Warrier's Collage March 28, 2021

Welcome to Warrier's Daily COLLAGE On Sunday March 28, 2021 Spirituality/Faith Zen Wisdom: V T Panchapagesan Chennai We all know that Zen is a part of Buddhism..... Zen wisdom means Virtues of Expansion.... A Zen Master had a disciple who was perpetually unhappy And dissatisfied. One day the disciple approached the Master And said..”Master, bless me too with your wisdom and help me Find happiness.” The old master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful Of Salt in a glass of water and drink it.. “How does it taste.” The Master asked. “Awful.” Spat the young man.. The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another Handful of Salt and put it in the Lake... The two walked in Silence to the nearby lake and when the young man Swirled his handful of Salt into The Lake, The Master said. “Now drink from the Lake.” And the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the Master asked. “How does it taste??”..”Good.” Remarked the young man.. “Do you taste the salt?”. Asked the master...”No” said the young man.. The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands and said.. “The pain of Life is pure salt, no more, no less.. The amount of pain remains the same , exactly the same . But the amount we taste the ‘pain’ depends on the container we put it into.. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense Of things. Stop being a glass. Become a Lake.” Learn slowly four things in life applying your mind. First collect information, then knowledge going inward, you will understand Maturity leading to Wisdom... V. T. Panchapagesan (A link on Zen Thoughts received from Reshmy Warrier:: https://daringtolivefully.com/tame-your-monkey-mind) Shared by: M G Warrier M A Interaction 1) C V Subbaraman Mysuru Babusenan either gives good information or provokes good thoughts. His writing about building of library of borrowed books is interesting. He says, books and wife lost are lost (source unknown) There is one old sanskrit saying: "Vanithaa Vithham Pusthakam, Parahasthagatham Gatham" (woman, wealth and book, once falls into another's hand, gone!). And for Birbal's statement that Akbar is greater than God, at least Akbar recognised that there was space outside his kingdom where Birbal could be exiled. Look at Mahaa Vishnu, he did not find any space to place any land to measure by the "third" foot! God Himself was helpless here. Come on Shri Babusenan! Who is the "seasoned" inspector who can smell the density of bad loans at the entrance of a commercial bank? Do you think that the Inspecting Officers are sniffer dogs? If they, indeed, are we need them in large numbers now! Subbaraman 2) V N Kelkar Mythology Shiv Geeta "Thanks to VJ for introducing little known Shiv Geeta to us. Reading spiritual matters always benefits." B Current Affairs 1) Appreciation F no. 16/3/2021-BOA-I Government of India,Ministry of Finance Department of Financial Services Jeevan Deep Building, 3rd floor Parliament Street, New Delhi - 110 001 Dated 22nd March 2021 To:1. Chief Executive, Indian Banks' Association 2. Chairman, State Bank of India 3. Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Nationalised banks Subject: 229th Report of the Department related to Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Afiairs on Management of Covid-19 pandemic and related issues- regarding Sir, Please refer to Department of Financial Services' letter no. 7/3/2021-Parl, dated 16.2.2021, on the above subject. 2.The undersigned is directed to inform that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs on Management of COVID-19 Pandemic and related issues in its 229th Report has observed, inter-alia, as under: "The Committee notes and appreciates the efforts and pain taken by the banking sector for providing uninterrupted and seamless banking facilities during the COVID-19 outbreak and consequent lockdown. In their sincere efforts to provide continuous service, many of the bank officials also lost their valuable life. The Committee, therefore, places on record the good work done by the banking sector right from the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic and observes that they are also recognized as COVID-19 warriors." 3.Indian Banks' Association may suitably apprise its member banks regarding the above observations and Public Sector Banks may similarly apprise their respective Boards and staff. Yours faithfully, Unanatosh Rogl Under Secretary to the Government of India Tel: 011-23748755 Email: boa1-dfs@nic.in Copy to: Governor, Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai 2) Former RBI Governor Subbarao's views https://m.economictimes.com/markets/stocks/news/former-rbi-governor-d-subbaraos-3-word-advice-for-pm-modi/articleshow/81687536.cms?_oref=cook C Sunday Musings 1) MBA Demystified: Vathsala Jayaraman The parameter of deciding the success of any wedding is food, its quality and taste and not the costly jewels or the luxurious kalyana mandapam or the rosy floral pathways. The challenges involved are too many while providing thousands with tasty food. My father used to say that management is nothing but a lot of common sense, the ability to anticipate crises and be ready with an action plan and solutions. ( I am forced to use typical management terms). This included in particular, the tolerance to untoward comments, keen observation and listening to free advices from unknown and unwarrated corners. Any I T product can be subject to checks, and even if it fails it can be rectified systematically and put to use again after a few months. But here there is absolutely no scope for rehearsal, stock return. The served item on a banana leaf can never be changed or taken back. For a three day wedding there will be nearly 150 varieties of items involving nearly 30 to 40 vegetables and fruits.Though the menu is predecided, there is high fluctuation in the number of guests. In South Indian weddings normally there are no e-mail invitations with a request to ascertain the presence of number of guests for each occasion. We simply bless the couple and enter a dining hall, have sumptuous meals, return pointing out the lapse in a remote corner. There is a great risk involved in serving food manually to more than 1,000 guests on time with very less time left for taking care of cleaning and garbage management. I know many incidents where there had been fight over simple things as size of the laddu or taste of sambar between the families of brides and bridegrooms over the quality of food. Sometimes, the complaints were talked about for generations as though it was a life threatening issue. It was a marvel to see Saambu Mama at work. He used to give rapid instructions to fellow workers and he never missed any details. From the very smell he used to assess the quality of the item. He might not be aware of the business terminologies of Management science. But mutual trust between fellow workers and recognition of individual skill sets, the essential contributory factors for success of a business are strictly adhered to. His ability to delegate and distribute the work in a transparent manner depending essentially on experience, merit and capability management guys have to learn. He does not intervene unnecessarily, but silently supervises. He has an expert who attends only to add salt to all the items, irrespective of the quantity involved.Normally they would have a winnow( muram) and go on adding the salt to the sambar stop at a level. Salt will be to the exactly needed limit. Mama engages a person specially to take care of milk, the essential need for coffee lovers- a 24 hour availability. They know the knack of probable solutions ( like software solutions) for utilising spoilt milk too for tranforming into specified Sweets. The purchase managers, store keepers are also experts in the field. There is an expert in head count who converse freely with main hosts and collect more or less accurate estimate of guests. There are a few skilled persons, not so efficient in kitchen management, but dressed in decent robes welcome guests with a sweet smile, resembling a Reception desk. We cannot ignore the servers. They know the right sequence, right quantity and are keen to watch the eating efficiency with reference to the available stock of food item. Equal importance is given to cleaners and garbage disposers. There is a crisis management team who can manage sudden inflow of guests with some tasty items within 15 mts. Mama didn't attend any school. He was an ordinary helper. But his inquisitiveness to learn and his hard work and his risk taking mentality elevated him as a chief cook. He knows every nook and corner of the job and straightaway lands into kitchen if any worker does not turn up. His considerate temperament, team spirit and recognition of skills in others have earned him a covetable status. Mama's profession is time bound. Quality performance alone counts and there is no chance to repair or redo. He has learnt the techniques on his own without entering a catering technology institute. The techniques gained through sheer hard work and enthusiasm may not be imparted by even Harvard or MIT Business schools. Mama is an expert in HR, purchase, sales, distribution, marketing his popularity and what not. He is not an MBA, but a real MBA. But the demon Corona has made a mess of the entire profession. There are many such experts who have lost their livelihood. I do not know whether there will be light in their livelihood in the near future.Having rich experience only in this field, they have nothing else to do.What a pity!! Vathsala Jayaraman (The real MBA mama in Madam's narration was there in many forms in many families in olden days especially in joint-families. In many families the leading person may be especially an early-widowed woman who would easily jockey the entire household with expertise earned just by her experience with outside world she had been facing and dealing. With joint family system getting strangulated such real MBA mamis have become rare commodity!-Badrinarayanan Cheñnai) 2) Tantamount to*... A Sunday morning time -pass: Discovery of the word ‘tantamount’. PKKNair,Bengaluru. Some years back, I asked a post graduate in English and who was a lecturer in a College; what part of speech does the word ‘tantamount‘ belong to? Like many others , he , without a pause, uttered “verb”! That was not the first time that I pursued my habit of asking the same question to someone who appears to me as a pal ! Now let us find the truth of the matter. The word ‘tantamount ‘is neither a verb nor a noun. It was used as a noun before 1635 Later, it was meant to read as an adjective to mean identical, equal,same as , etc.eg.,his angry speech was tantamount to declaration of anti-party attack., An important point to remember while using this adjective is that the word is always followed by a proposition,’to’ unlike other adjectives. The usage of the word tantamount as a noun had become obsolete over the passage of time. Like many words , this has been derived from Anglo-French-Italian versions, meaning ‘toamount to as such’! I will stop now on this by mentioning an incident in my life. I had developed a habit of reading “The Hindu”newspaper from early college days and continued the practice till a few years ago . I have been thinking that The Hindu maintained its own high standards of the English language. Then one day the newspaper carried an ‘ editorial’using the word tantamount as a verb instead of an adjective. May I confess here that I stopped subscribing to the paper from the following day? I was more in agony than in anger !! (NairJi, your action tantamount to burning the house 🏠 fearing the rat M G Warrier) D Readers' Contribution 1) S Nallasivan Hyderabad Dreams Mall Tragedy It is indeed a tragedy that 11 lives have been consumed by Fire in an avoidable accident. Why should a Hospital should be sandwiched between different floors in a high rise Mall. It is sad that 76 patients nearly all of them Covid 19 patients had to be moved. It should have been the worst experience for the Fire Fighting force to rescue patients from the ravages of fire, seven of them on live support Ventilators from the middle floor of a Mall. The Mumbai Mayor was right why an Hospital has been located unusually in a Commercial Mall which generally prove to be a cause of nuisance to patients. Medicine has become an outright Commercial Proposition to exploit the sick and suffering even during the Pandemic where the Contagion needed intense care and treatment. We knew in the recent past how big Corporate Hospitals bled the terminally ill Covid Patients by conducting themselves heartlessly with monetary consideration as the single most motive. At Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh a high profile Corporate Hospital as if their vast facility is not enough leased out Star Hotels to accommodate as the palliative care centre for Covid 19 patients where big money was the only guiding rule. In the unexpected fire accident in the Star Hotel with no Fire Safety measures in place many patients had to sacrifice their life. Rightly so the greedy Corporate Hospital Owners were charged with blood on their hands and now cooling their heels inside. It has been a weakness in our system to raise a hue and cry immediately after any major accident where loss of human life on the higher side. When looked into deeply the multistory complex approval from the civic body would have looked very casually to strict adherence and went easy on fire safety measures mandatory for any approval. The Government too tries to undermine the tragedy as if human life carried a price in terms of few lakhs of rupees to silence the family. Then we are back to business and illegal approval are bought again for a few lakh of rupees. There must be special rules for running a palliative care health facility. Though the Management of the Sunrise Hospital cried coarse that every singly safety measure was right in place an ace fire tenderers would have confessed their struggle in saving life of patients in a floor sandwiched between floors. Many could have died out of suffocation as is the the case with all fire tragedies. One might have read or heard about fire accidents and loss of innocent and unprotected and insecured labourers in Fire Manufacturing Works in and around Sattur, Virudhunagar and SIvakasi. Believe me during the last two months as many as half a dozen accidents had happened with unfailing regularity with loss of human life including children and women dim a dozen and such accidents are forgotten when the Government sanctioned a lakh or two rupees to buy peace and further to carry on their risky business to human life outside the Law. The Bhandup Dream Mall Fire - Sunrise Hospital too will become a stale news in a couple of days. S.Nallasivan (Thanks Nallasivan. Collage is proud of you. You are the only reader who thought of taking cognizance of the tragedy and sharing your thoughts. Dreams The Mall, Ground plus 3 Floors, is spread in a vast area. Only a small percentage of the built-up area was occupied. The Head Office of the failed PMC Bank is also housed in the Mall. Some 20 years back HDIL took over and developed into a residential complex plus Mall, the land occupied by erstwhile Automobile Products of India Ltd* 🙏-Warrier) *This company in Bhandup assembled in 1968 the only Lambretta scooter I owned during 1974 to 1990's. The story: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/the-men-in-khaki-did-the-police-proud/article2958157.ece E Blogs & Links https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/explore/goodbye-goa-hello-goa/article34168595.ece Excérpts: "The first thing you notice in Goa is the greenery. It’s a vivid green backdrop dotted with cottages, some painted vividly. It is also teeming with shrines — Hindu or Catholic, depending on the population concentration, which is often mixed. The standard uniform dress code for men seems to be checked shorts and bare chests ala Sallu Bhai, and loose shifts like nightdresses for the women — just right for its climate. The ubiquitous vahanawas the two wheeler; scooties and bikes, perfect for the narrow winding roads, which were often blocked by someone pruning their coconut tree or repairing a roof." 2) Development Planning* https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/pracin-jain-academy/neo-liberal-paradigm-of-developmental-planning-28171/ Excerpts: "The neo-liberal paradigm of developmental planning involves a policy model taking account of political, social and economic dynamics. Transferring control of economic factors from the public sector to the private sector is its foundational tenet, though public funds are channelized for welfare activities. In absence of private and public funds, multi-level planning would not deliver the desire results, the combination of two is prerequisite to experience ‘welfare-maximizing’ outcome. Development planning refers to the strategic measurable goals planned to be achieved timely. With the Kollam model and the mission mode approach, such goals can be achieved making everyone a stakeholder inefficient delivery of public goods and services." *This link is random selection. Once you open, select the article of your choice 🙏 F Leisure 1) OSHO on fear of death* OSHO, saying....True to every word WOW just stumbled upon an old text by Osho, unbelievable how exactly he described the situation and somehow comforting... 'How do I avoid pandemic?" This question was asked to OSHO about 40 years ago during the AIDS period! ′′ You're asking the wrong question Osho replied, ′′ the right question should be: ′′ How to avoid the fear of dying caused by the epidemic (pandemic)?" Because it is very easy to avoid the virus, it is very difficult to avoid the fear in you and in the world. People will die more from this fear than from the epidemic (pandemic). There is NO virus in this world more dangerous than FEAR. Understand this fear, otherwise you will become a dead body before your body dies. It has nothing to do with the virus. The scary atmosphere you feel in these moments is collective madness... It has happened a thousand times and will continue to happen. And it will continue if you don't understand the psychology of crowds and fear. You usually keep your fear at bay, but in the moment of collective madness, your consciousness can be completely lost. You won't even know when you lost control of your fear. Then fear can make you do anything. In such a situation you can also take your own life or the lives of others. So much will happen in the coming times: Many people will kill themselves and many people will kill more. Attention, be mindful. Don't watch news that trigger fear. Stop talking about the epidemic, repeating the same thing over and over again is like self-hypnosis. Fear is a kind of self-hypnosis. This idea will cause chemical changes in the body. If you repeat the same idea over and over again, a chemical change is triggered that can sometimes be so toxic that it can kill you. During an epidemic, energy around the world becomes irrational. This way you can fall into a black hole anytime. Meditation then becomes a protective aura into which no negative energy can penetrate. (Osho) *Forward received from K Balasubramanian Coimbatore 2) Humour in Sanskrit Literature* https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/humour-in-sanskrit-literature Excerpts: "Sri A V Subramanian gave a talk on “Humour in Sanskrit Literature” on 16thJune , 1985 under the auspices of Rasodaya at the K S R Institute, Mylapore. Sri P S Ramamurti presided. The speaker confined himself to citations from classical Sanskrit Literature. Some instances: (a) Kalidasa in Sakuntalam: The words of Vidushaka (jester) to King Dushyanta are humorous wittingly or unwittingly). When Dushyanta declaims on the superb beauty of Sakuntala and wonders which fortunate person is destined to have her, the Vidushaka says, “save her quickly. Let her not fall into the hands of some sage possessed of head, glossy with the oil of Ingudi!” (b)When Dushyanta feels that his portrait of Sakuntala is incomplete, the Vidhusaka suggests “soto voce”; “the picture board is to be filled with batches of sages with hanging beards!” c)When earlier Dushyanta speaks about the secret shy glances of Sakuntala, the Vidushaka quries “Did you expect her to mount your lap as soon as you were seen” (The Vidushaka pretending to be valorous but clutching at excuses for running away from scenes of danger, is also mirth provoking)." *Link Selection: M G Warrier Mumbai G Quotes from Khalil Gibran https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/khalil-gibran-quotes Like: " Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." -Khalil Gibran