The Indian Experience

I’m going to post on this blog a number of excerpts from my new book, Living and Working in India, which I co-authored with my best friend Ian Beadham. The book, a product of our visit to India in 2001, will ease the transition between Western and Indian cultures, giving a wealth of advice in terms of language, culture, lifestyle, education, health, housing, immigration, working practices and regulations.

Here’s one.
A typical Bollywood plot
At first, Indian movies may be a little difficult to appreciate, resembling western pantomimes and musicals as much as they do mainstream English language films. Often the characters’ qualities are well exaggerated, with sugary-sweet heroines, glaringly evil baddies and kindly mothers. Family values are paramount and typically a young man (who may be from a poor background) has to struggle to prove his worthiness for the hand of a girl whose rich parents disapprove of him. In the process Gods must be worshipped, villains must be vanquished, friendships and love triangles formed, and birthday parties may be held for children, with a sprinkling of funerals and weddings thrown in for good measure. The action may be set in a college, a historical setting, the criminal underworld of Bombay or an affluent western country, but the formula for a successful movie or ‘super-hit’ should not stray too far from these conventions. The one indispensable part of the equation is to include a number of catchy song-and-dance routines in the movie, with a beautiful heroine and a dashing hero (occasionally the hero may still sometimes be too old and overweight in a South Indian movie!).

The lions hug?!?!?

Here’s an interesting Video. I wonder what exactly is going on in that lions mind? Is it just being playful or is it really grateful for being rescued?

Are we projecting our thoughts, motivations and desires here? Do animals have complex emotions?

Change

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
-Anais Nin

Prisoners of our mind

We humans seek comfort zones in form of attachments, our pattern of thoughts, the way we see things, our delusions, our attitudes, masks we wear and the way we construct reality around us. As creatures of habit we begin to repeat these, we believe that life happens to us and we limit our own potential.

We view life from a cage, construct reality, see faults in others way of life, but fail to notice it in ourselves. We see others in a cage without realising that we ourselves are in a cage. We fail to look at ourselves from a distance.

We have become prisoners of our own mind. A prison created by our own irrational thoughts. In liberating ourselves from this prison lies our growth and happiness. This reminds me of Tagore’s wonderful poem:

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action–
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Cats and Blogs

I have just been informed that

1) there are internet regulations requiring all bloggers to post at least one cute cat picture and

2) there are cybercat patrols who regularly monitor the internet and if they find a blog ‘sans’ cat, they immediately suspend it until the offender post lots of cute pictures of cats.

Therefore, here’s a picture of Pushkin the Cat!!!!!

Just to be on the safer side. Here’s another cute picture of Pushkin. Enjoy!

What if?

This one is by Bruce Plante of Chattanooga Times Free Press. It made me laugh out loud. There are more cartoons on WGA strike at http://www.cagle.com/news/WritersStrike/main.asp Worth checking it out.

No Caffeine Induced Thoughts.

Today I am not able to write a blog because my local cafe is closed. I am completely lost without my usual cup of coffee.