Travelling by Metro:)

I have always liked the sound of the chug chug of the train. Always reminds me of leaving town, going for holidays, summer vacations as kids, travel, the outdoors, the great beyond! My, what a train of thought:)

And when I travel by the beautiful, wide, MRTS (I think its Metro Railway Transport System or Mass Rapid Transit System, whatever..)at Chennai, I am happy. We pass poverty, we fly over dirt and squalor, we pass the big, concrete IT buildings, we pass happy children playing, we pass..oh we pass a lot, but seen from a higher perspective, er..higher perspective literally of course.. it seems that the squalor and dirt and crowds just melt away into the distance. The rich-poor divide was never more evident than at the Boat Club where elite Chennaities chugged gently on their genteel little boats rowing away for all they were worth, while on the periphery of the Coouum dirt congealed and rotted and little children were spotted...Hmmm Life ho to aisi!! (dunno if i have the grammar right:))

Whats really tragic are the traffic messes (not" jams;" its an insult to the word "jams" because jam gives the impression of a planned event gone haywire but "messes" are unplanned events meant to go haywire:) . The long lines of cars and two wheelers and cycles and buses and blah blah..all stuck at odd angles, the innumerable signals, the jaywalking public. The trains go empty while the road is full, the bus is full. Don't people want the exertion of taking the stairs at railway stations and walking it a bit to their places of work ? Or is it the freedom to possess your own vehicle (and worse ride/drive it) at any cost? Or could it be that humans are so depraved that it gives one man strange powers and happiness to sit as a lone occupant in a SUPV (say a Tata Innova) and chase all the pedestrians on a small road hither and thither? hehehe:) I wouldnt know!!

Anyways, here I am , travelling by the fastest mode of surface transport i know of, and walking it a bit , and enjoying life!! And I am recommending every executive working with me to use the Metro:)

Procrastination Part 3

Hmm.. I think I am one of those who procrastinate till the deadline stares at you in the face, or in my case looks at you with clear, black eyes and monosyllable responses:) It’s the utter lack of pressure that can sometimes be the greatest pressure. Once you break the stranglehold of pressure at its peak, it’s a pleasure really to work to a tight schedule. As one of the co authors of a novel, ideas have been running in my mind all along, but I could put down words only when there s virtually no escape:). I sit on the computer and do a steady stream of feed after which I do a lot of other things – like write in my blog for instance, do a jigsaw, listen to some music, surf. And then like gathering clouds, my ideas get together again and ask for a vent and I oblige them. Is that how people write novels, I wonder? I have written a few things in my life, but never so much of stuff. It gets easier as you go along – that much I can tell you!! Now , break time ‘s up. Time to feed more words:)

Vishnuvardan

Vishnuvardan,one of the most sensitive actors Kannada screen has ever known is no more. With him ,ends my schoolgirl crush on this great star. I moved away from Bangalore after schooling, but still remember the popular songs of my school years. OUt of the six or seven songs, that play in my mind to this day, my favourite has always been Vishnuvardan and his Maamaravello Kogile Yello..Enesneha Sambandha..( I reproduce the meaning from my understanding of it..."The Mango Tree is at one end while the Nightingale is at another...But yet what is this relationship? This friendship?)

The Link to this song is in my "I love these too " section of my blog and here it is as well :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4veJhSYgBU&feature=related

They made a great pair - the ethereal Bharati and the handsome, sensitive Vishnu.

Adios!

Twin Bin

Twin Bin . I have begun doing that at home. Very simple really. Just tie two small bins together and keep bio degradable and non –bio degradable garbage separately. Easy, right? Bio degradable includes food wastes, veg peels, rotten fruit, paper, and stuff. Non –biodegradable includes your glass bottles, tin cans, plastic shopping bags, metal containers, and so on. If you dispose garbage in bags, keep Two bags. That’s it.

I have begun implementing this at home. But , of course, everything goes into one huge disposal bin that’s placed at the end of the street. This in turn gets cleared everyday by a mobile garbage van that roams the streets. Now everything's dumped together here, so what’s the point, you may ask? Now, there are environmentalists who worry about such things , don’t they? I am sure they will be working towards changing this. What I want to do is change what I do at home, because it gives me great satisfaction.:). And do you have little kids at home? Tell them to do it too. They might learn the difference and take their first steps towards Planet care. And then maybe your Twin Bin gets noticed and talked about and soon your street could be doing it too. He heJ..now we are spreading the environment virus aren’t we?

Right on top do you see a rough design of a Twin Bin - maybe we could design bins ONLY this way, so there's no way out except segregate garbage:)

LABELS

Don’t we like to sort out people? Oh we do !. Sort them out in different ways. Classify them. Categorise them. And Bang ! Label them. “He is such an egoist.” “ She is vain and arrogant”. “That old man is interfering”. “ Oh God! That kid is so dumb!”

Once you label a person, they stay labeled in your mind. Worse, the word gets passed on. You refer to them always with their trademark labels. It’s easier, you see. And then you talk about them to others with these very same labels as well. Of course, you do a Sort! You might highlight one label, and underplay another, depending on whom or what you are talking about.

I have wondered why we do label people. Is it to make them easier to understand? Or is it to make them easier to recall? Or Is it to be clear about what makes them tick? Or do we feel clever at having unmasked them? Do we want to know and understand our responses to them? Or to check out whether we can or cannot trust them? It could be any one or a bouquet of reasons .

How do people get labeled? From my own understanding and experience, the most important one is through the perception of their visible actions or deeds and its impact on the onlooker. Even if the visible action could be more than one or the impact felt over a certain period of time, does that still give us the Right to label? Slotting people into categories? And forgetting them? How many of us actually do a Refresh on them , unlearn, update information and see whether we can reclassify them ?

So do you see the gaps? Visible action or deeds constitute just a small percentage of the human package and are situational and multidimensional. So what are we doing here? Aren't we over reacting, labelling people? When the human psyche is ever changing , interweaving , adding new experiences, thinking new things, meeting new people, re aligning objectives, do they deserve permanent labels, written in indelible ink?

The only label I would really like to attribute to a person is their name. Beyond that I try to keep all avenues open, always and forever. A human being, to me, is a mystery to be gently unwound and under stood, little by little. Unwinding can be deeper, slower, lighter or longer. Understanding can be wonderful or terrifying, simple or complicated, boring or enthralling. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that understanding of another person can never be complete.

What if you stopped labeling? You will be amazed at what such freedom can do to you. You will find it difficult to label after a while. You will never judge. You will find that your openness has increased your perceptive capabilities. You will see what you have missed before. You will see new areas. You will see new behavior. You will discover new reasons for old behavior. The possibilities are endless. The response can be amazing too.

Search Options:)

This morning there was a little mishap. Dad's Hearing Aid went missing. Nobody knows where. We searched high and low , right and left, up and down, above and under - if you get what I mean:) Even the garbage bins. But the damn apparatus was not to be found. My dad's trauma was visible for all to see. It was a pitiable sight because this cool 78 year old is a very , very careful, very , very planned and very , very meticulous man. Losing is distasteful to him.

It took me a long time to convince him of his UNGUILT!!

I wished it had gone missing on The Internet. It would have taken us just mere seconds to locate it. There are SEARCH options all over the Cyberplace! And Google is the 21st century Miracle! So virtual hearing aids would be better , eh? Yeah, if we can become virtual ourselves!
The alternative would be to provide Search Options in all our apparatus. Its so easy to locate a misplaced mobile because it RINGS! So what's to stop the design and engineering guys from making these lost things RING? BUZZ? SCREAM? LIGHT UP WITH JOY? MOVE UP AND DOWN?

Would'nt it be just great if all our tiny things come with Search and Find Options??This would be just too handy , especially for our septuagenrains, the visually handicapped and people like me who are just too careless for words:)

Knowing yourself - the most important rationality

Know Yourself. And THAT I think is the most important “rationality” of all. Knowing your pluses and minuses. Knowing what your anger means. Knowing the meaning and intention behind every single word you utter. Knowing why , how and where you are helpless. Knowing what makes you strong. Knowing why you feel the way you do. Knowing why you are not today,what you were yesterday. Knowing why you hurt. Knowing why you smile. Knowing when you cry and when you don’t.

Having said that with a rational mind, I ask the question, can one know oneself through a rational mind? This question now looms large. Its debatable.

If you look beyond the rational, lies the emotional.
If you look beyond the emotional, you see intuition.
I have seen it. Felt it. Witnessed it.
To me Intuition has been the questions that have been answered in a blinding flash of insight . Possibilities that have existed where none could have. Solutions that have been found to problems thought "insurmountable".

The understanding of such an insight, has become intuition. The understanding has happened only lately, a few years ago . Through the practice of “awareness”.

Insight or understanding that can just as well happen through rational or emotional thinking , by going through the process of discussion, debate, questioning and filtering. But has it always led to the understanding of "why this"?

Awareness lies beyond rational thought. Any thought. It comes with dropping the mind. Giving in to your emotions . Come further , and you could reach an intuitive state.
You can take the risk and experiment it on yourself first.
Try "dropping the mind" – a few seconds at a time. By meditating. Prayers. Losing yourself in music.
I have begun practicing “vipassana” or “watchfulness” or “alertness” by observing my every action. I forget to -sometimes. But I am right back on track.

More later..