Experiments with Water...

1. The depth called soul seen in the eyes- There are two pair of eyelids (red lashes and blue lashes). So its like opening another layer of the eye. Symbolically I have also intended the whole eye (shape) and the conch like symbolism (the pupil) to depict what the conch represents in hinduism- luster, brilliance, purity and auspicious beginning. It is also blown to announce arrival of a diety etc..So it is a double symbolism. The portion below the Eye, I intended to look like a mountain (..seated high up). I liked Fhers interpretation too- the All seeing Eye of Horus as it seemed to form the triangle. Depicting a concept in "Painting" I felt had the advantage of often touching the similar concepts of all societies
2. A tarred road through the thick forest-This was what I thought for the cover of my book if ever published...The Thick forest representing doubts. The road through doubts, tarred so that seeds of doubt would never take root on it, even if there might fall shadows (of doubt).And again as Fher added his perspective..A road Going to the Right...
3. Cosmic Dance- I am glad that both my abstracts were very well recieved along with the landscapes. This one "Cosmic Dance" symbolises the unity of the concept of WORD/Logos and Aum, the vibration through which all things were created. A-U-M :- Creation- Sustenance- destruction, Alpha-omega, Beginning- Middle- End. In the painting, the 'Chandrabindu' of Aum represents the eyes and Nostrils. The nostrils breathing out the word-AUM which, creates (right hand symbols) sustains (centre breath or lungs) and destroys (left hand symbolism). The cyclic movement of hands depicts the cycle of creation sustenance and destruction.All colours have been used, to show everything emerges from nothing just like all colours emerge from white light" The Forever and Ever Cosmic Dance..
4. The Red tree by the Lake- Its simply my love for the Water bodies and Nature,..and my desire to capture the translucent effect of water colour. Lack of professional training in mediums is an impediment though and water colour is not my forte, though water is quite a convenient medium to make a quick work, whereas oil is a bit lengthy work. Oil is the medium to use if the concepts in mind are half baked, the picture in mind is not totally clear while starting the painting which is often my state of mind while doing abstracts (so I did try to be as clear in mind as possible for me with art, before doing these). But I am glad and encouraged that still, all four were well received in the arty circles! ...

The First love...Oil

My Old Paintings from college days, on the walls (Oil)

The top one is Angels symbolising Love, faith and hope, depicting the verse "And Now Abideth Love Faith Hope these Three.."1 Corinthian 13:13. It is tough to have an unclear picture in mind and proceed with it. It takes long to become clear in mind and in canvas. Even now almost a decade from when i first painted it I would still want to work at it and I would have, had it not been nailed in frame...

The second one is My View of Baby Jesus and Mother Mary, Looking directly at us. Most paintings have them looking down or elsewhere and I used to feel their eyes should be on us looking with love and care..Eyes were my focus and I feel they look on in love; and it is my personal favourite.

The third one is the favourite in the family.Oil on Hardboard. Its quite a big one as I had a desire for huge nature paintings on the wall. I had painted from a picture which to me had conveyed feelings as Fher put it "A kind of seclusion, Oneness with self, with nature." I dont know how Fher came upon the words that had not even formed in my mind but rather I had just felt something like that... A Meditation in beauty and wilderness.....

Truth hurt me (Lament)

Whoever said truth is good
Honesty a virtue..
Didnt see me, didnt know me
How truth hurt me..

Whatever said from my heart
was not argued
it went like a thorn and came back at me
Why! truth hurt me!

Am I loved for my truth
not for long
truth often bitter, hurts, hate me
My truth hurt me

Angels Carry Petrol!

I was coming back from work when over the flyover my scooty slowed down. I thought maybe it was having its usual problems even after the recent repair. It went a small distance and then just stopped and to my horror I discovered that actually the petrol was over. Why didn’t I notice the petrol, I cursed myself and considered my options. The nearest pump was a good 15 minutes drive from here. Surely I cant drag the scooty till there! The only option was for my husband to bring me a bottle of petrol. A minimum of 2 hours lost I thought and I had just moved four paces with the intent to drag the scooty down the flyover, when I noticed a Man on an Activa coming from the front heading right towards me! He stopped near me and asked. “You are out of petrol? I will give u.” I was amazed! It really looked like somebody sent him. I was reminded of a scene in one of Paulo Cohelo’s books in which the author speaks about angels coming in human form to help during the most dire of circumstances. I began wondering how he is going to give me petrol and watched as he took out a bottle half filled with petrol! Now it really seemed like someone sent him!“Take enough to last till the nearest pump” he said.
“Do you always carry petrol!” I asked surprised. I offered him money for the petrol but he refused. “I am so indebted how can I thank u”. I wondered aloud. He just took his bottle nodded and went off..in the direction from which he had come! Now the haze cleared in my head. So he had crossed me and had come back wondering if it was petrol I needed!!! Hmm…yet it is very low in probability that someone carrying petrol should be passing by you just when you run out of petrol.
To me he will always be “The angel who carried petrol...”

PS- I neared the service road to the pump and was afraid I might not make it, what with an unprecedented block around the entrance to the road. I managed through to the service road and it cleared as I reached the pump. As I got the petrol filled, I looked back at the main road... It was a Jam Pack! I would really have lost more than an hour in that block! I realized that the events of the day had rather... saved me time!!

…Sometimes favourable things come under terrorizing disguises....!!!

School...of Good Hope

The other day few of us, parents, were talking about the cost of education in our times. It ranged from free, to Rs 15 per month to Rs 30 per month. How the times have changed… educational institutions are now synonymous with money……"expense” to most and “making more” to some select few. Today the Mexican grass on the school lawn, the exotic food in the canteen is advertised to impress parents to empty their pockets. And guess what, it actually works!

I was talking yesterday with a former principal of a school and in a matter of time I was telling her my short experience with teaching seven years back and how frustrated I feel about the education scenario. I was telling her what I feel is required to better the situation and discussed the economics of incorporating it.

That economics should not be important in the education field cannot be justified in today's context; as Money is a priority for all private enterprises and THAT cannot be changed and better be accepted. And yet some of the consumerism plaguing schools should be removed as it goes against the very things schools are to teach like "reducing resource wastage"!. In olden times there was optimum resource utilization  In today's times Bags, Uniform, 'Adidas' white shoes, stationary and books have to be brought from the school every year.Often after giving a bag, the school wants the parent to buy smaller bags for the little kid so no one questions the load they carry! That's one time I have felt the house is full of bags; like from old schools, new school and bags as promotional gifts from consumers stores but not one to carry to school. I also wonder if there is still the concept of using old books of the elder sibling or senior students in a posh school? How many trees are we cutting, and how much resources are we wasting  to write "SAVE TREES, DON'T WASTE RESOURCES"?

 Now more on the current filthy scenario

1. Education today is not focused on bettering the standards of education but rather is focused on making money for the private owners of the institution.


a. Schools are often marketed very well but it all turns out to be a flashy crust over a highly rotting inners where a teacher in a class does not even last for more than three months (yup despite the one year bonds). One teacher lasting one year has become rare in most schools, then what can be assured about the teaching standards of a school where there are not even good, experienced, stable teachers to show off? Is the expensive grass on the lawn and the canteen food enough for the child’s development?

c. Freshers into the teaching field are loaded with as many classes possible and even classteachership (associated are meaningless paper works and record keeping) when it is well understood that loading thus would lead to lesser preparation time for each class. .(Believe me even with four hours of sleep a fresh teacher cant spare an average of 20 minutes of preparation time per period a day under the above scenario) "Teaching well" definitely does not seem to be the aim when "preparation" time is not given importance while assigning the load! The aim rather seems to be to squeeze the very life out of the teacher for the expense she is incurring on the institution in the name of a comparative pittance of a salary. And I am not much wrong in generalizing this to most schools as I confirmed from the discussion with the former principal. This is true for most schools and things are no better today than seven years back.

c. Teachers are loaded like a donkey but compared to their work their pay stays unremarkable (also compared to other less stressful professions). There was long back an article in a paper that most of the heart patients admitted in hospitals are teachers. I can believe that. My short tryst with teaching left me convinced that only someone who has no better option would want to teach under the current load scenario.

2. Bettering options for the scenario without causing a dent in the money making. Money is important agreed, but there are also possible ways of earning it by first just aiming to make for a happy teacher

a. A fresh teacher should be given less classes and facilitate a scenario where the teacher can devote atleast two hours of preparation time for each 45 minute or one hour class. When the teacher has perfected her basic subject and arrived at an appropriate teaching style in the first year, she can be slowly assigned other frill and froth work like classteachership or even more classes. The economics of this is that more breathing space would make for contented teachers who don’t run away breaking even the one year bond and thus save the school the stress of teacher hunting after every two months.

b. Facilitating the appropriate environment to hone teaching skills in the first year of a fresh teacher and making for contented teachers would lead to stable experienced teachers in a school and a good name for the school without the need for expensive marketing strategies and loads of lies. A little bit of freedom and flexibility should be allowed to the teacher, rather than deciding how the teacher should do the job (directions like -the teacher should make notes and dictate the notes, finish course by October, revise in the remaining months, apart from this,of course do what u want in the class…!!REALLY? Where now remains the time per class to do what the teacher may want to do? In fact all the inflexible directions mentioned,are a pressure to ensure conforming rather than allow creative teaching) There can be deadlines and directions but there should not be inflexibility and absolute lack of trust in the teacher's own discretion and decisions.

c. In the end having contented teachers would mean requiring more teachers per subject or even class, but I don’t think it would mean more expense to the institution over time for the institution as in the long run it has to be good bargain with a good name that requires no expensive marketing and lesser stress and expense of recruiting teachers all through the year which I feel could add up to the same increment in expense as incurred to the institution by salary increments to a stable teacher over the years. (Expense in advertising for new teachers and possibly having to offer better pay scale to draw in a good teacher after every other term or year)

The former principal realized how frustrated I felt.  She agreed that my points had base but her question was who will bell the cat? Only someone who would stick the neck out and start a school because it is not the principal who decides how the school runs but the management. Moreover why would the Management try out this change when the old system is working very well in getting in the Moolah.

Maybe somebody someday would have time and patience to try out, calculate and confirm what I am suspecting…that it would be more economical if the above changes are incorporated. Till someone with enterprise does actually bell the cat, there is still something we can do as Parents to encourage good schools. That is, as parents, do not fall for advertising gimmicks-Old School, Reputed School, Flashy attractive school prospectus. (Yes, keep in mind-almost every lofty thing fanned in front of you about a school can be ascribed to mere gimmicks) So look for schools which though may be bad in their marketing, do have stable teachers who are also known to be the best and try getting kids into such schools first before trying for any other. Another thing we fall for is the belief that higher the fee of the school, the better it is, and schools cash in on that delusion. Rich and middle class parents should avoid falling into this trap and all of us should encourage the schools of substance rather than those with well bred marketing strategies. This if practiced by all who have an excess of cash to spend, in the long run could force school managements to change their tactics and bring change 'where it matters' to draw the money minters. Till someone within the institution does bell the cat…, it's for now up to all rich parents out there to bring the change we want for our kids. They deserve a better view of schools as we had...A view we miss so badly today

Evolution, a tool in creation (compilation of a discussion)

There is an arguement that favours evolution as the creator and excludes God. Science and explanations, I feel often makes naive minds blind towards the heart of matters, it makes one believe that anything explainable is science and only if not explainable is devine. How exactly does science try to explain the term divine? "That which human mind cannot explain?" Just because evolution can explain creation, is it necessary that there is nothing devine about the process of evolution

I have wondered why most animals dont seem to have the problems that humans have. The most potent example is of how they dont need a doctor to deliver their babies. How do they deliver three four babies without a difficulty! They are perfect reproductive systems. I have been having a discussion which made me think through this and conclude that our interference with nature's elimination of the unfit is responsible for it. Evolution would have eliminated the defective body type but science and surgery made those gene pools survive. It is the will, the prayer, the spirit of man that found answers to how to save the ineffective reproductive systems...in anasthesia, in operations. Why is there these defects that cause death? I would like to point out that death is a required purpose of nature to keep the population under optimum levels. It hurts mans emotions but overpopulation hurts more eventually to the natural system. There is thus also a purpose and an end to the defects and it does seem evolution is a tool of the designer God where defects control population (rather than a separating argument that evolution cannot be divine).As a priest recently very correctly answered his own ponderings of how there can be grief in some very religious families. He asked -'is there anyone who has had only grief in life? Is there anyone who has had only joy in life? Life has both joy and grief and it has to be accepted as such.'

Now to that we may ask then is there no mercy? Infact all around we can see mercy as well. Nature makes perfect by selection of the best but god is merciful on the imperfect too. Mans spirit found answers to how to cut across evolutions elimination and perfection streak. Mans spirit dived into the devine consciousness where everything is possible. All man has been able to create is not by his complex body but he willed it first in his mind and powered it with his spirit. He found answers on how to save lives that could have been lost to their imperfections,found out how to make survival of the unfit possible..That is God's mercy. You might try to turn a cover of a Jam bottle without an aid but sometimes it is easier to do with a lever. God for some works uses Man as the lever. All complex machines that God created are also tools created for finer works. Man is a tool that God created to work out some other tricks, like working against Gods own created 'nature's natural selection system', like to make a world (we call civilization) where there is not always that fear of the predator as is in the wild etc etc.(Have u seen how a wild animal always lives a life of fear from the predator, from the forces of nature..How many times do we experience fear in our civilised living away from the wild in safe houses? We have so got used to the life of no fear that we forget that living in fear is an actual everyday part of life of the living being in the wild. Could that be why men often seek out thrills and intense experiences,instincts of a wild past?)
The spirit works with and without the body. It is naive to argue that only a body can create. Even a Human body, a designer of things is nothing without its spirit. It is the spirit of man that creates not merely its complex body. Can a dead complex body create? In that respect it may not be a complex system called body that creates things but rather a 'simple system or in other words spirit' creates things through the complex system called body too just as the spirit creates even without it.

Can then mans mind be trusted in its faith in a creator God that he cannot see, that is a mind without a body? Can we trust the mind not to be delusional?

It is true that mind may some times be deluded but it is also true that mind cannot easily be deluded. How can we call 60 percent of humanity deluded because it believes in God? It is highly improbable that so many people would be deluded about one thing. I believe that if the mind does not accept all suggested answers but is definite about one inborn answer, the existence of a certain power that designed everything then the mind need not be distrusted, for the mind is not easily deluded, just as saying it is hot when it is actually cold is not comforting, religion or the concept of a creator God cannot comfort either unless there is some truth to it.

For example why does the mind often believe in a 'certain future' just because of dreams interpreted as premonitions. What is the explanation of confidence in it and what is the explanation when it actually comes true? For the self it may be considered as a self fulfilling prophecy but what when it is related to humanity on a large scale? In "Times Life" there was an article on premonition which gave many stories of how incidents like the Tsumani in Japan, the twin tower being hit by a plane was predicted or dreamt about…"Texas physician Dr Larry Dossey, in his 1989 book ‘Recovering the Soul’, mind introduced the concept of “nonlocal mind”- mind unconfined to the brain and Body, mind spread infinitely through space and time" According to him premonition was a built in feature in man. Premonition is possible in any person some may be more aware than others. People are confident about its meaning and warn others of whom they saw the premonition for example while a person was in an auto she got a call from a friend to get out of the auto....Unheeded she had an accident immediately afterwards. There must be some reason why a mind is confident of certain messages it gets regarding the future.

Then does mind's outreach also include a very distant past too as can be understood in the concept of a non local mind? March 2, 2011 paper had an article on 'well known tales from bible which could have a basis in science'. One among them I found particularly noteworthy. It is related to the question of "do we have a common anscestor in Eve?" ...as follows

"In his book ‘River out of Eden’, zoologist and atheist Richard Dawkins used a complicated mathematical model to work backwards through our DNA geneology, saying, “ there has to be a woman of whom this claim can be made. The fact that she did live in some place and at some time is certain. So to the extent that Eve is our common ancestor, even the Godless believe she existed."

The originator of the story about eve as the first woman, mother of all mankind had definitely no idea that it could be proved scientifically, but somehow it was told as a truth to be believed in. What made the mind confident of its truth? It seems possible that mans nonlocal mind can be aware of the distant past just as it can be aware of the future. Its an obvious conclusion...
We can conclude then that mind exists not only in the body but also non locally extends outside the body and it can be inferred from the above discussion that it extends to the future and to the past, which in fact would mean it is timeless! Isn't that what we think is God?

One Faithful Friend

Some times the experiences in church can be truly moving! I arrived in church a bit late. The sermon was going on. "You must help when you see people who are in need." 'Oh yeah' I thought as just the night before I had commented to my friend on facebook that it is dangerous to have a good heart and one had better hide it!
"But Jesus never said you wont have troubles" continued the priest. "He would give you strength to handle the troubles of each day and he has said not to worry about tomorrow as each day has enough troubles of its own. Just don't tire of doing good."

I was mellow now but was thinking, 'What's the use anyway of any good we do, any advice we give? It doesn't seem to be interesting to anybody.'
"Many people left Jesus saying that his teachings are too hard." continued the priest."Jesus was also insecure and asked his disciples, 'Will you also leave me?' He also said, 'When I come again will I find any faith?' Jesus even felt isolated from God while on his cross and cried to Him, 'Why have you abandoned me'. It is important that we rise above our anxieties and ask God in prayer '..protect us from all anxiety...'

The priest seemed to be answering my thoughts. I had been waking up many mornings feeling very anxious and uneasy. From a spate of experiences with a number of people, I had really formed a strong belief that it was bad to be good as the good seem to be considered 'the weak' and taken advantage of. Also there usually never has seemed to be an acknowledgement or awareness of the good done but often the good was returned with bad or even abandonment especially when you were in need.

What happened in church was totally unexpected and as the mass ended there was the song, "I just keep trusting my lord as I walk along. I just keep trusting my lord and he gives me a song.......He is a faithful friend....I can count on him, to the very end." That was it, my eyes filled up. This had been my favorite song since childhood.

He really proved a faithful friend to me in church today. Even if there seem no results of doing good, moments like these are enough to inspire not to tire doing what seems good and what seems right.