Bellam ( Jaggery) and Barefoot

Madam Chai… I turned my head and seen this guy with a chai tray served in nicely branded cups. I said ‘ no thank you’ .. ( as I given up on tea & coffee). After a while, the guy turned up again and my friend Sridhar took two cups passing one to me… even before I say no, he insisted… have it, it’s “Jaggery Chai”!

It was a gathering of riders, runners for Pinkathon run promotion last week at HBC bike station. I overheard people were discussing how Milind Soman, Former India Super Model, Bollywood actor, Producer & Brand Ambassador of Pinkathon runs barefoot and the related health benefits. My mind was stuck at ‘barefoot’

On my way back home, I started thinking of bellam, barefoot & its connection with my life..!!

Being born in the farming family, we use to live with limited resources and it was never a complaint …Few things my father use to buy was like soaps, refined sugar, tea /coffee powder and few other stuff which we don’t get from our fields. My mother use to make the best use of all that comes from the farm.. (as best as making our own coconut oil out of our own coconuts. And I was obvious consumer of that ‘vuyyala’ mark coconut oil due to my hair texture.

I was fine with everything expect Jaggery chai (again, our own jaggery from our own sugar cane). Whenever, I see jaggery chai served to me I use to roll on the floor and cry as if I am going to die if I drink it. This scene use to end either by getting beaten badly or some neighbor walks to my house with sugar. However, this protest was much ‘silent’ when my elder brother was at home … I also had a problem if my mother offers ‘ jaggery chai’ to relatives and guests. To avoid all this, my father use to buy excess sugar. He use to wakeup before my mother to make that ‘special chai/coffee’ with refined sugar only for me so that there won’t be ruckus any more…

And the other problem (minor though) was with a lunch box with byrodlu ( which is like brown rice) that grows with rain water. It use to taste very well but for me the looks mattered the most. The lunch box use to come back home as it is… and I was made to eat for dinner. To add on to the drama, I use to mix my leftover lunch with milk, salt and whatever was available just to threaten her that I will die eating this ‘fusion’ food … She use to joke ‘ if the cow can survive eating all this, you can tooo… you will only grow healthy’

The story continued until I started going to college. By then our family started selling sugar cane directly to the factories.

And walking, running and cycling with bearfoot was not as big a problem as jaggery chai. The feel of walking in the fields (especially after rain) was beautiful and it cannot be explained and only needs to be experienced. My sister in laws use to make best use of my cycle to carry vegetables and grass for the cattle etc . Sometimes, I use to ask them also to sit in the front just to showcase my cycling skills on a single gear bike riding with barefoot. Given up all this after I joined college … no bearfoot anymore!

I started writing this blog on my flight from Abudhabi to Johannesburg. Flying high at the moment, my thoughts were grounded.

Now, sitting in this upmarket hotel in Johannesburg, I strongly feel whatever I am today is because of my roots. This energy, the excitement, focus, passion and compassion are from that deep root upbringing.  The food, the air, the fields, the cattle and the people everything played a role in it. Whenever I feel ‘shortage of any of the above’,I go to the fields for ‘ refilling’. If I share any success or achievement, its not because I have ‘done it’… it is because I value it and I know what it means !!

Thanks Milind Soman for making this country to connect back to the roots by running barefoot and serving Jaggery chai during the runs. Thank you for encouraging me to share this story.

Thanks for being brand ambassador of bellam and barefoot.

 

 

 

When Einstein Met Tagore – Science & Indian Tradition

Collision and convergence in Truth and Beauty at the intersection of science and spirituality.

On July 14, 1930, Albert Einstein welcomed into his home on the outskirts of Berlin the Indian philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. The two proceeded to have one of the most stimulating, intellectually riveting conversations in history, exploring the age-old friction between science and religion. Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein Met Tagore recounts the historic encounter, amidst a broader discussion of the intellectual renaissance that swept India in the early twentieth century, germinating a curious osmosis of Indian traditions and secular Western scientific doctrine.

The following excerpt from one of Einstein and Tagore’s conversations dances between previously examined definitions of science, beauty, consciousness, and philosophy in a masterful meditation on the most fundamental questions of human existence.

EINSTEIN: Do you believe in the Divine as isolated from the world?

TAGORE: Not isolated. The infinite personality of Man comprehends the Universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human personality, and this proves that the Truth of the Universe is human Truth.

I have taken a scientific fact to explain this — Matter is composed of protons and electrons, with gaps between them; but matter may seem to be solid. Similarly humanity is composed of individuals, yet they have their interconnection of human relationship, which gives living unity to man’s world. The entire universe is linked up with us in a similar manner, it is a human universe. I have pursued this thought through art, literature and the religious consciousness of man.

EINSTEIN: There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe: (1) The world as a unity dependent on humanity. (2) The world as a reality independent of the human factor.

TAGORE: When our universe is in harmony with Man, the eternal, we know it as Truth, we feel it as beauty.

EINSTEIN: This is the purely human conception of the universe.

TAGORE: There can be no other conception. This world is a human world — the scientific view of it is also that of the scientific man. There is some standard of reason and enjoyment which gives it Truth, the standard of the Eternal Man whose experiences are through our experiences.

EINSTEIN: This is a realization of the human entity.

TAGORE: Yes, one eternal entity. We have to realize it through our emotions and activities. We realized the Supreme Man who has no individual limitations through our limitations. Science is concerned with that which is not confined to individuals; it is the impersonal human world of Truths. Religion realizes these Truths and links them up with our deeper needs; our individual consciousness of Truth gains universal significance. Religion applies values to Truth, and we know this Truth as good through our own harmony with it.

EINSTEIN: Truth, then, or Beauty is not independent of Man?

TAGORE: No.

EINSTEIN: If there would be no human beings any more, the Apollo of Belvedere would no longer be beautiful.

TAGORE: No.

EINSTEIN: I agree with regard to this conception of Beauty, but not with regard to Truth.

TAGORE: Why not? Truth is realized through man.

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove that my conception is right, but that is my religion.

TAGORE: Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony which is in the Universal Being; Truth the perfect comprehension of the Universal Mind. We individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experiences, through our illumined consciousness — how, otherwise, can we know Truth?

EINSTEIN: I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man. Anyway, if there is a reality independent of man, there is also a Truth relative to this reality; and in the same way the negation of the first engenders a negation of the existence of the latter.

TAGORE: Truth, which is one with the Universal Being, must essentially be human, otherwise whatever we individuals realize as true can never be called truth – at least the Truth which is described as scientific and which only can be reached through the process of logic, in other words, by an organ of thoughts which is human. According to Indian Philosophy there is Brahman, the absolute Truth, which cannot be conceived by the isolation of the individual mind or described by words but can only be realized by completely merging the individual in its infinity. But such a Truth cannot belong to Science. The nature of Truth which we are discussing is an appearance – that is to say, what appears to be true to the human mind and therefore is human, and may be called maya or illusion.

EINSTEIN: So according to your conception, which may be the Indian conception, it is not the illusion of the individual, but of humanity as a whole.

TAGORE: The species also belongs to a unity, to humanity. Therefore the entire human mind realizes Truth; the Indian or the European mind meet in a common realization.

EINSTEIN: The word species is used in German for all human beings, as a matter of fact, even the apes and the frogs would belong to it.

TAGORE: In science we go through the discipline of eliminating the personal limitations of our individual minds and thus reach that comprehension of Truth which is in the mind of the Universal Man.

EINSTEIN: The problem begins whether Truth is independent of our consciousness.

TAGORE: What we call truth lies in the rational harmony between the subjective and objective aspects of reality, both of which belong to the super-personal man.

EINSTEIN: Even in our everyday life we feel compelled to ascribe a reality independent of man to the objects we use. We do this to connect the experiences of our senses in a reasonable way. For instance, if nobody is in this house, yet that table remains where it is.

TAGORE: Yes, it remains outside the individual mind, but not the universal mind. The table which I perceive is perceptible by the same kind of consciousness which I possess.

EINSTEIN: If nobody would be in the house the table would exist all the same — but this is already illegitimate from your point of view — because we cannot explain what it means that the table is there, independently of us.

Our natural point of view in regard to the existence of truth apart from humanity cannot be explained or proved, but it is a belief which nobody can lack — no primitive beings even. We attribute to Truth a super-human objectivity; it is indispensable for us, this reality which is independent of our existence and our experience and our mind — though we cannot say what it means.

TAGORE: Science has proved that the table as a solid object is an appearance and therefore that which the human mind perceives as a table would not exist if that mind were naught. At the same time it must be admitted that the fact, that the ultimate physical reality is nothing but a multitude of separate revolving centres of electric force, also belongs to the human mind.

In the apprehension of Truth there is an eternal conflict between the universal human mind and the same mind confined in the individual. The perpetual process of reconciliation is being carried on in our science, philosophy, in our ethics. In any case, if there be any Truth absolutely unrelated to humanity then for us it is absolutely non-existing.

It is not difficult to imagine a mind to which the sequence of things happens not in space but only in time like the sequence of notes in music. For such a mind such conception of reality is akin to the musical reality in which Pythagorean geometry can have no meaning. There is the reality of paper, infinitely different from the reality of literature. For the kind of mind possessed by the moth which eats that paper literature is absolutely non-existent, yet for Man’s mind literature has a greater value of Truth than the paper itself. In a similar manner if there be some Truth which has no sensuous or rational relation to the human mind, it will ever remain as nothing so long as we remain human beings.

EINSTEIN: Then I am more religious than you are!

TAGORE: My religion is in the reconciliation of the Super-personal Man, the universal human spirit, in my own individual being.

Meeting Stories 3: When “Charlie” met “Mahatma Gandhi”

“ A day without a Laughter is a day wasted” – Charlie Chaplin.

“ In a gentle way, you can shake the World” – Mahatma Gandhi.

How many of you people knew that Charlie Chaplin was a great admirer of Gandhi?

If you have found it difficult to control your laughter while watching his films then the name ‘Charlie Chaplin,’ must be very familiar to you. Chaplin had the inimitable quality of putting a smile even on a sad face. People of all ages would lovingly call him ‘Charlie’.

Charlie had lived a major part of his life in poverty. He had achieved stardom after a tough struggle. Despite his British origin Charlie admired Gandhi a great deal. He supported Gandhi’s cause wholeheartedly, and genuinely felt that the ‘British’ should leave India.

The Round Table conference was attended by leaders of all the important political parties of India which included both minority and majority parties and representatives of various castes and religions. A group of bejeweled Rajas, Maharajas and Nawabs of princely states was present for the conference. Gandhi too was present there. All the important newspapers had sent their correspondents to cover this important event.

Charlie too was in London at that time. He decided to make use of this opportunity to meet Gandhi. He wrote a letter to Bapu expressing a keen desire to see him. Gandhi was a very busy man. It was not humanly possible for him to meet everybody. And the situation was such that everybody wanted a few minutes of his time.

After reading Chaplin’s letter he asked one of his companions, “Who is this Mr. Charlie Chaplin?” He said, “Bapuji he is a well known film actor.” To this, Gandhi laughed and said, “Films are not my cup of tea so what could I have in common with films and film actors? Please write a letter to him explaining my inability to meet him due to lack of time.” Bapu’s companion then said, “Charlie Chaplin is sympathetical towards our freedom movement. He believes that the British should free India.” After hearing this, Gandhi replied, “In that case I would certainly like to meet him.” Gandhi meets with Charlie Chaplin at the home of Dr. Katial in Canning Town, London, September 22nd 1931’. Hundreds of people crowded around the house to catch a glimpse of the famous visitors, some even clambered over garden fences to look through the windows of the house.

After enquiring about his health Charlie said to Gandhi, “I am all for the freedom of your country and its people. But there is one thing that I don’t understand. Why do you oppose the use of machines? Don’t you think that a lot of work would come to a standstill if machines are not used.” Gandhi, then replied, “I am not against machines but I cannot bear it when these very machines take away a man’s work from him. Today we are your slaves because we cannot overcome our attraction, for your goods. Freedom will surely be ours if we learn to free ourselves from this attraction.

This was certainly one of the meetings that both did not know would happen, happened!! After all, it made a great story to talk about in parties, and you could also boast that you know it while most of the people wouldn’t have the first clue! Cheers!

Meeting Stories 2 : When Rolls met Royce……..

This is one of the best examples to understand the importance of ‘People meeting People to create wonders’”

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls–Royce comes from the electric clock.” Said David Ogilvy referring to the car that was vibration free.

We drop our jaws when we see a Rolls Royce rolling on the street. But few people know how it happened. So here is a brief on what created this brand. A brand, which within 3 years of initiation, started to manufacture small Aircraft Engines.

When Fredrick Henry Royce purchased his first two-cylinder car (a French Decauville) he was very dissatisfied with its performance. He decided to build a car of his own by “taking an existing part and making it better and eventually started successfully building his own cars that were known for their silent and vibration-free ride. The automobiles soon caught the attention of Charles Stewart Rolls who at the time operated a London dealership for French Panhard automobiles. Eventually a meeting was arranged between Rolls and Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester England on May of 1904. During the meeting Rolls was impressed by Royce’s determination and creativity and discussed the possibility of combining their own expertise and dedication with the latest technologies. The two men later agreed to establish an automobile partnership.

Interesting Fact: In 1907 under the supervision of Charles Rolls, the company began to manufacture small aircraft engines. Tragically three years later Rolls was killed when his Wright biplane crashed. He was the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident, and the eleventh internationally. As a symbol of mourning the “RR” logo on the radiator plate was changed from red to black.

So, I can now be sure that whenever you see this wonder next time on road, you would certainly remember this Story!!

Meeting Stories 1 – Mysterious meeting of Niels Bohr & Werner Heisenberg

This one is my personal favorite! Do these names ring a bell? At least their second names? Yeah, these are two great Physicists of their time. What many people are unaware is of that Bohr was Physics teacher of Heisenberg. These two became good friends in the process. This controversial meeting took place sometime in mid September, 1941. There is no contemporary record of what was said during the private meeting, but Bohr was clearly upset by it afterward. There has been lengthy debate and speculation about Heisenberg’s motives and statements during the meeting, culminating most recently in the Tony-award-winning play “Copenhagen” by the British playwright Michael Frayn. What did Heisenberg believe could be done, and should be done, about atomic bombs? What did he want from Bohr? These questions called up many powerful issues and emotions involving Nazi Germany and nuclear war. Yes, you guessed it correct. Anything about Atom/Nuclear bomb started with this mysterious meeting.

Interesting Fact: In February 2002, a letter written by Bohr to Heisenberg in 1957 was discovered but was never sent to Heisenberg. Bohr relates in the letter that Heisenberg, in their 1941 meeting did not express any moral problems with the bomb making project and that Heisenberg had spent the past two years working almost exclusively on it and that he was convinced that the atomic bomb would eventually decide the war. So, can we conclude that meeting about bomb making project was useful? Let U.S decide it!!

“The most important trip you may take in life is Meeting people halfway.”

No wait…I didn’t say that!! Henry Boye did. He is considered to be one of the most successful published authors of Children’s books. They say a lot can happen when people meet people. I say anything can be made happen through meetings. One dictionary defines a meeting as an act or process of coming together as an assembly for a common purpose. But do we really need to look into dictionary to understand Meeting? Meetings are always important to have, sometimes. In some organisations, a ‘meeting’ can be a dirty word that fills potential attendees with fear of losing valuable productivity on their current work, boredom, irrelevance, falling asleep in front of the boss/client and no clear goals or outcomes. So do I think meetings are any use? Not only are they good, they are absolutely essential and can improve everyone’s productivity, when done right. I know you wouldn’t believe me and that is why I came prepared!! Let’s have a look at some of the interesting and important meeting stories that took place and in direct or indirect way, led to Revolutionary results worldwide.