Vairagya..

He talks on phone, she listens to music
They keep doing things, they need not be

The musk lies within, yet the deer keeps searching
What need for outside, when inner world is reaping

I pray to Narayana, I pray to the Lotus
It all does not matter, for all are just me

When fire burns to ashes, where does the body go
When thought and sound leave, with whom do they merge

The universe outside, lies also within me
This knowledge is enough, let happenings just be

Vehicle Dress Codes

For some reason, I always relate a man in formals, even wearing a tie (but not a suit), as the perfect dress code for a motorcycle rider. Somehow it always matches, in my mind...don't know why..

But it put me to thought, about other vehicles, and how my mind perceives them. I realized indeed, the mind has a lot of fixations on many vehicles.
That man in suit, who's not on the motorcycle, has to be sitting in the back of a sedan, which has leather seats!
The gearless scooter goes best with riden by women, or college-going guys in track shorts or pants..

Why oh why has the mind formed these biases, and in how many other topics has it done so, God knows!

One might think that it's simply experience, what the mind has seen the most of, it perceives as correct. Kind of how marketing sells us stuff via advertisements. But ponder this: My mind sees the man in motorcycle will equally suit well in the Hero Ranger kind of big tyred cycles? Why? Maybe because it's almost a half-sized motorcycle?

Hatchbacks have to be driven best by short-sleeved guys in t-shirt!! Now, how do I go to work?? :-O

Verses for the day..

जब डॉक्टर ने आइस-क्रीम खाने पर रोक डाला
मानो मरने का आसान तरीका खोल दिया

The greater the diligence, the faster the delivery
OR
The more you are careful, the faster you deliver

Also..

The calmer you are, the faster you drive
The deeper the rest, the more dynamic the activity

A blank mind merged with nothingness
Can see all, transcending time and space

Thoughts on Yahoo-RnD leaving..

Like many an IT guy, I'm sure sure it did not augur well to learn that Yahoo was moving its RnD division back to the US, and laying off the rest of the techies in India (of course, management tugs strings enough to be itself transported to the US)...hope they at least had the common sense to move the sharp techies also to the US, than live to regret it years later..

But this move kind of came as a surprising news. It kind of reverberated GE's steps towards moving manufacturing back to the US, as the automation achieved and cost of logistics brought more business sense into manufacturing within the US itself.

But how does moving Yahoo's RnD to US really make sense. There were some details in the news clipping like a change in working style to keeping fewer locations fore more collaboration (It was consistent to Marissa Mayer stopping work from home with a similar logic). But what about brains? And the cost? And c'mon, in this era of globalization and virtualization, what are we, moving back in time Yahoo??

The trusting child..

Its a sight that never fails to break a smile on my face. A child seated on the arms of its parent (typically mother within the Infosys campus). And the child exploring us people around, or the happenings around. Never a fuss, never a scare, just complete trust. The child doesn't look to check on whose arms it is, or whether it is safe there. For that's all he/she wants to be.

And from that perch, look out to the world. It's a beautiful feeling, difficult to express in words. Just even for the onlooker to see this beautiful bond of trust..

I hope the parent feels it, and feels proud of this feeling. I feel this a lot when Shravan's in my arms. He's happy to be picked up, and then he's singing his songs..

May this trust in a child, may this innocent view of the world never be spoilt. May we never destroy this experience for a child. May we just watch, with him, and like him, the world around, in all it's beautiful glory.

We are but visitors here, for a few years at a time, let's bask in this amazing magic of nature and life around, and let it breathe through us..

The Rude Shock of Slope..

Just the day after I had written the "Magic of Second Gear" post, where I was thanking the stars for not having got me stuck on a slope yet, as if arranged by karmic forces, the very next day I got caught in the exact same situation!

I go up full speed in first gear on parking lot slopes because I did not want a recurrence of the scenario where the security guy had to drive up the car to help me out. And on this fateful day, I'm going full speed and screech just behind another car stuck on the parking lot slope (with a loud "Oh Shit" exclamation to boot!).

Full credit to the guy in front, when he had his turn, he calmly got his car up the slope, even though there was but only a whisker of space between our cars. And as if this was truly a play of nature, while I sat shuddering what to do next, and kept looking behind for other cars on the slope, there strangely was no car coming up. For if I'd seen another one coming, I'd have panicked even more. This breather really helped. No car in front or back. I slowly put the hand-brake exercise to practise, and lo and behold! The car went smoothly up!

Imagine my amazement, relief and surprise. But the incident left its mark for sure. I was shivering even after parking my car in the lot...

Poems for Shravan: Bath Time

Bath Time, Bath Time,
It is Bath Time for Shravan
Shravan is a Good Boy
Shravan is a Good Boy
Shravan is a Very Very Very Good Boy

The Magic of Second Gear

Back in India recently with wife and kid, the need inevitably arose to have a car. And since I was paranoid about driving on the roads here, I opted for at least a familiar vehicle style i.e. auto-gear car. But then this was mostly for my wife's commute, and the need invariably arose for me to use a car to office. That's when my father passed over his car in Mumbai which was lying unused..but this was a manual gear...

And while both I and my wife had started lessons months ago, we'd resigned to being unable to actually drive in a manual gear car, especially after getting comfortable with the auto-gear. We'd even left the lessons incomplete. And so when Daddy's Maruti Swift arrived, the first thing I did was to systematically resume my lessons. While in parallel to start driving the Swift to nearby open spaces to practice. But the shift from gear to gear at different speeds, in my opinion, was needless. Necessary though in developing countries dependant on oil imports, owing to the fuel-mileage savings (apparently aroun 5km difference per litre!).

And so I kept struggling. Especially after one experience where I got stuck on the road and a parking lot slope the same day. One of the security staff had to then drive the vehicle up..really shuddered my confidence a bit. But continuing the lessons in parallel really helped. And Prakash, my driving instructor, is one patient and wonderful teacher. I could ask him areas I was getting stuck and he kept helping me out with tips and practice.

And the biggest of them were these two:

1) If I keep half-clutch on second-gear, no matter how slow the vehicle gets, it won't stop. You can't imagine what a boon this tip is on huge speed-breakers or heavy but not-stopping traffic situations. Obviously, if it's stop-and-go, or whenever vehicle stops, one does have to go to first-gear.

2) If you are stuck on a steep slope, lift the hand brake up, without fixing it. Your car will at-least stop moving back when you lift your leg off the brake now. And then press the accelerator and slowly lower the hand-brake. The car just moves forward! If anything, slight pressure-release on the first gear is only needed. I've had to use this a couple of times now, even today, and has been very helpful (thankfully not in a steep slope traffic block situation yet).

The two tips above have been big contributors for me gaining confidence back in my driving!

The third confirmation / tip was from my sister that we can confidently keep ourselves in first gear and push the car up slopes. I'm still not sure why this works, even when we are going at higher speed up the slope. This doubt came to mind especially after the time I got stuck in the slope.

Well, that's lessons revision for now..hope most major ones are done now.