C. Vikram Surya

Ten years later, it's no different in India ...

2010-02-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

Back at the end of the dotcom bubble in early November 2000, I was in Bangalore for the much-touted IT.com conference. This was a rather impressive, enormous display of cutting-edge technology from around India and the world with keynotes by global leaders in technology and thousands of companies presenting and tens of thousands attending. But amidst all the fanfare and futurism, to me the most striking thing about it were the six to nine year-old girls who swept up all the glossy postcards and cups of cappuccino the visitors dropped on the floor. While there, I met the now-late Daniel, and his then-pregnant wife Mariane, Pearl at that conference, and, in a videotaped interview,I told him that the innovation most needed in India was to focus its brainpower on meeting its own basic needs -- like how to educate its urban slum-dwelling children, rather than putting them to work helping showcase innovations they'd likely never use.

Well, now it's 10 years later, and, when it comes to this painful irony of using child labor to showcase its development, India is no different. The Commonwealth Games are coming to Delhi in October, intended to be another impressive display for the world, but behind the scenes, children are doing heavy lifting. This photo-essay entitled 'Bricks for Bread and Milk' in Foreign Policy magazine is worth each click. Above is one picture from it. She's carrying a brick that will be part of Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. I wonder what Panditji would think looking down on this modern India which he helped birth.

Lessons of 2009

2010-01-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

It was an interesting year for me. I got engaged and unengaged. The latter being the hardest thing I'd ever gone through, and I've been through my share of tough things. I also began teaching yoga, and formally working toward world peace on a daily basis. I'm grateful to have made it through, and to have re-connected through each of these experiences with my own sense of purpose and meaning, to re-affirm that pain shared is pain lessened. And that lessons shared are lessons learned.

1. No single relationship can completely fulfill me. My fulfillment plays out through my relationships with myself, with the entire community of people in my life, and with my God -- all of whom will be with me until my last breath. I, my God, and the people in my community may change but my relationships with each will persist to my last breath. I can only act with the experience and hope I have gained on my path toward my fulfillment. However, its realization is out of my hands. When it comes, it comes, and when it goes, it goes. Pressing forward on the journey is all I can ever do.

2. However, pressing toward trying to fulfill myself through any one thing -- whether a person, an idea or ideology, a substance or behavior -- is powerful, subtle and insistent force in me and in many people. I have long known this about myself, and been vigilant of it daily, and yet that cycle arose again. A strong, clear, convicted sense of self and of the importance of balancing all the relationships in my life toward my fulfillment is the antidote. I have to take this antidote in every situation in which I feel that pull toward a 'fixed idea' that will 'fix' me or everything.

3. Friends are deeply important to my survival and happiness. They are the people to whom I owe nothing, and who owe me nothing, but we, of our own free choice, give gratefully of ourselves to each other. The time, empathy, honesty, affirmation, and strength I get and that I am able to give is the very stuff of life. May I also ever be a friend to myself.

4. 'We work that we may know the seasons.' So writes Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet. Work, being of service to others, is my anchor, to the Earth and to the Sun, and to humanity. Whatever storm may come, I am always held by the very fact of work, of service to others. This remembrance of the needs of others restores my perspective, puts whatever wounds or challenges I face, into their right context, as but one small bit of a much grander flow.

5. In every crisis lies the opportunity for transformation into the being for whom it is not a crisis, but a matter of course. If I can allow healing of whatever karma it is that causes me to view the situation as a crisis, it ceases to be one.

6. I may want a life partner, but do not need one. I can be open to the possibility, but I must be aware that in seeking it out, it is possible, in a deep but subtle way, to close myself off to the beautiful fullness of the present moment. Let me ever remember to be here now, and allow that to make possible futures increasingly obvious.

7. I love teaching. I am a teacher. I love learning. I am a learner. For myself. But I am only ever, at best, a guide to others, a guide to remembrance of their own inner teacher and student. Above all else, guides exemplify. Formal instruction or direction, only if invited and only if necessary, can be but one tool of such remembrance. However, it must be used sparingly, as there is a great danger in it of putting the student's own inner teacher and learner to sleep -- putting the application or improvement of a faculty or skill at odds with the greater development or realization of the Self.

9. Highly skilled and gifted people can be quite foolish or confused, as much as anyone can. Oftentimes moreso, because they may mistake their skill or gift for wisdom and clarity, and others who do the same may often encourage them in this mistake. So be discerning in choosing one's guides, teachers, and examples. Above all else, look for people with the humility to be aware of, and in contact with, their own fallibility.

10. Elegant as it may seem, lists do not have to be ten items long. But while we're at it, I suppose I also learned that I can keep writing even after a longish absence, that consistency and persistence are not the same, that both are good, and even one is far better than none.

I end with a note of reverence and gratitude to my late father. These are his feet.

Reflections on 2008

2009-01-04T15:48:00.001-08:00

It was a year of grace for me. I was blessed in so many ways:

1. I met Amma.
2. I asked her for a mantra, and she gave one.
3. I met many beautiful, self-realizing souls.
4. I invited many into my life, and they came and have stayed.
5. Space and the means for foundational change opened.
6. I found a new peace and confidence.
7. All my material needs were met.
8. Everyone close to me who I love has been in good health.
9. America seems to have made a turn for the better.
10. I am looking forward to 2009 and the years beyond with great, but reasonable, hopes.

Benjamin Button

2009-01-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

Long. Slow. Predictable. Not so profound. Characters just not that deep or interesting. The hero is lacking in courage. It's based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, and we have another Daisy as the object of longing. Skip it or save for DVD.

Slumdog Millionaire

2008-12-20T21:28:00.001-08:00

Entertaining film. Official site is here. Story about a kid from Mumbai slums on the Indian Who Wants to Be a Millionaire show. A little predictable perhaps but an interesting depiction of modern slum life -- poverty, private security, communal violence, orphan life, prostitution, gangsters, beggars, the police, hoodwinking tourists, finding and losing family, rich-poor relations, poor-middle-class relations, call centers and the global economy, television and celebrity. Overall, it felt honest and realistic, and even purposeful. Through a love story, it entertains and informs about a life not often seen on screen in the West or even in India. For this, and its soundtrack featuring MIA, it's worthwhile.