Business to the Buddha

Tag: when will we stop

  • Education







    I and my wife were rushing to our offices on our two wheeler. This a routine happens daily (include Saturday for her). Actually, this race to office is common place in Mumbai. Many go without interest and many others like us go not only with choice but also to make a difference. Yes, sounds strange – what difference one person can make? But this is how I and my wife take our jobs “very seriously”. This race starts in the morning at about 7:30 AM and ends at about 7:30 PM in evening or later. Now, do not ask – how much difference we have made in our respective companies or our own life. When I ask this question to my self – at times I feel as if we both are running on a treadmill. We are running very fast but are not reaching anywhere on a treadmill.

    This day was no different, we were on our two wheeler, it was not raining. Rain had played a lot of games with us recently. Whenever we were wearing raincoat, it didn’t rain. It was bit sunny and therefore we thought its may not rain today, hopefully by we reach office. Suddenly it started raining and raining like anything, yes this was shocking but happens. So instead of rushing I stopped our vehicle at a bus stop shed and we both wore our raincoat, besides we waited for rain to subdue – it was not very cloudy so we knew it wont rain for long. Ten minutes and it stopped, we started our rush to office again, this time we did not take off our coats.

    In these ten minutes I learnt something interesting – some times, “it is ok to stop in life instead of rushing.” On the contrary it was good to take that break in this particular situation rain stopped.

    When are we going to teach such things to our coming generation? I thought that we teach many things to our children however most of the time, it is for economics returns and not necessarily for living a fulfilling life, just an example – instead of rushing and running just being. An after thought of this question is this – education is a very formal approach, whereas learning is informal. Learning is – stop somewhere instead of rushing; on the contrary education – that is a formal one – makes one assuming rushing to the destination is the solution. Before anyone makes any opinion about my thoughts – I am not trying to undermine education (certificate based formal teaching), it is required to help an individual to be economically better off and help the society take an example of Kashmiri stonepelters – if they get a regular job they wont unnecessarily go out to support terrorists.

    Education was last week’s LBC topic where Maria, Rummuser, Ashok, Shackman and I write weekly. You can visit their blogs and read their thoughts on the topic.

  • Chinu and the pebbles







    My little niece – Chinu – is about three years old. When I see her picking up small pebbles I remember my childhood. I used to do that – “Wow this stone is very smooth.” “That stone is of very different color”, I will keep this with me always, no one can find such beautiful stone anywhere.

    I used to pick up stones the way Chinu does now. Now, I am grown up (may be!) and now I care for different kind of stones :). As many of you must be doing now.

    When I compared Chinu’s activities with my current actions. I wonder my father, Saxena Sir (or Rajagopaul Uncleji) must be thinking – hey this kid (for them I may be still a kid) is growing up! One day he won’t care for all these stones!

    I am going to ask these elders of mine – what have they really earned in life? How do they measure success now? What they crave for now? And how do they feel about my or any young ambitious persons running around?

    I see Chinu and think of my childhood and my small world. What would it be when I’d be say 60. Sitting around and smiling or still running around for something else? I wonder!

    I wrote this blog in November, posting it now. Saxena Sir told me what I wrote in previous blog – Money worth earning! He taught not to even run behind earning satisfaction.

    Related blog –

    When will we stop?

  • When will we stop?







    I watched this movie – Salaam Bombay! directed by Meera Nayar (1988). This movie was nominated for Oscars as Indian entry. A sad movie with only one good thing – a character ‘Baba’ dies, receiving the fruits of his deeds.

    The end of the movie seemed very artistic, philosophical and thought provoking to me. The hero – Chaipau or Krishna – is back to square one. Khali haath aaya tha aur khali hath hi hai. (in Hindi) He comes to Mumbai (Bombay of that time) empty hands and is empty hands in the end too. He has a beyblade (or torque) in his hand. That toy to me was the vicious circle of life.

    The protagonist has to collect INR 500 for his elder brother for a damaged bike. Circumstances happen such that he could never save that much. It seemed similar to me as the Ice Age 1 2 3 squirrel on which I wrote earlier in the blog Cogito Ergo Sum meaning “I think, therefore, I Exist”. The squirrel is behind the corn and our protagonist is for collecting INR 500. A sad truth – we are always running behind something. When the Buddha told to Angulimala – “I stopped long back, when will you stop?” Angulimala – a hardened criminal – stopped.

    Our INR 500 will never be saved and the corn will always elude us… When will we stop?