Warrier's Collage on Sunday May 12, 2024

Welcome To Warrier's COLLAGE On Sunday May 12, 2024 Today is Shankaracharya Jayanti https://www.templepurohit.com/mantras-slokas-stotras/lord-shiva-mantras-slokas-stotram/nirvana-shatakam/ Good Morning Happy Birthday to all having Birthday during the current week. Ayurarogyasaukhyam and Best Wishes for all. It was nice talking to Babusenan Sir last week. He said he turned 90. Happy Birthday to him. Can't believe so much time has passed after meeting him in the Club-room in Belhaven premises during 1960's. M G Warrier A THOUGHT* FOR THE DAY : "Life is not about being rich, being popular or being highly educated. It is about being real, humble and kind." *Shared by V Rangarajan, Chennai A Speaking Tree https://m.economictimes.com/opinion/speaking-tree/dealing-with-dke/articleshow/109226916.cms B Current Affairs : Borrowings of Indian States https://www.forbesindia.com/article/explainers/debt-to-gdp-ratio-indian-states/88469/1 C Collage Books 📚 Book On My Table : The Covenant Of Water By Abraham Verghese This book came to me as a gift from my son Kiran and his wife Smita. They know my reading habits. At the risk of loss of reputation @80, let me share a closely guarded secret : For my degree class there was a non-detailed text "Mill On The Floss". I have seen it with my classmates. I was yet to buy and read that book which, I remember was almost half the size of this book (Ordered my copy from Amazon*. They say only few copies are left. They may be right about the day's stock position 😀) Rest I leave to your imagination. I'm stuck with the opening quotes in this book, one of which reads : "Not hammer strokes, but dance of the water, sings the pebbles into perfection." -Rabindranath Tagore Each one of us, including me, has memories and stories worth sharing with others. We hesitate. And when we decide to open up, some of us find the waiting audience missing or we ourselves disabled to use the tools of communication which we thought will be with us permanently. Therefore, read, write, talk and be part of the dialogue or media whenever you get an opportunity. Here's a tip : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/warriersviews/a-writers-progress-10304/ (Pages 194/195 of my book "Open Book of Happy Memories") *Limited-time deal : THE MILL ON THE FLOSS [Paperback] George Eliot https://amzn.in/d/ek4de7h Back to the "Book on My Table" The Covenant of Water https://amzn.in/d/b1ILRKT Book overview AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION 'One of the best books I've read in my entire life. It's epic. It's transportive . . . It was unputdownable!' Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning - and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century a twelve-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this poignant beginning, the young girl and future matriarch - known as Big Ammachi - will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life, full of the joys and trials of love and the struggles of hardship. A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humour, deep emotion and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years. D Collage Healthcare Tips* https://betterhealthwhileaging.net/understanding-10-common-blood-tests-in-aging/ *Link shared by T N C Rangarajan E Collage Cover Story : Shape of Things I Egg, how the egg got its shape? (Story shared by Vathsala Jayaraman) Hens don't break their eggs when they sit on them. The secret lies in the shape of the egg. An egg is a great example of nature's excellent skills in packing. If you squeeze the ends of an egg between the palms of your hands, it won't break. However, if you squeeze it in the middle, it pops and creates a terrible mess. If we see the way eggs are sold in the market, we notice that they are kept with their ends pointing up and are never left lying horizontally. Hens, too, incubate their eggs the same way, with the narrower end pointing upwards. For distorting or crushing an object, its shape is as important as the material it is made of. Although an eggshell is really fragile, its queer dome-shaped end makes it a 'tough nut to crack'. Many of us have seen the Taj Mahal or any mosque. We would have noticed that the roof is a huge dome. In earlier architectural forms, buildings had huge horizontal roofs which had to be supported by a large number of pillars. The dome is, however, a curved structure - it has no angles and no corners - and it can enclose an enormous amount of space without the help of a single column. What the dome essentially does is that it distributes the weight and the pressure applied on the top evenly to the entire structure. In fact, in architecture, the dome is one of the strongest designs for it supports the weight of the roof evenly so that no single point on the dome supports the whole load and gives way under stress. Similarly, the dome shape of each end of the egg distributes all the weight evenly and minimises stress and strain. An egg can easily bear the weight of a book/ books equal to the weight of a chicken if placed properly. The electrical bulb does not break easily even though it is made of a thinner glass, notwithstanding our pressure to insert/remove into/from the holder. The secret lies in the 'egg' shape. This is known as the 'egg' principle or Anda Siddhantham. Normally students get a zero or anda ( muttai) when they copy from others. It is strange that the egg allows itself to be copied in so many architectural, buildings and mechanical designs and egg is nature's best architectural model. VATHSALA JAYARAMAN II Bonus : Fruits, Vegetables & Body Parts https://www.drthindhomeopathy.com/article/17-foods-that-resemble-your-body/ There may be a closer resemblance between good-for-you grub and your body than you thought. Some foods both resemble and nourish specific organs. Ancient herbalists who observed nature believed the appearance of natural things gave clues to their virtues. F Story with a moral Sunday Story* The Importance of learning The kitchen tap was leaking, so I called a plumber to fix it. I was watching him work. He took out a wrench (spanner) from his bag - it was broken. I quietly watched how he would work with this broken wrench. He separated the tap from the pipe. The part of the pipe that was rotten needed to be cut off. He again put his hand in the bag and took out a thin saw. The saw was also half broken. I sighed, thinking to myself, 'What kind of plumber have I called for repairs! If he does not have proper tools, how will he get any work done?!' But he was very proficient in his work, and held the saw skilfully in his hand, slowly running it over the pipe. He continued for a few minutes, and the pipe was cut into two. He removed the rotten portion, and attached the tap to the remainder of the pipe. It took him a total of ten minutes to complete this work. As I handed him a hundred rupee note, he said, “No Sir, you don’t owe me so much. Just give me half of this.” I was very surprised at his words and asked him, “Who lets go of money like this?” But his reply stunned me and made me realize certain truths of life. He said, “Sir, there is a fixed rate for every piece of work. Today if you pay me a little more, I will be happy on receiving it. But I will not get the same rate everywhere, and then it will be a problem for me. There is a fixed rate for every task, so please only pay as much as this task is worth.” I replied gently, “Buy a new saw and wrench. It will become easier for you.” The plumber laughed at this. “Oh no Sir, tools are bound to break while working. But this doesn’t hamper the work, they still do their work.” “But wouldn’t it be easier to work with a proper, intact saw and wrench?” I asked with surprise. “Probably, yes. But sir, when you work in your office, how does it matter which pen you use? It is more important that you know how to write. If you know how to write, you’ll be able to write with any pen. And if you don’t, then you won’t be able to write with even the best pen in the world. The skill is in the hands, not in the machine. It’s is a mere tool, nothing else. These for me, are same as a pen for you. They are a little broken, but are coming in handy. If I buy new ones, again the same portion will wear off. When this portion breaks off, there is nothing else left to wear off in these. Now they're working smoothly.” I listened to him silently. The sense of satisfaction that was visible on this hard working daily worker's face, was truly surprising. I used to think that we run after money our whole life; but when we have the tools of hard-work and honesty, we don't really need a lot of money. We need to learn from so many people - and not just the ones who teach in schools or colleges. You may meet them at any time, anywhere in the journey of life. You just need to recognize them, and learn from them. Bow down and respect their thinking. I did not say anything else, but just asked him if he would have tea. He said, “No Sir, there is a lot of work pending. A lot of leaking taps need repairing. Sir we all have to take care that water is not wasted.” He left, and I was left thinking for a long time. I wish, we were all plumbers like this! Moral "How we use our resources defines our character. Our resources are our internal faculties like mind, intelligence, ego. Then time and external resources like money, power etc. We should use them in a better way for the right purpose." Shared by Balasubramanian, Coimbatore -- G Media Response I May 7, 2024 Valuable memoirs* Apropos the brief writeup by K R Srivats about the latest book "Just A Mercenary?" by Duvvuri Subbarao (The Hindu Business Line May 7) one feels immensely happy to find that ex-central bankers as a class are going deeper into various aspects of central banking and governance post-retirement. The literature they produce are immensely valuable. With the exception of perhaps Dr C Rangarajan and Dr Y V Reddy, the RBI Governors in recent times didn't come with central banking background. This aspect was more than made up by the in-house team which had stalwarts like S S Tarapore, Shyamala Gopinath and Usha Thorat. The present and future governors will find the books by Dr Bimal Jalan, Dr Reddy and Duvvuri Subbarao insightful about the tight-rope walking RBI as an institution is destined to do. M G Warrier Mumbai *Published on May 8, 2024 II May 9, 2024 Focus on productive investment Apropos "Household savings haven't fallen" (The Hindu Business Line, May 9), it is comforting to find that despite several adverse influences, people are saving from their earnings with faith in the future. This raises the bar for government and financial institutions to ensure that there is no dearth of instruments to deploy the precious savings. There's near saturation in sectors like jewellery and real estate. Moreover, in the long term, investments should generate employment and income. There is a need for strong policy support to unlock dead investment in gold and real estate. M G Warrier Mumbai III Chat Room May 10, 2024 Jammed communication lines* This refers to the report "Strike Ends as AI Express Agrees To Take Back 25 Sacked Staff" (Economic Times, May 10). One thing that triggered the whole episode seems to be jamming of communication lines at multiple levels. This is not the first time a changeover of reins of the magnitude that happened in Air India resulted in readjustment of remuneration packages at higher levels. Perhaps the stakeholders were not taken into confidence this time around. Second, and more important is the scant respect given to the interests of customers because of whom the opportunity to serve exists, when the strikers forced a breakdown of normal services by resorting to a lightning strike. Third, the conciliation machinery moved at snail's speed in an emergency. Partly, preoccupation of political leadership with other priorities like election work played a role in slowing down the government machinery. It's always easy to be wiser after the event. Still, services industry has to learn from this breakdown in communication, where Centre and the Tatas did not score passmarks in managing a crisis. M G WARRIER Mumbai *Not published