Besant Nagar Beach - my Bodhi Tree

Besant Nagar beach has always and will always be a place that I go, when I want to be alone,  or I need to take a step back from my daily life. 

This is one place where you can view life in full - you can see old couples walking together, young family with the kids playing in the sand with a ball, group of young guys in the water having fun, couples some sitting bravely in the open others crouching in the dark behind an empty stall, groups of college / young office goers with a frisbee / volleyball / foot ball sweating it out and many more such scenes.

But to me, the beach experience is divided into 3 categories - the walks as part of my excercise regime (cutting myself from the outer world with ilayaraja on the earphones), the chat sessions with one of the very few friends with whom I regularly share the beach and every topic under the sun, and finally my long visits at the waterline with Velukudi Krishan (religious / spiritual discourse) and the vast ocean for company.

I have had some strong debates with friends, or silence alone. Sometimes i see a lot of scenes and feel happy or sad or whatever other emotions; at other times my mind is just blank concentrating on what I hear and contemplating on it, especially if it is a devotional discourse. At times, I am completely mesmerized by the beauty of the beach, the sun rise or the full moon. 

But every time I visit the beach, never do i fail to listen to Nizhalgal song especially ' pon maalai pozhuthu '.. and the as the line goes ' vaanam enakkoru bodhi maram, naalum ennakathu sethi tharum.. '

The vast ocean and the skies, never fail to make me happy. the vast emptiness - my bodhi tree.

Innocence Lost...

I spent a couple of hours at the besant nagar beach today, and most of the time near the waterline. During this time, i saw a lot of kids between the age of 3 and 7, liked their antics, their playfulness but most of all their innocence.

There were two father and son duos - the fathers in mid 30s and the sons around 4 years.  I watched this pair who were about 20 feet apart. In one pair, the son was very bold and brave. He kept pushing his father to go deeper into the water whereas the father was cautious in not venturing too far. The other pair, the son was very tentative. He was just getting his feet wet standing at the very edge of the water and whenever there was a big wave, he would rush back a few feet. I kept watching both these pairs and was very fascinated by the kids. The two kids were innocent and one in his innocence of danger wanted to go deeper into the water and the other in his own innocence of the safe hands he was in, did not venture beyond the water edge. After some time, i noticed a small plastic ball which was bobbing up and down in the water. The father of the brave kid also noticed and pointed to his son. In a short while, the ball came closer to the water's edge but a bit farther from where they were standing. The father & son ran to the spot and picked up the ball. At that point in time, the other kid noticed the ball and asked his father to get it for him. By then, the other pair had already picked it up.

The father of the brave kid noticed that the timid kid wanted the ball. He asked his kid if the ball can be given to the other the kid. Without a moment of hesitation, the kid told his father to give the ball. By now, the timid's kid father was saying not to ask and let the brave kid have it. But the brave kid, got the ball from his father and gave it to the other kid and gave a big smile. That was a fantastic moment.. of generosity built on the foundation of innocence.

I started to wonder when and where did we lose that innocence. All of us were like that when we were kids, and some us even until college when our friends were friends and not competitors. Innocence lost, by choice or by design.

Urban Landscapes - Photos of Chennai

On a cloudy evening, with the smell of rain still in the air, i ventured out to the top of my apartment for a photo session. Here is the best of the lot.

'I' to 'i' - an icon - RIP Steve

The man who changed I to i is no more. RIP Steve Jobs.

My first look of an apple product was a screenshot of Macintosh's desktop about 16 years back. I used to work in a windows for workgroup. Then someone told me that Mac had all this and more and also that it was released a few years ago.

Over the next few years, while windows caught the craze of the world, mac restricted to the apple PC could not gain market share but had its own followers. Things changed, Time moved on and Steve was forced to move out of apple.

On his return, he changed apple from just being a computer company to a new age computer-consumer-communication giant. He changed the way people used to work at their computers. The way people listened to music. It was a revolution. Jogging became a pleasure with iPod. playlists, albums, rotarty controls became the norm. The once popular walkman was forgotten. Watching videos was changed.. videos became podcasts, to be downloaded and viewed. There were thousands of developers creating hundreds of new apps for iPod. Apple became an industry by itself. While industry and people were settling into iMac and iPod, Steve rewrote history. Enter the iPhone. Another revolution in communication. iPhone raised the bar on the mobile industry. While we were still in awe of the iPhone, apple introduced iPad. The tablet has had several starts and stops and could not create any impact. But iPad changed it all. These were the times that i used to wonder if apple was bringing in the right products at the right time or was Steve an inspirational leader able to sell more products to people. But then I realised it was a combination of several things but the main reason was the inspirational genius behind this.

The man changed the way we live.. from iMac, iPod, iPhone, IPad to iCloud. An iNSPIRATION to an entire industry.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. RIP Steve. the world will miss your inspiration.

Mobile Phones and ...

The explosion mobile phone usage has brought in a lot of convenience. But there are people (including yours truly) who subscribe to the view that a lot of times it is more of a nuisance rather than a convenience.

People who have been disturbed rudely during their saturday afternoon nap by the ringing of the mobiles, then jumping up to attend to the call only to find it is a sales call for a credit card or insurance policy will more than agree to the nuisance value (wow.. what an oxymoron) the mobile has turned out to be. Almost every saturday afternoon (when i leave my phone on ringing mode, expecting a call), the call definitely comes, except for the one that i was expecting. I tell the caller that i am not interested and not to disturb me, and what happens, i promptly get called in 15 minutes when I am just dozing back from the same caller and I explain that I just told no to the credit card. These are the times i have abused the invention of the mobile telephone and have cursed all the technology gurus who followed a different paths and put us in trouble several years later.

The other impact of the mobile phone is more in terms of a personal behavioural pattern in people. Several times when i travel by public transport, i have found people talking loudly on the phone. The entire bus will hear the conversation starting from something simple as they are already on the way to something complex as discussing a piece of java code or a real estate transaction. The entire crowd will know of the conversation while the person on the phone is oblivious to the surroundings.

I happened to overhear or rather hear a lot of such private conversations on the mobile in a public transport. During one of the journeys, a guy a couple of seats in front of me started by asking some simple questions and in a short while i understood that he was trying to a fix a bug in java code. As the time went, he was exasperated that the person on the other end was not able to debug a simple issue, make a small change and compile the code. The tempers were rising and thankfully for everyone in the bus, he got down at the next stop.

These are the times i used to think if the mobile phone makes people think that they will go invisible and cannot be heard or transported to another world or a shell the moment they pick up an incoming call.

The other behavioural change is the increase in white lies. While all of us are habitual offenders when it comes to telling white lies, the mobile has made it a profession.

As recently as last week, I was travelling in a bus from Guindy to Tambaram. While we were in Meenambakkam, one of the guy received a call and instantly responded that he is in Chrompet and will be in tambaram soon. Some time later, when we were nearing chrompet, the same person received a call and responded saying that he is caught in traffic near MEPZ and will soon come to Tambaram. This type of conversations happen atleast 2 to 3 times in my journey of about 45 minutes, and it happens almost everytime i travel by bus.

[ For people who are not familiar of chennai topography, Tambaram is a suburb in chennai and about 20 kms from Guindy, with Meenambakkam, Chrompet and MEPZ being intermediate stops].

The third change is that mobile is making "Man the social animal and a conversationlist" to 'Man the secluded but connected and a shrt txtng prsn'. During the days before the mobile, the train or bus journey is one place where you will find a lot of discusison happening. It can be sports, politics, movies or general affairs. There used to be a lot of heated debates with known or unknown people on Gavaskar vs Kapil Dev or a Kamal vs Rajini. Now, unfortunately, that has gone into the oblivion. People get onto the bus, and start listeining to music or start texting or get onto a call.

These behavioural pattern change can make a vast change in the generations to come and we may lose the habit of making a conversation. The same way when email changed the way of writing letters or sending greeting cards....

Rest In Peace, Tiger

Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi

A great cricketer, an excellent captain and a man who changed the Indian cricket. These were the first things that came to my mind when I read that he passed away. Later that night, when I was watching the news channels, i remembered my father recalling some of the stories about Pataudi when i was a school going, cricket crazy kid. My father fondly recollected "Tiger's" cricketing acumen.

To him Pataudi was a genius. He was one of the earliest people in Indian team who changed the way how fielding was looked at in the team. Prior to him, fielding was always the last priority, and the fielders used to do a lot of chasing rather then intercept the ball based on the speed and direction. Tiger brought his excellent anticipation to be at the right place when the ball was hit. He was also one of the best fielders in his time and brought this aspect to the team.

Pataudi was an inspirational captain as well. Under him, the spin quartet blossommed. He was instrumental in making our bowling a strong point in our several overseas wins in the years to come. He had the instinct to back the right players and give the confidence to the players. His batting was a delight to watch. My father used to quote several innings of Pataudi which were real gems. He recalled how stylish a player the Tiger was and especially his ability to come back to top level cricket despite his accident when he lost an eye. With just one eye, it becomes very difficult to get the depth of an object. But here was the guy who had to get adjusted to this difference in the normal life and then went on to excel in the field which does not spare anyone with a weakness.

He was a gentleman on and off the field. An aristrocratic behaviour did not put him off with his team. Post his cricketing days, I always felt that the Indian cricket could have utilised his cricketing brilliance better. But unfortunately it was not so.

Goodbye Tiger, RIP.

After writing my previous article, i was interested to read some of the thoughts on happiness.

I came across an ariticle on "Man's search for meaning" a book by Viktor E Frankl published in 1946. One of the quote from this book " Happiness cannot be pursued but must ensue, as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself. Happiness must happen and you need to let it happen by not caring for it". Profound thoughts from a Dr from Austria. A point to expand on the statement - you cannot pursue happiness but must become a consequence, a consequence of our thoughts, deeds and actions. A lot of times, i feel this very true. There is no silver bullet to find happiness. But is this not something our indian philosophy has told us? Going back to our roots, we can find the path to pursue which will lead us to experience happiness.

So, I went back to the Hindu scriptures and found several reference to being happy. Happiness does not come out of possessing enormous quantity of welath, being surrounded by the best things life, having no problems in life etc, but it comes out of realisation on our purpose in this life. We have seen someone like Dasaratha a very learned man and a great king suffer from the pangs of being separated from his son. On the other hand, King Janaka was a great man who was not affected by any of the wordly happenings. He was a person who followed the ideal path of "nishkamya karma" and was a "stithapragyna". While nishkamya karma is all about doing your duty without the attachment to it, stithapragyna is about not being affected but any emotions. One of the best examples of nishkamya karma is Lord Krishna. In the Gita, He tells Arjuna that despite being the God of the Universe, he still continues his duty. Our best bet to the path of happiness is to be detached to our actions and be not bothered about the results of our actions. This can help us in keeping our minds free.

These were great principles for us to follow but have become very difficult in our present day lives. We tend to think too much on what we want to do, what we did rather than focussing on the present. Living for the present without attachment to our actions with clean thoughts and deeds can lead us on the path to happiness.