My Son had off due to the Palkhi procession on Friday and Monday. So yesterday, on Monday, 27th June 2011, I went to see the CARS - 2 movie in 3D along with my son as I had promised him. His face had bloomed like a Sunflower. I was feeling so good. We went to the theater, Big Cinema, Kalyaninagar, Pune to see the film at 8:45 AM as the show was for 9:15AM. The other best thing about this event, was this was my sons first film in a theater.
Long back when he was around 4yrs we took him to a theater for one of the films he saw at home and had liked. But that turned out as a real disastrous event, as my son got scared of the darkness and the loudness. He howled at me to reduce the loudness and wanted the lights in the theater on. Thus me, my wife and mother all pulled out of the theater. :) Funny enough looking back.
After the usual stuff of buying tickets and being ushered into the theater armed with food stuff and 3D goggles, we sat at our seats. The usual advertisements of up coming films, etc happened and then we saw the instruction to stand up for the National Anthem. I was expecting the usual song for "JANA GANA MANA" with people being lazy to standup etc going in my mind.
I remember telling myself to see if in todays india People would actually stand up. And i was wrong. Every single person stood up. :)
Then the Anthem began and I had a shock of my life. Maybe its been many ages since i went to a theater, hence had never seen this version. By the time the Anthem ended, I was in my tears and thanks to the darkness and the 3D goggles, no one saw my tears.
I have pasted the link from you tube to see the Anthem and my humble request. Please do stand up when u watch it. http://youtu.be/Kk02qPlnS2E
This was the Best National Anthem i had ever witnessed being sung. The emotion on each of those kids faces were very genuine and I whom GOD has been given everything felt ashamed of not being so proud enough to show my emotions!
Gopal Ganesh Agarkar
17th June 2011 -- Today is the Punya Thithi (The Death anniversary) of Gopal Ganesh Agarkar. Rings a bell in mind? Who is he? What did he do? No??
That's the sorry state of our country today. Most of us have read history more as another subject to pass rather than actually understand the people and its struggle or the great contributions of the children of this country. Ironic is it not. Many other countries, like US and Germany, make history of their country more fun for generations to remember and not another subject to score marks to improve over all percentage. :)
Don't worry even though i am writing this blog even i was not sure who he was and what contribution he did. All i remembered vaguely was he was also a freedom fighter in Maharashtra. That's all. So how did I stumble upon this date? I just was checking Marathi Kaal Nirnay calender and low behold on today's date it mentioned Gopal Ganesh Agarkar's Punya thithi. So thought of looking up some details off the net.
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| Gopal Ganesh Agarkar |
Name : Gopal Ganesh Agarkar
Father : Ganesh
Mother : Sarswati
Wife : Antubai
Date of Birth : 14 July 1856
Education : B.A. M.A. [History]
Death : 17 June 1895
His Social Work include the following
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| Any one know this building? |
- 1880 : Establishment of New English School In Pune with the help of Lokmanya Tilak & Chipalunkar.
- 1881 : Start of "Kesari & Maratha" news paper.
- 1881 - 87 : Editor in The Kesari. 1887 Resignation from the post of Editor.
- 1884 : Take interest to establishment of Deccan Education Society, Pune.
- 1885 : Establishment of Ferguson college.
- 1888 : Started "The Sudhakar" weekly.
Teaching and Preaching
Whats Preaching: A way to put across your thoughts in words.
Whats Teaching: A way to experience it yourself and not be able to describe it to any one else, except guiding in the other, so that the other too can have a similar (NOT SAME) experience. No words can be used here!!
Whats Teaching: A way to experience it yourself and not be able to describe it to any one else, except guiding in the other, so that the other too can have a similar (NOT SAME) experience. No words can be used here!!
Vat Savitri
Many of my hindu friends would laugh at me for sure because i am writing about Vat Savitri. Yes its a festival for women, a day where many hindu women pray for the long life of their husbands in this life and expect the same husband for the next seven life!!
We all know Savitri went along with YAMA to get back her husbands life. She had to go through many hurdles and hardships to get her husband back. And all along she never left the path of Dharma. One should also remember that Narda had told her that Stayavan is going to be alive for a year and yet she marries him our of her love towards him.
Just imagine her life. Knowing every day that her husband would be dead in less than an years time, she marries and never once lets him or his family know through her action that her husbands days are numbered. What courage to deal with this hurdle. This thought made me write this post. How do i deal with hurdles far smaller than Savitris?
Life, everyone would agree, does have hurdles and hardships, and we in our own ways solve, overcome, go around these hurdles. But are we actually seeing what do hurdles do to us? How do we react and relate to them? I have used the words react and relate with a specific reason.
Whenever a situation arises, we react and with reaction comes feelings and emotions. These can be either negative / positive feelings or emotions. But what matters the most is how we relate ourselves to these feelings and emotions, especially the negative ones.
I can always see that when i relate to feelings or emotions positively, I am cheerful and even more so courageous to take on solving the issue. I am more open to taking feedbacks, suggestions etc from others. Many a time Life does feel like a song at times like these.
When I relate to feelings or emotions negatively, the 1st thing that comes across is fear. With fear of unknown comes, anxiety and with anxiety comes muddleness in mind. What i mean by muddleness of mind is that i am confused, unsure of myself, and lose trust with my own self. Muddleness causes my mind to start imagining things and worry about things that are not real. But this appears so real, that there is a sudden slowdown of energy in my whole body.
Then my mind starts to think RATIONALLY. Starts to analyze events which led to the current situation.I do find myself looking at the situation in various different ways and try to make sense as to why it occurred. Most of than not, I can come up with something to blame and then be a victim of that. It could be fate, stars etc. Once i am a victim, rest is easy. Just Give Up.
What i find commendable of this day is that it teaches us to remember to Face hurdles more positively than negatively. Its all in our mind how we relate to a situation and along with that are our actions associated. Our actions reflect our relatedness to situations.
We all know Savitri went along with YAMA to get back her husbands life. She had to go through many hurdles and hardships to get her husband back. And all along she never left the path of Dharma. One should also remember that Narda had told her that Stayavan is going to be alive for a year and yet she marries him our of her love towards him.
Just imagine her life. Knowing every day that her husband would be dead in less than an years time, she marries and never once lets him or his family know through her action that her husbands days are numbered. What courage to deal with this hurdle. This thought made me write this post. How do i deal with hurdles far smaller than Savitris?
Life, everyone would agree, does have hurdles and hardships, and we in our own ways solve, overcome, go around these hurdles. But are we actually seeing what do hurdles do to us? How do we react and relate to them? I have used the words react and relate with a specific reason.
Whenever a situation arises, we react and with reaction comes feelings and emotions. These can be either negative / positive feelings or emotions. But what matters the most is how we relate ourselves to these feelings and emotions, especially the negative ones.
I can always see that when i relate to feelings or emotions positively, I am cheerful and even more so courageous to take on solving the issue. I am more open to taking feedbacks, suggestions etc from others. Many a time Life does feel like a song at times like these.
When I relate to feelings or emotions negatively, the 1st thing that comes across is fear. With fear of unknown comes, anxiety and with anxiety comes muddleness in mind. What i mean by muddleness of mind is that i am confused, unsure of myself, and lose trust with my own self. Muddleness causes my mind to start imagining things and worry about things that are not real. But this appears so real, that there is a sudden slowdown of energy in my whole body.
Then my mind starts to think RATIONALLY. Starts to analyze events which led to the current situation.I do find myself looking at the situation in various different ways and try to make sense as to why it occurred. Most of than not, I can come up with something to blame and then be a victim of that. It could be fate, stars etc. Once i am a victim, rest is easy. Just Give Up.
What i find commendable of this day is that it teaches us to remember to Face hurdles more positively than negatively. Its all in our mind how we relate to a situation and along with that are our actions associated. Our actions reflect our relatedness to situations.
Why am i blogging??
Today morning i got and thought, I have not been writing enough on my blog. Then i got to the point to think for whom am i writing this blog for?? Was it self gratification, for being a good blogger or something else. Then i thought, what the hell, i should write this blog for myself. Because one thing i found helpful for myself from this Blog was whenever i was down in spirits and i visited this blog, I always realized what my mind can come up with. This helped me a lot of things to let go.
Every time i was down in spirits, I usually found that the main reason for this is my attitude of holding on to something that happened in the past, some fight or some mis-understanding or some hurt, etc. Those things have happened and life has moved on. However I found myself stuck at that position. Though through sheer motion, i may have gone about doing my own things like a robot, my mind and heart as well were stuck in that old position. There was bitterness, sadness, helplessness and many times anger. And most of the time, I found labeling myself as the victim.
But visiting my blog, i get to see that my mind which is capable of doing better things has stopped doing so. This helped me to drop all of the bitterness, sadness, helplessness, anger and the biggest of all BEING THE VICTIM. Hence I have decided to write for myself.
Every time i was down in spirits, I usually found that the main reason for this is my attitude of holding on to something that happened in the past, some fight or some mis-understanding or some hurt, etc. Those things have happened and life has moved on. However I found myself stuck at that position. Though through sheer motion, i may have gone about doing my own things like a robot, my mind and heart as well were stuck in that old position. There was bitterness, sadness, helplessness and many times anger. And most of the time, I found labeling myself as the victim.
But visiting my blog, i get to see that my mind which is capable of doing better things has stopped doing so. This helped me to drop all of the bitterness, sadness, helplessness, anger and the biggest of all BEING THE VICTIM. Hence I have decided to write for myself.
ACT - means what??
In my previous two articles i mentioned about the "Value of Moment" and "Trying to sit on chair". Today got me to think of the last words i said in the article "Trying to sit on chair" which is ACTION. If we look at the word ACT the thought that comes into my mind is that it is an abbreviation. ACT according to me stands for the following: (here i am stealing the words from SPIRITUALITY :) )
A - Awake / Alert (its a State of Mind)
C - Create (an OUTPUT from the previous letter A)
T - Transform (an OUTCOME from the previous letter C)
Lets look at the 1st letter A which denotes the State of Mind to be Awakened or Alert. How can this happen to a normal human being. This is possible when one is Aware of the VALUE OF MOMENT. If one starts to be just present to the fact that each moment that passes by is lost forever, then our Mind will be always Alert.
Once a Mind is Alert and is aware of the "Value of Moment", it becomes Creative because each moment offer innumerous possibilities or paths to the ever changing situations. No two moments are the same. The feelings, the thoughts and the actions are different. Even though superficially the situations may occur same from the surface, the way our mind works is always different. Only an alert mind can be present to this change or difference.
Hence the human mind is most Creative when it is in a high state of alertness or awakened. This causes the mind to look at things differently and even when situations seem very desperate, this mind is able to come out with ideas that normally would not have been generated. When i say desperate, it is not necessary that its a question of life and death and not necessarily for oneself. Sometimes my alert mind has actually created an idea or new path that it has impacted others in their state of desperation. If we look deeper in our life's we can see for ourselves many such incidents which we have gone through.
This creativity generated from our mind comes out as Ideas in Words, which shows a new path for someone else which actually gets them to start looking at the situation differently and make them take actions which actually impact their life. This I call as Transformation. And Transformation is real. This happens in time, space and distance.
Transformation according to me is not something that will happen someday by doing the some actions. For me its a re-birth of oneself where in the Outcome is so different that no one would have thought of this being possible and real.
Also one small thing that happens in the background of ACT are the context and the intentions. I will share more about this later.... :)
What say?? Your opinions please.
A - Awake / Alert (its a State of Mind)
C - Create (an OUTPUT from the previous letter A)
T - Transform (an OUTCOME from the previous letter C)
Lets look at the 1st letter A which denotes the State of Mind to be Awakened or Alert. How can this happen to a normal human being. This is possible when one is Aware of the VALUE OF MOMENT. If one starts to be just present to the fact that each moment that passes by is lost forever, then our Mind will be always Alert.
Once a Mind is Alert and is aware of the "Value of Moment", it becomes Creative because each moment offer innumerous possibilities or paths to the ever changing situations. No two moments are the same. The feelings, the thoughts and the actions are different. Even though superficially the situations may occur same from the surface, the way our mind works is always different. Only an alert mind can be present to this change or difference.
Hence the human mind is most Creative when it is in a high state of alertness or awakened. This causes the mind to look at things differently and even when situations seem very desperate, this mind is able to come out with ideas that normally would not have been generated. When i say desperate, it is not necessary that its a question of life and death and not necessarily for oneself. Sometimes my alert mind has actually created an idea or new path that it has impacted others in their state of desperation. If we look deeper in our life's we can see for ourselves many such incidents which we have gone through.
This creativity generated from our mind comes out as Ideas in Words, which shows a new path for someone else which actually gets them to start looking at the situation differently and make them take actions which actually impact their life. This I call as Transformation. And Transformation is real. This happens in time, space and distance.
Transformation according to me is not something that will happen someday by doing the some actions. For me its a re-birth of oneself where in the Outcome is so different that no one would have thought of this being possible and real.
Also one small thing that happens in the background of ACT are the context and the intentions. I will share more about this later.... :)
What say?? Your opinions please.
TRY SITTING ON A CHAIR
How many times in life we say, I am TRYING. But ever wondered what TRYING means? It means nothing.
Do this game.
Take a chair and keep it in the center of a room. The try to sit on the chair. Remember you should not be STANDING near the chair nor be SEATED on the chair. So what am I doing??
Then what is TRYING? There is no such thing called as TRYING.
When ever we say we are TRYING, we are in the domain of inaction. There is no definite action happening. Also there is no clear path for us to achieve something. Rather than doing something half-heartedly, its better to think and set in a plan with actions to be taken to achieve and get done with the work. After that its all about being in ACTION.
TRY SITTING ON A CHAIR...
Do this game.
Take a chair and keep it in the center of a room. The try to sit on the chair. Remember you should not be STANDING near the chair nor be SEATED on the chair. So what am I doing??
Then what is TRYING? There is no such thing called as TRYING.
When ever we say we are TRYING, we are in the domain of inaction. There is no definite action happening. Also there is no clear path for us to achieve something. Rather than doing something half-heartedly, its better to think and set in a plan with actions to be taken to achieve and get done with the work. After that its all about being in ACTION.
Value of a MOMENT
Ever wondered whats the value of a Moment? Ask a person on his death bed or a person who is seeing his death every moment from the time he knows he may die between now and NOW. Remember the movie ANAND... where he sees his death every moment. This thought just came to my mind. If we live our lives as if we have just one moment to live, how would we live it?
Would we then be so self centered around our EGO? Would we have ego fights with the people around us? Would we spend time about criticising about things in life? Would we complain about how unfair life has been to us? Would we spend time running about making money and becoming more powerful physically or otherwise?
Or would we like to spend that moment, making an impact on others which transforms their life? Or look and appriceate things around us and be thankful to God for being able to do so? Or enjoy the moment and feel blessed for being alive in that Moment??
Any thoughts?
Would we then be so self centered around our EGO? Would we have ego fights with the people around us? Would we spend time about criticising about things in life? Would we complain about how unfair life has been to us? Would we spend time running about making money and becoming more powerful physically or otherwise?
Or would we like to spend that moment, making an impact on others which transforms their life? Or look and appriceate things around us and be thankful to God for being able to do so? Or enjoy the moment and feel blessed for being alive in that Moment??
Any thoughts?
Gowri Ganesha - Eco Friendly Celebrations
These days its the Festive Season and Gowri Ganesha Festival (written the way it is said in Kannada) at its peak. With the preparations in full swings at everyones home, my mom told me a way they celebrated the Festival in her home town.
This year Gowri as well as Ganesha celebrations came on the same day. But mostly Gowri celebrations happen atleast a Day earlier than Ganesha Festival.
So on the Gowri celebrations day, the ladies and girls of the village would go to the river bed early morning and the Priest of the Village temple would conduct the initial pooja (Sankalpa / Sankalp as it is called). After the Sankalpa, the ladies and girls would 1st pray to the river and then from the bed of the river collect wet sand and tie it in a cloth. This would symbolise Gowri. With appropriate salutaions and pooja they would take this Gowri to their homes and worship her.
In some houses, Gowri would be made of Turmeric. They would dissolve turmeric powder and create small triangular shaped object and atoint it with red kumkum at the center.
For Ganesha, the men and boys would also go to the river bed the next day early morning. There the same Sankalpa would happen, and then they would pick up the wet clay from the river bed and each household would create Ganesha from the clay. After that they would take this to their homes as Ganesha for worship. However the interesting part was, since these Ganeshas were hand made, most of the households would keep Ganesha for just a day, so that the Clay does not dry up too much and there are no cracks. Because, in Hinduism Gods Idols have to be perfect. Hence they would immerse the Ganesha on the same evening along with Gauri.
Life was so simple those days and had more enjoyment. But to think of what we do today in the name of celebrations, that was sure a Eco Friendly way of celebrating Gowri Ganesh.
This year Gowri as well as Ganesha celebrations came on the same day. But mostly Gowri celebrations happen atleast a Day earlier than Ganesha Festival.
So on the Gowri celebrations day, the ladies and girls of the village would go to the river bed early morning and the Priest of the Village temple would conduct the initial pooja (Sankalpa / Sankalp as it is called). After the Sankalpa, the ladies and girls would 1st pray to the river and then from the bed of the river collect wet sand and tie it in a cloth. This would symbolise Gowri. With appropriate salutaions and pooja they would take this Gowri to their homes and worship her.
In some houses, Gowri would be made of Turmeric. They would dissolve turmeric powder and create small triangular shaped object and atoint it with red kumkum at the center.
For Ganesha, the men and boys would also go to the river bed the next day early morning. There the same Sankalpa would happen, and then they would pick up the wet clay from the river bed and each household would create Ganesha from the clay. After that they would take this to their homes as Ganesha for worship. However the interesting part was, since these Ganeshas were hand made, most of the households would keep Ganesha for just a day, so that the Clay does not dry up too much and there are no cracks. Because, in Hinduism Gods Idols have to be perfect. Hence they would immerse the Ganesha on the same evening along with Gauri.
Life was so simple those days and had more enjoyment. But to think of what we do today in the name of celebrations, that was sure a Eco Friendly way of celebrating Gowri Ganesh.
Retrospection
Coming from the world of Agile which has a simple principle of Plan -> Act -> Retrospect led me to think whether the same can be applied to our life. When we apply it in our life theres already another word called Introspection. To introspect is to look inwards and to analyze our thoughts and actions. And Retrospective is to look inwards again and to analyze our goals and actions to the work we have done or need to take upon. So per say both mean the same though albeit differently. One is more personal while the other is more professional.
Hence i have coined a term Retrospection. In order to do a retrospection the guiding questions are:
Hence i have coined a term Retrospection. In order to do a retrospection the guiding questions are:
- What is working? (select a max of 3 items in your personal or professional life)
- What is Not working? (select a max of 3 items in your personal or professional life)
- What would happen if you continue to work the way you are working?
- Which one of the 3 items which dont work you would want to change?
- If you do change whats the impact?
- Do you believe in the impact for that change?
- If YES then what steps should you take by when to see the 1st step of your impact?
- If NO then do steps 1-6 till you get step 7! :)
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