So Hot!

From everything, the weather to people to food to politics. If you want to be set on fire, AP is the place to head. As a YES!+ teacher this is the first time I am travelling outside to an unknown city, and my destination is Warangal in AP.

After a 13 hour bus journey to Hyderabad, Raghav (another teacher) and I took Konark express to Warangal, about 3 hours away. Luckily it was raining, so I didn't experience the fiery bit right away. My first experience was simply my first meal, with my tongue on fire, and smoke fuming out of my ears. The excessive chili in everything, made it simply impossible for me to even decipher different dishes and tastes.

To neutralise the effect oodles of 'ghee' was added, which helped my tortured taste buds no better. Unfortunately in India, excessive love is equated with excessive food, which if refused, especially as guests is considered excessively rude.

So I endured the fate for three days, after which my mouth is so full of ulcers that, making it torturous to even look or breath in the direction of spices. So now my staple diet consists of Ice-cream and ghee rice, although I am doing my best to make up by doing extra suryanamaskar during the course, the chances are, that I'll have to go on diet as soon as I hit home.

The Art of what?

Hi all, this is my first attempt at story writing (if you can call that), so be brutal with you feedback, don’t waste comments being polite or diplomatic.

Although the work is purely fictional, its of course inspired by real-life people, situation and events while working with the Art of Living.

I am the absolute last person to do a 'course' on spirituality

I really dont care about saving the planet, its too late anyway

And unless I’m doped or drunk, I don’t usually smile at people

And to tell the truth, I don’t want to change the way I am either.

And if I am to believe in news (which I don't) and media, Guru's don't have the best reputation!

I just like to know certain things and there are times I go a little overboard finding out. Like the time when I suspected my mom was mixing curd, in everything I ate, which I hated a morbid passion, I actually took food samples from home to my lab in 8^th grade to test whether they contained the lactobacilli bacteria.

But before I go into anything to do with Art of Living or Breathing, I needed to find out about the person who was teaching it. And no, I did not hire a PI, with social networking sites, and 6 degrees of separation, almost anyone can turn into a PI. But something, I have no Idea what, makes me insanely curious about knowing more, the same insane curiousness that made me test my home cooked food samples for lactobacilli.

But I am a hard nut to crack, it will take me more than a seven day crash course on spirituality and an irritatingly happy instructor to turn me into one of them ‘save the planet evangelist’ .

So I thought, If not for anything else, I could spend a few hours everyday for a week for a memory of comic relief in future.

The curiosity started the day I met Bindi

I met Bindi on a rainy afternoon, struggling with three over sized bags and a dysfunctional umbrella. I think I know her, I said to myself, and went to help her out with her bags, in a tearing hurry, she handed me her bags and said, “are you going to Bhannerghatta road”, “yes", I said, without thinking, the poor girl needed help anyway.

“Great, then we can take this Big 10, its about to leave. Oh look, there’s even place to sit! I so hate it when it rains in Bangalore, the roads are jammed, and the buses get over crowded.”

I hope she knows she just met me

And it was that fateful bus ride that changed my life. But like I said, this isn’t my story, and for my own reasons I’d like to remain anonymous.

“you want to know a secret?” she asked invitingly

“okay (like I have a choice?)”

“I am a new person right this moment on”

“really (did u get like a sex change operation)?”

“I finally, finally quit my job, to do what I really love to do.”

“and what’s that?”

“Teach people how to breathe and be happy, I teach the Art of Living workshops. Oh my stop is here, I need to go, it was great meeting you, you should really learn to breath", she said, handing over a contact number and disappearing into the crowd.

If someone can look so ridiculously happy after being drenched in rain, and carrying 30 kg weight, there has to be something. Thats when I grudgingly accepted her friend request on Facebook.

And she knew her stuff alright, so it wasn’t easy to be her friend.

a) You had to had to be a vegetarian

b) You had to agree with her most nonsensical, impulsive of ideas

c) You’d have to be okay with phone calls at 3 am, and listen to her business plan

Bindi was a business freak, she’d wanted to be an entrepreneur since the age of eight. At school, she’d sell stuff like Barbie clothing’s she got her maid to make, and wrote poetry for other people and sold them. As she grew older, she wanted to own a juice shop, a dessert shop (sugarfree, eggless, vegan, healthy), a shop that sold gadgets , one that sold jute bags. Her profession as a software engineer was a complete anti climax to who she was as a person. But that’s what set her apart.

This is what she said in the ‘about me’ section of her Facebook profile.

And they say, I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one……..

Right now three things rule my life

The Art of Living courses,

Yes! I teach them, unfortunately it aint one of those plush studios in upmarket areas that rakes in loads of moolah. In fact I teach more as a volunteer, as it totally opposes my ethics of commercializing something that is such an ancient and a beautiful science.

My work, that is the unglamorous part. I work as a software Engineer at one of the biggest software firms in Bangalore, they say if you throw a stone in Bangalore, chances are that you’ll hit an engineer. This is my story. There’s nothing great about my life. I haven’t changed the world (yet), I am certainly not someone famous (again, yet!).

And finally remember watching Captain Planet on cartoon network, when everyone wanted to be engineers and doctors, I wanted to be a Captain Planet, with a band of planeteers, saving the earth. And I guess I can proudly say that this is the closest to being one.

(to be continued)

forever 24

As a 16 year old I was obsessed with Backstreet boys and Harry Potter, I thought being a cricket commentator was the perfect career choice, and if you were unfortunate enough to be my parent, the most random question would evoke an emphatic 'no'.

The only purpose in my life was how-to-look-cool-in-front-of-people-who-I-thought-were-cool'

And now at 24.....

Everything has changed, the purpose of my life, my obsessions, my likes, dislikes

but something in me hasn't.

That something which was there in me as a naive 16 year old, as a mischievous 12 year old, and as a 24 year old.

Its been almost a week since I turned 24. And I celebrate in silence. No matter what happens, there is something in me that will remain eternal in this ephemeral world.

True freedom

They say that we gained freedom on 15 Aug 1947, to me its an ongoing quest.

They say that the British never used atomic arsenal on India.Only much worse, that generation after generation of Indians being born in their own soil have a maligned perception of their own land, it persists as though it was a form of a genetic mutation.

We read about Buddha and Ram, but we Idolised Michael Jackson and Madonna. We ate the humble ‘dal-chawal’, but craved for Mc Donalds. If I had a choice between wearing a Salwar-Kameez and Jeans, its obvious what I would choose. One evening while pondering on why I preferred all things ‘western’, I came across the following statement of Lord McCauley in his speech to the British Parliament, to colonise India, on Feb 2,1835

"I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have notseen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I haveseen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre,that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless webreak the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual andcultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than theirown, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture andthey will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.

The ‘Education system in India’- its one of those ‘cliched’ debate topics that I would get to hear at every debate competition in school. In college the reality of all the debate sunk in, when I first encountered the ‘reservations’, and finally when I got a job, it was reduced to being a mere butt of all jokes. But it never stopped affecting my life, or the lives of all those around me. As an innocent child, I first read about Bhagat Singh, referred as a ‘terrorist nationalist’, and my only knowledge about the ‘Jaliawala Bagh Massacre was a paltry three line mention, where the description mearly said ‘British opened the fire’. I never learned the fact that Pythogores theorem was discovered first in India by a Mathematician called Bodhayanah in 800 BC.Growing up, it was cool to read Enid Blytons and Tintins, and uncool to read ‘Amar Chitra Katha’.So guess what I ended up learning, it was those biased and even delebrate misinterpretation by the westerners to mislead a generations after generations of Indian kids, who grow up feeling inferior to the west. And the results are clear, India has become a truly dominated nation. So much so that an average Indian dreams of crossing the shores to the ‘superior territory’, and no sooner, their inferiority catches up with them with instances of racial discrimination. So much so that we never grow up to be proud Indians. Bringing us back to the ‘Great Western Hangover’, which is solely attributed to our education system. And unfortunately with the Indian government assuming a ‘Socialist democracy’, by frontier Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, a self confessed anglophile himself, a legacy was thus set, where education system has become but a playground for the politicians to roll their dice and create the bane of ‘reservations’, where instead of youth being empowered, are further marginalised.

“Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such
calibre,that I do not think we would ever conquer this country.”

How I wish the statement would have stopped at that. But the British didn't give up. And I dream of a nation that doesn't give up either. In spite of the challenges we face today, we are changing, slowly but surely. I recently noticed that while shopping I don't look for Jeans anymore, and I skip McDonalds without a second look. The best part is that its not just me. Those ‘Amar Chitra Kathas’, are selling out in book stores, and Indian who went abroad are coming back to find the green pastures, right here at home. Great Western Hangover still exists, affecting many lives, if only we could break out of the shackles of our education system, and let the spirit of true Indian nationalism shine forth. And for that we might need another freedom movement. A spritual freedom movement.

Without you where will I be?

I have been a little bogged down for while, have been a victim of opposites in life. Its not as though its the first time I’ve come here. But it definitely feels like the first time every time. I know for sure, what's right and what's not. But that doesn't help me when my mind’s clouded.

Today is Gurupoornima, and instead of a sophisticated explanation on the significance of a guru in one’s life, I decided to write something personal, hope it makes sense!

So my mind’s so clouded that every shred of my awareness and integrity goes for a toss.

I decide to go sugarless, and the next moment I am ready to sell my soul for a DBC (Death by chocolate).

I decide to wake up early, next thing I know I wake up two hours later than usual.

I decide to meditate for an two hours everyday, and I struggle to squeeze in 20 minutes of ‘me time’.

Then something magical happens.

I close my eyes, and look back at the past five years and things have definitely changed for the better. In spite of my doubts, fears and all the obstacles.

I close my eyes and just breathe, and feel that presence that taken care of me, very dearly, all this while.

I close my eyes, all my discomfort vanishes into thin air, and a smile appears, and the opposites in life disappears.

And I know for sure, I am not lost in the opposites of life.

Animals and Ayurveda

I wanted to post about Ayurveda for a long time, so I decided that since the topic is so large, I'll post it in series. I always thought that Ayurveda was about alternate medicine and healing. But to my surprise, Ayurveda is a way of life. Allopathic medicine provides cure for diseases, while Ayurveda tell us how not to get those diseases in the first place. And food is categorised in three catagories, Satvic, Rajsic and Tamsic. I stumbled across this piece on the net and thought that it aptly described the 'Three gunas'.

The Elephant, The Tiger, and The Jackal

"You are what you eat." Ancient Indian texts explain Aahara, or diet, by using the example of the elephant, the tiger, and the jackal. The elephant is a vegetarian. This animal represents the sattvic mind. With Sattva, we can think clearly, and act appropriately, according to the laws of nature. The elephant is strong, gentle and intelligent. The tiger is carnivorous. He represents the rajassic mind, which is action-oriented. He kills and eats animals, which makes him fierce and aggressive. The tiger is restless, always on the prowl. The jackal represents the tamasic mind. Tamas is destructive, but this is not necessarily negative. We need to finish something, complete it, before we can move on to the next. The jackal survives by eating food left uneaten by other animals. He is fearful, cunning, and lazy. Our goal is to acquire the saatvic qualities of the elephant. One way we can do that is to favor a vegetarian diet, and eating fresh foods, beans, and almonds to to increase calmness, clarity and creativity.

*source- CoffeyTalk.com

And you can see the effect of these foods on you body and mind. So judging by the predominant activity you do, its good to eat the corresponding 'Aahara', just even the knowledge of these aspects helps us be more conscious of what we are putting into our body. And its also good to observe which of the 'Three guns' are predominant in us, and you will be surprised that its exactly the kind of food we eat, though not always, that in fact also depends on our individual 'Prakruti' and 'Dosha'. I'll save that for the next post.

Two of a kind

Living with roomates is like having the best of both worlds. You get the care and concern of a parent with delicious home cooked meals. Also no unnecessary nagging inflicted on you as though you were an eternal teenager. And I for one have been very lucky to have two brilliant girls staying with me.

Karpagavalli

If you want to do a crash course on south Indian culture, just step into my house, most likely you’ll be welcomed with a strong aroma of ‘Rasam’, that's been prepared by KK or Karpagavalli. An engineer and YES!+ teacher.

And don't be surprised to find an equally beautiful girl, sporting a gigantic tattoo, working on her macbook. that's Priya, an advertising professional.

Both teach YES!+ workshops, both stunningly beautiful Tamilian Iyers (in fact I share those traits in common trait, especially the beautiful part) and that's where the similarities end.

One cooks, the other eats. One is a fashion diva, the other rooted in traditiona. One the epitome of enthusiasm and zest for life, other, the personification of ethereal calmness. One totally into chic flicks, other, Sci-fi freak (she watched hard core Sci-fi three nights in a row)

Tattooed: Priya Mani

Opposite values are complementary and this is a real, live, practical example.

Now that I’ve created enough curiosity, I’ll leave the rest for you to discover. An easy way will be doing the YES!+ workshop that they teach at Koramangala one from 25th to 1st july, 5-9 pm @ Indian Heritage Academy.


Warning: The above text was NOT written for matrimonial purposes. Please do NOT start spamming my inbox with those intentions (even otherwise spamming is bad!).