Y point on Arthur Road

It was quarter to seven in the evening when Madhav entered his home.

“Pallavi, my darling, please get me a cup of ginger tea and some snacks. It’s been a hectic day for me. And it’s still not over. I have a conference call to attend in next fifteen minutes. That will run for an hour.”

“Madhav, don’t forget that we have to go to Varun’s place for dinner. His sister got engaged last week. And they want to introduce Gaurav, her Fiancé, to our friend circle. Gaurav just completed his management course from IIM Bangalore. He is running a supply chain start-up here in Pune, he additionally runs a creche for the babies of the construction workers, free of cost, as a social service. Such a smart and noble young man. I am eager to meet him. But Madhav, what’s the matter with you? You look tired. Is it just the office work or something else?” Pallavi asked.

“Nothing much, had some trouble in the traffic while driving back” replied Madhav.

As a seasoned professional Madhav was expert in wearing masks. While he had been using that at work, lately he had started practicing in day to day life as well.

While waiting for tea, Madhav started his monologue.

“Was it really the right thing to do? The sudden appearance of the dog at the secluded Y point on the Arthur Road, my desperate attempt to avoid a collision, the sudden breaking of the car, the clueless bike rider coming from behind, his inability to control his bike, followed by banging his bike on my car from behind, the fall of the rider and his nose & knee injuries, everything happening in a split second. What a mess it was, the frightened dog, the unconscious rider and me, not knowing what to do …There was nobody watching me on the road.  I guess I did it right.”

“Madhav there goes your tea and the fresh samosa’s”, Madhav’s monologue was broken by Pallavi. “Please finish this before you start with your meeting. And remember, we are going to Varun’s dinner party. In the mean time I will get Keshav ready, he just came back from his school”.

While Pallavi went to the study room, Madhav kept wondering “What would have happened to the bike rider? Was it really the right thing to do? Anyway it’s 7 o’clock, time to join the conference call”

The conference call was dull, to say the least. There was hardly anything for Madhav to contribute.

Filled with a sense of restlessness over the event in the evening, his mind went back in time, around 25 years back. He was a school kid that time. Studying in the 7^th standard. It was evening time. Madhav’s had just finished his evening snacks when his mother came in the dining room.

“Mother, what will you do if you found out that the valve of the bicycle is open, and the air is leaking from it?” asked Madhav.

“Close the valve and stop the leakage of air, isn’t it the right thing to do?” replied his mother. “What did you do my little prince?”

“Mother, I am not little. And by the way I did the same thing. When the school bell rang, I came out of the class running, went to the bicycle parking, saw Shridhar opening the valve of rear wheel of Santosh’s bicycle. He is such a naughty boy. While I was closing the valve, Santosh saw me near his bicycle, playing with the valve, saw the tyre of his bicycle partially deflated, thought that I did open the valve. I did try to tell him that the valve was opened by Shridhar, and I was trying to close it. But he did not believe me and slapped me in front of everyone. He took me to the supervisor madam and complained. I tried to explain but the mam did not believe me. She even scolded me and gave a warning. Mother, did I do the right thing?”

Not knowing what to say, mother murmured “Probably! ….”  

“Madhav, can you travel to the US in the third week of March?”, Madhav’s thought process was broken by an unexpected question from Robert, on the conference call. And he had to rush back to the present. “Oh yes, I need to think, I will let you know sometime next week. Is that OK Robert?” replied Madhav, mostly to buy time.

“That works Madhav! Team, we are done with today’s agenda. Unless anyone has any questions, we can drop off, and connect next week the same time. And by the way we finished the call early, so you get 15 minutes of your life back.” clear indication that the call was over.

Madhav was still engrossed with his thoughts and the events that connected his past with present. 

“Some experiences are not just written upon our memory, they are stamped there with a die. We assign meaning to them. Yes, we define our experiences and then eventually the experiences define us. They define what we become”, but the question persisted “Did I do the right thing today?”

“Get ready Madhav, we have to leave in few minutes. We don’t want to be late for the party at Varun’s place”, Pallavi reminded.

“I will be ready in a few minutes” Madhav replied.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was a call from Varun. Madhav picked up the phone and said energetically “Yes Varun, we are coming to your place in next few minutes”. There was a long pause on the other side. After an awkward silence and in a solemn & deeply pained voice Varun said “Madhav, the party is cancelled. Gaurav met with a road accident an hour ago. Did not get medical help in time. He is no more.”

Madhav was stunned to hear this, he could barely say “I am so sorry, it’s really unfortunate. Where did it happen”. He hoped it’s not near the Y point on Arthur Road.

“Near the Y point on Arthur Road” Varun replied. 

Beware of “Empty” Goals

It was evening time, I was coming back home from office. Being Friday, I was on my bike. Suddenly I spotted a stray dog on the street, waiting for a vehicle to follow. While biking is fun, being followed by a stray dog is far from it. Speeding up to avoid any attack was my reflex action, more driven by animal instinct. 

But the dog had his own game plan, he started following me, barking and running as if it was the end of the world. While with a modern day bike you can always accelerate enough, the heart probably didn't believe in that, at least at that moment. With sudden increase in the speed, and the heart rate, I was able to maneuver safely. 

Once I was back home I started wondering what is it that the dog was trying to achieve? And this reminded me of a story -

A farmer had a dog that used to sit by the roadside waiting for vehicles to come around. As soon as one came he would run down the road, barking and trying to overtake it. One day a neighbor asked the farmer “Do you think your dog is ever going to catch a car?” The farmer replied, “That is not what bothers me. What bothers me is what he would do if he ever caught one.”

That was the moment of truth, so to speak. 

Many people in life behave like that dog who is pursuing meaningless goals. 

With eyes closed, I suddenly became aware that I was alive and had some purpose for being so.

Am I here to spend the life following some goals that may not mean much in the long run. Or for that matter may not mean ANYTHING. And when I live LIFE in this manner am I not forgetting the MIRACLE of it.

Dear Reader, how about you ? Are you pursuing "Empty" goals ?

Book Review - Siddhartha -- A novel about enlightenment

Siddhartha is a beautiful philosophical novel by Hermann Hesse, a German Nobel Prize winner. It’s a story of a young Indian Brahmin’s pursuit of enlightenment. The setting is the time period of Gautama Buddha. The story is rich with philosophy, but the language is so lyrical and the narration so vivid that it is difficult to separate the poetry and the deep philosophy. One flows with the story as if flowing with a peaceful river.

The author seems to conclude that no amount of second-hand knowledge and learning can give you the real sense of peace or happiness unless it is enlivened by real first-hand experience.

Siddhartha, a Brahmin boy, is brought up in a devout and learned family, but he is restless and full of doubt about the routine of sacrifice, chanting, and meditation. So he leaves home and spends time with the ascetics who believe in hard renunciation and numbing of all bodily senses.

But this route does not bring the salvation Siddhartha seeks. So, he goes and meets with Gautama Buddha to hear his teachings. He realizes that what he is seeking is the state Buddha has achieved for himself, but his teaching does not satisfy him. So, he decides to live an ordinary earthly life and try to discover his true “self”.

A long time passes in the world of birds and flowers, sensuous pleasures and pains, and money and vices. Initially, Siddhartha participates in ordinary people’s activities as if they were just games, and views ordinary people as children and laughs at their childish intensity in their material obsessions. He is able at will to return to the inward mental sanctuary of Siddhartha the ascetic and not be bothered by anything for too long. But sure enough he soon gets drawn into the whirlpool of Sansara and all but forgets his real pursuit.

Eventually though, a bad dream awakens him and he returns to the river of his childhood and youth utterly shaken and bewildered. He is saved from suicidal thoughts, and then he becomes the assistant of a wise old ferryman who has learnt the art of listening to the river and learning life’s secrets.

Here, finally, Siddhartha achieves peace (although there is a brief period of torment when he experiences what it is to be a father). He realizes that life is like a river – timeless, present everywhere at the same time, with no past and present, and when one conquers the unreality of time, one is happy and at peace. He realizes that the wisdom is in accepting things as they are.

Book Review - Anand Owari

Anand Owari is a well-known Marathi novel, written by D B Mokashi which deals with Kanhoba, Sant Tukaram's younger brother, who is trying to locate Tukaram, who has disappeared, for the last time. During the later phase of his life, Saint Tukaram had developed the habit of going into seclusion for shorter duration and would come back. And hence no one, except the close family, took his disappearance seriously. The novel depicts the journey of Kanhoba for next 72 hours, as the pressure builds up & eventually the search turns out to be futile. The story operates at various levels and presents many viewpoints and is filled with an intense, fast paced landscape of emotions and understanding.

In this novel, Tukaram's story has been rendered in a very different perspective. It gives an intense portrait not only of Tukaram the man, but also of the restlessness of a creative and rebellious person. Kanhoba seeks to understand this and shows us the picture of this different Tukaram, one we can all relate to.

In a surprising small book, just 72 pages, the author has portrayed each character in a unique style, giving enough justice to each. 

While the search is going on Kanhoba says... 

A very brief comment about Sawaji, the eldest brother, says it all ... 

And this is about the poetry of Saint Tuakaram ... 

This novel raises questions related to our lives and makes us introspect. It explores the pain and agony of human life. I always found Tukaram's story, his day-to-day struggle, challenges more human and appealing to a common man, compared to the likes of Saint Gyaneshwar or Ramdas, who appear to have the sense of purpose and understanding of the *divine* self, more or less by birth. The novel takes us through the step by step journey of transformation driven by the life around him, thus making him look for the true meaning of life and exploring other domains, in turn renouncing his life. Kanhoba, his brother, on the other hand continues to be a part of this world and explores its complexities.

The story is centered around the contradiction between Pravritti (initiative and action) and Nivritti (resignation and withdrawal). Kanhoba poses the  tension between the mundane world of crass materiality and the spiritual or mystic renunciation of that world. Kanhoba emerges in this narrative Tukaram’s alter ego of sorts.

Kanhoba is posing the question, if the materialist view of the world and its mundane compulsion can be wished away at all? Kanhoba is caught in a trap of that mundane world and his beloved brother losing himself in his Bhakti and his Vithoba.

Kanhoba lends poignancy to Mokashi’s work which sums up the dilemma that paradoxically has made Tukaram the most loved poet of Marathi. In the end there is no answer to Kanhoba’s  predicament or the entanglement in the mundane world and the spiritual quest. He cannot resolve it the way his brother did or could. At times in Mokashi’s work, Kanhoba seems to be uncertain if his brother really ever solved the dilemma. For Mokashi’s Kanhoba, the quest is not over nor is it ever likely to be over.

In the end, Saint Tukaram is successful in his own way, renouncing the world, that is well-known. But the author takes the reader to a different level of understanding when the story takes a dramatic turn with Kanhoba leaving the  family house, leaving the sacred village Dehu & renouncing the path of Vithoba, for ever, leaving the reader with a heavy heart and possibly wet eyes.

Note: While Nivritti is generally seen as a path of resignation and withdrawal, for those who are actually walking  it, the path is about acceptance. Accepting life as is, without complaints and lack of willingness to 'fight' with the situation can either be seen in a positive light or negative one, it's the question of your perspective. People opting the path can see it in positive light as they can see something different, beyond the horizons, beyond the 'daily grind'. 

This difference in perspective is a major reason for the difference in opinion. Kanhoba, like most people, could not see difference. Just a personal opinion. 

Book Review - ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, a fable by Richard Bach

‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, a fable written by Richard Bach, happens to be one of my all-time favorites. It's the story of freedom, perseverance, courage, altruism, love, dreams, and giving back to society. It is about finding your true nature. It serves as an inspiration to anyone who wants to succeed beyond the limitations imposed by the social norms.

A seagull bird wants to learn flying for the sake of flying, takes flight in the sky, tries to break his own boundaries and limits, goes through various ups and downs, gets outcast from the flock for violating the accepted norms of the group, finds a teacher who directs him towards perfection, in that process understands his own self, understands the true meaning of love and compassion, goes back to the flock that had out-casted him, shares his understanding with love and compassion. This remarkable book talks about the true love and friendship that goes beyond the boundaries of time and space. 

This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules, people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.

Some of the great quotes from the book include:

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding."

"The only true law is that which leads to freedom. There is no other.”

 “We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, with all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome.”

 “Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, ten thousand?”

“Your whole body is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too…”

“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?”

Author	Richard Back
Category	Literature / Classic Fiction
Rating	An inspiring read, a must have for everyone

पिंज-यातील पक्षी गातच होता

पिंज-यातील पक्षी गातच होता

बंधनात असूनही गात होता
दु:खात असूनही गात होता

पारतंत्र्यात असूनही गात होता
आठवणींना उजाळा न देता गात होता

कोणाचीही पर्वा न करता गात होता
अडचणींचा विचार न करता गात होता

गाण्यासाठीच त्याचा जन्म होता
कशाचाही विचार न करता तो गात होता

तू ही मित्रा ओळख स्वत:ला
जाणून घे तुझे स्वत्व, तुझ्या क्षमता
झुगारुन दे काळाची आणि वेळेची बंधनं
नको सांगूस ती स्वत:लाही न पटणारी कारणं
सदैव गात रहा तुझं स्वत:चंच गाणं

Spirituality is not for the weak minded !

Why would a well-established, well educated person, someone having a wife and two daughters to take care of, commit suicide in his forties. 

But somebody did it … raising too many questions … answering none. 

The most shocking part of the whole episode was that he was associated with a well-known spiritual group.

He was friend of one of my closest friends, and what you will see here is a series of thoughts that went through my mind, as part of unwinding the mystery, not just this episode, but the mystery of life.

Spirituality… what is it exactly?

Contrary to the popular belief, spirituality is not for the weak minded, it’s for those who are strong enough to deal with the daily grind that one has to go through, and still be able to maintain inner peace, walk the path that leads to detachment and self realization. 

Look at the life of any thought leader, or a messiah or a master. Almost all of them have gone through extreme struggle on various fronts.

Many people like to tell others they are a 'spiritual' person probably to let them know they are not materialistic or superficial and that they 'get it'. That's fine if we all understand and agree on what we're talking about.

Traditionally being spiritual signified having an attachment to religious values, or matters of the spirit, rather than material or worldly interests.

More recently it has also taken on to mean reaching higher levels of consciousness using meditation, yoga or similar practices.

I consider spirituality to be a state in which we are connected to God, Nature, each other, and the deepest part of ourselves. 

In order for us to function fully, all aspects of ourselves must be balanced. Our mind, body and spirit have to be in harmony with each other. 

We cannot focus on the material and neglect the spiritual. And vice versa. 

When we are in tune with God, Nature, each other, and ourselves, we are being spiritual. There are so many wonderful ways that we can make, and take the time, to "connect".

Take time for yourself. Rejuvenate your spirit and nurture yourself. 

Help those in need of your assistance. When you help others, you automatically connect better with the rest of humanity. Volunteer as a big brother or sister, coach little league, donate to the food shelter. Every little bit helps.

Practice gratitude. There are so many things to be grateful for in life. Take time to reflect on them and acknowledge how fortunate we all are for family, friends, and endless opportunities.

Practice mindfulness. Become aware of your environment. Be aware of yourself within your environment. Enjoy the colors and smells of nature around you. Enjoy the feel of rain falling on your nose and the wind blowing on your face. It will put you in a revitalizing, fresh state of awareness.

Express yourself. If you don't already engage in artistic or expressive activities, learn to dance, sing, play a musical instrument, or take art lessons. Doing so puts you in touch with your creative, right brain side. We all need to balance the logical, linear aspects of ourselves. 

Being aware of, and cultivating spirituality greatly contributes to our overall joy and happiness. It's never too late to develop it further and enjoy the benefits it brings.

Last but not the least, be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.