Rest assured

Rest is very important in our life. It rejuvenates us; gives us the energy to deal with problems, oh sorry, issues; gives us, well, rest. Now that I have written such a complex sentence, and you have read it, let’s take some rest.

Welcome back. Coming back to the point I was trying to make – we don’t take enough rest. Rest can help you do better in your life. Let me give you some supporting examples of rest, straight from the classics. Let’s look at the battle of Kurukshetra. We see many Maharathis (big fry) take leave of absence in some pretext or the other. Karna did it, Drona did it, many people did it – with some silly excuses – if he is the commander I will not fight, etc, etc. I think all these rests kept them fresh and ready for greater battles. Same thing happened in Illiad as well. Achilles didn’t fight for many days, until Patroclus died. And when he came back to the war, no wonder, Hector couldn’t win against him. Hector was tired from the continuous battle, and Achilles was fresh. Don’t believe me? See the movie Troy. Eric Bana as Hector looked like he could do with some sleep when he came out to fight (he could definitely use a shave). Deviating slightly from the topic, you should watch this part where Brad Pitt and Eric Bana are fighting. I think Mr. Fred Astaire would have danced like that if given umbrellas, err… swords. I think they were playing for the crowd; trying to impress Helen and others holding dress circle seats. Who choreographed that scene – the Chinese synchronized swimming team coach? Anyway, so what I am saying is, learn from the classics. Take rest.

Let’s take a look at a current problem and see how this old theory of rest can work. Without further ado, I present to you, the Indian cricket team. As you know, some of our players were rested for a few months. When they came back in, their performance improved dramatically. Zaheer Khan, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman – all benefited from the rest that they got from not shooting for ads and not playing cricket, of course.

I am secretly hoping my manager reads this and gives me some rest in office. He needs some rest too. Now whoever coined the term Manager was very clever. The manager thinks it comes from manage, but no! Take some rest (like I have been) and you will see, it means “man ager” or “a position that ages a man”. See the benefits of taking rest? It gives you fresh perspective.

I can go on and on with examples but will refrain because of two reasons. First, I think you get the point. Second, the keyboard definitely sounds like it could do with some rest. So let me give it some rest, take some rest myself. After all, waking up restless at 4 in the morning and writing this stuff can’t be too good to support the theory! Rest of the theories is coming up in near future. Till then, rest in two piece.

Who is a happy man?

"A man who cooks in the evening with limited amount of vegetables in his own house; one who is debt free; one who is in homeland is truly happy."

Translation from a Mahabharat episode where Yam (god of death) asks the question and Yudhisthir answers.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

The best time: One week of vacation - relaxing at home, resolving problems with people, reading old books, eating ma’s cooked food, meeting relatives and shopping.

The worst time: Coming back – Finding out a lot of negative issues evolved between friends while you were away.

When I was fixing a part of my life's biggest problems recently, I realized that thinking about the issues didn't help me all these years. When I got down to resolving them, it was rather easy. It was easy because the other person was eager to resolve it too. What stopped this from happening before was our ego. Analyzing several other unresolved issues in my life, I find they are all ego related. I hope my friends are able to resolve their problems on their own and resume the beautiful friendship that they used to share.

Crazy friends...

... woke me up at 6 in the morning today.
... gave me 5 minutes to get ready.
... took me to Nandi hills for breakfast (65 kms away).
... stopped car to steal a bunch of grape from a vineyard.
... stopped the car to collect every possible sample of roadside flowers.
... forced me to play children's games with them.

Thank heavens, there are crazy friends.