Posted by geetanjali on May 27, 2008 in
Uncategorized The title of the blog looks a little deceiving I know :)
I’ve been catching up with old school friends on Facebook for the past two days. It was nice to recall all the small memories from school. Then suddenly among all the nostalgia the enormity of the time that had passed after I left school struck me. It’s been 8 years since I left CJM Waverley (Mussoorie) but it still feels like yesterday. I can still recall small things like walking up the slope, sweating it out on the field for sports day and going shopping for friendship day.
There was this funny tradition or you may call it practice we followed as kids in school. We would make it point to write statements like ‘don’t forget to invite me for your wedding’ or dated till you get married in scrap books and friendship day cards. At that time it felt like eternity and now when I look around so many of my friends are engaged and all set to get married :) Then I think yes it’s really been that long… and time actually flies… :)
Posted by geetanjali on May 26, 2008 in
Uncategorized The Gujjar community in Rajasthan has been protesting for the past few days and the violent nature of the protests has already claimed more than 60 lives.
About a week or so back blasts rocked the pink city of Jaipur.
Both these incidents happened less than 250 kms from where I stay… But they don’t induce a sense of fear or insecurity in me anymore and not in anyone around me either. Have we become insensitive to the plight of others? Or, have such incidents become so commonplace that they don’t matter anymore? I don’t think we’ve become insensitive. We feel sad we do… but somewhere deep down we say ‘Thank God I wasn’t there.’
For news channels that are multiplying by the dozen, such incidents are ‘revenue.’ To some extent I think these news channels are responsible for inducing that element of insensitivity in the way they report these incidents. This reminds me of something I saw on a popular news channel and I realised that news channels had reached the peak of commercialization. Almost a week ago a 14-year old girl, Aarushi Talwar, was brutally murdered in her house and the murder has been shrouded in mystery ever since. Crime is something that evokes human interest without effort and crime news always has a ready audience. News channels went berserk reporting this incident covering every possible detail and drawing up every possible theory. However, this particular news channel (Star News) went ahead and actually made an ad based on this incident. The message of the ad was something along the lines of we bring you every detail of the Aarushi murder case the fastest!
It left me stunned.
Posted by geetanjali on May 20, 2008 in
Uncategorized I’m writing after a long time… a few weeks I guess :) A lot has happened in the past few weeks. Decisions taken, strategies rethought and tried to learn the art of living… :) I did the 6-day art of living course. I had heard a lot about the course, the out of the world experiences when people did the Sudarshan Kriya and the elevated feeling they were left with. I joined the course more out of curiosity than anything else and I guess somewhere inside me I was hoping I’d discover how to make my life more peaceful.
The first day was an introduction… just the first step. The second day was almost like a revelation. I did the Sudarshan Kriya for the first time and it was a wonderful experience. I wasn’t even aware I could feel the way I did. I felt alive for the first time in my life… I felt my breath, it’s rhythm and I realised how we take our lives for granted every single day. I felt eternity… felt it seeping through my body. I felt nothing existed… neither my body nor my mind. I could only feel and hear my breath…I felt I was slowly rising above the ground. I truly felt elevated…
But this feeling comes only after you near the completion of the Kriya. While doing the Kriya there comes a time when you feel you can’t take it any more and you want to stop. You feel your body and your mind giving away and you want to stop. But it pays to go on because the experience is worth it… and more.
Posted by geetanjali on May 1, 2008 in
Uncategorized It’s been so long since I connected with myself.
We get so caught up in ‘living’ that we forget the real purpose of our lives. It’s like a struggle to survive from one day to the next. The day begins with a
‘to-do’ list and ends with one too. But the surprising part is that we ourselves don’t figure on that list. I lost two and half hours of work today and the first thought that came to my mind was ‘I’ll miss today’s target !’ My eyes were and arms were hurting from the strain of having worked on the computer for more than three hours without a break but my only concern was my target.
The question is : Do I want my life to be a chronology of achievements? Or, do I want it to be an experience and have whole lot of memories to cherish 30 years down the line. Instead of happiness and peace do I want to measure the purpose of my existence by how much I achieve materialistically? Do I really want to lose myself and render my existence futile?
The answer is No. But the next question is : Is there a solution?