Mysorean

Sloka 16:

Time is one. But we divide it into various parts and call it timelines across the planet for our convenience. Below the Brahman, time begins and changes into different seasons & ages and goes towards an end. The Brahman is above time.

According to a famous saying, “All paths of glory lead to the grave”. Every path leads to the Earth. For example, Pete Sampras was a Great Champion in tennis. But even the “great” champion had a time span. Greatness of human beings has a time span. Time signals the end. Time brings death. But Lord Shiva is beyond time. “Kaala kaalo Shivaha” means Shiva is immortal.

Glorious Atmans cannot be touched by the movement of time. There is no end to the Atman. The realized man is the Atman. Time exists under the Atman. Since there was no beginning to the Atman there is no end either. So, there can be no such thing as time for an Atman.

That Atman who cannot be touched by time is the immortal light among the mortal lights. He is the light of realization. It can never die. Light of consciousness is always awake. It never sleeps. There is no sleep for the Atman. It has been awakened. Ever-awakened. The Light of the Atman is eternal. This light can be seen always. It can see and understand anything.

Body and mind cannot dictate the Soul. The Soul is the Master. Body and mind are matter afterall. Soul is the only one that has control over everything. The light of the Soul is the only permanent one. All the other lights are temporary lights.

When we meditate on some object, we acquire the nature of the object. The Devatas meditate on the Atman and get the eternal quality of the Atman. Thus the Devatas go on to live till eternity. The immortal lights carry on without being touched by the passage of time.

When we are happy, years pass by very quickly. When we are in misery, time seems to drag along. When difficulties are there, days pass by at a slow pace. The enlightened man, who has realized the Soul will not be affected by misery. The eternal Atman is worshipped upon by Devatas for long life. And hence they live long. Daily if we meditate on the eternal we will also become eternal.

Tomorrow: Part III

Today’s ET has an article about intra-network call rates:

Operators have been asked (by the DoT) to withdraw tariff schemes charging much lower rates for calls terminating within the network of the same operator than those terminating in other networks. This would increase tariffs for more than 60m mobile users, as operators would withdraw lower tariffs for intra-network calls.

The withdrawal will leave no meaning to differentiation strategy in this industry. The operators are trying to increase their market shares by launching schemes that have a difference in the intra-network call rates. This is going to benefit the customers too. Why is the DoT playing spoilsport? Instead of pointing out that section 25 talks about no discrimination between intra and inter-network calls, why isn’t the section abolished? Think ahead DoT.

I was under the impression that, having missed the previous Sunday’s discourse, I would have to skip slokas. But surprisingly, the Swamiji started with a recap of the 14th and 15th sloka from where we had ended the lecture on 7th August. That was good! Since we have already touched upon the 14th sloka in our previous post, we can now move to the 15th sloka. This is the 15th sloka from the 4th section of the 4th chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

Sloka 15:

When the realization that the Supreme – The Creator of the Past, Present and Future and we are one and the same, we move beyond the boundaries of time. And with that brings a vision of oneness. We see ourselves as infinity. The infinite nature of the Supreme is what we begin to feel. We feel oneness with everything. We see God in everybody through our Soul.

We are all individual minds with an infinite soul. There is no individual soul. We get different ideas of self because of different minds that we have. But, we have an infinite soul. We are all hiding from the fact that the infinite God exists. We are living in ignorance. The enlightened man realizes this and sees oneness everywhere. He realizes the infinite nature of Soul.

Tomorrow: Part – II

This incident happened in the summer of 1997.

I was doing my Senior Intermediate in Hyderabad. My closest friend Vamshee and I were as usual roaming the streets and generally doing whatever helped us away from the study table! We were coming out of a shop called “Lorven” on Shivam Road near Osmania University campus. We used to go around on a chetak at Hyderabad. Chetak is the best vehicle! So, I was taking my chetak out from the parking lot. Vamshee was waiting for me to take it out.

By then there was somebody whom Vamshee was talking to. Vamshee looks like this nice kid next door whom you can ask anything. So I thought this was one such conversation of Vamshee with yet another stranger! Little did I know that this was going to be an incident that will come to our mind time and again to remind us of what resolve is all about! I also joined in the conversation. It was a short conversation!

The person was barefoot. His face was expressionless.

His question was, “Which way do I go to Patancheru?” That’s like asking someone in Bangalore, which way to Hyderabad?!
Vamshee and I (I don’t remember who) just replied, “It’s atleast 40 kms from here. From where are you coming?”

He answered with no change in his expressions, “Vanasthalipuram”. That’s another 20 kms in the opposite direction.

“How did you come?”

“By walk” What?!

“How do you plan to go to Patancheru?”

“I will walk all the way” This guy is either mad or he is in extreme difficulty.

“Go straight on this road and ask someone at the next main road to your right”

As soon as we said that the man began walking with great focus in the direction we pointed. He never thanked us. Weird still is the fact that the thought of expecting a thanks never occurred to us.

We were just staring at each other in part disbelief over what had just happened and part contemplation of whether we could do something more for this person. The person was walking towards Patancheru from Shivam Road with quick small steps unmindful of what he had done to us. In the peak of summer, this barefooted man was just concentrating on going to Patancheru. Even the heat didn’t matter to him. Such was his sense of mission.

We went behind the man on our chetak stopped him in his way. Gave him Ten rupees and showed him where the nearest bus stop was. And told him the numbers of the buses that would take him to Patancheru. From there we went home with a satisfaction of having made a small difference.

More than having made a difference, the man showed us that if you have the resolve to achieve your goal you only need pointers at the relevant places to tell you whether you are going the right way or not. You can go without anyone’s help. It was we who volunteered to help him. He never expected any help out of anyone. It was a 40kms (Actually, the distance didn’t matter to him) walk for him.

That day we learnt that if we were serious about achieving a goal then we needed a steely resolve. The kind of resolve the man had shown on that hot summer day. It was his sense of mission that really brings us back to reality whenever we start thinking that we have achieved something great. We still have a lot to achieve.

We don’t know if he reached Patancheru or not. But we are sure that with his kind of resolve, he would have easily reached there. He taught us how to focus on our goals. We have all the comforts in Life, yet we keep cribbing about one thing or the other. Look at this man, barefooted in the peak of summer at Hyderabad he was ready to walk to Patancheru and he didn’t have one word to say against anything!

That’s sense of mission!

Tomorrow: Part One of Sunday’s discourse at Ramakrishna Math on Brihadaranyaka Upanishad by Swami Gautamananda

Ram Gopal Varma’s factory comes up with their next product. They have named it “My wife’s murder”. A husband kills his nagging wife by mistake and tries to conceal it from the Police. How he goes about escaping from the Police forms the crux of the movie.

RGV has trained his protégés well. Commendably well in fact. They match his values of film-making to perfection. But they do maintain their own style. Jijy Philip does make a mark with this movie.

Anil Kapoor lets the world know that he still exists with a knock-out performance in the husband’s role. And takes the role towards a father’s responsibility with grace.  This performance must win him a critics’ award if Aamir Khan’s Mangal Pandey can be overlooked for a brief while. If he were clean-shaven maybe we could have concentrated on his facial expressions more. Being a RGV factory movie, that’s a crime. Clean-shaven faces don’t exist in their world!

Nandana Sen, who had played Rani Mukherjee’s sister in “Black” comes up with an ace here. She plays the role of a cosmopolitan girl who lives in with a guy. She is the assistant of Anil Kapoor at office because of which Anil constantly has to face his wife’s nagging! Later, she gets involved in saving Anil Kapoor from the Police. This girl can act very well. She expresses herself subtly but makes a definite impact. An excellent addition to the RGV camp. Can we have more of her please?

Bomman Irani, well, his first scene does generate laughter because people are still in the hangover of  j.asthana from Munnabhai M.B.B.S which was a landmark character in Hindi cinema. But after that he makes his serious intent quite evident. He is an actor of the highest caliber. He belongs to the Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri cadre. He can handle any role with ease and does it with aplomb here too.

Sen’s live-in boyfriend does a good job. So does Bomman’s assistant.

Background music, cinematography, lighting, editing, screenplay, story & costumes are in typical RGV mould. Slick and to the point. There’s no overdo at any point. A technically accomplished movie. And this time combined with a powerful storyline, Jijy Philip takes RGV company with him to a higher level. Hope they make many more such good movies that are good to watch. A 2 hour on-the-edge-of-your-seat movie. Watch it you won’t regret it!  

After hits like the Oscar-nominated ‘Lagaan’ and trend-setting ‘Dil Chahta Hai”, Aamir Khan comes up with his next venture “Mangal Pandey – The Rising”. Having made his fans wait for four long years, expectations were sky high. Rather they were so high; I don’t think people could even convert their expectation into words. Aamir Khan was expected to deliver a “Lagaan” everytime he starred in a movie.

“Mangal Pandey – The Rising” was touted to be India’s answer to Braveheart, Gladiator, etc. Surely, Aamir is bigger than Mel Gibson & Russel Crowe put together in India, but MP doesn’t get anywhere near Braveheart or Gladiator. MP is a good movie by average Bollywood standards, but nowhere near what it was hyped up to be. It has been shot with the thought in the mind that we are making an epic. We need to match everything that an epic should have. Such reverse workings never help. Success has no shortcuts.

The story and script are the two things that fail to live upto the hype. Lets keep the ‘inaccuracies’ aside. (Like someone said, “History is a fable of the successful”. So, having inaccuracies in history is like accusing politicians of lying!) Adding characters by the dozen in the name of cinematic liberty doesn’t add any value to the main theme of patriotism. This is the “Love” syndrome that our moviemakers are afflicted with. Remember “The Legend of Bhagat Singh”? Bhagat Singh’s love interest was created. Of course, for those markets in Bihar and UP that bring in the revenue! Don’t you understand the marketing side of movie-making?! Rani Mukherjee becomes a kothewaali, lover, wife and a freedom fighter. That’s some characterization! Amisha Patel is a meek wife-married-in-childhood, widow-staring-at-death, lady-who-feels-she-doesn’t-deserve-to-live, girl-who-loves-to-play-holi and does anyone remember what happens to her in the end?! Here we lose the character itself!

The theme of the movie was supposed to be Mangal Pandey’s story of how one man ignited the War of Indian Independence. Dramatization dilutes the theme. The story and the script-writers have drawn the line a bit too far is my opinion. I was expecting a hair-raising experience of watching MP if not another “Lagaan”. But that happened only in the last ten minutes.

Somehow most of the scenes lost their significance in the chaos. The scene where MP walks beyond the rifles, to the canon and says “Fire!” was a scene with such great potential. Aamir portrayed everything to perfection. The background music was thrilling. But the scene didn’t leave me with that wow feeling! Instead the immediate next scene was a comical face of the General!

Screenplay by the much-respected Farookh Dhondhy is another letdown. Once Aamir mouths the dialogue, “Aapne sirf hamari wafaaari dekhi, ab hamari krodh dekhiye. Aapki company ki dhajjiyan udadenge”, you know the next scene? “Intermission”! It’s like taking you to the climax and leaving you when you got high!

I am sorry. But that was not expected of such a talented team. Everybody knows the story of MP, so the trick was in building up excitement in the already known story. The idea was right. The execution is all messed up! When the “Holi” song came, I was completely out of tune with the theme of the movie. I love India, I love Aamir, I wanted to love MP. These things completely let me down.

Mangal Pandey as a character in a hindi cinema would do well as the initial module in a movie on the War of Indian Independence. Or even better would be the same movie, edited properly, in a length of 2 hrs would make a crisp and slick movie. It still wouldn’t be an epic. The story is by itself weak to be an epic. To make an epic you need a story that holds the audience till the end of the story. Or else you need to be a story-teller with legendary qualities.

Sadly, Ketan Mehta is neither a good story-teller nor does he have an efficient story on hand. He has a great idea with him, but the idea is a good thought. Period. It was not worthy of being made into a ‘period’ film of epic proportions. And making a ballad out of it would probably have given it a different genre and hence maybe much more respect. KM is found hanging between making a ballad, a movie and an epic. He’s clearly confused! Having an idea in your mind for 20 long years, you just want to put everything you thought of onto the screen. This is what happens!

The same uncertainty is found in the music maestro A R Rahman’s score. Since ballad was the initial briefing we had a few songs. Then, we shifted to making a movie. So, the songs needed to be ‘commercial’. Mess-up in other words! Songs appear at every unexpected place! We are making an epic movie that’s going to have an International release under a famous banner! We shall make money with the background score too. A R Rahman is probably the best composer in the world at this point of time. His background score proves this point. According to grapevine, we should be having a release of the background score separately. Get ready to grab your copies!

Aamir Khan has now gone beyond the best performers of any generation. In a movie full of distractions, he is the only one to hold your attention! Rightly justifying the frenzied shouting that accompanied his name during the title credits! Apart from Aamir, the only other name that was cheered during the title credits was A R Rahman! Who says the music was bad?! Aamir is in a league of his own. There’s no point in trying to compare him with others because they share a surname with him! And there’s no point wasting ink on this Living Legend. He’s perfect!

Toby Stephens does a good job. His Hindi was unbearable. Everything else was just fine. Half of my time of watching MP was spent in collating the pieces my neighbour and I understood of Toby’s dialogue. There were many instances when my neighbour and I looked at each other for a moment and then realized he had actually spoken in English and there was no necessity for us to collaborate and understand that one. We had already missed the dialogue anyway!

I read in many other reviews that Rani Mukherjee did a good job! Good for her! And may I also take this opportunity to appreciate the reviewer’s patience and observation skills! I didn’t notice her performance much. I can now tell you the length and breadth of her cleavage to 95% accuracy levels. Oh I am so perverted! Yeah go on!

Tthe totally-out-of-place-song “Rasiya” having two girls fondling each other, the dialogues that the kothewaalis exchange with MP, the ‘purdah’ uthana scene during Rani’s introduction, the unnecessary kiss in the irrelevant love story of Amisha & Toby, led one of my friends to remark, “Abey yeh to Mangal Pandey nahi, Mangal Pondy* hai”!

[*Pondy is a slang word used to name a genre of movies that have sexually explicit material]

Jokes apart, the movie was good. Could have been better! But I will not watch it again.

Tomorrow: Sense of mission

Sometimes when I am faced with the writer’s block, I try breaking it by thinking of what all happened in the day. I recall all the conversations of the day with friends and family. Any interesting news I read? Anything interesting happened on my way to and from the office? Most of the times, I get my inspiration by just going through my day once.

I have promised myself that I am going to blog daily and make this blog a regularly updated one. Sometimes, the thought occurs if I have bitten more than I can chew?! But, on a conscious review, I find that it’s not at all that tough. It’s just where it figures on your priority list. Blogging, is one of the very few activities I do daily. It could probably be the only one on a particularly lazy day!

It helps me in a lot of ways:

• It’s always running on my mind that I need to update my blog today. As a result, I am always on the lookout as to what I should blog. During conversations, travel or work, there’s one thought that ‘s constantly running at the background and that is: “Is this bloggable?”. Helps keeping the mind active.
• Few things when I write them down gain more clarity in my mind. For example the few business ideas that I blogged, are now clearly entrenched in my mind. So, blogging helps crystallise those vague pieces of thought in your mind.
• My ideas and thoughts now have a wider audience than always boring my friends! Now, people volunteer to get bored!
• Keeping in touch is something I enjoy. And through the blog, I am able to keep in touch with lots of people. It’s kind of the ‘broadcasting’ principle.
• Posting regularly on my blog, gives me a good feeling about myself. Not that I am looking out for that ‘good’ feeling. But it definitely adds to the feel about being “Adi”!

I have defined blogging to myself as a process where I write whatever I want to. I make my points here. I try to do the whole thing with an air of dignity and elegance. There’s some effort in it. And that effort is what makes the whole blogging thing so satisfying.

If you want a more comprehensive definition of what blogging is all about. Check out what Fred Wilson has to say.

Tomorrow: A few reviews

An article from ToI quotes Mysore going completely wi-fi:

This ‘dream’ became a reality due to three entrepreneurs.The story goes that three men — Shankar Prasad, Srikanth V Rao and G Saravanan — having worked for some of the most well-known software companies, decided to help Mysoreans connect better. They started a company called WiFiyNet with their own investment.

The initiative was clickstarted in August 2004 by putting up the first access point (also known as hot spot) in Jayalakshmipuram, an upmarket area in Mysore.

Today, the city has three access points. And with this 2.4 GHz (frequency of transmission) Wi-Fi connectivity, Mysore became a true hot spot.

“By paying Rs 750 a month, irrespective of the kind of data download, internet is available round the clock. Currently, we provide 128-kbps speeds. Our technology is 54-mbps-enabled; hence, we can even take it to the extent of providing IP television,” says Prasad.

This is Mysore for you. There was a t-shirt that was made by one of the hostels in Mysore which had the caption, “We handle both tradition and technology” with the picture of a brahmin holding a computer with one hand and a mangalaarthi plate in the other! I thought this fitted perfectly to Mysore as a whole.

Mysore, considered to be sleepy, has taken a giant step towards technology. There are very few cities even in the developed country – USA which are connected wirelessly. It reminds many people of the way Bangalore looked 20 years back. I just hope it doesn’t become another Bangalore!

We need to thank people like: Shankar, Srikanth and Saravanan who have made this possible. This is the way individuals can make a difference to the country. Thanks to you from a Mysorean!

Tomorrow: Blogging daily

After lunch together I went back to office. Preethi and Goddi decided to watch a movie. So, I suggested Sathyam complex and helped them into an auto to that place. Without knowledge of tamil, it’s really tough to aviod getting fleeced by these rogues I tell you! We had agreed to meet again (this time for dinner) by around 7.00PM before their train left for Bangarpet (Preethi’s hometown).

How can work allow me to go there on time? Something or the other would come up till the last moment and finally I was able to leave at 7PM. To reach the hotel where they were staying would take me 10 mins in case of zero traffic and now it was still peak hour.

Reached the hotel at 7.45PM and they were ready to proceed for dinner. We walked across to the Saravana Bhavan inside the Shanti theatre complex and seated ourselves for a typical Tamil dinner – idli, vada, dosa. Just then I got a call from a colleague, and we got involved in our conversation. But I was determined to spend some quality time with Goddi and Preethi.

As soon as I returned to the table, we began discussing how their friendship bloomed into love and finally into marriage. They were telling me how Goddi proposed and how scared Preethi was about the whole issue. She didn’t want to get into a relationship knowing that it wouldn’t get the approval of her parents. Caste issues! She initially said no and later agreed. There was a time gap of 1 week in the turnaround and I can imagine what went through Goddi during that period. From there till today, it has been 7 years. And they have been together through thick and thin. Faced their parents with resolve and love. For some strange reason, parents tend to think you are not capable of making the right choice when it comes to choosing your lifepartner. Especially true if you have chosen one from another caste!

It was not so much of the love story that interested me. It was the great chemistry that the two share that made me so happy. They looked so happy together. And happiness is contagious! These guys are not looking outward for happiness. They find their happiness in each other. Togetherness is happiness for them. They are not bothered about conformance from others as much as they are about acceptance from each other. That’s true love. Take a bow Preethi and Goddi! May God bless you with a life of happiness! I will also pray to Him that you come to India and live at a distance where we can meet up whenever we want to!

After meeting them, I went back to office and had to work till late in the night. I never felt the physical strain affect my mind because it had just been infected with so much happiness that it became my state of mind too. It gives me so much happiness that I am close to such people who spread happiness by just being there. Better still, they infect you with it! That’s Preethi and Goddi for you!

Another post today on: Mysore goes Wi-Fi

Sometimes you are having a very busy day. Work is keeping you busy from morning to late nights. You are jetting around the city at a mad pace to get things done. Just then, there’s a call from a friend (Gowtham, and since we are friends since school, we call him Goddi) whose marriage you didn’t attend because of this same work. Feeling good that he actually didn’t take your absence (despite being friends since schooldays to engineering days!) from his marriage to heart, you answer the call. If the first sentence you hear is, “I am in Chennai”, trust me, your joy will know no bounds!

I almost jumped on hearing that. It was 9.30AM in the morning and I was starting my Independence Week with a great surprise. I was supposed to be in Office by 9.30AM, but I was still lazily stuffing myself with breakfast. We agreed to meet for lunch. He was here for a visa interview for his wife. (Preethi, is a fellow batchmate from NIE Mysore. We knew that these two were going around since the time they became friends. Yes! It’s a crime to miss their wedding!)

It was 12.15PM and I was in Higginbothams trying to figure out what books to gift the newly-weds. Finally I chose to give them three books: ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’ by C. Rajagopalachari and ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahamsa Yogananda. Goddi isn’t much into reading. Neither was I till a few months back! ;-) So, hope it helps Preethi and later Goddi can learn from her!

We had lunch together at Sangeetha’s on Ethiraj Salai. I don’t remember the last time Goddi and I had lunch together! Not that we cried over lunch! But we were very happy we were able to meet before they left for the US. We first fought over the Linux – Windows topic as both the three of us were into computers either by profession or interest. They are both electronics and communications engineers, so they know their computers bloody well! Goddi is a Linux freak and I have become one after getting into my present job. Ok. I am not digressing into my Linux Love!

The best part about having lunch with a friend is that you can talk and talk and talk to your heart’s content and eat to the same scale! ;-) Nobody is bothered about etiquette. Of course, we are not going to spit food around and laugh with our mouths full! At times, it’s tough to control even that, but we manage to do it! The college jokes are too irresistible to just enjoy by giving a corporate smile (the kinds we give to a supposed joke by bosses!) We were just laughing our way through the lunch. It was one of the most light-hearted lunches I have had in a while!

During schooldays, Goddi and I and six more of us from our gang would have lunch together. We would share whenever possible and have a generally jolly lunch. During college, we used to hang out in the canteen with a by-two tea and a samosa or whatever! All those days come running back to me now, when I recall our lunch together! Probably, the last one for years to come! Some people call me stupidly emotional. Maybe this is the reason! I drag too many things into the present from the past. I like it, I do it! These moist eyes that I have at present give me a recall of those happy and carefree days.

But, (Preethi and) Goddi, you made my day yar! It was such a hectic day on the work-end and I never felt the load even for a minute on my mind. My body slept only for 4 hrs that night and worked for 36 hrs with that 4 hrs sleep (not a nap because it was from 1.30AM to 5.30AM!).

Old friends are better than Gold. If I was asked to choose from a kg of gold or 8 hrs of sleep on that day, I would have chosen sleep. Yeah, now you know I am lazy to what extent? But now I know that God chooses to give you something that you and your brain can’t think of. From the next time, I will choose to have a friend over for a day at Chennai than anything else to rejuvenate me!

Thanks for being such a great friend, Goddi!

Tomorrow:

1. Old friends are better than gold – Part II
2. Mysore goes Wi-Fi