Tuesday, April 12, 2011

So you sow, so shall you Reap!

I was intrigued by one story I read from Sai Charitra – A book I got last time I visited Shirdi..

Below incident is mentioned to have occurred 7 days before Baba passed away in Shirdi.

Few excerpts are as below,


“There came a country-cart on which tiger was fastened with Iron chains. Its said to have been suffering from malady & its keepers – 3 Derveshis – has been taking it from place to place to make money by exhibiting it – which was their means of their subsistence. Their all efforts to cure the malady remained in vain & they had come to Baba after they heard heard his fame. They got it down, supposedly fierce & restless as it was disease ridden. On Baba’s consent when the animal met baba – its said to have immediately moved its tail & dashed it thrice against the ground, & the fell down senseless. The Derveshis were dejected, how its said to be very meritorious on the animal’s part to met its death at Baba’s feet. It was their (Derveshis) debtor and when the debt was paid off it was free & met its end at Sai’s Feet”


Its been almost more than a month since I have read this and it had a deep impact on me which were due to collation of few other stories that I had heard/read before.
They are as below


1. All us human beings as our own nature, we are supposed to serve viz. Mother serving a son by taking care of him & upbringing him, son serving mother by taking care of her. How ever due to our innate desire for sense enjoyment we tend to become forgetfull of our responsibilities and duties and we start to or tend to presume that others are supposed to serve us rather than we… Point here is - We tend to serve so many – is it the debt that we are paying? (P.S.We can anyways not repay debt to our parents for that matter however the chance that we get to serve- is it a chance to repay some part of debt?)


2. We at some point of time heard that some relations are “Runan- bandhan”. If you are about to get married you might hear this more often ;-). Since the literal meaning says a bonding of the past - the question that remains is still the same like at the end of previous question?


3. You might have heard/read teachings in Gita – when some one else says harsh words to you, you shouldn’t retaliate back other wise there would be no difference between you and him? (Barring exceptions of Kshatriya dharma mentioned which is not applicable to this point). This also leads to the same question are we indebted to the harsh speakers by having done something harsh in the past for them and now it’s the time to repay by silence?


4. This one is the story of the King who had killed 100 animals in name of the Bali (Animal killing offering) to Devi, how ever version of the story that I heard he was supposed to be killed by animals 100 times so that he could repay the debt to them. He did severe penance to the Devi however Devi said that this nothing can be done to avoid being killed100 times but she granted him a boon wherein the 100 animals can kill him at same time in one go - so that at least his suffering can be reduced. Bottom line – it translates to the same question – the debt that we are supposed to repay to others?


All the stories about from various sources seem to have a common connect and that not sure if its same as one being said to part of Law of Karma!
But its interesting in a way as it answers us a little part of our questions that we ask to the Supreme why are we suffering in small way in form of failures or other such similar things, May be we are repaying part of what we did at some unknown time and one day once we have done it - it will be all Good times!!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Cheers...India wins the Cricket World Cup 2011

Yipee we won the World Cup!!!!!!
Congrats to MS- Dhoni - MoM!
Congrats to Yuvraj Singh - Man of the Tournament!
Congrats to Sachin to fulfilling the dream to get it finally!
Congrats to whole Team!
Congrats to whole India!!
Cheers!!!

Chetan Bhagat and his books!

I am sure you arent asking "Who is Chetan Bhagat?" :-)

By any remotest chance if you are then the you can find out here that he  studied Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) Delhi (1991–1995). He graduated from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)  Ahmedabad (1995–1997). After graduation he worked as an investment banker in Hong Kong.

That would be what most such IIT/IIM would be most happy with but Chetan choose a different path to pursue his passion for writing.
He has written 4 books so far and all of them have remained bestsellers till date...

A trend breaker – of course one would say...

What are his 4 books like ?

1.     Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT! (2004) – A dark side book on 3 IITians viz Alok, Hari and Ryan who did all sort of not to do things at IIT securing 5 point something grades (which happens to be on lower side on scale of 10). It highlights many issues in the system in India which could be ragging, grading systems which as perceived leaves lesser room for creativity and so on..
Quotable quotes - C2D"(Cooperate to Dominate)
Movie - 3 idiots is based on this Novel although story line is considerably different..
Actors & their roles could be co-related as below
Aamir Khan – Rancho – Ryan – the seemingly wealthy, successful & intelligent
R. Madhavan - Farhan Khureshi – Hari – The narrator, photographer
Sharman Joshi – Raju Rastogi – Alok – Less confident seeming arising out of familial pressure.
Learnable Notes : All is well, Follow your passion (perhaps chetan’s philosophy also..)
2.     One night at call centre (2005)
Its based on  a group of six call center employees working in Connexions call center in Gurgoan, Harayana. Its how these 6 people traverse with their problems, Lot of mention about the cheap office politics, creating taking & too much filmly with the story Narrated by a beautiful girl in Train & the final call from God.
Movie – Hello is said to be based on this Novel
Quotable quotes : Dont remember any : -|
Learnable Notes : -
3.     3 Mistakes of My Life (2007)
Again 3 buddies
Govind – An typical less emotional more analytical business stereotypes
Ishaan – Cricketer by heart & by business later due to alliance with Govind
Omi – Represents back ground of fanatic political family back ground
Story line has combination of Riots to religionistic fanatism and secularism to Cricket love to Love Story.
Quotable Quotes: Life is an optimization problem, with tons of variables and constraints. You can minimise the pissed-off state, but can't make it zero. We can only optimise life, never solve it!
Learnable Notes : -  
4.     2 States : The story of my Marriage (2009)
Is said to be fictionalized version of his own marriage story
You can relate a lot to Bollywood films, I particularly liked the explicit dialogues expressing statements of typical North & South Indian parents and their relatives when they find their son/daughter marrying some one not of their castes, states and so on... ;-)
Quotable Quotes :  -
Learnable Notes : IMHO (& personal O too.. ;-))
1.     A spouse of same caste/religion/state means default respect, love, acceptance n all & for other caste/religion/state means vice –versa
Why? – just because they think is to be incorrect/in-appropriate primarily because they didn’t have a say in it..
2.     The pace of acceptance in future is directly proportional to the professional success or displayed smartness or at least proportional to perceived smartness of the contender ;-)
3.     (Not all but definitely many) Families are least bothered about compatibility of the couple rather are most bothered about the increasing number of points they can brag about !
4.     The type of comment about you is going to be good if they like you and other wise if they don’t.. It hardly happens other way! : -)

Common Stuff :
1.     All stories have a dark side, but again in real life as well one goes through dark phases.
2.     All stories have intimate scenes ;-)

Chetan Bhagat writes periodically in top newspapers which can be read one his blog here
His writing style here is completely different & analytic
His awe-inspiring speech “Spark” is here and Excerpts are as follows :

Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It’s ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.
I’ve told you three things – reasonable goals, balance and not taking it too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame. These must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration, unfairness and loneliness of purpose.You cannot avoid them, as like the monsoon they will come into your life at regular intervals. You just need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die.!

P.S. I am not affiliated to him in anyways, just like him, kinda follow him, so wrote abt him!

Kiran Hegde