Easter

Today is Easter Sunday. But this Sunday which began on the wrong note when I was bitten by my neighbor's dog is indeed ending on a somber note as a very close friend of my father's suddenly died today. While in a deep reverie, I was just wondering about the resurrection of Jesus, the reason Easter is celebrated the world over, I could not but find symbolic similarities between Jesus's crucification and his resurrection.

What this incident as well as teachings of all other major religious scriptures from round the world teach us is that we should always follow the path of righteousness. Even if we face troubles while following this path,  we should consider them to be just temporary stumbling blocks that will lead us to be better persons.

We should always strive for attaining what we really believe in because only when we are totally convinced about something then only can we really look forward to it and go all out trying to attain it, like there is no tomorrow left. 

March through Mother Nature's lenses

Some of the gems that Mother Nature bestowed on us in the month of March.

A moment of divinity under a tree at the ancient Shrinath Temple, Ghasiyar

The beautiful World Peace Park, Mount Abu

The Setting Sun, Mount Abu

A painting of a Cowherd playing with a cow.

Practice what you preach!

From time immemorial, the easiest freely available thing in the world, would probably be Advise. Everybody seems to relish giving advise to everybody. The flow of advise is all pervasive. It is not partial to any caste, creed, sex, religion or any other demographic characteristics. It is free and abundant. 

I sincerely don't have any major aversion to people giving advises but then the advises should be such which the preachers of them too should be following. Examples of not practicing what one is preaching is galore in our day to day life. In the international arena, countries that are at the forefront of wars in certain part of world double up as messengers of peace in another. A country which expects other countries not to interfere in its internal matters, in turn shamelessly tries to intervene in the internal matters of another sovereign country citing its national political compulsions. At the national level, politicians that clamor the most for tough anti-corruption laws, anti-rape laws and the like, are usually the ones who try to dilute tough legislation at the time of enacting of the law. Regional Satraps who show themselves as the messiahs of the poor are usually the ones who exploit them the most. While a politician might be apt at giving great speeches about the development of the nation, the matter of fact is, he seldom sees beyond his own vote bank and his local level politics.

Even in our immediate surroundings, we routinely encounter people in our homes, social gatherings and offices, who preach great things but are just the opposite in their own lives. If religious saints preach about the benefits of austerity then they have no business in flaunting the riches that they have acquired in the name of religion. If an elder preaches about the benefits of leading a disciplined life, then he has no business in indulging in excesses be it related to food, drink or liefestyle. Similarly, if a person in a top position in a company expects others to subordinate their own self interests to the greater interest of the company, then he has no business to have expectations that his own self interests would be served by others in the company.

Chanakya's Gems of Life!

More than half of the month of March is gone and I am posting my first post of the month. The reasons are more health related than anything else. My allergy to pollen grains is back with a vengeance and I have been reeling "under the weather". Shinod and Himanshu are back from their shoots in Jodhpur where Santosh has been, at most, steady. The Oriental Palace Resort virtual shoot and video has been quite a hit. Kudos to Shinod for the same. We have made some progress in propagating Udaipur Dopahar's popularity in Udaipur. A tie-up with a leading bank for event based activities neared a climax but the actual inking of the agreement is still pending.

During the course of the aforesaid activities, I came in  touch with a doctor in Udaipur from whom I got hold of a very interesting book by the name of Chanakya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi. This book recollects incidents from the times of Maurya Emperor Chandra Gupta Maurya and that of his able adviser the wily Brahmin, Vishnu Gupta aka Kautilya popularly known as Chanakya.

In the following lines, I am quoting 10 gems that I encountered while reading the book credited to Chanakya but inspired from other sources.

1) Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead - Benjamin Franklin
2)I am a great believer of luck and find the harder I work the more I have of it- Thomas Jefferson
3) A hungry man is more interested in 4 sandwiches than 4 freedoms- Henry Cabot Lodge Jr
4) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable- Louise D Brandeis
5) I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians- Charles de Gaulle.
6) Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed- Mao Tse Tung
7) The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese-Jon Hammond
8) Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but get you nowhere-Dorothy Galyean
9)  Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side-Claude McDonald
10) When choosing between 2 evils, always choose the one you haven't tried yet- Mae West.