Top ten-2008 :-)

Hearing this title, Cheenu asked me if I am going to write about great achievers. :-) hmmmm, I said no, these are top 10 people I met in 2008. Not all of them I met for the first time, some of them are my friends who played a very special role in encouraging me to move on and take few decisions last year. Some have left my life for good, but there are few who I want to be the inseparable part of my life. Let me go through the list
10.Nata, if all my friends are flowers in the garden of God, Nata is a kurinji malar. :-), Nata inspired me to go to Isha as a volunteer. He is not a meditator and I don’t think he understood the emotions I have for my guru, but still he inspired me. He is one of the founders of an organisation which helps and adopts slum children in India. Once he told me " Raji, I want to go back to India and see our children’s faces, I want to be with them". He left US last year and now in India playing a big role in spreading the good work of the foundation. Many young software engineers were moved by his work and became a part of this foundation. We both are great fans of A.P.J.A.Kalaam.
9. Theera, Deepak, Cheenu, Hari :D my blog readers. Their comments came as a surprise and with all of them I feel very close though I haven’t met them even once.
8.Abhi, though we have worked together for 2 years we became close during the last 6 months.
I can’t forget the last two weeks of my Canadian life at her place. They made me feel very comfortable and as a part of their family. Both Abhi and her husband think that I should become a Christian and allow Jesus to be in my life. Well, :-) He is already there Abhi. I did not tell this to her, because she will not understand my understanding of being a Christian. :-)
7. Jonathan, we worked together for 3 years, but understood each other only in the last few months of my tenure in U of A. Jonathan.....you reminded I still have that "poison tree" within me.
6. Jodie, my first student. She came to do her part-time project under me. She made me realise that being a teacher/guide/mentor is not a job. It’s more a state of mind...just like being a mother. She was constantly afraid of failures and was a very proud woman. The failures shook her pride and I was always there to remind that failures are a part of scientific research or any learning process. Guess she did not like me very much at the end, as I was too straight. But her final talk was damn good. She came to me before leaving the lab and told "thanks for everything". We both smiled at each other.
5. Mychan, a student who did her internship project with me. : D, when I saw her for the first time, I could see that she was very nervous, docile and dependent. She was always afraid of doing things on her own. I decided to be an Indian mother. Indian mothers always feed their kids without showing the kids how much they are stuffing them. :-), I followed the same tactic with Mychan. For my boss it was always surprising and amusing when she hears mychan telling "I have very less data, did not do much this week". She will have piles of data to show afterwards. When my boss thought of firing her after 4 months saying that she is too dependant, I didn’t agree. She disproved all the theories about her in her final thesis presentation. Oh my God, I was so nervous on that day and really understood the term "mother effect" in research (when research guides worry too much about their students final performance).
4: Sanam Bakshi, I met her in Kailash Yatra. :-), what a cute, sweet and lovable girl. When I came to know that sadhguru is so fond of her and when I saw that by myself, I was so happy. Through out the trip we were together. Once, she came looking for me and said "raji, I didn’t see you the whole day and missed you so much". Afterwards I made it sure that we did all our kriyas together. 9 years younger to me, but sometimes she was my mother. At the end of the trip she said " I wish to be like you after 10 years", I think that was a compliment. Sanam, you are really a gift for me. It was very nice to see that for both us our Guru was more a father than a guru. :-)
3. Carmen, D a part of my bliss and joy. I want to be with you Carmen, it doesn’t matter how far away we both are. You will be with me.
2. Ramesh, daaai......othai paduvada naaye. :-) you better be with me till the end.
1.Ram :-)..................................