As I saw it

If I was ever a journalist, I would have been busy chasing not breaking news, gossip or deadlines but PEWS - Positive Events With Substance and Possips (positive gossips like Nithya Shanti calls them). But I didn't become one as destiny had other plans through me. But if I were one, I would have been one like my role model - Steve Hartmann of CBS whose weekly programme - On The Road with Steve Hartmann is quite popular. Here is one of the two stories that I watched today that was really heart touching. There have been people who ask me how come you are talking of only stories that come in Readers' Digest and the one like this? How come you don't talk of stories from India. The fact is, I do talk about and share stories from India too. Just that till recently, they were hard to find given the traditional media's obsession with NEWS - negative events without substance and the lack of channels like The Better India. Just that like Ameen Haque quotes "Great stories ha...

It’s been a season of coincidences off late for me. I was conducting a session on Listening skills for a client the last module of which ended in the afternoon today where I had shared an ad of Red Label tea where they conducted a social experiment at the Churchgate station in Mumbai facilitating a conversation between an “ordinary” woman and a “sex worker”. I had shown that video as part of a set up towards discussing barriers to listening. That video experience landed very well with the audience as always but I would not have spoken about it here had it not been for this sheer “coincidence” where I come across this video in FB thanks to you Dola Dasgupta; less than an hour after my session got over. Thanks a lot for this. While it’s appalling and heart breaking to hear what self-righteous people will do to punish the “bad people” in the world, it was also inspiring and uplifting to listen to stories like that of Sandhya. I remembered this second line of a prayer: ...Ek noor te sab ...

Thanks a lot for this Mohor Sir. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 🙏 *An era is going to end* A generation is going to leave this world in the coming 10/15 years... This generation people are totally different... Those who sleep early at night, those who wake up early in the morning, those who go out for a walk in the morning. Those who water the courtyard and plants, those who pluck flowers for the worship of God, those who worship, those who Pray in the morning everyday. Those who talk to those who meet on the way, those who ask about their happiness and sorrow, those who seeing the elder join there hands folded, those who don't take food without praying. Fascinating on old phones, maintaining phone number diaries, talking with wrong number, reading newspaper twice to three times a day. Those who have great faith in God, those who fear society, those with old slippers, vests, glasses. Those who make pickle papad in summer, those who use homemade masala and always look for local tomatoes, eggplant, f...

I have never been a jewellery person. In fact I have never been excited by anything that glitters or shines and I don’t know why. But I have always loved beautiful ads even if I never end up buying the products they are marketing. I have been collecting and studying ads with a critical eye all my life and of course some of the best ads have been from the Tata group with Tanishq topping the charts. Here’s the latest one, not because of the jewellery which is placed very subtly towards the end in the form of those small rings but for the important point it makes: marriage is never easy especially today when more and more people are more bothered about their independence and the space they need and not knowing and understanding that a marriage needs mutual understanding, acceptance, compromises, sometimes sacrifices and still a care and affection for the other soul. And in that context, talking about marriage, why one wants to get married to a particular person and having an open conversa...

So what does an old joke you heard back in December 2013 have to do with something interesting in the present times? Well, a lot if you apply the lesson well. So, I was asked to help out with the viva voce of a group of students in the MA in emotional intelligence, life coaching and human relations course last weekend. The viva voce was centered around their lessons in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). Now, I have been unconventional all along. People close to me know that. So I created a bank of 20 questions and requested each participant to choose a question number randomly between 1 - 20 and then I would ask them that question and if need be a couple of follow up questions to test in depth their personal resonance with the concept as well as the practical application of that concept in their life. Sometimes I would ask a question to the entire group based on what a participant had said in the viva voce. This gave me further opportunities to test what else they knew as well as to s...

We are nothing more than just shifting shadows that temporarily interact in the unending spectrum of time. (On the barrage on the Ganga at Veerbhadra, Rishikesh on 15th October 2021.)

We all have a need to be needed even as it takes different forms, nuances, meaning and extent. I can surely say that about myself. It brings out the best in me. It answers our need for relevance, meaning and purpose. That’s fine and understandable. But then there’s a place and relevance for irrelevance as well in our lives. Here’s a nice article shared with me by a recently made friend who otherwise chooses to remain under the radar. Thanks a lot for this Bharat Raj. https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-stop-feeling-irrelevant-and-embrace-life-7e25487a39d

There is a rivulet exactly like this that flows in a place half way between my youngest paternal aunt’s place and our erstwhile ancestral home in Trivandrum. Me being someone who has always been compulsively drunk on nature and solitude would prefer to sit by its side for hours to watch the water go by making interesting rhythmic sounds and also look for fingerling fishes in the water as well as for the occasional jackfruit or mango or cashew nut leafs or even a bobbing mini coconut pod that would be carried downstream by the rivulet. Nostalgic. Thanks a lot for this photo Rajesh​​.

It’s a curiosity, wonder, admiration, fascination, confusion, disagreement, respect, love, reflection, experimentation, gratitude and more that started exactly 35 years ago on this day when I saw the black and white image of a little boy climbing up a tree to get a good view of something that was coming towards his village. I still remember that smile of a quiet satisfaction that spread on the little boy’s face as he caught sight of the man whose glimpse he wanted. It was a man dressed simply with a bunch of people walking along with him. Since then I have watched that movie 55 times and I have come back challenged with something more I need to still work inside myself. I still remember the first challenge I had to work on myself: stop lying; start telling the truth about myself and living the truth; however scary it was going to be. It still took me another 10 years before I could courageously start doing that. The next challenge that’s still ongoing is to learn to love. I have made s...

I have had many enduring love affairs in my life. They are of nature, stories, books, deep meaningful conversations, food, travel, silent retreats, movies, music and trains. And what if the last three come together in one movie? There is at least one other movie that combines all these but today I want to talk about one of them. My love affair with movies started almost 40 years ago when I must have been 6 or 7 years old. And guess which movie did I see first? Of course, Pather Panchali. It had to be. For me, it was meant to be. I still remember those grainy black and white images that I saw in a neighbour's house. Then about 28 years ago I saw a movie that captivated me to no end. It must have been in the months of May/ June/ July or August of 1993 when I saw Andha Naal (That Day) starring Sivaji Ganesan. I was completely enthralled and the grip still remains intact. I hadn't heard of the Rashomon effect till a few years ago but it was the movie which introduced me to the effe...

The way most of the grandmothers of my generation used to make their own beetle leaf (Paan) and spend their spare time in Kerala. Those days are numbered now. But nostalgic with the conversations and gup-shup I used to have with my own paternal grandmother when we used to visit Kerala every two years during our summer vacation in the 1980s and till January 2001 when I last met her.

Back in my childhood the only pirates I had read about were the ones in Asterix & Obelix and the ones called so by Captain Haddock in his adventures with Tintin. Even then it never occurred to me that I could see myself as a pirate like Captain Jack Sparrow on a ship 100 times the size of what you see in this one. My brother, our cousins and I were more than content in building these small paper boats and paper house boats and watch them drift away in the tiny rivulets near my grand parents’ home in Trivandrum. We’d watch them get stuck on tiny pebbles and other such things in the water and then see the gentle current unhinge them and take them away some more distance before we lost sight of them and went back to building some more of them without any attachment or sadness in our hearts of having lost our boat. We’d build small dams on these rivulets using rocks, mud, dirt, leaves and whatever else we could find around us. We’d then watch these boats twirl around the small pool tha...

I often caution about the Gestalt effect in my sessions. It’s the tendency of the human brain to jump to conclusions simply because it can’t tolerate gaps. And this gets further accentuated because the human brain can think faster than it can listen. Well, I was proven wrong with every conclusion that my mind was racing ahead with this story as it unfolded till it was hit with an anti-climax that I least expected. I least expected it because I had never heard of such a story and my mind hadn't thought of or imagined such a possibility. Awesome story!! Thanks a lot for this Shruti. Question: Can we all consciously work on delaying the circuit closure in our heads? Can we slow down enough to be therefore open to more possibilities such that our lives become better?