Say NO to beggars

·         Does the sight of beggars on the streets, worry you?

·         Do you feel, sorry for them?

·         Do you want to help them in some way or other?

If yes, please take my advice. Say No to them. What I am telling you, may be contradictory to the popular, that by giving alms to a beggar, we have done him some good, we have gained some good karma or whatsoever but in fact we are doing a social harm of breeding more and more beggars in the country. Tossing a coin in the beggar’s bowl may be considered by few as a sign of affluence and magnanimity, but in fact we are encouraging a social crime.

Begging is a social crime. Begging gives a bad image of our country, to the rest of the world. We are a country with huge intellectual capital, large man power force and many great social, spiritual and business leaders. We need to be looked up and not looked down.  But because of beggary prevailing in our country, we are looked down. Dan Boyle in his movie, “Slum dog billionaire” has exposed this begging practice in India, to the rest of the world. It is such a shame for our country. But we are just happy about the movie winning an Oscar award!

India is developing at a fast pace in terms of economic development. Statistics show, that our GDP and per capita income has increased. If that is true, then the number of beggars in the street should reduce. Is it not?  But in spite of all the positive developments, the number of beggars in India has increased significantly.

While there is so much of labor need in this country, why should people to resort to begging? Believe me, it is not poverty that has pushed them to take this decision. It is a lazy profession they have chosen, to make a comfortable living. Gone are the days, when people felt a sense of shame to beg. Today, begging has become a thriving occupation of many. On an average, a beggar earns anything from Rs.80 to Rs.200/- a day, which is in par with the daily wages of a factory worker. This easy way of making money, has become a preferred source as compared to having to put 8 hours of hard work of a daily labour.

In fact, I too have been supporting this social crime for quiet long. Even when people told me not to do so, I never use to heed to their words. I used to say, “What difference does it make for me, if I shell out a few coins, but at least the beggar can buy a cup of coffee”.

My perception of beggars changed, to a great extent after I saw the Tamil movie, “NaanKadavul” which talks about how begging has become a mob business, like any other mafia activity. In the movie, they show how the beggars are maimed, so that they become icons of sympathy to the general public and thereby they can earn more.  Maiming involves deforming the body, limb or face, by causing external injuries, through crude and cruel means. I thought it was just an exaggeration, but I came to see some live examples of this, in one of my visit to the SabarimalaAyyapan temple. It is then I decided that I will not encourage this practice.

I am not saying that there is no real poverty in this country. Of course there is a lot of poverty and genuine needs. If you wish to help the people with genuine needs, I suggest that you do it through some organized sources like World Vision, CRY, Helpage India or any such organization that is committed to enhance the life of the deprived and downtrodden You can also volunteer to be a member of any social organization like the Rotary Club, Lions Club or Giants club, who are working on specific projects with a long term plan. In this way, you can reach out to the needy, in a more appropriate way.

God has blessed all of us, with a soft heart; so that we are sensitive to the needs of our surrounding and help those are in need. The beggars have capitalized on this emotion of ours and made it a profession. Let us not become victim to our emotions. Let us not encourage “beggary” anymore. Let us learn to say NO to beggars.

Happy Reading,

D.SenthilKannan

Article dated Feb'2012

Are we giving space to others?

Quiet recently, I attended a 5 day TCI workshop. TCI is a unique concept developed by a German Psychologist, Ms.Ruth Cohn.  TCI stands for Theme Centred Interaction, which means a group of peopleinteract with each other on a particular theme. This interaction helps the participant to gain more insight and a better understanding of some real life situations and challenges, from different perspectives. Every TCI Workshop has a theme. The workshop I attended was on the theme, “Do men and women lead differently? We had two international facilitators, Mr.Konrad from Germany and Mrs.Annelis from Switzerland to handle this workshop, which made it more interesting.

The TCI session titles are different and interesting. One of the sessionsof this workshop was, “Drawing together with you and you…. finding my own space”.  In this session, our facilitator formed 3 groups of 6 people each.  We were given chart board with a box of crayons. The instruction given to us was, each group should do a drawing in the chart provided, but the rule is that the members within the group should not discuss or talk within the group. The time given was 15 minutes. This was a nice challenge, because there was no scope for planning what we are going to draw. So, our group sat on the floor together with the chart board in the centre. I took a yellow crayon and started drawing a sun, on the top of the chart. My team members seemed to get a clue, that we could draw scenery together and one of them started to draw a flock of birds with a black crayon and another person drew the clouds with a blue crayon. I soon followed it up, by drawing a mountain range across the chart with a brown crayon. In no time the chart paper became a beautiful scenery with a flowing river, tall trees, blooming flowers, a house, people, cattle and other things.

When the time was over, we were pleasantly surprised to see, that our drawing has come out nicely, inspite of we not speaking a single word with each other.

Now it was time for the facilitators to give their observation of each team. The facilitator, when giving his observations about our team, captured the essence of how we worked as a team. He pointed out that, it was me, who initiated the drawing, which he mentioned as a positive leadership trait. He said a leader is one who initiates. These words made me feel good about myself. He then said something that was like an invisible hammer striking hard on my head.He said, that I did not just stop with initiating the drawing, I went on to use large amount of the space in the chart paper to draw the mountain range. By doing so, I have been insensitive to the space requirements of my team members.  In the large chart paper, everyone should find space for their expression, but by occupying a large extent of space in the chart board, I have curtailed the expression of the other members of the team.

I realised that very moment, what he said was right. It was an eye opener to me.I was astounded to find that our subconscious mind gets manifested by our behaviour, exposing our true inner nature, even without having to say a single word. I felt bad about myself, but did not miss to take the learning of the day.  I learnt that I need to give others their needed space, so as to help them find expression of their true potential. I have been unconscious of my own mistake.When he spotted this out, I realised that I have aninner tendency to do more than what is expected of me. This doing more than what is expected, is not a good trait, when it comes to working as a team. As a team, every team member should feel a spirit of contribution to a project accomplished. By doing all the things, that others could do, we are in fact robbing from them, the joy of teamwork. In team work it is never ‘my work’, but it is ‘our work’.

Most of us commit this mistake unconsciously, at work place, social organisations or even family. We tend to dominate the show. We want to see the end result to be exactly the way; we mentally imagined it to be. But in a collaborative world, this sort of thought infringement would leave a negative mark of not being a good team player.r.A creative collaboration of ideas canin fact give a unique outcome, which an individual mind can never conceive.So, next time, when you are working on a team project, ask yourself, “Am I givingothers the needed space, to express themselves?”.

Happy Reading,

D.Senthil Kannan

Article dated March 2012

The magic of appreciation

Of all the things, I see there is one incentive which I feel really works with everyone. Maybe because, that is the most rarest to find today or may be very few people are willing to share it with others. It does not cost them anything, but people are still so reluctant to give it away. This incentive works great magic with your spouse, your children, your family members, your colleagues, your subordinates and even your superiors. It has always been assumed that the most important factor that drives a person is the money or the fame. I am surprised how this thing, that I am talking about has never been thought about. Infact, I feel that this is the greatest motivator, of all . It is called APPRECIATION.

How many of us, really use this on a daily basis. How many of us know that this can be a effective tool to motivate, your team when all other resources are running dry. Appreciating people is a art, which we need to cultivate in our lives. It is also our moral duty to teach our children the “art of appreciating”. 

A country like ours, which has such abundance of resources, lacks in this great resource called appreciation. If you ask a parent, why they do not appreciate their children for the marks they get, they may say, that they expect their children to perform better and reserve the appreciation for the day, the child gets 100/100, which is never going to happen without the small, small appreciations the child earns for its small, small achievements.

Start to appreciate others and see the benefits, for yourself.  The results would be far more than you would have imagined.

 Happy Reading,

D.Senthil Kannan

The beauty of friendship

There is a far deeper meaning to friendship, than what we normally perceive. While many of us may feel the primary reason for having friends is for social interaction and entertainment, if we look more closely to what it means we will realize that the reasons go way beyond that.

Friendship is not only about spending time with like-minded people so that one doesn’t get bored on a Saturday evening; its purpose is far more meaningful.  It is about love and understanding.  It stretches beyond our family relationships and lends us a support that is different.  It is about a different kind of love.

With our families we are sometimes wary about discussing our fears or difficulties, but with friends often it is easier to discuss our feelings, as there remains a space that is personal yet with fewer expectations.  It is a space that is built on sharing – sharing of our joys and sorrows, of discussion and reasoning, and many other things that urge us to open our hearts to others.

It is in friendship that we also learn to be less judgemental and to be accepting of other people’s differences and eccentricities and to be open to loving our friends even if they don’t think like us or share our philosophies.  Friendship teaches us to be helpful.  To give support and a listening ear to our mates, to be there for them in times of need or celebration, and to be part of their lives as a person that gives them comfort and who is able to understand and accept them for who they are.

Cherish and celebrate the spirit of friendship, everyday

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Making New Year Resolutions Work

Making resolutions on New Year is one of the popular practices around the world and perhaps many of us do. But how long do we stick on to our resolutions, is a question we need to ask ourselves.

Resolution originates from the word, ‘resolve”, which means to decide. Therefore a New Year resolution is a important decision you are making, and the decision you make should be a good one. The quality of our life depends entirely upon the decisions we take, from the list of available choices we have, at every moment of our life. When you make right decisions, the outcomes are good and therefore your life is happy. When you make wrong decisions, the outcomes are bad and you have to face the consequences. Therefore, a good decision is something which is well thought of, considering all the factors and then made.

New Year resolutions vary to a great extent from person to person, but some of the popular one’s are:

·         To quit smoking/ drinking.

·         To get into a daily exercise regime.

·         To wake up early.

·         To spend more time with family.

·         To save money for the future.

·         To avoid procrastination.

·         To avoid gossiping.

·         To get organised and systematic.

·         To learn something new.

·         To reduce work load and stress.

Are a few of these in your list of 2012 resolutions? Perhaps, Yes. So, what made you take these resolutions? Let us examine. Something, within us told that, our life would be much better and happier, if a particular change happens in our lifestyle. Our mind processed these thoughts and showed us an ideal picture of how good our life would be if we made these needed change.  For example, when we said to ourselves, “I will get into a daily exercise regime”, our mind showed us a positive image of being, ‘fit and healthy’. Along with this positive mental image came a positive feeling and it was this positive feeling that triggered us to make the resolution.

Then, why is it that after having made a good New Year resolution, we have not been able to hold on to it? This is because as the days go by we tend to get tired andbored,of having to get disciplined. We as human beings do not like to be curtailed by any limitations, even if it simple imposed. Whatever that restricts our freedom, is seen as a burden. So when we forcefully discipline ourselves, it is not a comfortable feeling.Though we very well know that, what we are doing is for our own good, our mind finds it difficult to accept the change. For example, if we have been giving ourselves the freedom to sleep till 7 in the morning and then we make a resolution to wake up at 5.30am, when the morning alarm rings, we feel so disturbed and our mind searches for an excuse to sleep a little longer.

It could also happen, when we enter a state of frustration that the desired positive outcome did not happen, within the anticipated time. So we lose heart, get stressed and go back to our old habits. We are all hooked up to our old habits, and remember habits die hard.To get out of our old habit and to live a new habitis not as easy as we think. It takes many days of practice and perseverance.

Behavioural Scientists and Spiritual Gurus advocate the “21 days to form a new habit”. This also means that it would take at least 21 days to break an old habit. They say whatever you do for 21 days in a stretch, (including Sundays) will get embedded in your neuro system and become a part and parcel of you. For behaviour transformation to happen, Sunday cannot be a holiday.No matter what, if you can stick on to a new habit for 21 days the chances of you to succeed is far higher. So, give it a try!

A resolution backed up by a good action plan, a deep commitment, an effective monitoring system and the willingness to undergo the pain during this course of change, will surely succeed.  If any one of these elements is missing, then what you have just made is not a resolution, but just a wishful thinking.I wish you and your resolutions to succeed, this year. Happy and prosperous 2012.

Happy Reading,

D.SenthilKannan

Article dated Jan'12

Energy Security For The Future

The news that has been invariably catching the headlines of the dailies last month is, should the Kudankulam Nuclear power plant be given the green signal or the red signal.

While some may say, that this issue is just owing to the vested interest of political parties and industry leaders, I think it is still a cause of concern for the general public, who have woken up to the recent natural disaster impacting the Daiichi plant in Fukushima, Japan. Former President Dr.A.P.J.Abdulkalam, has given a full length article in the Hindu newspaper, in which he clearly explains the safety of nuclear based power generation and the advantages of using nuclear as compared to burning other fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. While this has thrown some light to the educated class, this has to be told to the layman in a way that he best understands and his apprehensions are counseled. This can be done, by initiating some progressive, social and infrastructure development measures, in and around the area, as a proactive concern of the safety and security of the people living there. This I think will help to gain their confidence and look at it as a win win situation, rather than a situation where the country is developing at the stake of their life.

Hardly 3 years back, we all in this state, believed that  power shortage is a thing of the past. But we started to face the challenge of peridodical power cuts which has now increased to alarming proportions. The increasing pace of industrialization, FDI investments in the manufacturing sector and with increasing domestic needs, the power requirement seems to be large. There is a clear indication that there cannot be economic progress, without ample power. “it is predicted that the total electricity demand will grow from the current 150,000 MW to at least over 950,000 MW by the year 2030”. *That is about 6 times our current requirement.

So how are we going to meet out this large requirement? What is our way forward plan? Let us consider the alternatives:

The most popular power solution that is now available in our country, is coal powered thermal plants. Thermal plants as we all know are highly polluting. Also, a survey states that the entire coal reserves of the world will deplete in 40 to 50 years, at the current rate of consumption. So what do we do after that?

Can solar and wind energy be an answer? “The greenest sources of power are definitely solar and wind. With abundant sunshine and places of high wind velocity, the nation definitely has potential for these forms of energy. But solar and wind power, despite all their advantages, are not stable and are dependent excessively on weather and sunshine conditions.”* So this too has its limitations in terms of very high capital cost and all around the year availability.

Nuclear power seems to be the answer. Nuclear energy is cheap and clean. Moreover the indication that Thorium can be used as a nuclear fuel, seems to give more reason to believe that India should go for nuclear energy, because it is believed that India might have the largest reserves of Thorium in the world, i.e over 6.50 lakh tonnes. “India has the potential to be the first nation to realize the dream of a fossil fuel-free nation, which will also relieve the nation of about $100 billion annually which we spend in importing petroleum and cool, a large fraction of which was for the thermal plants. Nuclear power, provides a relatively clean, highdensity source of reliable energy. Today, there are 29 countries operating 441 nuclear power plants, with a total capacity of about 375 GW”.*

It is wise, not to depend on a single source of energy, but harness energy from multiple sources, to service our huge requirement. Let us be open to the idea of nuclear energy, to aid our country’s growth.

 Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Dec 2011

Angry Birds

Quiet recently, when I was on my return trip from Mumbai, waiting to board the flight, I saw a number of people busily engaged with their smart phones and iPads. Just out of curiosity, I peeped into to see, what they were actually doing. To my surprise, I noticed that most of them, right from small kids to the corporate guys were invariably playing the new popular game, “ANGRY BIRDS”. I am sure most of you have tried your hands on this game. For those who have not, let me give a glimpse of it. It is a game, where a set of angry birds attack the pigs that have stolen their eggs.  In this game, the birds hurl themselves from a pre-fixed sling, target the pigs and go bombard them. The game goes on with different levels of difficulty and is quiet interesting.

I was just thinking why this game has become so popular. I realised that most people find it as a great tool for releasing their stress. So, how does playing “angry birds” help to release stress? Let us introspect.

Stress is basically our inability to cope up with personal and social expectations. When what happens in our life is not in accordance to what we expect to happen, we feel disappointed, angry and frustrated.  For example, “You see someone misbehaving in the public. You feel like going and giving two blows on his face, but due to the fear of legitimate consequences, you just hold the anger, curse the guy within yourself and move away from the place. This anger which came in to you has not gone out, because it could not find a suitable expression. The anger remains subdued and builds up within you as passive anger. This passive anger leads to mounting of stress. The sub conscious mind keeps looking for a way to release this anger, so that the stress is offloaded from our mind. Have you observed that many times when we have had a bad day at office or a social place, we come and take out our anger, on our spouse or children, by shouting or yelling at them for a no significant mistake of theirs. It is mostly our loved ones, who take up the entire dump and still try to understand and console us. The moment you shout out, you feel a lot relieved and you are able to focus your mind on work. If you do not do so or do not have an opportunity to let out your anger, your mind continues to feel disturbed. This is where a game like “angry bird” helps. Though in the game, it is the birds that are destroying the pigs; your mind feels a comfort of having destroyed something or someone that has been annoying you.

The same principle applies, why people enjoy watching movies. If you look at typical Indian cinema, you will see that a hero is endowed with super powers that a normal person like you and me, can never even dream of. Now, everyone watching the movie tends to personify himself as the hero, in their mind.  When the hero thrashes a gang of rowdies, the one who is watching the movie, feels a sense of gratification, as if he himself has performed the act.

I have heard that in Japan, some companies have a separate room where a punching bag is left hanging. Whenever any employee feels stressed up, due to the rude behaviour of his boss or co-worker, he just goes inside this room gives a few punches and kicks on the punching bag and returns back to his work table with a sense of instant relief.

Our elders have taught us, whenever you get angry count from 1 to 10 and you will see your anger subside. The idea behind this is, when we practice this method, we can bring our anger to our own awareness. We can analyse the reason for our anger and find a better way of expressing it, so that we achieve the desired result. The famous Tamil poet Bharathiyar has said, “Rowthram pazhagu”. He did not say, suppress your anger but he said, “Learn to express your anger wisely.” People do crazy things in a fit of anger and later repent for what they did. I have heard that, even many murderers confess, that they committed the crime out of impulse and it was not intentional. Anger is temporary madness. By learning to handle it, we can be better human beings. Whenever, you get angry remembers this, “Anger is not a show of strength, but a sign of weakness.” Be watchful. 

Short vents of little anger are better than one big vent of accumulated anger. Do not keep anger mounting within you. It is bad for your health. If not for anyone else, be happy that you at least have the “angry birds”, to free you from stress.

      

Happy Reading,

   

D. Senthil Kannan

 Article dated Nov'11