Day 51: Hiroshima

I took the bus from Ayabe to Osaka early this morning and after dropping my bags at my hostel in Osaka where I was to spend the next two nights, I took the Shikansen to Hiroshima. It felt good to be on my own again and I thought about my last two weeks at the farm. I was surprised at myself for having survived two weeks on a farm and really glad I did it.

I reached Hiroshima after a 20,000 Yen ($200) and 90 minute ride on the Shinkansen. It was worth it. Hiroshima is the cutest little town. It has a lot of tourists who come to visit the peace park. There were a lot of lively commercial areas. Public transport was very good. It included trams and buses. This was my first recallable time riding trams and I was so psyched at the idea of trains running on main roads with other traffic. People in Hiroshima were really friendly and welcoming of tourists. A woman on the tram helped me figure out where I was without me having to ask (I guess the confused look on my face must have been enough for her to know).

The first thing I did when I reached Hiroshima was try the Okonomiyaki which originated from Hiroshima. There was a row of restaurants inside a mall next to the train station. They all had people making okonomiyaki on a large surface in front of you. There was a running counter along the surface with bar stools for customers to sit on, as well as private tables at the back. The restaurant I chose seemed to be family run. The cooks were sweating from all the heat. Customers poured on and there was a line even at 2 pm in the afternoon. Okonomiyaki takes about 10-15 minutes to fully cook on the pan which is why the line didn't move as quickly as it might have in other restaurants. What surprised me about the hiroshima okonomiyaki was that it had noodles in it. I chose soba, which seemed to be the most popular. It was so good. From what I was able to see, it had egg, pork, noodle and sauces. I ate slowly on purpose so that it would last longer.

Inside view of one of the okonomiyaki restuarants in Hiroshima

The okonomiyaki is prepared right in front of you on a large counter

Soba based okonomiyaki: Hiroshima's specialty

After the okonomiyaki, I was ready to explore the city. I was inspired to see as much as I possibly could in Hiroshima, but the peace park was so large and amazing, that I spent all afternoon there and didn't have much time left for other things. The peace park, which was built in memory of the nuclear bombing of 1945, is a large area with multiple statues and symbols of peace and strength that was shown by victims. The most popular was the A-bomb dome, one of the few surviving buildings.

The A-bomb dome used to formerly be a public hall. It remains in its half destroyed state to serve as a reminder of the war. 

Children's Peace Monument, inspired by Sadako, a girl who was 2 years old at the time of the bombing but developed leukemia at the age of 10. She folded a 1000 paper cranes despite her pain, hoping to recover. Unfortunately, she couldn't. 

Some of the paper cranes folded by Sadako at the Peace Memorial Museum

I took a slight detour on my way to the peace museum and visited the Hondori shopping area nearby.

Hondori shopping street

A delicious blueberry milkshake: discovered at a 7/11 on Hondori street

Finally, I got to the Peace Memorial Museum which was more crowded than I expected. Thankfully, the museum was very well built (not surprisingly, it was designed by Tange, the same architect who designed Omotseando Hills in Tokyo) and could manage crowds quite well. I didn't see a single tourist smiling or taking pictures as they moved through the three storey museum and learnt about the aftereffects of war. I learnt that the ground temperature at the time of explosion was between 3,000 and 4,000 degrees celsius, and that the bomb destroyed everything within 2 km radius. About a third of the population was killed. Not everyone died immediately. Some people developed diseases after a few months (or even years). On the day of the bombing (August 6, 1945), people were following their usual schedules, getting ready to go to work when the bomb was dropped at 8:15 a.m. It had been most unexpected, because there had been no warning announcements that day or the day before, as there often were in Hiroshima. Hiroshima had been the centre of many arms and ammunition factories. Many children had been sent away to nearby villages for safety beforehand, and due to the bombing, they lost their parents who had been in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing.
The bomb dropped on Nagasaki was actually stronger than the one dropped on Hiroshima, but since Hiroshima was more densely populated, the effects there were greater. The reason that the two bombs were different from each other was that the US was experimenting with both and did not expect both to work. Unfortunately, they did. The US military dropped less powerful bombs called 'pumpkins' in July and early August as practice bombs so that they would be able to effectively drop the nuclear bombs.

An inside view of the Peace Memorial Museum

A picture in the museum of the destroyed Hiroshima

A part of the Peace Memorial Museum is built to make visitors feel as if they are walking through the destroyed Hiroshima. 

 I was on my way back to the train station when I caught site of Tokyu Hands, a department store that I had been wanting to visit in Tokyo. Part of Tokyo Hands has 3D printers where you can print customized items for fairly cheap prices.

A 3D printer at Tokyu Hands prints personalized miniature statues of people based on their pictures 

Day 26: WW2 and Ueno

This week, we are studying the post war years in class. When Japan lost the war, the emperor for the first time made a public announcement. He was so far removed from the public, that people weren't able to understand his message, which basically meant 'We surrender'. Some patriotic soldiers didn't want to stop fighting. Families were shattered. Soldiers who were abroad were stuck there for a long time. Some were returned after a year and a half but most remain unaccounted for. Six major cities, including Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were in ruins from bombing and subsequent fires. In Nagoya, one of the six cities which were heavily bombed, over 80% of residences were destroyed.

We watched the movie Gojira, which was the original Japanese version of Godzilla. Gojira is about a sea monster whose natural habitat is destroyed as a result of atomic radiations in the water and as a result he comes out of the water and causes great destruction on land. The destruction he causes seems akin to the destruction caused by the nuclear bombs. The way a city built over thousands of years can be destroyed in a matter of minutes is terribly sad to see. A scientist in the movie who has come up with a way to kill Gojira is afraid of revealing his invention because he knows that human beings would end up using it against each other in war.

A bento box-packed lunch in plastic boxes found in convenience stores and specialized roadside stands which specialize in bento food. I picked up a bento box for lunch from one of the roadside stands today. It just cost 500 Yen and included sweet and sour chicken, rice, pickle, tofu and some pasta. I was too lazy to take a picture of my bento box, but this picture that I found on the internet is a great representation of a bento lunch. 
Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Apart from studying about war and writing papers, I visited Ueno. Ueno is a complete tourist destination. It has six museums located close to each other, a zoo, of which the main attraction is a giant panda, a lake, a garden, a shrine and a cheap shopping area. If you only have one day in Japan and want to experience as much of Japanese culture as possible, this would probably be a good option.

I went to the Tokyo National museum, which is the largest museum in Japan. To get there, I went through the park and passed the shrine and lake on the way.

At Ueno park with my friend and classmate Steffi. During spring time, cherry blossoms bloom here and this location is often seen in pictures with pink trees on either side. 

Passing by a shrine at Ueno

It's a lake! Can you believe it? 

Ink paintings from the 16th  century at the Tokyo National Museum

Have you dreamt about any of these? If you have, flip the pillow over to read your fortune.
Sighted at the Tokyo National Museum in section about fortune telling. 

 After the museum, I took a quick walk through the shopping area, called Ameyoko. I felt like I was in Singapore's Chinatown or Kuala Lumpur's night market again. It had extremely cheap items on sale. There were roadside restaurants of all kinds of cuisines with outdoor seating. There were stalls selling cheap matcha ice cream and other sweets which I didn't recognize.

Ueno's shopping area: Ameyoko

Dinner featured two new dishes today.

Takikomi Gohan: rice with some meat and vegetables mixed with soy sauce. Its a lighter (and for me, better) version of fried rice. 
Source: humblebeanblog.com

Buri-daikon: Buri is a kind of fish and daikon refers to the Japanese radish. They are cooked in soy sauce and make a delicious but light dish. 
Source: tokyostation-yukari.blogspot.com

Delhi vs India

A couple of days ago, a friend and I went looking for wholesalers. We wanted to get some t-shirts made. The trend of lose t shirts seemed to be in and we wanted some personalized shirts for ourselves ad our friends.
A friend's friend gave me the reference of a reliable wholesaler in shastri nagar. For those of you who don't know, shastri nagar is a very under developed part of Delhi. It's biggest achievement seems to be the presence of the metro station and a police chowki. Unfortunately for me and my best friend Shivani, we did not know this until we got there.

2 worlds in 1 country

After a very tedious journey, we reached a somewhat village like place. Trust me, Im not exagerating. This was a place with half built houses and dark and shady lanes and everything. To be here once was a horror, coming to this place again and again seemed to be an absolute nightmare. The t shirts didn't seem to be a good enough reason anymore.
That was our first reaction on reaching a place about 30 kms away from our south delhi homes. And here's why--we live in new delhi, a place with malls and hospitals and schools at each corner. Shastri nagar, although geographically a part of delhi, is practically speaking a part of india. And delhi and india are a complete universe apart.

If one visits delhi, and claims to have visited india, he couldn't be more wrong.
You see delhi is the place where people go to private schools and hold private sector jobs, go to doctors who charge about 500 RS for a sitting even if its the common cold which is bothering them and go to the malls to eat in multi cuisine restauraunts. India on the other hand is the place where children as well as adults are lucky to get a job at a construction site. People cant even visit a doctor if they're on the verge of death, either because there is no doctor in the vicinity or because seeking treatment from a doctor would mean going to bed empty stomach for the rest of the year. The best meal that people could dream of having here is one which makes the grumbling noise from their tummy inaudible.

While Delhiites argue about whether westernization is good or bad and politicians play their amusing blame games, a billion people spend days without food and water. While we groan about the hot weather as we switch on our air conditioners, these people hunt for paper fans which are the best they can hope for in their electricity deprived village.

They say that we have potential--but to exploit potential you need to have people potent enough to exploit it. And sadly, we seem to have very little of that. Historians wonder if the invasion of the british was a good or a bad thing. Trust me, had it not been for them, we would still be living in a day of kingdoms and wars.
The british managed to develop delhi, but i wonder who will have to invade the country for india to join the delhi world?

Class 12, etc

When my psychology exam got over last week, I suddenly had this euphoric feeling of how I was now a free bird who wouldn't have to study hard for a while now! That is what most class 12 students think when their board exams come to an end.

None of us realize that with the extremely fucked up system of ours, the end never comes.
So the day the final exams get over, everyone jumps around hugging every student in the vicinity. Then we all spend hours with our friends. This happiness lasts for a couple of days. That is until we realize that the board marks may not be enough to get us into a decent college and to have a backup is a good idea.

Want to watch hours and hours of television?
 Forget it. It ain't happening

That is precisely why everyone marches into coaching centres which give out brochures with pictures of their favourite students and their respective marks. That is about the time we all realize that there are still 2 more months of slogging left. Slogging to get a good rank in some entrance exam or the other. Most entrance exams are in may and june. That is about the same time everyone's board results come out and the hunt for college begins. The bottom line is that there's really no such time when we actually get to slack.

So if you guys are dreaming of a post class 12 phase of watching movies all day, having week long sleepovers with your friends or being spared of that guilty feeling that tells you to go study, forget it. Unless you have parents who can afford to pay their way in to a decent college, remember-- this class 12, etc is not easy to get rid of!

GYMonomics

With my class 12 exams over, I decided to join the gym in the month of April. Class 12 makes you gain a lot of   extra weight, but that's okay with me. I consider it a good sign. It means you've been studying.
Although this wasn't my first time at the gym, I noticed a lot of things about the place that I had not noticed before. It seems to have it's own certain ways.

To start with, being a newbie (or a person who out of laziness hasn't been to the gym for the past 18 months)  is like being the amateur of the place. You're the only person who is seen panting and sweating on the treadmill while walking at a speed of 4 km/hr and you're definitely the person who comes in the last and leaves the soonest.
But as you become a little more regular and start blending in, certain patterns emerge.

There's always this one egoistic trainer, who will walk around the place doing absolutely nothing productive. He's like a parole officer.  He will have this proud and dignified look on his face, which by the way means nothing to any of the people there. The other trainers do all the work. One would think he's coordinating,  but there's nothing much to coordinate in a gym.

There's the popular girl, who has been coming to the gym for as long as anyone remembers. She's the one who knows all the trainers, and all the people. She is also the one who can run on the treadmill at 9 km/hr for 20 minutes.

There are also those people who I like to call the kings and queens. These are the people who do not need to lose weight from any angle. They either come to the gym to build their muscles or tone their body or mantain their already perfect weight. These are the ones who are the royalty of the gym. Not that they are treated any differently, but for them, being at the gym is more of a choice than a compulsion.

If any of you have ever been to a gym, you might have come across the inferiority complex. Whenever you're on a treadmill, walking at your own sweet pace, you tend to compare yourself to the person next to you. If the person is walking at double the speed (running occasionally) you tend to have an inferiority complex. But if it's you whose faster you tend to think "HAHA. What a loser"

And how could I forget, there are those amazing, gifted and idolized people who carry their own i pod to the gym. That's a big thing. Believe me. First of all, it is impossible to even hear yourself think with all the loud music in the gym. It's hard to even respond to a phone call. To be able to hear the music from your i pod is nothing short of a freakin miracle.
Second of all, I have never been able to keep those damned earphones inside my ears. They keep falling off. After some time, that's all you're doing. I have often found myself taking it easy while exercising just so that i can listen to my music.

But the best part is that there is a mutual understanding in the gym. Everyone is trying to lose weight or tone their body. So no matter how messed up you look, the gym is one place you can go to and not worry about your appearance. It is one place where your public image does not count. For all you know you could go in wearing the worst clothes out of your closet and no one would give a damn.

The Indian Christmas

The Indian Christmas

Indians don’t like being left out of festivities.  And with so many different religions and cultures in our country, there are an indefinite number of festivals to celebrate. We manage to find stuff to do on the Indian festivals. On bigger festivals like Holi and Diwali, we freak out with sweets and parties and crackers and colours. But then come the festivals which one would call miscellaneous or etc, etc (in other words most of us have no clue what their relevance is, but are more than happy about their existence because of the random 1 day holidays that come our way due to them.) 

You may think that a day off wouldn’t be much to cherish, but you’d be surprised at how quickly these add up and take away days from our summer break and paid vacation. Normally, on those days, you’ll find people in the malls or at PVR.

But then comes Christmas. And it fits into neither category.  And that confuses us Indians. 

To the non christian Indians, it has no practical relevance whatsoever. 

But still, we don't want to be left out. So how do we celebrate? We can’t decorate a Christmas tree. Our houses aren’t big enough to fit 2 feet tall plants inside them. We can’t go around giving presents, because we spent all our money on Diwali gifts, and we definitely can’t hang stockings in our living room, mainly because we’d find them empty the next morning baffled by the fact that Santa didn’t turn up.

So here’s what happens. Everyone ends up in the malls. Now the malls know what is going to happen. So they start commercializing, They put up huge Christmas trees, find a santa, decorate the entire area, etc. Last year one of the malls put up a castle right out out of a fairytale in their park.

I happen to live a km away from one of the big malls of New Delhi. And the 5 days preceding Christmas  saw the roads leading to the mall so jammed, that everytime I look outside I felt like I’m having a déjà vu, seeing the same set of cars outside my window, until I realized that I am looking at the same thing I saw 20 minutes ago.

So basically everyone is in the malls. It’s too cold to do anything outdoors, so there are anyways few other options. Now the malls are pretty big, but not big enough to accommodate the entire city. So as a result, there is pushing and shoving and no space to walk (or air to breathe) and suddenly, it is so hot, that you feel it isn’t winter anymore! The eating joints are in full fledged business with long waiting lines.

You would think that we'd eventually learn not to end up in the malls like we did last year, but we just CANNOT bear to be left out. We will be shoved and pushed and stuck in a traffic jam for hours at a go. 

But there is no way in hell we'll be excluded from any sort of festivity! 

Because if the whole world celebrates, so shall we!  

Show Boys and Girls

As soon as you open the door to my room, a poster taped to the wall on the other side greets you. It says 'Welcome to my reality'. It's pink in color which is one of the reasons I bought it as a 14 year old. I remember the day very clearly. I went to an Archies and bought 5 or 6 posters to put up in my room.
It was a trend to have posters in your room with sarcastic comments on them. I bought a garfield poster which said 'I'm not always right, but I'm never wrong'. I bought another one saying 'Those who think they know it all, really annoy those of us who do'.

My dad helped me stick them to the wall with double sided tape.

A few minutes ago as I thought about how I had outgrown them and debated about whether I should take them off or spare the risk of making my room look plain with empty walls, I remembered the thoughts that ran through my head as I looked at my new posters after my dad and I had put them up.

I thought of how I would be the person my posters made me. I could keep my room messy so that people would believe that to be my reality. The funny quotes on my posters would make those lines seem like my own. Garfield's relaxed and egoist attitude would make mine seem the same.

This was the point where the mask started coming into existence. I am not refering to the green coloured mask of Jim Carrey's from the Hollywood movie, but if you can relat le to that you'll probably get what I'm trying to say.
Every adult human has a mask.  They use it make their friends like them, to seek approval from their bosses, to make the opposite sex want them.

And before they can even breathe in what's happening, the mask that they try to use to be accepted is not a mask anymore. That's right, it's as if you wore a mud pack for so long that now either it won't come off or either you'll be so used to it that you won't notice it's there!
Until off course death do you part!

The posters in my room suggested that I was a mischievous, messy and a socially outgoing teenager. I was actually the opposite. I was quiet,  very organized and super responsible. I was a 9th grader trying to fit in. But I so succesfully convinced myself that I now find I am actually the person I always tried to be. 

And that is exactly what happens to more than half of our world population. (the other half lives in poverty)

They make themselves what the world wants them to be, who they want to see in their mirrors every morning. The glamour gets to them.

In other words they are show boys and girls, tuning themselves to please the world. To make everyone who passes by in the streets give them a venerable smile.
But that can't end well be because even if you manage to please every person on the planet (which is practically impossible considering the kind of bipolar diversity our earth holds ), you will fail to please yourself, which is ultimately the only thing that actually matters. 

So much for being a show boy/girl. 

Might as well sit in your room of empty walls with a bowl of popcorn and a remote control in your hand and enjoy the world that you create for yourself.

Guards..Guardians? Are you sure?

Every night at 10 I go for a jog in my colony. I know, it's a funny time to be out trying to lose calories, but thats the only time during my wake hours that there aren't any vociferous and nimble kids running around or the sunlight trying to reduce my already reduced stamina or cars returning from their long day at their owner's office's parking lot henceforth giving me an excuse to stop as I wait for them to pass.
I do however encounter some human presence when I'm out jogging. There are the dog walkers, there are the elders taking their after dinner stroll, AND there are the GUARDS.

This is the critical time for a guard's job. It's the time during which the criminals are most likely to strike, with ambitions that the guards hope to crush. But when I pass the guard who sits at the back gate as he merely talks to another nocturnal friend on his phone, I can't help but wonder, if a potential robber or some other criminal upto no good crosses his path, what are the chances that the guard will be able to do something about it?
First of all, no criminal in the history of crime, ever crosses any human being who is likely to cost them their night of glory with a knife and gun in their hand and with a naughty look on his face. My point is that no thief can ever be caught unless he is found picking the lock of the door he's trying to open. And chances are that he'll put all his hope and energy into making sure that doesn't happen.
The god damnned thief could be someone casually walking in through the gates of the colony, just like the people who live there.
Second of all, even if a thief is caught trying to climb over the protective walls, the skinny guards are not equipped sufficiently to be able to fight them. I'm not trying to be cynical, but chances are that the sticks that they carry around with them won't do much. Those sticks look more like something they carry around to have a psychological affect on any sinister who tries their luck. My guess is that those sticks are capable of being snapped into pieces if they were ever mistaken for sugarcane.
Alerting the other guards by blowing the whistles which uncertainly hang from their necks seem to be their only hope. But even then, for thieves who are well equipped ( and by that I mean anything from a knife to a rifle ), another two or three bamboo sticks wouldn't really matter.

The Free World Charter

I came across something called the The Free World Charter. It is the simplest idea with an incredulous impact. The idea is to do away with the idea of money and just watch with awe the transformation it brings in the world!
I know that at this moment you are trying to figure out how this would work? How would we survive if no one works? No one produces food! No one takes care of the criminals! Think a little more. With all the machines we have today, we don't need humans to produce all the food. With no money around, there is nothing for criminals to rob! Whatever we do, we don't do because we HAVE to, we do it because we WANT to. If you like to teach, you teach. If you like to do social work, that is what you do. You want to be doctor? Then be it!
This video explains it all!

Sign the Free World Charter here: http://freeworldcharter.org/?a=charter
I did!

My 60 seconds on TV

Here is a clip of my TV interview that was aired about a month away. It was at the TYE feliciation ceremony. TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) is a program that gives us about 8-10 lessons on various aspects of starting a business, and then divides us into groups, as a part of which we come up with business plans. We present our business plans in a competition, first at the local level, after which the winning team presents it at the global level.
My group came second in the local competition. Although we didn't get anything in particular as a prize, we learnt an incredible lot. TYE actually teaches one how to be a leader, which is what makes it so amazing and inspiring.

Link to TiE group on facebook http://www.facebook.com/TiEDelhi?sk=wall

Being Happy

Being happy is something that everyone looks for consciously or unconsciously. But happiness is nothing to found in the outside world, it is something that only you can really deal with. Here are a few traits of a human being that influence his/her happiness.

Happiness=Satisfaction 

I believe that happy people are always happy. They find a way to be happy. Actually, they have to find a way to be sad. That’s just their nature. No matter how much their life plays around with them, in an effort to make them upset or go through tough times, the optimistic are always happy. They believe that life has something in store for them.

On the other hand, sad people always find a way to be sad. Even if life gives them roses they sit with them and cry over the fact that they didn’t get lilies. They tend to expect more than what they get.  

That’s probably why kids who have been spoilt by their parents in their initial years have such a problem being happy. They are so used to being pleased and pampered by their parents that their demands become unexpectedly high, making it tough for them to be satisfied with what they get.

Research proves that being happy=satisfaction with what you have. It refers to how people who are happy do not obsess themselves with what they COULD HAVE. Rather it’s the unhappy people who do.

A study found that the Scandinavians are the happiest people in the world. Why? They spend a majority of their time in darkness, and freezing temperature. They can sit around thinking about how they could have been living in better weather conditions and end up convincing themselves that all that goes wrong is due to the terrible weather conditions. But yet they are happy. Isn’t that amazing? The reason behind their happiness is that they are satisfied with what they have.

Money=UNhappiness

While writing this I figured that if satisfaction leads to happiness, then money must be one of the keys to UNhappiness, for the reason that money makes most people greedy. As they get more, they want even more. No wonder they say “Money cannot buy happiness”!

Happiness is Contagious

When you smile, the world smiles with you. Happiness is contagious.When you are in an atmosphere where people are always laughing and enjoying life to the fullest, you automatically start to live life there way. The same happens when you are surrounded by unhappy people. As Oscar Wilde said "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."That is why it is believed that smiling at a stranger can make not only his day, but also a lot of other people's because chances are that he too will smile at another stranger the very same day!

Being Happy, and not knowing it!

Most people who are happy do not know it. They fail to acknowledge the small instances of happiness that are experienced in day to day life, like smiling at a stranger, making a new friend, going for a movie with your best friends, etc. They expect happiness to come with success or money or what not.

I came across this website called www.1000awesomethings.com which talks about small pleasures of life such as those which I just mentioned.

Of course there a bunch of other things that influence happiness such as success and relationships, but they really can't mess with you if you are one of an optimistic nature. 

Abraham Lincoln once said "A person will be just about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
So keep the smiles coming all day long!

Keeping your neurons busy!

Today I tried the most interesting thing. I tried using my left hand in everything I do, instead of my right.  My parent’s yoga teacher told me a few years back that using the right or the left hand doesn’t come from birth. It’s about the practice and the balance of the mind i.e. if you use your left hand more, you automatically become left handed, and if you use your right hand more you become right handed.

But wanting to be a left hander is not the reason I tried this. It turns out that doing things differently ends up sharpening your brain.

During our vacation in Orlando, I learnt that brain power is one source of energy that in inexhaustible. (unlike fuel, etc) The other day my uncle told me about how one uses only 5% of the brain. And the person who used 10% is the one we call a genius. But that turned out to be a myth. (according to sources of the internet.) They claim that going by the myth, injury of certain parts of the brain (i.e. the unused ones) should not affect you in any way since they are not used.

Then a few days later, I came across this website which talked about how to increase your brain power and how to use your brain to the full capacity. It had a couple of ways to do that, like brushing with your left hand, or taking another route to work , or doing a lot of brain puzzles, and using different kind of keypads to type.

Today, I tried brushing with y left hand, and it was harder than I thought it would be. I was telling my aunt who visited today that she should try doing the same. Nodding her head she said “Neurobics”. I had no idea what that was, but she told me. She said it was Neuron’s Aerobics. Exercising the brain.

My theory is that by using your left hand to do certain things, you aren’t actually using the same part of your brain more, but you are using another part of the brain.  You may know that the left part of the brain which is more analytical controls the right part of your body (arms lgs, etc) and the right part of your brain which enhances creativity,  controls the left part of your body. So by using your left hand to do things that you would otherwise use your right hand for, you are sharpening the right side of the brain, which happens to be the creative one.

But then that implies that left handed beings are more creative and less analytical than the right handed ones. That actually may be true. But then what is not true is that all right handed people are analytical. I happen to know barely any left handed people and yet I know people who are extremely creative.

My aunt said that by doing things differently (taking different routes, using your left hand) you are challenging the brain. The brain catches the smallest of change. Even if you start using a ball point pen after having used a pencil for quite some time, you are exercising the brain.

Well in that case by using different kinds of writing material everyday , the brain can get a hell lot of exercise. Another way to exercise the brain is to supposedly take a shower with your eyes closed. I’m guessing this helps exercise the brain since you have to force your brain to remember where things are. Having a shower is such a regular part of everyone’s routine, that people do it mechanically without thinking. So by closing your eyes your eliminating the unconsciousness in the actions of reaching out for the soap or turning the shower knob, and forcing your brain to think and remember where those things are.

Another great way to increase brain power is to continuously write one page on a word document (or any other software for that matter) without stopping to think or correct spelling and grammar errors. This enables you to think fast. I tried this, but it takes a lot of practice to be able to do that. To not stop at all, I mean. It is easy to go half a page without having to put extreme pressure on your brain. But when you get half way through the page, you run out of sane things to write about. So the first time you try that, your second half of the page is just a recurrence of the first half in different words .

I once read a book called “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time”. Randomest book ever.  It was about a troubled boy who decides to investigate the murder of a dog in the neighborhood. While on his little mission, he discovers a bunch of secrets about his own life that was well kept with his divorced mom and dad. Now this book is written from the point of view of the boy. So he writes whatever he is thinking about with a good amount of details. In random parts of the book when he’s bored or he wants to avoid thinking about something that is worrying him, he starts squaring number in his heads. (2X2=4X2=8X2=16 and so on.) Way to keep your brain busy!

Working on your vocabulary is another way. So is picking up a random object and thinking of multiple things it could be used as. For eg, pick up a pencil, and then think of a 100 things that the pencil can be used as.

Your brain is the controller of your body. Spending time on keeping it sharp is one of the most productive things you’ll ever do.

Not using it actually ends up making it blunter and less intelligent than before!

So keep the neurons busy!

Irony:The Arab Spring

The other day I sat at home, thinking about the Arab Spring. And I realized the kind of irony (and also courage) involved.

I say courage because the Arabs seem to have overcome the fear of bullets. We see a pattern each time. The people revolt. The ruler freaks out. Orders the army to save the day. Army comes and shoots a few. Crowds Disperse. But after one week, they're back. Back and fully alive! Growing bigger and bigger in number.
It seems to me, that they don't care to live if living means being oppressed and having to feel threatened by arms and ammunition everyday

What is surprising is, is that the army doesn't realize what it's doing. It (the army) just doesn't realize that they are among those being oppressed by the rulers and if they decide to side with the people, they become responsible for a free and happier nation! That is one feeling that is hard to bear. Isn't it?

Another thing is, is that the rulers have a huge advantage i.e.. of being rulers of conservative countries where a large part of the country may not want modernization to take place, not that it surely will if a government is formed, it's just that their mindset makes them think so. Guarding their culture is important to them. But yet, we see all kinds of people on our TV screens protesting on the streets.

The rulers on the other hand fail to see the kind of consequences that they will suffer whether they are thrown off or not. If they are thrown off, then their fate rests with the will of the country. If not, then they live a life disturbed by regular uprisings and unstability in the country, which in turn leads to fall of the economy and pressure (which subsequently leads to isolation) from the outside world.
The longer they try to stay in power, the more they are messing with any luck they may have in the future. 

These Arab people have all the moral support of the world, and also the empathy of countries who have gone through struggles against oppression.
Here's hoping to seeing them join emerge from their bad times soon!

Say YES to MESS

Cluttered Desks, reckless shelves, drawers which look like dustbins..

Shouting parents, maids in a futile attempt to clean your room, sleeping on one side of the  bed with books shoved to the other side..familiar?

Face it we’re too messy, Our desks and dining room tables are piled with things; our  cupboards are bursting with clothes and old things. And with the ethical system telling us to be neat and clean and organized, we feel really bad about being messy.

We feel the need to straighten that mess to distinguish ourselves from animals, or so that other people don't think of us as animals, whatever the reason may be!

But then again, consider this: 

1.      Humans, like Garfield are messy by nature. They aren’t robots programmed to put things where they found them. Tell me one thing, when you come home from school or work, how many of you actually go and put your bags neatly inside a cupboard or on a table? I’m guessing most of you just dump it the first place you see and then go hunting for it the next morning, My point is that since it comes so naturally to us, we really shouldn’t try to battle such strong and powerful forces of nature.

2.      Being organized is time consuming. Don’t your parents constantly tell you not to waste time? Well, what is the point of tidying up your room, when its likely to be in the same condition in another few hours? Now isn’t THAT a waste of time? Would you believe that people who keep their desks very neat spend an average of 36 percent more time looking for things than people who keep a fairly messy desk?

3.      Neat people are humourless and inflexible prigs.They’re people who seem to have nothing better to do than to spend more time organizing their things than actually using them! On the other hand, messy people signify happiness and contentment and aren’t so crazily obsesses with keeping things in order all the time.

4.      Messy people are more artistic, not that they see the mess on their table and say “oh what a beautiful painting this would make” But they generally have a more artistic sense than people who are neat and organized and prefer having things in order.

5.      Albert Einstein said “If a cluttered desk signifies a cluttered mind, what does an empty mind signify?” Albert Einstein

      wasn’t exactly the neatest person in the world either. This is a picture of his desk

       at Princeton. This just proves that genius=messiness. Now if Einstein, a genius who probably worked more in a 

       day than any of us have worked in our entire lives, could find all his crazy scientific formulas in such a mess, I’m sure our mess is worth keeping. Sure we have more formulas these days than Einstein did in his days, but still!

6.      Did you know that a book has been written called the perfect mess. Even the New York Times had published an article about it. 

       You know how hard it is to get books published these days. And the New York times featured it!  We must give it SOME credit and respect.

So look at the facts. There is no point trying to fight against nature. They are less time consuming. Messiness is a sign of a contented and an artistic mind. Einstein was messy. New York Times published a book on how mess is good.

So tell your parents/spouses to stop feeling bad, there are more urgent things to worry about. For instance, the end of the world in 2012, extinction of the polar bear and global warming. 

Now it is up to you to decide whether you want to clean up your rooms and tables or just remember what I said and say YES TO MESS!

The Power of One

Wael Ghonim led two lives. He spent his mornings at the office of google as the marketing head, and he spent his nights on facebook.

Dear readers, like us he did spend his time on facebook. But unlike us he did not while away his time by checking out people’s pictures, commenting on friend’s status and chatting. His facebook hours were devoted to making Egypt a free and fair democracy!

Let me warn you, the first time I heard this story, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that one ordinary man could alone trigger something so incredible. Today I am going to share with you two life changing stories

For those of you who don’t know there was a recent uprising in Egypt which led to the overthrowing of President Mubarak, a pressing and unfair dictator.

Now when you think of protests and uprisings you think of activist giving speeches, putting up posters, gaining public support. But when you think of THIS protest, you think of an anonymous, invisible leader, one who doesn’t care for power, but cares for freedom for his country.

Wael Ghonim organized the revolution on facebook. He created a facebook page in the name of a late popular Egyptian leader. As people went on liking the page, he gained support. He managed to get 60,000 people to like the page.  Any status update that he put up on the page, would appear on his supporters home page. He used it to organize events and reach out to a wide range of people. That is how he organized the protest at Tahrir Square which led to the overthrowing of Mubarak.

As soon as the Egyptian authorities realized that a movement was underway, they tried to sabotage it. Now normally, these people would have caught hold of the activists, put them in jail and open fire on the crowd. But here, there was no activist who was leading the movement, and alas, the troops were on the side of the public. So here's what they did-- they cut off the internet and phone connections in an attempt to halt communication. Infact, when the authorities found out that he was behind this movement, they secretly detained him for 11 days. But despite all that, the message had reached the public and the protest happened with a 50,000 strong crowd.

What followed was a free country. This man alone changed the scenario of Egypt’s political system. Not only that but he managed to awaken Middle eastern world! Inspired by Egypt, there were uprisings in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq, Jordan, etc

Now if he could use facebook to bring change why cant the rest?

------

Now coming to India..Narayan Krishnan is another such man who resides in the town of Madurai.

Narayan Krishnan, an award winning chef of a five star hotel in Mumbai was offered an elite job in Switzerland. Before going to Europe he decided to make a quick visit to his hometown, Madurai. Well, it turned out that the trip would be much longer than he intended it to be.

He saw an extremely old man eating his own waste. He was dying of acute hunger. Narayanan got him some food and that old man’s eyes filled with tears of happiness as he gobbled it down. So Narayanan Krishnan immediately decided that he would feed the poor and the homeless for the rest of his life.

He started in 2002. He feeds breakfast, lunch and dinner to the people who live and die on the streets, to elderly people and to those who are mentally ill. Has fed over 1.6 million meals since 2002. He feeds about 450 people everyday in Madurai. He went on to found  trust called the akshaya trust. Apart from feeding the underprivileged, he gives them shaves and haircuts with the aim of restoring their dignity and is also in the process of constructing a home for all these people.

This one man changed the life of so many just by caring for those who are uncared for.

Such is the Power of One.

If Wael Ghonim could change the Arab World and Narayanan could go from feeding highly paying elites to helpless roadside dwellers, why cant we? They didn’t have a huge amount of money or a powerful father!

One tree starts a forest, 

One smile begins a friendship, 

One candle destroys the darkness, 

One star can lead a ship. 

One life can make the difference, 

..and that one is YOU