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.

ARROGANCE OF SURVIVAL

One of the biggest paradoxes of human existence is the arrogance of survival, while the most certain thing is mortality. To come to the basics, why does anyone feel arrogant, proud or egoistic of anything? It is because of the deep rooted feeling that, their success, wealth, position, status, power is permanent or so it seems when one of the above is giving high to the individuals. Politicians, media owners, film stars, business rich men, bureaucracy,  good looking woman, and just about everyone whose life is protected and well off, have this known or unknown belief that, what they is either everlasting or will last for longer time.

Probably sports persons are different and they realize the reality better as they face success and failure very often and in more trying circumstances. Even people in television and movie makers (not stars) are also slightly better as success and failure is very thin line for them. Hence the scope for arrogance is less.

The other side of the coin is that, if we all know and realize that, nothing is permanent and everything happens as a drama and we are just essaying the roles, our life will be better. In fact our basic life is very short and much shorter is the youthful zeal. 

If one keeps extending the logic of why most of us have arrogance, it is only because of the fact that, somewhere we are sure we are going to live longer and in a better manner. The abuse that all of us do to ourselves and to the mother nature, the final result, which is the death, is always not far away should be the hard hitting realization. 

Imagine, a child who is given a toy and told she has only today to play with and it’s not his or hers, the joy is pure and there is no negative feeling attached. The same rationale can be applied to everything around us. IF all of us knew the exact date of death after we are born, our whole attitude would be different. We will not suspend our disbelief that death is not for us. Even a chain smoker will not think or believe that, he could get affected anytime with cancer. He wants to believe that , he is quit and anyway it will not affect him.

Such foolishness is what most of us are subjected to, in our own different ways. IF we all know, that nothing is permanent and nothing is even vaguely sure of time period, why have any negative emotion or feeling for anything or anyone.

Honestly, i always wonder, if someone, ( could be myself) dies in the sleep, the entire living becomes false in a minute. So is, all instant deaths. OR so is any death.

When death is known as inevitable , why not accept it happily and gladly or at least prepare for it happily.

 According to me nothing is more spiritual than 1) Learning to lead the life happily and without getting hurt or hurting anyone 2) Accepting death gracefully. To achieve these 2, all of us need to take some path of spirituality and live it up every minute. Best way is what Sujatha potay recommends...     Do something for the A) Body B) Mind C) soul everyday and what you can do is several things and choose what suits you.

TELEVISION AUDIENCE AND TELEVISION CREW

Television audience is like a nagging mother in law. NML (nagging mother in laws) can be very unpredictable and difficult to please. Anything that is done can be either done better or is just not ok. NML has privilege and right to refuse and deny anything that comes from a docile daughter in law. Probably that is why most serials still have saas bahu issues. This is on a lighter side, but what is most difficult and most difficult is the understanding and fixing on, which the audience is.  It is almost like not knowing the target and aiming for it. 

Take a Hindustani music concert, and understand the rock show... There is always a crowd, a gathering which relish that kind of music. The performers and the organizers can be focused on the content as there is no pressure to churn out something different than the expected kinds. This is applicable to the classical dance, theatre plays, pub dancing, Disk jockeying etc..

But when it comes to television audience, one needs to keep in mind the cross section of people, across age groups, across income groups, across regions, sexes etc.. How can any creativity cater to such wide audience and how can someone entertain to such varied group? If yes how does one go about it? Is it easy to know the tastes and preferences of the audience for entertainment? 

It’s because of the above questions that, some standardized formats of singing, drama, dance, keep happening as they can’t totally go wrong all the time. In other words, television brings and perpetuates not only mediocrity but predictability and stereotypes. This is inevitable as there is TAM, and there are business targets to meet. No other field, no other career is tested as frequently as every week on performance. Hence TV industry people are always under tremendous stress for what happens and for what does not happen.

Gut feel, cuing, pulse, all these help one create and plan. But in all honesty, television unlike other forms of arts is far less creative as pressure entails that art is compromised. People also get into assembly line production and hence even creativity becomes mechanical. It’s very difficult for people in television to get entertained as even watching TV is a work as we all tend to compare, feel envious or try to ape etc.

Despite all that, it’s fun under pressure as the success on Wednesday’s makes all of us wait for more Wednesdays. It’s always life before Wednesday and Life after Wednesday for people working in television and only these people can understand.

Without a doubt, television is just in a very nascent stage and there is lot to achieve and hundreds of channels are going to come in very many specializations. You tube, face book, apps on mobiles, various net options are already getting integrated into television and TV is not watched in its time of telecast but is followed in a much larger scale than what the TAM can catch and appraise. Working in television is like performing marriage every day (marriages of olden days and not current .. all out sourced formula) and these marriages have kids of all kinds. And we in television keep nurturing all kinds of children.

WHY DO WE TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED

What does it mean to take anything for granted? According to me, taking anything for granted would mean , not giving enough value or “bhaav” to something and in turn expecting everything to function always the  same way it does or expecting something and somebody to be the same always. Now this expectation of permanency in anything is anti antithetical  to the modern way of life. But we still unreasonably do it often as a contradiction of our existence. 

The most important thing we keep taking for granted is our own human body. Every part, every structure, every element in the human body is a wonder and if we engage in the thinking of this, we will never cease to get tired or bored of wondering , how everything is designed and  how everything functions. There is no better machine and no bigger mystery than the human body as we can only keep wondering and not find the logic or sequence of anything .. Things go right if it has to and go wrong if its inevitable. The birth, and the death signify the unanswered marvels of the nature . 

But the least all of us can do is to show the gratitude towards our own body by not 1) abusing it any ways  2) By nurturing it properly 3) By nourishing it with love, proper food and exercise. Many scriptures, theories and books have detailed the need to thank each part of our body every day and there is nothing wrong even if it said once more, albeit boringly; any time better than talking about the box  collections that movies have made, as if they all go to our bank balance. 

My 1000^th time awakening has come when i was getting my mom operated on the eye for cataract. There was a provision to witness the surgery live from the observation gallery. And when i saw how Sookshamam ( delicate and subtle) the eye is, there is cornea, retina, pupil, fluid, optic nerve,  oh my god... anything can happen to the eye and get damaged a hundred times a day but still thank god nothing happens.  Can we take the credit for this? Hundred percent not, except in very few cases . May be it is not even possible to be careful all the time, about any part of the body as the correlation between injury, irresponsibility and goodness, wellness is not always scientific and mathematical. 

But still, we should not take anything  for granted. We must thank every part and cell of the body everyday and thank god for giving us all these wonderful things . if we really sit down and list out all that we are bestowed with and blessed with, we will all stop cribbing and feeling sad on what we don't have and what we keep seeking.

Only if we have the time, sensibility and basic courtesy to thank all that we have, only then we have right to seek what we don't have. This is the way to be happy. I want to thank the Agarwal hospital staff and doctors for very fantastic hospitality . They did not make us feel that we were visiting the hospital. They made me and my mom feel that we are visiting a good relatives place and my mom was treated like their mom. Special thanks to my colleague sarvanan without whom, i would still have neglected and prolonged taking my mom. Thanks all and thank god.

JAADI'S ........ DO WE REMEMBER OR KNOW THEM?

Most of us like to remember the past glory and then we get into the nostalgic trip..We like to recollect and share with our friends, the glorious past, when we meet them. Everyone has many experiences and we all vouch that, the past was better and much happier. This is true in most cases as we are all running towards seeking and have forgotten to live and feel. Without going into more rigmarole, let me narrate an experience, a recollection and a good nostalgia. 

Just few days ago, precisely on 22^nd May, in the morning at around 8.30 am, i was coming back after dropping my nephew to take his college bus. I saw a cycle with 4 Jaadi’s. I couldn’t believe my eyes.. Jaadi’s and selling at door step? Jaadi’s are the jars in which pickles are stored with white clothes tightly tied. The sight took me back to 35 years down the memory lane. We were a big joint family with 9 kids and 9 adults residing in kanda swamy lane , sultan bazaar. We had a quite huge home and summer was spent all at home with no television, no ipad/ipod, games, PC, mobiles etc. But it was all fun and happiness, right from playing with tamarind seeds in the afternoon to looking at stars for long and sleeping in the open terrace in the night with transistor playing hindi film songs on vividh bharathi after hawa mahal.

Of many things that excited in summer was the making of pickles. One month was spent in this. Firstly, the discussions among adults on various aspects of it to planning to getting each thing done at home to budgeting and all that was lots of excitement. There were 4 types of pickes and one sweet murabba made in huge quantities. The mirchi powder, the cumin seeds powder and methi powder weren’t brought straight from the market. They were brought as raw material and powdered at home manually in those special big stony structures. The spicy flavour would engulf the home and then the actual next day of pickles making, was when the kids could participate. The mangoes were cut into pieces by a muscular guy hired in advance and who was in great demand and his precision of cutting them rhythmically and also in fast speed would often baffle me. He used to be very efficient and did it with alacrity. After that, wiping each piece and removing the layer from the seedy portion was kid’s job. We would all sit and do it in great joy and competition. 

Then the ladies including grandmothers would all make a huge plan and discussion and get into the long laborious process for more than half a day and put pickles. That night the dinner was usually only the rasam and curd rice as the women would get dog tired. There was no thought or the option of eating out at all. Then we would wait for the third day after pickles were made , when the senior lady of home would have early bath and remove those lovely divine jaadi’s and mix them and take out little quantity in smaller jars. I couldn’t wait for long and used to revel very quickly. Bathing also seemed long to wait to eat that ummmm pickles. The entire week from then was freaking out on pickles with just about everything.. be it rice, chappati, upma, poha or whatever..

The jaadi’s seemed to have had real life and they were properly protected and taken care of. They were huge and bulky and were an important part of our life. No knowledge of calories nor apprehension or pretension and just pure joy and indulgence of eating them to the heartfelt. Subsequently the use of those big jars.. Jaadi’s came down and so is the eating of pickles. This is, in a way, unfortunate.  These days , People buy pickles straight from the market and they even  don’t need to store. I wonder who would have bought those jaadi’s on 22^nd may?? or was he over ambitious. 

But i decided not to compromise and i have been eating maagaya, tokku and avakaya in good doses and have increased my walking speed and added little of jogging and in summer, anyway the calorie burning is faster. No wonder pickles are made in summer and hats off to all the native wisdom which is so full of scientific approach. Its better to eat these pickles than eating junk food which is not of Indian origin. And eating pickles also cures of many alimentary canal related problems if taken in right doses. One should know how to burn what we eat rather than get panicky and not eat. Wow jaadi’s and wow pickles. What is life after all without some native indulgence??? 

The disintegration of joint families have eroded jaadi culture and how i wish now that i had stopped that guy and bought them and spoke to him just to encourage... How many empathize with me? Or remember, like and know these full of life jaadi’s...

PAIN MANAGEMENT

Pain according to me is the shift from normal, happy state of being and that something which causes disturbance inside us and can be a factor leading to depression or other forms of this illness. This is completely avoidable as we are not born to suffer or lead a life of negativity. Then why do we get involved in pain of different kinds? Who is the villian? is this  not avoidable?

The villian is the self and we get into the pain because we love it and want it . Other wise why else would we allow something like pain to get the better of us or conquer us? So what gives us pain and why do we welcome it so often? Just thought about this for quite some time and hence writing it down here.

What are the types of pain and how do they cause suffering in us ? One of the biggest pain that is caused is  by comparisions.  Others salary, somebody's home, may be even wife, car, job and just about everything which is not ours causes us lot of suffering. Basically, because most of us do not know what we want in life. How much of what gives us happiness is unknown and that leads us to compare and feel the pain. If somebody's aim is to settle down with the 2 bed room decent apartment and he or she gets it and still they are un happy, the reason is the comparision and not knowing what they want.

The list is endless.. On a simple term, if we just spend time with ourselves for few minutes every day in the morning and make points on what we want for the day and what will make us happy and then check at the end of the day, we will have few reasons to be unhappy. But this does not happen. It takes just a minute and any thing to be happy and it takes everything and all the things to be unhappy in life.

A jilted lover suffers not because he has lost his sweet heart but because of the pride being hurt. Hence it is not about the want but the attitude of not having got which causes misery. When the parents know that their kids are going to get married and go away, why does the life collapse for them? when the beloved go away on a holiday for a long time, why does everything seem lost and meaning less?  In all the cases, the happiness is always placed outside us while we just need to ensure that it stays happy and comfortable within us.

Stay with in you, keeping talk to your self, love the self most, and let every need and want be purely for the self .. Then , we all discover that, the pain , misery or the suffering never ever comes anywhere near us. Here we do not talk about egoist or altruistic... The matter is all about being in control about the self with the self. 

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

                                       This Life that Period

 Few days ago, in the morning i generally decided to go to one of the small kirana shops ( grocery) near Chintal basti in khairtabad . I deliberately avoided our, this generation evil,  Super Bazar and mall, not that i dislike them or have some reservation but just for old time purpose i went to this shop.  This is a typical store where everything is in disarray and only the shop keeper and rarely a helping boy would know where what is in the stores and in a jiffy they will give you without any irritation or smile. 

Before plastic usage days, they would pack in a thick paper made covers or just wrap in a news paper, what was called “Potlam” in telugu.  There is some romanticism about these places. I would love to buy stuff from these places and the best part of these stores unlike the latest ones is that there is no temptation except the transparent jar of cabury’s.

The entire business model was the availability of all items and being able to give in smallest quantities also. For many people they would even give a month’s credit with the very informal maintenance of books. What was best about these places and people is the emotional connect which is totally absent in malls. These big stores are like the stiff humans of this decade who think it’s risky to smile or greet or talk to the known faces too, forget the strangers. 

As a child, i remember talking to everyone coming to the store and a small talk for a minute would bring some smile, some comfort to take come. Now the exhaustion in the queue or the temptation to buy more than what is needed or what is used is painful. 

I will beg to differ and won’t mind arguing if someone talks about the hygiene in these big good looking stores. Several times the items got spoiled or were infested with germs of all kinds, including one coming into the Mirchi powder after few days. Gosh it’s real and i don’t go with the outer looks. Not to blame anyone, nor is this any suggestion but its like saying five star hotel’s food is more hygienic than the road side hotels. That’s not the debate here at all.

The most emotional thing which stuck me was the coming of 2 small children aged 4 and 5 to buy 5 rupees vimbar in that chintal basti shop. Somehow i would have felt happ  if they had come to buy some chocolates or some snacks like lays.. I just bought them some stuff to eat and they refused to take the same. I was touched at their maturity to say NO but felt may be their elders might scold them and ask several questions on how and why? I experienced some innocence about these poor looking and sharp innocent children. I hugged them, asked their names and said it’s ok to take this. They took this and kept walking away and looking back. God knows what they had in mind but i only felt that their elders should not scold them. That day, that moment was emotionally satisfying and felt good.

 This small happiness is not experienced by me in big stores. The small stores are some kind of microcosm of life. I am sure everyone who is born before 1980’s would have many tales of some small time shops and experiences.

World grows bigger, things gets more and more systematized, organized, and there is accountability and there is decoration, there is external beauty and so many things to buy and afford. But the small happiness has to be searched and got to make life more meaningful, joyous and fulfilling. I feel so and few might also feel the same. One way is go to a small shop, small hair cutting saloon, old hotels, old bazaars, and of course meet old friends and old people.

Life is beautiful in its innocence and this is what is missing in life. There is too much smartness around and little happiness can be got only in re discovering this innocence which is still there in abundance if you want to discover. Take a walk, go to old temple and sit there and watch people. Go to old bazaar and just buy some loose stuff or just walk down across the street and watch all that is going on.