Meandering thoughts - Sita Sreeraman

My son Aditya is now two and a half years old.  I am making a record of some of the videos/songs we have played him online. When he just a few moths old, we would play him songs from Karadi Tales - he loved the Train Song (Chai Chai, Coffee Coffee) and Just Like You. Then came the Phonics Song, the ABC song, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle etc (mothergoose.com) and other rhymes. He loved /s the Wee Sing rhymes CDs. Aditya then moved on to Trains(Swiss Trains, German ICE trains, Japanese Bullet) videos, Vande Mataram(Vikku Vinayaram, Sashank, Vande Mataram 4 singers) . He has since graduated to Mr. Bean, Pimpa, Barbapapa, Tigger and Pooh, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, In the night garden, Teletubbies, Peepa Pig, Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom. Music videos: Mridangam by a little boy called Shyam Krishna, songs by Erode Anantharaman (pibare), Sai Bhajans, Aruna Sairam's version of "Veshamakara Kannan". Some of the episodes he watches again and again are: Mr Bean:

I was reading Nelson Mandela's A Long Road to Freedom. After his 27 year long imprisonment, when Madela visited his home town, he was dismayed to see plastic bags and litter, spoiling this once serene hometown. And he mentions how he went away before plastics and when he came back it was shocking to find this new thing and to see it littered pretty much everywhere. How did this happen - how did we let this little(convenient) monster in? Before plastics became mainstay: Milk was delivered to the doorstep in bottles or one collected it from a common collection center. Yogurt was/is made at home, so yogurt pots are not a menace. One carried bags to the grocery stores, and whatever was needed was packed in Paper and coir thread. For oil, one took steel containers. No shampoo, cosmetics in plastic Soap came in bars wrapped in paper. No diapers, baby food, buggies No restaurant take-ways in plastic. Again one took containers or the food was wrapped in bananan leaf and paper.

I recently read a book called " 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life". It is a journal of Cami Walker, who is diagnosed with MS(multiple-sclerosis) a month after she is married and how she slides down into the disease and depression and self-centeredness and then starts a process of simple giving on the advice of her friend. And the giving starts profound changes in her life. I made notes of some really nice things from the book: (hope this is not copyright violation): By giving, you are focusing on what you have to offer others, inviting abundance into your life. The gifts can be anything but their giving has to be both authentic and mindful. A closed hand cannot receive. I think you need to stop thinking about yourself. If you spend all your time and energy focusing on your pain, you are feeding the disease. You are making it worse by putting all of your attention there. Healing does not happen in vacuum, but through our interactions with other people.