Inspiring Individuals

Apara Karuna Sindhum Ggnanadam Shanta Vigraham Sri Chandrashekara Gurum Pranatosmi Mutanvaham





We have always been discussing & deliberating what is right & what is wrong. And always we have had two different schools of thought on this one. One that states decision made in lines of dharma, ahimsa & truth is right alternatively the other school talks about the reasons or actions that lead to the reaction. Both of these seem to be right & what is ultimately proved over here is that every action will have its positives & negatives. Accordingly doing the right thing which does not intentionally harm anybody & does an overall good when looked at a larger picture is presumably the right way of doing things.



Being an ardent follower of HH Chandrashekara Swami of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, Kanchipuram I am making my first effort to write & hopefully succeed. This article might be compilations from many other books, articles, magazines, internet etc & the sole intention is to bring in the goodness about such write ups & no financial benefits to be derived out of this.



There are millions of people who cross our lives in our life span & there are only few who remain in our thoughts & we look up to them as our guide, mentor, friend, boss etc. Here are some whom I believe have made a vast difference in their field, have made us all proud of their achievements, have  always been on the news for the right reasons & more importantly given back what they have learn't & not kept it with themselves. List is not comprehensive but only includes few:













HH Chandrashekara Saraswathi Swamigal



Born in Villupuram on May 20, 1894 in a Kannanda Smartha family & was named Swaminathan he achieved what a normal human being cannot even think off. His father went to an astrologer when he was 7 to predict the Boy’s future & in-turn the astrologer fell in the feet of the boy saying very soon the world would fall in this boy’s feet. At the age of 9 he had his upanayanam (Brahmin boy gets the right to learn Veda through a guru). At the age of 13 he knew by heart all the major religious teachings like the Geetha, Bible etc & used to answer any questions from such texts at ease. Taken over the mantle of running the Mutt at a tender age of 13 as the 68th Archarya after the demise of the 67th Archarya (his own cousin Lakshminathan) after just 7 days as the head of the mutt, Periyava as he is famously called managed the mutt through an appointed guardian till he reached the age of 21 & later took complete control of the mutt for the remaining period. It was during this period that the Mutt got all the name & fame which it enjoys today & made inroads into education, feeding the poor, hospitals, Veda Adhyayana, Veda Rakshana etc & all would agree that this was the time that could be called as the “Golden Era of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt”. Periyava walked from Rameswaram in far south to Banaras in the North of India to spread the message of peace, harmony, spreading the importance of Vedic Dharma, preserving & spreading importance of various Vedic chants & courses not once but twice. He was the one who spread the message on importance of having Guru in One’s life & moved it to the level of structured transfer of knowledge from Guru to the shishya’s & the same is now resurfacing in the corporate world as Mentor/Mentee relationship. Some of the personal experiences of his devotees are truly breathe taking & can be read in the book “Voice of God”. Apart from having some great Indians as his devotees like Indira Gandhi, MS Subbalakshmi, R Venkatraman, AB Vajpayee he had foreign dignitaries their highness the King and Queen of Nepal, the Queen Mother of Greece, the Dalai Lama touching his feet. He never associated himself directly in any freedom movement but played his part by promoting Khadi & relinquished wearing silk clothes which was generally worn by the sadhus & sanyasis after meeting Gandhiji & also he dedicated the famous song Maithreem Bhajatha through the melodious voice of his devotee MS Subalakshmi in 1947 & she went on to sing the same song in the United Nations in 1969 as per Rajaji’s request. Should we call him a child prodigy or a person who grew to become what he eventually became through his dedication, perseverance, discipline, serve all mentality? There are millions today who still feel he exists & go in the directions he shows them & I am proud to say that I am one among them. He attained Mukthi on the wee hours of January 8, 1994 & we still have a record of over half 1 Billion people taking head bath mourning his death on that day. The purity & greatness of a person does not lie in how many surround him when he is around but it is in how many shed a drop of tear when he is not around. Periyava has unconsciously done what we might not see in our life time again.



Jaya Jaya Shankara Hara Hara Shankara!!!!!





M. S. Subbalakshmi



Born in Madurai on September 16, 1916 in a musical family she attained the peak of carnatic music with her sheer determination & consistent sadhana for over 50 years. She started singing at the age of 7 & started giving live concerts individually at the age of 17. She was the first musician to be awarded the Bharath Ratna (highest civilian award) and Ramon Magsaysay award, Asia's highest civilian award, in 1974. Now - there are so many musicians/vocalists who have sung for years but what makes MS fondly called as MS Amma great is a question that needs an answer? Started singing at the age of 7 & gave her first public performance in the midst of millions of knowledgeable people in the very famous Mahamaham festival in Kumbakonam at the age of 10. She was chosen to sing in the Madras Music Academy at the age of 13 when vocalists close to 20 years of experience were not selected. She came to the limelight there with her Meera Bhajans & continued to sing in different languages like Punjabi, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi apart from Tamil, Kannada & Sanskrit which took her to a different level. She went on to get the biggest honor like Padma Bhushan 1954, Sangeet Natak Academy Award in 1956, first women recipient of Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 1968, Ramon Magsaysay in 1974, the Padma Vibushan in 1975, the Kalidas Samman in 1988, the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration in 1990, and the Bharat Ratna in 1998. She met Sadasivam a freedom fighter & a well known figure in the Madras Congress circle in the year 1936 & after 4 years of friendship this relation transformed to marriage in 1940. MS Amma was supported and guided by Sadasivam in every small step of hers & she reciprocated by making it public after every performance of hers. She is one singer with her husband who probably has spent all (yes all) her money in charity which is roughly estimated to be over 10,000,000 (guess the value of this money between the years 1926 & 2004). If you were a visitor to her residence you could never go out without having a filter coffee made by her (not her cook/servant), never see her sit in-front of her husband (respect given to the husband in Indian Culture). She continued teaching carnatic vocal to her students until she died on December 11, 2004 but stopped public appearance & performance after the death of her husband Sadasivam Iyer in the year 1997. She was called a Queen of Music by Prime Minister Nehru, Tapaswini by Latha Mangeshkar, Sarojini Naidu called her "Nightingale of India & the great Rajaji missed his appointment only once in his life time in public office when he was left spell bound by her music & Gandhiji once said he would rather hear Subbalakshmi speak the songs rather than hear someone else sing it. Though she did not have any children of her own but bought up Radha, Viji (Sadasivam’s children out of his earlier wedlock) and Thangam (Sadasivam's orphaned niece adopted by M.S). Her famous recitals being Venkatesha Suprabhatham, Bhaja Govindam, Maithreem Bhajatha, Vishnu Sahasranamam etc. Now that’s what we call a mix of humility, achievement, talent, tradition. Hats off MS Amma we are blessed to have heard you in our generation. Women readers will be disappointed if I don’t mention MS Amma’s coruscating sparkling blue jager diamond earrings & nose ring that was & is a craze even today. The color MS Blue was created for her by the well known Congress party member and philanthropist, Sri Muthu Chettiyar & it went on to become the most famous & sought after MS Blue in the south Indian Silk Saree market.



Mother Teresa



Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu famously known as Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910. She was deeply influenced by the service & charity of missionaries at a very early age & decided to go that way at the age of 12. She left her mother & sister whom she never met again when she was 18. Before arriving in India in 1929 she was in Ireland learning English & working as a teacher. She first took her vows as a nun in 1931 & was working as a teacher in Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta before she was deeply concerned & disturbed with the poverty, hindu/muslim violence & decided to surrender her life in the upliftment of the weaker section. She took up the struggle by visiting the slums, being one among them & she has also stated that she had to beg for the food & clothing that she had to distribute to the needy. Her effort was slowly getting recognized by all the region & she was appreciated by the then prime minister as well which remained as an appreciation & did not translate to help in the near future. In the year 1950 Mother received Vatican permission to start the diocesan congregation that later went on to become the Missionaries of Charity. Mission’s only role was to help the unwanted & uncared for in the society like the poor, homeless, ill health, old ailing people etc. In 1952 came the help from Indian officials where they made space available from an abandoned Hindu temple which was used by Mother to see off the dying people & was converted as a Home for the Dying & named Kalighat. The poor were given dignified death. 61 quotes of Mother is the most famous & the one that is closest to me is “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise”. Most of these quotes are one liner which can be well understood & if religiously followed, we can play a part in making this world a better place to live. For her service to the poor & needy she was bestowed with Padma Shri in 1962, in 1972, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1962. Mother became a famous celebrity after the book Something Beautiful for God, in 1969 & a documentary by the same name in 1971 which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge. When you are in public service there are some who like you & some who don’t, the same was the case with Mother as well. She had her supporters & detractors as well who consistently blamed & targeted her. This is something that we are not going to look deep into as the article would lose its value. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India & when asked what can be done to promote world peace the instant answer came back from her “Go home & love your family”. We are blessed & proud to have had her services & thank the almighty for sending her to India when she could have gone to any other part of the world that was struggling. What she has done by transforming the life’s of the poor is reduced the number of robbery, rape & illegal activities for which we owe a life time to her. She left us on September 5, 1997 after a series of illness ranging from heart attack in 1983 to pneumonia & was consistently ill till she died. She was given a state funeral for the services provided by her to our countrymen.





APJ Abdul Kalam



It was not only BJP’s vision for India to be a nuclear state but I presume the other parties were also equally keen but could not voice out as it was not mentioned in their common minimum program and external pressure. If not for Dr APJ Kalam this would not have been possible, should have still remained as a dream and the developed nations would have continued to treat us the way they used to. And fittingly as a thanks giving I guess he was made the 11th President of our country in the year 2002 with absolutely no opposition from any of the parties by the NDA. This one page of mine would not be enough to just mention the number of awards but I can assure you he has got them all. He was the first Indian Scientist to have come up with a vision 2020 for our country when our bureaucrats & politicians think of just the next one or two years. He developed first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully injected the Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit; he was responsible for the evolution of ISRO's launch vehicle programme (PSLV), responsible for the development and operationalisation of AGNI and PRITHVI Missiles and for building indigenous capability in critical technologies through networking of multiple institutions. The Missile man had various positions in the Indian Government ranging from Scientific Advisor to the President of the country. Born on 15th October 1931 at Rameswaram, degree holder in Physics & a diploma holder by education he specialized in Aero Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology. Joined DRDO in 1958 & moved to ISRO in 1963 before he returned to DRDO again but not before he got India into the space club. He is a strict vegetarian, teetotaler, practices extremely high self discipline & being a Muslim is a scholar in Thirukural & in most of his speeches he quotes at least one kural (Thirukural is a classic of couplets or Kurals (1330 rhyming Tamil couplets) or aphorisms celebrated by Tamils. It was authored by Thiruvalluvar, and is considered to be the first work to focus on ethics, in Dravidian Literature). Dr Kalam when he could take rest & like some of our other country men go around the world on vacations is spending time with the school students, budding engineers in Anna University, writing motivational books for the younger generations, he works for about 18 hours each day, plays rudra veena. Guess what he took just two days of leave when his parents died. Now that's what we call dedication & I am sure he is on a mission which if he accomplishes will do more good to us than him. My best from his many quotes are “Do we not realize that self respect comes with self reliance?” & “"Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow". Remember Dr Kalam had his share of detractors who found him to be the reason for overrunning and mismanaging some of the missile projects but that did not stop him from continuing to excel. On June 8, 2006, he created history by becoming the first president to undertake a sortie in a fighter aircraft, a Sukhoi-30 MKI, from Lohegaon (Pune) airbase. As a 74-year old, he created a record by becoming the oldest Indian co-pilot to do so. The flight lasted 30 minutes flying at a height of six to eight kilometers in the air at a speed of 1500 Km/h. As President, he donated his income from his first 10 months in office to the NGO created and managed by Mata Amritanandamayi.





Sachin R Tendulkar

It was a big dilemma for me to include Sachin - one of the greatest batsmen the game of cricket has ever seen in this list. Though it does not make an iota of a difference to him whether I include or exclude him from this list. But as I mentioned in the beginning there two sides of a coin & so be it. Remember the India Australia qualifier in Sharjah when there was a typhoon & the man decided to play the game, did not allow the non striker to face a single ball & took India to the finals & went on to get us the Coco Cola  Cup, when he hit the first ever single double ton in the history of One Day cricket. Now it’s sheer waste of time if we have to narrate or discuss about his achievements because there are hardly any that he has missed & if he has then I guess its intentional & he should be waiting to gift himself with that on his retirement. Born on Aril 24, 1973 he hit the international circuit at a tender age of 16 facing the fiery Pakistani bowlers. In the very first series in the final test in Sialkot, he was hit on the nose by a bouncer, but he declined medical assistance and continued to bat even as he gushed blood from it, such was the perseverance of the young boy at the age of 16. Incidentally Waqar Younis who debuted in the very same series took his wicket in the first test. He bats at an average of 56 & 45 respectively in One Day & Test, which means every time he goes to the center you can expect him to score these many runs. Now there are many who claim that he plays for money & my immediate response is who does not? He is not a sadhu/sanyasis/nun that he would be happy with two or even one meal a day. He has to take care of his family, bring up his children (his children cannot study in Govt schools), plan for his old age (our Govt & people have bad memory else Bismillah Khan would have been alive with us today), manage his wife’s expectation as well. Remember to get fame is easy but to manage Fame is not so. We can walk on the roads freely but a bollywood star or a cricketer as reputed as Sachin in India if walks on the road there will be stampede & he has to cover himself for privacy & security. Also remember the amount that he spends on charity towards education, health & food. Tendulkar sponsors 200 underprivileged children every year through Apnalaya, a Mumbai-based NGO associated with his mother-in-law, Annabel Mehta. Brad Hogg after dismissing Sachin took the ball to him for his autograph & Sachin in-turn silently signed it but not before writing on it that “It will never happen again”. Hogg has hand many opportunities before he was removed from the Cricket Australia but could not succeed. Now that’s what we call the confidence & faith in one‘s own ability. He is a team man who has sacrificed many of his centuries for the team, getting out in 90’s & remember the day when Dravid called him back at 194 in Multan he could have stayed back for another over & nobody would have had a problem but that shows how much he respects hierarchy & stuck to what his captain told him to do. That’s what we call implicit obedience which is now not seen even at home between a young child & his parents. When he was young, Tendulkar would practice for hours on end in the nets. If he became exhausted, his coach & mentor Ramakant Achrekar would put a one-Rupee-coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who dismissed Tendulkar would get the coin. If Tendulkar passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Tendulkar now considers the 13 coins he won then as some of his most prized possessions.



Conclusion



What makes the above listed people different from the others in their own field is the humility, selflessness, determination, mission in life & a never say die attitude. Now is that difficult for you & me to follow is the question that needs an answer from each one of us. Remember we cannot be Paramacharya, Mother Teresa, APJ Kalam, MS Amma or Sachin because they are once in a life time phenomena but what we can achieve through some simple practices is spread the behavior, approach, teachings of these legends. And believe me you will see a difference in yourself & the others will follow you since these things can also spread like virus just like the funny jokes through SMS, chain mails & bollywood celebrity gossip in Bangalore Times.



1.          Treat people with respect – Remember its destiny that you are where you are, the servant in your house is doing the mean jobs & the boss in the office is where he is again because of destiny. It won’t take time for it to change.

2.          Never waste food – Share it if it’s excess for you (preferably before you start), store it for your next meal & worse off feed it to the animals but not dump it in the garbage bin.

3.          Get angry but do it for the right reason but do not raise hands, use foul language because it talks more about you & your upbringing than the people whom you are using it for.

4.          Indulge in Charity the way you do in“Hot Chocolate Fudge” (only if you have met the demands of your family), do not shoo away, crib, curse or scold a beggar. If you dislike or do not want to give him/her you have the right to move away from the place.

5.          Spread positivity by having a smile in your face always, talking to people, meditation (dhyana). Indulge in healthy, informative & useful conversations. Remember the rise or fall of rupee against dollar has more consequence in your life than knowing if John is ok with Bipasha meeting Salman it’s their personal life on which we have no say.

6.          Have a goal, design a plan, religiously implement the plan & have a periodic check. Remember if you don’t know why you are doing what you are doing it’s as good as time wasted which could have been used for sleeping & giving some rest to your body parts.

7.          Believe in GOD. Remember there is a third power & hence so many miracles in this world. God does not ask you for Gold/Money/Milk/Ghee/diamond/flowers etc but it’s the middle men in the name of priests/trustees/sadhus etc. So don’t believe them & then if you do then don’t blame God. Remember Mothers saying “There is Jesus in disguise in everyone”. Have your mother/father/idol in front of you & cry out, you will be relieved.

8.          Disagree but ensure you disagree on an issue & not with the person. Remember you are not right always & so is the other party. Know when to compete & when to collaborate. Also ensure you attack the issue (if the reader is in present day corporate world) & not the person.

9.          Build the skill in you through acquiring knowledge which can be through reading / writing / surfing / meeting people & use it to the advantage of mankind & not to harm anybody.

10.          Love all serve all. Remember it does not take much to do so.



It’s not expected that we follow all the 10 of the above always, I am sure we cannot do so & hence are called human beings but it can transform us if we consciously make an effort to implement.