Thought For the Day - Bringing Urgency for Gratitude

One of the key issues that keeps us from enjoying life deeply is probably our lack of being grateful for our life. Gratitude brings with it a quality that makes us look at the whole of creation in wonder - the fragrance, the beauty, the squalor and the ugliness. You are just happy to be alive. That feeling brings in a lot of love into your heart that you share. You smile, you sing.

One of the reasons why we do not have gratitude in our hearts is that we take everything for granted. Only someone who does not have freedom, good health, the use of limbs, financial independence and anything else in life will understand what it means to have it. And when we take things for granted, when we are perpetually in a state of dissatisfaction, there is no room for gratitude. In fact we are starting at a point of ingratitude. We are saying 'so why did you give me only this' and 'I want more' and 'everyone has more' instead of being happy with what we have and improving on it. We think - 'when we have all those things we can be grateful, until then I have no reason to be grateful.' So like everything else, we postpone gratitude until the big day when we feel like we have enough.

But that is the paradox of the universe. Unless we are grateful for what we have it does not give more. Being grateful and wanting more are two separate things. So it might just help to start with gratitude and then embark on the journey for more. That way you can enjoy things far more. You enjoy things that you are grateful for far more than things you are not grateful for, right?

To bring an urgency to gratitude is one way of getting off to a right start. And to bring this urgency in get down to the numbers - say, I have 30 years to live on an estimate. That is about 12000 days of existence left to be happy, to achieve, to enjoy, to talk, to love, to create. And today is the first day of the balance number  of days left in my life. Tomorrow its going to be 19, 999. Now that already makes me grateful for the day. I am already feeling like doing certain things I have been postponing.

Worth a try.

Anjali - The First Business Deal

Anjali got a couple of small pots to paint yesterday. I had no clue what it was all about until I saw what she had done to them after she returned from school today (with some help from her mother of course). She had painted one blue and another black and she painted some kind of a design on it. She was pretty engrossed in her painting while I was chatting with Srinivas Babu my old friend my college in my study this afternoon.

She ran into the study and showed me two pots, looking pretty nice indeed. Babu teased her and said he would like one and could he keep it. She said no and started crying and throwing a tantrum. So Babu tried another tactic and said he would buy one. Would she like to sell it?

My pot, with the reluctant creator-seller in the background

Anjali liked the idea of playacting like a seller of pots and she said she would set up her shop properly in the other room and act like she was selling pots. And so she did. By the time we had gone there she was there, her two pots in front of her. I asked her the price and she said that one was ten and another twenty - whatever that meant (funnily she did not say one and two). I gave her a ten rupee note and bought one. Babu then asked her the price of the other one and she stuck to her original price of twenty. So Babu took it, painted with her name on it, for twenty bucks. Thirty bucks!

'I got two monies,' she screamed and ran around holding her thirty rupees. 'I got two rupees.' I wondered how she got ten and twenty as the saleprice in her head when she had no clue what it means. Anyway, that is the difference between making three rupees and thirty I guess.

And so she concluded her first deal, by adding value to two small pots, putting it up in a place where there was a market, timing her entire production well, running in and advertising the work with enthusiasm, creating the proper atmosphere around the sale, giving it her signature and then selling it off for a neat profit. You don't need an MBA for that do you?

Of course one thing led to another, but it was nice to see her trying to give us back the money after the excitement of the sale died down a bit. The entire business transaction was fun wasn't it? Of course no one took the money back. Being part of this experience  was worth a bit more than that so perhaps we profited as well.
A win-win situation if you ask me.

Thought For the Day - The Idea of Copyright

Most authors are besieged by this thought after they write their masterpiece. (Some, even before they put a word to paper.) What if someone steals my idea? To them the world becomes a place full of idea stealers posing as friends, family, family of friends, friends of family, agents, publishers, printers, editors, the PC repairwala, the internet...everyone is a threat. The idea becomes heavy as it sits safe in the mind, with the author fighting off demons and imaginary raiders vigilantly.

I went through that phase when I wrote my first story for publication. Until I realised that no one is really bothered about your idea. You will realise that once you approach the first bunch of people in the business, and they toss it aside carelessly as if to say - don't waste my time - only in a more civilised manner. And then you get responses that are shorter and shorter until you realise that the problem seems to be 'here' and not 'there'. Once that realisation happens you are willing to let anyone see it - just please see it! I mean I am willing to pay for you to see it.

Ideas come and go. All ideas and stories seem to have been told before. It all depends on how you tell it. The simplest thing that can make you different from others would be your honesty when you approach a particular theme. People connect at a feeling or emotion level and they will keep connecting to it all the time, for centuries, if you tell it with all honesty. One may not need the greatest fantasy or special effects or science fiction or CG if one has the honesty to tell a small story well and with feeling.

Even if someone does copy an idea of great honesty, the copy can never be the same as the original, even if it copies word to word, pixel to pixel. It will lack the honesty of the original. Whatever the copycat doed, the copy will still be short of something. Some part of the great energy that the artist or writer summons while making it honestly, transfers to the page or canvas. It is this energy that will be missing. That is what honesty can do. It can give it a depth that cannot be seen, it can be felt. (In some cases it can even be seen.)

And hence I find this whole idea of copyright a bit amusing. By tinkering a bit to adjust, to fit rules and regulations, one can claim the property of another, of history, of culture as their creation - but they will know that it was never theirs. (Reminds me of a famous quote by one of the famous Masters - "We create nothing, we merely plagiarise nature.") The difference lies in the satisfaction the creator feels, the timelessness that the creation exhibits. It will not be told by sales, by awards nor by shallow legal victories. The experts have let the Universe speak through them - they prepared themselves and let themselves be allowed as the medium. Therein lies the difference between the masters and the imitators!

A Nation of Hypocrites - Turning a Blind Eye, Lessons from the Traffic Police

If you are from Hyderabad and have travelled on any road from Yousuguda check post to Jubilee Hills check post, or have even stood at the busy Jubilee check post road, you will see auto rickshaws picking up passengers, seven of them in a rickshaw (they are to carry three legally). The auto drivers solicit business and carry all these passengers openly under the very noses of the traffic policemen who turn a blind eye to them and behave as if everything is normal. Now imagine a regular auto which can seat one driver in the front and three at the back, now with three people joining the driver in front, arms and legs hanging out, while four people sit at the back, crammed until there is no space left. Apart from this serious overloading, these autos also zoom at great speeds at great danger to everyone concerned, people hanging on, people on the road because their low-cost model depends on making maximum number of trips.

How do these autos function in the heart of the city, under the nose of the traffic police is one thing that will bother anyone? It's a regular racket because now there is no hiding it even or behaving as if they are doing it on the sly. They do it openly. The traffic cops meanwhile catch hapless two wheeler guys who are an easy bait and harass them to death. Or even better, send postal letters with pictures of some long forgotten traffic offence that no one can make out - jumped red light, went wrong side. Who remembers? It's better to pay, so most do. At least the law abiding ones do. Many do not.

One of these auto drivers said that passengers in these routes prefer this mode because it is cheap. He charges something in the range of 5-6 bucks a head where the bus ticket is more. The seat is assured though cramped. It is amazing to see women and girls push their way into these genderless autos because they are frequent, quick and cheap. The only problem here is that of the law. That seems to have been easily taken care of. Each auto apparently pays on an average something like a 100 bucks to the traffic cops on their route and that secures the path for the day. I do not know how many autos ply on these routes but they are in hundreds. Say assuming a 100 autos and 100 bucks an auto, its 10,000 a day, 3,00,000 a month. All for turning a blind eye. these are minimal figures. It could be more.

Unfortunately we all have turned blind, because we see everyone watching, everyone seeing and everyone going about their lives. These are busy roads mind you and all ministers, beaurocrats, law makers, businessmen, the intelligentsia - everyone travels these routes. Remember the old school saying - so what for me men? Everyone is happy - passengers, cops, autos. Can't blame the cops nor the autowallahs. Why blame them? When millions of people who see it happening under their nose are not bothered, why blame them? 

And then we scream and kick about corruption. How will anything happen if everyone goes about like they are wearing blinkers and have no voice? How will any Lok Pal Bill make a difference if no one makes a move unless it pinches them? The corruption out there is only reflecting the rot within, and unless we realise that we as a society need to ask, question, complain - nothing will happen. No one else will do that job for you. Not Anna Hazare, not Ramdev, no one. It is us who have to learn to raise the voice and question and complain, individually and collectively. That itself will make us aware of how corrupt we are ourselves.

And if you want to pay someone to do that job, don't blame him for turning corrupt as well!

Ramdev Baba's fast

I had my doubts about the timing and the purpose (in terms of what it would achieve) of Ramdev Baba's fast primarily because it came so soon after the popular Anna Hazare fast which threatened to take a.course beyond the government's scope if it did not agree to his demands. To come with a special charter of demands under a different banner when things seemed to be rolling along fine in the same direction seemed rather repetitive and pointless. But as we discovered, we did find that it was not pointless at all. Baba brought out quite a few points that would never have been brought out otherwise.

Firstly that four Union ministers would go and meet him to make him give up the fast. I could not believe that they could be so stupid as that. Calling off the fast after a meeting with four ministers would only raise doubts on  his credibility (knowing how credible our politicians are and what they are capable of - you can imagine the general run of the conversation they must have had), and he would be stuck with the tag of a rat. So if anything, that meeting must have forced Baba into undertaking the fast. No escape route!

Secondly, since the Baba is doing this thing of telling the government to do its job (how dare he!), the government promptly unleashes all departments at its service which until now were waiting patiently. (Their job of course is to wait patiently with all evidence until the time the government sets them loose.)

Thirdly, we are shocked to find that the Baba has trusts worth Rs. 1100 crore! Now who the hell gave so much money for his trusts and companies which include transport, real estate etc? All focus is now on how much he has earned. And ahem, was it all non-corrupt money? Is it possible that one can generate so much funds in a short span of time by teaching yoga? Do we see our entrepreneurs now starting a yoga or spiritual division? Many of them are very religious and spiritual people as we all see in the papers - a spiritual division might not be a bad idea if there is so much money in it! Or wait a minute, is it their money?

Fourthly, that the Baba flies around in chartered planes and stays in hotels (looked like a five star one for me) and that he had planned a plan B to escape in women's clothes. Why the escape at all? Why not get arrested? What was the logic? And why all the hush hush midnight job for this drama if the police were to beat everyone up anyway? This was one of the most interesting parts of the whole episode where the Baba was probably under the illusion that he was an erstwhile maharaja and he was under siege and he should make a dramatic escape. I would have advised the use of a mask, probably a Manmohan Singh, Kapil Sibal, Digvijay Singh mask to escape. It might have worked better than a salwar kameez. Did I hear someone whisper that it was a Patanjali brand of salwar kameez?

Fifth, the entry of the congress spokesperson Digvijay Singh who is amazing everyone with his penchant to talk anything. So disconnected is his talk is he that he beats Cyrus in his column Cloum No.1. Anna Hazare got it right when he said that Diggy might want to visit a specialised institution for finding some startling  similarities between the backdrops of Anna Hazare's dais and the Sangh parivar's dais. (What was he doing at a Sangh parivar meeting by the way?)  So the government has trained a battery of politicians who keep talking all kinds of nonsense - some talk in favour, some are anti and some are allowed to talk whatever they want. Funnily they are all senior people and do look like they are educated and are sane but the things they do and talk does not fit in with that. So a good guy runs up with candy and forces the Baba to continue, the bad guys arrest him and the vague guy start piling on with his rants. A well-orchestrated job that only the government could have done. Well done!

Sixth, the fast continued in Haridwar as a weak Baba showed a bad display of his yogic powers by becoming all weak after a few days. We expected that a trained yoga practitioner would last many days and still emerge smiling, puzzling the world, in his pink health doing push ups on his pinkie, after many days of the hunger fast. But our Baba seemed knocked out for the count when in fact many others who take up such fasts looked wonderfully healthy in the past. For example our KCR  looked fit and healthy after many days of fast as the government dilly dallied between its many options. If anything, Baba was a bad advertisement for yoga practitioners who we all thought (and worse, probably the west thought) was full of miracles. This was no miracle as Baba looked ill. In his favour he might have really undertaken the fast unlike many other leaders. But in wanting to still win the battle, the Baba might have lost the war! The battle for yoga, Bharat swabhimaan (which is a bit low after all this) and a corrupt-free world! Errr, Baba we do not really believe that it is possible even though we'd like to push for some reforms. You see we are all corrupt already! This government truly represents us.

Baba nurtured hopes of raising an army which raised the hackles of Chidambaram. The irresponsible and far-fetched-comment brigade in the government instantly linked the idea to training Maoists and terrorists and stopped short of linking it to the Al Quaeda and the LeT which they withheld for future use. I am surprised that at that stage Arundhati Roy did not step in to support Maoists whose fair name was now being dragged into this unholy war unnecessarily. As it is we have all sorts of senas in the country which seem to be far more proactive than the government senas in doing their thing, whenever, whatever- another sena will hardly bother us. We all all getting s***wed anyway.

The Sangh Parivar was quiet as the Baba's condition worsened, the BJP's footwork was like that of some of our cricketers - neither forward nor backward, and the Baba was finally alone with our friends from the Lok Pal Bill doing the one significant thing they could have done in his support - abstaining from a meeting in protest of his arrest. Now how will that serve the purpose of our Lok Pal Bill for which they are all fighting, I know not, but if I were them, I'd be doubly careful with Mr. Sibal around. He is fully capable of bringing out the Bill on his own!

I forgot Sri Sri Ravi Sankar who persuaded Baba to drink lemon juice and honey (this times really), probably the only one who genuinely made an effort to end a pointless impasse. Of course the media instantly started talking of his (Sri Sri's) assets as well. I wonder where it will go now, but enough has been brought out already in these few days of muted drama. One can only say that the Baba's first step into the world of politics was eventful, if not a stormy one.

A Nation of Hypocrites - Man arrested for Bigamy

One of those things that I read in yesterday's paper was about a BSNL employee who was arrested for bigamy and thrown in jail. The same paper also carried a news item about the launch of the biography of Gemini Ganesan, a man who married three times as we know it. Of course Gemini Ganesan was never arrested probably because his first wife never complained.

How many such cases do we know of public figures and people in power who were married and still had their first wives and second wives and third wives in full public glare and nothing ever happened to them? In all these circumstances the cops were probably waiting for a complaint from the first wife. Why would she if she depended on her husband for her day-to-day needs? I know that even the better educated women and women who have careers put up with this for all sorts of reasons like - children, luxury, why-rock-the-boat, where-will-I-go, he-will-provide-for-me-as-well etc. In most cases the elite classes get away with it while the law applies itself studiously to the lower classes.

Is the crime the act of marrying twice? Or is the crime about offending the first wife enough so she complains? Or is it something else? Frankly I have nothing against people who want to marry again and again - they can marry as many times as they please if they have the patience and energy to handle it - I feel that is punishment itself. But what is the position of the law in such cases? Does it wait for the complaint? Or is there a technicality where the marriage must be performed? Or the first wife offended enough to file a case against the father of her children? I am sure there is, else how do we explain all that goes on around us.

So we go about watching this world go on like the people in the 'Emperor's clothes' waiting for the little boy to shout out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all!

A Book Launch - Gemini Ganesan's Biography

Yesterday I attended a book launch at the Taj Deccan. Ms. Narayani Ganesan, daughter of the late Gemini Ganesan, veteran Tamil actor of yesteryear was the author of the biography written "in an anecdotal style" to bring out the person he was behind the screen. Dr. Akkineni Nageswara Rao, who was to launch the book in Hyderabad and who had acted with Gemini Ganesan in some films was indisposed and could not make it. However yesteryear actress Jamuna was there to launch the book, as were the author's sisters Dr. Kamala Selvaraj and Vijaya Chamundeswari.

Th evening took off under the open skies in a place called the 'Flower Garden', which was a brave decision considering the weather these days. Narayani Ganesan who is a journalist with the 'Times of India' in Delhi engaged in conversation with Jyotirmayee Sharma for a while, before they both read some passages from the book. Narayani recounted how she was relating some anecdotes about her father to Khushwant Singh at a party in Delhi and he suggested that she write them down in a book. Roli's publishing head was also there and so began the process. She said it was not easy to write about her father initially but she went ahead and completed it.

She read passages from the book about his childhood when as a young child from Pudukottai he would watch movies in makeshift tents. Hollywood action films were what he liked most. She related how he once took her to the Madras Christian College (where he studied and also taught Chemistry later) and told her how he would be roller skating while classes were on. When Narayani expressed her disbelief because the building was rather high and he could not possibly have jumped off, Gemini proceeded in a flash, without warning, to jump off the balustrade, on to the landing and further down from the first floor of their house to the ground floor. He was fifty then. And about times when she would go to confront him angrily and he would toss dosas that he was making on the pan at her.

I do not remember watching any Gemini Ganesan's movies though I knew of him as one of the three most popular Tamil actors of that time - the other two being MGR and Sivaji Ganesan. Gemini Ganesan (known as Gemini for his association with Gemini studios) is also more famously known as the father of the famous Hindi film actress Rekha. The eternal romantic married thrice - Alamelu Ganesan (whom he married in the hope that her father would make him a doctor, a promise he could not keep because he died within a month of the marriage) and subsequently, the famous Tamil and Telugu actresses, Pushpavalli and Savithri. He has eight children from them. Narayani is Alamelu's and Gemini's daughter. Most daughters are doctors and are settled in the US and Chennai. Rekha was not acknowledged by her father as his daughter for many years and she also bore that against him after she became famous but towards his end, they seemed to have made up.

There was a short video clip of Dr. Akkineni Nageswara Rao speaking of Gemini and he spoke as he only does - candidly and clearly. He spoke of how he warned Savitri not to marry the much married Gemini but she did not listen (and consequently hit the bottle leading to an early death at 47). there was much talk of his many romances and the heartbreaks he caused. But to me he did appear like a kind of a person who was very affectionate and who fell in love easily and who probably also promised too much too soon out of that. No reason why he would marry so many times! And much as it would have hurt the others involved, no one mentioned that Gemini himself must have suffered much, torn between his many affections. Maybe Narayani addressed that in her book.