What do we call this - An inspiring story

I stumbled upon this story and recently I heard this story in a chief guest address by Dr. Sabapathi Mohan, MS University.

An elderly water bearer had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.”“Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?”
“I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said.
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.”
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.
The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”

CARVA - A Learning Experience

(Excerpt from my another blog) written on Aug 22, 2008

"Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere." – Chinese Proverb

Learning at CARVA is fun. CARVA school stands for the quintessential Carnatic music instrument called violin. The founder of this school, our guru, Shri. CA Rajasekar is one of the greatest violinist and a wonderful guru. Started in 2000, CARVA has been successful in teaching violin among all age groups with simple and easy bowing techniques.

What is special about this school? – the school is unique by itself. CARVA gives a lot of exposure to all the students by organizing performances. The students get a good amount of confidence while playing in front of huge audiences.

Shri. CA Rajasekar’s teaching is par beyond excellence. He ensures that every student gets his / her fundamentals correct while learning violin even if it means spending more number of classes. In order to play violin, bowing technique, finger placement are two important things that one needs to get it correct before learning different swaras.
The initial classes at CARVA concentrate more on holding violin and bow in the right position. Once a student gets his / her basics right he /she starts loving to enjoy and learn more and more from him. Only here, you could find people of all age groups learn under the tutelage of him. What makes our guru stand apart from all others is that his ability to bring out the best in every student whom he has trained and nurtured in music right from the first class (open string Sa)

He demonstrates high amount of patience and perseverance to ensure that every student comes out the best. Learning at CARVA is an experience. Every class is filled with a right mixture of training, fun, creativity, theory of music. Every class at CARVA is vibrant, positive and kindles the fire in the students to learn more and more from him.

For people like us, who have taken learning violin as a break from our mundane work, every class is still more an alluring learning experience every class.

I am sure this is the only school that provides plethora of learning / playing experience throughout the year right from playing at the Samadhi of Saint Thyagaraja to the annual CARVA festival. The school not only concentrates on the finer aspects of playing violin but also imparts musical theory which is a fundamental knowledge one should possess while learning music in any form. He derives utmost pleasure when he sees the entire batch playing violin in unison without any mistakes.

What is Attitude?

(Excerpts from my another blog....) written on Jul 17, 2008

(a maiden attempt to write a 1 pager on a topic :-))
What is Attitude?
Attitude is everything. Our life cycles around this word called attitude. Attitude means the positive or negative way of an "attitude object": i.e., a person, behavior, or event.
Attitude exists in all walks of our life. – Be it food habits, good thoughts, approach to people, success in business, in the playground, with the family.
People have free choice of doing things as they please. But what is more important is, how is their approach, attitude towards things?
We are filled with emotions and attitudes that we inherit/ acquire from family/ friends. The way of differentiating good attitude (way of thinking) and bad attitude determines our success rate to a greater extent.
We have different attitude about self, towards other things / people and attitude on life. Attitude on self can be self-esteem, pride, self confidence. Attitude on others can be the way of looking at people / object – good feeling about the others, indifference towards others. Attitude towards life – a challenging question!. How do I view it? It is a feeling of thinking good things / happenings would always come our way because we are doomed to difficulties in life.
A Positive attitude can overcome a negative situation. It generates positive thoughts that emerge circumstantially. – A Paradigm Shift. When you shift your attitude towards positive way, you feel that life suddenly responds in kind.
A Positive attitude attracts positive things and positive thoughts in life. A Negative Attitude act the reverse. For example, if you speak negative about another person or a situation it suddenly attracts negative thoughts and circumstances in life.
Let me give an example:
We go to a shop and buy things. We are happy looking at different things. We get whatever we want in the shop. All is fine. When we go to the Cash counter and pay cash, we notice that one of the currencies that we intend to pay is torn but fixed with a transparent adhesive tape. Do we take it back and give a good currency to the cashier?. No, most of the times we do not. Here our negative attitude is reflected. On the other side, he accepts your torn currency. It shows his positive attitude.
“ Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us” - John N. Mitchell