You don't need Approval

Think you're being humble when you crave for approval?

Don't complicate it. Things are really that simple. All that is required is the willingness to do it.

Be free from restrictions. Freedom from emotional desire to seek approval.

"By seeking his/ her permission, he'll know what I am upto, he/she'll correct me". Really? Stop bullshitting yourself. Just go ahead and do it. Take risks.

Don't hesitate. Your heart doesn't, when it pumps blood. You know what is right and what needs to be done. Your mind makes it weak. Your mind complicates matter.

Worried about what others think of you? Shut up. You are again begging to conform to the bromide.

Think Gandhi would have worried about what others would feel about the Dandi March? Think it would have mattered to Newton what his neighbor felt about Gravity? Grow up. They didn't worry about it. Nor should you. They believed in something they knew was right.

Get rid of that fear within you. Take risks. Conquer it. You know you can. Deep within. Your heart does. Don't secondguess your ability to excel.

You don't need Approval. Be fearless. Be You.

In Your Shoes

There are moments of pain, and moments of glory
Creating and carving, and conceiving your own story
Vision you found - laden with clues
Inching every step to be in your shoes

The history was replete with the pains you faced
While others wondered, in awe they gazed
There were souls - in the pink yet in the blues
I implore ye Lord, tell - what it meant to be in your shoes

The shoes were dusty and at times they shone
In times of hardship, when others were stolid and drone
When yours shoes weathered, they made news
Others gasped, how you stayed in your shoes

Unruffled you were, when others argued and cursed
In your self you believed, never in your might you blushed
While others lost faith in their shoes,
How you transformed lives and led - in your shoes

Beneath your shoes, there lay a soul,
Like none other, you were certain with a role,
To reinstate faith and to let loose,
To create your destiny and to be in your own shoes

Flying is for lazy people

After many days today, I went for a morning walk with my cousin. On our way back, I shared my thought about how spectacular it must be to fly around.

To which he promptly replied, "Flying is for lazy people who do not like to run/ jog!". He continued, "What's there - you just have to think about it and you start flying. While running, you actually exercise. That's better."

I had no answer to this. I think I was too shocked to hear it. Perhaps, I had expected him to empathize with me and say, "Yeah, how interesting it must to be like Superman!".

But anyway, I guess, there is nothing right or wrong - only opinions. I just kept the possibilities of flying to myself and felt happier later.

And then I cried...

Do any of these strike a chord?

1. Baje sargam har taraf se gunje bankar des raag...
2. Mile sur mera tumhara...
3. Hamara Bajaj (original)...
4. Hamara Bajaj (badal rahe hai hum yahan)...
5. Cadbury India Ad - Kuch Khaas Hai...

The first 2 in the list are gems and were aired on Doordarshan in 1980s, which we have grown up watching. After all these years, today morning after I completed Prayanam, I thought of listening to these. And one click led to another.

I am an ad freak. So while I am keeping a track on the latest ads running in print and tv, those listed in the 3rd, 4th and 5th point still rank amongst the top 3 ads in my list.

Why?

Because of the idea that drives them, profound emotional appeal, the marvelous rendition and background music and most importantly, the flawless execution. W-O-W!

The old Hamara Bajaj ad is an iconic ad. No doubt. I know I don't need to validate my statement. Bass naam hee kaafi hai. It speaks of unity and India's progress and Bajaj's contribution to it. It was an ad whose time had come then, and was required to give a boost to the New Face of India. The newer Hamara Bajaj ad, speaks more of the changing trends in India, the modern lifestyle, but what it quintessentially communicates is that our beliefs and values are still strong.

The 5th ad is another iconic ad in my view. For me it speaks of ecstasy, breaking barriers, breaking conventional viewpoint and most importantly, celebration! The soulful rendition of Shankar Mahadevan's voice creates such a magic, that you just want to see it more.

But all this, courtesy YouTube. Without it, I would not be able to relive those moments, when I could cry only due to sheer joy and excitement.

While I am writing this, I am listening to the rendition of 'Aaj Gaawat Man Mero Jhumke', a masterpiece composed in Des Raag from the film 'Baiju Bawra'. This is giving an additional effect and am totally in the mood. One cuppa coffee and I'm all geared up.

Happy listening folks!

PS: You can also search these keywords in YouTube, and actually see what I am talking about! If you're not convinced, well, then watch again! :)

[I'll be refining the article as I get more time. Be patient.]

Random Thoughts: Ideas, Awareness and God

6.684 billion minds on earth.

Potential of generating 6.684 billion ideas every second.

India has the potential of generating 1.129 billion ideas every second. WOW!!

How can we harness that? Shouldn't there be an 'idea meter' which just ticks every second, counts the ideas generated and also registers them somewhere so that we can refer to them sometime?

Forgetfulness is a sin. We tend to forget easily than we remember. It just struck me that we have to 'work hard' in remembering something than in forgetting something. That's why we generally 'choose' to forget. Cuz, that's easier. Anyways.

Maharashtra, the state I belong to, has a population of 96 million. Nasik has the population of over 1.4 million. See the potential?

We are in the knowledge economy. Knowledge comes from Awareness. Awareness is the fuel to generate ideas. Or is it? Is is 'chicken first-egg first' thing? Think. What controls what? Do ideas control awareness? or the other way round? or it is a vicious cycle? Ideas generate more awareness which generate more ideas.

Why is memorizing a mental function while forgetting is not? Deleting / Erasing is a special command in computers. Then why not in us?

We don't have an effective Idea Log mechanism. Why doesn't anything that comes to our mind gets registered somewhere, 'naturally'? May be in an inter-dimensional void? This is considering that the storage space will run out on earth!! Even the most high capacity storage devices would run out of space. [Just a parallel thought: There could be a mutant, Ideator, whose superpower is to store other people's ideas without letting his brain run out of memory. He is able to tap and utilize ideas from any part of the universe or even multiverses. Someone like Forge, a genius who can create anything he can imagine. But much more powerful.]

May be that's why we don't have a 'natural' Idea storage house. We save on space. God must have figured that humans would breed and populate the world."It's best left to their own discretion to decide which 'ideas' have a future and which don't". Naturally, if ideas are stored, they would occupy more space than the total humans on the planets. Ideas can cross-pollinate and breed and grow.

But would there be an uneven spread of ideas across humans? That brings to the next question. Is God partial to humans? Why should one human generate more ideas than the other? Why did God not give equal brain 'potential' to humans?

Endless questions. Endless debate. Incessant Ideas.

PS: Since 1850, when the world population has exceeded a billion, we could have potential generated 4.983 x E18 ideas! And this is considering that a single mind generates ideas on its own. We have not even considered cross-pollination. I wonder if the world even had these many problems to solve!

We had to make more problems just to solve them! [Well, that's very humane, so it's possible.]

Thank you for your patient listening to all the gibberish! :)