"What we do in life echoes in eternity"

#Thoughts: Do Unfair People Deserve Fairness?

When a corrupt but well educated person ridicules an honest but less educated person on the basis of qualifications, people are likely to support the later. One, as a society our culture does not encourage us to ridicule or look down at others. To do so in public is a graver sin. Secondly, in such times we also think about "who" are the persons involved and judge them based on their characters. In Ramayan, Lord killed an evil person who accused him before dying of using a trick to kill. Lord is said to have said something which means - you employed evil and unfair means for your whole life to subjugate others and when it comes to your end, you are citing fairness of methods only in order to save your life. 

Do unfair people deserve fairness? 

As someone said, we think of moral and ethics only when these serve our own selfish motives. When it comes to think of moral and ethics which could harm our selfish interests, we tend to ignore these.

Life and Mystery

I remember the days when I was reading Paulo Coelho. His writing full of mystery and symbolism impacted me and for some time I took his things seriously and literally. So when I spotted a white pigeon among a colored flock, or heard a new bird's voice, saw some new flower, or clouds forming a different architecture, I wondered if those were for some specific "reasons" :) When I look back, I don't see any significance of all those "phenomena" happening around :) But yes, life was more interesting when I took his mysticism too seriously. In fact nothing can beat childhood when it comes to seeing life differently and seeing same things with more interesting angles than the boring grownup people do :) I wonder if we tend to think differently either when we are too innocent or too wise...

One Photograph

When I saw this picture - what came to mind first? Moochen hon to Natthu Lal jaisi ho. .warna na ho! :) What second? Was he some friend of the photographer or the later just got lucky? Third? We can know who is more powerful by looking at breadth of the smiles...

Perspective

“All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.” - Swami Vivekananda

Book: I have a Dream by Rashmi Bansal

Finished reading “I have a dream” by Rashmi Bansal. It is a collection of real life stories of 20 entrepreneurs who contributed to the society through their ventures and efforts. Rashmi has done a great job with this book.

The book starts with the story of Bindeshwar Pathak of Sulabh International fame and goes on to describe many brillient individuals with kind souls like Anand Kumar (Super 30), Dhruv Lakra (Mirakle Couriers), Anshu Gupta (Goonj), Madhu Pandit Dasa (Akshaya Patra), Vinayak Lohani (Parivaar Ashram) and Shreesh Jadhav (Belur Math) among others. Each individudal tells his or her story full of struggles, setbacks and successes. While all are ver y inspiring, some really touch our soul. The book has been written in conversational style. While the book is very soul touching, at times the manner in which conversations are recorded irritates readers since it is difficult to find if the statement is made by the author of the book or by the person narrating his or her story. The paragraphs are in the form of one sentence each and at many places it looks like scrapbook or a blog not well edited. Apart from the lacking in editing, which can be improved upon in future editions, the book is a master piece. I highly recommend all to read this book; it is very special one you will surely remember for life. 

Narendra Modi to be Our PM

It seems like a personal achievement! Thank you everyone who voted for BJP/NDA, supported Narendra Modi and helped him win in any manner big or small... It is certainly a historical victory. It is a moment of pride for India and our democracy! Let us hope India takes fast lane of growth and let us continue to contribute towards our national causes.

Just Thinking...

In childhood, we had three small gardens/ kyaari of plants and flowers - one for each sibling. Each had plenty of roses and other flowers in it - mine had white roses and its plant climbed over our house's walls to reach even the roof. We kids used to maintain our gardens, water the plants, remove the weeds, also apply ash as insecticide at times. Till our younger sister was a too young, my elder sis and I used to maintain her garden also. Once father planted a coconut plant each in my sisters' gardens and also three Ashoka trees which have over the years grown into big trees. We also had guava trees, papaya plants and lemon trees - in which many birds made their nests, tweeted around the branches and played hide-and-seek with us.

I think growing up took so much toll that I closed all those nice real memories in a shell and tried to behave as if nothing really happened. About two years back when we moved to our own flat, my wife bought many plants and we kept several flower pots in our balcony. Since then, we see flowers in our balcony daily; we water the plants; worry about them on vacations; and rush to see them first thing when we are home. She also managed to grow some green chilies in the flowerpots! Of course we have Tulsi ji in one pot too; and she leaves children before going dry every time.

When children traveled far, our mothers would give us something to cling on - a hanman chalisa, some beaded garland, or some piece of cloth. Once I saw a stranger boy on the road bringing out his wallet which had passport size pics of both his parents - how positive was the feeling! I think the idea is to keep us connected to our true self... This is how human civilizations survive and keep moving without losing the soul...

Narendra Modi and Indian Share Market

Even my old loss ridden ULIPs have turned profitable in the weeks leading up to Narendra Modi's big day. Thank you Modi ji... Hope to see you do more for us :)

Book: Financial Planning for Doctors by Amar Pandit

The title of this book sounded too promising and flipping a few pages in the store made me very much interested; so I brought this home. It is published by Network18 publications. The book tries to cover as many aspects of financial planning for doctors as possible. Amar Pandit writes in a very simple and lucid manner and I am sure all readers will benefit from this book. Only if you have already read many books on financial planning then you will find less new points to discover. Also, this book has great many overlaps with another book from the same author titled “The Only Financial Planning Book that you will ever need”, so if you have read his other book then you can ignore this book for doctors; or else still decide to go with it since it has some specific examples for doctors. I highly recommend this book to all doctors.

Inspiring Movie: Million Dollar Arm

Yesterday we watched Million Dollar Arm and enjoyed a lot. Based on a true story and set largely in India, it is a story of success amid adversities. It is the story of two poor boys in India whose lives change when an American comes searching for talent. I also confess that I was expecting the foreign producers to have some negative portrayal of India but it did not happen. Some episodes were too touching. We wondered how foreign film makers were able to capture the essence of Indian mind and culture so well; while our own Bollywood is bringing out most typical movies without a soul. Its punchline: "Sometimes to win you have to change the game."

Book: The Only Financial Planning Book that you will ever need by Amar Pandit

A very successful friend recommended this book to me. The title of this book sounded too promising and fliping a few pages in the store made me very much interested; so I brought this home. It is published by Network18 publications (CNBC TV18). The book tries to cover as many aspects of financial planning as possible. Amar Pandit writes in a very simple and lucid manner and I am sure all readers will benefit from this book. Only if you have already read many books on financial planning then you will find less new points to discover. Still the book is very good. I highly recommend this book to all. 

Besan Laddus and My Need to be Right

Discovered a pack of 'Besan Laddus' lying on the dining table. As if to encourage my temptations further the pack was already unsealed. I started by tasting one laddu, and the next ones started testing my capacity. But I made sure not to touch the last piece. When wife came in, I proudly announced that I had left one laddu for her. This process repeated itself every time a pack of sweets was found on the dining table. I noticed that even after doing this theft, I was keeping a moral high ground focusing on the fact that I controlled my temptation and sacrificed the last piece of sweet for wife. Not sure if it was ethical or unethical but I think it can be called creative for sure. So the eaten laddus satisfied my taste buds and the last one standing satisfied my need to be morally right. Perhaps this is why it is so difficult to differentiate between good and bad, true and false, ethical and unethical, because we are partially all?

Heard Hrithik and Sussanne Roshan’s news

It is said that when God gives us a lot, he also keeps something away from us; perhaps the idea is not to allow perfection so easily. Great achievers had some fallacies or the others. This is why in India since childhood when we pray, we ask for apart from other things, “santosh” (content). Scriptures are full of verses which say that richest person is one who has content; poorest who is unsatisfied even after being king. But it is so hard to practice! We humans are still fighting against the vices thousands years ago our Rishis tried to fight.  All the material progress can be wiped out by one act of nature; but are we growing within?