Ignatius Raphael - cosmic traveller

Yesterday I went to a coffee shop called The Brew Room @ Savera hotel. I used to be a regular here till around 6 months ago. But since I moved office away from this area I have not been able to visit this place in a long time. The Brew Room is so soothing and welcoming that in the hurry burry of a normal work day this place is a cool oasis where you can put your feet up and let your hair down while refreshing yourself with a cool drink and some yummy dishes. I'm grateful for the Brew Room. It's a place i love to visit and spend some quality time with myself or friends or for a business discussion. It's centrally located so easy to fix this place as the meeting room and for people to find it. The menu is varied and offers something for everyone... More conti... Though. The thin crust pizza is to die for. A few other similar places are amethyst and the writers cafe. These places are what makes Chennai interesting and liveable.

This is again inspired by a beautiful post I received from a friend this morning. It says that if we take the time to think of what we have in our life we can't help but give thanks to it. I'm grateful for my ability to think cos that gives me the ability to have an attitude of gratitude. I'm reproducing below the post that triggered today's gratitude. Namasthe!  Very Good Morning …. Morning Thoughts (30.11.2017): How to improve your vision Thought for the day: Small acts of kindness can make a difference in other peoples lives more than we can imagine. .- Catherine Pulsifer How to improve your vision By: Steve Goodier Did you know that the English word 'thanks' comes from the same root word as 'think'? And they not only share a similar background, they are related in another way. It seems the more we think, the more we thank. One woman illustrated the how thinking and thanking are related in a visit to the eye doctor. She complained to her o

My son had some bad bruises and injuries because of a fail 3 days back. We take only homoeopathic medication since my dad was a homoeopathic doctor. So as usual even after this fall I took care of my son with the medicines I keep at home. I washed his wounds and dressed it with calendula mother tincture. I'm treating him with arnica orally. I've grown up with this kind of treatment so i have over 50 yrs years exp in this. My friends and neighbours are not able to understand how such a bad fall can be treated from home. But thanks to calendula I can blindly trust it to take care of these wounds. I have seen it heal deep cuts where  portion of flesh has gone even without stitches. Today it's just 2.5 days from the injury. But most of the wounds are  already drying up. The deep ones are still a little raw but it's getting dried up and he's moving around again. I'm grateful for homoeopathic medication especially calendula. Thank you so much. 

Day #66: Forwarding happiness 100 Days Gratitude Challenge Every morning I get a whatsapp forward from a friend of mine. Yesterday’s topic was Happiness.  I’m grateful for these messages because they are always positive and gives a good start to the day. I’m glad to share them  with you now. Thought for the day: Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself - Ralph Waldo Emerson What you ask for By: author unknown The world around you is whatever you sincerely ask of it. Your life is precisely what you ask of it, with your thoughts, your actions, and your attitude. All things and events may come and go. Yet, reality is what you choose to do with it all. The value you look for, and the value you expect, is the value you will find. What you decide to make of anything will ultimately define for you what it is. What you truly expect to see, you will most certainly see. The way you genuinely expect to live is the way

Day #66:     Helpful Neighbours 100 Days Gratitude Challenge Yesterday my son had a bad fall in my apartment complex and was badly bruised and injured all over. We were outside and did not know of this. He’s gone back home to find it locked and went to a neighbour’s home to get some help. They saw the blood and the open wounds and bruises that they immediately took him in their car to the nearest doctor, while trying to reach us on the phone. We unfortunately missed their calls while we were on our way back home and was able to reach them only after reaching home. By this time they found that the closest dispensary was shut and they were on their way to another doctor in the vicinity. Lucky for us that we had reached and we took over the responsibility of finding treatment for him and requested them to return which they did. I’m grateful to Shuba and her dad who went out of their way as soon as the emergency happened. It feels good that they were around when my son need

Day #64:     Migratory Birds 100 Days Gratitude Challenge In the last few weeks, I can see a lot of migratory birds flying above and below my balcony. The largest flocks are that of the white egrets. They must have travelled thousands of kilometers to reach Chennai and still they effortlessly fly together and seem to be completely at ease here. It’s beautiful to see these birds come in 3s, 7s, and larger flocks. They effortlessly break into smaller flocks or combine to form large flocks of 100s of birds. Have you ever wondered how they travel every year so many thousands of kilometers and find their nesting grounds, breed and go back to where they came from? What makes them so successful in their survival and evolution? I wonder whether it is in their blind trust on their instincts, which is to say a blind trust in their creator. We, of course, are rational beings who need a clear rational answer before we commit ourselves to a decision. Wonder what the birds th

Day #63:     Shared Office space 100 Day Gratitude challenge There is a new concept in town called Shared Office spaces. I have signed up for such an office in Workenstein at Perungudi. The advantage of these offices are many and the negatives very few. What stands out in its favour is that you can just move in with your laptop and start functioning from Day 1. The place is well appointed, and can wow you and your clients. There is staff to take care of the admin, maintenance, security and the front office.  We need to just take care of our own business alone. The office and its upkeep is not our headache. I remember how painful it is to ensure that the office looks presentable when visitors arrive. At such crucial times, the daily help would not have turned up and you are either cleaning up yourself or searching for a temp solution for that problem. With shared office spaces that is taken care of and you can just forget about that and focus on your business. For small business o

Day #62: Money (100 days gratitude challenge) Money is a highly emotional commodity. There are those who love it and identify themselves completely with it and others who feel it’s a dirty thing and they should not discuss it or identify themselves with it. Either way, the emotions, and opinions are strong. Money is the underlying cause of most wars and crimes in our world. But money by itself is neutral. It’s not bad or good. It’s what we do with it that matters. I’m grateful for the money. It buys me the freedom to do what I want. It gives me the security to know that my family is taken care of. It gives me the luxury to indulge in what my heart desires. It helps me to help those in need. Money is essential in life. But the obsession with money can destroy your life. There are those who have a lot and are not satisfied and want to grab from those around them too. A classic example of that is what happens in wealthy families when the time for succession is on them. Sibling

Spirit of sharing Have you met people who are willing to share their knowledge or resources without expecting anything in return? Doesn't it make you feel warm and fuzzy when you are faced with them? Today I met a gentleman who shared so openly and gracefully of his knowledge in spite of being on the same space where he could have charged as a consultant. He is an artificial intelligence consultant and entrepreneur. In the open discussion he shared of his knowledge so openly that he completely disarmed us of our reserve. There are gentlemen and ladies out there who are not there to make a quick buck. Who prove that one can be a decent person and still succeed in the business world. Hats off to such people. It makes our world a better place and brings sanity to the madness often witnessed in the business world. Thank you for being who you are  and for being successful at what you do.

Day #60: Free Will (100 days gratitude challenge) When God created man, he did so in his own image and gave him free will. This is the corner stone of our existence. But many of us live life, like we are in a prison. We are imprisoned by our own rules, family’s rules, society’s rules, state’s rules, peer rules, apartment rules, rules, rules and more rules. In this web of rules we believe that I cannot do this, I should not do this and this is not expected of me. We become our own prisoner and let go of the freedom of choice that God has empowered us with. It is time each of us realised which rules are not working for us and which is useful for us and accordingly ditch those that do not work. There is no point living a life where you do not feel free to be who you can be. A life where your best can be released for the world to see and marvel at. What hidden potential do you have that is being fettered by the rules that you have willingly or unwillingly adopted? Remember, without y

Day #59: Volunteering (100 days gratitude challenge) Yesterday we had a kidathon organised near our Residential Complex. This was organised by the Chennai Runners OMRTB chapter and many of us were requested to help out in the conduct of this event. So I was one of them too and there were over 40 volunteers helping out in the various aspects of running the marathon for kids. I don’t know whether you have noticed, when we need to do something for the community, we ensure that we land up there and do our bit. I was asked to handle a tricky stretch near the nullah bridge that had just been dug up recently. There were 3 of us to do that job there and we were up from 4:30 am to check the stretch, put up hazard tape and be ready for the run starting at 6:15 am.  The three of us were cheerful, catching up on each other’s life and ensuring the run went off without a hitch. Now if this was my job, I’m not sure whether I would accept to report at 4:30 am and clean up a road stretch and st

Day #57: My heart (100 days gratitude challenge) How many times does your heart beat in a minute? They say that the resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute. So if you are 40 years old, your heart has already done 5 million beats. And if you are going to live up to 80 years, it would have beaten about 10 million times in your lifetime. This little machine is an absolute wonder – in terms of design and manufacturer’s specifications. It can function non stop all through your life. It can repair itself of minor infractions. It does not need any service or downtime. If you do not trouble it, it can go on for over a 100 years and much more. It is a pump that cleans over 250 million litres of blood in your lifetime. We have been gifted this incredible machine that does all this physical work to keep us alive. But that is not all it does. The heart has neurons that control the brain, our thoughts, and our emotions. It makes us do things that our rational mind would ba

Day #56: Music (100 days gratitude challenge) I love music. It has the power to move me and bring tears to my eyes. Today’s Saregama program was fantabulous. They celebrated judge Srinivas’s birthday and the performance the group put up for him was truly fabulous. I don’t normally listen to Tamil music but these competitions bring out some amazing talent and I am riveted while watching them. God has truly blessed these people who can sing and move their listeners to tears. I have several friends who have introduced me to various groups and albums and these have been faithful companions who have walked along with me through some major events in my life. I always wondered how lucky it would be to be able to sing so well that the audience is moved. Unfortunately I must confess that when I sing, I’m able to move the audience too, but out of the room. God has not blessed me with the voice that can launch a 1000 ships or enthral someone to fall into my arms. And I’m envious of those

Day #55: Stardust (100 day gratitude challenge) Do you know what you are made of? Guess! Write it down. Keep asking yourself this question again and again and write down the new answers as they emerge. We would start with skin, bones, muscles, tissues, blood, etc. Then as we dig deeper into the answers we will drive it down to Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, etc. And where did these come from? Ultimately we will have to say stardust. Some massive star blew up and scattered itself over the universe and formed our solar system and our planet from where we emerged after billions of years for evolution. I’m a product of over 3 billion years of evolution. Imagine the sophistication and the technology that has been built into me after so many trials and errors and billions of years of learning. I have a self-correcting and self-evolving mechanism that is highly sophisticated and needs very minimal maintenance. The stardust that existed so many billions of years ago has evolved and or

I'm grateful for large families. There is something endearing about larger families. My parents had 6 children and today we're 20+ . My mom had 9 siblings who survived. My dad had 5 siblings. So family get-togethers were always a gala affair. There is a lot of reminiscing. Memories are dredged up and ruminated over. Arguments are frequent and passionate. It's always a cacaphony of voices and emotions when the family meets. Today was one such day. My wife's father's siblings and kids were here in town and a large group gathered to celebrate. Their family is also large and scattered across the globe. So when one or more land up it's a cause for celebration. In today's age face to face meetings are rare. But when it does happen it's a riot. I love these get together. I'm grateful for these meet ups Thank you for my large families. Own and acquired. They are rare and to be treasured.

Day #53:     Ability to stand up after every fall (100 Day Gratitude Challenge) Have you seen a baby learn to walk? The baby makes countless attempts to stand before actually standing isn’t it? The baby first learns to roll over and after many weeks becomes good at it. Then she would attempt to sit up and will fall in the attempt a thousand times before actually being able to sit up. Finally, the baby will hold on to something and pull herself up to be able to stand on her feet. She will wobble back and forth and plonk down and then promptly try once again. This attempt again will be repeated a hundred times before she finally learns to stand. Only after this does she keep one foot in front of the other and take the first few tentative steps. The art of walking cannot be mastered in just one stroke. We all know it. But when we become adults we suddenly start believing that whatever I take up I must do well and I shall do it well the very first attempt. When did this shi

Day #52: Our Sun (100 days gratitude challenge) We know the real value of something only when we do not have it. So it is with our sun. We crib and rant about how hot it is, how harsh our sun is, etc but when the sun takes rest for a few days or weeks and we are soaked to our bones and everything around us is damp, suddenly the clamor to get the sun back increases and we realise the worth of our sun. We have had rains, clouds, fog and gloomy weather for the last few weeks. Initially, it felt great, like we are in Ooty and the woollens were dusted out and we were able to wear a jacket in Chennai. But slowly the cold and damp gets under our skin and suddenly we are wishing for the sun to come out and dry us up. I love the sun. I feel active and alive when the sun is up and about. I’m grateful that we have the sun. Imagine a life where the night lasts 24 hrs a day and 365 days a year. Life will not be the same ever. In fact life itself may not exist without all the beneficia

Day #51: My kidneys (100 days gratitude challenge) Have you heard the term, “He drank himself to death”? Why does that happen? When we load unhealthy drink or food in our system, our organs have to find a way to get rid of this poison. How does it do that? Our kidneys and our liver are at the forefront of this struggle to rid ourselves of the poison that is ingested into our system. Alcohol, fizzy beverages such as Coke and Pepsi, refined foods and drinks and food and drinks with preservatives are all very harmful to our body. So our organs have to work extra hard to ensure that the toxins are removed. However, there is only so much capacity that it has each day and when the load is too much the organs get destroyed little by little till it finally gives up its struggle. We need to be aware of how our body works. It’s our only hope against disease, weakness, and despair. If we ignore it, or worse still abuse it, the time for recovery gets longer and longer and may ultimately

Day #50: Dad (100 days gratitude challenge) A young man knocked on the door of the Santhome house diffidently. He was accompanied by his cousin who was going to do the introduction. This young man was looking for a bride and he was told that in this house there was a suitable bride for him. A young girl opened the door and looked out at the strangers on her doorstep. She distractedly pushed away the strands of hair falling on her face with a hand that was dripping with idli batter. She was maav arichifying (grinding idli batter) and these intruders were disturbing her chores. The young man made up his mind. This was the bride for him. The year was 1958 and he had come all the way from Goa (then Portugal India) to find himself a bride to start a family. The young man was my father and the girl in question my mom. He was in a hurry and before the formal pon-paaking (bride seeing) he wanted to see and decide for himself.  He chose to leave his family business in Goa to stay be

Day #49: Soup (100 Days gratitude challenge) Did you know that soup is one of the oldest forms of cooked food that civilised man is used to? After the discovery of fire and the use of utensils, the first cookware was the soup pot. Ancient cavemen gathered around the fire and threw in anything they fancied into the boiling pot and the delicious concoction was shared among the tribe. From those times on, soup is one of the easiest and most looked forward to part of a meal. Today we just sit in a restaurant and order for it and we are served it elegantly in a bone china set and we delicately sip the hot soup and dab our lips with the crisp clean napkins and feel satiated. There are as many varieties and variations of soup as there are people.  A thick soup can become a broth – a meal by itself. Yesterday I had manchow soup. I’ve been nursing this cold for almost a week and the manchow soup is the best thing for a cold. It sears a path through the blocked nostrils and reaches

Words. If you know how to use them well it will serve you well. It can rescue you from tough situations or It can take you to places you want to go. I'm grateful that I'm reasonably adept at both the written variety as well as the spoken variety. I've been an avid consumer of words for many decades. As a voracious reader I used to digest a book before breakfast and start another before lunch. Words have fascinated me and transported me to many lands and ages. From Pluto to Plato., From sci Fi to Scaramouch, words have imprisoned me while setting my imagination free. When the need comes the right word just pops up and presents itself for use. Thank you gift of the gab you're the best present anyone can have. If you have it, flaunt it.

I love silence. You may probably know that of me or it might be a bit of shock. It depends on how well you know me.  My natural state is silence. Empty the mind and turn off the channel surfing. Listen to the deep silence of the Universe and discover the music and harmony hidden so many layers below the surface that has been blurred by the jarring noise in my head. Silence in the early morning when everyone else is asleep, the silence stolen between conversations, the silence thrust on us by unwitting souls and the silence that is part of the rhythm of life, they are all beautiful and without them, life will be a cacophony that will blow your head sooner or later. Art is created when empty spaces are introduced between shapes and colours.  Only light can be harsh. The absence of light along with the play of light provides good visuals and photography. Life is a balancing between what there is and what there isn’t. When you are comfortable with both, life can be a song or bett

Today, I shaved after a week of being in bed. The fever and cold have moved on and it was time i moved out of bed and into the world. So it marked the end of an era and start of a new one for me. It's been many many years since I've been ill and in bed for this long. Along with the fuzz on my face a lot of fuss in my head was also getting cleared out. This week's rest had put an halt to the incessant chatter in the head and given the brain and the body the rest it deserves. So now it was a blank slate and I could choose to write anything I  chose. Just when my face was getting all itchy and untidy, I'd decided to shave and the process is therapeutic. The fuzz is removed from the face and flushed down the washbasin along with the illness and the weakness that had dogged me for the last week. I'm grateful for the process of shaving for it cleanses more than just my face. Some people do it daily once and a few pros do it more than once a day. I don't know whet

It rained cats and dogs the last one week. It also rained criticisms by the holier than thou press who have the uncanny ability to dig out all the places where people are suffering and willing to pour tirades of poison on the administration. They knew of the impending rains but did not bother to let their viewers know of the floor preparedness efforts before it poured cats and dogs. If anyone was following the Tamil TV channels they would believe that the city administrators and govt were lackadaisical and reveled in seeing people suffer. Even social media journalists had their knives out and predicted doom and advised people to stay safe and dry. No one acknowledged the fact that this time the proactive measures and flood preparedness of our city management reduced the impact of the torrential rains that poured last week. I've seen it in action at Semmencheri and the waters are draining of very quickly this time. One TV channel alone puthiya thalaimurai showed the control room

I know someone who is extremely generous, loving, and kind to a fault. She will go out of her way to help her loved ones. But sometimes a word or sentence out of place is uttered and war breaks out. She could have meant it  innocently but when the recipient takes it hard that cold war is waged and innocent passerbys get killed. You might have someone in your life with a similar trait. They are helpful and generous but a casual remark gets twisted and war ensues. Why is it so difficult for us to look beyond the words and see the intent. Would such a person who has given so much really think ill for you? 'Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.' We say our prayers without putting it in practice. It should be so easy to practice it for such a person. There are others in our life who actually mean harm for us. Sometimes we forgive them but not our own. Forgiveness doesn't mean we accept  the insults. It just means that we love ourself so much that we will

In the last few days my bed has become my favourite place. I can't seem to get enough of it. I've been sleeping for 20 hours or more every day. I get up just for the most basic functions and go back to it. I didn't realise the amount of sleep deprivation that I must have had in recent months. The fever the cold and runny tummy all combined to give me no reason to explore the world outside the bedroom. All of us should treat the bed as the most important place for a healthy and long life. If we deprive itself of its curative powers we are depriving our body of a pharmacy that is totally free and nature friendly. I'm learning a harsh lesson on sleep deprivation and I hope to not forget it ever. Thank you dear bed for keeping me safe and getting me back on my feet.

Day #42:     Curative Powers of my body (100 days Gratitude Challenge) I have been ill for the past two days and have been sleeping and sleeping and sleeping non-stop. I’m the third person in my family to fall ill in the last 2 weeks, first my younger son, then my wife and now me.  Today I feel much better and hopefully, by tomorrow I should be able to venture out of the home. Thankfully I missed the chaos caused by the torrential rains in the last 2 days since I could not get out of my bed. A friend of mine asked me yesterday, how come you fell sick. You take care of yourself so well that you should not be sick at all. I laughed it off yesterday but it got me thinking.  Is it possible to live a life without a day of illness in this day and age? We know of people who have lived an illness-free life and died peacefully in their sleep when they are 90 or 100 years old. How did they do it and why can’t it happen now? Do you know any 50-year old who has never been sick? I am yet to

Day #41:     Our body. Our temple (100 days Gratitude Challenge) My body is my temple. If I keep it clean, I stay blessed. If I abuse it, I suffer. It is such a complicated and sophisticated piece of machinery that it has the ability to self-correct and repair itself. It has the ability to take a lot of abuse and still come back to balance. But as any other piece of machinery there is a limit to how much we can abuse it and it will become too late if we cross that limit. Did you know that our body has some default processes that take place without our conscious intervention? ·          Breathing/Respiration ·          Digestion ·          Expulsion ·          Sleep When we breathe right, we stay healthy. Airconditioned environments are not healthy for long periods of time. Take breaks where you go out into the lawn and breathe fresh natural air When we feed our body the right foods, then digestion happens smoothly and your body is provided the right nutrients and ene

Day #40:     Living on the 20 th floor (100 days Gratitude Challenge) I live on the 20 th floor of a building. The view from the balcony is breathtaking (when you pay attention to it). We’re able to see for miles around us – fields, buildings, ponds, lakes, the sea in the far horizon and clouds everywhere.  I’ve always wanted to live in the clouds and this flat is a God-send. I can see birds flying below me there are also the occasional clouds that waft by below us. I believe that we should either live in an independent house with a lush garden or live in a floor high above where the air is pure and the vision is unhindered. I’ve always liked to get a window seat in a flight so I can see the land far below and see vehicles and people scurrying about like ants. I’ve been fascinated by the change in perspective as we climb higher. The same landscape can change significantly when the altitude or perspective changes. It’s a bit like how we feel when we are in school and in just a