Uncommon common sense!

Theirs' was a class of intelligent, selected boys. The school's admission tests ensured so. The school has a reputation built partly on that.

The Sanskrit teacher, in one of the weekly unit tests, asked them to translate an unknown Sanskrit verse into Hindi. It was a verse describing the great country of India. One of the guys, who never studied for exams, was in problem. Sanskrit wasn't one of his favorite subjects then. He couldn't get the meaning just by reading the words.

For those who know a bit of Sanskrit, a part of the verse said, 'हिमालयस्य दक्षिणतः'  Our poor hero was trumped by the Sanskrit text, couldn't make out the meaning but used his common sense and translated it as he thought appropriate.

The D-day came. The teacher distributed the answer sheets. this poor guy was trying to see where he had scored a few marks and lost many. Suddenly someone who liked to pick on him snatched his paper and pushed him towards the teacher. Saying that now it was his turn to get his marks reduced. This guy was terrified. His score wasn't much to write home about in the first place. A further reduction would be disastrous. He had no option though. The teacher got his paper and read the translation he had written. A miracle happened. 'He's got it right!', she exclaimed and sent him back to his place.

She then asked our poor hero to read out his answer to the entire class and everybody was asked to take it down. To his utter surprise, everybody else, including the Sanskrit scholars in the class had written statements to the effect that the 'Himalayas are to the south of India.'

It's better to be dumb...

It's better to be dumb and fortunate,

rather than being intelligent and unfortunate

I had resisted writing these lines for quite some time now. A few recent events brought it out again.

One sees people around oneself who are incompetent, unwilling or simply a pain in the a** and still getting away with it all. 

There is no more cruel a joke than someone being granted smarts enough to think and all that he\she gets to think about is why do I think so much and why don’t the others think a bit.

One who knows, one who can think has to do good. Who else would?

Guess one has to go through life and face whatever it has to offer. It’s not a bollywood pot-boiler where the good guy gets the girl and the bad guys get thrashed.

I remember attending a Marathi drama ‘Yada Kadachit’. It can be called as a spoof on the Mahabharata. In the last scene, someone, probably Krishna says that ‘finally’ the truth prevails. Duryodhana, one of the villains Indians love to hate, has a ready backlash, why finally?

Again guess it’s not the end till the good guys win!

A Sanskrit verse goes like this:

It's better not translated and felt in the original but still.. 

Take me from the untruth to the truth, take me from the dark to the light, take me from the death to immortality (or in a more heartfelt way, take me from this fragile, cruel and what-not world to the eternal feeling of blissfulness.)

I sometimes use these lines to joke around. I like to say that these lead me to three girls, 'Satya', 'Jyoti' and 'Amruta' (Agree that ‘Satya’ doesn’t exactly sound like a girl’s name, especially after the movie of the same name)

However, I sometimes think about these lines as I did while writing this. There is a more profound meaning somewhere there.


PS: Blogspot didn't save my original version. Possibly has a problem with the image pasted. This is what I could recollect after pouring my heart out the first time. Hope I could do it justice the second time around.

Patterns and habits and results

If you keep on doing the things that you always did, you will keep on getting the results you always did.

If you fall down a hole, stop digging!

Two statements to always keep in mind. Two statements I have experienced to be true. Two statements that tell me what was, what could have been,. what is and what could be.

I am not giving out actual examples from my life but have seen these work both ways. Always be alert about what your habits are getting you into, what kind of pattern you are following with yourself and those around you.

A right pattern, a right habit will serve you well while a wrong one may get you all messed up.

Being proactive is one of the most important habits you can inculcate. Steven Covey rates it as the first and the most important of the seven habits of highly effective people.

The use or not of this one habit can make a lot of difference in your world. It sure did in mine!

Your habits serve you well. Make sure that you keep on picking up the right ones and weeding out the wrong ones.