Light & Joy

My daughter was studying for her Computer test and there was a portion in her text book about LED vs CRT monitors. So I started explaining to her about LED and CRT - at least to what extent I knew. And then my eyes fell on the Tubelight in our room and I told her that this was an LED tubelight. I told her about the advantages of the LED tubelight and how it turns on immediately when we switch the light compared to the Fluorescent tubelight that we had in our previous home which used to take a couple of seconds to fully light on. And then this is how our conversation went - 

She: "Yeah, yeah, I remember. I miss that tubelight so much!"

Me: "Huh? Why? Since that light used to take a few seconds to turn on, we bought these LED tubelights!"

She: "Yeah, but in those few seconds, I had so much fun! It was like a dance party!"

I was speechless! Because at that instant I realized what we think as a technological advancement is actually burying our kids' joys! I mean, in a few years' time she is going to completely forget about the Fluorescent tubelights and their flickering. In fact, we as kids used to have so much fun & giggles calling our classmates as 'Tubelight' in case someone is slow in grasping just for this exact reason that a tubelight takes a few seconds to fully turn on. All those jokes are no longer applicable now with the advent of LED tubelights! 

In fact, even the Salman Khan starrer Tubelight is also made on this exact concept. Speaking of which, now if someone Googles Tubelight, the only thing we get to see on the first page is about the movie, not the electrical light emitting device! Poor Tubelight (the fluorescent one, I mean) is getting whacked down and down to the point of extinction! 

This also reminded me of what my wife always says how much fun she used to have when the power used to get turned off. In my childhood, when the BESCOM turned the power off which was a regular thing for months together especially in summer due to lack of water and hence lack of Hydroelectric power generation - usually called as 'Load-shedding' - I used to get irritated. Because that meant, I had to study under the candlelight, get bitten by mosquitos or even miss watching cricket on TV. But on the other hand, my wife apparently always had fun whenever there was load-shedding. In fact they were waiting for the 'current to go' - as we say in local language - because all kids could enjoy in the dark night under the moonlit & starlit sky. 

That's when I realized that the kids nowadays hardly get to see moonlight nor starlight. Stars yes maybe here and there some nights, but moonlight & starlight so rare. With the technological advent of Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) and Inverters, especially in apartments, kids hardly experience loss of electricity and power outages. And as such, they never get to see the dark night and amaze at the beauty of it nor even play in moonlight/starlight. 

Lo and behold, there goes one more childhood joy due to technological advancement...

😔

"Sammy!"

I was just scrolling through my latest posts and I see nowadays it is mostly about kids and their wonderful talks! And here goes another...

A couple of elderly grannies were sitting on the porch of our apartment lobby in the open air with apparently one of the granny's two-year-old granddaughter who was walking here and there, pointing at moving cars, autos, etc. And right there, another mommy happened to cross by with her own two-year-old daughter in the toy-like pram which the mommies can easily push around and at the same time go walking. So, this first one pointed at the second one and the second one's attention too got withheld by the first one - which seemed like a common setup because kids get usually attracted to one another for some reason and start playing around! 

Looking at this scene where the kids are trying to point one to the other, the grannies prodded the first one to say 'Akka' (Kannada translation of 'Sister') which is a common term used for other girl kids. And the mother tried to say the same thing to her daughter and prodded the second one to say 'Didi' (Hindi translation of 'Sister'). While the adults are trying to make the kids get accustomed to learn the customary greetings, the neurons in the first one's brain finally clicked and she pointed to the second one with renewed confidence and blurted out:

"Sammy!" 

While the grannies were still trying to make out why she said that although they were trying to make her say 'Akka', it was time for the mother's neurons to click now: Sammy was indeed her daughter's name and she realized that Sammy and this other girl were actually classmates in the daycare! So the first one actually recognized Sammy and even Sammy had actually recognized the first one - in an ambience outside of the usual classroom, which is actually remarkable - although not to the extent of having remembered the name as quickly as the former! So, now that the mother understood the context, she then started explaining the whole thing to the grannies who finally got it too!

I was waiting at the lobby for my elevator while this whole thing got played out right in front of me, and it seemed fascinating to me how couple of toddlers who did not even know how to talk could make the adults understand what they had already recognized and how, even as adults, we so easily fail to understand our kids sometimes. 

Here, the adults were trying to teach something to the kids but the kids finally ended up teaching something to the adults...!

😊

The Paranoia of a Cab

One fine weekend evening, my wife and I were sitting in the driveway of our apartment, enjoying the breeze when a cab came and stopped just about in front of us. Obviously, it was either an Ola or a Uber waiting for the passenger.

At about the same time, an aged lady whom we knew in the apartment, was walking close to us, carrying her 9-month-old grand daughter in her arms. She smiled at us and we returned the smile. The grand daughter was happily looking here and there, and enjoying the general ambience, being pampered by the granny. And then, her eyes fell on the cab, and suddenly she started sobbing. She pointed her hands to the cab and shook her head while her crying increased. Her tears welled up, she became absolutely restless & started wailing. She was almost furious with the cab while at the same time realized she was helpless. The very presence of the cab in the apartment was causing her immense distress. While this sudden change in the emotions puzzled me and my wife especially because the child was crying looking at a cab which seemed so unusual, her grandmother explained it to us:

Apparently the child's mother goes to office every day in a cab in the morning. And the presence of this cab made the child think that her mother would go off once more in this cab! And hence - the anger directed towards the cab & the helplessness of the inability to stop the separation from her dear mother all of which resulted in a desperate outburst of tears...

Aah, such a heart-wrenching sight. Poor child, what unimaginable pains she would have gone through every morning of her life when her mother left to office for the emotions to come out like this just by seeing a cab...

Like so many other times, Sadhguru's speech on motherhood came to our thoughts.

A child's question

I was walking in the park when I saw a child who was maybe about 3 years old. She was swinging on the swing. Her eyes were roaming all around the park and she was talking to her mother who was right in front of her. 

When the path on which I was walking came close to her, I heard her ask her mother, "From dinosaurs?".

As I was about to go out of earshot, I heard the mother reply "No; from other human beings."

As I continued my walk, within a few seconds I came across some other kids running around the park as a warm-up. They were all wearing Taekwondo uniform. 

And that's when I understood the full conversation between the child and her mother...

The Strange-Looking Fruit

I was driving on my two-wheeler with my family near Banashankari bus stand one day, and was about to take a left turn when I noticed a mother crossing the road, dragging her child behind her who was struggling to keep pace. I stopped my vehicle to let her cross the road despite getting honks from behind me. While the mother was looking hither and thither to ensure she was not in the way of any vehicle, the child who was about 4-5 years old, had absolutely no care in the world for all the traffic around him despite the road being heavily occupied with all sorts of vehicles. He had absolute faith in that hand which was held by his mother; and his legs just kept moving one feet after next following his mother. To be honest, it was definitely a tough road to cross even for adults what with all the vehicles enjoying the erstwhile green signal, and having to drag a child too in the complex moving maze was a challenge indeed. 

And while he was following his mother, his eyes were looking high above the sea of vehicles. His eyes lit up and he tugged at his hand to catch his mom's attention. But she didn't pay any attention to the tug. Her sole aim was to cross the road. He kept tugging and indicating her to look at the top of the tree which was at the corner of the junction. But she couldn't take her eyes off the road. At that instant both my wife & I followed the direction of the boy's attention and then we saw what the boy was seeing: a strange-looking fruit!

It was big in size, rectangularly-oval-ish, with maybe some spikes & brownish. It was something I had never seen before. And there were lots and lots of them. I was astounded and so was my wife. In fact, my wife asked my daughter to see that bunch of strange-looking fruits too! I am not sure if the mom finally paid any attention to her son's tugging or not but it was as if that whole episode was for my family and me to witness Nature's inexplicable existence: a massive tree growing a large bunch of weird looking yields in the middle of a highly polluted crossroad!

I have driven over that road thousands of times having never once paid any attention to that tree nor its fruits - & here comes this tiny being who just took the tree and kept it right in front of my eyes! What a marvelous experience! And look at the innocence of a kid: in all that cacophony of angry honks, amidst the waves of vehicles, he calmly looks at a tree while crossing the road, sees it in entirety a way an adult never does & appreciates it to such an extent that he wants his mother to acknowledge too!

It is such simple things as these that we as adults miss but kids do not. And unfortunately when kids highlight it to us, we brush it off lightly and yet these are the gems of the Creation that we ideally ought to wonder about. The whole scene might have lasted less than five seconds - and it occurred about 4-5 months ago and yet I cannot forget it.

Nor did I want to miss blogging about 'such a simple incident'!

😊

The Family Tree

My daughter just uttered "Amma" as a way of "Good Night" endearment while she was about to head to sleep, without wanting to say anything else - when the below interesting conversation ensued. Much of it was in Kannada, and it is imperative that I retain the local language because the conversation churned out certain gems only due to the Kannada words...!

Daughter said, "Amma..." 

Mommy replied, "Magu..." (but pronounced it as 'Maggu')

If pronounced as 'Magu', it means baby; if pronounced as 'Maggu', it means a flower bud.

D: "Naa Maggaadre, Nee Hoova." [If I am a bud, then you are a flower]
M: "Naa Hoovaadre, Namma appa amma are seeds." [If I am a flower, then my parents are seeds]

D: "Then Ajji thatha are roots." [Ajji thatha = grandparents]
M: "Mutthaatha has transformed from roots back to Earth, from where all Life originally comes up!" [Mutthaatha = Great Granddad (who died recently)]

D: "So, I am a bud!"
M: "Yes, from Magu to Buddy - thats how parents ought to treat children as they grow up!"

🙏

Body & Mind Calibration

Mind, as we know it, never stops churning. It rambles on and on and on - at least when we are awake. Unless you are a master at it, it ain't that easy to stop it from rambling. Now, the body, on the other hand, is a different thing altogether. When we were kids, the body is hardly still. Slowly, as we grow older, the body starts to become stiller and stiller. 

This imperfection of the calibration of the pace at which the Body & Mind works is what I believe to be the cause of Man's sub-optimal way of living. 

Let us see this with two examples: 

a) Sub-optimal: 

A primary school-going daughter and a father both wake up at the same time. The father goes to office & the daughter goes to school. When the father comes back home, the daughter is still full of energy but the father is exhausted. Mentally speaking, both would have had almost similar "amount" of rambling thoughts, ideas and emotions. Physically speaking, the child has spent more energy playing one full day whereas the father sat in his office chair almost 90% of the day. And yet, why is the parent exhausted...? That exhaustion could be due to the lack of physical activity which did not go hand-in-hand with the mental works. Perhaps it is for this reason that offices now have sports lounges & gyms...?!

b) Optimal:

In any sports, the athletes competing are all thinking only about the game and they have an equal amount of physical activity to go with this thinking. So, during the game, the pace of their body & mind is just perfect to get the best out of each of them. And hence this grandiose display of human potential is a major attraction for the general population.

We will now consider another angle - 

We have all heard and read so much about the benefits of meditation - which, as per my understanding, is to calm one's mind and make it as still as the body. Once the body and mind are still (I am as yet unsuccessful in doing so), we are supposed to feel the bliss of Life. And whoever is blissed out in life cannot be unhealthy, right?

So, here we get one equation: 

Body still & Mind still = Bliss

Hence Healthy

Now the most common thing any doctor advises these days (for good health) is to exercise regularly, go to the gym & work out, go for long fast walks, etc. In other words, this indicates to me that - "Since you cannot keep your mind still in tandem with your body, better keep up the pace of your physical body with your mental pace!" 

So, we get another equation by going to the extreme end of the hypothesis:

Healthy if Body pace = Mental pace

So, essentially, what this is indicating is that as long as the pace or the stillness of the Body is matched with the pace or the stillness of the mind respectively - or in other words, if the Body & Mind are calibrated correctly to go hand-in-hand - Human Beings have the ability to reach their optimum mode of operation - and also free from any sickness or disease! 

Phew, what-a-thought, da?!

While I am thinking all this, the only physical activity I am undergoing is typing! So, to match up to my mind & be optimal, let me stop this typing & do some push-ups!!

💪😄

Sri Raghavendra Swamy Darshan

Ok, so this happened many many years ago but the event remained etched in my mind and I had always wanted to blog about it but kept putting it off. Each day I saw Sri Raghavendra Swamy's photo in the morning, I vowed myself to write about it as soon as possible but I never did. So here goes...

I had visited Mantralayam with my parents and my brother's in-laws. The morning darshan went as planned and so did the lunch at noon. While my parents and I had booked for the return journey the next day, the in-laws had planned for a night bus departing on the same day at about 8 pm. Them being aged, we thought it was courteous on our part to bid them farewell by going to the Bus stand instead of just from the hotel room. The only glitch was that at about the same time, there would be Rathotsava (chariot ceremony) in the temple premises which we had to miss. Nevertheless, we thought perhaps we can bid them adieu at about 7:45 pm at the bus stand and return to the temple to have a glimpse of the Rathotsava too.

Unfortunately, the bus was late. While the in-laws asked us to "Go, its ok, we will take care", we continued to stay on knowing fully well that we would indeed miss the Rathotsava in its entirety. Finally the bus came and it left at 8:30 pm - and with anxiety, we returned hastily to the temple, hoping the chariot ceremony would still be underway. Alas, it was over. In fact, the temple itself was being closed for the night and many pilgrims were asked to leave the premises. With a lump in our throat, we realized that the opportunity was lost, and we felt an inexplicable grief.

At that time, my mother's relative (Sri Parimalacharya) was amongst the few priests who were give the responsibility of doing the daily rituals (such as floral decoration, abhishka, etc.) to the Brindavana. He happened to see us just while we were getting ready to depart and he asked us if we watched the Rathotsava to which we told him how unfortunate we were to have just missed it. He then asked us to accompany him to the sanctum sanctorum where the final rituals of the day were being conducted to the Brindavana such as removing all the flowers, other clean-up, etc. This was happening when hardly any other pilgrims were present & the temple premises was almost empty save for a few priests and other temple attendants. So it was both an honour and a privilege to be present to witness the final rituals of the day - and this offset our grief greatly.

Sri Parimalacharya took off all the remaining flowers from the Brindavana and did the final Aarathi of the day. He offered this Aarathi to all those present including us. And then he did something I hadn't seen anyone do. He stood directly in front of (and facing) the Brindavana and with the help of both of his palms he leaned on it and touched his forehead to it. He stood like that devotedly, resting his palms & forehead on the Brindavana for a few seconds as if to intimately bid goodnight to Rayaru, and then he walked back towards us with a smile. 

We then offered our namaskaara to him and thanked him for letting us inside the sanctum sanctorum despite it not being the time for devotees to be within the temple premises. He waved it away as if it was nothing. We then offered our final namaskaara to Rayaru and walked out of the sanctum sanctorum and then out of the temple towards our hotel room.

Thats all that happened.

But this incident remained in my mind all through these years. And recently, there is this one special quality about it that suddenly dawned upon me whenever I think about what happened that day. After we offered our namaskaara to Sri Parimalacharya & looked at him, his face had this strange brightness, this unique inexplicable glow that I now think that the great Sri Raghavendra Swamy Himself had entered the mortal body of Sri Parimalacharya and was offering grace to us. It was as if everything was pre-planned: the in-laws bus being at 8 pm which deliberately got delayed, the Rathotsava that we had to miss - and all this was just so that we could get Darshan of Sri Raghavendra Swamy Himself "in-person" & get His blessings directly from Him!

It was a mind-boggling event, and I still cannot forget the way Sri Parimalacharya leaned on the Brindavana with great devotion, & that glow he had while he blessed us. This constant belief that I have that it was Sri Raghavendra Swamy Himself who blessed us that night "directly" is suffice to make me think that my this life has become sacred. 

Amen.

The JiraLe Scare!

I was in Central Mall yesterday, sitting with my daughter in one of the rare couches that was empty, while my wife was shopping. 

Just then I noticed a small cute little girl, maybe about 3-4 years old walking amidst the multitude of dresses that were folded & placed neatly on shelves. She was holding the hand of an elderly gentleman, who probably was her grandfather. Her other hand was idly touching all the dresses that she was passing by to which the elderly gentleman remarked in Kannada, "Adhella mutbeda, alli JiraLe iraththe" which translates to "Don't touch, there will be cockroaches." 

Obviously he was kidding and just trying to scare her just so that she will stop touching the dresses. And she did stop touching the dresses with a mild fear in her eyes as if those roaches will come flying out of the folds. Just to confirm she got the message - like how we all do with such tiny tots - he asked her a question: "En iraththe?" (what will be there?) She dutifully & fearfully replied "JiraLe".

All this was happening as they were walking right in front of me and hence I could hear every bit of it. I even smiled at the gentleman knowing fully well what he was doing and he acknowledged the smile back. And then she came to the section where there was Jeans pants folded neatly. She pointed her finger to the "fashionably" torn section of the Jeans pant and told the man innocently with a slight scare in her voice, "JiraLe Kachbittidhe!" (The cockroach has chewed!")

😊

"The Best Friend"

One of the most awaited times during a "school working day" for me is the time to pick up Paavani from the school bus after her school gets over. As soon as she jumps off from the bus door, she is all bubbly to offload the latest information about her "best friend". 

Below is an excerpt of a "real conversation" on any typical week (days specified are fictional):

Monday:
She: "Pappa, Roshni is my best friend. I have so much fun with her in the bus!" 

Tuesday:
She: "Pappa, Madanika and I were playing bunnies today, and we were laughing so much!"
Me: "Who is Madanika? You have been going to school for almost 9 months and I haven't heard her name till today..."
She: "Oh she is my best friend!"

Wednesday:
She: "Pappa, I have decided I will take Charanashree with me on my birthday to distribute chocolates to all the teachers."
Me: "Why not Madanika?"
She: "Oh Charanashree is my best friend!"

Thursday:
She: "Pappa, today is Karnitha's birthday and she gave me chocolate even though we are now no longer classmates."
Me: "Oh that is so nice of her. She was your first friend in this school."
She: "Yes, she is my best friend."

Friday:
She: "Pappa, I miss Pragathi."
Me: "Last time you met her was about 4 years ago in your pre-school."
She: "Yes, she is my best friend."

And so it goes: Paavani & her long list of Best Friends...!

:-)

Rebirth as a House Fly?!

At times, there are a few house flies (commonly called in Kannada as NoNa) flying around in our house. These creatures don't really cause any nuisance like mosquitoes which bite and go ummmmm near our ears while we are sleeping - but they are annoying in their own way. It tends to make us shoo them away by waving our hands and legs and what-not whenever we see them.

My daughter has suddenly shown interest in these flies. This happened once when a fly sat on her finger for a long time. When a fly sits on your finger or toes, you wont even feel it - it is so light. So, she didn't really feel it but she saw this fly sitting on her finger. At that instant, she declared the fly to be her pet and she will play with it. [This could also be because she kept asking me for a pet (like a dog or a cat) and I kept refusing!] So she asked me not to shoo away any of the house flies from the house because they were her pets now! Boink!

Be that as it may. That alone is not the reason for me to blog this post. 

She had nicknamed the fly as NoNi and used to call them so until one day she changed it suddenly to 'Mahatma'! I asked her why she was calling the flies as 'Mahatma' and she replied that anyone who had achieved great success in life is called 'Mahatma', and who knows these flies might have achieved great success in their past life! A big BOINK!!

Now, this was good enough reason to blog!!

I had never thought about what she had said! What if our very own Mahatma Gandhi himself had turned into a fly in his next life?! I mean, can that even happen? You achieve great many successes in life only to turn into a fly the next life! Oh Jeez - that is so despairing to think about! After all those struggles, the sacrifices, the Satyagraha, the fasting and then sweet success of a Nation's Independence - only to be turned into a house fly in the subsequent life! Surely that cannot happen?! 

But then he should have been born again by now really. I have read great many philosophical theories now to firmly believe that there is definitely rebirth but no one has told me yet that the rebirth will be as humans only. What I have understood is that the rebirth is from animals to human beings but, to be honest, I have never thought that we might be reborn as animals in future. That is like going back in the Process & Fulfillment of Life as we know it, like getting demoted instead of promoted. What if it might just be true - that we might not be reborn as human beings?! Now thats a scary thought!! My mother always used to tell me when I was a boy that we will be born as lizards if we refuse water to folks who ask for it and I always used to think that it cannot be true - but what if it indeed is?!

But what if we are indeed reborn as human beings? Our generation has depleted this Mother Earth so much that when we are born again, there would be hardly anything for us to live upon. Men are cutting down generation-old trees in this life to make furniture and doors and houses and when these same men are reborn a century later, the Earth would be so much hard to live with soaring temperatures and depleted water due to all those fallen trees cut by the very same men! Men are throwing garbage and trash into oceans & rivers, illegally mining the sand off the river banks, and not worrying about now but when born again, they will see the impact it will have on the ecology which in turn comes back and affects the same men. But they would then just blame their fathers and forefathers for not taking care of Earth but in reality, due to rebirth, they are actually experiencing the results of their own actions in their own past life! Like right now - what if I am experiencing this era of 'no-water', 'rising-temperatures', 'polluted-air' because I used to cut down trees, burn up the fossil fuels, waste electricity, waste water, etc. in my own previous life?! What if people in Africa are suffering massive famine because they used to waste food in their own previous lives? This is what Karma is all about, right?

Even on the positive note - again, what if we are indeed reborn as human beings? All the achievements and successes achieved are forgotten by us when we are reborn. They would only be associated to that name and person of the yesteryears. So, amongst us, there could be Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, Ramanujan, Newton, Mother Teresa and all those great folks but just that they wouldn't even know that they were those folks in their own previous life! Unless, of course, they had reached that state of Enlightenment which apparently takes them out of the lifecycle of Birth & Death but then again, who really knows?!

What if I myself was - in my previous life - a famous personality that I studied so much about in my History books in this life?! 

What if that fly indeed was Mahatma Gandhi?!

So many thoughts and questions just by a simple conversation with a seven-year-old on a house fly!!

Phew.