Category Archives: My Notebook

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Kōnosuke Matsushita was not a great speaker. His voice was evidently frail. He never displayed quick-silver intellect.  And, even if he did, it was all too rare — never in public view. He also never warmed his audience with hilarious anecdotes. But, he did what all great leaders do. He motivated large groups […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Many of us indulge in self-talk. Self-talk guides us from our own emotional responses to a more conscious level. You’d call this state a learning plateau reflecting our needs and attitudes. When you process experiences and emotions associated with self-talk, you begin to filter not just your experiences, but also beliefs. Beliefs are […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR It all emerged, quite amusingly, from an unlikely pioneer, who, as a kid bearing a fragile, delicate frame, was, otherwise, perky in school with his relentless inquisitiveness. While not much is known of Sigmund Freud’s early life, because he purged his personal writings, twice over, his subsequent papers were strictly embargoed in the […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR There just can’t be a better example of globalised fascination than cartoon strips. You know them all — the great, all-time favourites. However, none comes close to one classical genre that is in a league of its own — the much-loved Asterix. It is a delight that’s going as strong as ever — […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Cricketing contexts are boundless means — not arbitrary constructions. They are, in more ways than one, nestled truths anchored in wide and deep realities, where each of such truths is a part of other wholes. In other words — a myriad artwork that more than highlights, or celebrates, a particular context. This also […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR All of us know its essence, if not its subtle nuance — yet, we are, for the most part, too tense about what the future would hold for us. As Albert Einstein said, “I never think of the future; it comes soon enough.” For most people though, the future is always near and yet […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The philosopher Plato thought that we are all in the same yacht apropos of our vision. This, notwithstanding the fact that all of us aim to be better than others while imbibing and cultivating wisdom, valour, balance, or commitment, and not being absurd, anxious, indisciplined, or prejudiced. The inference is apparent — if […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Life, in simple terms, is wholeness of being. In ancient cultures, the butterfly, the exquisite glider beyond compare, symbolised such wholeness. The wise, old Greeks contended that the gorgeous butterfly represented our soul, the symbol of life and its wholeness. They also believed that the multihued insect’s decorative wings represented change. One could […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR His name conjures up images of pure art, also science, of batting at its best — a canvas that Rembrandt van Rijn would have painted with relish. He integrated aesthetic judgment with truth and justice, no less: a theory of knowledge of what is merely artistic is also simply articulate. Not only that. […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Happiness, as most of us think, isn’t just pleasure, or synthetic satisfaction. “Many persons,” as Helen Keller put it, “have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” Human happiness cannot exist in a vacuum, or in isolation, because the […]