Monday, December 15, 2008

Education

"The primary purpose of a school is to guide the child in her discovery of herself and her world, and to identify and nurture the child’s talents. Just as every seed contains the future tree, each child is born with infinite potential. Imagine a school which sees children as seeds to be nurtured – here the teacher is a gardener who helps to bring out the potential already present in the child. This is very different from the current view which sees the child as clay to be moulded – where the teacher and parents are potters deciding what shape the clay should take. There is an old (and forgotten) Chinese saying, “Give a seed to a potter, and you will get a bonsai.”

-Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, in a Times of India article on Education.

Two Sufi Poems

Peak experiences make a man healthy and only a healthy man can have peak experience. Peak experiences are profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, when a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient and yet a part of the world, more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and so o. Self-actualizing people have many such peak experiences. Not only are these his happiest and most thrilling moments, but they are also moments of greatest maturity, individuation, fulfilment - in a word, his healthiest moments. He becomes in these episodes more truly himself, more perfectly actualizing his potentialities, closer to the core of his Being, more fully human.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write. If these needs are not met, the person feels restlessness, on edge, tense, and lacking something. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization. After self actualisation comes transcendence which is to help others find self fulfilment and realize their potential.

-Abraham Maslow.

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The words in the first paragraph above beautifully, though yet not fully, describe the state of the poet in two sufi poems by two great sufi poets, Bulla ki jana main kaun by Bulle Shah, and Naiharwa by Kabeer. These two poems are written in a state of peak-experience, and actually try to describe the state of the poet.

Sufi poetry is surely filled with many more such gems, but these two poems I would say are two of the best of those few I have read till date.

Both these have been sung in recent past by Rabbi and Kailash Kher resp.

घर से बहुत दूर है मस्जिद

घर से बहुत दूर है मस्जिद, चलो यूँ कर लें

किसी रोते हुए बच्चे को हँसाया जाए...

- निदा फाज़ली

निदा फाज़ली साहब जब पाकिस्तान गए और एक मुशायरे में ये शेर पढ़ा तो बकौल उनके "मुशायरा ख़त्म होने के बाद कुछ लम्बी लम्बी दाढियाँ मेरे पास आयीं और घेर कर बोलीं कि आप कहना क्या चाहते हैं... क्या बच्चा मस्जिद से बड़ा हो गया ? मैं बोला कि मुझे ये तो नहीं पता कि मस्जिद बड़ी है या बच्चा, पर इतना ज़रूर जानता हूँ कि मस्जिद को इंसान के हाथों ने बनाया है, और बच्चे को अल्लाह के !"

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Unison of minds

He was raised in poetry, and Sufi and classic music. And that’s precisely the reason, he shares “a great rapport with” the likes of Aamir Khan and A.R. Rahman. “When we are together, we don’t discuss the songs of their next film but share our spiritual knowledge, and talk of sur and sangeet, generally.


-From an interview of Prasoon Joshi, a lyricist, poet and adman.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Living a Simple Life

Liked this article sent by a friend, Nitin Varshney...

Heading the other Way - USHA JESUDASAN


Living a simple life like this is not easy. It will not eliminate the complexity of our modern life to which we are all bound to some extent. But if we try, what it will do, is to allow us to live in harmony with all the complexities around us, so that we do not feel fragmented and soulless.

-From the article.

Paintings

A link that has excellent paintings... what I call true art... compared to the paintings of some other 'renowned' artists.

The paintings are just mesmeric... the isometrics of temples/ forts with sun rays create a completely overwhelming effect... and some other paintings have such a beautiful use of colour, they are just awsome!

http://www.ajaygulati.com/

Article on the artist in The Hindu

P.S.: For a while you may not see any painting, the website may take upto 1 minute to show the painting thumbnails. Like the painters, their websites are also sometimes moody, it seems :-)