The Return of Eklavya

Note: The following story is original and is a work of fiction. 


His concentration was centered on the target. His eyes were blindfolded but his ears were wide open to the tinkling of the bell far across. His mind pictured the bell hanging to the neck of the deer. His goal was to hit the bell and stop the sound. The arrow was ready to leave his bow once he released his hold. At that moment, he paused a second and thought about his past.

He learnt the art of archery by practicing in front of Guru Dronacharya’s idol and later amazed a number of people with his talent. Dronacharya made a promise to his favorite student Arjuna that he’ll make him the best archer in the world; to satisfy which, Eklavya had to gift his right hand thumb to his Guru as "Guru dhakshina" (a gift to the Guru). He was dull and dejected with his life after this incident as archery was the only talent he had. His wife encouraged him to continue working on his archery albeit the loss of his thumb. He now held his bow with his right hand and pulled the arrow with his left. His strength was reduced but his aim was unperturbed.

He had to win today’s challenge to satisfy himself and his wife. He finally took one deep breath and let the arrow go. In an instant, everything became silent; there was no tinkling of the bell. He opened his eyes to see the deer drop dead, his heart broke, the audience laughed at his failure. After all the years practice, he was disappointed at losing his target, because of which the poor deer had to give away his life.

He went close to the deer to pull his arrow from its body, but to his surprise he found no arrow on the deer. He shook the deer and it immediately sprinted away from him, but now, he did not hear any tinkling of the bell when it ran. He looked around and found the bell on the ground, which was earlier hanging down the neck of the deer and which is now, hit by his arrow.

Everyone started praising him now on his victory. After learning about his success, his wife thought to herself, “Guru Dronacharya, you will never be able to keep up your promise; Eklavya would always be the best archer in the world”.


Inspired from the Indian epic "The Mahabharatha"
Copyrighted: R Kappera


The Real Story: According to the Mahabharatha, after Eklavya gifts his right hand thumb to his Guru, he completely leaves his art of archery. He becomes a confidant of King Jarasandha, father of Rukmini, who elopes with Lord Krishna. Eklavya is later killed by Krishna in a conflict with King Jarasandha, who hence attains salvation.
Source: Vasthav Dharshan of Mahabharath; A.D. Athawale

Creativity

What is being creative?

Creativity is no longer the word that is registered for musicians or artists. It is something you can find in anyone. It’s the ability and urge to make something valuable. It can be big, it can be small, but making something new, something different, something that surprises, something that makes you think and something that makes you smile. It’s making something beautiful, it’s telling a story;  it’s telling your story, expressing yourself. It’s about being passionate; it’s creating something other people can use, sharing your creativity. It’s about relating that there isn’t any right or wrong way of doing things. There's not always that correct answer, only the answers that we create. What’s common for creativity is that it comes from inspiration, inspiration found in the world related and the people we live with. It’s found in what we share with them, building on what’s given from the diversity of people's thoughts and perspectives. So try and drop the assumption that we know how to do things and already know the solution. Stray away from the direct path, take risks, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, coz it’s only from mistakes that we learn and it’s from these mistakes that the really interesting things happen. We always may not create or invent, but we always learn when we try.

Idkul flip phone: Check out idkul.com/flipphone.htm

Camera's Antiblinking feature

The newer model camera's have anti blinking capability. So when you take a picture, the camera detects if someone has blinked their eye and eventually reports to you, so that you can take a better picture. This feature was all good until the Chinese started using such Cameras. See the picture below for full details

Crazy basketball

Japanese trick for Folding T shirts

First of all, Happy New Year 2011 all of you

As we know, the Japanese have some simple tricks of life in doing simple everyday jobs. I found one of them on the youtube.

Folding your clothes after laundry is always a boring job. Here's one trick that could make it easy as well as interesting