Every day is a new day

Raghu was a tailor in a small town in the Malenadu region of Karnataka. The farmers in the area around the town were his customers. Shambhu, a stout farmer who owned a few acres of fields and had a few cows, was one of them.  One day, Shambhu came to Raghu with a piece of fine cotton cloth. Shambhu said, "Raghu, next month I am going for a wedding. I want to look smart! I have brought cloth for a kurta (Indian - style jacket). Please stitch one for me. I will pick it up when I come to town again." Raghu took Shambhu's measurements and noted them in his book. He returned to stitching, and started work on the kurta after a few days. It was two weeks before Shambhu returned to collect his kurta. Raghu was astonished to see that the stout Shambhu had lost weight and become a little thin! When he tried the kurta, it was loose. Shambhu said, "The day I came to town, my favorite cow, my Gauri, got lost. Since then, neither I nor my wife have tasted milk, ghee or curd. I am ...

I spent my childhood in the historic city of Cochin in Kerala. The Arabs, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British have used Cochin as a port for trading, and have left their imprint upon the city. A significant event in my own life also took place in Cochin.  It was compulsory for all students to learn Malayalam, unless one was studying in a Central School. Since my mother tongue is Marathi and not Malayalam, I would get butterflies in my stomach, every time the exams came near. I used to dread the Malayalam exam, as much as I dreaded a visit to the dentist! It was not the fault of my teacher, Miss Elizabeth. Miss Elizabeth was a dedicated teacher, and made sure each one of us understood our lessons. She would occasionally use the cane, but only as a last resort. It was not the fault of my parents. In fact, my mother learnt Malayalam, in order to help me and my younger sister learn the language. There was nothing wrong with my comprehension of the lessons. The stumbl...

Good evening Toastmasters and guests! The author, speaker and entrepreneur Jim Rohn once said: If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles. Each one of us is on the path from just getting our message across, to working miracles through effective communication.  With this in mind, I participated in Crescendo '25, the Annual Conference of District 121. It was a 3 - day conference, which began on Friday, May 16th. The Conference began in the best possible way! Our District had invited DTM Dhananjay Hettiarachi, who had won the World Championship of Public Speaking. Dhananjay conducted an educational session on Friday evening. DTM Dhananjay spoke with power and conviction. He described the hurdles that he faced, when he took the difficult path from being one among the many, to becoming the World Champion of Public Speaking. Further, Dhananjay spoke about what it takes to keep the spark alive, after entering the spotlight. My takeawa...

  Jeevan was a middle - class Bangalorean. He had spent his adolescence and young adulthood in Bangalore. That was the period in which the city saw a boom in real estate, and expanded rapidly in all directions. The city planners could hardly keep pace with the city's growth. For years, buses were the sole providers of public transport, and could hardly meet the needs of the residents. Most of the residents chose to buy a scooter, a motorbike or a car to be able to reach their workplace on time. Paradoxically, this resulted in a drastic increase in the number of vehicles on the roads, and made the daily commute slower than before. Unfortunately, Jeevan had not made himself accustomed to riding a scooter or a motorbike in the new scenario. He had had a bicycle during his college days, when the roads were relatively calm. After his studies, Jeevan got a job in a software company. The company provided buses to employees, and Jeevan was one of those who chose to make use of this. After ...

The India men's national field hockey team embodies the saying 'Success is not final, failure is not fatal'. The history of hockey can be traced to 16th century Scotland. There, players played a game that they called 'hokie', hitting a small ball around with small sticks. Some time in the late 18th century or the early 19th century, the British developed the first version of modern - day field hockey. During the British rule of India, the game made its way to our country. The first hockey club of India was formed in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1855. However, the Indian Hockey Federation was formed in 1925, a full seven decades later. In 1927, the Indian Hockey Federation applied for membership of the International Hockey Federation, and obtained membership. The Indian team enjoyed a dream run for over thirty years, from 1928 to 1959. The team participated in the Olympics from 1928 onwards. In the 1928 tournament, India beat Austria, Belgium and Switzerland on their wa...

 About a hundred years ago, there lived in the town of Wai, on the bank of the Krishna river (in Satara district of Maharashtra, then known as the Bombay Presidency) a jeweller named Shyam Saraf. He lived with his parents Narayan and Jayabai, his wife Surekha and their children Govind and Kavita. Narayan had inherited the jewellery shop from his father, and had run the business for over forty years. As a boy, Shyam spent much of his spare time at the family's shop. By observing his father at work, Shyam learnt the art of making ornaments, presenting finished ornaments to customers, valuing jewellery pieces that people brought for sale, and the other finer aspects of an enterprising jeweller. When Narayan felt Shyam had enough experience to run the business on his own, he retired from the business. For the last few years, Shyam had looked after the shop. He earned enough to cover the family's expenses, and also to save for a rainy day. In those days, it was a custom for every pe...

 If the rainy season starts when the saplings of planted crops are tiny, it may appear to be beneficial to the saplings.  Farmers do not agree. They want the plantlets to send roots deep down in search of moisture. If the plantlets find plenty of moisture near the surface, they tend to grow shallow roots. This means that the plants grow into fragile shrubs or trees, vulnerable to storms and rain. If saplings experience dry weather early in their life, they send roots deep into the soil. As a result, they can withstand strong winds when they are grown. Dr. Phil McGraw, host of the talk show ‘Dr. Phil’, once said, "Everybody at some point is going to have adversity. I think if we don't learn from that, then it was just a penalty. But if you use it, then it becomes tuition."  At meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, participants recite the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the courage to change what I can, the strength to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the dif...

  In your prior job, if you have done everything short of keeping your bones in the desert sun to get bleached, should you not try for something better in the next job?

 एका वस्तूचा गन्ध किव्हा त्याचे स्पर्श अनुभव कर्ण्यसाठी त्या वस्तुच्या जवळ जायलाच पाहिजे! त्यामुळे गन्ध आणि स्पर्श हे दोन इन्द्रीयानी जे आप्ले अनुभव असतात, ते अत्यन्त वैयक्तिक अस्तात। याञ्चे अनुभव मनात साठवू शकतो परन्तु पुस्त्कात किव्हा चित्रपटात पकडून ठेवू शकत नाही!

 I recently read a centre-piece written by a senior citizen for our City's newspaper. He writes that when his father bought him a bicycle, he had to get a licence from the local police station, to ride the bicycle. The police station issued him a metal plate, which he had to fix below the headlight. Now that's a far cry from today's world, in which we do not aspire to buy a bicycle anymore! That is not all. When the family bought a radio (people called it a radio set, in those days), they had to get a licence for it, from the local post office! The family paid fifteen rupees a year for this licence. Today, none of us would be willing part with a rupee, to use a radio. 

  Today morning, I passed a cow on the way back home from the milk booth. I happened to have milk, bread, biscuits and grapes in a large satchel. The cow stopped as we passed each other, and licked my arm. The natural thing would have been for me to give her something to eat. But I could not part with anything in my satchel. My ancestors lived on a farm. It might have been a small holding of a few acres. However, they had a few cows and buffaloes in a barn. They also had banana plants in the backyard, as we see in traditional Indian farmsteads. They not only had cows, they could also feed those cows! Though my ancestors might have been poor in monetary terms, they were rich in terms of the assets that mattered!

Blessed are those in whose ears falls The nectar drawn from sound of music, When autumn moonlight dispels the shade And the beloved draws near. From the Panchatantra Translated by A. N. D. Haksar

Seven notes and three octaves, Scales one and twenty, Quavers fortynine, This is the circle of sound. Three are the pauses, the lasyas six, The rasas nine the ragas six and thirty, And the bhavas there are forty. Thus the elements of music Are one hundred and eighty five, As stated in the scriptures, And by Bharata in times of yore. From the Panchatantra Translated by A. N. D. Haksar

Due to the pandemic, one of my acquaintances (let us call him Charan) decided to keep his shoes and socks outside the door at all times. When he returned from work, he would take care to leave his socks in his shoes. Since his socks were now outside the door the whole night, the mice in the neighbourhood carried them away one by one. Charan had bought new socks for his daughter, so she could wear them to school. Since his daughter attended online classes, she had no use for the socks. When he found his socks missing in the morning, he picked up a new pair of socks from his daughter's closet. The problem was that the mice did not stop at carrying away Charan's socks, they carried away his daughter's socks too! Now Charan is back to square one. He needs to buy new socks for himself, as well as for his daughter.

I remember an incident that brought home to me the importance of being humble. This was after one of my visits to Hubli, which is my wife's hometown. My wife's family was a joint one, consisting of her grandmother, parents, brother, uncle, aunt and three young cousins. All her cousins were boys. On one of my visits, my wife's cousins told me about the Nrupatunga Hill, which was about a kilometer or so from their house. We decided to visit the hill the next day. The morning of the next day was spent in play and chatting at home. Late in the afternoon, when the heat had subsided, my wife's brother, cousins and I set out on our sojourn. First we walked past the high walls of the Hubli Sub - jail. Then, we stopped at the Hanuman temple which is beside the water reservoir that supplies the entire locality. After praying at the temple, we continued our walk and reached the long flight of steps that takes climbers a quarter of the way up. There is a winding road that sk...

No adult eats a dish of caviar with the same relish as that with which a child eats a spoonful of sauce.

Question: How many plants are needed to make enough oxygen for one person for one hour ? We are experimenting with Anacharis plants. Replies: The problem can be solved when broken down into smaller questions: 1. How much oxygen does a person need in an hour? 2. How much oxygen does a plant produce in an hour? 3. Based on the above, how many plants will provide the oxygen needs of the person for the hour? Here is the solution to the first question: A resting, healthy adult on an average, cool day breathes in about 53 liters of oxygen per hour. An average, resting, health adult breathes in about 500 mL of air per breath. This is called the normal tidal volume. Now, 150 mL of this air will go to non- functioning areas of the lung, called the "dead space." The average breath rate for this average person is 12 breaths per minute. So, the amount of air breathed in by the person which is available for use is 12 x (500 mL -150...

How much do YOU think a tree is worth?? And how does one measure the value and then convert the result to monetary terms? Here's one way..... When Sue Rostas, Communications Officer for the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project, received a letter from Carrington Public school student, Michael Wilson, it set her thinking. Michael asked what was the economic value of a tree. He suggested we assume a value of $1 a day for the amount of oxygen that a tree produces. A tree thus produces $365 worth of oxygen per year or a total of $36,500 over 100 years (and that's not allowing for inflation!) Sue wondered how close to the mark was this assumed dollar value. A few phone calls to Assoc. Prof. Tlna Offler, University of Newcastle, and Bill Nethery, State Forests of NSW, plus some library work revealed some startling but often overlooked facts about the true value of trees. Michael's assumption had in fact greatly underestimated the value of trees. The true value (considering on...

Recently I visited Mumbai and got a chance to see the Fort area from a bus. As the bus passed the statue of Lal Bahadur Shastri, I saw BEST buses coming into the square. The sight moved me to tears, because generations of people before me have seen these buses coming into the beautiful square. I cried because after seeing the buses I thought my country has become too old now. Do you also think, the country is too old?

I happen to be vegetarian by choice. I am aware that others around me have their own tastes and preferences. I do not comment on that. However I expect even non - vegetarians to respect animal life, though they may eat things that once moved around on their own. I was having dinner with colleagues once. One of my colleagues launched into a vivid description of marine fauna in cooked form. Another colleague joined the discussion. I got the impression that they were discussing seafood in a manner similar to how people discuss movies. There was a total lack of compassion and a complete ignorance of the fact that animals experience tremendous suffering when they are caught and killed. The occasion is seared into my memory, for the wrong reasons.