru by bowing to his feet with respect and adoration you lack such minimal instinct and then it is ridiculous that you call yourself a Kshatriya", said Ravan and turned away.

With his heart filled by a sense of repentance Lakshman looked into the eyes of Ram. A consoling tone of Ram spoke –

"I wanted you to experience this and emerge emotionally strong. Ravan perished as he totally deviated from the path of morals and ethics but then he had an appreciable knowledge of certain aspects as I afore mentioned. He refused to offer you any teaching because he sensed it all from your approach that you do not really bear any enthusiasm to learn from him. Ethically, it is expected that you project and present yourself as an enthusiast while in a quest for knowledge. But it was your emotional outbreak that obscured such vision. You should have thought optimistic and acted diplomatic in tapping the potential of Ravan’s last breath. Likewise, in general you just need to look at what is pragmatic to the context to be successful."

Lakshman thus enlightened embraced Ram in endearment.

Independence Day

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action–

Into that heaven of freedom, My father, Let my country awake – Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)

Happy Independence Day !!!

P.S: Just listen to the Waka Waka Parody about India. It's in Telugu.