Bored or Inspired? Lets take responsibility for our own inspiration.

My 88 year old ‘Daadi’ (paternal grandmother) is my inspiration. She has a fixed routine of waking up, some simple exercises, her meditation and prayers, feeding the fish, getting ready and then breakfast. She keeps herself ever busy making some yummy achaars (pickles), halwa, sandesh and so on (for me). She is extremely good for my self-esteem. No matter what I do, I will always be too thin in her eyes!

Now, she has some very interesting perspectives to life. One of those days, jokingly, I asked her about her life as a little girl. I asked her what they used to do in those days when little kids got bored.

Her reply surprised me. ‘Bored? What’s that? In our days there was no such concept. We never got bored. We were always busy playing, studying, listening to stories, telling stories, helping our parents, etc.’ It was indeed a revelation to me that the concept of being ‘bored’ might be a new age phenomenon. Could it actually be possible that it simply did not exist until recently?

Today we have TV, mobiles, video games, internet, and so much more. Yet these words ‘I’m bored’ seem to find their way into lives every now and then. Sometimes I’m bored with the food cooked at home and so I want to go out for ‘fine dining’. Husbands wives get bored of each other (we are not one of them!). We get bored with our studies, our work and sometime our family members. Children get bored of their toys. We even get bored of our hairstyles. We live in a time where we thrive on thrills. The routine is boring. I am no exception.

Another time I asked her what is the secret of living happily. Pat came the answer. ‘Take care of your health, be a good person, and have faith in God.’ Thats all. Simple. So simple that my mind could not make sense of it. No formula, no tricks, no trade-off’s, none of the right ingredients to make a good theory. Too simple. Simplicity doesn’t sell! Our modern mind needs some complications to be able to attach value to things.

The last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the things my grandmother told me. I tried putting a few thoughts together and I have come to a conclusion. I concluded that that kind of simplicity is no longer possible in today’s times. But inspiration is.

My grandmother laid great emphasis on ‘take care of your health’. Below 40 years of age, it doesn’t even ever strike us that health may just one one of the most important factors in our control (at least partially) about our own life. We just live each day as it comes. But around the turn of 40, it seems to started gaining importance and making sense.

I believe apart from taking care of our physical health, it has become at least as important to take care of our mental and emotional health.

I believe that it is imperative for us to start taking full responsibility of our own inspiration. Just as we go to school to learn and develop our intellect; just as we do sports and exercise to develop our physical abilities, we must also to do some things to ensure that we are regularly and adequately inspired.

Only then will we be beyond ‘bored’. Only then will overcome the constantly ‘restlessness’ that we so often feel with our lives. Inspiration is a state of mind which makes dreams seem doable, obstacles seem surmountable, and challenges seem like like opportunities wearing fancy dresses. When we are inspired we can learn how to make a website in one night, or how to cook a Dum Biyani by speaking to a friend’s mother on the phone. When we are inspired, we can stretch ourselves, and do things that otherwise we would have cribbed endlessly about.

Inspired people are the ones who create the products, technologies, companies and movements that change the world.

So what do you say friends, lets start taking responsibility for our own Inspiration, shall we?

With Loads of Love

Aditya.


P.S.

Here are some photos of the process for making ‘dhooyin' (smoked) roasted pepper salad and cabbage rate, to keep you feeling inspired :-)



1. Roast the pepper in the oven

2. Slice some ginger

3. Peel the peppers carefully

4. Heat a piece of coal until red hot

5. Put the coal into a bowl with the peppers, ginger along with some lemon and salt. Put a few drops of ghee on the coal and close it with a lid. Allow is to stand and soak in the smoke for a few minutes.

6. And there you go!


Ill let you figure out the boiled cabbage salad for yourself! Find some inspiration and create your own recipe :-)