I have always been thinking about the Indian epic,Ramayan.Why did Ravana,King of Lanka, have only TEN heads ? Why not Nine or Eleven ? Why only TEN ?
Why is Lord Vishnu manifested to the world as TEN avatars and everyone call the Lord as Das-avatar. Why was it not Eleven avatars,Gyarah-avatar, or Nine avatars,Nav-avatar ?
Why are there only TEN Commandments called as Decalogue ? Why was it not a Penta logue , Octa logue, Hexa Logue or Hende logue ? Why only TEN ?
Why are only TEN recitations of the Kuran considered uncanonical ? Why were there not Nine or Eleven ?
Why do we always talk about Top TEN movies, Top TEN songs , Top TEN rich men , Top TEN actors , Top TEN B'Schools , Top TEN Batsmen , Top TEN hot babes ?
Why do we have a public exam during the 10th grade ? Why only in 10th and not at 9th ?
Lord Ram used nine arrows to chop Nine heads of Ravana,King of Lanka, and then the Tenth head popped up. Had the Lord Ram used only eight arrows and realized that it was of no use chopping Ravana's head,may be today we would consider Ravana with only Nine heads ! Had Lord Ram used ten arrows and then realized the secret of Ravana's elixir of life, may be today we would consider the daemon Ravana posing with Eleven heads.
Why did the revelation about Ravana's elixir of life dawn upon only after the Tenth head popped out ?
When going through the TEN commandments two of those were really interesting.
1) Neither shall you commit adultery-extramarital sex.
2) Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife.
Don't you think both of them mean the same ? Can these two be clubbed together as "Neither shall you commit to illegal bedroom ventures" ?
Why were they broken down to two different commandments ? To make it up to TEN ?
According to the Bhagwad Purana, Lord Vishnu was considered to have appeared in Twenty two avatars but still only TEN were universally recognized ?
Why did my forefathers recognize only TEN ? Why did they leave out the remaining ?
In other words can I ask ," Why were only TEN avatars marketed ?
Is TEN a marketing figure ?
The numbers prior to ten are single digits and the ones after are double. Ten is the culmination of the numbers that come before it and beginning of a new order of number system. Furthermore numbering by tens is built in to our very anatomy, count up on your fingers and when they are all used, make a mark on a piece of paper and start from your first finger again. Soon you will have a number of marks, each representing 'two hands' worth. Thus in ancient times as in modern times ten is the start of a whole new order of numbers and the culmination of the numbers that come before it.
Thus wherever ten is found this completeness of order is also seen. Ten implies completeness of order, nothing lacking and nothing over. It signifies that the cycle is complete and that everything is in its proper order. Thus ten represents the perfection of divine order.
It is our natural, physical bodies with ten fingers and toes that make it "natural" to use a counting system based upon tens.
I think that just because we have ten fingers, the number ten might have a psychological effect on our brains and we find something ending in ten complete and orderly.
Does that raise a question as to whether all history is made up to market? I cannot answer that because my blog is only about number TEN!!!!
PS: The blog has nothing to hurt religious beliefs or has nothing to talk about atheism.Any such feelings is extremely regretted.The blog is only about the Number,TEN.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
R.I.P
I have seen an old person with a huge telephone book. He maintained the Names and contact information of all friends and acquaintances right from his college days. When someone in his telephone book died he used to strike out his/her name. It seemed to be fun for this old gentleman. It gave him a sense of power. He did not strike out the dead persons name immediately after returning back from the funeral but waited for six weeks.
He once told me, "if you are my friend, if your name is in my book, you will be allowed to stay in it only for six weeks after your funeral". He then gave an explanation,"It is not fair to strike out the name immediately, there should be some buffer or honey moon period and that is six weeks".
"What the hell? I am not your friend" was my answer.
Then I started thinking about how people react to death. Consider a circumstance where two people meet on a road. They see each other and say "Hi".
"Do you know? Harry died yesterday?"
"Harry? I saw him yesterday?"
Yes, did not help. He died anyway. Apparently a simple act of you seeing him did not slow his cancer down. In fact it might have made it more aggressive. You know, you could be responsible for Harry’s death. How can you live with yourself now?
There is another thing people normally say after death. This is normally said to the spouse of the dead. They say, “Listen, If there is anything I can do for help, anything, please do not hesitate to ask me”.
What the heck? People who say that are a bluff, they do not help. Are they going to resurrect the dead? When you come across a person like that, tell him,” Why don’t you paint my house “or if you do not like that person you can say,”The septic tank at home is overflowing”, Can you clean it up “.
Some people say this to family of the deceased,” he will always be in my thoughts”.
“What thoughts? Where? “ “Exactly where in your thoughts would he be”
All these things are just said by people for the sake of saying. Nobody questions what they say. It is become more of a formality to say such things.
I believe that people who really feel sad and unhappy about the departed do not say anything just for the sake of saying. They just cry inside in their hearts. They do not wait for the family of the deceased to ask for help instead they just help even before a request comes by.
He once told me, "if you are my friend, if your name is in my book, you will be allowed to stay in it only for six weeks after your funeral". He then gave an explanation,"It is not fair to strike out the name immediately, there should be some buffer or honey moon period and that is six weeks".
"What the hell? I am not your friend" was my answer.
Then I started thinking about how people react to death. Consider a circumstance where two people meet on a road. They see each other and say "Hi".
"Do you know? Harry died yesterday?"
"Harry? I saw him yesterday?"
Yes, did not help. He died anyway. Apparently a simple act of you seeing him did not slow his cancer down. In fact it might have made it more aggressive. You know, you could be responsible for Harry’s death. How can you live with yourself now?
There is another thing people normally say after death. This is normally said to the spouse of the dead. They say, “Listen, If there is anything I can do for help, anything, please do not hesitate to ask me”.
What the heck? People who say that are a bluff, they do not help. Are they going to resurrect the dead? When you come across a person like that, tell him,” Why don’t you paint my house “or if you do not like that person you can say,”The septic tank at home is overflowing”, Can you clean it up “.
Some people say this to family of the deceased,” he will always be in my thoughts”.
“What thoughts? Where? “ “Exactly where in your thoughts would he be”
All these things are just said by people for the sake of saying. Nobody questions what they say. It is become more of a formality to say such things.
I believe that people who really feel sad and unhappy about the departed do not say anything just for the sake of saying. They just cry inside in their hearts. They do not wait for the family of the deceased to ask for help instead they just help even before a request comes by.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Endeavour
May be it looked stupid, foolish and immature but sometimes you have to compromise to look so , just because you want to express something with an element of passion and surprise.
The path inside the compound looked straight and long. A Honda city rides slow after an approval call at the gates. The distance to drive was short but it looked long to the expectant guy who sat there in hush. There came the visitor parking and the adept driver parked with ease. The guy got down with a polythene bag in hand and started grinning at the visitor slip without his car plate noted. As he walked with strained legs, his mind keeps thinking about the evening he had planned.
Will a reservation at a private lounge lay there empty? Will a booking of a private guitarist and violinist go unused ? Will that bunch of specially ordered roses go unused? Will that rented car stay unused? He knew all these would go a waste if someone asked him to leave. Yet ,how can he not make that day ,the moment of their lives had that someone asked him to stay.
He walked along with burden on head until he sees a waving hand, a waving hand that lacked that expectant smile he had expected to see.
The day was swift with burden still weighing around. The talks and gestures wrote a silent note for him to leave. When he sensed that silent note ,his hands reached for the phone. With a shivering mind and a saddened heart he made calls to cancel all. To plan all, it took passionate calls and to cancel all it just took a phone call.
Then he left walking lonely with the gates closing on him for ever. Still he felt that his plan to make that day the moment of their lives, was not a waste because the passion with which he did it mattered a lot.
Perhaps, it was both of them who missed that monumental dinner at a private lounge with musicians flocking around. Who else would kneel down before you with a bunch of roses asking you to walk along? That Endeavour would remain a crossed one forever.
The path inside the compound looked straight and long. A Honda city rides slow after an approval call at the gates. The distance to drive was short but it looked long to the expectant guy who sat there in hush. There came the visitor parking and the adept driver parked with ease. The guy got down with a polythene bag in hand and started grinning at the visitor slip without his car plate noted. As he walked with strained legs, his mind keeps thinking about the evening he had planned.
Will a reservation at a private lounge lay there empty? Will a booking of a private guitarist and violinist go unused ? Will that bunch of specially ordered roses go unused? Will that rented car stay unused? He knew all these would go a waste if someone asked him to leave. Yet ,how can he not make that day ,the moment of their lives had that someone asked him to stay.
He walked along with burden on head until he sees a waving hand, a waving hand that lacked that expectant smile he had expected to see.
The day was swift with burden still weighing around. The talks and gestures wrote a silent note for him to leave. When he sensed that silent note ,his hands reached for the phone. With a shivering mind and a saddened heart he made calls to cancel all. To plan all, it took passionate calls and to cancel all it just took a phone call.
Then he left walking lonely with the gates closing on him for ever. Still he felt that his plan to make that day the moment of their lives, was not a waste because the passion with which he did it mattered a lot.
Perhaps, it was both of them who missed that monumental dinner at a private lounge with musicians flocking around. Who else would kneel down before you with a bunch of roses asking you to walk along? That Endeavour would remain a crossed one forever.
Monday, March 1, 2010
An extra-ordinary gentleman
This incident happened a decade back when I was in my first year of college. I was leading a flood relief campaign on behalf of my college. The aim of the campaign was to collect fund from the local residents and send it over to a place called “Orissa” to help people effected by floods.
On that particular day I had stepped onto about 50 houses, with a banner and a box, asking for donations. At last I stepped into a locality where poor people lived, just for the sake of covering an entire region as part of the campaign. An aged person started running towards me after looking at the banners of the campaign. He escorted me to his so called home which was nothing but a thatched roof supported by four mud walls. He leaned towards a small, so called, shelf and picked a kitty box. A kitty box was something I used to save money when I was a kid. The old man broke the kitty box and gave all that money as donation.
I do not even know the name of that old man but I will never forget the smile on his face when he broke that kitty box. He had a heart to donate his entire life savings to help those people of his nation who were suffering. Donating thousand bucks when you have a bank balance of a million is not extra-ordinary but donating all of one’s life’s savings was indeed extra-ordinary. He is not a figure in arts, literature, politics or business but he is the figure I most admire and will keep admiring for the rest of my life.
That was the day my thought process about charity changed. It does not matter how much you contribute but the intention to contribute matters.
On that particular day I had stepped onto about 50 houses, with a banner and a box, asking for donations. At last I stepped into a locality where poor people lived, just for the sake of covering an entire region as part of the campaign. An aged person started running towards me after looking at the banners of the campaign. He escorted me to his so called home which was nothing but a thatched roof supported by four mud walls. He leaned towards a small, so called, shelf and picked a kitty box. A kitty box was something I used to save money when I was a kid. The old man broke the kitty box and gave all that money as donation.
I do not even know the name of that old man but I will never forget the smile on his face when he broke that kitty box. He had a heart to donate his entire life savings to help those people of his nation who were suffering. Donating thousand bucks when you have a bank balance of a million is not extra-ordinary but donating all of one’s life’s savings was indeed extra-ordinary. He is not a figure in arts, literature, politics or business but he is the figure I most admire and will keep admiring for the rest of my life.
That was the day my thought process about charity changed. It does not matter how much you contribute but the intention to contribute matters.
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