Guru Samantaray

15 minutes

2010-03-30T04:43:00.000-07:00

After a heavy lunch, I was having my routine tea from a stall close to my office. This place lies in the heart of Bangalore, where every two minutes with the signal going green, a flood of Traffic tears the silence, clouding the broad one way with dust and smoke. A kilometer long, it runs from a very busy traffic square to a flyover at the other end and underneath, it cuts perpendicularly another major highway. The road looks like a conveyor belt of a colossal machine where, in fixed intervals some assortments of goods are transferred in light speed. Along with a few corporate buildings, show rooms & a mosque, three residential houses have found accommodation on this very busy highway. In the drowsy afternoons, with the shade from small oval leaves of the big unknown tree and with the periodic noises from men and machines, the place offers me good five minutes break from my work.

That afternoon, a south Indian lunch was showing its aftereffect, so the sips of tea were just helping me to keep my eyes opened. Having a meeting to attend in the next one hour, I planned to destroy the drowsiness by staring at every single object surrounding me. I looked at the green tree, counted all the birds perched on its branches, stared at packed buses and observed every single passerby. Opposite to the stall, on the other side of the road, stands an old English style Building, whose owner must have been an officer in military or some administrative department. I have always fancied the building because of its antique look and greenery. The beige colored building has a 30 yards long front wall and three columns in the middle which hold two gates. A patch of plaster has crumbled from the wall showing muscles of red brick. A white stone is fixed on the wall and has its address engraved in black old English font. The garden gate gives a clear view to the garden space.

Although, I have known this building for quite a long time, I have rarely seen its household and the only person I know is, a mentally challenged man who must be in his late thirties or early forties. Around five feet and three inches tall, he is half bald and wears thick glasses which suggest his poor eyesight. Always seen him in knee length bermudas and round neck tees. A bicycle and a tennis ball are his only friends. In afternoon, he plays a one man game where he throws the ball on to the wall and tries to catch it. He has very slow reflex and only few times I have seen him catching, which he enjoys like some great achievement. If I make a statistics on his catch and miss ratio, he would make a very bad fielder with only 1 out of 10 attempts. That day I saw him playing his favorite game again. As usual he was dropping the simplest ones and I was feeling sorry for his inability to direct his body. I was almost done with my royal break and was about to leave when he missed a catch again and the ball rolled down to the garden gate. He came running after it and saw me watching him. Being aware of his one man audience, he pretended to be an expert. Hurrying back to his position, he threw the ball in full power, the ball bounced back with equal speed and he managed a good catch. Then, immediately he turned his head to check the audience in me. He pulled his tee back in a boyish manner, adjusted his specs, threw the ball and he took his second consecutive catch. That went on for some time, I didn’t move as it was interesting to see such a change. He kept repeating his feat and every time he was successful he kept checking his only audience. In the next 10 minutes, he had pulled out some 35 catches in 50 attempts, i.e. 70%. Certainly a huge leap from just 10%!!

That day what made him write a new page in his life, I am not very sure, but my 15 minutes notice and a mere awareness in his mind made him forget a lacuna which had hold him back from going with the time. A few days later, I saw him riding his bicycle but I am eager to see him play his “catch the ball game” again.

How our minds are programmed? Neurologically, I have no clue about it. But these 15 minutes showed me how a mind just needs another mind to heal.

Like, the blue colored creatures from the movie “Avatar”, we human beings also live in a network of minds. We see, think and act in response to others action and vice versa.

We live in an unimaginably vast network of minds, through which we all steer time to future

The "GROW & SHRINK" Phenomenon

2009-05-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

"Grow or Shrink", is the only formula which every matter, living or non-living, applies to exist and is the only Rule of Survival. This is a natural process and is beyond our control. Nothing in this world stays in the same state forever. So, a stable state is only a matter of Time. In fact, Growth and Shrinkage happens at the same time and at the cost of one another. A thing grows because something else shrinks!!

This is no rocket science, but a universal phenomenon of time. Science explains about the theory of equillibrium. We have similar theories in Economics, Accounting & etc etc. So, this is nothing new to us. But, a study on this phenomenon can certainly help in a better understanding of everything the world knows and also in forecasting the future trends.

The Institution of Family is the topic, I will be discussing here . The Homo Sapiens evolved with the evolution of family. Civilasations began with families and these families gradually took a larger shape of Joint Families. Then industrialisation, urbanisation, modernisation, globalisation and all other Z..ations further moulded this institution into different shapes. Joint Families got broken and took the shapes of Complex familiy, Extended family, Nuclear family and yet many more forms to come.

Adapting from the west, the East is seeing the evolution of a Live-in culture. Can we give the live-in s the status of a family? I believe, at sometime in the future we will. Growth of Human beings' activities, his increasing social intearactions, his desire for freedom, independence, the dying emotions, and his urge for identity is taking man away from the traditional institution of Family to a much larger Societal family and finally to a Global Family. It won't be too long when children will be on their own and parents not at all concerned for their well- being. We can safely say that the traditional institution of Family will shrink and finally perish with the growth of a new form of family.

Is it going to be detrimental to the race of Human Beings?
Will this be a Robotic society?
Is this the way we are Optimising?

TIME can only answer these Questions..
or... Can WE.. control these Developments by regulating the GROW & SHRINK phenomenon?

The Era of Indian Dreams

2009-05-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

We are the luckiest of all generations to live in this "Era of Changes". "Changes are the only constant".. and.. in our time, Constant Changes have made the time really run after man. It is very true that in many fields we, Human beings have outran TIME.

Why am I talking this? .. We all know !!

Yeah, we all know. I will only highlight some events, which brought changes within us & which are likely to find a place in the Indian History. We, in our schools read Ancient, Medieval & Modern History. In the coming years the books will require a few more pages to cover the recent developments in different fields. In the last two decades, India saw many industries take birth, many old ones succumb, liberalization, globalisation, the emerging middle class & what not ?

These developments influenced the policies of the Government & the Corporates and they brought radical changes in our econmomy and in our lives. The large Middle Class was the root of all these developments and is still multiplying the changes.

But, also we, Indians underwent such a cultural change, that baffles the Western minds.
Even in the mid 90s India was far behind many Asian Nations!!
ugggghhhhh..... Our movies lacked technology!! Our automobiles lacked power!! our sports lacked aggression !! and our Life lacked Pace.

Then..How and when did it all happen?

The Young India was making it all but slowly and steadily.
We saw, we learnt, we conquered. The TV became the window to the world. Then we dreamnt to cross horizons & the technology showered information and our learning mind thought to explore. The physique of young india was also destined to develop with the mind. The 1983 world cup, the hockey golds in Olympics had all influeneced many to make a sporting career and the Indians were getting fitter. The late 90s saw many achievers in sports, movies. and various other field. Slowly, the Indian mindset was changing. The 1998 Nuclear test fanned the fire in the hearts of a Young India and made Indians fearless and bold. By, then India was being reckoned as an Asian power. The fearless, confident, audacious young feet were stepping into every fields and making their mark. The gobal attention was slowly moving towards India.

The entire movement gained only more and more momentum with the time. India started setting trends for the world to follow. Nano, the Tata Jaguar deal, the T20 world cup victory, Slumdog Millionaire winning oscar , the Jaagore campaign are all still continuing to make our dreams bigger. Despite the Global Recession, BCCI staged one of the expensive Cricket Carnival IPL just recently in South Africa. Isn't this a clear proof of we, Indians getting bigger with our dreams and our dreams getting bigger with us?

No fear & No doubts.. only.. We Dream & We Achieve.

The Helping Qs

2009-05-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

Where ever you go you find a lot of Questions left unanswered. A question that often pops up in our mind is that, "Is it the only way to do a thing or is there any other way to it?
Several times we even see better ways or solutions in our mind. But because of all the 101 reasons we have in our life, we fail to implement those solutions or ideas.

Recently in the NLP class I came across a very interesting statistics which says that we all have on an average 3 ideas/ day which has the potential to make us Billionaire.

hmmm interesting...

When we talk of ideas here, we are talking of anything, which can make our life better. It can be a new format of business, or a theory on any specific topic or anything which can produce positive outcomes.

It should be borne in the mind that first of all the ideas need nourishment inside our mind. After getting approval from all the faculties of mind,it clears the test for its execution. I feel this to be the most difficult stage of an Idea plantation. At this point the H & the W s ??? generate so much friction in our mind that every thing halts, without any screeching sound. Thereafter, you find no clue of the idea . So the first step is the last obstacle in its execution. With the first step only, half the problems are solved.

Every individual is gifted with a very beautiful mind to think" .... but the beauty can be seen, only when it is used .....

The Root of Change

2009-05-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

Man has been adapting himself with the time, air, fire, water, people,situation and till now, walking tall against all his counterpart creatures on Earth & the various forces of nature.

What made him the ruler of this big planet and now probably even on other celestials???

The answer is "IDEAS & THEIR IMPLEMENTATION".We don't realize that everything we do, from brushing our teeth to driving all the way to a Multiplex we do it with some ideas.

What we really call "Ideas"are only the summation of these matured inbuilt ideas. But many a times because of their complexity we leave them at a very nascent stage. So there we commit the act of "Idea Infanticide".

The point I want to establish is that no idea is a bad idea & the reason because, it drives CHANGES. Any +ve idea deserves a close look and if viable, it should not be deprived of its LIFE.
Breathe air into an IDEA and see a different TOMORROW.

A CHANGE sets TREND & A TREND gets incused on TIME.

When Dream Directs..

2009-05-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Entrepreneurship is neither confusing nor complicated as its pronounciation. Entrepreneurship was there in India much before Globalisation and even before the Great Industrial Revolution in Europe. In fact, human beings prospered because somebody, some day gave us its meaning and its formula.

The word entrepreneur originates from the French word, entreprendre, which means "to undertake".

On one hand, it is considered by many as a rocket science term and on the other hand, nowadays it’s being overused in B-Schools. Entrepreneurship is many a time used synonymously with small business. But there is a significant difference between the two. An entrepreneur brings in innovation in an existing business format and he takes big risks for the sake of his dream. Ethics also play a big part in his dream. So,society at large gets benefited from his venture.

Entrepreneurship brings a small change with a small idea, but brings big outcomes. It’s all about fitting your glasses in others eyes and making the world look better.

“An Entrepreneur gives a new direction to an existing way and thereby gives a new way to live.”