People crave worldly happiness. If you analyse properly, this is the disease, and the resultant suffering we experience is its medicine and remedy. In the midst of these worldly pleasures, one rarely entertains the desire to attain the Lord. Besides it is necessary to analyse and discriminate every act of a person. It is this analysis which will give rise to the spirit of renunciation. Without this effort, renunciation is difficult to obtain. Miserliness is like the behavior of a dog; it has to be transformed. Anger is enemy number one of the spiritual aspirant; it is like spittle and has to be treated as such. And untruth is even more disgusting — through untruth, the vital powers of all are destroyed. It should be treated as scavenging itself. Theft ruins life; it makes the priceless human life cheaper than a pie; it is like rotten and foul smelling flesh. Moderate food, moderate sleep, love (prema), and fortitude will help in the upkeep of the health of both body and mind.
A picture might be worth a thousand words but National Geographic photographs leaves us speechless. Known for their captivating daily pictures, they also offer an opportunity to dive into the archives of previously unpublished or forgotten images.
The project called Found was established in 2013 to honor NatGeo’s 125th anniversary. The project’s team says that their mission is to bring the pictures back to life by sharing them to new audiences. And even some of the dates or locations are missing, the images capture perfect moments making them timeless.
The photographs are dug up by Guardian of the Collection William Bonner, who still finds them highly inspiring even after years spent in the archives. Together with editor Janna Dotschkal’s love for aesthetics, they make the vintage material shine as new.
Over the years the city of Singapore has been described by many as one of the cleanest on Earth with roads and toilets being “clean enough to eat off“, which is perhaps to be expected from a city where it’s illegal not to flush a public toilet.
The reason why toilets in Singapore are so insanely clean can be traced back to the work of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first and arguably most popular prime minister. Kuan Yew rose to power in 1959 and continued to serve as Singapore’s leader for 31 years until he decided to step down in 1990. When Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, Kuan Yew is noted as being instrumental to the the small city-state being able to so quickly transform itself from being a “poor port from the bottom rungs of the third world” to being one of the most profitable and prosperous economies on the planet.
Kuan Yew accomplished this through a series of reforms aimed at making the country an overall nicer place to live including:
Enacting legislation to make prosecuting corrupt officials easier as well as “relentlessly pursuing” corruption wherever he encountered it.
Paying civil servants decent wages to ensure the jobs would be tempting to Singapore’s best and brightest and giving them bonuses based on how well the Singapore’s economy does on a yearly basis.
Inviting foreign corporations to set up shop in his country to create reliable employment for his citizens and foster international relations.
Establishing the Housing and Development Board to help house residents without homes into newly built apartments. Further, unlike most nation’s public housing, Singapore’s is quite nice, places people actually want to live.
Drafting legislation to plant tress and clean up the cities waterways and rivers which were notably filthy. Kuan Yew was so serious about making Singapore cleaner, he famously promised that if his dream wasn’t a reality by 1986 and he was still in charge, that he’d personally hunt down whomever was responsible for the failure and shoot them. Because he wasn’t playing around.
Creating the Water Planning Unit, which was tasked with helping the country become less dependent on water from Malaysia, which was threatening to cut off their water supply after Singapore gained independence. This initiative, like so many others he enacted, was a resounding success, with Time magazine later calling Singapore “the global paragon of water conservation.” In fact, their system is so efficient that they even can, and do, process non-potable waste-water into high-purity drinking water.
Imposing stiff taxes on car ownership and enacting the Clean Air Act as well as creating the Anti-Pollution Unit, to help keep Singapore’s air pollution levels at an acceptable, healthy level.
By far Kuan Yew’s most infamous policies though were his incredibly strict rules in regards to public cleanliness, most if not all of which carry hefty fines if you’re caught breaking them. For example, not flushing a public toilet is considered a crime in Singapore and if you’re caught flouting it, you will be given an on the spot fine of about 150 dollars, more if you’re a repeat offender. Likewise, littering carries an equally heavy fine of about 300 dollars or more, depending on the size of the item. Smaller items like candy wrappers usually incur a lesser fine, whilst things like soda cans can net you a trip to court and even a caning if you’re caught.
Kuan Yew’s biggest bugbear, however, was chewing gum; he hated it with such a passion that since the 1990s, gum has been outright banned in the country. This was later (partially) repealed in 2004 and gum is now okay to be brought into the country in small quantities and dentists are allowed to prescribe it for certain medical conditions.
While this may seem a tad extreme, Kuan Yew’s annoyance with gum chewing wasn’t without precedent. You see, prior to the ban in 1992, the government was spending upwards of 150,000 dollars a year to clean it up and vandals were using it to disrupt the sensors on the country’s newly built subway trains, stopping their doors from shutting and in the process causing huge delays. After the ban, cases of such gum littering plummeted and the associated costs of cleaning it up dropped to negligible levels.
If you’re wondering how exactly Singapore enforces these dozens of laws, it’s mostly accomplished usinghundreds of undercover police officers who have the power to issue on the spot fines to anyone seen flouting them. Officers are known to check toilets after they’ve been used and even install security cameras if they receive multiple complaints on a particular toilet, to catch offenders in the act.
Perhaps our favourite Singapore cleanliness fact is that many of Singapore’s elevators have “Urine Detection Devices” which will lock the doors of an elevator and summon the police to your location to arrest you if it detects that you’re relieving yourself in one.
All of this may seem excessive, but the results really speak for themselves; today, Singapore is largely considered one of the world’s leading economies and the city itself is one of the most industrious, safe, clean, nicest to live and richest on Earth. In fact, Singapore is currently enjoying 16 consecutive years on the top spot of the “world’s most livable cities“, and is also generally considered the world’s best city for businesses. Not bad for a place that was up until about 50 years ago or so described as a “swampy land mass“.
Bonus Facts:
There’s a charity in Singapore called the Restroom Association Singapore (RAS). Set up in 1998 by a man called Jack Sim, who later went on to found the World Toilet Organization (WTO), RAS has backed numerous campaigns to educated the public about the benefits of toilet cleanliness and even offers awards to exceptionally clean restrooms in the public and private sectors. Their stated mission is to, among other things, “investigate and find out the root cause of dirty toilets. We must identify the needs of various users including tourists and foreign workers so as to promote better designed toilets that cater to these needs. We must constantly source for the best practices in cleanliness, design and maintenance of public toilets and review our local standards. Together with the government and other strategic partners, we must continue to raise awareness among the community on public health issues and educate the users on good toilet etiquette.” Sim was reportedly inspired to start the RAS when he heard Kuan Yew’s successor, Goh Chok Tong say “we should measure our graciousness according to the cleanliness of our public toilets”. Today, Singapore’s toilet facilities are the envy of the modern world and Sim has used his clout in the world of toilets to help bring safe, clean toilet facilities to millions in the third world through the WTO. Sims has since earned the rather awesome honor of being called “a Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine. Not bad for a guy who just wants everyone to have a clean toilet to pee and poop in.
Despite being only a small city-state with a few million residents, Singapore is one of the most prosperous nations on Earth. So much so that it is often referred to as one of the “Four Asian Tigers”, a phrase used to describe the countries of Singapore, Taiwan, Hong-Kong and South Korea, all of which are noted as being economic powerhouses despite their relatively small size.
Though his rule wasn’t without controversy, Lee Kuan Yew is generally regarded as being unquestionably instrumental to the country’s transformation from a small port town into the shining utopia-esque city it is today. When Kuan Yew passed away in 2015, many officials spoke of his “unwavering dedication” to making Singapore a fundamentally better place for those who lived there. As you’d expect for a world leader who served for several decades, Kuan Yew has had a number of colorful quotes attributed to him over the years including: “Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.” and our personal favourite, “If you can’t think because you can’t chew, try a banana” when asked if Singapore’s stringent cleanliness laws would “stifle the people’s creativity“.
To date, the highest fine given to a litter bug is 19,800 Singaporean dollars, given to a man who repeatedly threw cigarette butts out of his high-rise apartment building’s window.
Everything is relative. You don’t need to be Einstein to understand that. A human is as big to an ant, as a building may be to a human. The world is vast and large – it’s size is dominated by massive oceans and continents.
But ever since we’ve developed the ability to look beyond our atmosphere, it became more and more apparent that the earth is in fact small. Too tiny to even comprehend, when compared to other planets, stars, galaxies and the universe itself. So just to give you an idea of how tiny we really are, here are some visual aids.
Sreenivasulu M.R. has always had a fascination for the arts. He started painting at the age of seven. He enrolled himself in a dance school and is now accomplished in Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, and folk dance. However, his biggest fascination is making miniature models.
Sreenivasulu honed his skills as a child by making miniature house models from wedding invitation cards. He also had a habit of collecting pen refills from his friends.
Being an environmentalist, he conducts various programmes to spread awareness on global warming. At the ‘Say No to Plastic’ programmes, which he organises in schools and colleges, he keeps pen refill collection boxes.
These refills later turned into raw materials and Sreenivasulu started making monuments out of them.
Through this, Sreenivasulu is driving home the idea of recycling. He began by making a model of the Eiffel Tower. It took him eight months and over 200 refills to create it. Since then, there has been no stopping Sreenivasulu.
Today, this software professional has made the Charminar, Big Ben, Taj Mahal, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Gateway of India, Seattle Space Needle, and Sydney Harbor Bridge from used pen refills. His miniature Taj Mahal, made from 700 pen refills, even found a place in the ‘India Book of Records’ in the year 2012.
With diligent efforts success can be achieved. Even an ant can cover miles by moving continuously. However even Garuda (the celestial eagle) cannot soar two feet if it has no will to fly. Likewise without good thoughts and good deeds based on them, one cannot accomplish anything good. The child Dhruva achieved what he desired despite many difficult obstacles, because of his firm determination and spiritual austerities. By his sublime thoughts, he achieved the status of a star in the sky. Likewise any person, irrespective of age or abilities, with faith and determination, can accomplish what they want. In every field steadfast performance (sadhana) is essential. In addition, you must control your temper. Sage Durvasa, despite his penance had no peace because he could not control his temper. Together with peace, the quality of (Kshama) is essential. Forgiveness is truth, it is Dharma, it is the essence of the Veda, it is non-violence and the best penance(Yajna).
None can escape from the reaction, reflection, and resound of their actions. Everyone will have to experience the consequences of their own actions. People who indulge in evil practices become distant from God. People who earn a bad reputation through their evil deeds will have no place in divine proximity. Therefore have a check on yourself when you laugh or scorn at others. Not just this, your speech and vision also must be in check. Some people sing inappropriate songs and eve tease women walking on the road. Has God given you a tongue to sing such vulgar songs? How sacred is the tongue, and what an evil use you put it to? By acting in an inappropriate manner, you ruin your reputation and subject yourself to ridicule by others. Therefore exercise control over your speech, vision, and laughter. If you want to earn a good name in the society and be respected by it, conduct yourself in a befitting manner.
There is no penance (tapas) higher than fortitude, no happiness greater than contentment, no good deed (punya) holier than mercy, no weapon more effective than patience. Consider your body as the field and good deeds as seeds and cultivate the name of the Lord, with the help of the heart as farmer, to reap the harvest of the Lord Himself. Like cream in milk and fire in fuel, the Lord is in everything. Have full faith in this. As the milk, so the cream; as the fuel, so the fire; so also, as the spiritual discipline, so is the direct divine experience (sakshatkara)! Even if you don’t attain liberation (mukthi) as a consequence of taking up the Lord’s name, one of these four gates will be open to you: Company of the virtuous, truth, contentment and control of the senses. Anyone who enters through any one of these gates will certainly attain the Lord without fail.
Image copyrightAnushree Fadnavis/Indus ImagesUma Tembulkar began performing in ad films at the age of 70
In the youthful world of Indian advertising, Uma Tembulkar, 78, is an unlikely celebrity model.
Ms Tembulkar is the lead in the advertisement, British Airways: Fuelled by Love, that has gone viral on YouTube and has Twitter tearing up over her.
The six-minute film, uploaded a week ago on YouTube, has had more than one million visitors and made Ms Tembulkar a welcoming face that’s beaming from a billboard at the Mumbai airport.
“Ms Tembulkar brings on a heavy dose of emotion to the ad; meaningful not melodramatic,” says advertising expert Vidhya Sankarnarayan.
“It resonates with Indians like the granny who feels dislocated on flights and connects at a human level,” she says.
An emotional flight
Ms Tembulkar said the British Airways ad was easy to enact because it had “two strangers who show kindness and compassion to each other, breaking cultural and generational barriers”.
A look at the ad would explain why she’s spot on.
The film shows a septuagenarian returning home from visiting her son in London.
She struggles while fastening the seat belt and bending over her arthritic knees to pull on her socks. A young stewardess, Helena Flynn, on her maiden flight to India, comes to her help.
The lady wells up, missing her son. The stewardess comforts her and is invited home by the elder woman.
A visit to the south Indian home is full of effusive Indian hospitality, good food and a slice of culture and a high dose of warmth.
Image copyrightAnushree Fadnavis/Indus Images….Uma Tembulkar lives with husband Mahesh Tembulkar in Mumbai
Image copyrightAnushree Fadnavis/Indus ImagesImage captionUma Tembulkar lives with husband Mahesh Tembulkar in Mumbai
“I wanted the ad to debunk the stereotype of the uptight British person and rude Indian traveller and Ms Tembulkar touched the right chords,” says director Neeraj Ghaywan, feted recently at the Cannes film festival.
This was the indie filmmaker’s first venture into ad filmmaking and he found Ms Tembulkar “just the perfect face of dignity and affection”.
And the social media response has been effusive praise for the ad.
Today, Ms Tembulkar gets grabbed for selfies on her morning market run to buy vegetables and milk.
Global granny
“It was an honour to act in the British Airways ad and I thoroughly enjoyed travelling to London,” she says.
Ms Tembulkar has been married for 60 years and led life as a homemaker with an enduring passion in Indian classical music that helped her “overcome fear of performing before an audience or the camera”.
She now watches over a brood of grandchildren, who are students in Harvard and Carnegie Mellon, travelling frequently to holiday with her scattered family across the globe. “My passport is the fattest,” she chuckles with quiet pride.
“My life as a model began at 70,” she speaks carefully in English, though she is also fluent in her native tongue Marathi, and Hindi, Bengali and a smattering of Gujarati too.
The actress in her was discovered by young friends at a family gathering and in the last eight years, she has acted in more than 60 advertisements for products as varied as insurance companies, furniture, cooking oils, biscuits and more.
“Look at her: she’s the quintessential Indian granny and her predicament while travelling alone is real. That has made the ad work,” says Mr Ghaywan.
He praises her as a “super granny” who travels alone frequently to visit her children and grandchildren, and understands the “emotional palette with her restrained, yet powerful performance”.
Image copyrightAnushree Fadnavis/Indus ….Ms Tembulkar is the archetypical Indian granny who lives in a busy suburb in Mumbai
Ageism
Experts say ageism has never been a problem in India and has always helped in selling products.
“Like the grandpas from India and Pakistan for the Google ad, age never goes out of style in Indian advertisements,” says Ms Sankarnarayan.
Unlike an earlier generation, the granny in the British Airways ad travels business class in comfort, though not schooled in global travel; she represents the old setting off alone to connect with scattered families across the world and makes a human connection that makes the ad tick.
Many say the ad helps to debunk the stereotype of the rude Indian in-flight traveller.
“Ms Tembulkar does a fantastic job of giving the contemporary Indian traveller a face,” explains Ms Sankarnarayan.
Given the soaring success of the advertisement, the sky is the limit for this granny.
These high school students are introducing technology to senior citizens in an effort to help them overcome loneliness and social isolation – all because of respect and love for their grandparents, who they consider their superheroes.
The 2001 census of India showed that the population of senior citizens in India has crossed 100 million. Today, India is home to one out of every 10 senior citizens in the world. Yet, very few in the country are looking into the problems faced by this ageing section of our society.
An emotional and psychological problem tormenting elders in our country is loneliness.
A student helps a senior citizen learn how to use a computer.
This is due to the growing ‘empty nest syndrome.’ Children go away to far-off countries in search of economic betterment. Even if they live within the country, due to the spread of western ideas such as ‘space, privacy, individualism and non-interference,’ nuclear families are becoming the norm even in villages.
Poor social interaction with family and friends, poor social networks, and lack of family support are some of the difficulties faced by senior citizens. At the other extreme is the young generation today, highly dependent on social networking to stay connected with family and friends and build connections. Two high school students from Delhi are helping bridge the gap between the two generations.
Vibhor Rohatgi and Suyesha Dutta were in their 11th grade in Shri Ram School Mouslari, Gurgaon, which follows the International Baccalaureate (IB) board.
Suyesha (on extreme left) and Vibhor (second from right) with their teacher
Creativity, activity, service (CAS) are the three essential elements of a CAS project that every student must complete as part of the Diploma Programme (DP) in the IB board internationally. For many students, these projects provide experiences that are profound and fulfilling.
Vibhor and Suyesha decided to take up a CAS project that would prove to be not only life changing for them but also for a much ignored segment of our society –senior citizens.
“When CAS is discussed in school, most students think of helping the underprivileged, the needy or the slum kids. We have this belief that only those who are deprived of money need help. But there are people who have it all but still feel emotionally empty. We wanted to help them – our grandparents,” says Suyesha.
Bridging the generation gap – senior citizens with students.
Suyesha, who had spent a lot of time with her grandparents till she was in her teens, lost her grandfather three years ago. She saw her grandmother spending most of her days alone after that. So she decided to connect her to technology to help her overcome her loneliness. Once she saw how successful that experiment was, she wanted to gift technology not just to her own grandmother but to as many other grandparents as she could as a tribute to her grandfather.
Suyesha and her friend Vibhor are great fans of the comic superhero Silver Surfer, a humanoid with metallic skin who can travel space with the aid of his surfboard-like craft. Since this superman is an icon of technology himself, they decided to name their initiative the Silver Surfer Programme.
“The Silver Surfer Programme (SSP), a social initiative started by us, is the epitome of the maxim ‘age is just a number.’ Age is a measure of experience, inefficiently gauged by how many candles one blows out every year. To this plenitude of experiences, we, looking to bring about a social change in society, decided to add one more…the experience known as technology,” says Vibhor
“We called it the Silver Surfer Programme because Silver Surfer is a superhero and we consider our grandparents to be superheroes. His senses enable him to detect objects and energies light years away. Similarly, grandparents have strong intuition and can detect any problem or trouble in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives. He has even proven capable of time travel on occasions, just like our grandparents take us back to their times by narrating stories from their childhood,” adds Suyesha
The Silver Surfer Programme is an effort to better acquaint grandparents with the delights of modern day technology.
SSP aims to make the lives of grandparents simpler, faster and efficient. The programme includes two hour modules on three Saturdays every month for the grandparents. The programme, which began in May 2015, includes the following learning sessions:
Introduction to the programme and its aim.
Introduction to email – how to write an email.
Introduction to Facebook and Twitter – how to open and set up an account, send requests, etc.
Familiarization with smart phones and tablets and an introduction to WhatsApp – how to set up an account, send and receive messages, etc.
Introduction and use of specialist apps, such as, Grofers, Flipkart, BookMyShow, News InShorts/ Times of India, Ola and Meru Cabs, etc.
Net banking through HDFC, SBI, etc.
Paying utility bills such as electricity, phone bills, etc.
The programme, which started with the help of a few volunteers and their teacher Amrita Sai Marla, became so close to their hearts that they decided to continue it even after the CAS project was over.
The classes were conducted in the computer hall of their school, so they took special permission to continue with the classes. Now, as they have graduated from school, they plan to hand it over to their juniors.
Suyesha and Vibhor do not want to stop getting the blessings of grandparents even after they bid farewell to school. They are now planning to take the initiative forward by going to old age homes and teaching the grandparents who are staying there.
“We raise concerns over environmental degradation or the lack of education of the underprivileged, but seldom have we ever touched upon the most experienced in our society, the grandparents. As we feel that grandparents are the cornerstones of our lives, this is how we’ve decided to do something for them, show them our love and support. We work really hard towards our modules, undertake new challenges and come up with some interesting and essential things for the grandparents to learn, while constantly keeping them engaged. The blessings that the grandparents shower upon us make us feel accomplished and we don’t want to miss a single chance to keep those jubilant smiles on their faces,” says Suyesha
One of the defining moments of the Silver Surfer Programme came when a grandmother from a foreign country came to learn about Facebook from them.
Grandparents are overjoyed at connecting with old friends through Facebook.
Now in her 70s, this grandmother had not seen her friends ever since she was in her 20s and had to leave her country due to political instability. The prospect of even getting a glimpse of her school friends made her so eager to learn that within minutes Vibhor and Suyesha helped her set up her very own Facebook account. After intensive searching for an hour, they finally found her old friends.
“Never did a click ever make someone this happy. Overflowing with emotion she was as she got to speak to her friends, her smile radiating light on a cloudy, rainy day. It is for moments such as this that we had started this initiative,” says Vibhor.
“The journey of the Silver Surfer Programme has instilled in me vital life lessons that have helped me develop and grow as a person. For instance, I have learned that learning, in its candid, most humble form, is not bound by time but that it is in fact imperishable. Learning is a well-oiled machine that never stops, a beating heart that gives life. I have learned that there is no ‘right’ age and it is never ‘too late’ to learn,” adds Vibhor.
Suyesha narrates another happy moment when one of the grandmothers came to her after the class and requested that she teach her how to download songs. Initially, Suyesha was reluctant to do so. She explained to her how it would be an act of piracy. However, the grandmother insisted by saying that it was her favorite song and no one was helping her download it, even though she saw her grandchildren doing it all the time.
“It was an Atif Aslam song, Jiya re Jiya re! I can’t describe the glow in her eyes after it downloaded. She left me with numerous blessings that day,” says Suyesha
The Silver Surfer Programme has now evolved to also start providing the benefits of technology to workers and guards of their school. Their next series of modules is aimed at computer literacy, wherein they will teach the guards and workers everything about the basics of using computers – using the mouse, keyboard, internet, etc.
……About the author: A mechanical engineer, Manabi Katoch has been brought up listening to Tagore’s poems and stories, so she is kind of an emotional person within. She loves writing poems and stories on social and political issues. Few of her poems can be viewed on http://www.poemocean.com and satires on http://www.mindthenews.com. She has worked with Wipro, Frankfinn and Educomp in the past.
Take off with Natarajan 