Geet Vitthal... Sangeet Vitthal...

The attraction (or should I say affection?) that Maharashtrians have for Lord Vitthal and the "vaari", the annual ritual that happens at Pandharpur during the "Ashadhi Ekadashi" is unparalleled. I think it goes long way in the work that many famous saints did in Maharashtra spreading the message of equality, brotherhood, humanity and devotion towards vitthal in many innovative ways. They are one of the reasons to put us on progressive thinking and sowing seeds for the freedom struggle as well. The way some of them made learning fun through their presentation, like in Bharud surely teaches us a few things we can apply while teaching kids or presenting in front of an audience.

I am in the awe of how lakhs of "vaarkari" plan their work and personal life to achieve that spiritual life balance. They go back home rejuvenated for the rest of the year. I am not so much of temple person, the number if times I go to the nearby temple in a year could be in single digit. My better half is way better at temple visits.

My Vitthal affinity is not so spiritual but mainly musical and related to the literature. The wealth of poetry, songs, bhajans and keertans that the vitthal devotee saints is enormous. It's not just about the quantity of the art work. Its quality is intoxicating. The depth of the thoughts expressed though in very very simple words is astonishing. The work is done by scholars who simply studied life, and put their interpretations through these flowing juicy poetic forms. Today's scholars have spent years in studying and interpreting the work done by likes Sant Dnyaneshwar or Sant Tukaram. So much for thoughts expressed by 16 year old boy or a grocery shopkeeper who believed in lord Vitthal.

We have been blessed in Marathi music industry to have stalwarts who could bring to life the poetic work of these saints. The music composition as well as the singers have rendered it simply divine. I can still remember many of these songs played on the radio in the mornings when we would get ready for the day. Probably those got etched on my mind and paved way for this affection. My favourites among those are the ones sung by Pandit Bheemsen Joshi. I also thoroughly enjoy the songs by Lata mangeshkar like "sundar te dhyaan", or the "pasaaydaan". Those simply can turn any moment magical taking you down the memory lane to the era of Vitthal devotion.

These and many more Vitthal devotional songs are my any time mood lifters and my family has to bear with a splurge of those as the "Ashadhi ekadashi" approaches. I am not sure whether I will go for the "vaari" ever in my life, not planned for it yet, but I am pretty sure I will cherish my vitthal music forever in my heart.

Don't fall... Hold on...

Last month I attended an agile conference in Bangalore. One of the interesting sessions was on applying psychology in the (work)life while dealing with people. The speaker spoke a lot about our mind, how we store and process the information.

What stuck with me was this psychological experiment that he mentioned. It was an experiment with 2 kids hanging on to the branches of the trees. One of them was repeatedly told "don't fall" and the other one was repeatedly told "hold on". As you might have guessed, the latter could hold on for more time than the former.



The speaker went on detailing how the mind ignores the no and don't keywords and only captures the "fall" keyword. I was already lost in my thoughts by then on how many times do I use the negative connotations when I talk to my kids.

Ever since they knew the meaning of word 'No' and it's synonyms, I think I have used it so many times while talking to them. It ranges from healthy stuff like don't eat a lot of junk food to safety measures like Don't talk to strangers. As a parent I think it's pretty easy to stress the importance of a point in a negative manner, stating more things as "don'ts" than "do's". It's easy to identify things that kids should not do than the ones kids should do.



I came back with the thought of talking to kids in more "do's" than "don't". It sounded pretty logical, but alas it was not easy! After all knowing is not everything, the real impact is when we do something about it.

Just few examples
Changing "don't just sit and watch TV" to "come let's play carom"
Changing "don't keep playing that mobile game" to "let's play Antakhshari of names of places"
Changing "don't eat junk food" to "let's limit the junk quota to once a week for what we eat becomes our blood"

I am trying, and hopefully will do better in coming days, but one thing is for sure that the visual of the boy falling when the parent said don't fall will be etched on my mind for a long time.

How about you? Do you buy into this argument?

Konkan in monsoon

After so many years of visiting Konkan on summers, this time I got a chance for a brisk short weekend trip to our beautiful little village 'Anjarle' in monsoon. And it was mesmerizing to meet the awesomeness of rains.

The road was scenic. Konkan is kind of evergreen, with trees braving the hot summers without losing their green crowns. But the freshness added to the whole nature by rains is  unparalleled. I anyways am attracted to the fluorescent green colour brought to us by rains, it was a treat for my eyes to see miles and miles spread around painted in this green colour. The hills, the grass on the land, the happy farms all green and full of life everywhere. The cloudy sky, the drizzle, the vegetables planted in backyard and the farmers working on planting rice crops just made it a perfect pretty picture.



My village Anjarle is blessed to have countryside, hillside and of course seaside beauty combined all in one. The hills, the forest and the wild grass and plants all around add a rustiness to the moment. The hilltop presents an awesome view of the green landscape laced with white bubbly waves of the sea to give it a fabulous border.


Getting into the sea was also different with the water being cold, sea mixing with the sky erasing the boundaries. The clouds took away the sense of time as well for now there was no way to tell if the sun is still high in the sky, setting or set already. We returned home drenched in that wonderful experience. We, specially my kids also got our hands dirty in planting some flowering plants, and watering those.

I have saved all those visuals in my mind in the happy memories section. Those are to be pulled out to upbeat my mood when I feel low.

Knowing is not everything...

Today we all are in services economy as against the agricultural or industry economy of yesteryear. More so the services economy is knowledge-centric. I have been a knowledge worker in an organization that thrives on acquired knowledge. Knowledge management is extremely essential in the professional services organization like mine, and even my customers. Adding to that I worked on the knowledge management IT portfolio for several years. Overdose of knowledge everywhere! All the time all of us in the team are thinking of how to build world class systems that bring out the best and most relevant knowledge at fingertips at lightning speed.



One day it got me thinking is it really enough to simply get all the information all the time. Shouldn't we also care about what we are doing with all this information! All the knowledge that we are getting all the time, literally at finger tips or taps, are we really doing anything to use it for any benefit or changes to ourselves. One famous saying from a Marathi poet goes as "What's the use of the knowledge if it is not used for something good".

Here are some of my musings on this topic in the form of a poetry...

I often realize
Knowing is not everything
Knowing is good for us
But it's just the beginning

We are swamped with it all
On Twitters, what apps and Facebooks
Each and everyone of us today
Is on the social hooks

Newspapers, channels and websites
Keep harping the current affairs
We see and read and talk and forget
Well... Who really cares

Knowledge is all around us
All the time fast paced
But good only if we apply a bit
Or else it's all going waste

Swaccha Bharat, civic sense
Isn't that something we know
But still that wrapper of the chips packet
On the roads we throw

We know the power of yoga
Exercise and healthy food
But till we don't practice it
it does us no good

So till we understand and value
And actually do something
I believe and would like to say
Knowing is not everything

Clean desk, Jammed drawers

Scene 1 - In my office we have a clean desk policy. It's basically about ensuring information security. Ensure that important confidential documents do not just lie around the desk causing a breach. People like me who are lazy to sort of document classification resort to an easier option, periodically (or more when you about an audit approaching) dump all the documents in the drawers, lock those and keep the desk clean. The drawers also are to be cleaned, but that can wait for a lighter day, or may be forever!



Scene 2 - at home all ladies of the house feel this moral responsibility to keep the house neat and clean. An easy option, if you don't have time to sort things and keep at proper place, just dump those in drawers, cupboards or wherever u can find place. The drawers get jammed but the house looks clean. Extremely useful when you hear an unexpected visitor dropping in next 10 minutes. I do this very often, and make little bit time to clean the jammed drawers on weekends. But that's a small effort. My major cleaning of drawers ( and giving away things, throwing off stuff, etc) happens in summer. Kids have vacation and I also can make ample time. What a pleasant surprise it is to find some old photos buried deep inside! My son felt like a treasure hunt won when I found a bag full of balls from a cupboard.



Scene 3 - the same thing is applicable even for our thoughts, ideas and plans. In our daily rush, there are so many of important things we simply put in closed drawers to be looked at later and just forget about it. That later never really arrives or it turns into too late sometimes. I think it's probably a good idea to find that summer break to scan through our mind's jammed drawers to see what should be pulled out and made a part of our clean desk.

I always thought that I will go for morning walk in national park when I retire, I am such a busy bee, who does not have the time now, but Fit4Life shook up that thought and made me a regular walker.

I had almost forgotten that I enjoyed writing essays and poems in school. But got that joy back now through my blogging, making my travel time back home as my writing time



So friends, while it's important to have a clean desk, that may result into jammed drawers, it's worthwhile cleaning the drawers also once in a while. Who knows what treasure you may have hidden in there while cleaning your desk in a hurry!