Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of cracks with urushi lacquer, which is the traditional labour-intensive production process, time-consuming and expensive.  The broken pottery is dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The method is like the maki-e technique. Maki-e (literally “sprinkled pictures”) is a representative lacquerware technique that originated in Japan around 1,200 years ago. Maki-e is done by painting lacquer motifs on the surface of a piece using a fine brush and then sprinkling gold powder onto the lacquer before it hardens, this technique produces luxurious decorations.

Kintsugi tells us of the temporariness of all things; nothing stays forever. Like a piece of pottery, our lives are filled with fragility, setbacks and unpredictability. The philosophy of Kintsugi highlights that resilience is not merely about bouncing back from adversity but also about accepting the process of repair and renewal. Just like the meticulous process of fixing broken pottery, our relationships, illnesses, profession, education, demand patience, effort and care to mend snags in our fabric of life. Accepting the reality of imperfection frees us to spend time on other projects, even on our work-life balance.

Kintsugi helps us to realize that life itself is not perfect. Every moment we are fighting a world full of chaos. Every time we try to edit our script of life, we become vulnerable by making few new errors. You might get cheated by someone whom you trust the most, you might lose your job, you might not be able to catch up with newness in technology, you may get sick in the middle of a project. An environmental problem like a tornado, hurricane, earthquake may destroy your home. Control what you can and accept the rest.

Self-acceptance is defined as accepting all our attributes, positive as well as negative. When we accept ourselves, we embrace every part of ourselves, the good, the bad and the ugly. Self-acceptance must be unconditional. You made a mistake, but it’s okay, nobody’s perfect, we all make mistakes. We all have flaws, and that’s what makes us human. As human, we all imperfect. Till we breath our last, we are all works in progress. And perfection itself is an illusion.

The philosophy of Kintsugi in Japanese is about being non-judgemental, accepting, and empathetic towards ourselves. Facilitators and workshop participants of Kintsugi explore the connections between the Kintsugi way and the recovery from illness depression, anxiety etc. Once, I enrolled for a short course of pottery, it gave me invaluable lessons that go beyond the clay. To shape a pot we need patience, accept our faults, reshape the clay with firmness by finding balance, creating resilience, and practicing mindfulness.  I realized that like the pot in process, we all have cracks in our body and mind here and there which we try to repair. 

The repaired cracks of the pottery represent our healing process. The difficulties in our life leave many scars which take time to heal. What’s important our willingness and our ability to heal.

God gifted us the freedom to administer our own life, He allows us to connect with Him as and when we want. He helps us to heal our cracks and shape up as a masterpiece. 

Cherry blossom symbolizes spring which is a time of renewal. It also symbolizes the transitory nature of life. Cherry blossoms bloom in several shades; the common colour is light pink and dark pink colour. But they come in shades of white, yellow, and green. The yellow-green or white-green blooms turn pink as they age. The trees grow and establish themselves relatively quickly, but they don’t last very long. These blooms often last not more than two weeks therefore they symbolize transient nature of life. Though the blooms are short lived, they represent beauty and hope.

In psychology, cherry blossom personality implies an introverted, analytical, yet knowledge seeking person who understands the world around him/her. But these people are happier from inside. The don’t waste their energy much on talking, they are observant, and they make decisions based on their observations.  

Cherry Blossom is the national flower of Japan; they call it Sakura. To the Japanese, cherry blossoms indicate the coming of spring, hope, and renewal. In a more symbolic sense, due to their delicate nature and short lifespan, for the Japanese, they are pure expression of the temporary nature of life and beauty. The outer beauty of human is temporary. Japanese hold ‘flower watching’ parties known as Hanami which is celebrated as a springtime custom. It is about appreciating the beauty of the seasonal flower.

In China, cherry blossoms hold elevated status signifying love and the female charm which is beauty, strength, and sexuality. But, nowhere in the world are the elusive flowers more cherished than in Japan, home to thousands of cherry blossom trees.

The pops of pink mark the ending of winter and signify the beginning of spring. Due to their quick blooming season, cherry blossoms also symbolize the transience of life which is a major theme in Buddhism too.

In India we get to see cherry blossom in some parts. In Meghalaya, in the east’s Khasi Hills people experience a beautiful season of cherry blossoms as soon as the spring season approaches. Shillong even hosts a festival, International Cherry Blossom Festival that is dedicated entirely to the blooming flowers. Shillong is known as India’s cherry blossom hub. The whole town is covered with lush and fragrant cherry blossoms, so much so that even the sky looks pink. In November, the city also hosts the International Cherry Blossom festival. The Northeast states Sikkim and Nagaland also celebrate the season of cherry blossoms.

Bangalore bursts into bloom in March, swamping locations such as like Silk Board and Kundanahalli Gate with pink cherry blossoms. They are lovingly referred as “Bengaluru’s own cherry blossoms.” Bangalorites eagerly document their city’s cherry blossom on social media pages. To witness Bengaluru’s version of cherry blossom trees, one needs to head to the city’s iconic Cubbon Park.

Even Mumabi sees the bloom in certain parts of Eastern Express Highway in Vikhroli from December to February.  The scent of cherry flower is indeed subtle and mild.  The scent features like lilac, rose, and magnolia with a mild tone of vanilla. These days cherry blossom perfumes are available in the market. 

I am concluding this article with Murasaki Shikibu (famous Japanese Novelist) quote “There is much to be said for cherry blossoms, but they seem so flighty. They are so quick to run off and leave you.”

Muda is Japanese word which means futility, uselessness, wastefulness, and it is a key concept of lean thinking.  Lean Thinking is a business method based on the history of Japanese manufacturing techniques which have been applied worldwide within many types of industries. It is ultimately a mind-set – a way of viewing the world that aims at handling work in a Lean manner. Lean puts focus on providing high levels of customer value by continuously improving business processes while eliminating wastage.

Lean takes its roots from the Toyota Production System. This Japanese company was able to create a sustainable ecosystem for work, where they are able to minimize their costs, ensure efficiency in their processes, and sell their products at a competitive price. In fact, when Toyota entered the U.S car market, they were able to sell their cars at a much lower price than U.S manufacturers. The Toyota Production System (TPS) consists of the three types of unconventional allocation of resources: Muda, Mura and Muri.

Mura means unevenness, non-uniformity, and irregularity. Mura is the reason for the existence of any of the seven wastes; defects and mistakes, waiting or delay, transportation, motions, over production, inventory, over processing and human potential. 

Mura drives and leads to Muda. For example, in a manufacturing line, products need to pass through several workstations during the assembly process. When the capacity of one station is greater than the other stations, you will see an accumulation of raw material, overproduction, waiting, etc. The goal of a Lean production system is to level out the workload so that unevenness or waste accumulation is eliminated.

Muri means overburden, in organizations some people are overburdened while some escape work. It also means excessiveness, impossible or unreasonableness tasks, wrong deadlines. Muri can result from Mura and in some cases be caused by excessive removal of Muda (waste) from the process. Muri exists when machines or operators are utilized for more than 100% capability to complete a task or in an unsustainable way. Muri exists due to employee absenteeism, illness, unavailability of raw material and breakdowns of machines. Standardization of work can help avoid Muri by designing the work processes to evenly distribute the workload and not overburden any particular employee, machine, workstation or equipment.

I give here below a short instance to explain how Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai had to learn removing muda from their system. 

The Taj hotel group had invited Mr. Masai Imai from Japan to hold a workshop for its staff. The staff members were very sceptical about what they would learn from him as the hotel is doing excellent business. Masai from Japan had no exposure to hotel industry. What could he teach them? Everybody as planned gathered for the workshop in the conference hall sharp at 9 am. Mr. Masai was introduced to them; his personality could hardly impress them. He couldn’t speak great English either. He was formulating each sentence in Japanese and then translating it into rather awkward English. “Good morning! Let’s start work. I am told this is a workshop; but I see neither work nor shop. So let’s proceed where work is happening. Let’s start with the first room on the first floor.” Mr. Masai was followed by the senior management, the participants; the video camera crew trouped out of the conference room and proceeded to the destination. It was a room on the first floor which happened to be the laundry room of the hotel. Mr. Masai entered the room and stood at the window, “beautiful view!” he said. The room had panorama view of the Arabian Sea. The staff knew it; they didn’t need a Japanese consultant to tell them this! “A room with such a beautiful view is being wasted as a laundry room. Shift the laundry to the basement and convert this into a guest room.”

Oh God! Nobody had ever thought about that! The manager said, “Yes, it can be done.” “Then let’s do it.”, Mr. Masai said. The manager said he would make a note of it in the report and do the needful later. But, Masai insisted on doing it immediately, he told the manager to immediately decide which room in basement should be converted in a laundry. By lunch time the first floor room was converted into a guest room it was ready for customer to move in. Mr Masai asked the staff why the hotel loses few thousands per day of beautiful view room.

So he pointed Mura – short-sightedness wasting a room with beautiful view to laundry, loosing of thousands of rupees per day on the room, delay in decision making, motion etc.

The next destination was the pantry. The group entered. At the entrance were two huge sinks full of plates to be washed. Mr. Masai removed his jacket and started washing the plates. “Sir, Please, what are you doing?” the manager didn’t know what to say and what to do. “Why, I am washing the plates” said Mr. Masai. He continued washing, “I think sink is for washing plates, there are stands here to keep the plates and the plates should go into the stands.” All the officials wondered – did they require a consultant to tell them that? After finishing the job, Mr. Masai asked, “how many plates do you have?’ The manager answered “Plenty, so that there should never be any shortage.” Mr. Masai said, one lesson to be learned in this workshop is to avoid muda. If you have plenty of plates, there will be delay in cleaning them up. The first step to correct this situation is to remove all the excess plates. The manager told that he would report this also. Masai told him that reporting writing is also wasting time, instead he advised to pack the extra plates in a box immediately and send them in storage. Masai told the staff that the particular workshop was to find hidden ‘muda’ The staff eagerly waited to find out other mudas and to learn how to avoid it.

This incident pointed out muri which means overburden. The sink was full of unwashed plates. The process of washing plates was delayed unnecessarily; over and above the hotel stored additional plates overburdening the inventory.

On the last day, Mr. Masai told a story of Japanese and an American, both fond of hunting, entered a jungle with guns. In the pursuit of game they entered deep jungle and suddenly realized that they had run out of bullets. Just then they heard a lion roaring. Both started running. But the Japanese took a short break to put on his sports shoes. The American said, “What are you doing? We must first get to the car.” The Japanese said, “No. I only have to ensure that I remain ahead of you.” All the participants were engrossed in listening to the story; they realized suddenly that the lion would stop after getting his victim! The lesson is competition in today’s world is so fierce, that it is important to stay ahead of others even by just a couple of steps. Mr. Masai said further that India is such a huge and naturally well-endowed country, we need to remove the numerous mudas in our system.

One of the best things to do after waking up in the morning is to drink minimum 500 ml of water. It takes just about 3 minutes to drink 2 glasses of water. It does great things which cannot be overlooked. Japanese are famous for this healthy practice. Most of the Japanese consume minimum 2 glasses of water as soon as they rise in the morning.

While we sleep the whole night, our body repairs itself by replenishing it with energy and our body gradually becomes dehydrated because it needs fluid to operate. In the cleansing process our body balances hormones; the result is toxins and other waste materials being released and waiting to be flushed out. Drinking water after waking up flushes unwanted toxins out of the body. After we drink water after we wake up, it increases the rate at which new muscle and blood cells are produced. It also balances lymph system. Lymph glands set in our lymph system fight infections helping us to perform our daily activities more efficiently by balancing the fluids in our body.

Body fluids transport waste products in and out of cells. The main toxin in the body is blood urea nitrogen, a water-soluble waste that is able to pass through the kidneys to be excreted in the urine. Our kidneys do an amazing job of cleansing and ridding our body of toxins as long as our intake of fluids is adequate. When we drink enough fluids, urine flows freely and is light in color and free of odor. When our body is not getting enough fluids, urine concentration, color, and odor increases because the kidneys trap extra fluid for bodily functions.

Drinking water first in the morning spins up our metabolism. Drinking a large, cool glass of water after waking up has immense strength to activate metabolism by almost 24% and which stays for over an hour. It helps the kidneys to flush out toxins. We don’t realize this – when our body is not properly hydrated, our brain operates sluggishly causing a drained feeling and fatigue. Shortage of water in body also causes mood fluctuations.

One study has proved that people who drink a glass of water before every meal lost 4.5 pounds over a three-month period, because it fills up the stomach with a substance that has zero calories, and people gives a feeling of fullness. After morning breakfast, drinking a lot of water helps us avoid the temptation of snacking before lunch. It’s also very difficult for the body to tell the difference between hunger and thirst. So if you’re walking around feeling a gnawing sense of hunger, you might just be dehydrated. Try drinking a glass of water instead of grabbing a snack.

Drinking ample water helps reduce headache, body ache, heart attacks, arthritis, high pulse rate, epilepsy, obesity, bronchitis asthma, TB, meningitis, kidney and urine diseases, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhea, piles, diabetes, constipation, all eye diseases, womb, cancer and menstrual disorders, ear nose and throat diseases. Now isn’t this really a very big list of ailments which can be brought under control by consuming a large glass of water as soon as we rise.

It also relieves constipation, because the main cause of constipation is dehydration. The most simple fuel body requires is regular intake of water.

We feel lighter and brighter after body is cleansed of the toxins and it absorbs more nutrients from a well-balanced breakfast and lunch. Drinking good amount of water throughout the day also leads to clear flawless skin. Try this out from tomorrow morning; drink minimum 500 ml of water (not from the fridge), make it a practice at least for a month and see the positive effects.

Also please remember that you need to increase fluid intake when you are high on protein diet, high on fibre diet, pregnant or breast feeding, vomiting are suffering from diarrhoea, exposed to hot or warm conditions and are doing lot of physical activities such as gym, exercising, cycling, etc. Not drinking enough water can increase the risk of kidney stones and in women, urinary tract infections. It can also lower your physical and mental performance, salivary gland function and lead to dehydration.

Some common symptoms of dehydration are:  thirst, headache, lethargy, mood changes, slower response, dry nasal passage, dry and cracked lips, dark colored urine, weakness, tiredness, cramps, confusions and hallucination.

There is no substitute for water; not a thing. No soft drink, no coffee, no tea, no alcoholic beverages. Not even fruit juices. Each one of them has its own agenda. Your body is used to a fluid that has no agenda, because the body depends on the freedom of that fluid, water, because there are two kinds of water in the body. There is already occupied and engaged water, which is no good for new function. The body needs new water, or free water, to perform new functions. Now, when you give them sugar containing beverages, or caffeine containing beverages, both sugar and caffeine have their own chemical agenda in the body. They defeat the purpose of the need for water. So friends, drink ample water and live a healthy life.