The Indian Dharma

In the previous episode we had a detailed extended discussion about an important attribute called “trust”, which is on the decline in the modern day society amongst all of us! We understood the significance of having the “transparency” at home amongst our close family members at all times.

Eventually, we also commenced the next discussion on yet another important attribute of a “Mooda”, which is nothing but “Procrastination”. In this context, Vidura is explaining that a person who always keeps postponing his duties out of sheer laziness and/or for opportunistic reasons is a “Mooda”. How relevant is this in today’s world (Atleast in the Indian context)!! How many times have we witnessed in the news about innumerable affairs of the government being indefinitely postponed! How many judicial cases are we seeing dragging on for decades and decades, just because of indecisiveness! This is what Vidura is explaining here.

If justice is delayed, it implies that justice is denied. This episode is a very important one especially for the Indian judicial system. We can take innumerable court cases being dragged on and on for lifetime. The irony is that, the person who has committed the crime would have had his/her natural death by himself or herself, and yet our judiciary wouldn’t deliver the verdict of conviction! A step higher than this is that, the court would deliver a punishment for a criminal who has already passed away! We’ve seen such an example in a recent well-known politician’s “disproportionate assets” case. Where are we heading? Isn’t it a perfect example of “Justice delayed is justice denied”?

Now what are the aftereffects of such a situation? There are multiple dimensions of looking at it – The first way is that, if justice is not delivered on time and is kept on postponed indefinitely, the person who has committed the crime becomes bold enough to destroy all the evidences that would be against him. Hence at the end of the day, the criminal would easily escape without any deserving punishment. Second, this kind of indefinite postponement would encourage and motivate other people to perform similar crimes (or even greater) because, they would have the feeling that they could easily get away from the law of the country! The third and perhaps the most important dimension – What about the people who are really affected by the crime? Won’t they have the urge in them that the truth should come out? By this indefinite delay, won’t they lose the trust and hope on the judicial system of the country? This is exactly what is happening today. Thus, as a common citizen of this country I can say this with my fullest conviction – Unless and until the judiciary becomes independent from the clutches of “influential politicians”, justice would always be a distant dream for common people like us!

Similar is the case of major infrastructure projects that the government undertakes – I was talking yesterday about a case of postponement of a flyover project in a city. Let us think about it in this context in a project management perspective – The flyover project would have been conceptualized in the financial year 2009-10 based on a survey of the number of vehicles that are passing through a particular junction at that particular time frame. If the project gets postponed by 4-5 years for instance, what would be the consequence? Won’t the very purpose of building the flyover be defeated? That is because, the number of vehicles passing through that junction would have doubled or tripled by then! Hence, will the flyover be able to take that much amount of load and be helpful in reducing the traffic congestion? The answer would be “No”! This is hence the reason why many infrastructure projects across the world, become a failure! If any project is not completed on time and within the stipulated deadline, the main purpose for which the project was undertaken would go for a toss!

Moreover, if we look at it from the “cost” perspective, every day of delay in an infrastructure project would incur an additional cost. This is because, the cost of building materials like cement, sand, bricks, etc. would keep on fluctuating day by day and any delay in the construction would increase the construction cost multifold! This is what we call in project management terms as “Cost escalation” and this is why we see government projects always entering into a “cost escalation” mode! For this to reform, we should chart out a clear plan of action. This plan of action should envisage the modalities of the task, operational requirement, challenges involved, potential roadblocks that might occur, cost involved, potential cost escalation, etc. Only based on all these aspects, the time frame and the cost that would be incurred for the project would be calculated.

Thus from this important episode we should understand the message that any task that we undertake in life should be completed within the stipulated time. Of course, there would be innumerable challenges on the way, but they should not deter us. We should make a conscious effort to finish things on time and maintain a strict deadline for all our activities. This aspect does not only apply for the judiciary and the government. It also applies for each and every one of us. As we say, “Management starts from home”, we should make sure that we plan out or activities in such a way that we make a professional and a systematic attempt to manage all of them under a stipulated time frame.

For today, let us ponder over this important aspect and introspect within ourselves whether we follow it or not! If we follow, it’s an excellent sign for improvement! If we are not in this track, let us make a conscious attempt to make a start today! We shall wait till the next episode to find out the next attribute of a “Mooda” as explained by Vidura. Stay tuned! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the previous episode we had witnessed a very important characteristic of a “Mooda” wherein Vidura had explained that a “Mooda” is a person who always doubts people around him/her even for small and basic things. We had a detailed discussion on the above aspect wherein we saw that in today’s world, “trust” is something that we’ve started to lack amongst ourselves. Of course there are innumerable happenings in the current-day society that forces us to lose trust, however if we do not have the basic trust on anybody around us and if we start doubting and questioning everyone, the world would start looking down at us and eventually we would end up being isolated! We should thus be able to balance trust and doubts together in our lives. For this, we should create that “transparency” within our family members and ourselves. If that transparency is created and if we are able to talk openly and freely to each other, half of the problems would get solved. Hence it is our duty to create such an atmosphere of transparency at home. This would be the first step.

In the modern day, there is also another popular belief – “The younger generation today is getting spoilt in the name of modern lifestyle!” This might sound externally correct, but we’ve to realize that successive generations of people always feel the same thing. For instance, our grandparents might think that their children born in the 1960s and 70s have changed a lot in terms of lifestyle and similarly our parents might also have the same feeling for our generation too. This is a common feeling irrespective of whatever generation it might be and whatever year it might be. Generations would keep changing perpetually and we need to accept the change and move on. We need to accept the reality and act accordingly, rather than creating our own prototype of behaviors and expecting others to follow that prototype that we have in mind.

Also, another challenge in the modern day society is that, people do not talk directly to the person concerned, so as to solve any problem. In the name of “investigation”, we resort to take the problem to others and enquiring about this person’s whereabouts and activities. For instance, if a son or daughter comes home late from office (say around 11 PM or so) just for that one day, what happens nowadays? On the pretext of the “modern generation youth”, parents start doubting that son or daughter by asking irritating questions such as “With whom were you roaming around today?” “Did you go to a bar or a pub?” “Do you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend?” “Did you go to a bar to get drunk?” – The questions are endless. Moreover, some parents also have the habit of calling up their son’s or daughter’s friends to check their movements. Although parents might argue that they are “keeping track” of their children’s whereabouts, at the end of the day, they should realize that they’re intruding into another individual’s private space. If the children come to know about this, do parents think what would they feel?

Many a times when the children listen to such questions, they get extremely irritated, because there might be genuine reasons for their delay in reaching home and parents might not be in a position to understand the real issue here. Hence as a consequence of this, children would get fed up after a point and would start hiding things from parents. The transparency at home starts declining as a result! This is exactly what I’m trying to explain here – If we’ve to curb this from happening, rather than asking irritating questions like the above-mentioned, it is better to ask “Why are you late tonight? What happened?” This would be a straightforward and an open-ended question to ask, rather than making some assumptions ourselves and questioning people based on that. Hence, this is an extremely important point that needs to be introspected by every parent. Also on the other side, children should also make sure that they respect the privacy that their parents give them. Children should be honest to discuss anything and everything with their parents, so as to avoid unwanted problems.       Now moving on to the next attribute, Vidura explains yet another important point today.

“Chiram karothi kshipraarthe!”

 Here, Vidura explains that a person is a “Mooda” when he keeps postponing the tasks that has to be completed within a stipulated time frame. We see in the modern day, governments trying to build infrastructure projects in various cities. For instance, there is a flyover project that is being executed in a busy junction. There would be an announcement that the flyover would be constructed within 18 months at a cost of Rs. 150 crores. But does this happen as per the announcement? Many a times we would see that the answer is “No”! It might normally take more than 10 years and the project cost would escalate to around 500 crore rupees! Thus here, Vidura explains that such people who keep “postponing” the work thus failing to complete the work within the stipulated deadline is a “Mooda”! This leads us to an important discussion on “procrastination”.

Why is procrastination considered a menace in the society today? What are the ill effects of this attribute? Let us wait till the next episode to find out! 🙂 Stay tuned!

 

 

In the previous episode we had witnessed Vidura’s beautiful explanation about how significant is “friendship” in our daily lives and how we’ve to carefully nurture friendship with the right company. We witnessed the demerits of bad friendship with the example of Karna in the Mahabhaarata, wherein even though Karna was a good person by heart, he had to be killed along with Duryodhana because of his bad companionship. Moreover, one of the main reasons why Lord Krishna had to take Arjuna’s side during the final war against Karna was that, he failed to stop Duryodhana from insulting Draupathi (Wife of the Paandavas) in the courtroom during the infamous episode of the ludo game. Since Karna had committed one of the biggest sins of life, Lord Krishna had no other option but to destroy him. This episode explains the significance of “good companionship” as per the proverb, “A friend in need is a friend indeed”. This means that, a friend is not a person who is there around us just to share funny moments and laughter. He/she should be a person who would be the first one to criticize our wrongdoings at the right time and correct us to the path of Dharma. This is where the “Friend in need” comes to picture. Rather, if we are getting carried away with the wrong companionship, we would undoubtedly fall into the “Mooda” category!

Now moving on to the next characteristic of a “Mooda” or a “Fool”, Vidura explains,

“Samsaara yathi krithyaani sarvatra vichikitsyathe!!”

Here Vidura explains the next characteristic called as “Doubting”. Now what is this doubting? Why is this so significant for us? Let us see today.

Basically, our day-to-day lives run somewhat smoothly only based on “confidence” or “belief” or “trust”. For instance, when we drive a car on a highway at a speed of 120 kilometers per hour, we are confidently driving at such high speeds only with the belief that the car can be stopped at will when we apply the brake. It is only with this belief or trust in the brake that we drive at such high speeds, isn’t it? Similarly in life, we progress forward each day only with a set of beliefs. For instance, both the husband and wife in the present day go out for work in big companies wherein there are thousands of other employees working along with us. It is only with the belief that neither the husband of the wife would not fall into the wrong companionship with an outsider, that both of them set out to work every day.

But what is happening nowadays? Whatever maybe the aspect, we start doubting everybody around us. That is of course because of the nature of the modern day society around us. Thus, over a period of time, the “trust” factor amongst our family members, peers, etc. have started to decrease. There are innumerable instances wherein people get into illicit relationships, extra-marital affairs, pulling down co-employees due to professional rivalry, backstabbing, theft, robbery, etc. Because of all these issues, the “trust” factor or the “belief” that we have amongst others have started to reduce drastically and in turn, a sense of fear has crept inside us. For instance, even when we’ve to walk on the road for a few meters, we fear what if someone would rob away my wallet or my mobile phone, what if someone would snatch away my chain, etc. Thus, we’ve started to lose trust amongst people around us even for basic things in life. Moreover, things have started to go to the next level wherein rapes and other heinous crimes have become the order of the day in many places around the world! As human beings, where are we heading? What is happening to our basic moral values of life? This is a shocking state of affairs in the modern day and we need to really ponder about this.

So much for the societal loss of trust – But what happens within our homes as well? The modern generation youth doesn’t like to be asked anything by anybody. Even if parents ask their sons or daughters as to why are they coming home late after 11 PM at night, the immediate reply that comes from them is that, “Oh! Are you questioning my integrity and privacy?”

Thus the underlying lesson for all of us is that, we need to develop a certain amount of basic trust amongst others around us. Of course we might ask the counter question that what if we get cheated due to our trust. Yes, I agree. But however, we need to develop atleast a certain level of trust with everybody around us. The question of being careful and not getting cheated arises when the other person misuses our trust. Till that point it is always necessary that we should not constantly doubt others for anything and everything. That would severely backfire at us.

Of course in the modern day scenario, I would not say that “doubts” shouldn’t be there. But atleast we should make a conscious effort not to display our doubts obviously amongst others, unless and until we really have the solid evidence of their misbehavior or wrongdoings. Thus we should realize that having doubts is not wrong, but at the same time, we should have a little bit of basic trust amongst people around us. Doubts can be displayed only when there are significant signs of wrongdoing.

Thus let us ponder about this important point for today and introspect within us. Let us not doubt others unwantedly unless it is extremely required. By that way, let us build a basic trust and belief within ourselves that things would go on smoothly in our lives. That would give us the happiness within us. We shall wait for the next episode to witness the next characteristic of a “Mooda”. Stay tuned! 🙂

In the previous episode we had witnessed couple of important attributes of a “Mooda” or a “Fool” as explained by Vidura to King Dhirdhiraashtra. At the end of the previous sloka, we saw Vidura explaining to King Dhirdhiraashtra that he is acting against the interest of Lord Krishna, thus evoking his anger. This should serve as a warning to King Dhirdhiraashtra, however he failed to realize Vidura’s precious words of advice. However, that doesn’t mean that we should ignore such important advice given by Vidura. We shall follow each and every word of Vidura for the betterment of our day-to-day lives.

Now moving on further, Vidura explains the next set of attributes of a “Mooda”. Let us try and understand them today.

“Akaamaan kaamayathi yah kaamayaanam parithvajeth balavancha yodhveshti!!”

 Here Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra that a person who is trying to pick up a fight with another person who is supposedly stronger than him, is one of the biggest “Mooda” in this world! In fact, we can have an enmity with a person who is of equal or lesser strength than us. For instance, if I’ve to pick up a fight with a person who is a three-time gold medalist in kick boxing, what would happen to me? Even before I think of making my first move, that fellow would blow me away within seconds! 🙂 Hence, if I have to create enmity with such people, I’ll have to spend all my life in fear – What if this person would come and attack me anytime? This is why we need to be careful. We should make sure that we do not create an enmity with those people who are stronger than us physically, financially and politically.

I’m particularly using the terms “financially” and “politically” because we see in the modern day situation in our country that in the name of “democracy”, our freedom of speech is being curbed by some unwanted political elements. If we utter something against any political bigwig, immediately there would be goons from that party to come and bash us out! Hence if we’ve to take them on, it is better to do so in the proper channel, or at the best, it is better always to keep quiet! Rather, it is better to develop friendship with that person, so as to avoid any further controversies in future.

“Amithram kuruthe mithram mithram dveshti hinasthicha!!”

 Now Vidura explains the significance of “friendship” here – If a person gets into a friendship with the wrong company, he is none other than a “Mooda”. We can see innumerable examples all around us. Even in the Mahaabhaarata we can see the example of Karna. Why was Karna killed in the war, although he was an extremely good person by heart? It was only because of his wrong companionship with Duryodhana. Moreover, Karna met a fateful end because he failed to do his duty as a friend to Duryodhana – When Draupathi, (Wife of Paandavas) was insulted publicly in the forum of the Hasthinaapura palace by Duryodhana and co., Karna should have ideally stopped him from doing so. But rather what did he do? He joined hands with Duryodhana and ended up insulting Draupathi more and more! This led to her fury and hurt Lord Krishna’s heart a lot. Thus at a time when Karna was fighting a fierce battle against Arjuna, Lord Krishna had to eventually take Arjuna’s side only because of Karna’s wrong companionship. Many might argue that Lord Krishna should have taken the side of Karna for his noble character, but because of the above-mentioned reason, Lord Krishna had no other option but to desert Karna in the battlefield when it was crucially required.

Thus from the above example, we can understand the significance of friendship. As the old proverb goes, “A friend in need is a friend indeed!” friendship plays a crucial role in everybody’s lives. The point here is that, friendship should be true in such a way that a person should be able to criticize his friend when he/she is deviating from the path of “Dharma”. If that is not happening and if this person supports all the wrongdoings of his friend, just on the pretext of “not breaking the friendship”, it is a big blunder!

Hence for today let us think about this important attribute and introspect within us. Are we following the “Dharma” of friendship in our day-to-day life? We shall talk about friendship a bit more in the next episode as we move on! Stay tuned! 🙂

 

In the previous episode we had commenced a very important discussion on who is a “Mooda” or a “Fool”. We had discussed four important attributes of a “Mooda” and I hope we would have introspected ourselves with those four attributes. Today we shall move on with the next few attributes of a “Mooda” as explained by Vidura that we need to eliminate from ourselves.

Now Vidura explains the following:

“Samartham yahaa parithyajjya paraartham anuthistathi!

Mithyaacharathi mithraarthe yascha moodaha cha ucchyathe!!”

A person is considered to be a “Mooda” if he thinks low of what he is, but at the same time, thinking that doing the job of others’ is always better than doing ours! For instance, we would have done our education in one particular domain. However we would feel that we should have undertaken our studies in a different domain, just because we feel that it’s useless! For example, we might have meticulously worked hard and did an MBBS degree to become a successful doctor. After that, we would have started a clinic too, to receive patients for giving them the treatment. However on some days there might not be many patients visiting our clinic owing to several reasons! At this time, there might be a lawyer next building and he would be having innumerable clients visiting him every day. Now upon seeing this, we would start thinking, “Oh! We could have also studied B.L and we could have also become a successful lawyer! Why did I do this stupid MBBS and waste my 5 years of life?” This is an important attribute of a “Mooda” or a “Fool” – Rather than strengthening oneself with the education that he has obtained, and rather than focusing on improving his knowledge on his domain, he would desire to become something else that is completely out of reach!

We have an old proverb that states, “All that glitters is not gold!” Many a times, we get carried away with such a feeling – If we’re not very successful in our profession, we would start comparing ourselves with our friends who would be in another profession and would say, “Oh! That guy is very successful as a lawyer, or an IT professional, or whatever!” But, little do we know and understand what kind of problems does that person face in his respective profession. Moreover, if we’ve to get into a new profession altoghether, we would not have any experience in it. We’ve to start it afresh! We would not have any knowledge of what is what and who is who in that profession! Hence, leaving one profession and getting into another one is not as easy as we might think! There might be innumerable nuances there and we would have no idea of all that! Hence if we have such thoughts of disappointment in our own profession, we should only focus our mind on how to excel in this particular profession only, rather than switching over! Thus this is what is an important attribute of a “Mooda” and we should try and stay away from such thoughts. Rather, we should only focus on what is given to us and we should strive to give our 100% efforts to what we perform.

“Mithyaacharathi mithraarthe” – A person who tries to pull down and cheats a good friend or a close relative or a brother. is a “Mooda”. Here is where Vidura pokes King Dhirdhiraashtra of what he is doing. Vidura says, “Oh Dhirdhiraashtra! You are trying to cheat your own brother’s sons, who are very close to you and who have great respect for you! This is what Lord Krishna would never forgive you for! Do you know what is your biggest mistake? You’re trying to cheat those Paandavas who Lord Krishna loves a lot! You’re trying to cheat those Paandavas who are authorized to rule the Hasthinaapura kingdom but you are trying to favor your son Duryodhana who is an epitome of a “Mooda”! This is making Lord Krishna extremely angry! You might be a good person and generous by heart but because of this mistake, you are indirectly becoming a victim of Lord Krishna’s anger!”

Thus we’ve seen two more important attributes of a “Mooda” in today’s episode. For today, let us introspect within ourselves by thinking of the above two attributes and their applicability to our daily lives. We shall wait till the next episode to find out more such attributes! Stay tuned! 🙂

In the previous episode we had concluded our detailed discussion on who is a “Panditha” and what are the attributes of a “Panditha”. In our concluding remarks yesterday, we discussed a very important attribute of a “Panditha”, which is nothing but “effective communication”. We had discussed it in a bit of a detail in the last episode, thus concluding the long discussion on the topic.

Now moving on, we would continue the next set of discussions wherein Vidura is going to explain the different characteristics and attributes of a “Mooda” or a “Fool”. You might ask me as to why to have this discussion because we now know the attributes of a “Panditha” and we can follow all of them and why do we need to know who is a “Mooda”. The simple answer to this question is that, just as we learnt different attributes that are to be imbibed within us, we now need to know certain attributes that need to be eliminated from us. Only if we know what is to be eliminated, we would be able to keep a vigil on ourselves, as to how not to get inside the trap of imbibing the qualities that are to be eliminated.

So, who is a “Mooda”? Let us see what Vidura has to say on this.

“Aashruthascha ssamunnatthaha dharidrascha mahaamanaaha!
Arthaanscha akarmanaaprepsuhu mooda ithyuchyathe budhaihi!!”

From the first sloka of this discussion, Vidura explains who are “Moodas” or “Fools”.

“Aashruthascha” – A person who doesn’t have even an iota of “listening capacity” or patience to listen to anybody is considered to be a “Mooda”. Irrespective of how much ever a person might be qualified educationally, if a person does not have the patience to listen to the “Dharma” narrated by our elders and ancestors, all his educational qualifications would go down as a junk!

“Bahushruthaanaam vridhaanaam brahmanaanaam upaasithaa!!”

 This is an excerpt from Vaalmiki Ramayana, wherein Vaalmiki Maharishi says that if Lord Rama is not seen anywhere within the big Ayodhya palace, he must surely be in any of the great Maharishis’ ashrams, listening to their valuable advice and suggestions. Lord Rama was a great king! Yet we should see here that he was so humble and down to earth that he had the greatest attribute of listening to great people. We had also discussed during our previous Ramayana project that Lord Rama spent his entire fourteen years in the forest going to each and every Maharishi’s ashram, spending time with them, learning the “Dharma” from their teachings and only with that, he ruled Ayodhya as a righteous king!

Thus if we are an “Ashrutha”, definitely we wouldn’t have the patience to listen to anybody! Hence, we need to check ourselves to see if we fall in this category of a “Mooda”.

“Samunnatthaha” – Now this is the next level of a “Mooda” – A person who thinks too much of himself and ignores others’ advice due to his arrogance! The best instance that we can consider to explain this point is Ravana. When he had abducted Sita from Rama’s hamlet at Panchavati, how many people advised him to give back Sita to Rama? Vibhishana, Mandodhari, Hanuman, etc. – The list is countless. But Ravana was relentless and stuck to his stance of having Sita with him. We had seen this in the Vaalmiki Ramayana and because of Ravana’s lack of listening capability coupled with arrogance he led himself to his downfall! We see that in ample cases in today’s world too! How many times do we see politicians exhibit this behavior in public? How many times do we see arrogant behavior exhibited by innumerable people in every walk of life today – Right from autorikshaw drivers on any city roads till any big personality! Hence, we should understand from this discussion that a “Mooda” or a “Fool” is a person who does not care to listen to anybody else and at the same time, exhibit arrogance by thinking too high of oneself!

“Dharidrascha mahaamanaaha” – A person who is over-ambitious, but doesn’t have any capability to achieve anything is a “Mooda” or a “Fool”. For instance, a person would like to build an eighteen-storied five star hotel, but would not have money even to meet his basic expenses! Thus a person having unwanted and unachievable desires is considered to be a “Mooda”.

Arthaanscha akarmanaaprepsuhu” – A person who desires for a fruitful end result for a task, but without putting the required effort to achieve it is a “Mooda”. As Lord Krishna explains in his Bhagawat Gita, we’ve to do our duty meticulously and give our 100% efforts into it. Moreover, Lord Krishna continues to explain that as we do our duty with 100% efforts, we should develop detachment by not focusing on the end-result. However, a person who does exactly the opposite of what Lord Krishna explains, is considered to be a “Mooda”.

So for today let us ponder about these first four important attributes of a “Mooda”. Let us introspect within ourselves as to which of these four qualities are to be eliminated from within us. We shall wait till the next episode to explore more such attributes of a “Mooda”. Stay tuned! 🙂

In the previous episode we were amidst an important discussion on the importance of effective communication. We witnessed some real-time application of Vidura’s explanations in the modern day corporate scenario wherein organizations are stressing heavily on this particular attribute. In today’s episode we shall continue the discussion by looking into each and every characteristic of effective communication that Vidura is explaining to King Dhirdhiraashtra. For this, let us recollect the sloka that we mentioned in the previous episode.

“Pravrutha vaak chithra katha uuhavaan prathi bhaavaan aashukgranthasya vakthaacha yasya panditha ucchyathe!!”

Here Vidura clearly explains how our communication should be:

“Pravrutha vaak” – Wherever we go or whichever context we have to talk about, we need to present our ideas very clearly and flawlessly. Irrespective of who is the audience – Maybe rich, elite or poor, if we are confident that we are talking nothing other than the “Dharma”, we should go ahead and talk about it clearly without hesitation and fear. When would we get that “boldness” to talk in front of an audience? It is only when we know that whatever we talk is “Dharma”, isn’t it? Hence, if we speak the “Dharma”, why and for whom should we fear? Hence, our talking should be confident enough and bold, without an iota of fear in our mind. Here the readers should note one important thing – When I say that we should talk boldly without fear, I’m not saying that we should talk with arrogance! Here we’ve to be smart enough to differentiate the two situations correctly – Talking without fear and talking with arrogance. Of course, when I say that we should not fear anybody, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t respect the other person. Hence we need to be very careful here. We should talk with confidence, but not with arrogance. If the audience is a highly learned lot of people we should respect them, but not fear them! When should we fear? We should fear only if we feel that we are deviating from the path of “Dharma”! This is an extremely important point to be noted by all our readers!

“Chithra-Katha” – Now moving on to the next point, while we communicate something important, we should make sure that it is communicated in a way that people would be able to listen to it keenly. Some of us have the habit of “Blunt talking” or “Talking on the face”. It might be good at some point in time, but many a times, if we’re going to talk bluntly and on the face, people are going to take that as an insult! Especially when we’ve to point out something wrong that is happening, we need to articulate it in such a way that people are motivated enough to change and mend their ways. Rather, if we are scolding them bluntly for their mistakes, many a times people are going to fire at us back by asking counter questions such as, “Who are you to point out this to me?” or “First look at yourself before pinpointing others!”, etc. Why to get into such unwanted and embarrassing situations? Hence we should understand that whenever we tend to point out mistakes or to convey a negative message, we should always convey the thing in a way that the other person is “convinced” with our argument.

“Uuhavaan” – This means that when we present a particular topic, we should structure our points and arguments in such a way that the critical message of the topic is conveyed well to the audience. This also means that we should not deviate into unwanted topics while delivering the lecture. How relevant is this point in today’s context too! Many a times we would have listened to orators talking unwanted things, citing irrelevant examples while talking about a particular topic. Many a times, we even end up making some controversial statements that might trigger unwanted unrest and restlessness amongst the audience. All these things should be strictly avoided. Thus we should stick to our topic of discussion and not deviate much. Of course we shall cite examples to substantiate our points, but those examples and allied statements should be completely relevant to our topic of discussion. For this, we need to do our homework. Adequate preparation is extremely necessary so as to deliver a good and a convincing speech amongst a set of audience.

Many a times we’ve heard that people practice their speech by standing in front of a mirror. Why do we do that? It is only to check if we have that required confidence, correct body language and proper eye contact while we deliver our talk. Hence the message from this point is that we need to make sure that we do not deviate from the topic much and try as much as possible to stick to our topic of discussion while we speak.

“Prathi bhaavaan” – Here Vidura explains that while delivering a talk, the orator should also possess an excellent imaginative capability. Only if we have the imagination power, will we be able to articulate the right words, the right examples at the right context of the talk. Moreover, in order to keep the audience awake, we need to induce some humor while talking. Of course, care should be taken that this humor should not be intended at hurting the feelings and sentiments of another person or another religion or nationality or race. The humor should be in such a way that everybody should be able to enjoy it at the same time. For this, we need an excellent imaginative power. Moreover, we would have also heard our ex President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam advising us as to “dream big” in life! It doesn’t mean that we should sit in one corner of the room and keep daydreaming! Our ex president is advising us to “dream according to our capabilities”, so as to use our capabilities in the right direction and achieve our goal! Hence, dreaming is also important, but daydreaming is wrong! 🙂

Thus with this, we come to an end of the various attributes of a “Panditha”! Hence for today let us spend some time and try to recollect all the attributes that Vidura has explained to us regarding who is a “Panditha”! Let us also make a special effort from today to try and implement those characteristics in our daily lives. From the next episode, Vidura is going to explain the different attributes of a “Moodaathma” (Fool). What are those attributes? Let’s stay tuned to find out! 🙂

In the previous episode we had witnessed a very important attribute of a “Panditha” wherein Vidura explained that he is one person who does not get carried away by praises and insults, and deals with things in a balanced fashion. We saw some instances wherein this important attribute with an example from the game of “Cricket” in India and how successive captains handle fans’ reactions after winning or losing a cricket match.

Moving on, we shall today discuss about the next important attribute that Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra.

“Tathvyagnyaha sarva bhoothaanaam yogagnyaha sarva karmanaam!!”

Here Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra that a “Panditha” is a person who has the unique capability to grasp things quickly, put a framework to execute tasks and also knows who and what would be able to help him to achieve his goals and mission. Here is another important attribute pertaining to the effective “resource management” of a leader. If we’ve to link this attribute of Vidura to the modern day life, we can say that a successful leader is that person who is shrewd enough to understand things quickly, materializes and marshals his resources in such a way that he is able to achieve his work with minimal cost, time and effort. This is very important for every leader in every profession. In management terms we often talk about the term “Optimal Utilization of our Resources”. The fundamental assumption in management science is that, any resource available in this world, be it man, material or anything, is scarce in nature and it is the manager’s acumen that enables the optimal usage of the resource that is scarcely available.

Now moving on to the next attribute, Vidura explains the following:

“Pravrutha vaak chithra katha uuhavaan prathi bhaavaan aashukgranthasya vakthaacha yasya panditha ucchyathe!!”

 Here, Vidura explains one of the most important attributes – “The Art of Talking” and effective communication. Communication is extremely important because, although a person might be highly skilled in terms of knowledge about one subject, it all depends on how he is able to communicate that knowledge to the outside world, and this ability makes the person a “Panditha”. If a person is unable to communicate the knowledge that he has gained, then that entire knowledge would be of no use to anybody! Hence, proper communication skills are very essential for a person, even in the modern day.

This is why in big corporate companies too in the modern day we stress on something called “soft skills”. It is not enough if we only have the technical knowledge and skills pertaining to our job. It is also very important for us to communicate those technical skills in a proper way so that the others (peers, customers, etc.) are also benefitted.

During our previous Ramayana project itself I’ve spoken extensively about the importance of communication at the context wherein Hanuman meets Lord Rama for the first time. The readers can recall as to how Lord Rama appreciates Hanuman’s speech with the help of 7-8 slokas, wherein he talks about different attributes of communication such as body language, facial expressions, smile, eye-contact, lip movements, speed of speech, correct articulation of words, grammatical perfection, etc. This is exactly what Vidura is also explaining here.

It is for this reason, modern day corporate companies have adopted “Communication tests” as part of their recruitment processes too – Nowadays we are seeing that companies conduct something called “Group Discussions” as part of the selection process, wherein a panel of 7-8 people is formed, a topic is given and the panel is allowed to discuss on that particular topic for 15-20 minutes. Why do companies adopt such a process? It is to check if the candidates are skilled in articulating their thoughts into proper sentences and whether they are able to convince the others with their structured arguments. Moreover, the end-result of a proper and a well-moderated group discussion leads to the emergence of a leader and this leader is whom companies pick up! Apart from this, of course we have a detailed personal interview wherein the candidate is interviewed on a one-to-one basis by an interviewer or by a panel of interviewers together. This is again to check for the candidate’s confidence level and this can be gauged by the way the candidate communicates and articulates his/her thought processes. Such is the significance given to communication skills in the modern day. This is exactly what Lord Rama and Vidura emphasize – A “Panditha” is a person who has mastered the art of effective communication and is able to convey his points of view in a clear and a well-structured manner.

Having discussed the importance of effective communication now comes the question as to how do we focus and improve our effective communication. The first step to improve our communication skills is to reduce and avoid unwanted communication! This directly again means that unwanted and unnecessary gossiping should be avoided. If we keep on talking non-stop and all junk, people would brand us that we are useless chatter-boxes and even at times if we speak something important, people would not listen to us! I’ve mentioned this in our previous episode too. I’m stressing and re-stressing this point again and again because this “unwanted gossiping” about somebody or something has become such a huge menace in the society! If we’ve to calculate how much of time and energy we spend on this, we would be shocked to see that we are wasting more than three-fourth of our time, which can otherwise be used productively in various ways.

So for today, let us think about it and introspect once more as to how much of time and energy do we waste per day on unwanted gossiping? I had already requested you to do this exercise in one of our recent episodes, but it is worth repeating it again! 🙂 There is another detailed episode that is following up tomorrow, which discusses about the attributes of effective communication as explained by Vidura. Lets’ stay tuned! 🙂

In the previous episode we witnessed two important attributes of a “Panditha”, wherein Vidura explained the importance of facing problems boldly without buckling down under fear. We witnessed a brief explanation as to how to make up our mind to plan and prepare ourselves to face the problem, rather than developing a sense of fear by anticipating the problem. Also we had a discussion wherein we emphasized that failures are part and parcel of life and they shouldn’t bog us down. Rather, we should consider failures as opportunities to better ourselves for the future. The second attribute that we discussed yesterday was about doing the right thing at the right time, rather than wasting time doing unwanted activities. Here again we emphasized the significance of “Time Management” and how essential is it for our modern day life as well.

Now moving on further, we are going to see the next attribute that Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra as to who is a “Panditha”:

“Na krishyath aathma sammaane na avamaane tripyathe!!”

Here Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra that a “Panditha” is a person who does not care about somebody insulting him or somebody praising him at any point in time. In other words, a “Panditha” never feels bad and breaks down when someone insults him, but at the same time he never jumps up and down with joy if someone praises him a lot!

How relevant is this to our modern day life as well! Today we see certain people jumping up and down with super-excitement whenever they come across a victory in their respective professions. However, if the same people encounter a loss, they are into their own shell and they’ll never be seen outside at all! This extreme behavior is not advisable for a successful leader. If there is a victory, he has to take it with a balanced frame of mind and if there is a loss, he has to be ready to take it on the chin, analyse the reasons for the failure, learn from it and move on. Normally the habit of the world is that, if somebody does something good today, everybody including the media would praise them like anything! They would equate this person to a God! However, tomorrow if this person commits even the smallest of the mistakes in the world, this same media would not shy away from criticizing this person like hell and project him as if he’s the biggest criminal on earth! This is unfortunately the way in which the present day media operates. Thus if a leader should keep listening to all these “gimmicks” of the media every day, there is going to be no end to it at all!

For instance, we’ve seen people praising our Indian Cricket team when they won the world cup in 2011. People were going hammer and tongs by running on the streets, bursting crackers, exchanging sweets, etc. so as to celebrate the victory. However, one year later when the same Indian cricket team lost a test match series in England, the same spectators and the media who once praised the team, turned to be the worst enemies ever! People were ready to go to any extent to criticize the team and insult them and their families by throwing stones at the players’ houses, etc. Here, we need to realize that “Cricket” is afterall a game and victory and defeat are part and parcel of it. As spectators of the game, all of us fail to realize it and we do not give our players the space for them to learn and recover from their loss. After all they are human beings too! They’re bound to fail too! Thus, if a cricket captain in the likes of Mr. Virat Kohli or Mr. M.S. Dhoni is going to keep listening to all these praises and critics day in and day out, never in their lives, they would have succeeded as they’ve done today! Hence it is very important that we do not give into all such gimmicks and treat praise and insult on the same plane and by not bogging down with it!

Thus the message from this important sloka is that, a “Panditha” (in the modern day context, a successful leader) should be in such a way that he is not carried away by all these kinds of ups and downs in life, just like the water in a deep part of the ocean.

There are many more attributes still left over for detailed discussion, and we shall continue the same in the next episode! Stay tuned! 🙂

In the previous episode we had witnessed yet another important attribute wherein a “Panditha” is a person who does not have unwanted desires towards anything or anybody in this world. He/she only possesses those objects that add value to life and do not desire for more and more objects just to fulfill the social status.

Now moving on to the next attribute, Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra thus,

“Aapathsu cha na muhyanthi na raah panditha buddhayaha!”

Here Vidura explains that a “Panditha” is a person who does not get scared if there is any danger that threatens his way! In other words, in our daily lives we would notice that dangers and obstacles would keep coming and going every now and then. If we’ve to get scared for all of them, we would not be able to lead our lives with peace! It is to be noted keenly here that I’m not saying we should ignore the dangers completely and avoid them. That is not the point here. If we see a potential danger coming towards us, we should rather prepare ourselves to face it and win over it. All I’m trying to say is that we should not develop a fear for the danger and sit in one corner of the room and brood over it! Many a times we end up doing this. If there is a potential problem or a danger, many a time we succumb to it and start worrying about it.

Here, I shall request all our readers to perform a small exercise – Take a small paper and a pen and try to list down the potential dangers/problems that had crossed your life over the past one year. Once the list is prepared, try to analyze each of the problems and ask these questions to yourself – Has that particular problem ended this year? Is there a concrete solution for that problem? What is the status of that problem today? Many a times we would notice within ourselves that even before the problem or danger comes by, we would start fearing about it six months in advance! As a consequence what happens is that, because of the fear, we fail to prepare ourselves with the corrective measures to face the problem effectively! This is why we always say that never fear for any problem or a failure or an obstacle. Let it come by. Only if there are failures in life, we would be able to learn something out of it. If everything is a success in life, what is the charm in it then? As per the proverb, “Failure is the stepping stone for our successful life!” we should treat failures or obstacles as opportunities to correct and refine ourselves, rather than fearing it!

Even in modern day HR interviews, many of the smart interviewers ask this question – “Talk about your failure in life!” This is one question that would gauge an individual in various parameters – Whether this person likes to take risks in life, whether this person is experienced enough in “problem-solving”, etc. if the candidate replies “Oh! I’ve never failed in my life!”, it means only two things – Either the person hasn’t done anything new in life, or the person would not be capable of handling a sudden problem or a failure, if anything comes by in future! Hence, we should not be afraid to fail. We should welcome failure or obstacles or problems with both hands and try to analyze, critically think and come out of it successfully.

This is exactly what Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra – If there is a potential danger or an obstacle that is coming in front of us, we should not develop a fear for it but rather plan in advance, create a counter mechanism to take on the obstacle and to win over it! This is what we term in modern day management studies as “Risk Management”. Thus we need to understand that problems, obstacles, failures, etc. would be part and parcel of life and we need to be prepared to face them!

Thus moving on to the next attribute, Vidura explains to King Dhirdhiraashtra thus,

“Nischischayaha prakamathe naantathvasathi karmanaha!

Avadhya kaalaha vashyaathma sa vai panditha ucchyathe!!”

Thus a “Panditha” is a person who performs all the important duties that had been perpetually carried out by his ancestors over generations. A “Panditha” is also a person who does not waste time in doing “petty” activities that would just be a waste of time. He would involve himself in those activities that are of high importance and those that would add value to him as well as to the society at large! This is a very important attribute again with respect to the effective usage of time and effort. From all these attributes we can see how much of importance is Vidura giving for “Time Management”. In previous episodes also we’ve seen innumerable attributes of a “Panditha” with respect to managing time effectively. Here too, Vidura explains that a “Panditha” is a person who directs his effort in such a way that he does only those activities that would benefit the society and add some value, rather than wasting time in doing unwanted activities.

Thus for today, let us introspect within ourselves and critically analyze our day-to-day activities. Let us check how much of time do we waste in performing unwanted activities and let us consciously make an attempt to cut down on those activities step by step! We shall wait till the next episode to explore more attributes of a “Panditha”. Stay tuned! 🙂