Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less

A quotation from C.S. Lewis (author of Chronicles of Narnia fame), it sets me thinking. In my opinion humility is about treating someone with respect and grace no matter what your intellectual, moral or economic stature is. In a way it is a kind of calm confidence that you have in your self and you don't let yourself turn into a pigheaded person.

For the most part I would like to believe that humility is one of my virtues but as I re-read this quote, I wonder, if I am confusing humility with being polite. Lets separate people into 3 zones. Zone 1: Super familiar people, Zone 2: People met here and there at office or say strangers in the airplane, mall etc., Zone 3: Globally, say kids in Somalia.

With Zone 2 its the best, because its so easy to convince someone for short term :-). With Zone 1, time to time they would have seen signs of impatience and haughtiness but still I would thing it would average out to be on the positive side. For Zone 3, its an absolute zero for I am so involved in myself and the first two zones that I just don't seem to care about anyone outside of it.

In answer to the exact question "How good are you of placing others before yourself?"  I would say, I am doing just about ok here. I could do better with both the first and second part of the quote.

Man, this is a deep topic and all I can think of at this point is hitting the sack. Toodles!

If I could banish one thing from this planet....Rape!

I imagine for a second that I am God and I have the absolute power to abolish something from my own creation, a mistake I made. What would that be? Now, I did see Elysium. But mankind is greedy and stupid. How could he imagine that I would banish death. Have you ever thought of actually living an endless life? How futile would that be!

Haha..that was fun, acting like God. Well, but seriously if I had that kind of power the one thing that I would banish would be rape. I am sure, most people would have heard of the rape incidents in India in the past few months. I felt like a sinking piece of metal as I read about them. Something that ashamed and saddened me to no ends. And the question that kept coming into my mind again and again at this cruel, sadistic deed was - Why? Why would anyone do this? Is this something designed in our biology? What forces men to do this?

There could be a whole lot of debate and discussion on this. But this what it comes to. I have listed out the factors that I think are the root cause of this evil in that order:

Male chauvinistic society with suppressed women

Extreme competition between men (economically/socially/physically) to prove their worth and extreme suppression

Man's dominance over women (physically/socially/economically), a way to ascertain his masculinity

Disastrous situations --> rape

Problem made stronger by weak laws

Continues on as a heritage - vicious loop!

Top all of the above with the fact that man is genetically wired to spread his seeds across as much as possible, whereas a woman to only receive, bear the pain, deliver and nurture.

I read  a very very interesting article here from a leading daily in India, The Hindu. It talks about how some other mammals are also known to rape, but the cruelty involved may be more characteristic of us pathetic humans. It also says that some native human tribes known for brutal wars and other masculine attributes, have zero instances of rape because of the inherent respect and equality that women of the tribe enjoy. Food for thought?

Perhaps our "Man"kind would be "kind" enough to think this through?

Indian Menu Planning - Dec'13

I made a curry out of Banana tree flower - vazhaipoo (dish taken from here), for the very first time. It turned out wonderful! I am eating it after many many years I believe.

Menu planning  is the single most sensible thing I have been doing for the past couple of months and its a life savior for the crazy week days. Trust me, planning this out saves so much time! It was pretty elaborate when I began but it has trickled into something like this:

Monday:
Palak Paneer, Oven baked Gobi, Bajri roti

Tuesday:
Chole, Baingan bartha, Roti

Wednesday:
Daal, Mixed veggie, Mooli paratha

Thursday:
Carrot, Pumpkin soup, Quinoa pulav

Friday:
Cabbage sabzi, Kara kozhambu

Friday is always a surprise, you never know how it turns out, so I have something planned out just in case. Happy week ahead! Tagging this to I''m an Organizing Junkie's - Menu Plan Mondays.