I consider myself fortunate to be born and brought up in the yoga capital of the world — Rishikesh, U.P., now in Uttarakhand — and having spent first 26 years of my life at that beautiful place. In fact, whatever you see in me, whether good or bad, belongs to Rishikesh. Of course, Ahmedabad and Kanpur did provide their valuable contribution in providing further knowledge and experiences, and also honed up my skills. For example, though I had been playing harmonica, performing yoga and making paintings ever since my childhood, it was only in Ahmedabad that I took formal lessons in harmonica, joined yoga classes (ironically!), learnt Bengali and Gujarati from my colleagues and started learning Russian. Living in Ahmedabad was the first time I had lived outside the Hindi culture. At Kanpur, I learnt German and French. However, it was only in Rishikesh that the initial impetus was provided and the spark to pursue lifelong learning was ignited. Continue reading
Winds From The Foothills
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From email to social media to WhatsApp, technology-driven social communication has come a long way and that too in less than three decades. And it is further bound to grow and transform itself. Not only there is transformation in this mode of communication itself, but the basic characteristics of human relationship and communication has also changed. 
Every time I go to the book store, my eyes fall on one particular book. I don’t know what that book is about as I have never opened it. However, I like the title of that book, which probably summarizes its message — Don’t Say Yes, When You Want To Say No (by Herbert Fensterheim and Jean Baer). That is a very strong and direct message, and mostly that is the advice most of us require most of the time. In fact, I would say that most of the miseries in our lives are due to the inability to say ‘no‘, though that is the answer we would like to give. 
When at home, I used to lie on the terrace at night and look at the stars, plenty of stars. Light breeze from all directions stroked my cheeks, played with my hair. Oh! What a wonderful feeling! . . . a sense of expanse, no barriers, no constraints. 
Pradyot 