Self

I wondered what it looks like

I can feel it, so close so real, so punishing

Why can’t it be mine? Can I not have it forever?

Rose gardens are always guarded.

But why is the world longing for what is guarded?

Why is there sensuality in secrecy?

Words deceive me today, betrayal of knowledge is brutal

Long drives don’t bother me, passengers do

Earth, water, fire, wind and sky have no color

I learnt well from the elements of reflection

Earth reminds me to work for no return

Water reminds me to change for better; under stress

Fire reminds to give the light and energy to all

And sky reminds me to be full and yet traceless

The best has no secrets

The honest have no walls

What do you have to hide?

Isn’t the real you always hidden? deep within this mundane insensitivity

Privacy never concerns me anymore

For I am hidden in my natural state

Bother me if you need me

Arise my soul from secrecy, if you need advice

For if not, I am always hidden

Far from all your eyes, yet so close to hear your disbelief

>Place: Somewhere in Saskatchewan

>Body name: Naresh

#CV complete.

***Three Golden Rules***

I would like to share a few thoughts today, with those who read this.

I just wrote down three golden rules of life, which everyone or anyone can relate to, above all our color, religion, cast, creed and sex or nationality....

It is very simple and easy to understand, but trust me it is very deep and at time you all would find it tough to apply to your lives. But essentially, successful application of these three rules to life alone, will make it a life in real sense, be it any human being.. I don't know mantras nor am I a philosopher, but these keep me human and at times humane as well.

All I ask is believe..

Happy reading :)

1. If hard work will fetch you more laurels and recognition, then the person digging our pavements and cleaning our sewers should be recognized and awarded more than us.

-----Hard work alone decides nothing. Do your best and leave the rest to destiny or god (whoever you believe in). It is better this way, not that it is uninspiring but that it saves us from expectations, personal agony and above all grief.

2. Whatever you achieve, you are still the same to your parents, kids, spouse and above all to yourself.

-----However high you go in life, you are still the same person to yourself. A kite is a kite however high it flies.

3. Grammar and science will not help you in death bed.

---- In the end what matters most is not what you have done to yourself, but for others. Help yourself by helping others, cheer yourself by cheering others.

Being happy is not getting what you want, it is giving what others want unconditionally.

Thanks a lot for reading.

Happy Diwali, Halloween and Merry Christmas!!!

With love from Chennai....

  

Fascination

Science always has its way of telling people that they are not right. Every nation invests heavily in science. They talk a lot about basic sciences and the importance it should have in every country's schooling system. For me science is, was and never will be my life. It’s just a way of knowledge acquisition.

Just because I have a good data from my experiments, I cannot say that the painting on the wall is flawed. The same applies to the artist as well, who cannot comment on the significance or relevance of my data to the current scientific trends. Painting is his way of acquiring knowledge, so is science for me.

We as humans, always seek for truth. Though, I should accept we all speak and enjoy the lies around us every day. We personally do seek the truth at some point. What starts as a fascination always ends with something simple and right under our eye. At times fascination for whatever we do, obscures the real picture of what is happening and hence increases our time to understand it. We are trained such that, if something is hard to understand, it is deemed complex.

Complexity in any field arises primarily because of our fascination for it. This makes us imagine that what we are doing indeed is big and astounding. However, it’s not as astounding as we imagine it to be. Being fascinated is easy, seeing things as they are indeed is tough.

One standing example of being simple yet complex, which I encounter every day is a cell. It’s in the size of a micron, yet it takes a full period of our natural lives trying to understand an extraordinarily meager part of it. This is due to our fascination for them. It is fascinating because it has both simplicity and complexity in equal proportions. There is absolutely no part of it wherein one attribute is higher or lesser.

Think of all the things that we are fascinated by. It would essentially be an equal mixture of simplicity and complexity. Power of love, hate, science, Human body... be it anything that fascinates essentially has these two ingredients in it, in equal proportions.

As with my initial phrase of discussion, science is fascinating for me as it’s both simple and complex.

Those who see the simpler phase of it becomes a philosopher and those who see the complex side of it become scientists. As I write this article, I stand on the crossroads wondering which path to take, as both will lead me to a higher truth.

For those of you who read this and wonder just as me, you might want to take the one less traveled.

So which one of the two road is less traveled?

A fascinating question again is it?

With love from Chennai. 

Technologically advanced, are we?

I was at a family function recently. As usual i am not familiar with many faces who attended the function. Thankfully i had my headphones in pocket. Got it out and started listening to my mobile playlist.

The song barely crossed the first stanza when one of my friends came near me and started talking about his future. Sensing that i am there for interacting with people (which is quiet rare these days), i paused the song and listened to him and even discussed my future plans.

He then went away to see his friend, i then resumed the playlist. The song again crossed second part when one of my distant relative came near me and asked me if i am Sujatha's son. Again sensing that i should start having a conversation, i stopped the playlist and talked for another 15 min or so.

This process of pausing and resuming the song happened exactly thrice. I was a bit irritated, as i was not able to do either my conversation completely nor listening to my playlist. 

To manage the irritation i had two choices.

1. I can either completely remove my headphones, keep my mobile back in pocket and start having conversations randomly with my relatives (many of whom have only seen me the last time, when i cried in cradle 23 years ago). But after contemplating and immense planning (Indian you see !!!), i have bought a Panasonic headphone with improved bass and i was loving even the most worst songs when i listened through it (As an e.g. i had a self-recorded song sung by me, astonishingly i loved it and Panasonic indeed is a good company, i retorted).

2. My second choice obviously will be to sit in a corner with headphones shunning all conversations and talk. I would be perceived as calm and shy by one section of relatives and as introvert and lacking social skills by another section. But that would be bad, as relations unlike other countries is the thread of life. We also have a saying which goes "You should always have 4 relatives, at least to lift you when you are dead".

What will i choose? Slowly the irritation of not talking to relatives or listening to songs was replaced by the irritation of choosing between the above two options.

Thinking that i have to do something i slid my mobile back into pocket along with the headphones, when my cousin from Mumbai asked "Hey Naresh, is that a new mobile in your pocket? Which model is it? What is the pixel of front camera?”

I was already irritated that my mind was cornered to select one of the two options above and now the same is replaced by the irritation borne out of my cousin's question.

Calming myself i started answering his question when my mother called, saying that one of my relatives want to see how i look now, as she is seeing me after15 yrs. (I still look like human, please !!!). I started walking towards my mother when again my cousin interrupted "Naresh you have not answered my question yet".

Again a situation where i have to choose between where to go and whom to answer first.

The root cause is very simple "HEADPHONE" and "CELLPHONE". If i have not carried these two stuffs with me this would not have happened.

Think of it. 

I attended the function to converse and get to know my friends and relatives better. I do not need my mobile and headphone for this. They are actually out of place. Saying that i have an important call from office, so i took my cell phone or other reasons is invalid. If you have an office call attend the call, then come to the gathering. None of your relatives will be disgusted on seeing us coming late (except your spouses. I cannot help out in this case. Some are human problems and some are, problems in human form!!!).

When we bath we bath, when we brush we brush. Though all our basic activities have remained quiet simple all these years, the dynamic activities like office work and family conversations are becoming complicated just because we multitask.

How many of you are bathing while simultaneously brushing the teeth? Then why are we planning to take an office call while attending a family function.

Saying you cannot live without your mobile or any piece of technology is crap. When everything in life has an alternative (leave parents) why not technology or the office calls which arose from it?

"Though you may have all comforts in life always choose on what comforts to carry with you when going out". Always this choice of ours will be right, when you are clear on what needs to be done in the place where we go. 

A technologically advanced human, is not the one with the latest iPhone or DSLR camera, but the one who has both, and knows WHEN, WHERE and HOW to use it.

With love and without headphones from Chennai.

***Perceiving Emotions***

Please read slowly.

Recently, i had an intense conversation with my mother. It all started with a TV Ad.

We both were watching TV and there was a fairness cream ad. The company publicized that people who use the cream will get fair in 10 min and visible difference could be seen in 2 weeks if used regularly.

I asked a question to my mom "how white is white? and how dark is dark?". I ask the same to you readers as well. How do you quantify fairness or darkness.

Take for e.g. percentile. a person who got the max mark is considered 100 and all other marks are calculated relative to it. so if u say you are darker, you are darker with reference to someone. so if the entire world should be evaluated on a fairness scale, there should be a person who is the fairest and darkest of all and everyone should have a percentage of fairness/darkness based on it.

If the above concept is true, though i use a lot of costly cream i still will be dark when standing besides an average European. Also now two new questions arise.

1. If i use the cream constantly will i end up being equal in color to Europeans.
2. If Europeans use the same cream will they become even more fair.

One thing all who read will appreciate is, all our perceptions are always relative or in other words with reference to something. Take a simple case.

One speaker said "Finish your job before you sleep". How will the following people in the audience perceive it?

a. Student
b. Businessman
c. Prostitute
d. Teenager.

Though everyone listed above are humans, they perceive a given sentence in their own sense. This subjective listening and perception is borne out of the experiences they have gained through their life in their selected fields as businessman or student at large. Cant we listen without our experiences in mind to perceive.

In biological terms perception is a material with which we coat our external signals that are sent to brain via sense organs. Take an example.

I used to travel via Anna university to my office. Now think that i am travelling on that way for the first time and i see the building. These are the steps that follow if i travel daily through it.

1. I see a building named Anna university.
2. It comes on the left of road when travelling to guindy.
3. It is a topmost univ for engineering and entering it is competitive.
4. My friend's cousin studied here and said it has a big auditorium.

and so on and so forth. As you may see from above, everything except point 1 is your experience specific information building on a primary information (which is point 1). If i come from a different location i would see the building on right side and not on left as in point 2.

Another point to note is, if you go through the same building again and again over the year, your brain would have gathered enough experience specific information regarding it and would be stagnated.

i.e., if i go through the same building everyday, after a week my brain would perceive only the building and its name  (point 1 above) at first glance. rest all points above will be recollected only if i think of point 1 over and over again inside. Your thought perception stagnates.

we can easily come to conclusion that perception is experience specific and stagnates over time.

This understanding is very important for handling emotions in life. Why ?

All our emotions are born out of perceptions and the same are modified by our personal experiences. We should train ourselves to perceive things as they are in life without our personal experiences coming into play. This results in channelizing our emotions, which in essence decides what we are as a person.

This also is equally important for relationship building and to avoid conflicts and quarrel.

How?

1. You won't fight with your near and dear,  as you know that their life experiences are different. You will start appreciating differences.

2. You will not be bored with relationships as you know that perceptions gets stagnated and that you should and will start having deep conversations for maintaining relation which helps you understand them better.

3. Lastly, you won't complain as you are not under the compulsion of a relationship but under compassion of it.

Learn to handle perception, emotions will handle themselves.

With love from Chennai..

( PS: Now don't perceive the above line in your own terms, its just my signature).

Concept Of Time

I guess everyone should have watched Nat Geo. one among the many amazing channel TV relays. When i was in 11th grade, there was a show called "Time". The show essentially involved discussions from world renowned experts on the concept of time and how time evolved.

Till date many of the particle physicists like Dr. Michio kaku and Astrophysicist like Dr. Hawking repeat these lines when it comes to time "It all started with Big Bang". How many of you would agree that time originated at the moment of Big Bang. If that is so is Big Bang really the beginning of universe and hence time. What if there are parallel universes. Are there human races far advanced in time than us in other universes?

These are few of the many questions that the show discussed upon. Somehow i was not convinced with their explanation. I hoped that there should be something which is more reliable and old and which is accepted widely.

I was recently chatting with my cousin who just graduated as a doctor and he was very much against homeopathy. I asked him why? He said practitioners of homeopathy always rely more on aesthetic sensibilities than medicine and cure. Which means they try to make their patients believe that they are feeling well, rather than giving them medicines and make them feel well in real sense.

I did not care much about his statement but struck me a thought about my beliefs. Immediately i recollected that we all believe Time came into existence and started with Big Bang. We were made to believe that this is true just because experts and channels say this repeatedly. I retorted "Why cannot there be an alternative explanation?" well i referred web, astoundingly not many alternative explanations from scientists, but many from philosophers.

Without any further way i just referred books in Philosophy and all were diverse with explanations on origin of universe. I read a book called "Sribhashyam" which explained the origin of universe and the position of earth and how was it created. I cannot give a scientific explanation to all the ideas in the book; i should say some were beyond the reach of science. Nonetheless like playboy, party whirl in Deccan chronicle or chennai times (metroplus) it was fun reading it and i also loved to believe the universe to be in that way.

The first part of the book explains the concept of time, which essentially bowled me down. It goes like this

"Time is an eternal curtain using which god has subdued our minds" i was taken aback and realized how truthful the statement is? Just think of it... we do not do a job just because we do not have time mostly or that the day is ending (night or day which in essence is time). Think that a day has 48 hrs. can we all work for 40 hrs. and then sleep for 8hrs? The point is we are tuned to the concept of time as 24 hrs. per day that all our activities invariably depend on it.

What if i say you are now in a world where 6 months is 1 day and the rest 6 months is one night. essentially now 24 hrs is equal to 1 year and we have more time, will we be able to achieve a lot?

We all read from our own religion that god holds the elixir of life and those gods live forever and they never age. This book says gods do have age like all of us. Can u believe this? As this book is in line with the Hindu philosophy it elaborates that age of people living in various lokas (i.e. planets).

Pitru Loka (where our ancestors live) - 6 months in earth is 1 day there and other 6 months is 1 night. So 1 year for us is 1 day for our ancestors.

From this point the math becomes big and is based on scale called yugas. Like how we have eras in geography (Cambrian, Precambrian, Mesozoic, Palaeozoic etc...) we have yugas in Hindu philosophy. They are four in ascending order.

1. Kali Yuga (we now live in this, which is 4,32,000 years in time).
2. Dwapara Yuga (krsna lived in this yuga, which is 4,32,000 x 2 years i.e. 8,64,000 years).
3. Tretha Yuga (Rama lived in this, which is 8,64,000 x 2 years).
4. Kritha Yuga (which is 8,64,000 x 4 years)

Now adding all this the total years is 43,20,000 years (43 lakh 20 thousand years) this is called one maha Yuga i.e. the additive of all four yugas. here comes the result. As you may know Hinduism has 3 major gods - Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma.

Shiva and all other gods are classified under devas. For devas One maha yuga is 1 day and 365 maha yuga (i.e., 43,20,000 x 365 years) is i year for them. Based on this time scale they live for 100 years.

Now it gets even bigger for Brahma. For him 1000 maha yugas is one day and other 1000 maha yugas is one night. therefore 2000 maha yugas (i.e. 43,20,000 x 2000, is one day). Like this he has 365 days a year and lives for 100 years.

PS: The book says the current brahma is 51 yrs. old and is living the first day of his 51st year!!!!
and Vishnu's age is not discussed

Pheww. The point is we need not get astounded by their time and age. All we will take is, think that you have time equal to brahma which is essentially very huge. Spend more time with family, friends and loved ones. The moment you remove the curtain that 24 hrs is one day, everything seems possible and you will have time for everything and everyone.

Human race stands apart not because we have sixth sense but we have sensibility...

If you are reading this line, you probably have spent a huge amount of TIME in my blog. click next to read other blogs...

With love from Chennai....