Cherishing (what we have) Day

When we look around we see many successful people, lucky people and possibly more happy people. We humans have the sprit to excel over others and improve the surroundings around us. This attittude is very essential and has helped the civilisations grow.

But having said that, how many times do we stop and look around to appreciate what we already have. I am not refering to the daily prayer that some of us say to thank God for what we have. What I mean is genuinely taking time to reflect and relish and what is already with us.

A lot of people, when they fall sick or are in a life threatning situation, start wishing about just getting back to normal. That is when they appreciate more what they had. We do not have to be in a 'situation' to appreciate things / people around us.

We need to take a break from our daily routine, look around and within us. If I was asked, I will call it Cherishing (what we have) Day. Well, the name is not important but the idea is. A day like this will help us stop, reflect and appreciate what we already have and feel good about it.

So what all can we cherish? Absolutely anyone / anything.
Be it our parents, spouse, siblings, friends, the education we had, the fact that we have money to buy food, place to live, clothes to wear.

Since I came up with this idea, Cherishing day will be celebrated on the second Sunday of every October. For 2010, the date is 10th of October.

Hope nobody commercialises this idea by putting new greeting cards and gifts in the shops. But if someone does, I want my royalty.

On a lighter note

Found these bumper stickers in a mail sent by my friend.. some of them were really original and so I thought of 'immortalising' them on my blogspace. :) Enjoy !

Heaven is Where:
The Police are British,
The Chefs are Italian,
The Mechanics are German,
The Lovers are French
and
It's all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is Where:
The Police are German,
The Chefs are British,
The Mechanics are French,
The Lovers are Swiss
and
It's all organized by the Italians.

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Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake!

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Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln,
how was the play?

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Money isn't everything,
but it sure keeps the kids in touch.

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As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on 280 Interstate. Please be careful!"

"It's not just one car," said Herman. "It's hundreds of them!"

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I want to die while asleep like my grandfather,
not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car.

Slumdog Millionaire - the complete story ?

Nice reviews, lots of appreciation, many BAFTAs, Golden Globes and possibly few Oscars also. Was there something I missed. I do not think so. It is a matter of perspectives.

What I see here is that there are mainly three sets of people. First set consists of those who do not know much about India and the movie serves as an insight into the heart of a famous country. Second set consists of those who are originally Indian and are proud about the fact that there is a movie about India with Indian characters showcased across the world and being appreciated so much. Third set is of people like me who wonder why a movie that represents a dark and small side of India get so much admiration.

I saw the movie and was not particularly impressed by the plot and then later was surprised to see many technical glitches. I will not go in the details as it will make the post painfully long. Slumdog reminded me of a typical Bollywood movie where you do not have to put your brains in all the time. There was nothing that made me feel it was not from Bollywood. Danny Boyle sure can make a career in the Mumbai film industry. Few weeks back I had a discussion with a friend who mentioned how critics can be so biased in favor of sad and cruel depiction of India. That is true. The movie portrayed to be about a kid who wins a game and becomes a millionaire but truly it touches how a kid from slum has to live through communal riots, loss of family and his love. It also makes you wonder about the life on the roads and in slums of India.

Since the first set of people do not know much about India they perceive this to be the real and complete India. What an image change from a country of snake charmers to a country where kids have to survive through the brutalities of life. The image of progressive and emerging India, the IT hub, the strengthening economy goes for a toss. Good place to make a documentary but not a place to visit apart from Goa, of course.

The movie displays a sad and cruel side of India, which may be true but not the only truth. So when people who are not familiar with what happens in India see it they think India is as suffocating as depicted in the movie. But that is not the case this is just a part of India which is not great (something like parts of London where there is lot of mugging and crime). Then Indians especially have the responsibility of telling that slumdog is a small sad part of India and not represents the major country.

The dying Handwriting, or an Art in making ?

I was thinking about the days when we used to take the red and black striped Natraj pencil in our hands and fill pages of the notebook with assignments from the school. Sharpening the pencil was a task in its own. If the regular sharpener won't help I would take help of the blunted shaving blade to do the filing. All this for some good hand writing. We knew that handwriting was the first thing an examiner would notice about the student.

Then came the fountain pen. Since this was given to students in class four and above (if I remember correctly) it was a prestige thing. But writing was again a challenge with those occasional leakages and drippings of the pen, inside the pocket or within the bag. Or sometimes simply in the hands, on the notebook. Not to forget the broken nibs. This did not help to improve the handwriting aspect of it for a long time. Instead it worsened it. Some years later we were allowed to use the ball pens. We could again write at great speeds without fearing about a broken nib or a torn notebook. For me it had all the good features of the pencil and the fountain pen. If the ball pen was a Reynolds the written essays looked even better.

All the while in the school and to some extent in the college, stress was laid on the need for us to develop a good handwriting. Never did I think that if it was really needed after college.

Most of us do not use the pen more than for scribbling occasional notes in the office pad. In recent past I remember using a pen for longest duration while writing essays for some college application. Now since the many of the forms are available online I am not sure where else can we use the pen? Unless you are a creative person who likes to fill pages with some creative literature you may fall in my category of people loosing the need of a pen. Signing the bank cheques is what we still use the pen for - unless you always rely on electronic funds transfer.

So where does it all lead to? Technology advances very rapidly. Electronic notebooks may be available in all private schools in two decades or maybe in lesser time. Students will be completing their assignments and taking examinations on the same. On the e-notebook, all scribbled text will be converted to computer generated text. Writing on paper using a pen or pencil may become obsolete.

Now also we hardly use the pen outside our education years and with the advent of electronic notebooks in schools and colleges the pen, as a tool for writing, may become totally redundant. There may be a subject called Handwriting for initial classes where the students will be taught to write just as an art. Yes, after losing all its practical importance hand-written language will become an art, just like painting. Possibly any hand-written text from a known artist will be framed and hung in the living room :) .

Does this mean handwriting is dying? I feel, it is though I’m not sure how much time will this complete process takes. A guess - may be half a century. But good thing is that it is not dying because of any negligence or apathy. It is dying because we have evolved, moved ahead. It will still remain as an art and be practiced by enthusiasts for centuries.

Energy savers

Energy conservation and global warming are among the hottest issues that are being discussed throughout the world (especially the developed regions). 'Save energy' campaign are endorsed by various brands in their adverts. I can recollect Ariel's 'Turn to 30' campaign where they explained to the customers how washing clothes at 30 degree Celsius was as good as washing them at higher temperatures and also saved a lot of energy.

If you look around we have some 'environmentally' aware organisations but others are apparently not that responsible. Walking in the high street of Norwich I noticed that a lot of shops and showrooms leave all their lights on after they have closed for the day. I understand it could be part of their marketing strategy to attract customers with their products and services even after the shops are closed. But then we can have dimmer lights or partially lit showroom. What is the need to leave the entire shop so well lit as during normal hours? The Orange shop, for instance, has done a commendable job in this area. When the shop is closed they switch off their main lights and leave dimmer and apparently lower powered lights on. Serves their purpose of orange color lit shop and saves some energy.

Just a few weeks back there was a study in the UK(by BBC, if I remember correctly) that showed Energy companies in UK which tell the consumers to save electricity and gas are not themselves do not have Eco-friendly infrastructure. The thermal study of their office buildings showed lot of leakage of heat which if stopped properly by better planning and insulation can conserve lot of energy.

So apart from public awareness we also need co-operation and proactive action from commercial entities whether they are big corporates or small shops. That will complete the picture to some extent.

To Quote Eleanor Roosevelt

Something lighter.

I had read one quote long time back and was impressed. I did not remember the exact words and whom it was from. Since a few months I was trying to remember it and finally I got it today.

"Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. "
Eleanor Roosevelt
US diplomat & reformer (1884 - 1962)

Said with such brevity, it contains the guiding philosophy I try to have in my life. Of late I have observed that I have started to move from the first and second category to the third category of minds at workplace (though I still stick to first and second category in parallel).
So will be pasting a printout of this next to my workstation and hope it helps.

There are more quotations by Roosevelt many of which have been a part of our lives since yore and I never realised it. Some very inspiring.

Please share your favorite quotes, if possible. Its always a pleasure to read new ones.

The Universal reflection

I realized not very long back that I'm faced with few very fundamental (or not so fundamental) questions about our Universe and for whom I do not have answers.

How did the material of the Universe come into existence.. who/what created it?

Is there a boundary of this Universe.. and if there is, what lies beyond that boundary?

These questions have been answered vaguely by some eminent theorists and astronomers but the explanations don't seem to quell my curiosity.

If we talk about the origin of the Universe, we generally start with the Big Bang that happened some 15 billion years ago and try to reconstruct the events that followed. The Big Bang and the stellar turmoil that followed it are understandable. Many facts still need to be found, but more or less we have sketchy details.

I'm not worried about why the Big bang occurred. What intrigue me are the events before and long before the Big Bang. Where this 'universal' material come from? If Big bang happened 15 billion years ago, what was happening another 15 billions years ago.. or 100 billion years ago... or...........Billion billion years ago? Is there a cycle of events that starts with a big bang and finishes with the disintegration of celestial bodies? Even if there is such a cycle how and when did it all begin? -The question is especially for my atheist readers.

Now having decided that I do not have answers to any of these I try to think of existing 'configuration' rather than what happened in the past.

Even after much analysis I am not able to locate any tangible thing that is infinite (a quantity or set larger than any finite number). Some people may point at water drops in an ocean or sand grains in our deserts. These are huge numbers but still finite. Just that we do not know how to count accurately may not qualify something as infinite. So if we talk about stars in this Universe they may be finite too, just that we don't know the exact count.

Every finite thing, however big is enclosed by some boundary. What is the boundary in the case of our Universe? Where does it all end? And if there is a boundary what lies beyond that? Possibly some other Universe for which we have no evidence as yet. But then what is beyond that? We cannot go on for ever as no tangible thing is infinite. We may talk about new dimension in space and time which may help in arriving at some models, one of which says that if you keep moving in one direction in space for sufficiently long time (over billion light years) you will reach the starting point. Not a very well elaborated theory (this is where imagination can also have limits) but could lead to a possible answer in future.

These questions do not matter to us in our daily lives. We are born. We learn, earn, add value to the civilisation/society and die. Mankind progresses.

But when I ponder upon these vaguely answered questions I realise how insignificant can be our existence. Still we fight over 'petty' issues involving religion and race. This is another issue but I will refrain from discussing more about this now. With this post I just wanted to light a spark of curiosity in our materialistic minds.