guru and srinivAsAya mangalaM

mangalam guru  is a traditional  kannada mangalam sung at the end of a guru puja for those belonging to the smArta sampradAya. Something very sweet about it (as all mangalam-s are designed to be). I've took the sAhityam (lyrics) from the end of the booklet here and rearranged it below:




On the same note, here is another very sweet managaLaM composed and sung by sri bAlamuraLi krSNa:

 sAhityam in here by sri lakSman. I've transcribed it into devanAgari and unicode sanskrit below:

श्रीनिवासाय मङ्ग़ळम् । रागः नवरोज् । तालः आदिः , तिस्रगतिः

पल्लवि:

श्रीनिवासाय वेदविदित विश्वरूपाय श्रितजनानन्ददायकाय मङ्ग़ळम्

चरणं १

वेङ्कटेशाय सङ्कटाघमोचनाय वर शशाङ्ककोटिसुन्दराय शुभ्र मङ्गळम्

चरणं २

सर्वगायकप्रियाय सर्वमतामोदकाय सर्वभुवनजनहिताय सर्व मङ्ग़ळम्

चरणं ३

मङ्ग़ळं पल्लिवंशजात बालमुरळिकृष्ण मधुरगानमोहिताय महित मङ्ग़ळम्

pallavih : śrīnivāsāya vEdavidita viśvarūpāya śritajanānandadāyakāya mangaLam

caraṇaṃ 1: veṅkaṭeśāya saṅkaṭāghamocanāya vara śaśāṅka koṭi sundarāya śubhra maṅgaḺam

caraṇaṃ 2: sarvagāyakapriyāya sarvamatāmOdakāya sarvabhuvanajanahitāya sarva maṅgaḺaṃ

caraṇaṃ 3: maṅġaḻam pallivamśajāta bālamuraḻikrṢṇa madhuragāna mOhitāya mahita mangaḻam

P: srInivAsAya vEdavidita vishvarUpAya srtajanAnandadAyakAya mangaLam

C1: venkaTEsAya sankaTAghamOcanAya vara sasAnkakOTisundarAya subhra mangaLam
C2: sarvagAyakapriyAya sarvamatA mOdakAya sarva bhuvana janahitAya sarva mangaLam
C3: mangaLam pallivamsajAta bAlamuraLikrSNa madhuragAnamOhitAya mahita mangaLam

Song of the sea - Lyrics

Lovely movie - so much emotion. Animation takes you to a different world. And super title track ("Amhran Na Farraige - Song of the Sea)

Here are the lyrics. I've put the Gaelic and English lyrics side-by-side for easy reading. The translation is from a very helpful comment by an Irishman (Mr. Fergal Ó Ceallaigh) on the youtube. It dramtically improves the  meaning over some other lyrics floating over the net.

 There is also an English version of the song here (lyrics embedded):

TED talk - Ricardo Semler - Running a company with amost (no) rules

Very inspiring talk by Ricardo Semler. My notes and key points follow.

Mr. Semler took over as CEO of his father's firm when he was 21 (after bitter fights with his father) and realized the value of work-life balance when he fainted once at the age of 25. He's pioneered decentralization and democratization of how companies should work. He puts it very beautifully :

We've come from an age of revolution, industrial revolution, an age of information, an age of knowledge, but we're not any closer to the age of wisdom. How we design, how do we organize, for more wisdom?

The fact that his companies have done so well shows that these ideas don't have to be contrary to the profitability. But he also acknowledges in the Q&A part of the talk that it's just not about courage in implementing these kind of ideas - there's just no incentive for CEOs to do it. They are judged every quarter so if a CEO says "I will do something that will show great results in a generation", they'll be out. It reminded me a lot of what Modi is trying to do as CEO of India by making structural changes but even highly educated people seeming to want results overnight.

Mr. Semler has also pioneered education through his schools which run on the basis of democracy (by students!):

We have approximately 10 great threads that go from 2 to 17. Things like, how do we measure ourselves as humans? So there's a place for math and physics and all that there. How do we express ourselves? So there's a place for music and literature, etc., but also for grammar. 

And then we have things that everyone has forgotten, which are probably the most important things in life. The very important things in life, we know nothing about. We know nothing about love, we know nothing about death, we know nothing about why we're here. So we need a thread in school that talks about everything we don't know.

I found this part the most inspiring:

When I was 50, my wife Fernanda and I sat for a whole afternoon, we had a big pit with fire, and I threw everything I had ever done into that fire.[...] And that did two things.  

One, it freed our five kids from following in our steps, our shadow. And I'm not going to take them somewhere and say, one day all of this will be yours. [...]

And the second thing is, I freed myself from this anchor of past achievement or whatever. I'm free to start something new every time and to decide things from scratch in part of those terminal days.[...]

And with this rationale, I look at these days and I think, I'm not retired. I don't feel retired at all. And so I'm writing a new book. We started three new companies in the last two years. I'm now working on getting this school system for free out into the world,

 Simply amazing! 

Another extremely inspiring snippet:

So when you spend time in a company, in a bureaucracy, in an organization and you're saying, boy -- how many people do you know who on their death beds said, boy, I wish I had spent more time at the office? So there's a whole thing of having the courage now -- not in a week, not in two months, not when you find out you have something -- to say, no, what am I doing this for? Stop everything. Let me do something else. And it will be okay, it will be much better than what you're doing, if you're stuck in a process.

 He ends the talk beautifully:

And I think what this leaves us as a message [...]: We've all learned how to go on Sunday night to email and work from home. But very few of us have learned how to go to the movies on Monday afternoon. And if we're looking for wisdom, we need to learn to do that as well.

And so, what we've done all of these years is very simple, is use the little tool, which is ask three whys in a row. Because the first why you always have a good answer for. The second why, it starts getting difficult. By the third why, you don't really know why you're doing what you're doing. What I want to leave you with is the seed and the thought that maybe if you do this, you will come to the question, what for? What am I doing this for? And hopefully, as a result of that, and over time, I hope that with this, and that's what I'm wishing you, you'll have a much wiser future.

US = India + Sweden

Echoes of this in India as well?

Sweden is probably the most secular country in the world. Very few Swedes believe in God or Jesus or anything, and the most religious country in the world by many measures is India. You take four steps in India and you fall over five gods. Well, I described the United States as a country of Indians with a Swedish cultural elite, and many of the problems of America have to do with the fact that the Indians have become increasingly pissed off at the Swedes.

- Dr. Peter Berger, University Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at Boston University

 Source

Medicine Baba

A 75 year-old crippled man with a mentally retarded son working from a slum walks 6 hours a day getting medicines to the poor. How inspiring! He also has a website where you can donate.