Excerpt from the Speech given by Chetan Bhagat at Symbiosis

Life is one of those races in nursery school where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.

One thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends.Do we really need to get so worked up? It's ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.

"Don't be serious, be sincere."

Start Enjoying from moment................

globalised export of Indian spirituality

The 11-19 July days have been indescribable in words. Attended my first Ramkatha live, an introspection for me at least. Lots of seeds planted in the brain which will bloom into flowering plants whenever appropriate weather and supporting conditions arrive.

The additional comfort and pleasure comes from the fact that each day more than ten thousand seekers - young and old alike turned up to listen to the humour filled and amazingly articulated oration of Moraribapu. I wouldn't even attempt to summarize what the moral of the Ramkatha is because its not supposed to be summarized, its just beyond anyone’s ability to do so. Its expanded and convoluted meanings are supposed to be experienced rather than explained. I would point other seekers to summarized translation in English from each day from a very learned scholar Shri Naginbapa here. The notable surprise being a very few British Indians would be actually understanding the language of the oration as it was in Gujarati dialect. God bless the organizers for a very gigantic and noble cause, which millions like me benefited in person and across satellite broadcasts.

The clapping and the reciting of age-old sayings reverberating from tens of thousands beneficiaries lifted the Wembley Arena with oceanic tsunami each day. Renowned artists from back home made the occasion musical each day and sang and played straight from the heart. Notable ‘celebrities’ from different walks of the society made their presence felt e.g. David Cameron praising Indians for their law abidingness, least criminal record and close family relations. The part that most hit me from his well delivered speech was him looking up to Indian way of life as an Ideal and that’s where he wishes Britain should move towards. I hope it’s not just A rhetoric to please the audience at hand and a strong belief.

Another such experience from history pages was advanced course at Bangalore, AOL Ashram. The serenity of the place still comes to the head. I think it’s good that spiritual leaders are receptive of the 21st century needs and have evolved for it. Everyone who can make a difference, is trying to. There are young people in their entourage who assist them in modern day technology dependencies like media and internet. All the notable people would have a website with lots of information on them now, this to me as great step and building block for a better tomorrow.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so will try and put together a few pictures of the whole event in this weekend. The whole week was very busy, with a lot of patchy showers throughout the week, just walked home in the midst of one such shower, staring in amazement at the fully coloured rainbow.

Colourful

stories, stories and more stories!

Although the title sounds more like an irritated response of civilians to justifications given by their political representatives, but I do not wish to elaborate in that direction. After the assistance to a marathon cooking session for roomies, was awake early in the morning. In anticipation of what promises to be a historic Wimbledon final, there’s a bit of time to collate a few thoughts. I’ve followed a strict routine, since a few weeks now, of NOT being glued to computer screen during weekdays post work hours. This has been working well, I think. But conversely, weekends have been more or less lazy surfing.

I stumbled upon very old interest in Panchtantra fables. Wheels of time bring back old interests and hobbies. I am sure that the moral perception of my demographic generation was built by television series’ on early nineties. Ramayana & Mahabharata televised with special interest and nudging of late PM, Rajiv Gandhi was a very thoughtful step. Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle book and the legendary Sher Khan voiced by Nana Patekar. Sunday morning Chitrahaar and Disney were as much a family affair as Balaji soaps of the day.

The reason I’m so with the impacts of those TV series’ in the thinking of the generation is because those are the only way I can visualize those characters. Arun Govil was the Ram, Deepika Chikhaliya was Sita and the great Dara Singh as Hanuman. Doesn’t matter how many re-makes people make, these won’t get erased from the head. Same goes for Panchtantra short stories, Malgudi Days and the likes.

The weirdly interesting fact is after a long time when you read the story, atleast I feel you settle upon an evolved understanding of the simplicity of the intent. Like the main characters are mostly animals and they talk of *Dharma* (the moral conduct). These may be evolved folk lore passed on to generations after generations in vernacular dialects. Would suggest to go through a few of them for sure.

Childish

Murray vs Roddick

This is my first post from the office; it’s a Friday evening when most of the office is in the Wimbledon mania. Roddick and Murray are battling it out on the Wimbledon centre court turf. Roddick's just snatched the third set after a gruelling tie breaker.

Lots of cheers in and around the office as most of them stuck to their screens on BBC Live sports streaming site. The way Federer's played this tournament is just un-imaginable and shows how great he is. Not a set down throughout to the final. For Murray fans, its good if he loses the semi's today rather than being annihilated on Sunday at the final till the inevitable happens and Roger creates history with his grand-slam grabs.Will leave for home now among the ooh's and aah's. By the time I reach home, we'll know who's going down on Sunday :)

Ciao

Feeling Hot Hot Hot!!

The soothing sunshine has moved on to become scorching heat. Underground temperatures inches above the ground, hence authorities have put up signs to carry a bottle of water during day time. It's slightly odd for countries and designs which are created to use as much heat as from the atmosphere to switch sides and try and cool things down! Global warming is hitting us in un-imaginable ways.

I am reminded of floods in Rajasthan, which houses largest desert of India. News channels later reported a few people dying because they didn't know swimming. How do you expect people who've never seen so much water to know swimming? Another scene from Gods must be crazy 2, where Xi's kids fall into a tank of water, and are quite thrilled by it. APJ Abdul Kalam, our most respected President writes in his book that a school girl in Bengal asked him a very interesting question. She said every year there are many people suffering because of floods on Bengal and many other people suffer because of droughts, why not take all the water from big rivers to the desert?? Innocent but truly intriguing. River interlinking projects has had many for and against debates. China AFAIK has implemented it fir Yangtze, but it caused water borne epidemics to spread, which later deemed the interlinking as not feasible.

We learn from our mistakes. Concorde being an ideal example. Man wants to fly in supersonic speeds. I'm wondering whether BA would have hit such huge losses if they wouldn't have lost many million on the failed Concorde project. The thirst of the superlative doest eludes the human brain.

Any ways football continues to give me my share if perspiration and sound sleep. Williams’s sisters again reach Wimbledon final proving that it is their family championship tournament. Saw the whole TV series Chanakya, which I was very impressed with. He was the visionary teacher of Chandragupta Maurya who was the first king to unite India as a country as early as 320 BC. The series shows many interesting facets of the then society, Alexanders invasion and lots of other internal fighting’s. Many things to say regarding those, but am sleepy so...

Later