Gaia Community: Praveer's Blog

Do Butterflys Really Cause Miracles With a Flip of their Wings

http://praveer.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:20:20 GMT

Butterfly At Aurobindo Ashram

I'm addicted to vetiver, and the Aurobindo Ashram, down the road, besides being a nice place to hang out has great vetiver incense sticks - and chocolate brownies and lots of other good stuff, too. It was suffocatingly hot the other day when I went to pick up some incense. This bright butterfly looked totally out of place in the arid, burned out landscape and I clicked it. It fluttered its wings and suddenly it rained.

(The image refuses to load, but if you'd like, its in my photo gallery)

Tags: Rain

No More Dreams

http://praveer.gaia.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:44:29 GMT

"I know the Jungians won't like that, but there comes a time when you just dream yourself out, and no more dreams. You sleep deeply and breathe from your heels." Alan Watts

Alan Watts

"Now then, if one must try to say something about what Zen is, and I want to do this by way of introduction, I must make it emphatic that Zen, in its essence, is not a doctrine. There's nothing you're supposed to believe in. It's not a philosophy in our sense, that is to say a set of ideas, an intellectual net in which one tries to catch the fish of reality. Actually, the fish of reality is more like water--it always slips through the net. And in water you know when you get into it there's nothing to hang on to. All this universe is like water; it is fluid, it is transient, it is changing. And when you're thrown into the water after being accustomed to living on the dry land, you're not used to the idea of swimming. You try to stand on the water, you try to catch hold of it, and as a result you drown. The only way to survive in the water, and this refers particularly to the waters of modern philosophical confusion, where God is dead, metaphysical propositions are meaningless, and there's really nothing to hang on to, because we're all just falling apart. And the only thing to do under those circumstances is to learn how to swim. And to swim, you relax, you let go, you give yourself to the water, and you have to know how to breathe in the right way. And then you find that the water holds you up; indeed, in a certain way you become the water."

Scribbled down by : Alan Seaver

The complete text here, if you're on Facebook, otherwise, you'll need to Google it.

Tags: Zen, Alan Watts

Back To The Power Of Silence

http://praveer.gaia.com — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:08:04 GMT

Not Silence Framed

Tags:

Deepak Chopra on The Dalai Lama

http://praveer.gaia.com — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:16:03 GMT

Dalai-Lama m

"i’m fascinated by the Dalai Lama’s concept of spirituality. it’s based on simple precepts like non-violence, absence of ego, compassion and experiential spirituality, unlike other religions, where ideologies are based on dogma. he gives you a true experience of spirituality.

i remember someone asking him once, “aren’t you angry with the Chinese?” he replied: “i’m angry at their actions.”

Indeed the Dalai Lama has reached a refined level of spirituality. neither does he wear a social mask. even though people expect him to be a vegetarian, he makes no bones about the fact that he eats almost everything.

He has no pretences. and he totally lacks in self-importance. i once tried to engage him in an intellectual conversation, but he wasn’t interested. he doesn’t care much about philosophy. most spiritual gurus are interested in the intellectual aspects of spirituality and not the experience.

He’s the most authentic, genuine and defenceless person i know. Once i watched him at London’s Royal Albert Hall, before his lecture to about 5,000 people. he took off his shoes, walked on the stage and sat on the chair. and he told the audience calmly: “i hope nobody is looking for miracles.”

He doesn’t exaggerate, nor does he dramatise situations. neither does he look for the glamour in spirituality. i admire him for what he is and what he stands for. there’s nothing artificial about him. " Deepak Chopra

Tags: Philosophy Vs. Experience, Simplicity

Peace

http://praveer.gaia.com — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:27:22 GMT

Favorite Spot

This is my place.

It's in the community park just outside my little ground floor flat.

I head out to the park for a quick round at odd intervals,day or night. It's a large park - probably the size of a football field, an oddly shaped ellipse, narrower on the right. It is ringed by about 50 trees and many more low bushes. Daylight dapples the walking path, that runs along the circumference, under the trees. At night, sometimes, bats with wings a dark velvety silver, whiz past ominously. At night, also, Sheru, a truly bad tempered stray dog with a beautiful coat of red hair lies in the dead center of the park, daring anyone to dislodge him. But night is not my favorite time for a walk because I can't stand near the bougainvilleas and smoke and survey and just plain drift.

There are five Pipal trees in this park and the bougainvilleas are near one of them. Pipals ar sacred trees - The Buddha found enlightenment under one in far off Bihar. The base of almost any Pipal tree will usually be littered with little sacred objects, pictures of gods or goddesses, clay idols, offerings of food, clay lamps and such. I usually light up a cigarette when I get to the Pipal which is next to this bougainvillea and check out the day's take. And take in the action in the middle of the park which has kids playing cricket or football or practising Tae Kwon Do. There always a few people sprawled out on the benches, some on a break, some goofing off - telephone repair men, house maids, a few residents playing cards or chess or reading - or just staring peacefully out at the world beforethey head back, like me, to work. I have no idea why it is this spot that pulls me and has me stop. Maybe in this world, like bus stops, there are Castaneda stops.

In a far corner, to my left, two women huddle in a collusion, backs to the park, and share a forbidden cigarette.

Smoking in the park

Far off, to my right, a group of kids swing gleefully from the benign but supple branches of another Pipal. It's peaceful where I am, despite their shouts.

Tags: Peace

Ragamuffin Joy

http://praveer.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:21:19 GMT

Ragamuffin Joy

I loved the enraptured attention and energy with which this street kid played.

A little later, her brother, smaller than her, joined in and the battle for supremacy that ensued was glorious! Too bad I didn't capture that, but I got her message to me - It doesn't matter what you have or don't have - just a hand-me-down dress will do fine! Just play!

Season's Greetings to all!

Tags: Happiness, Street Kids

Heartbreakers

http://praveer.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:55:08 GMT

Mumbai - Taj Hotel Gateway of India

This is the Gateway of India and behind it, the 106 year old Taj Hotel, in Mumbai, India's financial center. Not far from here are other hotels, a major train station, Chabad House - a Jewish Synagogue and outreach center, several hundred shops, restaurants, street food vendors and vegetable sellers, and a few hundred thousand Mumbai residents . On the 22nd of November, 10 trained, armed and relentless terrorists came by sea and butchered 195 people and injured over 300 people in just this area. They took no hostages and wanted nothing but the freedom to destroy. They raged rampant for 62 hours. I can't remember who it was, some loveless disciple of destruction who said "True power is one person being able to paralyze 100 people.' These 10, probably Al Qauida trained, held a country of a bilion in a thrall of terror.

Mumbai Soldier

15 Of our finest policemen went down in the attack. Familiar with low level combat with Mumbai's organized crime, they were unprepared for the ferocious assault.

Azam Amir Kasab

This is the only one of the 10 who was caught alive. In this shot, he's just strolling along after killing dozens of people, including the formidable chief of the Anti Terrorist Squad and is on his way to creating the next macabre theater of death. In another photgraph, you see him crouched, smiling confidently at the camera.

Pigeons

You can't see the tree in front of the Taj Hotel where these pigeons roost. For 62 hours there were bombs, AK47s firing, fires and probably the shrieks of people being murdered or screaming for help. Each time there was a disturbance, these pigeons flew up, circled the dome of the hotel and settled back in, hoping for a quiet roost. Their silent flight was eerie.

What haiku would Basho have been inspired to write?

26india3-600

This policeman has probably been on duty for many hours, lost colleagues, is in the grip of his own flight or fight mechanism. In one hand, he holds the old man's hand. In the other a baton, a remnant of colonial rule. In the terrorists' hands some of the world's most sophisticated armory. In the policeman's heart - humanity. In the Terrorists heart? I cannot even begin to fathom that region of darkness.

I argued with myself about whether I wanted the following piece from Rabindra Nath Tagore here. In the end, I am uncertain. And I remember that when you are uncertain, there is no doubt.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up

into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason

has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindra Nath Tagore (1861 - 1941)

Nobel Laureate

Tags: Speechless, urban terror, call to action

Good Luck? Good Luck!

http://praveer.gaia.com — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:26:24 GMT

Barrack Obama

2% 'Luck'
98% 'Make-Your-Own-Luck'.

Tags: The Way Is The Way, Transformation, Dancing With Circumstances, Being Cause, Contribution

Nothing is Impossible

http://praveer.gaia.com — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:11:09 GMT

Aruna, my cousin

My cousin had Down's syndrome. After she passed away in 2001, her sister, Parvin, and I created and administer a trust to train young ladies like her to live workable lives. We found a few reliable institutions and funded 3 kids back then. Today, we provide funding for about 30 around India and track each child's progress carefully . One of the nice things is that Coffee Cafe Day, an upmarket cafe has recognized that these human beings, too, have hearts of gold and can serve. At one of the cafe's Delhi branches, all their serivice staff have Down's. There are two 'regular' supervisors. The wonderful thing is that customers, after they get over the initial shock of their stereotypes colliding with a different reality, they are in complete awe of seeing the impossible become delightfully everyday! Now, Coffee Cafe Day is considering hiring humans with Down's, usually deemed unworkable in a customer service context, on a city-wide, possibly nation-wide scale.

Aruna's birthday is coming up, and I was just remembering her.

And just on a compltely different -sort of - note Mumbai airport has a new venture called Foot Bar. It provides reflexology, and foot massage for weary travellers. The therapists are almost all - blind.

I love it when I can see people and myself being used well, for a purpose bigger than ourselves..

Reminds me of something George Bernard Shaw wrote:
"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generation.".

Tags: Down's Syndrome, empowerment, being used, inspiration

Stroke of Insight

http://praveer.gaia.com — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:37:11 GMT

Jill Taylor has a schizophrenic brother, which is why she became a neuroanatomist. When she had a stroke, she had an opportunity to discover, as a scientist and a human being, a whole new dimension of Being-ness and possibility. This is awesome. I still haven't got my jaw back in its usual hinge.

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Tags: Possibility, Being, inspiration, discovery, exploration

Shining Eyes! Shining Eyes!

http://praveer.gaia.com — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:33:19 GMT

I pick the Boston Symphony when I'm huntng for classial music and couldn't really put my finger on why. After watching Ben Zander in this, I think I now know.

Benjamin Zander: Classical music with shining eyes

Tags: inspiration, leadership

Lafafa

http://praveer.gaia.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:02:45 GMT

One of my favorite words: Lafafa.

Lafafah! (Ah! I see!)

Laaaa-fffaffffaaahhh! (Sneezy)

Ooo - lafafa (sort of French)

La fafah... (Thoughtful French)

luah-fah-fah (Wonderment)

lafafalafafalafafalafafalafafalafafalafafa (Hold hands to ears and repeat)

"You beast! You animal....you..you...le-fafah!"

“Lafafa. Lafafa! (Like Marlon Brando, mumbling, “The horror. The horror,” in Apocaplypse Now.)

"This business plan is good at examining the opportunities – it strikes the right lafafa and provides a direction forward for us, the dedicated members of our team., and our valued stakeholders, the investors in this project."

"Oh…put Fifi in the lafafa willyou, Darling?"

“The Town Hall? Go straight for 100 meters, then turn left into first alley. You can’t miss it – it’s right next to the lafafa – can’t miss it”

"My rose, my toitle dove, my little lafafa."

Lafafa is actually a Hindustani word for 'envelope', mostly large brown ones; however, it shouldn't be, because it just sounds like it could be so many more things, and feels so good when I say it.

I like 'toitle', too. Why say 'turtle' when you its so easy to say 'toitle'?

One of my favorite phrases: Kut bong sigli bong sigli gabinder de basillah. Kut sigli til-lah bong dey bong dey.

One way to say this aloud is:

Kut (Emphasize 'KUT' - like an explosion and leave a beat)

(then, each word rapidly enunciated, with a force to blast through the listeners skull) bong sigli bong sigli ... (rapidly, up tempo) Gabinder de basillah!

(Draw in breath sharply, toss head high and say the next part rapidly, narrowing your eyes): Kut sigli til-lah bong dey bong dey. (Repeat till your victim succumbs. Take off shoe and bang it on table, chair, lamp post - whatever, while saying 'bong de bong dey')

(Especially good when you're at a fine dining restaurant and the waiter brings the food/cheese/presents wine/bill. For best effect, slowly draw yourself to full height.)

Nope, it isn't Hindustani, Tibetan, Ollongo, or Malay. Just something a friend of mine made up, and showed me how to do when we were teens. I've used it ever since in many situations with bewitching effects.

Since it doesn't mean anything, you can play with it and use it in any situation you like - it's an absolutely versatile phrase. Maybe it’s something a Klingon could say in a romantic situation?

Tags: Compleat Nonsense for Fun

Just Drifting

http://praveer.gaia.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:43:32 GMT

antique phone modem

So I now have a stylish, black, sleek efficient-type CPU, finally. I'm not saying the specs on it because my brain doesn't really work on numbers. It has milk teeth that snap when I try and say how many gigabytes and babbly hertz the thingy has. It works superbly, and I'm terribly happy with it. My new keyboard even powers off, or goes to sleep at the touch of a little button. Wakes up, too. And I can drift through Web 2.0 Webscapes that I couldn't visit before.

Except I can't get my headphones to work on Skype. I get all the input sounds, but my mike doesn't even so much as squeak. So I've spent the better part of two hours fiddling with speech and audio controls, getting familiar with them, without intruding in their personal space, of course. It'll take a while, but I'll get there, too.

What I lack in technical knowledge of the inner mashup of an XP, I make up for with patient forebearance and persistence. that I learned in 1973 on MUSIC when I was studying, for some unaccountable reason, economics.

At university, we used MUSIC - Michigan University Something Information Something. To hook up, you dialled the Michigan University lines and very carefully put your bakelite phone handset on a clunky modem that was moulded to accept the mouth and earpiece. The machine would then repeatedly emit dreadfully high-pitched sets of alien hormonal squeals until it attracted the cranky attentions of the computer in Michigan at the other end of the terminal. This was a long drawn out procedure in which the two pre-historic monsters would call out tortuously to each other. Sometimes, it would take 40 minutes to get our little beastie to get the Michigan beastie to to come over and mate - and the results would climax on a teletype machine next to the terminal. And they were monsters - the computer system at our end - an IBM 360/S if I remember correctly - occupied at least two large floors and were guarded by mad scientist types in white overcoats who lived in glassed-in enclosures and kept everyone at bay. We kow towed and made gigantic offerings of cartons of punched cards every few days to appease the beast. Most times, the guardians flung them back in our faces because the cards weren't punched in properly. Today, small solar-powered scientific calculators have more power and could leave those dinosaurs lurching in the dust, but back then, that's what we trained on, and learned patience, and awe!

Thinking back, what a gigantically long leap we've taken. Especially when I think about the hand-held devices that put computing and communication in hands reach. Especially for, say farmers, here in India. In the old days, you harvested your crop. Then sent someone out to the market - miles away in the heat, rain, mud, and sometimes pretty nice weather - to check with a powerful broker about how much they would buy your produce for. I won't go into the details, but the negotiations were long drawn and arduous and criminally loaded against the farmer whose produce was decaying by the hour, and involved much to-ing and fro-ing between homestead and market place. 14 Years ago, in crept the mobile phone, ostensibly a high end luxury good, but it was snapped up, too, by people in non-urban areas. No more fighting with bureaucratic red tape, waiting for the Government to install landlines. Just pick up the mobile and make a deal directly with your favourite wholesaler, or whatever. Whole villages chipped in to buy a single, expensive mobile phone. Boom - it dealt a mortal blow to a feudal style of working that vicitimized people, right away.

This is a rambling post. Just stuff I'm chewing on .... like how dramatically life shifts. With technology, market processes, philosophies - I remember the angst-ridden, existentialist '60s so well!, re-written/interpreted histories, clothing, eating, and a pang of regret at how easy we had it before sci fi stuff came true, and other thoughts that only a drifter-type of person can contemplate!

By the way, I finally got a credit card. After 35 years. The last was in Washington, in 1973, and I never bothered to get another one till recently. The bank that I use in the Republic of New Delhi, against all modern common sense, did not use computers till a couple of years ago. A small hole-in-the-wall in a stuffy government building on a genteel street, it was staffed by about 12 people who catered to university professors, academicians, and researchers. While my branch is a part of a large modern Indian bank, for some unfathomable reason my branch remained mostly scruffy, un-mechanised and completely customer unfriendly. The counter people would peer through large glasses, daring you to interrupt if you drifted in through the door at any time of day, especially if it was tea time. I only managed to get signed up because I had a relative who had an account there. At the time (even now), I had no documentation such as a valid driving license to establish who I was. I mostly drifted, so I had no rent records even to establish a residential address, should (horrors!) my checks be discredited. But I needed a bank because all of my income was in the form of checks. And, after a little fuss, they made an exception in my case, based not on rules and regulations, but simply because they thought I was introduced by the right sort of person! "We believe in Trust, here," said the bank manager, eyeing me with misgivings that he let me see very briefly, to make a point.

Reluctantly, they got computers on New Years' Day in 2003 and spent stingily on training on them, preferring instead, to do an eyeball check on the person in front of them, grilling them on their savings habits, in an avuncular sort of way, and took their time over verifying your signature in large ledgers that are stacked in back, and then bristling at how little you had left for them after the check you've presented. Last year, I can't remember why, I thought it would be a good idea to get a credit card of some kind. Money goes faster these days and there's a limit to how much time one can spend in a bank trying to get your hands on your own money!

So I asked, back in October - 'Don't we have a credit card thingy here?' and was met with beetling eyebrows that clearly said, 'Never darken our floors again.' Months of patience and persistance later, one day when I went to the bank, a pall fell over as I entered. All eyes were upon me. I shuffled my feet at the entrance. Nobody stirred. Eventually, the bank manager beckoned and came halfway out of his cabin and said, aren't you the person who asked for a credit card? I felt like an awful manipulator. I said, 'Yes'. Then, with a ceremoniousness that only a colonial-style bureaucrat can summon, he presented me with an envelope with my card and a caution, "We don't exactly know when you can use it. But try any ATM in about 5 days or so, won't you?

And then, I think I understood something about why they dragged their feet for so long. The more mechanization they have, the less human contact they will have with their customers. I, too, will miss seeing the ragged bunch that I've squabbled with over the years. In the time that it took to cash each cheque over 9 years, I got to know almost every one of them by name, what stage their kids were at, who was getting married, which one was a vegetarian, which one invariably took a longer lunch break than the other, which one twitched at the mention of an overdraft - Dickensian details that brought the whole process to life for me - and for them. One little card, and a whole realm of relationships disappear. Somehow, that's a horrible thought for me.

Of course, Shubhra is all of 22, and has no idea of what an old style bank is all about. She just got a job this year, opened an account in a flashy new bank that lavishes credit cards, discounts, loan offers, mobile banking and more on her, and anywhere she travels, she can draw money that belongs to her without anyone peering over her shoulder and clucking at the limits she's touching (except me, of course). She was near-broke and in Hyderabad where she's been posted over the last 8 months. After I'd done the old-school-grilling-of-a-profligate-daughter routine, I asked her if I could send her a thousand, and since she's never accepted money from me before, I fully expected her to say "No". This time, she said, "Yes, I need it right away!" So I immediately looked at my brand new, shiny, never used credit card, but hadn't the faintest about how to go about an electronic transfer - which, of course, she knew all about and explained to me in terms that you would use on a favored but slightly thick form of fungal mold. I didn't bother to check further with my son. In the end, I went back to my hole-in-the-wall-bank, filled out forms for 40 minutes and gave them to the fussy elderly gent with feathery wisps on his head to despatch, soonest. "Quite right, old boy ," said he, "you just can't be too careful nowadays with all these cyber crime things happening. I'll make sure your daughter has this by ten o'clock the morning."

Tags: ruminating, changing times

Who Is Your Megaregion?

http://praveer.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:56:41 GMT

Richard Florida has an intriguing question and a twist to the old marketing nostrum - "Location, location, location".

Richard Florida is the author of the 2002 best-seller The Rise of the Creative Class (Harper Collins), which received The Washington Monthly's Political Book Award, and more recently, in March 2008, a look at his hypothesis, called megaregions, in Who Is Your City? (Basic Books).

He asks. "Are you considering your next big career move?"

In "Who's Your City?," Richard Florida explains why this decision should be all about location, location, location - and profiles the top new regions with the greatest potential for career growth, and great companies.

Talent, innovation, and creativity - three crucial economic ingredients, according to Florida - are unevenly distributed across today's global economy. They concentrate in specific locations. The real source of economic growth comes from the clustering of talented and productive people. New ideas are generated and our productivity increases when we locate close to one another in cities and regions. The clustering force makes each of us more productive, which in turn makes the places we inhabit much more productive, generating great increases in output and wealth.

Because of this clustering force, a new constellation of cities and surrounding regions - not just in the United States, but in Europe and Asia - have turned into new engines of economic growth. Cities and their metropolitan corridors are morphing into new "megaregions," and magnets for great jobs and great companies alike.

Mega-Regions of Asia

I've given up adding more maps - my comp keeps hanging - but you can check out
http://creativeclass.com/whos_your_city/maps/
for a megaregion near you.

http://creativeclass.com/whos_your_city/maps/

Florida says that the day of the city or country as fundamental economic unit is over. Instead, he focuses on megaregions, broad swathes of cities and connecting suburbs found throughout the world. With satellite data showing lighted areas of the globe at night and finely tuned economic stats, Florida and other researchers have named over 40 different megaregions, with 13 in North America alone. A simple test for a megaregion? "A person can walk all the way across from one side to the other carrying nothing but a credit card and never get hungry or thirsty.", says Florida

I live plonk in the middle of the Delhi Lahore megaregion, according to this. I love the idea of India and Pakistan being joined in an enterprise that is productive and raises the quality of life. However, the electricity goes out several times a day, anywhere in this region, currently. And, if I had to rely on a credit card in this 'megaregion', I'd starve to death. What works here is your word: "I'll pay you when I return from Baluchistan after I've sold all these lovely carpets you've handwoven - if the bandits don't get me first." is a bit more like it! (Yes, I am exaggerating, but its not too far off.)

A megaregion must meet three key criteria. First, it must be a contiguous, lighted area with more than one major city center. Second, it must have a population of 5 million or more. Finally, it must produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. By that definition, there are some 40 megaregions in the world. If we take the largest megas in terms of population:

    * The 10 biggest are home to 666 million people, or 10 percent of world population.
    * The top 20 comprise 1.1 billion people, 17 percent of the world population;
    * The top 40 are home to 1.5 billion people, 23 percent of global population.

It's an intriguing view into global development and the rise and rise of opportunity, creativity, innovation and personal growth.

Can these regions sustain themselves with regard to food, water and electricity? How about taxes? Will they be higher here? What would be an Integralist/Spiral Dynamics view?

Tags: megaregions, productivity, creativity

Changing Hats, Fresh View

http://praveer.gaia.com — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:26:58 GMT

I haven't blogged for a while because there are hobgoblins in my computer. In spite of my best efforts, I haven't been able to evict them. This blog is being written secretly, while they're distracted by some thing else in the enigmatic innards of the machine.

So, I saw Siona's review of 'Its Not About Money' by Brent Kessel, and of course, I had to do the test, and here is what I found.

I am predominantly a Caretaker type. Worse, an Idealist. No wonder I can't get anything of my own done!

caretaker1

What became clear to me is that I really want to change hats and be an Empire Builder for a change.

empire builder1

Here's the list of things that I've been working on since January that I want to accomplish this year. Now I'm going to try on my new Empire Builder Hat ( bamboo, no carbon footprint, $1.49 at the local market) and look at them anew.

Current Projects (not in order of priority)

1. New Media Communication Backbone comprising Digital Signage/Bluetooth/SMS/WiFi/Website for Luxury Segment and for the Retail Segment. Special focuson creating a permission based interaction process, and creating ahead-of-the-market content.

2. Starting up a 'Celebrating Wellness' Facility in the Delhi NCR Area - a spa targeted specifically to the high functioning, high profile, individual who has gotten "derailed" from his or her successful life due to extreme stress and "burnout".

3. Branding and Brand Architecture for 'The Terrace Garden' Restaurant in West Delhi - a one-of-a-kind fine dining, conversations and celebrations experience. I take on just one or two advertising assignments in a year and this is one of them.

4. Co-promoting 'Art Square' - an art initiative with vibrant, young artists, some of Delhi's finest painters, sculptors, poets, sufi singers and more..

5. Marketing Soap Nuts ( Ritha Nut) under the my brand 'Wild Craft' from my new company, Nothing Added Technologies, an organization dedicated to providing the best of nature to eco-conscious consumers and supporters around the world.

Tags: Its not about the money

Sheer Bliss

http://praveer.gaia.com — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:35:40 GMT

Digbijoy And Atika were married in traditional style on the 6th of MArch, 2008.

More, when I've caught my breath.

Atika the bride

That's my daughter in law, Atika.

Digs Sehra

And my son, Digbijoy.

More, soon.

Tags: love, bliss, accomplishment

January Blur

http://praveer.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:30:48 GMT

Blur Sample
Duration: 7 days
(Cast: Panda - my wife; Dwarf - household help; Taxi Driver - taxi driver; Jeannie - Rapunzel, Digbijoy - my son, sundry others)

I came back from a meeting to find Panda in rivers of sweat, shivering, complete disorientation - hypoglycemic coma, last tuesday. The dwarf and I ( I must use as that as a title one of these days) stuck a spoon of sugar in her mouth and bundled her into a taxi and headed for the hospital just down the road. Panda protested. She insisted that we go to a shopping mall instead. Also just down the road. The taxi driver (we have a neighbourhood taxi stand) sympathised with her and said: You were fine just yesterday. Her blood sugar was 7 in the emergency ward. They said if we'd brought her in half an hour later, she'd have been brain dead. Wednesday they threw her out of the ICU into a room. Disoriented, she'd yelled for pizzas, biscuits, sandwiches, her glasses, a book several times during the night. So they very kindly informed me. She settled into her room well with a centerline drip for glucose and other yummies like antibiotics and stuff. By saturday they'd completed tests on blood, thyroid, other bits and pieces that they hadn't done earlier. Then they let her loose again, in pretty good form. She's coming off steroids, her sugar levels fluctuate, so either the dwarf or I play darts with her arms with the insulin pen-injection before meal times. The neighbourhood ironing lady who has a little lean-to shack just outside our flat is fascinated and wants to play to, but Panda's a spoil sport - won't let her.

I remember other bits as December/January flashed by: my birthday (really moving cards from Panda and Digbijoy); two other trips to the hospital; Digbijoy taking complete charge of the paperwork, efficiently and carefully; Digbijoy planting himself in the hospital room for his night shift with his own blanket like Linus; a warm family get together at my brother's home in between; playing with my new camera phone and being horribly diappointed with the results; calling one of my best friends, in January and in February both times on the wrong day to say Happy Birthday; getting my favorite nieces' birthday right; tearing up my business plan and working on it afresh; finishing the painting and woodwok in the house just before Christmas; and finally, today, chilling out at a client's plush restaurant with my feet up on a windowsill overlooking a sunlit winter garden, strangely peaceful in spite of all the drama.

Thanks Jeannie. Its all coming back now.

Tags:

Merry Christmas!

http://praveer.gaia.com — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:32:50 GMT

Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Christmas Song

I met Peace, Joy, and Happiness a little while ago. They were looking for lodgings. I recommended that they visit all zaadzsters this Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

Tags: Christmas

Being Crazy Enough To Change The World.

http://praveer.gaia.com — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:12:59 GMT

What does it take to be people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world?

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As a 9 year old, Severn Suzuki started the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO). By the age of 12, in 1992 Severn and ECO raised their own money and attended the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Here is her viewpoint, presented to influentials at the Summit. It is 'unconscious' of all the justifications, rationales, and theses and excuses about why the world is in the state it is in. It is passionate and a straightforward demand to stop being cynical, resigned and to pretend that something is actually being done that will transform a truly urgent environmental situation.

Al Gore called it the best speech of the convention. It shook me up, and moved me.

Notes On Leadership: Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman

"The innocence of 'What is it?'"

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"Can we look at our lives in such a way? Can we look at all of the aspects of our lives with this mind, just open to see what there is to see? I don't know about you, but I have a hard time doing that. I have a lot of habits of mind—I think most of us do. Children begin to lose that innocent quality after a while, and soon they want to be "the one who knows." We all want to be the one who knows. But if we decide we "know" something, we are not open to other possibilities anymore. And that's a shame. We lose something very vital in our life when it's more important to us to be "one who knows" than it is to be awake to what's happening."

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"As Suzuki Roshi said in the prologue to Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few." As an expert, you've already got it figured out, so you don't need to pay attention to what's happening. Pity."

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"When he spoke of "beginner's mind," I think Suzuki Roshi was pointing to that kind of mind that's not already made up. The mind that's just investigating, open to whatever occurs, curious. Seeking, but not with expectation or grasping. Just being there and observing and seeing what occurs. Being ready for whatever experience arises in this moment."

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"In zazen, in just sitting, in sitting and noticing the busyness of our mind and all of the fixed views that we carry. Once we noticed the fixed views that we are carrying around with us, the preconceptions that we are carrying around with us, then it is possible for us to let them go and say, "Well, maybe so, maybe not." Suzuki Roshi once said, "The essence of Zen is 'Not Always So'." "Not always so." It's a good little phrase to carry around when you're sure. It gives you an opportunity to look again more carefully and see what other possibilities there might be in the situation."

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"Cultivate your beginner's mind. Be willing to not be an expert. Be willing to not know. Not knowing is nearest. Not knowing is most intimate. Fayan was going on pilgrimage. Dizang said, "Where are you going?" Fayan said, "Around on pilgrimage." Dizang said, "What is the purpose of pilgrimage?" Fayan said: "I don't know." Dizang said, "Not knowing is most intimate."

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"Uchiyama Roshi says, "open the hand of thought" and let the fixed view go. This is our effort. This is our work. Just to be here, ready to meet whatever is next without expectation or prejudice or preconceptions. Just "What is it?" "What is this, I wonder?"

Tags: leadership, passion, environmentalism, change the world, inspiration

~ Notes to Myself

http://praveer.gaia.com — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:25:49 GMT

The Meaning of Life - The Galaxy Song

Tags: significance, the big picture, meaning, freedom