Everyday Geeta

December 6, 2013 Readers of this blog know of my keen interest in role models (clicking on this link will take you to all the role models I have posted on in this blog). Here is yet another hero, Jadav “Molai” Payeng who planted a 1,360 acre forest pretty much by himself. Quote from the original story in the Times of India: It all started way back in 1979 when floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar. One day, after the waters had receded, Payeng , only 16 then, found the place dotted with the dead reptiles. That was the turning point of his life. "The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage . I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested," says Payeng, now 47. Leaving his education and home...

December 3, 2013 Some of my previous posts have addressed the contemporary challenge of finding solitude . Here is Abha Dawesar in a recent Ted Talk . Every digital landmark is an invitation to leave what you are doing now to go somewhere else and do something else. Are you reading an interview by an author? Why not buy his book? Tweet it. Share it. Like it. Find other books exactly like his. Find other people reading those books. Travel can be liberating, but when it is incessant, we become permanent exiles without repose. Choice is freedom, but not when it's constantly for its own sake. Abha encapsulates how even a mundane activity like reading in the digital context is an invitation to distraction. A distracted mind, hates solitude. Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post