The Artificial Smile

Over the Xmas/New year holidays I tried to organize our family pictures. It became noticeable or kind of self evident after looking at a few hundreds of pictures that most of the time we are all smiling to the camera but the smile in most of the pictures looked like an artificial one. A feel of the genuineness to the smile is not visible in the pictures. My wife's explanation is that it is because I am a bad photographer and I always tell every one to look at the camera and force them to smile. And that the genuineness of smile comes when the people are at their natural best and camera has to capture them unknowingly while they are happy and smiling. Forcing people to look at the camera and smile will only produce the artificial smiles. This sounded like a reasonable explanation and I almost believed it myself.

And then I came to the pictures from the years after our son is born. Now comes the amazing discovery, I find the artificial smile in all of us in the pictures i.e. me, my wife, friends, parents but not in the smile of our 2 year old son. Then I looked at the family pictures of other friends (it is amazing that you can see so many of family pictures in a few minutes on facebook), the smiles of the all the children in all those family pictures seemed very genuine, but not of the Adults. The smile of every child is pure, heartfelt, joyous and is conveying a deep emotion that is missing in the smile of all the adults. So I would say it is not an artificial smile but it is a corrupted smile.

So what causes the corruption of the smile of the Adults? Exposure to the real world? The gang rape in Delhi? Terrorists? Stock markets? Dirty politics? Greed? Jealousy? Or all of them together? The evolving and progressive civilizations only seemed to have corrupted our smile. True, we are living comfortably and luxuriously as compared to our stone aged ancestor, but what's the point in living a life which does not seem to produce genuine smiles?

New Year Resolutions

"What are your new year resolutions?" This is a common question I hear 2 weeks either side of an upcoming new year. Are we really supposed to have some resolutions or some action plan in place for each New Year? Why can't the New Year be just a celebration? Why don't you set the resolutions for other celebrations such as Xmas or Pongal or your Birthday?

I do not have any set resolutions and for me the life in 2013 goes on as it was in 2012 and in 2012 it went as in 2011 and so on. Of course there are some amazing changes as part of the daily life such as my son started walking, speaking, singing and then running J and so on. There are also other changes like arrival of new top level management of my company (again in less than 6 months?), Obama got reelected, Britain is producing a royal heir, Dravid retired and Tendular doesn’t want to even after finally scored his 100^th hundred, etc. My point is that these are part of one's daily life and like Rahul Gandhi's marital status nothing has changed on a grand scale.

Few years ago (read as 10 to 15 years ago), I have to admit that I was naïve enough to really believe that only people who have achieved some thing significant in the last one year should celebrate the arriving New Year. And all others should sleep quietly as the clock ticks past midnight (it all looks silly to me now and imagine the loss to business establishments when 99% of the world is sleeping quietly on 31^st night). I even allowed myself to be upset with people who do not believe in this crap theory. And then my dear friend Cnu( thanks mate !!) brought me to earth and to some matured thinking.  New Year is just a reason for another celebration with family and friends, it does not matter who you are or what you have achieved with your life.

Let us come back to the resolutions part. This is something that really does not make sense to me. Here is my side of the thinking. Let us say your New Year resolution is to reduce 5kg of weight by the end of the year, now:

1. It can not be that out of serendipity you realized this exactly at Dec 31 midnight. You perhaps knew that you need to reduce your weight since a few weeks or months or may be even years. 
2. So in those months/weeks/years you simply kept postponing action, even though you knew you have to do something about it. Or perhaps you waited until the Doctor told you. That’s really a bad beginning/start.
3. It's in human nature that for many of us, the action items like weight reduction, which are started with lot of vigor and zeal eventually will run out of steam. The good openings usually have bad endings. But here in this case you already have a very bad opening.

Well, the point here is if you have to do something, do it now and do not put it in some resolution list for some new year that is coming 3 months or 3 years later. And because you do it now, sadly you will not have any New Year resolution list any more. And that makes it just an occasion to celebrate with friends and family with out the added weight of resolutions, action plans, time tables etc.

And lastly, at the risk of being termed as arrogant and doing some copy right violations, I fully agree with Calvin below.

Kill more chickens or plants?

Frankly speaking, I do not understand why so much fuss happens on this topic of Vegetarian versus Non-vegetarian. In my opinion, over the decades, the topic has been given lot of undue importance which it does not deserve (even many great personalities seems to have spent a lot of time on this).

For me this entire vegetarian / non-vegetarian thing boils down to a simple conclusion: Each individual forms his own perspective based on his cultural/religious background, upbringing, education and also possibly with influence from friends, family and society. And perhaps there are possibly many reasons which make this topic more complicated than necessary

1. The definition of vegetarian is kind of very subjective to the individual. I heard in places like Kolkata, Kerala etc. Fish is considered as vegetarian (and compare this to the fact that Mahatma Gandhi stopped drinking goat milk because he was not sure any more that it is vegetarian). By the way the best input on this came from my ex-colleague: he simply said that lamb is vegetarian because it eats vegetarianJ.
2. There are all kinds of religious reasons based on Caste and rituals (No comments here except to say that I have lot of those religious friends who are strict vegetarians at home and eat only non vegetarian outside or when they are abroad).
3. And then there are people who declare a particular day in a week as a vegetarian day. (Wow, what a kind heart. So many animal lives on this planet are saved.). I do not mean to criticize any one, my Father does it as well, but honestly I just do not find the logic in it. Either you eat non-vegetarian or you do not eat. That’s all.
4. And then there are people who do not eat even eggs because they are non-vegetarian, but are expert chefs in all kinds of non vegetarian dishes (known as moms).
5. The Animal right activists (and all those supporting movie stars and celebrities) and their pleas of treating animals as living creatures like all other human beings and fellow mates (Oh.. come on, don't you guys think the trees and other vegetarian based green stuff have life too? Isn't it painful for the trees when you pluck their fruits or cut their leafs for you to fill your stomach? Who gave you the right to justify that killing more plants is better than killing more chickens. Is it OK just because that the plants are more silent than animals? And even if the plants cry, we also collect it and consume it (known as rubber, glue etc.)).

I believe that it is quite OK and acceptable that each individual has his own perspective on this topic and the perspectives can be totally in opposing directions. But that doesn’t mean your perspective is the only right thing in this world and all other guys are committing unforgiveable sins which will take them to hell (if ever there is a hell) or make them take a re-birth.

And now lets get few facts right.

1. Human body does not seem to have any problem to digest both vegetarian and non-vegetarian
2. If you have studied well enough at school, you would probably remember that our teeth are designed to eat for all kind of purposes. Some to chew, some to bite etc. And of course this serves well enough for both Vegetarian and Non-vegetarian purposes.
3. Our ancestors before we invented concepts like farming, housing etc. some how survived in caves and probably eaten everything that is possible to lay their hands upon.
4. Since the world population is exploding, it is unavoidable that you need to find a way to fill all those additional hungry stomachs. So let us concentrate on feeding those stomachs than to concentrate on to whether to feed with plants or chickens.

Now having said all these things, what do I do? I do not eat pork or beaf, based on so called upbringing / religious reasons (and funny enough, to quote officially, I do not believe in God).

Never the less, do I want my 2 year old son to become vegetarian or non-vegetarian? I do not care, I just want him to grow up to be physically strong, stay healthy and keep smiling those joyous, innocent and heartfelt smiles only a pure soul of a child can smile.

The Down Under tour

Like millions of fellow Indians I looked forward to our Indian cricket team's tour of Australia. I made myself to believe the media stories and articles that we have a real chance this time. Our aging mighty stalwarts will take the Australian bull by the horns and will tame the raucous beast. I was skeptical of the similar stories during the England tour; somehow my sixth sense told me that it will end badly in England. But in Down Under I expected it to be otherwise. And as it happened, history repeated itself and we ended up with many similarities between England series and this series in Down Under.

1. In both the series until the last day of the first test, it was more or less even. And afterwards it was a steep downhill for Indian team.
2. Sachin's hundred was expected with each innings he played and it never happened (poor Sachin, I want him to score that hundredth hundred badly mainly because it will give him some peace of mind for the rest of his life. And Sachin, do not ever think of retiring with out that hundred even if it means retiring at the age of 45. Alternately BCCI can invite Bangladesh for a test tour and we will send you as opener. The bottom line is that the rest of your/our life with out this hundred is not worth it.)
3. It’s a complete white wash in both the test series. And as I write this, our team is trying hard to not to reach the finals of the triangular one day tournament. The first of the finals is in Gabba and there is no way our team can win a game on the bouncy pitch there. So what's the point in trying to reach the finals itself?

A small note about the bowling in the series down under: After the end of the first test, Dhoni said that we need to find a way to get the tail out quickly. So in the second and subsequent tests our attentive bowlers have made a master plan, they bowled so cleverly that the tail does not even has to come to bat.

And what can I say about the batting? Each time I woke up at midnight (with an alarm and at the grave risk of waking up my 1 year old son, I live in CET time zone) only to watch that all the batsmen have decided that it is best to either sit in the pavilion or standing on the ground fielding. It seemed like too much work to concentrate, flex your muscles a little bit and hit the cricket ball. They all have come to down under for a nice vacation with wives and what a pity that all other Indians are thinking that they have come to win some cricket matches.

And now they write about rifts and the lack of unity among the Indian seniors. Probably it is the wives who started the fight first and then the players themselves. But in any case there is too much money involved, every one wants a piece of it and of course the big brother (called BCCI) will force them to patch up.

What next? In 1 month's time there is IPL 5 and afterwards a T20 world cup. Once the IPL is underway, every one will quickly forget this forgettable tour of down under. The next away series is only in 2013 and do I need to remind every one again that history repeats itself?

The mother of all evils

Perhaps I am overstating it. Or perhaps this is an understatement. And I dare to say that the mother of all evils in our Indian society is the comparison of oneself with others i.e. with friends, relatives, siblings, neighbors and anybody you can come across. It's best explained with the famous power cut example. They say in the land of never ending power cuts, when the power cut happens, the first thing you should do is to check in the neighbor's house. As long as your neighbor also has the power cut, it is OK and the sweltering, heat, mosquitoes and what not all becomes manageable. (And for the record the electricity people are mean guys. Some time they cut the power only for a full street leaving all the rest of the town blazing in glory. Then this brings out all other kinds of emotionsJ)

And the whole funny thing about this malaise in our Indian society is that there are no boundaries to this comparison thing. You compare about any thing and every thing under the sky. Perhaps it is not funny but stupid. I am sure it's common to hear some of the following statements in your daily life. 

• That neighbor's son is getting more marks in school than you.
• That lady has lot of jewellery and I have nothing.
• That neighbor has new iPhone 4S and owns a SUV.
• My maid servant is more "haraami" than yours.
• My favorite actor/actress/sports person is better than yours (come on guys, grow up).
• My in laws are more sadistic than yours.
• My son/daughter is school first and does not waste time in stupid games (really?)
• What is your rank in the school?( First question to any school going kid you came across)
• Whats your caste? (this could be asked in a number of different indirect ways, this is altogether a different beast and is out of scope of this post)

 

You might argue that it is not an Indian thing but the whole world is like this. Possibly it is true. And perhaps it is not a surprise in a world where your life's progress is measured by how quickly you make money, the ultra cool cell phone you have or the luxuries you lead in your daily life.

And there are also people who argue that this comparison leads you to aspire for better things in life and otherwise you are a dumb a** staying at the same place forever. To some extent its true that this comparison thing (when not overdone and applied in right amount at the right time) might have a little bit of positive effect on education. Also I can say that I really care whether my son is doing well at the school or not and this is usually measured by the comparison based ranking system or a GPA. But when my son grows up, I definitely do not care if he has the highest pay or the most expensive luxury car among his friends and school mates. All I care that he earns well enough for a good living.

Eventually you can see that I myself already accepted that I myself am part of this malaise and compare against the others (of course, I have Indian blood in my veinsJ). But I try to stay away from the comparisons of wealth, luxury items, pay checks etc. This some times might make me a "non progressive dumb a**" or a boring guest in social circles, but this also brings lot of peace to my day to day life. Is this way is the right solution to the mother of all evils? May be not. And do I preach all others to follow the same approach? Never, who in the world cares about my preaching anyways?

Life's little pleasures

My son is 15 months old.

I tickle him. He smiles. The smile resonates so much radiance. It is innocent, it is pure, it is whole hearted. I tickle him again. He smiles that beautiful smile again and this goes on.

It is kind of sad that only small children can produce these smiles. Perhaps my son is in a cocoon at the moment. He hasn't yet seen the real world, the evil and corruptive ways of society, the misery of the poor people all around, the wounds of terrorism and war, love and relationships driven by greed and power and of course the never ending rat race of money earning, promotions, new gadgets and pay hikes. And when he grows up to see all these things, perhaps his smile will change just like anyone else.

And more importantly at the moment my son has enough time in the day so that he can enjoy life's little pleasures like a tickle from his father or a tasty drink more leisurely. This is something we adults are missing in our daily life.

The boundless joy I experience and see in my son as an outcome of his beautiful smile makes me think everyday of the life's little pleasures in daily life of grown ups that should not be left behind for later mainly because you can never have them again. It is nice that you want to work hard, earn a quick promotion or grow your business which makes you secure your future, but it should not mean that you have to skip these little pleasures on a day to day basis because you are so much engrossed in securing that future of you and your family members.

And these little pleasures I am speaking about are very specific to the individual and every one has his/her own list. Here is some of my list, not necessarily in the order of preference.

• Playing with my son
• Watching a close cricket game early morning with a hot cup of tea in my hands (the best is when it happens down under in Australia)
• Reading a historical fiction novel during bed time (A good example is Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth)
• Watching a nice comedy movie together with my wife
• A relaxed Sight seeing trip (could be anything which is pleasant to your heart and you feel refreshed. My memory takes me to one of the typical boat trips on any of the swiss lakes or having a look at Vatican city/Rome from the top of St.Peter's church etc.)
• Eating Spicy fish curry served with rice and butter.
• Playing a good game of table tennis/shuttle badminton (specially when it is with beloved Siva)

and the list never ends..

And I am sure you have your own list. Well, my point is that your life's progress should not be at the expense of these little pleasures which are easily possible on a daily basis with a little bit of planning and efforts from your end. Ideally it should be life's progress in harmony with these little pleasures. And if you can find a good balance, you are a lucky person and you end up with an enlivened, colorful and fulfilling life. Remember enjoying the journey is as important as savoring the destination, especially when it is the long journey of ones own life.