Traditions and New Era

A little distance away from my house is a crossroad. A cross road which connects roads from four different direction. Although it is not a main traffic road but lot of people move around in the colony using that road as center. We in India call these junction, where four roads unites as Choraha. For simplicity of our readers I will use the word cross road. This cross road has a steady flow of people, cycle rickshaw, school Vans, rag pickers and many other forms of commuting or transport vehicle.

I woke up on 1st April 2013, and found lot of candles being lit right in center of the cross road. There was prasad ( a sweet offered to god and distributed among devotees), puris (Indian Bread) which was kept right in center of that cross road. There was enough food for at least 20-25 hungry people lying on the road. This is done as one of the process to offerings to God. I saw a dog came to eat some of the food and it was kicked by some of the devotees. True but SAD. God and Religion is not more than living beings, may it be human, animals or plants. I am writing this not to hurt sentiments of people or religion but making them realize.

Probably those 3-4 rag pickers could have been offered that food and it would have added to the humanity score of those people. Which religion or God does ask us to throw food and now offer to some one in need. We have so many people dying of hunger and our religion, devotion to god make us do things, which does not makes sense (at least to me and many others). When I looked into the eyes of those rag pickers, I felt them saying this.

"Why god we are born with so less to eat and why is that all this food is just wasted. We wish we could have been like this. If In future by any chance I will become like them, i will probably give this food to some one in need".

What happened to the food and those candles was that it got crushed under the wheels of traffic, under school vans, under cars of people going to office.

I am not being atheist, but would like people to read this and start thinking in different way. We ( all those who luckily can afford food)  run behind our kids to make sure that they are fed even if kid may not be hungry and here around us we have so many people who can eat and they run behind us for food.

Does this new ERA or new decade not teach us love and humanity. Where is love towards people vanishing.
Do believe in god but see the facts. Be open to humanity and love.

Differently Abled

I was walking on the street when I encountered a turn towards his right hand. With in split seconds bubble of thoughts hit my mind. There is something different. I realized the street on which I was walking has suddenly changed. What ignited the change of thought in me? What made me  realize that street I was walking on was no more the same I usually walked on?

Second thoughts made me realized that day was Tuesday. A Day when lot of activities happens in the temple. Right on the turn was a temple located. I had not observed the Temple although my routine for the walk was same. What made me  realize that there exists a Temple?

It was Tuesday, a Day worship some of followers of God. There was lot of incense sticks which were burning and the environment around the temple presented a feel of perfume garden. There was lot of people worship god and offering "Prasad" ( a sweet which is generally presented to god and then distributed among people). Small kids played with the Bell of the temple. Few young and some old people were worshiping god with their eyes closed and  hands folded. Probably all of them had something to be asked from God. Some may have wanted love, some money, some happiness, and even some of them would be asking for death.

As I walked he looked at a young but Differently Abled  man sitting on his feet. This man must be in his late 30s but looked older and pale. The Man ( I will call him godman for our reference) had white hairs, very beautiful sparkling eyes, long nose and white teeth which were visible even when he was not smiling.  this GodMan was sitting and waiting for some of the people to come out of temple and share with him some of the Prasad. A little of prasad from few people may probably quench his hunger. I am sure if this man would have dressed well and was standing in a Movie Theater, or a Discotheque, he would have attracted many eyes towards him. Two small poor kids came and start making fun of him. Each time they made fun of this man, he smiled and laugh. Probably this is the way Godman enjoys happiness. It touched my heart. He was such handsome man but could not think as we do. But he could smile from deep beneath his heart which probably lot of us could not.
So is it he who is truly happy or is it all of us. He did not have brain and intelligence like us. He did not have clothes to cover his body fully. He did not have money to buy food for him. All of us or many of us have all these things. What he had probably many of us do not have. He had a smile, a genuine laugh at some of silly things. I wish we could smile and laugh from our heart like him.

His smile is sitting deep in my heart. Whenever I think, I do not know if I should smile because his smile was so addictive or I should be sad for he being "Differently Abled"

Social Media and Being Social

I will start by quoting "Aristotle"

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ”

Facebook is one of the very prominent and accessed social media application. Human Being (Social Animal) has been taught or injected with some of the teachings/values right even before the birth (right from Mother's womb). In this article I would like look at one of the aspects of Facebook which will allow us to learn from this application. Facebook (if looked from different view) teaches many of the values of being social and hence living a happy life. I would like people to add more views/points if they can.

Some of the lessons which Facebook teaches us are :

1. Always Appreciate from Heart:
    Who does not like to receive Appreciation? Login or check Facebook account of yours or any body and you will see the immense pleasure you get when you see people liking your picture or talking about you or your post. Why, in reality we fail to usher such appreciation to others? It is always good to say a word of appreciation while they are living than writing a beautiful biography or bringing a bouquet on their death ceremony. Dead men can not see , smell or read what is written in their praises. Facebook teaches us to be generous in appreciating others.Many times we do not appreciating other due to one of the following reasons

Jealousy:

We can not appreciate others when we are jealous of others good deeds. We need to remove jealousy from our heart and soul in order to appreciate the great work  and support others are providing to us.

Ignorance attitude: 

Today with so much advances we are living in a better life. Have we ever thought  our heart and soul in order to appreciate the great work  and support others are providing to us. If we are so ignorance about others good deeds, we can not appreciate others good deeds. In order to know good deeds of others we need to come out from our ignorance. Ignorance is due to lack of thinking and analytical power.

Callous attitude: 

 We are intentionally or unintentionally too callous our of others hard work for us. We may not have personal relationship with him/her but we need to appreciate the good work of others.

2. Ignore Negative Comments:
      What do you do when some one posts a very bad or a negative comment about you? You go and delete the post or picture. Another way is that you may try to understand why he said so by commenting back on it. All these actions are basically teaching us (human beings, the social animal ) how to handle negativity or negative comments. You can not run aways from negative comments , especially when you are vocal and love to express yourself.

Facebook teaches us to deal with negative comments as follows:

Dealing with Troll:

 Trolls in social media are the lifeforms which do malicious things to get attentions. So what do with them. We do one of the following:

 1. Delete the comment

2. Sideline them

3. Use the U-Turn, Ask question.

In reality also we will get face to face with trolls ( people who would love to get attention by using negative comments about you).What do we in reality? In reality also we need to delete the negative comments from mind, heart and soul, rather than think and worry about it. We can other wise sideline the comment by responding " Thank you for sharing your opinion".

3. Knowledge Sharing

      There is old saying I always heard i.e. "More you share, more you gain Knowledge". Today when we meet someone and we talk about some business , we ( I for sure) see that people tend to hide knowledge. We forget that we have moved from era of "consolidation" to "collaboration" . In facebook we share without hesitation, be it a "traffic update" , be it a "technology update" or for that matter a "rape , abuse , robbery". We do with pride. why do we not share openly when we meet in person. What are we scared of?

Sharing definitely increases knowledge. If you are wrong , your friends (true) would correct and if you are right people may ask you questions and while you answer you gain more knowledge and the topic is stored in your memory more deep.