The spot of ink!

"We dress for the jobs we want, forgetting that most salaries are tailored to afford dressing for the jobs we have."

From the start of Friends' Society (FS, more than 16 years ago), I've been interviewing (~observing) people, at times to decide if I wanted them with me in FS, to at times, did I want to collaborate with them or be associated in any ways. As I became a professional, these observations started in the form of formal interviews.

I am sure, the reverse is true as well, I've been observed, interviewed, interrogated, so on and so forth.. But this is to share the story from this side of the table!

Recently, for a partner organization, I agreed to conduct some interviews. It was a position lying vacant for more than six months. The hiring manager was very particular of what he wanted - the role being a mix of being a leader, but being able to perform the most routine tasks with efficiency. To find this, a tough one. I had already interviewed and rejected at least a two dozen candidates for the role.

So here I was, waiting for the candidate, completely unsure of what to expect. The application was pretty interesting, two separate letters, one Resume, and a brief profile by the coordinator who had recommended her. I was told that she was hand picked by her Fellowship Team (the Gandhi Fellowship) and there-after nominated to us for this specific role.

I'm amazed, an interview that was meant to be just another interaction, has left me with lingering thoughts for more than a week. For the first time, I've broken the professional norm to reach out to the candidate post the interview, and I wonder, what was it that got me so engaged?

I am a person who would not remember the colour of my clothes, let alone what I wore yesterday or day before. But, I have a clear memory of what this candidate wore for her interview: a white Kurta, with a deep black ink spot on it. It defied every norm of the formal world. You are supposed to dress up for an interview in your finest, at least that's what a career advisor advised me once. First impression is the last impression, ensure that you put forth your best foot forward. Remember, the words are to be calculated, speak if you know, be polite, respond affirmatively, so on and so forth. And contrary to all of this, here was a candidate, who was absolutely reckless, rather careless. She walked in the interview without a hint of being bothered about the ink, or her (over?) confidence.

To my own surprise, for someone with an OCD for perfection, none of the "out of norm" things bothered me. Rather, I noticed most of it, but all of it went unnoticed. Unnoticed, until I read a buzzfeed article on the millennials and the poor choices of pretense!   

And bang, I realized why this specific interview had left it's lasting impression. Since having joined the corporate world, I have been surrounded by people who consciously dress, make studied choices of what to speak, what to think, what to eat, what to drink.. At times, a lot of it is superficial, done for the sake of it: smiles for being professional, hand shakes for being courteous, eating for sake of networking, etc. It's always about making an impression and ensuring it fits the norm, more so during interviews, because, first impression is the last impression!

In all this artificial-ness, this interview was a breath of fresh air. Here was someone without any pretense, without a showcase, without putting up fronts. She was candid in her responses, brutal in her assessment, and raw in her approach. It stood out more in contrast of the corporate office where the interview was being conducted. The raw-ness was completely out of context, and it stuck through!

While today's millennials pursue jobs to get their millennium dreams come true, a few programs try to enable the human instincts and utilize this young talent for nation building. This candidate was recommended to the organization by one such fellowship, the Gandhi Fellowship! And, It seems the candidate I met was not an exception, but part of an exceptional cohort. In literal sense, I could feel the rough cut diamonds were being crafted through the experience of their fellowship (evident from the alumni profiles on their website).

I've hired Teach for India Fellows based on just a call or even based on just reviewing their Resume, and have never had to regret a bit. It seems, Gandhi Fellowship is going to be in the same league!

Gen. Romeo Dallaire

This is the article "The General and the Genocide" by Terry Allen, published in Amnesty NOW magazine in winter of 2002. I am not sure about copyrights, but I could not stop myself from uploading it on the blog... It speaks much more about my last post.

(26 July 1994, Kigali, Rwanda: Peter Hansen (third from left), Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, is briefed by Major-General Romeo Dallaire (left), Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR). Second from left is Shahryar M. Khan, Special Representative of the Secretary-General. (UN Photo #186761))

"

Gen. Romeo Dallaire defied U.N. orders to withdraw from Rwanda. Without the authority, manpower, or equipment to stop the slaughter, he saved the lives he could but nearly lost his sanity.

***

In an indifferent world, Gen. Romeo Dallaire and a few thousand ill-equipped U.N. peacekeepers were all that stood between Rwandans and genocide. The Canadian commander did what he could-did more than anyone else-but he sees his mission as a terrible failure and counts himself among its casualties.

After a 100-day reign of terror, some 800,000 Rwandan civilians were dead, most killed by their machete-wielding neighbors. Dallaire had sounded the alarm. He'd begged. He'd bellowed. He'd even disobeyed orders. "l was ordered to withdraw...by [then-U.N. Sec. Gen. Boutros] Boutros Ghali about seven, eight days into it. .. and I said to him, 'I can't, I've got thousands' -by then we had over 20,000 people-'in areas under our control,"' Dallaire said in a recent interview with Amnesty Now. The general's hands, always moving, rose beside his face as if to block the memories. "The situation was going to shit....And, I said, 'No, I can't leave."'

The U.N. had sent Dallaire and 2,600 troops, mainly from Bangladesh and Ghana, to Rwanda to oversee a peace accord between the region's two main groups, Hutus and Tutsis. But on April 6,1994, eight months after the peacekeepers arrived, a plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, both Hutus, was shot down over Kigali, the Rwandan capital. Hutu-controlled radio blamed the Tutsis and immediately began calling for their extermination, as well as for the murder of moderate Hutus considered friendly to the Tutsi "cockroaches." The broadcasts gave details on whom to kill and where to find them.

Dallaire and his troops were about to become spectators to genocide. As bodies filled the streets and rivers, the general, backed by a U.N. mandate that didn't even allow him to disarm the militias, pleaded with his U.N. superiors for additional troops, ammunition, and the authority to seize Hutu arms caches. In an assessment that military experts now accept as realistic, Dallaire argued that with 5,000 well-equipped soldiers and a free hand to fight Hutu power, he could bring the genocide to a rapid halt.

The U.N. turned him down. He asked the U.S. to block the Hutu radio transmissions. The Clinton administration refused to do even that. Gun-shy after a humiliating retreat from Somalia, Washington saw nothing to gain from another intervention in Africa, and the Defense Department, according to a memo, assessed the cost of jamming the Hutu hate broadcasts at $8,500 per flight-hour.

Dallaire's pain is palpable as he remembers his yearlong mission. His words, raw as a wound, make a grim contrast to the carefully parsed regrets of the world leaders who actually had the power to stop the genocide but turned away. He has just spoken at an Amnesty-sponsored conference in Atlanta on law and human rights, and he looks tired- older than his 56 years. His eyes are close set, raptor-like, but his gaze is warm and direct. "When you're in command, you are in command," he says. "There's 800,000 gone, the mission turned into catastrophe, and you're in command. I feel I did not convince my superiors and the international community," he says. "I didn't have enough of the skills to be able to influence that portion of the problem."

Three days after the Rwandan killings began, with Dallaire's troops running short of rations as well as ammunition, about l,000 European troops arrived in Kigali. The general watched with frustration as the well-armed, well-fed Westerners landed and left again as soon as they'd evacuated their own nationals. Then, after Hutu militias killed ~o Belgian paratroopers, Brussels withdrew all of its peacekeepers (the only significant Western contingent and the only one that was properly equipped) from the U.N. mission. Dallaire's depleted force was on its own.

Even as the already desperate situation worsened, Washington called for a complete withdrawal of peacekeepers. On April 21, after international pressure, the U.S. agreed to a limited force and supported a Security Council resolution slashing the force to 270 peacekeepers. U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright accurately described the tiny force as enough "to show the will of the international community."

Remarkably, with scant resources-indeed, with only one satellite telephone for the whole mission-Dallaire was able to maintain safe areas for those 20,000 terrorized Rwandans. But he could do little else, and the killing continued.

Eight years later, in daylight and in dreams, Dallaire still hears the cries of wounded children, the weeping of survivors, the voice of the man who died at the other end of a phone line as the general listened. He still can't escape the smell of death, the memories of hacked-off limbs scattered on the ground, and worst of all, he says, the "thousands upon thousands of sets of eyes in the night, in the dark, just floating and looking back" at him in anger, accusation, or eternal pleading.

With counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder, and a handful of pills a day, he is working to use his experiences to prevent another Rwanda. But the baleful ghosts remain, and the book he is writing about the slaughter is rousing them. "As I go over what I have written," he says, "more and more I see lost opportunities; more and more I see errors because of lack of intelligence or simply from mis-assessing a situation. I'd take a decision on the phone, and people would die within seconds. I was getting pressure from everybody not to use my soldiers." His voice fades to a whisper . "It's horrific because every day decisions were taken on life and death. Every day. Real people, real people."

We are sitting in a dark taxi and I can't see his face. He maybe remembering when the Belgian senate blamed him "at least partially" for the deaths of its paratroopers. Or he may be listening to his Rwandan voices. As we near his hotel, he says, "l always have people with me. Like tonight, I'll ask the guys at the desk to just check on me because I'm not supposed to be alone because it can go to extremes."

Dallaire says that about 20 percent of troops and humanitarian workers on missions like his suffer much the same thing, as do 5 to 10 percent of diplomats. "They are casualties," he tells me. "High suicide rates, booze, drugs, pornography, finding themselves on skid row."

When Dallaire returned to Canada from Rwanda, he tried to drink himself into a stupor of forgetfulness. He raged at his family. He tried to kill himself In 2000 a few months after he was medically released from the Canadian Forces, he was found passed out drunk under a park bench in Hull, Quebec. "He was curled up in a ball," photographer Stephane Beaudoin, alerted by a police report, later told the Ottawa Citizen. "I never took a photo. I felt sad for him. I thought, 'This man has done so much for us. How did he come to be here?"'

Dallaire's reluctance to give himself credit for what he managed to accomplish certainly contributed to his breakdown. Asked directly, he admits saving people, "sometimes by the thousands, you know, just by giving appropriate orders to my troops." Past and present merge as Dallaire remembers one day when he, his driver, and aide-de-camp "were making our way through a large population move in the hills. It was raining and cold because it's fairly high up. And there this woman was, right there by the road, and people are walking around her, and she is giving birth. And so, as we're inching, the child came out. The woman, already emaciated, sort of picked up the child and then fell back. So we jumped out, you know, because nobody was stopping. The mother was dead. We tried to wrap the baby up as best we could, brought it back, and then other people sorted it out."

But Dallaire quickly returns to the people he failed to save and to the limits of his skills. "Thirty years ago when I joined the army, if somebody mentioned human rights, we immediately equated them with communists," Dallaire now says. The former career officer has come to believe that, along with the ability to attack and kill, soldiers must learn peacekeeping, negotiation, and human rights preservation. That belief is reflected in the war stories he chooses to tell. Rather than tales of derring-do, he offers anecdotes that plumb the moral ambiguities of modern soldiering.

"A young officer is entering a village," Dallaire recounts. "The village has been wiped out except for a few women and children still alive [in a ditch filled with bodies]. There is 30 percent AIDS in that area. There is blood all over that place, no rubber gloves. Does the platoon commander order his troops to get in there, into the ditch risking AIDS, and help?" The question, it turns out, is not an exercise in armchair ethics. "When I asked the platoon commanders, those from 23 of the 26 nations that sent forces said they would order their troops to keep marching. Commanders from three nations- Holland, Ghana, and Canada-were saved the complexity of the question because by the time they turned around their troops were already in the ditch."

Dallaire continues, his hands alive, his eyes still, the Gallic-tinted accent of his native Quebec growing more pronounced. "Or a soldier is watching two girls, 13 or 14, both with children on their backs, with a crowd spurring on the one with a machete to kill the other girl because she is different. What does the soldier do? Shoot the girl with the machete, possibly killing her baby? Shoot into the crowd? Do nothing?"

"Should I myself," he asks, "negotiate with a militia commander with gore on his shirt and his hands from the morning's work, making a joke, to get him to withdraw his gang so I can move thousands of people [to safety] Or do I pull out my pistol and shoot him between the eyes?"

"The corporal," says; Dallaire, returning to the soldier watching the machete-wielding girl, "tried to negotiate his away through the crowd to stop the attack but headquarters in his home country ordered him not to intervene. That corporal is now an injured ex-corporal," Dallaire says, and like the ex-general himself, a casualty of post-traumatic stress.

For all the blame he heaps on himself, Dallaire also faults the strictures that bound him in 1994 and that will have to change if the world is to avoid another Rwanda. The institution of peacekeeping missions, he says, is deeply flawed. Even if he had received the political and humanitarian training the job demanded, the U.N.'s rules would have robbed him of the ability to use his military skills. With thousands of civilians begging for protection as they were hunted down in their homes and churches,

"I could tell [the peacekeepers] to do things," he says, "but they would check with their country. The troops are under my operational command, but they remained under the ultimate command of their nations, so. . . if a national capital feels that a [rescue] mission is unwarranted, or too risky, or something, the soldiers can turn around and say, 'No, I can't do it."'

Asked to name one of the countries that ordered its soldiers not to move injured Rwandans to safe areas, even when Dallaire told them to, the general hesitates for a long time before saying, "Bangladesh." It was the Ghanaians, he adds, who performed most humanely.

(Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali made a visit to Nyarubuye, Rwanda. He talked to survivors, and visited the church where hundreds of Rwandans had been massacred the year before. (UN Photo #187139 by C. Dufka) )

With the exception of the Red Cross, the non-governmental organizations were clueless, Dallaire says. "When they started sending people in, they kept sending me assessment teams. Assessment teams! 'Listen, I don't need a goddamn assessment team. I need food, medical supplies, water for 2 million people, and I've got to feed them twice a day. Get the shit in here. We'll sort out the distribution.' "

If Dallaire's anger at those who did too little is fierce, his fury at world leaders who feigned ignorance and did nothing is white hot. He cannot forget, for example, that President Clinton stopped for a few hours in Kigali in 1998, after it was all over, and with the engines of Air Force One running, said he was sorry; he didn't know.

Or that David Rawson, the U.S. ambassador to Rwanda at the time of the mass murders, waited a month before declaring a "state of disaster," and then dismissed the slaughter as "tribal killings." Calling what happened in Rwanda "tribal" conflict made intervention seem futile. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Prudence Bushnell, who had pushed hard for the U.S. to "neutralize" Hutu hate radio, later explained to author Samantha Power, "What I was told was, 'Look, Pru, these people do this from time to time."'

The designation of "tribal" conflict also nicely avoided the word "genocide." Had a major power or the U.N. invoked that term in time, all states that were signatories of the 1948 convention on genocide would have been obliged to condemn the slaughter and act to stop it.

Avoiding the word did not however avoid the fact. "They knew how many people were dying," Dallaire says, no matter what word they used. "The world is racist," he says bitterly. ,' "Africans don't count; Yugoslavians do. More people were killed, injured, internally displaced, and refugeed in 100 days in Rwanda than in the whole eight to nine years of the Yugoslavia campaign," he says, and there are still peacekeeping troops in the former Yugoslavia while Rwanda is again off the radar. f "Why didn't the world react to scenes where women were held as shields so nobody could shoot back while the militia shot into the | crowd?" he asks. "Where... boys were drugged up and turned into child soldiers, slaughtering families?...Where girls and women were systematically raped before they were killed? Babies ripped out of their stomachs? ...Why didn't the world come?"

Dallaire supplies his own answer: "Because there was no self-interest....No oil. They didn't come because some humans are [considered] less human than others."

Nonetheless, Dallaire still calls himself an optimist. Despite its troubles, he believes that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which operates out of Arusha, Tanzania, "is one of those great potential instruments of the future." His own job, he says, won't be done until the tribunal finishes its investigation. "My duty as force commander who ultimately became head of mission will not end until the Arusha Tribunal says it doesn't need me to testify anymore, or when the tribunal decides to hold me accountable."

There is virtually no chance the international court will blame him. The question is whether he'll one day stop blaming himself. "The work I'm doing helps," he says, referring to his campaign to stop the use of children as soldiers. Counseling seems to be helping, too.

"One day after a couple hours of therapy," he says, "we're sitting there, and, you know, to-ing and fro-ing. I all of a sudden felt joy in my stomach. You know when you feel happy in your tummy? And I had not felt that in the seven years since Rwanda. All of a sudden I said, 'jeez, I feel, I feel better."' Dallaire stopped, tilted his head as if to listen to his own words and broke into a smile as sweet as warm winter sun. "My therapist let me savor that-and then we talked. And at the end of it, I said, I think I have moved from survival to living. And maybe to getting better."

The world, he knows, has not. Without the political will and institutional mechanisms to stop it, "Rwanda" will happen again.

(Terry J. Allen is editor of Amnesty Now. She has reported for numerous U.S. and international newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Globe, American Prospect, and Salon.)

The last sentence of this article summarizes the whole story of powerplay!

The Minister who offers rides…

This is a post from when I was in Dharamshala... No clue how I left it without posting...

Minister for International Relations of a government… Wow, what a position, the pomp, the limelight, the fan following (this might not be true, cos it is usually the “chamcha” following)… Anyway, the ministers accompanied with a cavalcade of cars, body guards, secretaries and the public. That’s what a minster is, and what does such a minister has to do with offering car rides? I had heard that J.R.D. Tata used to do that in Mumbai, offering car rides to random people. So did a few other industrialists and a few other common men. But what about a minister?

Yeah, I met a minister who did that. Not only she did it, but it was a gesture on her own, not on the part of our request or our begging. The minister I am speaking about is the Minister for Information and International Relations of the Central Tibetan Administration. She was on her way to Delhi, and was supposed to take the same flight as that of Abhay. When she came to know of it from her Secretary, she offered to give him a ride in her car, with her, to the airport. When it was not only Abhay, but me too accompanying him, it was not a wicked smile of invasion of privacy that greeted me, rather I was welcomed with a warm smile full of humility. In our ride of about 45 minutes, the minister spent most of her time speaking with the driver, rather, “conversing” with the driver. Yeah, she was letting him speak and listening to what he had to say. She laughed on his jokes, and expressed concern on his concerns. She spoke with us as well, apologizing for speaking in Tibetan with the driver and her accomplice.

It was beyond my contemplation to believe this… A lady who had represented His Holiness in London, and held high offices, was right in front of us, being an epitome of humility!

Am I bragging so much cos I was with the minister and want to highlight that? Nopes, this is a testimony to the (expected) reality of our politicians!

Zakir+Shivkumar

Feeling like a celebrity.. My birthday celebrations have already started! After the launch of Friends' Society 10 years back, my birthday has been dissolved in the FS celebration. This year, when I am away from Pune, it seems, the birthday is back on track!

With a couple of friends joining me yesterday night for "Save Earth" hour, they surprised me by gifting three bottles of "Grey Goose." (One of the best I've had...) The whole day was celebration, started wiht lunch with Ahmed (the Iraqi journalist), and then visit to his studios, and then the dark evening with friends! Today, I woke up pretty late, and had my personal "official birthday" plans! A gift I gifted myself, a ticket to Zakir Hussain and Shivkumar Sharma concert at Duke!


Exhilarating... Breathtaking... Elemental... Pure... Erotic...

All the adjectives will short fall of describing the concert experience. Have you ever forgotten breathing, and then suddenly realized that you need to breath? have your eyes been so concentrated on what you are seeing that you literally have lost vision beyond the focal point? Have your ears been in resonation with what they are listening, so much so that there's no other voice heard? Have the every cell in your body vibrated such that you can feel those vibrations in your blood stream?

I experienced all of this today.. Much more.. Tabla has always attracted me, rather, as a child, I had tried my hands on it too.. Needless to say, it was a big failure, but my ears loved the rythm. Since then I had adream, a dream to see Zakir Hussain live. While in Pune, he had visited the city once, but the expensive passes were out of reach, and the the massive crowds scared me off. Here, in an auditorium of a 1000 people, sitting in seat K-104, I was living one of my childhood dreams!

Birthday ho, toh aisa... Let's see, what next 3 days have to bring.. [gifts, chocolates, any and everything is welcome.. ;)]

Costa Rica

I am off.. Flying on the wings of my dreams.. Traveling back in time.. To meet an old friend of mine.. Excitement in the air..

Annika and Rachel in San Francisco, 2004.. Rachel is whom I am visiting..!!

Bye.. I'll catch you all once I am back..

The pioneer...

This had to be uploaded.. I still cannot believe that it happened! An opportunity to interact with the one, who has created an "atypical" system in the "typical" world.. An opportunity to hear him, not from miles apart, but from a distance not more than two meters.. Sitting in the VIP seat, right across from where he was speaking..

Today, I had an opportunity I would cherish, an opportunity to hear Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. But, he is much beyond that award, it his his life, that speaks of himself!

And yes, I got a copy of his book too, signed by him personally.. Second of my possessions, that would be really tough to give away.. The first being the book signed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama!

I will be back with lots about this morning.. Till then, adios..

The Zeroth Infinity of Eternity..

Good morning! I was wondering this morning, it has been long I posted something worth while online. But as you all are well acquainted with my writing skills, something worth while from me, as someone puts it, 'it would be a bit too much of expectation!"

Anyway..

Abhay happened to send me a courier a few days back. What was it so important that made him spend a few thousand of rupees in that courier? It was a Tee with HH the Dalai Lama's picture on it. One of the best gifts I have ever received. Since that day, I have been wondering, what is it in His Holiness that he attracts millions of people world over? I have been studying him and the Tibetan Government for one of my papers and spent hours reading online literature and watching various video clippings. I had an opportunity to read a few of his books too. But still, I feel incomplete. The more I know about him, the more I realize, it is nothing. I have made many attempts, that have proved my incompetence, in explaining what is it in him, that inspires me.

While wondering how could I best put it in words, I remembered an email, a friend of mine sent to me after the Friends' Society had an opportunity to meet His Holiness in Pune, India. Respecting his choice, I can't name him here, but, he has put in words, the emotions, the feelings, the aura of His Holiness; the way I would never be able to articulate it. The words just seem perfect..

Friends, I am sure the words to follow are going to leave you with the lingering feeling for more.. It is start of a quest, quest for purity, quest for understanding the "Zeroth Infinity of Eternity.."

The email..

"
Hi Darshan. I wasnt getting sleep for some reason, so i sat up and was reading something. Then next thing i knew was i was writing about my meeting with the Dalai Lama. it just flowed, without me having to think, and especially towards the end i had no clue what i was writing. it was done in a matter of a few minutes. it's just three paragraphs, and very crude, but just thought i'd send it to you. feel free to edit etc. just one small request... just in case you want to share it with anyone else, or use it, let it be anonymous. this is too personal to share with my name on it. thanks..

________________________________________________________________________________

Great people have an aura surrounding them. Usually, this aura hits one like a particularly forceful gust of a particularly powerful storm. On meeting them, one is left reeling, overcome by a feeling of breathlessness, shock, awe, excitement, and, inevitably, a bit of mental restlessness and turmoil.

His Holiness The XIV Dalai Lama has possibly the strongest aura I have ever encountered so far. But it's not a violent, in-your-face gust. It's more like a warm breeze blowing gently, caressingly, against one's skin, and then penetrating inside to warm the deepest corner of one's soul, on a freezing day. It's an aura whose power is hidden by its silent unobtrusiveness and the unassuming air of His Holiness. It's an aura that's not unlike an iron fist in a velvet glove. It causes no breathlessness. Instead, I found myself inhaling deeply, like one does when one comes upon something truly wondrous. It causes no shock and awe. Instead, I felt adoration, wonder and an inexplicable feeling of having been blessed.It causes no excitement, restlessness or turmoil. Instead, I felt an incredible wave of tranquility wash over me. And yet, for all the peace surrounding His Holiness, the meeting made such an impact on me that it left me quivering, and still gives me goosebumps.

The Dalai Lama combines the free spirit of children with the wisdom of the ages. The result is there to be experienced when He speaks. His words are full of a deep sincerity. They are profound without being complicated. They go straight to one's heart, without trying to impress the intellect. It's only in retrospect that one's (suddenly humbled) intellect goes back and marvels at the depth of His words.

There's something about the Dalai Lama. I don't know if it's the positivity, so strong you can almost feel it against your skin, that surrounds him. I don't know if it's his eagerness to reach out to the average man. I don't know if it's the calmness he radiates, inspite of the hardships we all know he has faced. I don't know if it's the wisdom he possesses and shares, or the unconditional love and affection with which he greeted us, insignificant strangers, or the lingering feeling of having been blessed... I really can't put my finger on it, but there's something about the Dalai Lama that makes one accept, unquestioningly, the aptness of the title "His Holiness".
"

Muma..

Hand in hand...

One hand holding mine.. Other hand in her husband's hand.. He bends down to kiss her forehead.. And.. And everything goes still.. No movement.. No reactions.. No life..

One year down the line, when I look back, there's absolutely nothing which seems to have vanished from my memory. It still feels as if I will knock the door and enter the house to the most beautiful compassionate caring smile! I will enter in the world of love, affection and warmth of a mother! And yes, I still do enter the world, though not physically.

Have you ever wondered, what is it that makes these relations? I was absolutely not related to her, but I was still bonded as strong as the bond of blood is. It was a bond which was established in first meeting, survived the few years of her physical abode, and continues with her heavenly presence! It is bond which till date stays physically embarked on the gold! In literal sense, it has been ALCHEMY..!

We get attached to people with whom we share no blood line.. And contrary to this, we take for granted the blood relations closest to us.. Screw them for the wellbeing of other! Take them for granted.. Ain't the relation with mother, a perfect example?

I am just left speechless with this whole affair of relations!

But the question still remains, HOW? How are these relations formed? Why? So many times in life, we just meet someone to realize, if it would not had been for that person, it would not had been for what we are. I know, the nature has its own patterns and surely, when we grow up and look back, the picture will manifest itself. But right now, it is unanswered.

Is the life this frail? Or is it the strength of life? Or is it at the end, the flow of the river? Cos, a death stops nothing.. Disappearing of a loved one from ones life stops nothing.. Everything continues! Life moves on! Yea.. Thats the right phrase, life moves on! The river flows!

Not only life moves on, life dances! The cycle continues..

The Fling!

This was an article written by me on June 27, 2005! It was very relative to the then! But just as I was discussing htis with someone, I found this old thingy in my inbox! So, posting it again!

The Fling...!

Life is fun with its ups & downs, the tipsy-curvy way, the curved & the straight roads, sometimes a turn around, sometimes a roadblock! It's LIFE...

My life was same. Just that it was like that of white water, full of hustle n bustle. It was like "Bich bhawar me gud gud gote khaye.." And, happened my first fling when I was in fifth standard. The fling, which has sustained since then. Rather, it's seen a tremendous growth in last few years. Its, THE FLING...!

It's nothing else but my fling with Vipassana! This is the story of my affair, which transformed my life from __________ to __________. I purposefully avoid to use any adjectives in the blanks as they'll become relative to my perspective. Thus, after going through this story, may you decide on your own, what fits there.

Darshan Mundada.. The most unwanted! I was one of the most undesired as a child. Except for my family & a few very close relatives, it was all a negative approach for me. I remember times, when except for my Dad, I had no one besides. And, it was nothing of anyone's fault. It was my own negativity. A very hyperactive child, I could never sit at a place for more than a few seconds. No words or hands or sticks or any other means could stop me. My initial school life was worst. Not a single day passed without complaints. At times I was debarred, at times I was punished, at times, sent back home! It reached to the peaks, when school just wanted to throw me out. I had to change hands. It was a roadblock! But whatever happens, happens for good. At that point, I had my first crush.

Coming from a family where culture dominates, and parents being disciple of Vipassana, I was also recommended for the same. Actually, I already had my first introduction with the practice when I was just in 1st std. I'd attended a few 1 day children shibirs in Pune. But I frankly accept, the attraction at that time was not of the exercise but of the hot puri & batata bhaji with amazing mango murabba! The taste still rolls on my tongue. Later, on the insistence of Shri Asawaji, I did a 3-day children's course in Igatpuri in presence of Guruji Shri Satyanarayanji Goenka. It was a turning point. For the first time it so happened that, I was not blamed for doing anything in 3 days of the camp. It thus developed a sense of belonging in me..

A significant change started. So much so, that people openly started asking me, how come you are behaving well? Many other factors blending together, it gave a facelift to me. But still, the boat was not out of rough weather, as the captain was not yet stable. Again, last few years saw a few steep slopes n sharp curves in life. And up came a pending promise, The words I'd promised to Dadiji n Dadaji, that what so ever may come, I'll complete a 10 day Vipassana course once. After returning from USA, on priority I went for it. It was much more of a patient approaching the doctor, with no knowledge of the doctor's capacities & in turn, no confidence, neither in himself nor the doctor.

December 14 to 25, 2004.. The 10 days, which lead to a complete transformation. It lead to a life which I always wanted, full of satisfaction & peace. Satisfaction in what I am, what I have, what is me. Peace in being. It's just a feeling inexpressible in words. But all this said & done, it was not an easy task to complete a 10-day course. It was just the promise & will power which kept me going. First 5 days were just observation, as the whole theory was contradicting my trust in God n supernatural powers. Then came the evening of 6 th day when, during Guruji's cassette, he spoke about the correlation between both, The God & The Exercise. I could hear the Gita which I'd learnt since years, but for the first time, I did understand the true meaning. N, my perspective towards Vipassana changed! Changed forever, changing me forever..

Friends, that's the start of a story.. I know, this is not a platform to discuss individual, but still I narrated my part. Just for the sake, that may you all try once for this art! Its nothing extra, neither does it contradicts anyone's basic thought process. Its just logic to our living! I did it, & I know what difference that makes, may you all get an opportunity to experience the bliss..

(June, 2005)

The Blabber

Blabber Bird..!!

Click.. The mind is triggered..! A blog, started few months back has nothing in it. And suddenly, a serendipitous meeting becomes an inspiration to write.

It was meeting on life’s cross roads with a person. A normal human like you and me.. May be a bit ancestral, cos has a monkey smile.. ;-).. That’s the joke part of it! But, eventually yes, just another fellow human. And what was different that triggered my buzzer to write? It is the verbal instincts of that lady!

I have never met a person who can talk faster or swap topics any more or just go on and on with her words. An hour’s talk with her, if attributed to our former Prime Minister’s talking pace, would surely take him a few weeks to talk as much. And believe you me, it’s not an exaggeration. Only if your mind is capable of digesting multiple topics at a time, capable of comprehending with the switch overs' and remembering which topic was stopped where, cos you never know when it would be referred again. But when ever referred, you are assumed to recollect where ever it was stopped the last time! Ain't it tricky.. And mind you, it’s a business with a girl, cos if you don’t recollect, your memory is to be blamed, not the infinite topics covered in a few minutes.

So, what am I driving at? Terming it as noise pollution, or sheer wastage of human energy, evaporating through mouth?? OBVIOUSLY NOT.. Rather I am in awe of this person. And probably grateful too.. Grateful, because this blabber of hers is getting me back to my senses. It is teaching me patience. It is sharpening my mind to switch overs’ and memory to recollect minute details. If I may not forget, it is making me a good listener (It’s an assumption though..)

In AWE.. I mean in literal sense. One would wonder, how you keep on listening and listening and listening. And listening to what.. OK, that reminds of the ‘Basanti’ in Sholay.. Now I am sure, you get it what I mean.

I was just walking down the road. And came thought passing by.. At the age of 60, would I prefer to come back to a partner who’s serious and has few words to share, or has spoken all she had to and now its mere silence between us? Or would I want to come back to a partner, with whom, every new day has lots of new things to share. Every small rendezvous becomes a big story.. Think.. Right here, In her words, I’ll come back to this later!!

At the present pace of science & technology, and more specifically Communications & I.T., it is not far away, when we would die to hear a word of our dear one. Probably a hello from a long distance friend, tears of joy and pain of our close ones, caring words of mother, words of caution of our father.. The nagging partners. It would not be long.. When verbal language would be attributed to annals of history.. Not because we would not want it.. But because the soft communicators, like emails and chat would have taken over. Many other soft communicators may have been developed which I am not aware of. And this would lead to a silence, a silence which has never been experienced before.. It is like that story, where, in an I.T. company, an employee sneezes while working on his comp. Next moment, there’s loadsa mails in his inbox saying ‘God Bless’, but not a single word to hear.. And, we’d be just left with our desires to hear, to listen, to realize that our body has the sense of hearing!

And so driving back to my Question..?? Is this silence what I want? Or would I prefer a blabber bird, which will make my life alive..??

It’s not an individual question.. It's the question for the globe.. Does the globe want silence?? The way we miss chirping birds today? Or we want this enchanting blabber??

I have my answer.. I am sure, you have yours too..!!