The latest addition to the feline lineup

I felt my heart swell when I saw one of my cats walk in yesterday with her really little kitten held ever so gently in her mouth. I first thought it was a rat, it was so little. I'd religiously made sure she had the right food through her entire pregnancy, so I almost felt like she'd brought the little kitten just to show me. She then found herself a nice cozy spot in the garden, behind the vegetable patch. 

Ok, I know cats do that all the time, but lets just allow me my fantasy :)

I don't know if I can say as much about Kannada, but thanks to her, I'm surely making a lot of progress on cat communication. I understand there are like 38 different kinds of mews or something, and I think I now understand a fairly good percentage of them. I surely get the, 'hi.. morning', 'where's my food', 'I'm hungry', (there's a difference, with the latter being that notch more urgent than the first), 'I want to come in', 'I want a caress', and 'stay away from me'. It's beautiful how they communicate much more through body language than mews, but all in all, I'm progressing there.

These pictures are cropped and recropped, because I was too scared to go closer. How ever friendly, there's nothing more vicious than a mother cat under threat, and I know this one, I've been attacked once. 

Ain't they both just so cute !!

A problem well articulated is half solved...contd

The Personal example from the previous post:

It's a situation between two friends who are also colleagues, Nitya and Raj (names changed for obvious reasons). There's a difficult situation at work due to role changes and a lot of stress that's getting built up between the two. There's unpleasant situations and accusations getting thrown around. This is now stretched over four weeks. Negativity's getting built. It's reaching a stage of N saying, It's not working,  I didn't know he had these facets to him, I don't think I can handle this equation anymore, 

Typically, egos come into play, and so also the recency effect. Are we going to use these exchanges to gauge a person, as against a relationship built over years.

Can we have that honest and transparent conversation, the difficult conversation ?

Here it becomes critical to come to the table with atleast 3 to 4 problem statements at both ends. These would in themselves take some effort. It requires a fairly high level of self awareness to articulate what you're feeling and what the triggers might have been. Sieve through the emotions, the anger, the hurt.

The goal is to understand what went wrong......Are the feelings valid? Are the triggers real?  Or were they Interpretations? Perceptions?

Nitya: I feel sidelined, plus judged, like he's taken over my work and added insult to injury by changing systems I've created,  like they were all crap. I feel he is being arrogant in not even wanting to consult me in what he's changing. I feel rejected. 

Raj: She's not willing to give up control.  She's high handed. Is this some kind of a power struggle? Why can't she accept that she could be wrong? Why is she being defensive? She's not capable of listening.

All this from incidents and exchanges over four weeks.

In such a situation, if one stays with these feelings and presumptions ( and that's what they are) and lets things drift, and if things continue to be left untended, it could do lasting damage to the relationship.

It's time for that difficult conversation. Two prerequisites. One, the clearly stated problems. Second, a mindset of respect and trust, intent to listen. ( without that you might as well go opposite ways )

This is where you get to separate the chaff from the wheat. The clearly stated problem will in itself show you which one's just perception and which real. If real, what's the rationale and is it acceptable?And you'll see the resolution within this framework.

Sure, pushing under the carpet also works, but most often it can come back to bite you; simplest case with a recurrence in another form, deeper case, by building baggage. I personally prefer a deeper understanding that enables real acceptance, and this would work for those who also do. To better clarity and healthier relationships :)

A problem well articulated is half solved

A problem well stated is half solved

Sounds like an aphorism, a pretty statement, but I've seen from experience how much depth this has. We tend to underestimate the significance of the need, and the difficulty in clearly articulating the problem. And this can apply at an individual level or at a collaborative level, at work or in personal equations. 

At an individual level. When upset or angry for instance, we clearly know we're upset or angry with some event or behavior, ours or others, but only know the actual cause at a vague level.  So our normal reaction of the situation is to handle it at the symptom level.

A project is veering off course. Milestones are not being met. There's a sense of urgency and lots of meetings. Urgent takes precedence over Important. But until we spend the time identifying and understanding the root cause, there's not much real progress we're going to make with the solutions.

Articulating is to figure out the what of it down to a single or more, clear statement level. It in essence means digging deeper to understand the crux of the issue. Once there, getting to the how of it becomes so much more efficient.

Lets do this through examples, one from a work experience and one from a personal one:

Work:

This is a case of multiple stakeholders collaborating on a business need. 

To get real value from working together, we need the problem well articulated and clearly aligned to the interests of all parties.

                              

Here's a sanitized story of one such initiative at a company. 

Let's call it White Co, a parts supplier for the white goods industry (the durable consumer appliances that tend to have a white finish — air conditioners, refrigerators, and so on).

It had taken a long time to organize the workshop. White Co had put huge efforts in convincing a key customer to participate and had done its best to set up the event well. They had picked a location designed to spark people’s imagination, and both parties had sent representatives from multiple functions that included experts and key executives from both companies. Commitment and expectations were high.

But the workshop flopped. The issue, it turned out, was that the problem they were trying to solve through the exercise was relevant only to White Co and not its customer, so the customer’s people soon disengaged. In an attempt to salvage things, White Co switched to a problem that was important to its customer, but it soon became apparent that this didn't work either, because it really wasn't relevant to the White Co people. Both sides ended up disappointed and will be unlikely to want to repeat the experiment.

                                                

This happens more often than you might think. In businesses, managers all too often treat such ”co-creation” as an event rather than a process and therefore focus almost exclusively on the workshop. But the workshop is only a point in a process that starts with the careful, collaborative design of a problem statement. Here are some tips on how to write a winning problem statement:

Brainstorm and iterate: Analyze needs and priorities to identify problems that could be relevant for both sides.

Select several problem statements: Don’t go into the workshop with just one problem statement.

Rank-order the list: Agree with your customer on shared criteria and then score each of the listed problems accordingly. 

Such collaboration can be difficult, but focusing your initial effort on jointly defining a clear problem will make it more likely that you will achieve real, sustainable value in the long term.

The Personal example in a separate post..... to work around risk of tl..rl :)

Possessiveness - A Deep Dive

Emotions typically rise from instinct or conditioning, and the intellect is what we use to deal with it. After all that's our most powerful tool.

Possessiveness or Jealousy is a great example.

Jealousy and Possessiveness are extremely instinctive emotions. You know when you see it in little children in relation to their siblings, or between your pet and your child. Sociological institutions of rigid relationship structures have been built on the same instinct, and so directly feed into it. It gives you the moral authority to be possessive and jealous.

That's a multiplier effect through expectation and conditioning. And ironically, one that's done the most damage to relationships.

I wouldn't be far from the truth if I said that Possessiveness is one of the single biggest factors that breaks relationships. No brainer, right?

                                                 

The green eyes monster, as likely coined by Shakespeare in Merchant of Venice, 1596, is an ultimate exemplar of jealousy, where Othello is tormented by jealousy, thinking his wife, Desdemona would cheat on him; and we continue to see this in the millions who spend so much energy based off their genes rather than their own thinking. 

So many of could relate to these commonplace..... 'what's my wife (or husband) doing talking to that man; oh, my god, she's laughing with him, she never does with me, she's looking straight into his eyes, .... I think she just touched his arm'. 

It's also easy to see how it's the most rampant and the most self defeating of emotions, as its common experience that the tighter you hold, the more the need to escape and the higher the chances of your losing it. Sure, the person might stay on in the relationship for a multitude of other reasons.......habit, society, responsibility, respect, but aren't we losing out on that positive space it could have been.

When you feel a surge of sexual jealousy, you're responding to the possibility of being abandoned by your partner. Which comes from our own need and insecurity. Fear. Again base instinct.

Dr. Nando Pelusi, a psychologist, says:

Like many emotional adaptations, jealousy is an imperfect and often overzealous call to arms. That's because the human life span was, until not long ago, perilously short. Evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists believe that our ancestors rarely got a second chance to woo a mate. 

Today, you can round the corner into a new neighborhood and invent a new life. Your emotions, unfortunately, have not caught on to this. That makes most of your experiences of jealousy historically urgent but mismatched to modernity.

When jealousy simply alerts us, it is likely to result from a concern for the relationship. But when it is possessive, it gets destructive.

By accepting that life is dynamic, freedom is integral, perfect reassurance cannot really exist, and that you do not even absolutely need it..... in place of energy spent in seeking and ensuring a guarantee of fidelity it could be better spent, say, being the freedom loving, fun-loving person with who your partner would actually want to have an affair. Would surely be worthwhile.... more fun all the way round. All you need to do is think about it....use the intellect (too)....it's very doable !!

There's always scope...

I'm wondering if scope and hope actually have the same etymology.....well they so easily could, as its not just that they sound like they do, but how they also tie into each other.

It's this realization that ironically hits you (read 'me' here) almost when after years and years, you're just getting to a point in life where everything seems so right, when you think you've reached where you want to be. And there's a knock on the window.

A friend has this theory which goes something like this: the words you use tell you something about what you're struggling with at any point. Like for instance because I used the word 'struggle' as against any other, it could tell me something about my state of mind.

And so it would follow that if I pick to write on self awareness, it's something that I'm personally working on. And I guess it does have some truth in it.

Writing that actually made me step back and ask some questions of myself. At the same point as I was feeling like I'd peaked, it also struck me that nothing in life is ever static, (unless you stubbornly choose to make it so) and that peaks can actually be deceptive. They can be so beautiful that you could get carried away and just want to stay, but then it's an attitude. All one needs to do is ask if they can get better....and voila ! you find that they could.

CANI. Constant and Never Ending Improvement. There's always scope. The canvas can stretch, it can be repainted or it can be changed. It may appear like an effort, a struggle even, but it's all so worth it. It's to lead life and not just to live :)

                                    

I was always fascinated by kaleidoscopes. I used to make so many of them, as all it took was an empty shuttle box, pieces of mirror, a chunk of glass bangle pieces and...... the desire, and you had a pretty pretty world in your hands. Oh, just trying to say how a kaleidoscope represents the myriad beautiful dimensions of life that are always there for the picking!

Becoming Self Aware...A Continuation

                                   

Some more on the Why and How of it:

Why

Apart from the metaphysical or esoteric goal of knowing oneself, there’s also a very down to earth, here and now plus in being self aware. It lends itself to a greater degree of Authenticity, Focus, Growth and Peace.

‘Accept what you cannot change, Change what you cannot accept and have the Wisdom to know the difference’….…it’s what enables that needed Discernment or Wisdom.

Somehow, most of us kind of totally miss one big obvious facet of this. Acceptance does not mean putting up with crap. Accept that it is crap and deal with it as such. I've seen this happen, had it happen, in almost self flagellating.......martyrish manners .....by saying I've mastered acceptance. Where there is the Wisdom then? 

                                                  

How

We read 5 ways in an earlier post.  To get to a more practice-on-the-go way, an imbibed level, here's what has really worked, or rather continues to work for me;

Watch yourself. Step back from situations and actually watch yourself. And the best learning time is soon after extremes...... like when you’re really happy or really upset. Spend some time figuring out what enabled that shift into each of those modes.

With a little practice, you’ll soon be able to identify the exact trigger for the shift;  be aware that the trigger could be emanating from another, from within you or from the space in between. Once we become aware of those triggers, and the reactions they evoke, you know which ones you're happy to keep and which you don’t want. And by don't, it basically means dealing with it. Identify the emotion,........ rationalize with it and more importantly, do what needs to be done.

Here I have a small quirky tip; don't blindly throw out all that's upsetting you, sometimes your biggest and deepest learning's might come from first understanding why it's upsetting you. Be warned....this would directly be proportionate to your appetite for the abstract :)

Instinct and conditioning typically evoke the emotion; and its the intellect that can deal with it. Make this a practice, and as with anything acquired, practice makes perfect. Ok, you may never get to perfect, but you'll surely find that 'more often' and 'more quickly', you'll get out of those negative spaces.....it's a process, and soon it’s an automatic growth story. 

Li Lu, a co-leader of the Tiananmen Square student demonstration and today a highly respected investor, apparently had a practice he followed for years, inspired by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin kept a “balance sheet” of both the assets and liabilities of his personal traits. By diarizing any new strength he believed he could learn from someone else, and marking down any self-perceived weaknesses, he could better assess whether the “net worth” of his character was growing over time.

It’s actually simpler than it sounds.

The intellect which is rational, capable and efficient is also as easily irrational, neurotic, conditioned and illogical. This is where you use awareness to watch which one you’re using more of. Try it....... and the icing on the cake? It's actually a fun process !!

I just made a fool of myself

This one fit so perfectly into the 'make a fool of oneself' bit in the valentine days blog' that I had to put it in here as is :). It's again from Seth's blog:

"I just made a fool of myself"

Actually, it's far more likely that you made a human of yourself.

When you drop your guard, opt for transparency and make an honest connection with someone, you're right on the edge of foolishness, which is another word for not-corporate, not-aloof, not-safe. Another word for human.

Most of the time, we persuade ourselves not to make a fool and so instead, we shut down a connection that could have become precious for us and for them.

So much energy gets wasted in that effort of holding out..... be it at work, with friends, in relationships......wonder what happens to flow? to trust? to be?

Valentine's Day

Well, it's 14th February, Valentine’s Day. We could belong to the believers, the sceptics, the cynics or the agnostics, but there's no taking away from that one over arching beautiful emotion of Love.

                                              

I recall a 14th Feb of many years ago: Ravi and I were all set to go out to a romantic dinner and Diksha, who must have been six or so, says, ‘Ma, you don't love meeee?’ Somehow, Valentines day has come to stand for the romantic man woman kind of love,  and it took me that question to say......  it's about love, lets all go.

It’s surely felt for family, parents, children, uncles, aunts, cousins….all of you who matter…..

But some random thoughts on love beyond 

A little into the day today, I received an ‘I love you’ from a girl friend, with some really nice stuff said, and know what? It felt good. Love does transcend. And it’s surely not just the romantic kind of love, a friend love is also as deep, maybe even more, as it openly says a wanting for the person to be a part of life until the end. By choice.

Yet, these are equations that are never given the kind of space they deserve.

I’m talking to a friend, a girl friend, at six in the morning, a few quick minutes when she’s out to get milk, but before she walks into the house we need to hang up........ the husband may not understand why we’re talking so early in the morning.   Any amount of time spent with family is fine, any time of day or night is fine, but with friends? Ah…..ah, not easy to accept. Conditioning?

In fact ones marriages might not last a life time.... most familial situations might come with more restrictions and rules than freedom. Yet they are the accepted and glorified relationships. 

The other day I heard of this instance of a man, retired from work, in the US, who wanted to come back to India to be with his friend, but his wife didn’t want to move back. And he still took the decision to move, while she chose to stay, and he now has a house close to his friends in Chandigarh, and they meet up whenever they feel like it, a drink, cards, walks…… sounded idyllic to me. Takes courage and clarity. 

But our conditioning runs so deep, that to even make a trip out of town to just hang out with a friend is somehow not easy. There’s always something more important back home. There has to be a stronger justification for the trip and the secondary purpose can be a friend.

Now, is there a real difference between a  friend relationship and a romantic one ( the obvious one apart). In terms of intensity, longing, eagerness, there may actually be none. It’s the same desire to want to spend time together, to discover things together, to talk, to share secrets, to listen to good music with, to travel with, to be with.

I believe that a friend love is equally strong in terms of emotional and intellectual headiness and connect and even a couple of notches more peaceful as it comes minus those anxieties and insecurities which a typical romantic relationship invariably seems to come with. 

This one says it well ‘my ECG while waiting for a friend will show the same reading as waiting for a lover. Only I’m not caught up in figuring if his degree of excitement matches mine, and consequently behaving like a fool. There’s a relaxed quality to a friendship because there’s a kind of taking for granted the future.’

Maybe it's just that added layer of whatever that adds the longing, excitement and tenderness to romantic love.  The extra buzz of awareness that makes every cell tingle, that is an exclusive terrain. I'm not going more in there, as we're all familiar I'm sure. 

So be it the romantic liaisons or the friend love, It’s the relationships of choice at every moment of their existence that makes them so special.  Wonderful to love like that.....by choice…..In freedom.....because true love is that which really sets you free……

5 Ways to Become More Self Aware

Self-Awareness lies at the root of strong character, giving us the ability of purpose, openness, and acceptance.

Here's an excerpt from an article that actually tells you 5 ways to become more self aware. It's an article by Anthony Tjan, who is CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball, vice chairman of the advisory firm Parthenon, and co-author of the New York Times bestseller Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck .

He talks specifically from becoming self aware in the perspective of leadership, but then it fits into any form of self awareness. 

                          

Meditate: Yes, meditate. As most people know, meditation is the practice of improving your moment-by-moment awareness. Most forms of meditation begin with focusing on, and appreciating the simplicity of, inhaling and exhaling. But these don’t need to be formal or ritualistic, greater clarity can also come from regular moments of pause and reflection. 

Write down your key plans and priorities: One of the best ways to increase self-awareness is to write down what you want to do and track your progress. Warren Buffet, for one, is known for carefully articulating the reasons he’s making an investment at the time he makes it. His journal entries serve as a historical record that helps him assess whether or not future outcomes can be attributable to sound judgment or just plain luck.

Take psychometric tests. Among the best known of these tests are Myers-Briggs and Predictive Index, but all are aimed as serving as a data point towards greater self-awareness. A common design point with all of them is that there are no particular right or wrong answers. Instead, they are designed to compel respondents to consider a set of traits or characteristics that most accurately describe them relative to other people. 

Ask trusted friends and get regular feedback at work: None of us is altogether aware of how we come across to others. We have to rely on the feedback of our peers, friends, and mentors. To have your friends play the role of honest mirror, let them know when you are seeking candid, critical, objective perspectives. Provided it is done well, constructive, formalized feedback allows us to better see our own strengths and weaknesses. 

In the end, everyone benefits from self-awareness. It’s only with self-awareness that one can journey closer to a state of “self-congruence”, where what we say, think, and feel are consistent. Building self-awareness is a life-long effort. You’re never “done.” And tools help. Pick the ones that work for you, they just make the process more efficient and their practice will help you move faster and further along the way.

A Bird In search of a Cage

The title first caught my attention, and then when I read what he’d said in just those three lines, it hit deep. This is from Seth Gordin’s blog.

'So much freedom, so much choice, so many opportunities to matter.

And yet, our cultural instinct is to find a place to hold us, a spot where we are safe from the responsibility/obligation/opportunity to choose. Because if we choose, then we are responsible, aren't we?'

Think about it; how many of us are either in search of that cage or are stuck in cages we’ve already found, and choose to stay in because we think we don’t have in us the ability to choose? How much of that is conditioning?

In fact this is exactly what Jiddu Krishnamurthy talks about. How the human mind has been conditioned, shaped, moulded since millions of years and how we still allow our basic instinct of fear to create the framework from which we operate, and that's what causes all forms of conflict. It is conflict when we force ourselves to fit into a particular pattern established by society, by religion, when we discipline ourselves to conform to a pattern.

And what would it take to break through? Not in some distant time but immediately? It is mindfulness, meditation, not in terms of sitting down to meditate per a system, but as in..... to ponder over, to observe, to pay attention, to learn. To make the mind extraordinarily sensitive, alive, not burdened by the past and therefore free.....in essence, to be aware !

Trip to Goa!!

Goa is like another world. Everyone’s in this super chilled out mood… a natural bonhomie in the air. It seems to come from more people just being that bit more themselves, like a window away from reality and that’s what renders itself to a genuinely fun atmosphere. The well known…… 'what happens in Goa stays in Goa' kinds.

We stayed at this place called Raman (pronounced Ramon) Cottages on Calangute Beach, a quaintish and quiet property, pretty much on the beach . And we picked Calangute as we wanted a proper Goan experience rather than a serene beach experience, and we got loads of that :)

Aunt and Mom as we got to Raman Cottages

They have a bunch of super friendly staff, and that’s a critical part of a nice holiday in Goa as you tend to spend a lot of time on the property itself. We had Manoj, the all round guy there, great cook, who also alternated as masseur ( I got a brilliant foot reflexology from him). Then there was Maity, a fit, honest and frank fellow full of little tidbits of interesting fundas on life.

Manoj and Maity in their kitchen

Mom, totally inspired by the special jadoos for sand :)

More inspiration from Sandy...a tattoo artist !

It was four days of awe inspiring sunsets, long walks, good food, streetside shopping, wine and music. 

I heard ma sing after a really long time and among the songs were; yeh raate, yeh mausam, nadi kaa kinara and suhaani raat dal chukhi...and one super cute telugu jaana padha geetaalu.......sure set the mood for a melodious night.

Beach side ware for sale.....
She was pretty as a painting I thought !

Very pretty stuff from Tibet

In terms of sightseeing, we did a visit to the Basilica of Bom Jesus, or Borea Jezuchi Bajilika in Portuguese, which has the mortal relics of St Xavier. It's more than 400 years old and can be visited any day of the year while the body itself is open to public viewing once every ten years with the last one having happened this January. This world heritage monument has emerged as a landmark in the  history of Christianity in the country. 

Basilica of Bom Jesus

                                                     

Fort Aguada Jail

Then it was a boat ride to see dolphins…we got to see a few tail fins and a few humps but the general excitement seems to get to everyone. Overall nice fun.

I did a lot of Jiddu Krishnamurthy there. His writing is so abstract, complex and I must say convoluted, that I can read a whole book and if asked what it’s about I’d basically have a couple of things to say. Guess that’s what philosophy is all about. But then I enjoyed reading him and I’d like to believe that there’s a couple of notches better understanding of things. :)

The Sea, the sunset and JK was nice !

This was a really special trip because it was with my mom and aunt, who are very dear to me. Considering seeing goa was a long standing desire for both of them and it was on the cards for over an year now, and to think we actually did it against all the odds...... it’s a different level of satisfaction in itself, and it enabled a deep down nice feeling. Thanks, both of you ! 

The girls at Goa !

Another SELCO Story - The Siddhi Community

Yesterday at work we had an Innovation Workshop, and trust me we had a tough time picking which projects to present as there are so many that involve innovations at various levels, product, financial, approach, collections, so many. That's the super interesting thing about SELCO, the focus on what and how best to customize to reach the outliers who typically get left behind by the system, rather than how to scale to reach the masses. Yet another level of 'focus on the user'

One of those stories is of the Siddhi Community:

The Siddhis are originally from South-East Africa and were brought to the Indian subcontinent as slaves by the Portuguese merchants between the 16th and 19th Centuries. After independence, apparently some went back to their own lands and many migrated into the forests of Karnataka.

Today, the Siddhis here live a rather secluded life and are fairly 'backward' educationally, socially, and financially. They live in real remote areas as there is a high level of discrimination they face from the locals on account of their different racial features and color ( and Indians complain of racism). 

Their livelihood centers around forest based activities like selling arecanut , de-husking forest products, honey and basket weaving. They still follow the barter system ( actually until SELCO happened and introduced them to the banking system and access to finance, but as Harish said, we don't know for good or bad :) ) .

Kerosene was their only source of fuel for lighting, and even for that they had to travel really far to the nearest access point, spending a lot of time and a good chunk of their earnings

The local branch manager was telling us how it took them two years from 2009 to 2011, to just earn the trust of the community, and then to convince the local bankers to extend loans to them. 

It's still an ongoing process that started in 2011, but now 59 of the households have a 2 bulb system installed. Each system costs Rs.8500 and it takes each household around 4 years to repay that loan. The total loan now is around Rs. 5 lakh and to convince the bank to sanction the loan, SELCO had to initially put in an amount equal to the loan as fixed deposit, and over the years, as the repayments were regular and their credit worthiness increased, the deposit amount needed have now come down to lower and lower levels. They now have 47 systems in Yellapur, 11 in Hunnashettykoppa and 1 in Umachagi. 

The Solar Panel on one of the huts

The reaction of one of the users ' It's like having sunlight by night' ( closer to the truth than regular electricity is huh?)

And some of the other impacts mentioned were, their being able to use their evenings for more income generating activities such as basket weaving, areca nut dehusking which in turn increases income levels, womenfolk no longer having to endure kerosene fumes while cooking, higher level of 

protection from the many many insects and reptiles in the area, as its deep forest and high rainfall, children doing better at school, and finally financial inclusion.

Yet another validation of the basic tenets of SELCO,  breaking the myths that a) the poor cannot afford sustainable technologies b) the poor cannot maintain sustainable technologies. The Siddhi community, with that little initial help, has done and built on both.

Pune Day 2 - Off Campus

Pune has a huge student populace and there’s a lot that the city offers to this yuppie crowd. We started the day with a really continental brunch, at this place called the Flour Works, where most of the menu was like totally unfamiliar stuff, atleast to me  What I really liked though, is this little cosy corner they had with a couch and a nice collection of books, and folks could stroll in and just sit around, munch and read. It’s a place you go to spend Sunday mornings, not a place you go to just eat, a concept that’s not part of the Idli Dosa culture I guess. (I still love my Idlis and Dosas)

Flour Works

And after a nice and conversational meal, we decided to actually do some sightseeing in Pune.

We first visited the AgaKhan Palace

The Aga Khan Palace was built by Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan III  in 1892,as an act of charity to help the poor in the neighbouring areas of Pune, who were badly hit by famine.

The palace is a pretty and picturesque structure with huge arches and wide spread lawns. It is however, known more for its close link to the Indian Freedom movement as it served as a prison for Mahatma Gandhi, his wife Kasturba Gandhi, his secretary Mahadev Desai and Sarojini Naidu for two years following the Quit India Movement. It is also the place where Kasturba Gandhi and Mahadev Desai died and are buried.

The Aga Khan Palace

The Palace from another lens

Cold Cream used by the Gandhis.
I'm a complete cold cream loyalist, so I had to get this one :)

The Samadhis of Kasturba and Mahadev Desai

We next visited the Shaniwar Wada, an 18th century fort of the Peshwa rulers of the Maratha Empire. The fort itself was largely destroyed in 1828 by an unexplained fire, and what survives is mostly the ground floor walls and the foundation. It's even said to be haunted by the ghost of the young prince who was said to have been assassinated there, and local lore says they can hear his cries for help on new moon nights.

The Shaniwar Wada Fort

The entrance gate which is large enough to
allow for Elephants with howdahs

What's left after the fire....just the entrance (far end)
and the foundation

Dhruva looking at what he thought were graves
as they were below the foundation

The sightseeing trip ended with a nice nostalgic ganne ka ras  :)

Ajmer..... a Deeper Connect

When I visited Ajmer last month,and I said there was this whole feeling of ‘it was meant to be’, it was just this feeling, a want that you become aware of without understanding, but surrender to without question. 

This morning I’m talking to my mother and the conversation struck a cord……I realized the connect could actually be coming from way deeper than 'just a want'.  

What she said kind of intrigued me. Unlike what I had thought, this was apparently not my first trip to Ajmer. I’d been there as a child, maybe when aged one or two or maybe even earlier, and she'd felt such a deep connect to the Dargah, that she started sending them money every year, and they would send her back rose petals and some prasadam equivalent each time. And this she continued right through until just a few years ago and stopped only when the post office stopped doing money orders….a solid 40 years plus of the practice. And I wasn’t even aware of all this until she told me now, when she read the blog post. But I’m now wondering about the beyond-us factors that create connections.

You almost feel the something beyond that's at work, be it within yourself or in the universe. Like if one reaches out right, you can touch those channels which are otherwise beyond reach. It almost makes me wonder if we can work on the how.....living in the now, meditation, what have you, that enable access beyond the din and noise of the mind, into deeper recesses, be it within oneself, like into the subconscious levels, or even beyond, into the universe itself. That's as abstract as it gets :)

To me, even before I went, I knew the visit was going to be a tipping point in life. The take away? Listen to those wants, they are not as random as they seem. We may not immediately know all the connects, but they do enable energy shifts which have deep positive impacts.

Dargah Shareef

So thanks ma…grateful for the connect.

Rose petals.....focus and you can experience the fragrance, across space and time :)