The spiritual guru - Part 1

I had recently finished the autobiography of V.V. Sridhar Guruji. Before I discuss the book let me introduce the author. My only sources of information on the Guru are my immediate relatives and the two brief time we shared pleasantries during his visit to my aunt's place.

My aunt was introduced to the Guru by one of our family friends. And a few days later, when she called up mom to invite us home for the Guru's visit, I first heard of him. I instantly dismissed him and his credentials with my usual skepticism for living, self proclaimed saints and gurus. I did not join my parents the first time he visited my aunt but I reluctantly agreed to join my parents when he visited them again.

The first time I saw him, I saw a tall, elderly, bespectacled, bearded person who was clearly overweight. He was clad in a simple yellow dhoti and an angavastram and had himself smeared with the 12 thiruman kaapu (1 on the forehead, 3 on your belly, 1 each on your arms, 3 on the front of your neck, 1 at the center of the chest, 1 each on the center of your upper and lower back). He unassumingly walked through the door enquiring everyone, who was there to greet him, of their well being. My first surprise was when I saw that he knew everyone's name. My uncle later told me that he remembers the name of each and every devotee of his. That definitely is something that must go on a resume, no? I've been chided multiple times by my friends for forgetting something or the other. Maybe, I should start reminding them of the time I came 2nd in a memory contest (although it was in class 5). Ok I'm digressing. Now back to the guruji.

Next, my uncle and about 30 odd people who had turned up to see him gave whatever gifts (fruits, dhotis, cash etc.) they could afford and had brought along and sought his blessings. I was introduced to him by my aunt and we shared simple pleasantries. My answers (some were monosyllabic) were full of skepticism and I listened more than I spoke. I'm not sure if he read through my thoughts although I'm willing to wager on the side of "yes, he did". He was quizzing me on how everything was in college when another family walked in to seek his blessings. I quietly and quickly slipped into the background avoiding his gaze and any further questions. I have always been uncomfortable when put in a spotlight and such a situation was quickly taking root.

He then requested for a private room where he could hear out each of his devotees'. One by one families met him in private to discuss their troubles and issues and determine how long it would be before the bad phase would pass. From later interactions with relatives I understood that he always had positive words for them and also suggested parigarams wherever necessary.

Over the course of the next few years I came to know that he frequently asked about me during his interactions with my aunt. I was flummoxed by the fact that he remembered me inspite of our meeting being no more than a couple of minutes and also because I hadn't done/ spoken anything noteworthy during those minutes to be in his memory. The respect I had for the guruji increased substantially on hearing this.

When I was later talking with my uncle, he told me that the guruji was a scholar in all 4 vedas and other sacred texts and rituals and was the highest authority in the land when it came to a particular part in atharvana veda, which was considered the most rigorous and difficult to master.

During one of my recent visits to Chennai, my uncle told me that Guruji had recently released a book discussing some aspects of his life. I was more than interested to read the book especially after my uncle said that he was now feeling afraid to face Guruji after reading the book. A fear that manifests out of respect and submission that he was indeed in contact with a great man without even knowing so. And that is when I decided I had to read the book and when I did read it I completely understand what my uncle meant.

To end an inconclusive argument

I have always loved having these inconclusive arguments. Especially with those I am quite sure I have no way of agreeing with on that particular topic or neither do they with me. For one I've always felt it tests you out when it comes to defending your thought process and gives you little time to do that as you need to be thinking as you speak and as you are listening to your opposite number fervently defend his/her point of view.

During one of such arguments lately with Agalya I had one of my Eureka moments. I felt all this while I have been going about these arguments in the wrong way. If I had not looked at simply defending my point of view but rather tried to bring a conclusion to the discussion in a rational and methodical way I would have learnt more out of the exercise. All I had to do was to have sat down with the person I was arguing with to build a framework or a scoresheet which could be used to mathematically conclude the argument in favour of one side or the other. But now that I think of it I was not ready to accept such a decision back then. I was not ready to relent and just hear but not listen to the other side's arguments.

For example there were many times when in IIM C we used to have arguments on who the best batsman was? Was it Sachin or Lara or Ganguly or Kallis? What we used to do was keep spewing statistics supporting one guy or the other. Instead what I now believe we should have done was to create a framework using the following steps
1. Decide on what were the key elements which defined a batsman. - Batting averages, strike rates, Man of the match awards and so on
2. Giving each of these elements a weightage and bringing the total to 100
3. And agreeing on scores for each of these contestants on the listed elements
4. Calculate the final scores and agreeing on the winner which the mathematical model throws at us (irrespective of whether our heart is with the decision or not)

Although we did come very close to such a framework once. Although calling it "we did come close" seems like an exaggeration, there was this one time when Vibin and Thala were having the Ganguly vs Sachin argument, Vibin suggested that there were 4 metrics to identify the better cricketer viz., Batting, Bowling, Fielding and Captaincy. And in his opinion sachin was a better bastman, while Ganguly was a better bowler and captain and the clincher was that fielding was something debatable. Thereby concluding that Ganguly was a better cricketer. On a side note, his point on fielding being a debatable metric left us in splits.

Similarly while I and Agalya were discussing the pros and cons of a placement committee in the IIMs we were making no headway with our arguments with neither of us actually listening to what the other had to say. So that was when (and I have to appreciate myself for this though :P) I told her let us not keep doing this because we can keep coming up with arguments all year round for one side or the other. So when we meet this december, let us take a paper and pen out, list down the pros and cons and see what we can come up with to improve the existing system.

And that is definitely a much better way to go about bringing to a close an inconclusive argument rather than keep throwing one random supporting statement after the other backing the side we are on. 

The new kid in the kitchen

I am quite impatient when it comes to learning anything new, trying to gather as much knowledge in the shortest time possible. But this time around I'd decided to spend time on an activity and devote the free time I have after work. But choosing that activity was turning out to be a difficult task. By sometime during the middle of last month I had come up with a shortlist of activities which I could devote my free time to. Finishing one book a week, joining a gym to get back in shape, joining a trekking club and learning a new language were some of the options I had in my mind. And as luck would have it none of these options finally got my nod.

My choice was finally made when my mom and dad had to leave to Bangalore to attend my cousin's engagement and I couldn't as I had my job to thank for that. So I thought why not use this chance to learn some cooking. After all it is not only an activity I have no clue about but also the fact that the activity that follows has been an area of interest since childhood. So yes here I'm after experimenting in the kitchen trying to elaborate on my experiences over the last few days.

The first day I wanted to eat lady's finger and so I searched youtube for "lady's finger poriyal recipe", selected one of the videos and tried to imitate the lady who'd explained in under 2 minutes the intricacies of preparing a delicious lady's finger poriyal. I followed her advice word for word. The end output was a half cooked poriyal. I nevertheless decided to not waste that and ate every single piece in the bowl.

The second day I tried to prepare a potato poriyal. Going through the same steps starting with youtube search and ending with a highly spicy output instead of a half cooked one. I couldnt eat this one fully although I understood where I had gone wrong. So I was sure the next time I make Potato Poriyal it would be edible if not delicious.

Day 3, I felt I needed more than poriyal to satisfy my hunger (read: new found curiosity in the kitchen) and further my achievements in the kitchen. I called up my mom and asked her for an easy to make recipe. She suggested dal and tomato kootu. I jumped at the suggestion as it was one of my favorites and I also knew that was exactly why she had suggested that. So i went to buy tomato from the market nearby and half an hour from then on I had some delicious dal and tomato. Writing this reminds me that I need to put down the recipe somewhere lest I forget it soon. Now coming back to the cooking bit, I decided to retry potato poriyal rectifying the error from my previous experience and lo and behold I had a poriyal that would be 10/10 on the edibility scale while might have been only slightly above average on the mouth watering scale. And I had a satisfactory dinner that night. Plus I had clicked some pictures to make sure I savour that day.

The next day I was prepared to go all out preparing an even more elaborate lunch and even went to the extent of calling my friend home for lunch along with me. The fact that I might be subjecting the poor guy to torture did not deter me. I again called up my mom to ask her for the recipes of cucumbur kootu, beans poriyal and tomato rasam. And this time all three came out very well. And even my friend was very happy with the lunch. Part of it was also because this was probably his first South Indian meal in a few months. But I'm not going to take away anything from my first success in the kitchen. It was better than I expected it to be and yes this has given me the required encouragement to try out a few more things in the future. Only thing is I need to fight that incredible laziness of mine.

P.S. Let me now go and note down the recipes for all the items I had tried out in the kitchen over the past few days. It is said writing down the things we learn only increases their retention in the brain. So let me test the truth of this saying in this regard.