Saha Naa Vavatu

I am contemplating on a poem from Krishna Yajur Veda - the one known as Shanti mantra, starting with Om Saha naa vavatu. It is a prayer both the teacher and student offer together when they start the lessons for the day. It roughly translates to

May God protect both of us

May God nurture both of us

May we work together with great energy

May our study together be effective (May it bring internal and external light / illumination )

May there be no animosity among us

Let there be peace

What struck me was the last but one line which says "May there be no animosity among us". Being a coach by profession, I kept thinking deeply about this single line for more than a month. A coach has to make the coachee think in new ways, learn, grow to be more effective / powerful than the coach herself. There are a lot of opportunities for difference of opinions and disagreement along the way. To make someone think in new ways, the coach has to make them realise the limitation of their current thinking. To make them learn, the coach has to help them unlearn many things. The coach also has to push the coachee to actions outside their comfort zone. Three different dimensions where the coachee can hate the coach!!! When the coachee becomes more conversant than the coach herself, the coach has the potential to hate the coachee!! If the coach has to deal with more coachees concurrently, it gets more complex. Dynamics between the coachees, and relationship of each coachee with the coach (both reality as well as perceived by the coach & other coachees) can aggravate it further. The outputs produced and outcomes created by the coach and coachees can trigger additional conflicts too. Wow!!

Not only that!! Though coaching process appears to be linear, it is spiral; that is, challenging/realising the limitation of current thinking, teaching/learning new ways, pushing into/applying the new ways and excelling in the new ways happen multiple times in multiple planes! In fact it is not even a regular or smooth spiral rather it is a squiggle with a quite number of instances for the egos to clash and for animosity to build!! Hmm…

The other intriguing point is the story behind the verse!! The story goes like this - When Yajnavalkya disagrees with his Guru Vaishampayana, the guru asks Yajnavalkya to return all that he learnt from the guru. Yajnavalkya vomits his knowledge in the form of food; the other disciples take the form of tittri birds and consume the vomited food and then produce what is known as Tittirya Upanishad - a part of Krishna Yajur Veda. Yajnavalkya quits his Guru and goes on to produce Shukla Yajur Veda. 

I am no scholar who can say whether this particular poem was written by Yajnavalkya or his Guru Vaishampayana or his other disciples. But it is interesting to think about who may have written the poem or at least who may have given the idea for the poem considering the following clues!! Tittiris don’t fly though they are birds; that is, they are incapable of being a typical bird!! Tittiri birds consumed what Yajnavalkya vomited and produced the verse!! What they produced is tagged as "Krishna" and what Yajnavalkya produced is tagged as "Shukla". Krishna means dark and Shukla means bright!! Yajnavalkya was the one who had animosity with his guru, so did he think this way?? Did the Tittiri disciples observe the animosity between their Guru & their teammate and prayed that they should not end up in such a situation?? Is there a different way to interpret Tittiri instead of non-flying birds? It is equally interesting to think about the Guru… what did he mean by return all the knowledge? How much of it was taught and how much was from Yajnavalkya? Why did the Guru decide to give the copyright to his other disciples or allowed it to be called as Tittiriya Upanishad? Why is Yajnavalkya a as popular name as Vaishampayana? Interesting clues and questions…

Behind the "Experiment"

Since there are many enquiries about the reason behind my "experiments with colors", and when will the "experiment" end, I thought I will post a blog. Let me start with the note that it is just not an experiment for experiment sake. That is, I did not start this experiment just to see how society reacts to someone wearing black, what is the impact of wearing only back on myself etc. though I was observing all these and interpreting the data! It is an unemotional decision for an emotional cause!! It is unemotional decision as it is grounded on the theory that visual reminders that are "seen" everyday have better impact on the action. Emotional Cause was so strong to push me into this and I still have not resolved it.

To give a context to those who don’t know me well, who have not been following my earlier articles: I decided to wear only black, forego my habit of applying maruthani, make my reasonably long hair to shoulder length. (Just "black only" became more visible and became more popular as an experiment, however. It is interesting to observe that even those commented on all three, did not/could not connect these three!!) It is exactly one year and two months since I started this - on 25th February 2017. The state of Tamilnadu was so pathetic at that time (it still is, unfortunately!). It became so obvious that there were no leaders to think about welfare of the state. It is not that we had leaders before and we lost them recently. It is just that, it came out in the open and stood as the most hurtful ugly truth. It felt as if I am living in a soak pit / septic tank! I can literally feel the smell on my body even now as I write this sentence. The pain was/is unbearable. On one end, I am what I am because of this country and on the other end, I felt completely let down by the country for all the genuineness I had!!

When I reflected back on what I could have done differently to contribute to a better state, it felt like a problem I do not own sometimes and felt like a problem I should have owned sometimes. It felt like a solvable issue sometimes and a unconquerable monster sometimes. Sure, I was a sincere citizen who voted in all elections, who voted for good candidates only after careful background check (they did not win in most cases though), who travelled 600 kilometres just to vote, who paid tax promptly, who did not pay any attention to the tax exemption clauses because I thought tax was to help build the nation and getting exempted felt incorrect. But I was also a person who had an opportunity to be part of administrative system and political system that we blame today but did not take the opportunity in the pursuit of my personal choices and preferences. How can I blame a system that I did not contribute to fix or create properly? The counterargument that ran in my mind was civilization functions at the very premise of exchange of services - that I contribute to the society in some way and enjoy the benefit of being in the society in some other way. Where did it go wrong in that case? 

The more and more I thought about it, it is just not politicians but it is the way the whole system is working today. It is just that I was in a protected environment I did not get exposed to the ugliness of what was happening… I was ignorant… and the ignorance was torn… the filters were broken… Sure I was seeing many gaps in the system earlier too but they were so mild compared to what I could see now… corruption in every possible aspect of life - starting from a bus conductor charging luggage fare to illiterate women but not charging literates for the same sized or even bigger sized bags, electricity board employees charging extra money per card as collection fees while government is paying them for playing the role and so on… It felt as if I am a stranger in my own country

Dwelling in the past too much is not a good idea especially when you know there is nothing much you can learn from it. So I thought instead of thinking about what went wrong, why it went wrong, I should focus on what I can make right even if it is only a small contribution. It would be like adding fresh water to our sewage ridden rivers… when we start, filth will be more than the fresh water and the river will be dirty; but seeing a few of us doing, more people will start adding more and more fresh water, at some point the filth will be less than the fresh water and our river will become usable again is my logic. I don’t know if I will live long enough to see that tipping point but I wanted to try.

The next dimension I considered is about my starting point: I did not/ do not think that becoming a politician is the solution because people in politics are only a representative sample of  the entire population, we need to clean the whole population with both bottom up and top down approaches. Since, I don’t have the circle of influence to start top-down, I will / can go bottom up.

I also realised that there are many things that hurt us badly but in the run mill of everyday life we forget the hurt and go with the flow. I did not want my pain and my urge to act on it to be forgotten. I needed a strong enough reminder that will make me never forget. As a person, I never like to be generalised or constrained. A constraint that is so obvious and make it easy for others to generalise will help me remember it, even if it is not every day, at least every week. I chose to wear only black, forgo maruthani and cut my hair short - this is how my "Operation Black" started and as described in my previous posts, it is a powerful tool - I am reminded constantly and continuously.

Last year, I did not know what to do and where to start but I knew I have to start somewhere. Now, I am working towards making a positive change to the morale and morality of younger minds. When I touch a few communities through these young minds and there is evidence that the communities turned around I will change to colours… Sure, there are stories of Asifas, Hasinis & Anitas and stories of Nirmalas to make dent in the confidence and hope but there are also Malu Sheikas, Rifath Sharooks, and Preethi Srinivasans who build it back. With a lot of ups & downs and mood swings, my Operation Black is going on.

Looking forward to all your support and contribution so that I can change to other colours… Your action or contribution need not be same as mine… the questions in front of us are

• How can we make a mentally, ethically, physically, economically fit/sound society and how can we make a sustainable culture of integrity
• How can we create a safe environment for humans and other lives and how do we leave a better planet for tomorrow

I see more and more people are stepping in to make it cleaner and answer the above questions in their own way. I am hoping to change to other colours before I leave the planet!!

Returning after the first quarter!

Thank you readers & friends for the inquiries on new blog posts rather no blog posts!   

My blogging journey started in 2008 with no serious plan to be a blogger. 2008, 09 and 10 were early years where I was learning what to write and how to write; I would not count them for my reflection now. Though I have written 173 articles so far, intermittent silence is not new!! I had  two breaks in 2011 and one in 2013. But after that there were no months without at least one article!!  But, 2017 has been an interesting year in my blogging career! The number of posts touched a new low - just 14 for 12 months! 2018 is even more special that one whole quarter (forgive me for the "whole-quarter" oxymoron) has gone without any article!! This is the longest break after my interest in writing picked up and my reader circle started increasing… Looks like I am in a reflection point!!

In end of 2016, I declared that I will not be able to write during the rest of the year in "எழுதாமல் போவேனோ" (How could I go without writing) expressing the time pressure and my conflicting need to write so many topics but ended up writing two more articles before the close of the year. 2017 started well with decent number of articles in Jan and then started limping along! I replayed 2017 & 2018 in my mind to see any relationship between blogs and the other potential influencers - my emotions, time pressure, access to input for blogs (or my triggers), discussions with my readers (I realise that my discussions with you are always - at least 99% of the time - offline and not thru the blogger site, hmm… interesting…)  and my writing in other forums / forms. 

Here are my discoveries or lessons that may be useful to you

• Though 2016 made certain parts of my brain/heart dead, early 2017 took me to extreme anger!! I felt insulted, awkward and ugly by what was happening around.Typically, anger or dissatisfaction pushes one to action or writing; but extreme anger makes one completely numb with no action and dampens the urge to write looks like!! So it is better to bring down the dissatisfaction levels to be within creative discontent thresholds :-)
• After getting exposed to very strong triggers, the usual ones lose their ability to be triggers. After "இனியொரு விதி செய்வோம்" and what followed, it took greater effort to start writing again
• Categorising the thought process as positive or negative can be restricting / constraining! A tough/hard article may push people to take action whereas a feel-good article make them feel nice but may not make them think or act! To make people think or act or feel good are all the writer's responsibilities but not necessarily by the same article. So, there is nothing positive or negative about an article!!
• Sometimes, life could be hard with a little or no time for what you like to do. In spite of that, it is better to allocate a few hours a month for the things you like. If not, you may even forget what you like to do :-) and you may even feel that you are not good at what you like :-) :-) After all, சித்திரமும் கைப்பழக்கம் செந்தமிழும் நாப்பழக்கம்! Practice makes one perfect - at least feel perfect ;-)
• Irrespective your life situation, there are people who look up to you. Your output could be one of the few things they are counting on in their lives!! Satisfaction comes when you serve them!!
• On the contrary, there will be readers to bash you :-) Satisfaction in such situations is from their attention & lessons from their inputs and not from their expression :-) :-)
• Sharing the backlog (of blogs to be written) with others may not be the best strategy! Sometimes, not speaking about the product features before making them results in better products!! hmm… interesting…
• On the contrary, some blogs are write-ups of profound conversations. It is important to be surrounded by thought leaders and more importantly have intellectually provoking conversations with them. It is called "Sat-Sang". Sat-Sang need not be spiritual - what matters is the "Sat"!!

With these reflection, I am hoping to be more regular with writing… being an introvert interested in sharing/giving, writing is a better option for me… with readers from India, USA, Russia, Canada, France, Ukraine, Germany, UK, Indonesia, Australia and a few other countries interested in my blogs, it is better for me to respect their interest…