My tryst with Gita

I have always been told by many people that Gita contains a wonderful philosophy which can help an individual in leading a more fulfilling life. Many people have given their interpretations of Gita. Many business schools, administrative service training academies and mentoring institutes have Gita in their curriculum. I used to ask myself what is so wonderful about it. Some days ago I had a chance to watch a video of Mahabharata (The one which was broad casted on Door Darshan) on Youtube. This video contained the part in which Arjuna shuns his Gandiva (His bow) saying that he can not kill his own relatives and Lord Krishna talks to him and conversation is the source of Gita. My interpretations for everything in that episode can not be put here in a post. I would therefore rather discuss things that he mentions about Karma Yoga in that episode. My personal opinion is that the learning can really be very helpful in today’s world. Everybody is free to agree or disagree.

My Interpretation:

There can be 4 states of any individual:

1- He does not have a goal in his life and is not working therefore: He is dead almost.
2- He does not have a goal and is still working: He should think why?
3- He has a goal and is not working: What is he waiting for? Better start now.

4- He has a goal and is working for it: (Most of us fall in this category and teachings from Gita about KarmaYoga are most relevant for persons in this category.) There can be two ways how an individual who comes in this category approaches his goals:

a) He works very hard to achieve a goal. He cares a lot about the goal. The goal become so important to him that achieving it or not achieving it becomes center of his thought process. He does not want to imagine a situation in which he fails to achieve a goal.
He becomes obsessed with success, he fears failure. He always works to avoid failure. He stops enjoying his work in the process and sometimes hates it also. If seen carefully it is not that he doesn’t like to work or the work, it’s that he doesn’t like to work with a constant fear of failure. He doesn’t like a sword hanging over him always.
It is a thing that is going to continue life long. When does he stop and live peacefully then? Where is his share of happiness then?

Gita recommends other way:

b) He works hard towards the goal but he is almost indifferent to achieving it or not. (I know it’s a difficult thing to believe, I mean if we are indifferent to a goal why would we work hard at all. But it is possible. I know some people who do it like this continuously and I have seen them happy even after tremendous work pressures, possibly this is one of the reasons why Gita is philosophy of life for many successful and happy individuals). An individual works hard because he wants perfection in the work that he is doing and that is his motivation. He improves by the virtue of his work not by the virtue of things he achieves.


As an individual grows in life, he is going to do things with higher and higher stakes for all. If he continues to care too much about his goals, when is he going to be happy? So to me what Gita says makes sense: Work with perfection and Become Indifferent to goals. Rise above them.
The things those I have put here in this post are just a part of my over all interpretations. The things in Gita are said in even bigger context. Though, I am skeptic about some of them and would like to find more about them.

Please have a look.

"I am an Indian, I love India." But why should I? What is so lovable about it? It is a poor country. 22% of its population goes hungry to sleep. 35% of its population does not know how to read and write. It is rated 128 in Human development index below than most of the poorest nations of the world. It might have had a wonderful culture but today it looks culturally confused. It might have had "Unity in diversity", but some past incidents raise serious doubts about my statement. Its not the safest place of the world to be in, at least some of the recent terror attacks bolster this opinion. Then what is good about it? I think it is a wonderful place to be born in and moreover we are damn lucky that we have a birth date that is 1947+. We are a free country. We do not work under anybody's rule. We are not Sudan. We are not Iraq. We are not Pakistan. We live under our rule. I might not have had the best of the education available in the world, I might not have had best of the living conditions of the world but I have been allowed a chance to fight to become what I am today. No unfair condition has been imposed upon me that could have stopped me from fighting to become a better individual.
Was it possible under British rule? Did they not rape Indian women at their own will? Did they not plunder our villages and were they not responsible for disasters like Bengal Famine? Why is everything different today? Are British people inherently so bad that they did it to us? No, Let me make this fact very clear that they did it to us because we were slaves. Because we did not have any say in the course of the things. So what is different today? Why do our rulers not come and torture us at their will? Why are we not shot today in public meetings mercilessly as it was done in Jalian Walan Bagh. It is only because we have right to elect our leaders. It is only because we are a democratic country. It is only because we employ our rulers to rule us.
But How many of us use this right? How many of us do actually go and choose our own leaders? How many of us do actually have a say in deciding who is going to drive our country? I am happy that many of us use this right and go to vote. But are rest who do not vote still not slaves? Are they still not under somebody else's rule? Are they not giving a chance to somebody else to decide their lives? Are they not insulting all those Indian people who fought very hard for our freedom which we don’t understand the value of? Are they not making a mockery of all those Indians who died as the consequences of British rule? Are they not ignoring the fact that India was divided and remains divided as the cost of our freedom? Do they really understand that we are not Sudan because we are a functioning democracy and we have right to vote.
Decide yourself who you are? Are you a responsible citizen of India or an irresponsible slave who has very little control on his life? Choice is your. I can only give a suggestion and my suggestion is: PLEASE VOTE. DONT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY.

Cover of Time magazine depicting India's Partition

Click on the image to see it more clearly.

Think, why only this image!!! You will have interesting thoughts.

Valentine Day Special

This poem I had written at College for Kavi Sammelan, I thought I can mention it here on our very own "HAPPY VALENTINE DAY"

Mile Dwivedi jee kal parson, Bole bhaiya Kavya Sandhya karvaanee hai,
Kuchh roj baad hee eliminations hain, koi Bumper kavita likhkar laanee hai,

Humne kaha dwivedi jee, Kavita to kavi kee baanee hai,
Vaise hee aatankavaad ka jor prachanda hai, kyon Bum(Bomb) par kavita likhvaanee hai,

Dwivedi jee bole vaah, Baat to tumharee badee pyaaree hai
par shabdon ko jara sambhaalna, Allahabad mein mahaul thoda bharee hai,

PremDivas( Valentine day) kee poorva sandhya par, Humne kavita ka sriganesha karne kee thaanee
Bhai proposal accepted to romantic, nahee to tragic kavita to hai hee ban jaanee,

Ab to Dil ka internet GOOGLE search par laga pada tha
Dasiyon baar college ke chakkar par bhee NO RESULT FOUND ka board laga tha

Kuchh din to fir hum bhaiya khoye khoye rahte the
Ghanton tak UPTRON(a place beside MNNIT) par, Jaisingh kee kursee par baithe rahte the

Fir Socha kyon naa kuchh nayee takneek apnaayee jaaye,
Bhai, Hi-Tech ka jamaana haim ORKUT par jugat lagayee jaaye,

To lage haath humne bhee, invitation accept kar hee daala,
Par haath laga kya khaak, Bhaiya Dwivedi jee ne barbaad kar daala,

Ghanto tak surfing karne par bhee, 17 kee friend list mein 17 hee ladke the
Socha chalo kuchh tips milengee, par is field mein saare kadke the

Par Vah din tha kuchh khaas, pooree huyee jab meree aas,
Mere mailbox mein bhee ek ladkee ka mail aaya,
Bhaiya Fir to humne bhee 2-3 mail kar hee daale,
Reply nahee mila to bhee apna, ghar ka, saare phone no de daale,

Man hee man hum khush ho gaye, Bhaiya ab to hum bhee flirt karenge,
Bahut din huye doosron ko dekh, Ab apbne bhee din firenge,
Chatting ke ab session honge, naye naye sensation honge,
Phone par raat to dheere dheere baat hogee, kuchh dinon mein mulaakaat hogee

Usee din raaste mein Dwivedi jee mile, bole bhaiya kavita ka kya hua,
Humne kahan Dwivedi jee, Aapne to humaaree jindagee kee kavita bana dee,
Dwivedi jee achraj se, hairaan se Humein dekhte rah gaye,
Soch rahe the shayad vo yah, ye mohit bhai abhee kya kah gaye,

Par kuchh din baad ek mitra humaare muskaate huye humaare pas aaye,
Bole bhaiya kuchh badal rahe ho, kuchh to hua hai,
Humne unhein bade garva se apnee PremGatha sunayee, to Muskaye, aur fir muskaaye,
Fir saath humaare apne computer par, Humein hamaare saare love letter dikhaye

Bole bhaiya, Hum to yoon hee majaak kar rahe the, Aapka aur apna time paas kar rahe the
Vaise humne jo ladkee ka naam rakha tha, vo bahut hee pyaara tha
Sach batao meree kasam, kya usee naam se aapko maara tha

Mai kya karta bechaara, Uskee baat par muskura raha tha
par maathe ka paseena dil kee vyatha bataa raha tha

Agle din Dwivedi jee, Humein Raaste mein Yoon hee mil gaye,
Humse Bole Bhaiya Mohit, Kavita ke kya haalchaal hain
Humne Dwivedi jee ko ghoora, kaha Dwivedi jee kavita ko barbaad kar diya aapne,
Ab Hum Chaahe local cinema haal mein Mithun kee picture dekhne jaayenge, par hum aapkee kavya sandhya mein kabhee nahee aayenge,

Hum aapkee kavya sandhya mein kabhee nahee aayenge

GPRS and Special theory of relativity

While "special theory of relativity" may provide one many wild thoughts, I just happened to think about an interesting thing. We all know GPRS. GPRS is done through a packet switched communication over circuit switched networks. As circuit switched networks are inefficient, GPRS technology uses blank time slots where circuit swithched network is not being utilised. And hence more bandwidth is available to one to communicate.
I just happened to think, if someday even if we dont make a time machine ( but some how we partially make it ie. we are able to bring time dimension also in to our realms of communication) then in GPRS communication we could also use slots those are free in nights even if we wanted to communicate in day. We could use time slots of future. Then world might be fighting over these furture time slots as it fights over oil today ( Think USA and India have a Indo-US time slot division deal, By which Indian companies can buy time slots of US, there are discussions in world economic forum where IBSA is against G8 countries because these countries have very high rates for their communication time slots, or UN peace summit has communication time slots in its agenda). Imagine the amount of bandwidth one can achieve that way.
Well, Bandwidth itself is a wonderful term. It comes essentially from frequency domain representation of a signal( which if you see is in time domain only (controversial thought though, some communication engineers will not agree)), so this future usage of Badwidth will add another dimension to the Bandwidth as we say it today.
Let me explain it a bit, let us say I send 2 images to my friend, one goes in current time and one goes in future time, but even if the image will come in future time, My friend sees it now and says "Dude you look great". (It seems crazy, and that is what is).
Imagine, the speeds that we will be able to achieve, Imagine the amount of data that we could send in minutes, imagine other impacts of same thing, Hackers if peep into your system, they will devastate you in seconds. People will do many wonderful things if time machines become possible, but I am free to have my own thoughts. :-D

Mirage

Having reached so far, I find you but not you,
Now Nowhere to turn to, I should end up with you and only you.

where I went wrong, I cant see it better you tell me,
Pity it is, with loss of originality, even you cant tell me.

Here I am with all my life for even a not so you of you,
Coz I have a feeling that u can still be seen only through you.

And I shall wait till that moment though temporary comes,
As for me its not time that matters, my beloved "you".

The Complete Man

When I was a kid, I watched Raymond suiting advertisement on television which had its punch line as: "For the complete man" and used to show some nice suite clad men in a marriage, a young guy paying respect to his parents, showing love to his beautiful wife, this was what I always wanted to be. This was fantasy and at that age I did not use to think about things like what kind of professions those guys must be in or what kind of lives guys like those must be leading.
Then I grew older and reached college. There I had a chance to interact with Ankit Fadia( Hacking wizard), I read about Sabir Bhatia or Steve Jobs and my fantasy of a complete man changed a bit and now my complete man used to wear informal clothes. He was a guy who had done something different in his life and had taken a road less travelled.( I had then read poem, "The road less travelled" by Robert Frost. I loved it and do love it still). My complete man was successful in his professional life and had made his fortune himself.
Then I read "Fountain Head" by Ayn Rand,( thanks to a friend, both of us read book as a competition between us, which of course I won :-) ) and this book impacted my concept of complete man immensely. Now he was a guy who was a perfectionist, perfectly selfish and therefore altruistic ( oops I just said that). He did care only about himself and did not have expectations from anybody. I used to believe that protagonist Howard Roark is a utopian concept for Indian society but I had started behaving like Howard and his impact on me was visible to some closer ones of mine too. (I lost some good friends and people started me terming as an individualist but after all collectivists never like individualists :-) )
Then I happened to read a book "Seven Habits of highly effective people", ( I never like books of this sort, but we do sometimes like to do things which we don’t like to do), Some first chapters of the book fortified Howard Roark inside me but then came some further chapters which tried to tone him down a little. This book did not impact me much, only significant thing that I learnt was that one should try to look at other's paradigm also before one reaches to any stand (Well doing this sometimes confuses me a lot, but helps me mostly.)
But then another phase has come where I have become a little negative about all my conceptions of complete man. I term it as that reality has struck me. Aged 24 today, I sometime feel that time is slipping and I am stuck where I have been. I am no longer sure of my control on my life. I just want to float in the river called destiny. But I want to enjoy and do enjoy this floating of mine ( Ah, I remember free floating in Ganges here which I had done on a rafting trip last year, that was beautiful and so is this free floating today.)
Well last paragraph is one side of my thoughts, other side says that life is about being positive. It is your control of life and Hey who can take it away from you? It says you may not be a complete man but you are very good, you may think that you are stranded but if you see closely, you have improved during this period more than any other in your life.
Well, I guess the positive thoughts strike more chord with me than the negative ones and hence here I am doing and experiencing many things in my life that I have never done before. I might be little off the target with which I had started the article but the point that I wanted to make keeping myself at the helm was that- the negative phase that I talked about briefly comes in everybody's life someday. I have seen some people going in depression when they turn 30 because they think that they can't reach the long terms that they had set for themselves 5 years earlier because they have wasted a lot of time. But This is not what life is about, it is about Saying Yes to experiences and being bubbling with enthusiasm and to continue to improve (one must decide his own definition for term improvement though) and we must live and enjoy it to the fullest. Just live it like you have never done before and everybody thus becomes a complete man in his own respect.

Note: I was never sure I would be able to end this article on positive note :-D