In times of Panic

Why Manners are still relevant today?

               I  was on a lift the other day rushing down to work as I was late the other night was a long night watching Netflix and was a little tired and I was eager to get in the lift and was eager to get into to lift and clicked the floor that I am supposed to go, meanwhile there was another gentleman who stood by to catch the same lift which I didn’t realize and he stepped inside and started blasting at me, by speaking , aren’t you aware that if somebody’s coming you should hold on to see them and then wait for a moment and carry on, mate!! We are all in a hurry, but manners do matter!

               I t took a great leap to understand how important it is to understand the simple act of random kindness and what it is to keep your manner even if it’s in your busy schedule.

                In a more simpler way we realize that manners are more important as we hold a certain etiquette for the art of life despite wherever we are, we tend to realize and understand that we may grow up as much in knowledge but having good manners holds the key to complete formation in growth.

                We may move our job online, career to online, shopping online and what more but I challenge we cannot move our manners online understanding the fact that every young kid has everything he gets but I believe that art of manners is still a dream to go about and it’s a great challenge for our education system cause we tend to target more on the quantity of knowledge but not the quality of life to learn and experience.

                As a kid who moves from this stage to his college and that’s where he/ she fails big and then its move forward to happen in their worklife which finally leads to a simple incident like what happened to me in the lift.

                No matter who you are or what you do, become, manners that form in your life matters most and it will have a greater impact in the life you wish or want to become.

                Today’s generation is in a crisis and that we need to accept the fact that we have buried this art which is simple and we move on to look into more and more bigger problems but the solution is this.

                Manners have changed a lot over the years and are still changing, many countries have their own set of distinctive manners they follow and I suggest you to try some.

                Manners are very important, because they speak before you speak.

                Build some manners, transform and transfer the world into a better and never forget to transfer to your young ones!!!

Joseph Kamal Francis

DO WE STILL HAVE TIME FOR PEACE?

I was on a recent visit to participate in the annual meeting of an organization called Universal Solidarity Movement, Indore called the National Peace Convention from the 30^th January till the 1^st of February 2020 which happened in the Christ University, Bangalore, where the members from all across the world, such as people in the field of education, young students from all across India and the people who are involved in charity work for the cause of humanity also participates.

There were quite a lot of deliberations on the peace and the coexistence of the value of it today and there were many great scholars of the modern world who helped us assisting in the efforts to understand, what are the causes, roles and contributions of men and women and the impacts that has happened till now.

In my efforts to understand, amidst the fast moving world amidst the value of work, family and so on, do we have time for peace? Guess a big question we need to think today.

Mahatma Gandhiji was non violent, and the efforts that he brought to bring humanity together was a considerable task, which many look up and they forget.

We were having a panel discussion on Road to humanity and what can we do for it and there was also infiltration through one of the speakers on the importance of the recently widely spoken of bill of rule for life, and there were contradictions, on it and he was asked to step down.

To my knowledge, we still feel that the speaker must have been allowed to speak and share his thoughts and left to the individual to take it up which is to answer.

We believe religion was a strong hold of any forum and holding its significant value always matter a priority for all, only qualification we need is a willingness to serve along with faith, hope and love.

The era where we feel that money and the status of life holds significance, do we have time for ourselves to reconcile with others, significantly peace begins here and that’s when we try to improve from ourselves and a mutual feeling begins.

When I is replaced by WE, illness becomes wellness and I strongly believe Peace should be the binding force to replace it, whoever and wherever we are.

The media should be an independent and unbiased medium when we deemed peace needs to be spread as a matter of priority. The Job of responsible media is to present with facts and figures and not opinions, once many go through opinions then the natural process of analyzing and interpreting gets lost and we don’t come to that intention to reconcile, another significance of peace building today.

Lastly, I strongly urge to a whole lot of Young minds to understand the era of globalization, where everything gets changed, but not the way we accept and lead with life and things, what we need now, is the acceptance of thinking globally for the peace of humanity and making small steps for change wherever we are.

The person, whom I am likely to meet tomorrow, may not be there but certainly there is an expected chance I may also not be there.

A man, who stands for nothing, will fall for anything.

We should not wait for the right moment, but rather the time is now…

                                                                                    To be continued…

Joseph Kamal Francis

HUMANE LEADER - THE NEED OF THE HOUR

As you know, the previous year I contemplated about does humane leader still exists? And quoting about life experiences of shri manohar parrikar and the present newzealand prime minister, days and months passed by and still being the new year I was contemplating on the same subject even today

Since I work in a MNC, we get to understand leaders from corporate, leaders from hardcore Indian managers and leaders who are there risen up to the challenge for the 1^st time, after years of hardwork.

Understanding and moving with them, made me realize the value they hold to the team, the daily activities they are into and the care but deep down, there is also the point of fact, do they actually show humane values, in the way they move is still a question mark to contemplate upon being amidst pressure of performance, and the general human tendency to manage life of oneself first, we come to the conclusion of the missing fish that the value of humane leader is the need of the hour!

There may be various aspects of leadership shared, deliberated and understood, over various decades, of life and I am here to share that made me feel important to be a leader who is humane!

In life, we may have ups and downs and leadership is a call that should be led from the front despite caring for our personal objectives, the team and the one’s tagged along, matters, but being a humane leader, balancing the art of a positive spark of a word to a tap behind the back, when the individual is down, matters more today, in my experience, we tend to miss a lot of face to face conversations, than meeting together in social media.

                As Part of experiencing humane in us, it is our duty to be more conscious in our decisions that we take rather, than making aggressive decision making to accept and change, but rather falter in the long run.

                In fact, majority of the world like to lead rather than being followed and here is where one has a leader needs to give that ample time and space to understand and bring up the one who is in need for life, and helping in do better, the  moment of lift, that you has a leader gives, makes you special.

                At the end of the day, we are here together to work on a balanced life for the good of ourselves and for the good of all wherever we are and leading from front, it is our need and urge to understand the art of making a conversation with our fellow counterparts on a intentional note and not valuing it just for something.

                Leaders are not born but they are made, and leading from front, can be a gift, which many few possess, many try to portray, but only few succeed.

                At this hour of time, being a society of a unjust value, we need leaders who are more humane to the cause and value  the work we do and that’s when a equable society comes into the picture.

Joseph Kamal Francis

IS IT TIME TO UNPLUG

As it was the start of the new year and I felt that this year should be a special year,after 2019 was a year of so many unforgettable moments, I decided to make a short visit to Sristi Foundation a eco sustainable village near the outskirts of tindivanam before the city of Puducherry where my friend Mr Ebin, a research scholar is doing his internship over a year and has always got a fruitful experience of life apart from the normal busy schedule.

I started on the eve of Pongal (a festival of tamilians) and it was a enriching experience to understand life, apart from our normal day to day life, and I reached in the afternoon of the 17^th of January 2020 and I was greeted by Ebin and we had to ride around a small but long road inside the village of Kunanmangalam which the village was once passed by a King, who had his chariot broken and had no other choice to stay over and was joyfully taken care by the people in the vicinity and looking at the character and the respect and down to earth character of the people he named the village as Kunanmangalam, and we rode around and reached sristi foundation a lush campus, that is surrounded by nothing but a dry road and I was overwhelmed with Joy looking at the greenery since I am from Chennai and we don’t get to see that, not only me but almost a whole lot of people.

Adding a bit of a short story which I read from,

Sristi Foundation was named after the Sanskrit word which means «creation». Indeed, we want to create a world for those who are marginalized and people with intellectual and developmental disability, a world which they could call their own, and where everyone would be treated with equal respect. To achieve this goal, we bought 8.39 acres of land in Thazhuthali Village (30 km from Pondicherry).

I had to dine in for lunch and had the fortunate chance of meeting its founder Mr Karthikeyan Ganesan, a Young Energetic, always caring individual who was a revelation, in the story of life and how he had to give about his little contribution for the society,.

Then it was a foundation where they take care of people with disability, my possibly the second experience of having a meal together, and was rejoicing the afternoon, filled with smiles around in seeing me, then set out to take a ride around the foundation to explore the various sustainable activites and quite overwhelmed in understanding the fact that even when the entire surrounding go without crops in summer, there is our foundation that helps to sustain life and move on.

Understanding the idea of a fruit forest was a different experience and enriching was to see few friends from foreign land, were on foot to learn the art of agriculture and help to learn the art of life.

Then evening dawn, with a little bit of a drizzle and we set out to a nearby village taken care  by the Youth who have been idealized and moved by the values of Dr BR Ambedkar for a short festival celebration where all young ones be part to bring out their talents.

And also was a opportunity to witness the village is separated by the road in centre, where one end of the town , is led by the lower caste and the other end of the town lived and nurtured well by the Upper caste, it’s still a dream of understanding developing India and yes that’s life.

We returned back to our home, which is bamboo, house, lush air in the night surrounded by the stars and green fresh air, the 1^st time, I ever had never to see a fan needed.

The next day was a melancholy in witnessing the dawn of the morning rises along with you and your part of it, wish we still find something like that in life and the morning began in a experience to speak to the young people of the foundation on leadership and what changes in life when you ask the question WHY?.

It was a memorable sessions of all that I gave, since I was finally getting to see a lot of people showing interest, since being in the fast moving world, many sessions where I addressed we find people equipped with media and the influence of it  and they miss the art of meeting in person and speaking,.

I felt happy in doing a better job in this short span of time and making them understand the need of values and how important it is to take guidance from holy books.

And we broke down for lunch and helped to spend some quality time, in speaking with the children to understand each one’s story and personally, I have listened to few stories and of the way they were before here and how life has transformed them to understand and move a pace with life.

We then set out as it was the evening and we had a nice evening spent at a little while in the nearby vacant area surrounded by trees and gazing at the stars and was fortunate, and made me realize this is life, though there is many we get in life, we tend not to move with and we stop, and realized enjoy life no matter what it is…

Money will come, but time doesn’t.

                And retuned back to our home and room and set foot to bed with the quietness of life.

                We began the next day, in meeting the Mr Karthik and was a long conversation on life, values, biology and the contribution to society at large and it was  fruitful word to understand the need of life and how to go about it.

                I bid a big thank you to all and returned back to my home back, with lot of memories of life, walk, and the art of there is more to life than work.

It gave me the life learning of Is it time to unplug? despite our busy schedule of life and no time to even talk moments, do we need a pause to understand the essence and the value of personal time and the growth phase of one's life is when you give time than the mobile phone in hand...

Can we stop a Catastrophic Future!

Global Warming refers to significant changes in global temperature, unpredictable wind pattern and other to measures of climate that occurs over several decades or longer. For the last couple of centuries, this change has made a notable impact on our Biophysical environment and eco-system which aggressively destroys the earth’s biodiversity.

Rising sea level, Atmospheric hotness, Ozone Depletion, and few human activities which went out of control for instance: Deforestation, Ocean acidification, Human Population, poor waste management in a massive quantity and aggressive urban sprawl are the global activity which ignites Global warming.

While exploring the root cause of how it affects life on earth, Life form on planet earth is carbon-based including humans. The carbon supports our life is CO, it holds one carbon molecule and one oxygen molecule. It gets complicated when humans release colorless carbon dioxide gas with a density of 60 percent higher than the dry air. Carbon dioxide consists of a carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms which do not provide a habitable atmosphere for any living organism.

A couple of months ago, I’ve visited Delhi. Air Quality Index was displayed in the Delhi metro station. It showcased Delhi’s pollution level of 439 AQI (Air Quality Index) during the peak level of air pollution where countries like Canada only had 9 AQI on the same day. however, during this study, I felt a shock wave within myself after witnessing this scale which shows three Degree of Climate Destabilization. It showcases warning levels of raising Global Temperature and how hard it’s gonna hit the existence of all life forms. Climate Activist Greta Thunberg’s voice on “We are at the beginning of mass extinction” knocked my head after understanding the general idea on Global Warning and climate justice in-depth. 

This exploration leads me to find the changes on planet earth in specific to ever-changing yet unpredictable climatic conditions via NASA’s earth observatory. The website presented a 50-second video on the drastic change in earth’s climate which gradually increased from the little ice age to the current time (1885 to 2014) temperature raising from -2.5 to +2.5.

 I also came across the keeling curve graph of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii from 1958 to the present day which technically shows how our global development via industrialization has pulling growth of the lifespan of each lifeform.

Nature never disappoints to fascinate, during this study I came across few types of natural phenomena include Permafrost in geology, causes of extreme Weather and fog, thunder, tornadoes; decomposition, germination; physical processes, erosion; tidal flow, and natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. Global warming disturbs all these earth’s nature happenings and places environment in a catastrophic position where life forms may not able to adapt or sustain.

-          V.M. EBIN NAVIS, CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU.

Understanding the Season of Advent

Courtesy: YCW group in Europe