|| Swanta Sukhaya ||

"Well... Light, it's been quite fun!" With these words Shinigami (the celestial death agent) Ryuk brought end to a smart young man (Light Yagami), who was drunk on power to kill anyone at will and intellect to get away with it! With this scene our binge-watch of the marvelous manga web-series "Death Note" also came to an end! The series doesn't answer any questions on death but truly makes us take note of how death or rather the fear of death shapes the psyche in particular and society in general. The first question is, who is the hero of the series? Is it Light Yagami? Who shows all the best and worst in human beings put together? Is it "L"? Who, with his amazing power of deduction finds out the real identity of Light Yagami. However "L" loses to Light in a shrewd diabolical plot set by Light and dies. Is it "Near"? The child prodigy who took over from "L" and beats Light at his own game of double-crossing and serves ...

Greetings! T'was a beautiful evening early in Fall season.  It seemed like the blue sky's got smitten by the splash of colors on leaves. I was still new to this place. I was still in awe of diners with their coffee aromas. Tranquil trails, with sporadic boards that warned about a mysterious but cute sounding Lyme disease, were yet to be trodden.  A friend of mine was driving me to a Jazz Cafe (for the very first time in my life). I had heard the magic of walking baseline and swing in Bollywood music before, but didn't know it was Jazz (yet). He asked me, have you ever heard Jazz. "..hmm... not sure..." was my answer. He smiled and just put in a cassette in his car's cassette player...      A guitar started strumming through the speakers... my mind had caught on the rhythm and the feet tapping with the walking baseline.  "...hmmm... the thrill is gone..." B.B. King's sonorous voice started wafting in and led me into the magical musical world of bl...

Greetings! Here is an anecdote that made me think about an insidious infliction that affects humanity. A 'normal' shepherd is chatting with an 'educated' shepherd. Let's call them Norm and Ed. Norm: How many sheep do you have? Ed: White or Black? Norm: White? Ed: 50. By the way I have 50 Black sheep too. Wonder what you have against the Black sheep? Norm: But I asked about all the sheep? Ed: Oh! Did you? You just said, "White?" Norm: Hey Buddy, I don't have anything against any of the sheep. By the way, do you get enough wool ? Ed: From which one? White or Black? Norm: Black? (Thinking he won't repeat the mistake this time!) Ed: Well I get enough from Black ones. By the way I get enough from white ones too. Wonder why are you bent on exploiting the Black sheep for their wool? Norm: (Gives up) I call Ed's infliction as "False Dichotomy". This has been a cognitive conditioning for gullible ones, usually perpetuated by those with ulterio...

Greetings! Shivaji Maharaj is one of the legendary Kings, hailed for his greatness all over the world. According to Prof. Narhar Kurundkar, the greatness of Shivaji Maharaj lies in his ability to inspire people to such an extent that not only the soldiers, but even a common man was ready to lay his life for the Swarajya (Independent Government) led by the great Shivaji Maharaj.  This great King was nurtured to greatness by his mother Jijamata. There was another mother who left an indelible mark on Shivaji Maharaj and inspired him. Her name was ‘Hirkani’ (the name means "A Sparkling Diamond Speck") Those hailing from the western state of Maharashtra in India are aware about the extra-ordinary story of Hirkani. For those who don’t know - here is a short version of the story. Shivaji Maharaj, who reigned the land as well hearts of people, was being coronated. The coronation ceremony needed a lot of milk. Hirkani was the mother of an infant and a milkm...

Greetings! My random playlist was on, while I was lost in the work. Suddenly the song changed and a soothing octate of violins started wafting in. These lilting sounds caught my attention. Then in about half a minute, on the cue of clicketting sticks, piano and guitar took over from the meliflous violins. The music felt as if, it was tugging at something inside me, that wanted to voice itself but somehow remained unspeaking. And then a man started singing ... "करे मन भजण नूं बेपार ..." Loosely translated from Gujarathi as "The mind has started dealing in devotion"! The words were not from my native language so I was trying to decipher them. But the passion with which they have been written and the emotion with which they have been sung by a voice and the divine way in which all instruments join in - felt absolutely amazing. I was being dealt with something outside of this world - yet through the music, the voice and words that are very much from this wor...

Greetings! Have you heard of a German Anatomist and Surgeaon named Dr. Julius Wolff  from 19th century, who (among a prolific bibliography) proposed "The law of transformation of the bone" in 1892? No? I too didn't. (Well at least till last week) While discussing how stress impacts human beings, I heard a wise man talk about Wolff's Law  . Technically, the law (now modified slightly by Utah-Paradigm of Bone physiology) states that mechanical loading influences bone structure by changing the mass (amount of bone) and architecture (its arrangement) to provide a structure that resists habitual loads with an economical amount of material. In simpler words - whenever bones of a healthy person experience tension, compression, shear they respond by becoming stronger! Great! But this leads to another question, does the human mind also respond in such "anti-fragile" way when it comes to the (mostly imagined but sometimes real) stress? The a...

Greetings! Pop Quiz - considering survival, reproduction and count as factors - which group of species can call themselves the most successful species on mother earth? Humans? Bzzzzz (that's me hitting the buzzer that indicates wrong answer!) This award goes to what we call as single cell organisms. With the numbers that are in multiples of, multiples of, multiples of sum of counts of all other species put together, we can simply call them as rulers of earth... (Apologies to the dictators of world who had deluded themselves to have concurred the world or felt that they can... Sorry guys, but you cannot even beat a bacterium... Go figure!) These little(?) folks make up most of the life on the earth and it seems like the human bodies are simply swimming in their oceans. But thank God, at least we have our bodies... or do we? Research says that "There are about 100 trillion cells in a human body. However, even one tenth are hardly real human cells.  The human b...

Greetings! "I have planted them all!", the 9 year old boy in red t-shirt was saying in matter of fact way. I looked at the land, made ready to sow through sheer hard work. The land was cut in steps, pruned off the shrubs. The planting spots were placed in neat rows and columns. Each one had a neatly planted mango sapling. "These saplings would grow with him. They would bear fruits as he would himself blossom into a fine young man and later as he turns into a father, uncle and a grandfather!' ", by the time this train of my thoughts reached next station, this sharp boy was already at the far end of the plot. Tending to a fledgling sapling, he looked at his doting uncle with a question mark. The uncle of his is a true farmer. He tends to his farms the way he would care for his family. He looks after friends, the way he would look after a plantation. Right now he was struggling  to contain his admiration for his nephew. "Let's water them",  ...

Greetings! I had heard about him from those who attended a great institution where he taught for many years. Well, now I myself got the opportunity to get into a learning program that was conceptualized and driven by him. That is when I experienced his teaching first hand... "Essentially, Liability is nothing but source of funds and Asset is nothing but use of funds.", he spoke in a gentle, measured and soft tone. "Is that all?", I thought... I thought he could read my mind, as he simply said, "That is it!" and paused!   It was a learning program unlike any that I had ever attended... He seemed to know what exactly we didn't know and what false notions we harboured. He seemed to know which insight of his would confuse us and to what degree and therefore at what moment to reveal it (and at what moment not to). It was as if a very complex question-processing engine was running in the background of his great mind. Somehow this engine was se...

Greetings! He had keen, playful and observant eyes. Although our acquaintance was few days old; we were speaking with an ease of old friends who have met after a long time. "Let me tell you the most important learning of my life!", he quipped. I was all ears. "There is someone who has been a Godfather to me and shaped my career entirely for two decades. I have no qualms in saying that he prodded, nudged, cajoled, pushed, intimidated, motivated and gave almost all growth opportunities in my career." I could see the respect in his eyes too. But there was a glint of sadness and a lining of wisdom. I was intrigued. "But, it so happened that the day I grew out of his shadow and into my own was the very same day he started treating me with excruciating vehemence. It went on for months.  Nothing in my life has hurt me so much. This just crushed me to the core.", He took a moment to glance out of the window. I held my breath. "And you know what? When...

Greetings! Let's look for a moment that has both happiness and sadness put together. Where do you find them? All one has to do is to look little bit closely at life turning moments. You will be surprised to find such moments in the points of life that turn a leaf in life... King Ashoka expected a moment of triumph as he overlooked a river turned red with blood of enemy. He sensed it, but he also faced a deep sense of remorse! A dichotomy of triumph! Famous people face this dichotomy of emotions too. While they are adulated by millions, they face the loneliness of not having a true and warm relation! A dichotomy of fame! A mountaineer struggles to reach the summit, he faces treacherous paths, steep slopes and draining exhaustion. The moment of reaching the summit brings exhilarating fulfillment as well as the empty dreadful prospect of not having any goal to reach! A dichotomy of success! A father of bride strives in all ways to get the daughter married. He tries to ens...

Greetings! We all are very good at putting up a face and hiding our emotions behind it. This ability has helped our ancestors survive. It helps in so many situations, right from winning poker to getting favourable international treaties. Look at most of the selfies and group snaps. If we can't put up a face properly, then there are filters to do the rest of job for us. One can put up an excellent show of having fun while the reality might be totally different. (I guess this is usually the case). We are also very good at using euphemisms, great flowery words. Look at most of the videos. The words spoken consciously on videos are also usually made up, politically correct and don't reflect the real intent as well as the content of what is going inside our heads. We all know it and usually take this in stride. But what if we want to go beyond and see what is going on inside someone rather than the facade that has been put up? There are many ways to do it and reams of lit...

Greetings! It is said that when life closes a door, it opens a thousand doors for you. I suppose it is meant to be said to those who feel down due to a lost opportunity.  It is a good way to console the sad, to uplift the lowered spirit. But I think the more accurate analogy is -  When life closes  a door, we should first look at the window of opportunity!  The door is the path trodden by others, which we too are following. If it was an uncharted path, then there wouldn't have been a door there in first place.  The openings and clearing in the jungle of life, are made by those, who ventured through them for the first time.  We merely follow these footsteps, when we too venture through the same. I think when a door is closed, it is the God's way of alerting us about the path that it would have led us to. So even if we do find another door (or nine hundred and ninety nine more doors, for proverb's sake), it may be leading us to the same place. If ...

Greetings! Peacock wields myriad colours, Turquoise, green, blue among many others, Dancing to the life as monsoon ushers, What would I choose - dance of life, or dead feathers? It is really a privilege to watch a peacock dance. The child like little off rhythm steps, the artistic movement of neck and of course the glorious fan of feathers! It is a celebration of life. Both, the life that is full to the brim already and the life that may be coming as next generation. Indian monsoon brings up the life in the jungle. The parched land gets the life sap it has been thirsting for since the onset of Indian summer. The grass seeds, lurking just below the veneer of soil, start germinating with valour. The sky pours, earth breathes out heady fragrance, flora springs up and fauna is looking forward to get food and water to heart's content. But what do we do? Do we assimilate ourselves in this dance of nature? Do we take time to touch and breathe in the fragrant earth? Do we t...

Greetings! After a long time I had dusted off my A R Rahman song playlist, with random setting. The first song itself evoked such emotions that, I could not resist playing it again and again. Ended up playing the song 6 times to get a feeling of being filled up with the meaningful lyrics, simple but heart-touching tune, innovative orchestration  and unique voice blends. This intertwined song seems to resonate with cosmic rhythm! The song is "Rehna Tu" from Delhi 6 movie. You can give an ear to it Here It is by far the deepest song coming from Bollywood about accepting someone, something,  someplace or some situation wholeheartedly.  It talks about the beauty of letting the others as they are and the complimenting nature of it all. No need to change, better, worsen,  beautify the others even a bit. Whatever combination they be, let them be as they are and that is where the "love" lies. I have seen 2 general strands of feelings in humans. One strand makes a p...

Greetings! Is there a very very simple test for evaluating and prioritizing any action, decision by anyone in any situation? I have been thinking about this since some time and came across a statement from a Respected Guru from India. He said, "Your life can be either an example or a warning for others, choice is yours!" I think the best test is asking a question "What would I want my parent to do if I was my own child?" So, if you are getting the urge to fight,  you can ask yourself,  "If I was my own daughter , would I want my mother to fight over this issue, at this time, with this person, in this way?" After this you may or may not fight. But the decision would have passed through the Self-Parenting Test! Or, if you feel like dodging a responsibility,  you can ask yourself, "If I was my own son, would I want my father to dodge this responsibility,  at this time?" After this you may or may not take up that responsibility. Bu...

Greetings! This blog post is my homage to the trilogy of "Back to the Future" movies. This remains one of the most watched (and re-watched) movie trilogy over years. The cast, dialogues and special effects are awesome. But what takes the cake is the beauty of an original concept that intertwines science, human emotions and plain old wisdom. And of course, I cannot think of anyone who would not dream of riding the gorgeous DMC DeLorean What struck me most was how Marty eventually finds out the pattern that has proved to be his Achilles Heel! The villain (Tannen) is shown to be a dumb bully. Sample this dialogue of Tannen that shows the degree of his dumbness - "Now, why don't you make like a tree and get outta here!" Marty the hero, is smart enough to get out of Tannen's way - most of the times. But, whenever anyone calls him a "chicken", the hero takes the bait and gets into trouble.  Tannen uses this pattern of Marty and gets him in tr...

Greetings! Human beings are driven by many cognitive biases, one such being "Recency Bias". The investment bankers and financial advisers have been screaming hoarse about it since long. But I think this has been a force since time immemorial and actually helped our ancestors survive. It is also a force that has made many of us miserable. The reason - our tendency to give too much importance to the recent i.e. "the proximate" rather than the appropriate i.e. "the ultimate". Imagine a lion is chasing a caveman, somehow the man dodges the lion and is sitting near a tree - catching his breath. And suddenly there is a rustling of leaves, movement in the bushes behind! What would be the first interpretation of this sound that would let him survive? Of course with all alarms blaring the mind screams - "LION!" And the man runs away and as he glimpses back, he sees a rabbit jumping out of bushes... If the man was chasing a rabbit, he would have...

Greetings! The little girl was bored in the bus journey...  and seemed little tired... Her brother (about 10 years old) was sitting next to her and the grandmother at the corner of the seat. The girl had played some version of stone paper scissors with; fought with; ate snacks with; sung songs with; complained about; then shared some secrets in the ear of - her elder brother. Grandma was already exhausted and was sleeping. Her brother started reading a book. The girl was now looking forward to put her head onto something... no not something but someone... She was looking forward to a lap or a shoulder to rest her head. But did not find anything and bent and put her head on her own lap... The moving bus made it very awkward and the jerks were making her get up. Still she would not sleep like elders, resting her head on the back of seat. The poor child kept on drifting into and out of sleep, trying to rest her head on her own lap but ending up with head hung between her legs...

Greetings! Mornings always bring on, Gentle caress of early Sun. Cool breeze of new Dawn, Stirring hope in souls around! Mornings have always been gentle and generous.  The pre-dawn movement among trees has always stirred the mind with subtle hope. The early crimson diffused light seems to have borne from the very darkness that it has borne to dispel. Guess that is why even though it surely dispels the darkness but it does so ever so softly. The way Arjuna would fight with Bhishma! Some evenings may turn the pallet of sky into a violent play of colours but I have never seen a morning do that. The mornings stir up life all over but in a non pushy way. Mornings have always been gentle stirrers of hope and they fill me up with it! I hope they do the same to you... I wish a good morning to the "Good Morning" and a morning that stirs hope in you! Sincerely Mine! Anand Kulkarni