"Me and God" in Bodhivruksha, a weekly magazine of the daily Vijayakarnataka.

http://www.bodhivrukshaepaper.com/Details.aspx?id=543&boxid=38399106

Touch of Roots / ಬೇರು ಸ್ಪರ್ಶ

Visited the land of green and cool, silence and peace, - Malnad - place of my birth and growing years -  Manchale in Sagar-Shimoga.

 Touched by the reception I got in Siddapur where I was invited by the Ganesh Hegde Foundation to distribute  its inaugural/annual award (this year)  to  Educational Field conferred to Canara Welfare Trust as well as by the sensitive and intelligent response got by the audience at Sagar where I was invited to deliver Special Lecture on 'Problems and Challenges in Education Today' under LT Thimmappa Hegde Foundation.

Love and affection, respect and concern, shown by all including my kith and kin there was indeed unbound.

ಓ ಇರುವೇ, ಈ ನೆಲ ಜನ ಋಣ ತೀರಿಸಬಲ್ಲೆನೆ? ಕಾಲದ ( ೭೦ ಕ್ಕೆ ) ಅಂಚಿ ನಲ್ಲಿರುವವ ತೀರಿಸುವುದಾದರೂ ಎನಿತು?

Gopal Shabaraya and his mother, my firends, nay my extended family, who joined me in the travel in my car made the travel and stay enchanting indeed without whom perhaps I would not have undertaken the trip.

Become a better listener

Effective listening is more than simply avoiding the bad habit of interrupting others while they are speaking or finishing their sentences. It’s being content to listen to the entire thought of someone rather than waiting impatiently for your chance to respond.

In some ways, the way we fail to listen is symbolic of the way we live. We often treat communication as if it were a race. It’s almost like our goal is to have no time gaps between the conclusion of the sentences of the person we are speaking with and the beginning of our own.

Slowing down your responses and becoming a better listener aids you in becoming a more peaceful person. It takes pressure from you. If you think about it, you’ll notice that it takes an enormous amount of energy and is very stressful to be sitting at the edge of your seat trying to guess what the person in front of you (or on the telephone) is going to say so that you can fire back your response. But as you wait for the people you are communicating with to finish, as you simply listen more intently to what is being said, you’ll feel more relaxed, and so will the people you are talking to. They will feel safe in slowing down their own responses because they won’t feel in competition with you for “airtime”!

Not only will becoming a better listener make you a more patient person, it will also enhance the quality of your relationships. Everyone loves to talk to someone who truly listens to what they are saying.

~ Bhadrarupa Krishna Dasa

BJP: COMMAND LESS HIGH COMMAND

BJP and Karnataka

B.S.Yedyurappa, the first Chief Minister of the first BJP Government in Karnataka State was forced to resign after Ombudsman, Lokayukta, indicted him with charges of corruption, favoritism and nepotism as he seem to have de-reserved the government land to distribute to his kith and kin for a song, took bribes to grant mining licenses and so on. He was jailed for months, came out on bail and is still continuing to seek anticipatory bails for the charges that are being leveled against him on other similar charges even now. When the successor to him was to be appointed as Chief Minister, he insisted that his own men should be installed to the post and the BJP  High Command yielded , notwithstanding the demands of the propriety that running the writ of  tainted and accused would damage the Party. However, the successor D.V.Sadananda Gowda, had a better sense, did not tow the line of BSY as that would have ruined the Party and the State beyond repair and went about reconstructing with proper governance which was not to the liking and benefit  of BSY and his henchmen. BSY organised a revolt with the connivance of the similar elements in his caste group including support by some of his religious leaders, insisted that his own trusted men be installed to the post succeeding DV. Again, BJP High Command yielded and agreed to install Jagadish Shettar. Shettar is being installed not because of his merit, not even merely because he is Lingayat, a dominant community which is supporting BSY's BJP government in the State, but because he is BSY man of Lingayat. Who is this BSY's BJP men Lingayats in the State?- majority of them are tainted like him, and the High Command yields to them. It is an insult to Lingayats themselves that such men are brandied as their leaders. It is an insult to the people of the State that they are made to endure such people as the only available leaders. It is an insult BJP too that its wisdom can can find and put up with only such crooks. The worst kind of caste politics is being played in Karnataka today and the National Party like BJP becomes privy to it.

 Leadership lies not in playing along with the baser elements in society like caste and community divides, asocial activities and electoral gains. Enlightened leadership lies in rising above such consideration and guide the people and the Party to move on higher planes that are in them that would contribute to peoples empowerment and progress. Instead, if we call such baser barbaric elements as 'reality', 'practicality', 'pragmatism', 'the way things are', and go along with it,  we are doomed to remain barbaric only.

There is no wonder that in spite of such a sorry state of affairs in BJP, it may still be get elected next time primarily because the other Parties are no better, they too are riddled with the same malady. People have no options, each alternative available is worse than the other and they keep changing every five years after five years hoping that the other one they had defeated last time would have learnt a lesson and would fare better this time, but to be disappointed again!  Quo Vadis?

Looking Through the Glasses!

Looking Through the Lenses!

Seeing letter double and the distant object hazy for the last year and a half or so, now at 69, decided that I may need other than my present reading glasses which I am using since more than twenty years, and went to a ‘super specialty high tech’ eye care hospital. It was a cataract, on both the eyes. Operation was on 28 June 2012 afternoon, a matter of five minutes each, although preparation took nearly an hour. A very neat job done indeed. Only a tiny local anesthesia, fully aware and watching the show in the eyes, what with dazzlingly brilliant light, a few dark patches getting removed, yellow light intervene briefly, dark with tiny speck of brilliant red dots ensued and finally ended up with fantastically bright fully crystal snowy white all over the inside eyes with a two smaller hallowed white ball one around the other at the center emanating dazzling sun yet with a mellowed assurance. What a fantastic site it was, Never felt anything entering my eyes to repair! Dark glasses were put immediately after the operation and you are ready to go home,
walk and talk straight away. Twenty four hours later you are into to reading, writing and computing.  Dark glasses are however to be worn non stop including during sleep for next 48 hours. 

The ease and comfort with which operation was done, knife less, drug less and painless, bloodless surgery performed, hassel free postoperative care, the accuracy, perfection,  thoroughness and the effectiveness of the whole procedure was amazing. One marvels at the technology available today for the quality of human welfare.

Lo! World do not look the same anymore! Be it a TV screen, print material or the surrounding people object and environment have become high definition(HD), bright and distinct with clarity and a strangely evocative. World is looked now through the man made lenses, not the gene made lenses!