Seva

Alfred Adler, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud are considered fathers of the modern psychology.
Alfred Adler had this analysis which is "Fourteen-Day Cure Plan".
“He used to say to his melancholia patients:
"You can be cured in fourteen days if you follow this prescription.Try to think every day how you can please someone.”




Adler claimed he could cure anyone of mental illness in just fourteen days if they would just do what he told them to do. One day a woman who was extremely depressed came to see Adler. He told her, "I can cure you of your depression in just fourteen days if you will follow my advice."

She was not very enthusiastic when she asked, "What do you want me to do?"

Adler replied, "If you will do one thing for someone else every day for fourteen days, at the end of that time your depression will be gone."

She objected. "Why should I do something for someone else, when no one ever does anything for me?"

Adler jokingly responded, "Well, maybe it will take you twenty-one days." He went on to add, "If you can't think of anything you are willing to do for someone else, just think of what you could do if you felt like it." Adler knew that if she would even think about doing something for someone else, she would be on her way toward improvement.

This is the beautiful concept of "service before self"

Meditation

I want to meditate but cannot, my attention span is very less and due to this I have to spend a lot of time on one task. Many people advise me to meditate, I even asked one pro person whom I know intimately about it. But I could not meditate, focusing on a mantra will stray my attention away for sire. I have to do something about it . I got few books and apps but nothing happened.
Today I was trying to make an origami model, and it was a difficult one and I had added to it the problem of color coding.I kept working on it for 4 hours, I had no idea of the time, I wasnt  felling hungry , didnt even went to attend the call of nature. At the end I realised what I was doing was meditation only. I was focused, no fidgeting , totally concentrated , I was calm even it was a difficult model though I had a feeling in between to quit this and go to bed as it was already 4 am. My breath was normal and most importantly my heartbeat was not very high which remains high in the usual case.
I am glad that I understood some part of meditation process and also for the end result that I got

Judaism and Zoroastrianism

Today while having lunch, Paul asked me what is the general perception of people of India regarding drinking liquor . I gave him full account of how ancient Indian society was divided and how its considered a sin in few sects of society but what is the contemporary view and all that. He told me there is a festival Purim in which its allowed to drink in Judaism.
He told me that he is a Jew but doesn't go to synagogue often.I got my concepts cleared for the differences between Judaism and Christianity. Old testament and the new one.
I didn't know that Jews believe in the messiah and that it hasn't come on earth yet. So it was nice insight for me. I always got confused between Jews and Parsis of India. Now I know the latter follow Zoroastrianism and go to fire temples and of course they were Persians.
Then we started discussing Dan Brown.I totally savor such conversations.

First month change

I am quite amused for the title I have selected for my blog . It feels like I am pregnant and looking for changes in my body with the fetus dancing inside me.
So, Its been more than a month now I am in USA. Unlike my previous trips to foreign lands this one is giving me complete chance to interact with the city. I don't think so that there are myriad changes ,I have always been a solitary reaper so here I am more into myself. Not a big deal !
I am not cribbing at all for all the walking that I have to do daily.Yes temperature is a little extreme, but it can be worse. I find it beautiful outside and I like walking when snow falls on me.
One thing I dont like is ,my office bag has become heavier than before. Apart from the laptop and other things it has gloves, muffler, few snacks, few arbit boxes,old food material etc. But its manageable .
I dont like the fact that subways here dont cater mobile signals. For god sake, we are living in 21st century . My reading time has not reduced. I read in bus and in train. Keeping myself educated. :D
I was never a shopping freak ,so you send me to New york or Paris or Sierra Nevada I am going to buy only the necessary things for myself. Though seeing all those world class showrooms on 5th avenue and the park avenue is an experience in itself.
Food: One of the most important factor !!

There are many vegetarian options available if you want to buy outside. But one cannot eat out daily health and monetary factors both of them play their role here. So I cook.Also I have learned to eat frozen food items. Definitely my list of known vegetables has increased now.I have developed a liking for boiled vegetables,amaranth , brown rice, quince , persimmons and yes mashed avocados and who doesnt likes dressings of cilantro lime or olive oil + balsamic vinegar dressing on their salads :)

I have to edit this post. I forgot to mention one major change that I clean my dishes each and every time I eat, or drink anything :)

New Year in New York

It was a thursday and I got a little late for the office ,So I decided to work from home for the time being.A colleague of mine was returning back to India after staying here for about six months. So, he called me up and asked me to come to office and from there we will go somewhere . I reached office and when Tomas left .We went out of the office , roamed on the 5th avenue , went to apple store ,clicked some photos and then called up few other Indian guys from Accenture and  Goldman Sachs .They said they will be there in an hour or so. We tried to go to the Times square. But I shuddered at the sight of the crowd. There must be at least a million  people and many more coming, waiting in queues The police and cops were deployed everywhere and they were carrying out their roles with dexterity .It reminded me of the local fares of Delhi at the time of RamLila and Janmashtmi . The difference is we have global crowd at times square. Just imagine, people go bonkers for witnessing the crystal ball drop at times square at midnight and for that they start gathering there from 10 am or so. They just sit there for 14-15 hours. They cannot go anywhere to pee . Some guys keep bottles and relieve themselves in them .What happens to girls I am wondering.
I so people pee in their pants. A smell of food, feces etc etc was filled in the atmosphere.

Standing there for insane long hours in -5 degree Celsius and that too for a show of 5 minutes , hugging or smooching a stranger .Seems like too much work to me. Feels like a cult which is being followed, but then everything is a cult in one or other way.
But its an experience in itself, You talk to people , people from various lands, big luggage with them ,speaking in different accents of English can be something I can look forward to. But this time I didn't.

Instead we went to office again and waited for the other guys to join in. OMG !! there was an infinitely long queue in front of my office .Thanks to its prime location in NY, a road adjacent to Alliance Bernstein building leads to Times square so it was closed. Thanks to our access cards .We could just go through the other side of the building to go anywhere, instead of standing and waiting in the queue with the plebeians :)

We took the food from Halal guys  , its one of the best food in NYC. I had falafel over Rice and Lettuce but I stayed away from the hot sauce of theirs. Its insanely hot and has no taste.  One thing I like about Indian spices is that they have a taste they are not used for burning few organs of your body which I think is the case with the hot sauce of Halal guys. Anyway, we had food and in the meantime the other guys also arrived. They were starving as well. We took them to Dukes Deli, a nice place to have salad, continental , sushi and my favorite persimmons salad .
I was just standing and looking at various things and another girl was doing the same. We started talking and talked for some time and then her boyfriend came back from washroom .Both of them greeted me new year and they left.

I dont remember when did I talk to any girl randomly in New Delhi. I understand that the atmosphere of Delhi is way different from that of New York. But males are same everywhere, you can see this thing very clearly and this concept got cleared when I was in a nightclub Webster hall there. But leave these things aside, girls are more secure here and more confident . Delhi girls are no less in confidence but they have this air of arrogance  engulfing them, and a belief that they belong to some different species , different from normal human beings. Of course I cannot generalize this ,I am not saying that males or american females are the paragon of all the virtues.

But anyway, after seeing a million people at Times square five of us headed to central park ,it was no less than a celebration as well.And then at 00:00 hours fireworks started. The sky was beautiful and the pyrotechnics were adorning it with colors giving shades to it and to the eyes of the on lookers. It lasted for 15 minute. Then we headed back to the our office. I was planning to go to my place but the 4 of them urged me to go with them . We reached their room and it was really cold .

I was not in a mood of drinking, so they people proceeded and had a good time I guess. We had a erudite and very deep conversation on American economy , effect on India and of course Aam aadmi party :)
We kept changing the music on demand . We played cards, 29 was the name of the game. Those who think playing cards is a bad habit should read about Mickey Rosa and six other MIT maths students who brought the house down in Las Vegas casinos way back in 1993. IIT Bombay has official cards society , even my college had few games which everyone was master at.

Finally, at 6 am or so we started getting drowsy and fell on the bed welcoming the first day of the new year.
No resolution nothing !!

Modular Origami Part 3

I went to the American museum of natural history and there they had an origami tree, instantly I searched for nearest Barnes and Nobel and got origami paper and the result of 3 hour effort that evening was

This is the origami tree they had on display at museum 

There they had people from origami USA and I looked up at their website. Its like an expensive hobby in America it seems to me. The best thing is learn online and take help from people by joining a community.

Why Modular origami?

Modular origami is a stress buster for me.I can work and concentrate on it for hours and fully absorbed, away from the issues that trouble me. Its like a meditation.
Ha ha  !! I am talking like as if I am a pro in this art. Not at all, I am a neophyte but very eager to learn .

As far as the resources are concerned , on should look for cheap paper .Its not always available and an instruction book or video.
Tomako Fuse 's book  and Miyuki Kawamura 's Polyhedra origami is a nice place to begin with . Otherwise there are thousands of videos available on Youtube.

Modular Origami Part 2

I wanted to have my basics right, so I attended a 2 hour workshop at Japan foundation New Delhi.It was very basic one, valley folds, mountain folds, water bomb, square folds, triangle fold etc. 2 small kids and few super rich housewives were attending the class. I learned few things but I was itching to do something which is difficult to assemble and form. So , here started my tryst with modular origami.
I started with tricorne, jackson cube, icosahedral .

Modular Origami

For past one year I have been doing the paper folding. I was looking for some productive hobby which can inspire me and keep me absorbed for a long time. I came in contact with Arvind Gupta, he used to present origami on Doordarshan's Tarang (a daily TV show for children) and then Bhupesh told me about the origami sessions he was attending. I started with very easy models and usual single sheet origami such as boxes, animals, birds etc. Japanese cranes were I was particularly interested in . There is this interesting concept in rural Japan that a father gives 1000 paper cranes to his daughter on her wedding for a prosperous and happy life ahead.
I started folding in my free time and during the lunch breaks of office and there was a small zoo on my table. But few days later I saw that the cleaning guys removed them on weekend thinking of them as trash. This time I made them again and put them in my pedestal drawer.