Atma Soundaryam

Nina Davuluri has been adjudged the Miss America, few days back. Anyone, who saw the picture of crowning her, in the newspapers next day, would not have believed that the woman, who is not at all looking beautiful, was adjudged the Miss America. I even heard people commenting that how come this girl came out winner, when there are so many beautiful women are in the fray. The judges, while adjudicating, commented that beauty of the heart or "Atma Soundarya" is greater than the physical beauty.

As a common man, I believe, this is a lesson we all have to learn, particularly younger generations of today. The market size of the Indian Cosmetic Industry is estimated to be around 10,000 crores and is likely to touch 15,000 crores by 2014. Today everyone is conscious of their physical beauty and are not hesitating to spend any amount of money for maintaining that. I keep hearing that what they have been saying in advertisements is all lies and the product doesn't give any result. yet they continue to buy those products, which they believe have not been useful in enhancing their beauty. But no effort is being made to increase the beauty of their heart or "Atma Soundarya", which can be attained without spending any money, which can even win them the crown of Miss America.

Attaining Atma Soundarya, doen't necessarily requires praying God, though it is also a way. Purity of thought, positive thinking, respect towards others, not intending any harm to others, a little bit of meditation and clear and firm eye on your goal are some of the things that can evolve and improve Atma Soundarya and will not involve any expenditure. Moreover, physical beauty may give glow to your face, but Atma Soundarya brings grace to your personality, which is eternal and can even get the Miss America crown for a Non-American.

Strength & Weakness

All through our academic years and later in all the books on personality development or speeches on that subject, we often hear or read that one solution to improve your personality and become a succeessful person is to understand your strengths and weaknesses, try to work on improving your strong points and work on correcting your weaknesses. This is true either for a person, family, organisation, society or the country as a whole. Like all other things in our life, it is a good solution in theory and the story on the practical life is totally different.

The strength of our country is Agriculture and weakness is Crude oil. In order to make our country self sufficient and improve the quality of the life of its citizens, those who are ruling our country should try to improve the quality and quantity of agriculture. On the otherside we should try to reduce and discourage the usage of the petro products. But what happens in reality is exactly reverse. Agriculture is fast becoming the least preferred profession and many farmers are turning out to be daily labourers. And demand for the petro products is growing unabated, with more and more vehicles rolling out on to the road everyday.

"Are we really trying to make our country self sufficient?" is the question, as a stupid common man, I am unable to answer.

Crude Reality

I went to a toy shop to buy a gift for my friend's daughter on her birthday. There, while searching for the right gift, I overheard the discussion between a parent and his eight year old son, who also came to buy a gift for the young boy's birthday. Father wanted to buy a helicopter worth Rs.200/- and the son also wanted a helicopter but that can fly with remote control, which will cost Rs.2,150/-. Father tried to convince the boy to buy Rs.200/- helicopter but son is interested only in the one that can fly. This went on for few minutes and I was listening. Then father explained to the son that buying helicopter with Rs.2,150/- is way beyond his capacity. If he has to buy that one, he will have to borrow money from someone and repay them every month with some interest, which will increase the burden and make less money available to the family for few months. They will have to cut some expenses, including the boy's pocket money. Instead if they buy the helicopter with Rs.200/- now, then they can save money, saved money grows over time and over a period of time they will be able to buy the helicopter that can fly with remote control and they can even buy a real helicopter, that the boy can fly. The son immediately accepted to buy a smaller helicopter than the one father wanted to buy. I don't know how much the boy understood or what appealed to him, still father accomplished the task.

When a head of the family can think that way, I really don't understand why the heads of the country don't. For many years, the major hindrance the country is facing is Crude Oil, and its the one thing that is derailing our economy year after year, decelarating the growth rate. I am not an economist, statistician or politician, but just a common man. I read in newspapers the efforts and time spent by the Prime Minister and his colleagues in keeping the prices of Petrol, Diesel, Gas or kerosene down . Opposition parties continuously indulge in criticising the government for it's failure to maintain the growth rate or cry foul when there is a price hike. But no where I see an effort from anyone to acknowledge the fact that Oil is one commodity that our country can't afford to buy as much as we want or try and convince people that reduced consumption will lead to saving precious foreign exchange that will ultimately improve growth rate. As a common man, I feel reduction in the consumption of oil is the only solution to this humungous problem. A difficult task yes, but not impossible. And if we are able to reduce the consumption by at least 1%, it shall be a great achievement. I don't know when our leaders will get this.

As for me, I have decided to stop using my vehicle for one day in a week. Not that it's going to make any difference to the country, but what else can I do. As already told you, I am just a common man, a stupid common man.