Simple, pure and grounded what Sudha Murty portrayed in her conversation as the second day of the Literati 2020 opened today while she conversed with motivational speaker and author Vivek Atray.
She celebrated her deep love and empathy for the people at the grassroots, especially the downtroddens and the underprivileged that she said was her only purpose in life and the source of her great satisfaction and happiness.
The greatest need and the most difficult thing to achieve in today's life and the human beings is the ability to understand another human being, she said.
The best medicine, she said, and about which she writes in one of the chapters in her latest book, "Grandparents Bag of Stories" is a really genuine affectionate and compassionate hug to an individual in need is what is required in this world.
Sudha Murty has been writing primarily in her local language Kannada, which according to her, could connect her to the people of that part of the country where she had grown up, learnt the cultural nuances and enjoyed rich tapestry of life, and "all my writings are for the common people and not the rich ones, because I'm so deeply connected with them even though my work in Infosys Foundation," she remarked.
She practically demonstrated her belief in what she talked about when the moderator Vivek Atray requested her not to say 'Vivek ji' to which she responded it is not because of your age or position I'm using this but for the deep respect that each one of must genuinely have for each other in our lives.
Talking about the role of women in society, she said that it would remain the only way to perpetuate the cultural richness, the values, our traditions, and customs to the next generation which is possible only if the mothers themselves learn more about and practice them.
She advised that the younger generation has a great future ahead of them they must imbibe highest of work ethics, learn to do hard work, and acquire new skills, be proud of your country, and engage themselves in doing community work by putting in whatever time, effort and money they can contribute, which can only make them successful and happy.
My happiness, she added, is not in any material acquisition but working for the people in need which keeps me joyous and nothing worries or disturbs me since I understand life is transient, she added.
Celebrated award-winning author and literary historian Dr Rakhahanda Jalil in association with Suparna Saraswati Puri explored the emerging negative parochial outbursts amongst people during the pandemic in the session on 'Through the Looking Glass', which she said, was an unfortunate situation, which resonates in her recent book published by Harper Collins, "But You Don't Look Like a Muslim".
She emphasized that despite the fact that India faced many historically significant upheavels that impacted the lives of people from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds starting with the partition, but we have failed to learn any lessons from them and continue to be judgmental on the basis of external representations of people.
She hoped that people would rise above the stereotypes and become judgmental about people which unfortunately has seen a rise on social media during the pandemic. Though the current year taught us to live frugally and learn from the fragility of life, people have unfortunately failed to learn to be compassionate, more caring, and tolerant, fanned by misinformation and illogical campaigns on social media that corrupted the people's mind.
She hoped that learning from our lessons we could rise above these narrow and limiting thought patterns and shun violence or fights based on religion.
Fasting is a validated science from vedic times to cleanse and detoxify the body
The session on "Train Your Mind. Train Your Body" focused on diverse thoughts on the kind of food one need to have to keep the physical body in shape and energized with two expert panelists, the scientist and psychologist Shymal Vallabhjee, and banker turned fitness trainer Shwetambari Shetty.
Moderated by young Anshuman Arora who shared about how the fastfood brands were making the people addicted to sugar without anyone realizing it, Shymal explained that the reason for addiction is the amount of sugar injected even in salty food where it is not needed has led to make it addictive
Fasting is common advice and best for your body and is referred to every religion, and this is best way to detoxify your body and optimize your physical performance, he added.
If you invested in your body and understand at cellular biology level, and even hardbacked information from nutritions may not be helpful so everyone should look for more research and data on one's own, he advised.
Shyamal who had been working with some international players as a performance coach said that one has to take up the responsibility for one's own habits and not blame it on external sources, which makes them as champions.
Shetty advised conscious eating, to eat what you want to eat and enjoy that food.
This was followed by another interesting interaction on yoga.
YOGA as a practice of controlling your mind, body and soul through proper control of breath and even bringing about dynamic changes in the lifestyles of people and encouraging people to internal reengineering said US based political blogger and Yoga practitioner and author, Jerome Armstrong.
Popular TV producer of Yoga programmes and Yoga Acharya, Ira Trivedi spoke about the ancient discipline that was impacting the lives of the people.
Moderated by Ritu Nichani, the panelists believed that though it is being ritualized but the practice is generally impacting the mental well being of the people.
Jerome felt that instead of making it much more like a show, it has to make one go into the inner being and as a spiritual practice.
Jereome suggested to do yoga in the morning when the sun rise and practice asanas on empty stomach and doing it regularly. Ira Trivedi's advice was to practice in morning as the best cycle for human body when entire metabolic system starts working better. Since most people have different energy levels and they can conduct themselves better in the evening, they can practice it around sunset between 4pm and 6pm, though one can practice it at anytime too.
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