I emerge like a tree from a dirty seed;

I am probably late to the party and I know that I am using the term 'probably' rather loosely. I just discovered this phenomenon called Bruno Mars. I don't care for music much. I hate how playing music in the car seems like a normal thing t o do or how it sneaks in from my neighbor's house some mornings. The rare times I do enjoy music are when the lyrics resonate with me or when the voice shares more than technique. Old Hymns move me and that has to do with the words and not music. I love 'Les Miserables' for its content.The exceptions are Bob Marley and Michael Jackson -not regular though. There is something haunting in their voice that reveals their inner persona. After listening to 'Grenade' I added one more to the list : Bruno Mars! Intense!

I had a minor surgery to remove a sebaceous cyst this thursday. By some strange coincidence, I also had a very rough week at work. After my holidays, this cyst had been bothering me a lot that I couldn't focus well at work and my work didn't take it too kindly either. Wednesday I had to work through the night and I went straightaway to the hospital on thursday for the surgery. My cyst was deep and the local anaesthesia didn't work well for me. To add to all this drama, the little cyst had a mind of it's own and broke within. This had to be scratched out so that nothing is left behind. It wasn't a pleasant feeling to be cut and poked/scratched inside. The poor surgeon had to bear me whimpering like a child. Today was my first bandage dressing after the surgery and I found myself complaining a lot. Then, noticed something Genesis 39 19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, "This is how your slave treated me," he burned with anger....

These are mine 1) Understand the concept of standards. If you are considered good/bad at something, always remember 'according to these standards'. Success, talent, beauty, intelligence, concept of strength - nothing holds the same standard across cultures or time. There is no point in feeling superior or inferior to anyone. 2) Never waste the power of words on white lies, mocking people or making promises that you don't mean to keep.  3) Be an open book. If you have to hide something, you shouldn't be doing that in the first place. Keep it a secret if it's  not your story to tell, it is a burden for others to know yours or if their life experiences could confuse and end up bringing in unnecessary negativity. You don't owe the world justifications. 4) Never resort to revenge. Let God be the judge. If that person deserves mercy, you would have erred by resorting to revenge. If that person deserves discipline, you are not the right one to discharge that.  ...

Thinking of Anne Askew this Sunday. She never got her due in Church history. She was a protestant executed by the protestant King Henry VIII (who separated the Church of England from papal authority) because he found her ideas 'too protestant'. He executed both Catholics and protestants alike. (Bloody Mary executed less than 300. Henry VIII killed around 17000 Catholics+Protestants for religion) Anglican churches tend to tone down that history when they talk about their origins. She is also not the kind of role model that they can be proud of because this was a woman who refused to take her husband's surname in the 16th century and asked for a divorce because she found him ideologically incompatible. She also preached openly at a time a woman on pulpit was unthinkable. Apparently, the author who compiled her autobiography edited a lot of portions to conceal her aggression. She refused to recant and was the only woman to be tortured before execution though the law was ag...

I thought of posting why I support gay marriages and better still why I feel the need to talk about it. Sanju subscribes to the Christian church’s ideology though I wanted to list down the 'Christian' reasons here since this has become a major theological teaching. This reasoning is based on the golden rule and how I perceive Jesus Christ.  I wrote about this in a previous post here When slavery was abolished, many Christians were against it because they didn’t consider the revolt Christian. Some even argued that equality was against the nature of humans. I am glad most Christians agree today that the golden rule just doesn’t give any provision for slavery. Did Jesus talk about slavery in general? No. Did he even preach to the gentiles? No. But he did give the golden rule on which Christian ideologies should hinge on. He never spoke against homosexuals. Preachers won't step down from the pulpits on those grounds but are eager to condemn homosexuals to hell.  I s...

We all know about the brutal rape that happened in Delhi. Six men raped a 23 year old in a moving bus, beat her up, inserted an iron rod in her vagina, tortured her and left her naked on the streets. Her male friend was also savagely beaten up. She lost 3 litres of blood, had to undergo an intestine transplant since her's were severely damaged but despite medical intervention succumbed to her injuries and died. This has shaken up the conscience of the general public. What happened to her was heinous. She held a mirror to the nation. Her justice is not in how those rapists would be punished. It's about how such crimes against women could be subverted. Please listen to this TED talk by Dr. Sunitha Krishnan  For those who want to do something about sexual crimes against women - you could donate to Prajwala - co founded by Sunitha Krishnan who was raped by 8 men when she was 15 and has been fighting relentlessly against human trafficking for the past 16 y...

Nets aimed at shooting stars Heart lusting its glitter and spark Naïve for Greatness, Glory and Fame Minions march to make a name Barbaric hunters with a pile of skulls Artists flaunting mastered skills Emperors, Cardinals from different times Modern entrepreneurs hoarding gains The world looks up in need of a purpose Craving a promise of dreams in surplus Like the moon drunk on light it borrows Aspires to be the sun every night and morrows To read more https://www.amazon.com.au/Trees-dirty-seeds-SAJITHRA-K-ebook/dp/B01BF6VL4G

     This is something that has been in my mind lately. More so because of how the fundamentalist and evangelical churches point at Homosexuals as the culprits for any disaster - natural or otherwise. If there is a hurricane, prominent preachers don't waste any time in accusing them as the cause of God's wrath. There is much outcry against Homosexual marriages. As a practising Christian, this disturbs me a lot. If we have to go by the Jesus Christ portrayed in the Bible, I am sure that if he were to walk as a human in this century, he wouldn't refuse a party invitation from them.  All creation is beautiful. If someone is created that way, perhaps there is a reason to it as Christ rightly said in Matt 19  "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" It's funny ...

There are times when we understand the gravity of a situation without letting emotions cloud our judgement. It helps maintain our objectivity to support a friend. Rarely, that someone is you and that moment makes you an observer too. This also showed me what authentic leadership is. I had a presentation to the Global CEO Ben Verwayen. My reporting manager is Vishy Poosala, the CTO of Alcatel-Lucent Messaging and Head of Bell Labs. I asked him to present and he chose to cancel it because he wanted me to take the credit for my work.  We visited Dr. Disha Sridhar at Motherhood, Bangalore with a positive on the urine pregnancy test on 6th Oct. We made plans to manage the pregnancy. Since  the ultrasound slots were full at the hospital, we got the TVS done in the nearby test centre Clumax. The ultrasound couldn’t detect the gestational sac in the uterus yet though the urine pregnancy test was positive. There was nothing to indicate a tubular pregnancy either.  Dr. Dis...

I was 16 when I read the story of Waris Dirie in Readers Digest. < You can read the story of Waris here > I almost threw up after reading about Female Genital Mutilation. It affected me so much that I started talking about it. This catapulted the aversion that I always had for any sort of inequality. I started talking about the atrocities against women caused by the patriarchal mind set. Not exactly an appropriate topic in a conservative society where life revolved around a church in the village. The prejudices that I saw around me looked trivial in comparison. But I couldn't accept the soft patriarchy of the protestant church as a compromise where women are considered equals in the society, encouraged to work, even ordained as priests in the church but would have to submit to the headship of a man at home. I was never a rude child but I could not fit myself into a role dictated by culture. I was weary of multiple masks. I wanted to be the same person whether I was at chur...

Chetan, Insulted! - Yes, that's what I felt after reading your column ' Don't worry, Be happy ' that has been lapped up with great gusto as an inspirational article. While preaching against the 'regressive attitude' of the Indian society, you conveniently forget that you are peddling the same garbage in a shiny package. You say // It would be a universe full of messy, aggressive and ego-maniacal males running the world, trying to outdo each other for no particular reason. There would be body odour, socks on the floor and nothing in the fridge to eat. The entertainment industry would die. Who wants to watch movies without actresses?//    Touche. Did you actually write that to make women feel indispensable! Should I feel proud with this new found wisdom that the world might collapse without women titillating men on screen, cooking food for men or picking up after men? As a child, I noticed most of the women in the family embracing life as handmaids to thei...

The woman, they say, has come a long way. She is no longer a nameless consort in the harem, a witch hanged in the Middle Ages or a house wife who could not vote because the world after all is a gentleman’s game. The question is ‘Have we done enough? Why take the 'gender' factor seriously when the world is rife with major divisions and classes of discrimination ? I am yet to read a story of infanticide triggered by the infant’s caste, creed or religion. Gender is the quintessential factor that determines an infant’s right to live in most villages in India. It is still the determining factor while choosing an educational path and more times than not, the freedom of 'choice' itself. Financial freedom could help. But that is a tricky road too. Women contribute to more than 50% of the graduates passing out of major Universities but the figures in the corporate world in terms of women leadership is nothing to be proud of. Women in the workforce come from differe...