Girivalam - Religious Circumambulation

When the time acts tough, we can look upon the people around for peace. But sometimes, we have to be self supportive in order to find the way out of the din.

For me, it was a religious path and heard about Girivalam which many believers carry-out for attaining peaceful state of mind.

In the Tamil language, the process of going around mountain, is called 'giri valam' (giri = mountain and valam = right side), inferring that one should keep the Hill to the right when circumambulating.
At most holy places located on hills, the Deity is found at the top. But here at Tiruvannamalai, the hill itself is the Deity (Lord Annamalaiyar) and one of the ways in which it is propitiated and worshipped is by its circumambulation. In Sanskrit this going around the Hill is called 'giripradakshina' (giri = mountain and pradakshina: Prada = giver of boons; Kshi = destroyer of Karma; Na = giver of Jnana. Also, Pra-Dakshina = going around with center kept to the right).

It almost took 4 hours for me to walk around the hill bottom which has circumference of around 14 kms. The path was full of fellow believers who had come for seeking the blessings of Lord Shiva. Through out the path the only thing to be carried is goodness within us and a sense of forgiveness.

The trip taken to Tiruvannamalai on auspicious pournami night was truly pacifying resulting in enhancement of inner life. 

Om Namah Siva!!!!

Being Common... Being Distinct...

A human being is an amazing individual who leads life according to his / her principles / wishes / needs.

But entire dynamics of life changes once individual becomes a part of group of people. Group of people may be members of a family setup or team members at workplace or friends group at house locality or college locality.

You will not be astonished when I say that you have experienced whatever I am writing henceforth. 

An individual feels like having complete autonomy in deciding his / her life. This is belief of that particular individual but  reality is quite contradictory unless and until the individual has stopped living life true to his / her heart. Because once you start living life true to your heart you need to consider the aspirations or requirement of people around that ultimately makes you part of group of people.

So what exactly is the advantage or disadvantage of being a part of group of people and why certain individuals feel worried about being a part of group of people?

A group generally requires its members to align to a common ideology to exist or have a common point of interest to thrive upon. You need to get convinced or keep convincing others when there is a deviation from this commonness. But on the other-hand individuals have their attachment towards safeguarding their distinct behavior.

Hence in any group there exists a tug of war between person who believes in commonness and a person who believes in being distinct.

The most common reason for people avoiding being a part of group is the fear of being cheated. Yes, most people act like being convinced and but in reality safeguard their distinct behavior to end up deserting the person who actually get truly convinced based on the promises of falsely convinced person.

So what is way the best way to lead life? Is it being common or being distinct? Neither is going to have great impact on your life. But having good intentions for people around as well as for yourself and identifying the people with wrong intentions to correct the same is going to make your life quite memorable to recall. 

Fast and furious art of driving

At the traffic signal, a biker with his girl friend leaning on his back, a truck loaded with steel rods to be delivered at a construction site, a delivery guy with lots of couriers to be delivered at various sites, a company cab with employees waiting to return home, several others staring at the traffic light to go green.  Digits count down to zero, from red to yellow and get set go it is green.

Throttling vehicles zoom past me at speeds not suitable to the Bangalore traffic nor suitable to safety of the road travelers. 

Yeah, I was once upon a time a fast and furious kind of driver unless and until I met with an accident. It was usually an empty road which I generally prefer to be free from crowdy environment and this encouraged me to test the high speeds of my bike. on one fine day riding from my office to home with my colleague on my back seat, I was zooming. A sharp turn and a group of kids, a sudden brake, an accident. I fell unconscious. Luckily my colleague escaped a little hurt and after sometime I was able to get back to conscious state to see my knee bleeding.

The kids who crossed the road in split of a second advised me to drive carefully. I did not know whether to get angry on them or laugh at their advise. I was in confused mode and with a shaken outlook I reached my home after dropping my colleague on the way, who was also shaken.

It took almost two weeks to get the injury cured.

When I try to recall the incident, more than me getting injured, I feel satisfied that none of the kids got injured in the run which would have made things worse and a bad accident to remember. 

Before that accident, when I used to see people riding at safe speeds, it looked as if these people were afraid of hurting themselves  from high speed accidents. But after that incident, I did realize that people who are riding at safe speeds are actually caring for the lives of fellow travelers and acting as messiah who control the speedsters and prevent many possible accidents.

Back to the traffic signal, a cab carrying employees was continuously honking behind me as I was according to him blocking the road with my normal driving speed. I stopped my vehicle and allowed him to move past to only find him waiting for a green signal at the next traffic signal. Funny indeed.

So the next time when you see someone driving at normal speed, please don't irritate them honking on their back for sake of your thrill moments. They are indeed the speed controllers on road, saving many lives on road.

What is your interest....??

When there was no digital media, people used to quench the thirst of interest in others in various different forms. For example, spending time while moving to work on a vehicle by checking with the worries/ happiness of the co-traveller. This would automatically create a kind of bond which no other fb friends request / linked in request would create.

But things have changed. If some interest arises with reference to a person we go to their fb wall and based on the kind of posts they offer we create a mental picture in our minds and pacify our hearts saying that concerned person is in no way expecting any personal interaction from our end. There is a termination of the interest. Or we just see that there is nothing special about the person and ignore them altogether. Its same case with the other end.

Social sites have more or less facilitated faking emotions. I see many pictures on internet wherein person might be living in a hut but his/ her selfies showcase him/her a millionare. 

We are so connected that divine hearty relationship between couples has become a totally non existent topic. Earleir if couple were in love and his/her friend hears gossip about the one among pair cheating the other, the friend would defend the love between the couple to his /her core. But in today's scenario the same friend would like to check if the boy/girl would be available for second round of date with him/her. Tastes have soured to such cheap level. And it is just another passing news.

Lack of self censorship and self dignity is driving the world towards a direction where-in one is losing the interest in others as well as interest in his/her own life which ultimately leads to a goal-less life that would gradually lead to a death trap/depression.

Studies will keep us interested till we graduate, work will keep us interested till we earn enough for our living, God will keep us interested till will feel it BUT only love has that ability to keep us interested till we die. So keep loving the world around you, not necessarily the filthy minded people around but it can be a small flower in your garden or a puppy in your neighbour. Nature never stops sharing its love with you. 

BIG PICTURE

How many times you have been criticized by your superiors or friends who complain about you not understanding the BIG PICTURE?

I don't know about you, but I have been criticized many times for sure.

I just want to decode the secret behind that BIG PICTURE.

There are two kinds of people who speak about the BIG PICTURE.

A mother who sees her kid always roaming wasting his/ her time and not interested in education feels sad and complains to father that kid doesn't understand the BIG PICTURE.

A businessman goes to a sincere government servant and offers bribe for authenticating illegal activities. When the government servant refused to accept bribe, the businessman makes fun of the upright officer saying that latter doesn't understand the BIG PICTURE.

You are right, two types of people and two types of BIG PICTURE. For a mother big picture is bright future of her kid, for a businessman big picture is term used to seduce the sincere person to amass illegal wealth through his illegal activity.

It is this trap of big picture which many innocent people get into and loose their upright character due to deceptive incitement. 

Remember to believe in the big picture that makes your heart, mind and soul big enough.

Protest is my birthright

Its a busy world. For even a weekend cinema with friends there is a need for an organiser who will check with availability of each one in group, convince the unwilling, adjust the timings and then reserve the ticket accordingly to make it happen.

But the scene at Marina beach is incredible. No single organiser, people pouring in without any regards to their schedule and have taken the government to task in a fantastic way for its failure to handle their sentiments in a rightful manner. This should come as to shocker to ruling party who were busy in succession fight and understand a fact that if you fail to provide your time for the people's problem you will just be reprimanded.

I am no fan of Jallikattu, but going by the facts provided by people over Internet, I am convinced that sport should be given a chance to be practised but in more organised manner by placing proper rules and regulation to protect our nativity with no death and injuries to report.

Whenever people get together, it is an headache to ruling party and opportunity to the opposition, but in this case people were smart enough to keep both the sides away at an equidistant and showing that there is no saint in politics. Yes, it is this awakening that is required by the people of the country who gets associated with political parties and leaders as if they are avatar of god on the earth. A politician is one who makes use of people's aspiration to get himself/ herself attain a powerful position and later ride on the back of the same people who get them up.

Scenario is changing, as people have understood that there are no saints in politics, it is time to make the politicians understand that playing politics with their aspiration should be be last activity to be carried out by political parties. And the only tool which people of the country is to "protest." Protest in a way the people in power understand its consequence and act accordingly. We don't need statue of liberty. Instead we need statue of a protester. 

I am a supporter not a follower....

Before moving ahead, if you are a political fanatic who thinks that leaders should not be questioned, then excuse me, you should not be continuing. If you still continue, its at your own risk.

There were strict orders from government. Those who discuss the health status of Chief Minister over the internet/ social media , they would be arrested and prosecuted. And the same was done using the state police machinery with a quick reaction time. 

The intention was clear about preventing the panic situation. Days passed and ultimately the Chief minister was declared dead. Police did a wonderful job and no riots were reported. From Prime minister to President, condolences poured in. Amma is being replaced with Chinnamma and the show is moving on.

Well and good. But according to latest report in the leading newspaper around 203 people die of Shock due to demise of the Chief Minister. It is quite hard to digest the numbers and party to which the Chief minister belongs has decided to compensate for such deaths.

The question remains, why is that people die of a shock and grief of a chief minister? Ultimate answer would be love on the beloved leader.

How much is too good to bestow the love on a leader rather on their policies and philosophies. That leads to discussion on difference between being a supporter and a fan. 

In a college, students elect a class representative, who is well versed to communicate their ideas/ decisions to the higher authorities and act as a point of contact to the entire class. Students respect him/her for the role taken and thank him/her whole hearted. Its not difficult to replicate the same on the political level.

But things get complicated when the class representative instead of doing the required simple job involves himself in non-required complex jobs like doing some kind of dis-information campaign or becomes a medium of extortion for some additional marks/ influence. The class segregates into pro leader and against leader resulting in polarisation and things get complicated further.

So when looked into above prism of things, the so called "love in politics" turns out to be a complicated form of doing politics and polarising the people to such an extent that you make them die for you. Is it fair? In other words a person who merely was to act as a voice of people to understand their problem and solve the issues, when turns out to become a power house to create a different level of power circles around you, its a complicated version of democracy resulting in unequal development of the society.

It is not fault of the politicians, instead it the fault of we common people who try to extract a demi-god of the leader and complicate the entire process which serves no real purpose except for show off. 

I would like to add a disclaimer. The views expressed are aimed towards spreading awareness on "simple democracy" rather than a complex version. The incidents taken into consideration are for proving the same and not to hurt any individual or political organisation or their die hard followers