Shades of Being Alive

In me, a museum of experiences, of thoughts, of feelings In you, a visitor, may be a seer You can come in, but only with my permission To have a look at the stills, or the movings The dormants or the actives The painfuls or the joyfuls The hurts and the heals But only at certain times, visiting hours For at other times, I might be seeing it for myself Or my museum might be under maintainence, recovering from visitor shocks And while you visit it, be sure that your imprint shall be left hanging in one of the corners of my museum May be for others to see You are important to me Oh now, that I confessed to you that you are important to me  Let me invite you in an inner chamber I want to be calling it भव You see English is a limited language Anyway, I will say inner world I wonder what's this separation I want to be giving you a lifetime pass to my inner world. I hope you won't hurt it, consciously You are welcome, home.

One of the things I love and also miss is getting oiled up by my mother.  As an infant oiling up is considered very important to develop strength in the body - for me my Dadi took that job (I think).  As a child, oiling up is considered important to moisturise the body to have a more resilient skin, to let toxins go away.  As a teenage, oiling up is considered important to develop shiny features :p and become attractive. My mother didn't leave an oil unturned. Our favorite then was 'Hair & Care'. :)  As a young adult, oiling up is considered important to continue to nourish sweat pores as an outlet to toxins, energy and become more physically agile. At this time for me, those fancy moisturisers and deo's came into my life and reduced my sweat pore capacity and skin agility. As an adult, oiling up is considered important these days to not lose hair on the head. I miss my mum, and her oiling up and therefore hair density on my head is reducing....

Dearest Family Member, I hope this email finds you in joy and love.  On this Saturday morning, I have a question for you - Where have you experienced / seen these elements?  Clock   |   Bell    |    Time-table    |      Compartments    |      Uniform      |       Input >> Process >> Output Guessed? Yes, school. Anywhere else? Yes, Factory, Prison, Railway Stations, Shopping Malls and sometimes even in Homes. And if you inquire deeply you would find one or the other combination of these design elements in all modern social constructs we are part of. What have these design done - they have created a story of the world - story of separation, of competition, of rush, of standardisation, of self-limiting survival and of self-interest. What does this mean? Why on a Saturday morning? To that, please allow me to take you away from y...

Society and Market What makes a network of people, society and what makes them a market. The answer is simple - relationships.  When my mother would make a pickle for me in the summer sourced from mangoes dropped in the wind - that was in the realm of the society.  When all of us people in the village would gather around our pond to celebrate a festival of water, desilting the pond, repairing our houses with silt - that's society. When I would go out play cricket with friends from my village / colony - that's a society.  Water, drinkable directly from ponds and streams - society. Grinder, shared by a whole neighbourhood - society. Children learning from elders - society. Friend taking care of another in illness - society.  But alas, society is encroached upon. Society is no longer needed.  Because markets' taking over.   Pickle - easyday, buy one get one free - chemical-rich, plastic-ridden. Ponds - buy (export quality) water from p...

Dearest Family Member,  I hope January is bringing newer and healthier energy in you to pursue what your heart calls for.  While we were in Kutch, I met an elderly Dadi, she called herself 101 years old but never counted her age :) I asked her if she was scared of death and she said  'सब कुछ राम का है, जब चाहे ले लें '  (everything belongs to God and he can take it whenever he wants). Witnessing her, I felt she treaded lightly while being true to the role that she was given in her life. I have been thinking for myself, while I try to live my purpose a 100% -  what does it take to tread lightly? To not be a weight on the planet - physically, emotionally, spiritually . :) In our country and the world, there's remarkable polarisation, ego and fear and to us the most important way to engage with it - is to live our lives with very different anchors - of trust, acceptance and fearlessness.  What we also need is to cultivate a community that supp...

Learning from and observing my sister’s experience - I have come to understand that the bureaucracy trains people how to behave with power and how to be with power. And if you are wise, how to use power well. It inducts the candidate into the power structure that the country-people are serving for over 200 years.   It does not even touch (or touches very little) on how to empower, those you are serving.  The mindset with the bureaucracy has been more or less similar as it was during the colonial period. Hence, bureaucrats are to rule over the people. Although ironically they are called Civil Servants.  Having said that, if the governance part of this country is running - it is because of some amazing bureaucrats. There are numerous who have been able to get breakthrough implementations done with knowledgeable and wise decision-making and cooperation. And negotiation with other power-holders and power-brokers.  As most systems set up by British (like...

While surviving (financially) in this allegedly competitive world is important, my question to all those toiling away their time to earn money is what is the actual contribution you are making to the journey of humanity? Are we playing a small role in researching how to create better face recognition in the selfie camera? Or is figuring out how to sell a particular detergent in rural market? Or is guessing what the exchange rate would be tomorrow and therefore where to invest money for best returns? While they have a place in the whole structure, the question to ask is does it really bring a tiny movement upwards in the well-being of people or the planet? A simple way in, is to become aware of one’s own experience of doing the job. Is it fullfilling, enabling you to bring creative potential? Is it bringing you joy? Is it bringing you more self-knowledge? Do you look forward to the Mondays? When did our livelihoods got reduced to jobs that are done by human-doings who are replaceabl...