A little parcel of happiness

A Study found that two thirds of the world's hungry live in just seven countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. In India, 210 million people ( 18% of the total population) are undernourished.

“You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world there are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted nor desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty. “  - Mother Teresa

Our planet produces enough food to feed its more than 960 million undernourished people. The basic cause of global hunger is not underproduction; it is a production and distribution system that treats food as a commodity rather than a human right.

Coming back, Had a family dinner in a good restaurant yesterday. Of course we had a special reason to celebrate@!

In our enthusiasm ,we ordered more than we could eat..... everybody was full to their hearts content.

Settled the bill. excess food...???? somebody said ..hey get it parceled for Tommy at home ( cliched name for a dog, isnt it? but that's the way it is!)

So we take the parceled dog food,jump in to the car and drive away.

5 mins and we are the traffic signal. arrgh...this signal is taking a lifetime.

Just then, I look to the left on the road side to find... street children everywhere — at every intersection, in every railway station, every tourist spot — 18 million in total across the country.

We now clearly see the  scruffy kids who beg, steal, shine shoes and smear car windows in an effort to make a few rupees.

And then the realization dawns upon me- how lucky i am - to live, to eat, to stay with people i love and people who love me back.

We can all make change, no matter how young, overwhelmed, busy, or broke we might be. Sure, we can’t all go out an start our own orphanages right now — but for starters, we can do small things like this. Like donating your old school dress, shoes, clothes you find you won't be wearing anyway, food if possible.

Doing simple acts of kindness not only makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, it helps others to feel worthy. It also motivates them to want to pay it forward.

So when are you giving some one a little parcel of happiness ?

A few quotes from Shantaram... The masterpiece.

Following are some of my favorite quotes from Shantaram - the novel by Gregory Roberts

Truth is a bully that we all pretend to like (Karla)

I dont know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it (Karla)

Some of the worst wrongs, were caused by people who tried to change things (Karla)

One of the ironies of courage and why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone.

Happiness is a myth. it was invented to make us buy things (Karla) 

The only time he ever stopped hating himself was when the risk he faced became so great that he acted without thinking or feeling anything at all (A dutch mercenary)

And I looked at the men, the brave and beautiful men beside me, running into the guns and God help me for thinking it, and God forgive me for saying it, but it was glorious, it was glorious, if glory is a magnificient and raptured exaltation. It was what love would be like, if love were a sin. It was what music would be, if music could kill you. And I climbed a prison wall with every running step.

Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny precious wisdom they give to us, even those dreaded and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.

Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.

Sometimes you love only with hope, sometimes, you cry without tears. Someetimes, thats all that is left, to cling together till the dawn.

I was grown up enough to understand the feeling of comfort that he felt and small enough to wish and hope Karla saw it and was impressed with it.

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to be in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.

Astounding and puzzling images from the city tumbled and turned in my mind like leaves on a wave of wind, and my blood so thrilled with hope and possibility that I couldn't suppress a smile, lying there in the dark...In that moment, in those shadows, I was almost safe.

The past reflects eternally between two mirrors -the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn't do or say.

Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.

It's such a huge arrogance, to love someone, and there's too much of it around. There's to much love in the world. Sometimes I think thats what heaven is - a place where everybody's happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever. - Karla

we know who we are and define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them

You can never tell what people have inside them, until you start taking it away

A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.

Silence is the tortured mans revenge

If fate doesn't make you laugh, you just don't get the joke

Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.

News is about what people do. Gossip is about how they enjoyed doing it.

Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.

There’s no meanness too spiteful or too cruel, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons.

Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart; every risk we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved.

Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves, and love is often the blade; but it’s worry that keeps the knife sharp; and worry that gets most of us, in the end.

At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread instead is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone.

She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would’ve done anything for him. Some people are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out—your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.

The ancient Sanskrit legends speak of a destined love, a karmic connection between souls that are fated to meet and collide and enrapture one another. The legends say that the loved one is instantly recognised because she’s loved in every gesture, every expression of thought, every movement, every sound, and every mood that prays in her eyes. The legends say that we know her by her wings—the wings that only we can see—and because wanting her kills every other desire of love.

One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.

I love you, Karla,” I said when we were alone again. “I loved you the first second I saw you. I think I’ve loved you for as long as there’s been love in the world. I love your voice. I love your face. I love your hands. I love everything you do, and I love the way you do everything. It feels like magic when you touch me. I love the way your mind works, and the things you say. And even though it’s all true, all that, I don’t really understand it, and I can’t explain it—to you or to myself. I just love you. I just love you with all my heart. You do what God should do: you give me a reason to live. You give me a reason to love the world.

They’d lied to me and betrayed me, leaving jagged edges where all my trust had been, and I didn’t like or respect or admire them any more, but still I loved them. I had no choice. I understood that, perfectly, standing in the white wilderness of snow. You can’t kill love. You can’t even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can’t kill love itself. Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it’s a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die.

Read more: http://www.funenclave.com/bookworm/a-few-quotes-from-shantaram-masterpiece-8808.html#ixzz2AzOc46ze

A Thousand Splendid Suns

The title of the novel is taken from a line from a seventeenth-century poem called “Kabul,” written by the Persian poet Saib-e-Tabrizi

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,

Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

Laila’s father  quotes these lines as the family is about to leave the war-wracked city of Kabul to another land. Through the imagery of suns and moons, the lines evoke a feeling of timelessness and a connection to the mythology of ancient Persia, as well as a heavenly beauty that stands in poignant contrast with the rubble and blood of the city at war.

The moons and suns may be interpreted as the citizens of Kabul, with the male head of each household represented by a shimmering moon on its roof.

The reference to “a thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls” likely refers to the women of Kabul, glowing beauties cloistered in hearth and home, tantalizingly hidden from the outside world but nonetheless providing vital life-giving warmth to Afghan society. The powerful image of women as “splendid suns” ties in with the author's theme of women’s strength and importance to the  Afghan society.

 

How to attain Nirvana...

Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance ~ Marshall McLuhan

Review: Papillon

In the book, there's a  funny quote from a Minister in France in the early 1970’s who said “The present hopeless moral decline of France is due to the wearing of miniskirts and to the reading of Papillon "

How could there be a song in the mind of a convict. Perhaps that's what moved me when I read Shantaram and the same journey continues here. The book is about the adventurous journey taken by a person named ‘Henrie Charriere’ who is convicted by law to escape the high walls of the prison and higher walls of mental barrier. Truly a journey taken to test man’s endurance beyond any sizable ground even covered by men of extra-ordinary. The essence of the book is the power of finding light in the depth of the deepest shadows. There is a lot of goodwill in the place we call prison alias gutter.

Henrie Charriere, the author, in his autobiography speaks of the journey since he was convicted till he wins over his freedom. There are several notable points in the book. Something that everyone needs to note, is that you grow with, not as an individual but as a group. There are ethics and morals that are being fallowed in the murk of prison. However the biggest value that it adds is that there are only physical chains that can be wound around you but mentally you are the master of your will. Something that we get to know is that 'what the mind desires is what the body conceives'.

The book is written with overdoes of positive attitude and more with vigor and zeal and pace that you just don’t let the book down just as the book never lets you down. When you are let down in life, grab it, it will do you a lot more than just good.

Mahindra Verito : Are you a Verito Man?

One advertisement that caught my eye recently on TV is ' Mahindra Vertio' advt.



Mahindra & Mahindra (Mahindra) is now ready to go to town with its entry level sedan, Verito. It has launched an ad campaign for the face-lifted version of the erstwhile Logan( which was perceived by customers as a fleet owners car). The new campaign for the Verito depicts the characteristics of its likely owner.

But surprisingly, the new ad campaign does not talk about the car’s features at all. Rather, it attempts to paint the ‘Verito Man’ in bold strokes with an eye on stoking the aspirations of its viewers. However, it is not the lifestyle of the Verito owner that is portrayed; his reaction to road rage is used to convey the DNA of the Verito Man. The ad, featuring Bollywood (successful?) actor Jimmy Shergill, shows the protagonist shutting up a bunch of rowdy youngsters, impatiently honking away in a car-park exit queue, not by using force but by his chutzpah. In second phase, The Verito Man tries to shut up rowdy youngsters who have parked in the middle of the road saying. " Tum Dayal Babu ke bete ho na"? . To which the surprised youngster says, " Koun dayal babu" ?. The Verito Man very smartly points out to the road sign bearing the Road name " Dayal Babu Road". In the other words, he avoided using the more popular and direct way of asking whether the road belonged to their father . ( There you go Verito man!)

I think the advertiser's here are driving across the point that a Vertio aspirant has to be a person who would be evolved enough to not lose his calm but at the same time know how to get his own back.

The punchline, ‘Grow up to Verito’ is expected to trigger aspiration.

It works at two levels.

One, it asks viewers to behave sensibly like the Verito Man, at least on the road.

Number two is of-course coax the hatchback owners to upgrade to a sedan.

Now, some +ve s and -ves about the TVC.

A punch line out of “Kaante” the Tagline slightly twisted from Raymonds – “The Verito man”. The originality of this advt could be doubted, but nevertheless the execution and final product has come out good.  Jimmy shergil looks good, but that could be the only good thing about this advt.

+ves..

1. It depicts a real life situation which we encounter on the roads everyday and the way the situation is handled is a mature way of dealing with it.

2.M&M has created a campaign aimed to build awareness towards road etiquette and responsible motoring, with the Verito as the central theme. According to them, Verito being a sensible, honest and dependable car embodies these very virtues. Through this, M& M aims at getting people to sit back, think, and if required, change their behavior on the roads. The whole campaign aims at driving a positive change amongst the Target segment.

-ves..

1. The car looks lovely , but it is NOT SHOWN  from different angles in the advertisement. Wanting to be a Verito Man is OK, but you need to have a closer look at the product you are going to buy, isn't it?

2. Since it is promoted as the Man's car, women may shy away from buying the Verito.

Watch the commercial here and be a VERITO MAN ( women in case you are one)

Emotional Intelligence EI in the corporate sector