Author: murali

train journey is a great time to read. take a thick book, heavier the contents better it would be; a book like “The tao of physics”.
After every paragraph, look outside, at the scenic beauty and leisurely cudchew on the contents.

There are no easy answers

Today we have more choice than we can handle
and there are no easy answers

it starts from coffee or tea, indian, or south Indian (??),
Chinese or Thai cuisine

marriage or living in
for short term or long term

organization or freelance ..
family or friends

live in your home town or
make a home where you make a living

what about children and parents ?
to what extent you live for them and what do you expect from them ?

what are your rights and responsibilities
to family, society, country and to yourself.

Adopt or follow an established religion, complete with its core beliefs and rituals
or customise one , blaze a new track ?

today, more than ever before, there are more questions than answers;
and there are no easy answers.

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Swami Vivekananda and Subramanya Bharathi
Some amazing coincidences

Swami Vivekananda and Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi are perhaps the greatest personalities in 18-19th century to have influenced the youth.
Both died young at the age of 39 years. Both were philosophers with an aggressive patriotic fervor. Everyone knows that Sister Nivedita was the disciple of Swami Vivekananda but few are aware that bharathiyar himself was a disciple of Sister Nivedita. Sister Nivedita’s parents were active members of Irish Home Rule Movement and it was natural that she encouraged the freedom struggle in India.

11 Sep 1897

Swami Vivekananda addressed the parliament of religions at Chicago,Hinduism shook US as only Hinduism can.

11 Sep 2001

Attack on WTC, Newyork, Islam shook US as only Islam can.

It is all a chequered board of nights and days,
where destiny with men for pieces plays,
Hither and thither, moves, mates and slays
And one by one in the closet lays.

Rubiat of Omar Khayam translated by Fitzgerald

The opening game of life gives you hardly any options. It is only in the middle game you get some control of your life.
You get to choose your line of attack or defence ;there are gambits, traps, pitfalls, positional play and sacrifices.
All the time, you only have a peripheral view of the end game; after all if you don’t play your middle game well, there would be no end game.
What is good for the middle game may not be good for the end game and vice versa.

As you move on in life, the options get narrowed down, the board is clear enough to see the steps ahead through simple, mathematical calculations. You can take stock of what you have got and what you have lost. The battle has to go on till the last move, probably till you find only the two kings on the entire board. Then there are no calculations to be made, no moves and counter moves; it is total peace. After all a draw is the logical end of a well played game.

Anyone who has driven on a narrow hill track would have had this experience. you come across a cow on your track which you cannot overtake. the animal is convinced that the only purpose of your vehicle being there is to run over the cow. It starts running for dear life; may be for a kilometer or more, and then it is too tired to move a step; It moves to the side of the road and your drive on. One particular cow , I remember was very aggressive. She would give a menacing look, “Stop where you are …or else…..”. The jeep wouldn’t stop. Then she would start running and after a while she would turn around to give another deadly look, to no avail. This went on for over four kilometers when the inevitable happened and I could overtake. The cow could hardly move , but once the perceived threat cleared, she gave a victorious snort at the jeep, before moving away.

I always have that eerie feeling that even as we worry about some real or perceived threat, there is some higher being laughing at us. We worry about a number of events like, sisters’/ daughters’ marriages, higher education of children, construction of house, retirement and so on. We start running. When the time comes, the events pass off quite peacefully, leaving us just tired and relieved.

Another case is a monkey trap. Monkeys are trapped using a tin with a small opening. The tin is anchored to the ground and the opening is large enough for a monkey to put its hand inside but too small to withdraw a clenched fist after grabbing some nuts. The monkey is caught, since it would not let go of the nuts.

So many times we find ourselves in a difficult situation when all we need to get out of it is to let go of something we are dearly clinging on to. It may be sheer ego, some property/ material , position, power and so on.