Who Am I ?

In my younger days
The Self still at it’s infant stage
Prompt would come my reply
resounding all the way.

I am so and so.
I am an (affectionate) daughter.
I am a (loyal) friend
I am an (empathetic) sister.
I am a (dutiful) wife.
I am a (loving) mother.
All roles well defined.

So I continued feeding these thoughts
which was more like Frankenstein?
With more bloated ideas.
Unaware of the devil (I-am-ness) devouring all the time.

Yes, I asserted
about the roles I played
Aren’t they very important ones,
Only I’m equipped to display?

Years rolled on,
Doing my daily chores was not as easy as it was all along.
It is okay, I consoled myself maybe,
I am not a mother or a wife.

Thereafter a day arrived when I had to say
I’m sorry, I can’t talk for long.
With a little apprehension I said,
So what I am not a sister or a friend.

With age catching on,
I lost my youthful physical appearance
That day I accepted,
Ok I am not my face or body, something beyond.

The dreadful day, when
I couldn’t eat without wincing in pain.
I understood, certainly
I was not what I ate.

Finally a day arrived when I could barely breathe
But to my delight I felt pure and calm.
Realization struck me
Like a matchstick lighting a cotton yarn

With all the status messages gone.
I had no tags stuck on.
Curious, eager and open eyed in awe.
I asked, so, “who am I”?

Pondering over this question took not long.
For the empty space created
Could now be filled
With new thoughts and lovely songs.

Came up with a revelation
Quite magical, sure and strong.
My mind moved faster than light
And face shone brighter than Sunlight.

Something bigger and brighter?
Something purer and subtler?
Something not confined to space and time?
Oh! It finally dawned,I was Something, not to be easily defined.

What a fool I have been all along
To have wasted all this precious time
Confining myself to the roles I played
Not understanding my unlimited ways.

With a clean slate to write upon
Debilitating old habits wiped and gone.
Free to write (about who I am) what I want
Qualities finer and only read earlier in devotional songs.

Shining brighter than ever before
Realizing my potential and raring to go
Am ready to play a better role
For I’m (Atman) here forever and more.

Author’s note- It is but natural to identify oneself with one’s own form, character, position, relationship etc in order to live in this world. But very often due to I-am-ness, we forget the limitations of this “identity” and its purpose. This identity creates a false ego in us. “I am the greatest”, “I am the best” etc. are all manifestations of this ego.

When we take our identities too seriously, we think we are entitled to have and do certain things which when denied leads to anger, disappointment and suffering.

It is important for us to understand that THE PERCEIVER is the real self and that “identity” is limited in the level of the mind and the senses ie “instruments of perception”. By unraveling each layer of our senses and mind we can see the Perceiver thereby destroying the ego in ourselves. When the ego is removed there is sure to be more equanimity and purity in our thought and action.


Rama

Addendum to the prev blog post

Regarding the maternal services offered - some more interesting facts have recently poured in.

Eye-witnesses have reported that Elaine was seen dressed in complete Indian traditional style - with sari, blouse, poo, pottu and kumkumam !! Unfortunately there were no pictures taken !

It was also reported that Elaine was taken to the Kapaleeshwar temple by Jana, where she was introduced to the traditional custom of the south-indian "namaskaaram" - with an explanation of its meaning and its significance followed by a demo, on how and where to perform the "namaskaram" at the temple - which Elaine is said to have religiously followed !

(According to the temple's website (http://www.mylaikapaleeswarar.org) : "Literary evidence in innumerable songs and hymns, reveal the existence of Mylapore Kapaleeswarar Temple many centuries before Christ. The temple surrounded by the four 'Mada Streets' and abutted by the 'Temple Tank' is a spot that cannot be neglected by any tourist to Chennai, whether Indian or Foreign." ) Looks like Jana has taken the latter part a bit too seriously !

And at the end of her stay, Elaine is said to have remarked to mama that he has such a "lovely loving family" !! Three cheers to "Mother India" (or should we say "Mother Universe" !!)

Jana's services go global !

Jana's maternal instincts have now taken her international !! She recently offered her 'motherly' services to a 21-year old from Sweden, and in Jana's words, "a lovely child Elaine" - - who spent the past 2 days in Jana's house!

Until 2 days back, Elaine and Jana were complete strangers to each other ! And overnight jana has become her godmother !! And how did this complete stranger land up at the Ramanathan household is anybody's guess !

Elaine was brought to Jana's house from the railway station 2 days ago - she happened to be Shankar mama's co-passenger in the train journey from Bangalore to Chennai. And when he found that she was new to Chennai and had no place to stay [ :-( ], he felt sorry for her and invited her to stay at jana's house for a couple of days - and jana completely unfazed by this invitation, prompty acted on his gesture - she lost no time in inducting her, not only into the family, but also into the Indian traditions and culture !!

As you may have guessed by now, Elaine's induction to the Ramanathan family cannot be initiated without a visit to the temple - so she started with a round of temples the next morning. This was followed by silk sari- shopping, and subseqently helping her wear that sari, with a bindi etc. in typical Indian style. Jana was also busy cooking traditional and exotic indian food which were suitable to Elaine's palette !

Jana spent hours talking to Elaine and her life in Sweden and her interests - she has dropped out of school after class XII. She has been travelling across the world for the past 4 years (all by herself). She is very interested in Buddhism. Her next few destinations included in the itinerary
are Andamans, Dharamshala, Rajasthan, Indonesia, etc.etc.

Elaine was care of Tanvi, Vasu and Theo who kept her company whenever Jana was at work or busy in the kitchen. The services offered include - being chaperoned to the ticketing offices to help her buy her train and flight tickets to her next destination and finally accompanied to the airport and seen off, by Bhoopati and mama !!

Elaine has now left the shores of Chennai to proceed to Andaman islands. Jana is now awatiting the next 'lovely child' to enter the family - so the next time any member of the VSR family travels into chennai - do make sure that you do your good-deed for the day - by offereing Jana's home for a "Homely Indian stay" for your co-passenger, in case he/she has no other place to stay ! Services include free airport/station, pick-up and drop, and of course the entire expenses (boarding and lodging, and travel (within city limits) ) will be on-the-house ! Other goodies thrown in include : arranging for and booking of train/air tickets, sari-shopping in the most leading and exclusive shops in India for traditional silks, authentic Indian cuisine and of course temple visits !!

Yogacharini Rama !

The VSR family is proud to have Yogacharini Rama amidst us !

Rama has been appearing in NDTV Hindu channel on TV daily this week ! She has appeared for a two-minute daily show on Yoga, on behalf of Arkaya Yoga centre. The video clip constitutes a 2-minute Health module as part of the morning news, telecast from 8:00 to 8:30 am. During the show, she explains various yogasanas and the benefits of the same and performs the asana too. She appears very camera-friendly and confident and with no display of nerves ! Great show for a debutante !

And the ladies of the VSR family in Chennai have promptly performed the daily dose of yogasanas as prescribed by their newfound 'yogacharini' !!

FYI - NDTV-HINDU is Chennai’s first and only city-specific English News and Entertainment channel launched in May 2009. This channel of “Nonstop programmes for Nonstop Chennai” covers breaking news and current affairs as well as user-friendly information. Every programme reveals a new facet of Chennai and Chennaites.

Naga's trip to Amsterdam

Brothers in Arms :

The two brothers - Naga and Shyam - stranded at Amsterdam and Brugge respectively, and unable to fly out of there due to the closure of air traffic caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland. The two had finally met up at Amsterdam and stayed together to work out a common outbound travel program to India. The two brothers enjoyed an extended holiday for another 3 days before returning to Delhi.

Amsterdam

Naga made good use of the time to visit the Tulip Gardens in Amsterdam -

Here are the some of the snaps taken during his official trip - it includes an evening cruise, visit to the tulip gardens, official dinner and farewell, and the flight take off ! All shot with his new pet toy - the Nikon SLR digicam D3000 !!

Awaiting feedback on the photos from the official photographer of the VSR family - also looks like her position is being strongly threatened !!

Boredom !

Basically im bored and i am catching up on all my reading at my internship ! Work comes and go .. and like today im completely free :D:D ...
The boredom has lead to me writitng on our Fun Family blog :)



Oh yeah my sister came up with this brillant quote while i was studying for my psychology exam
"You dont have to have a 100 insecurities to be a grieving master"...

I dont even how she came up with this .!

other random snapshots

Kapils wedding...

Purity of thought

Have you noticed that baby monkeys, baby rhinos, piglets, lion cubs and for that matter all newborns look so cute and cuddly? Yes, innocence is beautiful. A peek into their minds and what do we see? It is that pure state called, “The Joy of being”? But as they grow into adults most of them do not look so cuddly anymore.

The journey of man too from an infant to an adult is similar. We are not as likeable anymore as adults. What changed? Have we lost that sense of pure joy in the process of adulthood?

When the turtle hatchlings break open the eggs and come out of their nest, they instinctively move towards the sea using the moons reflection on the ocean as their guiding light. That is Nature working at her best. But in the city, turtle hatchlings distracted by the street lights move towards the road thinking it is goings towards the Sea; the human mind too in the process of evolution can get drawn to the artificial instead of THE REAL. The street lights of power, money and fame and sometimes sheer day to day survival distract us, leading us away from our natural goal.

Instinctively man is drawn towards the common consciousness. The light within each one of us gently cajoles us from the very beginning to guide us towards our pure selves, like a plant is naturally growing towards the Sun. We all have this internal radar implanted within our sub-conscious mind. When we are not paying attention to this inner voice/ radar or resist what she is saying, she is like a stern mother who wants the best for her child. She scolds you, she gives you “time out”, and she even spanks you when things go out of hand.

Nature is always playing a lead role in the process of evolution. Just as a plant gets nourishment from sunlight, water and minerals in the soil we too get nourishment from things around us. Nature, parents, teachers and acquaintances guide us through our journey. But there are weeds too, vying for the same Sun, water and minerals. These weeds within us are hatred, jealousy, anger, fear, selfishness, laziness to name a few. They too are vying for a space within us robbing us of enormous energy and precious time. These weeds need to be pruned at the very beginning so that we can achieve our highest potential.

Even goodness needs to taken in the right quantity. Over watering the plant will result in its rotting and pesticides will make the plant toxic. By process of photosynthesis the plant then assimilates these inputs and uses them in the right quantities to grow. Like each finger in our hands being of a different length, how each human being evolves depends on nourishment received from different sources around them and how well they have been able to absorb, digest and assimilate the same.

Once purity of mind is achieved there is no stopping anyone from reaching his/her zenith.



Rama Shyam

Suri @ Wharton !!

Suri has just returned from Wharton, where he was invited as a panel member of the 14th Wharton India Economic Forum on Saturday, March 27, 2010, at Park Hyatt, Philadelphia. He spoke on Emerging India.

He was one amongst a gliterrati of speakers - Subhash Chandra (chairman of Zee entertainment), Praful Patel(minister of state for civil aviation, GOI), Aditya puri (CEO and MD of HDFC bank), Sachin Pilot (minister of state - comm and IT- GOI), Naveen Jindal (MD and CEO of the Jindal group), Kalpana Kochar of country-head IMF, Atul Punj (chairman Punj Lloyd), Praveen KAdle (MD of Tata Capital), Naresh Goyal (Founder and Chariman of Jet Airways) Pankaj Munjal (MD Hero motors) etc. etc. and from the film industry - Anil Kapoor, Vidya Balan , Shankar Mahadevan etc.

Here's the extract from the website : http://www.whartonindia.com/speakers.php,
containing the Introduction of Suri:

. Suryanarayan · Group CFO, Allcargo Global Logistics Limited

S. Suryanarayanan, 52 years, is a Chartered Accountant .

Suryanarayanan has over 25 years of vast experience in the logistics ,chemical & engineering sectors.He has experience in fund raising in both the Domestic markets and international He has also been involved significantly in the domestic and international mergers and acquisitions .

Suryanarayanan as Group CFO is responsible for the group financial plans, strategic planning, and merger and acquisitions of the group.

The group today has evolved as a global entity providing logistic solutions to the EXIM trade having its own offices in over 60 countries through various verticals in the logistic space .

The impromptu get-together

To celebrate the very recent developments - of the announcement of the next wedding in the family, the VSR-family-Chennai Chapter, decided to meet over a "family-breakfast" with food from Karpagambal Mess !

The Question-Hour
The primary objective of the breakfast-meeting was to convert the breakfast time into a "Question-hour" - where the chithappas (and chithis and cousin) "questioned" their nephew regarding the details leading up to his marriage - in chronological order. Starting from the day he met Divya, till the day the wedding was formalized (yesterday). Now once the question-hour was closed with honest answers from Kapil, the chithappas called for the main witness, Divya, for cross-questioning - to ascertain the verity of the "facts" as narrated by Kapil.

Hounding by the family-paparazzi
So Kapil was ordered to call Divya, who was fast asleep on a saturday morning. She was called repeatedly until her slumber was rudely broken by the constant ringing of her phone. The next thing she knew was that she was asked to get ready immediately to come over to Kapil's house to meet the next round of immediate "family" - and little did she realise what she was in for. For the next 1 hour, she was harassed by the family-paparazzi (through phone calls to her every 10 mins to check if she is ready), until she said she was ready to be picked up!

The chithappas had wanted to introduce themselves in style - to go to her house in a "convoy" and take her out from there. Kapil jumped out of his skin at this bizarre idea - so it was decided that rather than scaring her off, yours truly and Lalanti be entrusted with the respectable job of going over to her house with Kapil to bring her home.

The Car ride
So in the car ride from her house to Kapil's house, she was given adequate warning - to get prepared to face the individual members of the VSR madhouse and crazy family. She was also forewarned that she was going to be subjected to a 'stress test' and the intention was also to verify some of the versions that we had already heard from Kapil. And of course Kapil hastened to tell her, that she should stick to the "plan B" which was the family version of the stories to be told ! And we were also generous enough to add that at the end of 24 hours she still has an exit option after interaction with the "VSR family" - also considering the fact that she would see her to-be husband's mirror image in the chithappas (in all their glorious baldness), 30 years hence !

The Cross Questioning
So when she finally arrived, she was extended a v.warm welcome by the family and was requested to occupy the "hot seat" - a colorful stool placed v.strategically in the middle of the living room, with the rest of the members seated all around her on the sofas / on the ground ! Before she had time to settle down, she had questions fired at her from all directions - when did you meet him first, was it love at first sight, when did he propose to you, how did he propose to you, what did you find in him, when did you tell your parents, how did they take it, why didnt you sing on the ponnu-pathufying day (the previous day), why didn't you do namaskaaram to kapil (as your grandmother expected you to do) etc. etc. And of course she was strictly asked NOT to look at Kapil for any eye contact for any cues !


The cross-questioning went on for almost an hour ! So once the chithappas were satisfied with responses of the prime witness for verification of the facts stated earlier, they went easy, with less stressful questions like -what are your hobbies, where did you study, where do you work, what do you plan to do in singapore etc. etc. At the end of the grilling session we reminded her about her exit option that she could still exercise !

Conclusion
She seemed pretty comfortable to stick to her original decision - she finally took leave of the family, visibly relieved to be released from the clutches of the family and vanished with Kapil after that - the pair were not traceable for the next couple of hours! The VSR family now plans to have another round of formal get together tomorrow (Sunday evening) inviting Divya and her parents for evening snacks. Jana athai of course is going to be the main orchestrator for the exotic menu which is going to be prepared by each of the 4 families. The chief guest is going to be Divya's very good friend Maansi (the match-maker) for a formal thanksgiving ! Incidentally Maansi is the one who set them up: her husband Rishi and Kapil are friends since school and Maansi and Rishi and Kapil are members of the exclusive GOTGG club (Group of the Group group club) !

A brief recap of the previous day (ponnu pathyfying)
The naradar-nathanaar (Tanvi) - played her role very effectively the previous day - by prompting Lalli paati to persuade Divya to sing a song, which she politely refused, much to Tanvi's disappointment. Divya's paati asked her to do namaskaaram to Kapil - and Kapil was completely awed by his newly-acquired status and respect in her family - was visibly disappointed when she refused to comply !

For further, developments, please await the sequel to this post, after the session tomorrow. Select Photos will soon be released by the official photographer of the 214 Family - Tanvi.