A blast of freshness
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
A mere geographica expression ?!!
Yeah ! WE ARE LIKE THAT ONLY !
When one thinks about India , there is no more the image of the snake charmers or the Mystic sages , The India of today is a super Power in it s own terms, a nation of over a hundred billion people,growing at the rate of 1.6 percent , adding an Australia to it s booty annually! A nation which by 2030 will have 18% of the world s population –pooh . Now that s some number to reckon with, But are we only about sheer size and magnitude? Or do we possess something innate that makes us stand out and shout our identity in the shrinking world?
So from the consumer s perspective ,we are a huge force –a tremendously massive body of aspiring people –with aspirations come desires and with desires sometimes rise a sinister motive – A motive of survival is the name of the game and people go to any extent to climb the wrungs of the ladder as the man booker price winner –Arvind Adiga has very succinctly put forth in his book. This instinct of survival in itself is a strong fabric of our nation, this ardent urge to raise above the rest ,to prove a point to the world is what drives and motivates the 300 million people living in abject poverty to fight the challenges of life and create something that leaves behind a legacy.One more thing about us Indians is that we are among the most optimistic race on earth –so optimistic that even when we have a population of three times the size of Nigeria living at BPL conditions, Even when we are ranked poorly in corruption ratings, although we still have just a small fraction of the world s GDP(1.2%) we are still proud of the fact that we are a miracle generation- a coutry with over 40% of the population below 21 years of age, who will steer the ship to glory a country with a well established Silicon valley.
We are believers , we are thrivers . The delicate fabric of our nation is entrusted upon and revolves around one word- Truth – “SATYAMEVA JAYATHE” , but this could be so misleading in India ,as India as Winston Churchill once said :
“
Not only are we unique , we are also CRAZY – yes we are crazy because , what may be the observed pattern in the rest of the world may be just impossible here,and what may be a head breaker elsewhere happens with damn obviousness here!!
I was awestruck when I came across an article which said that
It s only here in India that a day after a bomb blast in one of the most crowded rail junctions , life again gets back to normalcy. It is only here in
We sure are eccentric.
SATYAM- Jayatey ?
The Paradox called Truth
“SATYAMEVA JAYATHEY”- two words on which the whole of our constitution, our Economy , our Social fabric proudly rests– These two words are more than mere expressions of our strong faith in truth ,in it s manifestations and in it’s deapth.As a nation we truly believe that truth triumphs , and yes it does, be it the Mahabharatha or a Bollywood Movie, the Dharma always reins over the Adharma!!. I have no qualms in our faith in the Universal triumph of the truth , But Ironically and Paradoxically, in a country such as India, where we have over 260 million Gods to show us the path to the true salvation, A place where each language speaks a different truth the very word truth has a million meanings and a ten million manifestations.
What is truth to one
Picture this:
A business tycoon who has invested crores in the liquor sees the golden liquid as his dreams to possess a Porsche Carrera, elsewhere in youthful exhuberance, a rich man’s son finds in it the truth to satisfy his carnal desires. The same liquid magically seems to let a tired accountant relieve his nerves after a hard day of work while a group of college students hang out and in the liquid find the means to celebrations..but in one of the dark corners of India , the same liquor turs a night mare to a family of street dwellers whose only 12 year old son is run down by a drunk rich guy in the prosche cayenne and yet elsewhere there is the same liquor which makes a violent monster to erupt out of a otherwise loving husband who insults and beats his wife in the modest hutment..
What is one man’s pleasure is another’s woe.
Truth is anything but absolute- Nothing is perhaps, and Einstein is the actual representation of the world when he talks about the relativity.
Truth is relative- It is Relative to the situation,relative to the place, relative to the person and most of all relative to wealth possessed which is so widely spread in
So whom are we fooling when we say that miragical two words which seems to be teaching us to lead our lives??
So what is the truth ? Is sincerity the virtue , or is being truthful itself the virtue?
What happens when a father of two starving children , from a family where most of the times the dinner is plain water that the mother fetches from a nearby almost drying pond finds a 50 Rupee note left behind by a potbellied tax evading ,cunning business man?
What should he do with it > return it thinking that truthfulness will feed his family of Karma will tae care of itself or buy his starving poor sons who are on the verge of collapsing,who have not smelled food in three days some food?where does he haver a strnger bound of duty – towards saving two beautiful lives that he brought into the world or in “Satyameva Jayathey”-this is how relative truth actually is- feeding his children is the ultimate truth in his life- the truth is that if he does not compromise by taking the money, he would be responsible for the death of two innocent lives. If he returns the money to the fat moron who trades in black ,he will be solely accountable for strangling his kids to death.
So Truth in
We live in a nation where there are more color TVs than toilets and more cell phones than Bank accounts! What the rest of the world finds as indispensable, we forgo them with considerable ease.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
A RELIGION AS I SEE IT !
HINDUISM IS –THE WAY I SEE IT
Not that I am wise enough to write about a topic as vast ,as sacred , and as deep as Hinduism ,but hey it s an era where the democratic
To begin ,it is necessary to create an understanding on what is this religion ? Where did it s need arise ? Not that I am an atheist ( I am a strong believer ) ,but on some primitive research , there is enough evidence to show that all religions are but manifestations of the Nature ,The Sun (Supreme source of energy ) in particular and all the rites and rituals involve around astronomical observations. No wonder then that all the contemporary religions have so much in common .So can we say that religion is ,but a set of rules that was set forth by our very wise ancestors, based on astronomical observations ,which bring about a cultivated lifestyle ? Maybe yes , maybe No .. What is explainable through science is but just a drop in the Ocean ..There still exists so much of darkness that we need a bacon of torch to lead us through ,and this comes in the form of religion – in the form of faith in a religion.
Now coming back to our favorite topic , Hinduism – It pains me sometimes to listen to people who proudly acclaim to have understood Hinduism and abuse it citing their ostensibly superior reasoning capabilities. For instance I recently heard a person I admire say that our religion is not very apt because the great epics of Mahabharat portrays lot of guise , and tricks and cheating that Lord Krishna does in the name of Dharma ! I am unable to comprehend the inferiority in these great epics ,the illusion lies in us- not the epic . What we fail to understand is that –HINDUISM is a way of life , It is Sanathana Dharma – A set of rules by which if the whole world lives , there would be bliss and happiness .
The epics are not absolute truth – they are just means of educating people on ways to lead life . The main theme of Mahabharat is of Good triumphing over the evil inspite of all odds against them.
Coming to the part where the ever righteous King Yudhistra gambles away his kigdom and wife- Many might argue that how could a king who was considered so righteous do such a thing ? Here again is the lapse in understanding – the lesson actually that is to be sought that no matter how good you are ,if you indulge in gambling and bad habits,you will have to suffer the consequence as the pandavas had to do .Here lies the beauty of the great epic s symbolism- that the laws of Nature are equally poised .
But one of the best part in the Mahabharat I believe is the Bhagvad Gita.One of the non subscribers argued that it was but rubbish as it denied individuality –It made arjuna the slave of Krishna .. Lamely seeing , maybe this would be the impression one gets , but again ,on deeper inspection into the symbolism- Lord Krishna is the charioteer who controls the horses and reins them –He is the symbol of our mind ,and the horses our body – the body does what the mind wants it to do . This is where
The epics are full of teachings if we are ready to follow them – They are full of examples on how to lead our lives in unison with ourselves. It shows to respect women( Draupadi vastra haran) ,but again the paradox is that some people see it as ill treating women ,which they proudly proclaim has been coming along since eons ,deftly misunderstanding the actual meaning of the episode! This is the lameness to which we can go !
The strength of symbolism in Hinduism is amazing .. The Shiv Ling symbolizes the confluence of the two sexes.. Our very famous and favorite God –Lord Ganesha is a confluence of all the virtues that one must possess to attain heights – His large ears symbolize that one must listen more and talk less .. His one side broken tusk ,and snake belted to the stomach symbolize control over desires and emotions. Hanuman symbolizes how in spite of being strong and powerful one needs to be faithful and humble..
The PETA sympathizers would be pleased to know that Hinduism ,by assigning several animals as mascots of the 3600000 gods talks about the protection of the varied wild life.
Right from snakes to cows are all considered sacred .. even trees are protected ..such is the fabric of this religion.
It is insane to talk about this indisputably great way of life without properly understanding it .
I would like to narrate a small story that happened when Swami Vivekananda went to
In the hall filled with the top heads from all religions , there were peole who came ,who spoke about their religions and went – finally came the chance of our torch bearer ,Swami Vivekananda was called upon the stage to deliver his speech. When he reached the stage to collect the Gita (the religious text) , there was a roar of sneer ,looking at the small text ,that was placed somewhere below all the other fat, thick religious texts .. But Swami Vivekananda was undeterred – He carefully removed the GITA from the bottom of the pile and addressed the crowd thus: “Dear brothers and sisters of America- True that this text is small , but did you realize that all this while it was in the bottom , it was carrying the load of all the other religions? Do you realize that this was the Base (literally) for all the other books—such is the greatness of our religion that it can tolerate the rest of the religions-in tolerance lies the greatness of Hinduism” .. the overwhelmed crowd gave him a standing ovation and rest is history .
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
meri pehli tankhwa
MY FIRST WAGE
October 30th 2006
It was yet another of those cold bitter windy starts to the day. The nasty music of my 5 euro sagem , which I had started to cultivate a strong irritation against started shrieking , desperately trying to wake me up. After two or three snoozez I finally groped out of the bed . It was 5:00 A.M as the dull display of the Sagem showed . damn it ! I was so happy at my Engineering college , lavishly waking up at 9 and then skipping breakfast , and royally entering the class at 9:30 .. and now here I was getting my butts kicked around in some God forsaken land at 5 in the morning ( or do I call it night as there was still no evidence that the solar ball that was shining in other parts of the eastern world even wanted to look towards this village in
I finally rushed out of my apartment ( it was a well furnished three room flat , with wonderful facilities for a poor student from India , but sad that I had little time to experience thy luxury) .While rushing down at jet speed I performed the usual ritual , ring the bell of the neighbour , for this was his alarm to signal that he should get going too .He had to leave to office at 6.15 , a leisure half an hour more than what I had.
So I rushed to the basement , dragged up the cycle ( geared cycle with front disk brakes-another luxury which the ordeal made un lucrative ) and punched open the front door , brr.. it was as cold as it could get .. Some degrees below freezing ,accentuated by cold dry breeze . It was ghastly , with not a soul in sight , dark as the gallows and silent as a lake .. I mustered all the courage ( actually I had little time to think about anything apart from surviving the onslaught!),and now was the most difficult part .. I had to remove my gloves for an instant and fix the light in my cycle .. it was not fuctioning properly , so I had to do this every time I started it . The moment I removed the glove, my hands would become numb and it felt like one hard tap , and it would break like a brittle metal.I carefully rubbed my palms , fixed the light and desperately pulled on the gloves . Now was the part I enjoyed to an extent , The cycling I had to do till the Bahnhoff (the railway station) It would be aloof and calm , at 5.30 in the morning .if you are from a country like India , where be it at 2 in the morning or 12 mid night , there would always be people around the roads ,mendicants,steet urchins , party goers ,sluts .. someone ,somewhere would always reassure you that you are not the last person living on this planet! But life here in this small village called Soest in Western Germany was totally alien to something called crowd .Never the less , the silence and beauty of the lonesome roads and the still trees impressed me and inspired me to keep on pedaling till the small lights of the bahnhoff in the distance would slowly start appearing nearer and finally I would be there.
Here after disembarking my bike(cycle) and securing it to one of the poles there , I ceremoniously entered the small bakery attached to the station . It was here that I could finally see homo sapiens .. the girl behind the counter ,
Once at the railway station , It was an experience of sorts , everyone whom I would see, old man , young man , kid , pretty girl , old lady , hot teenager ,would wish me ! again coming from
The next hour would go in traveling , I had to change two trains and then finally make to the finish line by a bus . Now this was another very interesting part of the journey, because here was the driver who became one of my closest friends.. he even bent the German law for me . I was allowed on most days to travel without tickets. Kruger was one of those Germans who had traveled a lot , outside
Once into the office , there were horrendous tasks that I was asked to do . As an intern from a respectable college in
So after a backbreaking work of a day , I was all exhausted by body and drained of enthusiasm . I once again started feeling low for having come all the way to this cold ,alien land and doing what I had to do in the shopfloor when I dreamt of working in plush offices!
Just then the most incredible thing of my life happened. Clara, the Office personal assistant came towards me , smiled and handed me a paper to sign into . I was curious, but pretty much done for the day with zilch energy to strike a conversation , so I took up the paper , which looked like some official document . The only thing that was in English was my name .The Deutsch in it made me feel dizzy ,all I could read was that it had some amount written on it and some other high fi official stuff in german. I turned and asked clara what it was with the most questioning gesture I could make so that she understood my German. She gave a huge glaring smile and said in English “ Mr. Pavan – congrats this is your pay slip:” . I read it over again and it made sense this time surprisingly . The nebula of language barrier vanished ,I felt like hugging someone . I thanked God for my first Salary slip –which read “Mr.S.G.S.Pavan,son of Mr.R.Swaminathan, an intern from Sastra university ,
That night I called home and told my dad “Dad –your son earned his first income today(though it was more of wages)” and I could literally feel the happiness in his voice.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Love is a Chemical Reaction
LOVE IS A CHEMICAL REACTION.
A very meaningful quote says “ Life is like tennis , U first serve and it all begins with love all !!”.The truth in the adage can make sense only when you experience the “butterfly effect”!! The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure(I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my girlfriend"). This diversity of meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define.
Never the less as the latter definition of the emotion seems more apt from a college magazine s point of view , we shall dwell with it in more refinement.
The moment we hear the word love, a touch of romanticism is expected in dealing with the subject ; like Shah rukh khan s dialogues or Richard geres moves flood our thoughts . But hey .. hold on ..apply brakes to your imaginations ,because this article deals with the tough fact of life- the fact that in Quantum Physical terms , we are just Energy and in Biological terms, our emotions are but mere chemicals and ions getting transmitted through the synapse of nerves.
So what actually happens when Cupid shoots his arrow on you ? When you see that one amazing person with whom you instantly fall in love ( love at first sight ..huh ..whatever that means!) How is it then that butterfly s roam in your stomach s and poems flow through your mouths ?
This is what happens !!
Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act in a manner similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement.So when we see that person whom we are attracted to , the naughty chemicals start working and we feel a sense of pleasure ,and if we are lucky enough , we can sing a duet in Switzerland (in our dreams of course..hey we are mere MBA students, it s recession time ..
Anyway , here s the most amusing part :
Research has also indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years. So no wonder ,if love is an arrest warrant , marriage is the death sentence because by the time one loves and marries, the body grows immune to the chemicals and brushes them aside !!So love and build a relationship within three years lest it fade away !! Yeah , truth is bitter at times! , but here s when it gets more bitter :
In 2005, Italian scientists at
Now before the sentimental and emotional people follow up and make a mess of me , it s time to say that “hey , these are what researchers say , I don’t subscribe to them , cause even if it is just for a year or half.. It s worth having that feeling !! after all .. all good things come to an end , and so do the chemicals that romanticize us and turn us into the characters of a Mills and boon”.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Spirituality and Quantum Physics
Quantum Physics and Spirituality!
I was sitting there deeply contemplating on the relevance of a topic on which I could give a write up for our I5 magazine ..I thought of everything from the latest Terror strikes , MRA camp , The rat race in MBA , the Financial depression but finally decided that I had very little of erudition to take a stand on any of these independent topics. Instead I have decided to give a write up on a subject that is the base of all other topics and crux of all issues that Man experiences . In all humility I must first confess that the views presented by me are very primitive as I am but on the beginning of the road to the ultimate destination of Mankind – “The reason of our existence”
It would be foolish of me if I would present the entirety of the great truths that several sages and great philosophers took eons to build in a single page of some college magazine, never the less I would like to share with all a few succinct ideas.
Since we are the enlightened few who have had the advantage of attending school and studying a wonderful subject –Physics, I would like to physically J , rather Quantum Physically deal with the experience of life.
What are we? Where do we come from? And where do we go ? These are questions that are finally needed to be fought with. Though Darwinism is a view, I would like to propose a different take on it.. “We are nothing but Energy” – This is the crux of VEDANTA . This is the crux of Taoism, This is the core of all Zhuan Falun, and interestingly, or rather alarmingly, this is the base of QUANTUM Physics !!.
The spiritual teachings deal with the existence of Prana within us, which is the Life source of the Energy( wave form ) . It is this energy, which after the perishing of our body goes into unison with the source which we call as the Creator.
Max Plannk stumbled upon the idea that proved that all matter was made of waves and they possessed the energy given by E=hc/Ϡ, and soon Schrödinger showed with a wave expression that all matter could be described in terms of waveforms that can be given by the equation :
Louis de Broglie's realized that standing waves exist at discrete frequencies and thus energies is obviously true.
Erwin Schrodinger discovered that when frequency f and de Broglie wavelength y were substituted into general wave equations it becomes possible to express energy E and momentum mv as wave functions - thus a confined particle (e.g. an electron in an atom/molecule) with known energy and momentum functions could be described with a certain wave function.

Finally the genius of our times even Albert Einstein proved while describing the photo electronic effect that matter is made of waves and waves had a particle nature.
Also equating the E=mc^2 to the general conservation of energy princliple to energy of waves given by E=hc/Ϡ, we can equate mass (mass being the property of matter to Ϡ, nature of wave)
Thus, proving again, that matter and waves are dual.
So what does this show – It proves that we human beings ,the species called Homo Sapiens who take so much pride in the word “I” , we who kill each other on the name of Religion , We who waste away the precious moments of our life in toiling to stay ahead in the rat race are nothing but mere waves forms, who have all emerged from the same source – the infinity and will again go into unison with the same source ,blissfully following the law of Conservation of energy “ Energy can neither be created nor destroyed it can only be transformed from one form to another” just like the Sanskrit shloka says : “ Like a snake wilts it s skin and grows a new one, our soul migrates from one cover(body) to another while the essence of our existence , our soul remains indestructible like energy”.
Now that we know that our soul is indestructible , why this journey ?It must be pretty much evident to people with even a speck of reasoning that since the material possessions do not come along with us, nor do our identity that we create after much of sweat and toil , what is our purpose in this universe? Where do we fit in? Here again PHYSICS and VEDANTA come to the rescue, as Vedanta and Geeta propose, there are billions of world within each of us and we are all powerful . Our mind is the strongest power in this world – It is very true that “I think therefore I am” Just as philosophy says that by controlling our thoughts we can master the universe, consider this:
The
F = GM1M2/R^2
So how does this help us to achieve what we want through our thoughts?
Our thoughts are frequencies (as can be seen by neural equipments : beta and gamma waves) these frequencies will definitely also have a particle nature as proposed by Einstein and all of quantum Physics, so the situation in hand is that our thoughts are like particles and so are other thoughts and other materials in the universe, So just like Newton said, these attract the things we want to attract with the force given by Newton s equation. This would mean that we could attract wealth, health everything we want and truly rein the universe if we knew to control our thoughts!
Now that we know that we are energy and are all powerful in this universe, capable of attracting whatever we want, we may want to try it, as even I have tried. It works in most of the cases and proves how Prayers are heard and the universal truth responds to our needs. So are we equipped with the highest order of truth?
Well, not really, because there was another revealing discovery that was made by a great scientist called Heisenberg – The Uncertainty principle, which explains fate!!