The Green Fields

Beauty Of Nature

The green fields flank the freeway as you travel from Delhi to Dehradun. I love the sight of crops dotted by trees. It appears so beautiful as you move ahead with greenery all around. The faraway trees seem to move towards the rear at varying speeds, depending upon their distance. As we stop occasionally on a wayside tea stall, I am able to have a closer look and feel closer to Mother Nature.
During my childhood these fields were plenty in the neighborhood and were the perfect playing spots for hide and seek and the improvised robber-cop games. The sight of the fields meeting the sky at the horizon was mesmerizing. I do miss them around me. Alas, only a few fields remain now and the crops have been taken over by concrete.
I liked the way they used to till these farmlands. I had been there as a young kid when they used to plough the land with bullocks and I enjoyed the side seat riding on the planer plank with the man in charge. It used to be great fun. It was kind of bumpy ride over the lumps of mud which we were attempting to make even.
The farmers who toil hard had been hit hard by industrialization and as a result mostly those who were well off and had the resources have been able to survive. The result, less of food and more of industrialized stuff. A rise in food prices and not enough food. Could we have been so short sighted in our race for economic growth? None of us could foresee what was to come. We were so fascinated with fast cars and fast food that we didn’t want to look at the future.
These fields ooze freshness. The crops give out their characteristic aroma when they approach near harvesting stage indicating a time for a change. A scarecrow here and a scarecrow there is a work of art by the farming family. The maze of mini canals bring water to the crops and add beauty to the sight. The mustard fields with the bright yellow flowers are divine to watch and a gentle breeze adding a sway to the scene can enhance the whole experience.
Those days with the green fields all around will always remain a part of my favorite memories and I would love to be around them whenever possible.

Humor 360

A doctor was examining a patient, his nurse bursts in and says, “Excuse me Doc, the man you just treated walked out of the door and collapsed on the front step. What should I do?”
“Turn him around” the doctor answered, “so it looks like he was walking in”

A man comes to an optician's clinic for a sight test accompanied by his wife. When asked if she too had come to be tested, he replied, “No, I’m illiterate so she has come to read the chart for me.”

Today’s picture is of a paddy field in our valley.

The Paddy Field

You may like these posts

Spirituality and Humor: A Life Free of Ego

Beauty of Nature: The Seven Seas

Life Aboard a Ship: Carrying Cargoes

Sensual Healing

Spirtiuality and Humor

Yeah, I need to heal. Heal from an ailment called desire. Once I start healing and continue what I have been doing all along, the whole process is going to be such a joy. I am beginning to get a sneak preview. I am sure with perseverance and time I would be able to get almost there if not really there.

The need to stop the flow of desires arises so as to see the purpose of life clearly. Is it to “enjoy” life by trying to get the best of everything? I thought so, not long ago and how wrong I had been all my life, I realize now. By trying to be desire free one is able to get the glimpse of what is the real goal. Am I on the right highway or is it going to lead to a dead end. By the time I realize the truth, it would be just about time to depart.

The cravings for good things in life are more like an addiction and we are hesitant to call them that. Once one gets or achieves the thing he or she desires, be it a new pair of shoes or setting up another multimillion dollar project, the novelty wears down. It is no longer desirable. Was the desire worth so much of our precious time and energy? The worst part is the moment one desire is fulfilled the next one starts to sprout. One is caught in this vicious circle of trying to fulfill these cravings. Some are met with success and some are not and in such cases the disappointment follows. The desire of having good life with good food, good liquor and other carnal pleasures is recurring. The moment the feeling of so called satisfaction starts to wane, the same desire is back, demanding attention once again. We have experienced it over and over again especially those of us who have been through life for some time now.

So is the purpose of life is to be the slave to these cravings lifelong and profess to be great leaders, intellectuals, socialites or an average bread earner for the family. I guess not, for we have taken birth in the human form, the top spot one can achieve among all things living. Join the “Total Surrender” club and get rid of desires which lead to all miseries in life. It would require continuous practice and complete surrender. The results of such practice when start manifesting are something that none of the good food, good liquor and other carnal pleasures ever be able to compete with. The pleasures of breaking free from desires are eternal and which bring us closer to the real reason of existence.

Humor 360

A news story: A 23 old robber lost his wallet in the scuffle with the “victim”. He calls the “victim” to return his wallet and gets caught by the police.

Today’s picture is of a contemplating sparrow after a feed.

The Solitary Sparrow

You may like these posts

Spirituality and Humor: A Life Free Of Ego

Beauty of Nature: The Cloudscape

Life Aboard a Ship: Carrying Cargoes

The Bridge

Life Aboard a Ship

Today I’ll take you on a tour of the bridge as in on board the vessel. On board, the bridge is a place from where I navigate the ship. It is essentially subdivided into a chart room and wheel house and these days since the communications too has become a part of the navigating officers job, a communications space.
The chartroom is the place where the chart or the map of the region where the ship is placed. The position of the vessel is plotted regularly. The frequency of such plotting is more when she is near the coast than when she is mid ocean where there are less obstructions. A modern day gadget is the electronic plotter which indicates the position of vessel by a light on the chart and is interfaced with the GPS. The digital versions of charts are now available under a system known as ECDIS or the Electronic Charts Display and Information System. These are the digital charts which are easily updated by satellite. Apart from charts the chartroom has GPS which gives us the present position. There is a depth sounding device called the Echo Sounder. It works by sending the sound waves and timing the reflected waves from the bottom. Then there is a course recorder which records the course the vessel is steering. A relative new addition is the equivalent of the black box in jets and is called the Voyage Data Recorder. A comprehensive data logger which keeps records of all important data and is primarily for investigations following an accident.
The wheel house is forward of the chartroom and is separated by only curtains during the night. This is to ensure that the watchkeepers are able to see the far off lights without any interference from the chart room illumination. It essentially houses the steering wheel which is used during manual steering. The autopilot is used for steering while the vessel is at sea. There is an engine telegraph, which is used to increase or decrease the revolutions when maneuvering during arrival or departure at ports and anchorages. The various switches for steering motors, air horn and other accessories are on various panels located here. The front of the wheel house is a series of glass windows to ensure good visibility and is more like the wind shield of a vehicle.
Since the start of the millennium the communications too has become part of the navigating officer’s job. It was formerly the responsibility of the Radio officer. Here various satellite terminals and transceivers using terrestrial means of communications are located.
It is the bridge of a ship where the captain goes to take the vessel alongside or coming out of the harbor. It is the place of work for the navigating officers and the command station of the ship.I have spent many a working hours on the bridge of many a ships and hope to continue for as long as I can. It is from the bridge that I have viewed many beautiful sundowns at sea and spectacular views around the world.

Humor 360

A recent news in a National broadsheet. A group of persons hired as audience for a reality show were unhappy the way they were treated during the shoot.
So much for the “Reality Show” with a not so real audience.

There were two men at work near a park. One was digging a hole and the other was filling it up. A curious bystander who had been watching them for a while finally couldn’t stop himself from asking them as to what were they trying to do. The man filling the hole replied. Sir, we were a team of three. The supervisor had assigned the job to plant saplings at the perimeter of this park. We decided one of us would dig the hole, one would get the saplings and plant it and one would fill the hole up. It just so happens that the guy who was to plant the saplings has reported sick.

Today’s picture is of Portulaca in full bloom at our home.

The Portulaca

You may like these posts

Spirituality and Humor: The Humble Path

Beauty of Nature: The Cloudscape

Life Aboard a Ship: Carrying Cargoes

The Seven Seas

Beauty of Nature

The vast expanse of blue under an equally blue sky as seen from the bridge where I am, when navigating, appeared to be calmness personified. I thought, how still, water can become when no external forces are acting on it, in some ways similar to us, the kind of calmness one experiences when there is no flow of thoughts, a situation though rarely experienced. This spread of blue was being pierced by the bows of the ship, creating small waves at the fore end and a wake at the stern. Other than that there was no movement.
The view of sea on a moonlit night has no comparison. The light of Moon skimming over the sea surface and the ship silently making way towards her destination can trigger a very romantic emotion. The seas can have colors ranging from bright blue to pale green. I occasionally get to see bioluminescence at sea which is so intriguing. The streams of lights passing by you. The seas are home to million of fascinating flora and fauna. Now we have a regulation in place that prohibits taking ballast from one costal nation to other lest it disturbs the ecosystem of the arrival port. What we do is takeout water from the port of taking ballast, in mid ocean and replace it with water from there. At times you get to see the dolphins giving a synchronized display at others it is the whales, apparent by the fountain from the sea surface. The seagulls often take a ride on board, from one island to another.
The nations of the world were explored by sea by the great explorers of yore and the early traders used sea to sail to faraway lands to earn more money. The seas turn into ocean, mid ocean and back to seas when near the land. The imaginary line that we call equator, which divides the earth into two hemispheres is crossed with a celebration. All first time crossers are put together and have to undergo rather ghastly acts, though taken in good spirit, before being given the certificate my none other than Lord Neptune , the King of the Oceans, enacted by one of us on board.
The seas can become rather rough at times and it is the time when extra precautions are taken mainly regarding the securing of stuff, on deck, stores, galley and everywhere else. The fresh guys often get seasick so do some of the veterans. The vessel if pounding in her present course, is put on a course where she is comfortable and the revolutions on the engine are reduced to prevent overspeeding when the propeller comes out of the water, while pitching. Today with the weather routing available through satellite, things are much easier. Today’s Skipper has much more information in his hand than those in the past, and hence has lot more options, to deal with such situations. But these periods of turbulence are not for ever. Life goes on. We have smooth sailings again and we continue with our voyage
The one striking fact about sea is that no one ever gets sick here because of any infection for the air is so pure and free of pollution. Some deep breaths at mid ocean and you are rejuvenated beyond imagination.
I love the sea and its beautiful sunsets. The dawns and the dusks. The singing waves. The moon lit waves. The pure air and the line faraway where the ocean meets the sky.

Humor 360

Last summer, I saw a squirrel perched on top of a scarecrow on a litchi tree, using it as a tool to reach the higher reaches and enjoying its mid day meal. So much for the scarecrow serving its purpose.

A Life Insurance advert. We settle all claims sooner than anyone else. Just try dying once and check out for yourself.

Today’s picture is from my mother’s garden.

The Purple Petals

You may like these posts

Spirituality and Humor: The Humble Path

Beauty of  Nature: The Coudscape

Life Aboard a Ship: My First Voyage

A Life Free of Ego

Spirituality and Humor

The ego is born as soon as the child comes out of the mother’s womb. Though it starts manifesting itself only when one is in early teens and this limit must be heading southwards, I guess, like everything else in these times. The sad part is it doesn’t leave you even during your last days with Mother Earth. An old, fragile person though hardly able to carry out anything physical may be full of ego that may make a youth uncomfortable.
The ego is the cause of many an unhappiness in a person’s life. It is the ego which bars you from doing acts of kindness to fellow humans, or accept the fact that you had been wrong in whatever you were asking others to follow or to simply do things which are supposedly not suited for your stature or the position you hold, like cleaning the floor or doing the dishes and many other similar jobs, jobs not chores. It comes in the way of relationships.
The ego makes one live under a constant fear of being hurt, hurt which any one from a child to someone from the so called lower stratum of society can deliver. It is like living in an emotionally stooped manner under an invisible weight, lifelong. No one is seen to consciously make an effort to get rid of it, on the contrary it is encouraged in some personality development circles who argue that ego in healthy dose is good to achieve your ambition. I would like to differ. It is such a shortsighted view of things.
The egoist is shunned by all, though many may practice the art of sycophancy when dealing with him to achieve their ends, whatever those may be. An egoist never gets the true picture of how things are. He gets the distorted reports manipulated by sycophants. The result, the decisions are biased. The wealth and the associated stature fan the fire of egoism. So does the high position one may have in publiclife. However humble we may project ourselves to be in public but ego is the main reason of family businesses splitting. The ego in us make us take things for granted like how should we be treated by others, and when such treatment is not met, ego is easily hurt and leads to disappointment.
Yes, the ego free life would be an ideal life but can one achieve it by sheer perseverance, once one is convinced of merits of such a life. I would say no. It would not be possible by our efforts alone and we’ll get back to my “Total Surrender” post for some reference. We do need His help. Without his helping hand, it is impossible. Once the Ego starts leaving, you start feeling the pleasures of the weight being withdrawn, the weight that you had been carrying since way back when. Forget the way world wants to see you. Let the world see the way you want do things without a trace of ego, carrying out things much more productively and getting results which none of the Management Gurus ever dreamt of.
I personally experience it during my management at workplace and in life in general. I wouldn’t opt for any other way. It is such a nice and fulfilling feeling. The works which you have to struggle getting done with your share of ego can be done in relative ease, almost effortlessly and with a little more effort put in by the staff.
Taking the ego purging to the next level can mean not to hint it even in the body language. A person in authority tends to have his arms akimbo when getting things done. The same act of getting things done can be done without the hands on the hips and elbows jutting out and with a higher level of acceptability among the subordinates.
These thoughts may seem trivial but I have found them of immense importance and I am having a great new experience in this purging of the ego.

Humor 360

One person to another: It’s so easy to quit smoking, I have done it so many times.

One study shows that every country of the world is in debt. But where has all the money gone?

Today I bring you a picture from the Ocean.

The Turbulent Sea

You may like these posts

Spirituality and Humor: The Humble Path

Life: Memories from Childhood

Life Aboard a Ship: My First Voyage

Carrying Cargoes

Life Aboard a Ship

The major trade of the world is by sea. The merchant vessels generally known as freighters as distinct from passenger ships make the transportation possible from one part of the globe to another.
The type I work on are the kind which carry stuff in bulk like coal, iron ore, grain etc. and hence known as Bulk Carriers. Today I’ll give you a sneak preview of all works and planning that goes behind carrying cargoes, from the time of fixing a cargo to when it is delivered to its rightful owners.
The moment any cargo is fixed the charterers or owners as the case may be ask the vessel how much would it be possible to load, given the fuel, freshwater, unpumpable ballast, constant (unknown weights) and stowage factor(volume occupied by one ton of cargo). All this is calculated and cargo distributed in holds (compartments in the ship where cargo is stowed) in the loading computer to ensure stresses and other parameters are within acceptable limits.
Once the cargo quantity is calculated and sent back to the charterers and voyage confirmed preparations for loading in the holds start, depending on the type of cargo. It basically requires a dry sweeping, and washing by high pressure water jet. I love this high pressure cleaning. It is so efficient and satisfying. If required to clean for high grade cargoes such cleaning is done to a higher standard.
On arrival load port, the holds are inspected by a surveyor who checks if the condition of the holds is acceptable to load the cargo that has been fixed. An initial draft survey is done to ascertain the displacement before loading and another one after completion of loading to arrive at figure of cargo loaded. After this go ahead, the vessel starts to load cargo as per the loading plan that had been prepared with due consideration to the fact that at no stage of loading, the maximum allowable stresses are exceeded. There have been instances when vessels have snapped into two, in port while loading. After the final draft survey, the Master signs the bill of lading, which is a kind of receipt for the cargo loaded and a second original serves as means of identification of the rightful owner of cargo at the discharge port. I love the sight of a fully laden ship, all battened up, ready to move out of the harbor and head for her port of destination to yet again deliver one more time what she has been delivering eversince her inaugural voyage.
On arrival at the discharge port the Master is presented by a Bill of lading or other legally acceptable instrument. Once he is satisfied as to the authenticity of the receiver, the discharge of cargo begins. Here too there are the two draft surveys to ascertain the quantity of cargo discharged. The discharge plan like the loading plan is followed, for the same reasons. Once the cargo is safely delivered to the receiver, the vessel is ready to start her preparation for next loading, the instructions for which would have been received by now.
As a result of the present economic downturn a number of ships had to be laid off due to lack of business. An indication of which was the number of vessels seen at anchorages off Singapore, till a few month ago, which is by far the world’s busiest port. That number has started to decrease, as I noticed during our last call at Singapore. An indication that the world trade is picking up again which is good news for each one of us, I guess.

Humor 360
Once a man was asked to make observations on the effect of breaking legs on a cockroach. He broke one leg, and he shouted “Move” and the roach started limping. He noted the roach starts limping when one leg is broken. He broke the second leg and roach started dragging. He made the observation in his notebook. After a couple of more leg breakings, he wrote the roach starts wobbling. And finally it was the turn of the last remaining leg. He broke it and shouted “Move” but the roach did not respond. After a little thought the man concluded that cockroach gets deaf when all it legs are broken.
I have just been back after just over six months at sea. I plan to be home for some time now as I would be building our home. I sure would blog more frequently now.

Today I bring you a picture of Mother Nature taken during a long drive not long ago.

I Wish I Had a Home Here

You may like these posts

Humor: Humor 360 - Part 2

Life: Memories from Childhood

Life Aboard a Ship: My First Voyage

The Cloudscape

Beauty of Nature

The ever evolving clouds in the sky have fascinated me since my early days. Watching clouds change shapes can be very absorbing on a lazy winter afternoon. It’s like watching Mother Nature’s Kaleidoscope. The abstracts sometimes amazingly take form of things which are very close to living and nonliving forms in real life.
During earlier part of my sea life, we had to watch them closely and make observations, to send weather reports from sea when the satellites were still in their infancy. It was then I learned the various types, like the cumulus (my favorite) which are the cauliflower shaped clouds that fill the sky often and can be of a large vertical extent. Then there are the cirrus which resemble the cotton flakes and the earlier generation of seamen used the direction they aligned themselves to tell the centre of a storm. The stratus, which as the name indicates, are the layer type clouds and can be of the dark threatening variety that end up giving heavy downpour. These basic types are categorized further by their height above the earth’s surface. The Cirrostratus are the higher altitude stratus whereas the Altostratus are the medium altitude stratus.
At sea, as a first mate and incharge of getting daily maintenance done on board, I used to get the vessel alter course just to avoid getting drenched under a passing shower, especially if some painting job on deck was planned for the day.

Once on a cloudy day, to my query on picking him up from school, as to what he was doing in the class, my son responded, “I was watching clouds”. Like father like son, I thought. I couldn’t identify more with my son, at that point in time.
I was reading one of my reader’s blogs when the lady in one of her posts described having gone up to the mountain top and wished she could jump to touch the clouds. What an idea! On a trip to Mussourie, a neighborhood tourist attracting hill, I once overheard a local, that clouds often float through their living room. Hey, ain’t that romantic? The family having an after lunch chat and a cloud appears through an open window making things foggy for a few moments. I bet it is.

Humor 360
One day, while in the dry dock at Piraeus, Greece, the local workshop supervisor asked the British Chief engineer to get the bunker tank cleaned for some repairs in the adjacent compartment. Due to heavy work schedule of the Chief , it got overlooked.
The Supervisor when told by his people that the job by the ship staff was not started till late afternoon, came fuming on the ship.
He went straight to Chief Engineer’s cabin and asked “Chief, Do you understand English?”
This from a man who spoke a heavily accented form and requiring much grammatical help to a person whose forefathers gave the world the language.

It is from the time when the cell phones had just become popular and people hadn’t got quite used to the new way of getting call, anyplace. A husband gets a call, from his wife, while shopping at a supermarket. His first response, “How did you know I was here”?

I had been to sea for a couple of months and am back home for a brief holiday. Things haven’t been going quite as planned, I am not incharge of the vessel yet but accepting what comes naturally has been a direction He has been giving me in these recent years. And I am enjoying every bit of that direction. The acceptance preempts any disappointment within.

Today's picture is from the neighborhood of my mother's home.

The Weaver and The Weave

You may like these posts

Spirituality: Total Surrender

Humor: Humor 360 - Part 2

Life: Memories from Childhood

Humor 360 - Part 2

Humor

The grin that follows, the funny side of life, is always a welcome break from the supposedly serious matters which we pursue on a daily basis.
I remember a time when I was training on board T.S. Rajendra at Mumbai. An instructor had this peculiar habit of talking in plurals, so much so that we started calling him Mr. Sharma(s). He was great in his subject which was seamanship but not so much in English. One night some boys played a prank and hid bathroom slippers of a few cadets.
When it was reported to the duty instructor which happened to be Mr. Sharma(s), he mustered everyone, close to midnight and started his speech.
"It has been reported that some cadets have lost their left pairs of slippers and some have lost their right pairs. I request you to return both the pairs."
Everyone was grinning under their breath.
Once, three persons, a chemical engineer, a mechanical engineer and a Microsoft engineer were traveling together when their car broke down.
The chemical engineer suggested may be it is the impurities in the gasoline that has caused the problem. The mechanical engineer suspected overheating of the engine.
The Microsoft (Windows) engineer didn’t have a clue. He suggested, “Why don’t we close all Windows and open them back and may be it will work”.
Like it happens in the Windows OS.
A Dennis the menace cartoon quip I read lately, in which Dennis asks his mother aboard a jet. “Would it be alright to go to the bathroom while we are flying over the cities?”
Heard at the home of a Supreme Court judge.
The wife was scolding her husband over some petty matter. “Do you have any brains?”
The man who spent his whole life deciding the fate of many a lives was being questioned about his abilities at his own backyard.
A miser in an Indian small town, decided to fly kite on occasion of a festival. He went to the rooftop of his two storied house and while he was busy concentrating on the kite his feet slipped off the roof and he started falling down.
The miser that he was, during his free fall, while passing in front of the kitchen window, shouted to his wife, who was preparing the afternoon meal, not to make food for him as he would not need it now.
He was worried about unnecessary expenditure rather than his life even in these last moments.

Todays pick is the vegetable flowers.

The Onion Flowers

You may like these posts

Spirituality: Total Surrender

Humor: Humor 360

Life Aboard a Ship: A Day in the Life of a First Mate

Humor 360

Life is full of humor. A funny incident here and a one liner there. It is medicine for the stress we encounter each day. So let me start right away with some serious humor, part experienced myself and part forwarded.
Years ago, as a second mate aboard a tanker, I had my wife join me on board. She came in Livorno, Italy. As it happened to be hours away from Pisa with it’s famous tower, we decided to go for a visit. As expected we took some photographs. Some were taken by me and some by her. As she took my pictures with the cathedral in the background her hand shook and we had a picture with a leaning cathedral.
The British Cadet who saw the photograph said to my wife, “Either you were drunk while you took this or is it the Leaning Cathedral of Pisa”.
We could not help but smile at his remark.
A few years ago I was trying to learn Flash with Matthew Pizzi and others’, Flash MX unleashed. It is a book which has some great humor besides some great content. One of the observations made was, Thermos flask is a great invention. It helps to keep the hot liquids hot and cold liquids cold. But how does it figure out which one to keep hot and which one cold.
A commercial I saw on television a month ago. A young girl leaves her newly bought ripped jeans on the bed and goes for a shower. While she is in the bathroom her mother comes to her room, to keep something and looks at the jeans which are ripped. She shakes her head at their condition. Thinking the jeans are torn, sews them and puts them back before the daughter is out.
A rip signifies different things to different generations, I guess.
On my last ship, the Captain had just taken over for the first time and it was his second day as incharge. We were in Corpus Christi, US of A and had to offload some garbage to shore facilities. The garbage was collected by the garbage van and the driver came up to the captain’s cabin for collecting cash for the services.
While the captain was counting money, the garbage man initiated some small talk. “How long you have been Captain?”, he asked.
I being there at the door, the Captain gave me an embarrassed look and then to him and said two days and laughed.
The garbage man thought he was kidding and joined us in our laugh.





I leave you with the picture of lily at our home in full bloom.