Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Intuition/Imagination for Mint Lounge
Leap before you think Before he began Apple, Steve Jobs spent seven months in India, something that is described in his biography by Walter Isaacson. In it, Jobs talks poetically about the difference between intellect and intuition. “The people in the Indian countryside do not use their intellect like we do,” he said. “They use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect in my opinion.” Jobs was not a fan of India. If he identified intuition as the one Indian [...]
Living Wills and how you wish to die. For Quartz
I first read about this in the Deccan Herald newspaper. I saw the name Periyakoil (which is a Tamilian name). That got me intrigued about the lady behind the name and so this article began. For Quartz It is time for Americans to start thinking about how they wish to die Shoba Narayan July 04, 2014 The default, if unconscious assumption when you fall ill and are admitted into a hospital is that the doctors will give you the best possible care—that they would do unto you what they would want to have done to themselves. We’d like to think [...]
Arshia Sattar/Storytelling
What a treat it was to discuss Sanskrit, storytelling, and cultures with Arshia Sattar. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/157268039" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]
Martial Arts
I have been listening to a fascinating podcast called "the military history podcast." I am not a military buff but this one is interesting because it links military things and objects to other aspects of life. When it comes to the martial arts, it is best to let experts take the fall. Given the civilised, urban environments that most of us live in, you would think that martial arts would be redundant. After all, it is not as if we walk on the streets deflecting attacks everyday. And yet, the world is obsessed with martial arts. They are thriving, with [...]
Choose pleasure over productivity
Something that I've been debating about with very productive friends
For British Airways magazine on Hyderabad
Andhra Thali, bangles, palaces, shopping. Things to do in this syncretic city.
Yoga and Willpower
I restarted yoga lessons. My teacher is very good, but very very busy!!! Hope his timings and mine can work out long term. Inspired by my lessons..... Can yoga improve your willpower? In an ideal world, stilettos would have massager-inserts in them; French fries would remove the toxins from your body and make your waistline shrink; and everyone would have the willpower to do whatever they wanted to accomplish. But reality, sadly, is a little different. Social psychology points to four characteristics that lead to success: resilience, willpower, focus and imagination. In an outlandish and somewhat brilliant twist, all four [...]
The Confidence Conundrum
still love the line: "confidence is turning thoughts into action." The confidence conundrum and what we can do about it Shoba Narayan June 17, 2014 Updated: June 17, 2014 18:12:00 One of the things I announce in a public forum, often just for effect, is that my lifelong dream is to be a standup comic. It produces the desired effect. Everybody laughs. If you saw me, you would know why. I don’t look funny, I don’t talk funny. In fact, I am pretty much galactically unfunny. It feels pathetic to admit this, but announcing this desire to be a comic [...]
Temperament versus efficiency
After a nice few weeks of vacation, back to writing the column. The tug-of-war between ‘nice’ and ‘competent’ My grandparents had four sons and one daughter: my mother. My grandmother’s favourite son was her eldest. He had a sweet word for everyone; sent my grandmother photos from faraway England with lines of Tamil poetry as captions; and was ever-smiling. Her third son lived in the same town as she did. He was the one she called when she needed to go to the doctor, have a piece of furniture moved, or speak to her tenants about rent increases. He was [...]