The INOX Experience

Is it Bangalore, or is it INOX or what? Since when has watching a movie become a Rs 2000 worth experience. First reaction…..It’s such a rip off !! 

Is it really??

                                   Dhruva and Diksha, with their popcorns

A ticket on Friday evening costs two times what it does on weekdays. And the popcorn and coke…actually as much as the ticket. But then it’s true right? Weekends are the right time. And popcorn? totally integral to the experience. In fact, I like caramel, but I also like butter, and I love these guys who’ve innovated and come up with a popcorn cup with a divider in between, where I get to have both in one cup. They’re actually thinking of you.

Overall real nice experience.... so what exactly are we cribbing about? 

This whole value for money is such a mind thing. 

A small anecdote on this:

I remember this was way back when we’d get salary in cash and dhruva would get to buy an Asterix on salary day. It was ritual; pick him up from the gate and go buy with the first notes ( we used to even get crisp new tender). And there was resistance from some saying 400 rupees (like 15 years back) for reading something in ten minutes…it’s not even a book.

But to Dhruva, they were like really dear...like friends I think. If Diksha or I wanted to read, we’d have to say Hello to the book, finish it, and then give it a pat, say Thank You to the book, and put it back on the pile. At first Diksha was like..nuts or what, I’m not doing all that. But he wouldn’t let her read, and slowly we both got used to doing it. 

So yes, value is really what we give to anything, its not necessarily about value for money.  End of evening I was happy with the evening, so totally worth what it costs no. .All of us do what matters to us, but we crib. Maybe we shouldn't.  Do, and do happily or don't do.  Going forward, no grudging, just budget better :)

Pancham Da

Yesterday was R D Burman's birthday, and I fully owe it to Fever 104 FM, my favorite radio station,  for making it a full on celebration. I almost didn't feel like getting off the car, and I did do longer drives to and back from work.

And the songs were all from those wonderful years, the years of discovery and growing up, with many of them having associations and memories which were so totally brought alive that it stole my day.....and wonderfully so

Here are ten from the ones I heard, pick the ones you like, and enjoy the listening :)

Pancham Da 

The list reads like this:

Yeh Shaam Mastaani
Bahon Mein Chale Aao
Roop Tera Mastaana
Churaliya Hai Tum Ne Jo Dil Ko
Humko Tho Yaara Teri Yaari
Raat Kali Ek Khwaab Mein Aayi
Bheeghi Bheeghi Raato Mein
Jaane Jaan Dhoondtaa Phir Raha
Tere Bina Zingadi Se
Meri Soni Meri Tamanna

TL....RL

TL....RL; Too Long.....Read Later

Part of life right? Especially in the inbox. I'm sure each of us has our own version of this in our inbox. I've always had, not one, but three. A 'Read later, But must'. A 'watch later' and 'Read at leisure'.

And the sad thing is that it's not often enough that we get down to those folders. Even with the 'But Must', I somehow don't seem to ever get to it. Couple of weeks back I happened to browse through these almost archived folders, complete clean up, and not surprisingly,  found some really really good stuff in it. 

So how do we resolve this?

Ideally, one would say, try and browse through soon as you get it, but that's really not possible, especially the long ones, or videos. You could be in the middle of work, or not in the right mood, whatever. And this is proper that 'Important' bucket we spoke about....perfectly fine to not do it, life will go on in nice quiet mode. But do we want that to happen? Can we catch that important stuff too? The life enhancers you know ....

My solution.....An hour on Sundays devoted to the TL ...RL folders of the inbox :)

A SELCO Story - Airlight

This is innovation of a different kind. Airlite, a mechanism to enable lighting and ventilation in houses and schools with tin roofs. It's a fairly familiar concept used in upmarket urban residences...... adapted here for use in the under-served segment. 

A friend and colleague Nagaraj, works on the Airlight product and he kind of stumped me the other day when he asked me a very valid question. I was like.....I'm not sure we can do Airlight under the Entrepreneur Fund..... it's not really renewable energy intervention (I was thinking photovoltaic or thermal) and he's like, "it's still solar, right?" And then he sent me this video to convince me. It's a short 2 minute video, so watch......and, if you come across slums, houses, schools which you think could benefit from it, do reach out  :)

Raghu - on LifeIsMusic

Seeing Raghu on the maiden venture of LifeIsMusic was a really really heartening feeling.

LifeIsMusic is an online video platform hosted by the Essel Group to search for India’s original music talent and set up a most-elite band to be mentored by three renowned maestros - Louiz Banks, Taufiq Qureshi and Purbayan Chatterjee

Couldn't put the link on the picture, so please use this:  Raghuraman Ramasubramanian, Guitarist

Raghu's is a classic story of follow your passion and your dream to the exclusion of almost everything else..........He almost chanced upon his passion during his late teens, (apparently finding an old guitar lying around in the library), went at it with focus and dedication, literally playing till his fingers bled ( and pretty much chose to stay self taught ),  stayed clear, calm and quiet through the process of conflict and pressure of a difficult choice....... of music and not engineering (which he did too).

One of the few I've seen follow his desire, for the sheer love of  music, no specific goal, seemingly seeing nothing but the guitar in hand.

Kudos Raghu, Proud of You ...........Enjoy the journey and Good luck  !!

I cannot not give credit here to my dear friend Girija, who has stood by him through all those years. She held out against immense pressure from family and friends......  not to speak of her own deep fears and misgivings, which would surface ever so often, sometimes moving her to tears. Take a bow lady :)

Drama in Life

The definition of dramatic is 'exciting or filled with emotion or energy'. 

Drama can drain, and yet can also energize, as each of these words has within its very gamut the extremes......be it anticipation, fear, joy, sorrow, love, hate, positive, negative and so on .

However, in life (as against Shakespeare ) drama is a pretty nuanced word, or rather, let me say it, an almost judgmental word. Like it's an antithesis to peace, contentment, equanimity and the like.

I personally believe it's about living the entire gamut of the emotion, letting in free flow. So, when I chanced upon this article, I just had to put it here :)

Excerpt of "Necessary Excesses of Life' by Maria Popova, a review of 'On Balance' by Adam Phillips

"Something is always born of excess,"Anaïs Nin wrote in her diary in 1945 as she contemplated the value of emotional excess, And yet our compulsive pursuit of balance is predicated on eradicating "excess," pitting it as a counterpoint rather than a complement to equilibrium and inner wholeness.

That paradoxical relationship is what the celebrated psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips examines in On Balance

                                                   

"Phillips writes: The people we fall in love with we find singularly captivating, as are any of the people (or ideas) that inspire us, for better or for worse. It is the singularly captivating that tends to make us lose our balance, the idea of balance itself which can unbalance us.

These unbalancing acts, Phillips argues, are a vital and indicative part of our aliveness:

We should not, perhaps, underestimate our wish to lose our balance, even though it’s often easier to get up than to fall over. Indeed, the sign that something does matter to us is that we lose our steadiness.

Phillips considers the necessary excess of optimism and why an artificial balance is sometimes more dangerous than surrendering to such "singularly captivating" loss of steadiness: "Balancing acts are entertaining because they are risky, but there are situations in which it is more dangerous to keep your balance than to lose it."

One of the things people most frequently say in psychoanalysis is, ‘Perhaps I am overreacting, but ...... ’; and one of the commonest complaints today is about feeling too much or feeling too little. I want to suggest that we are simply too much for ourselves, but that this too-muchness is telling us something important. In other words, we sometimes call ourselves and other people excessive as a way of invalidating or tempering the truths we tell ourselves or that other people tell us. It is impossible to overreact.

Phillips looks at how our early childhood – those "years of intense feeling" – shapes our aversion to excess and gives rise to our compulsive quest for composure and control with which to disguise our deep inner shame of being seen as "overreacting":

Nin, it turns out, was right after all – great excess is necessary for great works of art, and what greater an art than that of human relationships?

Phillips captures this necessary too-muchness beautifully: We are too much for ourselves because there is far more to us – we feel more – than we can manage.

Indeed, grief, rather like sexuality, reminds us just how much we are too much for ourselves, how intense our loves and longings really are.

The whole idea of ourselves as excessive exposes how determined we are to have the wrong picture of what we are like, of how fanatically ignorant we are about ourselves."

So, do we want to know ourselves that little better? Explore those excesses? Experience them?  What I read somewhere comes to mind.......It's like driving a car that's capable of being driven on 8 cylinders, on 4. Worth a thought, huh? 

Word of Mouse

Another one from Seth

Word of mouse

Every fast-growing social movement, non-profit and brand of the last decade has grown because people have chosen to talk.

Not sales, coupons, super bowl ads, dancing men or Formula One sponsorships. Each can be a productive tool, but at the heart of real growth is a simple idea:

People decide to tell other people.

I really liked the twist from Word of Mouth to Word of Mouse..Super cute 

Coffee Cup

Beautiful story…..

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor.

Conversation soon turned to careers and family and the stress in work and life. 

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each others cups. 

Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it." 

Don't let the cups drive you... Enjoy the coffee instead.

Kiran, another thanks coming your way. You wondering?? Well this one's from 2010 :)

Differing Relationships

At what point in a relationship does awareness kick in, like to not get caught in the Sunk Cost Fallacy?

This thought came out of a conversation with a friend. She's like..."Do you have a your type of guy? Do you think they exist? I've just broken off from a relationship, and I'm hurting too, cause it was good.....but you know what? He wasn't my type at all."

I have two anecdotes that come to mind:

                                          Kutti and Rani at first meeting :)

Kutti and Rani are two adopted strays that came into our life totally out of the blue. One fine afternoon, Diksha walks in with this scrawny dirty looking puppy whose mother died in an accident on the road, and she couldn't bear to leave the puppy alone. She said, 'just one week, till he can eat on his own, and I promise I'll find an owner ma, please'. So I reluctantly took him in.  End of the week, Diksha was ready to take him away, but I'd gotten too attached and he stayed :)

And then two months later Rani, this cute little kitten came into our lives. This picture above captures their first meeting. In a few days they were best friends. It was wonderful to watch them playing together, so cute and so endearing. In a few months the play started to get rough, and we'd see Rani go hide on the car, then disappear for a couple of days. And then she missed him I guess, so she'd come back, get battered and go into hiding again. This went on for a while.....until I guess she became aware of the sunk cost fallacy, and she disappeared :)

The second one:

A conversation with a friend from Google comes to mind. This friend was dating this girl and after a period realized she was just not his type, her priorities were different, she was possessive, kind of negative in outlook too, and while they had fun together, there were these issues. And one day he's like, "do you think she'll ever change? will we reach a space of peace?" And I'm like...'Sure, I think we all do rub off onto one another and when you're giving so much space and freedom, she will eventually get into more positive space".  And he's like...'sure...rub off eventually huh? by which time I'll be a nice rounded shiny ball" :).

And I think that says it.....it can happen, we can find that balance I guess, but like any difficult goal it's about putting in that much energy and that much effort. And we need to figure out if it's worth the energy and effort.

It's about how positive the journey can be. A relationship cannot be sustained on hope, it's got to be in the here and now. 

Crack the now...... and you'll have it going. 

Don't Let 'Urgent' Hijack The 'Important'

A little thought on these words and you'll see that they go far deeper than what they seem at first instance.

At first go, I find people reacting with...... but it's urgent stuff, it can't be pushed, it's got timelines, needed now. True..... it is urgent right, and by definition cannot be put away.

                                         

It's just that we don't realize how much of that urgent takes away all our time and energy. And that fourth quadrant, the one in red, just stays silent witness.

Think how much of the urgent are actually fires.....how many just life of detail and busyness, but persistent got to dos ?

Many of us are so caught up in that detail,  that we like to think we have no time or energy for other stuff, to think or do what might be important to us. So much so, most often we don't even know what could potentially constitute that important box.

And the irony of it..... very few of the most important things in life are urgent, and that's why it's so easy to either not pay attention, and even if we do, to procrastinate on them, and maybe eventually to even shelve them.

What's important could even be the simplest of things. To visit that museum in your city, That occasional alone walk, To listen to your favorite music, A cup of coffee with a friend. Or the bigger things you've always wanted to do..... To learn how to swim.  To visit Bodhgaya. An effort to write that book you always wanted to.

One factor that tends to this issue is that typically what's important to you may not necessarily be important to others, is likely not, not even to those close to you..... by virtue of  which it more easily gets relegated to second place, second place behind so many firsts....... behind everything else, and thus at times never gets its turn.

Recently I was on a post lunch walk with a (young) friend from office. We chanced across a nursery on the road with these really pretty potted flowering plants in full bloom, and we couldn't help but stand and gaze. I ended up buying some, and she was like ' my mom loves gardening too, but she just doesn't do it, else I'd buy'. I was like..'why doesn't she do it? Space? ' And she's like..'No, my dad's just not encouraging of it'.  Doesn't that sound familiar? A lot of us give up things that matter to us because of this exact same reason. After a point we don't even grudge it, we're happy giving it up, and worse, at times we're justifying it in the guise of sacrifice made for others in the family.

Why do we need that encouragement? Why is our wanting it not a good enough reason?

Then years into life and we see around us only things we need (urgent) to be doing....and we've done well, we've kept our loved ones happy...atleast we think we have. Anyways, the wants have just dropped off along the way, as they weren't urgent, they didn't matter, and they remain as distant memories of what once could have been.

Theoretically we're all aware that it's those important things which define you as an individual.  Let's wake up to them. Find them, and make time for them. You matter you know !!

My favorite solution? Awareness and Checklists. :)

Acceptance Means No Denial

There's no Good or Bad......Everything Happens for a Reason............Wisdom is to know that. True, totally true. But don't deceive yourself into thinking nothings Good or Bad .....for you.

What you feel, you feel...Be aware. What hurts you, hurts you. Be aware of that as well. What you desire, you desire. Be aware of that as well. Don't allow space for Denial. 

Complete Acceptance.....

You'll know if it fits into acceptance or change, and then you'll make peace with it.....with your feeling....with your hurt ..with your desire.....with whatever....and they cease to bother you.

You are then in full flow :)

For the Love of Physics

For the Love of Physics - Walter Lewin's Last Lecture. 

No, you're not expected to know who Walter Lewin is :)

And sure it is Physics.....but it's Physics that anyone would find wonderous, and then, it's also delivered so quirkily that it just adds to the beauty of the experience. An hour long lecture.....but an hour totally well spent I'd say.

Walter Lewin says:

"What counts, I found, is not what you cover but what you uncover. Covering subjects in a class can be a boring exercise, and students feel it. Uncovering the laws of physics and making them see through the equations, on the other hand, demonstrates the process of discovery, with all its newness and excitement, and students love being part of it."

Thanks Kiran, for sending this...physics sure can be fascinating and presented like this, actually wonderous and fun too :)

Sunk Cost Fallacy

This is yet another perspective to not letting an action of the past control your present and your future.

How often have we gone to a movie, realized we didn’t like it in the first half hour and yet sat through the whole movie? Ordered food in a restaurant, didn't like it, yet forced ourselves to finish it? Been in a relationship, known it's not working out, yet dragged it on?  Why do we do that?

It's also called the concorde effect...that's why the picture :)

Typically, the thought process is…I’ve already spent so much time, energy and or money on this, I might as well watch it, eat it , want it, whatever .

Does that make sense? No, it’s actually absurd. You are now spending more time and energy on it......or rather you are now consciously wasting time and energy on it. Creating a negative out of a space you don't need to. 

It’s called the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy is most dangerous when we have invested a lot of time, money, energy or love in something. This investment becomes a reason to carry on. The more we invest, the greater the sunk costs are, and the greater the urge to continue becomes.

This irrational behavior is driven by a native need for consistency. After all, consistency signifies credibility. We find contradictions uncomfortable. If we decide to cancel, for instance, a project, halfway through, we create a contradiction: we admit that we once thought differently.

From personal experience....a question I'm asked the most ...'But weren't you in love with him? Wasn't it all good?'. Yes, I was and Yes it was.....but people evolve, and at times we evolve differently. We all agree its dynamic right?

Anyways, this is something not just individuals, but even teams, organizations and also governments are apparently victim to.

Back to the picture....it's also called the Concorde Effect because that's what happened with creation of the Concorde. Both, Britain and France, had long known that the supersonic aircraft business would never work, yet they continued to invest enormous sums of money in it. Abandoning the project would have been tantamount to admitting defeat, and neither was ready to do that.

It leads to costly, even disastrous errors of judgement. ‘I’ve read so much of this book already.‘But I’ve spent two years doing this course.’ 'I've already paid an years membership to the club'. If you recognize any of these thought patterns, it shows that the sunk cost fallacy is at work in a corner of your brain.

Of course, and needless to say, if there may be good reasons to continue investing in something, by all means do.  Just beware of doing so for the wrong reasons. Rational decision-making requires you to forget about the costs incurred to date. No matter how much you have already invested, only your assessment of the future costs and benefits counts. Think ahead.......... Better still, think from the present :)

Kahlil Gibran - On Children

The Prophet, a Masterpiece.....one that goes as deep as you can see

Life Goes On

A very gentle, very slow and endearingly brought out story of a family's struggle to cope with the sudden and untimely death of the mother, who seems like the thread or pivot that was holding the family together. It's about how they each find themselves again, weaving through varying complexities, and all within the five days from death to the funeral,   and as exemplified by title.......life goes on.




In words of the Debutante Director Sangeeta Datta, it's an effort to capture the complexities underneath the surface gloss.

An Indian family living in England, ....a rigid and patriarchal father, the loving and understanding mother, three daughters; one struggling with a failing marriage, one in a gay relationship, and the youngest, in love with, and pregnant from her (muslim) boyfriend. An Indian movie, in English.

After the death of the mother, the father seems to have no idea how to cope with his independent and wayward ( progressive??? ) children, and there's a best friend who is like an anchor, and an accepted part of family...... who's just always there, like an answer to everyone's problems. So much so, you later know he was also Manju Di's ( Sharmila Tagore's) anchor and lover too, and that the eldest daughter is actually his.

Sharmila is the epitome of grace and beauty, though I wish they'd explored her character some more. We have Girish Karnad as the rigid father, Om Puri as best friend, Soha Ali Khan, Neerja Naik, and Mukulika Banarjee as Dia, Tulu and Lolita.

What it really brings out is how being rigid and full of yourself, can only break and distance in relationships. To nurture, you need to respect and accept. It has the backdrop of Tagore's poetry in music and Kahlil Gibran's thoughts on children from the Prophet.

If you're good with slow, like real real slow, it's a worthy watch.

Can we talk about this?

This is a post from Seth's blog:

Can we talk about this?

Sometimes, words speak louder than actions.

Imagine how surprising and effective it would be if an infant said, "I'm so hungry, I feel like I might start to cry." Instead of guessing what the problem is, instead of finding ourselves emotionally fraught at all the screaming, we could get to the underlying truth of the problem.

Or consider how easy it is to get caught up with a co-worker who's disrespectful or a customer who is so distraught he can't see a way out of his problem. I've been to board meetings where the actions and the emotions were so loud it was difficult to hear what people really wanted to communicate.

It's easy to react, and it feels justified to do so. Tit for tat and "I'm not going to take this." But de-escalation through the power of words helps get to the truth far faster.

Commenting on the emotions that you are seeing is different than reflecting them back. Talking about what's happening defuses the storm that is just waiting to wreck the connection that could be so valuable. 

If the goal is connection, then connect.

The Beauty of Darkness

Be it in real or in metaphor, always being within reach of having everything illuminated or lighting the lamp of knowledge to drive away ignorance, we've moved away from the mystery and beauty of darkness. 

In fact when you think about it, you'll see that most of us might have never experienced complete natural darkness. Sure we might sleep in a dark room, but that's like artificial dark. It's like experiencing  artificial day light ...see what I mean? Pretty absurd, right?

Henry Beston writes about this beautifully in his book The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod . He actually lived an year in a cottage by the sea.

                                         

Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than night. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of the night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of the stars? Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs? Be the answer what it will, to-day's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night.

Beston describes one particularly poetic night, made pitch-black by the embrace of a thick fog,  a night unseen by most of us, and perhaps one even unseeable a century of rabid illumination later. And yet his writing alone transports us to this glorious dominion of darkness, making its magic maybe, just maybe, a little more attainable for us nightless moderns:

"Night is very beautiful on this great beach. It is the true other half of the 

day's tremendous wheel; no lights without meaning stab or trouble it; 

it is beauty, it is fulfillment, it is rest. Thin clouds float in these heavens, 

islands of obscurity in a splendor of space and stars: 

the Milky Way bridges earth and ocean...

It was dark, pitch dark to my eye, yet complete darkness, I imagine, 

is exceedingly rare, perhaps unknown in outer nature. The nearest 

natural approximation to it is probably the gloom of forest 

country buried in the night and cloud. 

When the great earth, abandoning day, rolls up the deeps of the 

heavens and the universe,  a new door opens for the human spirit, 

and there are few so clownish that some awareness of the 

mystery of being does not touch them as they gaze. For a moment 

of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world 

islanded in its stream of stars, pilgrims of mortality, voyaging 

between horizons across eternal seas of space and time. 

Fugitive though the instant be, the spirit of man is, during it, 

ennobled by a genuine moment of emotional dignity, 

and poetry makes its own both the human spirit and experience. ''

It's text and not poetry, but I thought it was pretty enough to be formatted differently :)

Wishful thinking might be, but I'd really like to visit one of those sky without city light kind of places, and maybe lightening by the sea...that's been a longstanding desire. Anybody interested? 

Gross Experience

Got to witness something pretty gross this morning. An actual live cat and mouse game. 

It's not metaphor for nothing. Our cat, Cat 2 ( pronounced cattu ) caught this squirrel early this morning, and I watched the whole episode in fascinated horror for over forty minutes. At first I thought it was a rat, and I guess (mean me) was a little less concerned, but when I realized it was a cute little squirrel, I was horrified. 

I could do nothing but watch. Actually I chose to do nothing, because what was playing out there was nature in its intrinsic form, and I saw no point in interfering, especially to save an already hurt squirrel.

Anyways, what fascinated me was how cattu played this prolonged game with it. He brings it from the garden into the balcony, where he knows even if it escapes he has an upper hand. Then, he's actually letting it run, and then attacking it, at times he throws it in the air and seems to get a thrill of watching it swirl and fall back in fright and run, again he gets it. He prods, he pushes, he nudges, all kinds of things, which seem to put that squirrel into as frenzied and crazed a mode as possible. Downright sadistic.

I was like, why can't he just kill and eat. What's this game all about?  What's the purpose?

That's her after the kill,.......all contended and all

An Aha moment! ......this story came to mind: 

The Japanese love fresh fish. However, the waters close to Japan have not held much fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever.

The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh and the Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. 

So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and put them in the tanks. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. The fish were dull and sluggish. Complacent I guess. :)

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? 

They added a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very 'alive' state. And the Japanese loved their fish again.

And I'm left thinking that the cat is doing something similar to what the fishing companies did.....get its prey into a mode of full awareness.... fearful, blood gushing, heart beating...the makes.

Moral of the story? 

Wondering if that holds true for a lot of things, including us, at a metaphorical level................ high awareness, in the moment, focused, alert......optimum zone kinds?

Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go! Move out of that comfort zone every once in a while if you really want that growth, that change, that zing :)

Availability Bias

The availability bias says this: we create a picture of the world using the examples that most easily come to mind. That we base our decisions on our immediate perception of things, even when hard evidence shows contrasting probability.

This is absurd, of course, because in reality things don’t happen more frequently just because we can conceive of them more easily.

                                  

A lot of decision making, at a personal level, at team levels and apparently even at company levels goes absolutely wrong because of this.

Like if you're making a decision on which car to buy, and data shows a certain car is reliable and stable, but if a friend says he knows somebody who had a bad experience with that car, we'll likely take that particular experience into account.

Doctors often fall victim to the availability bias. They have their favourite treatments, which they use for all possible cases. More appropriate treatments may exist, but these are in the recesses of the doctors’ minds. Consequently they practice what they know. Consultants too. If they come across an entirely new case, they do not throw up their hands and sigh: ‘I really don’t know what to tell you.’ Instead they turn to one of their more familiar methods, whether or not it is ideal.

Thanks to the availability bias, we travel through life with an incorrect risk map in our heads. Thus, we systematically overestimate the risk of being the victim of an accident or a crime, and we underestimate the risk of dying from less spectacular means. Anything silent or invisible we downgrade in our minds.  We think dramatically, not quantitatively.

If something is repeated often enough, it gets stored at the forefront of our minds. It doesn’t even have to be true. 

Fend it off by spending time with people who think differently than you think.... people whose experiences and expertise are different than yours.  It always fits to have that other perspective in to get to better decisions. And also listen. You can decide, but yet...listen  :)

Visit to Udipi

We had our SELCO annual day celebration at Udipi last week. It was a fun trip, full of joie de vivre kinds.... went in 3 buses so lots of nice singing till late at night. The event itself was also nice , with lots of inspiring talks and stories, and we had Shekhar Gupta, of the NDTV Walk the Talk fame as chief guest.

One little thing that stood out was the lighting of the lamp;  the traditional way of starting any function in the country.......it was done with not just the Deepam (oil lamp), but with a Solar lamp as well.......cute that was.

But what I really wanted to write about was the Udipi food......oh my god, it was one of the best ever vegetarian meals I've ever had, correction....best ever meals I've had!

kannadiga oota (meal) on the banana leaf

A lot of popular South Indian cuisine, including the ubiquitous and most popular Masala Dosa typically referred to as Udipi food, has its origin in this little town of Udipi, from where it also gets its name...Udipi food. 

Proper Udipi cooking adheres strictly to the Sattvik tradition of Indian vegetarian cuisine, using no onions or garlic, and is strictly vegetarian.

They use a lot of locally available ingredients, and I guess that gives it a naturally authentic taste. Specialities here were kosambari, jackfruit bajji, colocasia leaves ajadina (dry curry), ridge gourd chutney and the list goes on.

Above all, it made me realize, all over again, how much better the traditional system of serving meals is, as compared to the current day buffet system, with its queues and eating standing and not to speak of the heavy plates one is holding all through.

                                                That's Juhi and Eunice in the forefront and then the rest of us

In fact, those guys who serve seem to know exactly at what pace we eat; each course comes in its due course, and it's like they even know how much you need better than we do.  Satisfaction levels end of the meal? Uncomparable.

If I ever have to organize a personal function,  I'm definitely doing banana leaf meals :)

The Gunas - Sāttvik, Rajasik and Tamasik

A kind of continuation from the varying facets of what constitutes our being, but on a more structured note:

Every quality or aspect of life is broadly divided into three attributes. The Sāttvik, the Rajasik and the Tamasik. The three Gunas of everything

The Sāttvik denoting  peace, purity, knowledge, harmony, positive...

The Rajasik denoting  passion, action, driven, egoistic, dynamic...

The Tamasik denoting imbalance, inertia, negative, ignorance, chaos....

And each of these exists in each one of us....  in fact in every facet of creation. Let's take the elements, for instance:

Sky: Pretty clouds are Sāttvik; thunder and lightning are Rajasik; and a clear sky is Tamasik.

Wind: A mild breeze is Sāttvik, a cyclone is Rajasik, and still weather is Tamasik.

Water: A river in flow is Sāttvik, a waterfall is Rajasik; and a lake is Tamasik.

Fire: Candlelight is Sāttvik; a raging fire is Rajasik, and smouldering fire is Tamasik.

In the Bhagavad Gītā, Krishna says: “There is a predominance of one or the other gunas in things, objects and persons. Our deeds and thoughts always express one guna or the other. Indeed, every object in this manifold universe and even celestial beings are influenced by these gunas.”

 “When sāttva, which is pure and tranquil and has the power to illumine overcomes rajas and tamas the person is endowed with happiness, virtue and knowledge.

“When rajas, which leads the person to action and results in attachment ensuing the vision of multiplicity, overcomes sāttva and tamas, the person is active, finds wealth, fame, but suffers misery.

“When tamas, which is characterized by inertia and casts a veil of ignorance on one’s mind and makes the person lose the power of discrimination, overcomes satva and rajas the person is greedy, lazy and could be stricken with grief and delusion.”

It's the interplay of these gunas that defines the innate nature or personality of individuals. According to the Vedas, no one and nothing in existence is purely sattvik, rajasik or tamasik, it's only in varying proportions and also in varying contexts.

The gunas are not considered as static and set. The Bhagavad Gita, states it to be dynamic and changeable with knowledge, introspection and understanding of sva-dharma. Realizing one's sva-dharma and Self, is emphasized with the highest state of existence being moksha

The unfortunate thing is that it is this concept, which in itself is such a subtle and beautiful concept, that has evolved into the most gross and base system of caste in India.

What was meant to be used to understand an individual's predominant nature, possibly to be used to role fit action to capability and inclination, was for vested reasons distorted into a 'by birth' fixation.

And just by virtue of the fact that it's still a prevalent feature of life in India, I'd say we're all pretty far from getting to even near Sāttvik as a race. Process of evolution I guess. 

Dil Dhadakne Do

We booked tickets before the movie was released. Then yesterday I found that almost all reviews were bad, but anyways went. 

So in the interval, I was like...I'm really liking the movie....why did it get ripped up like that. I think it's got a lot of brilliant moments, with some great acting, nuanced emotions, peppy music....all good stuff. (Okay, the last half hour might have been a little stretched, but let's overlook that ) . 

The movies about a rich, high society,  strongly patriarchal, punjabi family; through its two unhappy marriages, as in.....the parents and the daughter's as well,,..... murky business deals,  high society image  and the conflicts and struggles that ensue when these foundations get questioned. 

The entire movie is aboard a ten day cruise, and at sea was wonderful symbolism of fluidity in emotions through the many lives that criss cross..... people bonding, people breaking up........  there's lots of lies, rivalries, fun, love, courage, unrequited desires, gossip....lots of everything. 

Ranveer Singh was simply brilliant.....he doesn't seem to need words, he can be sitting in the background of a discussion and yet communicate brilliantly. Priyanka Chopra was good, Anushka Sharma had a nice peppy role.....actually it had an ensemble of good actors...shefali chaya, an old favourite, again brilliant acting, Anil Kapoor literally lived his role of self obsessed patriarch,  and that list almost goes on.

Some of the moments that stayed:

Priyanka Chopra trying to explain to her family why she wants a divorce. She's like 'main pyaar nahi karti unse, hum bohuth alag hai'....and her mom in law is like...'magar problem kya hai'...It was hilarious. 

And when her mom is like..'shaadi metho problems aayenge hi, manage karna padtha hai'........and Priyanka is like 'Horse race hai kya, ki shuru kiya tho raceline tak jaani hi padegaa? '

The brother sister relationship between Priyanka Chopra and Ranveer Singh was another beautifully brought out equation. They're not sticky or overly protective or anything, but the kind of trust and love was a solid plus. 

And the clear perspective difference between the younger generation and the older was so well brought out. All patterned value systems getting questioned. There was zero exaggeration there, even to the extent of how easily the gen x moves into the space of a physical relationship. Like when Anushka says, we got attracted, and we were having fun, why did you bring in emotions and love into it?  There's a clear shift there, the emotional equations are the serious ones and come in later. Will be good for parents to listen to all of that, acceptable or not, it's happening :)

A blending

What we have

What we seek

Boundless by space

Unfettered by time

Aint it more complete

What matters is whats there

There as in everywhere

The body, the mind and the soul

See it in within

The leaves, the flowers, the trees

The clouds, the stars, the seas

So also in without

Breathing in a positive

No detail..No control

No connect to a negative

Presence from within

Presence from without

Blending to empower

Everywhere and everytime

Tis reason to

Keep smiling

A Medley from Shillong

Nice stuff.....so clean and honest,,,..touched a chord somewhere

Tibetan Prayer Flags

The super colourful prayer flags of Bylakuppe have just stayed in mind, and it set off this train of thought............. that life is lived in the spectrum of colour and not in the black or white, and definitely not in the shades of gray (And no....I'm not talking E L James here :) )

It's all about what's in the happening zone......the spectrum

Doesn't just looking at pretty colours give out that momentary positive vibe? That's the primary basis for the Tibetan flags apparently. Letting the positive energy from the colours and the Buddhist mantras written on the flags flow gently with the winds, to impact all those who pass through. Sweet huh?

A random flow of thought from there:

Us, our nature, our personality, our attributes....... they're a spectrum, with all the myriad shades and combinations possible, and that's what makes people so fascinating. Every attribute and facet exists in shades and layers...... some more, some less......some core, some peripheral.......some rigid, some malleable.

And we need to wade through this maze if we want to empower ourselves through awareness....... of the self, of the other ........to figure out what works, what doesn't....... what's worth aspiring to and what's for dumping.

To use anecdote; when I was talking to a friend about somebody being manipulative or negative, this friend was like..... 'you really have no right to talk about someone like that, do you think you have no element of manipulative or negative in you'. It kind of stumped me for a bit. It's technically correct....everything exists in everyone. The Yin and Yang. Sure, that's an undeniable fact.

But it's not black and white.....it's a spectrum !!!!

And there's all kinds of things and all kinds of people out there, so an opinion fits. 

Not to judge; lets leave that to God. No right or wrong....no good or bad......but to know what energizes one vs what saps one......what's acceptable to one vs what's not....

It enables an effort towards an optimum positive zone

Like in the 'What Brings You Pleasure'.....you know what gives you pleasure and what doesn't......so also what works for you and what doesn't. Use the awareness to open out the consciousness to more joy and more positive :)

Anshu Gupta - Goonj

Goonj : Bridging urban India's underutilised resources and rural India's unaddressed needs

Anshu Gupta, who founded Goonj, was in office yesterday as a first in a speaker series that we've begun at SELCO. He is one very intense and passionate individual, who asks and inspires people to ask, very fundamental questions of life in India today: why people don't raise their voice against so much that's wrong with our system, be it bad roads, corrupt government, safety for girls and above all poverty.

His focus is clothes. He says we talk of Roti, Kapda aur Makaan, (food, clothing and shelter) and while there are organizations and schemes and policies on food and shelter, clothing never gets a mention anywhere, it's not even considered an issue. He says, "Clothing does not even figure in the list of development subjects that encompasses 100-150 issues from domestic violence to global warming."

His defining moment came when, as a journalist, he met Habib a rickshaw puller in Delhi whose job it was to collect unclaimed dead bodies, and hand them over to the police, for which he'd get paid Rs.20 per body..that's back in 1999. And he found that even that job was seasonal, as winter in Delhi claimed a lot of lives. And when he met Habib's daughter she said 'jab tand lagthi hai tho laash ko pakadke so jaathi hoon' (when I get very cold I hold a dead body and sleep).

That moment haunted him for a long time....and thus started his mission of collecting unused clothes from well-to-do urban households, and distributing them among the poor. 

Today Goonj works across 21 states with 10 offices, 150 full-time people and thousands of volunteers and deals with 80-100 tonnes of material each month. Anshu believes that one can't change the nation merely by changing infrastructure. "It will change if people change. That's my career. I want to work as an informal incubator, as a person who just tells people - karke dekho...lage raho!"

He talks of the story of why Gandhiji shifted to wearing only a dhoti, of how there were these two sisters, one of who visited Gandhiji and when asked why her sister had not come she said it's because they had only one saree between them.

Anshu said he sees a lot of such cases, where women have only one saree and the reason they don't bathe everyday is because they do not have clothes. He says the extent of poverty in such places is something we do not even know about. He has many gut wrenching stories there.

The mechanism followed: the clothes they collect are not given as charity, it works on a sort of barter system, where the villagers are given the task of working on some infrastructure for their own community.... like a well, or bridge, or road and the clothes are given in return for the work. And he has a team which then follows up with the government for completion of the project under NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). 

One moment of pride: One Eid night years ago in Delhi, at one of Goonj's night distribution centres, a man walking on crutches who got a secondhand overcoat jubilantly cried - 'Ab hui hai meri Eid!' That was Anshu's biggest moment.

What Brings You Pleasure

This is an article by Charie Carter Scott, which captures a seemingly obvious and simple thought, but I think it's still interesting perspective, and one which most of us don't pay enough attention to;

Pleasure is the physical manifestation of joy. Your body teaches you pleasure through your five senses. When you indulge in any spontaneous behaviour or physical sensation that unlocks the joy stored within you, you create space in your consciousness for pleasure.

Your body can be one of the greatest sources of pleasure when you open your five senses fully and experience the physical wonder of being alive. Pleasure can come in the form of sight, like when you see a magnificent sunset, or taste, like when you eat a favourite food. It can come as a glorious musical sound or the soft touch of a lover. The secret to learning the lesson of pleasure is to make time and space for it in your life.

How much pleasure will you allow yourself? Many people have an invisible quota in their minds for the amount of joy they will permit themselves to experience. They become so busy living life that they view pleasure as a luxury they simply do not have time for. Things like lovemaking or playing take a backseat to the everyday motions of living.

However, your life simply will not work as well when you deny yourself pleasure.....pleasure is like the oil that keeps the machine of your life running smoothly. Without it, the gears stick and you will most likely break down......

There are a lot of successful people, who take their roles so seriously, be it at work, or in the family that they do not have the 'time to waste on fun'. And you'll find often enough a deep dissatisfaction underlying their life on a daily scale.

Figure out what brings you pleasure, and do it. Do it, and do it often, for it will give lightness to your heart and do wonders for your soul.

Calvin and Hobbes Again

I happened upon a Calvin and Hobbes book yesterday, and it for sure made for some nice laughs. Looks like I've picked the ones on parenting....was not intended. I just picked the ones that made me laugh aloud :)

During our Coorg trip we saw this incident, pretty common place one.....by the road....this little girl is yanked by the mother and given a tight whack. Her fault? Her mothers perception that she was going to run onto the road. And Diksha's like...poor kid, I wonder if she even knows why she's being whacked.

Mind patterns are the most pronounced in parenting. And worse, it gets camouflaged in doing good for the child. The parent always knows better kinds. 

And how? This over arching need to help them get better....stay healthy... learn discipline... and so on. In real, the child seems to be the last thing we're thinking about. What happens to talking and explaining and appreciating and rationalizing? 

In fact, these two lines from the Somerset Maugham I read the other day come to mind ....Maugham is being introduced to two little children aged 9 and 7 of the female protagonist. And his observation...'they were the cutest little kids, they said just the right thing,  did just the right thing.....so well behaved'.......she's apparently bringing them up to be non thinking individuals'

Calvin and Hobbes says it even better :)

Why is it difficult to see that they have a mind of their own, and each time we say 'no' , which if you'll observe is way way too often, we are actually obstructing a natural flow....a beautiful flow of another life......

But Do You Want To Get Better?

From:Seth

But do you want to get better?

It seems like a stupid question. Of course we want our work and our life and our health to improve.

But often, we don't.

Better means change and change means risk and risk means fear.

And so the patient gets the prescription but doesn't actually take all the meds.

There are countless ways to listen, to engage, to learn and to improve, but before you waste time on any of them, first the question must be answered, "do we want to get better?"

Really? We can tell.

More from Coorg -Talakaveri

Talakaveri is the origin of the river Cauvery,  an underground spring where the mighty river originates.   It is said to flow underground for some distance before it flows externally as the Cauvery. Apparently in October each year, at a pre determined moment the river gushes out of the tank to directly flow into the Cauvery and thousands of pilgrims gather to witness the rise of this fountainhead. 

A dip in the tank is said to wash off all your sins. And Diksha's like.....it's okay, I'll live with my sins, and I'm like....I don't think I've made any....and we're like....okay, we certainly don't seem to want to get into the tank :)

 Thats the actual place of the spring

It's kind of overwhelming because of the depth of it's significance; after all it's not often you get to see the birth of a river.

It's a really picturesque place nestled in the hills, with a lot of cloud cover and it was nice to see that the temple itself is just this small little dome to the spring within, with a lamp that's always lit....like no other idols and religious largesse to dilute it.

The Cauvery  -   Courtesy: Google

There was a steep climb on Brahmagiri hill behind the temple which offers breathtaking views of the surrounding mountain ranges of Coorg. Pretty huh? 

                        

  The peak of Brahmagiri Hill

Talacauvery is about 70 kms from where we stayed, and took us over two hours to get to as it's all through these narrow winding roads of coffee estates and ghats, with some parts being downright treacherous....... but that's when we realized that Coorg is to be experienced mostly on it's roads :)