Long Hiatus

The longer the hiatus, the fewer the words succeeding the silent period. But every new dawn promises an awakening of the mind and soul. I shall bounce back too..
Just to remind myself that Silences be it self-imposed or otherwise, is not a good sign for personal & spiritual growth.

A Tribute to Shail Chaturvedi

Shail Chaturvedi, eminent Hindi poet, humorist, lyricist and Bollywood character actor, passed away early Monday morning.

A former lecturer at Allahabad University, Chaturvedi had also played character roles in several television serials and Bollywood movies, including Uphaar, Chitchor, Naiyya, Hum Do Hamaare Do, Chameli Ki Shaadi, Narasimha, Kareeb, Jahan Tum Le Chalo.

A contemporary of humourists like Kaka Hathrasi, Pradeep Chaubey and Ashok Chakradhar, Chaturvedi formed the A-league of hasya kavis. His works took a candid dig at the changing face of Indian politics through the 70’s and the 80’s. Chaturvedi was well-known for his cynical approach to everyday life. He had a quirk ready for anything odd that caught his eye.

When colour television was still a novel concept, Chaturvedi was synonymous with the annual kavi sammelan broadcast on Doordarshan every Holi. The exchange of repartees with fellow poets never failed to tickle even the weakest of the funny bones. When he was done having audiences at kavi sammelans in splits, he graced the small-screen with his large frame.

I remember those years fondly when we used to eagerly await Hasya Kavi Sammelan shows on TV.

Wise Words

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Few are there are among men who arrive at the other shore. The other people here run up and down the shore - Taoist saying.

Remembering the Scorpions

Heard the song 'Wind of Change' after a long time.

"Wind of Change" is a 1990 Power ballad written by Klaus Meine, vocalist of Scorpions.

The lyrics celebrate the political changes in Eastern Europe at that time – such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the increasing freedom in the communist bloc (which would soon lead to the fall of the USSR), and the clearly imminent end of the Cold War.

You can catch the same on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5muLIq9PqUk

Passing Thoughts
[Quote by Doris Lessing - Nobel Prize Winner for Literature (2007) ]
That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

Interesting Coincidence
My zen story for today is also about Scorpions and i just happened to observe the coincidence after putting up the blog on 'Wind of Change' by Scorpions. Strange !!

Ghalib ki Yaad Mein

Zulmat_kade meiN mere shab-e-GHam ka josh hai
Ik shamma'a hai daleel-e-sahar, so KHamosh hai

The literal translation of this shai'r would be as follows:
In my place of cruelty/torture; the night of sadness/repentance reigns ....
a candle is the evidence of break of day; so it is silent.

Verses Demystifying (by an unknown contributor)

• The metaphoric meanings to this shai'r can be broken off into many tangents, but the one that prominently stands out in my mind is that he is referring to "zulmat kade" as his mind or thought process which is vieled by a blanket of darkness and regret. His pain is morphing into verses; he has stayed up all night composing a shai'r to mirror his state of mind, but it is always overcome by pain and cannot be materialised. He goes on to say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel...a candle which is still lit. He is clinging on to this last straw, in the hope that it will transform into a verse that will mirror his emotions. The candle is a symbol of faith...perhaps his confidence to overcome the darkness. He sees the hurdle and wants to overcome it, but needs the strength to reach out to his faith.
• Another angle to look at this shai'r would be to interpret "zulmet kade" as the world we live in. Darkness and despair has overcome him and taken control of his life. He finds himself heartless and alone; relating to no one and nothing. The "shama" in this case would refer to God, as his only hope for redemption and the feeling of belonging. He wants a divine intervention at this point in his life to keep things real...he wants God to talk to him, and tell him everything is alright ( so khamosh hai ).It would not be irrelevant at this point to say that "god is dead"(Nietzche) for Ghalib. It is interesting to note though that he says it in a way so as to keep it ambiguous as to whether he believes in God or not (doosrah misra'a). What I mean is that it could be lit and he just can't relate to it, or that it is there but its not lit anymore.

Silence Perforce

Life has its ways of silencing people and i encountered it recently.
A month of tumultuous happenings kept me busy from writing my thoughts on the blog.

Hopefully the tide has mellowed and the fury of the tempest has died down. Slowly breathing again and inching back to normalcy.

Twenty20 Fever

For all those who are tired of my cricket blogs, go no further.
Simply cannot resist penning a couple of lines on the IND-AUS match.
Contrary to what Gilly said during the post match speech, I strongly believe that we outwitted the Aussies on that day. The Aussies seemed to play intelligent cricket but Dhoni's boys came back with a scintillating win thanks to Sreesanth, Pathan, R.P.Singh and Bhaji.
Bhaji's second last over turned the tables in our favor. R.P. Singh complimented very well in the penultimate one. But when I saw Joginder Sharma with the ball during the last over, i gave up hopes of an India win as he had been butchered by the Aussies in his previous 2 overs. But what a comeback and what nerves. Jogi actually sported a smile after bowling 2 dot balls and the Aussies broke into cold sweat what with a 22 required in 4 balls. A desperate Hussey picked on the 3rd ball only to mistime the ball and give a catch to Yuvraj's safe hands. Bret Lee scores 2 runs in the next ball and then our man Joginder surprises all with a perfect Yorker to uproot the leg stump & Bret Lee is sent off packing. 1 ball 20 runs. Indians already celebrating in the crowd. Last ball, Johnson hits a four, but who cares. No one is really interested in picking the ball as much they are interested in picking the stumps and the bails. Desis in Kingsmead erupt with Joy and its a unanimous 'Chak De'...
Yuvraj, the man of the moment, picks the man of the match for his superlative 70 off 30 balls.

What more can a World cup offer, than a thriller of a match with traditional rivals India & Pakistan, fighting for the coveted cup on Monday.

Kabir - The Mystic Poet

Kabir has influenced my life both as a spiritual saint and a poet. Here is one my favorite Kabir songs :
Sadho Ye Murdon Ka Gaon
Peer Mare, Pygambar Mari Hain
Mari Hain Zinda Jogi
Raja Mari Hain, Parja Mari Hain
Mari Hain Baid Aur Rogi
Chanda Mari Hain, Suraj Mari Hain
Mari Hain Dharni Akasa
Chaudan Bhuvan Ke Chaudhry Mari Hain
In Hun Ki Ka Asa
Nauhun Mari Hain, Dus Hun Mari Hain
Mari Hain Sahaj Athasi
Tethis Koti Devata Mari Hain
Badi Kaal Ki Bazi
Naam Anam Anant Rehat Hai
Duja Tatva Na Hoi
Kahe Kabir Suno Bhai Sadho
Bhatak Maro Mat Koi

Translation
Oh Sadhu This is the Village of the Dead

The Saints Have Died, The God-Messengers Die
The Life-Filled Yogis Die Too |
The Kings Die, The Subjects Die
The Healers and the Sick Die Too ||

The Moon Dies, The Sun Dies
The Earth and Sky Die Too |
Even the Caretakers of the Fourteen Worlds Die
Why Hope For Any of These ||

The Nine Die, The Ten Die
The Eighty Eight Die Easily Too |
The Thirty Three Crore Devatas (Enlightened Beings) Die
It's a Big Game of Time ||

The Un-Named Naam Lives Without Any End
There is No Other Truth ||
Says Kabir Listen Oh Sadhu
Don't Get Lost and Die ||

Explanation : http://www.boloji.com/kabir/mysticsongs/km9.htm

Kabir's interpretation of time, life and death, converges so much with Khalil Gibran's that i'm forced to believe that all great minds are indeed connected in strange ways.

Concluding this blog with a Kabir Doha -

Kabir Soyee Soorma, Man Soon Maande Jhoojh
Panch Pyada Paari Le, Door Kare Sab Dooj

Translation
O Kabir, He alone's the Warrior ,who takes on the "mind" head-on
Crushing the shield of the sensual five, all duality is gone

Flavor of the Season - Cricket

I simply cannot get over cricket especially when Dhoni's eleven seems to be doing so well :)
India-England match was another cracker of a Twenty20. Sehwag and Gambhir gave a great start & it was a pleasure to watch them plunder the English attack. But the game belonged to Yuvraj who came back in his inimitable style of the fastest 50 (12 balls!!) in any match. Not difficult to guess how the runs came about.. 6 sixes in one over (matching the record of Sir Gary Sobers, Gibbs & Shastri). A perplexed Stuart Broad did not know what went wrong & could not make sense of what Collingwood was trying to convey after the 5th six. The unique thing about Yuvraj's savage assault was than no two sixes were similar & that he virtually covered the whole spectrum of the ground.
Unbelievable stuff....Now one more big match today with SA. Waiting to see what happens.

Elusive Words

a Dot, a Stroke,
no beginning, no end,
void and blank,
the realm of words, (i) cannot transcend

the struggling poet within me
desperately seeking divine afflatus...

These lines are for you, Banu. The poet in me was long dead but well, if a cat can have nine lives, so can a poet, eh? :-)

My definition of a POET - A POET is the who can express Sentences in one Word and vice-versa.

Some Stars Shone Bright

A phoenix rises above the Ashes.... And Irfan Pathan returned with aplomb.
A blistering 20 in 15 balls, classy fielding saving a lot of crucial runs & a beauty of a 4 overs.
1 maiden, 20 runs and 2 linchpin wickets (Younis & Malik).
All his detractors are silenced...

Mohammed Asif deserved the Player of the Match with his superb figures of 4 overs, 18 runs and 4 wickets (except Uthappa, none of the Indian openers could survive his attack).

Misbah - What a knock and what an undying spirit. 53 of 35 balls. Just plain unlucky, otherwise the Pakistanis would have been celebrating their victory now.

Uthappa - 50 of 39 balls, despite seeing his partners succumbing one after the other, to the Pakistani bowling attack. And a classy Bowl Out Performance with a few bows to crowd celebrating his accuracy at the stumps.

Dhoni - For a first time captain, did very well. Except for some tensed moments, seemed relaxed towards the end. Acknowledged humbly in the post match speech that India was plain lucky this time and have to toil much more for the coming matches.

India Vs Pakistan - Can it get any better than this?

Arch rivals India and Pakistan proved once again to the cricketing world that no match can be better in terms of sheer entertainment and "value for money" than the one on Friday.

A nail biting finish (understatement that...as i had almost chewed off my fingers).
India managed to garner a mediocre score of 141 struggling every bit, except for Robin Uthappa who is slowly coming into his element now.

Shoaib's men put a valiant fight in the first half of their innings but lost a few crucial wickets with some reckless batting. The Indian bowlers bowled with a lot of gusto and determination to keep the pakistani batsmen on their toes. An out of form Younis & an edgy Afridi, could not sustain the initial rhythm set by Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal, nothwithstanding a quick 20 by their captain. But a struggling Misbah improvised over time and came out with crackers in the last two overs. And before we could sigh, Pakistan cruised to a tie @141, with India. Can it get any better than 1 ball in 1 run, well, it can... 'Bowl out' can you believe it.... Well, the last ball, saw Misbah running haplessly towards the danger end, and an agile Sreesanth stumping him (with a fabulous throw from Robin) comfortably.
The Indian crowd went berserk and so did the Indian team.

A new concept of Bowl Out in the Twenty20 tournaments was to be showcased after a breath-taking display of 40 overs.
Pakistan had world class bowlers known for their speed, determination, perfection et al. And the Indian bowlers simply paled in comparison. Interestingly Dhoni handpicked the 5 bowlers most of who were not his regular strike bowlers (except for Pathan & Sreesanth) and decided to go for the kill starting with an experienced Sehwag followed by Bhaji & Uthappa. We got it right 3 in a row and all the practice seemed to show.

Pakistan on the other hand, chose Arafat, Umar Gul and an experienced Afridi, and failed at every attempt. India won the match by 3-0 (a la Penalty shootout).

Its not difficult to guess why the Pakistan bowlers failed to knock the bails, if one had witnessed this bowl out.
All the Pakistani bowlers (except Afridi) ran a shorter run-up (which they were not used to), messing up their rhythm and the line & length. And if we were to believe Malik, he claims that Pakistan did not know the concept of 'Bowl Out' till it had to participate in one. Difficult to digest, that. Even regular net-practice includes bowling straight at the stumps, so what is our man talking about.

Nevertheless, these little quirks aside, the camaraderie between the two teams & captains was palpable & heart warming. The teams looked very relaxed before the bowl-out & it seemed more like a friendly match. The umpires and the coaches of the respective teams, seemed more nervous about the Bowl-out, and reminded me of the NASA crew before a typical space-shuttle launch.
All in all, it was a day to remember ... A day when India fought against its arch-rivals, its own insecurities, differences (among the players) & criticism & came good with a smile.

History... India still continued retaining its record of never losing to Pakistan in a World Cup..

21st Century Leadership

Leadership is a much used and much abused subject as most interesting topics are. I got some interesting tidbits from several articles, which concurred, with my take on leadership. Leadership is an important ingredient of Management however there is a mammoth difference between Leaders and Managers per se. Most often, people use the terms 'Leaders' and 'Managers' interchangeably, much to my chagrin.

Without much ado, lets check out some interesting insights on 21st century leadership.

Today's successful business leader is decisive, insightful and constantly challenging company conventions to keep ideas flowing, says management consultant Mark Stevens, author of Your Management Sucks. This Enlightened Warrior is the model of the 21st century leader.

Enlightened, Stevens says, in the sense that a modern leader identifies opportunities before the competition, taking in information from all sides to spot possible new directions. The warrior side symbolizes a passion for achieving a goal and also a willingness to go on the attack--against the competition, and against weaknesses in yourself and the organization.

Courtesy:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/21stleader/index.html

So today, when one peruses the list of management tomes, one sees more and more books about teamwork and team management. Cross-functional teams have been one of the most important concepts of Late 20th Century Management. Empowerment is a given, and leadership has to be understood in that context.

By the last decade of the 20th century, team management and cross-functional teams were clearly best practice concepts. Researchers even suggested that the best teams might be those that used rotating leadership or no leaders at all.

In addition, a revolution in the concept of leadership has taken place, beginning with Robert Greenleaf's 1976 Servant Leadership. This landmark work “inverted the pyramid” and made for a new paradigm: the leader at the top works for those in the lower ranks, not vice versa.

In 1993, Peter Block, who had already “invented” empowerment, published Stewardship. This book, one of the greatest ever written on management, in effect carried the concept of servant leadership further, advocating “accountability without control or compliance”

But the following seem the best predictions as to how the concept of leadership will develop:

Leadership is for everyone – Equal Opportunity

Leadership involves learning – Constant Skill Up-gradation

Leadership is team based – Equal Contributor

Leadership is not authoritarian – Support, Facilitate, Lead to Change

Leadership includes followership – Listen, Empower

Courtesy:

http://www.manage2001.com/21l.htm

Surely 21st century leadership calls for a new type of leader who understands him/herself well and can call others into a higher state of being, rather than the old style leader who simply knows how to manage finance, sales and marketing processes. It calls for leaders who can engage the hearts and minds of all members within the organization, facilitating the psychological contract, so important for winning the market wars.

Courtesy: http://www.mbamatch.com/Knowledge_Base/Leadership/EI%20SA%20and%20the%20Enneagram.htm

So time to kick old habits, become self aware, redefine work and the workplace…

When the Minnows Rule

For those of you, who saw the Twenty20 last nite which had the Audacious Aussies against the 'nothing to lose' Zimbabweans, it must have been a historical moment. A night to remember for all cricketing fans except the Aussies. The Minnows ruled and how. They contained a normally belligerent Aussie batting line-up to a minuscule 138 (well, Twenty20 is going to rewrite history in one day cricket for overall & individual scores) & went on to win the match with great skill & panache.
Unfortunately I retired to bed, rather mournfully, when Zimbabwe was 74/4 and rain had played a spoil sport. Duckworth-Lewis and rain, seemed to be in favor of Aussies at that moment. But the rain gods were with the Minnows yesterday and play resumed. And what happened thereafter is history.
I wish i can catch up on the last two overs (Brett Lee & Bracken) sometime. It would be a treat to watch two of the world's great bowlers epitomizing Speed & Perfection, having to fight a determined duo in Taylor & Chigumbara besides the Gods of course.
Waiting for tomorrow to see Dhoni's eleven against Malik's boys.

Thoughts and Meditations

My current reading is a book by Kahlil Gibran, which shares the same title as this blog.
Here are two exceptionally great lines that i have come across thus far -
'It is the silence which proclaims the coming tempest. And when the tempest makes not its appearance, it is because the silence is stronger than the tempest.'

Another Gem which i would like to share with all, is from my favorite Poet 'Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib' :

qaid-e ;hayaat-o-band-e ;Gam a.sl me;N dono;N ek hai;N
maut se pahle aadmii ;Gam se nijaat paa))e kyuu;N

Translation: the prison of life and the bondage of grief– in essence/origin both are one
before death, why/how would a man find escape/release from grief?

My predispositions towards Persian poets (or should i say Wandering & Wondering Poets) has always been a mystery to me. I would attribute it to my love for Poetry and to the wonderful language of Urdu which, in my opinion, can effortlessly articulate the depths of emotion like no other language can.

Trees with Character

Does every tree have a character?
If you think i have gone bananas, read no further & well, climb a tree (PUN intended).

But if you have felt this at any point in time in your life, you could see some of the images that i have captured during my several journeys to explore mother nature.

Purple Haze

Why the title Purple Haze?
Its a color symbolizing Spirituality.

And my recent sojourn to Mudhumalai was yet another spiritual conquest albeit with family.

Want to discover yourself?
Escape to the wilderness and enjoy the silence of the hills. Explore the sounds of the forest. Besides we do need our regular dozes of unpolluted O2 from nature's treasure troves.

Worth a visit.

Random Thoughts

Are you a Right or Left brain...Well its a no brainer...
If you have it, USE IT ALL...