Yeshwanth

Life is not a bed of roses. We experience many ups and downs in our lives. However, when we experience you, an extra golden shade is added to our rainbow coloured life. A 5 year old Yeshwanth did not know that you would come into his life when he entered Bhuvaneshwari aunty's house just because he heard good songs there and was told stories every Sunday in Balavikas classes. I am very fortunate to have your grace in my life .I feel your presence every moment. You help me even when I forget to take your name. You are omnipresent. When I visit Puttaparthi, I definitely miss your physical form. But I know you are there. You have totally changed my life. You are everything, my best friend, my father, my mother, my teacher. You are like a mirror in which my deepest need is reflected and shaped into an appropriate relationship that connects me to you. You are 'Mother Sai’, 'Father Baba’, 'Friend Sathya’, ‘Teacher Swami’, ‘God Bhagavan’, and so on, with the nature of...

Someone sent me a message. Yes someone sent me a harsh message for no fault of mine. Someone so close to me sent me those harsh words for expressing my general opinion; the words that were as sharp as a sword. The opinion was as general as saying “I consider vanilla ice cream too boring”. I never understood why the person reacted that way. But I was hurt deep inside because I never expected that person to talk that way. And I never understood the reason for them to get hurt. But when I thought about it, I had learning! It was an opportunity for me to correct my flaws. How many times would I have shouted at my brother, at my mom and dad, at my best friend Ashok for no mistake of them?  When an opinion is said in a general discussion, I would sometimes take it too personally, put myself into that situation and analyze the same. When the opinion contradicts my belief, I take no time to think on why the opinion was told, on whether it is a general opinion or on what is really...

I was awake. I was dumb yesterday night, too. I slept by around 1 o’ clock. But then, I woke up– I didn’t know how or when. However, I was in the complete darkness. I sat on my bed, looking everywhere around for my cell phone. I couldn’t find it. I kept it somewhere. I needed a change. Yea! Without a second thought I wore my track pant and came out for a long walk. It was drizzling and the weather was quite cold. After reaching the main road, I met an old man walking with a cigar and asked him the time. He said “3:35 am”. God Damn! I will never be able to wake up even at 7:00 am on Mondays. And if it is a weekend, I will not be able to sleep even till 5:00 am.  I must have walked for an hour. I went off the road into the country side. Sun gave a smile and darkness changed to twilight and people started coming out of their homes. Call it what you will. A boring field, full of dirt, mud and waste, or just a field, no more than that is what I thought when I went ...

The first thing that I did after getting out of bed in the morning was to read an article on Bhagawad Gita. From that instant, I am thinking a lot about this book. The word Bhagawad Gita takes me 15 years back in my memory lane. All that I know about Bhagawad  Gita now is only because of my Adhyapika – Savithri Mam and my school. Yes.. I first became aware of the Bhagawad  Gita in the mid ’90s. I was a school student taking my first tentative steps onto my spiritual path. The Bhagawad  Gita was actually taught in my   school, complete with the method of chanting it, its context in the Mahabharata and its meaning. We also would participate in Gita reciting competitions of Chinmaya Mission and win prizes. Which means that I learnt to see the document in question   not as ineffable scripture or dogma, but as a treatise that had to be rigorously analyzed   in order to obtain maximum benefit from it. Since leaving school, I've had the inclination and oppor...

Aren't words supposed to be a writer's best friend Ready at their beck and call Walking with each other hand in hand ... But then why do words suddenly abandon me hiding behind , running free I coax them to come back To sit with me and help me write ... To make themselves available "You are my tools" I tell them No, Scratch that .. You are my love You help me create whats beautiful and ugly Sometimes a poem, sometimes a story You help me create people ... you, my dear words, are the life in my people But hardly do they listen ... We sit all day ... the blank page and I staring away After sometime, when the emptiness starts winning ... I force myself ... to force my words But,they still peek and run around me teasing like children enjoying this little game and I, like a tired mother, finally sit down, apologizing to the page promising the next time my words will behave just then I feel a tug a small word stands giving me a shy little smile...

“My friend is fairer than me. Why am I dark?   He has got a promotion last year and I have not. Why is God so unfair towards me? Omg!! He has got an onsite and is travelling the world earning lakhs and I am still in this small town earning peanuts!”  Are these not the thoughts of all of us? Comparisons, it is said, are odious. And yet this is the criterion we use to judge every aspect of our lives. We keep in mind a frame of reference for almost everything – happiness, success, peace, pleasure, pain, accolades and yes, even loving. You may be successful, but another’s greater success makes you uncomfortable. The mind has an inbuilt comparative calculator. First it would be school grades, then comes the job title, income level, promotion, and onsite of our best friend, house size of our relative and worldly successes of everyone we know. We all do it; we look at what others are doing and wish we were doing that too. Or, alternatively, we scoff at what they’re doing ...

WOW.. Navarathri springs up many memories for me right from my childhood days.. This time it is Navarathri away from home. Coimbatore is not a happening place for Navarathri like Chennai. Navarathri days in Chennai takes me a trip down the nostalgia lane. The nine nights that are dedicated to the Goddess of creativity in our country. The nine days of vacation after the quarterly examination when I was in school.. Every household during this time, dusts its collection of dolls for the annual event and buy the newest one in the market for the year; it could be one from the epics or even one on Bush and his war on terrorism! When I was young, I would always pester my mom to buy the biggest doll in the market for our house’s kolu. Bigger like the dolls in my friend Manoj’s home. The excitement in helping out mom for arranging the steps and the dolls was priceless. I have been re-creating all the gorgeous idols in my mind; their colors, their contours. It was always ...