Wow
40
I remember 40 is important for the following reasons -
Jesus fasted for 40 days (Lent),
Moses stayed with god for 40 days,
Women carry new born in womb for 40weeks ,
Noah's Arc story talks about 40 days rain,
Muhammad praying and fasting in the cave for 40 days
In Hinduism a Mandalam is 40 days including Ayappa Viradam which consists of 40days (which I practiced last year)
and
40 is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.(FORTY!)
So there you go - Order, religion and all things pointing to old age.
Siva (me) officially becomes Uncle Siva (not uncle Sam!)
I thought I will write this post to talk about Life,Death and everything in between(at least till 40 years)
This is an intellectual post and lots of philosophy and spirituality which people with heart conditions,pregnant women , young kids and all light hearted people should not read. As usual close this browser go find some other entertaining stuff (and don't forge to wish me happy birthday)
If you are still reading let's start.
4 Times in my life I was in the verge of death and we will start with those 3. Before that - let me thank everyone who wished me in WhatsApp,Facebook,Outlook,Linked In and in iphone messages. I didnt get any tweets,phone calls and in person visit yet (as of May 22 2015 11:14am!)
4 Times - Once when I was a little boy(5-6 years old), when I was 10-, once when I was 24 years old and once when I was 26 years old.
I will start with the first one
When I was very young - 6-8 year old we traveled in a hired car from TVS group . We met with an accident.
My sisters and everyone was hurt and I do recall the hospital where we went. My mom kept telling me between the time we met the accident and we went to the hospital I was literally thrown out of the car and was in the riverbanks lying closer to the water.
I wasn't thrown into the river which might have got me drowned and dead which didn't happen. Neither was I hit by another car or on to a tree. Another bus or car stopped and people in that car/bus helped all of us to get to the hospital.
So I know I was saved once.
I was 10-11 and was walking from my school to my sisters school and it was raining heavily. There was a man hole open and I fell into in holding an umbrella like this
and I ended up like this man
Luckily the wind was pushing the umbrella up and 10-11 year old is not heavy.
My life was spared and my parents decided to move me out of the school . Did you know I moved to 6 schools in 15 years - roughly 2 years in each school except in one school Vivekanda where I studied 4 years.
It was the 1998 and I was 5-6 months old to this country (USA) . I had arrived from India and was looking forward to meeting my cousin in Houston. After waking up early 5 or 6 am when I usually wake up only at 10am on weekends, I make a mistake of driving (which I was new and was driving only for 6-7 days ) . While on my way, I remember taking an exit and the next thing I see is a gas pump. I hit a gas pump
I saw the pump and not anything else. The next thing I realized was the airbags and my glass had flown away from my eyes . (I was still wearing glasses till I changed to contacts to 2004). I was worried about glasses and my passport which was in the glove box. I have been wearing glasses from the time I was in my 7th standard(grade) - 11-12 years old. I had low power (close to 3.25 in both my years) but never removed my glasses. So the feeling of not having glasses was more devastating than the accident.
A man with Tattoo and Bike ( you guessed it Tattoo man always accompany bikes) yelled at me in all the bad words that came to his mind. I already had an issue understanding American accent now I have a south weekend warrior with Tattoo yelling at the top of his voice filled with profanity . Now why should he yell at me? Wasn't I the one involved in the accident ?
Later did I find that he skipped the pump I hit and moved to the next one as there was some issue and as soon as he moved (1-2min later ) I hit the exact pump he moved away from. I would have killed him.
Why did I meet with an accident? Sleep deprivation . I am not used to waking up early and didn't have enough rest.
Lesson to be learnt - sleep well .Never compromise on sleep!
I went and spoke to the gas station owner - a Desi(Indian) Patel ( I assume) who promptly used the emergency switch off and called the cop.
This Tattoo man was my savior - by the time the Police officer showed up (and don't forget I had a problem understanding American accent which included African American , Southern, Tattooed weekend bike warriors and all other accents that were not Indian/Victorian ).
Let's digress - British left India and all its colonies including Egypt with Victorian accent when Queen Victoria ruled us(Long live the Queen!)
The British went back and retained/created an accent better known as British accent. British accent is not Victorian Colonial accent.
When I went to London I realized colonial people cannot communicate with British colonial rulers even though they all speak English! Gordon Brown doesn't talk like Sivakumar Manikanteswaran!
Let's back to the accident. Now the Tattoo warrior explained/clarified and helped me communicate to the officer and ensured that officer understand that I wasn't drunk but sleep deprived. All clear I went and got another rental car and met my cousin later the same day. I was alive one more time not yet dead.
If you have listened to me talk about my NY story when I was 26 years old then you know it was Sep 11 2001 and I was one of the first few to get out of New York city in the second ship/boat towards Weehawken NJ and we witnessed the second building collapse from Weehawken. We ran towards Pier 11 when first building collapsed!
We were there in the path station in Oneworld Trade center at 8:45am on sep 11 2001 . If you don't know the world trade center was also train station for people commuting to NJ and it was also a subway station connecting NY transit trains. You could also take LIRR trains to go to Long Island. This meant you can take subway( to travel inside NY city),PATH (to go to NJ) or LIRR.
There were 3 huge escalators. When we reached at 8:45 the first 2 were clear and the last one after landing to the highest point saw coffee and lot os fhings thrown everywhere and cops .. lots of them yelling 'Get out of this building now'.
My friend Vaithy picked up an excel sheet and joked.. not realizing it had come from the world trade center. When we were walking closer to stock exchange in wall street there was a man talking to someone explaining about earth quake. We didn't understand he has misunderstood the impact of the airplane and the loud noises as earth quake.
We heard a lady use the word FBI asking a taxi to go towards World Trade Center. We went away from World Trade center towards 125 broad street. A Jewish man explained to us in the elevator that there was an airplane inside the World Trade center and we thought it was a good joke.
Least did we realize he was right. When we went to the 14th floor we saw the cop boats, cop cars, Fire trucks and all flashy stuff near Pier 11. I didn't realize I will be there in the next 30min running for my life towards water and not knowing swimming.
For now ,I went to get coffee with friends and talked to stepped out to see the commotion. After watching all the vehicles this time from the ground floor we discussed to Desi Patel and we went up to check cnn.com.
We heard an announcement - this is FBI and we have taken control of this building. Please get to the first floor and wait for further instructions. Least did we know we will not go back again to the 14th floor on that day.
We got coffee and bagel for $1 from the Bangladeshi in the mobile stall. We decided to walk to 42nd street(Times Square) or to 34th street (Penn station).
Once we were near a parking garage we heard in the radio in a vehicle parked there talking about more airplanes coming towards NYC(New York City)
We were facing the direction of World Trade Center (which was completely covered with smoke) and we heard a lady scream Oh my god' .
When we saw the smoke screen comes towards us we started running towards water - Pier 11 . That is what we saw everyone do.. run towards water. The smoke screen was the result of the first world trade center building fall down and collapse which we didn't know at that time. Some people yelled - chemical attacks. It was close to 9:40 and we heard loud airplane sounds which was F16s from Florida which we thought were more rogue airplanes attacking NY.
We didn't want to hear the air. But we didn't have a choice. We had to breathe.
Once we came close to Pier 11 we saw a man with a cap which said something like New York Emergency something and there was a boat/ship that was leaving on the right and another one getting ready to leave.
The first boat/ship one was leaving to Brooklyn and even in that crisis I didn't want to go to Brooklyn.
I keep writing boat/ship as these double Decker boats looked like massive ships to me.
We boarded the boat which was destined to Weehawken NJ.
We discussed why one building was missing and we didn't realize at that time that we run few minutes ago from the rubbles of the first one. One of my friend explained how the two world trade center buildings were constructed in such a way that we can only one from some weird angle which was this angle from the boat. We kind of believed him .. and once we reached weehawken nj there were so many police officers, doctors and fire fighters waiting to help. Someone had already shown us something about attacks in a pager in the boat and now the polive,hospital staff and firefighters were waiting for us were disappointed to find not many real survivors from the building who might need help.
We saw the second building collapse which showed clearly the first one had also collapsed earlier.
I have survived the third time (please don't count marriage as near death experience!) .
Now that I had survived 3 times I wanted to know why I survived all these near death experience.
The World needed me so here I am. Even though there are 7 billion people there is no one like me (or you!). There is no one special to my kids and my wife than me. There is no one like me who is a good son,great brother, good uncle and not so good cousin!
I have been working on my ideas to write book, working hard to get a good pay check, reading a lot to write a lot.listening to lots of useful TED talks,coursera courses and youtube videos. I need to start itunesU and podcasts again!
As my son always says - Love you Daddy you are the best. For my kids I am the best.
The first 21 years of my life was spent getting educated so that I can earn a paycheck. Now that I am earning paycheck for the last 19 years I guess I need to continue this till I retire at 75 where these paychecks would have get me social security and a retirement fund .
Energy,Money and Time - I read in a whatsapp message.
When you are young you have Energy and Time no Money
When you are in your middle age you have Money and Energy no Time
When you are old you have Money and Time no Energy
Life is a journey ... keep thinking why you are living.
Most of us consume natural resource and give back journey.
What have you produced from using the natural resources? As for myself I write blogs and as long as you read them I feel productive!
After reading the book 'Being Mortal' by 'Aatul Gawande'(same guy who wrote checklist manifesto which i wrote about earlier!) .. this one talks a lot about death!
We used to live a life this
The old man lived and one day he died all of a sudden! Talk to any one older (like me ) and ask them about their great grand father.
What does this mean - we all have to live much much longer due to the medical advances. In effect all symptoms will be controlled while the disease or the factor that kills will follow to kill!
I will not write a detailed post about this topic till I am 50 (10 years from now).
Keep learning and living
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
40
I remember 40 is important for the following reasons -
Jesus fasted for 40 days (Lent),
Moses stayed with god for 40 days,
Women carry new born in womb for 40weeks ,
Noah's Arc story talks about 40 days rain,
Muhammad praying and fasting in the cave for 40 days
In Hinduism a Mandalam is 40 days including Ayappa Viradam which consists of 40days (which I practiced last year)
and
40 is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.(FORTY!)
So there you go - Order, religion and all things pointing to old age.
Siva (me) officially becomes Uncle Siva (not uncle Sam!)
I thought I will write this post to talk about Life,Death and everything in between(at least till 40 years)
This is an intellectual post and lots of philosophy and spirituality which people with heart conditions,pregnant women , young kids and all light hearted people should not read. As usual close this browser go find some other entertaining stuff (and don't forge to wish me happy birthday)
If you are still reading let's start.
4 Times in my life I was in the verge of death and we will start with those 3. Before that - let me thank everyone who wished me in WhatsApp,Facebook,Outlook,Linked In and in iphone messages. I didnt get any tweets,phone calls and in person visit yet (as of May 22 2015 11:14am!)
4 Times - Once when I was a little boy(5-6 years old), when I was 10-, once when I was 24 years old and once when I was 26 years old.
I will start with the first one
When I was very young - 6-8 year old we traveled in a hired car from TVS group . We met with an accident.
My sisters and everyone was hurt and I do recall the hospital where we went. My mom kept telling me between the time we met the accident and we went to the hospital I was literally thrown out of the car and was in the riverbanks lying closer to the water.
I wasn't thrown into the river which might have got me drowned and dead which didn't happen. Neither was I hit by another car or on to a tree. Another bus or car stopped and people in that car/bus helped all of us to get to the hospital.
So I know I was saved once.
I was 10-11 and was walking from my school to my sisters school and it was raining heavily. There was a man hole open and I fell into in holding an umbrella like this
and I ended up like this man
Luckily the wind was pushing the umbrella up and 10-11 year old is not heavy.
My life was spared and my parents decided to move me out of the school . Did you know I moved to 6 schools in 15 years - roughly 2 years in each school except in one school Vivekanda where I studied 4 years.
- In trichy - K
- In ETPS(Ennore Thermal Power Station) - 1-2
- In Hold Trinity (where I feel in manhole) - 3-4
- In Nehru Nursery (when it rained the school was closed - 5-6
- Vivenkanda Vidyala Tiruvottiyur - 7-10
- Santhome Higher Secondary School - 11-12
It was the 1998 and I was 5-6 months old to this country (USA) . I had arrived from India and was looking forward to meeting my cousin in Houston. After waking up early 5 or 6 am when I usually wake up only at 10am on weekends, I make a mistake of driving (which I was new and was driving only for 6-7 days ) . While on my way, I remember taking an exit and the next thing I see is a gas pump. I hit a gas pump
I saw the pump and not anything else. The next thing I realized was the airbags and my glass had flown away from my eyes . (I was still wearing glasses till I changed to contacts to 2004). I was worried about glasses and my passport which was in the glove box. I have been wearing glasses from the time I was in my 7th standard(grade) - 11-12 years old. I had low power (close to 3.25 in both my years) but never removed my glasses. So the feeling of not having glasses was more devastating than the accident.
A man with Tattoo and Bike ( you guessed it Tattoo man always accompany bikes) yelled at me in all the bad words that came to his mind. I already had an issue understanding American accent now I have a south weekend warrior with Tattoo yelling at the top of his voice filled with profanity . Now why should he yell at me? Wasn't I the one involved in the accident ?
Later did I find that he skipped the pump I hit and moved to the next one as there was some issue and as soon as he moved (1-2min later ) I hit the exact pump he moved away from. I would have killed him.
Why did I meet with an accident? Sleep deprivation . I am not used to waking up early and didn't have enough rest.
Lesson to be learnt - sleep well .Never compromise on sleep!
I went and spoke to the gas station owner - a Desi(Indian) Patel ( I assume) who promptly used the emergency switch off and called the cop.
This Tattoo man was my savior - by the time the Police officer showed up (and don't forget I had a problem understanding American accent which included African American , Southern, Tattooed weekend bike warriors and all other accents that were not Indian/Victorian ).
Let's digress - British left India and all its colonies including Egypt with Victorian accent when Queen Victoria ruled us(Long live the Queen!)
The British went back and retained/created an accent better known as British accent. British accent is not Victorian Colonial accent.
When I went to London I realized colonial people cannot communicate with British colonial rulers even though they all speak English! Gordon Brown doesn't talk like Sivakumar Manikanteswaran!
Let's back to the accident. Now the Tattoo warrior explained/clarified and helped me communicate to the officer and ensured that officer understand that I wasn't drunk but sleep deprived. All clear I went and got another rental car and met my cousin later the same day. I was alive one more time not yet dead.
If you have listened to me talk about my NY story when I was 26 years old then you know it was Sep 11 2001 and I was one of the first few to get out of New York city in the second ship/boat towards Weehawken NJ and we witnessed the second building collapse from Weehawken. We ran towards Pier 11 when first building collapsed!
We were there in the path station in Oneworld Trade center at 8:45am on sep 11 2001 . If you don't know the world trade center was also train station for people commuting to NJ and it was also a subway station connecting NY transit trains. You could also take LIRR trains to go to Long Island. This meant you can take subway( to travel inside NY city),PATH (to go to NJ) or LIRR.
There were 3 huge escalators. When we reached at 8:45 the first 2 were clear and the last one after landing to the highest point saw coffee and lot os fhings thrown everywhere and cops .. lots of them yelling 'Get out of this building now'.
My friend Vaithy picked up an excel sheet and joked.. not realizing it had come from the world trade center. When we were walking closer to stock exchange in wall street there was a man talking to someone explaining about earth quake. We didn't understand he has misunderstood the impact of the airplane and the loud noises as earth quake.
We heard a lady use the word FBI asking a taxi to go towards World Trade Center. We went away from World Trade center towards 125 broad street. A Jewish man explained to us in the elevator that there was an airplane inside the World Trade center and we thought it was a good joke.
Least did we realize he was right. When we went to the 14th floor we saw the cop boats, cop cars, Fire trucks and all flashy stuff near Pier 11. I didn't realize I will be there in the next 30min running for my life towards water and not knowing swimming.
For now ,I went to get coffee with friends and talked to stepped out to see the commotion. After watching all the vehicles this time from the ground floor we discussed to Desi Patel and we went up to check cnn.com.
We heard an announcement - this is FBI and we have taken control of this building. Please get to the first floor and wait for further instructions. Least did we know we will not go back again to the 14th floor on that day.
We got coffee and bagel for $1 from the Bangladeshi in the mobile stall. We decided to walk to 42nd street(Times Square) or to 34th street (Penn station).
Once we were near a parking garage we heard in the radio in a vehicle parked there talking about more airplanes coming towards NYC(New York City)
We were facing the direction of World Trade Center (which was completely covered with smoke) and we heard a lady scream Oh my god' .
When we saw the smoke screen comes towards us we started running towards water - Pier 11 . That is what we saw everyone do.. run towards water. The smoke screen was the result of the first world trade center building fall down and collapse which we didn't know at that time. Some people yelled - chemical attacks. It was close to 9:40 and we heard loud airplane sounds which was F16s from Florida which we thought were more rogue airplanes attacking NY.
We didn't want to hear the air. But we didn't have a choice. We had to breathe.
Once we came close to Pier 11 we saw a man with a cap which said something like New York Emergency something and there was a boat/ship that was leaving on the right and another one getting ready to leave.
The first boat/ship one was leaving to Brooklyn and even in that crisis I didn't want to go to Brooklyn.
I keep writing boat/ship as these double Decker boats looked like massive ships to me.
We boarded the boat which was destined to Weehawken NJ.
We discussed why one building was missing and we didn't realize at that time that we run few minutes ago from the rubbles of the first one. One of my friend explained how the two world trade center buildings were constructed in such a way that we can only one from some weird angle which was this angle from the boat. We kind of believed him .. and once we reached weehawken nj there were so many police officers, doctors and fire fighters waiting to help. Someone had already shown us something about attacks in a pager in the boat and now the polive,hospital staff and firefighters were waiting for us were disappointed to find not many real survivors from the building who might need help.
We saw the second building collapse which showed clearly the first one had also collapsed earlier.
I have survived the third time (please don't count marriage as near death experience!) .
Now that I had survived 3 times I wanted to know why I survived all these near death experience.
The World needed me so here I am. Even though there are 7 billion people there is no one like me (or you!). There is no one special to my kids and my wife than me. There is no one like me who is a good son,great brother, good uncle and not so good cousin!
I have been working on my ideas to write book, working hard to get a good pay check, reading a lot to write a lot.listening to lots of useful TED talks,coursera courses and youtube videos. I need to start itunesU and podcasts again!
As my son always says - Love you Daddy you are the best. For my kids I am the best.
The first 21 years of my life was spent getting educated so that I can earn a paycheck. Now that I am earning paycheck for the last 19 years I guess I need to continue this till I retire at 75 where these paychecks would have get me social security and a retirement fund .
Energy,Money and Time - I read in a whatsapp message.
When you are young you have Energy and Time no Money
When you are in your middle age you have Money and Energy no Time
When you are old you have Money and Time no Energy
Life is a journey ... keep thinking why you are living.
Most of us consume natural resource and give back journey.
What have you produced from using the natural resources? As for myself I write blogs and as long as you read them I feel productive!
After reading the book 'Being Mortal' by 'Aatul Gawande'(same guy who wrote checklist manifesto which i wrote about earlier!) .. this one talks a lot about death!
We used to live a life this
The old man lived and one day he died all of a sudden! Talk to any one older (like me ) and ask them about their great grand father.
Modern medicine and public health measures stretched people’s life spans, nearly doubling them so that, Gawande writes, "The curve of life becomes a long, slow fade."
What does this mean - we all have to live much much longer due to the medical advances. In effect all symptoms will be controlled while the disease or the factor that kills will follow to kill!
I will not write a detailed post about this topic till I am 50 (10 years from now).
Keep learning and living
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
