Magic Moments

The last Friday, I was there to welcome the Sun and bid him goodbye.

The Sun was rising but the moon stayed back. As if hanging around to bid goodbye before leaving to the other side of the planet.

Sometime we need to pause and look around. There are so much beauty in our everyday life.

What does your brain say!

This post is not about bio science although you might have such a feeling and that's a disclaimer.

The brain which is the command center for our nervous system is the most complex object in the universe and the good news is that we all possess one inside our skulls. 100 billion neurons link to one another in a complex but a unique pattern within the lump of fats and proteins. The scientists and neurologists are still at the beginning of unraveling the incredible power of the human brain.

The brain has the power to learn new languages, perceive beauty and remember tens of thousands of individual bits of information. Human brains can also achieve amazing results by easily joining the dots even if there are some dots missing. Our brains can make out the objects, a person’s face or a sentence in a language of our average proficiency.

Let’s take the sentence above as an example. How many of us would not be able to decipher it meaningfully! But this is just a simple one sentence, whereas you have come across entire paragraph in the past with misspelled words and still managed to read it on the fly...without pausing for a moment. 

This is because we have given total autonomy to the brain and it determines the entire sentence based on the limited information based on past experience. Habituation is what brain does when it sees the same old thing day after day. In such situation the brain economizes on the attention and this is the strength of humankind.

But the challenge is to make proper use of the power of the brain as uncontrolled use could also turn out to be its greatest weakness.

We are usually prejudiced based on a few visible traits or characteristics. He looks like this therefore he will behave like that or she is dressed that way hence she is of that particular type. We ourselves have experienced similar situations in the past or often heard our friends and colleagues making such comments.

This is where we need to be rational with our thoughts. Life is full of wonders and wonderful things will happen whenever we keep our mind open and pay attention to what happens around us. We will have better understanding of our world, make new friends and probably develop new lasting relationships.

We have to remember that there is nothing in a caterpillar that tells us that it will become a butterfly. The sentence on the top could well be this without our prejudice.

Jammikunta... a daily pause for a cause

Our motherland is as diverse in its customs and practices as it is with individual and collective social values. Some people despise others’ patriotic or nationalistic fervor. Despite staying outside for two decades, I am on that side of the fence where people cherish these values and naturally the news about Jammikunta gave me a pleasant feeling.

Jammikunta is situated in Karimnagar district, about 140 km from Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana. Life comes to a halt every day at 8 a.m. as people pause for a minute to sing the national anthem. This has become a daily routine of the people in this sleepy town since 15 August 2017, following an initiative by a local police inspector.

After many centuries of subjugation by foreign invading forces, I strongly feel there is a need for a nationalistic approach to reclaim our lost identity. Without a strong identity, I am afraid there will be no we tomorrow but for our shadows.

At this point someone might bring the statement made by the great English writer Samuel Johnson’s statement to the table as a counter argument.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

The context of this comment is unknown so we don't really know for sure what was on Johnson's mind at the time. His friend and biographer, James Boswell however, assures that when Johnson made this famous pronouncement, he referred only to false patriotism. As for Boswell’s credentials, his biography of Samuel Johnson, is commonly said to be the greatest biography written in the English language.

I am optimistic that as respect grows, we shall evolve as a stronger as individuals as well as civic societies. 

Jammikunta, showing the way

There I am...

Today we were strolling on a park as the Sun was leaving for the day. My wife's phone camera came handy to capture this magic moment as I left mine inside the car. There I am ready to feed my Instagram account after a very long gap.

I thought it is a good idea to introduce myself through my various social media existence. My Instagram account is sumandebray and I post photos taken  exclusively with my phone's camera. It will be a pleasure if friends from my blogsphere  comes along and joins me, I shall be a follower too. I not particularly interested in individuals who have thousands of followers while they follow a handful....in other words, I stay away from the celebrities.

My Twitter handle is @Sumandr and I am already connected to some of you.

Then there is the professional social media that I am part of as well. This is the linkedIn and you may find me here. You are invited to come and be part of my network.

A few screenshots from Instagram page.

Our World’s Toothpaste Moment

There was a campaign to convince the companies that cardboard packaging for toothpastes were a complete waste. Being one of the most common household product in everybody’s life Toothpaste have a huge multiplier. After all this product used at the least once a day by old, young and everyone in-between.   

A few days back we bought a promotional pack of three toothpaste and it’s unfortunate that we were given 3 cardboard boxes while we desired none. It’s a fact of life that most of us will discard the boxes into the bin without a second looks.

There are no doubts that by changing this habit, a substantial amount of burden on our world will be reduced.

Don’t get me wrong, I very well understand the significance of packaging and am not advocating to deprive consumer of this experience. I shall never forget remember my experience of unpacking my Tissot watch. Back in then, it was a luxury product for me long before I learnt later that it doesn’t qualify to be one. The velvet lined wooden box had the central chamber for the watch, a drawer in the lower part housed the user manual, while an independent slot was allocated for the warranty card.

There are other products for which the unpacking experience has got high intrinsic values. Some of the toys for children, particularly those for girls, values a lot for packaging. My daughter typically loves to unpack her toy in front of the camera and post them in her YouTube channel.

But these are not everyday products like a toothpaste or a shaving cream. I do not believe anyone has the time to enjoy the unpacking experience of these basic necessities. Why do we need them in that case?

I propose to start a campaign to leave the box of toothpaste and saving creams at the super market after the checkout. A message to the manufacturer that we do not need those.

Are you going to join me!

fair trade & modern day slavery

The other day I took my daughter for her choir practice where they meet two or three times every week to rehearse for an hour. I was strolling in the school corridor looking at various displays, notices and bulletin boards while they were busy inside.

The fourth graders of this Swiss school had prepared a bulletin board based on their self-research and it was very impressive. I am glad that I stood there for few minutes as it made feel more about the plight of the farm workers. Being enlightened early in life about “Fair Trade Practices”, I am optimistic that these children will grow up to be a more socially responsible generation.

They have noted down the following for the banana plantation workers who gets the lowest reward for their efforts as per the banana split.

• Work for 14 hours a day in harsh weather conditions
• Have poor working condition
• Spray fertilizers and pesticides
• Cut down the bananas
• Carry heavy loads of bananas for washing
• Wash the bananas
• Cannot usually join a union

Banana Plantation is only an example but disparity exist in all types of export oriented trade, be it farming or manufacturing. The incident of Rana plaza in Bangladesh in 2013, had shocked the entire world but there are still thousands of other businesses where workers continue to endure hardship to maximize profits.  

I looked up on the Wikipedia for information about Fair trade. Fair trade is an institutional arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve better trading conditions. The philosophy and the core principles are very good. However, what is lacking is its implementation on ground. Licensing unfortunately doesn't help the farmers much, although it provides significant marketing advantage for the business owners.        

Fair trade is grounded in three core beliefs:

1. Producers have the power to express unity with consumers.
2. The world trade practices that currently exist promote the unequal distribution of wealth between nations.
3. Buying products from producers in developing countries at a fair price is a more efficient way of promoting sustainable development than traditional charity and aid.

Being a part of the CIOB, we take sustainable construction development very seriously. Construction is by far the largest industry in this world and we ensure that the supply chain selection process is rigorous. The message to the manufacturers is clear and unambiguous. Exploitation of their workforce will not be tolerated.

Will you be joining hands to stop this modern day slavery!  

Lives that Inspire us through books

This week Indi-blogger inspires us to ponder whether “we think inspiration books are really useful?”

I need to get the ambiguity out of my way and therefore the first question I ask myself is “How do we define the genre Inspirational Books in this context”?  Let me adopt the simplistic path and consider those to be a subsection of wide variety of inspirational literature that are promoted aggressively by the marketers.

Let me start with the books that made their authors not only very famous but rich as well. This genre include books like following along with their prequels and sequels.

• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Think and Grow Rich
• You Can Win

I believe those became bestsellers for a reason and that being marketed differently. People have either fallen for celebrity endorsement, followed their peers or impulsively got motivated to buy it. As we understand sales make books a best seller while reading those doesn’t. Reading would have got them "The Man Booker Prizes" or something similar!

I am quite sure we will be shocked if know how many proud owners of these, actually managed to travel cover to cover or for that matter crossed the halfway mark.

My repeated attempts of motivating myself to foray into the depth of those, whether thick or thin has failed and story of my peers were not too different. Me and my friends by the virtue of being average people with ordinary brought-ups, occupy the mid region of the bell curve of population’s standard statistical distribution.

The exceptional occupy the spaces in the fringes and they managed to derive great mileage by competing the books. They shinned brighter than we average souls while others excelled and went on to create more of such inspirational books. The picture is captured well in the info-graphic.

Info-graphic 

Maybe the question is “if books that inspire people are really useful?” The would be a thumping YEAS.

Books that narrates stories of real men and women with lot of empathy, really inspires us. The story of Robert Bruce and the spider, I can vouch has inspired generations to keep trying and never to give up till we succeed. It’s the book on Gandhi’s life that taught every human being to be the change that they want to see. (Really! It Did?)

The life of Nelson Mandela taught us that “the greatest glory in living lies not in falling, but in rising every time we fall” and when we are faced with an uphill task, we hear the whisper “it always seems impossible until it’s done.”

During his lifetime, Steve Jobs has been a phenomenon of innovation and endurance which we knew without reading his biography. In his end, Jobs inspired us not to fear death with his final words “OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.” Which in my view is quite similar to Om Shanti. Om Shanti. Om Shanti.

P.S. there are many souls that inspires us and built our characters. There are no particular reason why I selected some over other although there is a definite reason why I did not mention the holy books or religious scriptures.

It’s true that stories within every religion inspires their practitioners like no other but I did not want my argument to be constricted by personal beliefs.

And finally please do not pay much attention to my info-graphics, it’s made up to drive the message home.