Fear

Fear, the mind numbing feeling 

It  gets my heart racing, forcing my soul to start shrinking 

That which makes me want to sit in the bed nestled in, for I know not where to begin 

Shrouding me with a giant cloud, making each pursuit of mine fill up with doubt 

Slowly eating away my present, for I am worried about the land o' so distant 

The primeval feeling which is meant to protect, is making me self destruct 

I wish I could drive it all away, challenges new or old, just let them make the way 

To new learnings and findings, each new step releasing me of my bindings 

Fear has its place, but I will not let it take up my whole space 

For I want to experience life and not be afraid of the strife 

Let every breath be filled with bliss, for life is short and there is not a moment to miss!

12500 feet

So everyone that knows Pradeep knows that he loves mountains, not just watching them but climbing them. P's take on climbing mountains is that challenging yourself on a mountain is always a true test of one's character,what would you do if you did not have all the comforts that we take for granted, what would you do when mother nature is at her best and at her wildest. He says you can find true friends and partners if you were to take them on a hike :-)

Moving to Seattle meant that I got to watch the hours of arduous prep that P would do every time he wanted to climb an alpine summit. The amount of detail and preparation that went into it were often irritating and tiresome to watch. So I decided to take the easier route out, I would go on hikes that required the minimum amount of preparation. I got to enjoy the views, stay fit and not have to worry about too much preparation.

That changed this year, now that I was going to hit the big 3 at the end of year I decided I should do something to mark this decade and what better way than to summit a mountain. Mt. Adams was chosen to be the one.

P offered to be my partner, porter and guide

After a couple of months of prep, we picked the July 4th weekend to attempt the summit. The plan was to start on Friday, see how I felt on Saturday and if I could not make it all the way back stay back on sunday. We started hiking at 5600 feet and till 8000 ft the hike was mostly un-eventful. At 8K we decided to set camp and that's when the fun started. Putting up a camp in 25 mile per hour winds is not easy. I thought of how our ancestors would have managed their lives when they were mostly at nature's mercy for their every day life. Once we set up the camp we got down to making some water - yup you heard it right, make water by digging snow, bringing it back and melting it. All was going good till the stove stopped working and P had to sit around in freezing weather to try and figure out how to get the stove working. After all attempts failed, we filled our bottles with snow and put them in the tent hoping they would melt. Not a very good idea as the water could have caused food poisoning. Tired as we were we slept off with the winds pushing our tents in all directions. Our plan was to get up at 2 am and decide the next steps.

At 2 am I peeked out of the tent and saw sparkling lights from the torches lighting up the path to the summit. Summit is on I told myself. P was not very convinced though, given the weather conditions he felt it might not be safe. By now I was determined to give it a try, lets dress up I told him and if we cannot go any further we will come back.

Miles to before I sleep 

We left behind all of our stuff and only with water, warm clothes and some food we started our climb to the summit. 9K - All is well. I am all pumped up, the summit looks so close, we can do this. 9K to 11K was a slope straight up with a 35 deg incline. The air started to get thinner, the legs started to get tired. Half way through P felt really tired, he started to have tingly sensations in his hand. Mountain sickness is setting in he told me. The uneducated climber that I am, I had no idea what to do. P kept his calm, sat down for some time and popped in a couple of ibuprofen tablets. He then said - I will make this happen for you, since you so wanted to do this. Test of character ?? Now that is what I am talking about !!

The amazing mountain views

We got to 11K and I started to feel a little sick in my stomach. Not here I told myself...I am so close. I popped in some GU (concentrated sugar tables with caffeine) . I will be fine I told myself and we started for the final 1000 ft to the summit. That is when the trouble started, my stomach went for a complete toss, till I realized the caffeine in the GU was reacting with my stomach. It was too late by then, we were 500 ft away from the summit and P thought it was not a good idea to go any further given my condition. Not now I told him. I just need to refocus and I will be fine, but it was tough. At that moment P came to my rescue, he started singing all of my favorite telugu songs at the top of his voice to try and divert me. With 45 miles per hour winds and low oxygen I am still not sure how he pulled it off. At that altitude he sure gave SPB a run for his money. 150 more, 70 more ...at 20 more I just could not do it any more. I sat down closed my eyes and said you got it.....deep breath to rescue. We finally made it to the summit !!. It was a terrible day to be at the summit, no visibility, heavy winds it was impossible to see any further than 20 ft. I was feeling so sick I just wanted to go back down, this minute that I had waited for, now was becoming very tough to enjoy. P back to rescue....he started hugging me and shouting - thats when it struck me. I had done it !!!

All this work for a really bad summit photo :-(

Coming down was a breeze, thanks to the wonderful glissade chutes ( snow slides ). We came down 3000 ft in 30 mins :-).

We got back to the car, drove to a nearby lodge, took a warm shower and as I was getting ready to sleep, I told myself - Bring it on 30, it is only going to get better from here :-)

Flying Solo

I am coming to the end of a 3 week long vacation sans husband for the first time after marriage and I have to begrudgingly admit " I loved it". Now before you start speculating on the state of my marriage, I would like to make a case for why "Flying solo" is a great idea for couples.

I remembered a joke as I started writing this blog. Once a man was travelling alone in a train. He stuck up a conversation with a fellow passenger and told him- " I am going on my honeymoon". The passenger was confused, he was like where is your wife? The man replied - "I am going on the honeymoon this year and my wife will go next year :-). After all a honeymoon is meant to be enjoyed, if both of us go together that will never happen."

Flying solo is something like this joke, not literally though. I remember when I was single and had to make the long flights to India, I always wished I had a partner that I could travel with, because 30 hours of no talking was a giant task for a talkative person like me. And now that I am married, I actually did not mind the 30 hours alone. Ahh the contradictions of the human mind!. Well, to tell you the truth I did mind P not coming on the trip initially. I was too used to the couple mode and getting used to the single mode took some time but when I finally got used to it, I discovered the joys of this short time off.

I always tell people I only write blogs when P is not in town, because that is the only time I actually get to sit down and reflect. When he is in town, there is no downtime and even if there is, it is a couple downtime, not an individual one. I am sure my married friends understand what that means. There is a status quo in married life that you get used to, talking to each other, doing activities together, taking care of the house etc. There is rarely time to step back from it all and evaluate it at an individual level. There are days where you get caught up in the fluidity of it all. Well you will say that is what vacations are for, what is special about not taking your partner along. I think the same way vacations allow you to look at your life in a different light, solo vacations allow you to look at your partner and other relationships in a new light. The latter part about other relationships is important. Very often in today's nuclear world it becomes all about you, your partner and your kids if you have any. What about your multitude of friends, partners, close relatives etc. They fade away into the background. That is what I think flying solo gives you, the quiet time to understand what is important in life and helps you appreciate it.

So what did my vacation teach me:-

1. That my husband is possibly the most honest and down to earth person that I have known in my life. The most important thing that he has taught me is that if you want to make the most out of a relationship then put yourself out in the open, in the most honest way. In most cases people will not understand and appreciate it but when they do you will get the true joy of being a relationship. Also, that it takes guts to be brutally honest about yourself to other people as well as yourself but without that there is no other way to grow.The other thing that I have learnt from him is that most instances in life can contribute to a joke and making a fool of yourself once in a while is a good way to break the bubble that we build around us.
2. My parents are the coolest people around. I have always known that my parents are different than other set of parents, they are most genuinely happy and peaceful people that I know. But the best part is their internal child which is always curious and excited. Watching my parents get excited about getting drenched in the ocean waters was delightful to the say the least. They were jumping with joy like kids would. They taught me that success is only defined by how happy and uncomplicated you are!
3. Meeting up with old friends is intoxicating. It is surprising how the years in between vanish when you meet an old friend. There is something to be said about the comfort of being with an old friend, we all have so much change going on in our lives that it is almost essential for us to keep ourselves rooted to these people as they help us deal with the everyday change in our life. Also, people dnt change, they just become wiser J
4. And finally, children are the best teachers. They say kids are mirrors of us, I would change that and say kids are mirrors that lead us to our soul. My 4 year old nephew taught me that. His response is not decorated by years of conditioning where we have been taught to behave in a certain way for a certain situation. His joy, curiosity, love and anger are all genuine. The quickest way that kids learn is by imitation, so if you see them doing something that you dnt like, look at yourself for you may be doing the same.

Flight or Fight

I recently started reading a book called “Loneliness”. I highly recommend the book to everyone who is interested in understanding human behavior. When I mentioned the title to people, they get concerned about the title. Take my word for it, this book is an excellent scientific and social memoir of human evolution.

Now to the story of why I started reading this book. Moving to Seattle was a personal challenge of mine to see if I can survive and thrive in completely new place. Minneapolis is a place very close to my heart for all the people that I met there, my friends, mentors, colleagues and bosses. There was a certain quality to all of them which was greatly endearing and loving. Life could not be more comfortable than that. I got to a point where I wanted to test myself in new circumstances and see if I can survive. Survive, I did but somewhere down the line something felt missing – the personal connection. I missed my friends and my mentors. That is where my research started, why is that we feel upset when the personal connection is missing?

My research led me to how evolution has trained our systems. It not just answered my question on personal connection but it also answered questions that I had about fear and anxiety in general. At the core of it all is our survival instinct. The survival instinct is a very sophisticated mechanism which has matured over 1000s of years of human evolution. Our systems are trained to ensure the success of best genomes for the human race. Rejection, failure, desertion were not circumstances that ensured survival of the human in our hunter gather societies. As a result our body developed hormonal reactions that send signals to our brain any time any of these situations arose. That is why a heart break really hurts because the minute your brain sense a rejection, it assumes that there is a threat to your survival. The brain then shuts down all the peripheral functions, quickens the heart rate to help you with “Flight or Fight” to save yourself. The slight glitch is that evolution has not really caught up with the modern day society. Heart breaks, fight with a boss, loss of friends are not situations that really threaten your survival and as result your body does not really need to kick off its fight and flight syndrome anytime these situations happen.

So what is the problem with triggering the “fight and flight” syndrome every single time. The problem is wear and tear. Another name that we give this syndrome these days is “Stress”. Every time your body undergoes stress there are physical changes that occur and they cause wear and tear in the body. In order to recover your body needs time to rest. Similar to how when you are trying to build muscles, you need a rest day for them to rebuild. In the modern day there is really no time to rest and recover. A good night’s sleep is also at premium for some people these days.

Understanding the method behind the madness has helped me figure out my stresses in a much clearer way. Personal connection is very important for all of us as it ensured a safety net for people in the hunter gather societies, the more people you knew and the more people you could the trust, the more your chances of survival where. As a result till today, we yearn for friends and families that we genuinely connect with on a personal basis. Telephonic or Inter web relationships fail to satisfy that need.

The same is true for stresses at work. Rejection or lack of approval could mean dire things for our ancestors. Have you ever seen lonely bears at national parks, they usually are injured and as a result they are thrown out of the herd as they jeopardize everyone else’s life. For the lonely bear from then on it is just counting days to its death. So lack of approval at work triggers immediate triggers in our systems.

Most spiritual books mention that the day you can get out of the crutches of your survival instinct is the day you will be enlightened. After my tiny bit of research it is becoming more and more clear to me that what they say is true. If all the stresses were out of our lives, what would be left is just pure bliss. 

Alternate reality

All this week a thought has been running at the back of my head, the thought has been trying to make its way on to paper but I have been withholding the thought and preventing it from reaching its fruition because I am not sure if I really realize what the greater implications of the thought might be. I have finally decided to give up the resistance and start putting down the thought on paper because past experience has taught me that I writing is the only mechanism that allows me to understand my thoughts.  So here it goes -
Over the last couple of years and especially in the last week I feel like my life and the life of everyone around me is being lived in two spheres. My friends have joked about me being like Alice from the Alice in wonderland series. I actually feel like that right now. The other movies that come to mind are The Matrix and the Truman show where an alternate reality is created and people living in them start to believe that is actually the real world.
Everyday I drive back from work I pass by 4 to 5 bus stops. The scene on every single bus stop is identical, people peering into their smart phones and looking at something busily. I often wonder what it is that they are all deeply looking into? My glare then moves on to fellow drivers, each one of them eagerly trying to get home in the engineering marvels that they dearly call cars. And once I do finally get home, my husband and I peer into our laptops and watch a soccer game or an interesting episode of Scrubs. We discuss application programming, the new windows phone vs. the android phone and the pros and cons of Windows 8. Once in  a while when we do get fed up of technology we discuss people and the so called first world problems that each one of our friends/family are going through.
This rigmarole goes on day in and day out and we enjoy most of it. Newer technologies at work, newer relationships, occasional celebrations, some upsets and so on. Most of what we all call life!

But then a question pops up in my head once in a while, what is life? Isn't life the fishes in lake outside my house, the lady bug crawling on my balcony, the stars shimmering in the sky at night, the intelligence in nature that makes every season come on time, sun rise, sun set, the brilliance that makes the moon disappear every 15 days and then reappear again. Ahh well that seems to be life, but then where do I fit in. With my latest smart phone, my laptop, my latest facebook update or twitter feed, where do I fit in. It almost seems like my reality does not mesh with this other reality. It almost feels like an alternate reality. Is it the same life that runs in me and all of this wonderful world around me. We are all made of the same atoms, live on the same earth, breath the same air and ultimately die and mix into the mother earth. We are all connected in some sense but our current way of life just seems to be taking us away from that connectedness. Nature is something that we drive down an hour or two to visit. Nature is not something that lives and breathes within me.

But then I get a message on my smart phone and I forget all about nature and me and about all of it being One.

Power

I was listening to the song "Aa bhi jaa" from Sur, staring out of windows onto the beautiful lake outside our house. The tiny droplets of rain shimmering on the surface of the water, a beautiful piece of violin playing in the background and I thought about everything that is beautiful about life.
       In the background I heard Lucky Ali's voice nudging his student to perform, she on the other hand is shocked to see that her teacher has stolen her song after dismissing the song as a piece of crap in a previous instance. And then I thought about everything that is ugly about life. People hating each other, killing each other, wars and the list goes on.
      I have thought about this a lot, every time we read something horrible in the papers and I have tried to search for answers for this. I do not hate the people who do hateful things but I wonder what makes them do such things, what is it that makes them stoop to such levels that only hurting other fellow beings is the only way in which they get happiness. Is that true happiness, one can argue but there is something about that action that attracts these people towards performing that action.
      Every time I ask this question there is only one answer that I get and that is Power. The desire for power drives a lot of activities in our life, each one of us wants to feel that we have an identity, that there is someone out there who will listen to us when we say something, there is someone that looks up to us, fear or respect does not really matter, we want to make an impact, again positive or negative does not really matter.
      Why is it that power is that important one might ask? I think the answer lies in our animal past. Imagine a wounded lion in the jungle, he really does not have much chances of survival but then think of a powerful lion, he gets meat delivered to his doorstep, all the lioness' want to be with the most powerful lion. At the end of the day it is all about survival. We have left our animal past behind but the instincts are still there, we still believe that in order to survive we need to be powerful and not just that people around us need to recognize.
      This does not really apply to us right, we have all handled our animal instincts well. Have we? Lets take a closer look - what about the all the cases husbands shouting on wives, parents beating kids, bosses making life for their employees hell, all our peers at work fighting it out to be the next big guy.  How many times have you seen housewives shouting on their maids, men shouting on auto-drivers or servers in restaurants in India? Everyone of us is looking for an opportunity to feel powerful.
      Well wait a sec, you can tell me, not all desire for power is bad. Let me give you an example - you want to be the next director in your office, so all you do is slog it out to be the director. Lets assume you do  become the director, what now? Why did you want to become director, to feel powerful? You have all the power you want now, but what do you want to do with it ? All this while that you were busy slogging it out to become the director, did you ever think about why you wanted to be the director. Do you want to change things at work, motivate people, build newer products, what was it ? My guess is you have not really thought about it, all you wanted to be was powerful and that is all you strived to do. That is the problem with gunning for power, most of the times you do it because of how it feels, you don't really worry about what power does or why you want that power. When the chance finally comes for you to use your power most often that not you will not know what to do with it since you have not thought about it really. We all know what the consequences of having such people in power are. Politicians in India provide ample real life examples.
     All the external influences ( read facebook, linked-in, tv, the movies) around us do not really help us with the struggle for power. There are a lot more avenues to show case ourselves these days, compare our position with others and then stack rank ourselves on where we rank in the power chain. Depending on where you land in the chain, there might be various emotions that one might go through.
      We have heard it said from the beginning of time that unless we realize our true merit as an individual, realize that we are all in this together, not against each other, there will always be a struggle over the other. And mind you there will always be an other that you can compare yourself against. 

Profound moments

People often talk about some profound moments that changed their life. So far I have never experienced one, but that changed yesterday when we attended Karin’s funeral in Minneapolis.  All this while when Karin was approaching death, all I was telling myself was that when the moment actually comes I want to be present there. God willing, that happened and we made it to the funeral. Before leaving for the funeral I checked out Karin’s caring bridge site (https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/karintreiber/) one last time and the outpouring of love and affection for her as well as the entire Treiber family was very moving. I thought about how amazing it is that this tiny slender woman has been able to touch the hearts of so many different people  who spoke different languages, came from different parts of the world and on the surface looked and behaved a lot more differently than she did.

The minute we entered the church to attend the service, we knew this was not a mourning, it was a celebration of the person that Karin was and was happening the way Karin wanted it to be. There were some neatly made collages of Karin the teacher, the friend, the traveler, the wife, the mentor and the Rotarian – all of which had one thing in common – her smiling face. There was a bigger collage that had all the experiences that people had shared on the caring bridge site. Everyone had a different story yet it was so similar in the sense that each of them had been moved in some or the other by Karin. We then walked into the church to meet Bob and there he was with his trademark wide grin, thanking us for coming down and introducing us to his entire family. He sure was living up to his wife words of making this a celebration. He said all the love that people had showered on them in the past few days had created a bubble that was letting his carry on this ceremony. As I looked at her peaceful figure in the casket and how extra-ordinarily beautiful the church looked with all the flower arrangement and at all diverse people who had come to celebrate her, tears just flowed through my eyes. I missed her in the moment, her laughter, her warmth and her charm. That’s when I knew that even in death she would make sure that she taught us a thing or two about living.

I was wondering how someone could really capture Karin’s life for everyone present there but the pastor made the job easy for everyone that followed. He said Karin was the tiny horn with the big voice. She was our very own Mother Teresa. She selflessly cared for people around her and across national boundaries. All of her mentees will vouch for the fact that it was  because of her encouragement that they are where they are today. She has a total of 21 PHD students graduate under her, visitors from 80 different countries visited her and a lot of others benefited from her acts of charity at the Rotary and the church . However she valued service to the Lord about everything else. She was a constant learner in life, asking questions, constantly curious and at the same time valuing each and every moment in her life.

Right then I knew that I had met a saint and I only wish that I had more time to spend with her.

Listening to the songs interspersed with the eulogies I realized why I so passionately wanted to be there. It was because I wanted to hear people talk about Karin and her life.  I wanted to see if I can pick a drop from the ocean of love that she spread around and not be the self-centered person that I am right now. Bob, Paul, David and her friends talked about how much Karin had given to them both in life, through the process of dying and now in death. She had set the bar really high and as Paul mentioned if she was here today she would say there is no bar, just keep the bar pushing.

Karin’s life was not about power or material means. It was not a process of aggregation, it was a process of giving . The lesson that she taught us all was that only by making your life an outpouring of love can you really live life in its truest sense. I want all of us to remember that there was one amongst us who managed to live such an exemplary life and that it might indeed be possible for us to live up to the example that she set.

To the undaunting spirit

We all have had our favorite super heroes at one point on another - Batman and Spiderman for the adventurous folks, Krishna and Rama for the true to India folks, Hardy boys and Nancy Drew for the bookworms like me. But then most of us have only always had REEL heroes, REAL life super heroes are hard to come by.

I consider myself lucky to have known one such superhero. And that person is nothing like you would imagine a super hero to be. She is a little shy of being 5 ft tall, less than 100 pounds in weight, beautiful white hair and an infectious smile which is sure to catch you the minute you meet her. I met Karin or my American mom as I call her 6 years ago when I had just landed in the United States. I was invited over to dinner at her place one night and what started on that one evening has blossomed into a relationship I could have never imagined. Karin has been my friend, philosopher and guide over all these years. Their home has been a home away from home for me, to the point that they now consider Pradeep their adopted son.

Karin and Bob(Karin's husband) have taught me a lot of things over the years but the most important thing is the importance of love in our lives. It does not matter where we live, how fancy our car is or how much money we make as long as our hearts are open to people around us. They have hosted people from 82 different countries in their house over the past 10 years and to this date there has never been an uncomfortable evening at their place. It just goes to show that truly as humans there are no boundaries that separate us, but there is one common string that binds us all and that is mutual respect and love for each other. As they like to say they did not need to go out and discover the world, the world came to them. This just shows that when our hearts are open there are not a lot of things that we cannot do with out lives, life in turn happens in phenomenal ways to us. Thanks to them and their marital advice I think Pradeep and I have been able to lay down the foundations of a happy marriage.

Bob jokes sometimes that most people have 16 hours in their 24 hours, my wife has 48 hours in 24. Karin is an educator, a volunteer, an excellent cook, pretty much all of her gifts are hand made, she manages to catch up on her reading and still have the time to host people every other weekend. Once again she proves to all of us that life will only happen as much as we are willing to push our boundaries. If the spirit is pure you will always have a great amount of energy to do a lot of things in life however if we carry around a lot of hatred and animosity in us, a large part of our energy is sucked into just dealing with the negative emotions. Never once have I heard either one of them complain about anything in their lives, they believe in giving to everyone around them and as a result they receive a lot from people around them too.

Nothing proves her greatness more than her current struggle with cancer. Karin was detected with lung cancer in April this year, the predictions that doctors had for her were very bleak. But in her typical style she was not going to take anything heads down. She got to work immediately figuring out what her options were, refused chemotherapy and resorted to only holistic methods of treatment. She had won the struggle once before with breast cancer and she was going to do that again this time around. Despite all the struggle that she is going through I think she is still much more hale and hearty in spirit than anyone of us can even imagine. I have days when I go home complaining about work or the dreary weather or some tiny thing and then I get an email from Karin describing the beauty of the fall colors on the tree in her backyard and how the Lord was helping her by making each day more beautiful. For me that serves a reminder of how beautiful this life is and how we pollute our mind with small complaints every single day to a point that after a while we stop looking at the beauty of life.

The reason that I wanted to write this blog was that I thought it was not fair for people who did not know Karin in person to not know that such a beautiful person exists among us. Another more selfish reason was that after reading this blog I can get more people to pray for her speedy recovery.

Incase you wanted to give her your wishes, here is a link to her caring bridge site.
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/karintreiber/

" It is not important to be a superhuman, it is important to realize that being human is super " . - Jaggi Vasudev

Sridevi bani meri mummy

                                             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Vinglish
I recently watched English Vinglish and it reminded me of my mom. Now before you start thinking this blog is about how my mom learnt to start speaking in English, I should warn you that my mom has a Masters in English Literature! All through our childhood my mom widely used her English speaking skills any time she wanted to let me and my sister know that things were going to get serious. Only problem was that we only realized this very late in life and by that time the harm was done, we had successfully managed to not listen to all of her warnings that were always delivered using the choicest of English language phrases.

Well, coming back to the point the reason the movie reminded me of my mom was because of the earnestness that Sridevi had in the movie to learn something in life and get better. She is shy and scared but the desire to learn and grow is so deep in her that she is willing to put aside all of her fears to get better. Of all the people that I have known so far I think my mom displays the strongest desire to learn and grow. You will be surprised by the number of avenues she has actually sought in her life to learn new things in her life.As long as a person is willing to teach she is always an eager student.

My earliest memory is of my mom is when she took a computer class with kids my age. The fact that she was older than them or concerns about what others would think about her were never a deterrent to my mom, she just wanted to stay up-to-date with technology and be a part of Gen X. That desire was enough for her to go ahead and do something which none of the women around her were even considering. Ever since then there is always a new activity every year that my mom picks up. She worked around out school schedules, my dad's work schedules, taking care of the house etc and still managed to find time to learn something new. There was sitar, veena, singing, painting, cooking, knitting, meditation, yoga and the list is just goes on.

The most surprising thing is that as years are starting to add to my mom's age the desire to do newer thing is growing at a even more fervent pace. She turned 50 last year and to mark that she started learning carnatic classical music once again !!  One amazing thing about her is that she is always pushing her boundaries, every passing year she is making sure that she is afraid of fewer  and fewer things in her life. My mom always felt she has missed out on being a working woman and experience of being out on your own. So to make sure she crosses that of her list she decided to start working once she hit the half century. Not as an employee though, she is entrepreneur in her own right. She runs a mini music school for kids in our colony now and the number of students keeps on increasing every day. As you might have guessed by now she is not satisfied by just teaching the kids, she comes up with newer techniques to keep the kids engaged and interested during the entire class.

Sridevi did a great job of capturing the fact that as long as there is desire to get better in life there is nothing in life that can really stop you and I think my mom is a living example of that.!

What would you do if you were not afraid ?

Over the past few months I have given some though to work life balance, woman at work and as I was hearing this Sheryl Sandberg talk today I finally decided to start putting down these thoughts in words. A lot more posts to follow on this as my thoughts progress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdvXCKFNqTY

Disclaimer - I really dnt agree with all of what Sheryl says, its just that it triggered a train of thoughts in me and I decided to write about it , most of these thoughts here are my ideas which may not really agree with what she says.

Here are a couple of things she said which got me thinking -

1) Woman quit long before they actually quit
We start making less ambitious choices even before we have actually started doing the required job , we somehow believe that it will take a lot from us and we will not be able to manage work life balance when we get to a bigger spot in the company. This in itself prevents us from getting to a spot where we will challenged enough or one that we believe we deserve to be at . Given this we end up at positions which are less suitable than the positions that we believed we deserved and hence the choice to quit becomes a lot more easier because we no longer feel challenged by the job or the position that we are at.

2) What would you do if you were not afraid ?
This I think holds for each one of us . Some of us are afraid of our jobs because we think we might not have the capacity , some of us are afraid of quitting the wrong jobs because we are afraid of not finding another one, some of us are afraid of asking for a raise or a job that you think you deserve because we think we will be berated for having asked for that.

I am turning into a big believer of questioning my everyday life choices that I make at my work place  and home. Questions like  -

1) Where do I work ?
Even though we tell ourselves we don't have much of choice in the jobs and people we land up with , that is wrong, with enough homework,trial and error you can call the shots on the place that you would like to work at.

2) How much time do I devote to my job ?
Is working long hours the only way of showing that I am devoted to my job ? What if I want to do a good job for 8 hours a day but then after that I want to devote time to my personal pursuits ?

3) Why do I choose to work long hours ?
Is it work pressure, my love for what I do or just because I don't have anything better to do with my time ?

4) Why do I  do my job ?
I see a lot of women these days do a job because they get a sense of identity and importance from the jobs they are at which they miss if they were to stay at home. But then if power and identity are our only reason for working then maybe we need to look at ourselves more deeply before we decide to work. Keeping track of the bigger picture is very important - how does me doing a good job impact the world around me ?

5) How do I deal with the pressures of a rat race ?
Sheryl Sandberg mentioned a very important thing, if you feel like you are caught in the rat race that might mostly be because you are not in the right job. To add to that I will say if you dnt have the right attitude you will feel the same way. If we are always trying to compete against the person sitting next to us, instead of just believing in what we do and trying to do a good job of it we might end up always having to be at the mercy of the rat race.

6) Work life balance
This happens to be my most favorite topics . How do you define work life balance ? Is it worth skipping meals, eating outside, working long hours, sleeping less to prove that you are a good employee?

People all around talk about how their jobs are stressful , there is a lot of talk about people not being able to handle the pressure, ambition, competition etc but what I find disappointing is that as a result of all of this we forget the basic reason for doing a job . We work to be able to produce something, something new, something useful and  worthwhile . Of course we need to do make money but then for most people I know we are at a stage where money is not the primary concerns.

And we need to think about these questions because even the most intelligent people in this world can create havoc in the world by working on jobs that they had no idea were causing the entire financial system to collapse.

Do I have answers to all of these questions ? Not at all , all I know is that I need to keep asking them because who knows someday I might actually have answers to some of these questions.

Getting married 101

So it all finally happened and went well . Given how much I had blogged before the wedding, I had to write something after it was finally done and also because a friend mentioned that he would be kind enough to read it :-).
So all the while that we were preparing for the wedding everyone that we met gave us some insights into what there's had been like and from that we had a clear cut list of what we did not want our wedding to be. Here are some things that we heard
1) You will just want the wedding to get over as quickly as possible and just get back home to sanity.
2) Weddings are all usually just a big daze, you hardly remember what happened during the entire time . It is almost like a photo where multiple frames got merged together
3) People are all very stressed out at weddings and they end up stressing you out.
4) All the rituals are so boring and old fashioned
4) Weddings are a very expensive affair and they drain your pockets out.

Armed with what all we did not want our wedding to be, we met some amazing couples who gave us tips that made sure our wedding was nothing like what we had heard. So when I decided to blog, I thought I should capture all of these points. So here goes my wedding checklist
1) Find a fun and chilled out husband / wife . I was lucky that ways but if that is not working for you follow the remaining tips.

2) Having a fun wedding is your responsibility. Plan things that will break the ice and get people to realize that they are here to have fun and not be caught up with just arranging things. I started off with a questionnaire for my family about the other side.Train journey, coupled with cards and some antakshari also can do the trick. Best of all tricks is to go up on to the stage during the sangeet and dance/sing. Nothing works better than the bride and groom dancing to each other tunes at the wedding.
3) Maintaining a journal throughout the wedding is also helpful as it prevents you from getting dazed and not being able to live in the moment. Capturing the simple moments on a video or on paper will help you stay focused and aware throughout the wedding.
4) Another tip that I received was not to resist taking part in any of the rituals. The more you detest them , the more you will end up spoiling everyone's mood during the marriage . It helps to do some research before as to what these rituals mean because then when they actually happen you will be able to athedd  certain quality that the ritual provides into your relationship. Some of them like taking care of wooden babies or playing with a flower ball help to lighten up the situation a lot.
5) Force yourself to smile no matter what chaos is happening around you. A friend of mine said, Akhila smile till you die at the wedding, you will have to live with these pictures for a lifetime to come and you don't want a swollen face in any one of them.
6) Get yourself a good photographer. Good photographers have this knack of making the simplest of things look the best and so when you look at the pictures you will end up feeling you had the most grandest of weddings when in reality it might not have been all like that. Consider this a cost cutting investment.
7) Do small things for the close friends and family at the wedding to show gratitude for all they have done at the weddings. Often times the wedding is so much about us that we forget all the other people who put in the effort to make it a grand success for us . Hand written notes with small gifts can do wonders.
8) Also remembering that this is just one day in a lifetime of togetherness helps . There will be good days and bad days in a relationship and it may so happen that things go terribly wrong at your wedding but then how both of you takes it defines how your relationship will look in the days to come. So if not for anything it is a good test of your relationship.
9) Finally Indian weddings are project management at the biggest scale, with each one person having a opinion on what is the right way of doing the wedding . After the dabbawalas of mumbai I think MBA grads should focus on how despite all these impediments Indian weddings do get done.

A good start can take a relationship a extra mile , so dnt forget to laugh and have fun at the wedding , you can add that extra mile or two...

The Science of Love

Going a little off topic , I wanted to add a blog on one of my favorite topics , the science of love . Movies and love stories are all full of details of how when a person falls in love the whole world changnes , there are colors all around him etc etc . The nerd in me could never accept these details , they were too cliche for me. I needed a explanation for all of it , all the more when I experienced the same . That is when science came to my rescue , found this wonderful explanantion of the different stages of love as defined by science . The biological processes behind it all . It all started to make sense then, I could distance myself easily from all the head rush and think camly and at the same time enjoy the whole process at a totally different level .

Listed here are the different stages of love

Stage 1
The first stage of love is lust. Lust is driven by our sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen. These hormones are what get us 'out on the pull'
Stage 2
After lust comes attraction. This is the love-struck phase; the time when we lose our appetite, can't sleep, and can't concentrate. This is what we know as falling in love.This is all due to surging brain chemicals called monoamines. They are called dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Norepinephrine and serotonin excite us, while dopamine makes us feel happy

Stage 3
The third stage of love is attachment - staying together. Attachment takes over from the attraction stage and is the bond which keeps couples together.Two different hormones are important during this phase of love. They are oxytocin and vasopressin.

Significane of sindoor

From our young age as Indian girls we have always been fascinated with the red sindoor on a married woman's forehead. Here are some of the reasons why the sindoor holds such an importance in our culture

Sindoor is applied for the first time to a Hindu woman during the marriage ceremony when the bridegroom himself adorns her with it. Traditional authentic Kumkum  is made by grinding the dried turmeric to a powder. A few drops of lime are then added to this yellow powder, which changes its hue to a bright red

History of Sindoor
Tradition of wearing Sindoor or vermillion is said to have traveled through more than 5,000 years of Hindu culture. Female figurines excavated at Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, show that sindoor was applied to the partition of women's hair even in early Harappan times. Besides, legends says that Radha, the consort of Lord Krishna, turned the kumkum into a flame like design on her forehead. In the famous epic Mahabharata, Draupadi, the wife of the Pandavas, is believed to have wiped her sindoor in disgust and despair. Use of Sindoor has also been mentioned in The Puranas, Lalitha Sahasranamam and Soundarya Lahharis.

Astrological Significance of Sindoor
According to Hindu astrology, Mesha Rashi or the House of Aries is on the forehead. The Lord of Mesha is Mars and his color is red. It is believed to be auspicious. This is why red sindoor is applied at the forehead and at the parting of the hair. Both are signs of saubhagya (good fortune). Sindoor is also considered to be the symbol of the female energy of Parvati and Sati.

Physiological Significance of Sindoor
Sindoor is applied on the spot between the brows which is considered the seat of latent wisdom and mental concentration and is very important for worship. This also indicates the point at which the (third) spiritual eye opens. All thoughts and actions are supposed to be governed by this spot.  Also , sindoor due to its intrinsic properties, mercury, besides controlling blood pressure also activates sexual drive. This also explains why Sindoor is prohibited for the widows. For best results, Sindoor should be applied right upto the pituitary gland where all our feelings are centered.

Telugu movies to the rescue

Venky explains the meaning of marriage 


My friend Krish who is a avid telugu movie watcher provided his own twist to my blog , the meaning of marriage as explained by telugu movies . Here is the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=169KFshXF4g

Saptapadi

Saptapadi 

Saptapadi or Nagavalli is considered to the one of the most important events of the marriage . This is where both the bride and groom take the seven sacred vows of marriage.

My cousin Vijay had done a wonderful write up on marriage for his sister's marriage and as I was reading through that today , I thought I should share this.

An important post marriage ritual performed on the wedding day is Nagavalli. Saptapadi, the seven steps & the vows, form part of Nagavalli. The bride and groom pledge and declare to all those present that they have accepted one another voluntarily. Holding each other's hands, the couple takes seven steps, symbolic of the seven marital vows, around the sacred fire.
As they hold hands and walk around the fire, the bride and groom pledge the following vows:

1. Let us take this first step vowing to keep a pure household, avoiding all things injurious to our health.
2. Let us take this second step vowing to develop mental, physical and spiritual strengths.
3. Let us take this third step with the aim of increasing our wealth by righteous means.
4. Let us take this fourth step to acquire knowledge, happiness, and harmony by mutual love and trust.
5. Let us take this fifth step to pray for virtuous, intelligent and courageous children.
6. Let us take this sixth step for longevity.
7. Let us take this final step to vow that we will always remain true companions and life-long partners.

This is a very significant event in the whole marriage ceremony, and it is only when they walk seven steps together, that the marriage is complete legally according to the vedic hindu scriptures. 

During Nagavalli, a silk cloth cradle was made and a piece of sandalwood, a ripe mango and turmeric was placed in it to pray for an off spring as healthy as the ripe mango, as pure as the turmeric and as self fragrant as the sandalwood. This is followed by a fun filled event where the bride and groom fight over who will collect the gold and silver rings dropped in a narrow mouthed vessel.

Holding the bride’s left foot toe, the bridegroom then helps her tread on a grindstone called sannikallu kept on the side of the fire. The accompanying manthra (chant) says: "Mount up this stone. Let thy mind be rock-firm, unperturbed, by the trials and tribulations of life" and when it is finished, the groom adorns the bride's toes with mettelu (silver rings).  This is followed by appagintalu the official handover of the bride to the groom and ever since her family name is renamed.

Talambralu

http://www.sirishavikram.net/wedding/images/talambralu4_small.jpg

Talambralu

For most of us talambralu is probably the most fun event in the marriage . The bride and the groom shower one another with pearls & talambrAlu (rice mixed with saffron & turmeric). Another reason is the photos taken during talambralu are probably the best :-). I have been trying to look for the significance of them but so far have only found some superficial explanations , here is one of them.

This denotes the couple’s desire for happiness, enjoyment and contentment. Initially they take turns to shower the rice as it progresses it gets more entertaining when they begin to compete with each other.

Love

Diverging from my marriage research a bit . I met Karin today and she gave me this wonderful saying on Love , which I thought was very apt given the next big thing that is coming up in my life .

"Love is patient , love is kind . It does not envy , it does not boast , it is not proud . It is not rude , it is not self seeking , it is not easily angered , it keeps no record of wrongs "

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth . It always protects , always trusts , always hopes , always perseveres .

Love never fails "