Reaching There

Note to reader: If you're looking for the book Jim Carrey referred to in the interview, I have had on luck in finding the book. So in case you came across this post for that answer - I'm sorry this post is not about the book but something he said. So if you're still interested, please do read on! I recently saw an interview of actor Jim Carrey on Inside Actors Studio. All of us know him as the pet detective in Ace Ventura, or the crazy guy from The Mask, or just as the most versatile comedian of contemporary times. However the interview showed me a whole different side of the actor. He turned out to be a lighthearted guy with a deep understanding of human nature.  Towards the later half of the interview James Lipton spoke about a movie called, 'I Love You Phillip Morris'. It is based on the real-life con artist, impostor, prison escapee; Steven Jay Russell; who falls in love with a fellow inmate; Phillip Morris. The movie portrays the same-sex story of ...

Lately I've been trying too hard to write. I've been adamantly searching for the next "higher" level of my writing. Eventually I cooked up a pressure so high that it strangulated my thought process. I was unable to write and sometimes even unable to think. Writing is a process with an extraordinary output yet the simplicity of the inputs leaves me dumbfounded. To simplify the process for my own convenience; a haphazard assortment of thoughts, inspiration, real events, language goes into one end and out comes a coherent chain of words which have the power to bring out human emotions from the farthest of corners. To draw a crude analogy, life behaves in a similar way as well. In goes all the marvelous capabilities, human sensitivities, inherent flaws, unwanted prejudices and out comes life; pure power capable of some of the most wonderfully divine things in this world. However like writing we sometimes strive too hard to live. The search for the next level of livi...

Complicated, clustered, burdened, lost. These and many more similar words fly around in our lives almost everyday. These words somehow manage to touch each and every aspect of our lives; affecting personal as well as professional fronts. The constancy with which these "emotions" appear in our lives is sometimes outright scary. However there are certain counteroffensive measures that can be used every time these emotions threaten to destroy the peace of our minds. Humility Perhaps the most underrated and overstated of emotion, which a human being can possess. In almost all religions humility is considered as a virtue. In fact in Hinduism it is considered as the foremost trait of a saint. What is so powerful about this emotion that even Gods' are attracted to it? Humility is submission to the fact that I am flawed. This acknowledgement immediately punctures the balloon called "ego". The second that balloon gets deflated I have relieved a great burden from myse...

I recently visited Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh on my father's behest.  Chitrakoot is a small town located in the northern Vindhyas in the state of Madhya Pradesh. A small town bustling with pilgrims crisscrossing through the narrow roads into the various holy places that are scattered all across it .  Our trip started with a visit to the temple of Kamatanath located on the parikrama path around the hill of Kamadgiri.  It is small hill covered with forest and surrounded by a five kilometer path. It also marks as the spot where Bharat tried to convince Lord Rama to return to Ayodhyaya.  Apart from being a place of religious importance it is a place where you can see various forms of devotion at display. Thousands of devotees, saints, sages and observers like me come to pay respect to a place of great reverence. On this path lies a small corner filled with a small steel container, a worn out blanket as a cushion and a small board saying "Don't disturb Saint Su...

A Potpourri of Spiritualism, Religion and Faith A Simple Life Chitrakoot is a small town located in the northern Vindhyas in the state of Madhya Pradesh. A small town bustling with pilgrims crisscrossing through the narrow roads into the various holy places that are scattered all across it. The new Chitrakoot shares it's holy land with the state of Uttar Pradesh as well. For a city dweller like me being in Chitrakoot felt like rewinding the clock about twenty years back, before the modern technology overwhelmed the human beings. I went to Chitrakoot on my father's behest but the next two days were a religious reunion of sorts. If ever there was a competition for "Holy of Holies" in India, the small town of Chitrakoot would win it hands down (it is described as the teerth of all teerths, you can read the history behind this  here ). "Teerth" is a Sanskrit word meaning a holy place next to a water body. And the holy river running through Chitrakoot is M...

"Surreal but nice" that's what Hugh Grant's character managed to blurt out, mesmerized by the beauty of Julia Roberts (in the movie Notting Hill ). And this was the exact thought that was running in my mind as I was rising from a depth of over 35 feet under water in the Arabian Sea near Goa, India. I had just finished my first dive (rather second dive of my first dive) with grouper fish, tailor fish - and many more - knelt at the bottom of the ocean floor and touched a ship wreck that sunk more than sixty years ago! It was a surreal experience that has left me with a feeling of self-satisfaction as well as endless curiosity. The two feelings very rarely take a house together in my mind. Probably the last time they shacked up together was when I got an admit for my Master's from State University of New York . The feeling of gliding underwater among the fishes, water pressure trying to burst your ears drums, flying over huge boulders of rocks under sea; like an un...

The best way to start anew is to start simple yet big! Simplicity is attractive in any form; whether it is the simplest form of an idea, design or even a human being. It carries with it the power to affect thousands when complexity restricts itself just to a handful. There are numerous examples around us where a simple idea became a big time hit! Whether it was Apple's iPod, Google's home page or Indian " jugaads ". Ideas like Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent movement, Nelson Mandela's efforts on reconciliation (forgiveness) or more recently Juan Mann's free hugs campaign were simple yet powerful enough to carry their effect through the human biases. The inherent infectious nature of these real simple ideas leaves us happily vulnerable to unknown outcomes that always follow them. As I welcomed 2011 into my life I was asked by someone whether I had any new year resolutions. A confession here, I am not a resolution kinda guy. But that set aside I thought why ...