|
The infant doesn’t know the taste of milk. But by taking it daily, it develops a deep attachment for it, such that when milk is to be given up and rice substituted, it starts to protest. But the mother doesn’t despair; she persuades the child to take small quantities of cooked rice daily, and slowly, the child starts liking rice and gives up milk. Milk though once its natural food, is replaced by rice through practice to such an extent that if rice is not available for a day, the child feels miserable. So too though sense pleasures are ‘natural’ at first, by means of practice and listening to the wise, slowly the joy derived from listening and recapitulating the glories of the Lord is grasped. Over time, the company of the worldly who chatter about the senses or sense-objects will no longer attract; the company that exults in the Love of Lord becomes sweeter and then you begin to genuinely experience the Divine.
|
Self Improvement
Message For the Day…” How to Train and Command Your Senses…” ?
Generally people get drawn to sense objects, for they are victims of instincts. And instincts come along with the body and aren’t derived by any training. The infant seeks milk from the mother, no training is needed for this. However for the infant to walk and talk, some training is necessary, because these actions are not automatic but are socially prompted, by example and by imitation of others. Training is essential even for the proper pursuit of sense pleasure, for it is the wild and untrained search for such pleasure that promotes anger, hatred, envy, malice, and conceit. To train the senses along salutary lines and to hold them under control, certain good disciplines like repetition of the name, meditation, fasts, worship at dawn and dusk, etc. are essential. When one is asked to do such spiritual acts, one has no inner prompting at all. Still, one shouldn’t give up in despair. No one has a taste for such practices from the very beginning, but constant practice creates the zest.
Message For the Day…” How to Achieve Spiritual Wisdom…”
|
The quintessence of the scriptural texts is this: Realise that the awareness of Divine or Brahman cannot be won by the accumulation of wealth nor by giving away the riches. Nor can it be achieved by reading texts, rising to power, acquiring degrees and diplomas, or performing scriptural sacrifices and rituals. The body is an anthill, with the mind inside as a deep cavity. The mind has hidden in it the serpent named ignorance or nescience (a-jnana).The serpent cannot be killed by resorting to satisfaction-oriented works (kamya karma). Spiritual wisdom (jnana) is the only weapon that can kill it. To achieve spiritual wisdom, you must have ‘Steady Faith’. Shraddhavan labhathe jnanam, states the scriptures. Meaning, that person alone, who has steady and unwavering faith, can certainly secure wisdom.
|
” திருப்பாவை , திருவெம்பாவை தெரியுமா …” ?
திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை பத்தி தெரியுமா?”
நன்றி-சக்தி விகடன் & பால ஹனுமான்.
ஒருநாள், பிரதோஷம் மாமா மடத்துக்குச் செல்லும்போது, திருவரத ஓதுவார் என்பவரும் தெருவில் தன் பரிவாரங்கள் புடைசூழ வந்தாராம். வழிநெடுக, தேவார- திருவாசகப் பாடல்களைப் பாடிக்கொண்டும், ‘நமசிவாய வாழ்க! நாதன்தாள் வாழ்க!’ என்று கோஷம் இட்டுக்கொண்டும் ஓதுவாரும் அவருடன் வந்தவர்களும் வர, பிரதோஷம் மாமாவுக்குச் சின்னதாக ஒரு வருத்தம். அவர், ‘அருணாசல சிவ’ எனும் நாமத்தைச் சொல்லியபடியே வருவது வழக்கம். ஆனால், அன்றைக்கு ஓதுவார் பாடியதால், அவர் சொல்வது தடைப்பட்டது.
ஸ்ரீரமணரிடம் அதீத ஈடுபாடுகொண்ட பிரதோஷம் மாமா, ஸ்ரீரமணர் அருளிய ‘அருணாசல சிவ’ எனும் திருநாமத்தை, எல்லோரையும் சொல்லச் சொல்வார். அதேபோல், ஓதுவார் உட்பட அங்கிருந்தவர்களிடம், ‘அருணாசல சிவ’ என்று சொல்லும்படி வலியுறுத்தினார். அதேநேரம் மனதுள் ஒரு எண்ணம்… ‘நமசிவாயமும் அருணாசல சிவமும் வேறு யார்? மகாபெரியவாள்தானே?!’
அனைவரும் மடத்துக்கு வந்து பெரியவாளைத் தரிசித்தனர். ஓதுவார் விடைபெற்றுச் சென்ற சிறிது நேரத்தில், ‘ஓதுவார் எங்கே?’ என்று கேட்டார் காஞ்சி மகான். அங்கிருந்தவர்கள், ஓதுவார் சென்றுவிட்டதைத் தெரிவித்தனர். உடனே, பிரதோஷம் மாமாவை அழைத்துப் புத்தகம் ஒன்றைக் கொடுத்த மகாபெரியவர், ”இந்தப் புத்தகம் எந்த வருஷம் வெளியானதுன்னு ஓதுவாரைக் கேட்டுத் தெரிஞ்சுண்டு வா!” என்றார். அந்தப் புத்தகம், திருவாசகம்!
காஞ்சிபுரத்தைவிட்டு வேறெங்கும் செல்வதில்லை என்றிருந்த பிரதோஷம் மாமா,மகானின் கட்டளையை நிறைவேற்ற சென்னை செல்லவேண்டிய நிலை. சென்னையில் ஓதுவாரைத் தேட, ஒரு துணை தேவையாக இருந்தது. தன் மீது அன்பு கொண்டிருந்த அன்பர் ஒருவரை உதவிக்கு அழைக்க நினைத்தார். அன்ப ரைச் சந்திக்கும் பொருட்டு, தான் ஏற்கெனவே வேலை பார்த்த அலுவலகத்துக்குச் சென்றார்.ரிடையர்டு ஆனபிறகு இவர் அங்கு செல்வது இதுவே முதல் முறை.
மாமாவைப் பார்த்ததும், அங்கிருந்த வேறொரு நண்பர், ”ஆச்சரியமா இருக்கு சார்! கடிதம் எழுதிப்போட்டு உங்களை வரச்சொல்லணும்னு நினைச்சுட்டிருந்தேன். உங்களுக்குச் சேர வேண் டிய அரியர்ஸ் பணம் ஆயிரம் ரூபாய்க்கும் மேலே வந்திருக்கு. நீங்க இன்னிக்கு வரலேன்னா, திரும்பவும் அக்கவுன்ட்ஸ் செக்ஷனுக்கே போயிருக்கும். அப்புறம் வாங்கறது கொஞ்சம் கஷ்டம்தான்!” என்றார்.
அந்தக் காலத்தில் ஆயிரம் ரூபாய் என்பது மிகப்பெரிய தொகை. இந்தத் தொகை கிடைப்பதற்கு, மகாபெரியவா சிறிதாக விளையாடி, அருளியிருக்கிறார் எனச் சிலிர்த்தார் பிரதோஷம் மாமா.
ஆனால், இத்தோடு முடியவில்லை ஆச்சரியம்!
பிறகு, சென்னையில் அந்த ஓதுவாரைக் கண்டுபிடித்து, நூல் வெளியிடப்பட்ட விவரத்தைக் கேட்க, ‘தெரியாது’ என்று ஓதுவார் சொல்ல, வேறு சிலர் மூலமாக விவரங்களைச் சேகரித்துக்கொண்டு, மடத்துக்குச் சென்றார் பிரதோஷம் மாமா. அங்கே, இவர் கூறியதையெல்லாம் செவிமடுத்த மகாபெரியவா, திருவாசகப் புத்தகத்தை நீட்டி, ”முதல்லேருந்து சில பக்கங்களைப் படி” என்றார்.
புத்தகத்தை வாங்கிப் பிரித்ததும், ஆடிப் போனார் பிரதோஷம் மாமா. எடுத்ததும், ‘நமசிவாய வாழ்க!’ என்று துவங்கும் சிவ புராணம்தான் தென்பட்டது.
‘அருணாசல சிவனும் நமசிவாயமும் வெவ்வேறல்ல’ என்பதைப் பிரதோஷம் மாமாவுக்கு சூசகமாக உணர்த்தி விட்டார் மகாபெரியவா!
திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை பற்றிய சம்பவம் ஒன்றையும் தெரிவித்தார் அகிலா கார்த்திகேயன்.
அது 1949-ஆம் வருடம். மகாபெரியவா திருவிடை மருதூரில் இருந்தார். ஆச்சி அம்மையார் ஒருவர், தினமும் புத்தகம் ஒன்றை எடுத்து வந்து,பெரியவாளுக்கு முன்னே பாடிவிட்டுச் செல்வார். ஒருநாள் ராமமூர்த்தி என்பவரிடம், ”அந்த அம்மையார் பாடற திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை பத்தி தெரியுமா?” என்று கேட்டார் பெரியவா.
அவருக்கு ஒன்றும் தெரியவில்லை. உடனே அவரை, தேவராஜ பாகவதர் என்பவரிடம் அனுப்பி, ‘திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவைப் பாடல்களை வெளியில் பாடச் சொன் னால், எல்லாரும் பாடுவார்களா?’ என்று கேட்டு வரச் சொன்னார். ராமமூர்த்தியும் பாகவதரைச் சந்தித்தார். அவரோ, ”இந்தப் பாட்டுக்கள் யாருக்குத் தெரியும்? ஒருத்தரும் பாடமாட்டாங்க” என்று சொல்லிவிட்டார்.
இதை அப்படியே வந்து மகாபெரியவாளிடம் தெரிவித் தார் ராமமூர்த்தி. உடனடியாக திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை மாநாடு நடத்துவதற்கான ஏற்பாடுகளைச் செய்தார்காஞ்சி மகான்!
மார்கழி பிறந்ததும் ராமமூர்த்தி என்பவரையும் கண்ணன் எனும் அன்பரையும் அழைத்து, கையில் விளக்கும் புத்தகமுமாக யானையின் மீது உட்கார்ந்தபடி, ஸ்ரீமகாலிங்க ஸ்வாமி திருக்கோயிலின் நான்கு வீதிகளிலும், திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை பாடல்களைப் பாடும்படி உத்தரவிட்டார். பிறகு, பெரியவாளின்ஆசியுடன், திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை மாநாடும் சிறப்புற நடைபெற்றது.
அதையடுத்து, சங்கீதக் கச்சேரிகளிலும் திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவைப் பாடல்களையும் வித்வான்கள் பாடத் துவங்கினர். கி.வா.ஜ. போன்ற தமிழறிஞர்கள், இந்தப் பாடல்களை விளக்கிச் சொற்பொழிவாற்ற ஆரம்பித்தனர். அதுமட்டுமா? அப்போதைய இந்து சமய அறநிலையத் துறையின் ஆணையராக இருந்த உத்தண்டராமன் என்பவரிடம், ”மார்கழியில், எல்லாக் கோயில்களிலும் திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை மாநாடு நடத்த ஏற்பாடு செய்யுங்கள்” என்று அருளினார்மகாபெரியவா.
அதே போல், சுவாமிகளின் உத்தரவை சிரமேற்கொண்ட டி.கே.பட்டம்மாள், எம்.எல்.வசந்தகுமாரி, அரியக்குடி ராமானுஜ ஐயங்கார் போன்றவர்கள், திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவை பாடல்களைப் பாடிப் பரப்பினார்கள்!
சில காலம் கழித்து, ராமமூர்த்தியிடம்… ”அந்த ஆச்சி அம்மையார் பாடின பாட்டுக்களை, யாரும் பாடமாட்டானு சொன்னேளே… இப்ப யாராவது பாடறாளா?” என்று குறுஞ் சிரிப்புடன் கேட்டார் காஞ்சிப் பெரியவா. இதில் நெக்குருகிப் போன ராமமூர்த்தி, ”பெரியவா ஈஸ்வர ஸ்வரூபம். அவா நினைச்சா நடக்காததே இல்லை” என்று சொல்லிச் சிலாகித்தாராம்.
பிறகு ஒருமுறை, தஞ்சாவூரில் யாரிடமோ பேசிக் கொண் டிருக்கும்போது, ”இப்ப திருப்பாவை- திருவெம்பாவைப் பாடல்களை, எல்லா இடத்துலயும் எல்லாரும் பாடறான்னா, அது இவனாலதான்!” என ராமமூர்த்தியைச் சுட்டிக் காட்டிச் சிரித்தாராம்பெரியவா.!
நன்றி – சக்தி விகடன்
Attachments:
SOURCE::::www.periva.proboards.com
Natarajan
Read more: http://periva.proboards.com/thread/8375/#ixzz3M4thYdDg
Message For the Day… ” Understand the Divine Significance of ‘OM’…”
|
Om is the sum and essence of all the teachings in scriptures about Divinity;“Om ithi ekaaksharam Brahma” states the Vedas, meaning, the one syllable Om, is Brahman, the Divine! Om is a composite of three sounds A (aa), U (oo) and M (mm). It has to be pronounced rising in a crescendo as slowly as possible, and as gradually coming down, until there remains only the echo of the silence reverberating in the cavity of your heart. Do not take it in two stages, arguing that your breath will not hold so long. Persevere until you are able to be stirred by the upward sweep and the downward curve and the silent sequel. These represent the waking, dreaming and sleeping, and the fourth, beyond the three stages. It represents also the flower of your individuality maturing into a fruit and filling you with sweet juice from your own inner essence, and thereafter the final release.
|
5 Things Lucky People Do …
Author Ashwin Sanghi says that it is indeed possible to ‘attract’ good luck! Here’s how!
Ashwin Sanghi is the author of four bestselling books — The Rozabal Line, Chanakya’s Chant, The Krishna Key and Private India, the last of which he co-authored with the American bestselling writer James Patterson.
Sanghi’s next book, like all his previous ones, is also a page-turner. But 13 Steps to Bloody Good Luck also happens to be his first work of non-fiction.
In it, Sanghi suggests that while some people are ‘luckier’ than others, it is also possible to ‘attract’ good luck your way.
Lady Luck, he says, isn’t all that fickle after all because we can ‘train’ ourselves to be lucky!
So what is it exactly that lucky people do?
Speaking to Rediff.com, Sanghi lists out five important things that most lucky people seem to do:
1. Lucky people grow and strengthen their network
Luck hates loneliness. It’s almost impossible to be lucky alone. A story that will illustrate this point is that of Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Ravi Shankar was a music director with All India Radio (or AIR) from 1949 to 1956. VK Narayana Menon, Director of AIR, introduced Shankar to the renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
Menuhin invited Shankar to perform in America.
In America, Shankar became friends with Richard Bock, founder of World Pacific Records.
Shankar executed several recordings at Bock’s studio.
The American rock band The Byrds who also used to record there heard Shankar’s music and incorporated some of his music into their tracks.
These tracks came to the attention of George Harrison of the Beatles and Harrison soon visited India to study the sitar under Ravi Shankar.
The Beatles went on to use the sitar in their ‘Norwegian Wood’ track.
Shankar’s association with The Beatles got him invited to Woodstock and made him the most famous Indian musician on the planet by 1966.
That’s called the network effect.
2. Lucky people listen to their intuition and develop it
All of us seem to have two voices inside us.
The first is intuition, our ‘inner wizard’.
It tries to tell us what we should be doing and what will be good for us.
The second voice inside us is the ‘inner critic’, which sends a steady stream of destructive thoughts directed towards us and others.
Ignoring the critic and listening to the wizard is a key trait of lucky people.
An example of intuitive good luck is the story of Conrad Hilton, the legendary founder of Hilton Hotels.
Hilton claimed that his incredible success as a hotelier was often due to his lucky hunches.
On one particular occasion, Hilton submitted a sealed bid of $165,000 to buy a rundown Chicago hotel in a sealed bid auction.
The next morning, something didn’t feel right. Acting on his intuition, he submitted another bid of $180,000.
When the bids were examined, Hilton’s was the winning bid.
The next highest offer was $179,800.
3. Lucky people are willing to try new things
The overall willingness of lucky people to try new things simply increases the number of opportunities that come their way thus increasing their good luck.
Consider the story of the great painter Henri Matisse. Matisse went to Paris to study law and started working as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambresis after gaining his qualification.
Following an attack of appendicitis in 1889, he underwent a period of convalescence.
His mother bought him some art supplies so that he could keep himself occupied even though Matisse had never painted in his life.
Little did his mother realise that her son would discover ‘a kind of paradise’ as he later described the experience.
He decided to become an artist, deeply disappointing his father by that decision but going on to become one of the greatest painters ever.
The good luck would simply not have kicked in without Matisse’s openness to try a new activity.
4. Lucky people make the best of bad situations, stay positive and persevere
Lucky people are simply those who use every bad situation to the best of their abilities.
The life stories of some of the ‘luckiest’ people reveal that most of them thrived under conditions of adversity.
Beethoven composed his best-known masterpieces after he became deaf while Sir Walter Raleigh wrote History of the World during his 13 years in prison.
The Discovery of India was written by Jawaharlal Nehru during his imprisonment in Ahmednagar Fort from 1942 to 1946 while Martin Luther translated the Holy Bible while confined in the Castle of Wartburg.
With a sentence of death hanging over him, Dante wrote The Divine Comedy during 20 years of exile.
5. Lucky people stay alert and informed
Most lucky people have understood that calming the mind is a key method to increase alertness.
Lucky people find their own unique ways to tame their minds.
Hence they are better able to deal with difficult or stressful situations in their lives.
Often it is this alertness that allows ‘lucky’ people to spot opportunities when they arise.
Consider the case of Ray Kroc, the person credited with creating the McDonald’s franchising system.
The brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald had established McDonald’s, a fast food restaurant.
The restaurant used Castle Multimixers to make milkshakes.
Ray Kroc supplied these machines to McDonald’s among others.
When Ray noticed that the McDonald brothers had purchased eight Multimixers in a very short period of time, he visited their San Bernardino restaurant to investigate.
Seeing their efficient operation convinced Ray that their scientific restaurant processes could be converted into a national franchising opportunity.
He quickly offered to become a franchising agent for the brothers and opened McDonald’s Inc’s very first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
He eventually bought out the company from the brothers in 1961 for $2.7 million.
Good luck for Ray Kroc?
Yes. But his good luck only happened because he was alert to a sudden spike in the sales of Castle Multimixers!
SOURCE::: http://www.rediff.com
Natarajan
Message For the Day…” Learn From The WATCH the Lesson it Teaches to us …”
You dread that it is very difficult, nay, impossible, to realise God. It is very simple; its very simplicity makes you feel that there must be some hidden trap. You do not appreciate simple things and habits. For example, there is nothing so simple as speaking the truth; yet how many stick to Truth! If you venture into untruth, you have to invent new stories all along the line and keep in memory all the stories and all the persons to whom you have related them. Each student has a watch on his wrist. And, you look at the watch at least a hundred times a day. Well, learn from the watch a great lesson. When you watch the watch, remember the five letters of the word, WATCH; each is giving you a fine lesson for life: W tells you ‘Watch your Words’; A warns you ‘Watch your Action’; T indicates ‘Watch your Thoughts’; C advises ‘Watch your Character’; and H declares ‘Watch your Heart.’ When you are consulting your watch, imbibe this lesson that the watch is imparting.
” பார்த்து , படித்து ரசித்த ‘வாட்ஸ் அப்’ கலக்கல்கள் …” !!!
A Briton Who is Cleaning Up India ….
There is a reason Jodie Underhill is called the ‘garbage girl’.
Archana Masih/Rediff.com meets the young lady who has been dirtying her hands in a crusade against filth.
“The first thing I saw were the beautiful mountains, but when I looked over the edge what I saw was — garbage,” says Jodie Underhill remembering her trek to Triund, near McLeodganj a few years ago.
Left: Jodie Underhill, CEO-Founder, Waste Warriors. Photograph: Seema Pant/Rediff.com
After spending three months travelling through Mumbai, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, she had made her way to Dharamsala in 2008.
“India is such a beautiful country, but I haven’t seen filth on this scale. People just don’t care,” she continues talking about her battle with garbage in her office-cum-home in Dehradun; which is also a refuge to Bella, a donkey that broke its leg in a car accident across the road.
“I thought Dharamsala would be my salvation. It was the home of the Dalai Lama and would be clean, but I was wrong. I got off the tourist bus at 6 am to see a big pile of garbage at my feet. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
A native of England, Underhill, who had come to volunteer at a Tibetan school, then spent two weeks walking around McLeodganj with a placard saying ‘Volunteers Needed.’
Hundreds of people, mostly foreigners, turned up for her first clean up.
She and the volunteers went on to clean a children’s park that had been made into a dumping ground and started a waste collection system from home and shops in Triund so that people stopped throwing garbage down the mountains.
“With every piece of glass, plastic or trash you picked, it felt you were rescuing nature in a small way,” she says.
Since then waste is collected from 250 households and brought down on mules. Her NGO also maintains an 8-km-long popular trekking trail.
Underhill, who is often called ‘pagal (mad) for her passion for cleaning up and disposing off waste in the correct way, moved to Dehradun in 2012 to start Waste Warriors with funding from Max-India.
One of its projects was Gandhi Park, the only park in the city, which costs Rs 20,000 a month to maintain.
The organisation and its staff of 24 waste workers maintain certain shopping complexes, forest areas and localities in cooperation with shopkeepers and locals. She also conducts workshops in schools and has conducted a programme on waste management with the Indian Army.
“In India, people have a terrible attitude towards those who clear waste. They are the invisible people. Without them India would have disappeared under its garbage,” says the 38 year old, who won Times Now’s Amazing Indian Award in 2012 and a Rs 4 lakh (Rs 400,000) grant from the Mahindra Rise competition that supports new ideas.
In addition, Mahindra also gave Waste Warriors two pick-up trucks. It was the first time Waste Warriors moved on from the sole cycle rickshaw it had used till then to collect waste. Individual donations also help the organisation with funds — one of them being Telugu movie superstar Chiranjeevi’s contribution of Rs 5 lakhs (Rs 500,000).
When Underhill, a CEO without a salary, could not get a reduction in her visa extension fee of Rs 32,000 recently, Michael Dalvi, the former Ranji Trophy player, donated the amount to the NGO.
Waste Warriors charges Rs 100 from a chaiwallah to Rs 5,000 from a bank to collect and dispose the garbage responsibly. In a particular complex in Dehradun, the waste was earlier being dumped into a parking lot.
Struggling to raise funds and at times confronted with local governmental indifference, working with garbage hasn’t been easy for Underhill. It also elicits prejudice. She was once reported as a prostitute to the Foreigners Registration Office because residents disapproved of her living with two sweepers and her clean-up rounds in a cycle rickshaw.
“I shared their home. It was convenient as I worked with them,” she says and is grateful to have found the present space where Waste Warriors does waste segregation, composting and even provides shelter to cows, donkeys and dogs
Getting down on her knees as she goes through a pile of garbage her waste warriors had brought in, she picks up a plastic bag with rotting, smelly foodstuff.
“This plastic will take hundreds of years to decompose,” she says, reiterating the 5 important things all of us MUST do:
- Segregate dry and liquid waste.
- Stop using plastic.
- Recycle.
- Compost food/ garden waste.
- Stop LITTERING and PEEING anywhere you feel like!
Image: Jodie Underhill with Bella, an injured donkey that she has given refuge. Photograph: Seema Pant/Rediff.com
“To change mindsets and habits is not impossible, but difficult. Stopping littering, dumping, burning is equivalent to giving up alcohol or drug addiction,” says Underhill, whose NGO is also working with six villages surrounding the Corbett National Park and aims to expand to 120 villages in the next five years.
With no awareness or mechanism, villagers have been dumping their waste into the Corbett tiger reserve. Funding for the first year has been provided by Mahindra. Waste Warriors has projects in Dharamsala, Dehradun, Corbett and has recently started work in Rishikesh. It aims at having similar projects around the country.
Underhill is quite obviously, excited about the Swachh Bharat initiative, and is eager to make a presentation to the prime minister. “I’d like to tell him what needs to be done because I work in the field,” she says.
“The PM is doing the right thing, but sweeping is not enough, it also has to be disposed properly. We need infrastructure, technology and mass scale awareness,” says Underhill.
“The municipal solid waste rules that came into being 14 years ago need to be enforced and read by every government official. This piece of legislation is the key to cleaning India.”
Yet she feels no government can work wonders unless the people bring about the transformation themselves.
Back in England, her parents think she has lost her mind to be working with garbage in India. But she feels India is home.
“English parents are like Indian parents. They want you to get married and have kids. I say I want to make a difference for other kids,” says Underhill who hasn’t been home for a couple of years.
“What are we leaving behind for them — a planet that has nothing left? Millions are going to die if we don’t change the way we live.”
Archana Masih/Rediff.com in Dehradun
” Better to be Paranoid Than Careless … ” Woman”s Safety Guide Tip …
‘As I sat down in the cab, I forwarded details of the cab number, driver’s name and phone number to a family member.’
‘I also switched on the GPS on my phone.’
Upasna Pandey, who travels at odd hours in taxis every 15 days, reveals how she stays safe.
I’m both, a novice and expert on Delhi roads. I am a novice because I have travelled to all parts of Delhi, but cannot give directions if the need arises.
I’m an expert because I have used all possible modes of public transport — from the Delhi Metro to a cycle rickshaw.
When I need to travel long distances at odd hours and have to select a cab service, which may happen at least once in 15 days, the decision is usually a quick one, based on earlier experiences.
I am sharing with you one such experience at night.
It started with a trip to Dwarka for a family event which was to end post dinner. I requested a cab to take me from Dwarka to Noida opting for 10 pm as the pickup time.
Dwarka is one of the biggest residential hubs in Delhi, located close to the Indira Gandhi International Airport. It is densely populated and well-connected through a deep reach of public transport. So when I decided to use a private cab, I was confident it was a safe decision.
The driver turned up at the designated time. He was a middle aged man, heavy built, tall with a heavy voice. This is important to share as I am the opposite of this in size, so an immediate sense of intimidation is almost natural.
As I sat down in the cab, I forwarded the details of the cab registration number, driver’s name and phone number to a family member for reference. I also switched on the GPS on my mobile phone to understand the most suitable route to reach Noida.
There is one more thing which I have been doing for many years, almost instinctively: As soon as I board a cab, I remove all expensive jewellery in case I am wearing any.
We were on our way when I realised that the route shown on the GPS was actually a deserted stretch and my instinct was to move on to the busier roads which may have taken much longer.
Some panic had set in as I worried over this while the driver continued to drive on the GPS route; he also assured me that we would be reaching a busy road soon.
I called up my family member to share the exact location and seek an opinion on whether it was safe to continue on it or to deviate to a busy road.
I noticed that the driver was speaking to someone in Punjabi on his phone. I understood the language so was at ease to know it was his personal call, and nothing with reference to me. It did bother me when he chose to speak in his native language, I would have preferred if he spoke in Hindi or English.
The 5 to 10 minutes drive on a deserted stretch was enough to give me goosebumps; I resolved not to commit myself to any such engagements which would require me to travel alone at night in cabs.
I was waiting anxiously to see a busy road and some streetlights, which are also missing in many parts of Delhi, regardless of these being well developed areas.
Soon we hit a busy National Highway and then the Ring road which is the lifeline of Delhi, heading for Noida. I had the option of taking one more relatively lonely stretch which would help enter Noida via Mayur Vihar or taking a toll road which required payment, I chose the latter.
I was not consistently on the phone with my family member but making repeated phone calls, so I could remain attentive and alert to the route and the driver’s behaviour; this is crucial.
Keeping myself rooted in the reality of being alone with a stranger for a short span on the road made more sense for me instead of talking over the phone with a loved one, as an escape to comfort.
I saw a couple of police patrol vehicles en route, which was also comforting but I was praying I wouldn’t need to reach out for any help.
I reached home in almost an hour, paid the cab fare, and thanked the driver for a service which was more about safety than about distance.
I knew if there is one learning for me from this experience, it was simple: It’s better to be paranoid than be casual and careless.
The driver would normally be a good person, but the risk is too high if he isn’t. It is better to be slightly aloof than being friendly and being misunderstood.
Let’s not take a chance.
SOURCE:::: http://www.rediff.com
Natarajan
Take off with Natarajan 