Monday, May 25, 2009

The Snake and a holy man

 

There was a certain village, where one snake used to live. Now this snake used to keep biting people and all the people in the village were very scared of him. So the people of the village never used to venture out of the house much because of the snake, even children did not used to play outside their houses.

 

One day one holy man was passing through the village and he was surprised to see the village so quiet, and on enquiring he got to know about the snake. So this holy man went to talk to the snake, in general you cannot talk to snakes, but holy men have special powers and they can talk to them.

 

Holy man gave all the gyan to snake, and explained him that it was not a good idea to be biting people around and harassing other living beings. It was against the scriptures and he might suffer in his next birth. The snake was very impressed with the holy man and he promised that he is going to change himself and become a really good good snake.

 

Now fast forward, one year ahead.

 

The holy man is again passing through the same village, and he sees the village full of activity. He feels very proud of himself. As he goes forward he sees a group of children crowded around something, jumping and playing. When he went near he saw that these children had surrounded the same snake, and they were hitting him with stones and catching its tail and the snake looked completely tortured. Snake was looking very sorry looking and meek.

 

The holy man drives all the kids away, and feels very sorry for the snake. He asks the snake, what happened. Snake says that as people started realizing that snake had stopped biting, they started making fun of him, and harassing him.

 

Then the holy man tells the snake, “I had only asked you to stop biting, but not to stop hissing, you have to be nice but still stand up your ground.”

 

“Be nice to people, but don’t get walked over”, I guess this is the moral of the story.

 

Guess this is little stupid story, but I really found it very relevant and really liked it.

 

 You may also like to read the following:

How umbrella and slippers came in to existence

A small story

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

A blog after a long time

I have been off blogger for a long time, not that I did not want to write and also not that I have been lazy, but somehow it has been slipping lower and lower in my priority list with so many things struggling to find place in my To-Do list. 

here are some of the recent things that I have been up to..

 

1. Just came back from a week long US trip, I really love this short trips because they kind of rewind you up and you come back with so much of enthusiasm and new ideas.  I saw Stanford campus for the first time, and I really liked it. Sometimes feels that I should go back to school again. 

 

2. Mayank and I have been busy making a short film for Kilikili, it is almost done and we are going to put this up on youtube shortly. 

 

3. Am reading this book called "Blue Sweater" from Jacqueline Novagratz. The author is a founder of Acumen Fund, a non profit venture that invests in various sustainable social enterprises around the world. It is a nice book about experiences of author, as a 25 year old trying to setup micro finance institutes in Africa (Rwanda). Apparently Jacqueline had a blue sweater when she was young which she donated, and when she went to Africa (Rwanda) she found one guy wearing her sweater. Her sweater had traveled all the way from US to Africa and probably had gone from hand to hand before finally landing up with this guy. :)

 

4. Finished reading "Age of Kali" by William Dalrymple and I would suggest you can read it, I really love his books. 

 

5. Went to attend this talk on environment, where the guy opened his lecture with this joke, which I liked,

 

Year 1995, two seven year olds are having conversation,

 

First guy: Hey I saw a condom in the verandah?

Second guy: What is a condom?

 

Go Forward, Year 2009, two seven year olds are having conversation

First guy: Hey I saw a condom in verandah?

Second guy: What is a verandah?

 

I guess am going to be more regular to the blog now, I like to pen my thoughts down once in a while and there are so many things to write about.