Delivery 'boy' - Ms Sreekumari

It was wonderful to come across this write up.

She's one of the first women to ride into the male-dominated world of e-commerce delivery agents. T E Narasimhan meets Sreekumari.

Here's an excerpt:

"Sreekumari, a 42-year-old mother of two, reaches her office at Thiruvananthapuram at 8 every morning. After sorting the packets that are waiting for her, she loads the lot into a large backpack, which she then hoists on her shoulders and heads to her Honda Activa scooter, determined to hit the road.

The red bindi on her forehead and the vermilion in the parting of her hair peek out of the helmet firmly placed on her head.

Sreekumari is ready for the day.

A resident of Chempazhanthy, a suburb of Thiruvananthapuram, Sreekumari is one of the first women to ride into the male-dominated world of e-commerce delivery agents -- or 'delivery associates' as they are called at Amazon. 

Until recently, she contributed to her family income by working as a tailor from home. In January, her sister who works at the residence of Divya Syam, Amazon's service partner in the region, told her that the e-commerce company was looking to employ, for the first time in India, women as delivery agents.

To qualify for the job, all she needed was good communication skills, basic knowledge of English and a scooter.

Sreekumari jumped at the opportunity.

She says it did not scare her that she had never stepped out of home to do a job until now. After a two-day training, which included traffic rules, personal security and operating mobile applications, she says she was ready.

She now delivers around 40 packages a day riding on her two-wheeler within a 3-km radius of her office. Many of the deliveries are to Technopark, the city's information technology hub.

For every package delivered, the service partner earns a fee of Rs 30. Sreekumari and the others are not willing to reveal how much they earn in a month, but say it is more than what they have ever made.

Encouraged by her success, two women known to her have also joined the company as delivery associates. There are currently seven women, including Sreekumari, who work as delivery associates. Seeing them, she says, more women have started enquiring about the job and what it entails.

The Kerala initiative is Amazon's first-of its-kind delivery station. Recently, another one opened in Chennai. From management to product delivery, women run the show.

Samuel Thomas, director (transportation), Amazon India, says the company decided to launch the pilot projects in Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai based on the interest women here showed in joining the workforce.

Sreekumari, meanwhile, wraps up the deliveries by 3 pm and then heads home, back to her sewing machine."

Great Going Amazon !!

Choice - Look beyond the Framework

CHOICE - One of the choicest of words :)

When we choose, when we make a choice....it's that sweet sweet experience of freedom. At whatever level, whether to eat chocolate ice cream or vanilla, to wear pink or purple, to work at this company or that, to work or to not, to live in this city or that.....each is an expression of your own self.

What we, however, need to be aware is of is, how much we might be letting the framework limit our choices.

When we choose, we typically choose within our field of vision, within the given paradigm, within the existing framework. What happens when we question the framework.... push that boundary.....stretch that comfort zone. 

That's when it helps to be aware that the framework is built mostly on stuff like conditioning, pattern, expectations, habit, and an underlying fear of breaking through those.

There are times and situations where tweaks don't help, they need paradigm shifts, but the moment we think of that huge step.....want to stretch the boundary, there's a torrent of questions, constraints and fears that hit us. And they almost form a wall.

Awareness helps acknowledge and articulate all those .......see all the reasons for or against....know the significant ones from the not so significant ones. There's a clear hierarchy of importance there.

It's about being able to parse through all those to reach that one deep reason, the ability and courage to dig through those questions and constraints to the real 'why' of it, and that's the space of clarity. That's where facing consequences of a choice becomes a lark.  As written by Sadhguru, it's the space of real judgement 'There's a consequence to each decision, as also to each non decision. Are you ready to face the consequence?'

Let's do this through an example: In Google, I've seen folks not happy with the kind of work they're doing, but looking at solutions only within Google. And what influences the decision? The allure and comfort of Google, the perks, the branding, the freebies, the travel, the food....it's a tough list to resist :). It's so difficult to see beyond that. The peripherals have clouded the important.

And this list, in a more subtle form, exists for any new move you want to take, especially if it's pushing the boundaries.

Choice is to parse through the layers of peripheral and get to the core. While on the one end it gets you to where you really want to be....on the other, it gives you the strength to handle even the most difficult of situations.

Clarity.......make your choice......and that's when you can live wholeheartedly, give wholeheartedly, a hundred percent in whatever you do.....enjoy the chocolate ice cream, and not fret over the vanilla..... or find a vanilla chocochip......whatever....but by choice :)

Don't Let It Go

Talk of perspectives......I'm listening to 'Let it Go, from Frozen', and I see this inbox pop up notification titled  'Don't Let it Go' .

The title and timing had me totally piqued. I paused to go see.... it was a write up from Sadhguru of Isha Foundation; I've listened to some of his talks and find him really good, so I read.......and here's an excerpt.

     

Sadhguru on handling difficult situations in life. 'So, If you want to evaluate, what is needed is involvement, not letting go. When you are deeply involved with the situation, and know everything about it, you can make a judgement'

Every problem is a problem only because you call it so. In life, there are no problems – there are only situations. Everything is a situation. If you call it a “problem” it becomes a problem. If you call it “wonderful” it becomes wonderful.

It is just a situation – whether it becomes a problem or otherwise is just the way you approach it. No situation is airtight because every situation is evolving. If you don’t want to be in a situation, you want to be somewhere else, then closely observe the situation and you will see where the doorways are. If you just want a breath of fresh air, you can open a window and make it a little relaxing. If you want to get out, you can open the door and walk out, that is your choice. If you stay, there is a consequence and if you leave, there is a consequence. Are you ready to face the consequence?

Once you have decided, there is no right and wrong. 

There is no such thing as a 'good life'. But if you put yourself wholeheartedly into something, it is a great life. If you really throw yourself into something, however simple, it may be great in your experience. 

Life is a continuum of situations, if you are on a growth trajectory, you will be constantly facing situations that you may not know how to handle. These situations may be challenging, but they are not a problem. A true problem would be that there are no new situations in one’s life, which means life is in stagnation mode. If you want to continuously be in a process of dynamic growth, you will constantly be in new situations that you may not necessarily know how to handle. If you are facing many of these so called problems, you’re living a life of great possibility. So, if you want to evaluate, what is needed is involvement, not letting go. 

Let It Go

Here's 'Let it go' from 'Frozen'. I loved the energy of the song.

Enjoy it......putting it here helps me watch it many many times too:)

Credits:
Sung by Idina Menzel
Music and Lyrics: Robert Lopez, Kristen Anderson-Lopez

While Waiting For Perfect

One from Seth 

While Waiting for Perfect,

You've permitted magical to walk on by. Not to mention good enough, amazing and wonderful.

Waiting for the thing that cannot be improved (and cannot be criticized) keeps us from beginning.

Merely begin.

Frozen

I kind of just figured that Diksha uses movies as a pacifier on me. If she finds me upset, I'll normally hear 'ma, want to watch a movie together?' And she knows the kind I can't resist :)  

In that context, we watched 'Frozen' yesterday. A lovely movie. Visually and Conceptually. And the music score too....especially this one song ...'Let it go'. It's so beautifully visualized too.

It's based off a Scandinavian fairy tale, and there's not one, but two princesses. Two little girls who are playmates and inseparable friends. Elsa has special powers, the power to turn anything into ice and snow at her fingertips. She unleashes her power at will, and even involuntarily in moments of extreme emotion, and one day Elsa accidentally zaps her sister Anna. Their parents, in all their wisdom, separate the sisters, and more....they keep Elsa in total isolation. 

Time passes, and at eighteen Elsa is ready to take on the throne. The powerful, yet reserved and reluctant Elsa appears with gloved hands, determined not to freeze anything and reveal her true self on coronation day. But a run-in with an amorous, visiting prince who has his sights on Anna triggers Elsa's anger, and she inadvertently plunges the sunny, idyllic kingdom into perpetual winter.

Flustered and fearful, Elsa dashes away in a fit of self-imposed exile. It's on her way to the highest mountain she can find, that Elsa belts out the powerful ballad "Let It Go," a soaring declaration of freedom and independence, and through it transforms from a prim princess to an ice queen. 

The story then settles in on Anna's efforts to find and bring back her sister and restore order to the kingdom. She's accompanied by an ice salesman ( guy with the good heart) and his pet reindeer, and along the way comes Olaf a snowman who dreams of basking in the warmth of the summer sun. 

While the journey has all the action and funny sequences, the destination had a surprise........ yet another wonderful message from Disney. It's the fairy tale kiss of love that can bring back the princess Anna, and you're waiting with bated breath, and the proverbial kiss of love that brings her back is....not from her prince.....but from her sister, Elsa. Wonderful wonderful stuff !!

An omg picture

 


Tulips in Amsterdam.

After coming across this one, I went and searched for more :)







Breathtaking huh !!

Five Generations

That's for sure a precious picture. Back then, I didn't realize how precious...... it's the only picture that exists of all five of us.

Today is my ammamma's birthday. Every single birthday of her's till I can remember, we visited her with a birthday cake, and she never lost the enthusiasm of blowing the candles. On the eighty fifth I think, I even tried putting in as many candles.

This is a tribute to her spirit...... and more fundamentally, to her value of Independence. I now know where the gene came from, and I'm most most grateful.

A couple of things which come to mind at a flash:

She lived alone all her life, literally....seventy years of it. She lost her husband when she was still expecting my mother, and she was nineteen. Life became difficult. She was sent back from her in laws house to her fathers. Like she said, 'if I hadn't started working, I would have spent all my life making chapathis'. Her job gave her the first taste of independence, and there was no looking back.

Even when she was eighty, and we asked if she'd come and stay with us, she'd say with a smile 'sweet of you to ask..but I don't want to be even witness to domestic squabbles, I'm happy by myself'. A standing joke in the family was...she lived long and healthy ( not a single day in hospital) because she lived single :)

That's the deepest inspiration she gave me.

When I lived in Bangalore on my IDBI stint, she visited me with two of her friends. When I picked them up at the station, I still remember thinking that their suitcases looked like antiques :). Holidaying with friends at eighty!

Surely another inspiration.

One more anecdote that deserves mention.

A few months, or maybe years, before she died, she wrote a note..... a note with instructions on how she wanted her funeral done. Apparently, she kept telling my mom about it, and my mom was like, 'you've told me so many times, but no ones going to listen to me. If you really want it like that, write it', and that's how the note came about on a small scrap of paper. And after she died, we realized how much clarity and farsightedness her thinking had. Sure enough, there were elders in the family who brushed aside what my mother said, and wanted to do what tradition enforced. That's when my mother remembered the note, dug it out, and it's with that note that we were able to stand up to any opposition, and carry out funeral rites in accordance with what she wanted.

Even in her death she had her way.

Love you and miss you ammamma. But above even that, a deep thank you for all the teachings and inspirations. You taught and inspired by just being you. 

Personal Values - A Corollary

Recognition of your personal values, building up of self awareness, and the resultant clarity, can seduce you into a space of such quiet, calm, comfort, and such other good things, that when it gets disturbed, it can be surprising in an alarming sort of way.

You'll find yourself thinking....'I thought I had it all sorted out, so what the hell just happened'.

And that's when it helps to know that, as with anything...it's not a constant.

Life has a way of throwing those curved balls at you every once in a while, and that's when you need to know...

It's about how quickly you can get back to your 'clarified' zone....and how 'not' easily you get moved away from it.

'Practice makes perfect' fits here as well. Once the process begins, maybe slowly at first, and then with amazing rapidity......it becomes second nature to you. Yet, be prepared for those curved balls....don't let them throw you off the path. Treat them as lessons, and let them help you up your threshold that one notch further.

And lo and behold ( allow me the dramatic, because it is just that), you're actually in even better space through the experience.

Good luck with the journey...and don't forget to enjoy it......it's as fascinating as any road trip is :)

Values - Understanding Your Own

Let's take a 'What', 'Why' and 'How' approach to this topic.

What are Values?

Values are personal beliefs, principles or ideas that are important to you in your life. Values are what you believe in....... and are willing to support and stand up for.

They (should) determine your priorities, and, deep down, they're probably the measures you use to tell if your life is being lived the way you want it to.

Values exist....Values exist at an individual level, whether or not you recognize them.

Why it helps to Know your Values?

Values act as our compass to keep us in the direction we want to be moving in. When the things that you do and the way you behave match your values, you're likely to be satisfied and content. But when these don't align with your personal values, that's when things 'feel'.... wrong and this can be a source of disquiet or unhappiness.

Recognizing them, articulating them, knowing them....helps your decision making stay in alignment with your values.  

And this makes sense because many facets in life exist on a continuum. There are some discrete entities like being married or not married....... but your work, avocation, health, financial status, relationship intimacy, and level of happiness are generally continuous, meaning that they can gradually get better or worse.

More specifically, there's two reasons why identifying and prioritizing our own values becomes important. One, that time is finite, and it surely fits to optimize on the time we have. Second, we as human beings tend to be fairly inconsistent in how we invest our time and energy and also tend to get easily distracted by different priorities each day.

There's also times you'll find values within yourself clash. And that's when you need to know which one is more important to you. It's the core of how we want to define or live our life. A choice of value, especially against a clashing value means we are accepting the consequence that comes with the decision. In fact this enables us to accept the ensuing difficulty with that much more ease.

So, take the time to understand the real priorities in your life, and you'll be able to determine the best direction and space for yourself.

How to Identify and Prioritize your top values?

This step is probably the most difficult, because it'll mean an honest look within. But then, it's also the most important, because, when making a decision, you'll have to choose between solutions that may satisfy different values. This is when you must know which value is more important to you.

Feelings are a gauge meter. When things are going well, you're fine. But when there's a disquiet or discomfort, you need to let it talk. Need to stay with the feeling, step back, slow down. A normal pattern is to shut it down, cover it up and move on. That works short term....but for long term...it's best to listen.

By prioritizing your values consciously, you'll be able to rely on them when you need to make the so many decisions that we make as we go along, the big ones and the little ones.

Here's an indicative list of values you could prioritize. Each of us will know which of these matters to us, and how much... and feel free to add your own: 

1	Recognition	To be acknowledged
2	Duty	To dedicate myself to what I call responsibility
3	Expertness	To gain expertise in a skill/be an authority
4	Independence	To have freedom of thought and content
5	Joy	To enjoy life
6	Power	To have authority and control over others
7	Leadership	To become influential and to lead others
8	Affection	To obtain and share companionship
9	Parenthood	To have heirs and raise a fine family
10	Acceptance	To be received with approval
11	Expressiveness	To have an open mind and be expressive
12	Wealth	To earn or have a great deal of money
13	Health	To ensure fitness and physical well being
14	Compassion	To contribute to the well being of others
15	Self Realization	To optimize personal development
16	Security	To have a secure and stable position
17	Prestige	To become well known and to have status
18	Career	To attain work goals
19	Intimacy	To be close to others
20	Stability	To have the ability or strength to withstand change

It's an incredibly useful concept in understanding oneself, and well worth the time and energy spent on it.

In terms of outcome, I'd say it's a tool that enables 'feelings, thoughts and actions aligned' which imho, is heaven :)

The Drongo - Sentinels & Tricksters

The bird mood continues....

My first introduction to the Drongo was during a road trip to Bidar, the first road trip that Diksha and I did by ourselves. Luckily for us the resort manager was a big time bird buff, and as the resort was totally vacant, but for us, he suggested a bird watching trek... and we jumped at it. We identified over forty birds, and it was a wonderful experience.

While I continued my interest through the little birds that visit my garden, Diksha took it to another level. She joined the bird watching club in college, and did several bird watching forays on weekends. Last week she attended a seminar on the Drongo, and what she told me was so fascinating, that I had to put it in here.

A Drongo, this little bird up here, can mimic the calls of 52 different species...... and what's more, individual drongos can remember as many as 32 calls.

Drongos often alert other animals to the presence of predators by mimicing their alarm calls, of not just birds but also little mammals. For instance in the kalahari desert of Africa, they are seen to mimic the meerkats to warn them of approaching predators.

But then, they also use the same trick to get themselves a quick meal. Even when there is no approaching predator, when they see the meerkat with some nice wriggly geckos, they use false alarms to scare the meerkat into dropping the food and scurrying away, when they swoop down for the gecko themselves.

Drongos get as much as 23 percent of their daily food using this type of trickery, according to a study published this week in Science.

In the study, the researchers found that by switching up their calls, the drongos were able to keep fooling duped targets. If they kept using the same call, the other animals would soon learn better, perhaps viewing the drongos as the "boy who cried wolf." But drongos are clever enough to know this, so they learn to sing in many languages, as it were.

Overall, says Con Slobodchikoff, an animal behaviorist and emeritus professor at Northern Arizona University, the study adds to the 'mounting evidence that animals have a lot more linguistic and cognitive capabilities than they're usually given credit for.'

The Eagle Who Thought He Was A Chicken

“You never know when one kind act or word of encouragement can change a life forever.” -Zig Ziglar

 

1 -The Eagle Who Thought He Was a Chicken:

A baby eagle became orphaned when something happened to his parents. He glided down to the ground from his nest but was not yet able to fly. A man picked him up. The man took him to a farmer and said, “This is a special kind of barnyard chicken that will grow up big.” The farmer said, “Don’t look like no barnyard chicken to me.” “Oh yes, it is. You will be glad to own it.” The farmer took the baby eagle and placed it with his chickens.

The baby eagle learned to imitate the chickens. He could scratch the ground for grubs and worms too. He grew up thinking he was a chicken.

Then one day an eagle flew over the barnyard. The eagle looked up and wondered, “What kind of animal is that? How graceful, powerful, and free it is.” Then he asked another chicken, “What is that?” The chicken replied, “Oh, that is an eagle. But don’t worry yourself about that. You will never be able to fly like that.”

And the eagle went back to scratching the ground. He continued to behave like the chicken he thought he was. 

—————————————————————-

2 – The Eagle who thought he was a Chicken:

A fable is told about an eagle who thought he was a chicken. When the eagle was very small, he fell from the safety of his nest. A chicken farmer found the eagle, brought him to the farm, and raised him in a chicken coop among his many chickens. The eagle grew up doing what chickens do, living like a chicken, and believing he was a chicken.

A naturalist came to the chicken farm to see if what he had heard about an eagle acting like a chicken was really true. He knew that an eagle is king of the sky. He was surprised to see the eagle strutting around the chicken coop, pecking at the ground, and acting very much like a chicken. The farmer explained to the naturalist that this bird was no longer an eagle. He was now a chicken because he had been trained to be a chicken and he believed that he was a chicken.

The naturalist knew there was more to this great bird than his actions showed as he “pretended” to be a chicken.  The man lifted the eagle onto the fence surrounding the chicken coop and tried to make him fly. The eagle moved slightly, only to look at the man; then he glanced down at his home among the chickens in the chicken coop where he was comfortable. He jumped off the fence and continued doing what chickens do. The farmer was satisfied. “I told you it was a chicken,” he said.

The naturalist returned the next day and took the eagle to the top of the farmhouse and tried again but the eagle jumped from the man’s arm onto the roof of the farmhouse.

The naturalist returned again the next morning and took the eagle and the farmer some distance away to the foot of a high mountain. They could not see the farm nor the chicken coop from this new setting. The man held the eagle on his arm and pointed high into the sky where the bright sun was beckoning. This time the eagle stared skyward into the bright sun, straightened his large body, stretched his massive wings, slowly at first, then surely and powerfully. With the mighty screech of an eagle, he flew.

–(In Walk Tall, You’re A Daughter Of God, by Jamie Glenn)

'Try Everything' - Shakira

Looks like Zootopia is still on mind, and yes, 'try everything' definitely hasn't weared off yet.

I opened the video yesterday, and so enjoyed not just the song. but the train ride that Bunny Hops takes to his precinct in Zootopia, that I ended up watching it multiple times.

Zootopia

Yet another winner from Disney...and above the usual wows, like spectacular animation, gripping story, amazing voice, and others....there's the deep and wonderful message......that of 'peaceful co-existence'. 

It's an animal world that has evolved, they're all walking on two legs.....and it's utopic,  an ideal world of harmony........ harmony even between predator and prey. As said by, hmmm....the bison, I think, 'no more the need to maul and maim and hurt...just live together in love and work on higher things in life' or something to that effect.

And what's wonderful is how Zootopia takes care of it's diversity, the needs of all the different kinds of animals...there's misty rainforest, the frozen tundra town, the sahara square...all needs met.

In terms of story, it's a cop solve mystery drama, with multiple layers and nuances, of which we won't go into too much as we don't want spoilers, but let's just say it's twisted enough to be story for any detective crime movie. 

Bunny Hops is a small town rabbit with big dreams of being a police officer in the beautiful city of Zootopia, and much against the wishes of her parents enrols for training at the police academy, and through immense determination and crazy hard work graduates at the top of her class. She then has to face not just the hurdles of a tough world but also the skepticism that comes with size and gender, as the police chief is used to police officers being the tough and large predators.

Diversity is not always pretty and not always peaceful...but the breaking down of stereotypes is around every corner, like when Hops warns a colleague 'Only a bunny can call another bunny ‘cute'. 

I really loved the situations that bring out what it takes to see the other perspective, and how at times it happens only through experience and not theory. 

One, where Hops, based on preliminary evidence announces that it's the predators that are turning bad, and it's only when she sees how hr partner the fox feels, does she realize what a grave mistake she'd made. It takes that one exception to break through the bias. 

Another where Bunny Hops has to go through the little town of rodent town to understand what it feels like to be a giant.

The sloths who run the office are a treat to watch....and more fascinating was Hops expressions when dealing with the sloth. I can laugh aloud just on memory recall.

I can't end without mention of 'try everything' by Shakira, a song that can really make you want to go out there and do it.......and it's just still humming in the head.

Zootopia doesn’t push, and it doesn’t preach. It just creates this beautiful possibility....and coming as it does from Disney it has the potential to really reach far and wide.

Surely watch ! 

Ariel | Share the Load

Simply brilliant !

Vishakha started this morning's call talking of this advertisement, and she was so taken in by it that I actually got it scene by scene and word by word.  And what I heard went way beyond words, it had touched a deep cord.......she knew they had caught the essence....it was all just there in her voice. 

We've had a lot of discussions on gender bias, at work, at home..........also specifically on how house work being a woman's responsibility is so much a part of conditioning.  Even with husbands who are understanding and nice, what one gets at best, is an offer to help. 

Guys, (dear men) we know you are nice, and that you care, and also that you intend well, but please understand....while the support and help is appreciated, what one needs is more.

What's needed is for it to reach a space where the wife can also turn back and ask, 'where's my green blouse? I put it for wash three days back'. That would be equality.

Shift the base........Take ownership and Share the responsibility.  

And for the Ad .....Huge Kudos P&G !!!!! 

Vidyarthi Bhavan

Well, well....who'd have thought I'd wait an hour and a half for a dosa.....but that's what this Sunday morning was about; breakfast at Vidyarthi Bhavan.

Vidyarthi Bhavan was a hangout of my dad's during his college days, the days of dosa for one rupee, and a one by two coffee.....and we're talking sixty years back (it's been around since 1943), and what's amazing is that it's like time has stood still at VB. Nothing's changed, not the board, the tables, the walls..all from time bygones. It's like my dad said, the dosas taste of nostalgia and college days. 

Nobody warned me.....nobody said, it's a sort of food heritage spot and popular with South Bangaloreans as a Sunday morning outing, so I went totally unprepared. And because I live close, Amit's like 'smitha akka, you go early and book the table no, the market around is really interesting and you won't get bored, I promise'

And when I went, what I saw was this:

After the initial shock, Diksha and I decided we'd give it a shot, so book the table we did, and then set out to explore the market around.  

Apparently it's a super popular place and the crowd was crazy, they have an old fashioned number system, which by the way, works rather efficiently. There's this elderly man standing at the entrance, full dhothi and vibudhi, and with a book and pen, and he writes down your name and gives you a number and that number gets screamed out when it's your turn ( which doesn't come for an hour atleast ). And it's pretty parochial I should say....someone in between gave their details in English and that old man says, 'Kannada dali maatadi' and it was so interesting to see the crowd break into a spontaneous round of applause. And then you know how they love their kannada :)

The dosas are an absolute delight, thick and crisp and golden brown, and it's so amazing to see how they carry the doses, fifteen plates on one arm. In a city that's well reputed for it's dosas, this place is known to serve the best, and it didn't disappoint. 

It's also a known cultural hub for writers, artists, actors, and the like...... with intense discussions over doses and coffees, and it's supposedly the spot where a lot of creative ideas in Bangalore were born.

The market around was, as promised, fascinating. The varieties of flowers, the garlands ( some of which were a mind boggling three thousand rupees a pair), the fruits...all full time pass,  and Diksha and I were quite happy exploring around for a good half hour.

There's also a really endearing story attached: 

Murthy, who was a waiter with Vidyarthi Bhavan for nearly 40 years, loved to draw, and when the hotel closed in the afternoon, he would practise with a chalk on the wooden benches. The proprietor had clearly told him that it had to be cleaned before customers came in. One day, he forgot to do this, and it was noticed by Aa. Na. Subbarao, the brilliant artist who ran Kalamandira – he was a regular at the hotel. “He was very impressed with my work. He asked me to come to his art school and taught me for free,” Murthy becomes emotional. It was because of Aa. Na. Subbarao, Murthy says, that he was recognised by institutions like Kannada Sahitya Parishat. “The first time my paintings were bought I got Rs. 185. That day I went to him and cried.”

Murthy’s pencil sketches of many well known and lesser known personalities of Karnataka line the walls of Vidyarthi Bhavan.

A Sunday morning well spent. These are the little, casual instances that really make everyday life that much more eventful and meaningful, and I'm anyways a big sucker for nostalgia, so loved it that much more.

Collective Consciousness - Experiments on Humans

This is in continuation of the post 'Collective Consciousness' of a couple days back:

A science journal in 2010, published claims made by Professor Daryl Bem, a physicist from Cornell University, that he had proved humans have similar psychic abilities supposedly seen in the birds and monkeys.

Professor Bem set out to investigate 'psi', or parapsychology, through a series of nine experiments.

In one test, students were shown a list of words to memorise. They were later asked to recall as many as they could and finally were given a random selection of the words to type out.

They were, unsurprisingly, more adept at remembering certain words over others, but these words tended to be the words they would later be asked to type, suggesting a future event had affected their ability to remember.

In another experiment, the students were shown an image of two curtains on a computer screen and told one concealed an erotic picture. The students chose the curtain hiding the picture ‘more often than could be explained away by chance’, according to Professor Bem.

Importantly, the position of the picture was randomly assigned by a computer that didn't make its decision until after the volunteer chose one curtain or the other.

This suggested the students were actually influencing future events and the odds against the combined result being down to mere chance or being a statistical fluke were quoted as 74 billion to one.

Professor Bem carried out nine different experiments involving more than 1,000 volunteers and all but one came down on the side of these so-called psychic theories.

Elsewhere, scientist Rubert Sheldrake has created experiments that test this collective consciousness and telepathy theory online and over the phone. 

He believes it can’t be coincidence that hundreds, if not thousands of people, around the world experience similar feelings of being watched, for example. 

Yet many are sceptical. In regards the Japanese monkeys, author Ron Amundson dismissed the supernatural claims, instead suggesting it was impossible to know for certain the monkeys in different groups had never met. 

He added human intervention may have played a part in the skill developing because the monkeys had not seen, or learnt to wash the potatoes, before they were given them by the scientists.

It is also thought that monkeys don’t share a collective consciousness but instead all have thought processes and brains that solve problems in the same way.

This was also used to explain the blue tit mystery; the birds wanted milk, they looked at the bottles and solved the problem they were facing.

Then in 2012, researchers from Edinburgh University including Professor Stuart Ritchie, wanted to put Professor Bem’s claims about the human psyche to the test and challenge his findings.

They repeated Professor Bem’s experiments, using the same computer program, but were unable to repeat his results. 

‘We found nothing,’ said Ritchie. ‘It might just be because the statistics were a fluke. You're going to get some false positives sometimes.’

Yet Professor Ritchie was unable to explain exactly why his results were so widely different. Professor Bem claimed at the time that Ritchie’s scepticism may have skewed the results, but Ritchie later denied this.

Thought provoking stuff, right?...at this point, raises more questions than provides answers, but then they are fascinating questions for sure!

The Guest House - Rumi

Collective Consciousness

When you have a 'new' something, you tend to notice a lot of the same thing in your external environment as well. For instance, if you're planning to get or have just got a nose piercing, you'll automatically start noticing people around who have a nose piercing done. Or, a more neutral example, if you buy a new car, say a Linea, you'll just start noticing Lineas wherever you go. Just a mind thing. 

So it is with thoughts. When you have an interesting thought playing in your mind, you seem to attract related thoughts from all directions.....random conversations, books, the net, wherever. It just happens, and so it happened with 'The Extended Mind'. And that's how the 'Collective Consciousness'

An extended consciousness is our individual consciousness, awareness, thoughts extending beyond the body, into the world beyond. So what naturally follows is that, out there, there's an extended consciousness of all of us.....an intermingling of all individual consciousnesses'. And that is what's called the 'Collective Consciousness'. An invisible field surrounding humanity that has all of the collective awareness, thoughts and knowledge in it. 

While we're not consciously aware of it, animals seem to have a natural and stronger connection to this consciousness. We see so many instances of this in nature.

 

Like how migratory birds fly in a certain formation and how all of them will turn in total synchronicity. I've read so many articles researching this....does the leader give a sign, is it magnetic orientation, and none of the explanations convincing enough.

Anyone with a dog would have seen how the dog knows when someone in the family is going out of station, or more mysteriously, when they're coming back. In fact, when Dhruva was leaving home, like going away to the hostel, Kiwi actually put up his head and howled. Its the first ever time he had done that. He just seemed to know he was going away.

Another clear example is with ants. Research has shown that the entire colony of ants just knows whether their queen is alive or dead. You can take their queen away and put her at the other end of the world and the ants will keep on working. But soon as she dies, they will just stop working.

Also the well known 'hundredth monkey effect' seems to come from the collective consciousness. 

'A few decades ago scientists who were studying macaques on the Japanese islands, discovered that many monkeys ignored the fruits that washed ashore on the beach as they were covered in sand. However, there was one female monkey that figured out what to do with them. She picked the fruits up, walked over to a well, washed them and ate them. It didn't take long before other, especially younger macaques, 'aped' this behavior, and also enjoyed these fruits. This group slowly expanded further, until apparently a switch took place in the consciousness of the group, and from one day to the next all monkeys started washing their fruits. And not only on their island, but also on the surrounding islands, though these monkey colonies were not in contact with each other.'

This was also used to explain the blue tit mystery;

'In 1921, people who had milk delivered to their door in Swaythling, England had a mystery on their hands; someone was drinking all the cream out of their milk bottles. Local youths and other potential culprits were named, but the phenomenon began to spread across the country, no one being quite sure who was behind the theft of the high-butterfat layer. Eventually, however, the freeloaders were identified; Blue Tits were opening the tops of the bottles and skimming off the best part of the un-homogenized milk. Various bottle caps were tried over a number of years but most proved to be ineffective, groups of birds actually waiting for milkmen when they would arrive to make their deliveries each morning, and the behavior spread throughout the European continent. Surely these birds must have been imitating birds that they saw open the bottles, but the real answer is simpler while being less immediately apparent.'

Intriguing and Fascinating !

An Interesting Mind Game

The Name Game - By Dr. Christopher L. Heffner

Starting in the upper left, say the name of the color of each word, not the word itself.

Explanation: While your brain’s right hemisphere is processing the color, your left hemisphere is interfering as it attempts to process the actual word.

Binge Watching

This term 'Binge Watching' is suddenly hitting me from all sides. The first I'd heard it, was day before when Diksha's friend said that of Diksha and me doing a back to back of 'Friends'. ( that's one series that inspite of so many repeat watchings, can still make me laugh, and still make me go...'aah, that's an honest moment', and it has tons of both of those).

Then yesterday Dhruva calls and says, Have you watched "House of Cards?you really should try, I've been binge watching it'.



And this morning, I chanced upon this article, 'The Grass in Greener in Connecticut ' by Sohaila Abulali ( what a tra la la kind of name.....sweet), and she was talking of having binge watched 153 episodes of 'Gilmore Girls', and that's when I remembered having done the same with Gilmore Girls a couple of years back. ( I'd recommend reading the article, she writes beautifully and has a brilliant sense of humor too )

She said something to the effect of.... 'no one can really be like the Gilmore Girls', and that caught my attention so fully, because a friend had given me the entire set (all episodes, all seasons) saying 'watch....... the relationship that you and Diksha share is ditto like theirs'.

Ooops,....for those who don't know Gilmore Girls, it's this story of three generations of Gilmore women, all smart, independent, opinionated and funny. The main protagonists are the mother and daughter, Lorelai and Rory, who are more friends than parent-child.

For those who might want to actually watch, here's episode 1 of season 1

It's wonderful when you can start treating your child like a friend, the shift kind of happens when they get to about sixteen, of course based on how much freedom and trust there is in the equation right through.

It's like what Sohaila said 'Have you ever had a child? Mine is luscious. I would die for her, no question. Living for her...ah, that’s trickier.' 

It's hard to talk of what ideal is. Each would have their own yardstick, and there's no commenting there. But if we've been able to respect them (the children) as individuals all through, brought them up to be thinking individuals..........and on the way have as much influence as possible, (and not through control), there's good chance you'll find the friend in them. That, and throw in freedom and trust, and that's when you'll see the relationship shift..............it's no longer a relationship of obligation...it becomes a relationship of choice...... the rare ones, that are that much more meaningful, beautiful and fun.

The Extended Mind - A Corollary

In line with The Extended Mind (and consciousness) concept of a recent post, a few intriguing, and seemingly random occurrences, kind of fall nicely into place.

Think back; have you had the experience of knowing what someone else is going to say, about two or three seconds before they said it?..... or the other person knowing what you are going to say before you say it? ( a typical reaction is to laugh and say, 'gosh, how did that happen? well, I guess I know you better than you think') but actually we had no clue how that really happened. And it's even more surprising when it happens with people who you don't know too well, like coworkers or acquaintances. And it does happen.

Or knowing who is calling even as you hear the phone ring? Or thinking of someone and getting a call from the very same person? or calling someone, and them saying, 'what a surprise, I was just thinking of you'?

Or times when the phone is on silent, but you feel a call or message is coming in, and it turns out true?

Times when you know you are being stared at.... from behind?

Or when you have a tricky problem going on in your mind, and out of the blue you have the answer?

I'm sure each of us has our own repertoire of such moments, maybe some more and some less, but it's really fairly commonplace. Diksha and I have this going a lot of times, to the extent that she'll now say, 'aah.....creepy times again :)'

These are almost unearthly occurrences. Sure we use the word 'co-incidence' and it is too, but we tend to trivialize it into 'just a co-incidence', and that doesn't really cover all that it is.

It's actually like tapping into another layer of intelligence or consciousness beyond what we already know. It's about tuning in and becoming aware.........and once you open yourself up to it, it opens out a whole new world, metaphorically and literally too......a world full of mystery and possibilities...all kinds of possibilities. Isn't that super exciting?!!

Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms are a group of mental processes that enable the mind to reach compromise solutions to conflicts that it is unable to resolve. They are mechanisms we use to protect ourselves from stress caused by unacceptable or painful situations.

Most significantly, these defense mechanisms are brought into play by the unconscious mind to deny or distort reality in order to protect and maintain ones self schema or self esteem.

                          

They start at an early age and get so automated that we're consciously not even aware of them. They are thus not to be confused with conscious coping strategies. 

While they do serve a useful purpose, they have their flipside........they distance you from reality, and while helpful in the short term, it's not true for the long term. Problems could develop when these mechanisms no longer work effectively or when they get overused, thus blocking one from facing reality. At times they may not allow us to equip ourselves to handle reality.

Why not for the long term could be a question asked. Because each of them takes energy, as it's keeping you protected from your own emotions or your own reality, and in the long term just maintaining them could become exhausting. Plus it's that much removed from facing up to reality and maybe handling it more genuinely.

That's when you need to listen to the cues from your body, and if you're ready to listen to yourself, the defenses start to fall off.

Awareness of the full reality of our emotions and our experiences is what will make us more aware of our own defense mechanisms. Again, only if one is ready to face up to those emotions. It's a process, so don't force rid the defenses unless ready to face the emotions or the reality.

Here are some common defense mechanisms and once you glance through, you'll kind of know which ones are working with you. It can also be a combination and even contextual, but you get the gist.

Also, a point of warning....once aware of the different kinds of defense mechanisms, it could enable us to identify it in others (always easier to do it to others, right?)  but it's ideally to be used only on oneself, you know your own readiness best.

Once you're aware of the defense mechanisms, you will start to see through it.... at times within minutes of its being at work, at times in hours, or days or then maybe never. As in anything else, practice makes perfect fits here as well.

We need to let go of our defenses in order to get in touch with our feelings and needs. We then HEAL, become REAL and LIVE LIFE MORE FULLY, MORE AUTHENTICALLY.

Kung Fu Panda 2

This was one of those times when the sequel didn't disappoint. We see the dragon warrior in complete action, plus an added element of him...... in search of his origins.

It's Po and his team of the furious five, protecting China again, this time against the greed and power of Shen the peacock, with his evil plan of wanting to conquer the whole of China.

I was also happy to note that this was the first woman directed animation movie, directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson. And somewhere the realization that animated films aren't necessarily only for kids anymore. While they may be made for the viewing pleasure of five year olds, they also do not question the intelligence of a twenty year old. Like the concepts dealt with in this film for instance......fate, revenge, greed, courage, identity ...

The confrontation scene between Ling and Po, the father and son (after Po has a memory flash showing him his real mother) was so sensitively handled; and I loved when Po is telling Tigress ( I think) about how he's in bad space as he just discovered he was adopted, and the complete listening that Tigress does. You see the incredulity in her voice at Po believing that the goose was his biological father, but the listening had none of it...it was complete empathy. 

Shifu was as brilliant as ever, and the mantra this time was 'inner peace'. The fact that it was symbolized by the picking up a droplet of water from the cloud or the tree, and having it roll all over you per will ( and skill) seemed to so beautifully symbolize 'being in the flow'......great stuff !

The One Minute Manager

'The One Minute Manager' by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, is, as said by the Tag Line.... The Short Book That Has Big Results.

                                

And sure enough, it's a slim and crisp book.......with powerful content. It's a management book of three basic elements, in essence, to enable people to be in the flow. 

1) Goal Setting: Let people clearly know what their goals are

Write out your goals on a single sheet of paper, something that can be read within a minute, and read and reread them every once in a while to know your behavior matches your goal.

2) Help People Reach Their Full Potential...Catch Them Doing Something Right

People who feel good about themselves...Produce Good Results.

Tell people right from the start that you are going to let them know how they are doing. Praise people immediately, and be specific in telling them what they did right.

Let them know how good you feel about what they did right....pause to let them 'feel' how good you feel about what they did. 

3) Reprimand when there's a mistake

We are not just our behavior, We are the person managing our behavior.

Reprimand immediately, and be specific. Tell people how you 'feel' about what they did wrong and in no uncertain terms. Let them feel how you feel.

But also right away let them know that the reprimand is of their behavior and not about them; let them know you value them. Realize that when the reprimand is over, it's over.

Those are the three principles.

I also like the analogy he uses when asked to explain why this management method works. The author, Ken, explaining it to a listener:

Ken: 'One night, I was bowling and I saw some of the 'problem employees' at work from my last organization. One of the real problem people, whom I remembered all too well, took the bowling ball and approached the line and rolled the ball. Then he started to scream and yell and jump around. Why do you think he was so happy?'

Listener: 'Because he got a strike, he had knocked down all pins'

Ken: Exactly. 'Why don't you think he and other people are that excited at work?'

Listener: Because, he doesn't know where the pins are. I get it. How long would he want to bowl if there were no pins?

Ken: Right. Now you can see what happens in most organizations. I believe that most managers know what they want their people to do. They just don't bother to tell their people in a way they would understand. They assume they should know. Never assume anything when it comes to goal setting.

It's like having the pins up when the bowler goes to roll the ball, but there is a sheet across the pins. So when he rolls the ball, and it slips under the sheet, he hears a crack but doesn't know how many pins he's knocked down. Plus there's a supervisor standing behind the sheet.

And when he knocks down two pins, and typical supervisor will tell him, 'there are eight you missed'

Doesn't work like that. The topmost motivator for people is Feedback on results. "Feedback is the breakfast of champions" Goals Begin Behaviors and Consequences Maintain Behaviors.

The book is said to have sold more than 13 million copies and has been translated into 37 languages, so while seemingly simplistic, there must be something to it.

The Extended Mind

The mind, by definition, is that part of the person that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons. 

While it was typically believed that the mind functions out of the head or rather the brain, we have reason to believe that the Mind is In the Body;  that thinking and feeling happen in every cell....we have evidence that emotions are information molecules that circulate through the body.

And now the question: Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin?

                  

There's thinking that the mind extends even beyond the body.

The Extended Mind by Andy Clark and David Chalmers is a seminal work in the field of extended cognition. In this paper, Clark and Chalmers present the idea of active externalism in which objects within the environment function as a part of the mind. They argue that it is arbitrary to say that the mind is contained only within the boundaries of the skull. The separation between the mind, the body, and the environment is seen as an unprincipled distinction.

Because external objects play a significant role in aiding cognitive processes, the mind and the environment act as a "coupled system". This coupled system can be seen as a complete cognitive system of its own. In this manner, the mind is extended into the external world.

Dr.David Ludden, a psychologist: What are the boundaries of the mind? Our mind extends to the tools we use and the people we work with. For example, when you drive, your mind extends to the car—you and the vehicle act as a single unit. 

In a television commercial for a Bank, a young lady says of the bank's mobile app, "My phone's a part of my body, so it's like having my bank in my pocket. It's with me everywhere I go." The belief that a mobile phone and the apps it contains is an extension of one's own body has been brought about by new technology.

Not only does mobile technology permit a person to extend one's body beyond the limits of the epidermis but it allows cognitive function to extend beyond the confines of one's own brain as well. Think here of all the contact information and to-do task lists our phone's are able to store, and gps which guides us from beyond. That's so much memory function as also direction, happening externally.

Resources such as pens, paper, and computers are now so deeply integrated into our everyday lives that we couldn’t accomplish many of our cognitive goals and purposes without them.

The extended mind thesis claims that technological resources have become so thoroughly enmeshed with our internal cognitive machinery that they now count as part of the machinery of thought itself.

And I'm wondering, how about consciousness? How different is it from the mind? It's just that much easier now to extend this thinking to consciousness, and see how the individual consciousness enmeshes with the larger consciousness. (Think of it as a field that extends beyond the object, like a magnetic field beyond the magnet)

And this would also explain how the small little things we like to call co-incidences or signs are not really chance, but an occurrence or happening of our own extended consciousness. It no longer seems spiritual or belief based, but something that can be grasped by even the rational thinking mind, the one within?  :)

Shashawnk Redemption

A movie that's been on my 'want to see, but didn't have it in me' list for a while now. A movie entirely inside jail. Harsh....violent...not my kind at all, is what I'd thought. My threshold for violence is extremely low, and I stay away from anything even remotely violent, so though strongly recommended, took me long long to get to.

I watched in three tranches. At one point I even gave up, but picked it up again the next day. It didn't feel like a movie, it seemed to just draw me into the life in prison, not just because its all within the walls of a prison, but because of Red's (Morgan Freeman) narrative, which was one of the best voice over's I've seen. It was like experiencing prison life from the inside; no melodrama or gore.... but the tedium, dread and underlying ruthlessness. 

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robins) is a successful banker,  arrested for the murder of his wife and her lover, and sentenced to two life imprisonments. While Andy is the protagonist, we see the movie through Red's perspective, and we have no clue what's going on within Andy's mind, not even if he actually committed the murders. Maybe that's why we get curious about him, go through pity, pain, wonder and admiration...........and are left to wonder what makes him tick...... how does he walk in jail like he's on a stroll in the park, where does he get that steely determination from, where does the strength come from.

The film is long, and guess it's intended....a slow slow passage of time....we see Red coming up for parole after 20 years, 30 years and then 40 years; the first time his effort at appealing for rehabilitation, the second time just going through the motions, and the third time he seems to not care. 

His line...'these walls are funny, first you hate them, then you get used to them.... and then you're dependent on them..and know no other way to live, that's when you get institutionalized, '

You'd think it's a depressing story...all inside the prison walls, dull drab and grey...but it's not. It's got life and even humor, and some epiphanic moments. Two that really stayed with me... one when the quiet non rebellious Andy, finds an lp record in a book carton, shuts himself in the warden's room, and regardless of consequences plays Mozart on the announcement system, and how it envelopes and captures the entire prison. Red says, it enabled moments of soaring and freedom that the men hadn't experienced in years. It does something deep within you.

Another, when in return for some tax work done for the warden, Andy asks for beer for his coworkers and this group of prisoners drink beer, with sunshine on their faces, and he sits back and enjoys the moment with that slight, intriguing smile on the corner of his lips and you feel the moment with him.

A movie of such depth, that it's hard to find the right words. I could say of resilience, of hope, of commitment, of friendship, of integrity, of patience, of courage, of life.... it's all there...a movie that I'd say is really philosophical, and maybe even spiritual.