The story of Shravana Kumara depicts the dedicated service to parents. It dates back to time of King Dasaratha's rule.
A young Brahmin boy named Shravana Kumar lived in Dasaradha's kingdom. He is the only son of his parents, who both are very old, blind and weak in physical strength. As a dutiful son Shravana Kumar used to take care of his parents by providing with every need. He is very devoted son and as he knows his parents might face trouble if he leave them, he used to carry both his parents in a yoke/bangy (kavadi) where ever he travels.
One day his parents told him that they had become quite aged. They, therefore, wanted him to take them to the various places of pilgrimage : this could make them fully satisfied and give them abundant peace of mind. It is a typical Hindu belief that a pilgrimage to the various shrines and holy places undertaken in old age, purifies the soul and takes one nearer to one's Maker ere the icy hand of Death touches one. To a Hindu mind nothing is more precious, than becoming one with the great Maker of this Universe. As a dutiful son would have, Sharavana Kumar undertook the mission to satisfy the desire of pilgrimage requested by his parents.
Shravana Kumar was travelling through forest carrying his parents and due to length of journey and heat of summer his parents are thirsty and asked son to provide some water. Shravana Kumar placed the yoke containing both his parents under shade of a tree and went to nearest pond to fetch water. At that time King Dasaratha, who came for pleasure hunting expedition to the same forest, listened to the noise near the pond. He mistook the noise to be caused by a deer drinking water, shot an arrow in the direction of the noise which hit Shravana Kumara. Realizing the grave mistake committed the king rushed to the spot and found the brahmin boy reaching his last breathe. Shravana Kumar explained his parents position, requested the King to quench the thirst of his parents who are rested under the tree.
Dasaratha has fetched the water from the pond and offered the same to the parents of Shravana Kumar. Unable to hear the familiar voice of their beloved son and realizing that it is not their son who fetched the water for them, the old couple enquired the whereabouts of their son. When Dasaratha narrated how the hastiness of his action resulted in the death of their son, Shravana Kumar's mother died immediately of a heart attack. Sharavan Kumar's father died few moments later, cursing Dasaratha to meet similar death after being separated from his beloved son.
King Dasaratha who is childless at that point of time had mixed feelings. He felt sad for being responsible for the death of a family by his action. He at the same time reflected and felt happy a bit that in order for the curse to come true, he would be blessed with a son. Years later Dasaratha meets death when separated from his son Rama.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
My Dad's Financial Theory
I always relied on my dad for any major financial decisions. In early days I used to inform even about paltry 2k loan given to my best friend as well to my dad. Even though my dad has not made best investment decisions in his own life, somehow I sensed accuracy of his judgement when it comes to my financial calls. Right from the day when to start my first LIC policy to when to plan for my car. Best of all came ofcourse during my house purchase. If he was not there to assist, I would not have purchased by house. The decision, when I look back now, has almost saved me from any probable financial crisis today. The timing was so right that it continues to be the best investment I made in my life.
There is how ever a peculiar way my dad manages his own finances. Given the fact that I became familiarized with finance through my job in a leading bank's IT department, some of my dad's decisions don't make whole lot of sense to me from investment/return stand point. His major strategy on investment is acquiring an asset through loan even though he has adequate cash at hand in form of debt instruments. For a person who is near retirement age, not much argument goes against his investments in debt instruments. But what amazes me is he finances his asset payment(assuming the asset is not having any tax benefit like a homeloan) via a bank loan and thus his net interest margin(NIM) is at least -6to -8 %. In layman's terms when his debt instruments pay him around 8-10% return where his bank loan eats up to 12-14% as interest payable. Only positive side of it is if the asset appreciates in its value then the negative NIM might get offset in time. If he employed his cash instead of loan, his appreciated asset would fetch him more profit.
His argument is simple. We lack financial discipline unless there is a liability enforced upon. We can easily pay back loan with out defaulting any installment but we do lack financial discipline to accumulate a lumpsum. For example he needs 5 lakhs to purchase an asset and he takes a bank loan by paying 12% interest for 3 years(despite having a 5laks cash in debt security) . He claims at the end of 3 years he would be in possession of asset and his 5 lakhs cash remains the same. But if he uses up his 5laks cash for asset purchase, he would mere have asset at his disposal at end of 3 years as he lacks financial discipline to accumulate the lumpsum of 5 lakhs back.
Practically what he says seems right to me even though from financial stand point it does not appeal to me. I made a very recent amend to this. When I had to fiance my car I did not rely on his theory. I instead emptied my pockets first by pulling out every penny in every bank account/FD. When I still fell short that's when I went to bank for loan. In this context my decision seemed right to me as car is all the more depreciating asset. Only thing I came to understand is financial indiscipline is catalyst that drives my dad's financial theory. So decided to be little more disciplined so that I can try and accumulate the lump sum I had before purchase of car. If I manage to do it I can say I had improved version of financial theory.
There is how ever a peculiar way my dad manages his own finances. Given the fact that I became familiarized with finance through my job in a leading bank's IT department, some of my dad's decisions don't make whole lot of sense to me from investment/return stand point. His major strategy on investment is acquiring an asset through loan even though he has adequate cash at hand in form of debt instruments. For a person who is near retirement age, not much argument goes against his investments in debt instruments. But what amazes me is he finances his asset payment(assuming the asset is not having any tax benefit like a homeloan) via a bank loan and thus his net interest margin(NIM) is at least -6to -8 %. In layman's terms when his debt instruments pay him around 8-10% return where his bank loan eats up to 12-14% as interest payable. Only positive side of it is if the asset appreciates in its value then the negative NIM might get offset in time. If he employed his cash instead of loan, his appreciated asset would fetch him more profit.
His argument is simple. We lack financial discipline unless there is a liability enforced upon. We can easily pay back loan with out defaulting any installment but we do lack financial discipline to accumulate a lumpsum. For example he needs 5 lakhs to purchase an asset and he takes a bank loan by paying 12% interest for 3 years(despite having a 5laks cash in debt security) . He claims at the end of 3 years he would be in possession of asset and his 5 lakhs cash remains the same. But if he uses up his 5laks cash for asset purchase, he would mere have asset at his disposal at end of 3 years as he lacks financial discipline to accumulate the lumpsum of 5 lakhs back.
Practically what he says seems right to me even though from financial stand point it does not appeal to me. I made a very recent amend to this. When I had to fiance my car I did not rely on his theory. I instead emptied my pockets first by pulling out every penny in every bank account/FD. When I still fell short that's when I went to bank for loan. In this context my decision seemed right to me as car is all the more depreciating asset. Only thing I came to understand is financial indiscipline is catalyst that drives my dad's financial theory. So decided to be little more disciplined so that I can try and accumulate the lump sum I had before purchase of car. If I manage to do it I can say I had improved version of financial theory.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Power of Friendship
World is going to celebrate friendship day in a week's time. I don't have admiration for reserving a day of the year for each relation ie., dad's day, mom's day, lover's day, son's day etc., But it does not really hurt me to write a small note abt power of friendship.
Friendship is one relation that gives an individual, to some extent, an opportunity to choose. We cannot choose our parents, we cant do so with our siblings. We just need to accept them as is. But in life we get opportunity to choose the friend we want. In my opening sentence I said 'to some extent'. Reason is even though it would appear to us we have ocean of opportunity with us to choose any as our friend, but a closer look reveals that we can only choose from the list of people we come across in life. One cannot choose to be friends with a sachin tendulkar or a ameer khan, if life does not provide him/her with an opportunity to meet them at all. Secondly, we want to be friend with a person but the relation only works when the other person also accepts the friendship. Thirdly, our samskaras do not allow us to make friends with some people even if we try to.
There goes an old saying that says 'show me your friends, I will tell who you are'. It means as one has choice on friendship, one would choose people who are similar to himself or herself, or one with whom one feel secure, or one who emancipates what one aspires to be. It does not necessarily means personalities match exactly but underlying fundamentals match. My feeling is that all my friends have whole lot of differences when it comes to personalities but what unifies us together is the commonality in the moral code.
Like none of my notes are complete with out reference to Ramayana or other epics. I will try to illustrate few friendships in our epics and how they made their impact to person's life. To begin with Ramayana, two brothers named Vali and Sugriva were there. Vali had a friend named Ravana and Sugriva had a friend named Rama. Sugriva prospered because of friendship to a good person and went on to become king of vanaras and Vali got killed by Rama. If we closely inspect, why Rama made friendship with Sugriva instead of Vali. Sugriva and Rama were in similar state when they met, Rama's wife stolen by Ravana and Sugriva's wife stolen by Vali. Further more inspection gives that Sugriva is a dharmic individual like Rama and so they were able to strike an accord.
In Mahabharata again were two brothers names Karna and Arjuna. Arjuna is close friend of Lord Krishna where as Karna made friendship with jealous Duryodhana. Karna's noble qualities faded by the company bad guys and thus had to meet death in the hands of Arjuna. Where as Arjuna prospered under friendship of Krishna. He gave timely advises like getting pasupata Astra from Krishna. It is Lord Krishna who motivates Arjuna before Kurukshetra war by teaching him Bhagavadgita.
Even in our life we would have noted we come across many friends at several points of time and not all of them stay for long. Not all of them make an impact as well. Good friends make a positive impact that we would carry althrough our life. Bad friends too make an impact albeit a killer impact that can nearly ruin the life.
To conclude, I am one such lucky individual to come across some nice people in my life who made deep impact to my life at different points of time. In gratitude I am sending this note to those wonderful people.
Friendship is one relation that gives an individual, to some extent, an opportunity to choose. We cannot choose our parents, we cant do so with our siblings. We just need to accept them as is. But in life we get opportunity to choose the friend we want. In my opening sentence I said 'to some extent'. Reason is even though it would appear to us we have ocean of opportunity with us to choose any as our friend, but a closer look reveals that we can only choose from the list of people we come across in life. One cannot choose to be friends with a sachin tendulkar or a ameer khan, if life does not provide him/her with an opportunity to meet them at all. Secondly, we want to be friend with a person but the relation only works when the other person also accepts the friendship. Thirdly, our samskaras do not allow us to make friends with some people even if we try to.
There goes an old saying that says 'show me your friends, I will tell who you are'. It means as one has choice on friendship, one would choose people who are similar to himself or herself, or one with whom one feel secure, or one who emancipates what one aspires to be. It does not necessarily means personalities match exactly but underlying fundamentals match. My feeling is that all my friends have whole lot of differences when it comes to personalities but what unifies us together is the commonality in the moral code.
Like none of my notes are complete with out reference to Ramayana or other epics. I will try to illustrate few friendships in our epics and how they made their impact to person's life. To begin with Ramayana, two brothers named Vali and Sugriva were there. Vali had a friend named Ravana and Sugriva had a friend named Rama. Sugriva prospered because of friendship to a good person and went on to become king of vanaras and Vali got killed by Rama. If we closely inspect, why Rama made friendship with Sugriva instead of Vali. Sugriva and Rama were in similar state when they met, Rama's wife stolen by Ravana and Sugriva's wife stolen by Vali. Further more inspection gives that Sugriva is a dharmic individual like Rama and so they were able to strike an accord.
In Mahabharata again were two brothers names Karna and Arjuna. Arjuna is close friend of Lord Krishna where as Karna made friendship with jealous Duryodhana. Karna's noble qualities faded by the company bad guys and thus had to meet death in the hands of Arjuna. Where as Arjuna prospered under friendship of Krishna. He gave timely advises like getting pasupata Astra from Krishna. It is Lord Krishna who motivates Arjuna before Kurukshetra war by teaching him Bhagavadgita.
Even in our life we would have noted we come across many friends at several points of time and not all of them stay for long. Not all of them make an impact as well. Good friends make a positive impact that we would carry althrough our life. Bad friends too make an impact albeit a killer impact that can nearly ruin the life.
To conclude, I am one such lucky individual to come across some nice people in my life who made deep impact to my life at different points of time. In gratitude I am sending this note to those wonderful people.
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