:-)
Life is cycle - proved again.
Printable View
:-)
Life is cycle - proved again.
This is a brief note on Psychology
If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and, inside the cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.
As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with same result .... all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put the cold water away. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment.. . with enthusiasm.
Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, none of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway to the banana.
Why, you ask? Because in their minds .... that is the way it has always been.
This is how Politics operates .... and is why, from time to time, ALL OF THE MONKEYS NEED TO BE REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME!
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no... one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Few Tweets, I loved. It was taken from AV
குழந்தைகளின் குறும்புகள் எப்போதும் போல தான். அதை ரசிக்கவும் எரிச்சல் அடையவும் வைப்பது நம் மனநிலை தான்.
கேப்டன் அரசியலுக்கு வருவதற்கு முன்பு வரை "நானே ராஜா....நானே மந்திரி" அவரது காமெடி படம்னு வெகுளிதனமா நெனச்சுட்டு இருந்தேன்.
முதன் முறையாக விஜயகாந்த் கைது # பாகிஸ்தானில் தீவிரவாதிகள், கூடாரதுக்கு கூடாரம் பொங்கல் வைத்து கொண்டாட்டம்.
வேலை வெட்டி இல்லாத ஆணை கல்யாணம் செய்ய பெண் முன்வராத வரை சமஉரிமை என்பது வெறும் கூச்சல்
முகத்தில் அறைவது போல பேசுவதற்கு பதிலாக முகத்தில் அறைந்தே விடுங்கள் வலியாவது குறைவாக இருக்கும்.
தோல்வியின் விரக்தியில் கடவுளை சபிக்கும் உங்களில் எதனை பேர் வெற்றியின் பெருமிதத்தில் "நன்றி" சொல்லி இருப்பீர்கள்?
இப்போது எல்லாம் மரியாதை நிமித்தமாக அணைக்கப்படும் சிகரட்டுகள் எண்ணிக்கை வெகுவாக குறைந்துவிட்டது
சில சமயம் குரங்காகவே இருந்திருக்கலாம் என்று தோன்றுகிறது # ஒரு ஸ்டாப்புக்கு ஆறு ருபாய் டிக்கெட்
ரஜினி தன படங்களில், ஒரு பாடலில் பெரிய ஆள் ஆகிவிடுவார், அவர் மருமகன் உண்மையாகவே ஒரே பாடலில் பெரிய ஆள் ஆகிவிட்டார் # கொலவெறி
ஒருவன் தான் எவ்வளவு கெட்டவன் என்பதை மனைவியிடம் மட்டும் மறைக்காமல் காட்டிவிடுகிறான்.
Forgive & forget... and get on with life
Dr. H. V. Easwer
Often, during a medical call, I received lessons in health and wellness from the most unlikely of people. No textbook in the world would ever contain these ‘tutorials.' An evening in the late 1980s, a few days after Diwali in late October, on the banks of the Karamana river, was one such time when a popular local character, Chuppayyan (Subbayyan), opened up a new vista of well-being.
Karamana was a quaint, sleepy, and nondescript suburb in Trivandrum city and it was here that Chuppayyan wandered around without a home to call his own. He was an orphan but I would disagree if you say Chuppayyan was a beggar as he did many odd jobs. Also, unlike the scraggy looks of a destitute, he was a little plump and had a cherubic face. He would seek alms only when his earnings failed to satisfy his hunger.
If there was someone that he was close to, it was Valliamma the old woman who sold vegetables door-to-door in a basket made of palm leaves. Nobody knew how they were related but then Chuppayyan could be seen at her side helping her. Valliamma would sell small unripe mangoes for making pickles from January to March and every child at Karamana was familiar with her Kanni maanggai (unripe mangoes) chant as she went around with the basket on her head. Chuppayyan would follow her for a while and then wander off as she sat on the thinnai (pyol) of a house and measured her mangoes with a pakkah, a measuring jar of those times.
This incident occurred as I was returning home with a friend after attending a medical call at the house of an old lady who was incapacitated by a stroke. We took a shorter path along the dyke constructed along the Karamana river. A canopy of coconut trees lent the evening a darker shade than it really was and we could see the silhouette of Chuppayyan ahead of us. There was a place where the dyke took an undulating turn and we could see some people sitting in a circle and playing cards. There were empty bottles littered around, revealing that the game of cards was accompanied by some fun with fresh toddy.
As Chuppayan neared them, one of the card players started taunting him. As if on cue, others joined him and started making disparaging remarks about Chuppayyan's parents, especially his mother. Chuppayyan passed them without uttering a word and his head was held low. Emboldened by his passivity, one of the card players got up and came close to him menacingly though he was too drunk to progress further. It was at this point that we reached the inebriated players and my friend, a member of a cadre-based political party, raised his voice and threatened them. Seeing my friend's reaction, the more sober of the card players rushed to pull back their friend, who was intending to harm Chuppayyan.
My friend turned to Chuppayyan and berated him for being silent. “Why didn't you react,” he asked as we resumed our walk back to our homes. Chuppayyan replied: “Avangalukku puriyadhu” (they are all so drunk that they will not understand).
My friend, who was known for his fire-brand temperament, persisted: “But then they were abusing your parents, weren't they? One should hit back if one's parents are made fun off.” I was watching Chuppayyan, who replied very calmly: “Anna [brother], I do not know who my parents are and hence it does not make any difference.” I was surprised by his rather calm demeanour and obvious lack of ill feelings towards his tormentors. I was also puzzled by his nonchalance and promised myself to seek the truth from Valliamma.
Some months passed and came summer. I had forgotten Chuppayyyan as I busied myself with life and the challenges on its professional and personal fronts. On a hot summer noon in May, I found Valliamma on my doorstep with a minor medical problem. After prescribing her medication, I broached the subject of Chuppayyan's paternity with her. “Where are his parents? Is he your son?” She was surprised but answered clearly: “Chuppayyan knows who his parents are. They are a family of rich traders in Bhoothapandi. When the boy was young he had epileptic fits and the parents got scared and abandoned him on the banks of the Karamana. When he grew up, they got in touch with him again, but he told them that he was happy with me as I raised him after I lost my husband in my younger days.”
I looked back on the day when Chuppayyan was harassed and taunted on account of his paternity. His response to his tormentors and his parents who abandoned him was indeed the most unexpected from a vagabond. He scored high that day for his emotional quotient, in stark contrast to many of us who would seethe in anger at the slightest provocation and perception of unfairness in our lives. We hit back losing more in the process. Our roads are the best examples of the latter group which whip itself into a frenzy at the slightest provocation from fellow-drivers. They lose all reason and harm themselves in the process of flying into road rage.
That was the day when I learnt an important lesson for good health: one should always engineer one's perceptions in a way that does not hurt us — learning to forget, forgive, and get on with the journey of life; simply because there are too many things around us which we cannot change.
We humans are perhaps the most insecure among the animal species as we live our lives, going to great lengths to ensure that our health and wellbeing are not adversely affected during our spell on this planet. It is this insecurity that drives endeavours as varied as astrology, the bullion markets and, of course, the big business — religion — as we seek to secure our future. In our times, even the ‘medical industry,' which includes investigatory tools such as CT and MR scans and the countless blood tests, is sometimes used in this human quest for reassurance.
If you ask the ‘wise,' they would say that the key to wellbeing lies in the mind and it is the mind's reactions to events that determine our health and happiness. What do you think of the man who had a heart attack when his favourite team lost a cricket match? Or a boy who decided that the world ended for him because he did not qualify in the medical entrance exam. And then there was this businessman who had a heart attack soon after he lost a bid for a lucrative contract to his rival. Why does this lady run her blood pressure up when she meets her brother who, she feels, cheated her in the division of their paternal property? The wise would say that all these are the result of the way we perceive these events. It is here that many of us could learn from Chuppayyan.
(The writer is Associate Professor, Dept of Neurosurgery, SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram, and his email ID is: dreaswer@gmail.com)
From the OPINION section of the Hindu - February 18, 2012
thankyou rd....Extreme maturity portrayed. For me, its still long way to go...Lot of lessons to learn...
Painting Calcutta blue
By Gwynne Dyer - February 24, 2012
I am not making this up. They’re going to paint Calcutta blue.
Some firm of public relations consultants has persuaded the West Bengal state government that all official buildings and assets in Calcutta, right down to the lane dividers on highways, should be painted light blue. Taxis and other public services that require licenses will also get out the blue paint, and owners of private property will be asked to do the same, with tax cuts for those who comply.
It’s all about branding, really. West Bengal got a new government last year, after 34 years of Communist rule, and the state’s new rulers decided that the capital city, Calcutta, needs a new colour scheme. As Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim told the Indian Express newspaper, “Our leader Mamata Banerjee has decided that the theme colour of the city will be sky blue because the motto of the new government is ‘the sky is the limit’.”
Well, why not? If the state of Rajasthan can have both a “pink city” (Jaipur) and a “blue city” (Jodhpur), why shouldn’t Calcutta brand itself as “the other blue city”? However, Jaipur is naturally pink because of widespread use of terracotta, and in Jodhpur the residents got out their paintbrushes voluntarily, whereas the West Bengal state government is spending a reported 800 million rupees ($16 million) on the blueing of Calcutta.
Calcuta’s leading newspaper, the Telegraph (in which this column has long had the honour of appearing), was so swept away by the wonderfulness of the concept that it wrote a fulsome editorial about it. “Finding the right colour combination is undoubtedly the crucial first step in making a city safer, healthier, cleaner and generally more user-friendly for its inhabitants,” the newspaper wrote, tongue firmly in cheek.
“(Painting Calcutta blue) could, with as little doubt, sort out its core problems—chaotic healthcare, inability to implement pollution control norms, arsenic in the water, archaic sewers and garbage disposal, bad roads, killer buses for public transport, an airport falling apart and beyond dismal, priceless paintings rotting away in public art galleries, to name a few.” One wonders why more cities are not doing the same. Maybe they couldn’t afford the right consultants.
I yield to practically everybody in my esteem for the overpaid consultants who are employed by unimaginative governments to “improve their image.” There is a better way for Calcutta to overcome its reputation for chaos and decay. By all means spend most of the available money on sewers and garbage disposal, roads and buses, pollution control, art galleries and the airport—but also restore the city centre.
Calcutta was the capital of British-ruled India for two centuries. For much of that time it was the second-largest city in the British Empire, only surpassed by London. So the centre of the city was full of Georgian and Regency buildings that reflected the city’s power and wealth at that time.
Most of them are still there. Calcutta was poor for a long time, so it hasn’t had the money to erase its past in the brutal way that is happening in most other Asian big cities. Almost all Chinese cities have already destroyed their architectural heritage, and beautiful cities like Hanoi are working at it full-time. But Calcutta’s wonderful buildings are in dreadful shape, and soon it will find enough money to start destroying them wholesale.
It doesn’t have to end like that. Fifteen years ago I was walking up Bentinck Street, surrounded by the chaos of cars and trams and the crumbling buildings festooned with washing lines and movie posters. I came round a slight bend in the road—and saw a miraculous sight.
It was an four-storey town house restored to all its former glory: the stucco replaced, the balconies repaired, the whole thing repainted in the mustard-yellow colour that was fashionable in the late 18th century. It was in a row of other 18th-century houses that were still rotting, and suddenly I realised what central Calcutta used to look like. It made the hair rise on the back of my neck.
The same evening I went to a dinner party in south Calcutta, and found myself sitting next to the architect who had done the restoration. (Small world.) She explained that she had got municipal money to fix the house up, on condition that the existing residents (poor people, of course) would not be displaced by the high-rent crowd. The point, of course, was to inspire other property owners to do the same thing.
I don’t know if that particular house has fallen into disrepair again (Google Streetview has its limitations), but I do know that the example did not work. I also know that it could work. It would cost more than a vat of blue paint, but labour isn’t that expensive in the city, so it’s cheaper to restore than to destroy and rebuild. If Calcutta started now, it could have a city centre that is the envy of Asia in 10 years.
Alternatively, the West Bengal government could push the blue business a bit further. After all, nothing exceeds like excess. Why not paint all 14 million of Calcutta’s inhabitants blue, and declare that they are all avatars of Vishnu? That would get everybody’s attention.
[Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist, syndicated columnist and historian. He writes a column on international affairs which is published in over 175 papers in 45 countries.]
The Cookie Thief - by Valerie Cox
A woman was waiting at an airport one night
With several long hours before her flight
She hunted for a book in the airport shop
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop
She was engrossed in her book but happened to see
That the man beside her as bold as could be
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between
Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene
She munched cookies and watched the clock
As this gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by
Thinking "If I wasn't so nice I'd blacken his eye"
With each cookie she took he took one too
And when only one was left she wondered what he'd do
With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh
He took the last cookie and broke it in half
He offered her half as he ate the other
She snatched it from him and thought "Oh brother
This guy has some nerve and he's also rude
Why he didn't even show any gratitude"
She had never known when she had been so galled
And sighed with relief when her flight was called
She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate
Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate
She boarded the plane and sank in her seat
Then sought her book which was almost complete
As she reached in her baggage she gasped with surprise
There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes
"If mine are here" she moaned with despair
"Then the others were his and he tried to share"
"Too late to apologize she realized with grief"
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vug4_...eature=related
"Modesty of dress and Indian culture" :)
By Suchi Govindarajan
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/article2982283.ece
Do not miss the "comments" that follow the article!
"IIM Calcutta student rejects plum jobs to educate villagers"
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/12498646.cms