The Story telling Workshop

Saturday morning turned out to be quite unexpected for us. As we dropped our daughter  to school for a story telling session, little did we know that the workshop was actually for us and not just for the children. We had an elaborate plan of sending a courier, going to a dress boutique and generally conquering the whole world as our daughter attends the session. We were swooped in for this wonderful experience with Sowmya Srinivas, who is heading Pre Primary in Sri Chaitanya Techno school and an artist in All India Radio. She has a neat way of telling stories through sound, expressions and gestures and she also sings.

The session started with some activities for parents. For example, we had to draw our child’s favorite thing or person and then enact or tell a story on that drawing. We drew a Lotus (Daughter’s favorite flower) in a pond and Sun and my wife thoughtfully named them as Kamal and Suraj and that the story is about their deep friendship. As we went on, Sowmya enacted how a story can be told with deep, long, loud expressive voices, facial expressions and hand gestures with rhyming jingles. The story was about the Monkey and the Crocodile. It reminded me of my Hindi teacher who took us this lesson – “Magar aur Bandar” and how he pronounced Magar (crocodile) as Maagarrrrrrrr, which earned him the name Magarji. There was then a touching story of a boy who lost his mother and then considered his teacher to be his mother. She showed how flashcards might also be a good aid in telling stories, probably just like the story books filled with pictures. Lastly we had a small activity of enacting an animal without narration by 4 different teams. We did the peacock with one of us as the dancing peacock and the rest of us making the sound of rain and hand gestures of rain falling from the top.

It was a day when we loosened up a bit for our children. Adults in their late 20’s and early 30’s were turning themselves into 5 year olds and learning the art of having and spreading fun. It also helped us to see how the teachers of our children turn themselves into 5 year olds to teach our children, as they participated along with us. Lastly as we had a brief chat with Sowmya, She reminded us where we actually heard stories from, our grand parents. I heard stories from my Grandma, My daughter hears stories of MGR killing the pirates from my father and other mythological stories from my in laws. Perhaps when we become Grandparents we will have stories of Rajinikanth to tell our Grandchildren. It becomes so, that as we age, as we go through our life, we finally learn the value of Fun, the fun that we can have with our Grand children. We remain busy until then taking care of the life.

Ultimately, be it a simple story telling session or playing a video game on a phone, we fail to recognize that it is Fun that we are actually having and not the object of Fun. Objects change, but Fun remains the same. Hopefully, we will get to this inner realization as we age.

Until then, Just have Fun!

Strategic Child

A Clean white Hyundai Verna was parking on a cold early morning and out came a man in his mid 30’s. He looked sophisticated with his eye glasses, a clean dark brown leather jacket and a blue jeans with sports shoe. One can tell from the looks that he is modern and was tasting the great material life. He then remote locked the tangy looking white car under the tungsten street light. Just then, he picked up his cell phone and began speaking to someone in Hindi as he walked out with a book in his hand.

His walk showed he was in a hurry, probably speaking to the person who he was going to receive from the train. Upon a closer look I found he was carrying a book named Think strategically. Definitely he must be a person of higher class and working in a higher position in his company, probably even an MBA. It was getting more complicated as I observed him from a few feet walking along behind him.

The walkway turned narrow and there came a slightly elevated side rail on the platform. Just then I witnessed this. The cultured sophisticated gentleman carrying a strategic thinking book, walked on the rail and did a balancing act without his knowledge, still speaking on the cell phone. It brought a little smile on my face. His costume of high looks and a high lifestyle did not change his basic nature, a nature of a child who would enjoy with what comes in the way. He just didn’t realize that or had less time to notice that.

Perhaps all that we do to earn to live a luxurious lifestyle, to get all those sophisticated dresses, gadgets and cars is simply to satisfy the child in us, albeit in a “Strategic” way. With a smile on my face still stuck, I walked to the platform and continued my wait for the arrival of the train, to receive my brother. I stood for a moment and I saw this picture.

Station lights

The Money Resolution

Resolutions are made every new year and then broken into pieces, buried and forgotten. Unrealistic resolutions are the cause of this every year. I started 2012 with a completely ridiculous resolution of developing a six pack and buying an Enfield classic 350. There was no pack and no classic.

2013, Realism is the key to successful resolution is what I found and along with that a mechanism to remember it every day and take real actions. To remember the resolution I simply created a list called “New Year resolution” in Wunderlist app (which I will try to review) and added an action item in the same app to read this list every day. This will solve the forgetting problem. The One resolution that I thought I could share with you all is Money. The problem is Money itself but more than that the problem is we don’t realize that fully.

Money is like water that likes to flow and spread. As long as you have Money in your account or as cash in your wallet, you will be tempted to spend it. If you feel wise and don’t spend it, it will find its way out through some other means like impulsive and unnecessary purchase, illness or worst cases theft. You may know this by experience.

Let me highlight the keywords – Flow, Necessity.

Regulating Money’s flow and tying the spending to necessity can make you the master instead of being enslaved by Money’s power. Chanakya Neeti quotes this in one of the passage. Money has power, blinds us and puts us into unnecessary spending and attracts unwanted elements, if not handled wisely.

Regulate the flow, by creating systematic investments every Month/Quarter/half year. Depending on your income choose RD, FD, PPF etc., For example you can Open an one year RD every Quarter or Half year for a certain monthly amount. I had been doing this already but the difference is it will be systematic and it will also be with an awareness of “Regulating the flow”, and not investing or locking the Money out of fear.

Write down a wish list of necessary things to buy. Spend your money on what is needed. You will feel good about and would have successfully directed your money for the right purposes. Those that are not a necessity tie it to a reward. For example, if you delivered a project successfully, go ahead and get your iPad. You will feel motivated. If you bought an iPad with neither necessity nor a reward, it will only blow up your ego and leave you with a sense of emptiness or without fulfillment.

Remember, the moment you get to a point where you will have excess money it can go two ways. You will be tempted by its power and do crazy things like open an IPL team or you will feel that you have achieved and want to see the value of life beyond Money. Directing your money for the right purposes and realize your dreams is a choice.

Ultimately, the power of your will is stronger than anything else and our goal is to have our Will at the strongest, so Money can never enslave us into a vicious and ridiculous lifestyle.

Shuffling on the iPod

As I woke up at 5AM today with a hot cup of Ginger tea, I was getting ready to go get my dad and in-laws from Bangalore Cantonment railway station. After a half hour drive through partially lit roads, still dark, I reached the station only to find out the train has stopped in Byappanahalli for crossing. The arrival time was moved from 6.10 to 6.35. It gave me sometime to get a copy of Bangalore Mirror and read some interesting bits of news on the last page. It was interesting to read about a small community in a village in UK trying to keep a very old family shop alive, about 350 years old. The small newspaper shop in the station also sold board games and I got Angry birds for my daughter.

Pacing up and down, reading the paper, I finally saw the announcement come through for the arrival by about 6.45. It was unusually 45 minutes late and usually we get out before dawn. But today, I saw the train come through mild bluish sky of the early morning from a distance with the deep running track giving a nice perspective of the arriving train. I wish I had my camera for a perfect wide angle shot.

By the time we got out and into the car it was about 7AM. This is when I connected my iPod shuffle to the Car Aux Audio. This one is a flashy blue clip iPod shuffle from 2007 and it started playing a Tamil classical instrumental. A nice melodious way to start the morning. My dad and in laws were probably wondering why I would listen to this, but they were in for a different surprise. The surprise that a shuffle brings. As we crossed Shivaji Nagar, MG Road and through the old madras road with bumpy roads and erratic signals, the song changed to Anbin vasalile from Kadal, a Christian prayer song from the upcoming Manirathnam Movie – Kadal. Now this was a new song, and I am guessing they were wondering how come I have classical and Christian gospel playing one after the other.

As we approached the KR Puram station crossing the numerous bumpy and potholed roads from Byappanahalli, the song changed to Susanna from The Art Company, a song that was copied by Deva in the movie Vaali as “O Sona” for “Susanna”. Classical to Gospel and now an 80’s pop, they were now probably thinking I am crazy. After we crossed a horrible traffic in  KR Puram junction at around 7.30, we got closer to home and the iPod shuffled to “Vanam Mella” from Nee Thaane en pon vasantham. By now I thought, my aged shuffle has got really wonderful in keeping me surprised.

We reached home at 7.45 and the iPod finally shuffled back to another Tamil classical. I got out of the car and wondered if it was just the iPod that shuffled or the whole of this morning with a delayed train and driving through unexpected traffic and some bumpy bad roads. May be the bumpy road made the iPod to shuffle crazy.

Happy New year to all ! I have also been posting some of my photographs in my Photo blog at Classicframes.

Kali Shila

It was a majestic Rock at the edge of a cliff somehow seemingly carved with grooves that made it look like a Sri Chakra Yantra. An Arduous 7 hours of trekking later what we saw was completely not what we had imagined. The place had a traditional temple of the Devi, but a few steps from below the temple, the path lead us to the Kali Shila.

Shila, which is the Hindi name of Rock, was standing there in all its glory with absolutely no boundary on 3 of its sides and completely sliding off into the valley. The Rock was inclined at about 45 degrees and we had to crawl on our four limbs to get to the centre. I got to the centre of the Rock with great difficulty and battling with some fear.

Standing by the flag in the centre, I witnessed the magnificent. Heaven on earth, the continuous range of the Himalayas, infinite and kissing the sky. This is probably the most beautiful that I have ever seen. It was fulfilling and extremely Joyful. The Brahmachari who walked with us shouted in a high pitch voice:

“Visangam Darshan! Ultimate View, Anand! Paramanand!”

From here I could see how our path that took us 8 hours to walk, looked so tiny and insignificant. It exhausted us, but all was forgotten after witnessing the view of a lifetime.

Our walk started at 8AM in the morning from the foothills of Madhmaheswar. It seemed difficult in the beginning, going up the steep stone walkways. We had to climb several slippery paths where the land had sliding soil with no rocks to grip. Our first hill was quite a challenge. The Local village guide was a young girl who was agile and always playful. She laughed at us struggling to climb. But was very considerate throughout the trip and got us sticks to balance our climb.

As we walked, our second hill was a little easier as it was full of villages and fields on the way. But it was still a long way. Atleast I could take a lot of photographs on the way as it was not as much of a steep climb but with stone steps and flat ground for the walk. We stopped by a place to fill our water bottles in a tap. I asked the villager if it is safe to drink this water. He smiled and exclaimed “Mountain water, this is better than your bottled water as it has all the herbs”. It was indeed refreshing.

We got to meet some interesting villagers on the way. Our local guide spoke with them in Pahadi Language (mountain language), it was just a stretchy version of Hindi, localized, slanged and villagized. It sort of sounded like Hindi Beverly hillbillies. We caught up with a primary school on the way. Smiling kids and giggling with all their teeth for my camera. They were all outside the school, may be it was lunch time. But we didn’t stop by to eat. We just had water and some sugary candies and kept walking.

The Third hill was the toughest. It was as though beginning to feel tougher and tougher as we approached. There were not many homes and villages now, it was all rocky and path went through the jungle. The last of the civilization was left behind in the second hill which had a distinct tall Airtel cellphone tower. It was all jungle after that. When we got close, we saw the Kali Shila, just hanging in balance from the edge of the cliff and we wondered how to get there, but there we were finally by 3.00PM.

As I stood there by the flag, I could only think one thing. I had no idea how I walked all the way long. From that point, I had to crawl to a small creak on the rock which had the naturally formed Kali’s feet inscription below. Carefully climbed down and what we saw was nothing ordinary.The Rock had the feet of Kali inscribed as though she came and stepped on it. Besides that was a Sanskrit Akshara that was formed in a naturally embossed way. We stood there, with the wind blowing heavily and getting chillier as the time went, had the best of our times doing Puja. It was said that Brahma, Vishnu and Siva descended down to worship Kali before fighting the Demons to save the Devas.

Another Brahmachari who accompanied us, did the Puja and went into circumambulation by crawling around the rock like Tom Cruise in MI 2. Our jaws dropped and had a shock offear go up our spine. We didn’t do that, it was impossible for him and completely not possible for us.

When we finished it all and started our return walk, it was 6.00PM in the evening already. With torches and sticks we found our way in the dark and reached our base camp by midnight, with Dinner thereafter. This was probably the most adventurous and yet the most spiritual trip we ever had in our life.

Kali Shila, is not for the ordinary tourist. We were gifted to be able to go to this place. We were all gratitude to our Guruji and Devi for taking us there and make us blessed.

Remember the forgotten

Hello All. The last post I wrote was somewhere in July 2010. This is a solid 2 years ago. November of 2009, I had returned back from US and a change of place had a deep impact. My priorities changed, my routine changed and in effect I had forgotten so many of my habits of the past. Many a times, I would come here to write something only to get pulled by the world into something else.

As I sit here with my 12 days old Chicken pox, I had nowhere else to go but stay at home and recover. I am almost recovered now and in the process, I began to see myself inside. I saw the things I had forgotten, things that I used to do, things that I relished and enjoyed doing it just for the sake of doing. I had forgotten all that I used to do with no strings attached.

One of it is this blog. The world of Maduraiveeran. I want to make a comeback. I want to see what difference can a 2 year break do to my writing. May be my topics will be different, may be my ideas and opinions would have changed, but I am sure the core of it, essence of my expression is probably going to remain the same. If I write one blog post, once every week, then I am happy.

I am remembering the forgotten. I am recovering.

Patanjali’s Keys to a Peaceful Mind

I came across a simple and profound line as I was reading one of the most loved literature in Spirituality – The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Translation and Commentary by Swami Satchitananda.

This sutra was powerful enough that it can stand alone by itself and be applicable to each and every one of us, regardless of what we are currently doing.

The Sutra goes:

By Cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.

Just 4 keys and we got our peace of mind all the time:

Friendliness:

By default we can set the state of our mind to Friendliness. If we find a happy person, who is better off, then instead of avoiding him/her out of Jealousy or shamefulness, we can become friendly. If we are friendly to a happy person, he/she is going to share the happiness and probably lift us to that state. Hey, if we are friendly to someone who has a car, he can give us a lift to work. Wouldn’t that make us happy? (and of course, It is not just about the happiness from money, but happiness in general).

Compassion:

Nobody wants to be unhappy. But at some point because of our ignorant choices we experience pain. To such a person, instead of blaming them for their pain, we can try to understand their pain and be compassionate to them. For example, we can be compassionate to a sick person, instead of pointing out his mistakes. He probably knows that already. There is no need to increase the pain.

Delight:

If we see a person like Mahatma Gandhi, we can be delighted. We can see the nice qualities they exhibit and try to adopt them to an extent in our life. This might come easy because, we are easily inspired by popular personalities.

Disregard:

No one is born wicked. We can always be Friendly or Compassionate or Delighted towards any person. But if we come across any wickedness, then the best thing to do is to disregard them. Any amount of advice will just fly off their head and may probably pull us into their rut.

We do not need to be associated to any form of religion or spiritual path in order to follow these for our peace of mind. A slow transformation of attitude of our mind with these 4 keys, is bound to do wonders.

If we practice this like riding a bicycle then we don’t need to remember them, it will just come to us automatically. No one can take away the peace of mind that we deserve.

Our Peace is our birthright.

Many Thanks to Sage Patanjali and Swami Satchitananda for a beautiful Commentary.