The biography of Paramhamsa Nithyananda Vol 1

Nithyananda

(Glimpses from the biography of Paramhamsa Nithyananda) Vol 1

Review :

This is a biography of a contemporary spiritual teacher, Swami Nithyananda. It spans the period between his birth to when he was seventeen years old and left his home to take up the wondering life. In today’s age, seventeen is a time when youngsters are all geared up to study for a lucrative career. But Nithyananda took the vow of not touching money and embarked alone on the coolest trip possible, a barefoot pilgrimage across India.

We all know the value and the power of money. It is the one thing we strive for, almost all our life. In all honesty, education and choice of career, has but one guiding spirit: the goddess of wealth. And not without reason, it is money that comes in handy, it is the obvious solution for most of life’s struggles.

Then why and how do some people consciously give it all up, where does the trust in existence, the sheer guts to face hunger day in and day out, stem from? The most hyped example of running away for enlightenment is of course that of the Buddha. He made the mistake of marrying and then the seeking took over.

Closer home, we have life-stories of masters like Shirdi Sai Baba, but his pre-Shirdi days are shrouded in mystery. Ramana Maharishi, while giving us a sketch of the events that led up to his death experience (read enlightenment), was too silent a sage to provide us with juicy details. Which is why, a childhood re-lived, of a popular enlightened master is a rare treat.

The smartest move this soul made was to be born in a place so holy, that no one interfered with his spiritual progress: Tiruvannamalai, the town in Tamil Nadu which has the biggest temple in Asia, and lies in the shadow of the mountain, Arunachala. The mountain is referred to as a spiritual incubator.

When he was a child, Nithyananda began as an artist. He sculpted idols of gods and goddesses with clay. And, like the other saints of yesterday, the child insisted that his clay idols eat the food he offered them. After three days of fasting, one idol compiled!

How does a three year old boy get a Guru? The Guru seeks the evolved soul and bribes him with candies. Nithyanandas parents are the coolest couple one can hope to parent a weird child. When the neighbor complains that she saw the kid sitting in the graveyard, the mother nonchalantly says, ‘So what? He is not disturbing you, is he?’

Somehow the boy goes through school and enrolls into a mechanical college. Unlike other youngsters, his favorite pastime is meditation, pranayama, all that. When a roommate asks him why he is wasting his time, Nithyananda replies, ‘You will know when you stand in line for my darshan one day.’

The climax of the narrative is when he asks his mother if he can leave home, without any plans to return.

The flow is deep and reflective; the book seems to be written by a devotee of the Swami.

What I didn’t like about the book:

At each stage, there is an explanation and a justification about that which is not scientifically accepted, which was not really necessary.  A straight account of the story, I feel, might have made a bigger impact.

What I liked about the book:

The book ends rather abruptly, when the seventeen year old leaves his home town. Somehow this serves as an ignition point that awakens a keen interest in the wondering life. In your imagination, the book doesn’t end, because a journey has just begun…

{ Published by Life Bliss Foundation, ISBN 193436414-2 }

Interview with Swati Kaushal, author of ‘a girl like me’

Swati Kaushal’s Interview :

· Everywhere we turn, we hear people saying ‘talk to your children,’ etc, etc, and yet, it does not happen. Why do some of us find communication so difficult ?

I think communication takes time. As a mother who worked full time and now who works part/full time but from home, I really feel the extra time I have to
spend with my child is priceless. There are times when things come out when you are just spending time with your child, that he or she won’t reveal if you just
ask them: how was your day? You can’t schedule confidences in my experience.
I’m not advocating that women or men should give up work or something of that nature; just that it is important to create some time that you spend with your
kids that is theirs alone. And I think it’s particularly important as your child grows older and has more things to confront.

· What is your take on the phrase, ‘chick lit’. Do you classify yourself as a chick -lit author?
I have heard that phrase for long enough that now it does not bother me. I do think it creates an expectation of sassiness, attitude and frivolity though; (I mean ‘chick’ – who refers to themselves as a ‘chick?’) and I would hate to see A Girl Like me classified as chicklit; it is anything but.

· When you write, where do you write from? As a woman, as the protagonist, or as a storyteller?

A bit of all three, I’m sure. As a modern Indian woman, I feel there is enough richness of experience still untold and that is the territory I wish to share
with readers. I start my stories not with a plot but with a character who has the potential to become a person and I absolutely have to climb into her shoes,
think her thoughts, feel what she is feeling for her to become real to me, and, I hope, to my readers. At the same time a novel needs a plot and for things
need to happen, not only for the characters to develop but also to generate the momentum in the story. I feel that a badly told story can ruin the experience of
reading and so it is important to tell the story in the most interesting, dramatic and visual way possible. That is why I try to keep things moving
along and work so hard on pace.

· Some writers say that writing makes them think, it gives them a perspective. Why do you write?

Like I said, I write when I fall in love with a character; and when that character’s story can, in my opinion, give readers something new, or something they
can identify with, or something to think about.

· Do you / can you read your own novels for fun? How does writing change the experience of reading?

My God. I must have read and reread each chapter hundreds, if not thousands of times through the writing/editing process. But it is strangely difficult to pick up and read my book when it’s all done and printed. But writing definitely changes you as a reader. I find I have become much more critical, and conversely, much
more appreciative of the books I read.

· If you could be any other writer, who would you be?

Myself, just better! Seriously though, I have tremendous admiration for Ian McEwan, Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies just blew me away, and how I wish I
could write prose like Michael Ondaatje! Amongst women writers my favorites are Annie Dillard, Claire Messud and I really enjoyed Ann Brashares’ Sisterhood of the traveling pants.

The Sugar Baron’s Daughter

Book Review

Ever heard of the story in which the female spider eats up her male counterpart after seducing him? Can you imagine how it begins? If you can’t, read ‘the sugar baron’s daughter’.

When a man is dissatisfied by his family, his career, how can he disregard an offer to go back to his roots? Especially when that offer comes from his ex-flame? Anmol is leading a typical, middle class life. He has a nagging wife, two noisy children, dis-satisfied and grumbling parents, and a good for nothing younger brother. His work in Delhi is hard to articulate. All he does is meet ambitious people who want to get things done by the ministry and take hefty bribes from them.

When a woman is repeatedly spurned by her rich husband, and realizes the emptiness of the party life, how can she keep away from her father’s sugar mills that are undergoing turbulence? Nagina, Anmols’s childhood friend and first love, is a beautiful woman who is an expert in manipulating the men her life.

With two negative characters as protagonists, Loveleen Kacker takes you on a spin that is entertaining and political. The view is from the top, but the frame is a wide angled one. Like a telescopic image, the author throws light on a poor farmer’s plight while actually writing from the pen of the sugar mill owner.

The uniqueness of the book lies in the art of the exposure. The youthful fight for the first sugar ball that is made in a sugar mill can spark off a hot scene. Passion is followed by a brief spell of sentimentality, not the other way around. A mentally retarded child can rob a woman of all motherliness. The Mandal commission is something that gets the wife out on the streets protesting and dinner is late. The farmers go on a strike, but the leader is not sure if he is doing the right thing. A politician admits that adulation of the masses turns him on. A criminal asks for and gets the blessings of a sadhu, and the victim dies a dog’s death.

Loveleen Kacker has portrayed a beautiful landscape of majhauli, the place in UP where the sugar mills are located. The characterizations of both the place and the people are deep and clearly etched.

What I didn’t like about the book:

This book cheats your habitual sense of loyalty. The author has taken a politically neutral stand and not given us a single hero, ideology or path to worship.

What I liked about the book:

Although the author is a woman, she has ventured to adopt the voice of a man, Anmol. We are usually quick to criticize a man who deserts his family for another woman. But the way Anmol writes about the total lack of connection with any of the members living in the house, it seems almost natural to exit.

Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra

Book Review

Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra

‘Why did grandmother die?’ you might have asked your mother when you were five.

‘Because she was old, my dear.’ You still didn’t get it.

‘So?’ you asked your mom again. ‘She was old yesterday too, wasn’t she?’

‘All old people die some day or the other, kid. I will die, you will die, your little pup will die when he grows old too,’ said your dad, rather sternly.

And if dad said it, it had to be right. And then you saw other relatives dying, most were old and sick, and now your mind has accepted it as truth. People grow old, they get feeble, they stop having fun, and finally we are all going to die.

What if someone told you that death is a concept? A concept being, something two people can have different opinions about? A concept is not the final truth.

Would you believe it if a reputed doctor practicing medicine in the US, told you that you can live forever? This is the claim made by Deepak Chopra, the bestselling new age guru. In Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Deepak Chopra presents a quantum perspective, a theory which defies whatever we believe about our bodies. We do not have to age, and we do not have to die.

Deepak treats death and aging as myths, to be questioned, to be researched. He talks about a qualitative shift in consciousness that will make us take a quantum jump into good health.

That mind is superior to matter is a given with Deepak, him being an ayurvedic physician. But intelligence, as stated in the book, is far more powerful and proactive in a baby’s body as compared to a grown up. A baby has no sense of time, no worries, and it is superbly defended against time’s ravages. If a baby could preserve its nearly invulnerable immune status, we could all live at least two hundred years, according to Deepak’s estimate. If a baby could preserve its glistening smooth arteries, supple as silk, cholesterol would not find anywhere to lodge, and heart disease would be unknown.

Aging is a mask for the loss of this inherent intelligence. Day-old bread goes stale because it just sits there, prey to humidity, fungus, oxidation, and various destructive chemical processes. A chalk cliff crumbles over time because wind and rain beat it down, and it has no power to rebuild itself. Our bodies also undergo this process of oxidation and are attacked by fungi and various germs, they are exposed to the same wind and rain. But unlike a loaf of bread or a chalk cliff, we can renew ourselves. Our bones don’t just store calcium the way chalk does –they circulate it. Understanding these facts is the first step towards re-interpreting your body.

There is a land where no one is old. India, China, Japan and to a lesser extent the Christian west have given birth to sages who realized their essential nature as the flow of intelligence. By preserving and nurturing that flow, they are able to overcome entropy. In India, this flow is called ‘prana’, meaning life force, and it can be increased or decreased at will, moved here and there, and manipulated to keep the body orderly and young.

Giving a clear scientific basis for his research, Deepak illustrates how awareness is the power behind defeating entropy. Breaking the spell of immortality is a simple step from time-bound towards time-less awareness.

If God was a Banker

What will happen if a regular banker decides to write a novel?

He might call it A Banker’s Life and write about the nine to five job. It might have mind numbingly boring stuff like tallying accounts and counting notes. And probably the joys of happy and secure family.

And what if a storyteller who has to work in a bank for a living comes up with a novel? Then he would call it ‘If God Was A Banker.’ Ravi Subramanian has tried hard to break the myth of the ‘regular banker’ and given us a juicy read.

The plot of this novel is inspired by the tale of the hare and tortoise. Swami is the poor little good guy, and since he fails into a stereotype, he is left alone in most of the pages. Sundeep, the villain of the story gets the major footage as his career rockets up in spite of, or because of his unethical and unconventional modus operandi.

Swami and Sundeep, both management graduates join New York International Bank at the same time. Sundeep’s classmate, Kalpana, is impressed with Swami’s honesty and marries him, leaving Sundeep heartbroken. Sundeep marries Natasha on the rebound, but harbors revenge towards Swami. As they swiftly climb the corporate ladder, Sundeep keeps trying to pull Swami down. On his way, Sundeep meets ‘bad company’ and gets sucked into murky waters, where ethics come last, and women are nothing more than sex objects.

Swami’s perseverance gets tested many a times, but something keeps him loyal to Sundeep. Sundeep, on the other hand, is blinded by his success into arrogance and selfishness.

This book offers some inside looks at MNC’s culture, or the lack of it. Page by page, it demystifies the stereotype of banking.

If you have a lot of money in a bank, you can treat this book as an entertaining guide on ‘all that can go wrong with your savings’.

What I disliked about the book:

The language is at times unnecessarily repetitive and simplistic. The characters lack depth. The good guy is saccharin sweet and the bad guy is black as coal.

The only grey is the marriage that survives in spite of the wayward husband. Natasha is the ideal doormat of a wife, she does not even tell her husband of the indecent pass made by his boss.

The plot towards the end is unconvincing. It seems that the author realized that he better be politically correct and so he takes a moral stand on his naughty protagonist.

What I liked about the book:

The narrative has a smooth flow and reads easily.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Ravi Subramanian does a guest appearance as one of the key characters in the book. Yes, he has used his own name, probably to buy belief into the make believe world he created. Somehow, it works.

The book devotes an entire chapter that questions the way women are treated in the corporate culture.

If God was a Banker throws up some deep questions at the corporate way of functioning. How do we rate our performance? What yardstick do we use? Is success so one-dimensional that it can be counted on our fingers? Why have we become so superficial? Let us step out of the ra(bbi)t race, let us join the tortoise.

A Girl Like Me – Review

A Girl like me, by Swati Kaushal

Book Review

Were you ever a teenager who had problems? Were you ever a teenage girl who had problems with her mother? Have you ever been uprooted from one country and put into an unfamiliar environment, and expected to excel? Do you still harbor grudges against your parents? Or, even more dangerous, do you still hero-worship your parents? On the other side of the spectrum, do you wonder what your teenager thinks about? Are you concerned about your communication levels with your teenager? Are you a single parent, juggling both career and home?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, a girl like me will unravel a few mysteries, and maybe untie some knots. A good book is something of a magic mirror. It helps you look at what might be happening behind your back. And an excellent book is one that helps you see what is happening at the back of your mind.

Teenage is one of the most unconscious and fast moving time of our lives. It is so rare to come across a teenager who talks to you.

If you meet Anisha Rai, the protagonist of this novel, outside the pages of the book, you will probably think that she is a snobbish, US returned teenager with an insufferable attitude. But when you open the book, Swati Kaushal unveils the inner reality of a troubled life.

Ani, or Annie, has promised her father on his deathbed that she will keep her mother happy. She will be a good girl. It is this promise that proves to be the bane of the crumbling communication between mother and daughter.

Less than two years after her father has died, Ani’s mom, Isha, announces that she has found a wonderful job in New Delhi, and they are moving to India from Minnesota, where they have lived since Ani was born.

Moving back to India is a wonderful, much needed home coming for Isha. But Ani is a foreigner in her mother’s country. It’s hot, it’s a lot of hard work at school, and the hardest part is to see mother dear so happy. Cribbing, or asking for sympathy is not the done thing. So Ani fakes her smiles, just to go along with her mother. And Isha? She is so busy with her new hot-shot job; she just can’t sense the façade of her daughters smile.

And these symptoms cover a deeper issue. Mother and daughter seem to have diagonally opposite ways of dealing with the grief of losing the man in the family. For Isha, work is worship. Anisha worships memories of her father.

The communication gap deepens as Ani falls for an older guy, (Electra–complex?), and Isha gets friendly with their neighbor. It seems as if Isha is too insensitive to realize that what her daughter needs is a little bit of attention, a simple chat. A successful person, a hardworking mother, she has put Ani in the best of schools, and made sure her daughter has everything she needs. But it does not occur to her that the most dangerously missing factor in Ani’s life is a mother she can pour out her problems to.

Swati Kaushal’s writing style has not changed from her first novel, A piece of cake. She makes you pause at her choice of adjectives, but she does not let you take a pause from the novel. This book can make you identify completely with the silent suffering teenager. You ache for her to relieve her angst by throwing a tantrum. However, the end takes you by surprise. You might want to call up your mother and say sorry.