For many, each New Year is a time for resolutions. I have often made such resolutions - and usually broken them (just like most others)...
This year, I'm doing something different. I'm just going to reflect on some of the thoughts and 'bulbs' that flashed somewhere in my grandest personal 'home theater', one that needs no electricity but displays the highest-definition results (you guessed it right, I'm talking about the mind). Some of you would've already seen these as Facebook posts, but hey, in a world of retweets, ain't I entitled to some rethweets :)
Without much voodoo, here you go:
* Your own heart and mind is the best place to escape the wretchedness of the world.
* Love and hate have remained constant since the time of Adam & Eve - 50:50.
* If we truly try to be sincere to ourselves, there'll be no need to feign sincerity toward others.
* There's so much heartburn in the world, it's causing global warming.
* Wanderlust often leads to wander*lost* but that doesn't mean we should stop exploring - only that we should be aware of where we are going.
* The world is full of a**holes - but that's no reason why you should be one...
* As long as children have the ability to love unconditionally - no matter how much the grown-ups tamper with that - there's hope for all of us.
* The future shocks us, because we spend too much time reconciling our present to our past.
* An evolved person is not necessarily one with a refined palate, but essentially one with an exalted mind.
* Regrets are nothing but detritus of past actions that keep floating in our mind until we forgive ourselves.
* A heavy heart is worse than a heavy mind.
* A lot of politicians call themselves public servants. They are right - with a stinging twist: Public Serpents.
* The distance between despair and hope can be a leap of faith or a chasm of doubt.
* The mind is the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And the rainbow itself is the bridge - invisible but perceptible - from the heart to the mind.
* The way a child touches you - physically, emotionally and spiritually - nothing else possibly can. . . Is there anyone who still thinks angels don't exist?
* Music is the vacuum cleaner that smoothes out the cobwebs of tangled thoughts from the remotest corners of our mind.
* What we do not do often reveals more about us than what we end up doing.
* Do not give me wisdom at the cost of kindness.
* In many places in India paperless office is dead; paper mess office, however, is still alive - and kicking you where it hurts most!
* Don't mortgage your present to your past - the future has no interest in it.
* The burden of the lies we speak is nothing compared to the burden of the ones we live...
* The day I stop doing any of these three L's - Learning, Laughing and Loving - will be the day I stop Living. . .
* There are only two things that really matter in life - unfortunately, nobody knows what they are!
* How to get more time, you ask?? Stop killing it!
* No matter where we are, most of us tend to think we should be somewhere else!
* Diwali is not so much about setting fire to crackers as it is about lighting up your inner selves with the spirit of celebration - of joy over sadness, of good over evil, of friendship over enmity, of love over hatred...
* Dieting tip: don't lose steam; lose cream!
* It takes a little time to realize that mathematics is the science closest to God. Thankfully, you don't have to be an Einstein to say this.
* No matter how much we know, there'll always be more to know than we do.
* Theory of relativity: what's "austere" for a few is simplicity for some, necessity for many and, unfortunately, luxury for many many more...
* What Obama probably said (or should've said) to General Motors: "I know what you did last Hummer!"
* The world is a stage and we are all puppets - but some of us do try to pull our own strings...
Let's continue to hope that the drama played out in the global theater becomes more interesting than ever in what can be construed as the year of Vision Perfect: 20-10
Happy New Year...
Friday, January 1, 2010
Friday, October 2, 2009
Remembering Mahatma Gandhi
On Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary today, I'm reminded of a powerful message that used to play on TV a few years back. For effect, it was preceded by a quick sketch-squiggle that people could easily identify as the man most credited with handing India its independence from British rule. The message read: "The greatness of this man was his simplicity. Let's discover Gandhi in ourselves."
I had read Gandhi's autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, in my teen years and was greatly influenced by its honesty and power (not the power that corrupts but one that uplifts and strengthens).
Then more recently a few years back, I watched Lage Raho Munnabhai and, despite all the criticism of trivialization and other shortcomings of the movie, really appreciated the passion and skill of those who made the film (it was produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and directed by Rajkumar Hirani). It really got Gandhi's messages of non-violence and truth across to today's youth, most of whom are now engaged in the blind pursuit of money, sex and power.
Today morning I read a small report in Hindustan Times that talks about a village in Orissa called Panimora. It says that once the village was a birthplace of freedom fighters and has been a follower of Gandhi's tenets. But its model of autonomous development is now giving way to squabbling over funds and petty politics (aggravated by the death of most Gandhians).
All the same, politicians are busy as usual in highjacking the Mahatma's name for political mileage through lavish ads.
Unfortunately, we either dismiss Gandhi's ideas and ideals as anachronistic or put them just on a pedestal, with no intention of using them or really discovering what they mean.
I just feel like telling all those who even remotely want to identify with Gandhi or truly remember him on his jayanti (birthday): Don't bother too much about wearing Gandhian caps - just make do with the heads thinking Gandhian thoughts. Hopefully, springing forth from those thoughts, actions that benefit the masses and not just the classes will follow...
Happy Gandhi Jayanti.
I had read Gandhi's autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, in my teen years and was greatly influenced by its honesty and power (not the power that corrupts but one that uplifts and strengthens).
Then more recently a few years back, I watched Lage Raho Munnabhai and, despite all the criticism of trivialization and other shortcomings of the movie, really appreciated the passion and skill of those who made the film (it was produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and directed by Rajkumar Hirani). It really got Gandhi's messages of non-violence and truth across to today's youth, most of whom are now engaged in the blind pursuit of money, sex and power.
Today morning I read a small report in Hindustan Times that talks about a village in Orissa called Panimora. It says that once the village was a birthplace of freedom fighters and has been a follower of Gandhi's tenets. But its model of autonomous development is now giving way to squabbling over funds and petty politics (aggravated by the death of most Gandhians).
All the same, politicians are busy as usual in highjacking the Mahatma's name for political mileage through lavish ads.
Unfortunately, we either dismiss Gandhi's ideas and ideals as anachronistic or put them just on a pedestal, with no intention of using them or really discovering what they mean.
I just feel like telling all those who even remotely want to identify with Gandhi or truly remember him on his jayanti (birthday): Don't bother too much about wearing Gandhian caps - just make do with the heads thinking Gandhian thoughts. Hopefully, springing forth from those thoughts, actions that benefit the masses and not just the classes will follow...
Happy Gandhi Jayanti.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Twittering out the Social Media Thingy
Okay, I won't begin with how Twitter-beat-Facebook-beat-Internet-beat-TV...quicker and quicker in terms of popularity or user base -- we are now beyond that stage.
I'll begin instead with how everyone is perplexed about this "social media thing". As I write this, new social media agencies are being set up, articles are being written about this *phenomenon* (including this one, if you can call this post an article), and the marketing pros are figuring out whether to suck at the Vampire widget or indulge in a Mob War to reach their target group.
The point is, the buzz around social media (btw, did we have anti- or un-social media before that?) is growing.
At the same time, some are even beginning to wonder if we could indeed be outgrowing Facebook. Lane Wallace of The Atlantic magazine says, for instance, that we might be at a stage where our initial, teenager-like fancy to FB may give way to fatigue or boredom. Still she admits that sites like FB and Twitter are growing and becoming increasingly popular with 30-plus folks and not just teeny-boppers.
Something doesn't gel, isn't it?
I think if we look close enough -- at human behavior, not websites or widgets -- we'll discover that the process of social evolution takes a long time (Darwin already told us that anatomical evolution takes even longer). In contrast, the breakneck technological evolution of the past decade or so has thrown up numerous tools and twitgets (note that!) for humans to play around.
So it's a playground out there, all right. But unlike earlier, when people played in more segregated age groups, in the virtual world we now have a whole smorgasbord of pre-teens, teens and umpteens 'behaving' in unprecedented ways. Combine this with the fact that this interplay goes on in several handshakes of connected gadgets, irrespective of where the players move across the globe. (We even have extreme cases in which people are being de-addicted for being too connected!)
Personally, I feel that the new tools of staying connected and sharing have brought out the kids in adults and allowed younger people to acquire wisdom or knowledge at an accelerated pace. If anything, the contours of our age-tied and time-bound behaviors are being pummeled into newer and more possibilities -- of what communication and sharing in this or the next digital world (Web x.0) will be really like.
So it's only natural that there's so much complexity and perplexity. I guess it'll be a progressive case of profusion - confusion - infusion (until more things come up and the cycle repeats).
Keep your fingers clicking...
I'll begin instead with how everyone is perplexed about this "social media thing". As I write this, new social media agencies are being set up, articles are being written about this *phenomenon* (including this one, if you can call this post an article), and the marketing pros are figuring out whether to suck at the Vampire widget or indulge in a Mob War to reach their target group.
The point is, the buzz around social media (btw, did we have anti- or un-social media before that?) is growing.
At the same time, some are even beginning to wonder if we could indeed be outgrowing Facebook. Lane Wallace of The Atlantic magazine says, for instance, that we might be at a stage where our initial, teenager-like fancy to FB may give way to fatigue or boredom. Still she admits that sites like FB and Twitter are growing and becoming increasingly popular with 30-plus folks and not just teeny-boppers.
Something doesn't gel, isn't it?
I think if we look close enough -- at human behavior, not websites or widgets -- we'll discover that the process of social evolution takes a long time (Darwin already told us that anatomical evolution takes even longer). In contrast, the breakneck technological evolution of the past decade or so has thrown up numerous tools and twitgets (note that!) for humans to play around.
So it's a playground out there, all right. But unlike earlier, when people played in more segregated age groups, in the virtual world we now have a whole smorgasbord of pre-teens, teens and umpteens 'behaving' in unprecedented ways. Combine this with the fact that this interplay goes on in several handshakes of connected gadgets, irrespective of where the players move across the globe. (We even have extreme cases in which people are being de-addicted for being too connected!)
Personally, I feel that the new tools of staying connected and sharing have brought out the kids in adults and allowed younger people to acquire wisdom or knowledge at an accelerated pace. If anything, the contours of our age-tied and time-bound behaviors are being pummeled into newer and more possibilities -- of what communication and sharing in this or the next digital world (Web x.0) will be really like.
So it's only natural that there's so much complexity and perplexity. I guess it'll be a progressive case of profusion - confusion - infusion (until more things come up and the cycle repeats).
Keep your fingers clicking...
Friday, August 28, 2009
Writers of Passage
Can you learn your way to writing a book?
This question wouldn’t perhaps arise in the more mature markets of the West. But for a developing country like India, most aspiring writers are unaware of, or unexposed to, the lessons and master-classes that can catapult them into the league of a J(h)umpa Lahiri or a Chetan Bhagat. In the US, for instance, there are oodles of creative writing courses and workshops and retreats and many more, where budding authors can see their writer’s block unfold into textual bloom. But in India, there are few such options and devices, though things are beginning to change I must say.
So when I happened to be present during a fiction-writing interaction at Delhi’s Oxford Book Store, I lent my ear to lecturing by guest author Jaishree Misra even as my eyes continued to browse the bookshelves. Despite this double act of dual-tasking, I was able to gather some pertinent points shared by Jaishree. What follows is a recollection (and remixing with my own two bits) of some of those tips and traps…
The best thing I liked about Jaishree’s advice was that she urged the audience – most of them young women, a couple of lads and even a few old curmudgeons – to stick to their day jobs (or night ones if they work in a call center). Why, she herself continues to hold her job as a classifier of films in Britain (admission of envy: I want a job like hers) and still come up with a book or two. I couldn’t agree more: writing becomes a full-time *profession* only when you’ve already published a bestseller (unless you’ve inherited ample dough and can indulge in timelessly baking your writerly ambitions).
Another tip the author of Secrets & Lies shared was that aspiring writers must try and live the life of the characters they are going to create in their books. This would enable them to breathe realism into the characters which, needless to say, can have an impact on the readers as well as the number of books sold.
Jaishree also advised the audience to carefully pick a genre that best suits an individual, read up as many books in that genre as possible and reach an understanding of the nuances of writing for that genre.
She also shared some helpful tricks of the trade when it comes to dealing with publishers and agents (their role in the publishing process, how to deal with them, et al) –– in the smiling presence of HarperCollins India’s publisher and chief editor, VK Karthika.
Don't you think we need more of such learning-the-art-of-writing events, especially extensive ones at that?
This question wouldn’t perhaps arise in the more mature markets of the West. But for a developing country like India, most aspiring writers are unaware of, or unexposed to, the lessons and master-classes that can catapult them into the league of a J(h)umpa Lahiri or a Chetan Bhagat. In the US, for instance, there are oodles of creative writing courses and workshops and retreats and many more, where budding authors can see their writer’s block unfold into textual bloom. But in India, there are few such options and devices, though things are beginning to change I must say.
So when I happened to be present during a fiction-writing interaction at Delhi’s Oxford Book Store, I lent my ear to lecturing by guest author Jaishree Misra even as my eyes continued to browse the bookshelves. Despite this double act of dual-tasking, I was able to gather some pertinent points shared by Jaishree. What follows is a recollection (and remixing with my own two bits) of some of those tips and traps…
The best thing I liked about Jaishree’s advice was that she urged the audience – most of them young women, a couple of lads and even a few old curmudgeons – to stick to their day jobs (or night ones if they work in a call center). Why, she herself continues to hold her job as a classifier of films in Britain (admission of envy: I want a job like hers) and still come up with a book or two. I couldn’t agree more: writing becomes a full-time *profession* only when you’ve already published a bestseller (unless you’ve inherited ample dough and can indulge in timelessly baking your writerly ambitions).
Another tip the author of Secrets & Lies shared was that aspiring writers must try and live the life of the characters they are going to create in their books. This would enable them to breathe realism into the characters which, needless to say, can have an impact on the readers as well as the number of books sold.
Jaishree also advised the audience to carefully pick a genre that best suits an individual, read up as many books in that genre as possible and reach an understanding of the nuances of writing for that genre.
She also shared some helpful tricks of the trade when it comes to dealing with publishers and agents (their role in the publishing process, how to deal with them, et al) –– in the smiling presence of HarperCollins India’s publisher and chief editor, VK Karthika.
Don't you think we need more of such learning-the-art-of-writing events, especially extensive ones at that?
Monday, August 24, 2009
Writer Kelby Offers to Make it Up to SRK
I am pleasantly surprised that the writer NM Kelby (see previous post) has picked up my blog entry about the Shah Rukh Khan airport controversy and put out a very generous post. Her post (read it here) does reaffirm the fact that one should never paint all people (Americans in this context) with the same brush.
Not all Americans are rude or offensive or uncaring, of course. Citizens of all nations are truly bound by a collective humanity with the same set of emotions. Unfortunately, our world is so complex and rife with the threats of violence and intolerance that uncalled-for incidents do happen from time to time. But we must not give in to the temptation of fomenting further unrest and, instead, move on with better understanding of each other. Do read Kelby's post to learn a lesson of humility and to know how to take things with a hint of sugar...
Not all Americans are rude or offensive or uncaring, of course. Citizens of all nations are truly bound by a collective humanity with the same set of emotions. Unfortunately, our world is so complex and rife with the threats of violence and intolerance that uncalled-for incidents do happen from time to time. But we must not give in to the temptation of fomenting further unrest and, instead, move on with better understanding of each other. Do read Kelby's post to learn a lesson of humility and to know how to take things with a hint of sugar...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)