Parable of The Merchant and His Wives

Once upon a time there was a rich merchant who had four wives. He loved the fourth wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to delicacies. He took great care of her and gave her nothing but the best.

He also loved the third wife very much. He was very proud of her and always wanted to show her off to his friends. However, the merchant is always in great fear that she might run away with some other man.

He also, loved his second wife. She is a very considerate person, always patient and in fact is the merchant’s confidante. Whenever the merchant faced some problems, he always turned to his second wife and she would always help him out and tide him through difficult times.

Now, the merchant’s first wife is a very loyal partner and has made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and business as well as taking care of the household. However, the merchant did not love the first wife and although she loved him deeply, he hardly took notice of her.

One day, the merchant fell ill. Before long, he knew that he was going to die soon. He thought of his luxurious life and told himself, “Now I have four wives with me. But when I die, I’ll be alone. How lonely I’ll be!” Thus, he asked the fourth wife, “I loved you most, endowed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I’m dying, will you follow me and keep me company?”

“No way!” replied the fourth wife and she walked away without another word.

The answer cut like a sharp knife right into the merchant’s heart.

The sad merchant then asked the third wife, “I have loved you so much for all my life. Now that I’m dying, will you follow me and keep me company?”

“No!” replied the third wife. “Life is so good over here! I’m going to remarry when you die!” The merchant’s heart sank and turned cold.

He then asked the second wife, “I always turned to you for help and you’ve always helped me out. Now I need your help again. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you out this time!” replied the second wife. “At the very most, I can only send you to your grave.” The answer came like a bolt of thunder and the merchant was devastated.

Then a voice called out: “I’ll leave with you. I’ll follow you no matter where you go. “The merchant looked up and there was his first wife.

She was so skinny, almost like she suffered from malnutrition. Greatly grieved, the merchant said, “I should have taken much better care of you while I could have!”

Actually, we all have four wives in our lives…. The fourth wife is our body. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it’ll leave us when we die.

Our third wife? Our possessions, status and wealth. When we die, they all go to others.

The second wife is our family and friends. No matter how close they had been there for us when we’re alive, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave.

The first wife is in fact our soul, often neglected in our pursuit of material wealth and sensual pleasure. Guess what? It is actually the only thing that follows us wherever we go. Perhaps it’s a good idea to cultivate and strengthen it NOW rather than to wait until we’re on our death bed to lament.

Breakup Breaking You?

"Dealing with emotional distress post breakup can

be tough. Here is how to get your life back..." 

- Debarati S Sen

When a relationship ends, it brings with it not just the agony of the partition but sometimes may also shatter a person’s self-concept. It is an extremely difficult time for some people who cannot cope with the loss and the hurt.

A study says that when a romantic relationship breaks-up, then an individual’s self concept, that is defined as the ‘sense of me’, is vulnerable to change. Usually romantic partners, over the time they are together, develop shared friends, activities and even sometimes overlapping self-concepts. The person who is left grieving in the relationship is the one who has a reduced sense of ‘me’ and this makes the person feel emotionally distressed.

Heart’s broken? Here’s what to do:

• Try and analyse where things went wrong realising what the problem was and your role in the problem. This will deter you from attracting a similar situation and partner.
• Spend time with your friends, only because they are great people to be with and you have fun, and not because you are alone.
• Take up a hobby, and devote the time you gave to the relationship, to the hobby.
• Pamper yourself.
• Don’t overburden your mind by processing what went wrong.
• Resentment and anger prevent us from travelling light in life.
• Forgive.
• Let go! Heal yourself and open yourself to a new relationship.

“After we broke up, I was shattered and for a month I avoided going out of home,” says Shalini Singhal (name changed). Her partner left her when he got a job offer abroad and their four-year-old relationship was broken overnight. The massive power of loss impacts one’ sense of self and Shalini completely let go of her sense of self. “My parents had to come over to me to help me deal with the crisis. It took me years to get over it,” she says.

After some time of being together, couples tend to feel complete with each other and become a part of a whole and when such a relationship ends, then the individual experiences immense pain, not only due to the separation but also because they realise that they have themselves changed. It can be an extremely turbulent time in our lives and can leave a deep sense of void in our personal sense of ‘me’. The way in which the breakup happens also affects us and it shatters the person if the partner is cruel or unfaithful. “An unfaithful partner can really hurt you. You stop believing yourself,” says Mihir (name changed). After his girlfriend left him for his best friend, he stopped talking completely. He could not trust anyone for a long time, he says. 

Relationship experts say that it is extremely important to deal with the emotions post breakup and pull oneself

up, because there can be a lot of problems in one’s life otherwise. Dr Kanan Khatau Chikhal, clinical psychologist says, “There may be a tendency to run into a rebound relationship as a source of comfort and a way of temporarily blotting out painful feelings and memories. For some others, they have to relieve their existential fear of being alone or their deepest un-healed issue of ‘no one loves me’ can surface and for the rest, a plain simple sense of lack of confidence in ‘I am not good enough’ comes alive.These innate self-fulfiling prophecies are part of our core beliefs that we have pushed under the carpet, buried deep below -which jump up like a jack-in-the-box. It can be extremely painful and distressing in the absence of an efficient support system. A person may tend to go into a shell.”

In order to deal with the distress of a breakup one needs a very strong support system. “A support system includes friends; social meetings, career, physical workout. Maybe even therapy are essential to work on the feelings of void and hatred that have surfaced. 

Every situation is an opportunity to heal, only if you allow it. Moreover, it is essential to, so that when you move into the next relationship, you know you are not on a rebound,” adds Dr Kanan. The clinical psychologist advises that it is important to experience an emotional transformation to free the grief stricken individual from the past. She says, “One must remember to take this breather so that one is not just replacing the love they lost (which can be easy, but don’t do it). Before jumping into a new relationship, ask yourself if your previous scars have healed and are you ready to handle the ups and downs of the new partner. If not, then the new relationship is doomed even before it begins. 

Work on loving yourself and build your self esteem again.” 

Publication: Times Of India Hyderabad;Date: Apr 7, 2010;Section: Hyderabad Times; Page: 5

Supertaskers: Just 1 in 40 can drive well while on phone

JUGGLING NOT FOR ALL

Supertaskers: Just 1 in 40 can drive well while on phone

Washington: Very few people can multitask and drive well as they speak over their phones, a new research by University of Utah psychologists revealed. The study has shown that just 1 in 40 people can manage both quite well. For the research, scientists analysed 200 participants.

    They found only 2.5% of the volunteers — called “supertaskers” by researchers — could talk on a cellphone while operating a driving simulator without noticeable impairment unlike 97.5% who couldn’t. The study, conducted by psychologists Jason Watson and David Strayer, will appear in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. Watson said: “According to cognitive theory, these individuals ought not to exist.” “Yet, clearly they do, so we use the supertasker term as a way to describe their exceptional multitasking ability. Given the number of people who routinely talk on the phone while driving, one would have hoped that there would be a greater percentage of supertaskers. And while we’d probably all like to think we are the exception to the rule, the odds are overwhelmingly against it,” said Watson. “The odds of being a supertasker are about as good as your chances of flipping a coin and getting five heads in a row,” he added. The researchers assessed the performance of participants over a single task (simulated freeway driving), and again with a second demanding activity added (a mobile conversation that involved memorizing words and solving math problems).

    Performance was then measured in four areas-braking reaction time, following distance, memory, and math execution. For those who were not supertaskers and who talked on a cellphone while driving simulators, it took 20% longer to hit the brakes when needed and following distances increased 30% as drivers failed to keep pace with traffic. ANI 

Publication: Times Of India Hyderabad;

Date: Apr 5, 2010;

Section: Times Business;

Page: 14

Formula Measures Internet’s Capacity To Spread The Word

Gossip not all talk, has maths behind it

Formula Measures Internet’s Capacity To Spread The Word

London: Ever wondered why the secrets of celebrities spread on internet like wildfire?

    Well, Italian scientists have now developed a mathematical formula that predicts how fast rumours on social networking sites such as Facebook can fly around the globe. Researchers at Rome’s La Sapienza University have developed the equation (time taken for spread of gossip = estimate of time (log v/phi X log squared 1/phi)) that measures the internet’s power to spread indiscretion.

    In the equation, “v” stands for number of vertices of communication and “phi” stands for conductance, the Daily Mail reported.

    The researchers cited the infamous text messages by golfer Tiger Woods to one of his mistress and the alleged marital woes between French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni, which are among the most recent gossip that spread like wildfire via blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

    “And it shows just how fast news — and gossip — travels these days. It’s like influenza,” said Alessandro Panconesi, the lead researcher at the University. The researchers are yet to test their theory on the latest celebrity gossip. But professor Panconesi said he’s already demonstrated its reliability — thanks to the help of a fellow researcher in the US.

    The American mathematician recently posted one Tweet about the Italian group’s failure to get the funding promised them by the Italian government to carry out their research on the spread of gossip on the internet.

    “And within 17 hours, there’s a whole page about the work in the Corriere della Sera newspaper,” said Panconesi. “Funding for science in Italy is abysmal and we wanted to show it,” he said. “I think we have managed it.”

    But the newspapers in Italy, a celebrity-obsessed country, were more interested in hailing the study as evidence of the net’s miraculous power to shine a light on lives of the rich and famous. PTI 

Publication: Times Of India Hyderabad;

Date: Apr 5, 2010;

Section: Times Business;

Page: 14