Job, business, nothing, anything!

I used to write a lot on spirituality. Since I moved back to Mumbai, there isn't much of an ambience here for spiritual studies. Till I get an opportunity to get back to my solitude I think I'm happily wasting my time. Okay, I know this hasn't anything to do with the title per se, but I'll get to that in a moment, influenced by my old habits to blabber. :)

Well then, if I'm anyway about to waste time, why not dig into other worldly things such as money. To make money, you either need a job or a business. I'm not actively looking for the former, knowing fully well that I've been on a sabbatical a little too long to get back to the industry in a jiffy in this economy.

I do have some business ideas that I've been discussing with my friends, but I'm more likely to graduate into a silent lazy partner that wakes up for ideas and in dire straits but not during other times. So, I'd be one that doesn't really work hands-on! :P And I don't think there'd be many takers there.

So what else do I have left now? I've covered job, business, nothing... did I cover nothing? Yes, I started with that. So all that is left is 'anything' in the anythingwise spirit. That will come up in my next post. ;)

Krishna calling

Every once in a while, I feel a strong bliss about things happening around me, all at once. I see a pattern, not something that I forcibly read, but something that is very difficult to miss. Something that keeps on happening till I read well into them. I think now is the moment that I read quite clearly.

I'll just mention things as they happened. Of course, atheists can ignore the same, they will see plain simple coincidences, at most! :)

i) On Monday, I left B.Gita 2.14 shloka as part of my comment on Sai's Facebook wall and used the same as my status msg.

ii) That night, I was searching a blog where a friend had left a comment with a Bhagavadgita quotation some years back and I'd told him that I'd get back to him on that. I couldn't remember when it was or which shloka was it! I did an overview and couldn't find it. The next day, I stepped through each of my 500+ blogs to check the comments. I got nothing, maybe it was on email and impossible to find.

iii) Tue evening, I read a newspaper article about a chap who gave up the worldly pursuit after an MS in quantum physics. His name Dasa told me that maybe they were talking of an Iskcon person. Later on, it turned out it was the Iskcon chief of Bangalore.'

iv) On Wed, I was searching for a chap on LinkedIn whom I'd met some 5-6 yrs back. The search landed me to another fella whose name was Dasa. This fella too turned out to be an Iskcon devotee.

v) Later that night, a friend mailed me about someone who was asking him why Krishna led a war if He is God. (I needn't mention the kind of people and the intention of people who ask this very Q everywhere :) ) We went on with some mail exchange on this.

vi) Today, I was chatting with a good satsanga brother of mine, Syam, who's in New Zealand now. We were discussing how he manages food and he said that there's a Hare Krishna restaurant near his place! I know for sure that thats an Iskcon run chain. Till now, I was only thinking 'what a coincidence', but when I talk to Syam, almost always I become blissful. :) All of the above came rushing into my memories as if flowing in my bloodstream and this blog happened!

I'm all flabbergasted. I told Raghava about my bliss as 'Krishna calling' to which he asked, "which Krishna"? I don't know what struck me, but I laughed out and wrote "Krishna, the Bhagavan of Bhagavan uvAca fame". :)

krishNArpaNamastu

BBC's 24 hours with Ubuntu! Really?

I wrote a comment on BBC's "technology" article and blogged it at Linuxwise:

BBC's 24 hours with Ubuntu! Really?

The Snowball Effect

It took till this morning due to my sleepy head unable to finish the last 10-20 pages yesterday! I'm talking of The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life; wonderful written biography about a wonderful person that Buffett is. Warren begins his story with the proverbial "... behind every great fortune lies a crime" but goes on to add "Thats not true at Berkshire". As the book unfolds Warren's entire life, you find it more and more difficult to compare with other success stories, due to the high moral values that he held on to even in the worst of times. His trust in his friends and the other way round too has very less parallels too. Not only does The Snowball feel like a biography of Warren Buffett, but of a lot of his relatives and friends too, albeit shorter.

Alice Schroeder, though writing her first book, tends to describe emotional issues in such a depth so as to make sure that the reader cries! 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but a major detail of how Warren gave into publicly listing Berkshire is something I totally missed. It was really needed to get into that biography, being such a big moment, especially because Warren was totally against getting others putting a value tag to his co.

By the way, for those who do not know, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, listed as BRK on NYSE, is trading upwards of $100,000 and the 52 week high for it was $140,000. Even so, Buffett's view of life, in the end, is hardly a business, rather it's philanthropy.

Next: The Creation of Wealth (The Tatas from the 19th to 21st century)

Thoughts 107

107. I am my own, and only, duHsanga.

The Pixar Touch

I feel so happy after reading The Pixar Touch by David A. Price! I particularly like corporate biographies, being choosy as usual. With my biases toward Sony and Apple, my all-time favorites have been Made in Japan and Infinite Loop, among others such as Iacocca.

I didn't like Price's narration through and through, as I did with Malone's story of Apple. It certainly was good except for some parts in the middle though. It may also have been because I left the book midway, reading only a few pages spread across two months, only to continue two days back, actively yesterday, till I finished some time back. I'm not so much a fan of cartoon movies, being choosy there too. I like Bugsbunny, Chip & Dale, Tom & Jerry, while in print, I've been a fan of Calvin & Hobbes, Tintin, Asterix, or locally, any of R.K. Laxman's creations, but not much of Simpsons or Dilbert. I've taken a liking to Dilbert strips in Economic Times these days just for the theme, but I really loathe the sketches themselves! The characters have to be appealing to me, else I can't stand them and even if the storyline is good, I can't keep to it.

Coming back to Pixar, I haven't seen any of their movies yet (er, I've seen Wall-E), but intend to watch them over the coming days. Given my leanings, I'm more likely to find taste in Cars, The Incredibles or Toy Story than for The Bug's Life or say, Monster Inc. I'm more than impressed by commitments of the artistic teams led by Lassetter and Catmull that made Pixar what it is today, even having shed a tear or two during reading it. Although I had artistic leanings myself once, the only reason I went into The Pixar Touch is due to the Steve Jobs' effect. Never have I afforded myself a Mac, iPod or iPhone, but I remain a fan to this day.

Next book: The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life :)

So, what do you do?

In the past three years of restless run to be at one place, I've been asked by many 'So, what do you do?' This has been a tricky question to answer and I answer variously based on the context, circumstances, all being equally true. Some people are inquisitive and are not happy with the first answer and I have to switch to another till they are satisfied or one of us gives up! :) Few of the answers I've given are:
--'I'm getting into agriculture', 
--'I'm in between jobs', 
--'I'm in a middle of a land mess that I'm trying to come out of', 
--'These days, I just watch movies' 
--'I'm looking at a solitary place to settle down', 
--'nothing much', 
--'reading', 
--blah, blah, and
... some more blah!


At one instance, I replied 'I do nothing' and was shot back a shocking question 'you do nothing???!!!' to which I had to say 'I read/ study philosophy' and the embarrassing situation ended. I wonder if anyone can ever get used to 'doing nothing' since Krishna himself said that none can remain without doing karma.

I've switched my online status -- which is also my offline status, of course -- from 'hibernation', through 'on a sabbatical', to 'a recovering vyAvahAric', all equally true again. However, none so completely explains the fact than 'I wait'. The entire truth is that I wait a little, a little more and then some more... always! A curious intruder or a concerned friend may well ask then, 'So, what do you wait for?' thereby moving the focus from '*what* I do' to '*why don't* I do'! :)

Thoughts 106

106. I'm a recovering vyAvahAric.

Om shAntiH shAntiH shAntiH

Most of the Vedic chanting is ended with either a shAnti mantra or just plain simple Om shAntiH shAntiH shAntiH. The reason to pray thrice for peace is because there are three kinds of afflictions that we mortals face; viz. AdhyAtmika, Adhibhautika and Adhidaivika.

AdhyAtimika problems are ones related to one's own self. These are physical and mental issues that one has to deal within one's own battle of life. Adhibhautika afflictions are imposed on one due to circumstances involving surrounding people and things that come as part of one's prArabdha. Adhidaivika issues are those beyond our control even as a society, things which we call rightly as "Acts of God" such as earthquake, volcanoes, and such calamities.

So when we pray, we ask God as a sarvadhI sAkshin to bring us peace, as a sahasramUrti or a virATapurusha to bring us peace, and also as Ishvara ruling over anything and everything to bring us peace.

iti trivAra satyaM

om shAntiH shAntiH shAntiH