ways of learning new things

I was chatting on fb with my friend Aabha and as we were discussing work and personal life...she was telling me about her hectic schedules and no time to have a personal life. I asked her about her old hobbies like dancing which she could still pursue.....hmmm....it was "kathak" and randomly we started talking about which "gharana" of kathak is she learning from, the gurus of that gharana and some new, younger stars of kathak these days.

The talk about the dance form continued for a couple of minutes and I asked her if she was wondering how I knew so much about kathak! She did ask me how.

Simply, I told her that i used to learn this form of dance when i was 6 yrs old and continued it for some 17 months and to the extent that i had shaved off my head to learn this.

This form of conversations (and not the dance ;)), i make with many people and on random topics i don't have knowledge about. With this conversation going on...side by side...i was surfing (the easiest way to find information on "kathak") on Wikipedia.

If I do such conversations practically with all my buddies/aquaintances, imagine the amount of knowledge I would gain!!!

Knowledge is what needs to be pursued...not the ego that is based on the current knowledge you have!