Girish's Blog

In 2009 I posted about what had changed in Bangalore in 10 years. It's now 2020 and time to write again about what has changed in the last 11 years.   So where are we in 2020? Let me compare with my expectations of 2009. I had written: Where will be in 2019 ? In Bangalore, I expect we will have better public transport, more disputes about water, children demanding better education, more private enterprise and lesser government in daily life. The Metro has come up in parts of the city, but the parts with the most traffic - BTM Layout to KR Puram does not have good public transport. Buses are infrequent, drive rashly and are unpredictable. Most large residential communities depend on water tankers to deliver water. The quality of education has not significantly changed since 2009. Children are still being thrust with the rote learning that we had hoped would end with our generation. There is more government in daily life and less accountability.   What else h...

 Searching for happiness in an e-commerce website  returns a never-ending series of books with views from businessmen, journalists, lawyers, academics, and monks. Many of them have been #1 bestsellers and then dropped into the long tail of the the cavernous warehouses waiting for someone to rediscover them. People not only want to read about finding happiness, they want to hear about it too - just search for Happiness on Spotify podcasts. The fact that every few months a new tome or podcast appears claiming to have the recipe for happiness, shows that each of the prior trailblazers have only addressed a small portion of the hunt for happiness, It seems that we are blindfolded, in the dark and searching for a object that we have not idea how it looks. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his seminal book, Flow: The Psychology of Happiness says:    “I shall argue that the primary reason it is so difficult to achieve happiness centers on the fact that, contrary to the myths manki...

The Bhagavad Gita, or the Song of the Lord, comprises of 700 verses from the Bhisma Parva section of the Mahabharata, which has around 100,000 verses - 0.7% of the great epic. To choose THE MOST IMPORTANT verses from this is an even tougher task, given that the entire scripture is the advice of Sri Krishna.  The best place to start is Sankara's masterly introduction to the Gita: Having created the cosmos and seeking to ensure its existence, the Lord brought forth in the beginning the Progenitors Marici and the rest. Then he imparted to them the Vedic law of works (pravritti). Later, bringing forth others like Sanaka and Sanandana, He imparted to them the law of cessation of work (nivritti) marked by knowledge and detachment. Indeed, the Vedic law making for the world's stability is two-fold: (i)embracing works )ii) embracing cessation.  This science of the Gita is the quintessence of all that goes under the name of the Vedas, but its sense is difficult to grasp. Many have stri...

The Hindu scriptures abound in lists, starting with the six changes that apply to every living being: 1. Birth 2. Subsistence 3. Growth 4. Maturity 5. Decline 6. Death The six internal enemies of mankind: 1. kāma (unbridled desire) 2. krodha (anger) 3. lobha (greed) 4. moha (delusion) 5. ahankāra   (pride) 6. mātsarya (jealousy) The fourteen qualities of a good character 1. Knowing about time and place 2. Fortitude 3. Endurance 4. Capacity to think of all consequences 5. Skill 6. Self-defence 7. Keeping one's counsel secret 8. Avoidance of pointless debates 9. Courage 10. Capacity to identify strengths and weaknesses 11. Faith 12. Sheltering those who seek refuge 13. Showing anger at the right time 14. Capacity to steadfastly pursue a course of action The  eight virtues characterizing intelligence, according to the Ramayana, are: 1. Attentiveness 2. Capacity to listen 3. Capacity to grasp 4. Capacity to remember 5. Ability to discrimin...

The lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus has meant that I've had some time to study some of the foundational texts of Indian philosophy. I started with the Bhagavad Gita, the text which was buried in the depths of the Mahabharata, until Sankaracharya, in the 8th century CE, extracted it and wrote a commentary on it in the light of the non-dualism of Advaita Vedanta. Chapter 2, the Yoga of Knowledge, starts with a rousing call:  O Partha! Yield not to unmanliness! It does not befit you. Shake off this petty weakness of the heart and rise up, O dreaded hero! This was one of Swami Vivekananda's favorite verses in the Gita. He says: If one reads this one Shloka —क्लैब्यं मा स्म गमः पार्थ नैतत्त्वय्युपपद्यते । क्षुद्रं हृदयदौर्बल्यं त्यक्त्वोत्तिष्ठ परंतप॥ — one gets all the merits of reading the entire Gita; for in this one Shloka lies imbedded the whole Message of the Gita. If you, my sons, can proclaim this message to the world — क्लैब्यं मा स्म गमः पार्थ नैतत्त्वय्युपप...

Unlike the marketing minds who were behind Kerala being called God's Own Country, Uttarakhand, which became the 27th state of India in 2000, was always known Devbhoomi - the land of the Gods. Some of the holiest places associated with Hinduism are located here. Badrinath and Kedarnath - places so ancient that even at the time of Adi Sankara they were well established as holy spots, the origins of the Ganga and Yamuna - which have economic and spiritual significance to the entire civilization that developed along its banks, Haridwar - famous for it's Kumbh Mela and Rishikesh which became a cultural tourist's hotspot after the Beatles visited and the caves where many of the scriptures of Hinduism originated - all all in Uttarakhand. Many of these temples are inaccessible for almost half the year because of their altitude and weather conditions. The roads, which are maintained by the Border Roads Organization, under the Ministry of Defence, needs constant care due to the fr...

My 8 km drive to work takes between 25 - 45 minutes based on the traffic and I typically spend this time listening to podcasts. This Monday morning commute had one of the most unusual podcasts I've listened to in recent times - Kara Swisher, who is known more for her tech pieces, talking to Hansa Bergwall, the co-founder of the WeCroak app on how reflecting on death five times a day results in increased happiness. According to Bergwall, the app is based on a Bhutanese saying: “To be a truly happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily.” The only thing the app does is pop up quotes that remind us of our mortality. This idea isn't new, but it became more widely known when Steve Jobs, in his much watched commencement speech at Stanford University , said: My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on ...

Just been listening to Michael Lewis's new podcast, Against The Rules . The first episode is about basketball referees and how although the quality of refereeing has increased over the last few years with the addition of video replays and an off-court referee providing a call in less than 30 seconds, player dissatisfaction against the referees has increased. Further analysis shows that, while referring has become more objective and accurate, it is the stars who are leading the confrontation against the new system - because the Rules Don't Apply to Us. A very similar story to what has been happening in India. With social media becoming more prominent, the established mainstream media has no way to push the stories that they used to do earlier and build their own narrative. The suspension of @TrueIndology on Twitter for busting many of the myths of the “secular” gangs is a reaction to this. But change is inevitable, and a new order will take the place of the old, where...

A technology or a civilization is judged based on the problems it is trying to solve. The Western world sought to address the big challenges of science which led to breakthroughs such as the Theory of Relativity and also double-edged technologies such as nuclear science. The big questions that originated in India were related to us, what happens to us in the universe we exist in and how we can transcend it. Most of Indian thought started with questions and we see this in almost all the scriptures. The universe is vast and our knowledge is limited. The 7th-century BC Greek poet Archilochus is famous for one line: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing", while in the Mundaka Upanishad, Saunaka asks " What is that, through the knowledge of which, everything becomes known? " In other words what is the one big thing? Humanity has always been puzzled by death, the transition to the unknown . In the Katha Upanishad, the young boy Nachiketa...

From the first poem in the world, Valmik's Ramayana, comes a template for what he defines as a perfect human being. Valmiki asks the following question to Narada Who, in this world, is a person: 1) of great qualities, 2) of great valor, 3) of acute discernment about right and wrong, 4) that appreciates, remembers and is grateful for the help received from everyone, 5) that stands by his word all the time, 6) and pursues his goals to their completion, unswervingly? Who is a man 7) of great character, 8) who always wishes and does good to all beings, 9) who is well read about all aspects of life, 10) who is capable of getting the most challenging things done, 11) who is also approachable, personable and pleasing to all alike, at all times? Who is a person 12) of exemplary courage, 13) in complete control of his temperament, 14) of great intellect, 15) that is unbiased and doesn't indulge in slander, 16) and whose displeasure would be taken note of by even ...

Day 3: 19 April 2016 We're woken up at 4:45 AM by a cacophony of bird calls outside our room. I step out and am struck by the glorious view of the Kanchenjunga with the morning sunlight falling on it. There are times when the camera and words cannot capture the enormity of what you're seeing and this was one of those moments. We clicked dozens of photos of the mountain emerging over the clouds. Reports have come that the road to Lachung is still blocked and we may not be able to proceed. We go for a walk in the town on Mangan as we wait for the work to progress. As the district headquarters, Mangan has many government offices, schools and even a post office (PIN code 737116). The "Special Branch" also has an office with a great view of the mountains. Football (the global one and not the the American version where players use their hands and wear helmets!)  has a huge following in Sikkim and we cross what is probably one of the most scenic football gr...

Day Two We're awake at 5:30 AM and it's bright daylight. Our first sight of Sikkim in the daylight shows a land bursting with greenery and flowers.     The valley is shrouded in fog. Occasionally the fog lifts to show glimpses of the mountainside. Everything we see is in  panoramic mode - sweeping hills, rolling clouds and the fog appearing suddenly shrouding the entire landscape in grey. Before we have breakfast, we go for a quick round of birding - there are Mountain Bulbuls, Oriental White Eyes and lots of Mynas. We have a breakfast of Alu Parathas with yogurt and pickle, some toast and marmalade and the teas for which North East India is famous. Our plan for the day is to leave after breakfast for the town of Lachung, in Northern Sikkim. Lachung is the gateway to the Yumthang Valley and Zero Point in Yumesamdong beyond. While it is just 129 km (80 miles) away, the uphill ascent and the bad roads mean that it would take us close to six hours to get ther...