My Contemplation

Being Human

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:56:00 +0000

Being human is the foundation set up by our very own Mr. Salman Khan – One of the biggest celebrities of India - for helping the cause of the underprivileged. It has been years now and this organization is growing truly fast and helping lots of people in need. Of course I am not going to write something about this foundation as I don’t have right to do so but I want to write about these two golden words “Being Human” which seems losing its meaning as years are passing.

People have forgotten the values and virtues of humanity. Today it is very difficult to differentiate between a human and an animal. People prefer to tame animals on adopting a child; they feed animals & insult humans. Something that can differentiate or I should say was used to differentiate human from animals was the power to think and feel for the benefit of others.

Human being are now getting very much focused; we are focused to grow, become successful; we are focused to earn more (mind it, it’s not earn, its earn more); we are focused to compete with others; we are focused to humiliate others. Competing with each other is not bad, but it should not be in access. People are so eager to compete that they could give anything to be successful; it could be even someone’s life. Now a days the value of someone's life is no more than few $s. If we want to achieve success by killing, humiliating, cheating others then in that case why did we evolve to humanity from our ancestors. Why didn't we stop our self to jungle where we were sure that if we didn't kill the other, he will for sure?

The phrase "Survival of the fittest" is what most of people believes in however this is completely misunderstood now a days. The term was coined by British Philosopher Herbert Spencer. In this phrase the fittest does not mean the most violent or the most aggressive person and it no way says that if you are strong physically or with a sharp mind you are fit to survive. It was meant to describe the evolution of natural selection; however if you refer the modern studies the evolution of natural selection is much more than just survival of the fittest. Natural selection describes what happens in living world but it does not tell us how we human should behave. Whatever be the case, anything happening in nature does not justify people behaving in the same way. We have huge number of multicellular organisms as compared to unicellular organisms. In multicellular organisms, cell cannot live alone instead they live together and cooperate with each other. Even the complex cells are evolved from cooperating simple cells. "Cooperation" justifies the new survival strategy.

We human hardly cooperate with others; we are so very busy running to see our self on the top that we have forgotten how to cooperate with others, how to be kind with others, how to grow together. If we simply consider are daily activities then how many of we cooperate to the traffic rules? How many of we cooperate with the servants at our home? Which management cooperates with employees/labors (they would cooperate with clients though, as there they have an advantage)? The reason why we don't cooperate is that we have started becoming selfish. What we only want is our own advantage. We always complain for the salary we get from our employer (even though it is as per industry standard) and on other hand we always bargain with servant at our home for nominal wages even though what they are asking is as per the standard. We don't want to wait for something, or we don't have a patience to wait for something, we just want everything at the speed of our imagination, at the speed of our thought, be it at any cost; in short we are becoming more and more selfish.

If we are turning selfish, how could we be human? Animals are selfish, they attack other animals or humans for food. Again it does not apply to all animals; few attacks humans only when we try to play fool with them. Humans have also started killing, attacking people for their own greed. The greed to achieve something, the greed to possess something, the greed to become successful and we go blind while achieving the same. Even if we try to help someone we are always haunted with the thought of getting cheated while we are trying to help others. We are taught that when we are driving on highways we should avoid giving lifts to stranger; certainly very necessary because these days in 90% of cases there is a chance that we will be looted. We avoid giving lifts even if the person seems to be innocent. How to judge if he/she is innocent? How would a human trust a human in this case?

With this kind of thoughts how long will we be able to help or cooperate with others. The kindness is reducing drastically and will definitely extinct one day. Being Human started by Salman Khan is certainly a very good initiative but unless every one of us contributes in kindness & humanity the values and virtues of humanity will not exist. If we believe that we are human we need to take such initiatives and develop such belief that reflects humanity - A belief to help others, a belief to cooperate with others, a belief to grow with others, a belief of kindness, a belief of humanity.

What's in a name?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:07:00 +0000

Sorry for the copied title, but couldn't think of better. Possibly because I am writing after a long time. Was thinking of writing on two to three topics but unfortunately couldn't make it. First of all why this title; recently I came across few incidents that changed my perception about the modern India, the growing India, and it provoked me to write something about it and as title says its certainly about name. Name here also mean caste, religion & nationality.

I was under impression that a common man today has nothing to do with caste & religion; he is least bothered if the neighbor or colleague or a boss or any one he meets in a day is Hindu or Muslim or Christian or he belongs to upper or lower caste or whatever. We hardly mange to get some quality time that we can spend with family. We are so very much occupied by monetary and personal tensions that we can barely even think the least concerned aspects such as religion, caste, etc. However it was just a perception, if we go out and see the real India, people still want to talk religion, want to talk caste, want to talk about nationality.

India, or rather people of India, will have to answer to these questions as they will constantly hinder the growth of India. We can never become a developed nation without answering these issues. We always waste our time and lot of resources by discriminating people on basis on caste, religion & nationality. Indian society is divided so rigidly on the basis of caste and religion & now even on basis of nationality that people are either the outsider or insider.

Politicians need reasons to make common people fight and kill each other, why to give them a single reason. We always blame everything on politicians, why don't we realize the problem lies in the root, its among us. It is very important to stay united or we will soon be on the same stage we were 65 years ago. We will be ruled by others. Earlier kings used to fight for their regions and today we are fighting for caste, religion & states.

A Hindu neighbor comes and ask if I have a Muslim friend staying along with me, if so we guys have to move out from this society as this is a Hindu society; I say how does that matter to him, why don't he mind his own business, who is he to decide it as a Hindu society. A Muslim friend stops me to enter alone in a particular area saying its a Muslim area and he need to be with me; where is a freedom if I need to notice in which area I am safe and where I am not. A friend of mine cant meet her girlfriend's parents because he belongs to lower caste; who the hell here decides which caste deserves what. A child is beaten up by parents for playing with a child belonging to lower caste or other religion; I don't understand why to fill up the blank mind with such horrible discriminative thoughts. I am forced to learn regional languages, even though I am good at our national language. Mother/Regional languages have their importance but are they more important than our national language.

Its a high time that we realize the consequences of such issues; we are not only wasting our own time but we are missing many more important things in our life. Grow up before it gets too late. I was, I am and I will always be an Indian first - by caste - by religion - by nationality; are you?

Relationship

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:49:00 +0000

I haven’t experienced even 50% of my life but till now have come across many people and many relationships. I am too naive or young to write something that is so very much important in anybody’s life – Relationship. Though learning from my experience so far, learning from people surrounding me and their experience, would like to share my own view on it.

If I am given the right to define the synonym of relation/relationship, (which of course no one is going to give, but still I would like to define it over here on my blog :P), I would define it as understanding. The better you understand, better would be any relationship. Its an individual’s perception how you take it & how you understand your relationship. There is a thin line difference between compromising and understanding, what you perceive it is what you make it. To change for someone for better can either be taken as compromise or as understanding. If you are happy with the change in yourself for someone or if you are changing yourself for someone with your wish, that according to me is understanding. If you are not happy with the change in yourself for someone, that is compromise. Again sometime you unwillingly have to change for someone but if it ends up for your betterment, that is nothing but understanding, though no one agrees to it.

The first time when we start inhaling we are already in relation with few people, we are related to our parents, grandparents, our siblings through blood relations. We don’t choose them, we get them and they are of course one of the best gift one could ever have. Of course, not everyone is lucky, I am. They take us through the most important journey of our life holding our hand, teaching the values, religion & moral; guiding us on the right path, scolding us, loving us and sometimes even beating us. We hurt them, we love them, we shout on them, we follow them, we respect them and we sometimes even go against them. Everything ends up to understanding, sometime they understand us, and sometime we understand them. I am lucky to have the most understanding parents and lovely elder sister who have supported me in everything. They understand me very well and sometimes even I do.

Friendship, ideally it’s difficult to describe in words. We choose them and we nurture this relationship. We are open to them; with them we are the one we like to be. We fight with them and we also fight for them. We spend most of our time of the day with them, they know in and out about us. We share everything with them. We love them, we care for them, we cry for them and sometimes we also make other cry for them. We so very well understand our friends even though we have some problem, after few arguments, few shouts we stand beside each other for friendship. Understanding best works in friendship. Though you know you have to change for your friends you are eagerly ready to do so. Those days of school and college where our entire life is surrounded by friends is one of the best days we could ever have in our life. Throughout your life you miss these days and these relations.

Love, spouse, partner, better half, lifeline or whatever you call this relation, it has more intense feeling than these words actually describe it. They are the one who travel with you throughout your whole life. They come into your life when you are ready to accept responsibilities. When you enter in this relationship you are ready to take your own as well as your better half’s responsibilities. This generation has the liberty to choose this relation for self, but with agreement of many people. Thank God, I am part of this generation. But even though we have the liberty to choose our life partner for us, why the divorce rate have increase in last 5 years as compared to previous years. Earlier, do people compromised or they understood?

This relation is one of the most complicated and the most important relation of our life. If we understand the spouse or better half just like we understand our parents or friends then it could be one of the best relationships in the world. We fight with our friends and parents but we are still with them forever, similarly can’t that happen along with our partner? We love our better half but very few understand each other. We fight, we cry, we shout, we scold but we love him/her the most and the life is incomplete him/her that is why we call it better half. When two people get married, they enter into each others world. A guy & his family should understand (again the word “understand” :) ) that girl will take time to adjust to the new life, something she had never seen for past 20 + years. Similarly, a girl should give a try to adjust with his family; of course it’s not possible without a guy’s help. Few things, habits or lifestyle we explore about our spouse slowly and gradually and it starts feeling that he/she has more negative points than those positive points we saw earlier. But we forget that no one is perfect, we all have some negative points and if we make the other understand (again, understand) their negative points (rather than pointing out) and help him/her to rectify on those points, that would help our relationship grow. I know it easy to write it but difficult to implement it. But very few people even think in this direction and unless you think, you cannot implement.

Understanding & relationship goes hand in hand. Understanding should be from both the end, only parents understand every time or only child have to understand every time does not work for longer period. Every friend understands each other mutually and similarly it’s a responsibility of individual to understand his/her spouse mutually. The both way understanding leads to the happy relationship. We love all our relations, that is great but if we start understanding equally we could live happily forever. Sometimes a simple sorry in relation can prevent a life-long regrets, similarly to blame is human but to forgive is divine. All this is nothing but understanding and only that works to make your relation better.

It was 8 in the morning!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:10:00 +0000

Aman and Suhani got married few months back. Theirs was a love marriage; after a lot of struggle and emotional battles they had managed to convince their parents & eventually tied the knot. Aman and Suhani was a perfect couple - made for each other, very understanding, very cooperative and full of true love. Below is an anecdote from their after marriage love life as per Aman.

Characters: Aman, Suhani and a maid

It was 8.15 AM in the morning and I could see the sun trying to peep into our room through the beautifully curtained windows. I was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper and sipping hot tea made by my beloved wife Suhani. Her tea was always special for me and would make my day. It was yet another beautiful morning with birds rhythmically chirping in the bushes & wind rustling through the leaves. I could hear Suhani from our bed room humming her favorite song “Teri ore, teri ore.” This was the first song she dedicated to me; I could remember it every time I hear this song. After that it became my favorite too.

“Didi, how many rotis today?” suddenly the maid shouted from kitchen addressing the question to Suhani.

Suhani quickly came to the bedroom door and replied: “6 roti.”

She looked beautiful with her wet hair glistening in the few rays of sunlight and I could hardly take my eyes away from her. She winked at me to not to stare her and quickly went inside. I wished it was a holiday today and cursed our work wishing I could stop her from going to office today. I would rather prefer to hold this beauty in my arms and give her a lot of love.

I somehow managed to get my attention back to the newspaper that was in the same position since last 5 minutes as I was lost observing the beauty of nature and thinking about the most beautiful girl in my life – my Suhani.

Suhani came out wearing pink formal trousers and a perfectly fitting light pink shaded shirt that enhanced her beauty even further. I gasped looking at her, felt proud and lucky to have this divine beauty as my wife. She started applying some cream on her face, looking into the mirror. I could see her in the mirror and again lost my connection with the news I was reading. I was looking at her in the mirror and just kept looking at this divine beauty nurturing her looks gracefully.

I was brought back to the attention when she asked our maid about the tiffin: “Masi, is tiffin ready? I am already late and I hope you will not make it worst.”

The maid replied as if it was ready years ago “Oh Didi, it is already ready & waiting for your attention; as soon as you get ready, you can get it.” She then started murmuring and I could hear that she was complaining about every day scolding that she gets from Suhani for getting late in readying tiffin.

Suhani was busy in styling her hair & I could hardly take my eyes off her. Staring at her getting ready seemed more beautiful than even standing on the peak of Himalaya watching clouds passing through. She looked into my eyes in the mirror and winked; I was completely lost in her and I didn’t notice. She then turned around and I just didn’t want to lose sight of one of the most beautiful scene I was going through.

She was holding a comb in her left hand and with the right hand on her waist she looked to me with a small cunning smile and asked “Don’t you have some work? Focus on news; what are you staring at?”

She knew that I was looking to her; she knew that how much I love observing her beauty and she love it when I look her that way, though that question was very much expected. All girls prefer to get complimented about their beauty and she was no different. I could hear the maid laughing in the kitchen; even she knew that when Suhani was in front of me, I wouldn’t see anything else. I looked at her and laughed saying “Looking at the most beautiful lady of the universe; what’s there in news I can leave the entire world for you.”

She blushed and turned back towards the mirror and continued ameliorating her beauty. It was already 8.40 now and I could sense that she is already very late. She had to reach her office by 9.00 AM which now seemed almost near to impossible. I conveyed her that she is getting late and she almost threw all the cosmetics she was carrying in her hand while standing in front of mirror.

“Can’t you tell me that it’s already 8.40 instead of staring me; you know my boss will screw me” she shouted while she picked up her bag and started running from here and there. In return, I murmured so that she could not hear “If I would have told you, I would have missed all this and I didn’t want to.” I kept looking at her and she sometimes looked at me with a smile saying “I know you must be telling me that you look stunning and you don’t need to waste so much time on looking better; but what to do, I am helpless, sorry darling.”

It was a normal trend between us that we hug and kiss each other before she leaves for the office. I had an intuition that today she is late and she might miss it in a hurry. I thought to stand up and go close to the door so that it would be fast and easy for her to hug and kiss me and run for the office. But before I could stand up she fastened her sandal and opened the door, she looked at me and told giving a flying kiss “Hey Sweety, I am getting late; catch you in the evening, love you a lot, Mmmuuaahh, will miss you.” She pulled the door & ran away.

I could just mange to stand up in an awkward position - half sitting and half standing up - and as I had no option, I sat back on the couch again. I was upset and kept on thinking about it that how could she forget to kiss and hug me before leaving to office. I recalled every incident where I was hurt unknowingly by her in recent past. This was the first time, she forgot to do so. My heart and mind had a fight – Mind: “She doesn’t love you like before” - Heart: “No it was just that she was getting late” – Mind: “It was already late; it was just a matter of second” – Heart: “Its fine, not a big deal; she gave a flying kiss after all” – Mind: “It is of course a big deal, how could she forget it” – Heart: “Come on, this is the first time it happened” – Mind: “But it happened...”

I am a bit pragmatic and so I managed to listen to my heart & consoled myself saying “She was getting very late, I just hope she doesn’t get scolded by her boss.” I picked up the paper and started reading the news which I had left incomplete 20 minutes ago to avoid any further negative thoughts.

Suddenly, within a second the house door bell rang. I thought she must have forgotten something and that would add to her delay. I ran quickly to the door and opened it, seeing her standing in front of me; as expected. I immediately questioned “What happened? Did you forget anything? That’s why I always ask you to get ready before time.”

She was standing there smiling and I was confused looking her doing nothing. She was not even panicking as she was getting late for office and further not even replying to my questions. She came close to me, hugged me and murmured in my ear “Darling, you are very bad. Can’t you stop me and tell me that I am forgetting something? I could not even imagine my day without a hug and kiss from you. For you it won’t make any difference, but for me it is very important. It says that you are with me; it says that you will hold my hand forever whatever be the condition; it says how passionately you love me. I am sorry, I forgot but I came back to get it.” I was dumbstruck and I didn’t know what to do; my eyes became moist. I held her tightly in my arms and said “I love you a lot.” I kissed her and she then ran for the office.

I scolded myself for being such a rascal and having such negative thoughts. I just didn’t know what went wrong. But I promised myself that from now on I will always follow my heart in all matter relating to the love of my life. After all she was the best thing which could have ever happened to me.

- By Me. Thanks to Amin, Sarfaraz & Gaurav for giving time in reviewing my first flash fiction & for their valuable inputs to help me portray my fictionalization.

An easiest way to committee a suicide

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:37:00 +0000

All my well wishers & dear and near ones, relax, don’t be tensed; read the complete post before calling me or getting tensed. Today, I was coming by train and for the very first time in my life I was sitting on the door step of a bogie. Standing on the doorstep and sitting on the doorstep are completely two different experiences. It was really amazing sitting on the doorstep, and fortunately I was sitting alone there with minimal rush on my back.

Sitting on the doorstep, first gave me a very pleasant feeling and the wind blowing on my face was something really very idyllic. Those rail tracks rushing back at very high speed, trees passing where I could hardly manage to see which spices it belonged to was something which I had already noticed earlier but this time it was all very near, really different and of course much better. While observing everything running at high speed, I gradually started running into some thoughts. Everything around me was running at a very high speed and my thoughts too started gaining the same pace.

Unfortunately, thoughts were mixing; hell lots of negative thoughts complying with equal number of positive & vice versa. Let’s not get into what thoughts were but yes it was mix of all extremely negative covering up with extremely positive thoughts. I am known for positive thoughts, so certainly the negative thoughts had to loose. But yes, for some point of time those negative thoughts dominated in my mind and it was the time when the thought of an easiest way of committing a suicide ran into my mind. This was partly because of negative thoughts and partly because of the situation – sitting on a doorstep of bogie; a train crossing at the very high speed that too just a few meters away; my leg slipping off from the top step to a successive step (of course safely).

Jumping off the running train when another train is crossing would certainly be the easiest way of committing a suicide. Jumping off the train on the right time would make you die in a fraction of seconds and you would hardly feel the pain. At the time when I was sitting there and looking to the trains crossing, I felt it so easy to jump off the train and another train crushing me into the parts within a fraction of seconds. This was the point when I felt, if at all I would commit a suicide, I would use this method. This would be the easiest way to do so. Not too painful and not too time consuming; fast and on the spot.

But yes, the very next moment I thought that suicide is for those who don’t have balls. People say; to jump from a building, to light up yourself, to consume poison, sinking in a river or sea; you need courage but I say all this is easy to do than to stand and fight with the world, with yourself, with the situation. If you have balls, you will fight back, whatever is the situation, but committing a suicide is something which you will never do.

The new generation has taken their life for granted and committing a suicide is like a play for them. Someone failed & he or she thinks this is something worth loosing his/her life; boyfriend or girlfriend ditched and the idiot went straight away to committee a suicide. Are these reasons to give away something that is very precious – your life? Your life is something that your parents cherish more than anything in this world. Your life is something which your friends & siblings would miss & cry for their whole life. It is something which may ruin your beloved, wife’s, daughter’s or son’s life. It would impact hundreds of people who are living for you and only for you and that impact could be terrible.

Thus have balls and fight with the situation instead ruining your life and finding such easy methods of committing a suicide as I did; I apologies for sharing this method but I am a fighter and am strictly against suicide. I am fighting, are you?

PL - The best days in College

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 14:35:00 +0000

Few of you might be aware about what PL means. However, for those who cannot guess about this, let me tell you what PL means. PL stands for Preparation Leaves. Preparation leaves are the best days of college, in fact the best nights in the college. Before you start thinking weird, let me clarify you, during these nights every student is thoroughly, methodically, sincerely and actively involved in preparing for exams. Most of the time in a day is spent on thinking and discussing what to read and what not and when pressure gets built in evening, a solid plan is made to complete few courses in the night. After so much tension and planning for night, if you see the outcome, you will definitely believe that PL is the best days of the college life. Of course, as all fingers are not same, PL for each and everyone is not same.

Few of them, from day 1 starts studying intensively; few scheduling their plan – then rescheduling - again rescheduling - and it goes on; few of them starts gathering notes (books); few of them try to figure out what are the subjects; while remaining few thinks "now I will get some time to sleep, free from submissions, free from lectures". This is the time when "photocopies" is the most used word among collegians. In India, people prefer calling it XEROX.

During PL, sale of photocopy centre, tea/coffee centre, snacks sellers (particularly during night) boots up significantly. Reading for one hour and spending 3 hours on Tea/coffee centre is one of the regular activities. Various activities during PL are very much common like calling friends, discussing importance, explaining/understanding theories on phone and last but not the least getting scolded by parent for talking so long on phone. Driving bikes late night, discussing about the future with friends and talking all absurd things like, how would our children be, what job we will do, how much we will earn, when we will have S#X for first time, who is the hottest girl in the college, when would exams be over, where will spent our holidays after exam, what will do after exams and many more..... Reading for half an hour and sleeping for next two hours (yaar ek gante main mujhe utha dena or yaar tu kab soyega, mujhe utha dena yaar), scheduling plans and ending up with regret of not completing it.

PL is the time when lots of promises (to self) are made. PL is the time when relations are built or broken. PL is the time when students are at their highest level of their creativity and sincerity. All sorts of regrets, thoughts and promises come or develop only in PL. Below are some example of such thoughts and promises and how it changes as the exam date approaches.

"Oye kuch accha plan kar is baar, marks aache lane padenge”

“Oye meri notes Xerox karva lena, aur ha papers bhi. Last 5 years ke”

“Yaar bohot bhuk lagi hai, chal na kuch khane ko order karte hai”. (To this another replies) “Abbe nahi yaar aabhi to hum ne kuch padhna suru hi nahi kiya. Padh lo yaar” (After 10 mins of sincere reading, the later guy) “Chod yaar, sach main bohot bhuk lagi hai chal pizza khate hai”

"Chal sir ko puchte hai, jitna aapne padhaya hai utna hi padhna hai na"

“Abbe kitna padega, saala padhke kiska bhala hua hai”

"Yaar, yeh saala technology zabardast hai, kya invention hai. Chal na apne bhi aisa kuch sochte hai."

“Aaj to bohot padh liya yaar, chal chai vai pee ke aate hai”

“Maine suna sir ne class B valo ko kuch imp diya tha”

"Abbe yeh to sir ne kabhi padhaya hi nahi, saale ne kitne lectures liye. Thoda imp deta to. (The crowd replies) Sach main, Kam$%a hai yaar vo”

“Tu to aise bol raha hai jaise uske saare classes attain kiye hai."

“Oh GOD, this is so tough, if we would have read this from first, yeh situation nahi hoti."

"Darling don't worry, tomorrow i will explain you about this theory in simple language, to ho jayega, aabhi chalo give somthing sweet mmmuuaaahhh........."

"Sweetheart, don't worry, itna tension mat lo, main samja dunga yeh to bohot easy hai"

"Saale kamine, mujhe kehta hai ke main yeh padha nahi hai... aur use kehta hai kitna easy hai main samja dunga $$$^%&34#52$##^&^&%^&"

"Yaar sir ko call karna, koi doubt raise kar ke puch na agar koi importance de de to, mujhe to aapni vaat lagti deekh rahi hai."

"Saala khud itna padhe ja raha hai aur mujhe kehta hai, abhi to kuch nahi padha, saala dost ko dhokha de raha hai."

"Koi nahi, agli baar usse zyaada marks nahi laye to, to, to....."

"Yaar, tera itna sab ho gaya!!!!, meri to fati padi hai"

“Yaar last 5 years ke kisi bhi papers main aisa kuch pucha nahi hai, yeh chod dete hai”

“Pata hai, last year tak vo sir sab ko imp de dete the, saala aapne waqt hi sab change hona tha”

"Yaar, yeh dimaag main nahi jaa raha hai, thoda samja de aapni language main, jo samaj main aayega aapni language main likh dunga."

“Pakka hai na ke sab log yeh nahi padh rahe hai, varna pata chala yehi question aaya aur sirf aapni vaat lagi hai”

“Yaar kya boring life hai aapni, saala pura din padho to bhi khattam hi nahi hota”

"Yaar, yeh exams kyun hoti hai"

“Dear God, please is baar help kar le, next semester I promise pehle se padhai karunga”

"Oye Raaba, baacha le"

During PLs, 70% of students are in similar situations, full of such thoughts and promises. In spite of all these, if you see the outcome, 90% of people clear the exams, which is indeed an achievement. Salute to these days...

Happy Children’s Day

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 05:22:00 +0000

Happy Children’s Day to all my friends, all colleagues, all below my age, all above my age and those who feel that they are still a child and have lot to learn, lot to do in their life. November 14th of every year, the day is celebrated as a children's day after the birthday of the first prime minister of independent India, Pandit Jwaharlal Nehru, to honor children of India.

It is known that Pandit Jwaharlal Nehru, after Independence of India, had worked rigorously and passionately for the better education and welfare of children and for the youth of India. Under his regime, he committed in his five years plan that every child in India would get free and compulsory primary education. He also brought a scheme to distribute free meals and milk to school children in India.

Children are the future of tomorrow, the young India. However, today in India what children learns is competition, discrimination, corruption and earning money (oops, earning more and more money – reality shows and media has supported the perception more strongly). A poor child cannot attain school as their parents cannot afford the fees or the donation. Private schools are given more importance, where merit is the second priority and donation is first for admission. School teacher who plays major role in nurturing youth of India, are interested in earning more money out of this profession and most of them have started with private tuition. They teach more in tuition as compared to that in school. Everyone right from the trusty, management to the teachers have changed their perception of this Nobel profession called “Teaching” and have transformed teaching as a pure business, a revenue & profit generating machine.

Not only schools, trusty, managements, teachers and Government are responsible for this situation. Parents are equally responsible for the same. Parents compare schools on the basis of their facilities (just as we do for hotels, cinemas and homes, etc.) and all want their child to study in the best school where he can learn everything. This leads the schools and management to improve the quality of facilities rather than education. Thus more money is invested by Government and investors in providing facilities than the salary of School teachers. This leads to poor quality of teaching but better quality of infrastructure. No parents want their child to become a teacher, because there is no money in it. Teaching is a Nobel profession and should be considered the same. Government should encourage people to select teaching as their career by creating more opportunities in this profession.

Children are getting smarter and clever with technology upgradation, but hardly few of them are learning basic characteristics of humanity. Competition is necessary, but is it the right time for them to know what competition is, how to compete with the another child sitting next to him, when they are just a kid and they don’t even know what is the importance of getting marks in exams. Is it necessary to discriminate children on the basis of their status of parent’s income, on basis of their looks and basis of their family status? Appreciating someone who is doing better is necessary, but that appreciation should not lead to discrimination among others. A kid when he is born, he is pure by thoughts and heart. We feed them with thoughts, liking and disliking. Thus, when we feed them we have to be careful.

A child in India is discriminated right from the first step of his learning – The School. Can’t donation be the second priority for getting admissions? Better infrastructure in schools and better quality of education is needed, but not at the cost of other children loosing opportunities of attending schools.

I wish, we all together someday can help Government and create a better environment for our children, to help them feed what actually they need rather than showing them importance of materialistic things.

Happy Children’s Day!!!

Please note: This is post is as per my experience and on the basis of teachers, schools and people I have known, met and read about. When I say teachers, parents and schools, I don’t mean all, but yes I do mean most of them. I still believe that there are some schools, teachers and parents for whom teaching humanity is more important and they still consider teaching as a Nobel profession.

I am Praying, Once again!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:02:00 +0000

If you are the regular reader of my blog, you will come to know why this title has "Once Again" in it. This is because I already had written a post on Praying for you; there I was praying for someone and here I am praying for self. I should have not used the word "regular reader", because I am not a regular blogger that I expect my readers to come and read my blog regularly. Last post was on 15 August, almost two months ago. Anyways, I can always give excuse I was busy. Indeed, I was busy with someone; someone, I never think I can live without.

This time I am praying for me. Obviously 99 out of 100 times when we pray, it is for self. But we sometimes do pray for others. Going back to why I am praying this time; I am worried about the future, I want one thing in my life and I can give anything for that in return. I don't know whether I am right or wrong. I don't know what will be the consequences of it, but what I know is that I want it. I think I deserve it, I think it is made for me, I think this is what I wanted and so I want it. I will not force anyone or anything for this, but I surely have rights to pray to GOD that if I deserves such a beautiful thing & if I am lucky enough that it deserves me, then I should get it at any cost.

I know people say that if you work hard for something or if you try to get something with purity, you will get it. "Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho to puri kayanat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai" - dialogue from Om Shanti Om. "When you desire something badly enough, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" - By Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist). I want the kayanat to help me, I want the entire universe help me, I want the GOD to help me, I want everyone of you to help me get what I want.

I am praying for it, I am praying for something that is mine, I am praying for something that I need badly. I don't know what plans the destiny or the GOD has for me, but I will keep doing my hard work and will keep praying to make the GOD realize that how much I need it. I am sure GOD must be having some good plans for me in future, but still what I am worried about is that one thing and if I don't get that, I don't know how will I react to it, but that would be the worst moment of my life.

I will continue praying and I am sure one day GOD will have to hear me :-)

What is your plan on this Independence Day?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:03:00 +0000

Today, 15 Aug 2010, is India’s 64th Independence Day. Sixty three years ago, the same fine date, 15 Aug 1947, was the most important day for the people, of the people and by the people of India and even after 64 years we celebrate this day in the memories of people who fought for us, in the memories of our country who struggled in the past, in the hope of our people growing along with our country. I don’t have much to say on this Independence Day, except to share one fictional story which I guess is very much real.

Few young friends as per their usual Saturday evening schedule, had a gathering on 14th August 2010 at a Dhabha (a small road side restaurant) called “Singh Da Dhabha.” After hell lots of work had to be done in the entire week in office and home, every Saturday they all come to meet each other and share their thoughts and get relaxed. This Saturday, a day before Independence Day, again they met at 8.30 p.m, they all gestured each other and formed a circular group making them comfortable on the plastic chair. They started of well with their usual talks and after some one and half hour, Rahul asked the question and the story begins:

Rahul asked “Hey guys, what is the plan of tomorrow, it’s the Independence Day, a holiday? F#$%king holiday got wasted as Independence Day had to come on Sunday. I am worried, this time I won’t be able to participate in any of our Sunday’s party as I have loads of work; have to take my mom to hospital for regular check up and after that I wanna take a deep rest as this week was very hectic, I hardly slept this week due to the assignments.” Rahul was a Commerce graduate and was working in some Finance company as accountant and simultaneously pursuing Part Time MBA.

Trisha, (married girl at the age of 23, now 25) replied “These Sundays as so boring. I am fed up with my in-laws; they have made my life hell. I don’t understand why my husband doesn’t support me when he knows that what they are asking is foolishness. They want money so I am working 6 days a week and that too from 8 to 8 and now they also want me to take care of household work. How is it possible? Forget it, I am out of any plans , no chance my hubby will be interested in outing tomorrow as he knows I will be stuck up in those 4 walls with hell lots of household work. He will never want me to hand over any work to the lazy housemaid (who for sure won’t do it) or his parents, I mean our parents.”

To that Aziz started laughing and said “Poor Trisha, your husband seems to be very cooperative, why you don’t talk to him and try to explain your condition.” Trisha replied and this time anger on her face “Do you think I am a fool that I am waiting for your expert guidelines. I have tried it many times, but no output, he is mama’s boy. Forget it, what are your plans on Independence Day?” Aziz voice was low this time "Nothing specific, I can’t even meet Shreya (his Hindu girl friend, he was Muslim); my parents warned me not to devise any kind of plan to meet up Shrey. They said people will feel I am planning any conspiracy to blast the police inspector’s house or kidnap his daughter (Shreya was PI’s daughter). It’s even risky for We Muslims to loiter around any public or gov. property on Independence Day.” Aziz father was a Member of Parliament and famous politician among Muslim’s community.

“Man, for me all days are same. I can’t compromise on my workout and so I have to get up early in morning or else my dad will kill me. I don’t want to be a sports man, but as per my dad I have to. One more busy Sunday, nothing new though its Independence Day” – Aman said. Aman was a son of unsuccessful Sports Man. To cheer him up a bit, Rahul said “Man at least you will get a chance to meet up some babes at your sports club. Enjoy with them, the Independence, what else?” All started laughing.

Suddenly, they felt an appearance of beggar irritating them and asking for some food and they all stopped laughing. “Please give me something so that I can feed my child.” – Beggar started his usual begging job as he felt the group has given him some attention. Aman and Trisha both gave him some money and showed him the way to move ahead.

Beggar started walking and showing two one rupee coins to his son murmured “See dear son, there is hardly any difference between Independence Day and Normal Day for us but Independence Day is very important for us. On normal day, we beg and they pay us, on Independence Day we find out for Indian Flags lying on ground and sell them and they again pay us. Thus on Independence Day, Indian Flags give us the independence from begging, so be proud to be a part of this country.”

Here, all of them continued the discussion ignoring the beggar. All of the sudden their attention shifted to Ravi who throughout the discussion was busy doing something on his mobile. “Hey Ravi, whats up? What are you up to? We have been observing you; you are completely in your mobile since we are here, new girl friend or what?” asked Rahul. After blushing for few seconds Ravi replied “No Man, Just updating my status on Facebook; wishing Independence Day and updating people that we are here to plan out Independence Days’ schedule and its all done.”

He continued talking now looking out of his mobile screen “Well, I am free for any plans. Thank God my boss has spared me at least on Independence Day. I would be the happiest person in the country to have Independence Day on Sunday. My boss is busy with some event related to Independence Day and so I got one Sunday where I can relax.” Suddenly his phone started ringing, he looked into the mobile screen “What the F#$%, my boss is going to screw me up for 100 years, we talked of him and devil is here.” He shouted showing screen of phone to everyone. All started laughing and Ravi went away from the group so that his boss is audible to him clearly.

The Old man, somewhere in 80s, sitting beside this group was hearing their discussion throughout. He took a support of his son (owner of “Singh Da Dhabha”) and got up. He asked his son to help him to take near to the group of those young chaps. He went there and stated clapping. All were amazed and so was his son to see such an Old man coming to them and clapping for them for no reason. They all were confused, what could be the possible reasons, what have they done that he is clapping.

After clapping for one minute he uttered “All of you, the young Indian chaps, the future of India started the discussion with the question: What are the plans on Independence Day? And what have you discussed is your personal problems. None of you mentioned any thing about our India. None of you thought of sitting for two minutes and thinking about the country, none of you thought or discussed about flag hosting and singing the national anthem at least once.” The Old Man continued and this time raising his voice “Do you even know that the restaurant you regularly visit is named in the memories of the legendary Bhagat Singh – Singh Da Dhabha.” The old man went away after saying this and all the young chaps were dumb.

They had two options after listening to the Old Man. They could have either continued discussing the same what they were discussing few seconds ago and ignore the Old Man or would have started thinking about our country and at least would have thought something where they can contribute for better India.

What option will you choose?

Happy Independence Day!!

Friendship Day

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:39:00 +0000

Every year, the first Sunday of August is celebrated as Friendship day. The tradition of celebrating Friendship day by giving an honor, respect and love to friends started in US in 1935. Gradually, it gained popularity and was adopted in many countries including India. Friends come together on this very special day and wish each other by exchanging the gifts, cards, friendship band, etc. Friendship band being very popular in India. People spend their most of time with their friends and express their love for each other.

Human being is a social creature and importance of friends in their life can never be neglected. Life without friends means an isolated and obscured life.

Friends become the solution when you are in a problem.
They become the smile when you are sorrow.
They become the mentor when you are depressed.
They become the way that helps you reach your destiny.
They share their pocket money when you want to gift your girlfriend
They give you their support when you breakup with the same girlfriend.
They are the one who walks to you, when everyone else are walking away from you.
They are the one who believes in you when you stop believing yourself
They are the one listen to what you don't say
They are the one who knows all about you, but still likes you.
They are the one with whom you can share all your thoughts, you can be what you are and you can say what you want to.
They are the one who will be there for you when they should have been anywhere else
They let you know that you are not alone on the road of life.
They hold your hand to assure you that there is someone whom you can call and ask for anything, anytime.
They fight with you, they love you, they laugh on you and even cry for you.

They are friends, the siblings God forgot to give us and so send a gift in the name of friendship.

Friends plays one of the very important part in our life; they are life one soul, one mind in two bodies. Never miss an opportunity to show the appreciation to friends for their love and care. This August 1, 2010 gives you one more opportunity to appreciate your friendship. Don't wait for next August, you never know it can be too late.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my friends for being with me and helping me whenever I needed them. Having you all in my life is priceless. I cannot ask anything better than this.

Compared to friendship, gold is dirt.
Happy Friendship Day

Fight for injustice and Terrorism - What is the difference?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:06:00 +0000

Ever wondered why terrorism was born? Why people are willing to kill each other without knowing who the person is and why he/she should be killed? Why children who should have "A bat and ball" and "Books" in their hands have arms and ammunition? Why a human gets violent, when his actual foundation is on humanity? Have you ever tried to find out the answers to these questions? No, because those who are blessed with everything don't have a time to think about it and those who don't have anything & are combating for their basic needs have no regrets to kill people for their survival, even that is a part of the human nature- survival of fittest.

The theory of survival of fittest came into existence with a message that whosoever will be fit and able to adapt to the changes in an environment will survive and whosoever will try to be stubborn and deny to accept the situation will have lesser chances to survive. But for the modern world, the world of Power, the word "fittest" has become the synonym of power. If you have power you can survive, if you don't you cannot. If you have power you can do whatever you want. You can kill the people, you can attack the religious place of minorities or majorities in the name of false claims that it belongs to majority or minority respectively (depends on situation), you can force people to fight for their religious pride even though they don't respect themselves, you can take bribe in order to get the work done though you gets basic wage for the same, you can make any girl to sleep with you to provide her with what she deserved anyways, you can ask the sharecropper to provide you double the share though they cannot provide even a single penny, you can blasts a parts of countries in the name of JEHAD. You can do whatever you want if you have a power.

People in the power (could be political leader, a producer of film, a terrorist, a business man, a landowner, etc.) do whatever they can in order to suck the maximum out of the people who are under them. This is what leads to the fight for injustice. Now is this the terrorism? No may be Yes, may be God knows. The bomb blast that took place in 1993 Mumbai were majorly planted by Indians, though they were trained & supported by other countries. Naxalites started their rebellion movement with a motto to fight against injustice done by landlords. Rakesh Mehra has shown in the movie Rang De Basanti that 5 youngsters kills the politician as according to them the politician killed their friend. Now is this a fight for injustice or terrorism?

Fight for injustice should be there but not at the cost of the life of civilians. Fight for injustice can be in "The Mahatma Gandhi's" way or "Bhagat Singh's" way. Both were right but today's generation don't like Mahatma Gandhi's way they believe in Bhagat Singh's way. And they misses a very important fact of the Bhagat Singh's movement of fight against injustice. He never killed or never wanted to kill any innocent people/civilians. His fight was against Britishers and only Britishers, the culprits of injustice.

The terrorism starts when fight for injustice starts killing civilians and innocent people. When the power troubles the weak to the point that it becomes out of their tolerance. The naxalites were not terrorist but now they are killing innocent people and that too in huge numbers and so they are no more than terrorists. Muslims are getting lured to fight for Jehad but they even don't know what Jehad is and they kill innocent lives, that leads to terrorism. Fighting for injustice is not wrong, but it can be done with words and talk. Use of arms and ammunition is expected but against the people who are the culprit for injustice and not against individual/civilians who has nothing to do with them. Simply killing people and blowing off the part of countries, no way justify the fight for injustice. In turn they are giving the birth to more and more terrorists. The fight to get the power, to show the power and to make the negative us of power is terrorism.

So, its up to the people of this world to decide, whether they want to fight for injustice or want to get involved in Terrorism. One saying written by Mahatma Gandhi that very well applies to today's world.

"An eye for an eye can make the whole world blind" - Mahatma Gandhi

One night on Expressway

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Going to Expressway

Have you ever traveled from Ahmedabad to Baroda (Vadodra, as it is pronounced). If not, you at least must have heard or read that there is an expressway connecting both these cities. The name itself signifies its purpose, expressway - Dhooooooooooooooooom. Expressway have made traveling very fast and you can reach from Mumbai to Pune in 1 to 1.5 hour and similarly from Ahemdabad to Baroda in 55 minutes. If you read name of express way in Gujarati, they write it as "Durgati Marg." I never felt it as durgati marg till the day, but yes after my last visit I have experienced why it is called durgati marg. Anyways, the point is that as we all are aware that Ahmedabad to Baroda is only a 55 minutes run, at the max one can take 3 hours, right? Wrong. My last drive from Ahmedabad to Baroda was among the longest journey I ever had on road, even though I have driven from Surat to Pune many times. Can you guess what time I took to reach Baroda from Ahmedabad while driving a car? I am sure, you will have to make a wild guess. It took us 12 long hours to reach Baroda from Ahmedabad and there we spent a whole night on expressway - one of the most memorable night of my life.

We went to hospital on S.G. Highway to meet one of our relative. At 9.00 P.M. we left from the room in hospital and went to cafeteria to have dinner. We were told that cafeteria have one of the best foods but my luck was not along with me. I saw a menu and asked my cousin "what will you have?" He was being formal and replied "whatever you like". So I ordered Pav Bhaji and he ordered some Masala Dosa. The cafeteria was full and again unfortunately nothing interesting was there to kill time, except our talks. I have read and heard that good hospitals usually have beautiful and sexy nurses and female doctors, but as my luck I could not see any of them in Cafeteria. Possibly our timing was wrong. In last second sentence I had to specify "female" ahead of doctors because now a days government has created trouble for straight people like me, by approving "GAYS" relationship.

I waited for almost 20 minutes for my order and still there was no sign of our token number on sign board.

I went to the waiter and asked "Pizzas are delivered free if they are not provided within 20 minutes. Does it applies to this cafeteria as well?"

To its reply he told "Definitely not sir, it is because the Pizza costs 3 times more than what you have ordered here, and that is the reason why you are here and not in Pizza hut few meters away from here." I was dumb and had no answer; that was the first time I realized why people call Ahmedavadi's as stingy (chingus). In surat, people prefer more costly hotels and restaurants and SURTIS give no chance to anyone to insult themselves in the matter of money. This was the first time I felt insulted and I immediately went to my table trying to avoid any eye contact with that person; at least he was right, up to some extent.

5 minutes passed and our token number was there up on sign board, I heaved a sigh.

"Thank God, he managed to give us today" my dad said.

All were starring at me and expecting to go and take the order. I was worried to face him again. I asked my cousin to take the order. He immediately took and went to the counter to get our order.

My dad sensed something wrong from my gestures and asked "What happened, something wrong with order?" Immediately I looked away from him as if I was finding something and replied "No, nothing just wanted to wash my hands" and moved towards the wash room before any further questions are fired on that topic.

I was waiting eagerly for Pav Bhaji as I don't even remember when I had Pav Bhaji last time. To my surprise my cousin came back only with two dish both with Dosa and one coke bottle. "Pav Bhaji will take few more minutes" said my cousin.

This time I got agitated and went to him with red face full of anger as if I was going to bang his counter. I saw a waiter carrying single Pav in a dish and that made me control my temper as that was a sign that my Bhaji will be next. He pressed my token number and stylishly placed a dish on counter in front of me; not to forget he had a smile of success on his face.

"Where is Bhaji?" I asked audible only to him and other people standing in close proximity.

He winked and shockingly asked "Bhaji?" As if I ordered only Pav for my dinner. He looked at my face and felt some sense of mistake and started to review an order receipt.

I also didn't want to give him another chance of insulting me and so checked the Pav Bhaji order in an order receipt and bash that on counter with confidence, saying or rather shouting "Am I going to have a single Pav without Bhaji?" Almost everyone turned back to have a look. My cousin came running to me over the counter.

He immediately took the receipt and went inside. He returned back with expression of a looser and replied politely "Sorry Sir, but Bhaji is not available, I request you to order something else in same range." Now it was my chance to insult him, it was a time to take a revenge and I felt shouting on him saying that would again take another half an hour and I will be screwed up for one more hour in this cafeteria where there is nothing much of interest. But looking to his pitiable face and people around staring at us, I asked him for Uttapam without creating any more scenes. I wonder why I cannot shout on people, that is a bad quality in me. Finally, he managed to serve us food by 10.00 P.M. and we finished our dinner at 10.30 P.M. Almost one and half hour passed and there were no girls in cafeteria, I kept wondering where those sexy and beautiful nurses and doctors have gone, why this happens only to me.

It was now time for us to rush to Vadodra as early as possible, it was already too late to drive on highways. I kept cursing the person for delivering us food so late; I had no option it was after all the question of my self-esteem or my EGO. We hopped in the car and started our journey with a hope of reaching Vadodra in two hours max, i.e. at 12.30 A.M.

My fortune was very upset with me, we had not even traveled 2 kms and car suddenly started vibrating or pulling on one side. It was very unnatural, I was tensed and so I reduced the speed but there was no improvement, vibration was growing and so was tension. I changed the gear and still there was no improvement in vibration. I was confused, I had to know what is happening before anyone else sitting in the car finds out and adds more to agitation. I was on my toe and was driving almost 20 km/hr on Sarkhej - Gandhinagar Highway (S.G. Highway, part of Ahmedabad), even a cycle would have overtaken us.

My mom asked "what happened" and I felt as if they have started feeling vibrations. I ignored her and continued driving. I was sweating and had know idea what to do, stop the car and tell them something unusual is happening and try to find out or continue driving in this situation and wait for something worst to happen. Suddenly, the vibrations increased to the level which was unbearable and uncontrollable.

I was almost wet now due to sweating, I cursed the leather seat covers applied by my maternal uncle on the car I was driving. I felt as if something is wrong with wheel, I peeped out of the window to find out and tried to check`the wheel which was rotating at 10 km/hr but vibrating at some unmeasurable frequency.

I forced myself more to peep out of the window, while holding the steering straight and found that the front wheel was punctured. It was 10.50 P.M and the wheel of our car was punctured on S.G. highway, no mechanic no service station, where to go? what to do? As usual I cursed my fortune and everyone from their end were suggesting various ways to get out of this problem.

Story continues in next post, keep reading ....................

Happy Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 30 May 2010 12:50:00 +0000

Today is my birthday and I got calls from all my friends and relatives. Feels great to hear from all of them. With few of them I am in a regular touch, while few of them meets & talks occasionally and for remaining its birthday to birthday. I thank all of them to remember me, to care for me and be with me for these many years. I wish my relationship with all of them cherish in the coming future and every year it gets more and more strong.

I was wondering on this birthday, how I used to celebrate my birthdays few years back; with cakes friends, parents, sister and someone special ;). Of course the cake, friends, parents and my sister are special, but you know, it is always special to have "Someone Special" wishing you on your birthday. Long night calls that starts from 11.45 and lasts till 2 or sometime even 4.00. Sitting with friends late night and talking about our future, laughing on past and planning of next day party. Cutting cake with family and giving the first slice to Mom, second to Dad and third one to sister. Getting gifts, actually more proper word: demanding gifts from family and friends. Next day party with friends and emptying of pockets and if at all something is left out, no wonders supper takes it away. In return receiving unmeasurable gifts from all of them : Wishes and Blessings. Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional - If this is true, I wish I could still be there in School or College and enjoy those beautiful days of my life.

How good it would have been if everything would be like movies, press one button and you go back or forth to few years, again you press button and you are back to original life. On this very special day I would press button that would take me back to my college days. Saala senti ho raha hu (I am getting emotional now). I am not supposed to write when I am emotional, otherwise people will find my blog boring and start yawning while reading. So instead of being sentimental fool, I would end this post with some good note that will force you to come and read this post again and again in future (at least when you are about to wish someone on their birthday).

I will write how you can wish birthday with some beautiful quotes, so whenever you have birthday of someone special you can visit my blog, read it and wish your someone special and impress her/him with beautiful quotes.

Getting optimistic on growing age:

You can't turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again.

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Count your life by smiles, not tears, Count your age by friends, not years.

A true friend remembers your birthday but not your age.

The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Getting funny on growing age:

Age is like underwear...it creeps up on you!

The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.

Lying about your age is easier now that you sometimes forget what it is.

Old fart, young heart!

Praying and blessing:

Praying that your day is as special as you are.

May the Lord shower you with many blessings on your special day.

Birthdays give us the opportunities to stop and appreciate all the beautiful things we have been blessed with.

This is the day the LORD has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Cherish God's love and celebrate His plan for you!

Relatives & close friends:

Today take time for you, and enjoy every little thing you do.

Lot's of people are thinking of you on your birthday; I just wanted to let you know I'm one of them!

It's always nice to wish the best to someone who really is!

A birthday is a day filled with special joy, a day that lets you know you're always loved and cherished.

Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we'll meet now and then when we wish,

in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.

Warm expression:

From morning till night, May your birthday be bright.

Hope lovely surprises are coming your way, To make your Birthday a Wonderful day.

Each birthday is a new beginning, full of promise and opportunity and the chance to make dreams come true.

Birthdays are ordinary days sprinkled with stardust.

To someone special : (I know most of you must be waiting for this one :) )

To the world, you may be one person, But to me, you are the world and this is my day.

Special days like this, certainly deserve a kiss.

We are one in love and joy,

In fondness and in worth,

And so as one we celebrate,

This day, your day of birth!

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be.

Everything I've longed for

You've made my dreams come true.

But the greatest gift of all

Is being loved by you

Have a really lovely Birthday

Indeed I'll see that you do.

If I could give you the stars

I'd gather them inside my heart

I'd wrap them in love

And brighten your birthday with starlight.

On this birthday I would like to make all my readers smile through a joke & end this post
Man : Were any famous men born on your birthday?
Birthday boy: No, only little babies
Always keep smiling :)

How to know if you are in love?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:24:00 +0000

Ahh, one of the most confusing and common questions one can ever have. Of course, answering this common question is not so very common; in fact it’s very difficult. I hope you have read my last post on “We are just friends,” because that will give you an idea how important it is to answer this question. If you have read my last post and have come here to find the answer of this question, let’s try to find out first if the other person is in love with you and next we will find out if you are in love.

It is always easy for a girl to judge a guy whether he is in love with her, but it is very difficult for any guy on the earth to find the same about a girl. In spite of this, the guys have to always take chances and propose a girl; because as per the trend girl never proposes. No worries, lets see into how to find “if HE is in love with you?”

A man in love is not someone you need to spend a lot of time guessing; men are not as complicated as women.

A man in love will always do things that will clearly reveal that he cares for you. Caring for you can be anything wearing the clothes that you like, getting anything that you like from any corner of the world (of course if it is in his reach), spending more time with your family, calling u to ask whether you reached home safely even though you are not late at home, taking care of your need even before you can give a thought on it, etc. So observe him, if this is the case you are lucky girl, he is in love with you.

A man in love will always be engaged with you. If he is busy buzzing on mobile or reading messages or looking out here and there in your presence then there is a trouble. When he will be sitting with you, you will be the entire world for him. He will smile when you will smile.

Feel his touch; it will be tender and gentle. He will touch your face, your hair, your arm and hold your hand softly until you will feel the warmth. If he holds your hand in public you can be assure about his love for you; very few guys have guts to hold a hand of girlfriend in public.

Last but not the least, listen to your heart. If he does love you, you may have already stopped reading this by now. You don't need anyone to tell you what you know yourself.

And please, it is not always necessary that always a guy should propose a girl, even you can lead sometimes; this will give you what you may loose if not done.

Now it’s time for guys to find out “if She is in love with you?”

Girls are usually coy, modest and very sweet, so it is really challenging to find out if she loves you or not. If you are trying out to figure out from their gestures, that will be tricky one, so don’t try it.

She will never confess first, so she may give you a hint by saying you few words like “I like you, you are so sweet”, “You take care of me even more than my parents”, “You are such a nice guy, I like you a lot”, “You are the best person I had in my life”, “You are really trustworthy” etc. this is the first hint. But still at this point you need to put some more efforts to confirm it. So observe her behavior for the next points.

Now this is the point where you can get a second confirmation from her. You meet any of her friends and if she is jealous, you definitely have a chance. Try to praise some other girls (but praise genuinely, don’t praise where you know that your girl dominates compared to others in that point) and see the reaction, if she is jealous or angry; you have a chance. But if she reacts as if you are trying to fool her, you are in trouble. However silly could be the point, if the girl is in love with you she will never tolerate you praising others.

The third confirmation, she will care for you in almost everything, the way you move, the way you drive your bike, the way you talk to your parents, the way you react to people. The most important when you are sick or stuck up in some (physical) problem, if she provides you an extra care and take care of your minor details, you don’t need to wait for anything, she loves you a lot.

Forth confirmation, if she introduces you to her family and share everything about her family, you are done. A girl will never take a chance to introduce you to her family or reveal her family problems to you if she doesn’t trust you.

Last but not the least; again same applies to you. Listen to your heart. You don't need anyone to tell you what you know yourself.

Now that you have figured out whether she/he is in love with you or not, let’s now try to get the answer from yourself. The tough part starts now. I got a beautiful message that gives “12 ways to know that you love someone”. I know some of you must have read that message and I am sure just like me you also believe that these 12 ways actually works. So let’s go for it, they are as follows……

Twelve: If you talk with him/her late at night and when you go to bed you still think of him/her.
Eleven: If you walk really slowly when you are with him/her.
Ten: If you don’t enjoy or feel good when he/she is far.
Nine: If you smile when you hear his/her voice.
Eight: When you look at him/her, if you don’t see any other people around him/her.
Six: If he/she is everything you want to think and talk about.
Five: If you realize that you smile every time you look at him/her.
Four: If you would do anything to see him/her.
Three: While you have been reading this, if there was a person in your mind all the time.
Two: You have been so involved thinking of that person that you didn’t notice that number seven is missing.
One: You will now to go back to check for number seven and now you are silently laughing to yourself and thinking about him/her.

If you got the answer, what are you waiting for, why don’t you just go and propose her/him. I hope you have the best love life and you get married to the person whom you love, very few are fortunate to have it.

We are Just Friends !!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sat, 01 May 2010 18:36:00 +0000

Well, well you must have given a good thought about the post after reading its title, as this generation is very much used to it. You ask to any girl or guy in relationship (excluding officially engaged) and they will reveal only one thing and that is "We are just friends." Actually, they will be blushing on one side (if you observe their face closely) and revealing their so called friendship - "No, no, yaar we are just friends, kya tu bhi."

This is a very serious problem with our generation; I keep on wondering what could be the probable reason for not revealing their relationship. Well there could be many reasons but most of time I feel its insecurity. Insecurity of loosing each other, insecurity of taking responsibility, insecurity of getting into relationship or commitment.

I have been hearing this from many people, actors (of course, I don't know any of them personally, its all from media), sports stars (after IPL 3 at least cricketer deserve "STARS" tag and in India cricket is the another name of sports), my friends, friends of friends, and sometimes even I am not an exception. Katrina Kaif and Ranbir Kapoor, Anuskha Sharma and Shahid Kapoor, Yuvraj Singh and Deepika, Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar, Tom and Alice, Raj and Simran, etc all are going on through same phase. Well don't get so confused, the last two couples are imaginary or dummy names substituting the entire young generation of India. Also, I am not sure about the above mentioned celebrities' relationship because they might be speaking truth, who knows? But yes, this has definitely given an option for our generation to support their so called friendship - the relation full of insecurities.

These insecurities are there because neither a girl nor a guy is ready to confess that they are in love with each other. Some do this because they are practical enough and think that there is no future with the other; some because of their ego - let the other one confess, why should I; some people are worried about loosing other; while some never realize that they are in love and so keep on saying or believing that they are just friends. There would be only 10% of cases where an ego could be the reason, because ego will not allow their friendship to grow to such level. Same applies to the category of people who are practical. While 30% of people fall in category where they don't confess as they are worried about loosing them. And whopping 50% of people fall in category where they don't confess because they themselves are not very much sure about their relationship. I might be wrong about the figures for the last two categories but this is as per the experience of mine and people around me.

But one thing is for sure, if you know that you are in love and you don't confess, you will regret for your whole life. So don't wait for anything, not even for the right time; just go and confess to the person immediately, the right time is "NOW". Confessing your love is not a crime and it will be far more relaxing than worrying about the after effects.

Well for all those who are into confusion, I would like to share few facts that will help them to know if they are in love. I hope it will help them to come out of their confusion; however, even after reading those facts they cannot make their decision then only GOD can help them.

All the best to all those who know that they are in love and are about to confess their love. However, those who are still confused and want to know if they are in love or not, read my next post.... : )

I Dreamt Of

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:50:00 +0000

Few days back, I was listening to Radio City 91.1 when the RJ asked to SMS a dream of the life that can never come true and the best one gets a prize. I started to ponder over my dreams immediately to recall one of the dreams I ever had and which by any means cannot be true. At one point of time I thought that almost every dream I had till now are eligible for that; but I had to select one of the best dream so I kept mulling over for few minutes and finally I could come up with one dream which I think best suits for the prize.

While all this happened I was on a bike riding back to my home from office. So fortunately, I didn't message my dream to Radio City and lost the opportunity to win a prize. Now you must be thinking what is so fortunate about this. Some might be even thinking that by doing so I saved money on SMS. Of course, I did save money by not sending a SMS, but I find this fortunate because I got an opportunity to bore you people by writing my new post on this, lol.....

Well, coming back to the dream, I dreamt about the India, India free from poverty, I dreamt of a day when I don't find any single person sleeping on footpath in India. By the time I reached my home, I thought this would have definitely won me a prize as this is the dream which I think can never come true. This is because rich are getting richer while poor are getting more miserable in our country. At one end where the figures of illiteracy and unemployment is getting better and better year on year due to privatization, the quality of government schools and their teacher's earning on other end is degrading day by day. The donations that private schools demand is out of rich of middle class, how can a poor father afford it for his child? The only option left for him is to admit his child to government schools.

To make poor rich, they and their children needs an employment. To get an employment, 90% of children needs education, and it should be a quality education. To get an quality education, we need government schools to improve their teaching quality. This can be done by hiring quality teachers and implementing various facilities that private schools are providing and which are necessary. Government is earning huge, part of which should faithfully be used to provide facilities in government schools. People are heedlessly donating money for some religious purpose in temples, if they can donate to government schools that might make a difference. The wage and earning of teachers should be raised so that there can be quality teachers there to provide an quality education. The retired people can contribute in providing free coaching to the students of government schools. Once started, I am sure there can be many things that can be done to make governments schools better.

Oh God, its so very much difficult, isn't? That is why I thought this dream deserves the prize. Indeed it is going to be difficult, if we think so. Well I know, there are some people who will be claiming that even if above suggestions are implemented, nothing is gonna change. I also know there will be some better suggestions which can eventually make a difference, but nobody is going to neither suggest it nor implement it. We all will think, discuss, write a blog (just like me), laugh or sometime even mourn, curse government or society and finally get be back to our life in the same society with a zero outcome. It will be difficult if we do so. If the youth of India feels that whatever I am saying is true and feel that we together can make difference, lets join our hands and try to make some difference. Lets take a oath, when we will be in position where we will be able to donate some money, we will first donate it for better government schools. When ever we fill we can provide some good coaching we will provide it to the students of government schools for free. That is all I want to say from my side, if you people have some suggestions and ideas please share and we together can implement it.

Hindustan Unilever's direct attack on Procter & Gamble

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:40:00 +0000

The war between two FMCG giant, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and Procter & Gamble (P&G), continues and has taken a very aggressive move when HUL directly attacked P&G by promoting its best selling detergent "RIN" along with P&G's product "Tide" in same commercial ad.

We have seen many such competitive ads for different products like tooth paste, cold drink, electronic products, however none of them were direct. This ad has aggressively disparaged "Tide" as a brand to make HUL's "Rin" detergent look more prominent. There were many ads where indirect reference to competitors products were made, either by making the name of competitor's product look blurred or showing a dummy product that looks very much similar to competitors and sometimes even making some funny comments about competitor's advertisements. However this is the first time in Indian commercial advertisement segment where competitor product's name as well as the product is belittled to show the strength of own product.

"Tide" was usually marketed by P&G with their USP as making use of the superior technology which make the clothes more white/bright as compared to the other detergents. However, HUL attacked "Tide" showing "Rin" as better product in ad by comparing the brightness/whiteness of two shirts. The one where "Rin" was used is shown brighter than one where "Tide" is used.

Watch this ad below.

P&G had filed a suit claiming Rs 100 crore in damages from HUL alleging that they had made an advertisement showing their product 'Rin' had more whitening power than 'Tide'. P&G's counsels submitted before the court that such claims were unsubstantiated and had no scientific basis. They also claimed that such an advertisement was made with malafide intent. The matter would come up for hearing again after six weeks.

I am not sure about the repercussion but will have to admire the guts of HUL. However, I personally feel this is not the right way to market the products. Improve your quality, promote ethically and it will automatically stand out in the competition.

What do you think, is it the right way of marketing? How will this commercial ad create an impact on both these brands? Will people stop buying "Tide", will they stop buying "Rin" or there will be no major change in buying behavior of consumers?

Say Cheese!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:53:00 +0000

"Say Cheese" is what people say when they are about to click a photo. Photographers usually instruct their objects to say cheese to make them smile. When people say "Cheese" their face appear into the shape that is similar to a smile.The simple reason why everyone want people to smile when they are clicked is that everyone on this earth looks good when they smile.

Smile on the face can be of two forms; one is natural smile and another is artificial. One can have natural smile when someone is jubilant, joyous, ecstatic, felicitous, elated, gleeful. Alright, I know its getting too complicated so in simple words, you can have natural smile when you are happy. An artificial smile appears on your face when you are sad but you have to smile or you have to smile when actually you don't want to. However, an artificial smile never make your face look beautiful, in fact it gives you a strange horrible look and sometimes even make you look like an alien.

The bottom line is we should stop pretending to be happy and start finding out the reason for not being happy. If we cannot be happy at least we should stop pretending to be, that make us look ugly. Now that we live in the age of globalization, a competitive world surrounded by practical people we have no option left with us but to pretend to be happy. Because we always compare ourself with others and we always want to be like someone. In this race, we always forget to celebrate our present. There are many things in your present for which you can smile and cheer, there are many people who feel good when you smile, there are many things/people trying to bring a smile on your face; smile for them, smile for yourself. At this note, can you even remember when you smiled last time? Anyways lets not get into that because I know, if we can pretend to be happy we can even claim that we are always happy and can proudly bring an artificial smile on our face.

I read a book Please, Mom! It's my Life written by Dr. Jaideep Singh Chadha and let me tell you it is a must read book for every teenager and adult who thinks that they know everything. This is because we may know everything in the world but we don't know how to be happy. Have you ever thought any thing positive about Donkey? Now that I have raised this question, you will start thinking and I can bet some of you are still finding the answer. The fact is till now many of us have never thought on it and this is because we are always surrounded by so many negative thoughts in our life that we never had a time to think any thing positive about our life and our surroundings. This book will reveal such small things which we loose by grieving on what our eyes could not see. To support the above fact, there is a very famous idiom which we studied in our school days but we never implemented it - "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush." We always desire of what others have and always miss out to cheer for what we have.

I am not against being competitive, but we should always learn to respect what we are and look out for positive things about it, instead of cursing ourself for not being able to achieve what other did. Always aim for better future but not at the cost of ruining your present. I don't know how to make my future better, I even don;t know what will be my future, but I know how to be happy in my present.

I observed many people and could narrate one example that clearly differentiates materialistic/artificial happiness and actual happiness. When you get a message about your salary deposited in your account for the first time, you obviously get a smile on your face and then you get busy with your work; again after some time when you come across the same message or you recall the amount in your salary account, can you get the same smile on your face again? No, because it is a materialistic smile that occurs only once. However, every time when you remember - the help you provided to any human being in need, to any of your friend; an elapsed time with your friends; first time when you proposed a girl/boy; your first love; a first lust-less kiss; the joy that you had when you were with your near or dear ones and such simple and splendiferous occasions in your life, you will always smile and this is the happiness which we always miss out to cheer in our present.

So forget the past, stop thinking about the future and celebrate the present. Remember, you look very ugly or even horrible when you pretend to smile or pretend to be happy, you look fair enough when you don't smile but also don't pretend to and you look good, bonnie, clean and honest when you are happy and when you smile.

So always keep smiling, you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

Save our Tigers

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:36:00 +0000

"Save our Tigers" is a campaign recently launched by "Aircel" an upcoming mobile operator in India. Aircel has partnered with WWF-India to save our tigers. Its sad that someone has to make us realize our responsibilities - a responsibility to be a human being.

There are just 1411 tigers left and now that Aircel has launched a campaign to save our tigers I guess this will make a huge difference. Many celebrities and sports stars are promoting this campaign and has supported the move of Aircel. I am roaring for them and even you can join the roar to support the tigers; our national animal need our support. To support them please visit and join the roar: Save our Tigers by Aircel.

You can continue reading this later but first visit the above URL and join the roar.

I am supporting them because I am a human being and I very well know my responsibilities. We all know we are human being and hurting, killing or destroying is not our activity. Why do we get involved in these kind of stuffs?

A human being is the most powerful creature in this world and we as a human being are utilizing this power to destroy the world. Today its our national animal, yesterday it were trees & forest, tomorrow it will be something else and someday it could be ourself. We need to understand the basic, we need to understand the difference between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, we need to maintain peace in this world. For saving tiger we don't have to do any extraordinary thing, we just have to be a human being. Our existence is because of this world and we need to save this world and every creature that belongs to this world. No other creature expect human being has this understanding. So what we have to do is to understand our responsibilities and follow them.

Today, we see everything from commercial angle. We only think about our profits, our increments, our gadgets, our lifestyle and all that funnels to our commercial world. The usage of bones of wild tigers for traditional oriental medicine along with the international trade of tiger skins continues to be the main reason for poaching tigers of India. Approximately 121 tigers were killed in 1995, 81 in 1999, 72 in 2001 and on an average 35 tigers are killed every year since 2005.

I don't have the data on number of human beings killed every year but I am sure the number would be worst. I hope, wish and pray that a day never comes in future when someone has to run a campaign "Save Human Beings."

A Republic Day - 26th January

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 06:40:00 +0000

One more holiday is what the corporate India is thinking on this republic day. Many must have applied for a leave on Monday so that they can enjoy a long weekend. Sat - Tuesday. This is true with almost all Indians (even I am not an exception) and for almost all the holidays or festivals in our country. Few years back I used to ask question why do we celebrate Republic day, I used to get some shocking response from people. I observed that majority never knew the answer. The reason is that during our childhood we mugged up the reason to write it in a history paper but never gave a thought on it or understood it. For those who don't know the importance of Republic day here is brief history why we celebrate 26th January as Republic day every year.

After Independence, we decided to govern ourselves. We prepared a constitution - Law determining the fundamental political principles of a government, a document which shows how the people of country will be governed. This constitution was approved on 26th November 1949 and came into force on January 26, 1950. With this India became a "Sovereign Democratic Republic."

Sovereign means "not controlled by outside forces, autonomous (controlled by the people)."

Democratic means "representing to or adapted for the benefit of the people at large (for the people)."

Republic means "a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them (power of the people)."

The constitution says people of India shall be the real rulers of their country, and each citizen shall have right to "Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity". There will be no King or Queen to rule the people.

And we started to govern ourselves.

So all those who still feels that this is a mere holiday for them, think about it again. Understand what it means and try to fight for your right - Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

For this Republic Day I tried to write a verse, but I am very bad at words and writing poems. This is my first attempt so please accept my apology for not able to make it up to the mark. As I am proud of being an Indian I thought of writing something on it and would like to publish it on my blog.

I am proud to be an Indian

A country with an admirable Constitution

I am proud to be an Indian

Being a part of world's best nation

The country with full of emotion

Conflate of various religion and devotion

I am proud to be an Indian

A country that has given so many legendary creation

The only place where you find Hindu, Muslim, Christian

Living together without any separation

I am proud to be an Indian

The country known for the act of alleviation

In spite of so many contradictions

It gives us the full freedom and exemption

I am proud to be an Indian

Where “helping others” is a religion

Where people still believes in peace and pacification

Where "Humanity" the cause of our existence is a celebration

I am proud to be an Indian

A country with an admirable Constitution

- by Bhuvan

3 idiots and five point someone

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:45:00 +0000

Chetan Bhagat one of the famous young author of 4 bestselling novels - "Five point someone", "One night at call center", "Three mistakes of my life" and recently published "2 states the story of my marriage" is in the middle of controversy after the release of bollywood movie 3 Idiots starring Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor & Bomen Irani directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

The movie 3 idiots is loosely based on novel Five point someone by Chetan Bhagat. If I go one year back when the star cast of movie went to IIM Bangalore to shoot for this movie since then I am hearing that this movie is based on the novel Five point someone by Chetan Bhagat. Five point someone was the biggest hit among the bestselling novels and majority of Indian crowd was really excited about the movie 3 Idiots as they had a impression of being based on the novel which they liked a lot. However today Chetan Bhagat is in middle of controversy as it is claimed by the crew of movie that Chetan Bhagat is trying to gain the publicity as movie is a big hit.

My view is that Chetan Bhagat is himself a big celebrity and he does not need any kind of publicity. His writing is enough to make him notable. His novels and articles written in TOI reveals his talent and is followed & respected by many young Indians. He has nothing to gain by getting into such kind of controversy. In fact he don't need any publicity; my personal belief is that more people in India know about Chetan Bhagat as a famous author than people who know Rajkumar Hirani as director. I found this example in my office itself - one of my colleague was aware that 3 Idiots is based on some novel by Chetan Bhagat but he was not knowing anything about Rajkumar Hirani even though he was hardcore follower of bollywood movies.

Also the agreement what Vidhu Vinod Chopra is talking about, in that there no where clarified what percent of movie is similar or based on book. If 70% of story of the movie is similar to the book anyone would ask for the credit. Abhijat Joshi must have given a fresh and good contribution in writing the script for a movie and I duly appreciate his efforts but I guess after watching I personally feel that 70% of scenes and sequences are very much similar to the book and I guess all those who have read this novel feels the same. This clearly signifies that Chetan Bhagat should be given a good amount of credit. I feel that the story or script of movie should have the name of Chetan Bhagat as well.

I have seen movie (twice) and read novel as well (again twice) and I feel that movie has many scenes/events that are very similar to the novel. I am writing this to support the stand of Chetan Bhagat in the middle of this controversy.

I am sure Chetan Bhagat does not need such kind of controversy for publicity. I don't even blame the crew of movie, but I think the way Vidhu Vinod Chopra is reacting in press conference and other media is not so convincing and tolerable. I personally feel there is some kind of misunderstanding with the crew of movie so that they are accusing Chetan Bhagat.

This New Year 2010 I boozed....

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:25:00 +0000

The coming year 2010 is really going to be strange for me. The reason that at start itself I got many surprises. We had a Christmas party this year in our office (this was probably the first time that I had a Christmas Party, 1st strange surprise) and we played a game in which I got a gift (an iron manufactured by Bajaj, I was really lucky to get that, 2nd strange surprise) and a message - "All your sorrows will vanish" (3rd strange message). I hope if I have any sorrows it get vanished this year. My luck never favored me in getting such gifts earlier, so indeed it was strange for me.

On 31st eve we had a another party in our office which was actually a party for all bevdaas. We had Whiskey and Vodka along with Fanta and Thums-up to welcome a new year 2010. All those who preferred hard drinks started their drink with small peck of Whiskey and later switched to their own choice of drinks i.e. few continued with pure (only) whiskey while some tried it with cold drink and other tried vodka. All non - alcoholic drinkers started with Fanta and Thums-up. I too was among non-alcoholic drinkers and had never tried alcohol in my life and reason was that I never felt the need of it. I was born & brought up in Gujarat (which is known as dry state) but I did my college in Pune where drinking alcohol is permissible. However I never touched alcohol during my two years of college in Pune (for some it must be very boring, but thats how I am). I used to go out with my friends many times and every time they offered me a drink but I never felt the need of having it and I used to accompany them by drinking cold drinks.

But don't know what was wrong with me on this 31st eve in my office when few of them offered me Vodka and I could not resist (the 4th strange shock). I tried to convince them and waited for cold drinks as it was out of my reach but I could hardly succeed in resisting myself. All my friends would be wondering why I could not resist as I used to during my college years. They will be shocked because I had never listened to them during college years on this matter, how could I get convinced by few corporate colleagues and friends. People usually gets more mature and strong as they grow up but for me it was completely different. People tend to start all these in college but I surpassing all of them started in corporate life.

But later when I gave a thought on it I came to know the actual reason for it. Let me clarify I just had a 30ml of Vodka and that too with a full glass of Fanta and so I was not going to fuddle. At the time when I agreed to have a small peck of Vodka, few old talks and promises with my friends were running in my mind. One of my friend promised me that one the day when I will start drinking he will stop drinking. Also I had a talk with another friend and she told me that unless you don't taste it you will never realize the fun or pleasure of drinking and this conversation started because at that time I was trying to help her to get rid of smoking habit. But I could hardly argue them as I had never tried alcohol and they always used to pitch in the discussion with this point. So when all these thoughts were running in my mind, one more thought leaped out of the queue and got the highest priority in my thinking process and it was: what am I going to loose or gain if I will have a small peck of Vodka. I was not going to loose anything but yes I can at least prove my point to her that there is no such extraordinary pleasure of having an alcohol and that I was true that there is no need of having it or help my another friend to follow his promise and ask him to stop drinking.

I know my this move is not going to make any change in their life, but now at least I can strongly argue with them when any such point is raised. They will surely argue that drinking 30ml of Vodka with full of Fanta is not called drinking, but let me clarify that now I am not going to drink any more, this was my first and the last drink. Now its their turn to keep their promise, I have done my part.

I know no one will believe that only for this reason I boozed so I would like to clarify that among all those thoughts hovering in my mind one thought was in favor of tasting it "At least once in my life I should taste and feel it to know what it is?" And probably because so many different thoughts, few for my friends and few on getting an opportunity to taste it, I think I could not resist. The fact is I enjoyed the party, I enjoyed the stay of people when all were drinking and I enjoyed drinking as well (but yes it tastes like hell and I still hate boozing). Also nothing among these (fun, pleasure, people around me) would have changed if instead of Vodka + Fanta I would have had Fanta alone, the fun and the pleasure would still be the same and sometimes I even regret for that. With such as start of new year I can at least make sure that this year is really going to be strange for me.

One of the most memorable day in Pune

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:47:00 +0000

6^th December, a date that will be always remembered as a most distressing date in the history of India for years to come. However the last 6^th December, 2009, made this date as one of the most remarkable date for few of us – SCIT Systems 2007-09. This was the most memorable day for all of us as majority of our class mate (SCIT- systems 07-09 batch) were together for the whole day after a long period of time. This memory will truly be cherished down the line. We had convocation on the same day but hardly 4 or 5 students from our class went on the venue to attend the ceremony. Its not that we were not excited about our MBA degree, but we were more thrilled to catch our friends after such a long time and more important we were seeking the opportunity to remember those good old hostel days and being together. Nostalgic you see!!!

It’s always great to be with friends… no doubt…nor can anyone debate over this…and dare not.

We were all meeting after 7 months and the best trait was none had changed; one by one everyone was taken into consideration (scapegoat) very well and their good and bad memories were brought back live before everyone. The whole day we were laughing at those, who were been selected as the center of discussion, enjoying and making fun of each other (making sure that no one takes it personally) being in limits, without hurting others sentiments.

Sharp at 10.30 in morning, Dinap (we call him “Tao” as he is known for giving advice for free) first time raised the question: “What’s the plan?” Since than every half an hour this question was raised as we always used to get diverted to our talks and used to get engrossed to our memories of blunders done during the college days…

Few to recall here:

Rohi known for his rapport with Admin (Very cool - I mean “very Sh__t_l”) used to get many of our lectures and exams postponed/cancelled…by his sweet/flirting behavior…which would suffice Rohi to sweep off her feet…hahahaha (being a CR his name should be the first one)

Subu’s lungi, his funny jokes and the most important, his creation (meaning “R_chn_”)

Mayank’s Full moon story (meaning P__n_m). Chai wala…Mak Chai was amazing. I badly miss your tea.

Venky’s Lemon Tree brownie (I am still looking out the opportunity to eat a brownie at Lemon Tree, Venky!!!)

Ingle’s chicken parts (Rahul, ye kunsa part hai?) and admiring him for watching “Radio”

Mohsin’s Thunderbird modified to Unicorn…may b Luna in few years

Rahul Singh’s “Subh__” Undergarments (Rahul Sir don’t get angry it’s just a fun)

Mayank and Manu – the tale of never ending Friendship and LOVE

Samuel’s hits (most of them were recent ones and the best one was “Spot jogging”) and his marriage. If Samuel gets married, then only we guys are eligible for marriage, this is the oath taken by System 07-09 Boys…not mentioning Girls…bcos u never know about them…

Yogesh finally got his degree correctly though his marksheets were never correct. Commonly known as “blockale” he was blocked in Convocation as well.

Samudra’s BevDas (Bevda and Devdas) Devdas bcos he lost his love -”Sharif”

My BI’s relation (more importantly with BI Ma’am); thank God they didn’t recalled “DCS”…and Fragrance (Kh_s___)

We also recalled one of the Samuel’s greatest hit of millennium and we ended up laughing boisterously: “About IS audit objective paper where Ingle asked Samuel answer for question 1 gesturing his index finger, for which Samuel looked up.”

In between all those hilarious conversation after raising the same question for almost 20 times (I know 20 times is exaggeration), somehow by 4.00 pm we could manage to decide that we will go to “Toons” – all thanks to Sharif.

For me it was difficult to reach Toons as I had to catch the bus to return back to my place. But Tao as usual known for his experience, suggested me an excellent plan that can help me attain the fun at Toons and catch the bus on time. However to fulfill the plan Mohsin’s Thunderbird aka Unicorn had to suffer.

All said and done (this is the most used saying during the presentation in our class), we reached Toons and there we saw Mayank in cool Brown Leather Jacket making a statement for the girls out there – Beware the men are back…… Though it was looking bit funny out there but Mak that jackets suits you. Hey guys I wonder I saw similar Jacket with Manu as well, I guess it could be MP’s style statement or something fishy between them he he he.

After the permission was granted we all set in and tried to order some drinks. Me and Yogesh were new to such place so were planning what to drink? All bevda’s ordered Beer and to the surprise Samudra was not among them. Subu and other few who don’t drink ordered Red bull the energy drink, I am sure they could have banged the table after having a sip. Me and Yogesh hardly aware of any such drinks were still struggling to decide the drink and finally an initiative taking skills started pumping (I recalled many things from this word, Rohi) out of me and asked me to order some drink called “KHUS SODA”. Yogesh has always been a good follower and so he also joined me with Khus Soda. Aiweeeeeeeee…….. it was so…………pathetic. I request Toons to stop selling it or people to never order it if you go to Toons. Venky again an exception to the list…call him “Foreigner” or “CEO”…had his own drink (Breezer). You know “Unche log Unchi pasand.”

Looking at two huge Jug full of beers Samudra could not resist any more and he finally had a peck, which was very much obvious. But something was wrong with him; he went to washroom thrice that too at interval of 5 minutes. Either he must have seen a hot babe somewhere near the washroom or his natural call was activated (Aage vala nahi peeche vala.. stop thinking weird).

Rohi and Abhishek were trying to replace Subu’s glass of Red bull with beer but they hardly succeeded. Subu is street smart no one can bit him except his best friend … Guess who???????? – The answer is “FUNNY V_j_y.” He was also one of the topics of our discussion but he not being a part of SCIT - Systems family; let’s not get into it.

All together it was a great fun meeting friends after such a long time. But all good things have to end and so was this get together. Finally having drinks and dinner at Toons we departed. Subu, Rohi, Venky, Abhishek and Samuel went back to Mumbai; Ingle, Mak, Tao, Samudra, Manu & Rahul Singh back to their house in Pune itself. Mohsin unfortunately was tied up with me so had to drive fast his bike to drop me at my bus stop. Apologies to Mohsin…his thunderbird had to suffer…a scratch or couple of scratches bcos of me.

I hope we always get an opportunity to meet atleast once a year. This post was possible because of the efforts from two people, one is me and other is Venky. He has helped me a lot (in fact contributed equally) in writing this post. Thanks dude. So we both are equally responsible for whatever we have written, if any of you feel it’s personal and think we should remove it, go ahead and let us know, but we are not sure whether we will remove it or not? he he he he. This is not to hurt anyone’s sentiments but to cherish those memories in the years to come. Also I request all those who all were part of this memorable day to contribute to this post either by posting their comments or reminding anything missed out here so that I & Venky can further add them to this post.

SCIT Systems Rocks!!!!!!!

- by Bhuvan and Venky

After 60 years of Independence in which direction India is heading?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:43:00 +0000

Everyone in India celebrates 30,000 milestone reached by Sachin Tendulkar and we all Indians are proud of Sachin Tendulkar being Indian. We all cheers when A. R. Rahman wins Oscar, when Yuvraaj hits 6 sixes in a row, when people like Rabindranath Tagore, Subrahmanyan, Venkartraman shares Nobel prize. We all, no matter which religion we follow, in which state we are located - Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP, AP, Delhi, we all celebrate the victory of India.

At one end we want to develop India globally, we are fond of globalization and want people to know more about India. We want to go abroad and make a mark on the globe and tell everyone that we are from India. Globalization has given India a great growth potential and India is certainly growing (are we?). Whatever the case but globalization has created tremendous opportunity for Indians and we are enjoying the consequences of globalization.

But if we look on the other side of the coin, then a question always beeps in my mind that do we really deserve globalization. We Indians are very double minded or two faced people. We want to be a part of other countries, state and city but we don't want others to be part of ours. We want to go US, Europe, Australia and other states and cities of India and settle there, make a mark, grow and simultaneously make India proud. But we don't want people from other State, City of India to migrate in our City or State. When some one from one state of India migrates to another for better opportunity people there don't like it, but when any one from later state moves to any other state in India or out of the country, they celebrate the success. We are not happy with nationalization how can we be happy with globalization?

People are now fighting with near and dear ones, with whom they leaved for years together. They say people staying next to them for more than 20 years, with whom they would have shared food many times, does not belong to their religion or their tribe. People now want separate state for each tribe, each religion and each language and don't want people from other tribe or religion to be the part of it. If we cannot be happy with people around us because they belong to different tribe or religion, do we deserve to be happy with globalization?

In many states and city of India people are reluctant to national language and if they heard other speaking national language instead of local language they are looked upon with humiliation. We are not ready for national language do we deserve to be a part of global language? No offense against using local language but if someone does not know the local language, can't we help him by speaking in national language (if we can do the same thing in global language why can't we do the same with national language)?

Several people in India are not allowed to visit various places in their own villages including temple or where religious ceremony is taking place. Dalits face untouchability mostly at religious places as untouchability is centered around the religion and purity. In some areas of India Dalits do have good lifestyle but in few regions its still a harsh reality. We cannot unite regionally how can we expect to unite globally?

Do you think we Indians deserve globalization?

First we need to unite regionally and nationally believe in INDIA first and only after that I think we deserve to think about globalization. If we celebrate India in all prospects by uniting in same way as we celebrated India in every Cricket Match and when some Indian wins a Nobel Prize then India will truly deserve to be one of the best country on the Globe and we being Indians will deserve to be part of globalization.

Praying for You

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:14:00 +0000

I have heard people saying that if your prayer is pure you will always get whatever you ask from the God. Since we are part of a creature on this earth called humans, we are very selfish and we pray most of the time for us and that too when we want something from the God. But do we always get what we pray for? If I look at my past I had never got whatever I prayed for. But life has given me enough to enjoy my life at fullest.

I am physically and mentally fit though cannot be sure about the later one; I have my own house, though it was bought by my parents but its mine. I have everything that a human being should have to enjoy their life. But still I am seeking for something in my life. I always regret that I didn't get what I wanted in my life. But I hardly remember to cheer for what I am having.

But this time I want something from the God and I want it anyhow either by hook or by crook. And I am not even trying to be selfish this time. This time I am asking something from the God for someone else. There is one of my very good friend and she is facing lot of troubles in her life. In fact few days ago I added some more problems to the existing and I apologized for that. This is my personal matter though I am revealing it in my blog and the only reason is that I want it to be very pure. I have nothing to hide and no issue in praying for her in front of this world. Before you start making any thoughts or conclusion let me tell you she is my very good friend and only friend, nothing else.

She is married and a mother of a very beautiful girl. Looking at her and hearing troubles she has faced in her life any one will pray for her and I can bet for that. Then why can't the God hear her. Due to the her problematic life, she has started thinking negative in everything. She is even addicted to one of the bad habit. She always say, once problems in her life will be resolved she will quit the addiction. I want her life to be good, obviously it cannot be completely free of troubles and problems but it can obviously be better than what it is at present. When she smile she looks very beautiful, believe me her smile can make any one's life however she is not ready to believe this, she thinks her smile is not that good and I am just overreacting. I want to get her smile back and wish that she gets all the happiness she deserves.

You must be wondering why I am so much worried about her if she is just my friend. May be because that is how I am - I always care for people around me and also this is the first time I have met someone who has suffered so much that too because of other's fault. I don't know why I want her life to be better, its not going to make any difference in my life except I will be one of the lucky person to see my good friend smiling and I think that is what is defined to be a selfless prayer or request. My friendship with her might be strange for the society and may be for her as well but since I don't have any wrong intention for her I think whatever I am doing is correct.

So this time I am praying to the God for her happiness and I wish that my prayer this time will be heard very soon. If any of you are reading this blog and feel whatever I am doing is right, you can pray to the God to help me in getting what I want.