Tag: Wikipedia

The Company Of Great Persons.

We had a house-guest the last two days. He is my son’s friend, and had come to Pune to finalise a place to set up residence. He normally lives in Mumbai and some family related matters has made it an imperative that he shifts to Pune.

During a couple of long sessions of discussions on wide ranging subjects, I learnt some new things from him as he claimed he did from me too. For me, I learn new things from the world of Management every time some one younger comes along and spends some time with me and this one was such an occasion. From my side, I was able to give some information about India’s economy, development and politics to him, information that I have acquired through my reading habits and discussions with a wide circle of friends that I am blessed with.

He left early yesterday morning but, before he left, he came near me, bent down, touched my feet and took my blessings as traditionally Indians are taught to in their childhood. This is a practice that due to Westernisation and urbanisation has more or less disappeared and I was touched by this traditional way of taking leave by this young man. He said that he believed in the Guru Shishya Parampara and considered his time with me as between a teacher and a student and said that he looked forward to more such meeting in the future once he settles down in Pune.

I was touched by this gesture and respect / affection shown by this young man. The experience led me to some reflection on the information that I shared with him and concluded that I am blessed with the association of a number of very smart and erudite people in my life. I called one of them to share this experience and conclusion and he promptly and cheerfully shared this message through WhatsApp!

Company Of Great Persons.

महाजनस्य संसर्गः कस्य नोन्नतिकारकः I

पद्मपत्रस्थितम तोयं धत्ते मुक्ताफलश्रियम II

Mahaajanasya samsargah kasya nonnathikaarakah. 1

Padmapathrasthitham thoyam dhatte muktaaphalashriyam. 2

Company of great persons is always beneficial.

A drop of water on lotus leaf appears like a pearl, thus gaining
a status similar to that of pearl.

This is to thank all those great persons in my life.

Frustration.


There are a few days in the year when I go totally bonkers in the mornings without my daily dose of newspapers and crossword puzzles contained in them.

Yesterday being our Republic Day, was a national holiday and sans newspapers today. I would have climbed the walls had I not remembered the gift that my friend had given me some months ago. Just to refresh your memory dear reader, I wrote about it here.

When some friends and one cousin rang up to pass time and I mentioned this frustration, without exception all of them confessed having missed the morning newspapers, particularly since it is a Sunday too when all of them contain magazine sections.

So, though I missed the news, I don’t watch television even in the absence of news papers, I was able to solve some puzzles in the book and was not quite as frustrated as I would have been had I not remembered the book.

Thank you MD.

The First Time I Saw An Ocean.

This is The Edward Elliots Beach in Chennai with the Karl Schmidt memorial. This is the Southern end of the Chennai Marina Beach.

Although I was born in Mumbai, I don’t recall ever seeing the ocean there during my early years. Mumbai is an island and the Western side of the island faces the Arabian Sea and I have lived in places in Mumbai from where the ocean can be seen though much later in life.

By the time I was about three or four years old, my parents moved from Mumbai to Chennai and my first memories of the ocean are seeing the Bay of Bengal both at the Marina Beach as well as at the Edward Elliots Beach but, the latter most vividly as my uncle and aunt lived in The Theosophical Society in Adayar which was frequented by my family often as my father too was connected with the society and I lived there with my uncle and aunt for a whole year.

My father taught me to bathe in the ocean at Elliot’s beach and that is a memory that is not easily forgotten. Perhaps that is why my memory of the Elliots Beach is so vivid. There are many photographs of our times on the beach when we were children but, they are all in various collections with my siblings and so I am unable to reproduce some of them here. What my memory tells me of those visits to the beach is the sense of awe one felt at the immensity of the ocean and the miracle of the water coming to the shore and retreating.

If there is another memory that surpasses that of the childhood one of the Madras beaches that is the one of my first visit to Kanya Kumari in 1974 where the Indian ocean, The Bay of Bengal and The Arabian Sea meet. A sight that simply blows one away.  A re-visit there is very much part of my bucket list.

This week’s 2 on 1 topic was chosen by Shackman. Please do go over to his blog to see what he has to say.

Do You Believe In Magic?

I think that Shackman, who has suggested this topic for this week’s 2 on 1 Friday post, asks about the supernatural variety and not the other kinds like illusion, the Indian rope trick etc. I shall therefore restrict my response to this area only.  Please do go over to Shackman’s blog to see what he has to say on the topic.

If I have to write about the supernatural variety of magic, naturally it leads us to Miracles.

My post therefore is a simple short one. The answer is an unqualified “No”.

If that is so, what is the explanation for something like this? I believe in The Theory of Karma and this clearly brings about five lives who come together in this birth to experience the effect of some causes caused by them in either this earlier lives or past lives. I have simply not been able to come across any other explanation for such occurrences that take place with unbelievable frequency. Some with positive outcomes and some with negative ones.

I however believe in this kind of magic.

You sigh, the song begins, you speak and I hear violins, it’s magic
The stars desert the skies and rush to nestle in your eyes, it’s magic
Without a golden wand or mystic charms,
Fantastic things begin when I am in your arms

When we walk hand-in-hand, the world becomes a wonderland, it’s magic
How else can I explain those rainbows when there isn’t rain? It’s magic
Why do I tell me myself these things that happen are all really true
When in my heart I know the magic is my love for you?

Review Badhai Ho!

Badhai Ho in Hindi means Congratulations.

You can read the story line in this Wikipedia link

I could recognise only Neena Gupta, an actress form my early movie going days and Ayushmaan Khurana who acted in my last review Andha Dhun. These two literally carry the entire movie on their histrionics but, in all fairness, all the others extend excellent support.

The story line, dialogues and direction are simply brilliant. The portrayal of an ordinary middle class family caught in an embarrassing situation is portrayed with elan and all the nuances of their daily lives very lucidly brought out.

The story is unusual but, highly probable and for that precise reason so moving.  I think that it deserves to be called a tragicomedy!

From all accounts, it is a box office hit without the help of songs, dance and/or fight scenes. A clean family movie which I recommend highly.

A Reason For Being.

Please click on the image for a larger resolution.


The Japanese have a word for this – Ikigai.

Try as I might, I cannot find this particular type of Reason For Being at my present age of three score and fifteen. What possible reason can motivate me to get up in the morning to face another day? I often write about the impact that Viktor Frakl’s book Man’s Search For Meaning had on me some decades ago, and now struggle to find some meaning to his conclusion of the Western kind. He concludes “it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our question must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

Truth be told, what gets me up in the morning is simply that I cannot sleep after 5.00 am no matter how late I go to sleep because of habit ingrained from boyhood when a martinet of a father insisted that we got up when the crows cawed which was inevitably well before sunrise and day break.

Subsequently, I got into the habit of meditating and yogabhyas in the mornings which continue to occupy my time in the mornings but, those two activities are not the reason for my being.

I look forward to reading the morning newspapers and solving the crossword puzzles in them. Is that the reason for my being? Once I finish those very likeable activities at around 12.00 noon, what will keep me going? The prospect of lunch, the siesta that inevitably follows, the session at the computer to catch up with mail, facebook posts etc?

I wonder what the Japanese will suggest as a word for someone like me!

Which wondering brings me to the Indian philosophical approach to the same situation. It is called Purushartha or The Object Of Human Pursuit. Please do spend some time on the Wikipedia exposition on this concept so that, you can follow my take on life’s purpose in my current stage of development.

The four components, Dharma, Artha, Kaama, Moksha can be compared to a bracelet of three beads with Dharma being the holding string that holds the three otehr beads together. In other words, a morally lived life of acquiring means to enjoy the pleasures of life which hopefully will take one to a stage of satiety and the last stage of seeking freedom from the very essence of life, wanting! Moksha is the ultimate goal for Indians which can be obtained by learning and understanding the highest philosophical ideas. This process is called Shravanam, mananam, nidhidhyasanam, or, learining, understanding and reflecting on the knowledge gained. Quite a bit of my time is taken on this activity and so my Ikigai may well be Moksha!