Pinktints

A Wonderful World

2006-03-02T21:47:00.000-08:00

For those who are still on the other side of the looking glass, here is a link you should visit :
http://www.happynews.com/category/contest.htm

Join the ever growing population who believe that a better future awaits us...Yes, inspite of the daily news headlines that tell you otherwise...Why is it so hard for everyone to see this? I think, in some part of their minds, many of us have become resigned and cynical...due to our own personal battles...We have affected the world consciousness (more to be read in "Conversations with God") with our own measly problems. The way you think, not only affects your life, but the life of the world. Think big, think great, and you are actually creating a wonderful world...
Seek out people who do good in their own small way, be aware of your daily life for that miracle that will astound you..and you will see it...We have all got used to just being in our own world and the walls of our mind that we fail to see the world outside of us.

Stop! the so-called "ordinary" life you lead, has a few shining moments and the way you react to them , is the way the world moves...It is a wonderful world!

Talking to a Stranger

2006-02-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

What would you do if I suddenly asked you to speak a few words to the stranger walking across the street? Would you consider me mad or would you just walk away? For a long time, I have been wanting to do this. And yes, I did!

Earlier last week, I saw a Buddhist monk walking on the other side of the road. I decided this would be my perfect chance. I crossed over and waited for him a bit further down. He appeared, I introduced myself and asked him where the nearest monastery was which was open to public (something I really wanted to know). A pleasant encounter, I got my answer and further more, it was something new and brave (yes!) to do.

Courage, I must say, is not in achieving great feats but sometimes, in the small ones that keep coming our way...:)

A Beautiful Prayer

2006-02-24T02:06:00.000-08:00

I got this prayer today from someone...And wanted to share it with others...

Prayer, by a Seventeenth Century Nun

Lord, you know better than I know myself that I am getting older and will someday be old.

Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to straighten out everybody’s affairs.

Make me thoughtful but not moody, helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but you know, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind from the recital of endless details—give me the wings to come to the point.

Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter.

I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others’ pains, but help me to endure them with patience.

I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint—some of them are so hard to live with—but a sour old woman is one of the crowning works of the devil.

Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and the talents in unexpected people. And give me the grace to tell them so.

My new life

2006-02-15T21:56:00.001-08:00

Its been quite a while since I posted...and the reason was good...

I have been away attending a program called "Landmark Forum" (www.landmarkeducation.com) To those unfamiliar with it, it is more than just a personality development program...it transformed my life and the way I saw the world. I have not yet attained enlightenment or become a "gyaani" (http://gyaani.blogspot.com) but in a way, have attained what I would call "powerful peace"....meaning, I feel powerful in knowing that anything is possible and peaceful and calm in my daily life.

There are moments when I lose my cool but I accept it as part of myself and do not resist my emotions. The whole 3 days that I was there, I felt only positive energy - from people who have conquered their "issues", from people who have transcended those minor irritants we talk of each day and from those who are on the way to freedom...

I hope to sustain my new life (I felt it was a new birth) and see the world for what it is there - happiness should we choose! Look around today - you must have missed something good...

My new life

2006-02-15T21:56:00.000-08:00

The President of India's speech in Hyderabad...On positiveness

2006-01-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

The President of India DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's Speech in Hyderabad.

Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?

We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary.
It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.
Why are we so NEGATIVE?

Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things?
We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.
Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India.
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.

(The below is part of the email extract, not part of the speech)

YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke, The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS.
YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.

YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM.

YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity... In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai.

YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.

YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost.' YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.

Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?

Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston???

We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own.

You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr.
Tinaikar, had a point to make. 'Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,' he said.

'And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job.
Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?' He's right.

We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.

This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? 'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system?

What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU.

When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.

Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country.

Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money...

In Memory of Mahesh and Sarita

2006-01-17T18:59:00.000-08:00

Today morning, one of my friends set me this website http://maheshsarita.com . I am afraid I do not know much about the duo whose lives are enshrined here. I confess I have never even heard of them...Two young people, who were killed for doing something good to society, two people who gave up the comforts that we cannot...Two people who acted on what they wanted to do rather than just thinking about doing it "someday"....What had God in mind with their story? Did he want to inspire some of us?

At a time, when some of us are thinking about the risks in changing jobs, looking at relationships, our own idea of "practical" necessities, here are just two of the many people who are taking a risk with their lives....They would have had a dream, too, I guess. Of raising their kids, of being together as a family, of accomplishing in their own way...Just like the rest of us...

We often think that life is long and we have enough time to do what we want to do...Now, I am not so sure...Will my life be long enough to shake me out of this rut of mediocrity? Will my loved ones' lives be long enough that I can make them happy in a small way? Someone rightly said, life is simple...we make it complicated.

May God give us the strength and wisdom to do what we have to do - Now! In memory of those who have already done what they had to do...

Sponsoring a future

2006-01-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

For a long time, a few of us kept thinking about lots to do but like most of the world, we never got down to action. This new year, we decided to act....

We have begun pooling a minimum amount of money to fund a deserving but underprivileged child's education. This could be by way of fees, books, uniforms etc.
Since this is a sort of informal scholarship, children are referred to us by the people we know, like the daughter/son of their handyman or maid. We, then, get in touch with the child's school, and teachers to find out his/her potential and take a decision. Small primary schools normally have minimal fees but are still too high for a certain section of society.

So, no great ideas, no great discussions - just action! How happy that feels!

Maybe, you can take such an iniative in your own small way....It will have great ripples...

A long way ahead!

2005-12-31T04:17:00.000-08:00

He was working as a scientist with a space research Organization, always dreaming of Indian technology conquering the cosmos, when one day he suddenly realized that development does not necessarily mean progress of rocket science. It means, rather, fulfilling the basic needs of life and improving the quality of life as a whole. Statistics (that was the only reliable source of information for him till then) told him that people at the grasroot level are mostly not literate.

And thus he started his journey to spread not only literacy, but also proper education among the children of the rock-cutters of Madanapalli, a very small district of AP.
He left his job as a scientist and bought a barren piece of land nearby to the villages of madanapalli. With the help of local rock-cutters, he built a makeshift arrangement on that land, which served as a school for the local kids in the morning and providing shelter for him during the nights.
In the meanwhile, a young lady joined him on his mission and soon they got married.(They now have a son)

In the meanwhile, they had re-built the school, the scientist's son studying in the same school with the local rock-cutters' children...

Now hold on...if you think that I was narrating the sequel of a famous hindi movie called "swades", then you were wrong. There is truly such a person working among the impoverished clan of Andhra rock-cutters. Mr. Narasimhan, born in a Tamil brahmin family(His family never accepted his wife just because she was from a lower caste. He believes castism in India is a curse), was a trained engineer from IITK. He could have lived his life in real luxury, but he chose a life far more meaningful, and today, just because of him, around 20% of his past pupils are working in different govt. organizations across southern states of India.

The above was sent to me by a person called Saikat. While we "try to do" small things, there are others who have gone a long way ahead of us...

When it matters most...

2005-12-25T23:22:00.000-08:00

When I began this blog, I thought "Will I see so many positive lives" to write about them? I was wrong. I am seeing much more of them....

Yesterday, I was inside a bus at a signal when there came by a child begging...In India, this is a common phenomenon. So much so that one tends to avoid such people because our "realistic" world has taught us not to trust anyone...
The difference here was that the child who was barely 6 or 7 years old had been burnt and could not lift her hand....A deep scar covered half of her body....Yes, there were many in cars who refused to look at her, forget about giving money....And then, a miracle as I always see, these days...An old man, around 75 years old, who could barely walk himself got down from the scooter on which he was riding pillion, walked upto her and gave her some change though she had not yet approached him and was on the other side of the road...

I shall never forget this gesture...What use that we have youth and money when this thought did not strike us (including me!) We all pride ourselves in saying we are generous, give to charity and the like - but did you help when it mattered most? Did you shun aside the fact the "we should not help beggars" tag for a future life who may never be able to earn a living?
God Bless him...

Small things with great love

2005-12-20T19:20:00.000-08:00

Mother Teresa said "We cannot do great things, only small things with great love".

Would you walk across a busy intersection in the midst of snarling vehicles to save a - puppy?
Today morning, I saw a young man doing this. The signal became green, and vehicles began to zoom past as though there was a tsunami behind them. Right in the middle, was a small puppy caught and confused...not knowing which side to move...
Out of the blue, there was a young man who darted in from the sidewalk, picked up the puppy in a jiffy and settled it back to a safer side.
Someday, this karma may come back to him for the good...Would we do this? Or would we think of what people would say? Would we act with the goodness in our heart or would we, as we always do, leave it to be done by somebody else behind us?

The first statement above is a testimony to your act...

The Magic of Prayers

2005-12-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

If you visit a prayer site, take a minute to pray for those who have written in their problems. The magic of praying can never be underestimated. I say this with experience. Many people have also agreed that once you begin a silent conversation with God, as if, He is with you, you see miracles in everything...or rather everything appears to be miraculous!

As Einstein stated words to the effect, - There are 2 ways to live your life, one to believe that everything is a miracle and the other, not to.

Prefer to believe the first and the wonders never cease! Trust more, have faith and patience in your own divine magic....

Princess for a week!

2005-12-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

Last week, I went for an all-expense paid vacation and was "in the lap of luxury". Two things I feel are responsible for this benevolent act. One, the way I began to change my thinking process. I consciously made an attempt to feel abundance, feel confident and think I deserve many things. Did these thoughts lead someone to sponsor this? Maybe....
The second, of course, was the kind act of the people who sponsored my vacation...

Can we do something nice for someone today? It maybe something small, but a drop will definitely contribute to the ocean....Most important, feel abundant, feel that you deserve the best things and - you will get it! Oh ! - and never underestimate the power of "karma"...:)

See you...

Christmas Volunteering

2005-11-27T20:56:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of people trying to spread Christmas cheer for underprivileged children. A Christmas party for 2500 kids from orphanages, some among them who are physically and mentally challenged, as well.
I thought this would be my first "pink tint" and to recognize their efforts, I call upon you to help if you would like...

This is in Bangalore on the 17th Dec '05.

There are more than one ways you can be a part of this wonderful event -
Spread the word: Just a mouse click away! :-)

Sponsor a Gift: We encourage you to buy a gift worth no more than 25 bucks (Just give up one cup of coffee at a cafe and u can buy a smile! :-) )

Sponsor a child: Just 75 + 25 (preferrably gift) = 100 bucks (Skip a movie and you can buy a laugh! With prices today u can actually buy 2 smiles as well... ;-) )

Find a Sponsor: Finding 2500 individuals willing to make the above said contributions or approaching corporates for support (Sponsoring part of the events like venue, food, etc). Some companies have come forward to help with transport by providing their buses for the day. If something of that sort can be arranged nothing like it as it saves trouble of going to the BMTC folks to some extent and ensures timely arrival of kids.

Make it Happen: Be a volunteer to the event and for next 6 weeks. Try and make it to the discussions, assume some responsibilities (Food, Transport, PR, etc).

Coordinate: This would be higher responsibility than above whereby you need to expend more time and energy. emBARK on others and be emBARKED upon! ;-)

To know more about the programme – mail chrysallisartscentre@yahoo.com or iva.volunteer@gmail.com

You can also contact Diana - 9886112230.

As I stated in the blog, there is goodness all around....Just see it...

Upbeat World

2005-11-26T21:21:00.000-08:00

I began this blog out of desperation....Everywhere I watched,there was only negativity, bad news, calamities, man made accidents and the like. I opened the newspaper and there was the crime section...I switched on the TV and found a war... - But as I went about my daily life, I found there were many people who were good (since that is the only term that can best describe them!)...People who helped others, people who shared another's burdent, people who gave to charity....All this made me more hopeful about a better world than what the others think of it....

Why not share only these good news to all? Imagine having a newspaper that only publishes the positive stuff, the positive energy....How much pinker our mornings would be! Yes, there is a world out there that you can see with pink tints...and its rosier!

I welcome everyone to share their positive experiences and gratitudes only....Let's celebrate the hidden world...