Finding Nemo

In my previous post – "Main or May" , I started a thought on the pride. Pride can come to a person in many forms – overconfidence being one of them and probably the most destructive too. Pride is a great feeling to have and is a great asset if in moderated quantity. Being a necessary evil, it helps one to move forward and overcome the inherent fear of failure, and at the same time, creates a path for self-destruction through complacency and too much of confidence on self or other. Pride comes with the sense of belonging and ownership. However, the nature makes no such claim. This is a human mind construct and creates boundaries. We have all seen both the benefits and the destruction caused by pride. Let's see the symbolism of the same as seen in our scriptures! Who better to kill pride or tame the feeling than Lord Shiva. Shiva took the form of "Bhairava" as a young child devoid of all the emotions of ownership and pride. Bhairava is always accompanied with ...

I took a little time thinking on what do I want and what do I need. While doing so, I thought whether am I looking for "Main" (myself in hindi) or "May" (pride in hindi). Though a very glib pun on the sounds, yet a very profound meaning that changes the character of a person. Below is my attempt in penning my thoughts. कुछ ढूँढ रहा था मैं , कुछ पाना चाहता था मैं, श्रम से बीज बोता मैं, सोचता था फल खाऊँगा मैं।                                        कभी मन को समझाता मैं ,                                        कभी खूब मचल जाता मैं ,                                        दूर भी जाना चाहता था मैं ,                       ...

I am sure that all of us have been stirred by the Devyani Khobragade arrest incident that has shaken the diplomatic ties between India and US for now. I spent much time yesterday reading through the news reports and talking to people with experiences into diplomatic scenarios. We spoke at lengths on the measures being taken by the various authorities and the excessiveness being exercised in matters deemed necessary. We all concluded that there were some gaps in the manner the situation was handled. This article today is dedicated towards the lamentation of these gaps. In the Devyani case, the US officials have reported to have acted as per their rules and regulations. Their reports said that since the Indian Diplomat failed to align with their rules and regulations, they were supposed to take a corrective action and force the punishment on the accused. What were these rules? Putting appropriate salary to the domestic help (which is allowed as per US rules and regulations) in the visa a...

Last night we were watching the movie "Dashavtaram" for the umpteenth time. We love the movie and also have many good memories attached with the song – "Mukunda Mukunda". My wife taught dance to this number and the kids performed beautifully on the stage. Now that we watched it again and again, we tried to make sense of the name – "Dashavtaram" which undoubtedly refers to the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu. Interestingly enough, Lord Vishnu is known to have descended upon the earth many a times to uphold the dharma or the laws of nature. Though our scriptures and wise learned people have often differed on the number of times Vishnu took different forms, there is no difference in understanding the common themes and the principles in each of these avatars. My attempt shall be to just have a look at those and understand the same. As per the most well-read purana scripture – Bhagwat Purana describes 22 avatars of Sri Vishnu. While the most commonly known 10 av...

Now that you got me started, I will croon out another one from my pocket. This may not be a fantastic piece of work, but is definitely close to my heart and in a way quite true to its meaning! The best part is when it was composed? Almost 20 years ago!                       आज जीवन का अर्थ कहो तुम ?                       किसी कि हंसी छीनना ही क्या जीवन है?                       किसी को दुःख देना ही क्या जीवन है?                       अत्याचार करना ही क्या जीवन है? जीवन तो एक अमूल्य धन है, मानवता के निर्माण का साधन है।  जीवन का तुम लाभ उठाओ, संसार के मार्गदर्शक बन जाओ।।                         सच्ची राह बतलाना तुम,                      ...

Blame it on my wife! She started it a few weeks ago right from the day I was born a few years ago. She coaxed me to introspect and start squeezing out the thoughts on what I wanted to do in my life, realize what I couldn't and what I could. I know she wanted to make worthwhile of a day that meant special to us. However, no introspection is complete without the trip down the memory lane. In my case I call those as the dark ages. I am positive everyone goes through the dark ages at least once in the life. And yes, not everything in memory is worth remembering, but I am glad I found a few pieces that I would want to share here. All these works are my own. However, please do not try to read much into the lines. I assure you that "Dark Ages" should be considered as dark. Remember, coal is dark but there are diamonds hidden somewhere along. So these are my diamonds – One day I won't be there I don't know how we would fare But certainly I tell you I won't ever...

Still full of the joy of our anniversary and pondering over the bliss of togetherness, I want to take another deeper dive into some of the well-known couples to all of us. This time, I just want to touch upon the ideas that brought them together and how they complemented each oher. May be if we are able to imbibe some qualities, we can rise to some heights as described. Ram and Sita The Sita-Ram couple is definitely the most revered and most worthy candidate of an idealist couple. Sita is the most obedient wife and offers every comfort to Rama. Rama in turn, loves her the most and performs every duty as needed for a husband. Sita follows her husband, when he goes to the forest as exile to keep up with the laws / principles of the Raghu clan. Sita leads her life in simplicity though being a princess, just because her husband chooses to do so. Ram vows to take care of his wife and fulfills all her needs. Sita observes the chaste of her husband when he shooes away the deautiful form of Su...

Recently my wife and I completed 12 years of togetherness. We were just going through the memory lane and realizing what worked for us and what did not! The years had been rollercoaster of events, emotions and actions. One thing that stood out most importantly was strengthening of the resolve that we will always be together. I still dread the days when she goes out vacationing with our kids. Even with all the independence and the fun and frolicking with friends, there is a big void deep in the heart longing for the family. I was happy that we did share the same feeling. While discussing, we digressed from ourselves and wondered how the other people fared – particularly those who remain single. Being a male-chauvinist (my wife often holds me up to that), I would try to delve into the stories involving the male spinsters. Spinster is a word used for describing an old childless woman who has never been married. However, for the lack of a better word, I call the male counterpart a Male Spi...

Last week all my friends and we went out shopping during the greatest shopping fever in USA – Black Friday. To add the icing, today is the Cyber Monday – thereby adding wonderful deals on the internet encouraging the shoppers to shop around if they missed anything on the Friday. While on the way back home and discussing our loots, we discussed how consumer centric have all the festivals became? The day – "Black Friday" was supposed to be the "day after thanksgiving". As a tradition, the family would get together for the dinner on Thanksgiving Day and discuss their ideas. Getting clues from the discussions, the enthusiasts would then go out and buy the gifts to place under the Christmas tree. And look what has Black Friday turned out to be? Is this insane? Does this happens only in US? Don't we Indians, despise such an expose of consumerism? NO. Just look at the lines of the consumers hoarding at the jewelers to buy gold on " Akshaya Tritiya " or the l...

My previous posts – " Generosity or Charity?" and " Generosity – contd. " have been focused on the power and effects of giving. The act of giving and sharing s so beautiful in countless ways. However, we have to be careful on what we want to give away and got to be cautious of what is being asked of us. This is the theme of my today's post. We know we need to possess the material before we can pledge it to someone else or in easier words – give it away. What we do not have, cannot be given. At the same time, it doesn't takes much to share the love or spiritual comfort from within yourself. As the luck would have it, meeting the requirements most of the time, renders a thought of being omnipotent. And this is where we tend to make mistakes and overlook the power of the ask. Let ponder on some of the very well-known stories – Vaman and Bali – When the Asura king Bali became powerful and expelled the gods from their heavenly abode – Swarga, Vishnu took the ava...

Expanding on the thought I seeded in the previous blog, generosity is also the display of the mental state of the human being. This is seen through a comparison of two interesting stories from the Mahabharata. Both the stories start on similar grounds with two friends spending their childhood together playing, learning and growing up. One of the two friends grows up to be a king and the other a poor Brahmin. Bowing to their family and financial pressure, the poor Brahmin friend goes to the king friend asking for help. Now the stories take different turns. In the first story, the Brahmin is unable to ask for any help. Yet the king understands the need and provides everything without being asked. In the second story, the poor Brahmin approaches his friend and demands for provisions as they discussed in the childhood. The king, in return, derides the Brahmin and throws him out of the court. The first story is of Krishna – Sudama, while the other is of Drupada – Drona. It's the den...

Generosity is often described as charity. Are they same? I believe not! While charity is an act of giving away something from your possession to the needy, generosity is the spirit that helps you think about charity. Charity is materialistic and is related to tangible resources only. While generosity on the other hand involved intangible resources like love. A generous heart soothes the needy more than the charity. Charity is transactional in nature – you give what is asked for – nothing more, nothing less. While generosity goes beyond the boundaries of transactions and gives away without being asked or looking for anything in return. Throughout or vast history, there are stories of generous kings and their subjects that have stood out as examples of greatness. Be it Karna, Bali, Virochana, Bhoj etc. However, in each of the story we always focus on the act of charity than the spirit of generosity. All these great men gave what they had and much more, when asked. At the same time, there...

"I could have done better in the exams, if the neighbor had kept the music on a lower volume" "These stupid people don't know when to stop partying. Can't they see I'm focusing for my interview?" "I find happiness in other's happiness. I have given away myself for the others." I am sure, we all come across such statements every day. We often know and revere the originators of such statements. May I please have the liberty to hurt your feelings and call these revered people as cowards? Yes these people are cowards who shy away from taking the responsibilities on their head and solving it. It is the easiest path for anyone to walk away from our responsibilities. After all, the world was created by the God for all of us to live happily or live with the consequences of our choices. God made all of us equal – giving the choice and the ability to think through. Then why do we blame someone else for our happiness? It is because we do not want to t...

We have all heard innumerable stories about the Devas or Suras and their arch-rivals Asuras . The story of their enmity has often taken heights and has been showcased by multiple high grossing Hollywood as well as Bollywood movies. Do you know that there are positions available amongst the Suras and Asuras equally if you are interested? Many of us might recall the Sura and Asura are both brothers from the same father – Maharishi Kashyap but different mothers – Diti and Aditi . Due to their constant strife for power they are both assigned different homes – the sky (Heaven or Swarga ) and underground ( Patala ), We have always visualized the Suras as the nice looking heroes who are always struggling to keep ugly looking, wrong doing Asuras at bay from capturing their abode. Let's take a slightly distorted view and consider them equal and then understand them both! Both Devatas and Asuras are the offspring of the same maharishi. They are both the creatures of the same God – ...

A few weeks ago, in my blog on "Did Yudhishthira went to heaven?" I mentioned that he saw Kaurava brothers in the heaven. And he was enraged. But do we know why? Kuru – the great ancestor of the Pandavas and Kauravas once tilled a land close to Hastinapuri – his capital. He tilled the earth with such determination that he used his flesh as the seeds and his blood as the water for the seeds to germinate. Upon seeing this, Indra descended from his throne and asked Kuru for his wish. Kuru requested nothing for himself, but for others. He asked ascension to heaven for anyone who dies on the land he tilled. Though Indra could not refuse Kuru's request, he added a condition that the person must die as a warrior. The land was later known as Kurukshtera and all who died (mainly Kauravas) ascended to heaven for just having died on the land. Sometimes, we may have done our best and have been the most righteous of all, yet we may not be the one to achieve success. Never loose the ho...

In my own quest, I missed my daughter's questions – Wh do we celebrate Diwali or Deepawali? What is this festival? And why is there so much hype about it? Let's see! Deepawali or the festival of lights has always been called Diwali in the easy linguistic terms. It is a festival to mark the return of Sri Rama in Ayodhya after completing his 14 years of exile. However, Deepawali in today's terms is a 5 day festival and each day has its own story. I will try my best to explain for each one of these. Day 1 – Dhanteras Dhanteras is the combination of two words – " Dhan " and "Teras". Dhan means money or wealth while Teras means thirteenth. Thus Dhanteras falls on the thirteenths day of the month of Kartik. It happens to be two days prior to Diwali and thus marks the start of the celebration. As evident from its name, the festival of Dhanteras is celebrated in the honor of Kubera – the yaksha and the symbol of wealth accumulation. Per the legends, there are ...

In continuation of the ideas from my previous post, I take the liberty of writing some more. We worship Lakshmi in many forms and strive to get more of her. In fact our thirst for Lakshmi never ends. The question is how do we get Lakshmi? History tells us that you need to churn the ocean to get Lakshmi. Churn resembles hard work and also collaboration of the driving forces. The collaboration is to be understood from the perspective that there are two different opposing forces which work in tandem to give some and pull some fashion. The competition between the groups, the churn of ideas, and the dilemma in mind is fruitful till the time the forces work in tandem to produce greater goods for the organization and decision making. Consider the benefits for the consumers in the market when two product companies compete to enhance their shares. However, there is one more point to the churn. When Lakshmi came out of the Kshirasagar , she immediately went to Sri Vishnu overlooking the handsome...

This weekend all of my family was busy preparing for Diwali – the festival of lights. We started with cleaning up the home, decorating it with lights and other artifacts. At the same time, we took out the Ganesh and Lakshmi idols for cleaning, so that we can perform the Diwali rituals. My daughter asked me the question – why do we worship Ganesh and Lakshmi? They aren't a couple and also didn't we perform Ganesh Chaturthi a few weeks ago? Why do we also have a third goddess – Saraswati in the images related to Diwali? Wonderful questions – I remarked, and got back to study harder. Let's see if I can do justice to her curiosity or arouse more? Ganesh is worshipped by the virtue of the boon he received from Lord Shiva. Lakshmi as we all know is the wife of Vishnu. She is the goddess of wealth and good fortune. We all strive to get her and probably lead our lives in quest for more of her. Remember the post where I talked of how Indra runs after Lakshmi and Lakshmi finds comf...

Tune in into any channel or read any newspaper. You will be looking at innumerable news filled with violence in many forms –political, poverty, castes, racism, domestic and even sex. The first thing I would have thought was disgust and anger for the one who inflicted violence. At the same time, the feeling for sympathy comes in for the victim. I have often asked where does the violence starts? Is it only the result of the social or poverty injustice or is it inbuilt part of the human nature? I guess both. While there has been a great deal of discussion on the former reasoning, I shall work on the later part here! Imagine a forest with a tiger and a deer. The deer is running all over chased by the tiger. Finally when the tiger catches the deer, the tiger rips the deer with it claws and tears the flesh of the deer’s skin with its teeth. The tiger savors the deer and then moves on looking for another prey another day. A violent story, ain’t it? I say NO .  This is th...

The hindu scriptures are full of the mention of a place called "Swarga" or the heaven. The place – highly revered, is the ultimate aim of every human being. The demons fight with the gods all the time to gain access to the heaven. Also, even the gods when banished or exiled from the heaven try their best to get back. What is so special about the place called " Swarga "? Swarga is a place where one goes when they have led their life rightfully and have done enough good deeds to earn their place in the heaven. One goes there to find the most important things – Kalpavriksha or Kalpataru – The tree that showers anything you wish Akshya Patra – The bowl that overflows with gold and food without an end Chintamani – The gem that relieves all your worries Kamadhenu – The cow which gives all you ask for And obviously the ever beautiful apsaras At the same time, we know that the king of swarga is Indra. A strong king but an anxious, nervous, fearful being who gets ...

Ain't that a popular saying? And probably true too. What you eat, reflects on you in various manners. However, I want to share a different perspective on the food and the way it is served. Once again, the thought is borrowed and is being reproduced with my touch below. I would like to give away the credits to Mr Devdutt Pattnaik – a great thinker and a wonderful storyteller. I was watching the Masterchef program and I was amazed at how the participants prepared the four course meal and also how they prepared the regional cuisine thali's. I started thinking the difference in the Thali and the four course meal. When a four course meal is served, the cutlery and the plates are laid out on the table. The chef or the server then brings out one course at a time and you are supposed to eat it using the utensils laid out in the manner from outside working towards in. You are expected to eat the served food with minimum alterations – adding salt or pepper. Every course is brought on aft...

Brahma the creator of the universe is always seen with four heads. All of us must have heard different stories upon the significance of the four heads of Brahma. Some one says that the four heads represent the four "yugas" or the largest measure of time. Some say the heads are in four different directions to be able to see all around and be omniscient and omnipresent. What is lesser known is that Lord Brahma was known to have five heads. There are two propagated stories depicting how the fifth head of Lord Brahma was lost. Story 1 Brahma had the fifth head of a donkey. Once there was a war amongst the gods and the asuras. The gods were in a winning situation and the defeated asuras were fleeing away from the battlefield. Just then the gods realized that the donkey head of Brahma started calling out to the asuras requesting them not flee. The donkey head offered help to the asuras and told them ways to fight and defeat the gods. All the gods were furious at this display and re...

On the occasion of Dussehra, I watched burning Ravana's effigy. The kids were excited and the crowd was enthralled. The entire celebration was construed as a fair. We even joked around that Ravana could never wear a round neck t-shirt or didn't need any one for chorus! Great enjoyment, but then the questions arose. Is there a man with ten heads? How would a man with ten heads look like? What are those ten heads? How would they behave? Do the ten heads speak on their turn or all at the same time? Ravana's heads are best described in Anand Neelkantan's "Asura: Tale of the vanquished". He goes on to explain the ten heads as embodiment of the ten base emotions – Anger Pride Jealousy Happiness Sadness Fear Selfishness Love Ambition Mind (Devoid of all the above factors) Ravana was educated that the nature gave him one head for the purpose of keeping only the tenth quality and not the first nine. A person with only the tenth head is slated to rise and shine. Ravana ...

How many number of times would you have felt frustrated with some rules? And while in the same frustration mode, you would have exasperatedly questioned "who hell made that rule?" This happens to all of us. Different time, and different place but to all of us. Rules represent a manner in which each behavior must happen. Rules define boundaries to every code of conduct and define the parameters. The parameters (or metrics in the management terminology) are the basics to judgment. This classifies whether the conduct on the scales of morality, justness and righteousness. We all follow the rules as they are everywhere. There is a rule for even our basis existence. Rules slowly become the laws, through enforcements. Our rituals are also rules followed by us in view of pleasing the gods. Let's try to understand the origin of the rules. The rules are constructed as guidelines for behavior to uphold the principles. Having said this, I would also stress on the fact that the rules ...

Quite an interesting name for my first ever blog. Interesting since it reminds every one of the movie and its iconic place in the heart of almost all the kids and the indefatigable search of a father for his son. Though my blog is not related to the movie and definitely doesn't swims under the ocean, but it is also an indefatigable search for the self. (I leave the judgment for the word – indefatigable to you). I believe that life has a purpose. Everything we do or happens is for a purpose. It is the search for that purpose, which drives me. I am sure that this blog would be confusing to you at times and probably may make no sense. But I would try to remain true to myself and record the search as it happens. Reading or not – is your choice. Writing is definitely mine!

In the last few chapters of Mahabharata, "Svargarohanika Parva" to be precise, Veda Vyasa introduces a nice little story. And as we understand that every story has a moral or a purpose. After the Mahabharata war, Pandavas ruled their kingdom for 36 years. In the 36 th year, the desire for giving up and moving to the heaven took on them. All the five brothers and their wife – Draupadi started to climb the mountain which was to take them to the heaven or "Swarg". On the way, all four brothers and Draupadi died leaving Yudhishthir alone on his journey. Upon reaching the heaven, Yudhishthir saw his 100 Kaurava cousins in there but neither his Pandava brothers not his wife Draupadi. He felt anguish in him and charged the gods that they were being unfair by giving heaven to Kauravas and denying the same to his brothers and wife. This anguish shone on him like anger. He charged the gods for being unfair and giving heaven to treacherous, murderous, unjust Kauravas. The god...