to make a pot, to cook, to paint, craft, cocktails - they help you keep your sanity ; to bring you back from a world of internet-- being not action oriented; to know that you can still MAKE things. even though we move towards a service orineted world--; eat food not make it, savour the pleasure of buying and using new items; not make them, being served by maids in india, being served by robots in 2025, being served by students in USA.
Monday, July 6, 2015
being the doer
we are truly happy when we create. not memories or happiness or abstract lexicon. but when we create objects we see touch and feel. babies are proof of that.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Beyond pork, wine & money , honey!
Its Kaveri Sankramana today :)
While it means a lot of things to a lot of people in plenty of states in India, to a little hamlet Talacauvery in Kodagu, this day is the very reason of its existence. Kodagu is a is home to a race of Hindus who seldom take much interest in celebrating festivals barring a few they hold close to their very being. Kavery Sankaramana being one of them is the days when stars come together in the sky to make a pretty little fountain of water suddenly stem out of little hole on the hills of Brahmagiri at an exact time predicted to the accuracy of a minute. Now thats the miracle.
Kodavas then collect this water and store it in their homes all over the world as the holy water. Meanwhile the fountain gushes and threatens to fill a little clearing around it which is not allowed to happen because then it means calamity will strike Kodagu and beyond. So you'll notice priests fervently plunging buckets to the little pond and emptying it of the fast filling waters by spraying it very elegantly on the crowds around.
The belief is to make a trip to the hills and be there during the 'theerthodbhava' and then get the water back with you to your homes the next day. The next calendar day festivities begin with a prayer to goddess Kaveri . This is followed by taking blessings of the goddess and then the elders in the family. A special breakfast of dosa and yellow pumpkin Curry is cooked and is much looked forward to. I remember how as a kid I would wait to eat the sweet pumpkin curry with dollops of home churned butter!
What is beautiful for me is the visits to other houses that happen during rest of the day to take blessing of elders. Every Kodava touches feet of another older and married Kodava regardless of greying hair or a wrinkled face. I always believed the world was liked that where with age comes respect no matter what you do or where you come from (or so many other biases one can conjure!). But its only when you travel, smell, see and live with other cultures do I realise how different I am. That no matter where I go and no matter where I am on Kaveri Sankaramana, within my humble means I want to stay connected and blessed by the older members of my family and that I simply unquestioningly hold them in high regard although now unlike my childhood I do know they aren't superheroes but very human and do err!
Of course there are otherwise, of course you will all tell me that you know that some one Kodava who did this to his parents and did that to his in laws and the type. Of course there will be such cases. you are influenced by the society you live and the Kodavas God bless them are a well travelled race spread out far and wide and creating their own shires around the world. But the fact remains that when this day comes, all of us simply have that unipolar swing of faith, belief and devotion.
Kaveri Changranthira Shubhashaya
While it means a lot of things to a lot of people in plenty of states in India, to a little hamlet Talacauvery in Kodagu, this day is the very reason of its existence. Kodagu is a is home to a race of Hindus who seldom take much interest in celebrating festivals barring a few they hold close to their very being. Kavery Sankaramana being one of them is the days when stars come together in the sky to make a pretty little fountain of water suddenly stem out of little hole on the hills of Brahmagiri at an exact time predicted to the accuracy of a minute. Now thats the miracle.
Kodavas then collect this water and store it in their homes all over the world as the holy water. Meanwhile the fountain gushes and threatens to fill a little clearing around it which is not allowed to happen because then it means calamity will strike Kodagu and beyond. So you'll notice priests fervently plunging buckets to the little pond and emptying it of the fast filling waters by spraying it very elegantly on the crowds around.
The belief is to make a trip to the hills and be there during the 'theerthodbhava' and then get the water back with you to your homes the next day. The next calendar day festivities begin with a prayer to goddess Kaveri . This is followed by taking blessings of the goddess and then the elders in the family. A special breakfast of dosa and yellow pumpkin Curry is cooked and is much looked forward to. I remember how as a kid I would wait to eat the sweet pumpkin curry with dollops of home churned butter!
What is beautiful for me is the visits to other houses that happen during rest of the day to take blessing of elders. Every Kodava touches feet of another older and married Kodava regardless of greying hair or a wrinkled face. I always believed the world was liked that where with age comes respect no matter what you do or where you come from (or so many other biases one can conjure!). But its only when you travel, smell, see and live with other cultures do I realise how different I am. That no matter where I go and no matter where I am on Kaveri Sankaramana, within my humble means I want to stay connected and blessed by the older members of my family and that I simply unquestioningly hold them in high regard although now unlike my childhood I do know they aren't superheroes but very human and do err!
Of course there are otherwise, of course you will all tell me that you know that some one Kodava who did this to his parents and did that to his in laws and the type. Of course there will be such cases. you are influenced by the society you live and the Kodavas God bless them are a well travelled race spread out far and wide and creating their own shires around the world. But the fact remains that when this day comes, all of us simply have that unipolar swing of faith, belief and devotion.
Kaveri Changranthira Shubhashaya
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Awards, vanity and appreciation
It suddenly struck me that how it is that people who work the most an aim to resolve a problem, are the ones that expect appreciation, the least. Having grown up being in news all the time for winning this and winning that, I would often cringe at not having won those many awards in later years of student life. But somehow I was at peace though I could not figure out why. Until I made my LinkedIn profile.
While plugging in all the details of how I have spent a good part of my post 18 life, I realised there is so much I have done. The same I dint feel while making CV for my on-campus placement at college. Of course its the difference of Western and Indian approach. But I am here to point at the fact that awards are made for a certain sect of people who need them to feel good. I can think of so many people who need that reassurance. At this point I remember what Shobha De said at Farooq Sheikh's funeral - "...he wasn't vain and narcissistic enough to want attention...". When I heard that, I knew it would be stuck in my head for a long time.
But then don't we all agree that humans have that innermost desire to be praised and that all we do is dictated by that one need? What people most often need is instant recognition. Awards make you wait too long to be recognized and really its to soothe your vanity know? Does it make a difference to you that you slogged 100 nights to get that award or would you be happier if your colleagues told you at least 7 times in those 100 nights that how hardworking you were.
By focusing on an award/reward system what we are doing is killing the culture of immediate appreciation. Really, how often do you tell your friend/partner/colleague something nice. First, do you even stay conscious enough to realise the nice things they have done and second, do you believe its too much effort to praise? You are not to blame, the reward system puts into a cycle where future is on our minds instead of the present and now.
While plugging in all the details of how I have spent a good part of my post 18 life, I realised there is so much I have done. The same I dint feel while making CV for my on-campus placement at college. Of course its the difference of Western and Indian approach. But I am here to point at the fact that awards are made for a certain sect of people who need them to feel good. I can think of so many people who need that reassurance. At this point I remember what Shobha De said at Farooq Sheikh's funeral - "...he wasn't vain and narcissistic enough to want attention...". When I heard that, I knew it would be stuck in my head for a long time.
But then don't we all agree that humans have that innermost desire to be praised and that all we do is dictated by that one need? What people most often need is instant recognition. Awards make you wait too long to be recognized and really its to soothe your vanity know? Does it make a difference to you that you slogged 100 nights to get that award or would you be happier if your colleagues told you at least 7 times in those 100 nights that how hardworking you were.
By focusing on an award/reward system what we are doing is killing the culture of immediate appreciation. Really, how often do you tell your friend/partner/colleague something nice. First, do you even stay conscious enough to realise the nice things they have done and second, do you believe its too much effort to praise? You are not to blame, the reward system puts into a cycle where future is on our minds instead of the present and now.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Why I will miss Mumbai
Mumbai kept me fearless.
I could walk its roads, dance it roads, eat on its roads anytime, wearing anything and with anyone. The fact that I should care for my safety and hence my existence wasn't even a remote thought. I could have better conversations, better meals and happier hippier times.
Mumbai made me fearless.
Mumbai makes you feel like superwoman. You don't ever think you can't look prettier, you can't be rich if you have lived in Mumbai atleast a few months. You can sleep late, not sleep at all, make kickass business plans, buy latest fashion, create fashion trends and not fear of being judged as anything worse than being 'different'.
Mumbai taught me to move on.
Mumbai is fast because ideas and money roll fast here. You know what I mean. Things change hands fast. you can do a test run of your next big idea and get results in much lesser time than it would take in other cities. so the whole point is to try and move on. Fast Fast. Life, apparently is not for lamenting too long.
I could walk its roads, dance it roads, eat on its roads anytime, wearing anything and with anyone. The fact that I should care for my safety and hence my existence wasn't even a remote thought. I could have better conversations, better meals and happier hippier times.
Mumbai made me fearless.
Mumbai makes you feel like superwoman. You don't ever think you can't look prettier, you can't be rich if you have lived in Mumbai atleast a few months. You can sleep late, not sleep at all, make kickass business plans, buy latest fashion, create fashion trends and not fear of being judged as anything worse than being 'different'.
Mumbai taught me to move on.
Mumbai is fast because ideas and money roll fast here. You know what I mean. Things change hands fast. you can do a test run of your next big idea and get results in much lesser time than it would take in other cities. so the whole point is to try and move on. Fast Fast. Life, apparently is not for lamenting too long.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Blackberry phones: ahead of times
I have been using a Blackberry phone since quite some time now. I dint realise until recently when I was fretting over a replacement that how ahead of its times Blackberry was until the likes of Samsung and other copyservice handset companies came into picture.
- Blackberry had an LED blink facility on its front top right corner to indicate messages or missed calls or even more. These features in other phones are not more than 2 years older in recent phones. BB had it much prior to that. In fact I don't know a BB model that does not have this feature.
- The BB desktop software is impressive because of its swiftness in backing up data, pictures or videos as per your convenience. I realised this as a a Nokia WIndows phone user mentioned how she has to CtrlA+Ctrl C to copy her vacation photos from her phone to Dekstop.
BB is no doubt minimalistic and classy. No fuss. No gimmicks. Neat, classic yet robust as a bull
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