The Rainbow Maker

We all know that rainbows appear magically when sunshine follows rain, just as we know there’s a pot of gold to be found at the end of each rainbow, if you are intrepid enough to look for it!

Then last weekend, I encountered the rainbow maker, at a window facing East. I now know that the best way to wake up on a sunny holiday morning is watching rainbows dancing along walls and ceilings. The morning rays of sunshine pass through chiseled crystal, refracting and bending at different angles, separating into glorious bands of color.

Even the most ordinary, innocuous, white light has this potential. It just takes a special prism to do its magic and release the spectrum that resides within. Now, if each of us could only find our prism…

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/the-rainbow-maker/

Honesty in our Leaders

The past three months: saw an unprecedented upheaval in India as its 1.3 billion population stood in snaking queues for days together, to access bite-sized rations of their own hard-earned money. Prime Minister Modi (it now emerges, unilaterally) had decided to ‘demonetize’ the nation’s Rs 500 ($ 7) and Rs 1000 ($14) bills, with little preparation and no thought to consequences. His stated intent was to flush out unaccounted black money, halt counterfeit currency and block terrorist funding. When these objectives remained unrealized, the declared intent changed and morphed into a desire for India to move to digital transactions! Never mind our poor internet connectivity or that few have smartphones across small-town India. Never mind that people have died in this process, that is taking us from democracy to socialism. At no point in the narrative have we had any admission of error, much less heard an apology!

This week: I was gob-smacked to witness an ad campaign, launched by a leading Indian electronic media channel, in support of ‘remonetizing’! I listened in amazement as Bollywood stars, of every stature, made a solemn pledge to put money back into the system and revive a flagging economy. Wasn’t this the problem in the first place?! What is wrong with us? Why don’t we speak up and demand accountability in our leaders?

Yesterday: While America contends with its own challenges, I was heartened to see a firm, albeit polite, journalist challenge the President on a statement that was blatantly false…

It is the only way. These are trying times and we must demand honesty in our leaders.

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/honesty-in-our-leaders/

Exloring the Unexplored

We have all experienced the excitement of embarking on a new adventure, some expedition that is frought with risk and has had our hearts thumping and the adrenaline flowing. As school children and teenagers, we have likely even sought the edge, in order to walk along it and flirt with the ensuing danger. The hazards then might have taken the form of a dormitory matron chancing upon a midnight feast or some other figure in authority discovering forbidden transgressions in forbidden places. As young adults, I think we choose our paths – picking an ongoing quest for excitement or (more likely) safe avenues that keep us among the cautiously accustomed. Our choices are manifest in our selections of careers and mates and hobbies…

However, it is generally understood that as we enter the latter half of our lives, we will proceed gently to tranquil places that are familiar and calm and unruffled. Is it now too dangerous to leave the still waters of sheltered bays and venture out deliberately into choppy seas? Is it then perverse that some of us continue on the course to exploring the unexplored?

http://www.5oclockreflections.com/exploring-the-unexplored/