THE CONFESSION OF A MEAN ADULT

One adult confessed to me like this.. Most adults are mean as they lose innocence and they want to dominate. They preach more than they practise. Their meanness is often shown on the children either directly or clandestinely or it’s implied many times. I know of adults who have never done any better than their child in the school but do not want to understand when child wants to speak the difficulty about something. The adults like me are so biased that, they always think their children are not helpful to adults and feel that children only go with the sway of the current trend. This is the insensitivity of most adults.

The worst part is that adults like me think that we know everything and children need to catch so much about living life. Forget preaching, even the interference is little too much, almost at the cost of not recognizing them as individuals.

One such occasion where, the head hung in shame and left a deep regret was experienced. My daughter has myopia and we took the spectacles and they are one of the best and expensive. The lenses are of high quality and it takes time for making and all that is the fact. We went and collected the specks and things seemed ok until my daughter called me at around 11 pm and said the specks are missing. 

Immediately the adult in me got intolerant and furious. How can you be so irresponsible? I know you are so careless and you don’t live at that moment? Do you know how difficult it is going to be, to you? It is also painful to go again and forget the waste of money which is there but on the last in the list. Blah blah and blah.

My god, what is left to be said? The kid gets upset as she is already feeling guilty and it is sheer lack of grace on part of adult in failing to understand that the error could happen anywhere. The adult checks the car and does not find the specks. He is convinced that, the kid has left it either with the optical store or dropped it somewhere.

Next morning, some feeble consolation is given and the daughter requests the adult to search again in the car and the adult is arrogant and denies the possibility. One more request and with reluctance he starts and is shocked to find the specks in the car, albeit got lost in car ambience and colour. All the indifference , all the intolerance and all the arrogance of the adult is seen in him.

The mean adult here, if you have not already guessed is Sai Prasad and graceful, understanding, patient daughter is Grusha. Yes, the realization happened about the meanness and the need to be more tolerant and graceful. But why? I was like a typical adult who lost the innocence. Its time, the understanding and sensitivity for this generation who are increases as they are going thru tremendous stress for career, money, adjustments, societal systems and so much more. Adults like me.. are u listening ?i apologize to grusha again and to all the kids with whom i was insensitive,in the name of understanding and doing good.

ANGER ... NOT AGAIN PLEASE

When it comes to anger, very rarely people admit that they are angry. Even if we agree, then we restrict the same to 1) Angry with someone 2) Angry about something 3) Angry because of so and so... But understanding anger has to be different. All goodness and all spirituality preach anger as the second most important vice that has to be overcome. The first obviously is the lust/ sex of the immoral kind.

Conquering anger is like conquering the self. It is very difficult but not impossible. Several dimensions are attached to the concept of the anger. The most important is the attachment to the self. Once the “ I  “becomes important,  then the concept of anger starts becoming prominent. But how many can remove the “ I “ from our lives and still live gracefully. The consciousness of the self makes us focus so much on ourselves that; anger comes as by product and as a side effect. Most often we justify the anger or at least quantify the anger, saying that i am less angry than the other. 

There is another argument, that unless the anger is shown, people do not listen and obey. Anger is treated as birth right for people to dominate on others. It is mostly accepted if the husband shows anger on the wife, if the boss spits anger on his subordinates, if the police do the same on the accused. Hence in all situations, anger is taken as the privilege of the dominant. In fact people who want to dominate feel in secure from within and they are less confident. Hence anger is not the acceptable virtue by any standards.

People take time to get rid of anger. They say, i am less angry these days. How does degree justify the anger? It is in fact ridiculous. Anger is always avoidable as nothing good ever came out of anger. The least anyone can do is to acknowledge that they are angry and they are making attempts to come out of it. All scriptures address the issue of anger and several examples are given on how the anger has ruined families, communities and countries. There are also solutions to overcome anger.

For me, after all the learning from all sources and life experiences, anger is something that can be got rid, if one focuses on the self. Again, attitude of let go, detachment will alone help people to conquer anger. If the meaning of existence is understood, if concepts like success and failures are understood, if there is gratitude for everything that benefits us there is no place for anger.

Today i have understood anger in terms of energy barometer. Just think about this. We get angry only if our energies are low. The same situation where you are angry now, was ok some other time, only because your energy levels are far better. How are we able to forgive people or let them off? It is because we are either in a happy state or this one is of lesser priority. In all these cases, it is higher energy is us which is making us tolerate. The son puts up with his old parents better on a day he office life was better. A wife is able to give good attention to her husband when she does not have issues with her mother in law. Again these are the situations when the energy is good.

SO what is happening? We are either engaging ourselves in more than what our energy permits or we are not able to build enough energies inside us. Why do we do more than what we can? Again because we want to have the power to dominate or we are greedy. Hence we lose the tolerance. The name of the game is contentment. If we lack energies, why don’t we do anything that suits us to keep charging? Be it Meditation, yoga, walking, exercise, or whatever suits, one needs to gather, strengthen energies and keep building the stock. Why do people who have ill health are more prone to anger? They have less energy.

So , Next time you get angry, think that your energies levels are low. Instantly, go silent, do not try to prove or justify you are right and do something to gain energy. Then face the same situation and you will feel better. Not even the police will deny you the little time that will help you gain energy. But if someone has better understanding of the anger and the management of it, that can also be practised but NO ANGER AGAIN PLEASE/

SMS'S ... The necessary evil

Short message service has become one of the dominant factors of our life..... So much happens on the sms’s..  Texting has become the necessary evil for most of us. Most students, on an average send and receive 200 messages every day. How much time and energy they spend on this? And all the focus that they give on this determines what kind of life they lead. People cannot imagine their life without sms’s. It is cost effective, sans embarrassment and people can get away saying anything on the sms. Everything happens on the sms for most people, love, hate, anger, happiness, sacking, accepting, deals, etc etc..

I remember my younger days, when telegram was of great importance. It indicated emergency, mostly of the negative kinds. One would have had to go to the post office, fill the complicated forms, and wait in the queue, bear all the pain of the clerk who would behave as if he is doing us a great favour. Then the arrival of the pager happened and this had the fastest death of all technologies.

When i started texting, way back in 2002, it was not common as sms receiving was also charged and i was ridiculed for this habit. But now sms’s makes and breaks relationships. Most often, people follow the conversations up with the sms’s,   the moment they are angry, unhappy or want to express the negative emotion. Earlier, in life, people had the option of subsidised anger, subsidised intensity of any feel as there was no alternative to physical presence and could only talk after meeting them. Now we all pour out all emotions and do not hide. This is building lot of impatience and emotions are expressed in hurry and often wasted resulting in instant fights.. I have done it myself hundreds of times with dozens of people, and complicated relationships also. I know several cases where the easy way of sms makes them express many emotions without actually being there in that intensity and measure. In that sense, sms has complicated the relationships.

In some cases people wait for the sms, as if it is life threatening or life making expectation. It is true of cases also where people leave a message and expect replies, as the persons they call do not take the call. This is both advantage and a disadvantage as both the parties suffer and have equal justification. Waiting for sms can be very nerve wrecking and can be the most essential part of your life. People who undergo this experience will alone understand.

For me waiting for the Praveen’s sms ( my senior colleague) on Wednesday is high point of my life. I get into illusions and wake up in the middle of the night and check for the sms from Praveen. I am brushing my teeth and keep looking at the phone for his sms. Then i feel every second that my phone is sounding with a message tone. I am scared to take long time in the wash room as i can’t delay to see his sms. Then i am driving to my meditation class and i am constantly looking for the sms. It’s like waiting for the result of the performance and the hard work of the last week, that i am waiting for. Just want to be done with on what the result is about the TAM high points. Before i switch off the mobile to get inside the class, i do a countdown before switch off the mobile. The first thing i am expecting after i switch on the mobile is again Praveen’s message. Never ever imagined that one sms would be so important every week of my life. Here attitude and life learning fail and not the forum to talk also about it. Needless to say that, Programming team and creators of content in television, live on tam results and entire life revolves around that. It makes or breaks the day and succeeding week. Why sms? The highlights are sent by Praveen after he extrapolates from the basic data. That moment is the most crucial for me for the week and so for the entire year. Like these, there could be several situations for people who wait desperately and endlessly for the sms and that moment of waiting seems so long and never ending.

I want to call sms as kambaqt. I hate sms’s as much as i love. I don’t want them as life gets complicated and i want them as life becomes easy...

LOVE ENHANCES WITH THIS...

NEE CHOOPULE SONG.... BY G.V.PRAKASH

One more tragic case of how the lack of success for the movie fails the song too. Nee choopule song sung by Hari Charan, Chirta, penned by Ramajogayya shastry and music by G.V.Prakash is an outstanding number from Endukante Premanta movie.

This is one of those songs, if heard for the first time in the right frame of mind and right time is sure to arrest you. I can bet that, you will not stop listening for at least 8 to 10 times in a row. This comment is meant for passionate movie lovers and not for claimed music followers who go only by the sway and so called hit.

This song is sure to make anyone either fall in love, recollect their best love experience or will enhance the existing love. There is terrific tenderness, subtlety, and extreme depth which will immerse one into a world, where we want to stay and not face this racy, mad world. 

One of the breaths taking reality is the refreshing and most soothing voice of chitra who is so rich in rendering the lyrics. Especially, when she says “ Nityam ila nanne choodatam” and the nuances that she gives to the composition is to be experienced.

I could not resist myself and called lyricist and composer and expressed my highest respects for them. This song is wasted by not giving due publicity and taking to people. In fact, i made a request to G.V.Prakash to make this song listen to A.R.Rehman, his uncle as it seems like his composition. G.V. has arrived big time with this song.

For all the singers, it’s a huge challenge to sing the most difficult pallavi, which changes into 3 different pitches and notes. The feel of the song is like a dew drop on the fresh leaf and one would never want that to go away. It’s so tender and incisive.

This song has once again proved that love can be expressed in a most refreshing manner time and again and again. This is made possible by Composer, lyricist and singers. Must listen to all people who love music, good lyrics and who were in love sometime in life.

THIS IS TRUE AND THINK FOR A WHILE

                 This is true,  and think for a while

This piece of writing is special for me as it is difficult to put it across. It is also challenging because, my daughter Grusha and people like her, have to be pleased, essentially by not being GYANISH. Friends like SVS, Kumar who are very particular on grammar also needs to be satisfied. Hence it is a herculean task to be able to express on a public platform and do so with honesty and correctness of various kinds.

Coming to the topic, .. Human beings by nature are extremely positive and they force themselves to negativity. In other words, left to the nature, nothing negative will ever affect human beings and we get into negativity consciously. On a higher plane, everything happens because of the “Samskaras” that is embedded in our soul. We need to constantly overcome them by being conscientious of existence. Bad samskaras need to be identified and cleaned from our soul.

Let us take few examples. Most of us keep indulging in excessive eating, or abusing our body either by undisciplined sleep, lack of proper exercise or do nasty things on our body. In many cases, it is not the lack of the knowledge, but the gut feels that ill health will not affect them. IS this not the positive attitude, the way of taking things for granted?  It is easy to call this negligence but it’s the inherent positive attitude. Likewise, all the people who are reckless in driving will not even think for a while that, they are accident prone. Is this not a positive attitude? What about all the students, who write the exam expecting something greater to happen than the efforts that they have put? 

The list is endless. From the film makers who expect block buster by producing a run of the mill stuff, to a husband who expects wife to put up with all the non sense, to a criminal to let him off.. In all the cases, we expect something tangentially different to what is done by us and forget the basic mathematics that, as we sow so we reap. The way we take every part of our body for granted also has to do with the attitude that, nothing can go wrong with us. Oops, what do you have to say about people who continue to smoke despite being diagnosed with cancer? Think about several such instances where people can either be called foolish or just positive. 

Just look at all constructions and houses. Do we see any houses constructed with the thought that, people can get old or sick? The sick and the old needs to be having different facilities and even as a matter of fact, the blind also needs to have different arrangement of room, elevation, spacing etc. But we are not thinking on those lines as somewhere we are positive and do not want to foresee that, it could happen to us or any of us. Even to think and imagine of such things is supposedly negative. Hence positivity is all around us.

Then why get negative? This trait of negative is antithetical to the very nature which embodies harmony and peace. The best to cut negativity is to keep focusing on the self like we do in all the positive situations as mentioned in this piece. The moral of the story is that, negativity comes when we shift our focus to someone other than the self. This shift can be either by comparison, or not knowing the self and working on the same. This is true,  and think for a while as we are basically and originally positive and that’s the way to be.