Being A Stem Cell

Someone wrote to me today that I could have made a good lawyer. The source is highly credible, authentic and reliable. I have no reason to doubt it because in the past I studied law for one semester, read the Indian Penal Code and the Law of Torts, ranked 11th in the university examination and never renewed my registration.

Whatever the reasons – I have never regretted that choice and I do not want to offend my law-loving friends, so I focus on the idea behind the title of this note.

While I smiled at my friend’s comment about being a good lawyer, I also remembered a couple of others. Sometimes I realized or sometimes observers told me that I could have made a good this and a good that.

And I suspect that I am also fairly good at my current job. Al least I enjoy it.

What would I have made? A Lawyer, a story teller, a counselor, a cook, and more… so many options were standing before me at the tender age when I chose (or rejected) the discipline(s).

What’s important is not to KNOW PRECISELY what I can study because of the traits I possess, but it is about evolving into who I love to BE. And let me not be too starry-eyed, because sometimes what we become is a product of our circumstances, the influence of people around us, our capability to envision at that time, and so much more. So, instead of studying literature, or psychology, I end up being a business major.

That way, while reading today’s precious mail, I wondered if we do not continue to act like stem cells through at least some part of our life.

A Stem Cell is capable of evolving into a cell for highly specialized organs of our body – and likewise, we are capable of evolving into any/several  of multiple possible professional roles. In fact it is possible to enrich our lead professional role by adding to it the qualities of alternative professions – something that the stem cell cannot do once it chooses the organ. Like a cell in lever cannot work like a cell in an eye, I suppose. Also, a stem cell has some constrain on time or size when the promise of specialization disappears. In our life, the promise lives as long as we do.

Only thing is, we need to remember that we are a human stem cell and not the one of a machine, a monster, or a  race horse or a terminator and so on… I hope I remember!

Ram Leela Originals

The day before I left for home, my Masi- Mama- Mami had got together and our idle conversation had turned from the difference between two cultures into how things have changed in India itself. Someone mentioned entertainment and Ram Leela came up. I have never had the luck to watch one in its original form, but we doubled up laughing at learning what ‘original’s used to be in those towns while India was in the twilight zone of change.

Consider, for example, a scene where Seeta needs to be called on stage. The setting is something like, Ram and Sita in the jungle, Ram sees something fascinating, and calls for Seeta — “Seete! Seete! Come here and see this!” When Seeta does not appear I mediately, the calling continues. Then comes a shout from Seeta, ‘Arrey wait – let me finish this BIDI!!!’

Or, the scene where Hanuman is in the court of enemies and heated dialogue is going on. Suddenly Hanuman says, ‘hey, wait – I need to fix this petromax’ and saying that, he begins to pump up the device for more intense light.

In one more instance, mid-show it was declared that someone had announced that he would be donating money to support the Ram Leela shows. Following that announcement, the war cry of the Vaanar Sena were, not Shri Ram ni Jay, but Jivan bhai ni Jay!!!

And finally, the shocker- in the scene of Seeta Haran, Ravan comes over to grab Sita. He does not find her in the hut, because the artist who was playing the character of Seeta had left abruptly or was not appearing for some reason. someone shouts from back stage, ‘Sita is not there, wait’, and the Ravan says, ‘Lakshman will do’ !!!!!

Have not seen a Raam Leela live? no problem – but if you want to know India, you must know what it CAN be like!!!

Rains, Access and World Class Institutions

How do you get to the shop?

 

I was trying to reach the N**** center this morning. I Would not waste a lot of time, since that company cares for and protects it’s customer.

Then I approached the building where the store is located.

What do I see?

Your customer friendly company might be located such that you don’t have to commute far in order to reach them. But are they really accessible?

The company that you patronize might be offering customer care, might educate and support you in taking good care of your product. It might also be helping you safeguarding the environment by collecting the old products that you want to recycle.

But are YOU safe as you access your destinations?

I believe that customer care, safety and accessibility are not merely technical and architectural issues.

They are about the collective notions we have about who customer is, how important customer is to us and how we want to take care of the customer.

These notions are not only defined by the culture alone. If that was the case, a Swedish company would extend it’s Swedish values of customer care universally, and an American architect or planner would extend American values of design and accessibility to all countries he worked in.

These issues are essentially institutional.

Granite, but cracked: They don't expect oversized guests!

What kind of institutions we create and maintain will define what will be their processes and outcomes.

Unless the local institutions do not feel the need to recognize accessibility and safety, it would not be a part of norms, then the norms would not be enforced and so – don’t be surprised if one fine morning you break your bones trying to get to a world class vendor.

Full range of world class service and full benefit of world class features of your products requires world class norms – grown anode maintained at home.

 

Either/Or, or This-And??

Thinking continues..

As soon as I clicked the word “Publish” on the previous entry of describing self, I had more questions than the degree of satisfaction that should have arisen since posting.

Is changing really between either-or? When we choose to be, do we choose between the either-or?

When we adopt a new choice, do we cease to be who we were a moment ago and relinquish all the meaning and being associated with it?

The answer is No.

Either-or sort of things are just one, simple, limited and dramatic portion of life. Or, say life keeps giving us options that sound like either-or, and we feel hard pressed choosing one of the two.

A great amount of life occurs in the state between, and including BOTH ends, and telling life that you want both not one.

Life essentially is THIS-AND.

Coexistence of two opposite-or absurd-sounding states, preferences, qualities, activities actually makes life full, rich, exotic, complete and meaningful. Striving to accommodate that contrast adds flavor to life and leaves us enriched after each such feat – whatever field it might be.

No wonder, it is tough – but that makes the life so livable!! Dictionary would have called this paradoxical. But that is the essence of life..

Describe Yourself and You Change

It is shocking and I am not able to overcome the tremors I got from realizing this – well, sort of. It’s not a new idea, but to me it came recently.

I understood that every time you describe yourself, you change. More so, if you  have a couple of alternative metaphors for describing yourself.

Say you have been immersed into a case study for nearly two years now. The case facts, the iterations with related literature, discussion with experts.. everything has a role to play and the focus sharpens. In this state, sometimes it looks like an insight has emerged.

That experience of emerging insight is so energizing, even when it is not clear whether what you saw is really an insight or a fantasy. All you know is that you have seen something. It can be so exiting – it creates a surge of euphoria.

Just like there are cycles of negativity where each iteration takes one down, the positive cycles give a feeling of going up with each one.

How does one understand this and prepare to respond? Is whatever is happening, for real, or is it an outbreak of a manic side of you, tempting you to see great promise where none exists??

How do you choose to describe the surge of creative energy within you?

A pragmatic response is, ‘Be careful! This is a power surge. Remember we have anti-surge equipment in office? Our equipment cannot take spikes of power and get damaged.’ (so, eliminate the surge or muffle it somehow.)

Another view is, to wonder if these are sparks that lighten up the night sky, splashing incredible beauty around and make all the lifetime of non-spark moments worth living because they bring you finally face to face with the, the moment.

If that is how you choose to think of that moment, you would relish it, want more of it and do things that bring those moments again and again, or create them in different realms of existence.

Same event, but conceptualize it one way and you will respond to it in an exactly opposite way from another way of conceptualizing the same you, same thing happening to same you in the same life…

Isn’t it amazing?

Apsaras And All Their Forms

Anyone who has read the mythological stories from our country would be familiar with the role Apsaras played in the making (and unmaking) of great stories.

Apsaras were artists of great finesse and incredible looks. Usually they danced, sang and played instruments in the court of Indra – the king of the Gods.

Occasionally Indra also entrusted a task which extended much beyond the usual call of their duty. They were ordained to descend to earth, perform before a person pointed out by Indra and distract him. And that was to be no ordinary distraction – it had to be so powerful as to sway that man from the path of research or a project he had undertaken, which, if successful, would weaken the power of Indra.

The problem of women researchers and entrepreneurs seems to have been solved by mortal men themselves by creating a male dominated society where women are not even allowed to discover their full potential beyond progeny and dependence. If there were male counterparts of the fabled Apsaras, men would not have liked to document their existence and activity since it might suggest that they were not capable of keeping their women ‘in control’.

Anyway. The famous men who fell to the charm of Apsaras include Vishwamitra, whose distraction is attributed to Urvashi – luckily for us readers, it led to Kalidasa’s famous, beautiful “Abhigyaan Shakuntalam” – which is what got me to think about Apsaras some time back.

I believe Apsaras exist. Even now. I have met them.

But when I did, they were not in their human form, whether male or female.

I have been working hard on my studies these days. What happens when my desire to study is confronted by an opportunity to travel to exotic places, like the Victoria Falls? A proposed journey like that re-invoked my childhood memories of the vivid, amazing accounts written by David Livingston, a missionary. I read those as translated in Gujarati, published monthly in the issues of a children’s magazine.

The description of incredible beauty whose equivalent does not exist in one’s own country, the tropical conditions in which the travel took place, whose equivalent was never experienced by the explorer in his own country,my own childhood curiosity – they all made such valuable impressions on me – they stick to me closer than my skin does, I believe.

So now I had ten days’ trip dancing before me and then there was my library and writing routine. What should I have done?

It was Kalidas who helped me with the story of Vishwamitra.

Who says Apsaras are only in human form? They exist in the form  of tantalizing imagery, opportunities and possibilities, alternatives and what not.

When they dance, they put the resolve of the strongest-willed ever also to tough test.

What was I to do? I needed to tell my self what really mattered to me at that moment. Not to that form of me who was carrying baggage of unfulfilled wishes and desires, but me in today, and to my judgment of what was most meaningful thing to do in the current phase in my life.

Today another extension led to me ask: who says that these Apsaras have to be beautiful?

If someone rubs me in the wrong way, is that so overpowering that I allow my thoughts to sway from what I really need to think and feel and get preoccupied by the reactivist material?

No.

Apsaras exist.

They tempt men as well as women.

They can take any form – charmingly attractive and seductively ugly.

That is life. Not mythology.