Dream Wonders

I woke up today morning in the middle of a dream (thank you dear alarm!) and I could still remember quite a bit of it. And thinking back on it made me wonder how incredibly detailed our dreams are. If you remember any of your dreams, you will know what I am talking about.

So I was dreaming about having gone to stay at a friend's place and she had had her bath and was giving me things I would require for mine. I could actually see her tied up hair slightly messed up and a little wet near the nape, like from when you don't wear a shower cap under a shower. I also remember her giving me a shower gel with some ingredient I have heard of and have wanted to try but haven't found it. And as much as I sniffed I couldn't smell it from the lemon because that's the only smell that I have experienced and know.

And this is not just for regular dreams, even when you have really unbelievable dreams like flying through space, you do feel the wind in your hair and under your limbs. You do wake up all afraid and fearful from a nightmare, though the threat is not really present around you.

It's really amazing how detailed our dreams actually are and how creative our mind is while dreaming. And not just that, even our memories of those dreams are strong. Such is the power of dreams!

Aha Moments that Inspire

So, I was just sitting down for work when I started by checking my emails and I came across this random Indiblogger email about submitting my entry for the Idea Caravan contest of Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012. I have been getting these reminder emails for more than a month and I have been deleting them without opening them. Today, I said wait, let's see what it is about... and it's two hours later, my work is yet to start, but I am typing away at my keyboard, putting this post up. 

Having done my MBA, I have gone through lots of case studies of how empires and conglomerates have been built. In an MBA, you never really study about the real social issues and needs or what is being done about them (if there really is). Of course there are well-publicised examples  you come across like the Grameen Bank, but again these are few. At the end of the day, you are taught, the bottom line is the 'bottom-line'. But today was a good look into people who are solving the very real needs of society and communities. A much more educational experience than some of my MBA lectures. 

Mittal Patel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w8cZ2iJARPM

I listen to her story and I see a real life hero. A very important thing I noticed is that she is not just focussing on just one problem, but all possible problems of invisible, unknown and undocumented tribes.

Arunachalam Muruganatham 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u1iWhljEbTE

A man whose story should be an inspiration for the feminism of today. His simplicity: humbling, his personal life story: saddening and yet his work: mindblowing. 

Cynthyia Koenig

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R3Dn868I8RQ

Her idea is so simple and so brilliant, it reminds me of the Newton story. Everyone used to see things falling towards the earth and not away from it, but it was only Newton who spoke of gravity. Similarly, everyone has seen wheels and put them to various uses; and yet...

Suprio Das

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pvJVL6ECGLg

There are ideas that can change lives, and there are ideas that can save them. This one does both.


Myshkin Ingawale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZrxaxNTxdCI

A technology that helps 'democratise healthcare'... big words, bigger ideas!


Each thought I have written about here is worth a standing ovation.  I am touched. And indeed, I am inspired.

On Laundries

I was at a laundry today after almost 15 years. They still have old songs playing on a creaky radio. They still are just about lit.They still smell of hot irons, dry cleaned and freshly ironed clothes. Just as the first monsoons smell of your first day at school with new notebooks, textbooks, brown covers, fresh ink and sharpened pencils.

Some memories always stay the same... and there is nothing more comforting than that...

On Following Rules

People will follow rules, even those which are to their advantage, when it is made convenient for them to follow those rules.

Oh, That!

Being a psychology student, I hear a lot of lectures, theories and research of human behaviour. Everything seems to make sense in the moment because everything has been logically explained and seems rational. And it's like, ok, yeah it makes sense. And you walk out of the class, you take an exam, write about that phenomenon, trait, theory etc, and almost forget it and move on.

But then there are those times. Those aha moments! When someone's reactions, feelings, some words just click and make you think of that particular thing you'd heard of or studied! And there in that moment the little voice in your head goes, "Oh! (or rather oooooooooh!) That's what it is about!"

All of us go through this at some point of other. Think of some some song you have heard once or twice and maybe forgotten later. Or some poem you have had to study as a part of your syllabus, and it all seems nice
but you don't really get it. You may have heard it, appreciated it for its poetry and let it go.

And then some day, you just stop in the middle of something you are experiencing or doing, because it strikes you, it sinks in and you go 'oh!'. You want to hear that song again or read that poem again right then! Or go back to the one who shared that song with you or to the teacher who taught it to you and want to talk to them again about it. Share this reaction to it and this understanding of it that you've just had with them!

Such aha moments, all of them! 

The Progress of Humans

Homo sapiens or we humans are the newest species on the evolutionary block. Just about 200,000 years old. For perspective, the first living organisms came on earth  3.6 billion years ago, the first vertebrates 485 million years ago and the first mammals 200 million years ago. Our closest ancestors the great apes came about 20 million years ago.

But if you think about it how cool is our intellectual and cultural progression!

Take the simple example of a hot water shower. Yes, I have just stepped out of one and that is where the chain of thought started, so, a hot water shower.  The concept of cleaning the outer body and skin using water is there among other species also, so okay, we won’t consider that. What is unique to humans that came to hot water showers is this. First we tamed fire for domestic uses such as providing light, cooking and heating. Then there is the idea of heating water to take a bath that is unique to us humans. Going forward, we discovered electricity and put it to its various uses including heating. Phew!

But it’s still not done. That was the heating of water part. Now we come to showers. We have metals and the durable alloys made from them. Along with it are the making and building of tool like pipes and showers and using principles of physics like gravity to control the flow of water. That really requires quite some intelligence, doesn’t it? And this is just a simple shower of hot water, (excluding soaps, body washes, shampoos, conditioners, loofahs, towels etc) an everyday occurrence. (Side note: everyday things can be so elegant and profound if you really think of it).

And today, with the rapid progression of technology, we are trying to create intelligent machines. So we not only have this intelligence, we are trying to map it, emulate it and pass it on to inanimate objects like machines.

Now compare this to the other older species who are still working on the basics of survival and reproduction.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?! 

The Feeling of Coming Home

I was entering the main gate of my building when a bright yellow school bus honked its way to parking in front of the gate. A 10-12 year old girl got off the bus and there her father was waiting for her with her toddler brother in his arms. The minute her brother saw her, he expressed his enthusiasm with a loud shout calling out to her and by jumping up and down in his father's arms. The girl who had a slow tired demeanour on getting off the school bus suddenly got an enthusiastic spring in her step and she smiled and just simply started walking quicker to reach them.

It is that that is the feeling of coming home where the people you love and who love you have been waiting for your return and are happy to see you, not just the physical fact on entering the doors of the place you reside in. Ask anyone who is living alone, even in the most comfortable house that money can buy, what to them is the feeling of coming home and you will get very interesting answers that cannot really capture what a feeling is.