Google's Rediscover the Day

I recall the first time, a few months ago, when I first got this notification of 'rediscover the  day' on my phone, and I was so blown by it. 

It did it again. This was from nine years ago, and it took me into another zone for a good while.

Especially so for Subbareddy, bottom right, who was like our man friday back then, and someone who was just such an integral part of my farming phase in life. And while in the zone, it took me into more memories of farming  in Jangareddigudem.

In fact there's an interesting story there. While we were all focused on farming, it was Diksha reading 'The Children of Willow Farm' by Enid Blyton, that created a whole shift. 

I recall the moment. I was sitting at the dining table after one of our trips to JRG, and Diksha comes waving this paper "amma, amma.......see my drawing, I drew our polam" (she was 8). I found that the picture had more farm animals than fields, though we had none (apparent inspiration 'The Willow Farm').  I fell in love with the picture. In that moment we sat down and made a plan. 

The vision was 'what do we need to do to make your drawing a reality'. 

We started with hens, then goats, then geese, then ducks, then rabbits, then guinea fowl.....it was a lovely vision turned project that gave us, and the farm a whole new life for over four years.

Bottle feeding a kid (goat)

We took two geese in the backseat of our car all the way from Hyderabad, and over the years we had so many

This was a pond built exclusively for the geese, and eventually used as much by the children, as by the ducks and the geese

Guinea fowl, with their little ones. They were like a disappearing breed, it was so hard to find any, so a lot of effort went into protecting the little ones

The ducks taking their turn at the pond.

I loved our buffaloes, seetha and geetha. They were my inspiration at one point to start a dairy even. That was my first attempt to quit Google, when I took a sabbatical  to research dairy, when I must have visited atleast twenty dairies in and around Hyderabad; but which (fortunately) got dropped somewhere along the way.

The shack in the forefront was built for pigeons. We had some pretty exclusive ones, again taken all the way from Chowk, Charminar

A thatha, who shepherded the goats. He was just so adorable, he would tell us so many stories of life on the farm......he once even got badly butted by the ram ( in the first picture)

Getting some land ready for a new plantation

The plantation work underway

We had names for each of our roosters and hens, even when they got to about twenty.

Thanks Google. That sure was a lovely  'rediscover the day'

Baahubali

I've been kind of removed from movies these last few months, and with Dhruva here, that's changed. He's a huge movie buff, and his eye and feel for the subtle, the abstract as also the detail amazes me so much, that I could watch a movie with him just for that enhanced experience.

In fact, the day he reached he had me listen to the sound track, talking of how in Indian movies it's normally song tracks but in this one they had a sound track which was so brilliant.

So it followed that we booked for Baahubali 2. Then he insisted I watch Baahubali 1 first. He didn't fully trust me to get the import of what he was saying I guess, so he put it on a pen drive for me and each day he would ask if I'd seen it, until I had. And I'm so glad, as it otherwise wasn't even on my radar.

The movie itself is absolutely epic, everything larger than life, like stepping into another world..... a world which is as real as unreal, where imagination is stretched to glorifying heights, and I was blown by how Rajamouli accomplished converting of that stretched imagination into a visual and emotional extravaganza.

I was telling my mom after I came that it leaves one with the same feeling as Ten Commandments or Benhur did back then. That epic.

While a lot of folks have been praising it for the first time CGI and VFX levels for India,  it also has a lot more going for it, storyline, complexities and nuances of power, loyalty, betrayal, arrogance, love, commitment,  fairness....it has it all. And the women play such strong and powerful roles...... characters who can't and won't be kept down. Complex, bold, strong...... an added pleasure.

I'm not even going into story as that could be a whole long post by itself, especially as it's not as much storyline as the layered characters and conflicting situations. And there's so many amazing facets to the movie that it would be impossible to cover in one post.

Some of the sequences literally take your breath away. In fact after a long coronation sequence, I actually told Dhruva that I felt I had started breathing again. That spell binding.

While all the actors were brilliant, I would make special mention of Prabhas in how he brought out the different characterizations of the father and son (he plays both), inspite of the fact that both of are equally strong and heroic. Simply amazing.

Yet another facet which stood out for me is how, while each characterization is strong, and there is heroism all over, there are yet no typical paragons of virtue.  And just the fact that the movie does not judge even the best of them for perspective driven decisions, drawn from conflicting experiences, is a refreshing shift in Indian cinema

The kingdoms, (Mahishmati was so very beautiful) the power conspiracies, battles strategies, war scenes were fascinating to watch. And the romance between Amarendra Baahubali and Devasena had shades of the Titanic, Jodha Akbar and Bajirao Mastani in it, making it as passionate and endearing.

Rajamouli has definitely taken not just Telugu cinema, but Indian cinema to a whole new dimension

At this point I feel I could watch both all over again....and likely will :)

Eid and Sheer Khorma

Eid means a visit to Afshan's house and a dip into her amazing Sheer Khorma. This has been a ritual since school, and this time round was no exception.

This year, however, I was in for a double treat.

The day before Eid when Faizan, my house help, said she was taking two days off for eid. I asked her to save some sheer khorma for me and bring it on wednesday when she came to work.

I was in for a lovely surprise when Eid morning she brings me a big bowl of piping hot sheer khorma, and says "दो दिन पुराना कैसे लाती अम्मा आपकेलिए , अच्छा गरम गरम है , आप अभी खालीजिये ", (how can I get you two day old sheer korma, I've brought it  nice and hot, come eat right away) and I actually did..two helpings.

She came in a new pretty bhurkha, and I was like ' भुरखा कितना सुन्दर है, पर नया साड़ी थो dikao " and she looked so pretty in her festive bright yellow saree and jewellery. Enough for me to try a selfie, an almost first .

Evening.....Sheer khorma at Afshan's

A ritual that's so close to the heart that it had to get on here. In fact I recall when at Google, they occasionally had sheer khorma for regular desert, and I felt like it was sacrilege. To me, and guess I'm pretty stuck up in some such spaces.....it had to be an exclusively Eid special :)

A visit to 'Fubar'

Yesterday evening was a lovely evening spent at Fubar.

Nice for more reasons than one. My primary reason for going was because Diksha's done wall art there, and I've been wanting to go see.

Plus, I recall the day, soon after we moved back to Hyd, when she called one evening and said "ma, I'm sooo happy, I've found my kind of people here" and she's since almost made it second home. 

That's her with the wall she and Abedhya painted

Fubar is a fairly new joint in Hyd, little older than a month. It's a peculiar name, Food bar, Fun bar....and whatever else you're hearing :)

It's been called an 'inclusive cultural place with restaurant and bar'. Even when we walked in, there was this guy who was projecting a short film he'd made. And they apparently have a lot of music gigs, an open mike where anyone can plug in their guitar and play, and lots of art workshops too.

It has an inside, and an outside (covered) seating space, very artistic and casual at one time, pleasant ambiance, brilliant vibe, spiced up drinks (am talking for the bloody mary I had :) nice food, and what's more, easy on the pocket too. Overall lovely enough even for the prudish me to want to go chill there .

Diksha just showed me this video which tells the story of how Fubar came into being, how it shaped up over chai and biscuits at bawarchi, interesting and inspiring. It even has a clip of her octopus blueprint :)

Some pictures from the evening:

We sat out and it was heavy rain, so it was that much more beautiful. Tried to capture the rain in the background, with Praveen, Dhruva and Diksha.

The four of us, from the other side

Folks enjoying live music inside

The four of us again, with diksha's octopus in the background

After a couple of drinks Praveen and I left..... Dhruva and Diksha stayed on and apparently hung out with some regulars over interesting conversation till much much later. 

Deech, I love the story of the octopus. How you were just sitting around chatting with the guys (the owners, or creators should I say), and casually mentioned how a painting on that wall would look good, and how that grew.....and you calling me all excited with 'guess what ma, I got my first painting contract in Hyd'.

Love that initiative and passion Deech...Keep it going !!

For those who might want to check it out, it's on Rd No 1, Jubilee Hills in the Celebrations building...and I'd say GO !

Aham Brahmasmi

A sense of wonder and an open mind and the universe becomes your arena. There is an intelligence and a depth that is so awe inspiring.

Like miraculous at the simplest level too. For instance, you're yet in the middle of an 'aha', and in comes something that'll take you a hundred steps further in the same sphere. And you start to see the intelligence and interconnectedness of things at newer and newer levels .

You kind of begin to understand what our wise sages said with one cryptic statement

अहं ब्रह्मास्मि - Aham Brahmāsmi

The mahavakya (the cryptic statement) originally came to us from Advaita, embedded in philosophy and mystery.....and maybe over time lost in religiosity.

And then you see the rational and scientific mind getting there, a step at a time, hypothesis, theory and evidence in tow.  It today talks a language that enables us to accept so much more of what might have earlier been metaphysics into the realm of physics.  

Your paradigm of thought shifts. Slowly the lines between 'Belief' and 'Knowledge' start to blur.

Bill Bryson in 'a short history of nearly everything' talks of how the macro and the micro are connected. How the universe scales at the macro level.... Solar system to Milky way to the Virgo supercluster to the Laniakea cluster of galaxies and so on, and how this has a parallel at the micro level within the smallest known particles. 

William James on how the mind body interconnectedness is such that the term 'psycho somatic'  now seem the norm rather than the exception..........there is no disorder, or even accident which is not caused or influenced by your thoughts, feelings or actions. 

Kirlean photography which captures the aura around people, and Pranic Healing which is an accepted alternative system of medication in some countries (Phillipines has a full five year medical course on it)

Peter Levine who talks of 'Somatic Experience' which is all about 'body wisdom' and how energy systems work within the body, and what it takes to release clogged energy. The Topography of Tears. talks the same language.

Collective consciousness, a term coined by Carl Jung now used to denote a layer of consciousness beyond that of the subconscious mind that actually connects the species

Scott Peck, in 'The Road Less Travelled', talks of how you can dip into the collective consciousness for solutions and how sometimes they will pop up on their own.

Deepak Chopra talks of tuning your own antennae to see it happen.

And we come full circle; the conscious-subconscious-collective conscious pretty literally, is 'Aham Brahmasmi'.

Musings - You never stop learning from your children

Yesterday was one such instance.

It's morning, I'm chatting around with Dhruva, actually oil massaging his head, a favorite favorite activity of mine, which I normally stretch to a good half hour (self indulgent trivia :). Krupa, our cook, peeps in, dressed in a nice crisply starched sari, to say she's going to the doctors. I was a little taken aback as I was going to be out for lunch and I'd presumed she was going to be taking care of arrangements for Dhruva.

Moms instinct I guess.......I asked her if she could possibly go in the afternoon, instead of now.

Dhruva says, in one quietly firm whisper 'let her go amma, it's my lunch, I'll figure'. And so I did. And she left.

Then he's like "that was pretty insensitive of you no amma, how could you even stop her". And in my defense I was like "I understand dhruva, I was only asking her to shift it to the afternoon".

And then I heard it:

"amma, if that were me, and I said I was unwell and wanted to go now, would you have done that"

If I thought I was a fair and sensitive person, it was yet a lesson in what equality and fairness meant. 

I was touched and humbled........and yes, deep down happy too.

Happy enough to narrate the whole sequence to Krupa today, and have them both give me a picture.

Chung Hua ...Pure Nostalgia

This afternoon Praveen (my brother who's visiting from the US) and I, were driving down Basheerbagh, and just being in those areas is half way down nostalgia lane, and on impulse we decided to lunch at Chung Hua.

                         

Chung Hua was a complete college time hang out, Praveen with his bunch of friends (though he said they did as much or more of Alexis, another old student hangout), and me with mine, and never both of us together. This was a nice first.

And as though by habit, we ordered basket noodles ....1 by 2 (split in half). Such a student thing to do.

It's as is...nothings changed there, like absolutely nothing. The name board, the tables, the arrangements, the decor, the lamps, even the table mats.... literally like stepping back in time. I recall being so interested in the table mats as they were the chinese zodiac kind of thing. It was a sublime experience. 

When the waiter brought us the basket noodles, and had started to serve, I suddenly realized I wanted a picture. And because he so respectfully waited till I got the picture, I said by way of explanation "हम बचपन  में बहुत आते  थे यहां " (we used to come here a lot years ago). He just smiled.

Imagine what a lovely surprise it was when end of meal he gets us the bill and says ' "आप ने बोला ना की बचपन में आते थे , इसीलिए आपको हमने discount दिया " (because you said you used to come during college, I got you'll a discount)

                     

                          Praveen with the waiter

Was such a touching gesture. And an amazing initiative by a waiter. Showed ownership and identity. I almost got how Chung Hua had retained its magic :)

A Search In Secret India

An honest and fascinating read.

Paul Brunton can be called an adventurer, a spiritual seeker, a mystic and a writer. One who gave up his career in England to become 'one of the twentieth century's greatest explorers and writers of the spiritual traditions of the East'. He seeks with a zest and focus that's exemplary, and absorbs with a sceptical (scientific) filter that brings out the honesty and cognitive appeal of his findings.

A Search in Secret India is his journey around India, living among yogis, mystics, and gurus, a search for that one authentic yogi. He writes of each experience on his search, some of whom he found convincing, some in part, others not at all. He writes of his search ending in Arunachala, which draws him again and again, and of the strange peace and tranquility which comes with self knowledge (enlightenment) when he meets and studies with the great sage Sri Ramana Maharishi.

This was in 1935 when Ramana Maharshi was not yet well known, not even in India, leave alone the world. In fact it is said that Paul Brunton is one of the first who brought out the spiritual and philosophical facet of India to the world. 

His elucidation of his experience with Ramana Maharshi can itself be a whole separate book, for the detail and sublimity with which he writes. He writes of how when he sat before him, all his painstakingly articulated questions would disappear, how he would be drawn into a meditative trance without effort, how he puzzled over how Ramana Maharshi was reading his thoughts. It's a fascinating account, especially given the context of his search across the length and breath of the country.

Also, my reading of the book has an interesting story.

A while back I met one of my uncles who I knew used to travel to Tiruvannamalai, to the Ramana Maharshi's ashram on regular basis. As I was asking him about it, he mentions this book saying I should read it. I determine to go buy it soon as I can, and imagine my surprise when I come home and find not one, but two copies of the book in my very own book shelf. It was like the book had sought me out much earlier, but I hadn't been ready. 

The Aura of Ramzaan

Friends ask what it feels like to be back in Hyderabad.  And my consistent response "absolutely loving it". Typical next question.... "really, that much?" 

While I have my personal reasons, family, friends, work....... I try hard to help them understand  how, a significant part of the reason is that 'it's home, it's the feel......it's the air I breath in Hyderabad' .

And right now, what says it better than the air of Ramzan. It struck me the other day when I was telling Diksha how the 'adhan', the daily call to prayer (and I hear it from three mosques around my house) is a spirit uplifting moment each time. 

That's one of the minarets I can see from home ( the pigeons were a lucky moment. as I stepped out with my phone just now :)

And now with Ramzan, we have the 'taraweeh', which is their special evening call to prayer added in. The other day I attended an event which carried a moment that will stay with me for a long time to come (maybe forever). The chief guest was in the middle of his speech when the taraweeh started, and he just stopped.....almost mid sentence, and sat back till it finished. The entire audience, of well over a hundred, in pin drop silence, maybe listening like they've never heard before.  The collective energy it generated was just so sublime and beautiful. And when it ended he restarts with 'how beautiful that was'.  It really was. The taraweeh,  as also his gesture.

Last week, a friend dropped by from Singapore . And I'm like 'what brings you to Hyd', and he went 'came to eat haleem'. I'm like 'tell seriously' and he's like 'seriously.....it was haleem' and I realized he meant it. Such is the draw of Ramzan for a true blood Hyderabadi :)

Yesterday I'm at my fruit and veg shop and I see Mohammed Mehtaab and Dilip Kumar fully focused on cutting so many fruits, and I got curious. Mehtaab said, a lot of their customers just come and give thousand rupees, and say distribute fruits in the masjid, and it happens through the day. I was quite amazed....I asked, how many fruits do you give in one masjid, and he said 'नहीं madam , यहां तीन मस्ज़िद हैं , सब में बांटते हैं " (there are three masjids here and we give in all of them). Zakat al-fitr is such a deeply ingrained concept in Islam, charity.....giving to the poor. It's beautiful.

I don't even want to go into how all we hear when people talk Islam or muslim, is fundamentalism and jihad and talaq. Those are the loudest and ugliest voices. Can we listen to the adhan and taraweeh and zikat. What are we hearing?

Gratitude and Humility are such a significant part of the month of Ramadan. If, like Jayesh (the chief guest) we could connect into the depth and beauty of the teachings, I think we'd be surely more than a notch better individuals for it.

Maslow - A Self Actualized Person

Maslow is now like a dear friend. Way way back when I first heard of him,  I was fascinated with how he could articulate the human endeavour so rationally and beautifully.  Read agape.

If I was then fascinated from afar, through the counselling program, I got to see him from real close. And stayed as fascinated.

Self Actualization as a concept is pretty central to Counselling, and several psychological theories, especially the 'Person Centered' pioneered by Carl Rogers, 'The Gestalt', and 'The Existential' approaches, to name a few, draw deeply from Maslow. Counselling becomes about exploring and bridging the gap between an individual's  'What Is' (current self) and 'What Can Be' (aspired self) ... bringing out our authentic self aligned to our own  (re) defined values. 

In that context, I thought this was an article that brought it out nice and simple. It's from Huffington Post.

Maslow: The 12 Characteristics of a Self-Actualized Person.

"Abraham Maslow is the leading figure in the tradition of humanistic psychology and the modern Positive Psychology movement owes a huge debt to his theories. His ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ remains widely recognized and used.

Nonetheless, the layperson knows surprisingly little about the pinnacle Maslow wants us to aspire to- Self-Actualization. Who is this Self-Actualized person, and what characteristics does s/he have? Maslow’s portrait is detailed and complex.

Self-Actualization

Maslow describes 'the good life' as one directed towards self-actualization, the pinnacle need. Self-actualization occurs when you maximize your potential, doing the best that you are capable of doing. Maslow studied individuals whom he believed to be self-actualized, to derive the common characteristics of the self-actualized person. Here are a selection of the most important characteristics, from his book Motivation and Personality:

1) Self-actualized people embrace the unknown and the ambiguous

They are not threatened or afraid of it; instead, they accept it, are comfortable with it and are often attracted by it. They do not cling to the familiar. Maslow quotes Einstein:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”

2) They accept themselves, together with all their flaws

She perceives herself as she is, and not as she would prefer herself to be. With a high level of self-acceptance, she lacks defensiveness, pose or artificiality. Eventually, shortcomings come to be seen not as shortcomings at all, but simply as neutral personal characteristics.

“They can accept their own human nature in the stoic style, with all its shortcomings, with all its discrepancies from the ideal image without feeling real concern [...] One does not complain about water because it is wet, or about rocks because they are hard [...] simply noting and observing what is the case, without either arguing the matter or demanding that it be otherwise.”

Nonetheless, while self-actualized people are accepting of shortcomings that are immutable, they do feel ashamed or regretful about changeable deficits and bad habits.

3) They prioritize and enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

“[They] often [regard] as ends in themselves many experiences and activities that are, for other people, only means. Our subjects are somewhat more likely to appreciate for its own sake, and in an absolute way, the doing itself; they can often enjoy for its, own sake the getting to some place as well as the arriving. It is occasionally possible for them to make out of the most trivial and routine activity an intrinsically enjoyable game or dance or play.”

4) While they are inherently unconventional, they do not seek to shock or disturb

Unlike the average rebel, the self-actualized person recognizes:

“... the world of people in which he lives could not understand or accept [his unconventionality], and since he has no wish to hurt them or to fight with them over every triviality, he will go through the ceremonies and rituals of convention with a good-humored shrug and with the best possible grace [... Self-actualized people would] usually behave in a conventional fashion simply because no great issues are involved or because they know people will be hurt or embarrassed by any other kind of behavior.”

5) They are motivated by growth, not by the satisfaction of needs.

While most people are still struggling in the lower rungs of the ‘Hierarchy of Needs,’ the self-actualized person is focused on personal growth.

“Our subjects no longer strive in the ordinary sense, but rather develop. They attempt to grow to perfection and to develop more and more fully in their own style. The motivation of ordinary men is a striving for the basic need gratifications that they lack.”

6) Self-actualized people have purpose.

“[They have] some mission in life, some task to fulfill, some problem outside themselves which enlists much of their energies. [...] This is not necessarily a task that they would prefer or choose for themselves; it may be a task that they feel is their responsibility, duty, or obligation. [...] In general these tasks are nonpersonal or unselfish, concerned rather with the good of mankind in general.”

7) They are not troubled by the small things.

Instead, they focus on the bigger picture.

“They seem never to get so close to the trees that they fail to see the forest. They work within a framework of values that are broad and not petty, universal and not local, and in terms of a century rather than the moment.[...] This impression of being above small things [...] seems to impart a certain serenity and lack of worry over immediate concerns that make life easier not only for themselves but for all who are associated with them.”

8) Self-actualized people are grateful.

They do not take their blessings for granted, and by doing so, maintain a fresh sense of wonder towards the universe.

“Self-actualizing people have the wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naïvely, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others [...] Thus for such a person, any sunset may be as beautiful as the first one, any flower may be of breath-taking loveliness, even after he has seen a million flowers. [...] For such people, even the casual workaday, moment-to-moment business of living can be thrilling.”

9) They share deep relationships with a few, but also feel identification and affection towards the entire human race

“Self-actualizing people have deeper and more profound interpersonal relations than any other adults [...] They are capable of more fusion, greater love, more perfect identification, more obliteration of the ego boundaries than other people would consider possible. [...This devotion] exists side by side with a widespreading [...] benevolence, affection, and friendliness. These people tend to be kind [and friendly] to almost everyone [...] of suitable character regardless of class, education, political belief, race, or color.”

10) Self-actualized people are humble

“They are all quite well aware of how little they know in comparison with what could be known and what is known by others. Because of this it is possible for them without pose to be honestly respectful and even humble before people who can teach them something.”

11) Self-actualized people resist enculturation.

They do not allow themselves to be passively molded by culture — they deliberate and make their own decisions, selecting what they see as good, and rejecting what they see as bad. They neither accept all, like a sheep, nor reject all, like the average rebel. Self-actualized people:

“make up their own minds, come to their own decisions, are self-starters, are responsible for themselves and their own destinies. [...] too many people do not make up their own minds, but have their minds made up for them by salesmen, advertisers, parents, propagandists, TV, newspapers and so on.”

Because of their self-decision, self-actualized people have codes of ethics that are individualized and autonomous rather than being dictated by society.

“They are the most ethical of people even though their ethics are not necessarily the same as those of the people around them [...because] the ordinary ethical behavior of the average person is largely conventional behavior rather than truly ethical behavior.”

12) Despite all this, self-actualized people are not perfect. They know they are in process.

“There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. [...] And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.”

Greatest hits are exhausting

From Seth

Greatest hits are exhausting

If all you consume is the most-read list, if all you listen to are the hits, if all you eat is the most popular item on the menu—you're missing out.

The web has pushed us to read what everyone else is reading, the hit of the day. But popular isn't the same as important. Popular isn't the same as profound. Popular isn't even the same as useful.

To make something popular, the creator leaves out the hard parts and amps up the crowd-pleasing riffs. To make something popular, the creator knows that she's dumbing things down in exchange for attention.

The songs you love the most, the soundtrack of your life--almost none of them were #1 on the Billboard charts. And the same goes for the books that changed the way you see the world or the lessons that have transformed your life.

Popularity doesn't mean 'best'. It merely means popular.

The Topography of Tears

The Topography of Tears: A Stunning Aerial Tour of the Landscape of Human Emotion Through an Optical Microscope - Rose Lynn Fischer 

An year back, last June in fact, I'd written about 'Water Consciousness', a series of experiments to show how human consciousness has an impact on the molecular structure of water.

Today when I read this, it amazed me all over again. How our feelings get reflected in our 'tears'.

The compilation is a striking series of photographs of tears shed for a kaleidoscope of reasons, dried on glass slides and captured in a hundredfold magnification through a high-resolution optical microscope, a project nearly a decade in the making.

What emerges is an enthralling tour of the landscape of human emotion and its most stirring eruptions; joy, grief, gladness, remorse, hope. 

In the introduction, Fisher reflects on the symbolic undertones of this inquiry into 'the intangible poetry of life', and states:

"Though the empirical nature of tears is a composition of water, proteins, minerals, hormones, and enzymes, the topography of tears is a momentary landscape, transient as the fingerprint of someone in a dream. The accumulation of these images is like an ephemeral atlas.

Tears are the medium of our most primal language in moments as unrelenting as death, as basic as hunger, and as complex as rites of passage. They are the evidence of our inner life overflowing its boundaries, spilling over into consciousness. Wordless and spontaneous, they release us to the possibility of realignment, reunion, catharsis, intractable resistance short-circuited… It’s as though each one of our tears carries a microcosm of the collective human experience, like one drop of an ocean."

Here are some of the pictures:

Tears of grief

Tears of change

Tears of possibility / hope

Tears of compassion

Tears of redemption

Tears of remorse

Tears for what couldn’t be fixed

Overwhelmed tears

Tears after goodbye

Tears of elation at a liminal moment

Tears of Timeless Reunion

Musings - To Really Listen, Tune In

A really useful listening tool

When listening, be it in person, on the phone or even by message.....tune in.

It's almost like fine tuning your radio to the exact frequency. What it takes is to be fully and wholly present, to the extent possible without your own inner chatter.

You'll start to hear the words say so much more

You'll start to hear the spaces between the words talk

In the questions you are asked, you'll hear their inner voice  

In the questions you are not asked you'll hear their inner voice

It's an elevating experience

Once you're tuned in, all it takes is to let the other know you're there....... that you are interested, not judging, that you care, that you understand....... you'll see the energy shift. You'll touch spaces so deep and authentic, you'll wonder at the qualitative difference in the space, at how it can be such a different feel. 

It won't always happen, it's in fact rare. When it does, especially in fragile spaces.....you connect at an almost ethereal level.

PERMA - A Scientific Theory of Happiness

We all want to be happy. No two ways on that for sure :)

When we're happy, we're productive, we're good at building meaningful relationships, and... we feel great!

Or is it the other way round. When we're productive, have meaningful relationships, have positive emotions .....then we're happy.

Happiness is a notoriously difficult thing to pin down, and by focusing on it too intensely, we can potentially move even further away. 

In this context, let's look at PERMA,  a scientifically researched 'theory of happiness' by Martin Seligman,

Martin Seligman is a larger than life character; commonly known as the founder of 'Positive Psychology'. His theories of happiness have evolved over twenty years of scientific research, with PERMA being his 2011 brainchild.

                   

"PERMA" stands for the five essential elements of the theory that form the acronym:

P (ositive emotions)
E (ngagement)
R (elationships)
M (eaning)
A (ccomplishment)

1. Positive Emotions:

For us to experience well-being, we need positive emotion in our lives. Being able to focus on positive emotions is more than just smiling, it is the ability to be optimistic and view the past, present, and future in a positive perspective.

Any positive emotion such as peace, gratitude, wonder, satisfaction, pleasure, inspiration, hope, curiosity, or love falls into this category......and the message is that it's really important to experience those in the here and now. Just as long as the other elements of PERMA are in place.

2. Engagement:

An individual leading a life of engagement constantly seeks out activities that allow her to be in a state of flow.

'Flow', coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, is a highly focused mental state. A state of consciousness, a state of deep involvement that occurs most frequently when we concentrate our undivided attention on activities that are (moderately) challenging to us. When you are in flow, it may seem that your sense of self vanishes, and time stops.

"The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

During this "optimal experience" they feel "strong, alert, in effortless control, unselfconscious, and at the peak of their abilities." In the footsteps of Maslow, Csikszentmihalyi insists that happiness does not simply happen. It must be prepared for and cultivated by each person, by setting challenges that are neither too demanding nor too simple for ones abilities.

This type of ‘flow’ of engagement is important to stretch our intelligence, skills, and emotional capabilities. The more we experience this type of engagement, the more likely we are to experience well-being.

Seligman recommends that in order to achieve flow, you must identify your signature strengths, or strengths that are deeply characteristic of yourself, and learn how to practice them, as they underpin and contribute to all five elements of well-being.

3. Relationships: 

As humans, we are 'social beings',  and we thrive for connection, love, intimacy, and a strong emotional and physical interaction with other humans. Building positive relationships is a core concept to spread love and joy. Needless to say, having strong relationships also gives you support in difficult times.

Seligman believes that the need and tendency towards relationships is biologically and evolutionarily ingrained in us. Positive relationships is especially powerful because it plays a role in supporting the other four components of well-being.

4. Meaning :

Meaning comes from serving a cause bigger than ourselves.

Having a purpose and meaning to why each of us is on this earth is important to living a life of happiness and fulfillment. To understand the greater impact of your work and why you chose to pursue what you do, helps enjoy the tasks even more... so more satisfaction and more happiness.

5. Accomplishment: 

Many of us strive to better ourselves in some way, whether we're seeking to master a skill, achieve a valuable goal, or win in some competitive event, grow at some level. As such, accomplishment is another important thing that contributes to our ability to flourish.

Key is also to make realistic goals that can be met, and the very effort of pursuing those goals can contribute to a deep sense of satisfaction.....and when you finally achieve those goals a sense of pride and fulfillment is bonus. Having accomplishments in life is important to push ourselves to thrive and flourish.

Per PERMA, 'Well-being' is a multidimensional construct that is a function of all  five components.

The monsoons are here

And aahhh, are they so so welcome !

I moved from Bangalore to Hyderabad bang in the middle of summer. Went straight from 32 C to 42 C. The first few days I was in a literal daze. I'd almost forgotten how to handle 42 C. But then the gods were kind, it soon came down to a more handleable 38 C. (for a short bit)

My dad kept saying it was such a wrong time to move. My mom was like, why don't you just stay in Bangalore till June and then move.

But then, I was crystal clear. Yes, weather matters, yes the heat bothers, but it is not a criterion for a decision on moving.

Once here, I decided I'd not let the heat bother me. And I mostly didn't. (except what I thought was weight loss due to the veggie juice diet, might actually have been me melting away a little too)

We've had sporadic rains since, even hail storms, but yesterdays rain felt so like the monsoons. An unmatched lovely feeling. I simply love the rains, and diksha and I spent the hour capturing moments in the rain, on our bodies and on our cameras as well.

Well, you can neither see nor feel the rain in the picture, I still just needed it there. On a clear morning we can see the city stretch till mountains in the backdrop, so you'll need to stretch imagination :)

Our kitchen windows were open, and because we didn't want to disturb these two pigeons, end of the hour we had a flooded kitchen  

Diksha actually went off for a long walk in the heavy rain. That's her indulging me for a picture from below. 

I stayed limited to our lovely terrace, just my arm wet was enough for me :)

This is a favorite picture of the rain, and I must give full credit there to Diksha for the idea of a see through rice cooker lid, to use as umbrella for the phone to take that picture. And that's Nandi (the linea) enjoying the rain.

And this morning, even as I sit on my couch and type, I'm able to hear the peacocks (from kbr park). Guess we're singing the same song.....they love the monsoons too :)

The unfairness (and wisdom) of paint

From Seth

"Repainting your house the same color it already was feels like a waste. It's a lot of effort merely to keep things as they are.

But if you don't do it, time and entropy kick in and the house starts to fade.

The same can be said for 1,000 elements of your organization, including your relationships with customers, staff, suppliers and technology. The way you approach your market, the skill you bring to your craft, the culture in your organization—it constantly needs another coat of paint.

Rust never sleeps."

This, I guess, is true not just for an organization, but for all else in life too...including and maybe above all the 'self'. 

Vignettes & Quotes - 'Planning'

I love planning. In fact there's times I feel I love planning as much as the actual doing.

Planning is that phase....those moment or moments between intent and action, when it's still full of possibilities, full of positive energy, when the 'x' factors are still in theory. That's when you can put your all into it, paint the picture you want to see.

To take this metaphor to the next level; Vishakha and I were on our wave lapping walk in Goa. I happened to mention how all we could see was shades and shades of different blues...... the sea, the the mountains, and the sky. Straight off Vishakha came up with this lovely analogy which she could use in her office, one that enables identifying and taking ownership for the larger vision of the company.

The analogy: If the larger vision of a project or a company can be visually pictured in a painting frame, you see the whole picture and then you get clearer perspective of your part in it. You know you own that little part of the whole.......you know if the component you are adding to it aligns or doesn't. Here for instance, if it's any shade of blue or green or brown you know it does. If it's an odd maroon, you'll need to know what it's doing there. I loved it.

This quote is devoted to just that. Planning and Process.

“Failing to plan, is planning to fail.” - Self-help guru Alan Lakein 

Short and potent. I'm a big believer of even something as basic as lists. The vision at the macro level and lists at the micro level. Lovely. I love my lists. It optimizes quality of your time (read life) like little else can, and aah...the feeling of a nicely checklisted day....euphoric :)

At micro level or macro level, planning is about ownership and energy. Highly empowering.

Inch Time Foot Gem

A Zen Story

A lord asked Takuan, a Zen teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others.

Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man. (It is what's called a Koan in Zen)

Not twice this day

Inch time foot gem

No matter how uncomfortable the bus ride, how horrendous the airline food, or how saggy the bed, remember: this moment will not come again, each minute is worth a priceless gem.

Ecstasy of Contemplation

The term brought on a deep deep smile. Just stand alone. 

In context, it's from Bertrand Russel's, 'The Scientific Outlook'. Here's excerpts of a delightful write up by Maria Popova on the book.

“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life,” the Nobel-winning English polymath Bertrand Russell wrote in his memoir at the end of a long and intellectually invigorating life, a life the echoes of which reverberate through some of the most defining ideas of our time.

On the surface, this remarkably perceptive and prescient book can appear to be a critique of science, which may seem surprising coming from Russell — in addition to being one of the twentieth century’s most lucid and influential philosophers, he was also a mathematician and logician himself, whose incisive writings on critical thinking and 'the will to doubt' have rendered him an enduring patron saint of reason. 

But beneath such a surface impression is enormous depth of insight and a timeless, increasingly timely clarion call for nuance in distinguishing between the sort of knowledge driven by a greed for power and the higher-order wisdom that makes and keeps us human. In this light, although science is the book’s subject, its object is to examine the most elemental potentialities of the human spirit — our parallel capacities for good and evil — and to illuminate the means by which we can cultivate a nobler and more humane humanity.

Bertrand Russell

Writing in a golden age of science, just as quantum mechanics and relativity were beginning to reconfigure our understanding of reality, yet well before the invention of the atomic bomb shed light on the dark side of science as a tool of power, Russell issues a poignant and prescient admonition about the uses and misuses of science. Reflecting on how these illuminate the largest questions of what it means to be human, he writes:

"Science in the course of the few centuries of its history has undergone an internal development which appears to be not yet completed. One may sum up this development as the passage from contemplation to manipulation. The love of knowledge to which the growth of science is due is itself the product of a twofold impulse. We may seek knowledge of an object because we love the object or because we wish to have power over it. The former impulse leads to the kind of knowledge that is contemplative, the latter to the kind that is practical.

[…]

But the desire for knowledge has another form, belonging to an entirely different set of emotions. The mystic, the lover, and the poet are also seekers after knowledge… In all forms of love we wish to have knowledge of what is loved, not for purposes of power but for the ecstasy of contemplation… Wherever there is ecstasy or joy or delight derived from an object there is the desire to know that object — to know it not in the manipulative fashion that consists of turning it into something else, but to know it in the fashion of the beatific vision, because in itself and for itself it sheds happiness upon the lover. This may indeed be made the touchstone of any love that is valuable."

Many decades later, pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin, who confirmed the existence of dark matter, would echo this notion in a somewhat surprising and rather lovely remark: “I sometimes ask myself whether I would be studying galaxies if they were ugly… I think it may not be irrelevant that galaxies are really very attractive.” 

Russell cautions that this shift from what he calls “love-knowledge” to “power-knowledge” is the single greatest hazard in the future of science, which is implicitly inseparable from the future of humanity. To protect science from such a shift, he suggests, is not only our duty but our only means of protecting us from ourselves. 

 Russell writes:

"When science is considered contemplatively, not practically, we find that what we believe, we believe owing to animal faith, and it is only our disbeliefs that are due to science. When, on the other hand, science is considered as a technique for the transformation of ourselves and our environment, it is found to give us a power quite independent of its metaphysical validity. But we can only wield this power by ceasing to ask ourselves metaphysical questions about the nature of reality. Yet these questions are the evidence of a lover’s attitude toward the world. Thus it is only in so far as we renounce the world as its lovers that we can conquer it as its technicians. But this division in the soul is fatal to what is best in man. As soon as the failure of science considered as metaphysics is realized, the power conferred by science as a technique is only obtainable … by the renunciation of love.

Yet Russell is careful to call for the necessary nuance to prevent his central point from being misunderstood or even turned on itself:

"It is not knowledge that is the source of these dangers. Knowledge is good and ignorance is evil: to this principle the lover of the world can admit no exception. Nor is it power in and for itself that is the source of danger. What is dangerous is power wielded for the sake of power, not power wielded for the sake of genuine good"

Nearly a century later, The Scientific Outlook remains an immensely insightful read.

A Touching & Proud Moment

Some moments in life are worth capturing forever. Guess this was one.

After our four days in Goa I went to Mumbai, specifically to see Vishakha's office, something that's been on the to do list for a while now.

The office itself is beautiful...... bright, high energy, and hip looking. I was duly, and more, impressed. Glad I went. And gladder for another reason too. Being there, enabled a getting in touch with a space way deeper than the office itself.  It was a space that brought out the tears, and as you can imagine, it surely wasn't just the beautiful office.

This is from inside her room which is completely glass walled.

The deeper, was seeing her there

Much to her chagrin, and embarrassment I think,  I had her give me a pose with her awards too. She picked the one which is dearest to her, The Institute of Chartered Accountants awarding her the Business Leader Woman of the year.

The whole experience brought on the realization of how there are moments which get defined and enhanced by spatial experience...... when visual impact of the moment evokes way more emotions than what the knowing can. 

To use metaphor......it's akin to writing a book, going through the whole process of conceptualizing, writing, rewriting, editing, finalizing.....the publishing..... and then that moment when you're actually holding the first copy in your hand. Priceless.

Seeing her there, in that chair, was that moment. Priceless. It seemed to bring out for me all over again her entire journey of singular determination and drive .....through the twenty five years since college, a journey that can make a book, a journey that has brought her all the way to the MD & CEOs chair.

The journey itself....... she started her career as Assistant Manager, in the New India Assurance in 1987. Those were days we worked in the same building in Hyderabad, different offices and different floors and we couldn't believe our luck. We'd meet for lunch everyday.

After 13 years of learning experience there, she took the plunge of moving into the private sector, which was just beginning to open up in the country. She moved to Birla Sun Life Insurance as Chief Manager, Bancassurance and Group Business. In May 2006 she moved back to general insurance as the Chief Marketing Officer Universal Sompo General Insurance, heading both sales and marketing. (this was again a stint when we were both posted in Bangalore, and that so much fun as we were both there without husbands :)

In 2007, she joined IDBI Federal Life Insurance at a pre license stage and set up the bancassurance channel to deliver business for three years, demonstrating y-o-y growth. She then joined IndiaFirst Life Insurance as the Chief Business Officer. Then moved as Director - Sales and Marketing to Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life insurance. And then the final step to MD & CEO of IndiaFirst Insurance.

IndiaFirst Life Insurance is today one of the fastest growing life insurance companies in the country, having covered over 2.7 million lives and showing 64% growth from previous year and an 82% growth in premium collection for the same period.

I know I'm beginning to sound like the ET or Business line, but then it's to show that it's not just a proud friend doing indulgent talking. In fact even as we were on our trip in Goa, the Economic Times carried an article with these numbers.

Moving back to personal space..... sitting there in her office, sipping a cup of tea, overlooking the mountains that her window faces, she pointed out to her seat of a few years back, across the room, when she was with the same company in different capacity. The move across the room took her a few years, and a step out to another company and back. And if I have to pick one defining moment of the experience it was that. Symbolizes the proverbial and critical last three steps I guess.

There are days today when I'm in awe wondering where she gets the energy to do the fourteen hour days she does, time between our morning and evening call see. And also secretly thinking, god help those who work with her :). She's changing their benchmarks. A true leader should, and she does I guess.

And then, all our discussions from back then came rushing in...starting from the moment when she even dared to dream.  The innumerable hours spent parsing through implications and possibilities., in terms of impact, responsibility, family, gender stress and so many others. Even aspiring to it was a conscious decision. But then she's made of super strong mettle. Not much can stop her once she puts her mind to something.

Vishakha, so glad to have been there, and to have shared yet another forever moment. Proud of you pal !!