The Science Of Life

(Speech)
I was deeply troubled by the problem of burping. I went to a doctor. He suggested me not to worry. “There is intake of air and it needs to be released. There are only two ways for that- one is through the mouth.” The other words of the doctor fell deaf into my ear. I had no solution for my problem.

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, a form of complementary and alternative medicine called Ayurveda came to my rescue.

I shall today talk about the important influences in ayurveda, the general principle of ayurveda which states that our body constitutes of vata, pitta and kabha and finally the day to day usability of ayurveda – the science of life.

Ayurveda traces its origins to the Atharvaveda .But the methodical organization and the central concepts evolution happened under the Buddhists philosophers, especially Nagarjuna.The middle path (madhyamika) of the Buddhists led to the Ayurvedic emphasizes on moderation in food intake, sleep, sexual intercourse, and the intake of medicine

Three forces known as the three doshas or simply tridosha regulates every physiological and psychological process in a living organism. A harmonious state of the three doshas creates balance and health; an imbalance, which might be an excess or deficiency manifests as a sign or symptom of disease.

Let’s discuss more on these doshas.
1) Vata -- It is responsible for all movements in the mind and body: the movement of air in and out of the lungs, the flow of blood through the circulatory system, nutrients through the alimentary tract, and thoughts through the mind.

2) Pitta--It carries the meaning of "that which digests" and is associated with the idea of being yellow-tinged or bilious. Charaka Samhita, an ancient Ayurvedic text, teaches that pitta functions in digestion, heat production, providing color to the blood, vision, and skin luster.

3) Kabha-- derives from the Sanskrit word "shlish" which means "that which holds things together.” It governs immunity and resistance against disease.

Restoring these doshas into a balance is the technique of ayurvedic treatment Now, I shall point out certain instances where Ayurveda came to my rescue or where I personally witnessed the fruitfulness of it. I already mentioned the gastritis associated burping which I had. Black pepper, long pepper and ginger were mixed to get ‘trikatu’ which cured my gastric disorder. Four years ago when I was new to Bangalore, I was affected by jaundice. And as you know there is no effective medicine for jaundice in allopathy. The root of shoe-flower plant was grounded and mixed with butter milk. I drank this for 1 week and my bilirubin count subsided considerably. To add one more of the many instances, my mother was affected by chronic back pain for a while. She drank coffee mixed with grounded fenugreek for few months continually and she claimed remarkable improvement. Of course ayurvedic massage is also an option for this.

Hearing stuffs of this sort,people often wonder on the scientific basis of ayurveda.I have heard about my grandmother talk about her grandmother’s uncontrollable cough.She recovered from that when she drank a glass of milk for few days with a teaspoon of turmeric powder mixed in it.But the university of Mississippi Medical centre applied for patent on the use of turmeric for healing in December 1993.And of course the patent was granted.The allopathy division , infact after sometime may discover the presence of some ‘chloro fluro carbo methyl octane’ chemical in all medicinal herbs which attribute to their medicinal value.We need not wait for such a dsicovery. We have proven track record spanning centuries on the effectiveness of Ayurveda.The point is not to approach ayurveda when we require a bypass surgery but there are instances where ayurveda have proved itself like the ones I cited previously.In these cases you can fall back to the the soothing arms of ayurveda to find solace.
Over to you toastmaster.
(Reference: Various texts/scripts on Ayurveda)
(Project 7 of CC)
Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8CvC4jj64

Our Approach To Life

(Speech)
Mahatma Gandhi , an iconic figure of the 20th century, is not an example for an Indian but an exceptional Indian . Why ? Fellow Toastmasters and distinguished guests good evening.

The approach to life made him exceptional.What is our approach to life.Lets rewind our life and check out. Remember that afternoon after school when we were waiting for our father to return with a bicycle.Hours seemed like days.Otherwise we never bothered when he used to come.And finally we heard the voice of the rick coming.Eyes widened and the face lit up on seeing the cycle.But ,its a ladies cycle.Our life had always been this , like a donkey chasing a carrot.The faster we approach the faster it moves away.When we went to the ground for playing cricket,before being aware of the situation we dropped the catch and were chased away. “ I will show you” we said to them. I will study and prove myself and prove these people wrong. We study very hard and also help a very foolish friend of ours.When the result came, ya our own foolish friend had score 2 marks more than us. No this whole examination system isn’t fair.He didn’t know anything.On moving to college,we find the love of our life.On the day we decide to propose her we see our best friend eloping with her. No this isn’t life.In the young age itself we realize that life is a like bull but then we are so bold and decide to fight hard with it. And the result - the bull ran over us. Some of us married that bull only. And we will say “ bulbul , get me a coffee”. This is what makes us to say life is like a wife with a knife. At final ages we decide to buy a secluded farm house and enjoy the beauty of life but a sense of loss somehow overcomes us.Even just before the death we will be saying “ This isn’t life”.Why this dissatisfaction? Because we live in the future- palnning about the future, worrying about the future , hoping for the future and when the future comes it doesn’t match our expectation. We have to live in the present— right now right here.

Let us move to our second fundamental issue- lack of owning responsibility.Let me illustrate this in the highlight of the recent terror strike in Mumbai.When kerala CM visited Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s house ;Sandeep’s father said “ I don’t want to see any dogs”.Kerala Cm went back to his state and retorted “ No dog would have gone there but not for Sandeep’s house”.Ironically , all these dialogues happened in Malayalam which is incidentally fighting for the classical language status.Opposition leader urged CM to resign on this dog issue.God’s own country became dog’s country.Everybody is in the blame business.The media lashed out at the politicians.The NSG came out against media in not behaving in a restrained manner.The common man wanted an immediate war with Pakistan.Some people went to the kitchen and drew out their knife ready to be part of the war.Its heard that their wives were really excited to see them in the kitchen atleast for this.Nobody wants to own the responsibility. India is sitting like fat duck before the hunter ; now the duck is lame too.Unless the responsibility is owned by each and everyone, for any situations for that matter,things wont improve.The technique for owning responsibility is to avoid reasoning.For instance if we are late for an occasion let’s give up reasoning like heavy traffic, dog came to bite us,wife burnt all our clothes, etc. Whatever happens in life we should be able to say that it happened in our life because we chose for that.

The solutions offered here belongs to one of the many successful way of approaching life—Ontology – the science of being. Its upto to an individual to decide whether this ontology will help them to actualize their fullest potential. But one thing is sure;we need to attain our fullest potential.Mahatma Gandhi got his revelation when he was thrown out of the train . Bangaloreans – what are you waiting for—for the metro rail to come is it ?
Over to you toastmaster.
(Some of the ideas in the speech are inspired)
(Project 6 of CC)

Watch the speech video at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3F_gSaU7c

On Creativity

Speech (5-7 min)

During fifteenth century AD about 550 million people were living in this world. Almost 550 years later, in 2008 we still are very familiar with a person who lived during that period and we horripilate on seeing his paintings- the name Leonardo da Vinci. Why? Creativity distinguished him from the rest. Fellow toastmasters and guests, I address you on a unique human ability that can help us endure over and beyond our lifetime— the ability called Creativity.

All creations do not involve creativity. For instance a man digging to create a hole; there is no creativity involved in that. Such mundane tasks do not call the creativity in us into action though they result in creations. Creativity requires thought process. Not all thinking is necessarily creative. If you are trying to solve a mathematical equation like finding the hypotenuse of a triangle you are not involved in creativity. Such thinking is called convergent thinking. Thinking which lead to a sought after solution is referred by this name- that it converges into a solution. These are more methodical. The other form of thinking is divergent thinking-famously called out of the box thinking or as Edward de Bono called it - lateral thinking. Not all divergent thinking is creative thinking. Bored of all the regular colours, when I want to paint my house say I decide to create a new colour by mixing 17% blue 23% red and 60% of green and obtained a new beautiful colour. This is divergent thinking in the sense that we are thinking something other than the normal– but there is no creativity involved. We have just mixed existing things randomly. So when can we say that creativity is involved in thinking? Creativity blossoms only when the creation of elemental ideas happen .Like creating a new primary colour apart from blue ,green and red—something very elemental is created. Of course this creation has to be original to be said as an act of creativity.

Like the seed is separated from the chaff we have now separated creativity from rest of the skills. Not that rest of the skills are inferior. But creativity is the mother of all skills. Mother is a mother because she delivers a baby and not just because she bore a baby. Similarly, though creativity is a mental process, creativity is acknowledged as creativity only when it is rendered to the rest of the population. Like the wrap of the chocolate entices people to buy it, the way creativity is rendered make people appreciate it. So the way you present your idea, the way you sing the tune you composed, the way you paint in the canvas the mental image you conceived are all important. These modes of output like singing, drawing, speaking, to name a few, requires practice. Apart from refining the modes of output one needs to supply the information that can aid mental processing. Quite a good reading/seeing/hearing is required for this. But the most crucial step is the processing stage as this is the step where we take the essence of input and give it as output. To aid the processing, i.e. thinking, learn to be happy in solitude, and then engage in solitary dialogue. Because in group people seldom think not to mention the case while that group is chattering.

It is neither face nor physique that makes a person unique-- yeah you guessed it right, it is his creativity. Though the creative ability is innate in all human beings, the creativity that could be derived out of that common creative ability makes us unique in this world- that makes the existence of our individual self, irreplaceable in this world. The world needs you to be creative. Have you experienced the joyous situation of becoming parents? Well, err, I haven’t but I have witnessed the beaming faces of the parents in the maternity ward. So if this, creation without creativity can create such huge happiness, you can imagine the happiness creation with creativity can bring you; you might have already experienced. So not that the world alone needs you to be creative you too want yourself to be creative for being happy. Over to you toastmaster.

(Project 3 of CC)

Inside Out!!!

(Speech 4-6 min)
The much sought after south west monsoon of India onsets in Kerala on June 1.In the year 1983 , 9 days before that ,the coolness the monsoon brings was served to a middle class family in the form of a baby boy.

Hello fellow beings….

The baby boy grew up and had his education in his hometown in Ernakulam,Kerala.
He was guided by his sister elder to him by six years.His father an officer in spices board had outsourced the worries and tensions of him; and the warnings and punishments for him , to his mother –the home maker.Of course,care love and affection were not on the list of outsorced items.


14 years of initial education in a single institution!!! Yes, he survived……..Christened as the engineering entrance,the exit from childhood to youth left him with everlasting nostalgic memories of those long hours of baths in canal,the little fishing done,the lingering taste of neighbours’ raw mangoes eaten after the local games, the sweet taste of the black coffees during the late night carols,the fights made for the flowers during the onam festivites,the dry smile managed when made to stand on the bench in the class,the happiness on the successful launch of paper rockets from the back benches and the sadness in seeing the paper boats sinking in the channels of water rain created ignoring his own drenched state.


In the engineering college under cochin university where he did the course in computer science and engineering he went through nominal ragging and other fun actiities.There he served 2 years as arts club secretary where he started to appreciate art and see the artists with adoration.--- the positive side of politics.
On finishing the course,he decided not to join NIT Kozhikode for further studies instead joined iGATE.He had reasons..His sister who passed out MCA in the year 2000 had faced the burnts of the economic slowdown of the period and her father’s unwillingness to sent her to distant place in search for job.The urge to be safe was overwhelming.Afterall, now his sister is a happy lecture of a professional college,is a happy wife of a dentist and a happy mother of 4 year old baby boy is another part of the story.

On joining iGATE he was put for 6months in support and maintenance for ING Vysya bank depository participants.(ok..through depository accounts people sell and buy shares )There he came in face with the real life.Fully tensed bank employees,stock market actions—in addition to the new state and language Bangalore offered—oh…full mess but finally he was moved to the development project for ING Vysya Financial Services.There his life was cool.After 26 months of professional journey with iGATE Corporation heI joined SAP Labs where till now he has served for 22 months –well, ‘experience’ in software parlance is always expressed in months—especially in India.

And he continues in Bangalore as a bachelor with a typical software engineer life .


If anyone speaks of a person who have not done anything spectacular to the ears of the audience,and that too for a considerable time ,then on the highest probablity ,he is speaking of himself.The situaton here is no different .The subject of scrutiny is myself – Jindow Joseph.ya that’s my name.. and perplexed at life and posing many questions ….But,despite all intriguing questions LIFE MUST GO ON—Let the time unfolds and I am ready for all the surprises and challenges it has in store.

Over to you !!!!

(Project 1 of CC - Ice Breaker)

The Great Indian Economic Divide

(Speech 5-7 min)
It’s with a big smile that we say that four Indians appear in the Forbes ten richest people in the world………
Hello fellow beings…. Its shame and not smile that we should have while reading this news. We should be shameful on the fact that a very small percentage of people occupy the lion share of wealth of India .In precise terms the bottom 50% of the people occupy just 8% of the nation’s wealth.

In a video game, which is a simulated version of life, the levels get tougher as we move on. In contrast, in real life it’s so difficult to start with but when you have some substantial riches it’s quite easy to further it. If the design of video games keeps the gamers addicted, the real life breeds frustration.
I suggest two modes of efforts of getting over this faulty design of real life gradually. One - governmental efforts; two- efforts on personal front.

On the governmental front, education- of same quality should be provided to all. Otherwise, the result will be decided even before the game starts. Analyzing the educational aspect, I stumble upon another point. In all the examinations students are set a maximum mark that they can achieve say 100 out 100.But when it comes to wealth accumulation there is no such upper limit. As a second step government should enforce an upper limit on the wealth accumulation to get over the defaulted system of capitalism. In fact, capitalism is a funny concept. Let’s imagine that Somesh comes up with an invention of a car that runs on water –no petrol, no diesel. I have nothing against Somesh getting richer as he gets his idea patented but I am troubled at the fate of an average man who would have spent his life’s earning to buy the existing petrol car. Innovator should be rewarded appropriately only. The government can reduce the period of patent towards this.

In the personal front, we should resist ourselves from extravagant consumer behaviourism and also we should withhold from promoting it in others. For instance, when we say the tie of Naveen looks great, it create a temptation in him to buy more thus aiding unscrupulous spending. I understand that it takes out a big topic from the small talk but it reduces unreasonable spending. Moving from resistive to proactive actions we should promote entrepreneurial urges among ourselves. We need enterprises of maximum 10 employees and not companies of 1 lakh employees for even distribution of wealth.

These measures of providing equal education, having an upper limit on wealth accumulation, patent controlling from the government side and individual restrain from promoting consumer behaviourism and actively indulging in entrepreneurial efforts can help us refrain rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. This is absolutely necessary in a country where some does not have the income for even a day’s meal when the Forbes’ kings celebrate their wife’s birthday by presenting an aircraft. This huge economic divide if not controlled will lead to unrest and agitation from the aggrieved section. This huge economic divide if not controlled will not allow us to eat even an ice cream in brigade road-there will be people to snatch it away from us. This huge economic divide if not controlled will make us witness blasts,blasts and more blasts.Hence,it's our responsiblity ,our government's responsiblity to see that this huge economic divide is effectively controlled.

Over to you !!!!!! ……………..

(Project 2 of CC)