Learn and unlearn

Life offers many teachings. We learn multiple good things while unlearning unwanted things. This process of learning/unlearning is lifelong process. As it happens quite often I am in mood of preaching. So here go some words from the preacher in me.

To begin with below things could be added to learn activity.

1: Empathy : One has to interact with large number of people in modern world. So one has to understand what others think and feel.This becomes prerequisite for understanding new problems , decision making , conflict resolution , successful negotiation . Consideration of empathy can induce long lasting peace, happiness, harmony, fraternity. In present times of conflicts , wars , intolerance empathy in way ahead.

2: Stand for others : We should stand for others rights , help them , empower them . This is required for larger good of the society and world. In era of interdependence it is critical to help others when they are stuck up. Helping others should be done in good faith e.g. without seeking any specific return for oneself. Civilization has progressed with collective effort . This is requirement in present era as well as we face new challenges and concerns.

3: Love and care : Spread love and care for people around you. This can be done by keeping all channels of communication open. Acknowledge dignity and existence of others. Power of little smile , act of love and care is immense which is underestimated. Excuse of fast paced life laced with stress takes us away from social life. Idea is to remain close with people around you while you walk your chosen path.

4: Hobbies : Everyone has own way of maximizing happiness . Having multiple hobbies is one way of doing this. Not doing anything is not an option , so choose what you love to do . Try multiple things till you find something according to your wish. As a motivating factor hobbies help in remaining healthy , increases creative potential , lets you make friends and provide wholesomeness to life. Go ahead with dance , music , painting , reading , exercise , games . Options are galore , find what you love. It's never too late.

Below things may be added to unlearn tasks.

1: Prejudices : This reflects in form of negative attitude towards people , places . Removing prejudices can be done by application of logic , reason ,seeking facts , rational scientific outlook . Constant vigil can minimize prejudices which we might have developed.

2: Stereotypes : Generally this goes with prejudices which we may have generated. This shows in way be eat , talk , walk , wear, think , believe , act. Stereotypes can limit our potential. Narrow outlook towards people around us and ourselves is harmful for progressive outlook towards life.

3: Ego : This is basis of negative personality and fuels other negative things e.g conflict , hatred , violence etc. Solution lies in being humble and have long term perspective rather than short term show of muscle and power. Ego can be easily controlled by having good sense of humor. 

4: Comfort zone : With mundane life activities a sense of inertia develops. This limits the possible progress . Change can be painful but nothing is as painful as being in situation/place you do not belong. Way forward in this case is to seek challenges, enhance capabilities, rest but not too long , choose freedom over comforting chains , broaden the outlook and expectation from life. Rise and shine,  which is not possible by remaining in comfort zone.

The list can certainly get longer for learn/unlearn. May be those can be added in later blog posts.

Goal of human life is to be good human being while maximizing happiness. Let good things get attached with you while leaving bad ones. Let the process begin and continue...

From the Cook in Me

My tryst with cooking has been fairly old affair. Starting with simple tea i did try new things and experimented with the ingredients and the process of cooking . I had fair count of finger cuts , burns , spilled milks etc to make the story full of exciting moments.

Cooking certainly tests multiple things as human being . To be one good cook one should carry fair amount of patience , ability to learn from mistakes , innovate , experiment , be careful , good observer , learn from others etc. Honest effort and love one adds shows in the end result. Cooking is one way to show how much you love yourself and people around you. Here goes some of the learnings from my cooking experience .

1: Time : As a cook one has to develop sense of timing for adding ingredients. Order of ingredients matter as well . End result can be drastically different based on the timing and order of adding ingredients. One example can be taken of oil. As general rule oil should be added to the frying pan when the pan is moderately hot. Further let oil get hot before adding other things e.g onion , spices etc.

2: Chemical reaction : Cooked food get flavor and color due to chemical reaction which take place. Ensure that you understand the ingredients and what you expect from resultant product. One example can be taken for smoke point of oil. All oils have smoking point above which smoke starts coming. At smoke point trans-fat is created. This should be avoided during cooking i.e. Cook at low flame or choose the oil as per cooking needs having smoking point in mind.

3: Salt : Cliché statement is applicable in case of salt e.g. add as per your taste. Oil helps salt in uniform spread e.g. inside of vegetables. So add salt after initial around one minutes of frying in oil when the vegetable starts turning reddish. Considering health needs less salt should be part of meals.

4: Onion : This is part of gravy base of innumerable vegetable dishes. Try onions chopped in different sizes to add variety to your preparation. Onions of small sizes added as whole can be good experimental proposition as well. Same can be said for using baby onions.

5: Khichdi : This has been one of my favorite dishes . Saviors for the times when you are too tired or too lazy to do much manual intensive tasks. Add rice , pulses , vegetables , spices and salts into pressure cooker and boil everything for 3-4 whistles . Give takda to the preparation using cumin seeds and oil. Certainly an activity of optimal returns for minimum effort.

6: Washing Utensils : You can not be good cook without good at taking up clean up act e.g washing utensils , cooking area etc. This is important for hygiene and aesthetics as well . How to proceed with washing utensils? I think act of patience comes into play here. Let your favorite song play in your mind and proceed with the task. Clean utensils present happy picture and is motivating factor to accomplish the task of cooking wonderful dishes. Use minimum utensils for cooking to avoid dealing with mountain of them for cleaning.

7: Buying vegetables : Always go for the fresh and seasonal vegetables . Out of season vegetables are excessively costly and lack taste and nutrition value as well. Here again choose the desi varieties which may not look great but they are far ahead in taste compared to the hybrid ones . e.g. desi tomatoes have more water content. One side comment can be made to carry your own bag while buying vegetables. One weird fashion has crept in recent times to use plastic bags . That is bad for environmental reasons. So discard plastic as far as possible.

Cooking and related activities can add good value to one's personality . Healthy mind lives in healthy body and being a good cook is a step in that direction . I have introduced myself into this world , i shall continue with the process and try to become better as time passes. Bye folks

p.s : In due course I shall share some of my recipes. 

Economics of Love

Since time immemorial humanity has glorified Love . Many great minds did devote precious time in knowing length and breadth of the same. In the process , history did see many great exponents of love who became part of folklore . Ironically all great lovers were losers . This grave truth has not stopped generations from falling in love . As civilizations rose and fell , economy did influence love as it had to be sustained by materialistic approach to life. Many Wars and battles were result of some direct/indirect influences of hate induced due to love. Love did bring to the fore the poet in Kalidasa who gave imagination new heights in Meghdootam . Manu advised to keep distance from lovers when it came to get wise opinion. Ignoring other aspects , its interesting to see love from eyes of an economist . Here it goes...

Some start it as early investment , some wait for right opportunity and apt sentiment , some subside due to lack of know how . Like monsoon it keeps everyone guessing , those who are interested , those who are not.Some have all the know how , infrastructure and time but they lack the human resource. Some daring enough go for a " start up " when each lovable moment is hard earned. We do see many whose life seem a successful love story , but may be the actual story is difficult to decipher . We know a few who achieve this with wise maturity . So far so good , the story continues for those who become part of the game , for others its simple bane . For those who are in the game , suddenly things achieve unmanageable proportions. Fiscal deficit haunts the most when there are financial liabilities to be completed with cash crunch and no help of FII . Current account deficit is strained by b'day , monthly celebrations , random lunch , dinner and gifts and other " invisibles ". Entertainment taxes force you to take austerity measures e.g take cheap public transport , enjoy street food etc. But the austerity measures are difficult to sustain for the whole financial year. Soon you have to pretend as if you've really deep pocket. If availability of foreign brands was cause of  headache , thanks to 100% FDI in single brand retail , things are sure to get more difficult as policy measures will open up the market further e.g more foreign brands to consume Hot money. How can the monetary and strategic regulators e.g Mom-dad would remain subdued for long. Their policy measures to tighten up the liquidity in your bank account is something which you had ratified once you came into this world. With regular audits the anomaly in the balance sheet becomes apparent which leads to warnings and apprehensive words. Rates are revised regularly to keep control on  the spending and other 'self welfare' requirements. In addition to Mom-dad-regulatory-Body  your Love interest ( LI ) acts as self appointed vigilance-officer and information-commissioner . Your every activity is tracked and your actions are heavily regulated . LI's advice becomes the rule , every request has to be pre approved. Capital investors ( friends ) loose confidence in you and your credit rating takes a hit e.g junk.

With present looking hopeless and grim , long term benefits seem almost a void from the relationship . Can this scenario lead to meaningful and sustainable result ( Happy Marriage ) .what policy reforms can be taken to avoid complex situation and maintain NPA ( non performing assets ) to the minimum? Same old question comes to mind whose answer will remain unknown for ever i.e What then love is? May be its a journey after which you can say/write , " It has been long and unexpected journey and i'm proud you were on my side in this " . The journey which is long will for sure have bullish and bearish phases . Sometimes paradise will be lost due to cruelty of time , but the quest will continue . May be better lovers and true soul mates will walk on earth in future and new folklore will be created . Some best paintings are never complete , some stories will not find conclusion because journey itself is the destination.

Predicamant of hope

The Excitement of uncertainty,
Joy of happy surprises,
Being confused is not such rarity,
Hope of the tenacity,
Will situations be memorable.

Work till it becomes easy,
extract life from the still objects,
You are the master of your own craft,
Struggle will continue with oneself,
Enjoy the company of unknowns,
Invisible faces which give you hope,
To be better than yourself.

Run fast to reach the predefined,
Remember , Undefined can be meaningful, someday,
What you love today , tomorrow it will be distaste,
You laugh , got sad , got emotionless,
Sound of loneliness and triumph,
You said it and forgot the words.

When struggle becomes tougher,
You look things in retrospective,
Repeat jokes to different subjects,
You talk good in secret,
In front of them you remain speechless.

Of speaking too many words and listening less,
Words ringing in your ears forever,
You wonder why it had to happen,
What will happen from now?
Some good , some bad , not so memorable,
One can come good the other day,
Can life achieve that unmatched proportions?
When life won't be same,forever...


The predicament of confusion it is,
Wait will continue till that moment.

Cup that counts

Cricket world cup is on full swing and a blog entry by me had to come on this. Here it goes..

As World cup games are being played and many records are being made in each match.Somehow the excitement is somehow missing in this world cup.May be too much cricket over the years is responsible for this ( thanks to 20-20 ). If i try to find reason at personal level , there are no McGraw, Donald , Warne , Lara , Waugh , Waqar, Akram ,Jayasurya , Ganguly , Bond , Yusuf ,Inzamam , Kumble , Flintoff, Klusener , De Silva , Anwar ,sohail....list is so long for the stars. Even the lesses known stars are being missed i.e Flower Brothers , Tikolos , Olongas and obuyas .Hey! don't we have sachin , murali , Ponting ,Kallis , Shewag , Steyn , sangakara , Gayle , Peterson .....list is small in comparison to earlier list and the impact is missing too. Why Pakistan has to look up to Afridi only signifies the degradation of pakistan cricket. I would had been better if Akhtar was not there in their line up ...his reputation of is being eroded when he is being hit like anything. Brett lee looks shadow of himself , fear of fearsome lee is hardly visible . Australian bowling is still best but they are not far ahead of others . Talking about fielding , Africans are not the fielder they used to be .Everyone is dropping Catches as if they are happy to give more chances to batsman but they won't give 2nd chance to umpires ..read referral system URDs. jonty acts are a wishful thinking these days. Before the game, people are not talking about memorable rivalries .Somehow English team is showing they only care for Ashes and to make things worse better players are getting injured. Sachin continues to be everyone favourite as he was 20 years back ,but rivals have subsided i.e warne/Mcgraw/Akram etc.When the team india playing minnows should had been one sided affairs , sadly things are hard fought wins.Has standard of cricket dropped in few years? The question remains open.Talking about venue of matches played ...and mistreatment to viewers who had to face wrath of stick in quest to get match ticket is hardly acceptable. Eden gardens denied of any important game is another bad thing .Players right of Playing in front of 1 lac people has been denied in the process. Cricket politics winning here and ego clashes of cricket Administrators of this country are more important than the game itself.

Enough of cynics talks , Only way can be forward way. The cup has come to the sub continent and this is best chance for team India to catch the cup at home.Cricket fever slowly is gripping the whole country.Everyone interested in the cricket talks is good thing. Cricket mad country deserves the cup. With time we will know the champions and the stars of tomorrow who will be missed in future world cups...aptly said...the cup that counts.

Sharing my fav. lines.....anyone needs!!

Today i am in mood to share lines which are my favourite. These have become my favourite in past few years (3-4 years) . Only 10 are presented here to keep this entry short and simple.

here they go...

1. Somethings will never change , but thankfully many things do change : from my favourite movie the matrix. This is most frequently used dialogue used by me. Just love to speak this in almost all circumstances.

2. Catch your dreams before they slip away : from song 'ruby tuesday' by stones. Dreams won't stay forever to be caught. Time matters i.e what we achieve and when.

3.There is difference between knowing the path and walking on it : again from movie 'the matrix' . How many times we just think to do something and when we go for actual implementation , we realize, it was so tough!!.

4. Madness is like gravity all it needs is little push : movie 'the dark knight' . Anyone can act weird , even best behaved persons need just little push to turn into demon.

5.We are captives of our own identity living in prison of our own creation. from tv series 'prison break'. I had written one blog entry on this . No wonder this is one of my favourite lines.

6.Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss: novel 'inheritance of loss' by kiran desai . Achievement brings happiness , but the pain of failure can not be compared to happiness of success ...err..will never be comparable.

7.Winning is important but equally important is resilience to face defeat : don't remember from where it came but this is surely on of my favourites. It's all about accepting defeat and keeping oneself motivated to work for future success.

8.World is cruel and only morality is chance : again from the movie 'the dark knight' . Everything in this world is associated with how we react when we get chance.

9. Sometimes life has to go like this : chris gayle ( cricketer ). We should accept life in all forms , at times this can be painful.

10.Stay hungry , stay foolish : steve jobs , founder of 'apple computer Inc.'. If one wants to learn something best way is to be always open for knowledge. We should never be preoccupied with our own way of thinking.


before closing ........Why So seriousssss!!!...ala joker-style from dark knight. Giving funda of life is fun :P

p.s : I thought about this post after reading aditi's blog . She had shared some quotations in one of her posts. So this post is dedicated to aditi .