All Entries Tagged With: "Humans"

dinosaurI still recall with laughter my first day at B school. Students introduced themselves dutifully and solemnly till one guy said that he was working for Hindustan Motors, makers of the Ambassador car. Later we ribbed him on this, telling him that his department had an entire year to decide on the shape of the headlights — this being the only innovation in what has been billed as the world’s only vintage car under active production and use. A living dinosaur.

Comparison is crazy-making. It stamps on potential and truth and all the good things you might already have going for you if you weren’t so busy shadow-boxing with the people whom you think have it better. Would you compare a snowflake to a snowflake to decide which was more beautiful and unique? No two snowflakes are the same.

Everything is beautiful in its own way…. My granny used to have a mango tree on her lawn. One evening strolling around her garden, I saw a chameleon sitting on the mango tree. The chameleon had just jumped from the creeper and its colour was slowly changing from green to brown. Suddenly a thought pumped [...]

It is eerie how disparate news items are related to each other in a manner that provides interesting insights if you look at them closely. First came the news about how iconic athlete PT Usha was ill treated at Bhopal where she was present as the manager of an athletics team. It was sad to [...]

“So sorry, I’ve been busy.” “I’m just so busy with…” “I’ve been too busy too…” Busy? Get in line. If I ever tell you that, “I’m so sorry that I’ve been too busy to…” then I’ll pay $500 bucks to your favourite charity and get you a year’s supply of Haagen Dazs bars. Of course [...]

An incident took place recently when the US President Barack Obama addressed Congress that needs to be discussed seriously in India for its many ramifications. It occurred when President Obama was addressing both the Houses — Representatives and Senators — the Indian equivalent of which is a joint session of Parliament. This is where the [...]

Unlike Archimedes it is unlikely that I will be remembered even minutes after I have my tryst with my Maker. That kind of destiny is reserved for the best among us and I cannot certify that I belong to that elite group. But I had my Eureka moment when I discovered answers to two questions [...]

“May those who have eyes, see; and those who have ears, hear.” Jesus may have forgotten to include, “May those who can reason, have the courage to accept their wrongs.” Being seen and heard as ‘different’ became the reason for Jesus of Nazareth’s execution. It is a travesty of justice that malevolent criminals stroll free [...]

My friend Asha works at the National Institute of Health in Washington, DC. Her boss had asked her to find out why India’s most powerful people had not been affected by swine flu, known here as H1N1. She asked me for my views on this interesting subject. I said that the reasons are obvious. She [...]

When we think and talk about gardening, gardens and gardeners, we should begin with the very first one. The Almighty! As it was He who built that first garden, Eden. On this, his Earth. He made that for us, as well. To dwell as in heaven, and not as in hell. To emerge as successful [...]

The birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that fell on 2nd October, was also a time when we recalled the 3 monkeys that we have always associated with him. But the symbolism has changed. They now stand for: See No Criticism Hear No Criticism Speak No Criticism Let me explain. The character of a people can [...]

Why catch up? Why meet up? I had carried these questions with me to India and found somebody I thought could answer this question.

A fool is known by six things: anger without cause; speech without profit; change without progress; inquiry without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends. Arabian Proverb I think a foolish person (fool) is the one who knows, does and views things differently from wise men, as well as other fools. [...]

When Jaswant Singh wrote something about Mohammed Ali Jinnah the ensuing brouhaha in the BJP told a tale about India that needs to be analysed. I suggest that we as a nation are prisoners of the past in many of our activities in daily life. In other words we are like the car driver who [...]

Our dreams and desires define us. Be they broken, scarcely remembered, on the verge of reality, or in full bloom. They pilot our choices. Dreams have the power to shape the entire landscape of our lives. Because they tend to be so precious and potent, many people keep their dreams and aspirations to themselves. A [...]

Last night while reading one of the chapters of the great epic Mahabharata¬† I came across a passage where Yaksha questions Yudishtir, “What is the greatest wonder in the world?” Yudishtir answers, “The greatest wonder is that although people see living beings die every day, they still try to live for ever”. This was one [...]

Most of us, if not all of us, would like a  casteless Indian society. An egalitarian society is our  dream. There are some who assert that our forms for admission to educational institutions, our job application blanks etc should not ask for ‘caste’. Right ? Wrong if you were to think against the grain. There [...]

Ali McGraw to Ryan O’Neil in Love Story:  “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
Puhleeze. That famous one-liner set real intimacy and personal responsibility back by bounds. We screw up. We trample over people’s feelings, we let our insecurities get the best of us, we make big fat unfair assumptions based on the past. [...]

On my first trip to India, my friends and I made two important visits. We went far north for a private audience with the Dalai Lama. And we went far south to stay at the Ashram of the famous guru Sathya Sai Baba. Sai Baba is a controversial swami. I have right-minded friends who have [...]

Dreams are precursors to the realities that we are about to experience – Author Unknown We were all day dreamers once. Who can forget sitting in class in the middle of a hot summer afternoon, daydreaming about the previous year’s cool mountain vacation, or which games we would play when we got back home. We [...]

Here is the headline from a newspaper, the sort of headline that has us wringing our hands in despair: THREATS TO JUDGES, GOVERNMENT LAWYERS SOARING! The report then says that threats to the nation’s judges and government lawyers have sharply increased prompting hundreds to get 24 hour protection from armed guards. Judges are now altering [...]

“Contemporary racism is not conscious, and is not always accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways.” Jack Dovidio Recently, when I saw and read about hate crimes and racist attacks, my heart went out to the college kids who bore the brunt of attacks. It must have been traumatic for the [...]

“Racism is conditioned by economic imperatives, but negotiated through culture: religion, literature, art, science and the media… Once, they demonised the blacks to justify slavery. Then they demonised the “coloureds” to justify colonialism. Today, they demonise asylum seekers to justify the ways of globalism. And, in the age of the media… demonisation sets out the [...]

I happened to watch this movie “Gone Baby Gone” recently. The story line is about a kidnapping which is shrouded in mystery. A private detective, the protagonist, who is hired to help out the investigation, finds out that the kidnapper is none other than the just-retired, honorable sheriff who had lost his child in a [...]

So here’s my new favourite concept: positive addiction. I just love the sound of it. It’s righteous and honest – a great combo. “I’m hooked, but it’s all good. No, really. I’m addicted, but it is positively healthy.” Like it. I was talking to a friend today (okay, it was my shrink), about my almost, [...]

I am told that a goldfish cannot remember anything beyond a 3 minute time frame. One of my favorite pastimes is to sit and watch our goldfish swim around lazily and rising up only to gobble at the food before going back to their contented existence. Their swimming around actually reminds me of children or [...]

“The evil you do, remains with you! The good you do, comes back to you!” A woman enjoyed the practice of baking bread for members of her family. She also made an extra one for a hungry passerby. She kept the extra bread on the window sill, for whosoever would take it away. Everyday, a [...]

I remember several tales told to me, as a child, by my beloved grandmother. My grandparents had a huge mansion with several large trees on the spacious compound. All of us, as a family, would gather here every summer as a kind of annual reunion. The days being long, evenings would stretch too. They would [...]

In the week after the Mumbai massacre I asked two politician friends of mine the following question: Which scourge affecting India is a bigger killer – terrorism or kids dying of starvation? They both replied, “It is obviously terrorism. Look at the way almost 170 people have been killed just last week….and we cannot forget [...]

Life experiences have always taught us very beautiful lessons, even the ones not studied in B-schools. This has always made me appreciate the immense benefits of learning from unusual sources. This is what my daughter and my wife taught me about ‘gold plating’. As usual, it was one of those wonderful late evenings with the [...]