Mindfulness

I am into this ‘mindfulness’ fad(?). Mindfulness , I believe, has helped me to get over difficult situations.Good number of books and blogs are already there on the topic.I have tried to practice it, though not consistently.When I just observe the thoughts that run in my mind and not judge those thoughts, that is mindfulness for me.It is liberating.It is not a very easy thing to do.I have followed ‘mindfulness’ through Jon Kabat-Zinn’s videos.

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Random thoughts caused by a language

In popular Malayalam folklore Naranathu Bharanthan (‘The Madman of Naranam‘) used to spend considerable amount of his energy and time rolling heavy stones high up a hill.Reaching on the top he would invariably let the stone fall back. This futile exercise was at the time acknowledged as an act of insanity by the worldly ones ,though later generation,it is said to have found out some philosophical significance in this act.

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A considerable time and resource are spend on educating the future generation of this country in English.Those who aspire to move upward in social class are advised by some new age business leaders to take on English at a very young age, though policy makers and linguists may have different opinion on this matter. Nobody may have difference of opinion in accepting that English grammar is the stupidest thing which a child can acquire.After a certain age when logical faculties are developed it will be difficult to implant some senseless syntax system in mind unless one is ready to compromise his rational mind for the sake of worldly gains. The same grammar which religiously teaches us to use an ‘s’ at the end of the verb of third person singular noun(He knows)–who knows for what weird logic–scorns at anyone who uses redundancies like ‘reply back’!

For a while, I am attempting cryptic crossword that comes with THE HINDU newspaper.The good thing is that you don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge to attempt cryptic crosswords.The bad thing is that most of the grids will be empty even after I put my pen back in my pocket.It is an engaging time pass if you already have no such obsessions to worry about.If you are not the one who is already doing,enjoying, or hating some ‘Times’ or ‘The Daily Mail’ Crosswords then there are a lot of tips available in the internet that is worth checking.Gone are the days when only a privileged group could possess the knowledge in de-crypting such crosswords.Start doing the crosswords set by Sankalk in The Hindu.

Google search told me that as early as 18th century ,Benjamin Franklin one of the key founding fathers of United States, attempted spelling reforms but didn’t succeed.Except for the cryptic-crossword publishing industry why should we need this type of spellings at all.It should be particularly annoying in places where English is not the mother tongue.So much of time and resource are spent on teaching children how to spell ‘superintendent’, ‘believe’, ‘receive’ etc.So much time is then again spent on teaching children that ‘h’ is silent for honour hour etc.What for?Can’t they simply write it the way they sound.Also a new industry of translating old ‘spelling English’ to ‘phonetic English’ will thrive and will keep so many jobless adults engaged in some work while children can use their time for something creative.A perceptive entrepreneur may find another possibility of a market, in teaching old English pundits the ways of new phonetic English.Ofcourse e-publishing and related software industries will also flourish.

The QWERTY keyboard is another standardization that may have a historical explanation but not a logical one (on why the keyboard is still like that).
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Questions like why should one wish to disturb the ways of the world or why should we do crosswords may pop-up in your mind.

Naranathu Bhranthan gives me a vicious grin from the back of my mind.

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