Shaving Daily

SHAVING DAILY

Today, in the morning I was trying to practice conscious living while in the bathroom. I was doing all my toilet tasks in a slow deliberate manner and trying to enjoy all the activities. These activities are shaving my beard, brushing my teeth and taking a bath.

All these activities are part of my daily routine and have become almost a second nature for me. In the mornings, I am generally rushed for time as I have to reach my office early. So, I carry out these activities without giving any thought and as fast as possible. My wife is always at hand to remind me to hurry up as I may get late for the office. She is concerned because she knows that I will forgo my breakfast to make up time whenever I am late. She knows that missing breakfast is bad for my health may lead to my suffering from diabetes in the long run.

I have become an expert in shaving my beard in shortest possible time without any nicks and cuts. I am proud of my expertise in this field as after practicing for almost a quarter of a century I can do this task with my eyes closed, without the use of a mirror or without any light to see.

But today it was altogether a different matter. I was on leave and thus not required to rush to the office. I had read an article on conscious living and was trying to feel and enjoy all my activities. Today, even my wife had allowed me time to enjoy myself in the washroom after I agreed to use the bathroom in the guest room of our house thus not hindering her freedom in any manner. As we had been invited to a brunch by our neighbours, she was not under any pressure to finish her task of serving me the breakfast before the arrival of the maid for house cleaning.

It happens very rarely in  our lives when all the stars are in our favour. When all our stars align in an auspicious manner,  we can be sure that something magical will take place. After all, Newton also discovered gravity while sitting under an apple tree free from all pressures of the world.

Similarly, I had my “eureka” moment while trying to raise lather with shaving brush after applying shaving cream on my face.

The enlightenment dawned on like Buddha. I realised that I have been enslaved by the shaving material producing companies. I have been conditioned to shave daily; to use their products daily so that I create a demand these products. This habit of mine helps them to sell their products like the shaving cream, shaving brush, shaving razor and after shave lotions to me and to make their profit.

These companies have slowly so moulded the way of life of humans that we don’t feel comfortable without shaving daily. This has been done through a sustained advertising campaign over the years. Now a person is not seen as well groomed if he has not shaved in the morning. The companies are now advocating that we should now shave a second time in the evening in case we are attending a social function.

This habit of shaving is costing us dearly. The humongous amount of water is wasted in shaving all over the world. Just imagine the amount of energy that is being wasted to pump in this water to our bathrooms and carbon footprint of the same. Imagine the huge amount of chemicals from shaving cream that is being pumped into our water streams or ground water. We are now using disposable razors. It is mind boggling to even think of the amount of waste that is being generated by our disposal of razors daily. These razors are made from plastic, a non-bio-degradable material that is going to pollute our lovely planet and continue to do so some many decades.

God has given beard to men for a reason but in case the modern man wants to play God, he can do so by removing the beard and shaving once in a week or so. This will keep us well groomed as well as save the planet. A change of this habit will give us more time to enjoy life in the mornings.

So today, I have decided to shave once in a week on Sundays and to reduce my carbon footprint. Let us all join in this movement and save the planet from  global warming and save ourselves from being fooled by the big bad boys of shaving industry.

The First Step - my wife's food venture!

THE FIRST STEP

While I was busy seeking the guidance of fellow Rodinhooders before taking my first step towards entrepreneurship, my wife, Kiran was busy with her own plans to start her own business venture. I am still struck with the question, “to be or not to be” or what to do with my life?

But Kiran has already launched her own small food business venture. She is a foodpreneur now. She is an excellent cook and she likes to bake also. Cooking is her hobby and she wants more people to enjoy the food cooked by her. It gives her immense satisfaction when people compliment her after tasting the food prepared by her. In the past, she has conducted baking classes for her friends without charging any fee. In fact, the cost of all ingredients for these classes was borne by her and the cooked delicacies are served to the friends attending the classes along with complimentary tea. Her friends have requested her to bake cakes for their families on the occasion of birthdays or marriage anniversaries.

So, she decided to use her cooking talents to spread happiness by serving healthy and hygienic cakes to the families residing in our society.

Once her mind was made up she drew up a menu of cakes which could be baked at home. She wrote down the recipes for the cakes and prepared these, number of times. Thus, she arrived at the standard product for sale. Once the recipes were ready, she decided on the price she would charge for the cakes.  This was a tough step as she was not sure of the price the customers are likely to pay for her products. She visited a few bakeries and priced her products at a discount to the price being charged by the local bakeries. She argued that the people will be ready to pay her price as the cakes are being baked at home using good ingredients. She knows that all cakes not sold in the market will be consumed by the family members and this acts as a quality check for the preparation of cakes.

Thereafter, she contacted a printer to print flyers / leaflets for her venture and got the flyers printed. The number of flyers ordered for printing is equal to the number of flats in our society. A photograph of the leaflet is pasted below for information.

 

In this venture, I was given the following responsibilities:

• Purchase Raw Materials
• Distribute Leaflets
• Deliver the cakes

She herself is responsible for taking all the orders over mobile phone and bakes the cakes as per the orders from customers.

 

It has been a week since the flyers have been distributed to all the society members. There have been five orders and a couple of inquiries. A lady enquired about the schedule of the baking classes. The overall response has not been up to her expectations as she expected the orders to pour in daily. There have been no orders in the last two days.

Her aim of starting the venture is to use her talents to spread happiness and make healthy and hygienic food available to the families of working mothers in the comfort of their homes.

The production can be scaled up by having a dedicated kitchen for baking the products. The recipes in the menu can also be increased as per the requirement of the customers. she is also open to the idea of cooking other vegetarian recipes. She is a vegetarian and cooking of non vegetarian food is strictly out of bound in her kitchen.

We are writing this post to seek help of the fellow Rodinhooders to get a feedback on following points:-

• Is it a workable plan?
• How can she get more orders?
• What are the likely reasons for a poor response to the venture?

We are based at NOIDA and are willing to supply the cakes anywhere in NOIDA. We will also appreciate orders from fellow Rodinhooders.

We are open to other kind of collaboration. 

JUSTICE CRYING –DELAYED-DENIED....CALL IN THE ARMY

JUSTICE CRYING –DELAYED-DENIED....CALL IN THE ARMY

Defence Forces are the last resort of our country both during war as well as in peace times. Be it natural calamities, internal disturbance, terrorist threat or even hosting of sports events like the Delhi Asiad or Delhi Commonwealth Games, the defence forces are called upon to fight the fire at the last moment. The forces have been called upon to rescue children from bore wells, search for bodies in a river after a collapsed bridge or conduct religious yatra like the Amar Nath Yatra. It is to the credit to our defence forces that they have not let the nation down in performance of the task assigned to them. The members of the defence forces have even made the supreme sacrifice of their lives to accomplish the assigned task. The soldiers of defence forces are trained to operate the railway system and even the power grid in case of strike by Railway or power ministry employees. So the nation can look up to the soldiers for maintenance of essential services during a crises.

These warriors retire at a very young age and are draw their pensions. But the large potential of these persons has been generally forgotten by the nation. These veterans are not on the reserve list for being called upon to serve the nation in case of any emergency. However, they will not hesitate to perform any duty in the service of our great nation.

The veterans are trying in their own way to contribute to nation building.  In fact, they are ill at ease with their blissful retired life and are itching to do something meaningful in life. This uneasiness is visible in the number of protests and agitations being carried by them for OROP or for better salary and pension to defence forces.

Many retired officers were employed as governors of states and to lead the public sector undertakings in the past. Most of these officers performed creditably well in these appointments. But this practice has gone out of fashion in the recent years as the bureaucrats have monopolised most of such positions and posts. Rest of such posts are now being given as a reward to political faithful who are not fit to win elections any more.

But like the defence forces these veterans can also be called upon to help the nation in case of an emergency. The justice system of the country has become almost non effective. It is a well known saying that “justice delayed is justice denied.” The justice in the country has been delayed so much that most of the population has been denied justice. Even the Chief Justice literally  cried over the state of justice in the country. The chief justice also expressed his dismay and displeasure on the non inclusion of any reference to the delay in delivery of justice to the citizens in the Independence Day speech of the Prime Minister. The chief justice has almost expressed his inability to do anything about the delay in finalisation of court cases and resolve the matter of long pendency of the legal cases. So there is kind of judicial emergency in the country which the judiciary is not capable of handling. So let’s call in the ARMY.

Volunteer retired officers and the other ranks of the Defence Forces should be called upon to assist in finalisation of the pending court. These people can be appointed as the adhoc or temporary members of the lower judiciary including judges for finalisation of pending cases. Before their appointment they could be provided suitable legal education and training. There after these veterans should be called upon to undergo the various judicial exams along with the other young candidates. On passing of the examination the selected candidates should be appointed as judges and other staff to the lower courts, on contract basis for a period of five years. They should be paid no salaries as they are already drawing pension from the government.  However, suitable allowances be paid to them for performance of these judicial duties.

The additional manpower will help in the early finalisation of the pending legal cases in the lower courts. The trained manpower will also bring the required sense of discipline to the courts and the lawyers. The veteran appointed as judges are also expected to give decisions without fear or favour as they have been trained to perform their tasks in such a manner.

The veterans have sufficient knowledge of law and apply the same while in service. They act as prosecutors, friend of the accused and as judges in the military courts during their service. So they are trained to administer justice while in service. The same skills will come in handy in their new role also.

Our justice system is in a mess and we need additional forces to clean up this mess. Army veterans can help the government to clear the mess of long pending legal cases.

Citizens of our country have full faith in our armed forces and will certainly welcome this step as they have trust in the old soldiers to perform all assigned tasks with dedication and in line with their motto of “Service before Self”.

This is the least cost solution to a very difficult problem.

Modern Spinning Wheel -Aaj ka Gandhi Ji ka Charkha

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The spinning wheel (Chakha) went out of fashion with the death of Gandhi Ji. But now time has come to reinvent the wheel (spinning wheel). The spinning wheel gave its users multiple intangible benefits, in addition to tangible benefit of  getting a small quantity of cotton yarn. The spinning wheel provided a much needed sense of doing meaningful work to its users, mostly old people and women. On completion of the spinning work, it gave a sense of achievement to the user. It also taught a sense of purpose, goal setting and its achievement. In fact, it provided meaning and all the benefits of meaningful work to the person spinning the wheel while promoting healthy living through physical exercise.

It is meaningful work which the common man craves for in modern life. The absence of physical work make the lives of millions of people meaningless. That is why modern life is sometimes called an empty life. We can use a 'Modified Modern Spinning Wheel' (MMSW)  to bring health and happiness to millions of people and save our planet also.

The MMSW should be designed to produce the most sought after commodity of modern world, electricity in place of cotton yarn. The MMSW should be a small electricity generator capable of producing electricity when a person spins a wheel with his hands or feet as is done while cycling. The electricity so produced should be either used to charge a battery of car, laptop, mobile phone, a lamp or a fan to be used later on when required. Thus providing free, clean electricity to millions of around the globe at no cost to the planet or its scarce resources  A meter should be provided to enable the user to keep a track of electricity so produced by him to enable him to set goals and get a sense of achievement. 

It should also be possible to connect the MMSW to a smart electricity grid to enable the user to sell electricity to the grid to either earn valuable income or to get free electricity back for use in his household later on.

A properly designed MMSW will thus be able to eradicate unemployment from the world and help in reducing global warming as well as global depression.

Let us all join hands to invent an amazing MMSW.

• Posted by Narinder Singh Dahiya on Rodinhood.com
• View Blog

Meaningful and productive sports

In India, Tendulkar is treated like God and has been recently nominated to the upper house of parliament (Rajya Sabha) to participate in the process of making rules for the country. Fans all over the country go crazy at the mere sight of this man. The man has become a billionaire just by playing cricket very well. 

Let's analyse his capabilities which make him an extraordinary man. He can hit a piece of leather thrown at him, at whatever speed, farthest all along the ground most of the time and some times hit it far in the air. He does this while ensuring that the piece of leather does not hit three wooden sticks struck in the ground behind him. Millions of people watch him do this insane and meaningless ( no contribution whatsoever towards the progress of humanity) act inside the stadiums or in front of their television sets. This sport of cricket as well as other sports appear meaningless activities, on their own, to some of us. The act of spectators watching these sports, shouting and jumping on their feet while crying themselves hoarse  is also an activity, which in no way can be considered productive. These activities do not promote the welfare of the race which prides itself with lot of sense.

These sports were invented by homo sapiens long time ago when the technology was primitive and needs of humanity were limited.

It is now time for the human race to graduate from meaningless sports to sports which are productive while being entertaining also. Now technology is available which can help us in this endeavor. The sports could be used to help save our planet and to solve the many problems facing the human race. The human race is facing problem of shortage of clean energy and of disposal of huge quantity of waste.

So, let us start playing games which help us to solve these problems while also entertaining us. In cycling, a person riding the bicycle fastest should not be the winner but the one who generates most amount of electricity in a given amount of time. Running in stadium could be replaced by running on a treadmill connected to a generator. Similarly, mostly the sports should basically focus on converting muscle energy to electrical energy. We can also have sports in which a team making the most out of waste wins.

The spectators activity in a stadium should also be so channelized and used that it helps in generating electricity.

So let's have fun good and health while contributing to the overall health of our planet also.

IGNORANCE OR CONPIRACY.....? USE OF DOOR FRAME METAL DETECTORS

Life is full of surprises. In fact, I have found out that some facts are stranger than fiction. The ways of our security establishment, especially police are certainly very strange and surprising.

The wide spread use of Door Frame Metal Detectors (DFMD) is one phenomena which always makes me wonder whether the use is being done out of ignorance or is it part of a conspiracy of the security professionals to fool the masses.

DFMDs are being widely used at the entrance of Railway Stations, Bus Stops, Metro Stations, Malls, Offices, Exhibitions, Plants and factories, Hotels and such like places. DFMD are used to give light or sound signal when a ferrous or non- ferrous item passes through it. These are supposedly being used to detect fire arms like pistols or knives and prevent entry of such prohibited items inside the secured area. But are these useful in fulfilling this task? The answer is an emphatic “NO”. The security guards or policeman on duty know this fact and hence rarely make use of this gadget. These thus end up as show pieces on the entrance gate.

In the present day, every person carries some ferrous or non ferrous material on him. The material could be in the form of mobile phones, coins, pen, jewellery, belt buckle or other dress items. So DFMD gives an alarm for all visitors who pass through it. Hence, the security staff has to perforce physically search all the visitors to detect fire arms or other prohibited items. The DFMD therefore does not add value to security system in any substantial manner. When I discussed the same with a retired Director General of Police, he was in agreement with my arguments but still wanted to have DFMD installed. He argued that these act as deterrence for ignorant people. I did not have a heart to inform him that the terrorists or criminals are certainly not ignorant people and are not going to be deterred by DFMD. I think he also knew this fact but wanted to create a positive impact and promote a false sense of security, in the public at large whom he considered ignorant.

The proof of pudding is in eating. We have to find out as to how many weapons or prohibited items have been detected by DFMD. Hardly any is the answer. In fact no record of the same could be found on the net.

This fact is known to most of the security professionals and the security companies manufacturing and marketing the DFMDs.

In spite of this knowledge the use of DFMDs is wide spread and increasing by the day, which is very strange.

I keep wondering whether people are ignorant of some facts in life or they don’t care or have they got together in a silent conspiracy to promote their self interests.

There are many more such examples of use of useless things which complicate our lives without adding much value. Let’s identify such things and prevent misuse of resources, time and harassment to public.

What I want in life?

“I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

― Stephen Grellet