Nandi's Escape

Last night we were witness to one of our severest hail storms, atleast for me it was my most beautiful I think. Around 11, and I was fast asleep, when Diksha runs into my room with "ma, quick, it's hailing like crazy, get up". I rush out to a noise and sight that sent a chill down my spine...it was intense and almost scary.

Strong winds, hail, thunder, lightening, downpour....in fact the wind was so strong, it seemed like the rain was falling horizontally. A quintessential hailstorm.

Considering we live on the top floor, and out balcony is covered with fibreglass sheets, the noise was deafening, and we could gauge the size of the hail just from the noise. I later learnt the hail was around 2 to 3 inches in size.

We have this spectacular view of the city skyline so you can imagine what a sight it was

Here's a picture. Not from my camera ofcourse. It's courtesy The Hindu, but this is what we saw, amazing streaks of lightening across a pitch black city horizon.

Messages started coming in of window panes and car glasses breaking from the hail....trees getting uprooted, branches falling, and cars breaking down. And did I mention, the city was in a complete blackout. Quite a night that was. 

So next morning when our watchman comes up and say 'meeku chaala adrushtam andi', (you are really lucky) I was wondering, until I go down and see my car (Nandi) parked in the street, where I'd left it last night.

There's a branch fallen right in front of it, like inches away....and three more fallen just behind, again inches away. Venkataiah was right, it was sheer luck. (I so love my car, I think I would have cried if I'd seen it hurt.) And I was feeling so glad and grateful, that this is another sending up a prayer of thanks for 'Nandi's escape'.

Fault Finding

A Story......

The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them, close friends, promised one another to observe seven days of silence.

On the first day all were silent. Their meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night fell and the oil lamps were growing dim, one of the pupils could not help exclaiming to a servant "fix those lamps".

The second pupil was surprised to hear the first one talk."We are not supposed to say a word." he remarked

'You two are stupid.Why did you talk?" asked the third.

"I am the only one who has not talked," said the fourth.

Self Awareness - Another Perspective

We all have an image of ourselves, what we can call a 'self concept'. 

                                       

Self Concept of a person can be understood as those attributes or areas of experience about which the person can say "I am......". Like if asked to describe oneself, a person may define oneself in terms such as 'I am strong, I can be angry, I sometimes feel vulnerable'.

For this person Strength, Anger and Vulnerability are parts of a self concept, and when he feels angry or vulnerable, there will usually be congruence between feelings and the resultant words and actions.

But lets say, if this person does not define himself as nurturing, and is in a situation where a feeling of care or nurturance is evoked, he will not be able to put that inner sense of feeling accurately into words or even actions, and will express the feeling or impulse in a distorted or inappropriate way. Someone who doesn't see themselves as nurturing may, for instance, become very busy 'doing things' for someone who needs no more than companionship, comforting or the human touch.

When this happens, the individual could experience a sense of incongruence or disconnectedness.  It's almost like a disconnect between how 'I'd like to be behaving' ( my ideal) and how my 'self concept' makes me behave. And this can leave people disturbed and stressed. 

Self awareness can thus be a basis for aligning your 'self concept' with your 'ideal self' , and this can happen either through change or  'self acceptance'. 

At a deeper level this enables an alignment between 'feelings, thoughts and actions', which is what being 'in the flow' is.....and in a sense a here and now 'self actualization'

It's extremely powerful, and so worth the effort (or should I say awareness :)

Way To Go, Sujata

Sujata had an art exhibition in Bangalore last month, and this time round she got good press coverage in the newspapers in Hubli, where she lives.

It's in kannada, but so what, here it's kind of literally true that the pictures speak louder than the words. There's her on top, and there's her painting. The painting of the bells in hers, and in the second one the fourth painting of the girls face.

I've seen her grow with her paintings since school, and each time we meet, I'm amazed at how many more she's done. This is a third series of her paintings here. There's a Series 1 and Series 2, and what's more, she sold a painting from each of those posts. That's bonus motivation for me :) 

Acrylic on Paper



Waiting by the window - Sold

Water colour, weather worn face of a daily wage labourer

Mixed Media on stretched canvas. She told me a whole story in this that's depicted through the little pictures at the base (don't recall the story though)

Oil on Canvas

I simply loved this one

Acrylic on canvas - Sold

Buddha, with an almost transcendental feel I thought

Mirabai, another one of my favorites

A landscape and nature theme after a long time

Mixed media on canvas - sold

Oil painting - Sold

Acrylic on canvas - Sold

Sujata Pawar, Congratulations on the latest exhibition, and so happy to see the acknowledgement in the press too. I share your joy, and so proud of you pal!!

Defending myself (vs. offending my self)

From Seth

Defending myself (vs. offending my self)

The reason it's difficult to learn something new is that it will change you into someone who disagrees with the person you used to be.

And we're not organized for that.

The filter bubble and our lack of curiosity about the unknown are forms of self defense. We're defending the self, keeping everything "ok" because that's a safe, low maintenance place to be.

The alternative is to sign up for a lifetime of challenging what the self believes. A journey to find more effectiveness, not more stability.

It's Not What You Say, It's What They Hear

It's not what you say, It's what they hear

This has relevance everywhere, be it within family, with friends, at work, in teaching, advertising, formal communication........anywhere

I'm sure all of us have instances in our own lives where we've heard, or been part of,  those seemingly silly altercations between two people , like for instance

'that's not what you said' .......'I said exactly that'

'are you saying I didn't hear'.....'I'm saying I said that'

'are you implying I'm lying'....'I don't know all that, but I said it'

'you did not, why don't you get it'.....'did too, why don't you get it, you think i wouldn't know what I said'

and so on and so forth. Familiar right?

Why does this happen. The intent is right on both ends, yet this happens ever so often.

Who's at fault? Typically neither.

It's a lot to do with context. What is the space the other is listening from. Could they be in momentary 'lost in thought' space. Did you catch them in the middle of another thought. Could the words mean something else to them. Are they hearing through a filter that's changing meaning.

Any of these are possible.

Further, it's also possible that as the speaker, we might not be as clear or articulate as we think we are or intend to be at all times, particularly if you start in the middle of a thought, choose a wrong word or speak too quickly. Speakers make one or more of these mistakes quite often, and worse, rarely realize when they do.

And as you move from face to face, to telephone, to text, to email.....the possibilities of the gap only widen, as distance gives more space for misinterpretation.

And keep in mind that if the conversation is even mildly emotional, there's high chance for the negativity bias to kick in. What might seem neutral to the speaker, can be perceived as negative by the listener, that's a known natural tendency.

Net net, you intend to say one thing.....what's been heard is another. Done. End of story. It will have it's own outcome, at times lasting hours, at times days and at times even years.

It’s not easy, but the reality is that your outcomes from conversation will improve if we focus on what people 'hear' rather than what we 'say'. If you’re ok with the opposite then that’s fine; if not, then it's maybe worth the try.

The Right Bolt

Following through from the episode of the clock repair, I was narrating the experience to my dad yesterday, and he told me this little story.

After World War 2, the Americans imported some hitech equipment from Japan. After initial trials and a month of functioning the machine stopped working. Just died on them. They did what they could, first level troubleshooting, frantic calls, local expertise, but nothing helped.  They finally got the Japanese company to send their expert, who arrived after a week.

The mechanic came, spent a while with the machine, finally took out his screw driver and tightened a bolt. The machine came to life.

He gave them a bill for 9000 dollars (remember this was way back in the forties) plus expenses.  The American officials were shocked, they were like '9000 dollars? you just tightened a bolt'. 

The mechanic said ' It's ten dollars for tightening the bolt, and 8990 dollars for knowing which bolt had to be tightened'.

The story was so very apt. My watch repair guy charged me the ten rupees for tightening the bolt, but not the 8990 dollars for knowing which bolt to tighten.

Big lesson there....it could be about 'being gracious' or it could be about how 'we value what we are worth'.