It can travel over ice...land...water...almost any surface...

It can travel over ice...

It can travel over land...

It can travel over water...

It can travel over almost any surface...

It can seamlessly travel from one type of surface to another...

So I spotted this hovercraft at the beach. While I knew this craft is called a hovercraft, I wasn't entirely sure why it is called so.

Turns out, a hovercraft, also known as an air-cushion vehicle or ACV, is an amphibious craft capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, and other surfaces. Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the hull, or air cushion, that is slightly above atmospheric pressure. The pressure difference between the higher pressure air below the hull and lower pressure ambient air above it produces lift, which causes the hull to float above the running surface. [ Source: Wikipedia ]

Which essentially means that this thing practically moves by floating on air, flying, in a way, irrespective of the surface area it is moving on.

One part boat, one part airplane and one part helicopter. In fact, a hovercraft is operated by a pilot more like an aircraft than a captain as a marine vessel.

Now only if we could remotely be as versatile as this magnificent craft by:

- performing uniformly across all kinds of pressures and situations.

- being uniform in our mindset while evaluating every person and situation we come across.

- keeping our cool & staying rational at all times irrespective of the situation at hand.

- avoiding/minimizing friction as we move through different phases of our relationships, career and life.

While all of this seems nearly impossible, in challenging times perhaps, we can borrow a leaf from the hovercraft's book, by trying to adapt to the surroundings, the way it does when it seamlessly moves from one surface type to another. A hovercraft is extremely noisy, so is our mind, at times, but till the time it helps us float/glide through with minimal friction against our surroundings/principles, the noisy ride might just be worth it.

Onwards and upwards.

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Albinism Awareness Day

 When one is looking at a group of tigers and a white tiger appears, one might think.....

"Wow!! How magnificent!!"



When one is looking at a flock of pigeons and one spots a white pigeon, one might think....

"Isn't it so beautiful?"



When one is in the middle of a bunch of people and one spots someone with albinism, one might think....

"Oh, they have a case of albinism"

Perhaps the tiger, pigeon & person going through albinism wish to be seen in the same gaze as its peers would be seen in...The way we look at and treat the exact same phenomenon differently across different species/situations/seniority/societal class is how complex we humans are...

Btw, June 13 is celebrated as International Albinism Awareness Day, something that I am sure most of us weren't aware of. I just found out too.

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The door of vulnerability.

 The door of vulnerability.

The wall that you build around yourself may be very strong and magnificent, yet you will always need to build a door of vulnerability, to let people in from time to time, to open yourself to them without hesitation and to let you explore the world beyond those stellar walls... else it's you and your magnificent self all alone behind the magnificent wall.

The door is probably the weakest structure in any wall/fort - yet, without it, the fort is cut out from the rest of the world. The door is the most vulnerable, yet, the most powerful.

It was one influential paaji (elder brother in Punjabi) from Singapore that got me thinking over it... am yet to finish building mine.

Make that door if you haven't. Start opening it a bit more often if you already have.

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Disability Lies In The Eyes Of The Beholder

 "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder"

...they say.. what about disability?

So I see this 3 legged dog almost daily on my morning jogs at the beach. The first day I saw him, I was amazed to see how he was jumping all around and it's tail wagging away in merry.

Today when I saw him I thought of clicking a picture. But I saw it was too close to some lady so I kept jogging. On my way back I spotted it again but I saw it was still walking behind the same lady. Thats when it struck me he is probably with the lady. So I approached her and asked if he is with her... "it's a she" she said smiling... ( and there, I thought.. no matter how much I try to be gender neutral in my talks and words there are still times I fail..)

So I told her how inspiring her dog was. Thats when she said "Her name is Sheeba. She is 13 years old". "I love her spirit I must say" I said... "The doctors say it's her spirit that has got her so far. She has arthritis and has a spinal disease yet she is going strong. We've been coming at the beach for the last 10 years" she added.

After I bid them good bye I pondered about the term "Persons With Disabilities" (PWD). I guess it's a globally acceptable term. But a term which reminds them of a disability surely can't be best option. How about "Persons With Special Abilities"? This dog is good at doing things on 3 limbs which dogs with 4 limbs might not be. She has got a grit way way more than them. Same applies with people isn't it? People with special abilities are thriving at what they do coz they have special abilities that helps them thrive. And if they aren't thriving then it is probably us "normal" people that are a failure. We haven't supported them enough.

Coming back to Sheeba, the dog, She was so inspiring that I felt like petting her - but I have a mild case of Cynophobia (fear of dogs) I think so I try and stay away from them. Next time (probably tomorrow) if I am lucky enough to meet her, I will try and pet her if Neha is fine with it t

oo.

Neha is the lady I mentioned here and I asked her if I can take a picture and write about it if she was okay with it. "I'll tag you, if you wish on LinkedIn/IG/FB when I write about it" I told her.

"I ain't on any of the social media platforms..." is how she dropped the mic as I left from there, with my jaws wide open (in my mind).

Disability Lies In The Eyes Of The Beholder.

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"....did I say I quit? No, "quit" is too strong a term... I am taking an indefinite break... a pause...."

 "....did I say I quit? No, "quit" is too strong a term... I am taking an indefinite break... a pause...."

...said a friend, when we happened to connect with each other and I jokingly asked her if she still drank like a fish, just as she used to once upon a time.

This was around a time when I was wasting a lot of time behind something... something I knew I needed to stop wasting time on and the gateway to that thing was a simple app on my phone. One of my friends suggested I just uninstall the app and that should help me avoid it. It was a good suggestion. It was around that time that I happened to bump into this lady.

"What do you mean?" I asked, curiously.

"You see, it is I who control the alcohol intake now and not the other way round. I need not "quit" because I still like it, I just need to decide when I need to stay away from it and when not to. I haven't had a drop of it in the last one year or so but that doesn't mean I have quit. I have taken a break. A pause. I can go back to it in moderation whenever I wish to."

What she said just hit me like a bolt of lightning. I thought about the challenge I was facing then. I knew I was good at this thing but I had to either focus on getting better with discipline or just quit. Quitting was becoming a bit difficult. So I decided I needed to take a break. A one week break to think over it. The break eventually extended to a month and then I decided I don't want to define the length of the break. Let it be indefinite. If in future I feel like going back to it, why not! But I haven't quit yet.

The app stays on my phone. I no longer tap on it. It stays there very much in my easily accesible apps page. But I haven't uninstalled it. I control the app and the app doesn't control me now. But it doesn't mean I will never open it in my life again. Sometimes it's not always about quitting.

Yes, if it's a vice that you must quit - then you must quit. This anecdote is not to discourage people who have successfully quit things like smoking or other forms of substance abuse. This is about the other things in life which aren't bad - but excess of it can be bad if they aren't giving you returns worthy of your time and efforts.

A pause. A break. Easier to execute than asking your mind to quit for certain situations. For all you know, it could be as good as giving up on it. But "quit" is too strong a term, at times.

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"Why do we need to go on this small and dirty boat to reach to the other one....?"

 "Why do we need to go on this small and dirty boat to reach to the other one....?"

...asked my kid a couple of weeks back when we were in Goa. We were going for parasailing which needed us to be on a bigger boat the chute was on. So I explained how the big boat cannot come to the shore else it will get stuck in the sand and how these small boats cannot go in the deep sea as they aren't equipped to sail deeper in the sea...

A dinghy is often used to go from the shore to a big boat and vice versa. It is also called a tender—because it tends to the needs of the larger craft. Moderately sized recreational boats call their tenders dinghies. [Source: Marineinsights]

A few mins back I just saw another dinghy at the beach (Sorry the picture ain't clear). The larger boat can boast of daily deep explorations yet cannot sail back to the shore and the small dinghy will never be able to go on the deep sea but gets its daily dose of the sea and gets back home to the shore. Yet the dinghy may ponder how it must be like to go deeper in the seas and perhaps envy the larger boat. In turn, the larger boat may be used to the daily explorations of the deep sea and might ponder how the shore feels like - coz even when not in use, it'll be anchored and floating over the waves all through day and night all by itself. And without the dinghy, no one will ever be able to use it.

Luckily we get to select what area of our life we want to be a larger boat in and what area we prefer to be a dinghy in. We rely on dinghies for several things in our lives yet we are dinghies in the larger scheme of things, tending to larger boats... and even the largest of boats might end up envying the sea which has limitless possibilities.

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"..that's it... let's head back home..."

 "..that's it... let's head back home..." was the first thought that struck my mind...

A kilometer into the jog at the beach and my shoe gave up on me...

I stopped in my tracks, dejected, as I wasn't keen to terminate the jog so abruptly. I looked at the calm sea in front of me and told myself "the shoes aid the jogging, they aren't absolutely required for the activity. Let's do it without the shoes today. And this is the beach! People walk here barefoot all the time, what do you need the shoes for?"

I could probably keep the shoes at the coconut vendor's cart and continue with my jog...but...the vendor was a kilometer away so I picked up the shoes in my hand and started walking towards his cart...

"but why aren't we jogging?" I asked myself..."ofcourse you can't jog with your shoes in your hand! You'd look like a clown!" I shot back... "Are you jogging for yourself or for the world to see how great you look when you jog?" ... and so there I was... jogging with my shoes in one hand... a couple of passing folks looked at me in amusement while I was at it, but in a few moments I was at the coconut vendor's cart. I requested him to let me keep my shoes at his cart and continued on my jog with just my socks on....

1. So many small perceived problems can be solved with much ease, only if we can question ourselves.

2. Thinking about what others think about us won't get us far.

3. Building relationships help. Atleast I could complete the rest of the jog with my hands free.

4. Malaiwala nariyal paani rocks.

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