Kshema's 7 Quick Takes Friday (Volume 17)

--- 1 ---

It has been a stably good week. Traveled to my choicest nearby place. Did some awesome work that gave out equally awesome results. For a librarian like me, challenging tasks and learning opportunities only can give immense happiness. Climate is a bit hot and humid with a couple days breezing awhile. I know I am one restless soul, but I have to accept that the physical body needs some rest.

--- 2 ---

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” 

― Benjamin Franklin

So true! One of my recent experiences provoked me to travel down the memory lane only to reminiscence about the teachers, mentors, guides, friends and philosophers I had the fortune to associate myself with. A moment to stand and offer my heartfelt thanks to them all; and above all to Him for bestowing upon me such good fortune to strike some time with them. Almost of them taught something to me without even a slightest hint that they are teaching me. They just entered my time, interacted, and left precious gifts of learning and experience for me. Each one of them, I swear by word, have taught me something for life, and made me stronger with time. What more, the journey continues! When I think of them, I correlate with Sarojini Naidu's "Palanquin Bearers".

Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,
She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;

She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream,

Courtesy: sunshineonmycanvas.blogspot.com
by Sujata Khanna

She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.
Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

Softly, O softly we bear her along,
She hangs like a star in the dew of our song;
She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,
She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.
Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

You may wonder, how can it be related here? I relate myself to the bride inside the palanquin and all the people mentioned above to the bearers of that palanquin; the journey as the time of interaction with them; the palanquin as the knowledge and experience they have used to transport me from one learning to another; the destination as the wisdom I use for decision making derived from all my learning through their imparted knowledge. "Lightly, O lightly....." is the way they do and I never know. They groom me in a way that they let me grow. I bow to such teachers and leaders!

--- 3 ---

OMG….The “Omni” - potent, present and the scient

Is it love or fear? What is it that we have for God? First of all, let me clarify my position….. Am I a theist or an atheist? I believe in the existence of God. Yes, very much, not because I am told so; rather because I have experienced divine support more than once in my life until now. So we are clear, I believe in His existence. Next, do I believe in God? Just now I said, I do. But what I said was I believe in His existence. Then, do I believe in Him? This is the next question. Yes, I do. Why? Like many, I do, because I felt the divine protection, support oft times in my life. That means I believe that whenever I am in need of real help, I will receive it; ofcourse, through some human medium, most possibly. It means I believe in not mere existence of God, but in Him as well. It also means that He is omnipotent! Now, if I believe in God, what is it that is expected out of me? Is it the rituals, daily exhibitive so-called-spiritual routines, or charity, or something else? Mind you, charity is different from kindness. Your act of random kindness need not necessarily culminate into charity for you to derive happiness. I am told God is ocean of love. He has only love to offer to His children and never keeps grudges or never punishes. If that is true, my question is, why should we fear Him? Because He is omnipresent He will definitely see my present status and state of affairs. Do I still need to bite off on my productive time in order to perform the laid down rituals? I consider my duty nothing short of devotion and I believe I am right. I love my work, therefore I consider it as an expression of my love towards God. I do not fear my work. If I do, I cannot be creative and productive. Those who fear their work will also carry a fear of losing their jobs. In that process they may not be able to justify their efforts, or lack of such thereof. As for God’s omniscience is concerned, I think independently and objectively as far as possible. I do not subject my thoughts to any conditioning. I try to analyze, consider my experience and knowledge for arriving at decisions. Not just that, but I also try to revise my analysis with time. If my decision leads to right positive results, I infer that my actions are in accordance with His will. My inference helps me to align my thoughts in a righteous way. This is one way that I know, to check your thoughts and actions with that Omniscient. Therefore, I try to be “the loving and lovable”, be it with the Macrocosm or His microcosma.

--- 4 --- 

The three rupee erasers

While in middle school, there was a time when the market was flooded with erasers inside some object like a toy that resembled items from the "house set" or an animal or something else. Moreover they were scented too. They costed three rupees each. All of my classmates and friends had one or more of them. I too craved for them. The craze started with one and grew to having a collection. My dad never supported the idea of spending money unnecessarily. Therefore, after having my request for one fulfilled legitimately, there was no scope for placing a further demand. What to do? Not that I did not make any attempts with him for which I got scolded. As more and more new models entered the market, my thirst for more kept on increasing. Well, I must say that I was an organized kid. I did not make a mess out of my toys or things. So according to me, my demand was alright, not illegitimate at all. When parents do not listen to children's demands, there are always grandparents to fall back. Now I got a brilliant idea! It was a ritual in our house to have "bommala koluvu", a display of dolls during Dusshera. In South India this toy festival is celebrated generally during Dasara or Deepavali or Sankranti. My grannies (mother and aunt of my dad) were the in-charges of this festival in our family. Well, back to my erasers.... I placed my idea of collecting the eraser toys for the "bommala koluvu" purpose. They costed just three rupees each and the "house set" can be completed too. What more, I am getting so many erasers; so no need to stock other erasers for me. They appeared to have convinced with my idea. But they feared about dad would ask them for daily accounts. Nevertheless, my idea of buying one eraser a week was finally accepted. Thus I started quenching my thirst for the toy erasers. I used to buy them at our regular stationer and hide them inside my school bag, neatly tucked in my cap or something else. One fine day dad got to know about this conspiracy. As a kid my mind could not think beyond collecting the erasers to foresee what will happen when dad comes to know about it. Dad got awfully furious with both my grannies and ofcourse I was no exception. When he gets angry, he does not speak, he roars! Real loud. His eyes shower sparks. As a child I faced him in such foul mood several times. No wonder my daughter nicknamed him "angry bird"! The point is, he may forgive but he never forgets. Since then he has been always accusing us, me and my two grannies - the three musketeers (read 'culprits') relentlessly, for going against his words. Somehow, I guess, I have inherited his "forgive-but-cannot-forget" attitude. Do not know yet if it will harm me.

--- 5 ---

This week's recipe

Kaapi...... yes, the authentic South Indian filter coffee!! My aunt gifted me with a coffee filter and coffee powder. I was craving to have the "kaapi" since long. God bless my "kaapi maata"! This week let's have a look at the recipe too, as I need to start pampering my taste buds and quench my "kaapi" thirst asap. I have referenced from Sharmi and Jeyashri as they appeal to me. You can check them too for step by step process and pics. Well, what my aunt instructed me is as follows:

Ingredients:
   1. Hot water
   2. Coffee powder (about 2.5 tsp.)
   3. Milk
   4. Sugar or sweetener

Now for the method:

The coffee filter has two chambers. Upper chamber and the lower chamber. The perforated filter place is placed in the upper chamber. Add two to two and half teaspoons of coffee powder to the upper chamber of the filter unit. Add the boiling hot water to the coffee powder. After placing the perforated filter plate into the concoction, close it with the lid. Now the upper chamber neatly sits on top of the lower one. After some time, the decoction would collect inside the lower chamber. When you want to have coffee, simply boil some milk; add required amount of sugar and the right amount of decoction as you would prefer the consistency and taste to be.

Back in school days we used to write in each others' slam books, "drink hot coffee, drink hot tea, burn your lips and remember me"....... so, enjoy your hot cuppa!!

--- 6 ---

This week's article

While checking the newly arrived periodicals in my library, came across a short but nice article on leadership qualities in Harvard Business Review. Written by Morten T. Hansen, professor of management at University of California at Berkely, the article highlights three important qualities - productive paranoia, empirical creativity, and fanatic discipline. He writes, productive paranoia is the ability to be hypervigilant about potentially bad events that can hit your company and then turn that fear into preparation and clearheaded action. Why just limit it to companies? I think productive paranoia can be applied in daily lives as well. It only enhances one's disaster preparedness. To some extent we do follow it I guess. We can think of channelizing and giving it a proper direction. Coming to empirical creativity, Hansen says, the differentiating leadership principle was a certain approach to creativity. We are all creative in our lives because as Hansen rightly points out that staying alive merely does not produce greatness; one must also be creative. He writes, empirical creativity is the ability to empirically validate your creative instincts. Now, I call this as a scientist's instinct. A person who is trained in such approach would definitely apply the same principles to any job, be it creative or analytical. The third one is fanatic discipline. As he says rightly, discipline can mean many things. But what he means by fanatic discipline is to be consistent in one's actions like values, goals, standards, methods etc. This kind of consistency would only get better with time in case of leaders with a difference who are basically nonconformists. At the end he asks the readers to choose their weak ones among these three leadership skills and think of how they can turn them into their strengths. I think I need to work more on the third one and try to be more consistent in my actions.

--- 7 ---

This week's media clip 

It is yet another phase of mythological serials on the telly tube. Mahabharata is one great epic which can be interpreted in umpteen number of ways. All new Mahabharata has started on Star Plus; fancy sets, great cast and what's more is the background support of biggies like Bhanu Athaiyya, Devdutt Pattanaik etc. Watch the Draupadi promo here:

The characters of Mahabharata have fascinated me. While working in a university library, I had the opportunity to read works detailing some characters like Draupadi, Karn etc. B.R. Chopra's was the first telly version I watched as a child. Now looking forward to watching some episodes, if not regularly, atleast a few of them.

Have a great weekend and stay tuned!!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!