Masala Chai

A new flavour is spreading across the continents. A poor third world country is slowly emerging out of the globe. An over populated, over polluted land in South Asia is starting to make an impact in the global society.

Many things Indian are entering the lives of the world citizen in a big way.

Yoga is changing the way a person thinks of health and wellness. Indian food is probabily the next big exotic cuisine. Indian music is a breath of fresh air in the world of grooves and loops. Indian spirituality is giving refuge to people injured by the tsunami of materialism.

My return trip to India after a month's stay in Chicago made me experience this new India phenomenon in subtle ways.

I was heading to the O'Hare International Airport, Chicago in a cab. The cab driver started a chat with me which went like this:

Cab Driver(CD) : Are you going to india ?
I : Yes, to Bangalore.
CD : Are you into computer business ?
I : Yeah.
CD : Your country has got the best school for that in the world !
(I was on the floor now)
CD : I saw that in a special TV program. I don't remember the name of the school.
I : Are you talking about IIT ? (I knew he was)
CD : Yes, now I remember !
I : Thats the Indian Institute of Technology (I was flying now)
CD : They said everyone who comes out of that school is really smart.

After reaching the Airport, I headed towards the Lufthansa counter, already thinking about blogging this incident...

Later, after a long sleepy flight to Frankfurt, I boarded the connecting flight to Bangalore. Around half the passengers if not more were Indian. Quasi-Indian food was served as expected. Then came the surprise - A flight attendent was serving 'Masala Chai', trying his best to pronounce it correctly ! I was delighted to the core.

A European airline was operating a flight to India and was offering an Indian beverage to please the Indian passengers. This thought made me fly in flight. This is no act of plain courtesy - it is business.

Every big company wants to do business in this 'poor' country. A natural consequence of this is the global recognition and acceptance of things Indian.

After centuries of slumber, India is waking up. And making an impact.

Puja Room

The idea of a Puja Room is a powerful one.

Spirituality is more about 'experience' than 'understanding'. Ancient Indians have invented many instruments to help us experience the divineness in us. One such instrument is the Puja Room.

The first whiff of a divine experience can brush us only when we go beyond the materialistic mundanity of daily life. A Puja Room can do wonders to reduce the incessant flow of mundane thoughts into our minds through the five gates called senses. It does not exactly shut out all senses from the mind but presents the mind with a relaxing ambience by engaging each sense with a not-so-mundane thing.

The eyes are the most abused of all sense organs. In a Puja Room, all the eyes see are pictures of Gods, and the offerings to the Gods in forms like flowers, lamps and incense smoke that calm down the mind by reducing the visual data it needs to chew on. A dark room or the eyelids may not be sufficient for this purpose because they offer great scope for visual imagination that demands processing, that is equally stressful as real signals.

Sounds that produce every perceivable emotion and more are routinely generated in our society that make it hard work for the ears. Silence can be good, but the omni directional ability of the ears to grab noise is quite a challenge. Chanting mantras is often the first things spiritual that a child is taught to do in Indian homes. It relaxes the mind by making the ears stick to what the tongue produces, not realizing that the producer and consumer are one. That the knowledge and the knower are one is a more serious subject though.

The nose is happy with the incense and the flowers. These are sufficient to block the aromas from the kitchen that it excessively relishes. The tongue is anyway busy with keeping the ears busy. Wonderful-tasting Prasadam in small quantities does help though. The skin often plays to the tunes of the other senses. The others being quite calm, all it needs to keep it relaxed is a set of loose comfortable clothes and a sitting mat.

A Puja Room does not give instant self-realization, but does create a wonderful ambiance for those who seek a spiritual journey without going to the forest.

Soft Tamil

A Tamilian, I did schooling in English medium in Kerala, learnt Hindi and Malayalam as additional languages. I read and write these three languages better than my mother tongue - Tamil.

But, I feel truly at home only when I speak Tamil !

I sometimes feel sad that I have not given my mother tongue its due importance in my life. That I have almost entirely ignored it while running the rat race of survival. That I cannot read a Tamil newspaper as comfortably as English ones. That I do not know even a dozen verses from the great Thirukural. That I have to send emails to my relatives in the language of the British.

This feeling has lingered inside me for quite sometime. That is when I came across Kural Software, which helps one to use Tamil seamlessly for common tasks with a PC. Using the Standard English keyboard and with very basic knowledge of the Tamil script, I send mails, chat and even type down song lyrics in Tamil, all this with the same ease and speed as with English, after Kural blessed me! The experience was like a wish getting magically fulfilled in our folk tales.

Emailing in is a pleasure when you can type down your thoughts without any translation !

Chatting in Tamil is almost like real Mokkai !

Tamil gives word processing a new meaning !

Next on my wish list is getting such a good software for Sanskrit. There are a few that I came across, but I did not feel comfortable enough with any of them.

Mummy Tongue

Indians are the best non native speakers of English in the world.
This has had a role to play in Indians grabbing a large piece of the technology cake.

Every Indian parent dreams of his/her child speaking flamboyant English. This has resulted in people like me, who can read, write and in some scenarios speak better in English that my mother tongue ! Once an exception, this is slowly becoming the norm in the urban Indian middle class, atleast in the south.

Language is one of those aspects of culture that are highly resistant to change. With the right pressure, it may take only a couple of generations to significantly change the food habits or dressing style of a culture. But language will largely persist in more or less the same form.

300 years of political and economic dependence on the British has left the Indians obsessed with English. People from my grandpa's generation take pride in their English speaking capabilities even though they are the ones who witnessed the freedom struggle India went through.

Our language has changed.
Many of us have stopped writing in our mother tongues altogether. Many of us don't read much either after school. We try our best to speak in English where ever possible in the society. Personal communication like letters and email is almost totally in English.

All the above hold good for the urban middle class and above. Don't worry, the lower classes and the village folks are trying their best to imitate the so-called educated people.

We should be grateful to English for helping us earn our bread and butter, oops! sorry, rice and sambar. But should we not stop there ? Why are we crazy about English ? Why do we yearn that our children's first spoken word be 'Mummy' ?

Subtle sounds

Come away with me - the album by Norah Jones that got 8 Grammies.

I picked up the cassette hesitantly from the shelf of the music store. The hesitation stemmed from the fact that I had not listened to any of the songs before and that it was not popular at all among my friends.

My motivation to pick it up was partly the multiple Grammies and the fact that Norah was the daughter of the Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, long estranged.

I asked my Walkman to sing the songs of the album with its best abilities. It did. Or did it? I was confused at best. I asked myself - What is this Grammy business all about?

It seemed that the voice was crooning to her self, giving no thought about the listener. The lyrics sounded like old English poetry. The piano and guitar played like they were asked to whisper. The drums were just loud enough for me to hear.

Yet I did not feel badly bored. There was a feel of dull freshness. I kept listening to the album occasionally, each time wondering if I was missing something.

After a few weeks, the songs started growing on me, very very slowly. That is when I started noticing the subtle sounds that I had completely missed before. I realized that the album was not composed with an intention to make it a big hit. That explained its lack of the so-called catchy tunes. It did not promise instant gratification. It had the least commercial flavor I had seen in today's music scene.

My insensitive ears were too dull to pick up the subtle melodies. They had grown numb after routinely listening to pop and hard rock.

I started listening to the newfound joy more often. When combined with the sights of greenery seen through the window of an un-crowded train, the effect it created on my mind was the most relaxing I had experienced in recent times. Listening to it lying in Savasana was another thing that I loved.

I am excited about unlearning to enjoy noise. I have discovered earthy sounds that are superior to it.

Come away with me. I went away with her.
I have bought Norah's next album - Feels like home. Yes, it does.

Joy of walking

Walking is a joy.

Ever tried to enjoy walking in the roads of so called Silicon Valley of India - Bangalore ?

Walking on roads of this city is a nightmare for people like me who believe that walking a while everyday can offset health problems later in life.

Pedestrians are considered outcast here. They are not even allowed to walk on footpaths which are utilized generously by two wheelers. You know, they even sound horns ordering you to give way while you walk on footpaths !

Traffic signals ?
Well, the traffic signal near my office is pathetic. It is switched off very often during evenings.
And a traffic police with a big belly stands there and controls the traffic. Damn it. He never gives time for pedestrians to cross. Even the signals are set not to show green for pedestrians at times.

Does that encourage people to use signals to cross the road ?
No, jay walking is the joy of walking.

Techies of India ! Wake up. Are you really enjoying the technology that you are creating ?
Realize that life is to be lived with simplicity. Else chaos will consume this mad world.

Let there be peace again.
Let walking become a joy again.

Sky Divine 

Sound feelings

Office.
Post lunch hour.
Productivity level dipping below zero.
Head free from thoughts about work.

My headphone promises bliss with its ability to bring subtle sounds to my auditory nerves. I sleepily add two songs to my Winamp playlist. Both From popular Tamil movies woven by two different young composers.

I hit the play button.

The first song.....
Unakkena Iruppen from the movie Kaadhal oozes sorrow.
My heart starts growing heavy as I listen to the song. Every sound lashes at my heart softly. I continue to listen intensely. to the burning voice. to the aching tune. to the pang of the sounds. The song takes me to the abyss of sorrow.
The song slowly fades out leaving me stained with sadness.

Starts the second song.....
Ennayithu Ennai Kolvathu from the movie Nala Dhamayanthi spills joy.
It transports me to a world of bliss. My body suddenly feels as light as a feather.
The crooning voice caresses every cell of mine. The music covers me with rose petals. The sounds spray nectar on my face. I start to levitate.
The song slowly slips into silence leaving me like an infant that knows only to smile and sleep.

I take a deep breath.....
It all feels so real though I am fully aware that I am only imagining.
My preconceived notions about the nature of these songs also provide extra effect.

Tricks that my senses play on me are sometimes very profound.

Programming Dreams

I wish I could program my dreams.
Like I choose my desktop wallpaper. Like I match my shirt with my pants.

When I go to sleep, I hope I don't dream about work, but often I do. I hope I dream about fantastic things, but I rarely do.
The way I program my life is far from perfect. There are too many infinite loops and unreachable statements. I tell myself that life cannot be perfect. that perfection can be found only in dreams.

But even my dreams are too ordinary these days. Some days, I even forget what I dreamt about and just remember that I had a boring dream. Dreams used to be more creative in my childhood.

Are dreams just hazy reflections of life ?
Does a boring dream only reflect the monotony of life ?

It seems to me that wakefulness is a myth. and that we are always dreaming - either lying eyes closed on bed or while doing other activities.

I wish I could program my dreams.

Mother 'Tongue'

Everybody is born with a tongue.

Our tongues tell us at some point in our lives that the type of food that we got used to eating in our childhood is the best in the world.

Why does my tongue tell me that Curd Rice with Sambar is next only to 'devamritam' (divine nectar) ?

Why does my tongue frown when it tastes the sambar of a state that neighbors my home state ?
"After all, sambar is sambar", I tell my tongue.
"No", it says furiously.

I wonder at this yet another funny trait of the funny being that inhabits the piece of rock that wanders in space around a hot ball of fire - human being !

Man is a slave of his habits.

Going inwards

Most of the time, I think of myself as just me.

Sometimes, in a few rare moments, I get a feeling that I am not just me. That I am part of something bigger, something more meaningful. That is when I forget myself and everything else. There is nothing that fills my mind. In fact, there is no mind at all. There is only bliss.

Some say that this is the meditative state. It does not matter to me. Words are too synthetic to describe certain experiences. A map can never be the territory.